Writings of Augustine. The City of God.
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The City of God.
translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
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Book XI.
Argument--Here begins the second part [445] of this work, which treats
of the origin, history, and destinies of the two cities, the earthly
and the heavenly. In the first place, Augustin shows in this book how
the two cities were formed originally, by the separation of the good
and bad angels; and takes occasion to treat of the creation of the
world, as it is described in Holy Scripture in the beginning of the
book of Genesis.
Chapter 1.--Of This Part of the Work, Wherein We Begin to Explain the
Origin and End of the Two Cities.
The city of God we speak of is the same to which testimony is borne by
that Scripture, which excels all the writings of all nations by its
divine authority, and has brought under its influence all kinds of
minds, and this not by a casual intellectual movement, but obviously
by an express providential arrangement. For there it is written,
"Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God." [446]And in
another psalm we read, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness, increasing
the joy of the whole earth." [447]And, a little after, in the same
psalm, "As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of
hosts, in the city of our God. God has established it for ever." And
in another, "There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the
city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved." [448]From
these and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite,
we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has
inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship. To this
Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly city prefer their
own gods, not knowing that He is the God of gods, not of false, i.e.,
of impious and proud gods, who, being deprived of His unchangeable and
freely communicated light, and so reduced to a kind of
poverty-stricken power, eagerly grasp at their own private privileges,
and seek divine honors from their deluded subjects; but of the pious
and holy gods, who are better pleased to submit themselves to one,
than to subject many to themselves, and who would rather worship God
than be worshipped as God. But to the enemies of this city we have
replied in the ten preceding books, according to our ability and the
help afforded by our Lord and King. Now, recognizing what is expected
of me, and not unmindful of my promise, and relying, too, on the same
succor, I will endeavor to treat of the origin, and progress, and
deserved destinies of the two cities (the earthly and the heavenly, to
wit), which, as we said, are in this present world commingled, and as
it were entangled together. And, first, I will explain how the
foundations of these two cities were originally laid, in the
difference that arose among the angels.
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Footnotes
[445] Written in the year 416 or 417.
[446] Ps. lxxxvii. 3.
[447] Ps. xlviii. 1.
[448] Ps. xlvi. 4.
Chapter 2.--Of the Knowledge of God, to Which No Man Can Attain Save
Through the Mediator Between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus.
It is a great and very rare thing for a man, after he has
contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal, and has
discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by the continued
soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable substance of God,
and, in that height of contemplation, to learn from God Himself that
none but He has made all that is not of the divine essence. For God
speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his
ears, so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him
that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being with the
semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar states; for
even in this case He speaks as if to the ears of the body, because it
is by means of the semblance of a body He speaks, and with the
appearance of a real interval of space,--for visions are exact
representations of bodily objects. Not by these, then, does God
speak, but by the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with
the mind rather than with the body. For He speaks to that part of man
which is better than all else that is in him, and than which God
Himself alone is better. For since man is most properly understood
(or, if that cannot be, then, at least, believed) to be made in God's
image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he rises above those
lower parts he has in common with the beasts, which brings him nearer
to the Supreme. But since the mind itself, though naturally capable
of reason and intelligence is disabled by besotting and inveterate
vices not merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from
tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed,
and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in the first
place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified. And that in
this faith it might advance the more confidently towards the truth,
the truth itself, God, God's Son, assuming humanity without destroying
His divinity, [449] established and founded this faith, that there
might be a way for man to man's God through a God-man. For this is
the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as
man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way lieth
between him who goes, and the place whither he goes, there is hope of
his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it
is, what boots it to know whither he should go? Now the only way that
is infallibly secured against all mistakes, is when the very same
person is at once God and man, God our end, man our way. [450]
Footnotes
[449] Homine assumto, non Deo consumto.
[450] Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo.
Chapter 3.--Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by
the Divine Spirit.
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the
prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has
besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has
paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of
which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves.
For if we attain the knowledge of present objects by the testimony of
our own senses, [451] whether internal or external, then, regarding
objects remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their
testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we credit the
persons to whom the objects have been or are sensibly present.
Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects which we have not seen,
we trust those who have, (and likewise with all sensible objects,) so
in the case of things which are perceived [452] by the mind and
spirit, i.e., which are remote from our own interior sense, it behoves
us to trust those who have seen them set in that incorporeal light, or
abidingly contemplate them.
Footnotes
[451] A clause is here inserted to give the etymology of proesentia
from proe sensibus.
[452] Another derivation, sententia from sensus, the inward perception
of the mind.
Chapter 4.--That the World is Neither Without Beginning, Nor Yet
Created by a New Decree of God, by Which He Afterwards Willed What He
Had Not Before Willed.
Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible,
the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see; that God is, we
believe. That God made the world, we can believe from no one more
safely than from God Himself. But where have we heard Him? Nowhere
more distinctly than in the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said,
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." [453]Was
the prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; but
the wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there, [454] and
wisdom insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes them the friends
of God and His prophets, and noiselessly informs them of His works.
They are taught also by the angels of God, who always behold the face
of the Father, [455] and announce His will to whom it befits. Of
these prophets was he who said and wrote, "In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth." And so fit a witness was he of
God, that the same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him,
enabled him also so long before to predict that our faith also would
be forthcoming.
But why did God choose then to create the heavens and earth which up
to that time He had not made? [456]If they who put this question
wish to make out that the world is eternal and without beginning, and
that consequently it has not been made by God, they are strangely
deceived, and rave in the incurable madness of impiety. For, though
the voices of the prophets were silent, the world itself, by its
well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all
visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has been
created, and also that it could not have been created save by God,
whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and invisible. As for
those [457] who own, indeed, that it was made by God, and yet ascribe
to it not a temporal but only a creational beginning, so that in some
scarcely intelligible way the world should always have existed a
created world they make an assertion which seems to them to defend God
from the charge of arbitrary hastiness, or of suddenly conceiving the
idea of creating the world as a quite new idea, or of casually
changing His will, though He be unchangeable. But I do not see how
this supposition of theirs can stand in other respects, and chiefly in
respect of the soul; for if they contend that it is co-eternal with
God, they will be quite at a loss to explain whence there has accrued
to it new misery, which through a previous eternity had not existed.
For if they said that its happiness and misery ceaselessly alternate,
they must say, further, that this alternation will continue for ever;
whence will result this absurdity, that, though the soul is called
blessed, it is not so in this, that it foresees its own misery and
disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and supposes that it
will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but always blessed, then it is
blessed because it is deceived; and a more foolish statement one
cannot make. But if their idea is that the soul's misery has
alternated with its bliss during the ages of the past eternity, but
that now, when once the soul has been set free, it will return
henceforth no more to misery, they are nevertheless of opinion that it
has never been truly blessed before, but begins at last to enjoy a new
and uncertain happiness; that is to say, they must acknowledge that
some new thing, and that an important and signal thing, happens to the
soul which never in a whole past eternity happened it before. And if
they deny that God's eternal purpose included this new experience of
the soul, they deny that He is the Author of its blessedness, which is
unspeakable impiety. If, on the other hand, they say that the future
blessedness of the soul is the result of a new decree of God, how will
they show that God is not chargeable with that mutability which
displeases them? Further, if they acknowledge that it was created in
time, but will never perish in time,--that it has, like number, [458]
a beginning but no end,--and that, therefore, having once made trial
of misery, and been delivered from it, it will never again return
thereto, they will certainly admit that this takes place without any
violation of the immutable counsel of God. Let them, then, in like
manner believe regarding the world that it too could be made in time,
and yet that God, in making it, did not alter His eternal design.
