Writings of Augustine. The Harmony of the Gospels
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St. Augustin:
The Harmony of the Gospels
Translated by the Rev. S. D. F. Salmond, D.D.,
Free College, Aberdeen
Edited, with notes and introduction, by the Rev. M. B. Riddle, D.D.,
Professor of New-Testament Exegesis, Western Theological Seminary,
Allegheny, PA.
Published in 1886 by Philip Schaff,
New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co.
Introductory Essay.
By Professor M. B. Riddle, D.D.
The treatise of Augustin On the Harmony of the Evangelists (De
Consensu Evangelistarum) is regarded as the most laborious task
undertaken by the great African Father. But its influence has been
much less obvious than that of his strictly exegetical and doctrinal
works. Dr. Salmond, in his Introductory Notice, gives a discriminating
and just estimate of it. Jerome was, in some respects, far better
equipped for such a task than Augustin; yet one cannot study this
work, bearing in mind the hermeneutical tendencies of the fourth
century, without having an increased respect for the ability, candour,
and insight of the great theologian when engaged in labours requiring
linguistic knowledge, which he did not possess. Despite his ignorance
of the correct text in many difficult passages, his lack of
familiarity with the Greek original, many of his explanations have
stood the test of time, finding acceptance even among the exegetes of
this age.
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Most modern Harmonies give indications of the abiding influence of the
work. Yet the treatise itself has not called forth extended comments.
From its character it directs attention to the problems it discusses
rather than to its own solutions of them. Hence the difficulty of
presenting an adequate Bibliographical List in connection with this
work. All Gospel Harmonies, all Lives of Christ, all discussions of
the apparent discrepancies of the Gospels, stand related to it. As a
complete list was out of the question, it seemed fitting to preface
this edition of the work with a few general statements in regard to
Harmonies of the Gospels.
The early date of the oldest work of this character, before A.D. 170
(see below), attests the genuineness of our four canonical Gospels, by
proving that they, and they only, were generally accepted at that
time. But it also shows that the existence of four Gospels, recognised
as genuine and authoritative, naturally calls forth harmonistic
efforts. Two questions confront every intelligent reader of these four
Gospels: (1) In view of the variation in the order of events as
narrated by the different evangelists, what is the more probable
chronological order? (2) In view of the variation in details, what is,
in each case, the correct explanation of such variations? These
problems are largely exegetical; but those of the former class soon
lead to the historical method of treatment, while those of the latter
class lead to apologetic discussions, when apparent discrepancies are
discovered. The work of Augustin deals more largely with the latter;
more recent Harmonies lay greater stress upon the historical and
chronological questions. The methods represent the tendencies of the
age to which they respectively belong. The historical method is
doubtless the more correct one; but, when it assumes the extreme form
of destructive criticism, it denies the possibility of harmony. On the
other hand, the apologetic method, when linked with a mechanical view
of inspiration, too often adopts interpretations that are
ungrammatical, in order to ignore the necessity of harmonizing
differences. The true position lies between these extremes: the
grammatico-historical sense must be accepted; the correct text of each
Gospel must be determined, independently of verbal variations; the
truthfulness of each evangelist must be assumed, until positive error
is proven; the more definite statements are to be used in explaining
the less definite; the characteristics of each evangelist must be
given their proper weight in determining the probabilities of greater
or less accuracy of detail.
But the necessary limitations of harmonistic methods should be fully
recognised. Absolute certainty is often impossible: there will always
be room for difference of judgment. For example, there is to-day as
little agreement as ever in regard to the length of our Lord's
ministry; i.e., whether the Evangelist John refers to three or four
passovers. The Tripaschal and Quadripaschal theories still divide
scholars, as in past ages of the Church.
Still, the progress made in textual criticism has, by indicating more
positively the exact words of all four accounts, laid the foundation
for better results in harmonistic labours.
One great advantage of a Harmony, as now constructed, with the text of
the evangelists in parallel columns, or in independent sections when
the matter is peculiar to one of them, is the emphasis it gives to the
historical sequence. The movement of the evangelical narrative is made
more apparent; the relations of the events shed light upon the entire
story; the purpose of discourses and journeys appears; the training of
the Twelve can be better studied; the emphasis placed upon the closing
events of our Lord's life on earth is made more obvious. A comparison
of the several accounts gives to the events new significance, often
reveals minute and undesigned coincidences which attest the
truthfulness of all the narrators. Now that the attempt to secure
mechanical uniformity in the narratives has been universally rejected
by scholars, another advantage of a Harmony is seen to be this: that
it sets forth most strikingly the verbal differences and
correspondences of the parallel passages. Only by a minute comparison
of these can we discover the data for a settlement of the problem
respecting the origin and relation of the Synoptic Gospels. [493]
The dangers attending harmonistic methods are obvious enough, and
appeared very early. The tendency has been to create a rigid verbal
uniformity. Hence the peculiarities of the several evangelists are
obscured; the text of one is, consciously or unconsciously, conformed
to that of another. The Gospel of Mark, the most individual and
striking of the Synoptics, probably the oldest, has been repeatedly
altered to correspond with that of Matthew. When uniformity could not
be secured by this process, false exegesis was often resorted to, and
hermeneutical principles avowed which injured the cause of truth.
Evangelical truth cannot be defended with the weapons of error. This
vicious method was usually the result of mechanical views of
inspiration. That view of inspiration which rightly recognises
language as vital, and which therefore seeks to know the meaning of
every word, has no worse foe than the hermeneutical principle which
ignores the historical sense of any word of Scripture.
The tendency just referred to brought harmonistic labours into
disrepute. The immense activity of the present century in exegetical
theology has not taken this direction. Moreover, the historical method
received its greatest impulse from the tendency-theory of the Tübingen
school, which presupposes the impossibility of constructing a Harmony
of the four Gospels. Hence the reaction, in Germany especially, has
been excessive.
Yet Harmonies are still prepared, and are still useful. Harmonistic
labours have their rightful, though limited, place in the field of
Exegetical Theology.
A very brief sketch of the leading works of this character will serve
to illustrate the above statements.
The earliest attempt at constructing a Harmony was that of Tatian
[494] (died A.D. 172). The date of its appearance was between A.D. 153
and 170; and its title, Diatessaron, furnishes abundant evidence of
the early acceptance of our four canonical Gospels. Our knowledge of
this work was, until recently, very slight. But the discovery of an
Armenian translation of a commentary upon it, by Ephraem the Syrian,
has enabled Zahn to reconstruct a large part of the text. The
commentary was translated into Latin in 1841, but little attention was
paid to it until an edition by Moesinger appeared in 1876. [495] The
influence of Tatian's Diatessaron upon the Greek text seems to have
been unfortunate. Many of the corruptions in the received text of the
Gospel of Mark are probably due to the confusion of the separate
narratives occasioned by this work. Tregelles (in the new edition of
Horne's Introduction, vol. iv. p. 40) says that it "had more effect
apparently in the text of the Gospels in use throughout the Church
than all the designed falsifications of Marcion and every scion of the
Gnostic blood." It seems to have contained nothing indicating
heretical bias or intentional alteration.
The next Harmony was that of Ammonius of Alexandria, the teacher of
Origen, the first work bearing this title (HaArmonia). It appeared
about A.D. 220, but has been lost. Until recently it was supposed that
the sections into which some early mss. divide the Gospels were those
of Ammonius himself; but, while he did make such divisions, those
bearing his name are to be attributed to Eusebius (see below).
Ammonius made Matthew the basis of his work, and by his arrangement
destroyed the continuity of the separate narratives. Every Harmony
based upon the order of Matthew must be a failure.
Eusebius of Cæsarea (died A.D. 340) adopted a similar set of
divisions, adding to them numbers from 1 to 10, called "Canons," which
indicate the parallelisms of the sections. These sections and canons
are printed in Tischendorf's critical editions of the Greek Testament,
and in some other editions. [496] The influence of this system seems
to have been great, but Eusebius often accepts a parallelism where
there is really none whatever. Some of the sections are very brief,
containing only part of a verse. Hence the tables of sections furnish
no basis for estimating the matter common to two or more evangelists.
The work of Augustin comes next in order; it deals little with
chronological questions, and shows no trace of such complete textual
labour as that of Eusebius.
The Reformation gave a new impulse to this department of Biblical
study. In the sixteenth century many Harmonies appeared. Among the
authors are the well-known names of Osiander, Jansen, Robert Stephens,
John Calvin, Du Moulin, Chemnitz. These works were written in Latin,
as a rule; and they are worthy of the age which produced them. Lack of
sufficient critical material prevented complete accuracy, but the
exegetical methods of the sixteenth century obtain in the Harmonies
also.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries present little in this field
of labour that deserves favourable notice. The undisputed reign of the
Textus Receptus impeded investigation; the supernaturalism of the
dominant theology was not favourable to historical investigation; the
mechanical theory of inspiration led to arbitrary and forced
interpretations. Even the older rationalism, which explained away the
supernatural, was scarcely more faulty in its exegesis than many an
orthodox commentator. The labours of J. Lightfoot deserve grateful
recognition. This great Hebrew scholar did not finish his Harmony of
the Gospels, but shed great light upon many of the problems involved,
by his knowledge of Jewish customs. J. A. Bengel, the pioneer of
modern textual criticism of the New Testament, published a valuable
Harmony in German. W. Newcome published a Harmony of the Gospels in
Greek (Dublin, 1778). He follows Le Clerc (Amsterdam, 1779), and his
Harmony is the basis of the more modern work by Edward Robinson (see
below).
While the Tübingen school, by its tendency-theory, virtually denied
the possibility of constructing a Harmony, it compelled the
conservative theologians to adopt the historical method. Thus there
has been gathered much material for harmonistic labours. But in
Germany, as in England and America, Lives of Christ have been more
numerous than Harmonies.
K. Wieseler and C. Tischendorf, among recent German scholars, have
published valuable Harmonies. In England the work most in use is that
of E. Greswell. The Archbishop of York, William Thomson, presents in
Smith's Bible Dictionary a valuable table of the Harmony of the Four
Gospels (article "Gospels," Am. ed. vol. ii. p. 751).
An interesting edition of the Synoptic Gospels is that of W. G.
