Cap. 1 subject: Aquinas on reprobation/permission; Calvin not inventor
Aquinas even seems to lean toward saying reprobation in fact preceded foresight of original sin. When he calls reprobation that part of Divine providence which permits some to fall short of beatitude, he implies that permission to fail from the means that lead to beatitude flows from reprobation — and so, in how we understand, is posterior to it. If permission to fail follows reprobation, then foresight of the actual fall follows all the more: it is foreseen only on the hypothesis of permission. I bring this in not because I cling to that opinion, but to touch in passing the ignorance — or malice? — of those who curse Calvin or Beza as if they invented a view no less current among Scholastics and even Pontificians than the contrary view that puts the sin-infected human as predestination's subject. As for Calvin (so far as I can judge): he rightly denies that foresight of sin is the cause of predestination or reprobation; yet with Augustine he always holds that consideration of foreseen sin stands before God as he predestinates or reprobates — as a common condition of the subject. Clear words: If all whom the Lord predestines to death are by natural condition liable to death's judgment, if all are taken from a corrupted mass, no wonder they lie under damnation. Hear clearer still. After Paul taught that God from a lost mass elects and reprobates whom he wills, why and how so little helps that, terrified, he breaks into O the depth! (Tractate on God's eternal predestination, p. 711). Beza, Zanchi, and other learned men speak more harshly and set consideration of the corrupted mass wholly after the decree of predestination — yet they never think anyone's damnation decreed except on presupposed sin.
Latin
Imo videtur Aquinas magis inclinare in illam sententiam, quae asserit ipsam reprobationem de facto antecessisse praevisionem originalis peccati. Nam cum dicit reprobare esse illam partem Divinae providentiae, quae permittit aliquos a fine beatitudinis deficere, innuit ipsam permissionem deficiendi a mediis ad beatitudinem ducentibus fluere a reprobatione, & proinde esse illa posteriorem secundum nostrum modum intelligendi. Quod si ipsa permissio deficiendi sequatur Reprobationem, tum multo magis praevisio actualis defectionis sive lapsus: praevidetur enim non nisi ex hypothesi permissionis. Haec a me in eum finem adducuntur, non quod huic sententiae adhaerescam, sed ut obiter perstringam illorum inscitiam dicam, an malitiam? qui Calvinum aut Bezam lacerant maledictis, quasi primarios autores hujus sententiae, quae inter Scholasticos & ipsos Pontificios non minus recepta est, quam illa contraria, quae ponit hominem peccato infectum subjectum praedestinationis. Atque ad Calvinum quod attinet, (quantum ego possum judicare) quamvis recte neget praescientiam peccati esse causam praedestinationis aut reprobationis; tamen cum Augustino semper statuit, praevisi peccati considerationem obversari Deo praedestinanti aut reprobanti, tanquam communem conditionem subjecti. Clara sunt illa verba, Si judicio mortis obnoxii sunt omnes naturali conditione, quos ad mortem Dominus praedestinat, si ex corrupta massa desumpti sunt omnes, non mirum si damnationi subjacent. Sed adhuc clariora audite. Postquam Paulus Deum ex perdita massa eligere & reprobare quos illi visum est, docuit, quare & quomodo id fiat adeo non expedit, ut potius expavescens in clamorem illum erumpat, O altitudo! Tract. De aeterna Dei praedestinatione, pag. 711. Scio Bezam, & Zanchium, aliosque viros perdoctos paulo durius loqui, & massae corruptae considerationem decreto praedestinationis omnino postponere, nunquam tamen damnationem alicujus decerni putant nisi ex praesupposito peccato.