Footnotes
[453] Gen. i. 1.
[454] Prov. viii. 27.
[455] Matt. xviii. 10.
[456] A common question among the Epicureans; urged by Velleius in
Cic. De. Nat. Deor. i. 9, adopted by the Manichæans and spoken to by
Augustin in the Conf. xi. 10, 12, also in De Gen. contra Man. i. 3.
[457] The Neo-Platonists.
[458] Number begins at one, but runs on infinitely.
Chapter 5.--That We Ought Not to Seek to Comprehend the Infinite Ages
of Time Before the World, Nor the Infinite Realms of Space.
Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who agree that God
is the Creator of the world, but have difficulties about the time of
its creation, and what reply, also, they can make to difficulties we
might raise about the place of its creation. For, as they demand why
the world was created then and no sooner, we may ask why it was
created just here where it is, and not elsewhere. For if they imagine
infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God could not
have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the world
infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that the
Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it not follow that
they must adopt Epicurus' dream of innumerable worlds? with this
difference only, that he asserts that they are formed and destroyed by
the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold that they are
made by God's hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless
immensity of space, stretching interminably in every direction round
the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose Him
to make cannot be destroyed. For here the question is with those who,
with ourselves, believe that God is spiritual, and the Creator of all
existences but Himself. As for others, it is a condescension to
dispute with them on a religious ques tion, for they have acquired a
reputation only among men who pay divine honors to a number of gods,
and have become conspicuous among the other philosophers for no other
reason than that, though they are still far from the truth, they are
near it in comparison with the rest. While these, then, neither
confine in any place, nor limit, nor distribute the divine substance,
but, as is worthy of God, own it to be wholly though spiritually
present everywhere, will they perchance say that this substance is
absent from such immense spaces outside the world, and is occupied in
one only, (and that a very little one compared with the infinity
beyond), the one, namely, in which is the world? I think they will
not proceed to this absurdity. Since they maintain that there is but
one world, of vast material bulk, indeed, yet finite, and in its own
determinate position, and that this was made by the working of God,
let them give the same account of God's resting in the infinite times
before the world as they give of His resting in the infinite spaces
outside of it. And as it does not follow that God set the world in
the very spot it occupies and no other by accident rather than by
divine reason, although no human reason can comprehend why it was so
set, and though there was no merit in the spot chosen to give it the
precedence of infinite others, so neither does it follow that we
should suppose that God was guided by chance when He created the world
in that and no earlier time, although previous times had been running
by during an infinite past, and though there was no difference by
which one time could be chosen in preference to another. But if they
say that the thoughts of men are idle when they conceive infinite
places, since there is no place beside the world, we reply that, by
the same showing, it is vain to conceive of the past times of God's
rest, since there is no time before the world.
Chapter 6.--That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the
One Did Not Anticipate the Other.
For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this, that time
does not exist without some movement and transition, while in eternity
there is no change, who does not see that there could have been no
time had not some creature been made, which by some motion could give
birth to change,--the various parts of which motion and change, as
they cannot be simultaneous, succeed one another,--and thus, in these
shorter or longer intervals of duration, time would begin? Since
then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the Creator and
Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to have created the
world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless it be said that prior
to the world there was some creature by whose movement time could
pass. And if the sacred and infallible Scriptures say that in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth, in order that it may
be understood that He had made nothing previously,--for if He had made
anything before the rest, this thing would rather be said to have been
made "in the beginning,"--then assuredly the world was made, not in
time, but simultaneously with time. For that which is made in time is
made both after and before some time,--after that which is past,
before that which is future. But none could then be past, for there
was no creature by whose movements its duration could be measured.
But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world's
creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the
order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning
and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God
then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was
mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were
it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive,
and how much more to say!
Chapter 7.--Of the Nature of the First Days, Which are Said to Have
Had Morning and Evening, Before There Was a Sun.
We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the
setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first
three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to
have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was
made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the
darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night; but what
kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening
and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we
understand how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For
either it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper
parts of the world, far removed from our sight, or from the spot where
the sun was afterwards kindled; or under the name of light the holy
city was signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits, the
city of which the apostle says, "Jerusalem which is above is our
eternal mother in heaven;" [459] and in another place, "For ye are all
the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of
the night, nor of darkness." [460]Yet in some respects we may
appropriately speak of a morning and evening of this day also. For
the knowledge of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of
the Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into morning
when the creature is drawn to the praise and love of the Creator; and
night never falls when the Creator is not forsaken through love of the
creature. In fine, Scripture, when it would recount those days in
order, never mentions the word night. It never says, "Night was," but
"The evening and the morning were the first day." So of the second
and the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created things
contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more colorless than when
they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which they were
made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure than night; and
yet, as I said, morning returns when the creature returns to the
praise and love of the Creator. When it does so in the knowledge of
itself, that is the first day; when in the knowledge of the firmament,
which is the name given to the sky between the waters above and those
beneath, that is the second day; when in the knowledge of the earth,
and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth, that is the
third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less luminaries,
and all the stars, that is the fourth day; when in the knowledge of
all animals that swim in the waters and that fly in the air, that is
the fifth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that live on the
earth, and of man himself, that is the sixth day. [461]
Footnotes
[459] Gal. iv. 26.
[460] 1 Thess. v. 5.
[461] Comp. de Gen. ad Lit. i. and iv.
Chapter 8.--What We are to Understand of God's Resting on the Seventh
Day, After the Six Days' Work.
When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from all His works,
and hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this in a childish fashion,
as if work were a toil to God, who "spake and it was done,"--spake by
the spiritual and eternal, not audible and transitory word. But God's
rest signifies the rest of those who rest in God, as the joy of a
house means the joy of those in the house who rejoice, though not the
house, but something else, causes the joy. How much more intelligible
is such phraseology, then, if the house itself, by its own beauty,
makes the inhabitants joyful! For in this case we not only call it
joyful by that figure of speech in which the thing containing is used
for the thing contained (as when we say, "The theatres applaud," "The
meadows low," meaning that the men in the one applaud, and the oxen in
the other low), but also by that figure in which the cause is spoken
of as if it were the effect, as when a letter is said to be joyful,
because it makes its readers so. Most appropriately, therefore, the
sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning thereby that those
rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest. And this the
prophetic narrative promises also to the men to whom it speaks, and
for whom it was written, that they themselves, after those good works
which God does in and by them, if they have managed by faith to get
near to God in this life, shall enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was
pre-figured to the ancient people of God by the rest enjoined in their
sabbath law, of which, in its own place, I shall speak more at large.