Rushbrooke (Synopticon, Cambridge, 1880-81). It is designed to show,
by different type and colour, the divergences and correspondences of
the three Gospels. The Greek text is that of Tischendorf, corrected
from that of Westcott and Hort. It presents in the readiest form the
material for harmonistic comparisons; but the editor has prepared it
with a purpose diametrically opposed to that of the Harmonist, namely,
to construct from the matter common to the Synoptists a "triple
tradition," which will, in the author's judgment, approximately
present the "source" from which all have drawn. The work has great
value apart from its theory of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels.
In America Edward Robinson published, in repeated editions, a Harmony
of the Gospels in Greek and also in English. He had previously
reprinted that of Newcome.
S. J. Andrews (Life of our Lord; New York, 1863), has sought "to
arrange the events of the Lord's life, as given us by the evangelists,
so far as possible, in a chronological order, and to state the grounds
of this order." It is virtually a Harmony, with the full text of the
Gospels omitted. Few works of the kind equal it in value, though it
needs revision in the light of the more recent results of textual
criticism.
Frederic Gardinerhas published a Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek
(Andover, 1871, 1876). It gives the text of Tischendorf (eighth
edition), with a collation of the Textus Receptus, and of the texts of
Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tregelles. The authorities are cited in the
case of important variations. Another valuable feature is a
comparative table, presenting in parallel columns the arrangement
adopted by Greswell, Stroud, Robinson, Thomson, Tischendorf, and
Gardiner.
A number of works, aiming to consolidate into one narrative the four
accounts, have been passed over.
The Harmony of Dr. Robinson, which has held its ground for more than
forty years, has been recently revised by the present writer. The text
of Tischendorf has been substituted for that of Hahn; all the various
readings materially affecting the sense which are found in Tregelles,
Westcott and Hort, and in the Revised English version of 1881, have
been given in footnotes, with a selection of the leading authorities
(mss. and versions) for or against each reading cited. The Appendix
has been enlarged to meet the new phases of discussion; but the whole
volume is what it purports to be,--a revision of the standard work of
Dr. Robinson. In the matter of the Greek text, the author would
probably have done what has now been done by the editor. A similar but
less extensive revision of the English Harmony of Dr. Robinson has
been published. [497]
Allegheny, Pa., Nov. 14, 1887.
Footnotes
[493] The writer may be pardoned for alluding to his own experience in
connection with this point. In the exegetical labours of some years,
he found himself accepting the theory that the three Synoptists wrote
independently of each other. Afterwards, when the task of editing Dr.
Robinson's Greek Harmony compelled him to compare again and again
every word of each account, the evidences of independence seemed to
him to be overwhelming.
[494] See Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. ii. rev. ed.,
pp. 493 sqq., 726 sqq.; also Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia, article
"Diatessaron." For the literature, see as above, and the supplementary
volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, pp. 33-35. Tatian's Address to the
Greeks may be found in vol. ii. Ante-Nicene Fathers, pp. 65-83.
[495] For full titles of these volumes, see Schaff, as above.
[496] The letter of Eusebius to Caprianus is given by C. R. Gregory
(Prolegomena to Tischendorf's eighth edition, part i. pp. 143-153),
together with a full list of the sections arranged under the separate
canons. The numbers signify as follows:-- 1. In all four Gospels, 71.
2. In Matthew, Mark, Luke, 111. 3. In Matthew, Luke, John, 22. 4. In
Matthew, Mark, John, 26. 5. In Matthew, Luke, 82. 6. In Matthew, Mark,
47. 7. In Matthew, John, 7. 8. In Luke, Mark, 14. 9. In Luke, John,
21. 10. In one Gospel: Matthew, 62; Mark, 21; Luke, 71; John, 97.
[497] For lists of Harmonies, see Schaff, History of the Christian
Church, rev. ed. vol. i. pp. 575, 576; Gardiner, Harmony, pp.
xxxiv.-xxxvii.; Robinson, Harmony, revised by Riddle, pp. ix, x. Each
of these lists contains references to older authors and their lists.
See also Smith, Bible Dictionary, Am. ed. (Hackett and Abbot) ii. pp.
950, 960.
Translator's Introductory Notice.
In the remarkable work known as his Retractations, Augustin makes a
brief statement on the subject of this treatise on the Harmony of the
Evangelists. The sixteenth chapter of the second book of that
memorable review of his literary career, contains corrections of
certain points on which he believed that he had not been sufficiently
accurate in these discussions. In the same passage he informs us that
this treatise was undertaken during the years in which he was occupied
with his great work on the Trinity, and that, breaking in upon the
task which had been making gradual progress under his hand, he wrought
continuously at this new venture until it was finished. Its
composition is assigned to about the year 400 A.D. The date is
determined in the following manner: In the first book there is a
sentence (§ 27) which appears to indicate that, by the time when
Augustin engaged himself with this effort, the destruction of the
idols of the old religion was being carried out under express imperial
authority. No law of that kind, however, affecting Africa, seems to be
found expressed previous to those to which he refers at the close of
the eighteenth book of the City of God. There he gives us to
understand that such measures were put in force in Carthage, under
Gaudentius and Jovius, the associates of the Emperor Honorius, and
states that for the space of nearly thirty years from that time the
Christian religion made advances large enough to arrest general
attention. Before that period, which must have been about the year
399, the idols could not be destroyed, as Augustin elsewhere indicates
(Serm. lxii. 11, n. 17), but with the consent of the parties to whom
they belonged. These considerations are taken to fix the composition
of this work to a date not earlier than the close of 399 A.D.
Among Augustin's numerous theological productions, this one takes rank
with the most toilsome and exhaustive. We find him expressing himself
to that effect now and again, when he has occasion to allude to it.
Thus, in the 112th Tractate on John (n. i), he calls it a laborious
piece of literature; and in the 117th Tractate on the same evangelist,
he speaks of the themes here dealt with as matters which were
discussed with the utmost painstaking.
Its great object is to vindicate the Gospel against the critical
assaults of the heathen. Paganism, having tried persecution as its
first weapon, and seen it fail, attempted next to discredit the new
faith by slandering its doctrine, impeaching its history, and
attacking with special persistency the veracity of the Gospel writers.
In this it was aided by some of Augustin's heretical antagonists, who
endeavoured at times to establish a conspicuous inconsistency between
the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian, and at times to prove the
several sections of the New Testament to be at variance with each
other. Many alleged that the original Gospels had received
considerable additions of a spurious character. And it was a favorite
method of argumentation, adopted both by heathen and by Manichæan
adversaries, to urge that the evangelical historians contradicted each
other. Thus, in the present treatise (i. 7), Augustin speaks of this
matter of the discrepancies between the Evangelists as the palmary
argument wielded by his opponents. Hence, as elsewhere he sought to
demonstrate the congruity of the Old Testament with the New, he set
himself here to exonerate Christianity from the charge of any defect
of harmony, whether in the facts recorded or in the order of their
narration, between its four fundamental historical documents.
The plan of the work is laid out in four great divisions. In the first
book, he refutes those who asserted that Christ was only the wisest
among men, and who aimed at detracting from the authority of the
Gospels, by insisting on the absence of any written compositions
proceeding from the hand of Christ Himself, and by affirming that the
disciples went beyond what had been his own teaching both on the
subject of His divinity, and on the duty of abandoning the worship of
the gods. In the second, he enters upon a careful examination of
Matthew's Gospel, on to the record of the supper, comparing it with
Mark, Luke, and John, and exhibiting the perfect harmony subsisting
between them. In the third, he demonstrates the same consistency
between the four Evangelists, from the account of the supper on to the
end. And in the fourth, he subjects to a similar investigation those
passages in Mark, Luke, and John, which have no proper parallels in
Matthew.
For the discharge of a task like this, Augustin was gifted with much,
but he also lacked much. The resources of a noble and penetrating
intellect, profound spiritual insight, and reverent love for
Scripture, formed high qualifications at his command. But he was
deficient in exact scholarship. Thoroughly versed in Latin literature,
as is evinced here by the happy notices of Ennius, Cicero, Lucan, and
others of its great writers, he knew little Greek, and no Hebrew. He
refers more than once in the present treatise to his ignorance of the
original language of the Old Testament; and while his knowledge of
that of the New was probably not so unserviceable as has often been
supposed, instances like that in which he solves the apparent
difficulty in the two burdens, mentioned in Gal. vi., without alluding
to the distinction between the Greek words, make it sufficiently plain
that it was not at least his invariable habit to prosecute these
studies with the original in his view. Hence we find him missing many
explanations which would at once have suggested themselves, had he not
so implicitly followed the imperfect versions of the sacred text.
An analysis of the contents of the work might show much that is of
interest to the Biblical critic. Principles elsewhere theoretically
enunciated are seen here in their free application. In some respects,
this effort is one of a more severely scientific character than is
often the case with Augustin. It displays much less digression than is
customary with him. The tendency to extravagant allegorizing is also
less frequently indulged in, although it does come to the surface at
times, as in the notable example of the interpretation of the names
Leah and Rachel. His inordinate dependence upon the Septuagint,
however, is as broadly marked here as anywhere. As he sometimes
indicates an inclination to accept the story of Aristeas, in this
composition he almost goes the length of claiming a special
inspiration for these translators. On the other hand, in many passages
we have the privilege of seeing his resolve to be no uncritical
expositor. He pauses often to chronicle varieties of reading,
sometimes in the Latin text and sometimes in the Greek. Thus he
notices the occurrence of Lebbæus for Thaddæus, of Dalmanutha for
Magedan, and the like, and mentions how some codices read woman for
maid, in the sentence, The maid is not dead, but sleepeth (Matt. ix.
24).
His principles of harmonizing are ordinarily characterized by
simplicity and good sense. In general, he surmounts the difficulty of
what may seem at first sight discordant versions of one incident, by
supposing different instances of the same circumstances, or repeated
utterances of the same words. He holds emphatically by the position,
that wherever it is possible to believe two similar incidents to have
taken place, no contradiction can legitimately be alleged, although no
Evangelist may relate them both together. All merely verbal variations
in the records of the same occurrence he regards as matters of too
little consequence to create any serious perplexity to the student
whose aim is honestly to reach the sense intended. Such narratives as
those of the storm upon the lake, the healing of the centurion's
servant, and the denials of Peter, furnish good examples of his
method, and of the fair and fearless spirit of his inquiry. And
however unsuccessful we may now judge some of his endeavours, when we
consider the comparative poverty of his materials, and the untrodden
field which he essayed to search, we shall not deny to this treatise
the merit of grandeur in original conception, and exemplary
faithfulness in actual execution.
S. D. F. S.
.
The Harmony of the Gospels.
