servant, He became the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus, though in the form of God He received sacrifice together with
the Father, with whom He is one God, yet in the form of a servant He
chose rather to be than to receive a sacrifice, that not even by
this instance any one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice
should be rendered to any creature. Thus He is both the Priest who
offers and the Sacrifice offered. And He designed that there should
be a daily sign of this in the sacrifice of the Church, which,
being His body, learns to offer herself through Him. Of this true
Sacrifice the ancient sacrifices of the saints were the various and
numerous signs; and it was thus variously figured, just as one thing
is signified by a variety of words, that there may be less weariness
when we speak of it much. To this supreme and true sacrifice all
false sacrifices have given place.
21. _Of the power delegated to demons for the trial and
glorification of the saints, who conquer not by propitiating
the spirits of the air, but by abiding in God._
The power delegated to the demons at certain appointed and
well-adjusted seasons, that they may give expression to their
hostility to the city of God by stirring up against it the men
who are under their influence, and may not only receive sacrifice
from those who willingly offer it, but may also extort it from the
unwilling by violent persecution;--this power is found to be not
merely harmless, but even useful to the Church, completing as it
does the number of martyrs, whom the city of God esteems as all the
more illustrious and honoured citizens, because they have striven
even to blood against the sin of impiety. If the ordinary language
of the Church allowed it, we might more elegantly call these men our
heroes. For this name is said to be derived from Juno, who in Greek
is called Hêrê, and hence, according to the Greek myths, one of her
sons was called Heros. And these fables mystically signified that
Juno was mistress of the air, which they suppose to be inhabited
by the demons and the heroes, understanding by heroes the souls of
the well-deserving dead. But for a quite opposite reason would we
call our martyrs heroes,--supposing, as I said, that the usage of
ecclesiastical language would admit of it,--not because they lived
along with the demons in the air, but because they conquered these
demons or powers of the air, and among them Juno herself, be she
what she may, not unsuitably represented, as she commonly is by the
poets, as hostile to virtue, and jealous of men of mark aspiring to
the heavens. Virgil, however, unhappily gives way, and yields to
her; for, though he represents her as saying, "I am conquered by
Æneas,"[409] Helenus gives Æneas himself this religious advice:
"Pay vows to Juno: overbear
Her queenly soul with gift and prayer."[410]
In conformity with this opinion, Porphyry--expressing, however, not
so much his own views as other people's--says that a good god or
genius cannot come to a man unless the evil genius has been first of
all propitiated, implying that the evil deities had greater power
than the good; for, until they have been appeased and give place, the
good can give no assistance; and if the evil deities oppose, the good
can give no help; whereas the evil can do injury without the good
being able to prevent them. This is not the way of the true and truly
holy religion; not thus do our martyrs conquer Juno, that is to say,
the powers of the air, who envy the virtues of the pious. Our heroes,
if we could so call them, overcome Hêrê, not by suppliant gifts, but
by divine virtues. As Scipio, who conquered Africa by his valour, is
more suitably styled Africanus than if he had appeased his enemies by
gifts, and so won their mercy.
22. _Whence the saints derive power against demons and true
purification of heart._
It is by true piety that men of God cast out the hostile power
of the air which opposes godliness; it is by exorcising it, not
by propitiating it; and they overcome all the temptations of the
adversary by praying, not to him, but to their own God against him.
For the devil cannot conquer or subdue any but those who are in
league with sin; and therefore he is conquered in the name of Him
who assumed humanity, and that without sin, that Himself being both
Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of sins,
that is to say, might bring it about through the Mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom we are reconciled to God, the
cleansing from sin being accomplished. For men are separated from
God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our
own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence,
not through our own power. For, whatever virtue we call our own is
itself bestowed upon us by His goodness. And we might attribute too
much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in the receipt
of pardon until we laid it down. This is the reason why there has
been vouchsafed to us, through the Mediator, this grace, that we who
are polluted by sinful flesh should be cleansed by the likeness of
sinful flesh. By this grace of God, wherein He has shown His great
compassion toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life,
and, after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by
the vision of immutable truth.
23. _Of the principles which, according to the Platonists,
regulate the purification of the soul._
Even Porphyry asserts that it was revealed by divine oracles that
we are not purified by any sacrifices[411] to sun or moon, meaning
it to be inferred that we are not purified by sacrificing to any
gods. For what mysteries can purify, if those of the sun and moon,
which are esteemed the chief of the celestial gods, do not purify?
He says, too, in the same place, that "principles" can purify,
lest it should be supposed, from his saying that sacrificing to
the sun and moon cannot purify, that sacrificing to some other of
the host of gods might do so. And what he as a Platonist means by
"principles," we know.[412] For he speaks of God the Father and God
the Son, whom he calls (writing in Greek) the intellect or mind of
the Father;[413] but of the Holy Spirit he says either nothing, or
nothing plainly, for I do not understand what other he speaks of as
holding the middle place between these two. For if, like Plotinus
in his discussion regarding the three principal substances,[414] he
wished us to understand by this third the soul of nature, he would
certainly not have given it the middle place between these two, that
is, between the Father and the Son. For Plotinus places the soul of
nature after the intellect of the Father, while Porphyry, making it
the mean, does not place it after, but between the others. No doubt
he spoke according to his light, or as he thought expedient; but we
assert that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit not of the Father only, nor
of the Son only, but of both. For philosophers speak as they have a
mind to, and in the most difficult matters do not scruple to offend
religious ears; but we are bound to speak according to a certain
rule, lest freedom of speech beget impiety of opinion about the
matters themselves of which we speak.
24. _Of the one only true principle which alone purifies and renews
human nature._
Accordingly, when we speak of God, we do not affirm two or three
principles, no more than we are at liberty to affirm two or three gods;
although, speaking of each, of the Father, or of the Son, or of the
Holy Ghost, we confess that each is God: and yet we do not say, as the
Sabellian heretics say, that the Father is the same as the Son, and the
Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son; but we say that the
Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son the Son of the Father,
and that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son is neither the
Father nor the Son. It was therefore truly said that man is cleansed
only by a Principle, although the Platonists erred in speaking in the
plural of _principles_. But Porphyry, being under the dominion of
these envious powers, whose influence he was at once ashamed of and
afraid to throw off, refused to recognise that Christ is the Principle
by whose incarnation we are purified. Indeed he despised Him, because
of the flesh itself which He assumed, that He might offer a sacrifice
for our purification,--a great mystery, unintelligible to Porphyry's
pride, which that true and benignant Redeemer brought low by His
humility, manifesting Himself to mortals by the mortality which He
assumed, and which the malignant and deceitful mediators are proud of
wanting, promising, as the boon of immortals, a deceptive assistance
to wretched men. Thus the good and true Mediator showed that it is sin
which is evil, and not the substance or nature of flesh; for this,
together with the human soul, could without sin be both assumed and
retained, and laid down in death, and changed to something better by
resurrection. He showed also that death itself, although the punishment
of sin, was submitted to by Him for our sakes without sin, and must
not be evaded by sin on our part, but rather, if opportunity serves,
be borne for righteousness' sake. For he was able to expiate sins by
dying, because He both died, and not for sin of His own. But He has
not been recognised by Porphyry as the Principle, otherwise he would
have recognised Him as the Purifier. The Principle is neither the flesh
nor the human soul in Christ, but the Word by which all things were
made. The flesh, therefore, does not by its own virtue purify, but
by virtue of the Word by which it was assumed, when "the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us."[415] For, speaking mystically of eating His
flesh, when those who did not understand Him were offended and went
away, saying, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" He answered
to the rest who remained, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing."[416] The Principle, therefore, having assumed
a human soul and flesh, cleanses the soul and flesh of believers.
Therefore, when the Jews asked Him who He was, He answered that He
was the _Principle_.[417] And this we carnal and feeble men, liable
to sin, and involved in the darkness of ignorance, could not possibly
understand, unless we were cleansed and healed by Him, both by means
of what we were, and of what we were not. For we were men, but we were
not righteous; whereas in His incarnation there was a human nature, but
it was righteous, and not sinful. This is the mediation whereby a hand
is stretched to the lapsed and fallen; this is the seed "ordained by
angels," by whose ministry the law also was given enjoining the worship
of one God, and promising that this Mediator should come.
25. _That all the saints, both under the law and before it, were
justified by faith in the mystery of Christ's incarnation._
It was by faith in this mystery, and godliness of life, that
purification was attainable even by the saints of old, whether before
the law was given to the Hebrews (for God and the angels were even then
present as instructors), or in the periods under the law, although the
promises of spiritual things, being presented in figure, seemed to
be carnal, and hence the name of Old Testament. For it was then the
prophets lived, by whom, as by angels, the same promise was announced;
and among them was he whose grand and divine sentiment regarding the
end and supreme good of man I have just now quoted, "It is good for
me to cleave to God."[418] In this psalm the distinction between the
Old and New Testaments is distinctly announced. For the Psalmist says,
that when he saw that the carnal and earthly promises were abundantly
enjoyed by the ungodly, his feet were almost gone, his steps had
well-nigh slipped; and that it seemed to him as if he had served God
in vain, when he saw that those who despised God increased in that
prosperity which he looked for at God's hand. He says, too, that, in
investigating this matter with the desire of understanding why it was
so, he had laboured in vain, until he went into the sanctuary of God,
and understood the end of those whom he had erroneously considered
happy. Then he understood that they were cast down by that very thing,
as he says, which they had made their boast, and that they had been
consumed and perished for their iniquities; and that that whole fabric
of temporal prosperity had become as a dream when one awaketh, and
suddenly finds himself destitute of all the joys he had imaged in
sleep. And, as in this earth or earthy city they seemed to themselves
to be great, he says, "O Lord, in Thy city Thou wilt reduce their image
to nothing." He also shows how beneficial it had been for him to seek
even earthly blessings only from the one true God, in whose power are
all things, for he says, "As a beast was I before Thee, and I am always
with Thee." "As a beast," he says, meaning that he was stupid. For I
ought to have sought from Thee such things as the ungodly could not
enjoy as well as I, and not those things which I saw them enjoying in
abundance, and hence concluded I was serving Thee in vain, because
they who declined to serve Thee had what I had not. Nevertheless, "I
am always with Thee," because even in my desire for such things I did
not pray to other gods. And consequently he goes on, "Thou hast holden
me by my right hand, and by Thy counsel Thou hast guided me, and with
glory hast taken me up;" as if all earthly advantages were left-hand
blessings, though, when he saw them enjoyed by the wicked, his feet
had almost gone. "For what," he says, "have I in heaven, and what have
I desired from Thee upon earth?" He blames himself, and is justly
displeased with himself; because, though he had in heaven so vast a
possession (as he afterwards understood), he yet sought from his God
on earth a transitory and fleeting happiness,--a happiness of mire, we
may say. "My heart and my flesh," he says, "fail, O God of my heart."
