shall rise, and that the bodies of the damned shall be tormented
in everlasting fire,--God, who made the world full of countless
miracles in sky, earth, air, and waters, while itself is a miracle
unquestionably greater and more admirable than all the marvels it is
filled with? But those with whom or against whom we are arguing,
who believe both that there is a God who made the world, and that
there are gods created by Him who administer the world's laws as
His vicegerents,--our adversaries, I say, who, so far from denying
emphatically, assert that there are powers in the world which effect
marvellous results (whether of their own accord, or because they
are invoked by some rite or prayer, or in some magical way), when
we lay before them the wonderful properties of other things which
are neither rational animals nor rational spirits, but such material
objects as those we have just cited, are in the habit of replying,
This is their natural property, their nature; these are the powers
naturally belonging to them. Thus the whole reason why Agrigentine
salt dissolves in fire and crackles in water is that this is its
nature. Yet this seems rather contrary to nature, which has given
not to fire but to water the power of melting salt, and the power
of scorching it not to water but to fire. But this, they say, is
the natural property of _this_ salt, to show effects contrary to
these. The same reason, therefore, is assigned to account for that
Garamantian fountain, of which one and the same runlet is chill by
day and boiling by night, so that in either extreme it cannot be
touched. So also of that other fountain which, though it is cold
to the touch, and though it, like other fountains, extinguishes a
lighted torch, yet, unlike other fountains, and in a surprising
manner, kindles an extinguished torch. So of the asbestos stone,
which, though it has no heat of its own, yet when kindled by fire
applied to it, cannot be extinguished. And so of the rest, which
I am weary of reciting, and in which, though there seems to be an
extraordinary property contrary to nature, yet no other reason is
given for them than this, that this is their nature,--a brief reason
truly, and, I own, a satisfactory reply. But since God is the author
of all natures, how is it that our adversaries, when they refuse to
believe what we affirm, on the ground that it is impossible, are
unwilling to accept from us a better explanation than their own,
viz. that this is the will of Almighty God,--for certainly He is
called Almighty only because He is mighty to do all He will,--He who
was able to create so many marvels, not only unknown, but very well
ascertained, as I have been showing, and which, were they not under
our own observation, or reported by recent and credible witnesses,
would certainly be pronounced impossible? For as for those marvels
which have no other testimony than the writers in whose books we
read them, and who wrote without being divinely instructed, and are
therefore liable to human error, we cannot justly blame any one who
declines to believe them.
For my own part, I do not wish all the marvels I have cited to be
rashly accepted, for I do not myself believe them implicitly, save
those which have either come under my own observation, or which
any one can readily verify,--such as the lime which is heated by
water and cooled by oil; the magnet which by its mysterious and
insensible suction attracts the iron, but has no effect on a straw;
the peacock's flesh which triumphs over the corruption from which
not the flesh of Plato is exempt; the chaff so chilling that it
prevents snow from melting, so heating that it forces apples to
ripen; the glowing fire, which, in accordance with its glowing
appearance, whitens the stones it bakes, while, contrary to its
glowing appearance, it begrimes most things it burns (just as dirty
stains are made by oil, however pure it be, and as the lines drawn
by white silver are black); the charcoal, too, which by the action
of fire is so completely changed from its original, that a finely
marked piece of wood becomes hideous, the tough becomes brittle, the
decaying incorruptible. Some of these things I know in common with
many other persons, some of them in common with all men; and there
are many others which I have not room to insert in this book. But of
those which I have cited, though I have not myself seen, but only
read about them, I have been unable to find trustworthy witnesses
from whom I could ascertain whether they are facts, except in the
case of that fountain in which burning torches are extinguished and
extinguished torches lit, and of the apples of Sodom, which are
ripe to appearance, but are filled with dust. And indeed I have not
met with any who said they had seen that fountain in Epirus, but
with some who knew there was a similar fountain in Gaul not far
from Grenoble. The fruit of the trees of Sodom, however, is not
only spoken of in books worthy of credit, but so many persons say
that they have seen it that I cannot doubt the fact. But the rest
of the prodigies I receive without definitely affirming or denying
them; and I have cited them because I read them in the authors of
our adversaries, and that I might prove how many things many among
themselves believe, because they are written in the works of their
own literary men, though no rational explanation of them is given,
and yet they scorn to believe us when we assert that Almighty God
will do what is beyond their experience and observation; and this
they do even though we assign a reason for His work. For what better
and stronger reason for such things can be given than to say that the
Almighty is able to bring them to pass, and will bring them to pass,
having predicted them in those books in which many other marvels
which have already come to pass were predicted? Those things which
are regarded as impossible will be accomplished according to the
word, and by the power of that God who predicted and effected that
the incredulous nations should believe incredible wonders.
8. _That it is not contrary to nature that, in an object whose
nature is known, there should be discovered an alteration of
the properties which have been known as its natural properties._
But if they reply that their reason for not believing us when we say
that human bodies will always burn and yet never die, is that the
nature of human bodies is known to be quite otherwise constituted; if
they say that for this miracle we cannot give the reason which was
valid in the case of those natural miracles, viz. that this is the
natural property, the nature of the thing,--for we know that this
is not the nature of human flesh,--we find our answer in the sacred
writings, that even this human flesh was constituted in one fashion
before there was sin,--was constituted, in fact, so that it could not
die,--and in another fashion after sin, being made such as we see it in
this miserable state of mortality, unable to retain enduring life. And
so in the resurrection of the dead shall it be constituted differently
from its present well-known condition. But as they do not believe these
writings of ours, in which we read what nature man had in paradise, and
how remote he was from the necessity of death,--and indeed, if they did
believe them, we should of course have little trouble in debating with
them the future punishment of the damned,--we must produce from the
writings of their own most learned authorities some instances to show
that it is possible for a thing to become different from what it was
formerly known characteristically to be.
From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled, _Of the Race Of the Roman
People_, I cite word for word the following instance: "There
occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that,
in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the
lovely Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that
it changed its colour, size, form, course, which never happened
before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous
mathematicians, said that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges."
So great an author as Varro would certainly not have called this a
portent had it not seemed to be contrary to nature. For we say that
all portents are contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is
that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the
will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created
thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but
contrary to what we know as nature. But who can number the multitude
of portents recorded in profane histories? Let us then at present fix
our attention on this one only which concerns the matter in hand.
What is there so arranged by the Author of the nature of heaven and
earth as the exactly ordered course of the stars? What is there
established by laws so sure and inflexible? And yet, when it pleased
Him who with sovereignty and supreme power regulates all He has
created, a star conspicuous among the rest by its size and splendour
changed its colour, size, form, and, most wonderful of all, the order
and law of its course! Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons
of the astronomers, if there were any then, by which they tabulate,
as by unerring computation, the past and future movements of the
stars, so as to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to
the morning star (Venus) never happened before nor since. But we read
in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy
man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God until victory
should finish the battle he had begun; and that it even went back,
that the promise of fifteen years added to the life of king Hezekiah
might be sealed by this additional prodigy. But these miracles, which
were vouchsafed to the merits of holy men, even when our adversaries
believe them, they attribute to magical arts; so Virgil, in the lines
I quoted above, ascribes to magic the power to
"Turn rivers backward to their source,
And make the stars forget their course."
For in our sacred books we read that this also happened, that a river
"turned backward," was stayed above while the lower part flowed
on, when the people passed over under the above-mentioned leader,
Joshua the son of Nun; and also when Elias the prophet crossed; and
afterwards, when his disciple Elisha passed through it: and we have
just mentioned how, in the case of king Hezekiah, the greatest of the
"stars forgot its course." But what happened to Venus, according to
Varro, was not said by him to have happened in answer to any man's
prayer.
Let not the sceptics then benight themselves in this knowledge of
the nature of things, as if divine power cannot bring to pass in an
object anything else than what their own experience has shown them
to be in its nature. Even the very things which are most commonly
known as natural would not be less wonderful nor less effectual to
excite surprise in all who beheld them, if men were not accustomed to
admire nothing but what is rare. For who that thoughtfully observes
the countless multitude of men, and their similarity of nature, can
fail to remark with surprise and admiration the individuality of each
man's appearance, suggesting to us, as it does, that unless men were
like one another, they would not be distinguished from the rest of the
animals; while unless, on the other hand, they were unlike, they could
not be distinguished from one another, so that those whom we declare
to be like, we also find to be unlike? And the unlikeness is the more
wonderful consideration of the two; for a common nature seems rather
to require similarity. And yet, because the very rarity of things is
that which makes them wonderful, we are filled with much greater wonder
when we are introduced to two men so like, that we either always or
frequently mistake in endeavouring to distinguish between them.
But possibly, though Varro is a heathen historian, and a very learned
one, they may disbelieve that what I have cited from him truly
occurred; or they may say the example is invalid, because the star
did not for any length of time continue to follow its new course, but
returned to its ordinary orbit. There is, then, another phenomenon at
present open to their observation, and which, in my opinion, ought
to be sufficient to convince them that, though they have observed
and ascertained some natural law, they ought not on that account to
prescribe to God, as if He could not change and turn it into something
very different from what they have observed. The land of Sodom was not
always as it now is; but once it had the appearance of other lands, and
enjoyed equal if not richer fertility; for, in the divine narrative, it
was compared to the paradise of God. But after it was touched [by fire]
from heaven, as even pagan history testifies, and as is now witnessed
by those who visit the spot, it became unnaturally and horribly
sooty in appearance; and its apples, under a deceitful appearance
of ripeness, contain ashes within. Here is a thing which was of one
kind, and is of another. You see how its nature was converted by the
wonderful transmutation wrought by the Creator of all natures into so
very disgusting a diversity,--an alteration which after so long a time
took place, and after so long a time still continues.
As therefore it was not impossible to God to create such natures as
He pleased, so it is not impossible to Him to change these natures
of His own creation into whatever He pleases, and thus spread abroad
a multitude of those marvels which are called monsters, portents,
prodigies, phenomena,[862] and which if I were minded to cite and
record, what end would there be to this work? They say that they are
called "monsters," because they _demonstrate_ or signify something;
"portents," because they _portend_ something; and so forth.[863]
But let their diviners see how they are either deceived, or even
when they do predict true things, it is because they are inspired by
spirits, who are intent upon entangling the minds of men (worthy,
indeed, of such a fate) in the meshes of a hurtful curiosity, or how
they light now and then upon some truth, because they make so many
predictions. Yet, for our part, these things which happen contrary
to nature, and are said to be contrary to nature (as the apostle,
speaking after the manner of men, says, that to graff the wild olive
into the good olive, and to partake of its fatness, is contrary to
nature), and are called monsters, phenomena, portents, prodigies,
ought to demonstrate, portend, predict that God will bring to pass
what He has foretold regarding the bodies of men, no difficulty
preventing Him, no law of nature prescribing to Him His limit. How He
has foretold what He is to do, I think I have sufficiently shown in
the preceding book, culling from the sacred Scriptures, both of the
New and Old Testaments, not, indeed, all the passages that relate to
this, but as many as I judged to suffice for this work.
9. _Of hell, and the nature of eternal punishments._
So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting
punishment of the damned shall come to pass--shall without fail
come to pass,--"their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire
be quenched."[864] In order to impress this upon us most forcibly,
the Lord Jesus Himself, when ordering us to cut off our members,
meaning thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most useful
members of his body, says, "It is better for thee to enter into life
maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that
never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and their fire
is not quenched." Similarly of the foot: "It is better for thee to
enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into
the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched." So, too, of the eye: "It is better
for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having
two eyes to be cast into hell fire; where their worm dieth not, and
the fire is not quenched."[865] He did not shrink from using the
same words three times over in one passage. And who is not terrified
by this repetition, and by the threat of that punishment uttered so
vehemently by the lips of the Lord Himself?
Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit,
and not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from
the kingdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of
a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that
fire is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning
torment, as when the apostle exclaims, "Who is offended, and I burn
not?"[866] The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood.
For it is written, they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and
the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man."[867]
But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both
body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned
with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm
of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,--for it is absurd
to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future
punishment,--yet, for my own part, I find it easier to understand
both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does;
and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain
of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily
understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured
with a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures,
"The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms."[868]
It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the ungodly."
Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because
both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or
if the object of the writer in saying, "The vengeance of the flesh,"
was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live
after the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle
intimated when he said, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die"[869]), let each one make his own choice, either assigning the
fire to the body and the worm to the soul,--the one figuratively,
the other really,--or assigning both really to the body. For I have
already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in
burning without being consumed, in pain without dying, by a miracle
of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this
is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that
is wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought
all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have
mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has
enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of
all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that
the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things
are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul.
But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the
facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge as
shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of
these punishments, but as shall, by its own fulness and perfection,
suffice to instruct them in this matter. For "now we know in part,
until that which is perfect is come;"[870] only, this we believe
about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly
be pained by the fire.
10. _Whether the fire of hell, if it be material fire, can burn the
wicked spirits, that is to say, devils, who are immaterial._
Here arises the question: If the fire is not to be immaterial,
analogous to the pain of the soul, but material, burning by contact,
so that bodies may be tormented in it, how can evil spirits be
punished in it? For it is undoubtedly the same fire which is to serve
for the punishment of men and of devils, according to the words of
Christ: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels;"[871] unless, perhaps, as learned men
have thought, the devils have a kind of body made of that dense and
humid air which we feel strikes us when the wind is blowing. And
if this kind of substance could not be affected by fire, it could
not burn when heated in the baths. For in order to burn, it is
first burned, and affects other things as itself is affected. But
if any one maintains that the devils have no bodies, this is not
a matter either to be laboriously investigated, or to be debated
with keenness. For why may we not assert that even immaterial
spirits may, in some extraordinary way, yet really be pained by the
punishment of material fire, if the spirits of men, which also are
certainly immaterial, are both now contained in material members
of the body, and in the world to come shall be indissolubly united
to their own bodies? Therefore, though the devils have no bodies,
yet their spirits, that is, the devils themselves, shall be brought
into thorough contact with the material fires, to be tormented by
them; not that the fires themselves with which they are brought into
contact shall be animated by their connection with these spirits,
and become animals composed of body and spirit, but, as I said, this
junction will be effected in a wonderful and ineffable way, so that
they shall receive pain from the fires, but give no life to them.
And, in truth, this other mode of union, by which bodies and spirits
are bound together and become animals, is thoroughly marvellous, and
beyond the comprehension of man, though this it is which is man.
I would indeed say that these spirits will burn without any body of
their own, as that rich man was burning in hell when he exclaimed, "I
am tormented in this flame,"[872] were I not aware that it is aptly
said in reply, that that flame was of the same nature as the eyes he
raised and fixed on Lazarus, as the tongue on which he entreated that
a little cooling water might be dropped, or as the finger of Lazarus,
with which he asked that this might be done,--all of which took place
where souls exist without bodies. Thus, therefore, both that flame in
which he burned and that drop he begged were immaterial, and resembled
the visions of sleepers or persons in an ecstasy, to whom immaterial
objects appear in a bodily form. For the man himself who is in such a
state, though it be in spirit only, not in body, yet sees himself so
like to his own body that he cannot discern any difference whatever.
But that hell, which also is called a lake of fire and brimstone,[873]
will be material fire, and will torment the bodies of the damned,
whether men or devils,--the solid bodies of the one, aerial bodies of
the others; or if only men have bodies as well as souls, yet the evil
spirits, though without bodies, shall be so connected with the bodily
fires as to receive pain without imparting life. One fire certainly
shall be the lot of both, for thus the truth has declared.
11. _Whether it is just that the punishments of sins last longer
than the sins themselves lasted._
Some, however, of those against whom we are defending the city of
God, think it unjust that any man be doomed to an eternal punishment
for sins which, no matter how great they were, were perpetrated in
a brief space of time; as if any law ever regulated the duration
of the punishment by the duration of the offence punished! Cicero
tells us that the laws recognise eight kinds of penalty,--damages,
imprisonment, scourging, reparation,[874] disgrace, exile, death,
slavery. Is there any one of these which may be compressed into a
brevity proportioned to the rapid commission of the offence, so
that no longer time may be spent in its punishment than in its
perpetration, unless, perhaps, reparation? For this requires that
the offender suffer what he did, as that clause of the law says,
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth."[875] For certainly it is possible
for an offender to lose his eye by the severity of legal retaliation
in as brief a time as he deprived another of his eye by the cruelty
of his own lawlessness. But if scourging be a reasonable penalty for
kissing another man's wife, is not the fault of an instant visited
with long hours of atonement, and the momentary delight punished with
lasting pain? What shall we say of imprisonment? Must the criminal
be confined only for so long a time as he spent on the offence for
which he is committed? or is not a penalty of many years' confinement
imposed on the slave who has provoked his master with a word, or has
struck him a blow that is quickly over? And as to damages, disgrace,
exile, slavery, which are commonly inflicted so as to admit of no
relaxation or pardon, do not these resemble eternal punishments in so
far as this short life allows a resemblance? For they are not eternal
only because the life in which they are endured is not eternal;
and yet the crimes which are punished with these most protracted
sufferings are perpetrated in a very brief space of time. Nor is
there any one who would suppose that the pains of punishment should
occupy as short a time as the offence; or that murder, adultery,
sacrilege, or any other crime, should be measured, not by the
enormity of the injury or wickedness, but by the length of time spent
in its perpetration. Then as to the award of death for any great
crime, do the laws reckon the punishment to consist in the brief
moment in which death is inflicted, or in this, that the offender is
eternally banished from the society of the living? And just as the
punishment of the first death cuts men off from this present mortal
city, so does the punishment of the second death cut men off from
that future immortal city. For as the laws of this present city do
not provide for the executed criminal's return to it, so neither
is he who is condemned to the second death recalled again to life
everlasting. But if temporal sin is visited with eternal punishment,
how, then, they say, is that true which your Christ says, "With
the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you
again?"[876] and they do not observe that "the same measure" refers,
not to an equal space of time, but to the retribution of evil, or, in
other words, to the law by which he who has done evil suffers evil.
Besides, these words could be appropriately understood as referring
to the matter of which our Lord was speaking when He used them, viz.
judgments and condemnation. Thus, if he who unjustly judges and
condemns is himself justly judged and condemned, he receives "with
the same measure" though not the same thing as he gave. For judgment
he gave, and judgment he receives, though the judgment he gave was
unjust, the judgment he receives just.
12. _Of the greatness of the first transgression, on account of
which eternal punishment is due to all who are not within the
pale of the Saviour's grace._
But eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human perceptions,
because in the weakness of our mortal condition there is wanting
that highest and purest wisdom by which it can be perceived how
great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. The
more enjoyment man found in God, the greater was his wickedness
in abandoning Him; and he who destroyed in himself a good which
might have been eternal, became worthy of eternal evil. Hence the
whole mass of the human race is condemned; for he who at first gave
entrance to sin has been punished with all his posterity who were in
him as in a root, so that no one is exempt from this just and due
punishment, unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the
human race is so apportioned that in some is displayed the efficacy
of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution. For
both could not be displayed in all; for if all had remained[877]
under the punishment of just condemnation, there would have been
seen in no one the mercy of redeeming grace. And, on the other hand,
if all had been transferred from darkness to light, the severity of
retribution would have been manifested in none. But many more are
left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it
may thus be shown what was due to all. And had it been inflicted on
all, no one could justly have found fault with the justice of Him who
taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from that
just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the
gratuitous bounty of Him who delivers.
13. _Against the opinion of those who think that the punishments
of the wicked after death are purgatorial._
The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are
unpunished, suppose that all punishment is administered for remedial
purposes,[878] be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this life
or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished,
may yet not amend. Hence that passage of Virgil, where, when he had
said of our earthly bodies and mortal members, that our souls derive--
"Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears;
Immured in dungeon-seeming night,
They look abroad, yet see no light,"
goes on to say:
"Nay, when at last the life has fled,
And left the body cold and dead,
E'en then there passes not away
The painful heritage of clay;
Full many a long-contracted stain
Perforce must linger deep in grain.
So penal sufferings they endure
For ancient crime, to make them pure;
Some hang aloft in open view,
For winds to pierce them through and through,
While others purge their guilt deep-dyed
In burning fire or whelming tide."[879]
They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death
to be purgatorial; and as the elements of air, fire, and water are
superior to earth, one or other of these may be the instrument of
expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of
earth. So Virgil hints at the air in the words, "Some hang aloft for
winds to pierce;" at the water in "whelming tide;" and at fire in the
expression "in burning fire." For our part, we recognise that even in
this life some punishments are purgatorial,--not, indeed, to those
whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them, but
to those who are constrained by them to amend their life. All other
punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on
every one by divine providence, are sent either on account of past
sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and
reveal a man's graces. They may be inflicted by the instrumentality
of bad men and angels as well as of the good. For even if any one
suffers some hurt through another's wickedness or mistake, the man
indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God,
who by His just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins
not. But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life
only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all
of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who
suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to
those everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment; for to
some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is
remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal
punishment of the world to come.
14. _Of the temporary punishments of this life to which the
human condition is subject._
Quite exceptional are those who are not punished in this life, but
only afterwards. Yet that there have been some who have reached the
decrepitude of age without experiencing even the slightest sickness,
and who have had uninterrupted enjoyment of life, I know both from
report and from my own observation. However, the very life we mortals
lead is itself all punishment, for it is all temptation, as the
Scriptures declare, where it is written, "Is not the life of man
upon earth a temptation?"[880] For ignorance is itself no slight
punishment, or want of culture, which it is with justice thought so
necessary to escape, that boys are compelled, under pain of severe
punishment, to learn trades or letters; and the learning to which
they are driven by punishment is itself so much of a punishment
to them, that they sometimes prefer the pain that drives them to
the pain to which they are driven by it. And who would not shrink
from the alternative, and elect to die, if it were proposed to
him either to suffer death or to be again an infant? Our infancy,
indeed, introducing us to this life not with laughter but with tears,
seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to encounter.[881]
Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born, and that
unnatural omen portended no good to him. For he is said to have been
the inventor of magical arts, though indeed they were unable to
secure to him even the poor felicity of this present life against
the assaults of his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he
was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians. In short, the words
of Scripture, "An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the
day that they go out of their mother's womb till the day that they
return to the mother of all things,"[882]--these words so infallibly
find fulfilment, that even the little ones, who by the laver of
regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which
alone they were held, yet suffer many ills, and in some instances
are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for
a moment suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future
happiness, even though it has so increased as to sever soul from
body, and to terminate their life in that early age.
15. _That everything which the grace of God does in the way of
rescuing us from the inveterate evils in which we are sunk,
pertains to the future world, in which all things are made new._
Nevertheless, in the "heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam,
from the day that they go out of their mother's womb to the day that
they return to the mother of all things," there is found an admirable
though painful monitor teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing
us that this life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous
wickedness which was perpetrated in Paradise, and that all to which
the New Testament invites belongs to that future inheritance which
awaits us in the world to come, and is offered for our acceptance, as
the earnest that we may, in its own due time, obtain that of which it
is the pledge. Now, therefore, let us walk in hope, and let us by the
spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, and so make progress from day
to day. For "the Lord knoweth them that are His;"[883] and "as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God,"[884] but by
grace, not by nature. For there is but one Son of God by nature, who
in His compassion became Son of man for our sakes, that we, by nature
sons of men, might by grace become through Him sons of God. For He,
abiding unchangeable, took upon Him our nature, that thereby He might
take us to Himself; and, holding fast His own divinity, He became
partaker of our infirmity, that we, being changed into some better
thing, might, by participating in His righteousness and immortality,
lose our own properties of sin and mortality, and preserve whatever
good quality He had implanted in our nature, perfected now by sharing
in the goodness of His nature. For as by the sin of one man we have
fallen into a misery so deplorable, so by the righteousness of one
Man, who also is God, shall we come to a blessedness inconceivably
exalted. Nor ought any one to trust that he has passed from the one
man to the other until he shall have reached that place where there
is no temptation, and have entered into the peace which he seeks
in the many and various conflicts of this war, in which "the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh."[885]
Now, such a war as this would have had no existence, if human
nature had, in the exercise of free will, continued stedfast in the
uprightness in which it was created. But now in its misery it makes
war upon itself, because in its blessedness it would not continue
at peace with God; and this, though it be a miserable calamity, is
better than the earlier stages of this life, which do not recognise
that a war is to be maintained. For better is it to contend with
vices than without conflict to be subdued by them. Better, I say, is
war with the hope of peace everlasting than captivity without any
thought of deliverance. We long, indeed, for the cessation of this
war, and, kindled by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance
on that well-ordered peace in which whatever is inferior is for ever
subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God forbid) there
had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should still have
preferred to endure the hardness of this conflict, rather than, by
our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to the dominion of vice.
