Section X

In this truly excellent testimony of Chrysostom, and one most apt for elucidating the question which we are treating, two or three matters worthy above the rest of consideration occur. And first of all this: that the twofold will of God is fittingly distinguished and so marked by its proper names that the one is called ἁπλῶς, simply, θέλημα αὐτοῦ, his will, θέλημα προηγούμενον, the principal and antecedent will, and θέλημα χωρὶς αἰτίας, a will which takes neither its cause nor its occasion from without; but the other is called a will κατά τι, in a certain respect, and therefore θέλημα οὐκ αὐτοῦ, a will which is not his, θέλημα κατὰ συγκατάβασιν, a will proceeding from condescension¹ and lowering, and θέλημα μετὰ αἰτίας, a will with a cause, which God does not have except on the occasion of those things which men do.

Then this: that between each will there exists that relation, and that σχέσιν, which existed between the will of God commanding bloody sacrifices of animals for the Israelites² and the will of Paul exhorting the younger women to marry, and between the will of the same God by which he willed the sacrifice of the immaculate Lamb, Christ Jesus, and the will of the same Paul which he signified when he said: “I will that all men be continent like myself.”

Finally this: that the decree by which God decreed τὸν θάνατον τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ, “the death of the sinner,” pertains to the will which is called such in a certain respect, which is the will κατὰ συγκατάβασιν, from condescension, the will μετὰ αἰτίας, with a cause; and therefore, as a consequence, that to the will which is called θέλημα αὐτοῦ, his own will, κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν, by excellence, which is θέλημα προηγούμενον, the antecedent will, θέλημα χωρὶς αἰτίας, the will without a cause, there pertains that εὐδοκίαν, benevolence and implanted benignity, by which he wills that the sinner return to better conduct and live.