For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of

this life? Cicero, in the _Consolation_ on the death of his daughter,

has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate was

even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these

primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be

assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt

from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which

may banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body

puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness

its health, lassitude its vigour, sleepiness or sluggishness its

activity,--and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh

of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and movements of the

body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if

some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from

curvature of the spine to such an extent that his hands reach the

ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this

destroy all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in

motion? What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul,

sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception,

and the other for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of

sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where

are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? We

can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of

or see the actions and words of such frantic persons, and consider

how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment and

ordinary conduct their present demeanour is. And what shall I say

of those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own

intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using

their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure

that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then,

as to the perception of truth, what can we hope for even in this

way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, "The

corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle

presseth down the mind that museth upon many things?"[625] And

eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put

upon the Greek ὁρμή, is also reckoned among the primary advantages

of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those pitiable

movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see,

when sense is deceived and reason deranged?

In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of

nature, but succeeds to them as the result of learning, though

it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its

occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices,--not those that are

outside of us, but within; not other men's, but our own,--a war which

is waged especially by that virtue which the Greeks call σωφροσύνη,

and we temperance,[626] and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents

them from winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we

must not fancy that there is no vice in us, when, as the apostle

says, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit;"[627] for to this vice

there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, "The

spirit lusteth against the flesh." "For these two," he says, "are

contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which

you would." But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the

supreme good, unless that the flesh should cease to lust against the

spirit, and that there be no vice in us against which the spirit may

lust? And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however

ardently we desire it, let us by God's help accomplish at least

this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the flesh

that lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration

of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy that while we are still

engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the happiness

which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he

has no conflict at all to maintain against his vices?

What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all

its vigilance spent in the discernment of good from evil things,

so that no mistake may be admitted about what we should desire and

what avoid? And thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst

of evils, or that evils are in us; for it teaches us that it is an

evil to consent to sin, and a good to refuse this consent. And yet

this evil, to which prudence teaches and temperance enables us not

to consent, is removed from this life neither by prudence nor by

temperance. And justice, whose office it is to render to every man

his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of

nature, so that the soul is subjected to God, and the flesh to the

soul, and consequently both soul and flesh to God,--does not this

virtue demonstrate that it is as yet rather labouring towards its

end than resting in its finished work? For the soul is so much the

less subjected to God as it is less occupied with the thought of

God; and the flesh is so much the less subjected to the spirit as it

lusts more vehemently against the spirit. So long, therefore, as we

are beset by this weakness, this plague, this disease, how shall we

dare to say that we are safe? and if not safe, then how can we be

already enjoying our final beatitude? Then that virtue which goes

by the name of fortitude is the plainest proof of the ills of life,

for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And

this holds good, no matter though the ripest wisdom co-exists with

it. And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can

presume to say that these are no ills, though at the same time they

allow the wise man to commit suicide and pass out of this life if

they become so grievous that he cannot or ought not to endure them.

But such is the stupid pride of these men who fancy that the supreme

good can be found in this life, and that they can become happy by

their own resources, that their wise man, or at least the man whom

they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he

become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer

any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with

himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with

these evils happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end

it! If it is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills

drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say

that these are not evils which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and

force it not only to yield, but so to rave that it in one breath

calls life happy and recommends it to be given up? For who is so

blind as not to see that if it were happy it would not be fled from?

And if they say we should flee from it on account of the infirmities

that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge

that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask, fortitude or weakness

which prompted Cato to kill himself? for he would not have done so

had he not been too weak to endure Cæsar's victory. Where, then,

is his fortitude? It has yielded, it has succumbed, it has been so

thoroughly overcome as to abandon, forsake, flee this happy life. Or

was it no longer happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were these

not evils which made life miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?

And therefore those who admit that these are evils, as the

Peripatetics do, and the Old Academy, the sect which Varro advocates,

express a more intelligible doctrine; but theirs also is a surprising

mistake, for they contend that this is a happy life which is beset

by these evils, even though they be so great that he who endures

them should commit suicide to escape them. "Pains and anguish of

body," says Varro, "are evils, and so much the worse in proportion

to their severity; and to escape them you must quit this life."

What life, I pray? This life, he says, which is oppressed by such

evils. Then it is happy in the midst of these very evils on account

of which you say we must quit it? Or do you call it happy because

you are at liberty to escape these evils by death? What, then, if

by some secret judgment of God you were held fast and not permitted

to die, nor suffered to live without these evils? In that case, at

least, you would say that such a life was miserable. It is soon

relinquished, no doubt, but this does not make it not miserable;

for were it eternal, you yourself would pronounce it miserable. Its

brevity, therefore, does not clear it of misery; neither ought it to

be called happiness because it is a brief misery. Certainly there

is a mighty force in these evils which compel a man--according to

them, even a wise man--to cease to be a man that he may escape them,

though they say, and say truly, that it is as it were the first and

strongest demand of nature that a man cherish himself, and naturally

therefore avoid death, and should so stand his own friend as to wish

and vehemently aim at continuing to exist as a living creature, and

subsisting in this union of soul and body. There is a mighty force in

these evils to overcome this natural instinct by which death is by

every means and with all a man's efforts avoided, and to overcome it

so completely that what was avoided is desired, sought after, and if

it cannot in any other way be obtained, is inflicted by the man on

himself. There is a mighty force in these evils which make fortitude

a homicide,--if, indeed, that is to be called fortitude which is so

thoroughly overcome by these evils, that it not only cannot preserve

by patience the man whom it undertook to govern and defend, but is

itself obliged to kill him. The wise man, I admit, ought to bear

death with patience, but when it is inflicted by another. If, then,

as these men maintain, he is obliged to inflict it on himself,

certainly it must be owned that the ills which compel him to this

are not only evils, but intolerable evils. The life, then, which is

either subject to accidents, or environed with evils so considerable

and grievous, could never have been called happy, if the men who

give it this name had condescended to yield to the truth, and to be

conquered by valid arguments, when they inquired after the happy

life, as they yield to unhappiness, and are overcome by overwhelming

evils, when they put themselves to death, and if they had not fancied

that the supreme good was to be found in this mortal life; for the

very virtues of this life, which are certainly its best and most

useful possessions, are all the more telling proofs of its miseries

in proportion as they are helpful against the violence of its

dangers, toils, and woes. For if these are true virtues,--and such

cannot exist save in those who have true piety,--they do not profess

to be able to deliver the men who possess them from all miseries; for

true virtues tell no such lies, but they profess that by the hope

of the future world this life, which is miserably involved in the

many and great evils of this world, is happy as it is also safe. For

if not yet safe, how could it be happy? And therefore the Apostle

Paul, speaking not of men without prudence, temperance, fortitude,

and justice, but of those whose lives were regulated by true piety,

and whose virtues were therefore true, says, "For we are saved by

hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why

doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we

with patience wait for it."[628] As, therefore, we are saved, so we

are made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present,

but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness, and

this "with patience;" for we are encompassed with evils, which we

ought patiently to endure, until we come to the ineffable enjoyment

of unmixed good; for there shall be no longer anything to endure.

Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be

our final happiness. And this happiness these philosophers refuse to

believe in, because they do not see it, and attempt to fabricate for

themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is as

deceitful as it is proud.

5. _Of the social life, which, though most desirable, is

frequently disturbed by many distresses._

We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of

the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning

which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this

work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper

destiny, if the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can

enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds

in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one

of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common

feelings of all men in this matter: "I am married; this is one misery.

Children are born to me; they are additional cares."[629] What shall

I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts--"slights,

suspicions, quarrels, war to-day, peace to-morrow?"[630] Is not human

life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in honourable

friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions,

quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other

hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our

friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of

what it might be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly

than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even upon

this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up,

and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet

by the most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the

words of Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh:

"There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the

guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your

declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution; but this hidden,

intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but overwhelms you

before you can foresee and examine it."[631] It is also to this that

allusion is made by the divine saying, "A man's foes are those of his

own household,"[632]--words which one cannot hear without pain; for

though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity,

and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend,

yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at

the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always

been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better

to a malicious disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from

the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city,

which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil

and criminal, and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the

actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?

6. _Of the error of human judgments when the truth is hidden._

What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and

which are necessary in communities, whatever outward peace they

enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are, since the judges

are men who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar,

and are therefore frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to

the torture to ascertain the truth regarding the crimes of other

men. What shall I say of torture applied to the accused himself?

He is tortured to discover whether he is guilty, so that, though

innocent, he suffers most undoubted punishment for crime that is

still doubtful, not because it is proved that he committed it, but

because it is not ascertained that he did not commit it. Thus the

ignorance of the judge frequently involves an innocent person in

suffering. And what is still more unendurable--a thing, indeed, to

be bewailed, and, if that were possible, watered with fountains of

tears--is this, that when the judge puts the accused to the question,

that he may not unwittingly put an innocent man to death, the result

of this lamentable ignorance is that this very person, whom he

tortured that he might not condemn him if innocent, is condemned to

death both tortured and innocent. For if he has chosen, in obedience

to the philosophical instructions to the wise man, to quit this life

rather than endure any longer such tortures, he declares that he has

committed the crime which in fact he has not committed. And when he

has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in ignorance

whether he has put to death an innocent or a guilty person, though he

put the accused to the torture for the very purpose of saving himself

from condemning the innocent; and consequently he has both tortured

an innocent man to discover his innocence, and has put him to death

without discovering it. If such darkness shrouds social life, will

a wise judge take his seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he

will. For human society, which he thinks it a wickedness to abandon,

constrains him and compels him to this duty. And he thinks it no

wickedness that innocent witnesses are tortured regarding the crimes

of which other men are accused; or that the accused are put to the

torture, so that they are often overcome with anguish, and, though

innocent, make false confessions regarding themselves, and are

punished; or that, though they be not condemned to die, they often

die during, or in consequence of, the torture; or that sometimes

the accusers, who perhaps have been prompted by a desire to benefit

society by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves condemned

through the ignorance of the judge, because they are unable to prove

the truth of their accusations though they are true, and because the

witnesses lie, and the accused endures the torture without being

moved to confession. These numerous and important evils he does not

consider sins; for the wise judge does these things, not with any

intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him, and

because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore

acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less condemn human

life as miserable. And if he is compelled to torture and punish the

innocent because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is he

a happy as well as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more

profound considerateness and finer feeling were he to recognise the

misery of these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in

that misery; and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God,

"From my necessities deliver Thou me."[633]

7. _Of the diversity of languages, by which the intercourse of men

is prevented; and of the misery of wars, even of those called

just._

After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human

society,--the first being the house, and the second the city. And the

world, as it is larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the greater

sea is the more dangerous. And here, in the first place, man is

separated from man by the difference of languages. For if two men,

each ignorant of the other's language, meet, and are not compelled

to pass, but, on the contrary, to remain in company, dumb animals,

though of different species, would more easily hold intercourse

than they, human beings though they be. For their common nature

is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of

language from conveying their sentiments to one another; so that a

man would more readily hold intercourse with his dog than with a

foreigner. But the imperial city has endeavoured to impose on subject

nations not only her yoke, but her language, as a bond of peace, so

that interpreters, far from being scarce, are numberless. This is

true; but how many great wars, how much slaughter and bloodshed,

have provided this unity! And though these are past, the end of

these miseries has not yet come. For though there have never been

wanting, nor are yet wanting, hostile nations beyond the empire,

against whom wars have been and are waged, yet, supposing there were

no such nations, the very extent of the empire itself has produced

wars of a more obnoxious description--social and civil wars--and

with these the whole race has been agitated, either by the actual

conflict or the fear of a renewed outbreak. If I attempted to give

an adequate description of these manifold disasters, these stern and

lasting necessities, though I am quite unequal to the task, what

limit could I set? But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars.