Happy failure, from things below to things above! And hence in another
psalm he says, "My soul longeth, yea, even faileth, for the courts
of the Lord."[419] Yet, though he had said of both his heart and his
flesh that they were failing, he did not say, O God of my heart and
my flesh, but, O God of my heart; for by the heart the flesh is made
clean. Therefore, says the Lord, "Cleanse that which is within, and the
outside shall be clean also."[420] He then says that God Himself,--not
anything received from Him, but Himself,--is his portion. "The God of
my heart, and my portion for ever." Among the various objects of human
choice, God alone satisfied him. "For, lo," he says, "they that are
far from Thee shall perish: Thou destroyest all them that go a-whoring
from Thee,"--that is, who prostitute themselves to many gods. And then
follows the verse for which all the rest of the psalm seems to prepare:
"It is good for me to cleave to God,"--not to go far off; not to go
a-whoring with a multitude of gods. And then shall this union with God
be perfected, when all that is to be redeemed in us has been redeemed.
But for the present we must, as he goes on to say, "place our hope in
God." "For that which is seen," says the apostle, "is not hope. For
what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."[421] Being, then,
for the present established in this hope, let us do what the Psalmist
further indicates, and become in our measure angels or messengers of
God, declaring His will, and praising His glory and His grace. For
when he had said, "To place my hope in God," he goes on, "that I may
declare all Thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion." This
is the most glorious city of God; this is the city which knows and
worships one God: she is celebrated by the holy angels, who invite us
to their society, and desire us to become fellow-citizens with them in
this city; for they do not wish us to worship them as our gods, but to
join them in worshipping their God and ours; nor to sacrifice to them,
but, together with them, to become a sacrifice to God. Accordingly,
whoever will lay aside malignant obstinacy, and consider these things,
shall be assured that all these blessed and immortal spirits, who do
not envy us (for if they envied they were not blessed), but rather
love us, and desire us to be as blessed as themselves, look on us with
greater pleasure, and give us greater assistance, when we join them in
worshipping one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, than if we were to
offer to themselves sacrifice and worship.
26. _Of Porphyry's weakness in wavering between the confession of
the true God and the worship of demons._
I know not how it is so, but it seems to me that Porphyry blushed for
his friends the theurgists; for he knew all that I have adduced, but
did not frankly condemn polytheistic worship. He said, in fact, that
there are some angels who visit earth, and reveal divine truth to
theurgists, and others who publish on earth the things that belong to
the Father, His height and depth. Can we believe, then, that the angels
whose office it is to declare the will of the Father, wish us to be
subject to any but Him whose will they declare? And hence, even this
Platonist himself judiciously observes that we should rather imitate
than invoke them. We ought not, then, to fear that we may offend these
immortal and happy subjects of the one God by not sacrificing to them;
for this they know to be due only to the one true God, in allegiance
to whom they themselves find their blessedness, and therefore they
will not have it given to them, either in figure or in the reality,
which the mysteries of sacrifice symbolized. Such arrogance belongs to
proud and wretched demons, whose disposition is diametrically opposite
to the piety of those who are subject to God, and whose blessedness
consists in attachment to Him. And, that we also may attain to this
bliss, they aid us, as is fit, with sincere kindliness, and usurp over
us no dominion, but declare to us Him under whose rule we are then
fellow-subjects. Why, then, O philosopher, do you still fear to speak
freely against the powers which are inimical both to true virtue and
to the gifts of the true God? Already you have discriminated between
the angels who proclaim God's will, and those who visit theurgists,
drawn down by I know not what art. Why do you still ascribe to these
latter the honour of declaring divine truth? If they do not declare
the will of the Father, what divine revelations can they make? Are not
these the evil spirits who were bound over by the incantations of an
envious man,[422] that they should not grant purity of soul to another,
and could not, as you say, be set free from these bonds by a good man
anxious for purity, and recover power over their own actions? Do you
still doubt whether these are wicked demons; or do you, perhaps, feign
ignorance, that you may not give offence to the theurgists, who have
allured you by their secret rites, and have taught you, as a mighty
boon, these insane and pernicious devilries? Do you dare to elevate
above the air, and even to heaven, these envious powers, or pests,
let me rather call them, less worthy of the name of sovereign than of
slaves, as you yourself own; and are you not ashamed to place them even
among your sidereal gods, and so put a slight upon the stars themselves?
27. _Of the impiety of Porphyry, which is worse than even the
mistake of Apuleius._
How much more tolerable and accordant with human feeling is the
error of your Platonist co-sectary Apuleius! for he attributed the
diseases and storms of human passions only to the demons who occupy a
grade beneath the moon, and makes even this avowal as by constraint
regarding gods whom he honours; but the superior and celestial gods,
who inhabit the ethereal regions, whether visible, as the sun, moon,
and other luminaries, whose brilliancy makes them conspicuous, or
invisible, but believed in by him, he does his utmost to remove
beyond the slightest stain of these perturbations. It is not, then,
from Plato, but from your Chaldæan teachers you have learned to
elevate human vices to the ethereal and empyreal regions of the world
and to the celestial firmament, in order that your theurgists might
be able to obtain from your gods divine revelations; and yet you make
yourself superior to these divine revelations by your intellectual
life, which dispenses with these theurgic purifications as not
needed by a philosopher. But, by way of rewarding your teachers, you
recommend these arts to other men, who, not being philosophers, may
be persuaded to use what you acknowledge to be useless to yourself,
who are capable of higher things; so that those who cannot avail
themselves of the virtue of philosophy, which is too arduous for the
multitude, may, at your instigation, betake themselves to theurgists
by whom they may be purified, not, indeed, in the intellectual, but
in the spiritual part of the soul. Now, as the persons who are unfit
for philosophy form incomparably the majority of mankind, more may
be compelled to consult these secret and illicit teachers of yours
than frequent the Platonic schools. For these most impure demons,
pretending to be ethereal gods, whose herald and messenger you have
become, have promised that those who are purified by theurgy in the
spiritual part of their soul shall not indeed return to the Father,
but shall dwell among the ethereal gods above the aerial regions. But
such fancies are not listened to by the multitudes of men whom Christ
came to set free from the tyranny of demons. For in Him they have
the most gracious cleansing, in which mind, spirit, and body alike
participate. For, in order that He might heal the whole man from the
plague of sin, He took without sin the whole human nature. Would that
you had known Him, and would that you had committed yourself for
healing to Him rather than to your own frail and infirm human virtue,
or to pernicious and curious arts! He would not have deceived you;
for Him your own oracles, on your own showing, acknowledged holy
and immortal. It is of Him, too, that the most famous poet speaks,
poetically indeed, since he applies it to the person of another, yet
truly, if you refer it to Christ, saying, "Under thine auspices,
if any traces of our crimes remain, they shall be obliterated, and
earth freed from its perpetual fear."[423] By which he indicates
that, by reason of the infirmity which attaches to this life, the
greatest progress in virtue and righteousness leaves room for the
existence, if not of crimes, yet of the traces of crimes, which are
obliterated only by that Saviour of whom this verse speaks. For that
he did not say this at the prompting of his own fancy, Virgil tells
us in almost the last verse of that 4th Eclogue, when he says, "The
last age predicted by the Cumæan sibyl has now arrived;" whence it
plainly appears that this had been dictated by the Cumæan sibyl. But
those theurgists, or rather demons, who assume the appearance and
form of gods, pollute rather than purify the human spirit by false
appearances and the delusive mockery of unsubstantial forms. How
can those whose own spirit is unclean cleanse the spirit of man?
Were they not unclean, they would not be bound by the incantations
of an envious man, and would neither be afraid nor grudge to bestow
that hollow boon which they promise. But it is sufficient for our
purpose that you acknowledge that the intellectual soul, that is, our
mind, cannot be justified by theurgy; and that even the spiritual
or inferior part of our soul cannot by this act be made eternal
and immortal, though you maintain that it can be purified by it.
Christ, however, promises life eternal; and therefore to Him the
world flocks, greatly to your indignation, greatly also to your
astonishment and confusion. What avails your forced avowal that
theurgy leads men astray, and deceives vast numbers by its ignorant
and foolish teaching, and that it is the most manifest mistake to
have recourse by prayer and sacrifice to angels and principalities,
when at the same time, to save yourself from the charge of spending
labour in vain on such arts, you direct men to the theurgists, that
by their means men, who do not live by the rule of the intellectual
soul, may have their spiritual soul purified?
