This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of

God,--this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and

carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those who

inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognised by

some heretics,[490] because there are, forsooth, many things, such

as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but

injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is

at present under just punishment. They do not consider how admirable

these things are in their own places, how excellent in their own

natures, how beautifully adjusted to the rest of creation, and how

much grace they contribute to the universe by their own contributions

as to a commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to ourselves,

if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,--so that

even poisons, which are destructive when used injudiciously, become

wholesome and medicinal when used in conformity with their qualities

and design; just as, on the other hand, those things which give us

pleasure, such as food, drink, and the light of the sun, are found to

be hurtful when immoderately or unseasonably used. And thus divine

providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to

investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity

or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a utility, though

hidden, as we have experienced that there were other things which

we all but failed to discover. For this concealment of the use of

things is itself either an exercise of our humility or a levelling

of our pride; for no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for

nothing but the want of good. But from things earthly to things

heavenly, from the visible to the invisible, there are some things

better than others; and for this purpose are they unequal, in order

that they might all exist. Now God is in such sort a great worker in

great things, that He is not less in little things,--for these little

things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does

not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in the visible

appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how nearly nothing

is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!--for that is

not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of

the members. But we do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose

that some evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of

opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause of

the creation was this, that the good God produced a good creation.

For they believe that He was driven to this enterprise of creation

by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil that warred against

Him, and that He mixed His good nature with the evil for the sake

of restraining and conquering it; and that this nature of His,

being thus shamefully polluted, and most cruelly oppressed and held

captive, He labours to cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains

does not wholly succeed; but such part of it as could not be cleansed

from that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the

conquered and incarcerated enemy. The Manichæans would not drivel,

or rather, rave in such a style as this, if they believed the nature

of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely incorruptible,

and subject to no injury; and if, moreover, they held in Christian

sobriety, that the soul which has shown itself capable of being

altered for the worse by its own will, and of being corrupted by sin,

and so, of being deprived of the light of eternal truth,--that this

soul, I say, is not a part of God, nor of the same nature as God, but

is created by Him, and is far different from its Creator.

23. _Of the error in which the doctrine of Origen is involved._

But it is much more surprising that some even of those who, with

ourselves, believe that there is one only source of all things,

and that no nature which is not divine can exist unless originated

by that Creator, have yet refused to accept with a good and simple

faith this so good and simple a reason of the world's creation,

that a good God made it good; and that the things created, being

different from God, were inferior to Him, and yet were good, being

created by none other than He. But they say that souls, though not,

indeed, parts of God, but created by Him, sinned by abandoning God;

that, in proportion to their various sins, they merited different

degrees of debasement from heaven to earth, and diverse bodies as

prison-houses; and that this is the world, and this the cause of its

creation, not the production of good things, but the restraining

of evil. Origen is justly blamed for holding this opinion. For in

the books which he entitles περὶ ἀρχῶν, that is, _Of origins_, this

is his sentiment, this his utterance. And I cannot sufficiently

express my astonishment, that a man so erudite and well versed in

ecclesiastical literature, should not have observed, in the first

place, how opposed this is to the meaning of this authoritative

Scripture, which, in recounting all the works of God, regularly

adds, "And God saw that it was good;" and, when all were completed,

inserts the words, "And God saw everything that He had made, and,

behold, it was very good."[491] Was it not obviously meant to be

understood that there was no other cause of the world's creation than

that good creatures should be made by a good God? In this creation,

had no one sinned, the world would have been filled and beautified

with natures good without exception; and though there is sin, all

things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of the

heavenly inhabitants preserve their nature's integrity. And the

sinful will, though it violated the order of its own nature, did not

on that account escape the laws of God, who justly orders all things

for good. For as the beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed

shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern it, the universe is

beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their

deformity is a sad blemish.

In the second place, Origen, and all who think with him, ought to

have seen that if it were the true opinion that the world was created

in order that souls might, for their sins, be accommodated with

bodies in which they should be shut up as in houses of correction,

the more venial sinners receiving lighter and more ethereal bodies,

while the grosser and graver sinners received bodies more crass and

grovelling, then it would follow that the devils, who are deepest

in wickedness, ought, rather than even wicked men, to have earthly

bodies, since these are the grossest and least ethereal of all. But

in point of fact, that we might see that the deserts of souls are

not to be estimated by the qualities of bodies, the wickedest devil

possesses an ethereal body, while man, wicked, it is true, but with

a wickedness small and venial in comparison with his, received even

before his sin a body of clay. And what more foolish assertion can

be advanced than that God, by this sun of ours, did not design to

benefit the material creation, or lend lustre to its loveliness,

and therefore created one single sun for this single world, but

that it so happened that one soul only had so sinned as to deserve

to be enclosed in such a body as it is? On this principle, if it

had chanced that not one, but two, yea, or ten, or a hundred had

sinned similarly, and with a like degree of guilt, then this world

would have one hundred suns. And that such is not the case, is due

not to the considerate foresight of the Creator, contriving the

safety and beauty of things material, but rather to the fact that

so fine a quality of sinning was hit upon by only one soul, so that

it alone has merited such a body. Manifestly persons holding such

opinions should aim at confining, not souls of which they know not

what they say, but themselves, lest they fall, and deservedly, far

indeed from the truth. And as to these three answers which I formerly

recommended when in the case of any creature the questions are put,

Who made it? By what means? Why? that it should be replied, God, By

the Word, Because it was good,--as to these three answers, it is very

questionable whether the Trinity itself is thus mystically indicated,

that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or whether

there is some good reason for this acceptation in this passage of

Scripture,--this, I say, is questionable, and one can't be expected

to explain everything in one volume.

24. _Of the divine Trinity, and the indications of its presence

scattered everywhere among its works._

We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the Father

begat the Word, that is, Wisdom, by which all things were made, the

only-begotten Son, one as the Father is one, eternal as the Father

is eternal, and, equally with the Father, supremely good; and that

the Holy Spirit is the Spirit alike of Father and of Son, and is

Himself consubstantial and co-eternal with both; and that this whole

is a Trinity by reason of the individuality[492] of the persons, and

one God by reason of the indivisible divine substance, as also one

Almighty by reason of the indivisible omnipotence; yet so that, when

we inquire regarding each singly, it is said that each is God and

Almighty; and, when we speak of all together, it is said that there

are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but one God Almighty; so

great is the indivisible unity of these Three, which requires that it

be so stated. But, whether the Holy Spirit of the Father, and of the

Son, who are both good, can be with propriety called the goodness of

both, because He is common to both, I do not presume to determine

hastily. Nevertheless, I would have less hesitation in saying that

He is the holiness of both, not as if He were a divine attribute

merely, but Himself also the divine substance, and the third person

in the Trinity. I am the rather emboldened to make this statement,

because, though the Father is a spirit, and the Son a spirit, and the

Father holy, and the Son holy, yet the third person is distinctively

called the Holy Spirit, as if He were the substantial holiness

consubstantial with the other two. But if the divine goodness is

nothing else than the divine holiness, then certainly it is a

reasonable studiousness, and not presumptuous intrusion, to inquire

whether the same Trinity be not hinted at in an enigmatical mode of

speech, by which our inquiry is stimulated, when it is written who

made each creature, and by what means, and why. For it is the Father

of the Word who said, Let there be. And that which was made when He

spoke was certainly made by means of the Word. And by the words, "God

saw that it was good," it is sufficiently intimated that God made

what was made not from any necessity, nor for the sake of supplying

any want, but solely from His own goodness, _i.e._, because it was

good. And this is stated after the creation had taken place, that

there might be no doubt that the thing made satisfied the goodness on

account of which it was made. And if we are right in understanding

that this goodness is the Holy Spirit, then the whole Trinity is

revealed to us in the creation. In this, too, is the origin, the

enlightenment, the blessedness of the holy city which is above among

the holy angels. For if we inquire whence it is, God created it; or

whence its wisdom, God illumined it; or whence its blessedness, God

is its bliss. It has its form by subsisting in Him; its enlightenment

by contemplating Him; its joy by abiding in Him. It is; it sees; it

loves. In God's eternity is its life; in God's truth its light; in

God's goodness its joy.

25. _Of the division of philosophy into three parts._

As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that philosophers

have aimed at a threefold division of science, or rather, were enabled

to see that there was a threefold division (for they did not invent,

but only discovered it), of which one part is called physical, another

logical, the third ethical. The Latin equivalents of these names

are now naturalized in the writings of many authors, so that these

divisions are called natural, rational, and moral, on which I have

touched slightly in the eighth book. Not that I would conclude that

these philosophers, in this threefold division, had any thought of

a trinity in God, although Plato is said to have been the first to

discover and promulgate this distribution, and he saw that God alone

could be the author of nature, the bestower of intelligence, and the

kindler of love by which life becomes good and blessed. But certain

it is that, though philosophers disagree both regarding the nature

of things, and the mode of investigating truth, and of the good to

which all our actions ought to tend, yet in these three great general

questions all their intellectual energy is spent. And though there

be a confusing diversity of opinion, every man striving to establish

his own opinion in regard to each of these questions, yet no one of

them all doubts that nature has some cause, science some method, life

some end and aim. Then, again, there are three things which every

artificer must possess if he is to effect anything,--nature, education,

practice. Nature is to be judged by capacity, education by knowledge,

practice by its fruit. I am aware that, properly speaking, fruit is

what one enjoys, use [practice] what one uses. And this seems to be

the difference between them, that we are said to _enjoy_ that which

in itself, and irrespective of other ends, delights us; to _use_ that

which we seek for the sake of some end beyond. For which reason the

things of time are to be used rather than enjoyed, that we may deserve

to enjoy things eternal; and not as those perverse creatures who would

fain enjoy money and use God,--not spending money for God's sake, but

worshipping God for money's sake. However, in common parlance, we both

use fruits and enjoy uses. For we correctly speak of the "fruits of

the field," which certainly we all use in the present life. And it was

in accordance with this usage that I said that there were three things

to be observed in a man, nature, education, practice. From these the

philosophers have elaborated, as I said, the threefold division of

that science by which a blessed life is attained: the natural having

respect to nature, the rational to education, the moral to practice.

If, then, we were ourselves the authors of our nature, we should have

generated knowledge in ourselves, and should not require to reach

it by education, _i.e._, by learning it from others. Our love, too,

proceeding from ourselves and returning to us, would suffice to make

our life blessed, and would stand in need of no extraneous enjoyment.

But now, since our nature has God as its requisite author, it is

certain that we must have Him for our teacher that we may be wise; Him,

too, to dispense to us spiritual sweetness that we may be blessed.

26. _Of the image of the supreme Trinity, which we find in some

sort in human nature even in its present state._

And we indeed recognise in ourselves the image of God, that is,

of the supreme Trinity, an image which, though it be not equal to

God, or rather, though it be very far removed from Him,--being

neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, consubstantial with

Him,--is yet nearer to Him in nature than any other of His works,

and is destined to be yet restored, that it may bear a still closer

resemblance. For we both are, and know that we are, and delight in

our being, and our knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things

no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact

with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside

of us,--colours, _e.g._, by seeing, sounds by hearing, smells by

smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by touching,--of

all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not

themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and

which excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive

representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am,

and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I

am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say,

What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am.[493] For he

who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same

token I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in

believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am deceived.

Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were

deceived, certainly I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am.

And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For,

as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I

love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely,

my love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this,

that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived;

though even if these were false, it would still be true that I

_loved_ false things. For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited

from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But,

since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved,

the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one

who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish

to be. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?

27. _Of existence, and knowledge of it, and the love of both._

And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so

pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling

to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not that

they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so. Take

even those who, both in their own esteem, and in point of fact, are

utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on

account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed,

and who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute,--if

any one should give these men an immortality, in which their misery

should be deathless, and should offer the alternative, that if they

shrank from existing eternally in the same misery they might be

annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any condition, on the

instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to exist

always, even in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The

well-known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we see

that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than

end it by death, is it not obvious enough how nature shrinks from

annihilation? And, accordingly, when they know that they must die,

they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown them, that they

may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it by

death. And so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they

would accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless

destruction. What! do not even all irrational animals, to whom such

calculations are unknown, from the huge dragons down to the least

worms, all testify that they wish to exist, and therefore shun death

by every movement in their power? Nay, the very plants and shrubs,

which have no such life as enables them to shun destruction by

movements we can see, do not they all seek, in their own fashion,

to conserve their existence, by rooting themselves more and more

deeply in the earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out

healthy branches towards the sky? In fine, even the lifeless bodies,

which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet either seek the

upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an intermediate position,

so that they may protect their existence in that situation where they

can exist in most accordance with their nature.

And how much human nature loves the knowledge of its existence, and

how it shrinks from being deceived, will be sufficiently understood

from this fact, that every man prefers to grieve in a sane mind,

rather than to be glad in madness. And this grand and wonderful

instinct belongs to men alone of all animals; for, though some of

them have keener eyesight than ourselves for this world's light, they

cannot attain to that spiritual light with which our mind is somehow

irradiated, so that we can form right judgments of all things. For

our power to judge is proportioned to our acceptance of this light.

Nevertheless, the irrational animals, though they have not knowledge,

have certainly something resembling knowledge; whereas the other

material things are said to be sensible, not because they have

senses, but because they are the objects of our senses. Yet among

plants, their nourishment and generation have some resemblance to

sensible life. However, both these and all material things have their

causes hidden in their nature; but their outward forms, which lend

beauty to this visible structure of the world, are perceived by our

senses, so that they seem to wish to compensate for their own want

of knowledge by providing us with knowledge. But we perceive them

by our bodily senses in such a way that we do not judge of them by

these senses. For we have another and far superior sense, belonging

to the inner man, by which we perceive what things are just, and what

unjust,--just by means of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of

it. This sense is aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor

by the orifice of the ear, nor by the air-holes of the nostrils, nor

by the palate's taste, nor by any bodily touch. By it I am assured

both that I am, and that I know this; and these two I love, and in

the same manner I am assured that I love them.

28. _Whether we ought to love the love itself with which we love

our existence and our knowledge of it, that so we may more

nearly resemble the image of the divine Trinity._

We have said as much as the scope of this work demands regarding

these two things, to wit, our existence, and our knowledge of it, and

how much they are loved by us, and how there is found even in the

lower creatures a kind of likeness of these things, and yet with a

difference. We have yet to speak of the love wherewith they are loved,

to determine whether this love itself is loved. And doubtless it is;

and this is the proof. Because in men who are justly loved, it is

rather love itself that is loved; for he is not justly called a good

man who knows what is good, but who loves it. Is it not then obvious

that we love in ourselves the very love wherewith we love whatever

good we love? For there is also a love wherewith we love that which

we ought not to love; and this love is hated by him who loves that

wherewith he loves what ought to be loved. For it is quite possible

for both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is good for a man,

to the end that this love which conduces to our living well may grow,

and the other, which leads us to evil may decrease, until our whole

life be perfectly healed and transmuted into good. For if we were

beasts, we should love the fleshly and sensual life, and this would

be our sufficient good; and when it was well with us in respect of

it, we should seek nothing beyond. In like manner, if we were trees,

we could not, indeed, in the strict sense of the word, love anything;

nevertheless we should seem, as it were, to long for that by which

we might become more abundantly and luxuriantly fruitful. If we were

stones, or waves, or wind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we

should want, indeed, both sensation and life, yet should possess a kind

of attraction towards our own proper position and natural order. For

the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they

are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards by their levity. For

the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit by love, whithersoever

it is borne.[494] But we are men, created in the image of our Creator,

whose eternity is true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is

eternal and true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable

Trinity, without confusion, without separation; and, therefore, while,

as we run over all the works which He has established, we may detect,

as it were, His footprints, now more and now less distinct even in

those things that are beneath us, since they could not so much as

exist, or be bodied forth in any shape, or follow and observe any law,

had they not been made by Him who supremely is, and is supremely good

and supremely wise; yet in ourselves beholding His image, let us, like

that younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and return

to Him from whom by our sin we had departed. There our being will have

no death, our knowledge no error, our love no mishap. But now, though

we are assured of our possession of these three things, not on the

testimony of others, but by our own consciousness of their presence,

and because we see them with our own most truthful interior vision,

yet, as we cannot of ourselves know how long they are to continue, and

whether they shall never cease to be, and what issue their good or

bad use will lead to, we seek for others who can acquaint us of these

things, if we have not already found them. Of the trustworthiness

of these witnesses, there will, not now, but subsequently, be an

opportunity of speaking. But in this book let us go on as we have

begun, with God's help, to speak of the city of God, not in its state

of pilgrimage and mortality, but as it exists ever immortal in the

heavens,--that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain their

allegiance to God, who never were, nor ever shall be, apostate, between

whom and those who forsook light eternal and became darkness, God, as

we have already said, made at the first a separation.

29. _Of the knowledge by which the holy angels know God in His

essence, and by which they see the causes of His works in the

art of the worker, before they see them in the works of the

artist._

Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by audible words,

but by the presence to their souls of immutable truth, _i.e._, of

the only-begotten Word of God; and they know this Word Himself,

and the Father, and their Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is

indivisible, and that the three persons of it are one substance,

and that there are not three Gods but one God; and this they so

know, that it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves.

Thus, too, they know the creature also, not in itself, but by this

better way, in the wisdom of God, as if in the art by which it was

created; and, consequently, they know themselves better in God than

in themselves, though they have also this latter knowledge. For

they were created, and are different from their Creator. In Him,

therefore, they have, as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves,

a twilight knowledge, according to our former explanations.[495] For

there is a great difference between knowing a thing in the design in

conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself,--_e.g._,

the straightness of lines and correctness of figures is known in one

way when mentally conceived, in another when described on paper; and

justice is known in one way in the unchangeable truth, in another in

the spirit of a just man. So is it with all other things,--as, the

firmament between the water above and below, which was called the

heaven; the gathering of the waters beneath, and the laying bare of

the dry land, and the production of plants and trees; the creation

of sun, moon, and stars; and of the animals out of the waters,

fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep; and of everything that

walks or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who excels all

that is on the earth,--all these things are known in one way by the

angels in the Word of God, in which they see the eternally abiding

causes and reasons according to which they were made, and in another

way in themselves: in the former, with a clearer knowledge; in the

latter, with a knowledge dimmer, and rather of the bare works than

of the design. Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and

adoration of the Creator Himself, it is as if morning dawned in the

minds of those who contemplate them.

30. _Of the perfection of the number six, which is the first of

the numbers which is composed of its aliquot parts._

These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same

day being six times repeated), because six is a perfect number,--not

because God required a protracted time, as if He could not at once

create all things, which then should mark the course of time by the

movements proper to them, but because the perfection of the works was

signified by the number six. For the number six is the first which is

made up of its own[496] parts, _i.e._, of its sixth, third, and half,

which are respectively one, two, and three, and which make a total

of six. In this way of looking at a number, those are said to be its

parts which exactly divide it, as a half, a third, a fourth, or a

fraction with any denominator,--_e.g._, four is a part of nine, but not

therefore an aliquot part; but one is, for it is the ninth part; and

three is, for it is the third. Yet these two parts, the ninth and the

third, or one and three, are far from making its whole sum of nine. So

again, in the number ten, four is a part, yet does not divide it; but

one is an aliquot part, for it is a tenth; so it has a fifth, which

is two; and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth, a

fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five, added together, do not make

ten, but eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts added together

exceed the whole; for it has a twelfth, that is, one; a sixth, or two;

a fourth, which is three; a third, which is four; and a half, which

is six. But one, two, three, four, and six make up, not twelve, but

more, viz. sixteen. So much I have thought fit to state for the sake

of illustrating the perfection of the number six, which is, as I said,

the first which is exactly made up of its own parts added together;

and in this number of days God finished His work.[497] And, therefore,

we must not despise the science of numbers, which, in many passages

of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent service to the careful

interpreter.[498] Neither has it been without reason numbered among

God's praises, "Thou hast ordered all things in number, and measure,

and weight."[499]

31. _Of the seventh day, in which completeness and repose are

celebrated._

But, on the seventh day (_i.e._, the same day repeated seven times,

which number is also a perfect one, though for another reason), the

rest of God is set forth, and then, too, we first hear of its being

hallowed. So that God did not wish to hallow this day by His works, but

by His rest, which has no evening, for it is not a creature; so that,

being known in one way in the Word of God, and in another in itself, it

should make a twofold knowledge, daylight and dusk (day and evening).

Much more might be said about the perfection of the number seven,

but this book is already too long, and I fear lest I should seem to

catch at an opportunity of airing my little smattering of science more

childishly than profitably. I must speak, therefore, in moderation and

with dignity, lest, in too keenly following "number," I be accused of

forgetting "weight" and "measure." Suffice it here to say, that three

is the first whole number that is odd, four the first that is even,

and of these two, seven is composed. On this account it is often put

for all numbers together, as, "A just man falleth seven times, and

riseth up again,"[500]--that is, let him fall never so often, he will

not perish (and this was meant to be understood not of sins, but of

afflictions conducing to lowliness). Again, "Seven times a day will I

praise Thee,"[501] which elsewhere is expressed thus, "I will bless the

Lord _at all times_."[502] And many such instances are found in the

divine authorities, in which the number seven is, as I said, commonly

used to express the whole, or the completeness of anything. And so the

Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord says, "He will teach you all truth,"[503]

is signified by this number.[504] In it is the rest of God, the rest

His people find in Him. For rest is in the whole, _i.e._ in perfect

completeness, while in the part there is labour. And thus we labour

as long as we know in part; "but when that which is perfect is come,

then that which is in part shall be done away."[505] It is even with

toil we search into the Scriptures themselves. But the holy angels,

towards whose society and assembly we sigh while in this our toilsome

pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal home, so do they

enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and felicity of rest. It is without

difficulty that they help us; for their spiritual movements, pure and

free, cost them no effort.