As if he would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars,

if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would

not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars. For

it is the wrong-doing of the opposing party which compels the wise

man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though it gave

rise to no war, would still be matter of grief to man because it is

man's wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all

these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this

is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of them without

mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks

himself happy because he has lost human feeling.

8. _That the friendship of good men cannot be securely rested in,

so long as the dangers of this life force us to be anxious._

In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for

an enemy, and an enemy for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable

blindness, is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and

good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with

misunderstandings and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and

the more widely they are scattered, the more numerous are our fears

that some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light

upon them. For we are not only anxious lest they suffer from famine,

war, disease, captivity, or the inconceivable horrors of slavery,

but we are also affected with the much more painful dread that their

friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and injustice. And when

these contingencies actually occur,--as they do the more frequently

the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered,--and

when they come to our knowledge, who but the man who has experienced

it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We would, in fact,

prefer to hear that they were dead, although we could not without

anguish hear of even this. For if their life has solaced us with the

charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with

no sadness? He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible,

have no friendly intercourse. Let him interdict or extinguish friendly

affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of

every human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that

no sweetness shall distil into his spirit. But if this is utterly

impossible, how shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death

of those whose life has been sweet to us? Hence arises that grief

which affects the tender heart like a wound or a bruise, and which is

healed by the application of kindly consolation. For though the cure is

affected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul

is in, we must not on this account suppose that there is nothing at

all to heal. Although, then, our present life is afflicted, sometimes

in a milder, sometimes in a more painful degree, by the death of those

very dear to us, and especially of useful public men, yet we would

prefer to hear that such men were dead rather than to hear or perceive

that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue,--in other words,

that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the

earth is full, and therefore it is written, "Is not human life upon

earth a trial?"[634] And with the same reference the Lord says, "Woe

to the world because of offences!"[635] and again, "Because iniquity

abounded, the love of many shall wax cold."[636] And hence we enjoy

some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death

leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are

beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of men are broken

down or corrupted, or are in danger of both results.

9. _Of the friendship of the holy angels, which men cannot be sure

of in this life, owing to the deceit of the demons who hold in

bondage the worshippers of a plurality of gods._

The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank

the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society,

advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the

universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we

have indeed no fear that the angels will grieve us by their death or

deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly as

with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as

Satan, as we read,[637] sometimes transforms himself into an angel

of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just

to deceive, there is great need of God's mercy to preserve us from

making friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good

angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness of these

wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And is this not a

great misery of human life, that we are involved in such ignorance

as, but for God's mercy, makes us a prey to these demons? And it is

very certain that the philosophers of the godless city, who have

maintained that the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the

malignant demons who rule that city, and whose eternal punishment is

to be shared by it. For the nature of these beings is sufficiently

evinced by the sacred or rather sacrilegious observances which form

their worship, and by the filthy games in which their crimes are

celebrated, and which they themselves originated and exacted from

their worshippers as a fit propitiation.

10. _The reward prepared for the saints after they have endured the

trial of this life._

But not even the saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and

most high God are safe from the manifold temptations and deceits

of the demons. For in this abode of weakness, and in these wicked

days, this state of anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to

seek with keener longing for that security where peace is complete

and unassailable. There we shall enjoy the gifts of nature, that

is to say, all that God the Creator of all natures has bestowed

upon ours,--gifts not only good, but eternal,--not only of the

spirit, healed now by wisdom, but also of the body renewed by the

resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be struggling

against any vice or evil, but shall enjoy the reward of victory, the

eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This is the final

blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end. Here,

indeed, we are said to be blessed when we have such peace as can be

enjoyed in a good life; but such blessedness is mere misery compared

to that final felicity. When we mortals possess such peace as this

mortal life can afford, virtue, if we are living rightly, makes a

right use of the advantages of this peaceful condition; and when we

have it not, virtue makes a good use even of the evils a man suffers.

But this is true virtue, when it refers all the advantages it makes a

good use of, and all that it does in making good use of good and evil

things, and itself also, to that end in which we shall enjoy the best

and greatest peace possible.

11. _Of the happiness of the eternal peace, which constitutes the

end or true perfection of the saints._

And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that

it is the end of our good; and the rather because the Psalmist says

of the city of God, the subject of this laborious work, "Praise the

Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion: for He hath strengthened

the bars of thy gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee;

who hath made thy borders peace."[638] For when the bars of her

gates shall be strengthened, none shall go in or come out from her;

consequently we ought to understand the peace of her borders as that

final peace we are wishing to declare. For even the mystical name of

the city itself, that is, _Jerusalem_, means, as I have already said,

"Vision of Peace." But as the word peace is employed in connection

with things in this world in which certainly life eternal has no

place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city

life eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, "But

now, being freed from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your

fruit unto holiness, and the end life eternal."[639] But, on the

other hand, as those who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose

that the life of the wicked is eternal life, either because of the

immortality of the soul, which some of the philosophers even have

recognised, or because of the endless punishment of the wicked, which

forms a part of our faith, and which seems impossible unless the

wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable, in order that

every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that the end or

supreme good of this city is either peace in eternal life, or eternal

life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that even in this

earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure,

nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly

gratifying. So that if we dwell for a little longer on this subject,

we shall not, in my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will

attend both for the sake of understanding what is the end of this

city of which we speak, and for the sake of the sweetness of peace

which is dear to all.

12. _That even the fierceness of war and all the disquietude of men

make towards this one end of peace, which every nature desires._

Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to

our common nature, will recognise that if there is no man who

does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who does not

wish to have peace. For even they who make war desire nothing but

victory,--desire, that is to say, to attain to peace with glory. For

what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist us? and

when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire

for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in

exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it

is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man

seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace.

For even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they

are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a

peace that suits them better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no

peace, but only one more to their mind. And in the case of sedition,

when men have separated themselves from the community, they yet do

not effect what they wish, unless they maintain some kind of peace

with their fellow-conspirators. And therefore even robbers take care

to maintain peace with their comrades, that they may with greater

effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And if an

individual happen to be of such unrivalled strength, and to be so

jealous of partnership, that he trusts himself with no comrades,

but makes his own plots, and commits depredations and murders on

his own account, yet he maintains some shadow of peace with such

persons as he is unable to kill, and from whom he wishes to conceal

his deeds. In his own home, too, he makes it his aim to be at peace

with his wife and children, and any other members of his household;

for unquestionably their prompt obedience to his every look is a

source of pleasure to him. And if this be not rendered, he is angry,

he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he secures the calm

peace of his own home, as occasion demands. For he sees that peace

cannot be maintained unless all the members of the same domestic

circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his own

house. And therefore if a city or nation offered to submit itself

to him, to serve him in the same style as he had made his household

serve him, he would no longer lurk in a brigand's hiding-places, but

lift his head in open day as a king, though the same covetousness

and wickedness should remain in him. And thus all men desire to

have peace with their own circle whom they wish to govern as suits

themselves. For even those whom they make war against they wish to

make their own, and impose on them the laws of their own peace.

But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of,--a

man so insociable and savage as to be called rather a semi-man than

a man.[640] Although, then, his kingdom was the solitude of a dreary

cave, and he himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named

Κακός, which is the Greek word for _bad_; though he had no wife to

soothe him with endearing talk, no children to play with, no sons

to do his bidding, no friend to enliven him with intercourse, not

even his father Vulcan (though in one respect he was happier than

his father, not having begotten a monster like himself); although

he gave to no man, but took as he wished whatever he could, from

whomsoever he could, when he could; yet in that solitary den, the

floor of which, as Virgil[641] says, was always reeking with recent

slaughter, there was nothing else than peace sought, a peace in which

no one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or alarm.

With his own body he desired to be at peace; and he was satisfied

only in proportion as he had this peace. For he ruled his members,

and they obeyed him; and for the sake of pacifying his mortal nature,

which rebelled when it needed anything, and of allaying the sedition

of hunger which threatened to banish the soul from the body, he made

forays, slew, and devoured, but used the ferocity and savageness

he displayed in these actions only for the preservation of his own

life's peace. So that, had he been willing to make with other men

the same peace which he made with himself in his own cave, he would

neither have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man. Or if

the appearance of his body and his vomiting smoky fires frightened

men from having any dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways arose

not from a desire to do mischief, but from the necessity of finding

a living. But he may have had no existence, or, at least, he was not

such as the poets fancifully describe him, for they had to exalt

Hercules, and did so at the expense of Cacus. It is better, then, to

believe that such a man or semi-man never existed, and that this, in

common with many other fancies of the poets, is mere fiction. For the

most savage animals (and he is said to have been almost a wild beast)

encompass their own species with a ring of protecting peace. They

cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring up their young, though

very many of them are not gregarious, but solitary,--not like sheep,

deer, pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes, eagles,

bats. For what tigress does not gently purr over her cubs, and lay

aside her ferocity to fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when

circling over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a nest, hatch

the eggs, bring up the young birds, and maintain with the mother of

his family as peaceful a domestic alliance as he can? How much more

powerfully do the laws of man's nature move him to hold fellowship

and maintain peace with all men so far as in him lies, since even

wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and

wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and

things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or

fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that pride in

its perversity apes God. It abhors equality with other men under Him;

but, instead of His rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own upon

its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God, and

loves its own unjust peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one

kind or other. For there is no vice so clean contrary to nature that

it obliterates even the faintest traces of nature.

He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is

well-ordered to what is perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men

is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with the peace of the

just. And yet even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony

with, and in dependence on, and in some part of the order of things,

for otherwise it would have no existence at all. Suppose a man hangs

with his head downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of

body and arrangement of its members; for that which nature requires

to be above is beneath, and _vice versâ_. This perversity disturbs

the peace of the body, and is therefore painful. Nevertheless the

spirit is at peace with its body, and labours for its preservation,

and hence the suffering; but if it is banished from the body by its

pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds together, there is

in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and hence the body

remains suspended. And inasmuch as the earthy body tends towards the

earth, and rests on the bond by which it is suspended, it tends thus

to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place

for it to rest; and though now lifeless and without feeling, it does

not fall from the peace that is natural to its place in creation,

whether it already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply

embalming preparations to prevent the bodily frame from mouldering

and dissolving, a kind of peace still unites part to part, and keeps

the whole body in a suitable place on the earth,--in other words,

in a place that is at peace with the body. If, on the other hand,

the body receive no such care, but be left to the natural course, it

is disturbed by exhalations that do not harmonize with one another,

and that offend our senses; for it is this which is perceived in

putrefaction until it is assimilated to the elements of the world,

and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet throughout

this process the laws of the most high Creator and Governor are

strictly observed, for it is by Him the peace of the universe is

administered. For although minute animals are produced from the

carcase of a larger animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the

same Creator, serve the animals they belong to in peace. And although

the flesh of dead animals be eaten by others, no matter where it be

carried, nor what it be brought into contact with, nor what it be

converted and changed into, it still is ruled by the same laws which

pervade all things for the conservation of every mortal race, and

which bring things that fit one another into harmony.