Chapter 9.--What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the
Creation of the Angels.
At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin of the holy
city, and first of the holy angels, who constitute a large part of
this city, and indeed the more blessed part, since they have never
been expatriated, I will give myself to the task of explaining, by
God's help, and as far as seems suitable, the Scriptures which relate
to this point. Where Scripture speaks of the world's creation, it is
not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if
mention of them is made, it is implicitly under the name of "heaven,"
when it is said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth," or perhaps rather under the name of "light," of which
presently. But that they were wholly omitted, I am unable to believe,
because it is written that God on the seventh day rested from all His
works which He made; and this very book itself begins, "In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth," so that before
heaven and earth God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He
began with the heavens and the earth,--and the earth itself, as
Scripture adds, was at first invisible and formless, light not being
as yet made, and darkness covering the face of the deep (that is to
say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for where light is
not, darkness must needs be),--and then when all things, which are
recorded to have been completed in six days, were created and
arranged, how should the angels be omitted, as if they were not among
the works of God, from which on the seventh day He rested? Yet,
though the fact that the angels are the work of God is not omitted
here, it is indeed not explicitly mentioned; but elsewhere Holy
Scripture asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn of the
Three Children in the Furnace it was said, "O all ye works of the Lord
bless ye the Lord;" [462] and among these works mentioned afterwards
in detail, the angels are named. And in the psalm it is said, "Praise
ye the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights. Praise ye
Him, all His angels; praise ye Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun
and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of
heavens; and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the
name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they were created." [463]
Here the angels are most expressly and by divine authority said to
have been made by God, for of them among the other heavenly things it
is said, "He commanded, and they were created." Who, then, will be
bold enough to suggest that the angels were made after the six days'
creation? If any one is so foolish, his folly is disposed of by a
scripture of like authority, where God says, "When the stars were
made, the angels praised me with a loud voice." [464]The angels
therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made the fourth
day. Shall we then say that they were made the third day? Far from
it; for we know what was made that day. The earth was separated from
the water, and each element took its own distinct form, and the earth
produced all that grows on it. On the second day, then? Not even on
this; for on it the firmament was made between the waters above and
beneath, and was called "Heaven," in which firmament the stars were
made on the fourth day. There is no question, then, that if the
angels are included in the works of God during these six days, they
are that light which was called "Day," and whose unity Scripture
signalizes by calling that day not the "first day," but "one day."
[465]For the second day, the third, and the rest are not other
days; but the same "one" day is repeated to complete the number six or
seven, so that there should be knowledge both of God's works and of
His rest. For when God said, "Let there be light, and there was
light," if we are justified in understanding in this light the
creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of
the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which
all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God;
so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might
themselves become light and be called "Day," in participation of that
unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both
themselves and all else were made. "The true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world," [466] --this Light lighteth
also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in
God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all
those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the
Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation
of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of
good has received the name "evil." [467]
Footnotes
[462] Ver. 35.
[463] Ps. cxlviii. 1-5.
[464] Job xxxviii. 7.
[465] 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.
[466] John i. 9.
[467] Mali enim nulla natura est: sed amissio boni, mali nomen
accepit.
Chapter 10.--Of the Simple and Unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, One God, in Whom Substance and Quality are Identical.
There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and therefore
alone unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good have all others
been created, but not simple, and therefore not unchangeable.
"Created," I say,--that is, made, not begotten. For that which is
begotten of the simple Good is simple as itself, and the same as
itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both together
with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy
is in Scripture, as it were, appropriated. And He is another than the
Father and the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son. I say
"another," not "another thing," because He is equally with them the
simple Good, unchangeable and co-eternal. And this Trinity is one
God; and none the less simple because a Trinity. For we do not say
that the nature of the good is simple, because the Father alone
possesses it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Ghost alone; nor do we
say, with the Sabellian heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity,
and has no real distinction of persons; but we say it is simple,
because it is what it has, with the exception of the relation of the
persons to one another. For, in regard to this relation, it is true
that the Father has a Son, and yet is not Himself the Son; and the Son
has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But, as regards Himself,
irrespective of relation to the other, each is what He has; thus, He
is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the Life which
He has.
It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is called
simple, because it has not anything which it can lose, and because it
is not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and the liquor, or
a body and its color, or the air and the light or heat of it, or a
mind and its wisdom. For none of these is what it has: the cup is
not liquor, nor the body color, nor the air light and heat, nor the
mind wisdom. And hence they can be deprived of what they have, and
can be turned or changed into other qualities and states, so that the
cup may be emptied of the liquid of which it is full, the body be
discolored, the air darken, the mind grow silly. The incorruptible
body which is promised to the saints in the resurrection cannot,
indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but the bodily substance and
the quality of incorruption are not the same thing. For the quality
of incorruption resides entire in each several part, not greater in
one and less in another; for no part is more incorruptible than
another. The body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part;
and one part of it is larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger
more incorruptible than the smaller. The body, then, which is not in
each of its parts a whole body, is one thing; incorruptibility, which
is throughout complete, is another thing;--for every part of the
incorruptible body, however unequal to the rest otherwise, is equally
incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is not more incorrupt than the finger
because it is larger than the finger; so, though finger and hand are
unequal, their incorruptibility is equal. Thus, although
incorruptibility is inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the
substance of the body is one thing, the quality of incorruption
another. And therefore the body is not what it has. The soul itself,
too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it is
redeemed), will be so by participating in the unchangeable wisdom,
which it is not; for though the air be never robbed of the light that
is shed abroad in it, it is not on that account the same thing as the
light. I do not mean that the soul is air, as has been supposed by
some who could not conceive a spiritual nature; [468] but, with much
dissimilarity, the two things have a kind of likeness, which makes it
suitable to say that the immaterial soul is illumined with the
immaterial light of the simple wisdom of God, as the material air is
irradiated with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of
this light, grows dark, (for material darkness is nothing else than
air wanting light, [469] ) so the soul, deprived of the light of
wisdom, grows dark.
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly
divine are called simple, because in them quality and substance are
identical, and because they are divine, or wise, or blessed in
themselves, and without extraneous supplement. In Holy Scripture, it
is true, the Spirit of wisdom is called "manifold" [470] because it
contains many things in it; but what it contains it also is, and it
being one is all these things. For neither are there many wisdoms,
but one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things
intellectual, wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of
things visible and changeable which were created by it. [471]For
God made nothing unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said to
do so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only those things
which He had known. Whence flows a very striking but true conclusion,
that this world could not be known to us unless it existed, but could
not have existed unless it had been known to God.
Footnotes
[468] 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 Appollonia seems to have adopted the same opinion. See
Zeller's Stoics, pp. 121 and 199.
[469] Ubi lux non est, tenebræ sunt, non quia aliquid sunt tenebræ,
sed ipsa lucis absentia tenebræ dicuntur.--Aug. De. Gen. contra Man.
7.
[470] Wisdom vii. 22.
[471] The strongly Platonic tinge of this language is perhaps best
preserved in a bare literal translation.
