C. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question

155. To the principal arguments of the first question [nn.2-8].

The savior [n.2] understands by ‘tree’ the internal act and by ‘fruit’ the external act, and he rebukes the hypocrites (that is, the Pharisees) by warning them to conform internal acts to external ones and external acts to internal ones, namely so that they may appear as they are and conversely.

156. To the second [n.3]: when there is an efficient cause, there is a likeness in the case of equivocal causes - though a remote one. Here the cause [sc. the will] with respect to sin is a deficient and not an efficient cause.

157. To the next [n.4]This reply is placed after n.161 in the mss., following the parallel positioning in the Lectura and not the changed position in the Ordinatio. Further, the fourth argument in the Ordinatio [n.5] is not here responded to, and neither it nor its response is found in the Lectura. ⁴⁷ I say that what comes from the deficiency and not from the efficiency of an efficient cause is not directed to a due end.

158. To the next [n.6] I say that no evil is from evil.

159. As to the proof [sc. that there is some first evil, n.8], I say that ‘evil’ can be understood in one way through privation of parts of the same nature, and in another way through privation of perfections that befit such a nature.

160. In the first way there is an infinite regress in the case of parts of the same proportion according as the infinite is divided into the infinite by proportion and quantity; for in this way one part after another could be taken away from some nature and could be thus taken away continually according to parts of the same proportion - and so infinitely; but according to parts of the same quantity there is a stop, not at evil but at nothing - in the way in which there is a stop in the division of the continuous at nothing, if the divided parts are destroyed.

161. As to the second way, I say that although the thing that is good for someone (whose lack is an evil for him) could be taken away from the substrate nature in two ways according to what has been said [n.160] (namely according to parts either of the same proportion, and thus the process goes on infinitely, or of the same quantity, and thus it stops when there is nothing left), yet there is a further process there [sc. the second, n.159], according to which a perfectible nature can be better and the perfection corresponding to it is better and yet the nature lacks this perfection. And in this way there is a stand at evil, when a supreme good lacks the supreme perfection proper to it; and in this way the supreme devil (or some noblest makeable nature that lacks the perfection proportionate to it) is said to be supremely evil; but there are beside such supreme evil no evils positively, nor evils beside something positive, nor privation beside privation.