Question Three of Chapter Ten of the Third Decade
Why the afflictive action of natural agents was sometimes permitted by God and sometimes impeded when applied by free agents
It is asked why the afflictive action of natural agents applied by free agents was sometimes permitted by God and sometimes impeded, whereas the action of the sword always obtained its effect in everyone and was never impeded.
It is answered thus.
The afflictive action of natural agents was sometimes permitted because of the sin of the person who was harmed, or of the person through whose impiety innocent persons were applied to fire, beasts, the sea, and so forth; or because the impious were not worthy to be admonished by a miracle; or because it was just that their malice should be permitted to be completed, and that the merit of martyrdom should thus increase in those afflicted.
At other times the action of such things was prohibited, first so that the sufferers might appear to be true servants of God, whom all nature obeys. Nature was instituted not to harm the innocent but to assist them.
Second, so that it might also thus be shown that innocent nature, insofar as it is of itself, does not harm an innocent human being.
But three causes are assigned for why the action of a sword brandished by the impious was never prohibited.
The first is that the sword is the ordinary and principal instrument of the execution of judicial power for punishing criminal human beings, as is found in the Digest, title On the Jurisdiction of All Judges, law Imperium. God, from whom all power comes, always determined that the execution of this power should be carried out rather than impeded.
Second, the sword was never prohibited by God because its prohibition through a miracle would not have been received as such, but would have been imputed to the assailant’s choice, as though he were pretending that he could not strike.
Third, because among the gentiles there was a certain famous superstition that magicians were accustomed, through the operation of demons, to make swords unable to cut. Therefore it was reasonable that the action of a sword should not be prohibited by God, lest those against whom it had been brandished be held suspected of superstitions.
These things are from Henry of Assia upon Genesis.