32. _Of the opinion that the angels were created before the world._

But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels

are not referred to when it is said, "Let there be light, and there

was light;" if he suppose or teach that some material light, then

first created, was meant, and that the angels were created, not only

before the firmament dividing the waters and named "the heaven," but

also before the time signified in the words, "In the beginning God

created the heaven and the earth;" if he allege that this phrase, "In

the beginning," does not mean that nothing was made before (for the

angels were), but that God made all things by His Wisdom or Word, who

is named in Scripture "the Beginning," as He Himself, in the gospel,

replied to the Jews when they asked Him who He was, that He was the

Beginning;[506]--I will not contest the point, chiefly because it

gives me the liveliest satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated

in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. For, having said, "In

the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth," meaning that the

Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where it says,

"How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom hast Thou made them

all"[507]), a little afterwards mention is fitly made of the Holy

Spirit also. For, when it had been told us what kind of earth God

created at first, or what the mass or matter was which God, under

the name of "heaven and earth," had provided for the construction of

the world, as is told in the additional words, "And the earth was

without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep,"

then, for the sake of completing the mention of the Trinity, it is

immediately added, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the

waters." Let each one, then, take it as he pleases; for it is so

profound a passage, that it may well suggest, for the exercise of the

reader's tact, many opinions, and none of them widely departing from

the rule of faith. At the same time, let none doubt that the holy

angels in their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal

with God, yet secure and certain of eternal and true felicity. To

their company the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and not

only says, "They shall be equal to the angels of God,"[508] but

shows, too, what blessed contemplation the angels themselves enjoy,

saying, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for

I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face

of my Father which is in heaven."[509]

33. _Of the two different and dissimilar communities of angels,

which are not inappropriately signified by the names light and

darkness._

That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the lowest parts

of this world, where they are, as it were, incarcerated till their

final damnation in the day of judgment, the Apostle Peter very

plainly declares, when he says that "God spared not the angels that

sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains

of darkness to be reserved unto judgment."[510] Who, then, can doubt

that God, either in foreknowledge or in act, separated between these

and the rest? And who will dispute that the rest are justly called

"light?" For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping only and not

yet enjoying equality with them, are already called "light" by the

apostle: "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the

Lord."[511] But as for these apostate angels, all who understand or

believe them to be worse than unbelieving men are well aware that

they are called "darkness." Wherefore, though light and darkness

are to be taken in their literal signification in these passages

of Genesis in which it is said, "God said, Let there be light, and

there was light," and "God divided the light from the darkness," yet,

for our part, we understand these two societies of angels,--the one

enjoying God, the other swelling with pride; the one to whom it is

said, "Praise ye Him, all His angels,"[512] the other whose prince

says, "All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and

worship me;"[513] the one blazing with the holy love of God, the

other reeking with the unclean lust of self-advancement. And since,

as it is written, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto

the humble,"[514] we may say, the one dwelling in the heaven of

heavens, the other cast thence, and raging through the lower regions

of the air; the one tranquil in the brightness of piety, the other

tempest-tossed with beclouding desires; the one, at God's pleasure,

tenderly succouring, justly avenging,--the other, set on by its own

pride, boiling with the lust of subduing and hurting; the one the

minister of God's goodness to the utmost of their good pleasure,

the other held in by God's power from doing the harm it would; the

former laughing at the latter when it does good unwillingly by its

persecutions, the latter envying the former when it gathers in

its pilgrims. These two angelic communities, then, dissimilar and

contrary to one another, the one both by nature good and by will

upright, the other also good by nature but by will depraved, as they

are exhibited in other and more explicit passages of holy writ, so I

think they are spoken of in this book of Genesis under the names of

light and darkness; and even if the author perhaps had a different

meaning, yet our discussion of the obscure language has not been

wasted time; for, though we have been unable to discover his meaning,

yet we have adhered to the rule of faith, which is sufficiently

ascertained by the faithful from other passages of equal authority.

For, though it is the material works of God which are here spoken

of, they have certainly a resemblance to the spiritual, so that Paul

can say, "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the

day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness."[515] If, on the other

hand, the author of Genesis saw in the words what we see, then our

discussion reaches this more satisfactory conclusion, that the man of

God, so eminently and divinely wise, or rather, that the Spirit of

God who by him recorded God's works which were finished on the sixth

day, may be supposed not to have omitted all mention of the angels,

whether he included them in the words "in the beginning," because He

made them first, or, which seems most likely, because He made them

in the only-begotten Word. And, under these names heaven and earth,

the whole creation is signified, either as divided into spiritual and

material, which seems the more likely, or into the two great parts of

the world in which all created things are contained, so that, first

of all, the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are

enumerated according to the mystic number of the days.

34. _Of the idea that the angels were meant where the separation

of the waters by the firmament is spoken of, and of that other

idea that the waters were not created._

Some,[516] however, have supposed that the angelic hosts are somehow

referred to under the name of waters, and that this is what is meant

by, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters:"[517] that

the waters above should be understood of the angels, and those below

either of the visible waters, or of the multitude of bad angels, or

of the nations of men. If this be so, then it does not here appear

when the angels were created, but when they were separated. Though

there have not been wanting men foolish and wicked enough[518] to

deny that the waters were made by God, because it is nowhere written,

"God said, Let there be waters." With equal folly they might say the

same of the earth, for nowhere do we read, "God said, Let the earth

be." But, say they, it is written, "In the beginning God created

the heaven and the earth." Yes, and there the water is meant, for

both are included in one word. For "the sea is His," as the psalm

says, "and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land."[519] But

those who would understand the angels by the waters above the skies

have a difficulty about the specific gravity of the elements, and

fear that the waters, owing to their fluidity and weight, could not

be set in the upper parts of the world. So that, if they were to

construct a man upon their own principles, they would not put in his

head any moist humours, or "phlegm" as the Greeks call it, and which

acts the part of water among the elements of our body. But, in God's

handiwork, the head is the seat of the phlegm, and surely most fitly;

and yet, according to their supposition, so absurdly that if we were

not aware of the fact, and were informed by this same record that God

had put a moist and cold and therefore heavy humour in the uppermost

part of man's body, these world-weighers would refuse belief. And

if they were confronted with the authority of Scripture, they would

maintain that something else must be meant by the words. But, were we

to investigate and discover all the details which are written in this

divine book regarding the creation of the world, we should have much

to say, and should widely digress from the proposed aim of this work.

Since, then, we have now said what seemed needful regarding these two

diverse and contrary communities of angels, in which the origin of

the two human communities (of which we intend to speak anon) is also

found, let us at once bring this book also to a conclusion.

FOOTNOTES:

[440] Written in the year 416 or 417.

[441] Ps. lxxxvii. 3.

[442] Ps. xlviii. 1.

[443] Ps. xlvi. 4.

[444] Homine assumto, non Deo consumto.

[445] Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo.

[446] A clause is here inserted to give the etymology of _præsentia_

from _præ vensibus_.

[447] Another derivation, _sententia_ from _sensus_, the inward

perception of the mind.

[448] Gen. i. 1.

[449] Prov. viii. 27.

[450] Matt. xviii. 10.

[451] A common question among the Epicureans; urged by Velleius in

Cic. _De Nat. Deor._ i. 9; adopted by the Manichæans and spoken to by

Augustine in the _Conf._ xi. 10, 12, also in _De Gen. contra Man._ i. 3.

[452] The Neo-Platonists.

[453] Number begins at one, but runs on infinitely.

[454] Gal. iv. 26.

[455] 1 Thess. v. 5.

[456] Comp. _de Gen. ad lit._ i. and iv.

[457] Ver. 35.

[458] Ps. cxlviii. 1-5.

[459] Job xxxviii. 7.

[460] Vives here notes that the Greek theologians and Jerome held,

with Plato, that spiritual creatures were made first, and used by God

in the creation of things material. The Latin theologians and Basil

held that God made all things at once.

[461] John i. 9.

[462] Mali enim nulla natura est: sed amissio boni, mali nomen accepit.

[463] Plutarch (_De Plac. Phil._ i. 3, and iv. 3) tells us that

this opinion was held by Anaximenes of Miletus, the followers of

Anaxagoras, and many of the Stoics. Diogenes the Cynic, as well as

Diogenes of Apollonia, seems to have adopted the same opinion. See

Zeller's _Stoics_, pp. 121 and 199.

[464] "Ubi lux non est, tenebræ sunt, non quia aliquid sunt tenebræ,

sed ipsa lucis absentia tenebræ dicuntur."--Aug. _De Gen. contra

Man._ 7.

[465] Wisdom vii. 22.

[466] The strongly Platonic tinge of this language is perhaps best

preserved in a bare literal translation.

[467] Vives remarks that the ancients defined blessedness as an

absolutely perfect state in all good, peculiar to God. Perhaps

Augustine had a reminiscence of the remarkable discussion in the

_Tusc. Disp._ lib. v., and the definition "Neque ulla alia huic

verbo, quum beatum dicimus, subjecta notio est, nisi, secretis malis

omnibus, cumulata bonorum complexio."

[468] With this chapter compare the books _De Dono Persever._ and _De

Correp. et Gratia_.

[469] Matt. xxv. 46.

[470] John viii. 44.

[471] 1 John iii. 8.

[472] Cf. _Gen. ad Lit._ xi. 27 et seqq.

[473] Ps. xvii. 6.

[474] 1 John iii. 8.

[475] The Manichæans.

[476] Isa. xiv. 12.

[477] Ezek. xxviii. 13.

[478] Job xl. 14 (LXX.).

[479] Ps. civ. 26.

[480] Job. xl. 14 (LXX.).

[481] It must be kept in view that "vice" has, in this passage, the

meaning of sinful blemish.

[482] Ps. civ. 26.

[483] Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.

[484] 2 Cor. vi. 7-10.

[485] Ecclus. xxxiii. 15.

[486] Gen. i. 14-18.

[487] The reference is to the _Timæus_, p. 37 C., where he says,

"When the parent Creator perceived this created image of the eternal

gods in life and motion, He was delighted, and in His joy considered

how He might make it still liker its model."

[488] Jas. i. 17.

[489] The passage referred to is in the TIMÆUS, p. 29 D.: "Let us

say what was the cause of the Creator's forming this universe. He

was good; and in the good no envy is ever generated about anything

whatever. Therefore, being free from envy, He desired that all things

should, as much as possible, resemble Himself."

[490] The Manichæans, to wit.

[491] Gen. i. 31.

[492] _Proprietas._

[493] This is one of the passages cited by Sir William Hamilton,

along with the "Cogito, ergo sum" of Descartes, in confirmation of

his proof, that in so far as we are _conscious_ of certain modes of

existence, in so far we possess an absolute certainty that we exist.

See note A in Hamilton's _Reid_, p. 744.

[494] Compare the _Confessions_, xiii. 9.

[495] Ch. 7.

[496] Or aliquot parts.

[497] Comp. Aug. _Gen. ad Lit._ iv. 2, and _De Trinitate_, iv. 7.

[498] For passages illustrating early opinions regarding numbers, see

Smith's _Dict._ Art. number.

[499] Wisd. xi. 20.

[500] Prov. xxiv. 16.