Book I.
The treatise opens with a short statement on the subject of the
authority of the evangelists, their number, their order, and the
different plans of their narratives. Augustin then prepares for the
discussion of the questions relating to their harmony, by joining
issue in this book with those who raise a difficulty in the
circumstance that Christ has left no writing of His own, or who
falsely allege that certain books were composed by Him on the arts of
magic. He also meets the objections of those who, in opposition to the
evangelical teaching, assert that the disciples of Christ at once
ascribed more to their Master than He really was, when they affirmed
that He was God, and inculcated what they had not been instructed in
by Him, when they interdicted the worship of the gods. Against these
antagonists he vindicates the teaching of the apostles, by appealing
to the utterances of the prophets, and by showing that the God of
Israel was to be the sole object of worship, who also, although He was
the only Deity to whom acceptance was denied in former times by the
Romans, and that for the very reason that He prohibited them from
worshipping other gods along with Himself, has now in the end made the
empire of Rome subject to His name, and among all nations has broken
their idols in pieces through the preaching of the gospel, as He had
promised by His prophets that the event should be.
Chapter I.--On the Authority of the Gospels.
1. In the entire number of those divine records which are contained in
the sacred writings, the gospel deservedly stands pre-eminent. For
what the law and the prophets aforetime announced as destined to come
to pass, is exhibited in the gospel in its realization [498] and
fulfilment. The first preachers of this gospel were the apostles, who
beheld our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in person when He was yet
present in the flesh. And not only did these [499] men keep in
remembrance the words heard from His lips, and the deeds wrought by
Him beneath their eyes; but they were also careful, when the duty of
preaching the gospel was laid upon them, to make mankind acquainted
with those divine and memorable occurrences which took place at a
period antecedent to the formation of their own connection with Him in
the way of discipleship, which belonged also to the time of His
nativity, His infancy, or His youth, and with regard to which they
were able to institute exact inquiry and to obtain information, either
at His own hand or at the hands of His parents or other parties, on
the ground of the most reliable intimations and the most trustworthy
testimonies. Certain of them also--namely, Matthew and John--gave to
the world, in their respective books, a written account of all those
matters which it seemed needful to commit to writing concerning Him.
2. And to preclude the supposition that, in what concerns the
apprehension and proclamation of the gospel, it is a matter of any
consequence whether the enunciation comes by men who were actual
followers of this same Lord here when He manifested Himself in the
flesh and had the company of His disciples attendant on Him, or by
persons who with due credit received facts with which they became
acquainted in a trustworthy manner through the instrumentality of
these former, divine providence, through the agency of the Holy
Spirit, has taken care that certain of those also who were nothing
more than followers of the first apostles should have authority given
them not only to preach the gospel, but also to compose an account of
it in writing. I refer to Mark and Luke. All those other individuals,
however, who have attempted or dared to offer a written record of the
acts of the Lord or of the apostles, failed to commend themselves in
their own times as men of the character which would induce the Church
to yield them its confidence, and to admit their compositions to the
canonical authority of the Holy Books. And this was the case not
merely because they were persons who could make no rightful claim to
have credit given them in their narrations, but also because in a
deceitful manner they introduced into their writings certain matters
which are condemned at once by the catholic and apostolic rule of
faith, and by sound doctrine. [500]
Footnotes
[498] Reading redditum. Four mss. give revelatum = as brought to
light.--Migne.
[499] Instead of Qui non solum, as above, many mss. read Cujus,
etc.--Migne.
[500] [The character of the Apocryphal Gospels is obvious. The
reference of Luke (i. 1) is probably to fragmentary records, now lost.
Comp. below Book iv. chap. 8.--R.]
Chapter II.--On the Order of the Evangelists, and the Principles on
Which They Wrote.
3. Now, those four evangelists whose names have gained the most
remarkable circulation [501] over the whole world, and whose number
has been fixed as four,--it may be for the simple reason that there
are four divisions of that world through the universal length of which
they, by their number as by a kind of mystical sign, indicated the
advancing extension of the Church of Christ,--are believed to have
written in the order which follows: first Matthew, then Mark, thirdly
Luke, lastly John. Hence, too, [it would appear that] these had one
order determined among them with regard to the matters of their
personal knowledge and their preaching [of the gospel], but a
different order in reference to the task of giving the written
narrative. As far, indeed, as concerns the acquisition of their own
knowledge and the charge of preaching, those unquestionably came first
in order who were actually followers of the Lord when He was present
in the flesh, and who heard Him speak and saw Him act; and [with a
commission received] from His lips they were despatched to preach the
gospel. But as respects the task of composing that record of the
gospel which is to be accepted as ordained by divine authority, there
were (only) two, belonging to the number of those whom the Lord chose
before the passover, that obtained places,--namely, the first place
and the last. For the first place in order was held by Matthew, and
the last by John. And thus the remaining two, who did not belong to
the number referred to, but who at the same time had become followers
of the Christ who spoke in these others, were supported on either side
by the same, like sons who were to be embraced, and who in this way
were set in the midst between these twain.
4. Of these four, it is true, only Matthew is reckoned to have written
in the Hebrew language; the others in Greek. And however they may
appear to have kept each of them a certain order of narration proper
to himself, this certainly is not to be taken as if each individual
writer chose to write in ignorance of what his predecessor had done,
or left out as matters about which there was no information things
which another nevertheless is discovered to have recorded. But the
fact is, that just as they received each of them the gift of
inspiration, they abstained from adding to their several labours any
superfluous conjoint compositions. For Matthew is understood to have
taken it in hand to construct the record of the incarnation of the
Lord according to the royal lineage, and to give an account of most
part of His deeds and words as they stood in relation to this present
life of men. Mark follows him closely, and looks like his attendant
and epitomizer. [502] For in his narrative he gives nothing in concert
with John apart from the others: by himself separately, he has little
to record; in conjunction with Luke, as distinguished from the rest,
he has still less; but in concord with Matthew, he has a very large
number of passages. Much, too, he narrates in words almost numerically
and identically the same as those used by Matthew, where the agreement
is either with that evangelist alone, or with him in connection with
the rest. On the other hand, Luke appears to have occupied himself
rather with the priestly lineage and character [503] of the Lord. For
although in his own way he carries the descent back to David, what he
has followed is not the royal pedigree, but the line of those who were
not kings. That genealogy, too, he has brought to a point in Nathan
the son of David, [504] which person likewise was no king. It is not
thus, however, with Matthew. For in tracing the lineage along through
Solomon the king, [505] he has pursued with strict regularity the
succession of the other kings; and in enumerating these, he has also
conserved that mystical number of which we shall speak hereafter.
Footnotes
[501] Notissimi.
[502] [This opinion is not only unwarranted, since Mark shows greater
signs of originality, but it has been prejudicial to the correct
appreciation of the Gospel of Mark. The verbal identity of Matthew and
Mark in parallel passages is far less than commonly supposed.--R.]
[503] Personam.
[504] Luke iii. 31.
[505] Matt. i. 6.
Chapter III.--Of the Fact that Matthew, Together with Mark, Had
Specially in View the Kingly Character of Christ, Whereas Luke Dealt
with the Priestly.
5. For the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the one true King and the one
true Priest, the former to rule us, and the latter to make expiation
for us, has shown us how His own figure bore these two parts together,
which were only separately commended [to notice] among the Fathers.
[506] This becomes apparent if (for example) we look to that
inscription which was affixed to His cross--"King of the Jews:" in
connection also with which, and by a secret instinct, Pilate replied,
"What I have written, I have written." [507] For it had been said
aforetime in the Psalms, "Destroy not the writing of the title." [508]
The same becomes evident, so far as the part of priest is concerned,
if we have regard to what He has taught us concerning offering and
receiving. For thus it is that He sent us beforehand a prophecy [509]
respecting Himself, which runs thus, "Thou art a priest for ever,
after the order of Melchisedek." [510] And in many other testimonies
of the divine Scriptures, Christ appears both as King and as Priest.
Hence, also, even David himself, whose son He is, not without good
reason, more frequently declared to be than he is said to be Abraham's
son, and whom Matthew and Luke have both alike held by,--the one
viewing him as the person from whom, through Solomon, His lineage can
be traced down, and the other taking him for the person to whom,
through Nathan, His genealogy can be carried up,--did represent the
part of a priest, although he was patently a king, when he ate the
shew-bread. For it was not lawful for any one to eat that, save the
priests only. [511] To this it must be added that Luke is the only one
who mentions how Mary was discovered by the angel, and how she was
related to Elisabeth, [512] who was the wife of Zacharias the priest.
And of this Zacharias the same evangelist has recorded the fact, that
the woman whom he had for wife was one of the daughters of Aaron,
which is to say she belonged to the tribe of the priests. [513]
6. Whereas, then, Matthew had in view the kingly character, and Luke
the priestly, they have at the same time both set forth pre-eminently
the humanity of Christ: for it was according to His humanity that
Christ was made both King and Priest. To Him, too, God gave the throne
of His father David, in order that of His kingdom there should be none
end. [514] And this was done with the purpose that there might be a
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, [515] to make
intercession for us. Luke, on the other hand, had no one connected
with him to act as his summarist in the way that Mark was attached to
Matthew. And it may be that this is not without a certain solemn
significance. [516] For it is the right of kings not to miss the
obedient following of attendants; and hence the evangelist, who had
taken it in hand to give an account of the kingly character of Christ,
had a person attached to him as his associate who was in some fashion
to follow in his steps. But inasmuch as it was the priest's want to
enter all alone into the holy of holies, in accordance with that
principle, Luke, whose object contemplated the priestly office of
Christ, did not have any one to come after him as a confederate, who
was meant in some way to serve as an epitomizer of his narrative.
[517]
Footnotes
[506] Some editions insert antiquos, the ancient Fathers; but the mss.
omit it.--Migne.
[507] John xix. 19-22.
[508] Ps. lxxv. 1.
[509] Two mss. give prophetam ("prophet") instead of prophetiam
("prophecy").--Migne.
[510] Ps. cx. 4.
[511] 1 Sam. xxi. 6; Matt. xii. 3.
[512] The reading supported by the manuscripts is: Mariam commemorat
ab Angelo manifestatam cognatam fuisse Elisabeth. It is sometimes
given thus: Mariam commemorat manifeste cognatam, etc. = mentions that
Mary was clearly related to Elizabeth.
[513] Luke i. 36, 5.
[514] Luke i. 32.