28. _How it is that Porphyry has been so blind as not to recognise
the true wisdom--Christ._
You drive men, therefore, into the most palpable error. And yet you
are not ashamed of doing so much harm, though you call yourself a
lover of virtue and wisdom. Had you been true and faithful in this
profession, you would have recognised Christ, the virtue of God and
the wisdom of God, and would not, in the pride of vain science, have
revolted from His wholesome humility. Nevertheless you acknowledge
that the spiritual part of the soul can be purified by the virtue
of chastity without the aid of those theurgic arts and mysteries
which you wasted your time in learning. You even say, sometimes,
that these mysteries do not raise the soul after death, so that,
after the termination of this life, they seem to be of no service
even to the part you call spiritual; and yet you recur on every
opportunity to these arts, for no other purpose, so far as I see,
than to appear an accomplished theurgist, and gratify those who are
curious in illicit arts, or else to inspire others with the same
curiosity. But we give you all praise for saying that this art is
to be feared, both on account of the legal enactments against it,
and by reason of the danger involved in the very practice of it. And
would that in this, at least, you were listened to by its wretched
votaries, that they might be withdrawn from entire absorption in it,
or might even be preserved from tampering with it at all! You say,
indeed, that ignorance, and the numberless vices resulting from it,
cannot be removed by any mysteries, but only by the πατρικὸς νοῦς,
that is, the Father's mind or intellect conscious of the Father's
will. But that Christ is this mind you do not believe; for Him you
despise on account of the body He took of a woman and the shame of
the cross; for your lofty wisdom spurns such low and contemptible
things, and soars to more exalted regions. But He fulfils what
the holy prophets truly predicted regarding Him: "I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the prudence of the
prudent."[424] For He does not destroy and bring to nought His own
gift in them, but what they arrogate to themselves, and do not hold
of Him. And hence the apostle, having quoted this testimony from
the prophet, adds, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where
is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom
of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the
Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the
Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto
them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser
than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."[425] This
is despised as a weak and foolish thing by those who are wise and
strong in themselves; yet this is the grace which heals the weak, who
do not proudly boast a blessedness of their own, but rather humbly
acknowledge their real misery.
29. _Of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the
Platonists in their impiety blush to acknowledge._
You proclaim the Father and His Son, whom you call the Father's
intellect or mind, and between these a third, by whom we suppose you
mean the Holy Spirit, and in your own fashion you call these three
Gods. In this, though your expressions are inaccurate, you do in some
sort, and as through a veil, see what we should strive towards; but
the incarnation of the unchangeable Son of God, whereby we are saved,
and are enabled to reach the things we believe, or in part understand,
this is what you refuse to recognise. You see in a fashion, although
at a distance, although with filmy eye, the country in which we should
abide; but the way to it you know not. Yet you believe in grace, for
you say it is granted to few to reach God by virtue of intelligence.
For you do not say, "Few have thought fit or have wished," but, "It
has been granted to few,"--distinctly acknowledging God's grace,
not man's sufficiency. You also use this word more expressly, when,
in accordance with the opinion of Plato, you make no doubt that in
this life a man cannot by any means attain to perfect wisdom, but
that whatever is lacking is in the future life made up to those who
live intellectually, by God's providence and grace. Oh, had you but
recognised the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, and that very
incarnation of His, wherein He assumed a human soul and body, you
might have seemed the brightest example of grace![426] But what am
I doing? I know it is useless to speak to a dead man,--useless, at
least, so far as regards you, but perhaps not in vain for those who
esteem you highly, and love you on account of their love of wisdom or
curiosity about those arts which you ought not to have learned; and
these persons I address in your name. The grace of God could not have
been more graciously commended to us than thus, that the only Son of
God, remaining unchangeable in Himself, should assume humanity, and
should give us the hope of His love, by means of the mediation of
a human nature, through which we, from the condition of men, might
come to Him who was so far off,--the immortal from the mortal; the
unchangeable from the changeable; the just from the unjust; the blessed
from the wretched. And, as He had given us a natural instinct to desire
blessedness and immortality, He Himself continuing to be blessed, but
assuming mortality, by enduring what we fear, taught us to despise it,
that what we long for He might bestow upon us.
But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness that
is requisite, and to this it is extremely difficult to bend you. For
what is there incredible, especially to men like you, accustomed to
speculation, which might have predisposed you to believe in this,--what
is there incredible, I say, in the assertion that God assumed a
human soul and body? You yourselves ascribe such excellence to the
intellectual soul, which is, after all, the human soul, that you
maintain that it can become consubstantial with that intelligence of
the Father whom you believe in as the Son of God. What incredible
thing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an ineffable
and unique manner for the salvation of many? Moreover, our nature
itself testifies that a man is incomplete unless a body be united with
the soul. This certainly would be more incredible, were it not of all
things the most common; for we should more easily believe in a union
between spirit and spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the
incorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were human, the
other divine, the one changeable and the other unchangeable, than in a
union between the corporeal and the incorporeal. But perhaps it is the
unprecedented birth of a body from a virgin that staggers you? But,
so far from this being a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to
receive our religion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously.
Or, do you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had been
given up to death, and had been changed into a higher kind of body
by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal but incorruptible, He
carried it up into heavenly places? Perhaps you refuse to believe this,
because you remember that Porphyry, in these very books from which
I have cited so much, and which treat of the return of the soul, so
frequently teaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in
order that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But here, in
place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have corrected him,
especially since you agree with him in believing such incredible things
about the soul of this visible world and huge material frame. For, as
scholars of Plato, you hold that the world is an animal, and a very
happy animal, which you wish to be also everlasting. How, then, is
it never to be loosed from a body, and yet never lose its happiness,
if, in order to the happiness of the soul, the body must be left
behind? The sun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge
to be bodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men,
but also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight, you
declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal, together
with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the Christian faith is
pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to ignore, what you habitually
discuss or teach? Why is it that you refuse to be Christians, on the
ground that you hold opinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish?
Is it not because Christ came in lowliness, and ye are proud? The
precise nature of the resurrection bodies of the saints may sometimes
occasion discussion among those who are best read in the Christian
Scriptures; yet there is not among us the smallest doubt that they
shall be everlasting, and of a nature exemplified in the instance of
Christ's risen body. But whatever be their nature, since we maintain
that they shall be absolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall
offer no hindrance to the soul's contemplation by which it is fixed
in God, and as you say that among the celestials the bodies of the
eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that, in order to
blessedness, every body must be escaped from? Why do you thus seek
such a plausible reason for escaping from the Christian faith, if not
because, as I again say, Christ is humble and ye proud? Are ye ashamed
to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a
degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the
discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think
and to say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the
light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."[427]
The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to tell me
that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening
passage of the holy gospel, entitled "According to John," should be
written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most
conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master,
because "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."[428] So that,
with these miserable creatures, it is not enough that they are sick,
but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which
could heal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more
disastrous fall.
30. _Porphyry's emendations and modifications of Platonism._
If it is considered unseemly to emend anything which Plato has
touched, why did Porphyry himself make emendations, and these not
a few? for it is very certain that Plato wrote that the souls of
men return after death to the bodies of beasts.[429] Plotinus also,
Porphyry's teacher, held this opinion;[430] yet Porphyry justly
rejected it. He was of opinion that human souls return indeed into
human bodies, but not into the bodies they had left, but other new
bodies. He shrank from the other opinion, lest a woman who had
returned into a mule might possibly carry her own son on her back. He
did not shrink, however, from a theory which admitted the possibility
of a mother coming back into a girl and marrying her own son. How
much more honourable a creed is that which was taught by the holy
and truthful angels, uttered by the prophets who were moved by God's
Spirit, preached by Him who was foretold as the coming Saviour by His
forerunning heralds, and by the apostles whom He sent forth, and who
filled the whole world with the gospel,--how much more honourable,
I say, is the belief that souls return once for all to their own
bodies, than that they return again and again to divers bodies?
Nevertheless Porphyry, as I have said, did considerably improve upon
this opinion, in so far, at least, as he maintained that human souls
could transmigrate only into human bodies, and made no scruple about
demolishing the bestial prisons into which Plato had wished to cast
them. He says, too, that God put the soul into the world that it
might recognise the evils of matter, and return to the Father, and
be for ever emancipated from the polluting contact of matter. And
although here is some inappropriate thinking (for the soul is rather
given to the body that it may do good; for it would not learn evil
unless it did it), yet he corrects the opinion of other Platonists,
and that on a point of no small importance, inasmuch as he avows that
the soul, which is purged from all evil and received to the Father's
presence, shall never again suffer the ills of this life. By this
opinion he quite subverted the favourite Platonic dogma, that as dead
men are made out of living ones, so living men are made out of dead
ones; and he exploded the idea which Virgil seems to have adopted
from Plato, that the purified souls which have been sent into the
Elysian fields (the poetic name for the joys of the blessed) are
summoned to the river Lethe, that is, to the oblivion of the past,
"That earthward they may pass once more,
Remembering not the things before,
And with a blind propension yearn
To fleshly bodies to return."[431]
This found no favour with Porphyry, and very justly; for it is indeed
foolish to believe that souls should desire to return from that
life, which cannot be very blessed unless by the assurance of its
permanence, and to come back into this life, and to the pollution
of corruptible bodies, as if the result of perfect purification
were only to make defilement desirable. For if perfect purification
effects the oblivion of all evils, and the oblivion of evils creates
a desire for a body in which the soul may again be entangled with
evils, then the supreme felicity will be the cause of infelicity, and
the perfection of wisdom the cause of foolishness, and the purest
cleansing the cause of defilement. And, however long the blessedness
of the soul last, it cannot be founded on truth, if, in order to
be blessed, it must be deceived. For it cannot be blessed unless
it be free from fear. But, to be free from fear, it must be under
the _false_ impression that it shall be always blessed,--the false
impression, for it is destined to be also at some time miserable.