[501] Ps. cxix. 164.

[502] Ps. xxxiv. 1.

[503] John xvi. 13.

[504] In Isa. xi. 2, as he shows in his eighth sermon, where this

subject is further pursued; otherwise, one might have supposed he

referred to Rev. iii. 1.

[505] 1 Cor. xiii. 10.

[506] Augustine refers to John viii. 25; see p. 415. He might rather

have referred to Rev. iii. 14.

[507] Ps. civ. 24.

[508] Matt. xxii. 30.

[509] Matt. xviii. 10.

[510] 2 Peter ii. 4.

[511] Eph. v. 8.

[512] Ps. cxlviii. 2.

[513] Matt. iv. 9.

[514] Jas. iv. 6.

[515] 1 Thess. v. 5

[516] Augustine himself published this idea in his _Conf._ xiii.

32, but afterwards retracted it, as "said without sufficient

consideration" (_Retract._ II. vi. 2). Epiphanius and Jerome ascribe

it to Origen.

[517] Gen. i. 6.

[518] Namely, the Audians and Sampsæans, insignificant heretical

sects mentioned by Theodoret and Epiphanius.

[519] Ps. xcv. 5.

BOOK TWELFTH.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE FIRST INSTITUTES TWO INQUIRIES REGARDING THE ANGELS;

NAMELY, WHENCE IS THERE IN SOME A GOOD, AND IN OTHERS AN

EVIL WILL? AND, WHAT IS THE REASON OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE

GOOD, AND THE MISERY OF THE EVIL? AFTERWARDS HE TREATS OF THE

CREATION OF MAN, AND TEACHES THAT HE IS NOT FROM ETERNITY, BUT

WAS CREATED, AND BY NONE OTHER THAN GOD.

1. _That the nature of the angels, both good and bad, is one and

the same._

It has already, in the preceding book, been shown how the two cities

originated among the angels. Before I speak of the creation of man,

and show how the cities took their rise, so far as regards the race

of rational mortals, I see that I must first, so far as I can, adduce

what may demonstrate that it is not incongruous and unsuitable to

speak of a society composed of angels and men together; so that there

are not four cities or societies,--two, namely, of angels, and as

many of men,--but rather two in all, one composed of the good, the

other of the wicked, angels or men indifferently.

That the contrary propensities in good and bad angels have arisen,

not from a difference in their nature and origin, since God, the

good Author and Creator of all essences, created them both, but from

a difference in their wills and desires, it is impossible to doubt.

While some stedfastly continued in that which was the common good of

all, namely, in God Himself, and in His eternity, truth, and love;

others, being enamoured rather of their own power, as if they could

be their own good, lapsed to this private good of their own, from

that higher and beatific good which was common to all, and, bartering

the lofty dignity of eternity for the inflation of pride, the most

assured verity for the slyness of vanity, uniting love for factious

partisanship, they became proud, deceived, envious. The cause,

therefore, of the blessedness of the good is adherence to God. And so

the cause of the others' misery will be found in the contrary, that

is, in their not adhering to God. Wherefore, if when the question

is asked, why are the former blessed, it is rightly answered,

because they adhere to God; and when it is asked, why are the latter

miserable, it is rightly answered, because they do not adhere to

God,--then there is no other good for the rational or intellectual

creature save God only. Thus, though it is not every creature that

can be blessed (for beasts, trees, stones, and things of that kind

have not this capacity), yet that creature which has the capacity

cannot be blessed of itself, since it is created out of nothing, but

only by Him by whom it has been created. For it is blessed by the

possession of that whose loss makes it miserable. He, then, who is

blessed not in another, but in himself, cannot be miserable, because

he cannot lose himself.

Accordingly we say that there is no unchangeable good but the one,

true, blessed God; that the things which He made are indeed good

because from Him, yet mutable because made not out of Him, but out of

nothing. Although, therefore, they are not the supreme good, for God

is a greater good, yet those mutable things which can adhere to the

immutable good, and so be blessed, are very good; for so completely

is He their good, that without Him they cannot but be wretched. And

the other created things in the universe are not better on this

account, that they cannot be miserable. For no one would say that

the other members of the body are superior to the eyes, because they

cannot be blind. But as the sentient nature, even when it feels

pain, is superior to the stony, which can feel none, so the rational

nature, even when wretched, is more excellent than that which lacks

reason or feeling, and can therefore experience no misery. And since

this is so, then in this nature which has been created so excellent,

that though it be mutable itself, it can yet secure its blessedness

by adhering to the immutable good, the supreme God; and since it is

not satisfied unless it be perfectly blessed, and cannot be thus

blessed save in God,--in this nature, I say, not to adhere to God, is

manifestly a fault.[520] Now every fault injures the nature, and is

consequently contrary to the nature. The creature, therefore, which

cleaves to God, differs from those who do not, not by nature, but

by fault; and yet by this very fault the nature itself is proved to

be very noble and admirable. For that nature is certainly praised,

the fault of which is justly blamed. For we justly blame the fault

because it mars the praiseworthy nature. As, then, when we say that

blindness is a defect of the eyes, we prove that sight belongs to the

nature of the eyes; and when we say that deafness is a defect of the

ears, hearing is thereby proved to belong to their nature;--so, when

we say that it is a fault of the angelic creature that it does not

cleave to God, we hereby most plainly declare that it pertained to

its nature to cleave to God. And who can worthily conceive or express

how great a glory that is, to cleave to God, so as to live to Him, to

draw wisdom from Him, to delight in Him, and to enjoy this so great

good, without death, error, or grief? And thus, since every vice is

an injury of the nature, that very vice of the wicked angels, their

departure from God, is sufficient proof that God created their nature

so good, that it is an injury to it not to be with God.

2. _That there is no entity_[521] _contrary to the divine, because

nonentity seems to be that which is wholly opposite to Him who

supremely and always is._

This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak

of the apostate angels, that they could have another nature, derived,

as it were, from some different origin, and not from God. From the

great impiety of this error we shall disentangle ourselves the more

readily and easily, the more distinctly we understand that which God

spoke by the angel when He sent Moses to the children of Israel: "I

am that I am."[522] For since God is the supreme existence, that is

to say, supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things that

He made He empowered to be, but not to be supremely like Himself.

To some He communicated a more ample, to others a more limited

existence, and thus arranged the natures of beings in ranks. For as

from _sapere_ comes _sapientia_, so from _esse_ comes _essentia_,--a

new word indeed, which the old Latin writers did not use, but which

is naturalized in our day,[523] that our language may not want an

equivalent for the Greek οὐσία. For this is expressed word for word

by _essentia_. Consequently, to that nature which supremely is, and

which created all else that exists, no nature is contrary save that

which does not exist. For nonentity is the contrary of that which is.

And thus there is no being contrary to God, the Supreme Being, and

Author of all beings whatsoever.

3. _That the enemies of God are so, not by nature but by will,

which, as it injures them, injures a good nature; for if vice

does not injure, it is not vice._

In Scripture they are called God's enemies who oppose His rule,

not by nature, but by vice; having no power to hurt Him, but only

themselves. For they are His enemies, not through their power to

hurt, but by their will to oppose Him. For God is unchangeable, and

wholly proof against injury. Therefore the vice which makes those

who are called His enemies resist Him, is an evil not to God, but to

themselves. And to them it is an evil, solely because it corrupts the

good of their nature. It is not nature, therefore, but vice, which

is contrary to God. For that which is evil is contrary to the good.

And who will deny that God is the supreme good? Vice, therefore, is

contrary to God, as evil to good. Further, the nature it vitiates is

a good, and therefore to this good also it is contrary. But while

it is contrary to God only as evil to good, it is contrary to the

nature it vitiates, both as evil and as hurtful. For to God no evils

are hurtful; but only to natures mutable and corruptible, though,

by the testimony of the vices themselves, originally good. For were

they not good, vices could not hurt them. For how do they hurt them

but by depriving them of integrity, beauty, welfare, virtue, and, in

short, whatever natural good vice is wont to diminish or destroy? But

if there be no good to take away, then no injury can be done, and

consequently there can be no vice. For it is impossible that there

should be a harmless vice. Whence we gather, that though vice cannot

injure the unchangeable good, it can injure nothing but good; because

it does not exist where it does not injure. This, then, may be thus

formulated: Vice cannot be in the highest good, and cannot be but in

some good. Things solely good, therefore, can in some circumstances

exist; things solely evil, never; for even those natures which are

vitiated by an evil will, so far indeed as they are vitiated, are

evil, but in so far as they are natures they are good. And when

a vitiated nature is punished, besides the good it has in being a

nature, it has this also, that it is not unpunished.[524] For this is

just, and certainly everything just is a good. For no one is punished

for natural, but for voluntary vices. For even the vice which by the

force of habit and long continuance has become a second nature, had

its origin in the will. For at present we are speaking of the vices

of the nature, which has a mental capacity for that enlightenment

which discriminates between what is just and what is unjust.

4. _Of the nature of irrational and lifeless creatures, which in

their own kind and order do not mar the beauty of the universe._

But it is ridiculous to condemn the faults of beasts and trees, and

other such mortal and mutable things as are void of intelligence,

sensation, or life, even though these faults should destroy their

corruptible nature; for these creatures received, at their Creator's

will, an existence fitting them, by passing away and giving place to

others, to secure that lowest form of beauty, the beauty of seasons,

which in its own place is a requisite part of this world. For things

earthly were neither to be made equal to things heavenly, nor were

they, though inferior, to be quite omitted from the universe. Since,

then, in those situations where such things are appropriate, some

perish to make way for others that are born in their room, and the

less succumb to the greater, and the things that are overcome are

transformed into the quality of those that have the mastery, this is

the appointed order of things transitory. Of this order the beauty

does not strike us, because by our mortal frailty we are so involved

in a part of it, that we cannot perceive the whole, in which these

fragments that offend us are harmonized with the most accurate

fitness and beauty. And therefore, where we are not so well able to

perceive the wisdom of the Creator, we are very properly enjoined to

believe it, lest in the vanity of human rashness we presume to find

any fault with the work of so great an Artificer. At the same time,

if we attentively consider even these faults of earthly things,

which are neither voluntary nor penal, they seem to illustrate the

excellence of the natures themselves, which are all originated and

created by God; for it is that which pleases us in this nature which

we are displeased to see removed by the fault,--unless even the

natures themselves displease men, as often happens when they become

hurtful to them, and then men estimate them not by their nature,

but by their utility; as in the case of those animals whose swarms

scourged the pride of the Egyptians. But in this way of estimating,

they may find fault with the sun itself; for certain criminals or

debtors are sentenced by the judges to be set in the sun. Therefore

it is not with respect to our convenience or discomfort, but with

respect to their own nature, that the creatures are glorifying to

their Artificer. Thus even the nature of the eternal fire, penal

though it be to the condemned sinners, is most assuredly worthy of

praise. For what is more beautiful than fire flaming, blazing, and

shining? What more useful than fire for warming, restoring, cooking,

though nothing is more destructive than fire burning and consuming?