16. _The laws of grace, which extend to all the epochs of the life
of the regenerate._
But such is God's mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has
prepared for glory, that even the first age of man, that is, infancy,
which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and the second
age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet understanding
enough to undertake this warfare, and therefore yields to almost
every vicious pleasure (because though this age has the power of
speech,[886] and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind
is still too weak to comprehend the commandment), yet if either of
these ages has received the sacraments of the Mediator, then, although
the present life be immediately brought to an end, the child, having
been translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ,
shall not only be saved from eternal punishments, but shall not even
suffer purgatorial torments after death. For spiritual regeneration of
itself suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death
from the connection with death which carnal generation forms.[887] But
when we reach that age which can now comprehend the commandment, and
submit to the dominion of law, we must declare war upon vices, and
wage this war keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices
have not gathered strength, by habitual victory they are more easily
overcome and subdued; but if they have been used to conquer and rule,
it is only with difficulty and labour they are mastered. And indeed
this victory cannot be sincerely and truly gained but by delighting
in true righteousness, and it is faith in Christ that gives this. For
if the law be present with its command, and the Spirit be absent with
His help, the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase
the desire to sin, and adds the guilt of transgression. Sometimes,
indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are
reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency
are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be
considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which
God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of
our mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity. But few
indeed are they who are so happy as to have passed their youth without
committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute or violent conduct,
or by following some godless and unlawful opinions, but have subdued by
their greatness of soul everything in them which could make them the
slaves of carnal pleasures. The greater number having first become
transgressors of the law that they have received, and having allowed
vice to have the ascendency in them, then flee to grace for help, and
so, by a penitence more bitter, and a struggle more violent than it
would otherwise have been, they subdue the soul to God, and thus give
it its lawful authority over the flesh, and become victors. Whoever,
therefore, desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be
baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass
from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any
purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment. We
must not, however, deny that even the eternal fire will be proportioned
to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to
others less painful, whether this result be accomplished by a variation
in the temperature of the fire itself, graduated according to every
one's merit, or whether it be that the heat remains the same, but that
all do not feel it with equal intensity of torment.
17. _Of those who fancy that no men shall be punished eternally._
I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those
tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all
of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the
punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they
shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter
according to the amount of each man's sin. In respect of this matter,
Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil
himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged
pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their
torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not
without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for
his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and
the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed
periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being
merciful, by allotting to the saints real miseries for the expiation
of their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no true and
secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness. Very
different, however, is the error we speak of, which is dictated by
the tenderness of these Christians who suppose that the sufferings of
those who are condemned in the judgment will be temporary, while the
blessedness of all who are sooner or later set free will be eternal.
Which opinion, if it is good and true because it is merciful, will be
so much the better and truer in proportion as it becomes more merciful.
Let, then, this fountain of mercy be extended, and flow forth even to
the lost angels, and let them also be set free, at least after as many
and long ages as seem fit! Why does this stream of mercy flow to all
the human race, and dry up as soon as it reaches the angelic? And yet
they dare not extend their pity further, and propose the deliverance
of the devil himself. Or if any one is bold enough to do so, he does
indeed put to shame their charity, but is himself convicted of error
that is more unsightly, and a wresting of God's truth that is more
perverse, in proportion as his clemency of sentiment seems to be
greater.[888]
18. _Of those who fancy that, on account of the saints' intercession,
no man shall be damned in the last judgment._
There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted
in conversation, who, though they seem to reverence the holy
Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly, in
their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion towards
men. For they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the divine word
that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment, but they
assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say
they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers
and intercessions of His saints. For if the saints used to pray for
them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how much more will
they do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For
we cannot, they say, believe that the saints shall lose their bowels
of compassion when they have attained the most perfect and complete
holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their
enemies, should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold from
interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen to so
many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their
prayers of all hindrance to His answering them? And the passage of the
psalm which is cited by those who admit that wicked men and infidels
shall be punished for a long time, though in the end delivered from
all sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking of
as making much more for them. The verse runs: "Shall God forget to
be gracious? Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies?"[889] His
anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of everlasting
happiness to endless punishment. But if He suffer them to be punished
for a long time, or even at all, must He not shut up His tender
mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he does not
say, Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies for a long period?
but he implies that He will not shut them up at all.
And they deny that thus God's threat of judgment is proved to be
false even though He condemn no man, any more than we can say that
His threat to overthrow Nineveh was false, though the destruction
which was absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did
not say, "Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and
amend their ways," but without any such condition He foretold that
the city should be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain,
was true because God predicted the punishment which they deserved,
although He was not to inflict it. For though He spared them on
their repentance, yet He was certainly aware that they would repent,
and, notwithstanding, absolutely and definitely predicted that the
city should be overthrown. This was true, they say, in the truth
of severity, because they were worthy of it; but in respect of the
compassion which checked His anger, so that He spared the suppliants
from the punishment with which He had threatened the rebellious, it
was not true. If, then, He spared those whom His own holy prophet
was provoked at His sparing, how much more shall He spare those
more wretched suppliants for whom all His saints shall intercede?
And they suppose that this conjecture of theirs is not hinted at
in Scripture, for the sake of stimulating many to reformation of
life through fear of very protracted or eternal sufferings, and of
stimulating others to pray for those who have not reformed. However,
they think that the divine oracles are not altogether silent on this
point; for they ask to what purpose is it said, "How great is Thy
goodness which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee,"[890] if it
be not to teach us that the great and hidden sweetness of God's mercy
is concealed in order that men may fear? To the same purpose they
think the apostle said, "For God hath concluded all men in unbelief,
that He may have mercy upon all,"[891] signifying that no one should
be condemned by God. And yet they who hold this opinion do not extend
it to the acquittal or liberation of the devil and his angels. Their
human tenderness is moved only towards men, and they plead chiefly
their own cause, holding out false hopes of impunity to their own
depraved lives by means of this quasi compassion of God to the whole
race. Consequently they who promise this impunity even to the prince
of the devils and his satellites make a still fuller exhibition of
the mercy of God.
19. _Of those who promise impunity from all sins even to heretics,
through virtue of their participation of the body of Christ._
So, too, there are others who promise this deliverance from eternal
punishment, not, indeed, to all men, but only to those who have been
washed in Christian baptism, and who become partakers of the body of
Christ, no matter how they have lived, or what heresy or impiety they
have fallen into. They ground this opinion on the saying of Jesus,
"This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that if any man eat
thereof, he shall not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever."[892]
Therefore, say they, it follows that these persons must be delivered
from death eternal, and at one time or other be introduced to
everlasting life.
20. _Of those who promise this indulgence not to all, but only to
those who have been baptized as catholics, though afterwards
they have broken out into many crimes and heresies._
There are others still who make this promise not even to all who
have received the sacraments of the baptism of Christ and of His
body, but only to the catholics, however badly they have lived. For
these have eaten the body of Christ, not only sacramentally but
really, being incorporated in His body, as the apostle says, "We,
being many, are one bread, one body;"[893] so that, though they have
afterwards lapsed into some heresy, or even into heathenism and
idolatry, yet by virtue of this one thing, that they have received
the baptism of Christ, and eaten the body of Christ, in the body of
Christ, that is to say, in the catholic Church, they shall not die
eternally, but at one time or other obtain eternal life; and all
that wickedness of theirs shall not avail to make their punishment
eternal, but only proportionately long and severe.
21. _Of those who assert that all catholics who continue in the
faith, even though by the depravity of their lives they
have merited hell fire, shall be saved on account of the
"foundation" of their faith._
There are some, too, who found upon the expression of Scripture,
"He that endureth to the end shall be saved,"[894] and who promise
salvation only to those who continue in the Church catholic; and
though such persons have lived badly, yet, say they, they shall
be saved as by fire through virtue of the foundation of which the
apostle says, "For other foundation hath no man laid than that which
is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this
foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every
man's work shall be made manifest: for the day of the Lord shall
declare it, for it shall be revealed by fire; and each man's work
shall be proved of what sort it is. If any man's work shall endure
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. But if any
man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself
shall be saved; yet so as through fire."[895] They say, accordingly,
that the catholic Christian, no matter what his life be, has Christ
as his foundation, while this foundation is not possessed by any
heresy which is separated from the unity of His body. And therefore,
through virtue of this foundation, even though the catholic Christian
by the inconsistency of his life has been as one building up wood,
hay, stubble, upon it, they believe that he shall be saved by fire,
in other words, that he shall be delivered after tasting the pain of
that fire to which the wicked shall be condemned at the last judgment.
22. _Of those who fancy that the sins which are intermingled with
alms-deeds shall not be charged at the day of judgment._
I have also met with some who are of opinion that such only as
neglect to cover their sins with alms-deeds shall be punished in
everlasting fire; and they cite the words of the Apostle James, "He
shall have judgment without mercy who hath shown no mercy."[896]
Therefore, say they, he who has not amended his ways, but yet has
intermingled his profligate and wicked actions with works of mercy,
shall receive mercy in the judgment, so that he shall either quite
escape condemnation, or shall be liberated from his doom after some
time shorter or longer. They suppose that this was the reason why
the Judge Himself of quick and dead declined to mention anything
else than works of mercy done or omitted, when awarding to those on
His right hand life eternal, and to those on His left everlasting
punishment.[897] To the same purpose, they say, is the daily petition
we make in the Lord's prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors."[898] For, no doubt, whoever pardons the person who has
wronged him does a charitable action. And this has been so highly
commended by the Lord Himself, that He says, "For if ye forgive men
their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses."[899] And so it is to this kind of alms-deeds that
the saying of the Apostle James refers, "He shall have judgment
without mercy that hath shown no mercy." And our Lord, they say, made
no distinction of great and small sins, but "Your Father will forgive
your sins, if ye forgive men theirs." Consequently they conclude
that, though a man has led an abandoned life up to the last day of
it, yet whatsoever his sins have been, they are all remitted by
virtue of this daily prayer, if only he has been mindful to attend to
this one thing, that when they who have done him any injury ask his
pardon, he forgive them from his heart.
When, by God's help, I have replied to all these errors, I shall
conclude this (twenty-first) book.
23. _Against those who are of opinion that the punishment neither
of the devil nor of wicked men shall be eternal._
First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognise why the
Church has not been able to tolerate the idea that promises cleansing
or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted
punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old
and New Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character
that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom
after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that
they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which
the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying,
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels."[900] For here it is evident that the devil
and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also
that declaration in the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was
cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also are the beast
and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and night
for ever."[901] In the former passage "everlasting" is used, in the
latter "for ever;" and by these words Scripture is wont to mean
nothing else than endless duration. And therefore no other reason,
no reason more obvious and just, can be found for holding it as the
fixed and immovable belief of the truest piety, that the devil and
his angels shall never return to the justice and life of the saints,
than that Scripture, which deceives no man, says that God spared them
not, and that they were condemned beforehand by Him, and cast into
prisons of darkness in hell,[902] being reserved to the judgment of
the last day, when eternal fire shall receive them, in which they
shall be tormented world without end. And if this be so, how can it
be believed that all men, or even some, shall be withdrawn from the
endurance of punishment after some time has been spent in it? how
can this be believed without enervating our faith in the eternal
punishment of the devils? For if all or some of those to whom it
shall be said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels,"[903] are not to be always in
that fire, then what reason is there for believing that the devil
and his angels shall always be there? Or is perhaps the sentence of
God, which is to be pronounced on wicked men and angels alike, to
be true in the case of the angels, false in that of men? Plainly
it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than the
word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid
of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God, and
rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands.
Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment
means long-continued punishment, while eternal life means life
without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in
similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away
into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"[904]
If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both
as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For
they are correlative,--on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the
other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life
eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is
the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints
shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are
doomed to it shall have no end.
24. _Against those who fancy that in the judgment of God all the
accused will be spared in virtue of the prayers of the saints._
And this reasoning is equally conclusive against those who, in their
own interest, but under the guise of a greater tenderness of spirit,
attempt to invalidate the words of God, and who assert that these
words are true, not because men shall suffer those things which are
threatened by God, but because they deserve to suffer them. For God,
they say, will yield them to the prayers of His saints, who will then
the more earnestly pray for their enemies, as they shall be more
perfect in holiness, and whose prayers will be the more efficacious
and the more worthy of God's ear, because now purged from all sin
whatsoever. Why, then, if in that perfected holiness their prayers be
so pure and all-availing, will they not use them in behalf of the
angels for whom eternal fire is prepared, that God may mitigate His
sentence and alter it, and extricate them from that fire? Or will
there, perhaps, be some one hardy enough to affirm that even the holy
angels will make common cause with holy men (then become the equals of
God's angels), and will intercede for the guilty, both men and angels,
that mercy may spare them the punishment which truth has pronounced
them to deserve? But this has been asserted by no one sound in the
faith, nor will be. Otherwise there is no reason why the Church should
not even now pray for the devil and his angels, since God her Master
has ordered her to pray for her enemies. The reason, then, which
prevents the Church from now praying for the wicked angels, whom she
knows to be her enemies, is the identical reason which shall prevent
her, however perfected in holiness, from praying at the last judgment
for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire. At present she
prays for her enemies among men, because they have yet opportunity for
fruitful repentance. For what does she especially beg for them but that
"God would grant them repentance," as the apostle says, "that they
may return to soberness out of the snare of the devil, by whom they
are held captive according to his will?"[905] But if the Church were
certified who those are, who, though they are still abiding in this
life, are yet predestinated to go with the devil into eternal fire,
then for them she could no more pray than for him. But since she has
this certainty regarding no man, she prays for all her enemies who yet
live in this world; and yet she is not heard in behalf of all. But she
is heard in the case of those only who, though they oppose the Church,
are yet predestinated to become her sons through her intercession. But
if any retain an impenitent heart until death, and are not converted
from enemies into sons, does the Church continue to pray for them,
for the spirits, _i.e._, of such persons deceased? And why does she
cease to pray for them, unless because the man who was not translated
into Christ's kingdom while he was in the body, is now judged to be of
Satan's following?
It is then, I say, the same reason which prevents the Church at any
time from praying for the wicked angels, which prevents her from
praying hereafter for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire;
and this also is the reason why, though she prays even for the wicked
so long as they live, she yet does not even in this world pray for the
unbelieving and godless who are dead. For some of the dead, indeed, the
prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for
those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life
so wickedly that they can be judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so
well that they can be considered to have no need of it. As also, after
the resurrection, there will be some of the dead to whom, after they
have endured the pains proper to the spirits of the dead, mercy shall
be accorded, and acquittal from the punishment of eternal fire. For
were there not some whose sins, though not remitted in this life, shall
be remitted in that which is to come, it could not be truly said, "They
shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in that which is
to come."[906] But when the Judge of quick and dead has said, "Come,
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world," and to those on the other side, "Depart from
me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil
and his angels," and "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but
the righteous into eternal life,"[907] it were excessively presumptuous
to say that the punishment of any of those whom God has said shall go
away into eternal punishment shall not be eternal, and so bring either
despair or doubt upon the corresponding promise of life eternal.
Let no man then so understand the words of the Psalmist, "Shall God
forget to be gracious? shall He shut up in His anger His tender
mercies?"[908] as if the sentence of God were true of good men, false
of bad men, or true of good men and wicked angels, but false of bad
men. For the Psalmist's words refer to the vessels of mercy and the
children of the promise, of whom the prophet himself was one; for
when he had said, "Shall God forget to be gracious? shall He shut up
in His anger His tender mercies?" and then immediately subjoins, "And
I said, Now I begin: this is the change wrought by the right hand
of the Most High,"[909] he manifestly explained what he meant by the
words, "Shall He shut up in His anger His tender mercies?" For God's
anger is this mortal life, in which man is made like to vanity, and
his days pass as a shadow.[910] Yet in this anger God does not forget
to be gracious, causing His sun to shine and His rain to descend
on the just and the unjust;[911] and thus He does not in His anger
cut short His tender mercies, and especially in what the Psalmist
speaks of in the words, "Now I begin: this change is from the right
hand of the Most High;" for He changes for the better the vessels of
mercy, even while they are still in this most wretched life, which
is God's anger, and even while His anger is manifesting itself in
this miserable corruption; for "in His anger He does not shut up His
tender mercies." And since the truth of this divine canticle is quite
satisfied by this application of it, there is no need to give it a
reference to that place in which those who do not belong to the city
of God are punished in eternal fire. But if any persist in extending
its application to the torments of the wicked, let them at least
understand it so that the anger of God, which has threatened the
wicked with eternal punishment, shall abide, but shall be mixed with
mercy to the extent of alleviating the torments which might justly
be inflicted; so that the wicked shall neither wholly escape, nor
only for a time endure these threatened pains, but that they shall be
less severe and more endurable than they deserve. Thus the anger of
God shall continue, and at the same time He will not in this anger
shut up His tender mercies. But even this hypothesis I am not to be
supposed to affirm because I do not positively oppose it.[912]
As for those who find an empty threat rather than a truth in such
passages as these: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting
fire;" and "These shall go away into eternal punishment;"[913] and
"They shall be tormented for ever and ever;"[914] and "Their worm
shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched,"[915]--such
persons, I say, are most emphatically and abundantly refuted, not by
me so much as by the divine Scripture itself. For the men of Nineveh
repented in this life, and therefore their repentance was fruitful,
inasmuch as they sowed in that field which the Lord meant to be sown
in tears that it might afterwards be reaped in joy. And yet who
will deny that God's prediction was fulfilled in their case, if at
least he observes that God destroys sinners not only in anger but
also in compassion? For sinners are destroyed in two ways,--either,
like the Sodomites, the men themselves are punished for their sins,
or, like the Ninevites, the men's sins are destroyed by repentance.
God's prediction, therefore, was fulfilled,--the wicked Nineveh was
overthrown, and a good Nineveh built up. For its walls and houses
remained standing; the city was overthrown in its depraved manners.
And thus, though the prophet was provoked that the destruction which
the inhabitants dreaded, because of his prediction, did not take
place, yet that which God's foreknowledge had predicted did take
place, for He who foretold the destruction knew how it should be
fulfilled in a less calamitous sense.
But that these perversely compassionate persons may see what is the
purport of these words, "How great is the abundance of Thy sweetness,
Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee,"[916] let them
read what follows: "And Thou hast perfected it for them that hope
in Thee." For what means, "Thou hast hidden it for them that fear
Thee," "Thou hast perfected it for them that hope in Thee," unless
this, that to those who through fear of punishment seek to establish
their own righteousness by the law, the righteousness of God is not
sweet, because they are ignorant of it? They have not tasted it. For
they hope in themselves, not in Him; and therefore God's abundant
sweetness is hidden from them. They fear God, indeed, but it is with
that servile fear "which is not in love; for perfect love casteth
out fear."[917] Therefore to them that hope in Him He perfecteth His
sweetness, inspiring them with His own love, so that with a holy fear,
which love does not cast out, but which endureth for ever, they may,
when they glory, glory in the Lord. For the righteousness of God is
Christ, "who is of God made unto us," as the apostle says, "wisdom,
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: as it is
written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."[918] This
righteousness of God, which is the gift of grace without merits, is
not known by those who go about to establish their own righteousness,
and are therefore not subject to the righteousness of God, which is
Christ.[919] But it is in this righteousness that we find the great
abundance of God's sweetness, of which the psalm says, "Taste and see
how sweet the Lord is."[920] And this we rather taste than partake of
to satiety in this our pilgrimage. We hunger and thirst for it now,
that hereafter we may be satisfied with it when we see Him as He is,
and that is fulfilled which is written, "I shall be satisfied when
Thy glory shall be manifested."[921] It is thus that Christ perfects
the great abundance of His sweetness to them that hope in Him. But if
God conceals His sweetness from them that fear Him in the sense that
these our objectors fancy, so that men's ignorance of His purpose of
mercy towards the wicked may lead them to fear Him and live better,
and so that there may be prayer made for those who are not living as
they ought, how then does He perfect His sweetness to them that hope in
Him, since, if their dreams be true, it is this very sweetness which
will prevent Him from punishing those who do not hope in Him? Let us
then seek that sweetness of His, which He perfects to them that hope in
Him, not that which He is supposed to perfect to those who despise and
blaspheme Him; for in vain, after this life, does a man seek for what
he has neglected to provide while in this life.
Then, as to that saying of the apostle, "For God hath concluded all in
unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all,"[922] it does not mean that
He will condemn no one; but the foregoing context shows what is meant.
The apostle composed the epistle for the Gentiles who were already
believers; and when he was speaking to them of the Jews who were yet
to believe, he says, "For as ye in times past believed not God, yet
have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also
now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy."
Then he added the words in question with which these persons beguile
themselves: "For God concluded all in unbelief, that He might have
mercy upon all." All whom, if not all those of whom he was speaking,
just as if he had said, "Both you and them?" God then concluded all
those in unbelief, both Jews and Gentiles, whom He foreknew and
predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that
they might be confounded by the bitterness of unbelief, and might
repent and believingly turn to the sweetness of God's mercy, and might
take up that exclamation of the psalm, "How great is the abundance
of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear
Thee, but hast perfected to them that hope," not in themselves, but
"in Thee." He has mercy, then, on all the vessels of mercy. And what
means "all?" Both those of the Gentiles and those of the Jews whom He
predestinated, called, justified, glorified: none of these will be
condemned by Him; but we cannot say none of all men whatever.
25. _Whether those who received heretical baptism, and have
afterwards fallen away to wickedness of life; or those who have
received catholic baptism, but have afterwards passed over to
heresy and schism; or those who have remained in the catholic
Church in which they were baptized, but have continued to live
immorally,--may hope through the virtue of the sacraments for
the remission of eternal punishment._
But let us now reply to those who promise deliverance from eternal
fire, not to the devil and his angels (as neither do they of whom
we have been speaking), nor even to all men whatever, but only to
those who have been washed by the baptism of Christ, and have become
partakers of His body and blood, no matter how they have lived,
no matter what heresy or impiety they have fallen into. But they
are contradicted by the apostle, where he says, "Now the works of
the flesh are manifest, which are these; fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variances, emulations,
wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and the
like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time
past, for they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God."[923] Certainly this sentence of the apostle is false, if
such persons shall be delivered after any lapse of time, and shall
then inherit the kingdom of God. But as it is not false, they shall
certainly never inherit the kingdom of God. And if they shall never
enter that kingdom, then they shall always be retained in eternal
punishment; for there is no middle place where he may live unpunished
who has not been admitted into that kingdom.
And therefore we may reasonably inquire how we are to understand
these words of the Lord Jesus: "This is the bread which cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live for ever."[924] And those, indeed, whom we are now
answering, are refuted in their interpretation of this passage by
those whom we are shortly to answer, and who do not promise this
deliverance to all who have received the sacraments of baptism and
the Lord's body, but only to the catholics, however wickedly they
live; for these, say they, have eaten the Lord's body not only
sacramentally, but really, being constituted members of His body, of
which the apostle says, "We being many are one bread, one body."[925]
He then who is in the unity of Christ's body (that is to say, in the
Christian membership), of which body the faithful have been wont to
receive the sacrament at the altar, that man is truly said to eat the
body and drink the blood of Christ. And consequently heretics and
schismatics being separate from the unity of this body, are able to
receive the same sacrament, but with no profit to themselves,--nay,
rather to their own hurt, so that they are rather more severely
judged than liberated after some time. For they are not in that bond
of peace which is symbolized by that sacrament.