13. _Of the universal peace which the law of nature preserves

through all disturbances, and by which every one reaches his

desert in a way regulated by the just Judge._

The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned

arrangement of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the

harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the

harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the

well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature.

Peace between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith

to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord.

Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the

family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord

among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly

ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God.

The peace of all things is the tranquillity of order. Order is the

distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own

place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such,

do certainly not enjoy peace, but are severed from that tranquillity

of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless, inasmuch

as they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are by their very

misery connected with order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the

blessed, but they are disjoined from them by the law of order. And

though they are disquieted, their circumstances are notwithstanding

adjusted to them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of

order, and therefore some peace. But they are wretched because,

although not wholly miserable, they are not in that place where

any mixture of misery is impossible. They would, however, be more

wretched if they had not that peace which arises from being in

harmony with the natural order of things. When they suffer, their

peace is in so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as

they do not suffer, and in so far as their nature continues to exist.

As, then, there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain

without some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but

there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes

the existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot

exist without peace of one kind or other.

And therefore there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot

exist; but there cannot be a nature in which there is no good. Hence

not even the nature of the devil himself is evil, in so far as it is

nature, but it was made evil by being perverted. Thus he did not abide

in the truth,[642] but could not escape the judgment of the Truth;

he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, but did not therefore

escape the power of the Ordainer. The good imparted by God to his

nature did not screen him from the justice of God by which order was

preserved in his punishment; neither did God punish the good which He

had created, but the evil which the devil had committed. God did not

take back all He had imparted to his nature, but something He took and

something He left, that there might remain enough to be sensible of the

loss of what was taken. And this very sensibility to pain is evidence

of the good which has been taken away and the good which has been

left. For, were nothing good left, there could be no pain on account

of the good which had been lost. For he who sins is still worse if he

rejoices in his loss of righteousness. But he who is in pain, if he

derives no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health. And as

righteousness and health are both good things, and as the loss of any

good thing is matter of grief, not of joy,--if, at least, there is no

compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss

of bodily health,--certainly it is more suitable for a wicked man to

grieve in punishment than to rejoice in his fault. As, then, the joy

of a sinner who has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will,

so his grief for the good he has lost when he is punished is evidence

of a good nature. For he who laments the peace his nature has lost is

stirred to do so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly

to itself. And it is very just that in the final punishment the wicked

and godless should in anguish bewail the loss of the natural advantages

they enjoyed, and should perceive that they were most justly taken from

them by that God whose benign liberality they had despised. God, then,

the most wise Creator and most just Ordainer of all natures, who placed

the human race upon earth as its greatest ornament, imparted to men

some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace, such as

we can enjoy in this life from health and safety and human fellowship,

and all things needful for the preservation and recovery of this peace,

such as the objects which are accommodated to our outward senses,

light, night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and everything the

body requires to sustain, shelter, heal, or beautify it: and all under

this most equitable condition, that every man who made a good use of

these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should

receive ampler and better blessings, namely, the peace of immortality,

accompanied by glory and honour in an endless life made fit for the

enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used the

present blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive

the others.

14. _Of the order and law which obtain in heaven and earth, whereby

it comes to pass that human society is served by those who rule

it._

The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this

result of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city

of God it is connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if we

were irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper

arrangement of the parts of the body and the satisfaction of the

appetites,--nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and abundance

of pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the

peace of the soul. For if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put

to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot obtain

the gratification of its appetites. And these two together help out

the mutual peace of soul and body, the peace of harmonious life and

health. For as animals, by shunning pain, show that they love bodily

peace, and, by pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show

that they love peace of soul, so their shrinking from death is a

sufficient indication of their intense love of that peace which binds

soul and body in close alliance. But, as man has a rational soul,

he subordinates all this which he has in common with the beasts to

the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect may have free

play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the

well-ordered harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as

we have said, the peace of the rational soul. And for this purpose

he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by

desire, nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful

knowledge by which he may regulate his life and manners. But, owing

to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very

pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine

Master, whom he may obey without misgiving, and who may at the same

time give him such help as to preserve his own freedom. And because,

so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he

walks by faith, not by sight; and he therefore refers all peace,

bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace which mortal man has with

the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience

of faith to eternal law. But as this divine Master inculcates two

precepts,--the love of God and the love of our neighbour,--and as

in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love,--God,

himself, and his neighbour,--and that he who loves God loves himself

thereby, it follows that he must endeavour to get his neighbour to

love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbour as himself. He

ought to make this endeavour in behalf of his wife, his children,

his household, all within his reach, even as he would wish his

neighbour to do the same for him if he needed it; and consequently

he will be at peace, or in well-ordered concord, with all men, as

far as in him lies. And this is the order of this concord, that a

man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second, do good

to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household

are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier

access to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the

apostle says, "Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially

for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse

than an infidel."[643] This is the origin of domestic peace, or the

well-ordered concord of those in the family who rule and those who

obey. For they who care for the rest rule,--the husband the wife,

the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they who

are cared for obey,--the women their husbands, the children their

parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just

man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the

celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to

command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of

the duty they owe to others--not because they are proud of authority,

but because they love mercy.

15. _Of the liberty proper to man's nature, and the servitude

introduced by sin,--a servitude in which the man whose will is

wicked is the slave of his own lust, though he is free so far

as regards other men._

This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has

created man. For "let them," He says, "have dominion over the fish

of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping

thing which creepeth on the earth."[644] He did not intend that His

rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion

over anything but the irrational creation,--not man over man, but

man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times

were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending

thus to teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and

what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the

condition of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not

find the word "slave" in any part of Scripture until righteous Noah

branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore,

introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for

slave is supposed to be found in the circumstance that those who by the

law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by their

victors, and were hence called servants.[645] And these circumstances

could never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a

just war, our adversaries must be sinning; and every victory, even

though gained by wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of

God, who humbles the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of

punishing their sins. Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he

was in captivity, confessed to God his own sins and the sins of his

people, and declares with pious grief that these were the cause of the

captivity.[646] The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings

man under the dominion of his fellow,--that which does not happen

save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who

knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offence. But

our Master in heaven says, "Every one who doeth sin is the servant of

sin."[647] And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious

men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; "for of

whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."[648] And

beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than

of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others,

lays waste men's hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover,

when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly

position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does

harm to the master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one

is the slave either of man or of sin. This servitude is, however,

penal, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation

of the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had

been done in violation of that law, there would have been nothing to

restrain by penal servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes

slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and

with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they

may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in

crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away,

and all principality and every human power be brought to nothing, and

God be all in all.

16. _Of equitable rule._

And therefore, although our righteous fathers[649] had slaves, and

administered their domestic affairs so as to distinguish between

the condition of slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the

blessings of this life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in

whom we hope for eternal blessings, they took an equally loving

oversight of all the members of their household. And this is so much

in accordance with the natural order, that the head of the household

was called _paterfamilias_; and this name has been so generally

accepted, that even those whose rule is unrighteous are glad to apply

it to themselves. But those who are true fathers of their households

desire and endeavour that all the members of their household, equally

with their own children, should worship and win God, and should come

to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer

necessary, because the duty of caring for their everlasting happiness

has also ceased; but, until they reach that home, masters ought to

feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants their

service. And if any member of the family interrupts the domestic

peace by disobedience, he is corrected either by word or blow, or

some kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits,

that he may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the

family harmony from which he had dislocated himself. For as it is

not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater

benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at

the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must not

only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish his

sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by

his experience, or others be warned by his example. Since, then, the

house ought to be the beginning or element of the city, and every

beginning bears reference to some end of its own kind, and every

element to the integrity of the whole of which it is an element, it

follows plainly enough that domestic peace has a relation to civic

peace,--in other words, that the well-ordered concord of domestic

obedience and domestic rule has a relation to the well-ordered

concord of civic obedience and civic rule. And therefore it follows,

further, that the father of the family ought to frame his domestic

rule in accordance with the law of the city, so that the household

may be in harmony with the civic order.

17. _What produces peace, and what discord, between the heavenly

and earthly cities._

But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the

earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by

faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use

as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate

and divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater

ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of the corruptible

body which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this

mortal life are used by both kinds of men and families alike, but

each has its own peculiar and widely different aim in using them.

The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly

peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic

obedience and rule, is the combination of men's wills to attain

the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or

rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith,

makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal

condition which necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so

long as it lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city,

though it has already received the promise of redemption, and the

gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it, it makes no scruple to

obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for

the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, as

this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between

them in regard to what belongs to it. But, as the earthly city has

had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by the divine

teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures

or by demons, supposed that many gods must be invited to take an

interest in human affairs, and assigned to each a separate function

and a separate department,--to one the body, to another the soul;

and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and

each of the other members to one of the gods; and in like manner, in

the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned, to another

education, to another anger, to another lust; and so the various

affairs of life were assigned,--cattle to one, corn to another, wine

to another, oil to another, the woods to another, money to another,

navigation to another, wars and victories to another, marriages to

another, births and fecundity to another, and other things to other

gods: and as the celestial city, on the other hand, knew that one

God only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that

service which the Greeks call λατρεία, and which can be given only to

a god, it has come to pass that the two cities could not have common

laws of religion, and that the heavenly city has been compelled in

this matter to dissent, and to become obnoxious to those who think

differently, and to stand the brunt of their anger and hatred and

persecutions, except in so far as the minds of their enemies have

been alarmed by the multitude of the Christians and quelled by the

manifest protection of God accorded to them. This heavenly city,

then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations,

and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not

scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions

whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognising

that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same

end of earthly peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and

abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts

them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme

and true God is thus introduced. Even the heavenly city, therefore,

while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the peace of

earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and godliness,

desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding the

acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes this earthly peace

bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called

and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it

does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and

of one another in God. When we shall have reached that peace, this

mortal life shall give place to one that is eternal, and our body

shall be no more this animal body which by its corruption weighs

down the soul, but a spiritual body feeling no want, and in all its

members subjected to the will. In its pilgrim state the heavenly city

possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously

when it refers to the attainment of that peace every good action

towards God and man; for the life of the city is a social life.

18. _How different the uncertainty of the New Academy is from

the certainty of the Christian faith._

As regards the uncertainty about everything which Varro alleges to be

the differentiating characteristic of the New Academy, the city of

God thoroughly detests such doubt as madness. Regarding matters which

it apprehends by the mind and reason it has most absolute certainty,

although its knowledge is limited because of the corruptible body

pressing down the mind, for, as the apostle says, "We know in

part."[650] It believes also the evidence of the senses which the

mind uses by aid of the body; for [if one who trusts his senses is

sometimes deceived], he is more wretchedly deceived who fancies he

should never trust them. It believes also the Holy Scriptures, old

and new, which we call canonical, and which are the source of the

faith by which the just lives,[651] and by which we walk without

doubting whilst we are absent from the Lord.[652] So long as this

faith remains inviolate and firm, we may without blame entertain

doubts regarding some things which we have neither perceived by

sense nor by reason, and which have not been revealed to us by the

canonical Scriptures, nor come to our knowledge through witnesses

whom it is absurd to disbelieve.