The same thing, then, when applied in one way, is destructive, but

when applied suitably, is most beneficial. For who can find words to

tell its uses throughout the whole world? We must not listen, then,

to those who praise the light of fire but find fault with its heat,

judging it not by its nature, but by their convenience or discomfort.

For they wish to see, but not to be burnt. But they forget that this

very light which is so pleasant to them, disagrees with and hurts

weak eyes; and in that heat which is disagreeable to them, some

animals find the most suitable conditions of a healthy life.

5. _That in all natures, of every kind and rank, God is glorified._

All natures, then, inasmuch as they are, and have therefore a rank

and species of their own, and a kind of internal harmony, are

certainly good. And when they are in the places assigned to them by

the order of their nature, they preserve such being as they have

received. And those things which have not received everlasting being,

are altered for better or for worse, so as to suit the wants and

motions of those things to which the Creator's law has made them

subservient; and thus they tend in the divine providence to that

end which is embraced in the general scheme of the government of the

universe. So that, though the corruption of transitory and perishable

things brings them to utter destruction, it does not prevent their

producing that which was designed to be their result. And this being

so, God, who supremely is, and who therefore created every being

which has not supreme existence (for that which was made of nothing

could not be equal to Him, and indeed could not be at all had He not

made it), is not to be found fault with on account of the creature's

faults, but is to be praised in view of the natures He has made.

6. _What the cause of the blessedness of the good angels is, and

what the cause of the misery of the wicked._

Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found

to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we

ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not

unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken

Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no

such essence. And this vice, what else is it called than pride? For

"pride is the beginning of sin."[525] They were unwilling, then, to

preserve their strength for God; and as adherence to God was the

condition of their enjoying an ampler being, they diminished it by

preferring themselves to Him. This was the first defect, and the

first impoverishment, and the first flaw of their nature, which was

created, not indeed supremely existent, but finding its blessedness

in the enjoyment of the Supreme Being; whilst by abandoning Him it

should become, not indeed no nature at all, but a nature with a less

ample existence, and therefore wretched.

If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of

their evil will? there is none. For what is it which makes the will

bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And

consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing

is the efficient cause of the bad will. For if anything is the cause,

this thing either has or has not a will. If it has, the will is

either good or bad. If good, who is so left to himself as to say that

a good will makes a will bad? For in this case a good will would be

the cause of sin; a most absurd supposition. On the other hand, if

this hypothetical thing has a bad will, I wish to know what made it

so; and that we may not go on for ever, I ask at once, what made the

_first_ evil will bad? For that is not the first which was itself

corrupted by an evil will, but that is the first which was made

evil by no other will. For if it were preceded by that which made

it evil, that will was first which made the other evil. But if it

is replied, "Nothing made it evil; it always was evil," I ask if it

has been existing in some nature. For if not, then it did not exist

at all; and if it did exist in some nature, then it vitiated and

corrupted it, and injured it, and consequently deprived it of good.

And therefore the evil will could not exist in an evil nature, but

in a nature at once good and mutable, which this vice could injure.

For if it did no injury, it was no vice; and consequently the will

in which it was, could not be called evil. But if it did injury, it

did it by taking away or diminishing good. And therefore there could

not be from eternity, as was suggested, an evil will in that thing

in which there had been previously a natural good, which the evil

will was able to diminish by corrupting it. If, then, it was not from

eternity, who, I ask, made it? The only thing that can be suggested

in reply is, that something which itself had no will, made the will

evil. I ask, then, whether this thing was superior, inferior, or

equal to it? If superior, then it is better. How, then, has it no

will, and not rather a good will? The same reasoning applies if

it was equal; for so long as two things have equally a good will,

the one cannot produce in the other an evil will. Then remains the

supposition that that which corrupted the will of the angelic nature

which first sinned, was itself an inferior thing without a will. But

that thing, be it of the lowest and most earthly kind, is certainly

itself good, since it is a nature and being, with a form and rank of

its own in its own kind and order. How, then, can a good thing be the

efficient cause of an evil will? How, I say, can good be the cause

of evil? For when the will abandons what is above itself, and turns

to what is lower, it becomes evil--not because that is evil to which

it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is

not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself

which has become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior

thing. For if two men, alike in physical and moral constitution, see

the same corporal beauty, and one of them is excited by the sight to

desire an illicit enjoyment, while the other stedfastly maintains a

modest restraint of his will, what do we suppose brings it about,

that there is an evil will in the one and not in the other? What

produces it in the man in whom it exists? Not the bodily beauty,

for that was presented equally to the gaze of both, and yet did

not produce in both an evil will. Did the flesh of the one cause

the desire as he looked? But why did not the flesh of the other?

Or was it the disposition? But why not the disposition of both?

For we are supposing that both were of a like temperament of body

and soul. Must we, then, say that the one was tempted by a secret

suggestion of the evil spirit? As if it was not by his own will that

he consented to this suggestion and to any inducement whatever!

This consent, then, this evil will which he presented to the evil

suasive influence,--what was the cause of it, we ask? For, not to

delay on such a difficulty as this, if both are tempted equally, and

one yields and consents to the temptation, while the other remains

unmoved by it, what other account can we give of the matter than

this, that the one is willing, the other unwilling, to fall away from

chastity? And what causes this but their own wills, in cases at least

such as we are supposing, where the temperament is identical? The

same beauty was equally obvious to the eyes of both; the same secret

temptation pressed on both with equal violence. However minutely we

examine the case, therefore, we can discern nothing which caused the

will of the one to be evil. For if we say that the man himself made

his will evil, what was the man himself before his will was evil but

a good nature created by God, the unchangeable good? Here are two men

who, before the temptation, were alike in body and soul, and of whom

one yielded to the tempter who persuaded him, while the other could

not be persuaded to desire that lovely body which was equally before

the eyes of both. Shall we say of the successfully tempted man that

he corrupted his own will, since he was certainly good before his

will became bad? Then, why did he do so? Was it because his will was

a nature, or because it was made of nothing? We shall find that the

latter is the case. For if a nature is the cause of an evil will,

what else can we say than that evil arises from good, or that good is

the cause of evil? And how can it come to pass that a nature, good

though mutable, should produce any evil--that is to say, should make

the will itself wicked?

7. _That we ought not to expect to find any efficient cause of the

evil will._

Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will;

for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is not an

effecting of something, but a defect. For defection from that which

supremely is, to that which has less of being,--this is to begin

to have an evil will. Now, to seek to discover the causes of these

defections,--causes, as I have said, not efficient, but deficient,--is

as if some one sought to see darkness, or hear silence. Yet both of

these are known by us, and the former by means only of the eye, the

latter only by the ear; but not by their positive actuality,[526] but

by their want of it. Let no one, then, seek to know from me what I know

that I do not know; unless he perhaps wishes to learn to be ignorant of

that of which all we know is, that it cannot be known. For those things

which are known not by their actuality, but by their want of it, are

known, if our expression may be allowed and understood, by not knowing

them, that by knowing them they may be not known. For when the eyesight

surveys objects that strike the sense, it nowhere sees darkness but

where it begins not to see. And so no other sense but the ear can

perceive silence, and yet it is only perceived by not hearing. Thus,

too, our mind perceives intelligible forms by understanding them; but

when they are deficient, it knows them by not knowing them; for "who

can understand defects?"[527]

8. _Of the misdirected love whereby the will fell away from the

immutable to the mutable good._

This I do know, that the nature of God can never, nowhere,

nowise be defective, and that natures made of nothing can. These

latter, however, the more being they have, and the more good they

do (for then they do something positive), the more they have

efficient causes; but in so far as they are defective in being, and

consequently do evil (for then what is their work but vanity?), they

have deficient causes. And I know likewise, that the will could

not become evil, were it unwilling to become so; and therefore its

failings are justly punished, being not necessary, but voluntary.

For its defections are not to evil things, but are themselves evil;

that is to say, are not towards things that are naturally and in

themselves evil, but the defection of the will is evil, because it

is contrary to the order of nature, and an abandonment of that which

has supreme being for that which has less. For avarice is not a

fault inherent in gold, but in the man who inordinately loves gold,

to the detriment of justice, which ought to be held in incomparably

higher regard than gold. Neither is luxury the fault of lovely and

charming objects, but of the heart that inordinately loves sensual

pleasures, to the neglect of temperance, which attaches us to objects

more lovely in their spirituality, and more delectable by their

incorruptibility. Nor yet is boasting the fault of human praise, but

of the soul that is inordinately fond of the applause of men, and

that makes light of the voice of conscience. Pride, too, is not the

fault of him who delegates power, nor of power itself, but of the

soul that is inordinately enamoured of its own power, and despises

the more just dominion of a higher authority. Consequently he who

inordinately loves the good which any nature possesses, even though

he obtain it, himself becomes evil in the good, and wretched because

deprived of a greater good.

9. _Whether the angels, besides receiving from God their nature,

received from Him also their good will by the Holy Spirit

imbuing them with love._

There is, then, no natural efficient cause, or, if I may be allowed

the expression, no essential cause, of the evil will, since itself

is the origin of evil in mutable spirits, by which the good of their

nature is diminished and corrupted; and the will is made evil by

nothing else than defection from God,--a defection of which the

cause, too, is certainly deficient. But as to the good will, if we

should say that there is no efficient cause of it, we must beware of

giving currency to the opinion that the good will of the good angels

is not created, but is co-eternal with God. For if they themselves

are created, how can we say that their good will was eternal? But

if created, was it created along with themselves, or did they exist

for a time without it? If along with themselves, then doubtless it

was created by Him who created them, and, as soon as ever they were

created, they attached themselves to Him who created them, with the

love He created in them. And they are separated from the society of

the rest, because they have continued in the same good will; while

the others have fallen away to another will, which is an evil one, by

the very fact of its being a falling away from the good; from which,

we may add, they would not have fallen away had they been unwilling

to do so. But if the good angels existed for a time without a good

will, and produced it in themselves without God's interference, then

it follows that they made themselves better than He made them. Away

with such a thought! For without a good will, what were they but

evil? Or if they were not evil, because they had not an evil will

any more than a good one (for they had not fallen away from that

which as yet they had not begun to enjoy), certainly they were not

the same, not so good, as when they came to have a good will. Or if

they could not make themselves better than they were made by Him

who is surpassed by none in His work, then certainly, without His

helpful operation, they could not come to possess that good will

which made them better. And though their good will effected that

they did not turn to themselves, who had a more stinted existence,

but to Him who supremely is, and that, being united to Him, their

own being was enlarged, and they lived a wise and blessed life by

His communications to them, what does this prove but that the will,

however good it might be, would have continued helplessly only to

desire Him, had not He who had made their nature out of nothing, and

yet capable of enjoying Him, first stimulated it to desire Him, and

then filled it with Himself, and so made it better?

Besides, this too has to be inquired into, whether, if the good

angels made their own will good, they did so with or without will?