[515] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[516] Sine aliquo sacramento.
[517] [Here we have a mystical meaning attached to an opinion
unwarranted by facts. Yet Augustin's mystical treatment of the
"Synoptic problem" is, with all its faults, not more fanciful and
extravagant than some of the modern "critical" solutions of the same
problem.--R.]
Chapter IV.--Of the Fact that John Undertook the Exposition of
Christ's Divinity.
7. These three evangelists, however, were for the most part engaged
with those things which Christ did through the vehicle of the flesh of
man, and after the temporal fashion. [518] But John, on the other
hand, had in view that true divinity of the Lord in which He is the
Father's equal, and directed his efforts above all to the setting
forth of the divine nature in his Gospel in such a way as he believed
to be adequate to men's needs and notions. [519] Therefore he is borne
to loftier heights, in which he leaves the other three far behind him;
so that, while in them you see men who have their conversation in a
certain manner with the man Christ on earth, in him you perceive one
who has passed beyond the cloud in which the whole earth is wrapped,
and who has reached the liquid heaven from which, with clearest and
steadiest mental eye, he is able to look upon God the Word, who was in
the beginning with God, and by whom all things were made. [520] And
there, too, he can recognise Him who was made flesh in order that He
might dwell amongst us; [521] [that Word of whom we say,] that He
assumed the flesh, not that He was changed into the flesh. For had not
this assumption of the flesh been effected in such a manner as at the
same time to conserve the unchangeable Divinity, such a word as this
could never have been spoken,--namely, "I and the Father are one."
[522] For surely the Father and the flesh are not one. And the same
John is also the only one who has recorded that witness which the Lord
gave concerning Himself, when He said: "He that hath seen me, hath
seen the Father also;" and, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in
me;" [523] "that they may be one, even as we are one;" [524] and,
"Whatsoever the Father doeth, these same things doeth the Son
likewise." [525] And whatever other statements there may be to the
same effect, calculated to betoken, to those who are possessed of
right understanding, that divinity of Christ in which He is the
Father's equal, of all these we might almost say that we are indebted
for their introduction into the Gospel narrative to John alone. For he
is like one who has drunk in the secret of His divinity more richly
and somehow more familiarly than others, as if he drew it from the
very bosom of his Lord on which it was his wont to recline when He sat
at meat. [526]
Footnotes
[518] Temporaliter.
[519] Quantum inter homines sufficere credidit.
[520] John i. 1, 3.
[521] John i. 14.
[522] John x. 30.
[523] John xiv. 9, 10.
[524] John xvii. 22.
[525] John v. 19.
[526] John xiii. 23.
Chapter V.--Concerning the Two Virtues, of Which John is Conversant
with the Contemplative, the Other Evangelists with the Active.
8. Moreover, there are two several virtues (or talents) which have
been proposed to the mind of man. Of these, the one is the active, and
the other the contemplative: the one being that whereby the way is
taken, and the other that whereby the goal is reached; [527] the one
that by which men labour in order that the heart may be purified to
see God, and the other that by which men are disengaged [528] and God
is seen. Thus the former of these two virtues is occupied with the
precepts for the right exercise of the temporal life, whereas the
latter deals with the doctrine of that life which is everlasting. In
this way, also, the one operates, the other rests; for the former
finds its sphere in the purging of sins, the latter moves in the light
[529] of the purged. And thus, again, in this mortal life the one is
engaged with the work of a good conversation; while the other subsists
rather on faith, and is seen only in the person of the very few, and
through the glass darkly, and only in part in a kind of vision of the
unchangeable truth. [530] Now these two virtues are understood to be
presented emblematically in the instance of the two wives of Jacob. Of
these I have discoursed already up to the measure of my ability, and
as fully as seemed to be appropriate to my task, (in what I have
written) in opposition to Faustus the Manichæan. [531] For Lia,
indeed, by interpretation means "labouring," [532] whereas Rachel
signifies "the first principle seen." [533] And by this it is given us
to understand, if one will only attend carefully to the matter, that
those three evangelists who, with pre-eminent fulness, have handled
the account of the Lord's temporal doings and those of His sayings
which were meant to bear chiefly upon the moulding of the manners of
the present life, were conversant with that active virtue; and that
John, on the other hand, who narrates fewer by far of the Lord's
doings, but records with greater carefulness and with larger wealth of
detail the words which He spoke, and most especially those discourses
which were intended to introduce us to the knowledge of the unity of
the Trinity and the blessedness of the life eternal, formed his plan
and framed his statement with a view to commend the contemplative
virtue to our regard.
Footnotes
[527] Illa qua itur, ista qua pervenitur.
[528] Qua vacatur.
[529] Reading lumine; but one of the Vatican mss. gives in
illuminatione, in the enlightenment of the purged.
[530] 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
[531] Book xxii. 52.
[532] Laborans.
[533] Visum principium. In various editions it is given as visus
principium. The mss. have visum principium. In the passage referred to
in the treatise against Faustus the Manichæan, Augustin appends the
explanation, sive verbum ex quo videtur principium, = the first
principle seen, or the word by which the first principle is seen. The
etymologies on which Augustin proceeds may perhaps be these: for Leah,
the Hebrew verb Laah, to be wearied (L+o#oH+); and for Rachel the
Hebrew forms Raah = see, and Chalal = begin (R+o#oH+ ,X+oL+aL+). For
another example of extravagant allegorizing on the two wives of Jacob,
see Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, chap. cxl.--Tr.
Chapter VI.--Of the Four Living Creatures in the Apocalypse, Which
Have Been Taken by Some in One Application, and by Others in Another,
as Apt Figures of the Four Evangelists.
9. For these reasons, it also appears to me, that of the various
parties who have interpreted the living creatures in the Apocalypse as
significant of the four evangelists, those who have taken the lion to
point to Matthew, the man to Mark, the calf to Luke, and the eagle to
John, have made a more reasonable application of the figures than
those who have assigned the man to Matthew, the eagle to Mark, and the
lion to John. [534] For, in forming their particular idea of the
matter, these latter have chosen to keep in view simply the beginnings
of the books, and not the full design of the several evangelists in
its completeness, which was the matter that should, above all, have
been thoroughly examined. For surely it is with much greater propriety
that the one who has brought under our notice most largely the kingly
character of Christ, should be taken to be represented by the lion.
Thus is it also that we find the lion mentioned in conjunction with
the royal tribe itself, in that passage of the Apocalypse where it is
said, "The lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed." [535] For in
Matthew's narrative the magi are recorded to have come from the east
to inquire after the King, and to worship Him whose birth was notified
to them by the star. Thus, too, Herod, who himself also was a king, is
[said there to be] afraid of the royal child, and to put so many
little children to death in order to make sure that the one might be
slain. [536] Again, that Luke is intended under the figure of the
calf, in reference to the pre-eminent sacrifice made by the priest,
has been doubted by neither of the two [sets of interpreters]. For in
that Gospel the narrator's account commences with Zacharias the
priest. In it mention is also made of the relationship between Mary
and Elisabeth. [537] In it, too, it is recorded that the ceremonies
proper to the earliest priestly service were attended to in the case
of the infant Christ; [538] and a careful examination brings a variety
of other matters under our notice in this Gospel, by which it is made
apparent that Luke's object was to deal with the part of the priest.
In this way it follows further, that Mark, who has set himself neither
to give an account of the kingly lineage, nor to expound anything
distinctive of the priesthood, whether on the subject of the
relationship or on that of the consecration, and who at the same time
comes before us as one who handles the things which the man Christ
did, appears to be indicated simply under the figure of the man among
those four living creatures. But again, those three living creatures,
whether lion, man, or calf, have their course upon this earth; and in
like manner, those three evangelists occupy themselves chiefly with
the things which Christ did in the flesh, and with the precepts which
He delivered to men, who also bear the burden of the flesh, for their
instruction in the rightful exercise of this mortal life. Whereas
John, on the other hand, soars like an eagle above the clouds of human
infirmity, and gazes upon the light of the unchangeable truth with
those keenest and steadiest eyes of the heart. [539]
Footnotes
[534] [The latter application is that of Irenæus (Adv. Hær. iii.); but
the prevalent application is that of Jerome, which is accepted in
mediæval art. It differs from that of Augustin (see table below). As a
curious illustration of the fanciful character of such
interpretations, the reader may consult the following table, which
gives the order of the following living creatures in Rev. iv. 7, with
some of the leading "applications."
Rev. iv. 7.Irenæus.Augustin.Jerome.
Lange, Stier.
1.Lion...John.Matthew.
Mark.Mark. 2.Calf...Luke.Luke.Luke.
Matthew. 3.Man...Matthew.Mark.Matthew.Luke.
4.Eagle...Mark.John.John.John.
No doubt further variations could be discovered. Comp. Schaff's Church
History, rev. ed. vol. i. 585-589.--R.]
[535] Rev. v. 5.
[536] Matt. ii. 1-18.
[537] Luke i. 5, 36.
[538] Luke ii. 22-24.
[539] See also Tract. 36, on John i. 5. [This figure of Augustin has
controlled all the subsequent symbolism respecting the Evangelist
John, and has been constantly cited by commentators.--R.]
Chapter VII.--A Statement of Augustin's Reason for Undertaking This
Work on the Harmony of the Evangelists, and an Example of the Method
in Which He Meets Those Who Allege that Christ Wrote Nothing Himself,
and that His Disciples Made an Unwarranted Affirmation in Proclaiming
Him to Be God.
10. Those sacred chariots of the Lord, [540] however, in which He is
borne throughout the earth and brings the peoples under His easy yoke
and His light burden, are assailed with calumnious charges by certain
persons who, in impious vanity or in ignorant temerity, think to rob
of their credit as veracious historians those teachers by whose
instrumentality the Christian religion has been disseminated all the
world over, and through whose efforts it has yielded fruits so
plentiful that unbelievers now scarcely dare so much as to mutter
their slanders in private among themselves, kept in check by the faith
of the Gentiles and by the devotion of all the peoples. Nevertheless,
inasmuch as they still strive by their calumnious disputations to keep
some from making themselves acquainted with the faith, and thus
prevent them from becoming believers, while they also endeavour to the
utmost of their power to excite agitations among others who have
already attained to belief, and thereby give them trouble; and
further, as there are some brethren who, without detriment to their
own faith, have a desire to ascertain what answer can be given to such
questions, either for the advantage of their own knowledge or for the
purpose of refuting the vain utterances of their enemies, with the
inspiration and help of the Lord our God (and would that it might
prove profitable for the salvation of such men), we have undertaken in
this work to demonstrate the errors or the rashness of those who deem
themselves able to prefer charges, the subtilty of which is at least
sufficiently observable, against those four different books of the
gospel which have been written by these four several evangelists. And
in order to carry out this design to a successful conclusion, we must
prove that the writers in question do not stand in any antagonism to
each other. For those adversaries are in the habit of adducing this as
the palmary [541] allegation in all their vain objections, namely,
that the evangelists are not in harmony with each other.