Chapter 11.--Whether the Angels that Fell Partook of the Blessedness
Which the Holy Angels Have Always Enjoyed from the Time of Their
Creation.
And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call angels were
never at any time or in any way darkness, but, as soon as they were
made, were made light; yet they were not so created in order that they
might exist and live in any way whatever, but were enlightened that
they might live wisely and blessedly. Some of them, having turned
away from this light, have not won this wise and blessed life, which
is certainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence of its
eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though darkened with
folly, and this they cannot lose even if they would. But who can
determine to what extent they were partakers of that wisdom before
they fell? And how shall we say that they participated in it equally
with those who through it are truly and fully blessed, resting in a
true certainty of eternal felicity? For if they had equally
participated in this true knowledge, then the evil angels would have
remained eternally blessed equally with the good, because they were
equally expectant of it. For, though a life be never so long, it
cannot be truly called eternal if it is destined to have an end; for
it is called life inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal because it has
no end. Wherefore, although everything eternal is not therefore
blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be truly and
perfectly blessed except it be eternal, the life of these angels was
not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and therefore not eternal,
whether they knew it or not. In the one case fear, in the other
ignorance, prevented them from being blessed. And even if their
ignorance was not so great as to breed in them a wholly false
expectation, but left them wavering in uncertainty whether their good
would be eternal or would some time terminate, this very doubt
concerning so grand a destiny was incompatible with the plenitude of
blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For we do not
so narrow and restrict the application of the term "blessedness" as to
apply it to God only, [472] though doubtless He is so truly blessed
that greater blessedness cannot be; and, in comparison of His
blessedness, what is that of the angels, though, according to their
capacity, they be perfectly blessed?
Footnotes
[472] Vives remarks that the ancients defined blessedness as an
absolutely perfect state in all good, peculiar to God. Perhaps
Augustin 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.
Chapter 12.--A Comparison of the Blessedness of the Righteous, Who
Have Not Yet Received the Divine Reward, with that of Our First
Parents in Paradise.
And the angels are not the only members of the rational and
intellectual creation whom we call blessed. For who will take upon
him to deny that those first men in Paradise were blessed previously
to sin, although they were uncertain how long their blessedness was to
last, and whether it would be eternal (and eternal it would have been
had they not sinned),--who, I say, will do so, seeing that even now we
not unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a righteous
and holy life, in hope of immortality, who have no harrowing remorse
of conscience, but obtain readily divine remission of the sins of
their present infirmity? These, though they are certain that they
shall be rewarded if they persevere, are not certain that they will
persevere. For what man can know that he will persevere to the end in
the exercise and increase of grace, unless he has been certified by
some revelation from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while
He deceives none, informs few regarding this matter? Accordingly, so
far as present comfort goes, the first man in Paradise was more
blessed than any just man in this insecure state; but as regards the
hope of future good, every man who not merely supposes, but certainly
knows that he shall eternally enjoy the most high God in the company
of angels, and beyond the reach of ill,--this man, no matter what
bodily torments afflict him, is more blessed than was he who, even in
that great felicity of Paradise, was uncertain of his fate. [473]
Footnotes
[473] With this chapter compare the books De Dono Persever, and De
Correp. et Gratia.
Chapter 13.--Whether All the Angels Were So Created in One Common
State of Felicity, that Those Who Fell Were Not Aware that They Would
Fall, and that Those Who Stood Received Assurance of Their Own
Perseverance After the Ruin of the Fallen.
From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness
which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results
from a combination of these two things, namely, that it
uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it
be delivered from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall
eternally abide in the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels
of light we piously believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their
own default lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even
before they sinned, reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of
any duration before they fell, we must allow them a blessedness of
some kind, though not that which is accompanied with foresight. Or,
if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels were created, some
were created in ignorance either of their perseverance or their fall,
while others were most certainly assured of the eternity of their
felicity,--if it is hard to believe that they were not all from the
beginning on an equal footing, until these who are now evil did of
their own will fall away from the light of goodness, certainly it is
much harder to believe that the holy angels are now uncertain of their
eternal blessedness, and do not know regarding themselves as much as
we have been able to gather regarding them from the Holy Scriptures.
For what catholic Christian does not know that no new devil will ever
arise among the good angels, as he knows that this present devil will
never again return into the fellowship of the good? For the truth in
the gospel promises to the saints and the faithful that they will be
equal to the angels of God; and it is also promised them that they
will "go away into life eternal." [474]But if we are certain that
we shall never lapse from eternal felicity, while they are not
certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors. But
as the truth never deceives, and as we shall be their equals, they
must be certain of their blessedness. And because the evil angels
could not be certain of that, since their blessedness was destined to
come to an end, it follows either that the angels were unequal, or
that, if equal, the good angels were assured of the eternity of their
blessedness after the perdition of the others; unless, possibly, some
one may say that the words of the Lord about the devil "He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth," [475] are to
be understood as if he was not only a murderer from the beginning of
the human race, when man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made,
but also that he did not abide in the truth from the time of his own
creation, and was accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but
refused to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a
private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and deceiving. For
the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded; and he who will not
piously submit himself to things as they are, proudly feigns, and
mocks himself with a state of things that does not exist; so that what
the blessed Apostle John says thus becomes intelligible: "The devil
sinneth from the beginning," [476] --that is, from the time he was
created he refused righteousness, which none but a will piously
subject to God can enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at least
disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other
pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from
some adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself. These persons
are so befooled by error, that, although they acknowledge with
ourselves the authority of the gospels, they do not notice that the
Lord did not say, "The devil was naturally a stranger to the truth,"
but "The devil abode not in the truth," by which He meant us to
understand that he had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had
abode, he would have become a partaker of it, and have remained in
blessedness along with the holy angels. [477]
Footnotes
[474] Matt. xxv. 46.
[475] John viii. 44.
[476] 1 John iii. 8.
[477] Cf. Gen. ad Lit. xl. 27 et seqq.
Chapter 14.--An Explanation of What is Said of the Devil, that He Did
Not Abide in the Truth, Because the Truth Was Not in Him.
Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in
the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, "because the truth is
not in him." Now, it would be in him had he abode in it. But the
phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, "He abode not in the
truth, because the truth is not in him," it seems as if the truth's
not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his
not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him.
The same form of speech is found in the psalm: "I have called upon
Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God," [478] where we should expect it
to be said, Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee.
But when he had said, "I have called," then, as if some one were
seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of
his prayer by the effect of God's hearing it; as if he had said, The
proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.
Footnotes
[478] Ps. xvii. 6.
Chapter 15.--How We are to Understand the Words, "The Devil Sinneth
from the Beginning."
