Chapter 11
343 | Text and Translation Chapter 11 How all the ways of the lord are full of mercy and truth, and yet the lord is just in all his ways But is it not also just with respect to yourself, lord, that you punish the evil? Certainly, it is just for you to be so just that you cannot be thought to be more just. But this you would by no means be if you only returned good to the good and not evil to the evil. For he is more just who returns to both the good and evil, not only to the good, what they merit. Therefore, it is just with respect to yourself, O just and benign God, both when you punish and when you spare.
Truly, then, all the ways of the lord are full of mercy and truth and yet the lord is just in all his ways. And surely this is not inconsistent; since it is not just for those you will to punish to be saved, and it is not just for those you will to spare to be damned. For that alone is just which you will, and that is not just which you do not will.
So, then, is your mercy derived from your justice, since it is just for you to be so good that you are good also by sparing. And this is perhaps why the supremely just can will good for the wicked. But if it can in any way be grasped why you can will to save those who are evil, it surely can in no way be comprehended why, of those who are alike in evil, you save some rather than others through your supreme goodness, and damn these rather than those through your supreme justice.
So, then, are you truly perceptive, omnipotent, merciful, and impassible, as well as living, wise, good, blessed, eternal, and whatever it is better to be than not to be.
Chapter 12 That God is the very life by which he lives, and likewise for similar attributes
But certainly whatever you are, you are not through another rather than through yourself. Therefore, you are the life itself by which you live, the wisdom through which you are wise, the very good by which you are good to both the good and evil, and likewise for similar attributes.
I PROSLOGION
CAPITULUM XIII
Quomodo solus sit incircumscriptus et aeternus, cum alii spiritus sint incircumscripti et aeterni Sed omne quod clauditur aliquatenus loco aut tempore, minus est quam quod nulla lex loci aut temporis coercet. Quoniam ergo maius te nihil est, nullus locus aut tempus te cohibet, sed ubique et semper es. Quod quia de te solo dici potest, tu solus incircumscriptus es et aeternus. Quomodo igitur dicuntur et alii spiritus incircumscripti et aeterni? Et quidem solus es aeterrius, quia solus omnium, sicut non desinis, sic non incipis esse.
Sed solus quomodo es incircumscriptus ?
An creatus spiritus ad te collatus est circumscriptus, ad corpus vero incircumscriptus? Nempe omnino circumscriptum est, quod cum alicubi totum est, non potest simul esse alibi; quod de solis corporeis cernitur.
Incircumscriptum vero, quod simul est ubique totum; quod de te solo intelligitur. Circeumscriptum autem simul et incircumscriptum est, quod, cum alicubi sit totum, potest simul esse totum alibi, non tamen ubique; quod de creatis spiritibus cognoscitur. Si enim non esset anima tota in singulis membris sui corporis, non sentiret tota in singulis.
Tu ergo, Domine, singulariter es incircumscriptus et aeternus, et tamen et alii spiritus sunt incircumscripti et aeterni.