19. _Of the dress and habits of the Christian people._

It is a matter of no moment in the city of God whether he who adopts

the faith that brings men to God adopts it in one dress and manner

of life or another, so long only as he lives in conformity with the

commandments of God. And hence, when philosophers themselves become

Christians, they are compelled, indeed, to abandon their erroneous

doctrines, but not their dress and mode of living, which are no

obstacle to religion. So that we make no account of that distinction

of sects which Varro adduced in connection with the Cynic school,

provided always nothing indecent or self-indulgent is retained. As

to these three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the

composite, although, so long as a man's faith is preserved, he may

choose any of them without detriment to his eternal interests, yet

he must never overlook the claims of truth and duty. No man has a

right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own

ease the service due to his neighbour; nor has any man a right to

be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of

God. The charm of leisure must not be indolent vacancy of mind, but

the investigation or discovery of truth, that thus every man may

make solid attainments without grudging that others do the same.

And, in active life, it is not the honours or power of this life

we should covet, since all things under the sun are vanity, but we

should aim at using our position and influence, if these have been

honourably attained, for the welfare of those who are under us, in

the way we have already explained.[653] It is to this the apostle

refers when he says, "He that desireth the episcopate desireth a

good work."[654] He wished to show that the episcopate is the title

of a work, not of an honour. It is a Greek word, and signifies that

he who governs, superintends or takes care of those whom he governs:

for ἐπί means _over_, and σκοπεῖν, _to see_; therefore ἐπισκοπεῖν

means "to oversee."[655] So that he who loves to govern rather than

to do good is no bishop. Accordingly no one is prohibited from the

search after truth, for in this leisure may most laudably be spent;

but it is unseemly to covet the high position requisite for governing

the people, even though that position be held and that government

be administered in a seemly manner. And therefore holy leisure is

longed for by the love of truth; but it is the necessity of love to

undertake requisite business. If no one imposes this burden upon us,

we are free to sift and contemplate truth; but if it be laid upon

us, we are necessitated for love's sake to undertake it. And yet not

even in this case are we obliged wholly to relinquish the sweets of

contemplation; for were these to be withdrawn, the burden might prove

more than we could bear.

20. _That the saints are in this life blessed in hope._

Since, then, the supreme good of the city of God is perfect and

eternal peace, not such as mortals pass into and out of by birth and

death, but the peace of freedom from all evil, in which the immortals

ever abide, who can deny that that future life is most blessed, or

that, in comparison with it, this life which now we live is most

wretched, be it filled with all blessings of body and soul and

external things? And yet, if any man uses this life with a reference

to that other which he ardently loves and confidently hopes for,

he may well be called even now blessed, though not in reality so

much as in hope. But the actual possession of the happiness of this

life, without the hope of what is beyond, is but a false happiness

and profound misery. For the true blessings of the soul are not now

enjoyed; for that is no true wisdom which does not direct all its

prudent observations, manly actions, virtuous self-restraint, and

just arrangements, to that end in which God shall be all and all in a

secure eternity and perfect peace.

21. _Whether there ever was a Roman republic answering to the

definitions of Scipio in Cicero's dialogue._

This, then, is the place where I should fulfil the promise I gave

in the second book of this work,[656] and explain, as briefly and

clearly as possible, that if we are to accept the definitions laid

down by Scipio in Cicero's _De Republica_, there never was a Roman

republic; for he briefly defines a republic as the weal of the

people. And if this definition be true, there never was a Roman

republic, for the people's weal was never attained among the Romans.

For the people, according to his definition, is an assemblage

associated by a common acknowledgment of right and by a community of

interests. And what he means by a common acknowledgment of right he

explains at large, showing that a republic cannot be administered

without justice. Where, therefore, there is no true justice there can

be no right. For that which is done by right is justly done, and what

is unjustly done cannot be done by right. For the unjust inventions

of men are neither to be considered nor spoken of as rights; for even

they themselves say that right is that which flows from the fountain

of justice, and deny the definition which is commonly given by those

who misconceive the matter, that right is that which is useful to the

stronger party. Thus, where there is not true justice there can be

no assemblage of men associated by a common acknowledgment of right,

and therefore there can be no people, as defined by Scipio or Cicero;

and if no people, then no weal of the people, but only of some

promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people. Consequently,

if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people

if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if

there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it

follows that there is no republic where there is no justice. Further,

justice is that virtue which gives every one his due. Where, then, is

the justice of man, when he deserts the true God and yields himself

to impure demons? Is this to give every one his due? Or is he who

keeps back a piece of ground from the purchaser, and gives it to a

man who has no right to it, unjust, while he who keeps back himself

from the God who made him, and serves wicked spirits, is just?

This same book, _De Republica_, advocates the cause of justice

against injustice with great force and keenness. The pleading for

injustice against justice was first heard, and it was asserted that

without injustice a republic could neither increase nor even subsist,

for it was laid down as an absolutely unassailable position that

it is unjust for some men to rule and some to serve; and yet the

imperial city to which the republic belongs cannot rule her provinces

without having recourse to this injustice. It was replied in behalf

of justice, that this ruling of the provinces is just, because

servitude may be advantageous to the provincials, and is so when

rightly administered,--that is to say, when lawless men are prevented

from doing harm. And further, as they became worse and worse so long

as they were free, they will improve by subjection. To confirm this

reasoning, there is added an eminent example drawn from nature: for

"why," it is asked, "does God rule man, the soul the body, the reason

the passions and other vicious parts of the soul?" This example leaves

no doubt that, to some, servitude is useful; and, indeed, to serve God

is useful to all. And it is when the soul serves God that it exercises

a right control over the body; and in the soul itself the reason must

be subject to God if it is to govern as it ought the passions and

other vices. Hence, when a man does not serve God, what justice can

we ascribe to him, since in this case his soul cannot exercise a just

control over the body, nor his reason over his vices? And if there

is no justice in such an individual, certainly there can be none in

a community composed of such persons. Here, therefore, there is not

that common acknowledgment of right which makes an assemblage of men a

people whose affairs we call a republic. And why need I speak of the

advantageousness, the common participation in which, according to the

definition, makes a people? For although, if you choose to regard the

matter attentively, you will see that there is nothing advantageous to

those who live godlessly, as every one lives who does not serve God but

demons, whose wickedness you may measure by their desire to receive the

worship of men though they are most impure spirits, yet what I have

said of the common acknowledgment of right is enough to demonstrate

that, according to the above definition, there can be no people, and

therefore no republic, where there is no justice. For if they assert

that in their republic the Romans did not serve unclean spirits, but

good and holy gods, must we therefore again reply to this evasion,

though already we have said enough, and more than enough, to expose it?

He must be an uncommonly stupid, or a shamelessly contentious person,

who has read through the foregoing books to this point, and can yet

question whether the Romans served wicked and impure demons. But, not

to speak of their character, it is written in the law of the true God,

"He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord only, he shall

be utterly destroyed."[657] He, therefore, who uttered so menacing a

commandment decreed that no worship should be given either to good or

bad gods.

22. _Whether the God whom the Christians serve is the true God to

whom alone sacrifice ought to be paid._

But it may be replied, Who is this God, or what proof is there that

He alone is worthy to receive sacrifice from the Romans? One must be

very blind to be still asking who this God is. He is the God whose

prophets predicted the things we see accomplished. He is the God from

whom Abraham received the assurance, "In thy seed shall all nations

be blessed."[658] That this was fulfilled in Christ, who according

to the flesh sprang from that seed, is recognised, whether they

will or no, even by those who have continued to be the enemies of

this name. He is the God whose divine Spirit spake by the men whose

predictions I cited in the preceding books, and which are fulfilled

in the Church which has extended over all the world. This is the God

whom Varro, the most learned of the Romans, supposed to be Jupiter,

though he knows not what he says; yet I think it right to note the

circumstance that a man of such learning was unable to suppose that

this God had no existence or was contemptible, but believed Him to be

the same as the supreme God. In fine, He is the God whom Porphyry,

the most learned of the philosophers, though the bitterest enemy of

the Christians, confesses to be a great God, even according to the

oracles of those whom he esteems gods.

23. _Porphyry's account of the responses given by the oracles of

the gods concerning Christ._

For in his book called ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, in which he collects and

comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the

gods concerning divine things, he says--I give his own words as they

have been translated from the Greek: "To one who inquired what god

he should propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity,

Apollo replied in the following verses." Then the following words are

given as those of Apollo: "You will probably find it easier to write

lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through

the air, than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she

has polluted herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish

deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned

by right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent

death." Then after these verses of Apollo (which we have given in a

Latin version that does not preserve the metrical form), he goes on

to say: "In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption of

the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians,

recognised God." See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the

preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his

explanation of Apollo's verses, in which he says that Christ was put

to death by right-minded or just judges,--in other words, that He

deserved to die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding

Christ on the lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who

believed it or possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with

Porphyry's opinions or with other oracles, we shall in a little have

something to say. In this passage, however, he says that the Jews,

as the interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing Christ to

be worthy of the most shameful death. He should have listened, then,

to this God of the Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that

God says, "He that sacrificeth to any other god save to the Lord

alone shall be utterly destroyed." But let us come to still plainer

expressions, and hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of the

Jews is. Apollo, he says, when asked whether word, _i.e._ reason,

or law is the better thing, replied in the following verses. Then

he gives the verses of Apollo, from which I select the following as

sufficient: "God, the Generator, and the King prior to all things,

before whom heaven and earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of

hell tremble, and the deities themselves are afraid, for their law

is the Father whom the holy Hebrews honour." In this oracle of his

god Apollo, Porphyry avowed that the God of the Hebrews is so great

that the deities themselves are afraid before Him. I am surprised,

therefore, that when God said, He that sacrificeth to other gods

shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he

should be destroyed for sacrificing to other gods.

This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ,

oblivious, as it were, of that contumely of his of which we have just

been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only while

asleep, and recognised Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved

praise, when they awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some

marvellous thing passing belief, he says, "What we are going to say

will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that

Christ was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish

his memory: that the Christians, however, are polluted, contaminated,

and involved in error. And many other such things," he says, "do the

gods say against the Christians." Then he gives specimens of the

accusations made, as he says, by the gods against them, and then goes

on: "But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a God, she

replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and

that if it has been severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you

refer to is that of a man foremost in piety: they worship it because

they mistake the truth." To this so-called oracular response he adds

the following words of his own: "Of this very pious man, then, Hecate

said that the soul, like the souls of other good men, was after death

dowered with immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance

worship it. And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the

oracle of the goddess replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to

torments, but the souls of the pious abide in heaven. And the soul you

inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls which

were not fated to receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the

knowledge of immortal Jove. Such souls are therefore hated by the gods;

for they who were fated not to receive the gifts of the gods, and not

to know God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you

speak of. He himself, however, was good, and heaven has been opened to

him as to other good men. You are not, then, to speak evil of him, but

to pity the folly of men: and through him men's danger is imminent."

Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either

composed by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians,

or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar

design,--that is to say, in order that their praise of Christ may

win credence for their vituperation of Christians; and that thus

they may, if possible, close the way of eternal salvation, which is

identical with Christianity? For they believe that they are by no

means counterworking their own hurtful craft by promoting belief in

Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is also accepted;

for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of Christ

declines to become a Christian, and is therefore not delivered from

their own rule by the Christ he praises. Besides, their praise

of Christ is so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus

represented will not be a true Christian but a Photinian heretic,

recognising only the humanity, and not also the divinity of Christ,

and will thus be precluded from salvation and from deliverance

out of the meshes of these devilish lies. For our part, we are no

better pleased with Hecate's praises of Christ than with Apollo's

calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ was put to death by

right-minded judges, implying that He was unrighteous. Hecate says

that He was a most pious man, but no more. The intention of both is

the same, to prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this

be secured, men shall never be rescued from their power. But it is

incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on those who believe in these

pretended oracles against the Christians, first of all, if they can,

to bring Apollo and Hecate to the same mind regarding Christ, so

that either both may condemn or both praise Him. And even if they

succeeded in this, we for our part would notwithstanding repudiate

the testimony of demons, whether favourable or adverse to Christ. But

when our adversaries find a god and goddess of their own at variance

about Christ, the one praising, the other vituperating Him, they can

certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men

who blaspheme the Christians.