11. But we must first discuss a matter which is apt to present a
difficulty to the minds of some. I refer to the question why the Lord
has written nothing Himself, and why He has thus left us to the
necessity of accepting the testimony of other persons who have
prepared records of His history. For this is what those parties--the
pagans more than any [542] --allege when they lack boldness enough to
impeach or blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and when they
allow Him--only as a man, however--to have been possessed of the most
distinguished wisdom. In making that admission, they at the same time
assert that the disciples claimed more for their Master than He really
was; so much more indeed that they even called Him the Son of God, and
the Word of God, by whom all things were made, and affirmed that He
and God are one. And in the same way they dispose of all other kindred
passages in the epistles of the apostles, in the light of which we
have been taught that He is to be worshipped as one God with the
Father. For they are of opinion that He is certainly to be honoured as
the wisest of men; but they deny that He is to be worshipped as God.
12. Wherefore, when they put the question why He has not written in
His own person, it would seem as if they were prepared to believe
regarding Him whatever He might have written concerning Himself, but
not what others may have given the world to know with respect to His
life, according to the measure of their own judgment. Well, I ask them
in turn why, in the case of certain of the noblest of their own
philosophers, they have accepted the statements which their disciples
left in the records they have composed, while these sages themselves
have given us no written accounts of their own lives? For Pythagoras,
than whom Greece in those days [543] did not possess any more
illustrious personage in the sphere of that contemplative virtue, is
believed to have written absolutely nothing, whether on the subject of
his own personal history or on any other theme whatsoever. And as to
Socrates, to whom, on the other hand, they have adjudged a position of
supremacy above all others in that active virtue by which the moral
life is trained, so that they do not hesitate also to aver that he was
even pronounced to be the wisest of men by the testimony of their
deity Apollo,--it is indeed true that he handled the fables of Æsop in
some few short verses, and thus made use of words and numbers of his
own in the task of rendering the themes of another. But this was all.
And so far was he from having the desire to write anything himself,
that he declared that he had done even so much only because he was
constrained by the imperial will of his demon, as Plato, the noblest
of all his disciples, tells us. That was a work, also, in which he
sought to set forth in fair form not so much his own thoughts, as
rather the ideas of another. What reasonable ground, therefore, have
they for believing, with regard to those sages, all that their
disciples have committed to record in respect of their history, while
at the same time they refuse to credit in the case of Christ what His
disciples have written on the subject of His life? And all the more
may we thus argue, when we see how they admit that all other men have
been excelled by Him in the matter of wisdom, although they decline to
acknowledge Him to be God. Is it, indeed, the case that those persons
whom they do not hesitate to allow to have been by far His inferiors,
have had the faculty of making disciples who can be trusted in all
that concerns the narrative of their careers, and that He failed in
that capacity? But if that is a most absurd statement to venture upon,
then in all that belongs to the history of that Person to whom they
grant the honour of wisdom, they ought to believe not merely what
suits their own notions, but what they read in the narratives of those
who learned from this sage Himself those various facts which they have
left on record on the subject of His life.
Footnotes
[540] Has Domini sanctas quadrigas.
[541] Reading either palmam suæ vanitatis objicere, or with several
mss. palmare, etc.
[542] Vel maxime pagani.
[543] Six mss. omit the tunc, at that time.--Migne.
Chapter VIII.--Of the Question Why, If Christ is Believed to Have Been
the Wisest of Men on the Testimony of Common Narrative Report, He
Should Not Be Believed to Be God on the Testimony of the Superior
Report of Preaching.
13. Besides this, they ought to tell us by what means they have
succeeded in acquiring their knowledge of this fact that He was the
wisest of men, or how it has had the opportunity of reaching their
ears. If they have been made acquainted with it simply by current
report, then is it the case that common report forms a more
trustworthy informant [544] on the subject of His history than those
disciples of His who, as they have gone and preached of Him, have
disseminated the same report like a penetrating savour throughout the
whole world? [545] In fine, they ought to prefer the one kind of
report to the other, and believe that account of His life which is the
superior of the two. For this report, [546] indeed, which is spread
abroad with a wonderful clearness from that Church catholic [547] at
whose extension through the whole world those persons are so
astonished, prevails in an incomparable fashion over the unsubstantial
rumours with which men like them occupy themselves. This report,
furthermore, which carries with it such weight and such currency,
[548] that in dread of it they can only mutter their anxious and
feeble snatches of paltry objections within their own breasts, as if
they were more afraid now of being heard than wishful to receive
credit, proclaims Christ to be the only-begotten Son of God, and
Himself God, [549] by whom all things were made. If, therefore, they
choose report as their witness, why does not their choice fix on this
special report, which is so pre-eminently lustrous in its remarkable
definiteness? And if they desire the evidence of writings, why do they
not take those evangelical writings which excel all others in their
commanding authority? On our side, indeed, we accept those statements
about their deities which are offered at once in their most ancient
writings and by most current report. But if these deities are to be
considered proper objects for reverence, why then do they make them
the subject of laughter in the theatres? And if, on the other hand,
they are proper objects for laughter, the occasion for such laughter
must be all the greater when they are made the objects of worship in
the theatres. It remains for us to look upon those persons as
themselves minded to be witnesses concerning Christ, who, by speaking
what they know not, divest themselves of the merit of knowing what
they speak about. Or if, again, they assert that they are possessed of
any books which they can maintain to have been written by Him, they
ought to produce them for our inspection. For assuredly those books
(if there are such) must be most profitable and most wholesome, seeing
they are the productions of one whom they acknowledge to have been the
wisest of men. If, however, they are afraid to produce them, it must
be because they are of evil tendency; but if they are evil, then the
wisest of men cannot have written them. They acknowledge Christ,
however, to be the wisest of men, and consequently Christ cannot have
written any such thing.
Footnotes
[544] Instead of de illo nuntia fama est, fourteen mss. give de illo
fama nuntiata est = is it a more trustworthy report that has been
announced.--Migne.
[545] Quibus eum prædicantibus ipsa per totum mundum fama fragravit?
[546] Fama.
[547] De catholica ecclesia.
[548] Celebris.
[549] The words stand, as above, in the great majority of mss.: tam
celebris, ut eam timendo isti trepidas et tepidas contradictiunculas
in sinu suo rodant, jam plus metuentes audiri quam volentes credi,
Filium Dei Unigenitum et Deum prædicat Christum? In some mss. and
editions the sense is altered by inserting est after celebris, and
substituting nolentes for volentes, and prædicari for prædicat; so
that it becomes = that report is of such distinguished currency, that
in dread of it they can only mutter, etc....as now rather fearing to
be heard than refusing to admit the belief that Christ is proclaimed
to be the only-begotten Son of God, etc. See Migne.--Tr.
Chapter IX.--Of Certain Persons Who Pretend that Christ Wrote Books on
the Arts of Magic.
14. But, indeed, these persons rise to such a pitch of folly as to
allege that the books which they consider to have been written by Him
contain the arts by which they think He wrought those miracles, the
fame of which has become prevalent in all quarters. And this fancy of
theirs betrays what they really love, and what their aims really are.
For thus, indeed, they show us how they entertain this opinion that
Christ was the wisest of men only for the reason that He possessed the
knowledge of I know not what illicit arts, which are justly condemned,
not merely by Christian discipline, but even by the administration of
earthly government itself. And, in good sooth, if there are people who
affirm that they have read books of this nature composed by Christ,
then why do they not perform with their own hand some such works as
those which so greatly excite their wonder when wrought by Him, by
taking advantage of the information which they have derived from these
books?
Chapter X.--Of Some Who are Mad Enough to Suppose that the Books Were
Inscribed with the Names of Peter and Paul.
15. Nay more, as by divine judgment, some of those who either believe,
or wish to have it believed, that Christ wrote matter of that
description, have even wandered so far into error as to allege that
these same books bore on their front, in the form of epistolary
superscription, a designation addressed to Peter and Paul. And it is
quite possible that either the enemies of the name of Christ, or
certain parties who thought that they might impart to this kind of
execrable arts the weight of authority drawn from so glorious a name,
may have written things of that nature under the name of Christ and
the apostles. But in such most deceitful audacity they have been so
utterly blinded as simply to have made themselves fitting objects for
laughter, even with young people who as yet know Christian literature
only in boyish fashion, and rank merely in the grade of readers.
16. For when they made up their minds to represent Christ to have
written in such strain as that to His disciples, they bethought
themselves of those of His followers who might best be taken for the
persons to whom Christ might most readily be believed to have written,
as the individuals who had kept by Him on the most familiar terms of
friendship. And so Peter and Paul occurred to them, I believe, just
because in many places they chanced to see these two apostles
represented in pictures as both in company with Him. [550] For Rome,
in a specially honourable and solemn manner, [551] commends the merits
of Peter and of Paul, for this reason among others, namely, that they
suffered [martyrdom] on the same day. Thus to fall most completely
into error was the due desert of men who sought for Christ and His
apostles not in the holy writings, but on painted walls. Neither is it
to be wondered at, that these fiction-limners were misled by the
painters. [552] For throughout the whole period during which Christ
lived in our mortal flesh in fellowship with His disciples, Paul had
never become His disciple. Only after His passion, after His
resurrection, after His ascension, after the mission of the Holy
Spirit from heaven, after many Jews had been converted and had shown
marvellous faith, after the stoning of Stephen the deacon and martyr,
and when Paul still bore the name Saul, and was grievously persecuting
those who had become believers in Christ, did Christ call that man [by
a voice] from heaven, and made him His disciple and apostle. [553]
How, then, is it possible that Christ could have written those books
which they wish to have it believed that He did write before His
death, and which were addressed to Peter and Paul, as those among His
disciples who had been most intimate with Him, seeing that up to that
date Paul had not yet become a disciple of His at all?
Footnotes
[550] Simul eos cum illo pictos viderent.