But again, even those who sufficiently understand that he who is
not in the body of Christ cannot be said to eat the body of Christ,
are in error when they promise liberation from the fire of eternal
punishment to persons who fall away from the unity of that body
into heresy, or even into heathenish superstition. For, in the
first place, they ought to consider how intolerable it is, and
how discordant with sound doctrine, to suppose that many, indeed,
or almost all, who have forsaken the Church catholic, and have
originated impious heresies and become heresiarchs, should enjoy a
destiny superior to those who never were catholics, but have fallen
into the snares of these others; that is to say, if the fact of their
catholic baptism and original reception of the sacrament of the body
of Christ in the true body of Christ is sufficient to deliver these
heresiarchs from eternal punishment. For certainly he who deserts
the faith, and from a deserter becomes an assailant, is worse than
he who has not deserted the faith he never held. And, in the second
place, they are contradicted by the apostle, who, after enumerating
the works of the flesh, says with reference to heresies, "They who do
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
And therefore neither ought such persons as lead an abandoned and
damnable life to be confident of salvation, though they persevere
to the end in the communion of the Church catholic, and comfort
themselves with the words, "He that endureth to the end shall
be saved." By the iniquity of their life they abandon that very
righteousness of life which Christ is to them, whether it be by
fornication, or by perpetrating in their body the other uncleannesses
which the apostle would not so much as mention, or by a dissolute
luxury, or by doing any one of those things of which he says,
"They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Consequently, they who do such things shall not exist anywhere but
in eternal punishment, since they cannot be in the kingdom of God.
For, while they continue in such things to the very end of life, they
cannot be said to abide in Christ to the end; for to abide in Him is
to abide in the faith of Christ. And this faith, according to the
apostle's definition of it, "worketh by love."[926] And "love," as
he elsewhere says, "worketh no evil."[927] Neither can these persons
be said to eat the body of Christ, for they cannot even be reckoned
among His members. For, not to mention other reasons, they cannot be
at once the members of Christ and the members of a harlot. In fine,
He Himself, when He says, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him,"[928] shows what it is in
reality, and not sacramentally, to eat His body and drink His blood;
for this is to dwell in Christ, that He also may dwell in us. So
that it is as if He said, He that dwelleth not in me, and in whom
I do not dwell, let him not say or think that he eateth my body or
drinketh my blood. Accordingly, they who are not Christ's members do
not dwell in Him. And they who make themselves members of a harlot,
are not members of Christ unless they have penitently abandoned that
evil, and have returned to this good to be reconciled to it.
26. _What it is to have Christ for a foundation, and who they are
to whom salvation as by fire is promised._
But, say they, the catholic Christians have Christ for a foundation,
and they have not fallen away from union with Him, no matter how
depraved a life they have built on this foundation, as wood, hay,
stubble; and accordingly the well-directed faith by which Christ is
their foundation will suffice to deliver them some time from the
continuance of that fire, though it be with loss, since those things
they have built on it shall be burned. Let the Apostle James summarily
reply to them: "If any man say he has faith, and have not works, can
faith save him?"[929] And who then is it, they ask, of whom the Apostle
Paul says, "But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire?"[930] Let
us join them in their inquiry; and one thing is very certain, that it
is not he of whom James speaks, else we should make the two apostles
contradict one another, if the one says, "Though a man's works be evil,
his faith will save him as by fire," while the other says, "If he have
not good works, can his faith save him?"
We shall then ascertain who it is who can be saved by fire, if we
first discover what it is to have Christ for a foundation. And this
we may very readily learn from the image itself. In a building the
foundation is first. Whoever, then, has Christ in his heart, so that
no earthly or temporal things--not even those that are legitimate
and allowed--are preferred to Him, has Christ as a foundation. But
if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have
faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man; and
much more if he, in contempt of wholesome precepts, seek forbidden
gratifications, is he clearly convicted of putting Christ not first
but last, since he has despised Him as his ruler, and has preferred
to fulfil his own wicked lusts, in contempt of Christ's commands and
allowances. Accordingly, if any Christian man loves a harlot, and,
attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now Christ for
a foundation. But if any one loves his own wife, and loves her as
Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that he has Christ for
a foundation? But if he loves her in the world's fashion, carnally,
as the disease of lust prompts him, and as the Gentiles love who know
not God, even this the apostle, or rather Christ by the apostle,
allows as a venial fault. And therefore even such a man may have
Christ for a foundation. For so long as he does not prefer such an
affection or pleasure to Christ, Christ is his foundation, though
on it he builds wood, hay, stubble; and therefore he shall be saved
as by fire. For the fire of affliction shall burn such luxurious
pleasures and earthly loves, though they be not damnable, because
enjoyed in lawful wedlock. And of this fire the fuel is bereavement,
and all those calamities which consume these joys. Consequently the
superstructure will be loss to him who has built it, for he shall
not retain it, but shall be agonized by the loss of those things
in the enjoyment of which he found pleasure. But by this fire he
shall be saved through virtue of the foundation, because even if a
persecutor demanded whether he would retain Christ or these things,
he would prefer Christ. Would you hear, in the apostle's own words,
who he is who builds on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones?
"He that is unmarried," he says, "careth for the things that belong
to the Lord, how he may please the Lord."[931] Would you hear who
he is that buildeth wood, hay, stubble? "But he that is married
careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his
wife."[932] "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day
shall declare it,"--the day, no doubt, of tribulation--"because,"
says he, "it shall be revealed by fire."[933] He calls tribulation
fire, just as it is elsewhere said, "The furnace proves the vessels
of the potter, and the trial of affliction righteous men."[934] And
"The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any
man's work abide"--for a man's care for the things of the Lord, how
he may please the Lord, abides--"which he hath built thereupon,
he shall receive a reward,"--that is, he shall reap the fruit of
his care. "But if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer
loss,"--for what he loved he shall not retain:--"but he himself shall
be saved,"--for no tribulation shall have moved him from that stable
foundation,--"yet so as by fire;"[935] for that which he possessed
with the sweetness of love he does not lose without the sharp sting
of pain. Here, then, as seems to me, we have a fire which destroys
neither, but enriches the one, brings loss to the other, proves both.
But if this passage [of Corinthians] is to interpret that fire of
which the Lord shall say to those on His left hand, "Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire,"[936] so that among these we are
to believe there are those who build on the foundation wood, hay,
stubble, and that they, through virtue of the good foundation, shall
after a time be liberated from the fire that is the award of their
evil deserts, what then shall we think of those on the right hand,
to whom it shall be said, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you,"[937] unless that they are those who
have built on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? But if
the fire of which our Lord speaks is the same as that of which the
apostle says, "Yet so as by fire," then both--that is to say, both
those on the right as well as those on the left--are to be cast into
it. For that fire is to try both, since it is said, "For the day of
the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and
the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."[938] If,
therefore, the fire shall try both, in order that if any man's work
abide--_i.e._ if the superstructure be not consumed by the fire--he
may receive a reward, and that if his work is burned he may suffer
loss, certainly that fire is not the eternal fire itself. For into
this latter fire only those on the left hand shall be cast, and that
with final and everlasting doom; but that former fire proves those
on the right hand. But some of them it so proves that it does not
burn and consume the structure which is found to have been built
by them on Christ as the foundation; while others of them it proves
in another fashion, so as to burn what they have built up, and thus
cause them to suffer loss, while they themselves are saved because
they have retained Christ, who was laid as their sure foundation,
and have loved Him above all. But if they are saved, then certainly
they shall stand at the right hand, and shall with the rest hear
the sentence, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you;" and not at the left hand, where those shall be
who shall not be saved, and shall therefore hear the doom, "Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." For from that fire no
man shall be saved, because they all shall go away into eternal
punishment, where their worms shall not die, nor their fire be
quenched, in which they shall be tormented day and night for ever.
But if it be said that in the interval of time between the death of
this body and that last day of judgment and retribution which shall
follow the resurrection, the bodies of the dead shall be exposed
to a fire of such a nature that it shall not affect those who have
not in this life indulged in such pleasures and pursuits as shall
be consumed like wood, hay, stubble, but shall affect those others
who have carried with them structures of that kind; if it be said
that such worldliness, being venial, shall be consumed in the fire
of tribulation either here only, or here and hereafter both, or here
that it may not be hereafter,--this I do not contradict, because
possibly it is true. For perhaps even the death of the body is
itself a part of this tribulation, for it results from the first
transgression, so that the time which follows death takes its colour
in each case from the nature of the man's building. The persecutions,
too, which have crowned the martyrs, and which Christians of all
kinds suffer, try both buildings like a fire, consuming some, along
with the builders themselves, if Christ is not found in them as their
foundation, while others they consume without the builders, because
Christ is found in them, and they are saved, though with loss; and
other buildings still they do not consume, because such materials as
abide for ever are found in them. In the end of the world there shall
be in the time of Antichrist tribulation such as has never before
been. How many edifices there shall then be, of gold or of hay, built
on the best foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove,
bringing joy to some, loss to others, but without destroying either
sort, because of this stable foundation! But whosoever prefers, I do
not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure, but any of
those relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom it is
right to love,--whosoever prefers these to Christ, and loves them
after a human and carnal fashion, has not Christ as a foundation,
and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at all; for he
shall not possibly dwell with the Saviour, who says very explicitly
concerning this very matter, "He that loveth father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me."[939] But he who loves his relations
carnally, and yet so that he does not prefer them to Christ, but
would rather want them than Christ if he were put to the proof,
shall be saved by fire, because it is necessary that by the loss of
these relations he suffer pain in proportion to his love. And he who
loves father, mother, sons, daughters, according to Christ, so that
he aids them in obtaining His kingdom and cleaving to Him, or loves
them because they are members of Christ, God forbid that this love
should be consumed as wood, hay, stubble, and not rather be reckoned
a structure of gold, silver, precious stones. For how can a man love
those more than Christ whom he loves only for Christ's sake?
27. _Against the belief of those who think that the sins which
have been accompanied with almsgiving will do them no harm._
It remains to reply to those who maintain that those only shall
burn in eternal fire who neglect alms-deeds proportioned to their
sins, resting this opinion on the words of the Apostle James, "He
shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy."[940]
Therefore, they say, he that hath showed mercy, though he has
not reformed his dissolute conduct, but has lived wickedly and
iniquitously even while abounding in alms, shall have a merciful
judgment, so that he shall either be not condemned at all, or shall
be delivered from final judgment after a time. And for the same
reason they suppose that Christ will discriminate between those
on the right hand and those on the left, and will send the one
party into His kingdom, the other into eternal punishment, on the
sole ground of their attention to or neglect of works of charity.
Moreover, they endeavour to use the prayer which the Lord Himself
taught as a proof and bulwark of their opinion, that daily sins which
are never abandoned can be expiated through alms-deeds, no matter
how offensive or of what sort they be. For, say they, as there is no
day on which Christians ought not to use this prayer, so there is no
sin of any kind which, though committed every day, is not remitted
when we say, "Forgive us our debts," if we take care to fulfil what
follows, "as we forgive our debtors."[941] For, they go on to say,
the Lord does not say, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will forgive you your little daily sins," but "will
forgive you your sins." Therefore, be they of any kind or magnitude
whatever, be they perpetrated daily and never abandoned or subdued in
this life, they can be pardoned, they presume, through alms-deeds.
But they are right to inculcate the giving of alms proportioned
to past sins; for if they said that any kind of alms could obtain
the divine pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual
enormity, if they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted,
they would see that their doctrine was absurd and ridiculous. For
they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it were possible for a
very wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all
manner of wickedness, by paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins.
And if it be most absurd and insane to make such an acknowledgment,
and if we still ask what are those fitting alms of which even the
forerunner of Christ said, "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for
repentance,"[942] undoubtedly it will be found that they are not such
as are done by men who undermine their life by daily enormities even
to the very end. For they suppose that by giving to the poor a small
fraction of the wealth they acquire by extortion and spoliation they
can propitiate Christ, so that they may with impunity commit the most
damnable sins, in the persuasion that they have bought from Him a
licence to transgress, or rather do buy a daily indulgence. And if
they for one crime have distributed all their goods to Christ's needy
members, that could profit them nothing unless they desisted from
all similar actions, and attained charity which worketh no evil. He
therefore who does alms-deeds proportioned to his sins must first
begin with himself. For it is not reasonable that a man who exercises
charity towards his neighbour should not do so towards himself,
since he hears the Lord saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself,"[943] and again, "Have compassion on thy soul, and please
God."[944] He then who has not compassion on his own soul that he may
please God, how can he be said to do alms-deeds proportioned to his
sins? To the same purpose is that written, "He who is bad to himself,
to whom can he be good?"[945] We ought therefore to do alms that we
may be heard when we pray that our past sins may be forgiven, not
that while we continue in them we may think to provide ourselves with
a licence for wickedness by alms-deeds.