When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself

to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in

error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error. But before

I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus

give Himself to the Christians to involve them in error, did He do so

willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how is He righteous? If

against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes

of this error. "There are," he says, "in a certain place very small

earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil demons. The wise men

of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from

the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from

these very wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them rather to

worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the Father.

This," he said, "the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they

admonish the soul to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But

the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favours

from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the

gods and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have

not only refused to hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons.

Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things by which

alone God is worshipped. For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is

in need of nothing; but for us it is good to adore Him by means of

justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to make life itself

a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature. For

inquiry," says he, "purifies and imitation deifies us, by moving us

nearer to Him." He is right in so far as he proclaims God the Father,

and the conduct by which we should worship Him. Of such precepts the

prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame

the life of the saints. But in speaking of the Christians he is in

error, and calumniates them as much as is desired by the demons whom

he takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect

the disgraceful and shameful actions which used to be done in the

theatres and temples to please the gods, and to compare with these

things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the

true God, and from this comparison to conclude where character is

edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a diabolical spirit has

told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the

Christians reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose worship the

Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the Hebrew sages worshipped,

forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of heaven and

divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as

our most blessed fellow-citizens. For in the law which God gave to

His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder:

"He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall

be utterly destroyed."[659] And that no one might suppose that this

prohibition extends only to the very wicked demons and earthly

spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and inferior,--for

even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the Hebrews,

but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown in

the psalm where it is said, "For all the gods of the nations are

demons,"[660]--that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to

these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to

all or some of the celestials, it was immediately added, "save unto

the Lord alone."[661] The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this

renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew

people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and

unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this law it is

written, "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord alone,

he shall be utterly destroyed." What need is there to seek further

proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing? _Seek_, we need

not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but

what need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are

thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that

sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is

one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance

of that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol.

Let this be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no

disobedient soul cut off. "He that sacrifices," He says, not because

He needs anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession.

Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, "I have said to

the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou needest not my good."[662] For

we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy

sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices,

which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained in the

preceding books. For through the prophets the oracles of God declared

that the sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which

was to be would cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the

setting of the sun, would offer one sacrifice. From these oracles,

which we now see accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed

suitable to our purpose in this work. And therefore, where there is

not this righteousness whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient

city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices to none but Him,

and whereby, in all the citizens of this obedient city, the soul

consequently rules the body and reason the vices in the rightful

order, so that, as the individual just man, so also the community and

people of the just, live by faith, which works by love, that love

whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbour as

himself,--there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a

common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests.

But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition

be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there is no

people there can be no republic.

24. _The definition which must be given of a people and a republic,

in order to vindicate the assumption of these titles by the

Romans and by other kingdoms._

But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another,

say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound

together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love,

then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only

to observe what they love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an

assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound

together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably

called a people; and it will be a superior people in proportion as

it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in proportion

as it is bound together by lower. According to this definition of

ours, the Roman people is a people, and its weal is without doubt

a commonwealth or republic. But what its tastes were in its early

and subsequent days, and how it declined into sanguinary seditions

and then to social and civil wars, and so burst asunder or rotted

off the bond of concord in which the health of a people consists,

history shows, and in the preceding books I have related at large.

And yet I would not on this account say either that it was not a

people, or that its administration was not a republic, so long as

there remains an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a

common agreement as to the objects of love. But what I say of this

people and of this republic I must be understood to think and say

of the Athenians or any Greek state, of the Egyptians, of the early

Assyrian Babylon, and of every other nation, great or small, which

had a public government. For, in general, the city of the ungodly,

which did not obey the command of God that it should offer no

sacrifice save to Him alone, and which, therefore, could not give to

the soul its proper command over the body, nor to the reason its just

authority over the vices, is void of true justice.

25. _That where there is no true religion there are no true

virtues._

For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the

reason the vices, if the soul and reason do not themselves obey God,

as God has commanded them to serve Him, they have no proper authority

over the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body

and the vices can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and

which, instead of being subject to His authority, is prostituted to

the corrupting influences of the most vicious demons? It is for this

reason that the virtues which it seems to itself to possess, and

by which it restrains the body and the vices that it may obtain and

keep what it desires, are rather vices than virtues so long as there

is no reference to God in the matter. For although some suppose that

virtues which have a reference only to themselves, and are desired

only on their own account, are yet true and genuine virtues, the fact

is that even then they are inflated with pride, and are therefore

to be reckoned vices rather than virtues. For as that which gives

life to the flesh is not derived from flesh, but is above it, so

that which gives blessed life to man is not derived from man, but is

something above him; and what I say of man is true of every celestial

power and virtue whatsoever.

26. _Of the peace which is enjoyed by the people that are alienated

from God, and the use made of it by the people of God in the

time of its pilgrimage._

Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of

man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, "Blessed is

the people whose God is the Lord."[663] Miserable, therefore, is the

people which is alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of

its own which is not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall

not in the end enjoy it, because it makes no good use of it before

the end. But it is our interest that it enjoy this peace meanwhile in

this life; for as long as the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy

the peace of Babylon. For from Babylon the people of God is so freed

that it meanwhile sojourns in its company. And therefore the apostle

also admonished the Church to pray for kings and those in authority,

assigning as the reason, "that we may live a quiet and tranquil life in

all godliness and love."[664] And the prophet Jeremiah, when predicting

the captivity that was to befall the ancient people of God, and giving

them the divine command to go obediently to Babylonia, and thus serve

their God, counselled them also to pray for Babylonia, saying, "In the

peace thereof shall ye have peace,"[665]--the temporal peace which the

good and the wicked together enjoy.

27. _That the peace of those who serve God cannot in this mortal

life be apprehended in its perfection._

But the peace which is peculiar to ourselves we enjoy now with God by

faith, and shall hereafter enjoy eternally with Him by sight. But the

peace which we enjoy in this life, whether common to all or peculiar

to ourselves, is rather the solace of our misery than the positive

enjoyment of felicity. Our very righteousness, too, though true in so

far as it has respect to the true good, is yet in this life of such

a kind that it consists rather in the remission of sins than in the

perfecting of virtues. Witness the prayer of the whole city of God

in its pilgrim state, for it cries to God by the mouth of all its

members, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."[666] And

this prayer is efficacious not for those whose faith is "without works

and dead,"[667] but for those whose faith "worketh by love."[668]

For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet "pressed down by the

corruptible body,"[669] so long as it is in this mortal condition,

it has not perfect authority over vice, and therefore this prayer is

needed by the righteous. For though it exercises authority, the vices

do not submit without a struggle. For however well one maintains the

conflict, and however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there

steals in some evil thing, which, if it do not find ready expression

in act, slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought;

and therefore his peace is not full so long as he is at war with his

vices. For it is a doubtful conflict he wages with those that resist,

and his victory over those that are defeated is not secure, but full

of anxiety and effort. Amidst these temptations, therefore, of all

which it has been summarily said in the divine oracles, "Is not human

life upon earth a temptation?"[670] who but a proud man can presume

that he so lives that he has no need to say to God, "Forgive us our

debts?" And such a man is not great, but swollen and puffed up with

vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who abundantly gives grace to

the humble. Whence it is said, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth

grace to the humble."[671] In this, then, consists the righteousness

of a man, that he submit himself to God, his body to his soul, and

his vices, even when they rebel, to his reason, which either defeats

or at least resists them; and also that he beg from God grace to do

his duty,[672] and the pardon of his sins, and that he render to God

thanks for all the blessings he receives. But, in that final peace to

which all our righteousness has reference, and for the sake of which

it is maintained, as our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and

incorruption, and shall have no more vices, and as we shall experience

no resistance either from ourselves or from others, it will not be

necessary that reason should rule vices which no longer exist, but God

shall rule the man, and the soul shall rule the body, with a sweetness

and facility suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with

bondage. And this condition shall there be eternal, and we shall be

assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this blessedness and the

blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme good.

28. _The end of the wicked._

But, on the other hand, they who do not belong to this city of God

shall inherit eternal misery, which is also called the second death,

because the soul shall then be separated from God its life, and

therefore cannot be said to live, and the body shall be subjected to

eternal pains. And consequently this second death shall be the more

severe, because no death shall terminate it. But war being contrary

to peace, as misery to happiness, and life to death, it is not

without reason asked what kind of war can be found in the end of the

wicked answering to the peace which is declared to be the end of the

righteous? The person who puts this question has only to observe what

it is in war that is hurtful and destructive, and he shall see that

it is nothing else than the mutual opposition and conflict of things.

And can he conceive a more grievous and bitter war than that in which

the will is so opposed to passion, and passion to the will, that their

hostility can never be terminated by the victory of either, and in

which the violence of pain so conflicts with the nature of the body,

that neither yields to the other? For in this life, when this conflict

has arisen, either pain conquers and death expels the feeling of it, or

nature conquers and health expels the pain. But in the world to come

the pain continues that it may torment, and the nature endures that

it may be sensible of it; and neither ceases to exist, lest punishment

also should cease. Now, as it is through the last judgment that men

pass to these ends, the good to the supreme good, the evil to the

supreme evil, I will treat of this judgment in the following book.

FOOTNOTES:

[619] Not extant.

[620] Alluding to the vexed question whether virtue could be taught.

[621] The _prima naturæ_, or πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν of the Stoics.

[622] Frequently called the Middle Academy; the New beginning with

Carneades.

[623] Hab. ii. 4.

[624] Ps. xciv. 11, and 1 Cor. iii. 20.

[625] Wisdom ix. 15.

[626] Cicero, _Tusc. Quæst._ iii. 8.

[627] Gal. v. 17.

[628] Rom. viii. 24.

[629] Terent. _Adelph._ v. 4.

[630] _Eunuch._ i. 1.

[631] _In Verrem_, ii. 1. 15.

[632] Matt. x. 36.

[633] Ps. xxv. 17.

[634] Job vii. 1.

[635] Matt. xvii. 7.

[636] Matt. xxiv. 12.

[637] 2 Cor. xi. 14.

[638] Ps. cxlvii. 12-14.

[639] Rom. vi. 22.

[640] He refers to the giant Cacus.

[641] _Æneid_, viii. 195.

[642] John viii. 44.

[643] 1 Tim. v. 8.

[644] Gen. i. 26.

[645] _Servus_, "a slave," from _servare_, "to preserve."

[646] Dan. ix.

[647] John viii. 34.

[648] 2 Pet. ii. 19.

[649] The patriarchs.

[650] 1 Cor. xiii. 9.

[651] Hab. ii. 4.

[652] 2 Cor. v. 6.

[653] Ch. 6.

[654] 1 Tim. iii. 1.

[655] Augustine's words are: "ἐπι, quippe 'super;' σκοπός, vero,

'intentio' est: επισκοπεῖν, si velimus, latine 'superintendere'

possumus dicere."

[656] Ch. 21.

[657] Ex. xxii. 20.