[551] The text gives diem celebrius solemniter, etc.; others give diem
celebrius et solemniter; and three mss. have diem celeberrimum
solemniter.--Migne.
[552] A pingentibus fingentes decepti sunt.
[553] Acts ix. 1-30.
Chapter XI.--In Opposition to Those Who Foolishly Imagine that Christ
Converted the People to Himself by Magical Arts.
17. Moreover, let those who madly fancy that it was by the use of
magical arts that He was able to do the great things which He did, and
that it was by the practice of such rites that He made His name a
sacred thing to the peoples who were to be converted to Him, give
their attention to this question,--namely, whether by the exercise of
magical arts, and before He was born on this earth, He could also have
filled with the Holy Spirit those mighty prophets who aforetime
declared those very things concerning Him as things destined to come
to pass, which we can now read in their accomplishment in the gospel,
and which we can see in their present realization in the world. For
surely, even if it was by magical arts that He secured worship for
Himself, and that, too, after His death, it is not the case that He
was a magician before He was born. Nay, for the office of prophesying
on the subject of His coming, one nation had been most specially
deputed; and the entire administration of that commonwealth was
ordained to be a prophecy of this King who was to come, and who was to
found a heavenly state [554] drawn out of all nations.
Footnotes
[554] Civitatem.
Chapter XII.--Of the Fact that the God of the Jews, After the
Subjugation of that People, Was Still Not Accepted by the Romans,
Because His Commandment Was that He Alone Should Be Worshipped, and
Images Destroyed.
18. Furthermore, that Hebrew nation, which, as I have said, was
commissioned to prophesy of Christ, had no other God but one God, the
true God, who made heaven and earth, and all that therein is. Under
His displeasure they were ofttimes given into the power of their
enemies. And now, indeed, on account of their most heinous sin in
putting Christ to death, they have been thoroughly rooted out of
Jerusalem itself, which was the capital of their kingdom, and have
been made subject to the Roman empire. Now the Romans were in the
habit of propitiating [555] the deities of those nations whom they
conquered by worshipping these themselves, and they were accustomed to
undertake the charge of their sacred rites. But they declined to act
on that principle with regard to the God of the Hebrew nation, either
when they made their attack or when they reduced the people. I believe
that they perceived that, if they admitted the worship of this Deity,
whose commandment was that He only should be worshipped, and that
images should be destroyed, they would have to put away from them all
those objects to which formerly they had undertaken to do religious
service, and by the worship of which they believed their empire had
grown. But in this the falseness of their demons mightily deceived
them. For surely they ought to have apprehended the fact that it is
only by the hidden will of the true God, in whose hand resides the
supreme power in all things, that the kingdom was given them and has
been made to increase, and that their position was not due to the
favour of those deities who, if they could have wielded any influence
whatever in that matter, would rather have protected their own people
from being over-mastered by the Romans, or would have brought the
Romans themselves into complete subjection to them.
19. Certainly they cannot possibly affirm that the kind of piety and
manners exemplified by them became objects of love and choice on the
part of the gods of the nations which they conquered. They will never
make such an assertion, if they only recall their own early
beginnings, the asylum for abandoned criminals and the fratricide of
Romulus. For when Remus and Romulus established their asylum, with the
intention that whoever took refuge there, be the crime what it might
be with which he stood charged, should enjoy impunity in his deed,
they did not promulgate any precepts of penitence for bringing the
minds of such wretched men back to a right condition. By this bribe of
impunity did they not rather arm the gathered band of fearful
fugitives against the states to which they properly belonged, and the
laws of which they dreaded? Or when Romulus slew his brother, who had
perpetrated no evil against him, is it the case that his mind was bent
on the vindication of justice, and not on the acquisition of absolute
power? And is it true that the deities did take their delight in
manners like these, as if they were themselves enemies to their own
states, in so far as they favoured those who were the enemies of these
communities? Nay rather, neither did they by deserting them harm the
one class, nor did they by passing over to their side in any sense
help the other. For they have it not in their power to give kingship
or to remove it. But that is done by the one true God, according to
His hidden counsel. And it is not His mind to make those necessarily
blessed to whom He may have given an earthly kingdom, or to make those
necessarily unhappy whom He has deprived of that position. But He
makes men blessed or wretched for other reasons and by other means,
and either by permission or by actual gift distributes temporal and
earthly kingdoms to whomsoever He pleases, and for whatsoever period
He chooses, according to the fore-ordained order of the ages.
Footnotes
[555] The text gives deos...colendos propitiare. Five mss. give
deos...colendo propitiare.--Migne.
Chapter XIII.--Of the Question Why God Suffered the Jews to Be Reduced
to Subjection.
20. Hence also they cannot meet us fairly with this question: Why,
then, did the God of the Hebrews, whom you declare to be the supreme
and true God, not only not subdue the Romans under their power, but
even fail to secure those Hebrews themselves against subjugation by
the Romans? For there were open sins of theirs that went before them,
and on account of which the prophets so long time ago predicted that
this very thing would overtake them; and above all, the reason lay in
the fact, that in their impious fury they put Christ to death, in the
commission of which sin they were made blind [to the guilt of their
crime] through the deserts of other hidden transgressions. That His
sufferings also would be for the benefit of the Gentiles, was foretold
by the same prophetic testimony. Nor, in another point of view, did
the fact appear clearer, that the kingdom of that nation, and its
temple, and its priesthood, and its sacrificial system, and that
mystical unction which is called chrisma [556] in Greek, from which
the name of Christ takes its evident application, and on account of
which that nation was accustomed to speak of its kings as anointed
ones, [557] were ordained with the express object of prefiguring
Christ, than has the kindred fact become apparent, that after the
resurrection of the Christ who was put to death began to be preached
unto the believing Gentiles, all those things came to their end, all
unrecognised as the circumstance was, whether by the Romans, through
whose victory, or by the Jews, through whose subjugation, it was
brought about that they did thus reach their conclusion.
Footnotes
[556] Chrism.
[557] Christos.
Chapter XIV.--Of the Fact that the God of the Hebrews, Although the
People Were Conquered, Proved Himself to Be Unconquered, by
Overthrowing the Idols, and by Turning All the Gentiles to His Own
Service.
21. Here indeed we have a wonderful fact, which is not remarked by
those few pagans who have remained such,--namely, that this God of the
Hebrews who was offended by the conquered, and who was also denied
acceptance by the conquerors, is now preached and worshipped among all
nations. This is that God of Israel of whom the prophet spake so long
time since, when he thus addressed the people of God: "And He who
brought thee out, the God of Israel, shall be called (the God) of the
whole earth." [558] What was thus prophesied has been brought to pass
through the name of the Christ, who comes to men in the form of a
descendant of that very Israel who was the grandson of Abraham, with
whom the race of the Hebrews began. [559] For it was to this Israel
also that it was said, "In thy seed shall all the tribes of the earth
be blessed." [560] Thus it is shown that the God of Israel, the true
God who made heaven and earth, and who administers human affairs
justly and mercifully in such wise that neither does justice exclude
mercy with Him, nor does mercy hinder justice, was not overcome
Himself when His Hebrew people suffered their overthrow, in virtue of
His permitting the kingdom and priesthood of that nation to be seized
and subverted by the Romans. For now, indeed, by the might of this
gospel of Christ, the true King and Priest, the advent of which was
prefigured by that kingdom and priesthood, the God of Israel Himself
is everywhere destroying the idols of the nations. And, in truth, it
was to prevent that destruction that the Romans refused to admit the
sacred rites of this God in the way that they admitted those of the
gods of the other nations whom they conquered. Thus did He remove both
kingdom and priesthood from the prophetic nation, because He who was
promised to men through the agency of that people had already come.
And by Christ the King He has brought into subjection to His own name
that Roman empire by which the said nation was overcome; and by the
strength and devotion of Christian faith, He has converted it so as to
effect a subversion of those idols, the honour ascribed to which
precluded His worship from obtaining entrance.
22. I am of opinion that it was not by means of magical arts that
Christ, previous to His birth among men, brought it about that those
things which were destined to come to pass in the course of His
history, were pre-announced by so many prophets, and prefigured also
by the kingdom and priesthood established in a certain nation. For the
people who are connected with that now abolished kingdom, and who in
the wonderful providence of God are scattered throughout all lands,
have indeed remained without any unction from the true King and
Priest; in which anointing [561] the import of the name of Christ is
plainly discovered. But notwithstanding this, they still retain
remnants of some of their observances; while, on the other hand, not
even in their state of overthrow and subjugation have they accepted
those Roman rites which are connected with the worship of idols. Thus
they still keep the prophetic books as the witness of Christ; and in
this way in the documents of His enemies we find proof presented [562]
of the truth of this Christ who is the subject of prophecy. What,
then, do these unhappy men disclose themselves to be, by the unworthy
method in which they laud [563] the name of Christ? If anything
relating to the practice of magic has been written under His name,
while the doctrine of Christ is so vehemently antagonistic to such
arts, these men ought rather in the light of this fact to gather some
idea of the greatness of that name, by the addition of which even
persons who live in opposition to His precepts endeavour to dignify
their nefarious practices. For just as, in the course of the diverse
errors of men, many persons have set up their varied heresies against
the truth under the cover of His name, so the very enemies of Christ
think that, for the purposes of gaining acceptance for opinions which
they propound in opposition to the doctrine of Christ, they have no
weight of authority at their service unless they have the name of
Christ.
Footnotes
[558] Et qui eruit te, Deus Israel, universæ terræ vocabitur. Isa.
liv. 5. [Compare the Hebrew, from which the Latin citation
varies.--R.]
[559] In his Retractations (ii. 16) Augustin alludes to this sentence,
and says that the word Hebrews (Hebræi) may be derived from Abraham,
as if the original form had been Abrahæi, but that it is more correct
to take it from Heber, so that Hebræi is for Heberæi. He refers us
also to his discussion in the City of God, xvi. 11.
[560] Gen. xxviii. 14.
[561] Chrism.
[562] The text gives probetur veritas Christi, etc.; six mss. give
profertur veritas, etc.--Migne.
[563] Or adduce--male laudando.
Chapter XV.--Of the Fact that the Pagans, When Constrained to Laud
Christ, Have Launched Their Insults Against His Disciples.