How, then, shall the soul rejoice in truth, whose joy is founded on
falsehood? Porphyry saw this, and therefore said that the purified
soul returns to the Father, that it may never more be entangled in
the polluting contact with evil. The opinion, therefore, of some
Platonists, that there is a necessary revolution carrying souls away
and bringing them round again to the same things, is false. But, were
it true, what were the advantage of knowing it? Would the Platonists
presume to allege their superiority to us, because we were in this
life ignorant of what they themselves were doomed to be ignorant of
when perfected in purity and wisdom in another and better life, and
which they must be ignorant of if they are to be blessed? If it were
most absurd and foolish to say so, then certainly we must prefer
Porphyry's opinion to the idea of a circulation of souls through
constantly alternating happiness and misery. And if this is just,
here is a Platonist emending Plato, here is a man who saw what Plato
did not see, and who did not shrink from correcting so illustrious a
master, but preferred truth to Plato.
31. _Against the arguments on which the Platonists ground their
assertion that the human soul is co-eternal with God._
Why, then, do we not rather believe the divinity in those matters,
which human talent cannot fathom? Why do we not credit the assertion
of divinity, that the soul is not co-eternal with God, but is
created, and once was not? For the Platonists seemed to themselves to
allege an adequate reason for their rejection of this doctrine, when
they affirmed that nothing could be everlasting which had not always
existed. Plato, however, in writing concerning the world and the gods
in it, whom the Supreme made, most expressly states that they had
a beginning and yet would have no end, but, by the sovereign will
of the Creator, would endure eternally. But, by way of interpreting
this, the Platonists have discovered that he meant a beginning,
not of time, but of cause. "For as if a foot," they say, "had been
always from eternity in dust, there would always have been a print
underneath it; and yet no one would doubt that this print was made
by the pressure of the foot, nor that, though the one was made by
the other, neither was prior to the other; so," they say, "the world
and the gods created in it have always been, their Creator always
existing, and yet they were made." If, then, the soul has always
existed, are we to say that its wretchedness has always existed?
For if there is something in it which was not from eternity, but
began in time, why is it impossible that the soul itself, though not
previously existing, should begin to be in time? Its blessedness,
too, which, as he owns, is to be more stable, and indeed endless,
after the soul's experience of evils,--this undoubtedly has a
beginning in time, and yet is to be always, though previously it
had no existence. This whole argumentation, therefore, to establish
that nothing can be endless except that which has had no beginning,
falls to the ground. For here we find the blessedness of the soul,
which has a beginning, and yet has no end. And, therefore, let the
incapacity of man give place to the authority of God; and let us
take our belief regarding the true religion from the ever-blessed
spirits, who do not seek for themselves that honour which they
know to be due to their God and ours, and who do not command us to
sacrifice save only to Him, whose sacrifice, as I have often said
already, and must often say again, we and they ought together to be,
offered through that Priest who offered Himself to death a sacrifice
for us, in that human nature which He assumed, and according to which
He desired to be our Priest.
32. _Of the universal way of the soul's deliverance, which Porphyry
did not find because he did not rightly seek it, and which the
grace of Christ has alone thrown open._
This is the religion which possesses the universal way for delivering
the soul; for, except by this way, none can be delivered. This is
a kind of royal way, which alone leads to a kingdom which does not
totter like all temporal dignities, but stands firm on eternal
foundations. And when Porphyry says, towards the end of the first
book _De Regressu Animæ_, that no system of doctrine which furnishes
the universal way for delivering the soul has as yet been received,
either from the truest philosophy, or from the ideas and practices
of the Indians, or from the reasoning[432] of the Chaldæans, or from
any source whatever, and that no historical reading had made him
acquainted with that way, he manifestly acknowledges that there is
such a way, but that as yet he was not acquainted with it. Nothing of
all that he had so laboriously learned concerning the deliverance of
the soul, nothing of all that he seemed to others, if not to himself,
to know and believe, satisfied him. For he perceived that there was
still wanting a commanding authority which it might be right to
follow in a matter of such importance. And when he says that he had
not learned from any truest philosophy a system which possessed the
universal way of the soul's deliverance, he shows plainly enough,
as it seems to me, either that the philosophy of which he was a
disciple was not the truest, or that it did not comprehend such
a way. And how can that be the truest philosophy which does not
possess this way? For what else is the universal way of the soul's
deliverance than that by which all souls universally are delivered,
and without which, therefore, no soul is delivered? And when he says,
in addition, "or from the ideas and practices of the Indians, or from
the reasoning of the Chaldæans, or from any source whatever," he
declares in the most unequivocal language that this universal way of
the soul's deliverance was not embraced in what he had learned either
from the Indians or the Chaldæans; and yet he could not forbear
stating that it was from the Chaldæans he had derived these divine
oracles of which he makes such frequent mention. What, therefore,
does he mean by this universal way of the soul's deliverance, which
had not yet been made known by any truest philosophy, or by the
doctrinal systems of those nations which were considered to have
great insight in things divine, because they indulged more freely
in a curious and fanciful science and worship of angels? What is
this universal way of which he acknowledges his ignorance, if not
a way which does not belong to one nation as its special property,
but is common to all, and divinely bestowed? Porphyry, a man of no
mediocre abilities, does not question that such a way exists; for he
believes that Divine Providence could not have left men destitute of
this universal way of delivering the soul. For he does not say that
this way does not exist, but that this great boon and assistance has
not yet been discovered, and has not come to his knowledge. And no
wonder; for Porphyry lived in an age when this universal way of the
soul's deliverance,--in other words, the Christian religion,--was
exposed to the persecutions of idolaters and demon-worshippers, and
earthly rulers,[433] that the number of martyrs or witnesses for the
truth might be completed and consecrated, and that by them proof
might be given that we must endure all bodily sufferings in the cause
of the holy faith, and for the commendation of the truth. Porphyry,
being a witness of these persecutions, concluded that this way was
destined to a speedy extinction, and that it, therefore, was not
the universal way of the soul's deliverance, and did not see that
the very thing that thus moved him, and deterred him from becoming
a Christian, contributed to the confirmation and more effectual
commendation of our religion.
This, then, is the universal way of the soul's deliverance, the way
that is granted by the divine compassion to the nations universally.
And no nation to which the knowledge of it has already come, or may
hereafter come, ought to demand, Why so soon? or, Why so late?--for
the design of Him who sends it is impenetrable by human capacity. This
was felt by Porphyry when he confined himself to saying that this gift
of God was not yet received, and had not yet come to his knowledge.
For, though this was so, he did not on that account pronounce that the
way itself had no existence. This, I say, is the universal way for
the deliverance of believers, concerning which the faithful Abraham
received the divine assurance, "In thy seed shall all nations be
blessed."[434] He, indeed, was by birth a Chaldæan; but, that he might
receive these great promises, and that there might be propagated from
him a seed "disposed by angels in the hand of a Mediator,"[435] in whom
this universal way, thrown open to all nations for the deliverance
of the soul, might be found, he was ordered to leave his country,
and kindred, and father's house. Then was he himself, first of all,
delivered from the Chaldæan superstitions, and by his obedience
worshipped the one true God, whose promises he faithfully trusted.
This is the universal way, of which it is said in holy prophecy, "God
be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon
us; that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all
nations."[436] And hence, when our Saviour, so long after, had taken
flesh of the seed of Abraham, He says of Himself, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life."[437] This is the universal way, of which so long
before it had been predicted, "And it shall come to pass in the last
days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all
nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye,
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God
of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His
paths: for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem."[438] This way, therefore, is not the property
of one, but of all nations. The law and the word of the Lord did not
remain in Zion and Jerusalem, but issued thence to be universally
diffused. And therefore the Mediator Himself, after His resurrection,
says to His alarmed disciples, "These are the words which I spake
unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in
the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened He their understandings that
they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is
written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the
dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."[439]
This is the universal way of the soul's deliverance, which the holy
angels and the holy prophets formerly disclosed where they could
among the few men who found the grace of God, and especially in the
Hebrew nation, whose commonwealth was, as it were, consecrated to
prefigure and fore-announce the city of God which was to be gathered
from all nations, by their tabernacle, and temple, and priesthood,
and sacrifices. In some explicit statements, and in many obscure
foreshadowings, this way was declared; but latterly came the Mediator
Himself in the flesh, and His blessed apostles, revealing how the grace
of the New Testament more openly explained what had been obscurely
hinted to preceding generations, in conformity with the relation of the
ages of the human race, and as it pleased God in His wisdom to appoint,
who also bore them witness with signs and miracles, some of which I
have cited above. For not only were there visions of angels, and words
heard from those heavenly ministrants, but also men of God, armed with
the word of simple piety, cast out unclean spirits from the bodies and
senses of men, and healed deformities and sicknesses; the wild beasts
of earth and sea, the birds of air, inanimate things, the elements,
the stars, obeyed their divine commands; the powers of hell gave way
before them, the dead were restored to life. I say nothing of the
miracles peculiar and proper to the Saviour's own person, especially
the nativity and the resurrection; in the one of which He wrought only
the mystery of a virgin maternity, while in the other He furnished an
instance of the resurrection which all shall at last experience. This
way purifies the whole man, and prepares the mortal in all his parts
for immortality. For, to prevent us from seeking for one purgation for
the part which Porphyry calls intellectual, and another for the part he
calls spiritual, and another for the body itself, our most mighty and
truthful Purifier and Saviour assumed the whole human nature. Except by
this way, which has been present among men both during the period of
the promises and of the proclamation of their fulfilment, no man has
been delivered, no man is delivered, no man shall be delivered.