[658] Gen. xxii. 18.

[659] Ex. xxii. 20.

[660] Ps. xcvi. 5.

[661] Augustine here warns his readers against a possible

misunderstanding of the Latin word for "alone" (_soli_), which might

be rendered "the sun."

[662] Ps. xvi. 2.

[663] Ps. cxliv. 15.

[664] 1 Tim. ii. 2; var. reading, "purity."

[665] Jer. xxix. 7.

[666] Matt. vi. 12.

[667] Jas. ii. 17.

[668] Gal. v. 6.

[669] Wisdom ix. 15.

[670] Job vii. 1.

[671] Jas. iv. 6; 1 Pet. v. 5.

[672] Gratia meritorum.

BOOK TWENTIETH.

ARGUMENT.

CONCERNING THE LAST JUDGMENT, AND THE DECLARATIONS REGARDING IT IN

THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

1. _That although God is always judging, it is nevertheless

reasonable to confine our attention in this book to His last

judgment._

Intending to speak, in dependence on God's grace, of the day of His

final judgment, and to affirm it against the ungodly and incredulous,

we must first of all lay, as it were, in the foundation of the

edifice the divine declarations. Those persons who do not believe

such declarations do their best to oppose to them false and illusive

sophisms of their own, either contending that what is adduced from

Scripture has another meaning, or altogether denying that it is

an utterance of God's. For I suppose no man who understands what

is written, and believes it to be communicated by the supreme and

true God through holy men, refuses to yield and consent to these

declarations, whether he orally confesses his consent, or is from

some evil influence ashamed or afraid to do so; or even, with an

opinionativeness closely resembling madness, makes strenuous efforts

to defend what he knows and believes to be false against what he

knows and believes to be true.

That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God holds and

professes as its creed, that Christ shall come from heaven to judge

quick and dead, this we call the last day, or last time, of the

divine judgment. For we do not know how many days this judgment may

occupy; but no one who reads the Scriptures, however negligently,

need be told that in them "day" is customarily used for "time." And

when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or

final for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged

from the beginning of human history, banishing from paradise, and

excluding from the tree of life, those first men who perpetrated so

great a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising judgment also when

He did not spare the angels who sinned, whose prince, overcome by

envy, seduced men after being himself seduced. Neither is it without

God's profound and just judgment that the life of demons and men,

the one in the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery,

calamities, and mistakes. And even though no one had sinned, it could

only have been by the good and right judgment of God that the whole

rational creation could have been maintained in eternal blessedness

by a persevering adherence to its Lord. He judges, too, not only

in the mass, condemning the race of devils and the race of men to

be miserable on account of the original sin of these races, but He

also judges the voluntary and personal acts of individuals. For even

the devils pray that they may not be tormented,[673] which proves

that without injustice they might either be spared or tormented

according to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their

sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after

death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of divine

aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission

of the divine and most just judgment. For, as the apostle says,

"There is no unrighteousness with God;"[674] and as he elsewhere

says, "His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding

out."[675] In this book, then, I shall speak, as God permits, not of

those first judgments, nor of these intervening judgments of God, but

of the last judgment, when Christ is to come from heaven to judge

the quick and the dead. For that day is properly called the day of

judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant

questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man

unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none

but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion

of the wicked, and of them only.

2. _That in the mingled web of human affairs God's judgment is

present, though it cannot be discerned._

In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the ills to

which even good men are subject, and to hold cheap the blessings

which even the wicked enjoy. And consequently, even in those

conditions of life in which the justice of God is not apparent, His

teaching is salutary. For we do not know by what judgment of God this

good man is poor and that bad man rich; why he who, in our opinion,

ought to suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while

sorrow pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose he

should be happy; why the innocent man is dismissed from the bar not

only unavenged, but even condemned, being either wronged by the

iniquity of the judge, or overwhelmed by false evidence, while his

guilty adversary, on the other hand, is not only discharged with

impunity, but even has his claims admitted; why the ungodly enjoys

good health, while the godly pines in sickness; why ruffians are of

the soundest constitution, while they who could not hurt any one even

with a word are from infancy afflicted with complicated disorders;

why he who is useful to society is cut off by premature death, while

those who, as it might seem, ought never to have been so much as born

have lives of unusual length; why he who is full of crimes is crowned

with honours, while the blameless man is buried in the darkness of

neglect. But who can collect or enumerate all the contrasts of this

kind? But if this anomalous state of things were uniform in this

life, in which, as the sacred Psalmist says, "Man is like to vanity,

his days as a shadow that passeth away,"[676]--so uniform that none

but wicked men won the transitory prosperity of earth, while only

the good suffered its ills,--this could be referred to the just and

even benign judgment of God. We might suppose that they who were not

destined to obtain those everlasting benefits which constitute human

blessedness were either deluded by transitory blessings as the just

reward of their wickedness, or were, in God's mercy, consoled by

them, and that they who were not destined to suffer eternal torments

were afflicted with temporal chastisement for their sins, or were

stimulated to greater attainment in virtue. But now, as it is, since

we not only see good men involved in the ills of life, and bad men

enjoying the good of it, which seems unjust, but also that evil

often overtakes evil men, and good surprises the good, the rather on

this account are God's judgments unsearchable, and His ways past

finding out. Although, therefore, we do not know by what judgment

these things are done or permitted to be done by God, with whom is

the highest virtue, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, no

infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness, yet it is salutary for us

to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach

indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things

which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only

to evil men. But when we shall have come to that judgment, the date

of which is called peculiarly the day of judgment, and sometimes the

day of the Lord, we shall then recognise the justice of all God's

judgments, not only of such as shall then be pronounced, but of all

which take effect from the beginning, or may take effect before that

time. And in that day we shall also recognise with what justice so

many, or almost all, the just judgments of God in the present life

defy the scrutiny of human sense or insight, though in this matter it

is not concealed from pious minds that what is concealed is just.

3. _What Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, says regarding

the things which happen alike to good and wicked men._

Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, who reigned in Jerusalem, thus

commences the book called Ecclesiastes, which the Jews number among

their canonical Scriptures: "Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes,

vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his

labour which he hath taken under the sun?"[677] And after going on

to enumerate, with this as his text, the calamities and delusions

of this life, and the shifting nature of the present time, in which

there is nothing substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails, among

the other vanities that are under the sun, this also, that though

wisdom excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness, and though the

eyes of the wise man are in his head, while the fool walketh in

darkness,[678] yet one event happeneth to them all, that is to say,

in this life under the sun, unquestionably alluding to those evils

which we see befall good and bad men alike. He says, further, that

the good suffer the ills of life as if they were evil-doers, and

the bad enjoy the good of life as if they were good. "There is a

vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men unto

whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked: again, there

be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the

righteous. I said, that this also is vanity."[679] This wisest man

devoted this whole book to a full exposure of this vanity, evidently

with no other object than that we might long for that life in which

there is no vanity under the sun, but verity under Him who made the

sun. In this vanity, then, was it not by the just and righteous

judgment of God that man, made like to vanity, was destined to pass

away? But in these days of vanity it makes an important difference

whether he resists or yields to the truth, and whether he is

destitute of true piety or a partaker of it,--important not so far

as regards the acquirement of the blessings or the evasion of the

calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in connection with

the future judgment which shall make over to good men good things,

and to bad men bad things, in permanent, inalienable possession.

In fine, this wise man concludes this book of his by saying, "Fear

God, and keep His commandments: for this is every man. For God shall

bring every work into judgment, with every despised person, whether

it be good, or whether it be evil."[680] What truer, terser, more

salutary enouncement could be made? "Fear God," he says, "and keep

His commandments: for this is every man." For whosoever has real

existence, is this, is a keeper of God's commandments; and he who is

not this, is nothing. For so long as he remains in the likeness of

vanity, he is not renewed in the image of the truth. "For God shall

bring into judgment every work,"--that is, whatever man does in this

life,--"whether it be good or whether it be evil, with every despised

person,"--that is, with every man who here seems despicable, and is

therefore not considered; for God sees even him, and does not despise

him nor pass him over in His judgment.

4. _That proofs of the last judgment will be adduced, first from

the New Testament, and then from the Old._

The proofs, then, of this last judgment of God which I propose to

adduce shall be drawn first from the New Testament, and then from

the Old. For although the Old Testament is prior in point of time,

the New has the precedence in intrinsic value; for the Old acts the

part of herald to the New. We shall therefore first cite passages

from the New Testament, and confirm them by quotations from the Old

Testament. The Old contains the law and the prophets, the New the

gospel and the apostolic epistles. Now the apostle says, "By the law

is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without

the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

now the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ upon all

them that believe."[681] This righteousness of God belongs to the

New Testament, and evidence for it exists in the old books, that is

to say, in the law and the prophets. I shall first, then, state the

case, and then call the witnesses. This order Jesus Christ Himself

directs us to observe, saying, "The scribe instructed in the kingdom

of God is like a good householder, bringing out of his treasure

things new and old."[682] He did not say "old and new," which He

certainly would have said had He not wished to follow the order of

merit rather than that of time.

5. _The passages in which the Saviour declares that there shall

be a divine judgment in the end of the world._

The Saviour Himself, while reproving the cities in which He had done

great works, but which had not believed, and while setting them in

unfavourable comparison with foreign cities, says, "But I say unto

you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of

judgment than for you."[683] And a little after He says, "Verily, I

say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the

day of judgment than for thee."[684] Here He most plainly predicts

that a day of judgment is to come. And in another place He says,

"The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation,

and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of

Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the

south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall

condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to

hear the words of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is

here."[685] Two things we learn from this passage, that a judgment

is to take place, and that it is to take place at the resurrection

of the dead. For when He spoke of the Ninevites and the queen of the

south, He certainly spoke of dead persons, and yet He said that they

should rise up in the day of judgment. He did not say, "They shall

condemn," as if they themselves were to be the judges, but because,

in comparison with them, the others shall be justly condemned.

Again, in another passage, in which He was speaking of the present

intermingling and future separation of the good and bad,--the

separation which shall be made in the day of judgment,--He adduced a

comparison drawn from the sown wheat and the tares sown among them,

and gave this explanation of it to His disciples: "He that soweth

the good seed is the Son of man,"[686] etc. Here, indeed, He did not

name the judgment or the day of judgment, but indicated it much more

clearly by describing the circumstances, and foretold that it should

take place in the end of the world.

In like manner He says to His disciples, "Verily I say unto you, That

ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man

shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve

thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."[687] Here we learn

that Jesus shall judge with His disciples. And therefore He said

elsewhere to the Jews, "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do

your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges."[688]

Neither ought we to suppose that only twelve men shall judge along

with Him, though He says that they shall sit upon twelve thrones,

for by the number twelve is signified the completeness of the

multitude of those who shall judge. For the two parts of the number

seven (which commonly symbolizes totality), that is to say, four

and three, multiplied into one another, give twelve. For four times

three, or three times four, are twelve. There are other meanings,

too, in this number twelve. Were not this the right interpretation of

the twelve thrones, then since we read that Matthias was ordained

an apostle in the room of Judas the traitor, the Apostle Paul,

though he laboured more than them all,[689] should have no throne of

judgment; but he unmistakeably considers himself to be included in

the number of the judges when he says, "Know ye not that we shall

judge angels?"[690] The same rule is to be observed in applying the

number twelve to those who are to be judged. For though it was said,

"judging the twelve tribes of Israel," the tribe of Levi, which is

the thirteenth, shall not on this account be exempt from judgment,

neither shall judgment be passed only on Israel and not on the other

nations. And by the words "in the regeneration" He certainly meant

the resurrection of the dead to be understood; for our flesh shall be

regenerated by incorruption, as our soul is regenerated by faith.

