A nor indeed is the righteous man righteous of his own self, nor did the unrighteous man receive the choice as the principle of unrighteousness; but neither is the murderer unrighteous. For the time of life has been determined for the one who is to die, and, with God knowing that he will die in such a way, the slaying followed. For how could it be that God would know definitely that that man was to be slain, and yet he escape this manner of slaying? So that even the murderer, having served through divine foreknowledge, will not only be considered entirely innocent, but even worthy of a reward, as one who has fulfilled the will of the Master.
δ. Now, those who are skilled in these matters set forth the question in this way. But the resolution is brought forward again by the wiser men to the problem: since knowledge, being between the known and the knower, B originates from the knower, revolves around the known, and is made similar to the knower. To explain what I mean: there is one kind of knowledge of the soul, another of the mind, and another of God; the one knows in an animal way, the mind in a mutable way, but He who is above the mind [knows] in a mode proper to Himself. Now, knowledges do not change things; but they stand in the knowers, while the things that are produced do not depart from their own nature. God, therefore, being the ultimate limit of all, knows things according to His own excellence, the indefinite in a definite way, and the contingent in a necessary way; for He is not changed alongside those things that come to be, but He knows the order of beings according to the nature of their creation; and these things flow and are borne along according to their own nature.
ε. Come then, for God’s sake: when bodies are distant, how does God know them? With distance or without distance? Is it not without distance? For you will not say one or the other; for it is not distant from them in depth or length or breadth; but He has grasped their knowledge without distance. Did the fact that God thus knows bodies change their dimensions? By the same reasoning, in knowing nature in a manner above nature, and knowing C the indefinite in a definite way, He neither changed the nature, nor did He change the indeterminacy of the things; for foreknowledge is not the cause of the things that come to be. Therefore, if He foreknew the wickedness of some, and grasped the justice of others, it is not because of this that some necessarily became evil and others righteous; but He knew those that are according to their own nature, and they are borne along according to their own sequence. And so, the one who used a noose, He knew he would die in such a way (for let not the former admission escape you, that knowledge is made similar to the knower), yet it was not because of this knowledge that he violently fell, but because of his choice in using an evil demon. And, to say it all so that the question may be resolved for you, the conclusion of each one’s life is determined for God by way of foreknowledge; for He grasped the knowledge of what was to be; but for us, what is to happen remains un- D determined; so that in one way it is determined, and in another way it is not determined. For in the way that God knows it, it is determined; but in that foreknowledge does not [constrain or] define the event, it is not determined. And I attend to the words of our Fathers, so that if you should meet with them concerning something as if it were determined...
and to the words of our Fathers, so that if you should encounter some who speak of the deadline of our life as determined, and others as undetermined, you may not think the doctrines disagree with one another, but judge that the one is expressed in the former manner, the other in the latter.
6. Furthermore, I wish you to know that our nature is not simple, but that we are full both of being and of coming-to-be, and that we are governed partly by providence, partly by nature, and partly by choice. And I do not say this as if something escapes providence and God, but that other things which have received their existence from thence act upon us either naturally or by choice. Therefore, both frosts and heat remove us from life, because we have a share in nature; and, in turn, foolish counsels extinguish our life by an act of the will. God indeed knows all things definitely; but those things operate according to their own nature.
Now you have the brief solution to your question, most learned and most reverend of Fathers. B
MICHAEL PSELLOS THE SECOND PART OF HIS WORKS COMPRISING LEGAL AND CANONICAL MATTERS DEDICATION OF THE NOMOCANON TO EMPEROR MICHAEL DUCAS
(Meerman Thesaurus Juris, I, p. 77, in Greek; we have added our own translation.)Know, I pray, emperor, also the Nomocanon. C A book composed of laws and of canons. Of synodical canons, and of diverse laws, And especially of recent, all-wise decrees, Which support most excellently the written canons. The first synod, by honor and by order, is that Of the pious Fathers who gathered at Nicaea, Under the faithful emperor Constantine, Who was rightly named great and extraordinary; And they were three hundred and eighteen in number. The second, though earlier in time, is after this one, Of the blessed Fathers gathered at Ancyra, Who set forth twenty-four canons, While the Nicene synod had set forth but twenty. The third synod was held at Neocaesarea; This one is prior even to the one at Nicaea, Yet it holds the third place, as being smaller than the two