The reason, therefore, of our predicting that He will impute to those
on His right hand the alms-deeds they have done, and charge those
on His left with omitting the same, is that He may thus show the
efficacy of charity for the deletion of past sins, not for impunity
in their perpetual commission. And such persons, indeed, as decline
to abandon their evil habits of life for a better course cannot be
said to do charitable deeds. For this is the purport of the saying,
"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it
not to me."[946] He shows them that they do not perform charitable
actions even when they think they are doing so. For if they gave
bread to a hungering Christian because he is a Christian, assuredly
they would not deny to themselves the bread of righteousness, that
is, Christ Himself; for God considers not the person to whom the
gift is made, but the spirit in which it is made. He therefore who
loves Christ in a Christian extends alms to him in the same spirit
in which he draws near to Christ, not in that spirit which would
abandon Christ if it could do so with impunity. For in proportion as
a man loves what Christ disapproves does he himself abandon Christ.
For what does it profit a man that he is baptized, if he is not
justified? Did not He who said, "Except a man be born of water and
of the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God,"[947] say
also, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven?"[948] Why do many through fear of the first saying run to
baptism, while few through fear of the second seek to be justified?
As therefore it is not to his brother a man says, "Thou fool," if
when he says it he is indignant not at the brotherhood, but at
the sin of the offender,--for otherwise he were guilty of hell
fire,--so he who extends charity to a Christian does not extend it
to a Christian if he does not love Christ in him. Now he does not
love Christ who refuses to be justified in Him. Or, again, if a man
has been guilty of this sin of calling his brother Fool, unjustly
reviling him without any desire to remove his sin, his alms-deeds
go a small way towards expiating this fault, unless he adds to this
the remedy of reconciliation which the same passage enjoins. For it
is there said, "Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."[949] Just so it is
a small matter to do alms-deeds, no matter how great they be, for any
sin, so long as the offender continues in the practice of sin.
Then as to the daily prayer which the Lord Himself taught, and which
is therefore called the Lord's prayer, it obliterates indeed the
sins of the day, when day by day we say, "Forgive us our debts," and
when we not only say but act out that which follows, "as we forgive
our debtors;"[950] but we utter this petition because sins have been
committed, and not that they may be. For by it our Saviour designed to
teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of infirmity
and darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we
ought to pray, while we must pardon those who sin against us that we
ourselves also may be pardoned. The Lord then did not utter the words,
"If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also forgive
you your trespasses,"[951] in order that we might contract from this
petition such confidence as should enable us to sin securely from day
to day, either putting ourselves above the fear of human laws, or
craftily deceiving men concerning our conduct, but in order that we
might thus learn not to suppose that we are without sins, even though
we should be free from crimes; as also God admonished the priests of
the old law to this same effect regarding their sacrifices, which He
commanded them to offer first for their own sins, and then for the sins
of the people. For even the very words of so great a Master and Lord
are to be intently considered. For He does not say, If ye forgive men
their sins, your Father will also forgive you your sins, no matter of
what sort they be, but He says, your sins; for it was a daily prayer
He was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples already justified
He was speaking. What, then, does He mean by "your sins," but those
sins from which not even you who are justified and sanctified can
be free? While, then, those who seek occasion from this petition to
indulge in habitual sin maintain that the Lord meant to include great
sins, because He did not say, He will forgive you your small sins, but
"your sins," we, on the other hand, taking into account the character
of the persons He was addressing, cannot see our way to interpret the
expression "your sins" of anything but small sins, because such persons
are no longer guilty of great sins. Nevertheless not even great sins
themselves--sins from which we must flee with a total reformation of
life--are forgiven to those who pray, unless they observe the appended
precept, "as ye also forgive your debtors." For if the very small sins
which attach even to the life of the righteous be not remitted without
that condition, how much further from obtaining indulgence shall those
be who are involved in many great crimes, if, while they cease from
perpetrating such enormities, they still inexorably refuse to remit
any debt incurred to themselves, since the Lord says, "But if ye
forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses?"[952] For this is the purport of the saying of the Apostle
James also, "He shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no
mercy."[953] For we should remember that servant whose debt of ten
thousand talents his lord cancelled, but afterwards ordered him to pay
up, because the servant himself had no pity for his fellow-servant
who owed him an hundred pence.[954] The words which the Apostle James
subjoins, "And mercy rejoiceth against judgment,"[955] find their
application among those who are the children of the promise and vessels
of mercy. For even those righteous men, who have lived with such
holiness that they receive into the eternal habitations others also
who have won their friendship with the mammon of unrighteousness,[956]
became such only through the merciful deliverance of Him who justifies
the ungodly, imputing to him a reward according to grace, not according
to debt. For among this number is the apostle, who says, "I obtained
mercy to be faithful."[957]
But it must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the
eternal habitations are not of such a character that their own life
would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and
consequently in their case especially does mercy rejoice against
judgment. And yet we are not on this account to suppose that every
abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life, is to
be received into the eternal habitations if only he has assisted the
saints with the mammon of unrighteousness,--that is to say, with
money or wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if rightfully
acquired, is yet not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts
riches, because it knows not the true riches in which those persons
abound, who even receive others also into eternal habitations. There
is then a certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand,
so bad that those who adopt it are not helped towards the kingdom
of heaven by any bountiful almsgiving by which they may relieve the
wants of the saints, and make friends who could receive them into
eternal habitations, nor, on the other hand, so good that it of
itself suffices to win for them that great blessedness, if they do
not obtain mercy through the merits of those whom they have made
their friends. And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give
expression to this sentence of the Lord, in which He says, "Make to
yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they may
receive you into everlasting habitations;"[958] and this very similar
saying, "He that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet,
shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous
man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's
reward."[959] For when that poet described the Elysian fields, in
which they suppose that the souls of the blessed dwell, he placed
there not only those who had been able by their own merit to reach
that abode, but added,--
"And they who grateful memory won
By services to others done;"[960]
that is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be
remembered by them. Just as if they used the expression so common
in Christian lips, where some humble person commends himself to one
of the saints, and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so
by deserving well at his hand. But what that kind of life we have
been speaking of is, and what those sins are which prevent a man
from winning the kingdom of God by himself, but yet permit him to
avail himself of the merits of the saints, it is very difficult to
ascertain, very perilous to define. For my own part, in spite of all
investigation, I have been up to the present hour unable to discover
this. And possibly it is hidden from us, lest we should become
careless in avoiding such sins, and so cease to make progress. For
if it were known what these sins are, which, though they continue,
and be not abandoned for a higher life, do yet not prevent us from
seeking and hoping for the intercession of the saints, human sloth
would presumptuously wrap itself in these sins, and would take no
steps to be disentangled from such wrappings by the deft energy of
any virtue, but would only desire to be rescued by the merits of
other people, whose friendship had been won by a bountiful use of the
mammon of unrighteousness. But now that we are left in ignorance of
the precise nature of that iniquity which is venial, even though it
be persevered in, certainly we are both more vigilant in our prayers
and efforts for progress, and more careful to secure with the mammon
of unrighteousness friends for ourselves among the saints.
But this deliverance, which is effected by one's own prayers, or the
intercession of holy men, secures that a man be not cast into eternal
fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he should after
a time be rescued from it. For even those who fancy that what is said
of the good ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty, some
sixty, some an hundred fold, is to be referred to the saints, so that
in proportion to their merits some of them shall deliver thirty men,
some sixty, some an hundred,--even those who maintain this are yet
commonly inclined to suppose that this deliverance will take place
at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this impression, some
one who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves
impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of
deliverance, is reported to have very happily remarked, that we should
rather endeavour to live so well that we shall be all found among the
number of those who are to intercede for the liberation of others, lest
these should be so few in number, that, after they have delivered, one
thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, there should still remain
many who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions,
and among them every one who has vainly and rashly promised himself
the fruit of another's labour. But enough has been said in reply to
those who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred Scriptures as
ourselves, but who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive
of the future rather as they themselves wish, than as the Scriptures
teach. And having given this reply, I now, according to promise, close
this book.
FOOTNOTES:
[852] John v. 29.
[853] Matt. xiii. 41-43.
[854] Matt. xxv. 46.
[855] Luke xvi. 24.
[856] _Æneid_, vi. 733.
[857] Ch. 3, 5, 6.
[858] Aristotle does not affirm it as a fact observed by himself,
but as a popular tradition (_Hist. anim._ v. 19). Pliny is equally
cautious (_Hist. nat._ xxix. 23). Dioscorides declared the thing
impossible (ii. 68).--SAISSET.
[859] So Lucretius, ii. 1025:
"Sed neque tam facilis res ulla 'st, quin ea primum
Difficilis magis ad credendum constet: itemque
Nil adeo magnum, nec tam mirabile quicquam
Principis, quod non minuant mirarier omnes
Paulatim."
[860] Alluded to by Moore in his _Melodies_:
"The fount that played
In times of old through Ammon's shade,
Though icy cold by day it ran,
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began
To burn when night was near."
[861] _Æneid_, iv. 487-491.
[862] See the same collocation of words in Cic. _Nat. deor._ ii. 3.
[863] The etymologies given here by Augustine are, "monstra," a
monstrando; "ostenta," ab ostendendo; "portenta," a portendendo,
_i.e._ præostendendo; "prodigia," quod porro dicant, _i.e._ futura
prædicant.
[864] Isa. lxvi. 24.
[865] Mark ix. 43-48.
[866] 2 Cor. xi. 29.
[867] Isa. li. 8.
[868] Ecclus. vii. 17.
[869] Rom. viii. 13.
[870] 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.
[871] Matt. xxv. 41.
[872] Luke xvi. 24.
[873] Rev. xx. 10.
[874] "Talio," _i.e._ the rendering of like for like, the punishment
being exactly similar to the injury sustained.
[875] Ex. xxi. 24.
[876] Luke vi. 38.
[877] Remanerent. But Augustine constantly uses the imp. for the
plup. subjunctive.
[878] Plato's own theory was that punishment had a twofold purpose,
to reform and to deter. "No one punishes an offender on account
of the past offence, and simply because he has done wrong, but
for the sake of the future, that the offence may not be again
committed, either by the same person or by any one who has seen him
punished."--See the _Protagoras_, 324, b, and Grote's _Plato_, ii. 41.
[879] _Æneid_, vi. 733.
[880] Job vii. 1.
[881] Compare Goldsmith's saying, "We begin life in tears, and every
day tells us why."
[882] Ecclus. xl. 1.
[883] 2 Tim. ii. 19.
[884] Rom. viii. 14.
[885] Gal. v. 17.
[886] "Fari."
[887] See Aug. _Ep._ 98, _ad Bonifacium_.
[888] On the heresy of Origen, see Epiphanius (_Epistola ad
Joannem Hierosol._); Jerome (_Epistola_ 61, _ad Pammachium_); and
Augustine (_De Hæres._ 43). Origen's opinion was condemned by
Anastasius (Jerome, _Apologia adv. Ruffinum_, and _Epistola_ 78, _ad
Pammachium_), and after Augustine's death by Vigilius and the Emperor
Justinian, in the Fifth Œcumenical Council (Nicephorus Callistus,
xvii. 27, and the _Acts of the Council_, iv. 11).--COQUÆUS.
[889] Ps. lxxvii. 9.
[890] Ps. xxxi. 19.
[891] Rom. xi. 32.
[892] John vi. 50, 51.
[893] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[894] Matt. xxiv. 13.
[895] 1 Cor. iii. 11-15.
[896] Jas. ii. 13.
[897] Matt. xxv. 33.
[898] Matt. vi. 12.
[899] Matt. vi. 14, 15.
[900] Matt. xxv. 41.
[901] Rev. xx. 10.
[902] 2 Pet. ii. 4.