If without, then it was not their doing. If with, was the will good

or bad? If bad, how could a bad will give birth to a good one? If

good, then already they had a good will. And who made this will,

which already they had, but He who created them with a good will,

or with that chaste love by which they cleaved to Him, in one and

the same act creating their nature, and endowing it with grace? And

thus we are driven to believe that the holy angels never existed

without a good will or the love of God. But the angels who, though

created good, are yet evil now, became so by their own will. And

this will was not made evil by their good nature, unless by its

voluntary defection from good; for good is not the cause of evil, but

a defection from good is. These angels, therefore, either received

less of the grace of the divine love than those who persevered in the

same; or if both were created equally good, then, while the one fell

by their evil will, the others were more abundantly assisted, and

attained to that pitch of blessedness at which they became certain

they should never fall from it,--as we have already shown in the

preceding book.[528] We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise

due to the Creator, that not only of holy men, but also of the holy

angels, it can be said that "the love of God is shed abroad in their

hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them."[529] And that

not only of men, but primarily and principally of angels it is true,

as it is written, "It is good to draw near to God."[530] And those

who have this good in common, have, both with Him to whom they draw

near, and with one another, a holy fellowship, and form one city of

God--His living sacrifice, and His living temple. And I see that, as

I have now spoken of the rise of this city among the angels, it is

time to speak of the origin of that part of it which is hereafter

to be united to the immortal angels, and which at present is being

gathered from among mortal men, and is either sojourning on earth,

or, in the persons of those who have passed through death, is resting

in the secret receptacles and abodes of disembodied spirits. For

from one man, whom God created as the first, the whole human race

descended, according to the faith of Holy Scripture, which deservedly

is of wonderful authority among all nations throughout the world;

since, among its other true statements, it predicted, by its divine

foresight, that all nations would give credit to it.

10. _Of the falseness of the history which allots many thousand

years to the world's past._

Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say,

when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. For some

hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world

itself, that they have always been. Thus Apuleius says when he is

describing our race, "Individually they are mortal, but collectively,

and as a race, they are immortal."[531] And when they are asked, how,

if the human race has always been, they vindicate the truth of their

history, which narrates who were the inventors, and what they invented,

and who first instituted the liberal studies and the other arts, and

who first inhabited this or that region, and this or that island? they

reply[532] that most, if not all lands, were so desolated at intervals

by fire and flood, that men were greatly reduced in numbers, and from

these, again, the population was restored to its former numbers, and

that thus there was at intervals a new beginning made, and though

those things which had been interrupted and checked by the severe

devastations were only renewed, yet they seemed to be originated then,

but that man could not exist at all save as produced by man. But they

say what they think, not what they know.

They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which

profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning

by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet

passed.[533] And, not to spend many words in exposing the baselessness

of these documents, in which so many thousands of years are accounted

for, nor in proving that their authorities are totally inadequate,

let me cite only that letter which Alexander the Great wrote to his

mother Olympias,[534] giving her the narrative he had from an Egyptian

priest, which he had extracted from their sacred archives, and which

gave an account of kingdoms mentioned also by the Greek historians.

In this letter of Alexander's a term of upwards of 5000 years is

assigned to the kingdom of Assyria; while in the Greek history only

1300 years are reckoned from the reign of Bel himself, whom both

Greek and Egyptian agree in counting the first king of Assyria. Then

to the empire of the Persians and Macedonians this Egyptian assigned

more than 8000 years, counting to the time of Alexander, to whom he

was speaking; while among the Greeks, 485 years are assigned to the

Macedonians down to the death of Alexander, and to the Persians 233

years, reckoning to the termination of his conquests. Thus these give

a much smaller number of years than the Egyptians; and indeed, though

multiplied three times, the Greek chronology would still be shorter.

For the Egyptians are said to have formerly reckoned only four months

to their year;[535] so that one year, according to the fuller and truer

computation now in use among them as well as among ourselves, would

comprehend three of their old years. But not even thus, as I said, does

the Greek history correspond with the Egyptian in its chronology. And

therefore the former must receive the greater credit, because it does

not exceed the true account of the duration of the world as it is given

by our documents, which are truly sacred. Further, if this letter of

Alexander, which has become so famous, differs widely in this matter

of chronology from the probable credible account, how much less can we

believe these documents which, though full of fabulous and fictitious

antiquities, they would fain oppose to the authority of our well-known

and divine books, which predicted that the whole world would believe

them, and which the whole world accordingly has believed; which proved,

too, that it had truly narrated past events by its prediction of future

events, which have so exactly come to pass!

11. _Of those who suppose that this world indeed is not eternal,

but that either there are numberless worlds, or that one and

the same world is perpetually resolved into its elements, and

renewed at the conclusion of fixed cycles._

There are some, again, who, though they do not suppose that this

world is eternal, are of opinion either that this is not the only

world, but that there are numberless worlds, or that indeed it is the

only one, but that it dies, and is born again at fixed intervals,

and this times without number;[536] but they must acknowledge that

the human race existed before there were other men to beget them.

For they cannot suppose that, if the whole world perish, some men

would be left alive in the world, as they might survive in floods and

conflagrations, which those other speculators suppose to be partial,

and from which they can therefore reasonably argue that a few men

survived whose posterity would renew the population; but as they

believe that the world itself is renewed out of its own material,

so they must believe that out of its elements the human race was

produced, and then that the progeny of mortals sprang like that of

other animals from their parents.

12. _How these persons are to be answered, who find fault with the

creation of man on the score of its recent date._

As to those who are always asking why man was not created during

these countless ages of the infinitely extended past, and came into

being so lately that, according to Scripture, less than 6000 years

have elapsed since he began to be, I would reply to them regarding

the creation of man, just as I replied regarding the origin of the

world to those who will not believe that it is not eternal, but had a

beginning, which even Plato himself most plainly declares, though some

think his statement was not consistent with his real opinion.[537] If

it offends them that the time that has elapsed since the creation of

man is so short, and his years so few according to our authorities,

let them take this into consideration, that nothing that has a limit

is long, and that all the ages of time being finite, are very little,

or indeed nothing at all, when compared to the interminable eternity.

Consequently, if there had elapsed since the creation of man, I do not

say five or six, but even sixty or six hundred thousand years, or sixty

times as many, or six hundred or six hundred thousand times as many, or

this sum multiplied until it could no longer be expressed in numbers,

the same question could still be put, Why was he not made before?

For the past and boundless eternity during which God abstained from

creating man is so great, that, compare it with what vast and untold

number of ages you please, so long as there is a definite conclusion of

this term of time, it is not even as if you compared the minutest drop

of water with the ocean that everywhere flows around the globe. For

of these two, one indeed is very small, the other incomparably vast,

yet both are finite; but that space of time which starts from some

beginning, and is limited by some termination, be it of what extent it

may, if you compare it with that which has no beginning, I know not

whether to say we should count it the very minutest thing, or nothing

at all. For, take this limited time, and deduct from the end of it,

one by one, the briefest moments (as you might take day by day from a

man's life, beginning at the day in which he now lives, back to that

of his birth), and though the number of moments you must subtract in

this backward movement be so great that no word can express it, yet

this subtraction will some time carry you to the beginning. But if

you take away from a time which has no beginning, I do not say brief

moments one by one, nor yet hours, or days, or months, or years even in

quantities, but terms of years so vast that they cannot be named by the

most skilful arithmetician,--take away terms of years as vast as that

which we have supposed to be gradually consumed by the deduction of

moments,--and take them away not once and again repeatedly, but always,

and what do you effect, what do you make by your deduction, since you

never reach the beginning which has no existence? Wherefore, that

which we now demand after five thousand odd years, our descendants

might with like curiosity demand after six hundred thousand years,

supposing these dying generations of men continue so long to decay and

be renewed, and supposing posterity continues as weak and ignorant as

ourselves. The same question might have been asked by those who have

lived before us, and while man was even newer upon earth. The first

man himself, in short, might, the day after, or the very day of his

creation, have asked why he was created no sooner. And no matter at

what earlier or later period he had been created, this controversy

about the commencement of this world's history would have had precisely

the same difficulties as it has now.

13. _Of the revolution of the ages, which some philosophers believe

will bring all things round again, after a certain fixed cycle,

to the same order and form as at first._

This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means

of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should

be a constant renewal and repetition of the order of nature;[538]

and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly

recur, one passing away and another coming, though they are not

agreed as to whether one permanent world shall pass through all these

cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and

be renewed so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena--the

things which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding. And

from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal

soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless

transmigration between delusive blessedness and real misery. For how

can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so

eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the

misery that is approaching, or, knowing it, is in misery and fear?

Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries for ever, then there

happens in time a new thing which time shall not end. Why not, then,

the world also? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by

following the straight path of sound doctrine, we escape, I know not

what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.

Some, too, in advocating these recurring cycles that restore all

things to their original, cite in favour of their supposition what

Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes: "What is that which hath

been? It is that which shall be. And what is that which is done? It

is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Who can speak and say, See, this is new? It hath been already of old

time, which was before us."[539] This he said either of those things

of which he had just been speaking--the succession of generations,

the orbit of the sun, the course of rivers,--or else of all kinds of

creatures that are born and die. For men were before us, are with

us, and shall be after us; and so all living things and all plants.

Even monstrous and irregular productions, though differing from one

another, and though some are reported as solitary instances, yet

resemble one another generally, in so far as they are miraculous and

monstrous, and, in this sense, have been, and shall be, and are no

new and recent things under the sun. However, some would understand

these words as meaning that in the predestination of God all things

have already existed, and that thus there is no new thing under the

sun. At all events, far be it from any true believer to suppose that

by these words of Solomon those cycles are meant, in which, according

to those philosophers, the same periods and events of time are

repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato, having taught

in the school at Athens which is called the Academy, so, numberless

ages before, at long but certain intervals, this same Plato, and the

same school, and the same disciples existed, and so also are to be

repeated during the countless cycles that are yet be be,--far be it,

I say, from us to believe this. For once Christ died for our sins;

and, rising from the dead, He dieth no more. "Death hath no more

dominion over Him;"[540] and we ourselves after the resurrection

shall be "ever with the Lord,"[541] to whom we now say, as the

sacred Psalmist dictates, "Thou shalt keep us, O Lord, Thou shalt

preserve us from this generation."[542] And that too which follows,

is, I think, appropriate enough: "The wicked walk _in a circle_;"

not because their life is to recur by means of these circles, which

these philosophers imagine, but because the path in which their false

doctrine now runs is circuitous.

14. _Of the creation of the human race in time, and how this was

effected without any new design or change of purpose on God's

part._

What wonder is it if, entangled in these circles, they find neither

entrance nor egress? For they know not how the human race, and this

mortal condition of ours, took its origin, nor how it will be brought

to an end, since they cannot penetrate the inscrutable wisdom of God.

For, though Himself eternal, and without beginning, yet He caused

time to have a beginning; and man, whom He had not previously made,

He made in time, not from a new and sudden resolution, but by His

unchangeable and eternal design. Who can search out the unsearchable

depth of this purpose, who can scrutinize the inscrutable wisdom,

wherewith God, without change of will, created man, who had never

before been, and gave him an existence in time, and increased the

human race from one individual? For the Psalmist himself, when he had

first said, "Thou shalt keep us, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve us from

this generation for ever," and had then rebuked those whose foolish

and impious doctrine preserves for the soul no eternal deliverance

and blessedness, adds immediately, "The wicked walk in a circle."

