§ 1. This could appear superfluous, since many of the Fathers have written entire treatises on this matter; nevertheless, to taste a few things from them for the disputation undertaken will not have been useless.
Tertullian, Apology Against the Gentiles, chapter 17: “That which we worship is one God, who by the word with which he commanded, the reason by which he disposed, and the power by which he was able brought forth from nothing this entire mass, together with all its equipment of elements, bodies, and spirits, as an ornament of his majesty.” And chapter 18: “See, therefore, whether he dispenses kingdoms, to whom belong both the world that is ruled and the human being himself who rules; whether he arranged the vicissitudes of dominions at their appointed times in the world, who existed before all time and made the age of bodies into time; whether he raises or casts down cities, under whom the human race once existed without cities.”
Saint Basil, Hexaemeron, Homily 7: “No man endowed with knowledge of the stars, no Chaldean conjecturing from the rising of the constellations the tumult of a tempest in the air, taught the hedgehog; but the ruler of seas and winds imprinted upon this little animal too an evident and open trace of his immense wisdom. There is absolutely nothing that does not fall beneath God’s providence. There is altogether nothing neglected by God. That ever-watchful eye searches all things and beholds all things; it is present to all and provides to each the means of safety. If God does not exclude the hedgehog from his providence, does he not search out the things that pertain to you? Does he not behold them?”
And upon these words of Psalm 32, “A king is not saved by great strength”: “No military army, no fortification however great, no walls of cities, no phalanx of infantry, no troop of cavalry, no preparation of naval defense produces safety for a king. Κύριος καθιστᾷ, καὶ μεθιστᾷ βασιλεῖς—the Lord establishes and removes kings. A king is therefore preserved not through great strength, but through divine grace.”
Athanasius, Oration Against the Gentiles: “Thus also in the order and harmony of this universe, it is necessary that we observe that God is the ruler of all these things, and that he is one and not several. For that order of disposition and concordant harmony of all things declares that it has not many but one leader and ruler, namely the Word of God.”
Then, in the same oration: “The almighty, altogether complete, holy Word and Reason of God himself, lying upon all things and everywhere unfolding his powers, illuminating all things—both those that appear to the eyes and those that escape the eyes—contains and binds together all things within himself. He leaves nothing deserted by his power, but in all things vivifies and preserves all things, individual things individually and the whole publicly: the beginnings and elements of every sensible substance.”
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, chapter 41: “God has providence over all things; for this reason he also gives counsel. But in giving counsel he is present to those who possess providence over conduct. It is therefore necessary that the things which are foreseen and governed should know their ruler;
for they are not irrational or empty, but possess a sensibility that perceives the providence of God. And for this reason some of the gentiles, who served enticements and pleasures less and were not led away so far by the superstition of idols, moved by his providence, although only slightly, were nevertheless converted, so that they said that the maker of this universe was the Father who provides for all and disposes the world for us.”
Augustine, City of God, Book V, chapter 10: “For we do not place either the life of God or the foreknowledge of God beneath necessity if we say that it is necessary for God always to live and to foreknow all things, just as his power is not diminished when it is said that he cannot die or be deceived. For he is unable to do this in such a manner that, if he were able, he would assuredly be of lesser power. He is rightly called omnipotent, although he cannot die or be deceived. For he is called omnipotent by doing what he wills, not by suffering what he does not will. If that happened to him, he would by no means be omnipotent.”
Augustine, City of God, Book IV, chapter 28: “Just as the Romans were able to possess golden money although they did not worship the god Aurinus, so too they could have possessed silver and bronze money even if they worshiped neither Argentinus nor his father Aesculanus; and so with all the things that it is wearisome to unravel. Thus, therefore, they could in no way possess a kingdom against the will of the true God. But if those false and many gods were unknown or despised, and that one God were known and worshiped with sincere faith and morals, they would both possess a better kingdom here, however much they possessed, and afterward receive an everlasting one, whether they possessed one here or did not.”
