Conditional prayer, prayer for the damned in name only, and Gregory and Trajan answered

the divine will, placing in his will what he has decreed to succour and how; and such ought to be the prayer of wayfarersviator: wayfarer; or secondly as regards the capacity of the subjectsubiectum / passio: subject / attribute for whom one intends to pray; and so, his incapacity supposed, that subject is not the person for whom prayer is so made, but either the one praying himself or another capable person of the churchecclesia: church.¹ And as to what is commonly said, that one prays for such a one, intending to aid him by intercessionsuffragari: to aid by intercession, although he is unqualifiedinhabilis: unqualified (to hold office), there is equivocation on a prayer in name only; as perhaps the prayer of an unworthy man is not before God univocallyunivoce: univocally a prayer for anyone.² It is lawful, therefore, to pray for a foreknownprescitus, -i: the foreknown wayfarer, since he is capable of merit, so that he may be punished more mildly; as is the case with the foreknown who at another’s prayer do not only many things 533good in kind, but meritorious according to present justicesecundum presentem iusticiam: according to present justice, by reason of which they will be damned more mildly and meanwhile will merit for the church.³ But since it is certain that they are damned, to pray further for them would be wholly useless; indeed the prayer of a catholic is not for them, since it is impossible that it profit them; and one who contends that he prays for such a dead man can mortify his own prayer by contending.⁴ Nor do I contend against one who wishes to defend that it is lawful to pray particularly for one damned, provided only that the one praying is ignorant of it, because such prayer is only equivocallyequivoce: equivocally for him; but one maintainingintendere (a thesis): maintain that it is for him easily merits pardon. Nor does the oath of the bedesmanorator: CONTEXTUAL: bedesman / advocate avail, by which he binds himself to pray yearly, for a term, for the departed; but the friends of the departed ought to desire that prayer be made generally for the dead in purgatory, and such prayer avails him as much as, or more than, special prayer, supposing that he is there; and no prayer avails him if he is damned.⁵ Therefore those on both sides sin not moderately who in error put the better after and choose the lesser good. When therefore it is said that prayer is made for one damned, it is understood that one professes to pray for him, which is done now lawfully and now wrongly.⁶

To the second confirmation I admit the chronicle, and I say that neither blessed Gregory nor God himself knew Trajan to have been damned to perpetual punishment, because God eternally predestined Trajan to glory; and as he eternally ordained him to the punishment of purgatory, so he eternally ordained that by means of the intercession of blessed Gregory he would be saved; for we ought to believe that neither blessed Gregory nor any blessed one in heaven can change the divine counsel or by prayers change or bend his purpose (as the decree of blessed Jerome says, 534where above).⁷ And it is clear that Trajan died in the grace of predestination; nor have I heard it made persuasive that he did not die in grace according to present justice. For many outside Judaism were catholics (as is clear of Job, of Nebuchadnezzar and those like them), and so it is with many whom, because of the solemnity of our riteritus: rite, we judge to be outside. For with the heart we believe unto justice, and one dying in such justice is truly a son of the church and baptized by the Spiritbaptismus flaminis: baptism of the Spirit.⁸

Nor have I seen it made persuasive that blessed Gregory sinned in asking this, since God’s deed in granting it showed it to have been just and well-pleasing to God. Therefore if the holy popepapa: pope sinned in praying so, this was because he failed in the manner, for instance by occupying his zeal with a singular affection, by setting aside the more useful suffragessuffragia: suffrages of the church, or in some other such circumstance; for which he was punished temporally, to his merit.⁹ Hence it has often happened that a man merits in willing and praying for that which God does not will to be done, as is clear of the sting of the flesh, for whose departure the apostle besought the Lord thrice (as is clear in 2 Corinthians 12); and it often happens that a man labours, prays and does that which God wills to be done, and yet sins gravely through a defect in the manner of acting, as Augustine recalls, City of God 22, chapter 2:¹⁰ "Many things," he says, "his saints will to be done, by a holy will inspired by him, and they are not done; as they pray for some piouslypietas / pie: piety / piously and holily, and what they pray for he does not do, although he himself has made in them, by his Holy Spirit, this will to pray." And it seems, equivocating on "to will", that God wills in others what he does not will in himself.¹¹ God therefore moves the hearts of men to pray modestly, now for that which he wills to be done, and now for that which he does not will to be done; 535yet such prayer always has its fruit, and is a reasonable petition and conformable to the divine will.