Then, as if it were said to him, "What then do you believe, feel,

know? Are we to believe that it suddenly occurred to God to create

man, whom He had never before made in a past eternity,--God, to

whom nothing new can occur, and in whom is no changeableness?" the

Psalmist goes on to reply, as if addressing God Himself, "According

to the depth of Thy wisdom Thou hast multiplied the children of men."

Let men, he seems to say, fancy what they please, let them conjecture

and dispute as seems good to them, but Thou hast multiplied the

children of men according to the depth of thy wisdom, which no man

can comprehend. For this is a depth indeed, that God always has been,

and that man, whom He had never made before, He willed to make in

time, and this without changing His design and will.

15. _Whether we are to believe that God, as He has always been

sovereign Lord, has always had creatures over whom He exercised

His sovereignty; and in what sense we can say that the creature

has always been, and yet cannot say it is co-eternal._

For my own part, indeed, as I dare not say that there ever was a time

when the Lord God was not Lord,[543] so I ought not to doubt that man

had no existence before time, and was first created in time. But when

I consider what God could be the Lord of, if there was not always

some creature, I shrink from making any assertion, remembering my

own insignificance, and that it is written, "What man is he that can

know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord

is? For the thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our devices are

but uncertain. For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and

the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many

things."[544] Many things certainly do I muse upon in this earthly

tabernacle, because the one thing which is true among the many, or

beyond the many, I cannot find. If, then, among these many thoughts,

I say that there have always been creatures for Him to be Lord of,

who is always and ever has been Lord, but that these creatures have

not always been the same, but succeeded one another (for we would not

seem to say that any is co-eternal with the Creator, an assertion

condemned equally by faith and sound reason), I must take care lest I

fall into the absurd and ignorant error of maintaining that by these

successions and changes mortal creatures have always existed, whereas

the immortal creatures had not begun to exist until the date of our

own world, when the angels were created; if at least the angels are

intended by that light which was first made, or, rather, by that

heaven of which it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens

and the earth."[545] The angels at least did not exist before they

were created; for if we say that they have always existed, we shall

seem to make them co-eternal with the Creator. Again, if I say that

the angels were not created in time, but existed before all times,

as those over whom God, who has ever been Sovereign, exercised His

sovereignty, then I shall be asked whether, if they were created

before all time, they, being creatures, could possibly always

exist. It may perhaps be replied, Why not _always_, since that which

is in all time may very properly be said to be "always?" Now, so

true is it that these angels have existed in all time, that even

before time was, they were created; if at least time began with the

heavens, and the angels existed before the heavens. And if time was

even before the heavenly bodies, not indeed marked by hours, days,

months, and years,--for these measures of time's periods which are

commonly and properly called times, did manifestly begin with the

motion of the heavenly bodies, and so God said, when He appointed

them, "Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for

years,"[546]--if, I say, time was before these heavenly bodies by

some changing movement, whose parts succeeded one another and could

not exist simultaneously, and if there was some such movement among

the angels which necessitated the existence of time, and that they

from their very creation should be subject to these temporal changes,

then they have existed in all time, for time came into being along

with them. And who will say that what was in all time, was not always?

But if I make such a reply, it will be said to me, How, then, are

they not co-eternal with the Creator, if He and they always have

been? How even can they be said to have been created, if we are to

understand that they have always existed? What shall we reply to

this? Shall we say that both statements are true? that they always

have been, since they have been in all time, they being created

along with time, or time along with them, and yet that also they

were created? For, similarly, we will not deny that time itself was

created, though no one doubts that time has been in all time; for if

it has not been in all time, then there was a time when there was no

time. But the most foolish person could not make such an assertion.

For we can reasonably say there was a time when Rome was not; there

was a time when Jerusalem was not; there was a time when Abraham was

not; there was a time when man was not, and so on: in fine, if the

world was not made at the commencement of time, but after some time

had elapsed, we can say there was a time when the world was not.

But to say there was a time when time was not, is as absurd as to

say there was a man when there was no man; or, this world was when

this world was not. For if we are not referring to the same object,

the form of expression may be used, as, there was another man when

this man was not. Thus we can reasonably say there was another time

when this time was not; but not the merest simpleton could say there

was a time when there was no time. As, then, we say that time was

created, though we also say that it always has been, since in all

time time has been, so it does not follow that if the angels have

always been, they were therefore not created. For we say that they

have always been, because they have been in all time; and we say

they have been in all time, because time itself could no wise be

without them. For where there is no creature whose changing movements

admit of succession, there cannot be time at all. And consequently,

even if they have always existed, they were created; neither, if

they have always existed, are they therefore co-eternal with the

Creator. For He has always existed in unchangeable eternity; while

they were created, and are said to have been always, because they

have been in all time, time being impossible without the creature.

But time passing away by its changefulness, cannot be co-eternal

with changeless eternity. And consequently, though the immortality

of the angels does not pass in time, does not become past as if now

it were not, nor has a future as if it were not yet, still their

movements, which are the basis of time, do pass from future to past;

and therefore they cannot be co-eternal with the Creator, in whose

movement we cannot say that there has been that which now is not, or

shall be that which is not yet. Wherefore, if God always has been

Lord, He has always had creatures under His dominion,--creatures,

however, not begotten of Him, but created by Him out of nothing;

nor co-eternal with Him, for He was before them, though at no time

without them, because He preceded them, not by the lapse of time,

but by His abiding eternity. But if I make this reply to those who

demand how He was always Creator, always Lord, if there were not

always a subject creation; or how this was created, and not rather

co-eternal with its Creator, if it always was, I fear I may be

accused of recklessly affirming what I know not, instead of teaching

what I know. I return, therefore, to that which our Creator has seen

fit that we should know; and those things which He has allowed the

abler men to know in this life, or has reserved to be known in the

next by the perfected saints, I acknowledge to be beyond my capacity.

But I have thought it right to discuss these matters without making

positive assertions, that they who read may be warned to abstain from

hazardous questions, and may not deem themselves fit for everything.

Let them rather endeavour to obey the wholesome injunction of the

apostle, when he says, "For I say, through the grace given unto me,

to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly

than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath

dealt to every man the measure of faith."[547] For if an infant

receive nourishment suited to its strength, it becomes capable, as it

grows, of taking more; but if its strength and capacity be overtaxed,

it dwines away in place of growing.

16. _How we are to understand God's promise of life eternal,

which was uttered before the "eternal times."_

I own that I do not know what ages passed before the human race was

created, yet I have no doubt that no created thing is co-eternal with

the Creator. But even the apostle speaks of time as eternal, and this

with reference, not to the future, but, which is more surprising, to

the past. For he says, "In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot

lie promised before the eternal times, but hath in due times manifested

His word."[548] You see he says that in the past there have been

eternal times, which, however, were not co-eternal with God. And since

God before these eternal times not only existed, but also "promised"

life eternal, which He manifested in its own times (that is to say, in

due times), what else is this than His word? For this is life eternal.

But then, how did He promise; for the promise was made to men, and yet

they had no existence before eternal times? Does this not mean that,

in His own eternity, and in His co-eternal word, that which was to be

in its own time was already predestined and fixed?

17. _What defence is made by sound faith regarding God's

unchangeable counsel and will, against the reasonings of those

who hold that the works of God are eternally repeated in

revolving cycles that restore all things as they were._

Of this, too, I have no doubt, that before the first man was created,

there never had been a man at all, neither this same man himself

recurring by I know not what cycles, and having made I know not

how many revolutions, nor any other of similar nature. From this

belief I am not frightened by philosophical arguments, among which

that is reckoned the most acute which is founded on the assertion

that the infinite cannot be comprehended by any mode of knowledge.

Consequently, they argue, God has in His own mind finite conceptions

of all finite things which He makes. Now it cannot be supposed that

His goodness was ever idle; for if it were, there should be ascribed

to Him an awakening to activity in time, from a past eternity of

inactivity, as if He repented of an idleness that had no beginning,

and proceeded, therefore, to make a beginning of work. This being the

case, they say it must be that the same things are always repeated,

and that as they pass, so they are destined always to return, whether

amidst all these changes the world remains the same,--the world which

has always been, and yet was created,--or that the world in these

revolutions is perpetually dying out and being renewed; otherwise,

if we point to a time when the works of God were begun, it would be

believed that He considered His past eternal leisure to be inert and

indolent, and therefore condemned and altered it as displeasing to

Himself. Now if God is supposed to have been indeed always making

temporal things, but different from one another, and one after the

other, so that He thus came at last to make man, whom He had never

made before, then it may seem that He made man not with knowledge

(for they suppose no knowledge can comprehend the infinite succession

of creatures), but at the dictate of the hour, as it struck Him at

the moment, with a sudden and accidental change of mind. On the

other hand, say they, if those cycles be admitted, and if we suppose

that the same temporal things are repeated, while the world either

remains identical through all these rotations, or else dies away and

is renewed, then there is ascribed to God neither the slothful ease

of a past eternity, nor a rash and unforeseen creation. And if the

same things be not thus repeated in cycles, then they cannot by any

science or prescience be comprehended in their endless diversity.

Even though reason could not refute, faith would smile at these

argumentations, with which the godless endeavour to turn our simple

piety from the right way, that we may walk with them "in a circle."

But by the help of the Lord our God, even reason, and that readily

enough, shatters these revolving circles which conjecture frames.

For that which specially leads these men astray to prefer their own

circles to the straight path of truth, is, that they measure by

their own human, changeable, and narrow intellect the divine mind,

which is absolutely unchangeable, infinitely capacious, and, without

succession of thought, counting all things without number. So that

saying of the apostle comes true of them, for, "comparing themselves

with themselves, they do not understand."[549] For because they do,

in virtue of a new purpose, whatever new thing has occurred to them

to be done (their minds being changeable), they conclude it is so

with God; and thus compare, not God,--for they cannot conceive God,

but think of one like themselves when they think of Him,--not God,

but themselves, and not with Him, but with themselves. For our part,

we dare not believe that God is affected in one way when He works,

in another when He rests. Indeed, to say that He is affected at all,

is an abuse of language, since it implies that there comes to be

something in His nature which was not there before. For he who is

affected is acted upon, and whatever is acted upon is changeable. In

His leisure, therefore, is no laziness, indolence, inactivity; as in

His work is no labour, effort, industry. He can act while He reposes,

and repose while He acts. He can begin a new work with (not a new,

but) an eternal design; and what He has not made before, He does

not now begin to make because He repents of His former repose. But

when one speaks of His former repose and subsequent operation (and

I know not how men can understand these things), this "former" and

"subsequent" are applied only to the things created, which formerly

did not exist, and subsequently came into existence. But in God the

former purpose is not altered and obliterated by the subsequent and

different purpose, but by one and the same eternal and unchangeable

will He effected regarding the things He created, both that formerly,

so long as they were not, they should not be, and that subsequently,

when they began to be, they should come into existence. And thus,

perhaps, He would show in a very striking way, to those who have eyes

for such things, how independent He is of what He makes, and how it

is of His own gratuitous goodness He creates, since from eternity He

dwelt without creatures in no less perfect a blessedness.