As for what John says about the devil, "The devil sinneth from the
beginning" [479] they [480] who suppose it is meant hereby that the
devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be
natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic
proofs,--either what Isaiah says when he represents the devil under
the person of the king of Babylon, "How art thou fallen, O Lucifer,
son of the morning!" [481] or what Ezekiel says, "Thou hast been in
Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering," [482]
where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for a little
after it is still more explicitly said, "Thou wast perfect in thy
ways?" And if these passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted, we
must understand by this one also, "He abode not in the truth," that he
was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from this
passage, "The devil sinneth from the beginning," it is not to be
supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence,
but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once
commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of
which the devil is the subject: "This is the beginning of the
creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels," [483]
which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, "There is that dragon
which Thou hast made to be a sport therein." [484]But these
passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally
created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to this
punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of
God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and
last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has
proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can
be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature,
which surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of
the Most High!
Footnotes
[479] 1 John iii. 8.
[480] The Manichæans.
[481] Isa. xiv. 12.
[482] Ezek. xxviii. 13.
[483] Job xl. 14 (LXX.).
[484] Ps. civ. 26.
Chapter 16.--Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated
by Their Utility, or According to the Natural Gradations of Being.
For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God the
Creator's essence, those which have life are ranked above those which
have none; those that have the power of generation, or even of
desiring, above those which want this faculty. And, among things that
have life, the sentient are higher than those which have no sensation,
as animals are ranked above trees. And, among the sentient, the
intelligent are above those that have not intelligence,--men, e.g.,
above cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal such as the
angels, above the mortal, such as men. These are the gradations
according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each
man finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it
comes to pass that we prefer some things that have no sensation to
some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had we
the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether
in ignorance of the place they hold in nature, or, though we know it,
sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather
have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But there is
little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when valued by men
themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity), more is
often given for a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a
maid. Thus the reason of one contemplating nature prompts very
different judgments from those dictated by the necessity of the needy,
or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a
thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity
considers how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental
light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly
titilates the bodily sense. But of such consequence in rational
natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love, that though
in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by the scale of
justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.
Chapter 17.--That the Flaw of Wickedness is Not Nature, But Contrary
to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will.
It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness of
the devil, that we are to understand these words, "This is the
beginning of God's handiwork;" [485] for, without doubt, wickedness
can be a flaw or vice [486] only where the nature previously was not
vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but
damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless
in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the
wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God,
as He is the supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of evil
wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good
natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He
caused the devil (good by God's creation, wicked by his own will) to
be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery of His
angels,--that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those whom he
wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created him, was
certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw the good
which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the
psalm, "This leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,"
[487] that we may see that, even while God in His goodness created him
good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make use
of him when he became wicked.
Footnotes
[485] Job. xl. 14 (LXX.).
[486] It must be kept in view that "vice" has, in this passage, the
meaning of sinful blemish.
[487] Ps. civ. 26.
Chapter 18.--Of the Beauty of the Universe, Which Becomes, by God's
Ordinance, More Brilliant by the Opposition of Contraries.
For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even
man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known
to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus
embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set
off with antitheses. For what are called antitheses are among the
most elegant of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in
Latin "oppositions," or, to speak more accurately, "contrapositions;"
but this word is not in common use among us, [488] though the Latin,
and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves of the same
ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the
Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place
where he says, "By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on
the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as
deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying,
and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet
always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing,
and yet possessing all things." [489]As, then, these oppositions of
contraries lend beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course of
this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as
it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is quite
plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: "Good is
set against evil, and life against death: so is the sinner against
the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are
two and two, one against another." [490]
Footnotes
[488] Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.
[489] 2 Cor. vi. 7-10.
[490] Ecclus. xxxiii. 15.
Chapter 19.--What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, "God
Divided the Light from the Darkness."
Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly
this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be
started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in it,
yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be
either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should be
asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is
beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after
the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that
sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion
of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with the working
of God, if we understand that the angels were created when that first
light was made, and that a separation was made between the holy and
the unclean angels, when, as is said, "God divided the light from the
darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called
Night." For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able
also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that,
being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness
of pride. For, so far as regards the day and night, with which we are
familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to
our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. "Let there
be," He says, "lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the
day from the night;" and shortly after He says, "And God made two
great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light
to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament
of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day
and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." [491]
But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels
spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and that
opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual
condition of those angels who are turned away from the light of
righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from whom their
wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future,
could not be hidden or uncertain.
Footnotes
[491] Gen. i. 14-18.
Chapter 20.--Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and
Darkness, "And God Saw the Light that It Was Good."
Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing
that when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," it was
immediately added, "And God saw the light that it was good." No such
expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the
darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the
seal of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as well as
on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of
disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from
this light which our eyes discern, the statement that God saw that it
was good is inserted, not before, but after the division is recorded.
"And God set them," so runs the passage, "in the firmament of the
heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and
over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God
saw that it was good." For He approved of both, because both were
sinless. But where God said, "Let there be light, and there was
light; and God saw the light that it was good;" and the narrative goes
on, "and God divided the light from the darkness! and God called the
light Day, and the darkness He called Night," there was not in this
place subjoined the statement, "And God saw that it was good," lest
both should be designated good, while one of them was evil, not by
nature, but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light
alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic
darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.
Chapter 21.--Of God's Eternal and Unchangeable Knowledge and Will,
Whereby All He Has Made Pleased Him in the Eternal Design as Well as
in the Actual Result.
For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain, "And God
saw that it was good," than the approval of the work in its design,
which is the wisdom of God? For certainly God did not in the actual
achievement of the work first learn that it was good, but, on the
contrary, nothing would have been made had it not been first known by
Him. While, therefore, He sees that that is good which, had He not
seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it is plain
that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good. Plato,
indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe was completed,
God was, as it were, elated with joy. [492]And Plato was not so
foolish as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed by the
novelty of His creation; but he wished thus to indicate that the work
now completed met with its Maker's approval, as it had while yet in
design. It is not as if the knowledge of God were of various kinds,
knowing in different ways things which as yet are not, things which
are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion does He look
forward to what is future, nor at what is present, nor back upon what
is past; but in a manner quite different and far and profoundly remote
from our way of thinking. For He does not pass from this to that by
transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute
unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge in time, the
future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no
longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and
eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by the eye, in
another by the mind, for He is not composed of mind and body; nor does
His present knowledge differ from that which it ever was or shall be,
for those variations of time, past, present, and future, though they
alter our knowledge, do not affect His, "with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning." [493]Neither is there any growth from
thought to thought in the conceptions of Him in whose spiritual vision
all things which He knows are at once embraced. For as without any
movement that time can measure, He Himself moves all temporal things,
so He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure. And
therefore He saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it
was good to make it. And when He saw it made, He had not on that
account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge of it; as if He had
less knowledge before He made what He saw. For certainly He would not
be the perfect worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as
to receive no addition from His finished works. Wherefore, if the
only object had been to inform us who made the light, it had been
enough to say, "God made the light;" and if further information
regarding the means by which it was made had been intended, it would
have sufficed to say, "And God said, Let there be light, and there was
light," that we might know not only that God had made the world, but
also that He had made it by the word. But because it was right that
three leading truths regarding the creature be intimated to us, viz.,
who made it, by what means, and why, it is written, "God said, Let
there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it
was good." If, then, we ask who made it, it was "God." If, by what
means, He said "Let it be," and it was. If we ask, why He made it,
"it was good." Neither is there any author more excellent than God,
nor any skill more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause
better than that good might be created by the good God. This also
Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of
the world, that good works might be made by a good God; [494] whether
he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of these things by
those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted genius, penetrated
to things spiritual and invisible through the things that are created,
or was instructed regarding them by those who had discerned them.
