Mills of God

Roman-era depiction of an animal-driven flour mill.
An edge mill with two millstones. Katherine Maltwood portrayed a similar arrangement in her bronze, The Mills of God (1918/9), which was inspired by the suffering of the Great War.

The proverbial expression the mills of God grind slowly signifies slow but certain divine retribution.

Ancient Greek usage

Plutarch (1st century CE) alludes to the metaphor as a then-current adage in his Moralia (De sera numinis vindicta 'On the Delay of Divine Vengeance'):

Thus, I do not see what use there is in those mills of the gods said to grind so late as to render punishment hard to be recognized, and to make wickedness fearless.

Plutarch no doubt here makes reference to a hexameter by an unknown poet, cited by sceptic philosopher Sextus Empiricus (2nd century) in his Adversus Grammaticos as a popular adage:

Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτά.
The millstones of the gods grind late, but they grind fine.

This expression was invoked by Celsus in his (lost) True Discourse where, defending the concept of ancestral fault, "a priest of Apollo or of Zeus" says:

Ὀψὲ, φησι, θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, κἆϛ παίδων παῖδας τοί κεν μετόπισθε γένωνται.
"Late", he says, "do the mills of the gods grind, and down to the children of children, and to those who are born after them."

The Sibylline Oracles (c. 175) have Sed mola postremo pinset divina farinam ("but the divine mill will at last grind the flour").

In 16th and 17th century Europe

The proverb was in frequent use in the Protestant Reformation, often as the Latin Sero molunt deorum molae 'slowly grind the mills of the gods' due to Erasmus of Rotterdam (Adagia, 1500), but also in German.

An Italian variation of 1666 reads

Il molin di Dio macina adaggio, mà amara n'è la semola
God's mill grinds slowly, but bitter is his bran.

The expression was anthologised in English by George Herbert in his collection of proverbs Jacula Prudentum (1652) as "God's mill grinds slow but sure" (no. 743). The German epigrammatist Friedrich von Logau, in his Sinngedichte (c. 1654), composed an extended variant under the title "Göttliche Rache" (divine retribution),

Gottes Mühlen mahlen langsam, mahlen aber trefflich klein,
ob aus Langmut er sich säumet, bringt mit Schärf 'er alles ein.

translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ("Retribution", Poetic Aphorisms, 1846):

Though the mills of God grind slowly; Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.

Modern usage

Arthur Conan Doyle quotes the proverb in A Study in Scarlet:

. . . "...the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true fold."
"As He will all the nations in His own good time," said the other in a nasal voice; "He grindeth slowly but exceeding small."...

The proverb is quoted by characters in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot's Christmas and A Pocket Full of Rye in reference to the deaths of the victims. It is also quoted in W. Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence where it is used, somewhat piously, by a family member to imply a certain justice in the demise of the central character Charles Strickland,

When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For a minute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette. "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small," he said, somewhat impressively.

— W. Somerset Maugham, "The Moon and Sixpence" (1919)

During the Second World War, both Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt quoted Longfellow when promising retribution for the extermination of the Jews.

As phrasal template

The expression has become a phrasal template, with various words being substituted for "God":

  • "The wheels of government usually grind slowly..." (1841)
  • "...the wheels of Chinese statesmanship grind slowly" (1890)
  • "The wheels of progress grind slowly in Japan, but they grind exceeding sure." (1894)
  • "The wheels of Congress grind slow, but in time they turn out what the farmers of the nation demand." (1909)

The wheels of justice

The most common version today mentions "justice", in the legal proverb "The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine" (1920).

  • "If the mills of the Gods grind slowly, what shall we say of the wheels of justice?" (1890).
  • "...the wheels of justice are pursuing their slow grind." (1896)
  • "...the wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they are grinding, grinding with unerring truth." (1916)
  • "...though the wheels of justice grind slowly and exceedingly fine, the criminal escapes and a premium is placed upon crime." (1909)