Augustine, City of God, Book V, chapter 1: “Let us now consider in sequence for what cause God—who can also give those goods which even men who are not good, and therefore not happy, can possess—willed the Roman Empire to be so great and so long-lasting. For that multitude of false gods which they worshiped did not bring this about; we have already said many things, and shall speak whenever it seems opportune. The cause of the greatness of the Roman Empire was therefore neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or opinion of those who call things fortuitous which either have no causes or do not come from some rational cause, and call things fatal which occur by the necessity of some order apart from the will of God and human beings. Human kingdoms are constituted entirely by divine providence.”
Peter Chrysologus: “The power of the Lord is no greater in confirming the most powerful kingdom than in overturning the poor man’s hut. For who in Greece was more powerful than Alexander? Yet it is read that not his own son, but the son of a dancing woman succeeded him.”
§ 2. Therefore Augustine truly says, City of God, Book V, chapter 11:
Accordingly the supreme and true God, with his Word and Holy Spirit—which three are one—one omnipotent God, creator and maker of every soul and every body, by participation in whom all who are happy in truth, not in vanity, are happy; who made the human being a rational animal from soul and body; who neither permitted him when he sinned to be unpunished nor abandoned him without mercy; who gave to good and evil alike existence together with stones, seminal life together with trees, sentient life together with cattle, and intellectual life with angels alone; from whom is every measure, every form, every order; from whom are measure, number, and weight; from whom is whatever exists naturally, of whatever kind it is and of whatever estimation; from whom are the seeds of forms, the forms of seeds, and the movements of seeds and forms.
He also gave to flesh its origin, beauty, health, fecundity of propagation, disposition of members, soundness, and concord; and to the irrational soul he gave memory, sensation, and appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition, mind, understanding, and will. He left not only heaven and earth, not only angel and human being, but neither the inward parts of a small and contemptible animal, nor a bird’s little feather, nor a little flower of grass, nor a leaf of a tree, without agreement among their parts and a certain peace, as it were. He must in no way be believed to have willed that the kingdoms of human beings and their dominions and servitudes should be foreign to the laws of his providence.
Assuredly, he to whom such small things are a care will never neglect things so great. He numbered our hairs—indeed, as Tertullian observes, the bristles of pigs. Did he not number the provinces of kings and the cities of the earth?
Saint Augustine, City of God, Book V, chapter 19, most beautifully describes the same thing and shows that even evil men do not reign without providence:
But he who despises the judgments of those who praise him also despises the rashness of those who suspect him. Yet, if he is truly good, he does not despise their salvation, because he who has virtues from the Spirit of God is of such great justice that he loves even his enemies. He loves them in such a way that he wishes whisperers or detractors, when corrected, to have as his fellow citizens not the earthly fatherland but the heavenly one. But amid his own praises, although he regards lightly the fact that men praise him, he does not regard lightly the fact that they love him; nor does he wish to deceive those who praise him, lest he deceive those who love him. And therefore he earnestly insists that the one from whom a human being has whatever is rightly praised in him should rather be praised.
But he who despises glory and is greedy for dominion surpasses beasts either in the vices of cruelty or in luxury. Certain Romans were such men. For when they had lost concern for reputation, they did not lack desire for dominion. History reveals that there were many. But Nero Caesar was the first to obtain the summit and, as it were, a certain citadel of this vice. His luxury was so great that nothing manly was thought to be feared from him; his cruelty was so great that he would have been believed to possess nothing soft, had it not been known. Yet even to such men the power of ruling is not given except by the supreme providence of God, when he judges human affairs worthy of such masters. The divine declaration concerning this matter is open, when the Wisdom of God speaks: “Through me kings reign, and through me tyrants hold the earth.”
Saint Augustine therefore concludes, City of God, Book V, chapter 21:
Since these things are so, let us not attribute the power of giving kingship and dominion to anyone except the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but an earthly kingdom to both the pious and the impious, as it pleases him to whom nothing unjust is pleasing.