Footnotes
[492] 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."
[493] Jas. i. 17.
[494] 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."
Chapter 22.--Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a
Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There
is Some Natural Evil.
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 recognized by some
heretics, [495] 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 labors 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.
Footnotes
[495] The Manichæans, to wit.
Chapter 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 peri archon,
that is, Of Origins, this is his sentiment, this his utterance. And I
can not 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." [496]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.
Footnotes
[496] Gen. i. 31.
Chapter 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 [497] 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.
Footnotes
[497] Proprietas. [The Greeks call it idiotes or idion, i.e. the
propriety or characteristic individuality of each divine person,
namely the fatherhood, paternitas, agennesia, of the first person; the
sonship, filiatio, generatio, gennesia, of the second person; the
procession, processio, ekporeusis, of the third person.--P.S.]
Chapter 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.
Chapter 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 recognize 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,--colors, 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. [498]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?
Footnotes
[498] 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.
Chapter 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.
Chapter 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. [499]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 our selves 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.
Footnotes
[499] Compare the Confessions, xiii. 9.
Chapter 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. [500]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.
Footnotes
[500] Ch. 7.
Chapter 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 [501] 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.
[502]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. [503]Neither has it been
without reason numbered among God's praises, "Thou hast ordered all
things in number, and measure, and weight." [504]
Footnotes
[501] Or aliquot parts.
[502] Comp. Aug. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 2, and De Trinitate, iv. 7.
[503] For passages illustrating early opinions regarding numbers, see
Smith's Dict. art. Number.
[504] Wisd. xi. 20.
Chapter 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," [505] --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," [506] which elsewhere is expressed thus, "I
will bless the Lord at all times." [507]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," [508] is signified by this number. [509]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
labor. And thus we labor 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." [510]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.
Footnotes
[505] Prov. xxiv. 16.
[506] Ps. cxix. 164.
[507] Ps. xxxiv. 1.
[508] John xvi. 13.
[509] 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.
[510] l Cor. xiii. 10.
Chapter 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; [511] --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" [512] ), 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," [513] 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." [514]
Footnotes
[511] Augustin refers to John viii. 25; see p. 195. He might rather
have referred to Rev. iii. 14.
[512] Ps. civ. 24.
[513] Matt. xxii. 30.
[514] Matt. xviii. 10.
Chapter 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 into judgment." [515]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." [516]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," [517] the other whose prince says, "All these things
will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me;" [518] 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," [519] 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 succoring, 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." [520]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.
Footnotes
[515] 2 Peter ii. 4.
[516] Eph. v. 8.
[517] Ps. cxlviii. 2.
[518] Matt. iv. 9.
[519] Jas. iv. 6.
[520] 1 Thess. v. 5.
Chapter 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, [521] 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:" [522]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 [523] 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." [524]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 humors,
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 humor 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
[521] Augustin 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.
[522] Gen. i. 6.
[523] Namely, the Audians and Sampsæans, insignificant heretical sects
mentioned by Theodoret and Epiphanius.
[524] Ps. xcv. 5.
.
Book XII.
Argument--Augustin 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.
Chapter 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 steadfastly continued in that which was the common good of
all, namely, in God Himself, and in His eternity, truth, and love;
others, being enamored 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. [525]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.
Footnotes
[525] Vitium: perhaps "fault," most nearly embraces all the uses of
this word.
Chapter 2.--That There is No Entity [526] 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." [527]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, [528] that our language may not want an equivalent for the
Greek ousia. 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.
Footnotes
[526] Essentia.
[527] Ex. iii. 14.
[528] Quintilian calls it dura.
Chapter 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 conse
quently 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. [529]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.
Footnotes
[529] With this may be compared the argument of Socrates in the
Gorgias, in which it is shown that to escape punishment is worse than
to suffer it, and that the greatest of evils is to do wrong and not be
chastised.
Chapter 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.
Chapter 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.
Chapter 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." [530]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 forever, 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 steadfastly 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?
Footnotes
[530] Eccles. x. 13.
Chapter 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, [531] 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?" [532]
Footnotes
[531] Specie.
[532] Ps. xix. 12.
Chapter 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 enamored 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.
Chapter 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. [533]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." [534]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." [535]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.
Footnotes
[533] C. 13.
[534] Rom. v. 5.
[535] Ps. lxxiii. 28.
Chapter 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." [536]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, [537] 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.
[538]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, [539] 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; [540] 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 fabu lous 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!
Footnotes
[536] De Deo Socrates.
[537] Augustin no doubt refers to the interesting account given by
Critias, near the beginning of the Timæus, of the conversation of
Solon with the Egyptian priests.
[538] Augustin here follows the chronology of Eusebius, who reckons
5611 years from the Creation to the taking of Rome by the Goths;
adopting the Septuagint version of the Patriarchal ages.
[539] See above, viii. 5.
[540] It is not apparent to what Augustin refers. The Arcadians,
according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 7), divided their year into three
months, and the Egyptians divided theirs into three seasons: each of
these seasons having four months, it is possible that Augustin may
have referred to this. See Wilkinson's excursus on the Egyptian year,
in Rawlinson's Herod. Book ii.
Chapter 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; [541] 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 then 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.
Footnotes
[541] The former opinion was held by Democritus and his disciple
Epicurus; the latter by Heraclitus, who supposed that "God amused
Himself" by thus renewing worlds.
Chapter 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. [542]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 sometime
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 skillful
arithmeticians,--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.
Footnotes
[542] The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavored in this way to escape
from the obvious meaning of the Timæus.
Chapter 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; [543] 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 forever, 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 favor 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." [544]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 to 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; [545] and we ourselves after the resurrection shall be "ever
with the Lord," [546] to whom we now say, as the sacred Psalmist
dictates, "Thou shall keep us, O Lord, Thou shall preserve us from
this generation." [547]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.
Footnotes
[543] Antoninus says (ii. 14): "All things from eternity are of like
forms, and come round in a circle." Cf. also ix. 28, and the
references to more ancient philosophical writers in Gataker's notes in
these passages.
[544] Eccles. i. 9, 10. So Origen, de Prin. iii. 5, and ii. 3.
[545] Rom. vi. 9.
[546] 1 Thess. iv. 16.
[547] Ps. xii. 7.
Chapter 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 shall 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.
Chapter 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, [548] 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." [549]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." [550]
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," [551] --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 endeavor 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." [552]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.
Footnotes
[548] Cf. de Trin. v. 17.
[549] Wisdom ix. 13-15.
[550] Gen. i. 1.
[551] Gen. i. 14.
[552] Rom. xii. 3.
Chapter 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." [553]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?
