[vii][1] In order to get a secure grasp of the truth of our question it must moreover be borne in mind that divine judgment in earthly affairs is sometimes revealed to men, and sometimes it remains hidden.

[2] Now there are two ways in which it can be revealed, i.e. by reason and by faith. For there are some judgments of God which human reason can arrive at by its own unaided efforts, such as this: that a man should sacrifice himself to save his country; for if the part should put itself at risk for the sake of the whole, then since man is a part of his community, as Aristotle says in the Politics, then a man should sacrifice himself for his country, as a lesser good for a greater.

[3] And so Aristotle says in the Ethics: “though it is worthwhile to attain the good merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a people or a community.” And this is God’s judgment; otherwise human reason in its right judgment would not be in harmony with nature’s intention, which is impossible.

[4] Then there are some judgments of God to which human reason, even if it cannot arrive at them by its own unaided efforts, can nonetheless be raised with the help of faith in those things which are said to us in the Scriptures; such as this: that no one can be saved without faith (assuming that he has never heard anything of Christ), no matter how perfectly endowed he might be in the moral and intellectual virtues in respect both of his character and his behaviour.

[5] For human reason cannot see this to be just by its own powers, but with the aid of faith it can. For it is written to the Hebrews: “It is impossible to please God without faith”; and in Leviticus: “Any man of the house of Israel who shall kill an ox or lamb or goat in the camp or outside the camp, and shall not bring it to the door of the tabernacle as an offering to the Lord, shall be guilty of blood”.

[6] The door of the tabernacle is a figure of Christ, who is the doorway to the eternal assembly, as can be gathered from the Gospel; the killing of animals symbolises human actions.

[7] But that judgment of God is hidden which human reason arrives at neither through the law of nature, nor the law of the scriptures, but occasionally by special grace. This can happen in several ways, sometimes by direct revelation, and sometimes being revealed through some kind of putting-to-the-test.

[8] There are two ways in which it can happen by direct revelation: either by a spontaneous act of God, or by God in response to prayer. By a spontaneous act of God there are two ways: either openly or through a sign; openly, as when the judgment against Saul was revealed to Samuel; by a sign, as when what God willed regarding the liberation of the children of Israel was revealed to Pharoah through a sign. It can be a response to prayer, as they knew who said in the second book of Chronicles: “When we do not know what we should do, this course alone is left us: that we should turn our eyes to Thee”.

[9] There are two ways in which it can be revealed through a putting-to-the-test: either by lot or through a contest; for the word certare (‘to decide something by a contest’) derives from certum facere (‘to make certain’). God’s judgment is sometimes revealed to men by lot, as in the substitution of Matthias in the Acts of the Apostles. God’s judgment can be revealed by a contest in two ways: either by a clash of strength, as happens in combat between two champions, who are called prize-fighters, or through competition among a number of people who vie with one another to reach an agreed goal, as happens in a race between athletes competing to reach the finishing-line first.

[10] The first of these ways was prefigured among the pagans in that famous fight between Hercules and Antaeus, which Lucan recalls in the fourth book of the Pharsalia and Ovid in the ninth book of the Metamorphoses; the second was prefigured among those same pagans by the race between Atalanta and Hippomene in the tenth book of the Metamorphoses.

[11] Nor should we overlook the fact that in these two kinds of contest different rules apply: in the first the contestants can obstruct each other quite legitimately (for instance prize-fighters), whereas in the second this is not allowed; for runners must not obstruct one another – although our poet seems to have thought differently in his fifth book, when he had Eurialus win the prize.

[12] So that Cicero did better to forbid this, in the third book of the De officiis, following the opinion of Chrysippus; for he says as follows: “With his customary aptness Chrysippus says: ‘When a man races in the arena he must exert himself and strive his hardest to win; he must not in any way obstruct his fellow-competitor.’”

[13] Having made these distinctions in this chapter, we can take two lines of argument which serve our purpose: one from the competition between runners, the other from the contest between prize-fighters. I shall develop these arguments in the chapters which now directly follow.