As to Porphyry's statement that the universal way of the soul's
deliverance had not yet come to his knowledge by any acquaintance he
had with history, I would ask, what more remarkable history can be
found than that which has taken possession of the whole world by its
authoritative voice? or what more trustworthy than that which narrates
past events, and predicts the future with equal clearness, and in the
unfulfilled predictions of which we are constrained to believe by those
that are already fulfilled? For neither Porphyry nor any Platonists
can despise divination and prediction, even of things that pertain to
this life and earthly matters, though they justly despise ordinary
soothsaying and the divination that is connected with magical arts.
They deny that these are the predictions of great men, or are to be
considered important, and they are right; for they are founded, either
on the foresight of subsidiary causes, as to a professional eye much of
the course of a disease is foreseen by certain premonitory symptoms,
or the unclean demons predict what they have resolved to do, that they
may thus work upon the thoughts and desires of the wicked with an
appearance of authority, and incline human frailty to imitate their
impure actions. It is not such things that the saints who walk in the
universal way care to predict as important, although, for the purpose
of commending the faith, they knew and often predicted even such things
as could not be detected by human observation, nor be readily verified
by experience. But there were other truly important and divine events
which they predicted, in so far as it was given them to know the will
of God. For the incarnation of Christ, and all those important marvels
that were accomplished in Him, and done in His name; the repentance
of men and the conversion of their wills to God; the remission of
sins, the grace of righteousness, the faith of the pious, and the
multitudes in all parts of the world who believe in the true divinity;
the overthrow of idolatry and demon worship, and the testing of the
faithful by trials; the purification of those who persevered, and their
deliverance from all evil; the day of judgment, the resurrection of
the dead, the eternal damnation of the community of the ungodly, and
the eternal kingdom of the most glorious city of God, ever-blessed
in the enjoyment of the vision of God,--these things were predicted
and promised in the Scriptures of this way; and of these we see so
many fulfilled, that we justly and piously trust that the rest will
also come to pass. As for those who do not believe, and consequently
do not understand, that this is the way which leads straight to the
vision of God and to eternal fellowship with Him, according to the true
predictions and statements of the Holy Scriptures, they may storm at
our position, but they cannot storm it.
And therefore, in these ten books, though not meeting, I dare say,
the expectation of some, yet I have, as the true God and Lord has
vouchsafed to aid me, satisfied the desire of certain persons, by
refuting the objections of the ungodly, who prefer their own gods to
the Founder of the holy city, about which we undertook to speak. Of
these ten books, the first five were directed against those who think
we should worship the gods for the sake of the blessings of this
life, and the second five against those who think we should worship
them for the sake of the life which is to be after death. And now, in
fulfilment of the promise I made in the first book, I shall go on to
say, as God shall aid me, what I think needs to be said regarding the
origin, history, and deserved ends of the two cities, which, as already
remarked, are in this world commingled and implicated with one another.
FOOTNOTES:
[364] Rom. i. 21.
[365] Eph. vi. 5.
[366] Namely, δουλεία: comp. _Quæst. in Exod._ 94; _Quæst. in Gen._
21; _Contra Faustum_, 15, 9, etc.
[367] Agricolæ, coloni, incolæ.
[368] Virgil, _Eneid_, i. 12.
[369] 2 Chron. xxx. 9; Eccl. xi. 13; Judith vii. 20.
[370] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[371] John i. 6-9.
[372] _Ibid._ 16.
[373] Augustine here remarks, in a clause that cannot be given in
English, that the word _religio_ is derived from _religere_.--So
Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ ii. 28.
[374] Matt. xxii. 37-40.
[375] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
[376] Ex. xxii. 20.
[377] Ps. xvi. 2.
[378] Ps. li. 16, 17.
[379] Ps. l. 12, 13.
[380] Ps. l. 14, 15.
[381] Micah vi. 6-8.
[382] Heb. xiii. 16.
[383] Hos. vi. 6.
[384] Matt. xxii. 40.
[385] On the service rendered to the Church by this definition, see
Waterland's Works, v. 124.
[386] Literally, a sacred action.
[387] Ecclus. xxx. 24.
[388] Rom. vi. 13.
[389] Rom. xii. 1.
[390] Rom. xii. 2.
[391] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
[392] Rom. xii. 3-6.
[393] Ps. lxxxvii. 3.
[394] Ex. xxii. 20.
[395] Gen. xviii. 18.
[396] Gen. xv. 17. In his _Retractations_, ii. 43, Augustine says
that he should not have spoken of this as miraculous, because it was
an appearance seen in sleep.
[397] Gen. xviii.
[398] _Goetia._
[399] 2 Cor. xi. 14.
[400] Virgil, _Georg._ iv. 411.
[401] Ex. xxxiii. 13.
[402] Plotin. _Ennead._ III. ii. 13.
[403] Matt. vi. 28-30.
[404] Acts vii. 53.
[405] _Ennead._ I. vi. 7.
[406] Meaning, officious meddlers.
[407] _Pharsal._ vi. 503.
[408] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
[409] _Æneid_, vii. 310.
[410] _Æneid_, iii. 438, 439.
[411] _Teletis._
[412] The Platonists of the Alexandrian and Athenian schools,
from Plotinus to Proclus, are at one in recognising in God three
principles or hypostases: 1st, the One or the Good, which is the
Father; 2d, the Intelligence or Word, which is the Son; 3d, the Soul,
which is the universal principle of life. But as to the nature and
order of these hypostases, the Alexandrians are no longer at one with
the school of Athens. On the very subtle differences between the
Trinity of Plotinus and that of Porphyry, consult M. Jules Simon, ii.
110, and M. Vacherot, ii. 37.--SAISSET.
[413] See below, c. 28.
[414] _Ennead._ v. 1.
[415] John i. 14.
[416] John vi. 60-64.
[417] John viii. 25; or "the beginning," following a different
reading from ours.
[418] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
[419] Ps. lxxxiv. 2.
[420] Matt. xxiii. 26.
[421] Rom. viii. 24, 25.
[422] See above, c. 9.
[423] Virgil, _Eclog._ iv. 13, 14.
[424] Isa. xxix. 14.
[425] 1 Cor. i. 19-25.
[426] According to another reading, "You might have seen it to be,"
etc.
[427] John i. 1-5.
[428] John i. 14.
[429] Comp. Euseb. _Præp. Evan._ xiii. 16.
[430] _Ennead._ iii. 4. 2.
[431] _Æneid_, vi. 750, 751.
[432] _Inductio._
[433] Namely, under Diocletian and Maximian.
[434] Gen. xxii. 18.
[435] Gal. iii. 19.
[436] Ps. lxvii. 1, 2.
[437] John xiv. 6.
[438] Isa. ii. 2, 3.
[439] Luke xxiv. 44-47.
BOOK ELEVENTH.
ARGUMENT.
HERE BEGINS THE SECOND PART[440] OF THIS WORK, WHICH TREATS OF
THE ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND DESTINIES OF THE TWO CITIES, THE
EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY. IN THE FIRST PLACE, AUGUSTINE SHOWS
IN THIS BOOK HOW THE TWO CITIES WERE FORMED ORIGINALLY, BY THE
SEPARATION OF THE GOOD AND BAD ANGELS; AND TAKES OCCASION TO
TREAT OF THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, AS IT IS DESCRIBED IN HOLY
SCRIPTURE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
1. _Of this part of the work, wherein we begin to explain the origin
and end of the two cities._
The city of God we speak of is the same to which testimony is borne
by that Scripture, which excels all the writings of all nations
by its divine authority, and has brought under its influence all
kinds of minds, and this not by a casual intellectual movement, but
obviously by an express providential arrangement. For there it is
written, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God."[441]
And in another psalm we read, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be
praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness,
increasing the joy of the whole earth."[442] And, a little after, in
the same psalm, "As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the
Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God has established it for
ever." And in another, "There is a river the streams whereof shall
make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles
of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be
moved."[443] From these and similar testimonies, all of which it
were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God,
and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its
citizenship. To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the
earthly city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God
of gods, not of false, _i.e._ of impious and proud gods, who, being
deprived of His unchangeable and freely communicated light, and so
reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power, eagerly grasp at their
own private privileges, and seek divine honours from their deluded
subjects; but of the pious and holy gods, who are better pleased to
submit themselves to one, than to subject many to themselves, and
who would rather worship God than be worshipped as God. But to the
enemies of this city we have replied in the ten preceding books,
according to our ability and the help afforded by our Lord and King.
Now, recognising what is expected of me, and not unmindful of my
promise, and relying, too, on the same succour, I will endeavour to
treat of the origin, and progress, and deserved destinies of the two
cities (the earthly and the heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are
in this present world commingled, and as it were entangled together.
And, first, I will explain how the foundations of these two cities
were originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.
2. _Of the knowledge of God, to which no man can attain save
through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus._
It is a great and very rare thing for a man, after he has
contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal, and has
discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by the continued
soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable substance of God,
and, in that height of contemplation, to learn from God Himself that
none but He has made all that is not of the divine essence. For God
speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in
his ears, so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with
him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being
with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar
states; for even in this case He speaks as if to the ears of the
body, because it is by means of the semblance of a body He speaks,
and with the appearance of a real interval of space,--for visions are
exact representations of bodily objects. Not by these, then, does God
speak, but by the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with
the mind rather than with the body. For He speaks to that part of
man which is better than all else that is in him, and than which God
Himself alone is better. For since man is most properly understood
(or, if that cannot be, then, at least, _believed_) to be made in
God's image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he rises above
those lower parts he has in common with the beasts, which brings him
nearer to the Supreme. But since the mind itself, though naturally
capable of reason and intelligence, is disabled by besotting and
inveterate vices not merely from delighting and abiding in, but even
from tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually
healed, and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in
the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified. And
that in this faith it might advance the more confidently towards the
truth, the truth itself, God, God's Son, assuming humanity without
destroying His divinity,[444] established and founded this faith,
that there might be a way for man to man's God through a God-man. For
this is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For
it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way
lieth between him who goes, and the place whither he goes, there is
hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not
where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go? Now the only
way that is infallibly secured against all mistakes, is when the very
same person is at once God and man, God our end, man our way.[445]
3. _Of the authority of the canonical Scriptures composed by the
Divine Spirit._
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient, first by
the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles,
has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical,
which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all
matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know
of ourselves. For if we attain the knowledge of present objects by
the testimony of our own senses,[446] whether internal or external,
then, regarding objects remote from our own senses, we need others
to bring their testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and
we credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are sensibly
present. Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects which we have
not seen, we trust those who have, (and likewise with all sensible
objects,) so in the case of things which are perceived[447] by the
mind and spirit, _i.e._ which are remote from our own interior
sense, it behoves us to trust those who have seen them set in that
incorporeal light, or abidingly contemplate them.