23. But what shall be said to this, if those vain eulogizers of
Christ, and those crooked slanderers of the Christian religion, lack
the daring to blaspheme Christ, for this particular reason that some
of their philosophers, as Porphyry of Sicily [564] has given us to
understand in his books, consulted their gods as to their response on
the subject of [the claims of] Christ, and were constrained by their
own oracles to laud Christ? Nor should that seem incredible. For we
also read in the Gospel that the demons confessed Him; [565] and in
our prophets it is written in this wise: "For the gods of the nations
are demons." [566] Thus it happens, then, that in order to avoid
attempting aught in opposition to the responses of their own deities,
they turn their blasphemies aside from Christ, and pour them forth
against His disciples. It seems to me, however, that these gods of the
Gentiles, whom the philosophers of the pagans may have consulted, if
they were asked to give their judgment on the disciples of Christ, as
well as on Christ Himself, would be constrained to praise them in like
manner.
Footnotes
[564] The philosopher of the Neo-Platonic school, better known as one
of the earliest and most learned antagonists of Christianity. Though a
native either of Tyre or Batanea, he is called here, as also again in
the Retractations, ii. 31, a Sicilian, because, according to Jerome
and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. vi. 19), it was in Sicily that he wrote
his treatise in fifteen books against the Christian religion.--Tr.
[565] Luke iv. 41.
[566] Ps. xcvi. 5. [Comp 1 Cor. x. 20, where "demons" is the more
correct rendering (so Revised Version margin and American revisers'
text).--R.]
Chapter XVI.--Of the Fact That, on the Subject of the Destruction of
Idols, the Apostles Taught Nothing Different from What Was Taught by
Christ or by the Prophets.
24. Nevertheless these persons argue still to the effect that this
demolition of temples, and this condemnation of sacrifices, and this
shattering of all images, are brought about, not in virtue of the
doctrine of Christ Himself, but only by the hand of His apostles, who,
as they contend, taught something different from what He taught. They
think by this device, while honouring and lauding Christ, to tear the
Christian faith in pieces. For it is at least true, that it is by the
disciples of Christ that at once the works and the words of Christ
have been made known, on which this Christian religion is established,
with which a very few people of this character are still in
antagonism, who do not now indeed openly assail it, but yet continue
even in these days to utter their mutterings against it. But if they
refuse to believe that Christ taught in the way indicated, let them
read the prophets, who not only enjoined the complete destruction of
the superstitions of idols, but also predicted that this subversion
would come to pass in Christian times. And if these spoke falsely, why
is their word fulfilled with so mighty a demonstration? But if they
spoke truly, why is resistance offered to such divine power? [567]
Footnotes
[567] Or, to such power in interpreting the divine mind--tantæ
divinitati resistatur.
Chapter XVII.--In Opposition to the Romans Who Rejected the God of
Israel Alone.
25. However, here is a matter which should meet with more careful
consideration at their hands,--namely, what they take the God of
Israel to be, and why they have not admitted Him to the honours of
worship among them, in the way that they have done with the gods of
other nations that have been made subject to the imperial power of
Rome? This question demands an answer all the more, when we see that
they are of the mind that all the gods ought to be worshipped by the
man of wisdom. Why, then, has He been excluded from the number of
these others? If He is very mighty, why is He the only deity that is
not worshipped by them? If He has little or no might, why are the
images of other gods broken in pieces by all the nations, while He is
now almost the only God that is worshipped among these peoples? From
the grasp of this question these men shall never be able to extricate
themselves, who worship both the greater and the lesser deities, whom
they hold to be gods, and at the same time refuse to worship this God,
who has proved Himself stronger than all those to whom they do
service. If He is [a God] of great virtue, [568] why has He been
deemed worthy only of rejection? And if He is [a God] of little or no
power, why has He been able to accomplish so much, although rejected?
If He is good, why is He the only one separated from the other good
deities? And if He is evil, why is He, who stands thus alone, not
subjugated by so many good deities? If He is truthful, why are His
precepts scorned? And if He is a liar, why are His predictions
fulfilled?
Footnotes
[568] Or, power--virtutis.
Chapter XVIII.--Of the Fact that the God of the Hebrews is Not
Received by the Romans, Because His Will is that He Alone Should Be
Worshipped.
26. In fine, they may think of Him as they please. Still, we may ask
whether it is the case that the Romans refuse to consider evil deities
as also proper objects of worship,--those Romans who have erected
fanes to Pallor and Fever, and who enjoin both that the good demons
are to been treated, [569] and that the evil demons are to be
propitiated. Whatever their opinion, then, of Him may be, the question
still is, Why is He the only Deity whom they have judged worthy
neither of being called upon for help, nor of being propitiated? What
God is this, who is either one so unknown, that He is the only one not
discovered as yet among so many gods, or who is one so well known that
He is now the only one worshipped by so many men? There remains, then,
nothing which they can possibly allege in explanation of their refusal
to admit the worship of this God, except that His will was that He
alone should be worshipped; and His command was, that those gods of
the Gentiles that they were worshipping at the time should cease to be
worshipped. But an answer to this other question is rather to be
required of them, namely, what or what manner of deity they consider
this God to be, who has forbidden the worship of those other gods for
whom they erected temples and images,--this God, who has also been
possessed of might so vast that His will has prevailed more in
effecting the destruction of their images than theirs has availed to
secure the non-admittance of His worship. And, indeed, the opinion of
that philosopher of theirs is given in plain terms, whom, even on the
authority of their own oracle, they have maintained to have been the
wisest of all men. For the opinion of Socrates is, that every deity
whatsoever ought to be worshipped just in the manner in which he may
have ordained that he should be worshipped. Consequently it became a
matter of the supremest necessity with them to refuse to worship the
God of the Hebrews. For if they were minded to worship Him in a method
different from the way in which He had declared that He ought to be
worshipped, then assuredly they would have been worshipping not this
God as He is, but some figment of their own. And, on the other hand,
if they were willing to worship Him in the manner which He had
indicated, then they could not but perceive that they were not at
liberty to worship those other deities whom He interdicted them from
worshipping. Thus was it, therefore, that they rejected the service of
the one true God, because they were afraid that they might offend the
many false gods. For they thought that the anger of those deities
would be more to their injury, than the goodwill of this God would be
to their profit.
Footnotes
[569] The text gives invitandos; others read imitandos, to be
imitated.
Chapter XIX.--The Proof that This God is the True God.
27. But that must have been a vain necessity and a ridiculous
timidity. [570] We ask now what opinion regarding this God is formed
by those men whose pleasure it is that all gods ought to be
worshipped. For if He ought not to be worshipped, how are all
worshipped when He is not worshipped? And if He ought to be
worshipped, it cannot be that all others are to be worshipped along
with Him. For unless He is worshipped alone, He is really not
worshipped at all. Or may it perhaps be the case, that they will
allege Him to be no God at all, while they call those gods who, as we
believe, have no power to do anything except so far as permission is
given them by His judgment,--have not merely no power to do good to
any one, but no power even to do harm to any, except to those who are
judged by Him, who possesses all power, to merit so to be harmed? But,
as they themselves are compelled to admit, those deities have shown
less power than He has done. For if those are held to be gods whose
prophets, when consulted by men, have returned responses which, that I
may not call them false, were at least most convenient for their
private interests, how is not He to be regarded as God whose prophets
have not only given the congruous answer on subjects regarding which
they were consulted at the special time, but who also, in the case of
subjects respecting which they were not consulted, and which related
to the universal race of man and all nations, have announced
prophetically so long time before the event those very things of which
we now read, and which indeed we now behold? If they gave the name of
god to that being under whose inspiration the Sibyl sung of the fates
[571] of the Romans, how is not He (to be called) God, who, in
accordance with the announcement aforetime given, has shown us how the
Romans and all nations are coming to believe in Himself through the
gospel of Christ, as the one God, and to demolish all the images of
their fathers? Finally, if they designate those as gods who have never
dared through their prophets to say anything against this God, how is
not He (to be designated) God, who not only commanded by the mouth of
His prophets the destruction of their images, but who also predicted
that among all the Gentiles they would be destroyed by those who
should be enjoined to abandon their idols and to worship Him alone,
and who, on receiving these injunctions, should be His servants? [572]
Footnotes
[570] Or, Away with that vain necessity and ridiculous timidity--Sed
fuerit ista vana necessitas, etc.
[571] Reading fata. Seven mss. give facta = deeds.
[572] [This reference to the destruction of idols has been used to fix
the date of the Harmony; see Introductory Notice of translator. The
polemic character of the larger part of Book i. seems due to the
circumstances of that particular period in North Africa.--R.]
Chapter XX.--Of the Fact that Nothing is Discovered to Have Been
Predicted by the Prophets of the Pagans in Opposition to the God of
the Hebrews.
28. Or let them aver, if they are able, that some Sibyl of theirs, or
any one whatever among their other prophets, announced long ago that
it would come to pass that the God of the Hebrews, the God of Israel,
would be worshipped by all nations, declaring, at the same time, that
the worshippers of other gods before that time had rightly rejected
Him; and again, that the compositions of His prophets would be in such
exalted authority, [573] that in obedience to them the Roman
government itself would command the destruction of images, the said
seers at the same time giving warning against acting upon such
ordinances;--let them, I say, read out any utterances like these, if
they can, from any of the books of their prophets. For I stop not to
state that those things which we can read in their books repeat a
testimony on behalf of our religion, that is, the Christian religon,
which they might have heard from the holy angels and from our prophets
themselves; just as the very devils were compelled to confess Christ
when He was present in the flesh. But I pass by these matters,
regarding which, when we bring them forward, their contention is that
they were invented by our party. Most certainly, however, they may
themselves be pressed to adduce anything which has been prophesied by
the seers of their own gods against the God of the Hebrews; as, on our
side, we can point to declarations so remarkable at once for number
and for weight recorded in the books of our prophets against their
gods, in which also we can both note the command and recite the
prediction and demonstrate the event. And over the realization of
these things, that comparatively small number of heathens who have
remained such are more inclined to grieve than they are ready to
acknowledge that God who has had the power to foretell these things as
events destined to be made good; whereas in their dealings with their
own false gods, who are genuine demons, they prize nothing else so
highly as to be informed by their responses of something which is to
take place with them. [574]
Footnotes
[573] Reading futuras etiam litteras...in auctoritate ita sublimi. Six
mss. give futurum...sublimari, but with substantially the same sense.
[574] Nihil aliud pro magno appetant quam cum aliquid eorum responsis
sibi futurum esse didicerint.