Footnotes
[553] Titus i. 2, 3. Augustin here follows the version of Jerome, and
not the Vulgate. Comp. Contra Priscill. 6, and de Gen. c. Man. iv. 4.
Chapter 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 endeavor 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 refer 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." [554]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. His leisure, therefore, is no
laziness, indolence, inactivity; as in His work is no labor, 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.
Footnotes
[554] 2 Cor. x. 12. Here, and in Enar. in Ps. xxxiv. and also in
Cont. Faust. xxii. 47, Augustin follows the Greek, and not the
Vulgate.
Chapter 18.--Against Those Who Assert that Things that are Infinite
[555] 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 of 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, [556]
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." [557]
The prophet also says," Who bringeth out their host by number." [558]
And the Saviour says in the Gospel, "The very hairs of your head are
all numbered." [559]Far be it, then, from us to doubt that all
number is known to Him "whose understanding," according to the
Psalmist, "is infinite." [560]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 thing 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.
Footnotes
[555] I.e.indefinite, or an indefinite succession of things.
[556] Again in the Timæus.
[557] Wisdom xi. 20.
[558] Isa. xl. 26.
[559] Matt. x. 30.
[560] Ps. cxlvii. 5.
Chapter 19.--Of Worlds Without End, or Ages of Ages. [561]
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." [562]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.
Footnotes
[561] De sæculis sæculorum.
[562] Ps. cxlviii. 4.
Chapter 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 Labor 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? [563]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
short-sighted 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, [564] 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.
Footnotes
[563] Cicero has the same (de Amicitia, 16): Quonam modo quisquam
amicus esse poterit, cui se putabit inimicum esse posse? He also
quotes Scipio to the effect that no sentiment is more unfriendly to
friendship than this, that we should love as if some day we were to
hate.
[564] C. 30.
Chapter 21.--That There Was Created at First But One Individual, and
that the Human Race Was Created in Him.
Now that we have solved, as well as we could, this very difficult
question about the eternal God creating new things, without any
novelty of will, it is easy to see how much better it is that God was
pleased to produce the human race from the one individual whom He
created, than if He had originated it in several men. For as to the
other animals, He created some solitary, and naturally seeking lonely
places,--as the eagles, kites, lions, wolves, and such like; others
gregarious, which herd together, and prefer to live in company,--as
pigeons, starlings, stags, and little fallow deer, and the like: but
neither class did He cause to be propagated from individuals, but
called into being several at once. Man, on the other hand, whose
nature was to be a mean between the angelic and bestial, He created in
such sort, that if he remained in subjection to His Creator as his
rightful Lord, and piously kept His commandments, he should pass into
the company of the angels, and obtain, without the intervention of
death, [565] a blessed and endless immortality; but if he offended the
Lord his God by a proud and disobedient use of his free will, he
should become subject to death, and live as the beasts do,--the slave
of appetite, and doomed to eternal punishment after death. And
therefore God created only one single man, not, certainly, that he
might be a solitary, bereft of all society, but that by this means the
unity of society and the bond of concord might be more effectually
commended to him, men being bound together not only by similarity of
nature, but by family affection. And indeed He did not even create
the woman that was to be given him as his wife, as he created the man,
but created her out of the man, that the whole human race might derive
from one man.
Footnotes
[565] Coquaeus remarks that this is levelled against the Pelagians.
Chapter 22.--That God Foreknew that the First Man Would Sin, and that
He at the Same Time Foresaw How Large a Multitude of Godly Persons
Would by His Grace Be Translated to the Fellowship of the Angels.
And God was not ignorant that man would sin, and that, being himself
made subject now to death, he would propagate men doomed to die, and
that these mortals would run to such enormities in sin, that even the
beasts devoid of rational will, and who were created in numbers from
the waters and the earth, would live more securely and peaceably with
their own kind than men, who had been propagated from one individual
for the very purpose of commending concord. For not even lions or
dragons have ever waged with their kind such wars as men have waged
with one another. [566]But God foresaw also that by His grace a
people would be called to adoption, and that they, being justified by
the remission of their sins, would be united by the Holy Ghost to the
holy angels in eternal peace, the last enemy, death, being destroyed;
and He knew that this people would derive profit from the
consideration that God had caused all men to be derived from one, for
the sake of showing how highly He prizes unity in a multitude.
Footnotes
[566] "Quando leoni Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo
nemore unquam Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri? Indica tigris
agit rabida cum tigride pacem Perpetuam; sævis inter se convenit
ursis. Ast homini,"etc. Juvenal, Sat. xv. 160--5. --See also the very
striking lines which precede these.
Chapter 23.--Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of
God.
God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul
endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the
creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so gifted. And when
He had formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and had willed
that his soul should be such as I have said,--whether He had already
made it, and now by breathing imparted it to man, or rather made it by
breathing, so that that breath which God made by breathing (for what
else is "to breathe" than to make breath?) is the soul, [567] --He
made also a wife for him, to aid him in the work of generating his
kind, and her He formed of a bone taken out of the man's side, working
in a divine manner. For we are not to conceive of this work in a
carnal fashion, as if God wrought as we commonly see artisans, who use
their hands, and material furnished to them, that by their artistic
skill they may fashion some material object. God's hand is God's
power; and He, working invisibly, effects visible results. But this
seems fabulous rather than true to men, who measure by customary and
everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby He understands and
produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and because they cannot
understand the things which at the beginning were created, they are
sceptical regarding them--as if the very things which they do know
about human propagation, conceptions and births, would seem less
incredible if told to those who had no experience of them; though
these very things, too, are attributed by many rather to physical and
natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.
Footnotes
[567] See this further discussed in Gen. ad Lit. vii. 35, and in
Delitzsch's Bibl. Psychology.
Chapter 24.--Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any,
Even the Least Creature.
But in this book we have nothing to do with those who do not believe
that the divine mind made or cares for this world. As for those who
believe their own Plato, that all mortal animals--among whom man holds
the pre-eminent place, and is near to the gods themselves--were
created not by that most high God who made the world, but by other
lesser gods created by the Supreme, and exercising a delegated power
under His control,--if only those persons be delivered from the
superstition which prompts them to seek a plausible reason for paying
divine honors and sacrificing to these gods as their creators, they
will easily be disentangled also from this their error. For it is
blasphemy to believe or to say (even before it can be understood) that
any other than God is creator of any nature, be it never so small and
mortal. And as for the angels, whom those Platonists prefer to call
gods, although they do, so far as they are permitted and commissioned,
aid in the production of the things around us, yet not on that account
are we to call them creators, any more than we call gardeners the
creators of fruits and trees.
Chapter 25.--That God Alone is the Creator of Every Kind of Creature,
Whatever Its Nature or Form.