Many passages I omit, because, though they seem to refer to the

last judgment, yet on a closer examination they are found to be

ambiguous, or to allude rather to some other event,--whether to that

coming of the Saviour which continually occurs in His Church, that

is, in His members, in which He comes little by little, and piece

by piece, since the whole Church is His body, or to the destruction

of the earthly Jerusalem. For when He speaks even of this, He often

uses language which is applicable to the end of the world and that

last and great day of judgment, so that these two events cannot

be distinguished unless all the corresponding passages bearing on

the subject in the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are

compared with one another,--for some things are put more obscurely

by one evangelist and more plainly by another,--so that it becomes

apparent what things are meant to be referred to one event. It is

this which I have been at pains to do in a letter which I wrote to

Hesychius of blessed memory, bishop of Salon, and entitled, "Of the

End of the World."[691]

I shall now cite from the Gospel according to Matthew the passage

which speaks of the separation of the good from the wicked by the

most efficacious and final judgment of Christ: "When the Son of man,"

he says, "shall come in His glory, ... then shall He say also unto

them on His left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting

fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."[692] Then He in like

manner recounts to the wicked the things they had not done, but which

He had said those on the right hand had done. And when they ask when

they had seen Him in need of these things, He replies that, inasmuch

as they had not done it to the least of His brethren, they had not

done it unto Him, and concludes His address in the words, "And these

shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into

life eternal." Moreover, the evangelist John most distinctly states

that He had predicted that the judgment should be at the resurrection

of the dead. For after saying, "The Father judgeth no man, but hath

committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honour

the Son, even as they honour the Father: he that honoureth not the

Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him;" He immediately

adds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and

believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not

come into judgment; but is passed from death to life."[693] Here

He said that believers on Him should not come into judgment. How,

then, shall they be separated from the wicked by judgment, and be

set at His right hand, unless judgment be in this passage used for

condemnation? For into judgment, in this sense, they shall not come

who hear His word, and believe on Him that sent Him.

6. _What is the first resurrection, and what the second._

After that He adds the words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The

hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of

the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father

hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in

Himself."[694] As yet He does not speak of the second resurrection,

that is, the resurrection of the body, which shall be in the end,

but of the first, which now is. It is for the sake of making this

distinction that He says, "The hour is coming, and now is." Now this

resurrection regards not the body, but the soul. For souls, too,

have a death of their own in wickedness and sins, whereby they are

the dead of whom the same lips say, "Suffer the dead to bury their

dead,"[695]--that is, let those who are dead in soul bury them that

are dead in body. It is of these dead, then--the dead in ungodliness

and wickedness--that He says, "The hour is coming, and now is, when

the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear

shall live." "They that hear," that is, they who obey, believe, and

persevere to the end. Here no difference is made between the good

and the bad. For it is good for all men to hear His voice and live,

by passing to the life of godliness from the death of ungodliness.

Of this death the Apostle Paul says, "Therefore all are dead, and He

died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto

themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again."[696]

Thus all, without one exception, were dead in sins, whether original

or voluntary sins, sins of ignorance, or sins committed against

knowledge; and for all the dead there died the one only person who

lived, that is, who had no sin whatever, in order that they who

live by the remission of their sins should live, not to themselves,

but to Him who died for all, for our sins, and rose again for our

justification, that we, believing in Him who justifies the ungodly,

and being justified from ungodliness or quickened from death, may be

able to attain to the first resurrection which now is. For in this

first resurrection none have a part save those who shall be eternally

blessed; but in the second, of which He goes on to speak, all, as we

shall learn, have a part, both the blessed and the wretched. The one

is the resurrection of mercy, the other of judgment. And therefore it

is written in the psalm, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto

Thee, O Lord, will I sing."[697]

And of this judgment He went on to say, "And hath given Him authority

to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man." Here He

shows that He will come to judge in that flesh in which He had come

to be judged. For it is to show this He says, "because He is the

Son of man." And then follow the words for our purpose: "Marvel not

at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the

graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have

done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done

evil, unto the resurrection of judgment."[698] This judgment He uses

here in the same sense as a little before, when He says, "He that

heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting

life, and shall not come into _judgment_, but is passed from death

to life;" _i.e._, by having a part in the first resurrection, by

which a transition from death to life is made in this present time,

he shall not come into damnation, which He mentions by the name of

judgment, as also in the place where He says, "but they that have

done evil unto the resurrection of judgment," _i.e._ of damnation.

He, therefore, who would not be damned in the second resurrection,

let him rise in the first. For "the hour is coming, and now is, when

the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear

shall live," _i.e._ shall not come into damnation, which is called

the second death; into which death, after the second or bodily

resurrection, they shall be hurled who do not rise in the first or

spiritual resurrection. For "the hour is coming" (but here He does

not say, "and now is," because it shall come in the end of the world

in the last and greatest judgment of God) "when all that are in

the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth." He does not

say, as in the first resurrection, "And they that hear shall live."

For all shall not live, at least with such life as ought alone to

be called life because it alone is blessed. For some kind of life

they must have in order to hear, and come forth from the graves in

their rising bodies. And why all shall not live He teaches in the

words that follow: "They that have done good, to the resurrection of

life,"--these are they who shall live; "but they that have done evil,

to the resurrection of judgment,"--these are they who shall not live,

for they shall die in the second death. They have done evil because

their life has been evil; and their life has been evil because it has

not been renewed in the first or spiritual resurrection which now is,

or because they have not persevered to the end in their renewed life.

As, then, there are two regenerations, of which I have already made

mention,--the one according to faith, and which takes place in the

present life by means of baptism; the other according to the flesh,

and which shall be accomplished in its incorruption and immortality

by means of the great and final judgment,--so are there also two

resurrections,--the one the first and spiritual resurrection, which

has place in this life, and preserves us from coming into the second

death; the other the second, which does not occur now, but in the end

of the world, and which is of the body, not of the soul, and which by

the last judgment shall dismiss some into the second death, others

into that life which has no death.

7. _What is written in the Revelation of John regarding the two

resurrections, and the thousand years, and what may reasonably

be held on these points._

The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections in the

book which is called the Apocalypse, but in such a way that some

Christians do not understand the first of the two, and so construe

the passage into ridiculous fancies. For the Apostle John says in

the foresaid book, "And I saw an angel come down from heaven....

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on

such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of

God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."[699]

Those who, on the strength of this passage, have suspected that the

first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among other

things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a

fit thing that the saints should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest

during that period, a holy leisure after the labours of the six

thousand years since man was created, and was on account of his great

sin dismissed from the blessedness of paradise into the woes of this

mortal life, so that thus, as it is written, "One day is with the

Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,"[700]

there should follow on the completion of six thousand years, as of

six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the succeeding thousand

years; and that it is for this purpose the saints rise, viz. to

celebrate this Sabbath. And this opinion would not be objectionable,

if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that Sabbath

shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I

myself, too, once held this opinion.[701] But, as they assert that

those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure of immoderate

carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as

not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass

the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be believed

only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the

spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name

Millenarians.[702] It were a tedious process to refute these opinions

point by point: we prefer proceeding to show how that passage of

Scripture should be understood.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, "No man can enter into a strong

man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong

man,"[703]--meaning by the strong man the devil, because he had power

to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he

was to take, those who had been held by the devil in divers sins

and iniquities, but were to become believers in Himself. It was

then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the

Apocalypse "an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the

abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid hold," he says, "on the

dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and

bound him a thousand years,"--that is, bridled and restrained his

power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who

were to be freed. Now the thousand years may be understood in two

ways, so far as occurs to me: either because these things happen in

the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter part of

which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be

followed by a Sabbath which has no evening, the endless rest of the

saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of the whole, he

calls the last part of the millennium--the part, that is, which had

yet to expire before the end of the world--a thousand years; or he

used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of

this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fulness

of time. For a thousand is the cube of ten. For ten times ten makes

a hundred, that is, the square on a plane superficies. But to give

this superficies height, and make it a cube, the hundred is again

multiplied by ten, which gives a thousand. Besides, if a hundred is

sometimes used for totality, as when the Lord said by way of promise

to him that left all and followed Him, "He shall receive in this

world an hundredfold;"[704] of which the apostle gives, as it were,

an explanation when he says, "As having nothing, yet possessing all

things,"[705]--for even of old it had been said, The whole world is

the wealth of a believer,--with how much greater reason is a thousand

put for totality since it is the cube, while the other is only the

square? And for the same reason we cannot better interpret the words

of the psalm, "He hath been mindful of His covenant for ever, the

word which He commanded to a thousand generations,"[706] than by

understanding it to mean "to all generations."

"And he cast him into the abyss,"--_i.e._ cast the devil into the

abyss. By the _abyss_ is meant the countless multitude of the wicked

whose hearts are unfathomably deep in malignity against the Church of

God; not that the devil was not there before, but he is said to be

cast in thither, because, when prevented from harming believers, he

takes more complete possession of the ungodly. For that man is more

abundantly possessed by the devil who is not only alienated from God,

but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. "And shut him up,

and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more

till the thousand years should be fulfilled." "Shut him up,"--_i.e._

prohibited him from going out, from doing what was forbidden. And the

addition of "set a seal upon him" seems to me to mean that it was

designed to keep it a secret who belonged to the devil's party and

who did not. For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell

whether even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he who

seems to lie shall rise again. But by the chain and prisonhouse of

this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained from seducing

those nations which belong to Christ, but which he formerly seduced

or held in subjection. For before the foundation of the world God

chose to rescue these from the power of darkness, and to translate

them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle

says.[707] For what Christian is not aware that he seduces nations

even now, and draws them with himself to eternal punishment, but not

those predestined to eternal life? And let no one be dismayed by the

circumstance that the devil often seduces even those who have been

regenerated in Christ, and begun to walk in God's way. For "the Lord

knoweth them that are His,"[708] and of these the devil seduces none

to eternal damnation. For it is as God, from whom nothing is hid even

of things future, that the Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees a

man at the present time (if he can be said to see one whose heart he

does not see), but does not see even himself so far as to be able to

know what kind of person he is to be. The devil, then, is bound and

shut up in the abyss that he may not seduce the nations from which

the Church is gathered, and which he formerly seduced before the

Church existed. For it is not said "that he should not seduce any

man," but "that he should not seduce the nations"--meaning, no doubt,

those among which the Church exists--"till the thousand years should

be fulfilled,"--_i.e._ either what remains of the sixth day which

consists of a thousand years, or all the years which are to elapse

till the end of the world.

The words, "that he should not seduce the nations till the thousand

years should be fulfilled," are not to be understood as indicating

that afterwards he is to seduce only those nations from which

the predestined Church is composed, and from seducing whom he is

restrained by that chain and imprisonment; but they are used in

conformity with that usage frequently employed in Scripture and

exemplified in the psalm, "So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,

until He have mercy upon us,"[709]--not as if the eyes of His

servants would no longer wait upon the Lord their God when He had

mercy upon them. Or the order of the words is unquestionably this,

"And he shut him up and set a seal upon him, till the thousand

years should be fulfilled;" and the interposed clause, "that he

should seduce the nations no more," is not to be understood in the

connection in which it stands, but separately, and as if added

afterwards, so that the whole sentence might be read, "And He shut

him up and set a seal upon him till the thousand years should be

fulfilled, that he should seduce the nations no more,"--_i.e._ he is

shut up till the thousand years be fulfilled, on this account, that

he may no more deceive the nations.