[903] Matt. xxv. 41.
[904] Matt. xxv. 46.
[905] 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.
[906] Matt. xii. 32.
[907] Matt. xxv. 34, 41, 46.
[908] Ps. lxxvii. 9.
[909] Ps. lxxvii. 10.
[910] Ps. cxliv. 4.
[911] Matt. v. 45.
[912] It is the theory which Chrysostom adopts.
[913] Matt. xxv. 41, 46.
[914] Rev. xx. 10.
[915] Isa. lxvi. 24.
[916] Ps. xxxi. 19.
[917] 1 John iv. 18.
[918] 1 Cor. i. 30, 31.
[919] Rom. x. 3.
[920] Ps. xxxiv. 8.
[921] Ps. xvii. 15.
[922] Rom. xi. 32.
[923] Gal. v. 19-21.
[924] John vi. 50, 51.
[925] 1 Cor. x. 17.
[926] Gal. v. 6.
[927] Rom. xiii. 10.
[928] John vi. 56.
[929] Jas. ii. 14.
[930] 1 Cor. iii. 15.
[931] 1 Cor. vii. 32.
[932] 1 Cor. vii. 33.
[933] 1 Cor. iii. 13.
[934] Ecclus. xxvii. 5.
[935] 1 Cor. iii. 14, 15.
[936] Matt. xxv. 41.
[937] Matt. xxv. 34.
[938] 1 Cor. iii. 13.
[939] Matt. x. 37.
[940] Jas. ii. 13.
[941] Matt. vi. 12.
[942] Matt. iii. 8.
[943] Matt. xxii. 39.
[944] Ecclus. xxx. 24.
[945] Ecclus. xxi. 1.
[946] Matt. xxv. 45.
[947] John iii. 5.
[948] Matt. v. 20.
[949] Matt. v. 23, 24.
[950] Matt. vi. 12.
[951] Matt. vi. 14.
[952] Matt. vi. 15.
[953] Jas. ii. 13.
[954] Matt. xviii. 23.
[955] Jas. ii. 13.
[956] Luke xvi. 9.
[957] 1 Cor. vii. 25.
[958] Luke xvi. 9.
[959] Matt. x. 41.
[960] _Æn._ vi. 664.
BOOK TWENTY-SECOND.
ARGUMENT.
THIS BOOK TREATS OF THE END OF THE CITY OF GOD, THAT IS TO SAY,
OF THE ETERNAL HAPPINESS OF THE SAINTS; THE FAITH OF THE
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY IS ESTABLISHED AND EXPLAINED; AND THE
WORK CONCLUDES BY SHOWING HOW THE SAINTS, CLOTHED IN IMMORTAL
AND SPIRITUAL BODIES, SHALL BE EMPLOYED.
1. _Of the creation of angels and men._
As we promised in the immediately preceding book, this, the last of
the whole work, shall contain a discussion of the eternal blessedness
of the city of God. This blessedness is named eternal, not because
it shall endure for many ages, though at last it shall come to an
end, but because, according to the words of the gospel, "of His
kingdom there shall be no end."[961] Neither shall it enjoy the mere
appearance of perpetuity which is maintained by the rise of fresh
generations to occupy the place of those that have died out, as in an
evergreen the same freshness seems to continue permanently, and the
same appearance of dense foliage is preserved by the growth of fresh
leaves in the room of those that have withered and fallen; but in
that city all the citizens shall be immortal, men now for the first
time enjoying what the holy angels have never lost. And this shall be
accomplished by God, the most almighty Founder of the city. For He
has promised it, and cannot lie, and has already performed many of
His promises, and has done many unpromised kindnesses to those whom
He now asks to believe that He will do this also.
For it is He who in the beginning created the world full of all
visible and intelligible beings, among which He created nothing
better than those spirits whom He endowed with intelligence, and
made capable of contemplating and enjoying Him, and united in our
society, which we call the holy and heavenly city, and in which the
material of their sustenance and blessedness is God Himself, as it
were their common food and nourishment. It is He who gave to this
intellectual nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wished to
forsake God his blessedness, misery should forthwith result. It is
He who, when He foreknew that certain angels would in their pride
desire to suffice for their own blessedness, and would forsake their
great good, did not deprive them of this power, deeming it to be
more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of evil than
to prevent the evil from coming into existence. And indeed evil had
never been, had not the mutable nature--mutable, though good, and
created by the most high God and immutable Good, who created all
things good--brought evil upon itself by sin. And this its sin is
itself proof that its nature was originally good. For had it not
been very good, though not equal to its Creator, the desertion of
God as its light could not have been an evil to it. For as blindness
is a vice of the eye, and this very fact indicates that the eye was
created to see the light, and as, consequently, vice itself proves
that the eye is more excellent than the other members, because it
is capable of light (for on no other supposition would it be a vice
of the eye to want light), so the nature which once enjoyed God
teaches, even by its very vice, that it was created the best of
all, since it is now miserable because it does not enjoy God. It is
He who with very just punishment doomed the angels who voluntarily
fell to everlasting misery, and rewarded those who continued in
their attachment to the supreme good with the assurance of endless
stability as the meed of their fidelity. It is He who made also man
himself upright, with the same freedom of will,--an earthly animal,
indeed, but fit for heaven if he remained faithful to his Creator,
but destined to the misery appropriate to such a nature if he forsook
Him. It is He who, when He foreknew that man would in his turn sin
by abandoning God and breaking His law, did not deprive him of the
power of free-will, because He at the same time foresaw what good He
Himself would bring out of the evil, and how from this mortal race,
deservedly and justly condemned, He would by His grace collect, as
now He does, a people so numerous, that He thus fills up and repairs
the blank made by the fallen angels, and that thus that beloved and
heavenly city is not defrauded of the full number of its citizens,
but perhaps may even rejoice in a still more overflowing population.
2. _Of the eternal and unchangeable will of God._
It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God's will; but
so great is His wisdom and power, that all things which seem adverse
to His purpose do still tend towards those just and good ends and
issues which He Himself has foreknown. And consequently, when God is
said to change His will, as when, _e.g._, He becomes angry with those
to whom He was gentle, it is rather they than He who are changed, and
they find Him changed in so far as their experience of suffering at
His hand is new, as the sun is changed to injured eyes, and becomes
as it were fierce from being mild, and hurtful from being delightful,
though in itself it remains the same as it was. That also is called
the will of God which He does in the hearts of those who obey His
commandments; and of this the apostle says, "For it is God that
worketh in you both to will."[962] As God's "righteousness" is used
not only of the righteousness wherewith He Himself is righteous, but
also of that which He produces in the man whom He justifies, so also
that is called His law, which, though given by God, is rather the
law of men. For certainly they were men to whom Jesus said, "It is
written in your law,"[963] though in another place we read, "The law
of his God is in his heart."[964] According to this will which God
works in men, He is said also to will what He Himself does not will,
but causes His people to will; as He is said to know what He has
caused those to know who were ignorant of it. For when the apostle
says, "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of
God,"[965] we cannot suppose that God there for the first time knew
those who were foreknown by Him before the foundation of the world;
but He is said to have known them then, because then He caused them
to know. But I remember that I discussed these modes of expression
in the preceding books. According to this will, then, by which we say
that God wills what He causes to be willed by others, from whom the
future is hidden, He wills many things which He does not perform.
Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which
never happen. They pray, _e.g._, for certain individuals--they
pray in a pious and holy manner--but what they request He does not
perform, though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them
this will to pray. And consequently, when the saints, in conformity
with God's mind, will and pray that all men be saved, we can use this
mode of expression: God wills and does not perform,--meaning that
He who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if
we speak of that will of His which is eternal as His foreknowledge,
certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth that
He has willed,--not only past and present things, but even things
still future. But before the arrival of that time in which He has
willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged before all
time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant
not only of the time in which it is to be, but even whether it shall
be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills,--not because God will
then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event,
which from eternity has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall
then come to pass.
3. _Of the promise of eternal blessedness to the saints, and
everlasting punishment to the wicked._
Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see
in Christ the fulfilment of that which God promised to Abraham when
He said, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed,"[966] so this
also shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He
said by the prophet, "They that are in their sepulchres shall rise
again;"[967] and also, "There shall be a new heaven and a new earth:
and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they
shall find joy and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a
rejoicing, and my people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and
joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard
in her."[968] And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction:
"At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall
be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the
dust" (or, as some interpret it, "in the mound") "of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt."[969] And in another place by the same prophet: "The saints
of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the
kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."[970] And a little after he
says, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom."[971] Other prophecies
referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book,
and others still which I have not advanced are found written in the
same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those
also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For
it is the same God who promised both, and predicted that both would
come to pass,--the God whom the pagan deities tremble before, as even
Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.
4. _Against the wise men of the world, who fancy that the earthly
bodies of men cannot be transferred to a heavenly habitation._
But men who use their learning and intellectual ability to resist the
force of that great authority which, in fulfilment of what was so
long before predicted, has converted all races of men to faith and
hope in its promises, seem to themselves to argue acutely against
the resurrection of the body while they cite what Cicero mentions
in the third book _De Republica_. For when he was asserting the
apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus, he says: "Whose bodies were
not taken up into heaven; for nature would not permit a body of
earth to exist anywhere except upon earth." This, forsooth, is the
profound reasoning of the wise men, whose thoughts God knows that
they are vain. For if we were only souls, that is, spirits without
any body, and if we dwelt in heaven and had no knowledge of earthly
animals, and were told that we should be bound to earthly bodies by
some wonderful bond of union, and should animate them, should we
not much more vigorously refuse to believe this, and maintain that
nature would not permit an incorporeal substance to be held by a
corporeal bond? And yet the earth is full of living spirits, to which
terrestrial bodies are bound, and with which they are in a wonderful
way implicated. If, then, the same God who has created such beings
wills this also, what is to hinder the earthly body from being raised
to a heavenly body, since a spirit, which is more excellent than all
bodies, and consequently than even a heavenly body, has been tied to
an earthly body? If so small an earthly particle has been able to
hold in union with itself something better than a heavenly body, so
as to receive sensation and life, will heaven disdain to receive, or
at least to retain, this sentient and living particle, which derives
its life and sensation from a substance more excellent than any
heavenly body? If this does not happen now, it is because the time
is not yet come which has been determined by Him who has already
done a much more marvellous thing than that which these men refuse
to believe. For why do we not more intensely wonder that incorporeal
souls, which are of higher rank than heavenly bodies, are bound
to earthly bodies, rather than that bodies, although earthly, are
exalted to an abode which, though heavenly, is yet corporeal, except
because we have been accustomed to see this, and indeed are this,
while we are not as yet that other marvel, nor have as yet ever seen
it? Certainly, if we consult sober reason, the more wonderful of the
two divine works is found to be to attach somehow corporeal things to
incorporeal, and not to connect earthly things with heavenly, which,
though diverse, are yet both of them corporeal.