4. _That the world is neither without beginning, nor yet created
by a new decree of God, by which He afterwards willed what He
had not before willed._
Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible,
the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see; that God is, we
believe. That God made the world, we can believe from no one more
safely than from God Himself. But where have we heard Him? Nowhere
more distinctly than in the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said,
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."[448] Was
the prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; but
the wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there,[449] and
wisdom insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes them the friends
of God and His prophets, and noiselessly informs them of His works.
They are taught also by the angels of God, who always behold the face
of the Father,[450] and announce His will to whom it befits. Of these
prophets was he who said and wrote, "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth." And so fit a witness was he of God, that the
same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him, enabled him also
so long before to predict that our faith also would be forthcoming.
But why did God choose then to create the heavens and earth which
up to that time He had not made?[451] If they who put this question
wish to make out that the world is eternal and without beginning, and
that consequently it has not been made by God, they are strangely
deceived, and rave in the incurable madness of impiety. For, though
the voices of the prophets were silent, the world itself, by its
well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of
all visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has
been created, and also that it could not have been created save by
God, whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and invisible. As
for those[452] who own, indeed, that it was made by God, and yet
ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational beginning, so
that in some scarcely intelligible way the world should always have
existed a created world, they make an assertion which seems to them
to defend God from the charge of arbitrary hastiness, or of suddenly
conceiving the idea of creating the world as a quite new idea, or
of casually changing His will, though He be unchangeable. But I do
not see how this supposition of theirs can stand in other respects,
and chiefly in respect of the soul; for if they contend that it is
co-eternal with God, they will be quite at a loss to explain whence
there has accrued to it new misery, which through a previous eternity
had not existed. For if they said that its happiness and misery
ceaselessly alternate, they must say, further, that this alternation
will continue for ever; whence will result this absurdity, that,
though the soul is called blessed, it is not so in this, that it
foresees its own misery and disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee
it, and supposes that it will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but
always blessed, then it is blessed because it is deceived; and a more
foolish statement one cannot make. But if their idea is that the
soul's misery has alternated with its bliss during the ages of the
past eternity, but that now, when once the soul has been set free,
it will return henceforth no more to misery, they are nevertheless
of opinion that it has never been truly blessed before, but begins
at last to enjoy a new and uncertain happiness; that is to say,
they must acknowledge that some new thing, and that an important
and signal thing, happens to the soul which never in a whole past
eternity happened it before. And if they deny that God's eternal
purpose included this new experience of the soul, they deny that He
is the Author of its blessedness, which is unspeakable impiety.
If, on the other hand, they say that the future blessedness of the
soul is the result of a new decree of God, how will they show that
God is not chargeable with that mutability which displeases them?
Further, if they acknowledge that it was created in time, but will
never perish in time,--that it has, like number,[453] a beginning
but no end,--and that, therefore, having once made trial of misery,
and been delivered from it, it will never again return thereto, they
will certainly admit that this takes place without any violation of
the immutable counsel of God. Let them, then, in like manner believe
regarding the world that it too could be made in time, and yet that
God, in making it, did not alter His eternal design.
5. _That we ought not to seek to comprehend the infinite ages of
time before the world, nor the infinite realms of space._
Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who agree that God
is the Creator of the world, but have difficulties about the time of
its creation, and what reply, also, they can make to difficulties
we might raise about the place of its creation. For, as they demand
why the world was created then and no sooner, we may ask why it
was created just here where it is, and not elsewhere. For if they
imagine infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God
could not have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside
the world infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that
the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it not follow
that they must adopt Epicurus' dream of innumerable worlds? with
this difference only, that he asserts that they are formed and
destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold
that they are made by God's hand, if they maintain that, throughout
the boundless immensity of space, stretching interminably in every
direction round the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which
they suppose Him to make cannot be destroyed. For here the question
is with those who, with ourselves, believe that God is spiritual,
and the Creator of all existences but Himself. As for others, it
is a condescension to dispute with them on a religious question,
for they have acquired a reputation only among men who pay divine
honours to a number of gods, and have become conspicuous among the
other philosophers for no other reason than that, though they are
still far from the truth, they are near it in comparison with the
rest. While these, then, neither confine in any place, nor limit, nor
distribute the divine substance, but, as is worthy of God, own it to
be wholly though spiritually present everywhere, will they perchance
say that this substance is absent from such immense spaces outside
the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little one
compared with the infinity beyond,) the one, namely, in which is
the world? I think they will not proceed to this absurdity. Since
they maintain that there is but one world, of vast material bulk,
indeed, yet finite, and in its own determinate position, and that
this was made by the working of God, let them give the same account
of God's resting in the infinite times before the world as they
give of His resting in the infinite spaces outside of it. And as it
does not follow that God set the world in the very spot it occupies
and no other by accident rather than by divine reason, although no
human reason can comprehend why it was so set, and though there was
no merit in the spot chosen to give it the precedence of infinite
others, so neither does it follow that we should suppose that God was
guided by chance when He created the world in that and no earlier
time, although previous times had been running by during an infinite
past, and though there was no difference by which one time could be
chosen in preference to another. But if they say that the thoughts
of men are idle when they conceive infinite places, since there is
no place beside the world, we reply that, by the same showing, it is
vain to conceive of the past times of God's rest, since there is no
time before the world.
6. _That the world and time had both one beginning, and the one
did not anticipate the other._
For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this, that
time does not exist without some movement and transition, while in
eternity there is no change, who does not see that there could have
been no time had not some creature been made, which by some motion
could give birth to change,--the various parts of which motion and
change, as they cannot be simultaneous, succeed one another,--and
thus, in these shorter or longer intervals of duration, time would
begin? Since then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the
Creator and Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to have
created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless it be said
that prior to the world there was some creature by whose movement
time could pass. And if the sacred and infallible Scriptures say that
in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, in order that
it may be understood that He had made nothing previously,--for if He
had made anything before the rest, this thing would rather be said
to have been made "in the beginning,"--then assuredly the world was
made, not in time, but simultaneously with time. For that which is
made in time is made both after and before some time,--after that
which is past, before that which is future. But none could then be
past, for there was no creature by whose movements its duration could
be measured. But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in
the world's creation change and motion were created, as seems evident
from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the
morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things
which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of
God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days
these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to
conceive, and how much more to say!
7. _Of the nature of the first days, which are said to have had
morning and evening, before there was a sun._
We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the
setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first
three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have
been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made
by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness,
and called the light Day, and the darkness Night; but what kind of
light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and
morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand
how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For either it was
some material light, whether proceeding from the upper parts of the
world, far removed from our sight, or from the spot where the sun
was afterwards kindled; or under the name of light the holy city was
signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits, the city of
which the apostle says, "Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother
in heaven;"[454] and in another place, "For ye are all the children of
the light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of
darkness."[455] Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak of a
morning and evening of this day also. For the knowledge of the creature
is, in comparison of the knowledge of the Creator, but a twilight; and
so it dawns and breaks into morning when the creature is drawn to the
praise and love of the Creator; and night never falls when the Creator
is not forsaken through love of the creature. In fine, Scripture, when
it would recount those days in order, never mentions the word night.
It never says, "Night was," but "The evening and the morning were the
first day." So of the second and the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge
of created things contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more
colourless than when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art
by which they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure
than night; and yet, as I said, morning returns when the creature
returns to the praise and love of the Creator. When it does so in the
knowledge of itself, that is the first day; when in the knowledge of
the firmament, which is the name given to the sky between the waters
above and those beneath, that is the second day; when in the knowledge
of the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth,
that is the third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less
luminaries, and all the stars, that is the fourth day; when in the
knowledge of all animals that swim in the waters and that fly in the
air, that is the fifth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that
live on the earth, and of man himself, that is the sixth day.[456]
8. _What we are to understand of God's resting on the seventh day,
after the six days' work._
When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from all His
works, and hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this in a
childish fashion, as if work were a toil to God, who "spake and it
was done,"--spake by the spiritual and eternal, not audible and
transitory word. But God's rest signifies the rest of those who rest
in God, as the joy of a house means the joy of those in the house
who rejoice, though not the house, but something else, causes the
joy. How much more intelligible is such phraseology, then, if the
house itself, by its own beauty, makes the inhabitants joyful! For
in this case we not only call it joyful by that figure of speech in
which the thing containing is used for the thing contained (as when
we say, "The theatres applaud," "The meadows low," meaning that the
men in the one applaud, and the oxen in the other low), but also by
that figure in which the cause is spoken of as if it were the effect,
as when a letter is said to be joyful, because it makes its readers
so. Most appropriately, therefore, the sacred narrative states that
God rested, meaning thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom
He makes to rest. And this the prophetic narrative promises also to
the men to whom it speaks, and for whom it was written, that they
themselves, after those good works which God does in and by them, if
they have managed by faith to get near to God in this life, shall
enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was prefigured to the ancient people
of God by the rest enjoined in their sabbath law, of which, in its
own place, I shall speak more at large.