18. _Against those who assert that things that are infinite_[550]

_cannot be comprehended by the knowledge of God._

As for their other assertion, that God's knowledge cannot comprehend

things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm, in order that

they may sound the depths of their impiety, that God does not know

all numbers. For it is very certain that they are infinite; since,

no matter at what number you suppose an end to be made, this number

can be, I will not say, increased by the addition of one more, but

however great it be, and however vast be the multitude of which it

is the rational and scientific expression, it can still be not only

doubled, but even multiplied. Moreover, each number is so defined by

its own properties, that no two numbers are equal. They are therefore

both unequal and different from one another; and while they are

simply finite, collectively they are infinite. Does God, therefore,

not know numbers on account of this infinity; and does His knowledge

extend only to a certain height in numbers, while of the rest He is

ignorant? Who is so left to himself as to say so? Yet they can hardly

pretend to put numbers out of the question, or maintain that they

have nothing to do with the knowledge of God; for Plato,[551] their

great authority, represents God as framing the world on numerical

principles; and in our books also it is said to God, "Thou hast

ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight."[552] The

prophet also says, "Who bringeth out their host by number."[553] And

the Saviour says in the Gospel, "The very hairs of your head are all

numbered."[554] Far be it, then, from us to doubt that all number

is known to Him "whose understanding," according to the Psalmist,

"is infinite."[555] The infinity of number, though there be no

numbering of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him

whose understanding is infinite. And thus, if everything which is

comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him

who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite

to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. Wherefore, if the

infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God, by

which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should

presume to fix limits to His knowledge, and say that unless the same

temporal things be repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God

cannot either foreknow His creatures that He may make them, or know

them when He has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply manifold,

and uniform in its variety, comprehends all incomprehensibles with

so incomprehensible a comprehension, that though He willed always

to make His later works novel and unlike what went before them, He

could not produce them without order and foresight, nor conceive them

suddenly, but by His eternal foreknowledge.

19. _Of worlds without end, or ages of ages._[556]

I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether

these times which are called "ages of ages" are joined together

in a continuous series, and succeed one another with a regulated

diversity, and leave exempt from their vicissitudes only those who

are freed from their misery, and abide without end in a blessed

immortality; or whether these are called "ages of ages," that we may

understand that the ages remain unchangeable in God's unwavering

wisdom, and are the efficient causes, as it were, of those ages

which are being spent in time. Possibly "ages" is used for "age,"

so that nothing else is meant by "ages of ages" than by "age of

age," as nothing else is meant by "heavens of heavens" than by

"heaven of heaven." For God called the firmament, above which are

the waters, "Heaven," and yet the psalm says, "Let the waters that

are above the _heavens_ praise the name of the Lord."[557] Which of

these two meanings we are to attach to "ages of ages," or whether

there is not some other and better meaning still, is a very profound

question; and the subject we are at present handling presents no

obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the discussion of it, whether

we may be able to determine anything about it, or may only be made

more cautious by its further treatment, so as to be deterred from

making any rash affirmations in a matter of such obscurity. For at

present we are disputing the opinion that affirms the existence

of those periodic revolutions by which the same things are always

recurring at intervals of time. Now, whichever of these suppositions

regarding the "ages of ages" be the true one, it avails nothing for

the substantiating of those cycles; for whether the ages of ages be

not a repetition of the same world, but different worlds succeeding

one another in a regulated connection, the ransomed souls abiding in

well-assured bliss without any recurrence of misery, or whether the

ages of ages be the eternal causes which rule what shall be and is

in time, it equally follows, that those cycles which bring round the

same things have no existence; and nothing more thoroughly explodes

them than the fact of the eternal life of the saints.

20. _Of the impiety of those who assert that the souls which enjoy

true and perfect blessedness, must yet again and again in these

periodic revolutions return to labour and misery._

What pious ears could bear to hear that after a life spent in so

many and severe distresses (if, indeed, that should be called a

life at all which is rather a death, so utter that the love of this

present death makes us fear that death which delivers us from it),

that after evils so disastrous, and miseries of all kinds have at

length been expiated and finished by the help of true religion and

wisdom, and when we have thus attained to the vision of God, and

have entered into bliss by the contemplation of spiritual light

and participation in His unchangeable immortality, which we burn to

attain,--that we must at some time lose all this, and that they who

do lose it are cast down from that eternity, truth, and felicity to

infernal mortality and shameful foolishness, and are involved in

accursed woes, in which God is lost, truth held in detestation, and

happiness sought in iniquitous impurities? and that this will happen

endlessly again and again, recurring at fixed intervals, and in

regularly returning periods? and that this everlasting and ceaseless

revolution of definite cycles, which remove and restore true misery

and deceitful bliss in turn, is contrived in order that God may be

able to know His own works, since on the one hand He cannot rest from

creating, and on the other, cannot know the infinite number of His

creatures, if He always makes creatures? Who, I say, can listen to

such things? Who can accept or suffer them to be spoken? Were they

true, it were not only more prudent to keep silence regarding them,

but even (to express myself as best I can) it were the part of wisdom

not to know them. For if in the future world we shall not remember

these things, and by this oblivion be blessed, why should we now

increase our misery, already burdensome enough, by the knowledge of

them? If, on the other hand, the knowledge of them will be forced

upon us hereafter, now at least let us remain in ignorance, that in

the present expectation we may enjoy a blessedness which the future

reality is not to bestow; since in this life we are expecting to

obtain life everlasting, but in the world to come are to discover it

to be blessed, but not everlasting.

And if they maintain that no one can attain to the blessedness of

the world to come, unless in this life he has been indoctrinated in

those cycles in which bliss and misery relieve one another, how do

they avow that the more a man loves God, the more readily he attains

to blessedness,--they who teach what paralyzes love itself? For who

would not be more remiss and lukewarm in his love for a person whom

he thinks he shall be forced to abandon, and whose truth and wisdom

he shall come to hate; and this, too, after he has quite attained

to the utmost and most blissful knowledge of Him that he is capable

of? Can any one be faithful in his love, even to a human friend, if

he knows that he is destined to become his enemy?[558] God forbid

that there be any truth in an opinion which threatens us with a

real misery that is never to end, but is often and endlessly to be

interrupted by intervals of fallacious happiness. For what happiness

can be more fallacious and false than that in whose blaze of truth

we yet remain ignorant that we shall be miserable, or in whose most

secure citadel we yet fear that we shall be so? For if, on the one

hand, we are to be ignorant of coming calamity, then our present

misery is not so shortsighted, for it is assured of coming bliss.

If, on the other hand, the disaster that threatens is not concealed

from us in the world to come, then the time of misery which is to be

at last exchanged for a state of blessedness, is spent by the soul

more happily than its time of happiness, which is to end in a return

to misery. And thus our expectation of unhappiness is happy, but of

happiness unhappy. And therefore, as we here suffer present ills, and

hereafter fear ills that are imminent, it were truer to say that we

shall always be miserable, than that we can some time be happy.

But these things are declared to be false by the loud testimony

of religion and truth; for religion truthfully promises a true

blessedness, of which we shall be eternally assured, and which cannot

be interrupted by any disaster. Let us therefore keep to the straight

path, which is Christ, and, with Him as our Guide and Saviour, let

us turn away in heart and mind from the unreal and futile cycles of

the godless. Porphyry, Platonist though he was, abjured the opinion

of his school, that in these cycles souls are ceaselessly passing

away and returning, either being struck with the extravagance of the

idea, or sobered by his knowledge of Christianity. As I mentioned in

the tenth book,[559] he preferred saying that the soul, as it had

been sent into the world that it might know evil, and be purged and

delivered from it, was never again exposed to such an experience

after it had once returned to the Father. And if he abjured the

tenets of his school, how much more ought we Christians to abominate

and avoid an opinion so unfounded and hostile to our faith? But

having disposed of these cycles and escaped out of them, no necessity

compels us to suppose that the human race had no beginning in time,

on the ground that there is nothing new in nature which, by I know

not what cycles, has not at some previous period existed, and is

not hereafter to exist again. For if the soul, once delivered,

as it never was before, is never to return to misery, then there

happens in its experience something which never happened before;

and this, indeed, something of the greatest consequence, to wit,

the secure entrance into eternal felicity. And if in an immortal

nature there can occur a novelty, which never has been, nor ever

shall be, reproduced by any cycle, why is it disputed that the same

may occur in mortal natures? If they maintain that blessedness is

no new experience to the soul, but only a return to that state in

which it has been eternally, then at least its deliverance from

misery is something new, since, by their own showing, the misery

from which it is delivered is itself, too, a new experience. And if

this new experience fell out by accident, and was not embraced in

the order of things appointed by Divine Providence, then where are

those determinate and measured cycles in which no new thing happens,

but all things are reproduced as they were before? If, however, this

new experience was embraced in that providential order of nature

(whether the soul was exposed to the evil of this world for the

sake of discipline, or fell into it by sin), then it is possible

for new things to happen which never happened before, and which yet

are not extraneous to the order of nature. And if the soul is able

by its own imprudence to create for itself a new misery, which was

not unforeseen by the Divine Providence, but was provided for in the

order of nature along with the deliverance from it, how can we, even

with all the rashness of human vanity, presume to deny that God can

create new things--new to the world, but not to Him--which He never

before created, but yet foresaw from all eternity? If they say that

it is indeed true that ransomed souls return no more to misery, but

that even so no new thing happens, since there always have been,

now are, and ever shall be a succession of ransomed souls, they must

at least grant that in this case there are new souls to whom the

misery and the deliverance from it are new. For if they maintain that

those souls out of which new men are daily being made (from whose

bodies, if they have lived wisely, they are so delivered that they

never return to misery) are not new, but have existed from eternity,

they must logically admit that they are infinite. For however great

a finite number of souls there were, that would not have sufficed

to make perpetually new men from eternity,--men whose souls were to

be eternally freed from this mortal state, and never afterwards to

return to it. And our philosophers will find it hard to explain how

there is an infinite number of souls in an order of nature which they

require shall be finite, that it may be known by God.

And now that we have exploded these cycles which were supposed to

bring back the soul at fixed periods to the same miseries, what can

seem more in accordance with godly reason than to believe that it is

possible for God both to create new things never before created, and

in doing so, to preserve His will unaltered? But whether the number

of eternally redeemed souls can be continually increased or not, let

the philosophers themselves decide, who are so subtle in determining

where infinity cannot be admitted. For our own part, our reasoning

holds in either case. For if the number of souls can be indefinitely

increased, what reason is there to deny that what had never before

been created, could be created? since the number of ransomed souls

never existed before, and has yet not only been once made, but will

never cease to be anew coming into being. If, on the other hand,

it be more suitable that the number of eternally ransomed souls be

definite, and that this number will never be increased, yet this

number, whatever it be, did assuredly never exist before, and it

cannot increase, and reach the amount it signifies, without having

some beginning; and this beginning never before existed. That this

beginning, therefore, might be, the first man was created.

21. _That there was created at first but one individual, and that

the human race was created in him._