For whereas there is one form which is given from without to every
bodily substance,--such as the form which is constructed by potters
and smiths, and that class of artists who paint and fashion forms like
the body of animals,--but another and internal form which is not
itself constructed, but, as the efficient cause, produces not only the
natural bodily forms, but even the life itself of the living
creatures, and which proceeds from the secret and hidden choice of an
intelligent and living nature,--let that first-mentioned form be
attributed to every artificer, but this latter to one only, God, the
Creator and Originator who made the world itself and the angels,
without the help of world or angels. For the same divine and, so to
speak, creative energy, which cannot be made, but makes, and which
gave to the earth and sky their roundness,--this same divine,
effective, and creative energy gave their roundness to the eye and to
the apple; and the other natural objects which we anywhere see,
received also their form, not from without, but from the secret and
profound might of the Creator, who said, "Do not I fill heaven and
earth?" [568] and whose wisdom it is that "reacheth from one end to
another mightily; and sweetly doth she order all things." [569]
Wherefore I know not what kind of aid the angels, themselves created
first, afforded to the Creator in making other things. I cannot
ascribe to them what perhaps they cannot do, neither ought I to deny
them such faculty as they have. But, by their leave, I attribute the
creating and originating work which gave being to all natures to God,
to whom they themselves thankfully ascribe their existence. We do not
call gardeners the creators of their fruits, for we read, "Neither is
he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that
giveth the increase." [570]Nay, not even the earth itself do we
call a creator, though she seems to be the prolific mother of all
things which she aids in germinating and bursting forth from the seed,
and which she keeps rooted in her own breast; for we likewise read,
"God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his
own body." [571]We ought not even to call a woman the creatress of
her own offspring; for He rather is its creator who said to His
servant, "Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee." [572]And
although the various mental emotions of a pregnant woman do produce in
the fruit of her womb similar qualities,--as Jacob with his peeled
wands caused piebald sheep to be produced,--yet the mother as little
creates her offspring as she created herself. Whatever bodily or
seminal causes, then, may be used for the production of things, either
by the cooperation of angels, men, or the lower animals, or by sexual
generation; and whatever power the desires and mental emotions of the
mother have to produce in the tender and plastic foetus corresponding
lineaments and colors; yet the natures themselves, which are thus
variously affected, are the production of none but the most high God.
It is His occult power which pervades all things, and is present in
all without being contaminated, which gives being to all that is, and
modifies and limits its existence; so that without Him it would not be
thus, or thus, nor would have any being at all. [573]If, then, in
regard to that outward form which the workman's hand imposes on his
work, we do not say that Rome and Alexandria were built by masons and
architects, but by the kings by whose will, plan, and resources they
were built, so that the one has Romulus, the other Alexander, for its
founder; with how much greater reason ought we to say that God alone
is the Author of all natures, since He neither uses for His work any
material which was not made by Him, nor any workmen who were not also
made by Him, and since, if He were, so to speak, to withdraw from
created things His creative power, they would straightway relapse into
the nothingness in which they were before they were created?
"Before," I mean, in respect of eternity, not of time. For what other
creator could there be of time, than He who created those things whose
movements make time? [574]
Footnotes
[568] Jer. xxiii. 24.
[569] Wisdom viii. 1.
[570] 1 Cor. iii. 7.
[571] 1 Cor. xv. 38.
[572] Jer. i. 5.
[573] Compare de Trin. iii. 13-16.
[574] See Book xi. 5.
Chapter 26.--Of that Opinion of the Platonists, that the Angels Were
Themselves Indeed Created by God, But that Afterwards They Created
Man's Body.
It is obvious, that in attributing the creation of the other animals
to those inferior gods who were made by the Supreme, he meant it to be
understood that the immortal part was taken from God Himself, and that
these minor creators added the mortal part; that is to say, he meant
them to be considered the creators of our bodies, but not of our
souls. But since Porphyry maintains that if the soul is to be
purified all entanglement with a body must be escaped from; and at the
same time agrees with Plato and the Platonistsin thinking that those
who have not spent a temperate and honorable life return to mortal
bodies as their punishment (to bodies of brutes in Plato's opinion, to
human bodies in Porphyry's); it follows that those whom they would
have us worship as our parents and authors, that they may plausibly
call them gods, are, after all, but the forgers of our fetters and
chains,--not our creators, but our jailers and turnkeys, who lock us
up in the most bitter and melancholy house of correction. Let the
Platonists, then, either cease menacing us with our bodies as the
punishment of our souls, or preaching that we are to worship as gods
those whose work upon us they exhort us by all means in our power to
avoid and escape from. But, indeed, both opinions are quite false.
It is false that souls return again to this life to be punished; and
it is false that there is any other creator of anything in heaven or
earth, than He who made the heaven and the earth. For if we live in a
body only to expiate our sins, how says Plato in another place, that
the world could not have been the most beautiful and good, had it not
been filled with all kinds of creatures, mortal and immortal? [575]
But if our creation even as mortals be a divine benefit, how is it a
punishment to be restored to a body, that is, to a divine benefit?
And if God, as Plato continually maintains, embraced in His eternal
intelligence the ideas both of the universe and of all the animals,
how, then, should He not with His own hand make them all? Could He be
unwilling to be the constructor of works, the idea and plan of which
called for His ineffable and ineffably to be praised intelligence?
Footnotes
[575] The deity, desirous of making the universe in all respects
resemble the most beautiful and entirely perfect of intelligible
objects, formed it into one visible animal, containing within itself
all the other animals with which it is naturally allied.--Timæus, c.
xi.
Chapter 27.--That the Whole Plenitude of the Human Race Was Embraced
in the First Man, and that God There Saw the Portion of It Which Was
to Be Honored and Rewarded, and that Which Was to Be Condemned and
Punished.
With good cause, therefore, does the true religion recognize and
proclaim that the same God who created the universal cosmos, created
also all the animals, souls as well as bodies. Among the terrestrial
animals man was made by Him in His own image, and, for the reason I
have given, was made one individual, though he was not left solitary.
For there is nothing so social by nature, so unsocial by its
corruption, as this race. And human nature has nothing more
appropriate, either for the prevention of discord, or for the healing
of it, where it exists, than the remembrance of that first parent of
us all, whom God was pleased to create alone, that all men might be
derived from one, and that they might thus be admonished to preserve
unity among their whole multitude. But from the fact that the woman
was made for him from his side, it was plainly meant that we should
learn how dear the bond between man and wife should be. These works
of God do certainly seem extraordinary, because they are the first
works. They who do not believe them, ought not to believe any
prodigies; for these would not be called prodigies did they not happen
out of the ordinary course of nature. But, is it possible that
anything should happen in vain, however hidden be its cause, in so
grand a government of divine providence? One of the sacred Psalmists
says, "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what prodigies He hath
wrought in the earth." [576]Why God made woman out of man's side,
and what this first prodigy prefigured, I shall, with God's help, tell
in another place. But at present, since this book must be concluded,
let us merely say that in this first man, who was created in the
beginning, there was laid the foundation, not indeed evidently, but in
God's foreknowledge, of these two cities or societies, so far as
regards the human race. For from that man all men were to be
derived--some of them to be associated with the good angels in their
reward, others with the wicked in punishment; all being ordered by the
secret yet just judgment of God. For since it is written, "All the
paths of the Lord are mercy and truth," [577] neither can His grace be
unjust, nor His justice cruel.
Footnotes
[576] Ps. xlvi. 8.
[577] Ps. xxv. 10.
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