9. _What the Scriptures teach us to believe concerning the creation
of the angels._
At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin of the holy
city, and first of the holy angels, who constitute a large part of this
city, and indeed the more blessed part, since they have never been
expatriated, I will give myself to the task of explaining, by God's
help, and as far as seems suitable, the Scriptures which relate to
this point. Where Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is not
plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention
of them is made, it is implicitly under the name of "heaven," when it
is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,"
or perhaps rather under the name of "light," of which presently. But
that they were wholly omitted, I am unable to believe, because it is
written that God on the seventh day rested from all His works which
He made; and this very book itself begins, "In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth," so that before heaven and earth
God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He began with the
heavens and the earth,--and the earth itself, as Scripture adds, was
at first invisible and formless, light not being as yet made, and
darkness covering the face of the deep (that is to say, covering an
undefined chaos of earth and sea, for where light is not, darkness must
needs be),--and then when all things, which are recorded to have been
completed in six days, were created and arranged, how should the angels
be omitted, as if they were not among the works of God, from which on
the seventh day He rested? Yet, though the fact that the angels are the
work of God is not omitted here, it is indeed not explicitly mentioned;
but elsewhere Holy Scripture asserts it in the clearest manner. For
in the Hymn of the Three Children in the Furnace it was said, "O all
ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord;"[457] and among these works
mentioned afterwards in detail, the angels are named. And in the psalm
it is said, "Praise ye the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the
heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels; praise ye Him, all His hosts.
Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all ye stars of light. Praise
Him, ye heaven of heavens; and ye waters that be above the heavens.
Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they
were created."[458] Here the angels are most expressly and by divine
authority said to have been made by God, for of them among the other
heavenly things it is said, "He commanded, and they were created."
Who, then, will be bold enough to suggest that the angels were made
after the six days' creation? If any one is so foolish, his folly is
disposed of by a scripture of like authority, where God says, "When the
stars were made, the angels praised me with a loud voice."[459] The
angels therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made the
fourth day. Shall we then say that they were made the third day? Far
from it; for we know what was made that day. The earth was separated
from the water, and each element took its own distinct form, and the
earth produced all that grows on it. On the second day, then? Not even
on this; for on it the firmament was made between the waters above and
beneath, and was called "Heaven," in which firmament the stars were
made on the fourth day. There is no question, then, that if the angels
are included in the works of God during these six days, they are that
light which was called "Day," and whose unity Scripture signalizes
by calling that day not the "first day," but "one day."[460] For the
second day, the third, and the rest are not other days; but the same
"one" day is repeated to complete the number six or seven, so that
there should be knowledge both of God's works and of His rest. For
when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," if we are
justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels,
then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which
is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made,
and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being
illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light
and be called "Day," in participation of that unchangeable Light and
Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were
made. "The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world,"[461]--this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may
be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away,
he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits,
and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves,
being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no
positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name "evil."[462]
10. _Of the simple and unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, one God, in whom substance and quality are identical._
There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and therefore
alone unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good have all others
been created, but not simple, and therefore not unchangeable.
"Created," I say,--that is, made, not begotten. For that which is
begotten of the simple Good is simple as itself, and the same as
itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both together
with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy
is in Scripture, as it were, appropriated. And He is another than
the Father and the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son.
I say "another," not "another thing," because He is equally with
them the simple Good, unchangeable and co-eternal. And this Trinity
is one God; and none the less simple because a Trinity. For we do
not say that the nature of the good is simple, because the Father
alone possesses it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Ghost alone; nor
do we say, with the Sabellian heretics, that it is only nominally a
Trinity, and has no real distinction of persons; but we say it is
simple, because it is what it has, with the exception of the relation
of the persons to one another. For, in regard to this relation, it is
true that the Father has a Son, and yet is not Himself the Son; and
the Son has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But, as regards
Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each is what He has;
thus, He is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the
Life which He has.
It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is
called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose, and
because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and
the liquor, or a body and its colour, or the air and the light or
heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom. For none of these is what it
has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body colour, nor the air light
and heat, nor the mind wisdom. And hence they can be deprived of
what they have, and can be turned or changed into other qualities
and states, so that the cup may be emptied of the liquid of which
it is full, the body be discoloured, the air darken, the mind grow
silly. The incorruptible body which is promised to the saints in
the resurrection cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption,
but the bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not
the same thing. For the quality of incorruption resides entire in
each several part, not greater in one and less in another; for
no part is more incorruptible than another. The body, indeed, is
itself greater in whole than in part; and one part of it is larger,
another smaller, yet is not the larger more incorruptible than the
smaller. The body, then, which is not in each of its parts a whole
body, is one thing; incorruptibility, which is throughout complete,
is another thing;--for every part of the incorruptible body,
however unequal to the rest otherwise, is equally incorrupt. For
the hand, _e.g._, is not more incorrupt than the finger because it
is larger than the finger; so, though finger and hand are unequal,
their incorruptibility is equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is
inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance of the body
is one thing, the quality of incorruption another. And therefore the
body is not what it has. The soul itself, too, though it be always
wise (as it will be eternally when it is redeemed), will be so by
participating in the unchangeable wisdom, which it is not; for though
the air be never robbed of the light that is shed abroad in it, it is
not on that account the same thing as the light. I do not mean that
the soul is air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive
a spiritual nature;[463] but, with much dissimilarity, the two things
have a kind of likeness, which makes it suitable to say that the
immaterial soul is illumined with the immaterial light of the simple
wisdom of God, as the material air is irradiated with material light,
and that, as the air, when deprived of this light, grows dark, (for
material darkness is nothing else than air wanting light,[464]) so
the soul, deprived of the light of wisdom, grows dark.
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly
divine are called simple, because in them quality and substance
are identical, and because they are divine, or wise, or blessed in
themselves, and without extraneous supplement. In Holy Scripture, it
is true, the Spirit of wisdom is called "manifold"[465] because it
contains many things in it; but what it contains it also is, and it
being one is all these things. For neither are there many wisdoms,
but one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things
intellectual, wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of
things visible and changeable which were created by it.[466] For God
made nothing unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said to do
so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only those things which
He had known. Whence flows a very striking but true conclusion, that
this world could not be known to us unless it existed, but could not
have existed unless it had been known to God.
11. _Whether the angels that fell partook of the blessedness which
the holy angels have always enjoyed from the time of their creation._
And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call angels were
never at any time or in any way darkness, but, as soon as they were
made, were made light; yet they were not so created in order that
they might exist and live in any way whatever, but were enlightened
that they might live wisely and blessedly. Some of them, having
turned away from this light, have not won this wise and blessed life,
which is certainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence
of its eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though
darkened with folly, and this they cannot lose, even if they would.
But who can determine to what extent they were partakers of that
wisdom before they fell? And how shall we say that they participated
in it equally with those who through it are truly and fully blessed,
resting in a true certainty of eternal felicity? For if they had
equally participated in this true knowledge, then the evil angels
would have remained eternally blessed equally with the good, because
they were equally expectant of it. For, though a life be never so
long, it cannot be truly called eternal if it is destined to have
an end; for it is called life inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal
because it has no end. Wherefore, although everything eternal is not
therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be
truly and perfectly blessed except it be eternal, the life of these
angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and therefore not
eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the one case fear, in the
other ignorance, prevented them from being blessed. And even if
their ignorance was not so great as to breed in them a wholly false
expectation, but left them wavering in uncertainty whether their
good would be eternal or would some time terminate, this very doubt
concerning so grand a destiny was incompatible with the plenitude
of blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For we do
not so narrow and restrict the application of the term "blessedness"
as to apply it to God only,[467] though doubtless He is so truly
blessed that greater blessedness cannot be; and, in comparison of His
blessedness, what is that of the angels, though, according to their
capacity, they be perfectly blessed?
12. _A comparison of the blessedness of the righteous, who have not
yet received the divine reward, with that of our first parents
in paradise._
And the angels are not the only members of the rational and
intellectual creation whom we call blessed. For who will take upon him
to deny that those first men in Paradise were blessed previously to
sin, although they were uncertain how long their blessedness was to
last, and whether it would be eternal (and eternal it would have been
had they not sinned),--who, I say, will do so, seeing that even now we
not unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a righteous
and holy life in hope of immortality, who have no harrowing remorse of
conscience, but obtain readily divine remission of the sins of their
present infirmity? These, though they are certain that they shall be
rewarded if they persevere, are not certain that they will persevere.
For what man can know that he will persevere to the end in the exercise
and increase of grace, unless he has been certified by some revelation
from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while He deceives none,
informs few regarding this matter? Accordingly, so far as present
comfort goes, the first man in Paradise was more blessed than any just
man in this insecure state; but as regards the hope of future good,
every man who not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he shall
eternally enjoy the most high God in the company of angels, and beyond
the reach of ill,--this man, no matter what bodily torments afflict
him, is more blessed than was he who, even in that great felicity of
Paradise, was uncertain of his fate.[468]
13. _Whether all the angels were so created in one common state of
felicity, that those who fell were not aware that they would
fall, and that those who stood received assurance of their own
perseverance after the ruin of the fallen._
From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness
which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results
from a combination of these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly
enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered
from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in
the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels of light we piously
believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default lost that
light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned, reason
bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any duration before they
fell, we must allow them a blessedness of some kind, though not that
which is accompanied with foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe
that, when the angels were created, some were created in ignorance
either of their perseverance or their fall, while others were most
certainly assured of the eternity of their felicity,--if it is hard to
believe that they were not all from the beginning on an equal footing,
until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away from the
light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to believe that the
holy angels are now uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and do
not know regarding themselves as much as we have been able to gather
regarding them from the Holy Scriptures. For what catholic Christian
does not know that no new devil will ever arise among the good angels,
as he knows that this present devil will never again return into
the fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel promises to
the saints and the faithful that they will be equal to the angels of
God; and it is also promised them that they will "go away into life
eternal."[469] But if we are certain that we shall never lapse from
eternal felicity, while they are not certain, then we shall not be
their equals, but their superiors. But as the truth never deceives, and
as we shall be their equals, they must be certain of their blessedness.