See also

References

  1. ↑ Urnholder of the miller Publius Nonius Zethus (1st century C.E.), found in Ostia Antica, now in the Museum of the Vatican.
  2. ↑ Rosemary Alicia Brown (1981), Katherine Emma Maltwood (PDF), Victoria: Sono Nice. University of Victoria Art Collections M964.1.357
  3. ↑ A. P. Peabody (1885), Plutarch on the Delay of Divine Justice, Boston, Little, Brown;
    Plutarch (1992), "On God's Slowness to Punish", in Ian Kidd (ed.), Essays, translated by Robin Waterfield, Penguin, ISBN 9780140445640
  4. ↑ Adversus Mathematicos I Cap. 17 D.L. Blank, trans. (1998) p. 311. John Pairman Brown (1995), Israel and Hellas, vol. 3, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 9783110168822.
  5. ↑ The Greek μύλοι is plural, referring to two grindstones (i.e. quern and handstone) forming a single mill; the Latin translation by Gentian Hervetus (1569) renders this as mola "mill" in the singular: Est mola tarda dei, verum molit illa minutim.
  6. ↑ Gagné, Renaud (2013). Ancestral Fault in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-1-107-03980-3.
  7. ↑ Book 8 verse 15 Sibylline Oracles trans. M. S. Terry (1890) "Late will the mills of God grind the fine flour". On the date of c. AD 175 for book 8, verses 1–216 see: J. J. Collins "Sibylline Oracles (Second Century B.C.–Seventh Century A.D)" in: Charlesworth (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, Hendrickson Publishers (1983), 317–472 (here: p. 416).
  8. ↑ Erasmus of Rotterdam, Adagia 3382 (4.4.82) Sero molunt deorum molae: Plutarchus in commentario cui titulus Πέρι τὦν ὑπὸ τοῦ θείου βραδέως τιμωρουμένων : Ὥστε οὐχ ὁρὦ τί χρήσιμον ἔνεστι τοῖς ὀψὲ δὴ τούτοις ἀλεῖν λεγομένοις μύλοις τὦν θεὦν, id est Itaque non video quidnam utilitatis insit istis deorum molis quae sero dicuntur molere. Caeterum ex his quae praecedunt eodem in loco, colligere licet dici solitum de his qui, licet serius, tamen aliquando poenas dant malefactorum vindici deo.
  9. ↑ Early New High German variants: Gots mül steht offt lang stil; Die götter malen oder scheren eim langsam, aber wol. Nina-Maria Klug, Das konfessionelle Flugblatt 1563–1580: Eine Studie zur historischen Semiotik und Textanalyse, volume 112 of Studia Linguistica Germanica, Walter de Gruyter, 2012 p. 189
  10. ↑ Torriano, Giovanni (1666). Piazza universale di proverbi Italiani: or A Common Place of Italian Proverbs... London. p. 70, line 9 – via Internet Archive.
  11. ↑ "Göttliche Rache", Sinngedichte III, 2, 24.
  12. ↑ Hugh Rawson; Margaret Miner, eds. (2006). "God, 8". The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-19-516823-5.
  13. ↑ Doyle, Arthur Conan (1887). "A Flight for Life". A Study in Scarlet. Beeton's Christmas Annual. Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 68 – via Wikisource.
  14. ↑ Nicholson Baker (2012), The Way the World Works, Simon and Schuster, p. 264, ISBN 9781471112836
  15. ↑ New York State (1841). Report of the Judiciary Committee on the Petitions of Numerous Citizens of this State, Relating to Slavery. p. 732.
  16. ↑ "Our Library Table". The Athenaeum (3278): 254. 23 August 1890.
  17. ↑ "Japanese Rain Coats". The American Stationer. 35 (1): 30. 4 January 1894.
  18. ↑ "Postal Savings Banks". The Wisconsin Agriculturist. 33 (51): 10. 23 December 1909.
  19. ↑ "Google Books Ngram Viewer". books.google.com. "wheels of * grind". Retrieved 2026-06-01.
  20. ↑ Gompers, Samuel (1920). Debate Between Samuel Gompers and Henry J. Allen at Carnegie Hall, New York, May 28, 1920. E.P. Dutton. p. 95.
  21. ↑ "Minutes of the Fifth Annual Session". Minutes of the New Mexico Bar Association: 41. 7 January 1890.
  22. ↑ "The Terminal Charge". Farm Journal. XX (5). Philadelphia: Farm journal, Incorporated: 103. May 1896.
  23. ↑ Philippine Legislature (20 December 1916). "Decision of the Supreme Court: The United States vs. Amzi B. Kelly". Official Gazette. XIV (51). Manila, Philippines: 2325.
  24. ↑ Westermayr, Arthur J. (1909). Power of Innocence. New York: R.F. Fenno. p. 22.

Further reading