5. _Of the resurrection of the flesh, which some refuse to believe,
though the world at large believes it._
But granting that this was once incredible, behold, now, the world
has come to the belief that the earthly body of Christ was received
up into heaven. Already both the learned and unlearned have believed
in the resurrection of the flesh and its ascension to the heavenly
places, while only a very few either of the educated or uneducated
are still staggered by it. If this is a credible thing which is
believed, then let those who do not believe see how stolid they are;
and if it is incredible, then this also is an incredible thing,
that what is incredible should have received such credit. Here then
we have two incredibles,--to wit, the resurrection of our body to
eternity, and that the world should believe so incredible a thing;
and both these incredibles the same God predicted should come to
pass before either had as yet occurred. We see that already one
of the two has come to pass, for the world has believed what was
incredible; why should we despair that the remaining one shall also
come to pass, and that this which the world believed, though it was
incredible, shall itself occur? For already that which was equally
incredible has come to pass, in the world's believing an incredible
thing. Both were incredible: the one we see accomplished, the other
we believe shall be; for both were predicted in those same Scriptures
by means of which the world believed. And the very manner in which
the world's faith was won is found to be even more incredible, if we
consider it. Men uninstructed in any branch of a liberal education,
without any of the refinement of heathen learning, unskilled in
grammar, not armed with dialectic, not adorned with rhetoric, but
plain fishermen, and very few in number,--these were the men whom
Christ sent with the nets of faith to the sea of this world, and thus
took out of every race so many fishes, and even the philosophers
themselves, wonderful as they are rare. Let us add, if you please, or
because you ought to be pleased, this third incredible thing to the
two former. And now we have three incredibles, all of which have yet
come to pass. It is incredible that Jesus Christ should have risen
in the flesh and ascended with flesh into heaven; it is incredible
that the world should have believed so incredible a thing; it is
incredible that a very few men, of mean birth and the lowest rank,
and no education, should have been able so effectually to persuade
the world, and even its learned men, of so incredible a thing. Of
these three incredibles, the parties with whom we are debating refuse
to believe the first; they cannot refuse to see the second, which
they are unable to account for if they do not believe the third. It
is indubitable that the resurrection of Christ, and His ascension
into heaven with the flesh in which He rose, is already preached and
believed in the whole world. If it is not credible, how is it that
it has already received credence in the whole world? If a number of
noble, exalted, and learned men had said that they had witnessed
it, and had been at pains to publish what they had witnessed, it
were not wonderful that the world should have believed it, but it
were very stubborn to refuse credence; but if, as is true, the world
has believed a few obscure, inconsiderable, uneducated persons, who
state and write that they witnessed it, is it not unreasonable that
a handful of wrong-headed men should oppose themselves to the creed
of the whole world, and refuse their belief? And if the world has put
faith in a small number of men, of mean birth and the lowest rank,
and no education, it is because the divinity of the thing itself
appeared all the more manifestly in such contemptible witnesses. The
eloquence, indeed, which lent persuasion to their message, consisted
of wonderful works, not words. For they who had not seen Christ
risen in the flesh, nor ascending into heaven with His risen body,
believed those who related how they had seen these things, and who
testified not only with words but wonderful signs. For men whom they
knew to be acquainted with only one, or at most two languages, they
marvelled to hear speaking in the tongues of all nations. They saw a
man, lame from his mother's womb, after forty years stand up sound
at their word in the name of Christ; that handkerchiefs taken from
their bodies had virtue to heal the sick; that countless persons,
sick of various diseases, were laid in a row in the road where they
were to pass, that their shadow might fall on them as they walked,
and that they forthwith received health; that many other stupendous
miracles were wrought by them in the name of Christ; and, finally,
that they even raised the dead. If it be admitted that these things
occurred as they are related, then we have a multitude of incredible
things to add to those three incredibles. That the one incredibility
of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ may be believed,
we accumulate the testimonies of countless incredible miracles, but
even so we do not bend the frightful obstinacy of these sceptics. But
if they do not believe that these miracles were wrought by Christ's
apostles to gain credence to their preaching of His resurrection and
ascension, this one grand miracle suffices for us, that the whole
world has believed without any miracles.
6. _That Rome made its founder Romulus a god because it loved him;
but the Church loved Christ because it believed Him to be God._
Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his
astonishment that the apotheosis of Romulus should have been
credited. I shall insert his words as they stand: "It is most worthy
of remark in Romulus, that other men who are said to have become gods
lived in less educated ages, when there was a greater propensity to
the fabulous, and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded to
believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years
ago, and already literature and science had dispelled the errors that
attach to an uncultured age." And a little after he says of the same
Romulus words to this effect: "From this we may perceive that Homer
had flourished long before Romulus, and that there was now so much
learning in individuals, and so generally diffused an enlightenment,
that scarcely any room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted
fables, and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but this age [of
Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to reject whatever had not
the air of truth." Thus one of the most learned men, and certainly
the most eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it is surprising
that the divinity of Romulus was believed in, because the times
were already so enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous
fiction. But who believed that Romulus was a god except Rome, which
was itself small and in its infancy? Then afterwards it was necessary
that succeeding generations should preserve the tradition of their
ancestors; that, drinking in this superstition with their mother's
milk, the state might grow and come to such power that it might
dictate this belief, as from a point of vantage, to all the nations
over whom its sway extended. And these nations, though they might not
believe that Romulus was a god, at least said so, that they might
not give offence to their sovereign state by refusing to give its
founder that title which was given him by Rome, which had adopted
this belief, not by a love of error, but an error of love. But though
Christ is the founder of the heavenly and eternal city, yet it did
not believe Him to be God because it was founded by Him, but rather
it is founded by Him, in virtue of its belief. Rome, after it had
been built and dedicated, worshipped its founder in a temple as a
god; but this Jerusalem laid Christ, its God, as its foundation, that
the building and dedication might proceed. The former city loved its
founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed
Christ to be God, and therefore loved Him. There was an antecedent
cause for the love of the former city, and for its believing that
even a false dignity attached to the object of its love; so there
was an antecedent cause for the belief of the latter, and for its
loving the true dignity which a proper faith, not a rash surmise,
ascribed to its object. For, not to mention the multitude of very
striking miracles which proved that Christ is God, there were also
divine prophecies heralding Him, prophecies most worthy of belief,
which being already accomplished, we have not, like the fathers, to
wait for their verification. Of Romulus, on the other hand, and of
his building Rome and reigning in it, we read or hear the narrative
of what did take place, not prediction which beforehand said that
such things should be. And so far as his reception among the gods
is concerned, history only records that this was believed, and does
not state it as a fact; for no miraculous signs testified to the
truth of this. For as to that wolf which is said to have nursed the
twin-brothers, and which is considered a great marvel, how does this
prove him to have been divine? For even supposing that this nurse was
a real wolf and not a mere courtezan, yet she nursed both brothers,
and Remus is not reckoned a god. Besides, what was there to hinder
any one from asserting that Romulus or Hercules, or any such man, was
a god? Or who would rather choose to die than profess belief in his
divinity? And did a single nation worship Romulus among its gods,
unless it were forced through fear of the Roman name? But who can
number the multitudes who have chosen death in the most cruel shapes
rather than deny the divinity of Christ? And thus the dread of some
slight indignation, which it was supposed, perhaps groundlessly,
might exist in the minds of the Romans, constrained some states who
were subject to Rome to worship Romulus as a god; whereas the dread,
not of a slight mental shock, but of severe and various punishments,
and of death itself, the most formidable of all, could not prevent
an immense multitude of martyrs throughout the world from not merely
worshipping but also confessing Christ as God. The city of Christ,
which, although as yet a stranger upon earth, had countless hosts
of citizens, did not make war upon its godless persecutors for the
sake of temporal security, but preferred to win eternal salvation by
abstaining from war. They were bound, imprisoned, beaten, tortured,
burned, torn in pieces, massacred, and yet they multiplied. It was
not given to them to fight for their eternal salvation except by
despising their temporal salvation for their Saviour's sake.
I am aware that Cicero, in the third book of his _De Republica_, if
I mistake not, argues that a first-rate power will not engage in war
except either for honour or for safety. What he has to say about
the question of safety, and what he means by safety, he explains in
another place, saying, "Private persons frequently evade, by a speedy
death, destitution, exile, bonds, the scourge, and the other pains
which even the most insensible feel. But to states, death, which
seems to emancipate individuals from all punishments, is itself a
punishment; for a state should be so constituted as to be eternal. And
thus death is not natural to a republic as to a man, to whom death
is not only necessary, but often even desirable. But when a state is
destroyed, obliterated, annihilated, it is as if (to compare great
things with small) this whole world perished and collapsed." Cicero
said this because he, with the Platonists, believed that the world
would not perish. It is therefore agreed that, according to Cicero, a
state should engage in war for the safety which preserves the state
permanently in existence, though its citizens change; as the foliage
of an olive or laurel, or any tree of this kind, is perennial, the
old leaves being replaced by fresh ones. For death, as he says, is no
punishment to individuals, but rather delivers them from all other
punishments, but it is a punishment to the state. And therefore it is
reasonably asked whether the Saguntines did right when they chose that
their whole state should perish rather than that they should break
faith with the Roman republic; for this deed of theirs is applauded
by the citizens of the earthly republic. But I do not see how they
could follow the advice of Cicero, who tells us that no war is to be
undertaken save for safety or for honour; neither does he say which of
these two is to be preferred, if a case should occur in which the one
could not be preserved without the loss of the other. For manifestly,
if the Saguntines chose safety, they must break faith; if they kept
faith, they must reject safety; as also it fell out. But the safety of
the city of God is such that it can be retained, or rather acquired, by
faith and with faith; but if faith be abandoned, no one can attain it.
It is this thought of a most stedfast and patient spirit that has made
so many noble martyrs, while Romulus has not had, and could not have,
so much as one to die for his divinity.
7. _That the world's belief in Christ is the result of divine
power, not of human persuasion._
But it is thoroughly ridiculous to make mention of the false divinity
of Romulus as any way comparable to that of Christ. Nevertheless, if
Romulus lived about six hundred years before Cicero, in an age which
already was so enlightened that it rejected all impossibilities, how
much more, in an age which certainly was more enlightened, being six
hundred years later, the age of Cicero himself, and of the emperors
Augustus and Tiberius, would the human mind have refused to listen to
or believe in the resurrection of Christ's body and its ascension into
heaven, and have scouted it as an impossibility, had not the divinity
of the truth itself, or the truth of the divinity, and corroborating
miraculous signs, proved that it could happen and had happened? Through
virtue of these testimonies, and notwithstanding the opposition and
terror of so many cruel persecutions, the resurrection and immortality
of the flesh, first in Christ, and subsequently in all in the new
world, was believed, was intrepidly proclaimed, and was sown over the
whole world, to be fertilized richly with the blood of the martyrs.
For the predictions of the prophets that had preceded the events were
read, they were corroborated by powerful signs, and the truth was seen
to be not contradictory to reason, but only different from customary
ideas, so that at length the world embraced the faith it had furiously
persecuted.
8. _Of miracles which were wrought that the world might believe
in Christ, and which have not ceased since the world believed._
Why, they say, are those miracles, which you affirm were wrought
formerly, wrought no longer? I might, indeed, reply that miracles
were necessary before the world believed, in order that it might
believe. And whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies that he may
believe, is himself a great prodigy, because he does not believe,
though the whole world does. But they make these objections for the
sole purpose of insinuating that even those former miracles were
never wrought. How, then, is it that everywhere Christ is celebrated
with such firm belief in His resurrection and ascension? How is it
that in enlightened times, in which every impossibility is rejected,
the world has, without any miracles, believed things marvellously
incredible? Or will they say that these things were credible, and
therefore were credited? Why then do they themselves not believe?
Our argument, therefore, is a summary one--either incredible things
which were not witnessed have caused the world to believe other
incredible things which both occurred and were witnessed, or this
matter was so credible that it needed no miracles in proof of it, and
therefore convicts these unbelievers of unpardonable scepticism. This
I might say for the sake of refuting these most frivolous objectors.
But we cannot deny that many miracles were wrought to confirm that
one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ's ascension to heaven
with the flesh in which He rose. For these most trustworthy books of
ours contain in one narrative both the miracles that were wrought
and the creed which they were wrought to confirm. The miracles were
published that they might produce faith, and the faith which they
produced brought them into greater prominence. For they are read in
congregations that they may be believed, and yet they would not be so
read unless they were believed. For even now miracles are wrought in
the name of Christ, whether by His sacraments or by the prayers or
relics of His saints; but they are not so brilliant and conspicuous
as to cause them to be published with such glory as accompanied the
former miracles. For the canon of the sacred writings, which behoved
to be closed,[972] causes those to be everywhere recited, and to sink
into the memory of all the congregations; but these modern miracles
are scarcely known even to the whole population in the midst of
which they are wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot.
For frequently they are known only to a very few persons, while all
the rest are ignorant of them, especially if the state is a large
one; and when they are reported to other persons in other localities,
there is no sufficient authority to give them prompt and unwavering
credence, although they are reported to the faithful by the faithful.
The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there, and by which
a blind man was restored to sight, could come to the knowledge of
many; for not only is the city a large one, but also the emperor was
there at the time, and the occurrence was witnessed by an immense
concourse of people that had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs
Protasius and Gervasius, which had long lain concealed and unknown,
but were now made known to the bishop Ambrose in a dream, and
discovered by him. By virtue of these remains the darkness of that
blind man was scattered, and he saw the light of day.[973]