And because the evil angels could not be certain of that, since their
blessedness was destined to come to an end, it follows either that the
angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels were assured of
the eternity of their blessedness after the perdition of the others;
unless, possibly, some one may say that the words of the Lord about
the devil, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the
truth,"[470] are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer
from the beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could kill by
his deceit, was made, but also that he did not abide in the truth from
the time of his own creation, and was accordingly never blessed with
the holy angels, but refused to submit to his Creator, and proudly
exulted as if in a private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived
and deceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded;
and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they are,
proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state of things that does
not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John says thus becomes
intelligible: "The devil sinneth from the beginning,"[471]--that is,
from the time he was created he refused righteousness which none but a
will piously subject to God can enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at
least disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other
pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from some
adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself. These persons are so
befooled by error, that, although they acknowledge with ourselves the
authority of the gospels, they do not notice that the Lord did not say,
"The devil was naturally a stranger to the truth," but "The devil abode
not in the truth," by which He meant us to understand that he had
fallen from the truth, in which, if he had abode, he would have become
a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness along with the holy
angels.[472]
14. _An explanation of what is said of the devil, that he did not
abide in the truth, because the truth was not in him._
Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in
the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, "because the truth
is not in him." Now, it would be in him had he abode in it. But the
phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, "He abode not in the
truth, because the truth is not in him," it seems as if the truth's
not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his
not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him.
The same form of speech is found in the psalm: "I have called upon
Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God,"[473] where we should expect it
to be said, Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee.
But when he had said, "I have called," then, as if some one were
seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of
his prayer by the effect of God's hearing it; as if he had said, The
proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.
15. _How we are to understand the words, "The devil sinneth from
the beginning."_
As for what John says about the devil, "The devil sinneth from the
beginning,"[474] they[475] who suppose it is meant hereby that the
devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be
natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic
proofs,--either what Isaiah says when he represents the devil under
the person of the king of Babylon, "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer,
son of the morning!"[476] or what Ezekiel says, "Thou hast been in
Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,"[477]
where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for a little
after it is still more explicitly said, "Thou wast perfect in thy
ways?" And if these passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted,
we must understand by this one also, "He abode not in the truth,"
that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from
this passage, "The devil sinneth from the beginning," it is not
to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created
existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he
had once commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of
Job, of which the devil is the subject: "This is the beginning of the
creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels,"[478]
which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, "There is that
dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein."[479] But these
passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally
created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to
this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork
of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest,
and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has
proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can
be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature,
which surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork
of the Most High!
16. _Of the ranks and differences of the creatures, estimated by
their utility, or according to the natural gradations of being._
For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God
the Creator's essence, those which have life are ranked above
those which have none; those that have the power of generation,
or even of desiring, above those which want this faculty. And,
among things that have life, the sentient are higher than those
which have no sensation, as animals are ranked above trees. And,
among the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not
intelligence,--men, _e.g._, above cattle. And, among the intelligent,
the immortal, such as the angels, above the mortal, such as men.
These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but
according to the utility each man finds in a thing, there are various
standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some
things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong
is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the
latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they
hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own
convenience. Who, _e.g._, would not rather have bread in his house
than mice, gold than fleas? But there is little to wonder at in
this, seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature
is certainly of the highest dignity), more is often given for a
horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason
of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from
those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of the
voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing in itself has
in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its
need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be true,
while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titillates the bodily sense.
But of such consequence in rational natures is the weight, so to
speak, of will and of love, that though in the order of nature angels
rank above men, yet, by the scale of justice, good men are of greater
value than bad angels.
17. _That the flaw of wickedness is not nature, but contrary to
nature, and has its origin, not in the Creator, but in the will._
It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness
of the devil, that we are to understand these words, "This is the
beginning of God's handiwork;"[480] for, without doubt, wickedness
can be a flaw or vice[481] only where the nature previously was not
vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but
damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless
in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even
the wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But
God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of
evil wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use
of good natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills. Accordingly,
He caused the devil (good by God's creation, wicked by his own will)
to be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery
of His angels,--that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those
whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created
him, was certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw
the good which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore
says the psalm, "This leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport
therein,"[482] that we may see that, even while God in His goodness
created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He
would make use of him when he became wicked.
18. _Of the beauty of the universe, which becomes, by God's
ordinance, more brilliant by the opposition of contraries._
For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even
man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally
known to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus
embellishing the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem
set off with antitheses. For what are called antitheses are among
the most elegant of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in
Latin "oppositions," or, to speak more accurately, "contrapositions;"
but this word is not in common use among us,[483] though the Latin,
and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves of the same
ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the
Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place
where he says, "By the armour of righteousness on the right hand and
on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report:
as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying,
and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet
alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing,
and yet possessing all things."[484] As, then, these oppositions of
contraries lend beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course
of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged,
as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is
quite plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way:
"Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the sinner
against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and
these are two and two, one against another."[485]
19. _What, seemingly, we are to understand by the words, "God
divided the light from the darkness."_
Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly
this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be
started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in
it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should
be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should
be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is
beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after
the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though
that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the
discussion of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with
the working of God, if we understand that the angels were created
when that first light was made, and that a separation was made
between the holy and the unclean angels, when, as is said, "God
divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day,
and the darkness He called Night." For He alone could make this
discrimination, who was able also, before they fell, to foreknow that
they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they
would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards the day
and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries
of heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light
and the darkness. "Let there be," He says, "lights in the firmament
of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;" and shortly after
He says, "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the
earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the
light from the darkness."[486] But between that light, which is the
holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination
of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome
foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned
away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide,
from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it
was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.
20. _Of the words which follow the separation of light and
darkness, "And God saw the light that it was good."_
Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing
that when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," it was
immediately added, "And God saw the light that it was good." No such
expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the
darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the
seal of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as well as
on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of disapprobation,
as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from this light which our
eyes discern, the statement that God saw that it was good is inserted,
not before, but after the division is recorded. "And God set them," so
runs the passage, "in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon
the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide
the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good." For He
approved of both, because both were sinless. But where God said, "Let
there be light, and there was light; and God saw the light that it was
good;" and the narrative goes on, "and God divided the light from the
darkness: and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called
Night," there was not in this place subjoined the statement, "And God
saw that it was good," lest both should be designated good, while one
of them was evil, not by nature, but by its own fault. And therefore,
in this case, the light alone received the approbation of the Creator,
while the angelic darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not
approved.
21. _Of God's eternal and unchangeable knowledge and will, whereby
all He has made pleased Him in the eternal design as well as in
the actual result._
For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain, "And
God saw that it was good," than the approval of the work in its
design, which is the wisdom of God? For certainly God did not in the
actual achievement of the work first learn that it was good, but,
on the contrary, nothing would have been made had it not been first
known by Him. While, therefore, He sees that that is good which, had
He not seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it
is plain that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good.
Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe was
completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy.[487] And Plato was
not so foolish as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed
by the novelty of His creation; but he wished thus to indicate that
the work now completed met with its Maker's approval, as it had while
yet in design. It is not as if the knowledge of God were of various
kinds, knowing in different ways things which as yet are not, things
which are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion does He
look forward to what is future, nor at what is present, nor back upon
what is past; but in a manner quite different and far and profoundly
remote from our way of thinking. For He does not pass from this to
that by transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute
unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge in time, the
future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no
longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable
and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by the eye,
in another by the mind, for He is not composed of mind and body; nor
does His present knowledge differ from that which it ever was or
shall be, for those variations of time, past, present, and future,
though they alter our knowledge, do not affect His, "with whom is
no variableness, neither shadow of turning."[488] Neither is there
any growth from thought to thought in the conceptions of Him whose
spiritual vision all things which He knows are at once embraced. For
as without any movement that time can measure, He Himself moves all
temporal things, so He knows all times with a knowledge that time
cannot measure. And therefore He saw that what He had made was good,
when He saw that it was good to make it. And when He saw it made, He
had not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge
of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made what He saw. For
certainly He would not be the perfect worker He is, unless His
knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition from His finished
works. Wherefore, if the only object had been to inform us who made
the light, it had been enough to say, "God made the light;" and if
further information regarding the means by which it was made had been
intended, it would have sufficed to say, "And God said, Let there be
light, and there was light," that we might know not only that God
had made the world, but also that He had made it by the word. But
because it was right that three leading truths regarding the creature
be intimated to us, viz., who made it, by what means, and why, it is
written, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God
saw the light that it was good." If, then, we ask who made it, it
was "God." If, by what means, He said "Let it be," and it was. If we
ask, why He made it, "it was good." Neither is there any author more
excellent than God, nor any skill more efficacious than the word of
God, nor any cause better than that good might be created by the good
God. This also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for
the creation of the world, that good works might be made by a good
God;[489] whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of
these things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted
genius, penetrated to things spiritual and invisible through the
things that are created, or was instructed regarding them by those
who had discerned them.
22. _Of those who do not approve of certain things which are a part
of this good creation of a good Creator, and who think that
there is some natural evil._