8. _Of the binding and loosing of the devil._

"After that," says John, "he must be loosed a little season." If the

binding and shutting up of the devil means his being made unable to

seduce the Church, must his loosing be the recovery of this ability? By

no means. For the Church predestined and elected before the foundation

of the world, the Church of which it is said, "The Lord knoweth them

that are His," shall never be seduced by him. And yet there shall be

a Church in this world even when the devil shall be loosed, as there

has been since the beginning, and shall be always, the places of the

dying being filled by new believers. For a little after John says that

the devil, being loosed, shall draw the nations whom he has seduced in

the whole world to make war against the Church, and that the number of

these enemies shall be as the sand of the sea. "And they went up on

the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about,

and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven and

devoured them. And the devil who seduced them was cast into the lake

of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and

shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."[710] This relates

to the last judgment, but I have thought fit to mention it now, lest

any one might suppose that in that short time during which the devil

shall be loose there shall be no Church upon earth, whether because

the devil finds no Church, or destroys it by manifold persecutions.

The devil, then, is not bound during the whole time which this book

embraces,--that is, from the first coming of Christ to the end of the

world, when He shall come the second time,--not bound in this sense,

that during this interval, which goes by the name of a thousand years,

he shall not seduce the Church, for not even when loosed shall he

seduce it. For certainly if his being bound means that he is not able

or not permitted to seduce the Church, what can the loosing of him

mean but his being able or permitted to do so? But God forbid that

such should be the case! But the binding of the devil is his being

prevented from the exercise of his whole power to seduce men, either

by violently forcing or fraudulently deceiving them into taking part

with him. If he were during so long a period permitted to assail the

weakness of men, very many persons, such as God would not wish to

expose to such temptation, would have their faith overthrown, or would

be prevented from believing; and that this might not happen, he is

bound.

But when the short time comes he shall be loosed. For he shall rage

with the whole force of himself and his angels for three years and

six months; and those with whom he makes war shall have power to

withstand all his violence and stratagems. And if he were never

loosed, his malicious power would be less patent, and less proof

would be given of the stedfast fortitude of the holy city: it would,

in short, be less manifest what good use the Almighty makes of his

great evil. For the Almighty does not absolutely seclude the saints

from his temptation, but shelters only their inner man, where faith

resides, that by outward temptation they may grow in grace. And He

binds him that he may not, in the free and eager exercise of his

malice, hinder or destroy the faith of those countless weak persons,

already believing or yet to believe, from whom the Church must be

increased and completed; and he will in the end loose him, that the

city of God may see how mighty an adversary it has conquered, to

the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, Deliverer. And what are we

in comparison with those believers and saints who shall then exist,

seeing that they shall be tested by the loosing of an enemy with whom

we make war at the greatest peril even when he is bound? Although it

is also certain that even in this intervening period there have been

and are some soldiers of Christ so wise and strong, that if they were

to be alive in this mortal condition at the time of his loosing, they

would both most wisely guard against, and most patiently endure, all

his snares and assaults.

Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church began to be

more and more widely extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is

now and shall be bound till the end of the world, when he is to be

loosed. Because even now men are, and doubtless to the end of the

world shall be, converted to the faith from the unbelief in which he

held them. And this strong one is bound in each instance in which he

is spoiled of one of his goods; and the abyss in which he is shut up

is not at an end when those die who were alive when first he was shut

up in it, but these have been succeeded, and shall to the end of the

world be succeeded, by others born after them with a like hate of the

Christians, and in the depth of whose blind hearts he is continually

shut up as in an abyss. But it is a question whether, during these

three years and six months when he shall be loose, and raging with

all his force, any one who has not previously believed shall attach

himself to the faith. For how in that case would the words hold good,

"Who entereth into the house of a strong one to spoil his goods,

unless first he shall have bound the strong one?" Consequently this

verse seems to compel us to believe that during that time, short as

it is, no one will be added to the Christian community, but that the

devil will make war with those who have previously become Christians,

and that, though some of these may be conquered and desert to the

devil, these do not belong to the predestinated number of the sons

of God: For it is not without reason that John, the same apostle as

wrote this Apocalypse, says in his epistle regarding certain persons,

"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been

of us, they would no doubt have remained with us."[711] But what

shall become of the little ones? For it is beyond all belief that in

these days there shall not be found some Christian children born, but

not yet baptized, and that there shall not also be some born during

that very period; and if there be such, we cannot believe that their

parents shall not find some way of bringing them to the laver of

regeneration. But if this shall be the case, how shall these goods

be snatched from the devil when he is loose, since into his house no

man enters to spoil his goods unless he has first bound him? On the

contrary, we are rather to believe that in these days there shall be

no lack either of those who fall away from, or of those who attach

themselves to the Church; but there shall be such resoluteness, both

in parents to seek baptism for their little ones, and in those who

shall then first believe, that they shall conquer that strong one,

even though unbound,--that is, shall both vigilantly comprehend,

and patiently bear up against him, though employing such wiles and

putting forth such force as he never before used; and thus they

shall be snatched from him even though unbound. And yet the verse of

the Gospel will not be untrue, "Who entereth into the house of the

strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the

strong one?" For in accordance with this true saying that order is

observed--the strong one first bound, and then his goods spoiled; for

the Church is so increased by the weak and strong from all nations

far and near, that by its most robust faith in things divinely

predicted and accomplished, it shall be able to spoil the goods of

even the unbound devil. For as we must own that, "when iniquity

abounds, the love of many waxes cold,"[712] and that those who have

not been written in the book of life shall in large numbers yield

to the severe and unprecedented persecutions and stratagems of the

devil now loosed, so we cannot but think that not only those whom

that time shall find sound in the faith, but also some who till then

shall be without, shall become firm in the faith they have hitherto

rejected, and mighty to conquer the devil even though unbound, God's

grace aiding them to understand the Scriptures, in which, among other

things, there is foretold that very end which they themselves see to

be arriving. And if this shall be so, his binding is to be spoken of

as preceding, that there might follow a spoiling of him both bound

and loosed; for it is of this it is said, "Who shall enter into the

house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first

have bound the strong one?"

9. _What the reign of the saints with Christ for a thousand years

is, and how it differs from the eternal kingdom._

But while the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ during the

same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time

of His first coming.[713] For, leaving out of account that kingdom

concerning which He shall say in the end, "Come, ye blessed of my

Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you,"[714] the

Church could not now be called His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven

unless His saints were even now reigning with Him, though in another

and far different way; for to His saints He says, "Lo, I am with you

always, even to the end of the world."[715] Certainly it is in this

present time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, and

of whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his treasure things

new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall gather out the

tares which He suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He

explains in the words, "The harvest is the end of the world; and the

reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered together

and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son

of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom

all offences."[716] Can He mean out of that kingdom in which are no

offences? Then it must be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that

they are gathered. So He says, "He that breaketh one of the least of

these commandments, and teacheth men so, shall be called least in

the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth and teacheth thus shall be

called great in the kingdom of heaven."[717] He speaks of both as

being in the kingdom of heaven, both the man who does not perform the

commandments which He teaches,--for "to break" means not to keep, not

to perform,--and the man who does and teaches as He did; but the one

He calls least, the other great. And He immediately adds, "For I say

unto you, that except your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and

Pharisees,"--that is, the righteousness of those who break what they

teach; for of the scribes and Pharisees He elsewhere says, "For they

say and do not;"[718]--unless, therefore, your righteousness exceed

theirs, that is, so that you do not break but rather do what you teach,

"ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."[719] We must understand in

one sense the kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who

breaks what he teaches and he who does it, the one being least, the

other great, and in another sense the kingdom of heaven into which only

he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently, where both

classes exist, it is the Church as it now is, but where only the one

shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to be when no wicked

person shall be in her. Therefore the Church even now is the kingdom

of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints

reign with Him, though otherwise than as they shall reign hereafter;

and yet, though the tares grow in the Church along with the wheat, they

do not reign with Him. For they reign with Him who do what the apostle

says, "If ye be risen with Christ, mind the things which are above,

where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Seek those things which

are above, not the things which are on the earth."[720] Of such persons

he also says that their conversation is in heaven.[721] In fine, they

reign with Him who are so in His kingdom that they themselves are His

kingdom. But in what sense are those the kingdom of Christ who, to say

no more, though they are in it until all offences are gathered out of

it at the end of the world, yet seek their own things in it, and not

the things that are Christ's?[722]

It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with the

enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring lusts,

or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that

most peaceful kingdom in which we shall reign without an enemy,

and it is of this first resurrection in the present life, that the

Apocalypse speaks in the words just quoted. For, after saying that

the devil is bound a thousand years and is afterwards loosed for a

short season, it goes on to give a sketch of what the Church does

or of what is done in the Church in those days, in the words, "And

I saw seats and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given."

It is not to be supposed that this refers to the last judgment, but

to the seats of the rulers and to the rulers themselves by whom the

Church is now governed. And no better interpretation of judgment

being given can be produced than that which we have in the words,

"What ye bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what ye loose

on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[723] Whence the apostle says,

"What have I to do with judging them that are without? do not ye

judge them that are within?"[724] "And the souls," says John, "of

those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of

God,"--understanding what he afterwards says, "reigned with Christ

a thousand years,"[725]--that is, the souls of the martyrs not yet

restored to their bodies. For the souls of the pious dead are not

separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ;

otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar

of God in the partaking of the body of Christ, nor would it do any

good in danger to run to His baptism, that we might not pass from

this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad

conscience any one may be severed from His body. For why are these

things practised, if not because the faithful, even though dead, are

His members? Therefore, while these thousand years run on, their

souls reign with Him, though not as yet in conjunction with their

bodies. And therefore in another part of this same book we read,

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: and now,

saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their

works do follow them."[726] The Church, then, begins its reign with

Christ now in the living and in the dead. For, as the apostle says,

"Christ died that He might be Lord both of the living and of the

dead."[727] But he mentioned the souls of the martyrs only, because

they who have contended even to death for the truth, themselves

principally reign after death; but, taking the part for the whole, we

understand the words of all others who belong to the Church, which is

the kingdom of Christ.

As to the words following, "And if any have not worshipped the beast

nor his image, nor have received his inscription on their forehead,

or on their hand," we must take them of both the living and the

dead. And what this beast is, though it requires a more careful

investigation, yet it is not inconsistent with the true faith to

understand it of the ungodly city itself, and the community of

unbelievers set in opposition to the faithful people and the city

of God. "His image" seems to me to mean his simulation, to wit, in

those men who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For they

pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians, not

from a true likeness, but from a deceitful image. For to this beast

belong not only the avowed enemies of the name of Christ and His most

glorious city, but also the tares which are to be gathered out of

His kingdom, the Church, in the end of the world. And who are they

who do not worship the beast and his image, if not those who do what

the apostle says, "Be not yoked with unbelievers?"[728] For such do

not worship, _i.e._ do not consent, are not subjected; neither do

they receive the inscription, the brand of crime, on their forehead

by their profession, on their hand by their practice. They, then,

who are free from these pollutions, whether they still live in this

mortal flesh, or are dead, reign with Christ even now, through this

whole interval which is indicated by the thousand years, in a fashion

suited to this time.