Chapter XXI.--An Argument for the Exclusive Worship of This God, Who,
While He Prohibits Other Deities from Being Worshipped, is Not Himself
Interdicted by Other Divinities from Being Worshipped.
29. Seeing, then, that these things are so, why do not these unhappy
men rather apprehend the fact that this God is the true God, whom they
perceive to be placed in a position so thoroughly separated from the
company of their own deities, that, although they are compelled to
acknowledge Him to be God, those very persons who profess that all
gods ought to be worshipped are nevertheless not permitted to worship
Him along with the rest? Now, since these deities and this God cannot
be worshipped together, why is not He selected who forbids those
others to be worshipped; and why are not those deities abandoned, who
do not interdict Him from being worshipped? Or if they do indeed
forbid His worship, let the interdict be read. For what has greater
claims to be recited to their people in their temples, in which the
sound of no such thing has ever been heard? And, in good sooth, the
prohibition directed by so many against one ought to be more notable
[575] and more potent than the prohibition launched by one against so
many. For if the worship of this God is impious, then those gods are
profitless, who do not interdict men from that impiety; but if the
worship of this God is pious, then, as in that worship the commandment
is given that these others are not to be worshipped, their worship is
impious. If, again, those deities forbid His worship, but only so
diffidently that they rather fear to be heard [576] than dare to
prohibit, who is so unwise as not to draw his own inference from the
fact, who fails to perceive that this God ought to be chosen, who in
so public a manner prohibits their worship, who commanded that their
images should be destroyed, who foretold that demolition, who Himself
effected it, in preference to those deities of whom we know not that
they ordained abstinence from His worship, of whom we do not read that
they foretold such an event, and in whom we do not see power
sufficient to have it brought about? I put the question, let them give
the answer: Who is this God, who thus harasses all the gods of the
Gentiles, who thus betrays all their sacred rites, who thus renders
them extinct?
Footnotes
[575] Reading notior; others give potior = preferable. [The text of
Migne reads notior et potentior, but five mss. read notior et potior.
The argument favours the former reading, and the latter can readily be
accounted for.--R.]
[576] Some read audere timeant = fear to dare. But the mss. give more
correctly audiri timeant = fear to be heard; i.e., the demons were
afraid that, if they interdicted His worship, the true God might be
made known by their own hand.--Migne.
Chapter XXII.--Of the Opinion Entertained by the Gentiles Regarding
Our God.
30. But why do I interrogate men whose native wit has deserted them in
answering the question as to who this God is? Some say that He is
Saturn. I fancy the reason of that is found in the sanctification of
the Sabbath; for those men assign that day to Saturn. But their own
Varro, than whom they can point to no man of greater learning among
them, thought that the God of the Jews was Jupiter, and he judged that
it mattered not what name was employed, provided the same subject was
understood under it; in which, I believe, we see how he was subdued by
His supremacy. For, inasmuch as the Romans are not accustomed to
worship any more exalted object than Jupiter, of which fact their
Capitol is the open and sufficient attestation, and deem him to be the
king of all gods; when he observed that the Jews worshipped the
supreme God, he could not think of any object under that title other
than Jupiter himself. But whether men call the God of the Hebrews
Saturn, or declare Him to be Jupiter, let them tell us when Saturn
dared to prohibit the worship of a second deity. He did not venture to
interdict the worship even of this very Jupiter, who is said to have
expelled him from his kingdom,--the son thus expelling the father. And
if Jupiter, as the more powerful deity and the conqueror, has been
accepted by his worshippers, then they ought not to worship Saturn,
the conquered and expelled. But neither, on the other hand, did Jove
put his worship under the ban. Nay, that deity whom he had power to
overcome, he nevertheless suffered to continue a god.
Chapter XXIII.--Of the Follies Which the Pagans Have Indulged in
Regarding Jupiter and Saturn.
31. These narratives of yours, say they, are but fables which have to
be interpreted by the wise, or else they are fit only to be laughed
at; but we revere that Jupiter of whom Maro says that
"All things are full of Jove,"
--Virgil's Eclogues, iii. v. 60;
that is to say, the spirit of life [577] that vivifies all things. It
is not without some reason, therefore, that Varro thought that Jove
was worshipped by the Jews; for the God of the Jews says by His
prophet, "I fill heaven and earth." [578] But what is meant by that
which the same poet names Ether? How do they take the term? For he
speaks thus:
"Then the omnipotent father Ether, with fertilizing showers,
Came down into the bosom of his fruitful spouse."
--Virgil's Georgics, ii. 325.
They say, indeed, that this Ether is not spirit, [579] but a lofty
body in which the heaven is stretched above the air. [580] Is liberty
conceded to the poet to speak at one time in the language of the
followers of Plato, as if God was not body, but spirit, and at another
time in the language of the Stoics, as if God was a body? What is it,
then, that they worship in their Capitol? If it is a spirit, or if
again it is, in short, the corporeal heaven itself, then what does
that shield of Jupiter there which they style the Ægis? The origin of
that name, indeed, is explained by the circumstance that a goat [581]
nourished Jupiter when he was concealed by his mother. Or is this a
fiction of the poets? But are the capitols of the Romans, then, also
the mere creations of the poets? And what is the meaning of that,
certainly not poetical, but unmistakeably farcical, variability of
yours, in seeking your gods according to the ideas of philosophers in
books, and revering them according to the notions of poets in your
temples?
32. But was that Euhemerus also a poet, who declares both Jupiter
himself, and his father Saturn, and Pluto and Neptune his brothers, to
have been men, in terms so exceedingly plain that their worshippers
ought all the more to render thanks to the poets, because their
inventions have not been intended so much to disparage them as rather
to dress them up? Albeit Cicero [582] mentions that this same
Euhemerus was translated into Latin by the poet Ennius. [583] Or was
Cicero himself a poet, who, in counselling the person with whom he
debates in his Tusculan Disputations, addresses him as one possessing
knowledge of things secret, in the following terms: "If, indeed, I
were to attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence the
subjects which the writers of Greece have given to the world, it would
be found that even those deities who are reckoned gods of the higher
orders have gone from us into heaven. Ask whose sepulchres are pointed
out in Greece: call to mind, since you have been initiated, the things
which are delivered in the mysteries: then, doubtless, you will
comprehend how widely extended this belief is." [584] This author
certainly makes ample acknowledgment of the doctrine that those gods
of theirs were originally men. He does, indeed, benevolently surmise
that they made their way into heaven. But he did not hesitate to say
in public, that even the honour thus given them in general repute
[585] was conferred upon them by men, when he spoke of Romulus in
these words: "By good will and repute we have raised to the immortal
gods that Romulus who founded this city." [586] How should it be such
a wonderful thing, therefore, to suppose that the more ancient men did
with respect to Jupiter and Saturn and the others what the Romans have
done with respect to Romulus, and what, in good truth, they have
thought of doing even in these more recent times also in the case of
Cæsar? And to these same Virgil has addressed the additional flattery
of song, saying:
"Lo, the star of Cæsar, descendant of Dione, arose."
--Eclogue, ix. ver. 47.
Let them see to it, then, that the truth of history do not turn out to
exhibit to our view sepulchres erected for their false gods here upon
the earth!and let them take heed lest the vanity of poetry, instead of
fixing, may be but feigning [587] stars for their deities there in
heaven. For, in reality, that one is not the star of Jupiter, neither
is this one the star of Saturn; but the simple fact is, that upon
these stars, which were set from the foundation of the world, the
names of those persons were imposed after their death by men who were
minded to honour them as gods on their departure from this life. And
with respect to these we may, indeed, ask how there should be such ill
desert in chastity, or such good desert in voluptuousness, that Venus
should have a star, and Minerva be denied one among those luminaries
which revolve along with the sun and moon?
33. But it may be said that Cicero, the Academic sage, who has been
bold enough to make mention of the sepulchres of their gods, and to
commit the statement to writing, is a more doubtful authority than the
poets; although he did not presume to offer that assertion simply as
his own personal opinion, but put it on record as a statement
contained among the traditions of their own sacred rites. Well, then,
can it also be maintained that Varro either gives expression merely to
an invention of his own, as a poet might do, or puts the matter only
dubiously, as might be the case with an Academician, because he
declares that, in the instance of all such gods, the matters of their
worship had their origin either in the life which they lived, or in
the death which they died, among men? Or was that Egyptian priest,
Leon, [588] either a poet or an Academician, who expounded the origin
of those gods of theirs to Alexander of Macedon, in a way somewhat
different indeed from the opinion advanced by the Greeks, but
nevertheless so far accordant therewith as to make out their deities
to have been originally men?
34. But what is all this to us? [589] Let them assert that they
worship Jupiter, and not a dead man; let them maintain that they have
dedicated their Capitol not to a dead man, but to the Spirit that
vivifies all things and fills the world. And as to that shield of his,
which was made of the skin of a she-goat in honour of his nurse, let
them put upon it whatever interpretation they please. What do they
say, however, about Saturn? [590] What is it that they worship under
the name of Saturn? Is not this the deity that was the first to come
down to us from Olympus (of whom the poet sings):
"Then from Olympus' height came down
Good Saturn, exiled from his crown
By Jove, his mightier heir:
He brought the race to union first
Erewhile, on mountain-tops dispersed,
And gave them statutes to obey,
And willed the land wherein he lay
Should Latium's title bear."
--Virgil's Æneid, viii. 320-324, Conington's trans.
Does not his very image, made as it is with the head covered, present
him as one under concealment? [591] Was it not he that made the
practice of agriculture known to the people of Italy, a fact which is
expressed by the reaping-hook? [592] No, say they; for you may see
whether the being of whom such things are recorded was a man, [593]
and indeed one particular king: we, however, interpret Saturn to be
universal Time, as is signified also by his name in Greek: for he is
called Chronus, [594] which word, with the aspiration thus given it,
is also the vocable for time: whence, too, in Latin he gets the name
of Saturn, as if it meant that he is sated [595] with years. But now,
what we are to make of people like these I know not, who, in their
very effort to put a more favourable meaning upon the names and the
images of their gods, make the confession that the very god who is
their major deity, and the father of the rest, is Time. For what else
do they thus betray but, in fact, that all those gods of theirs are
only temporal, seeing that the very parent of them all is made out to
be Time?
35. Accordingly, their more recent philosophers of the Platonic
school, who have flourished in Christian times, have been ashamed of
such fancies, and have endeavoured to interpret Saturn in another way,
affirming that he received the name Chronos [596] in order to signify,
as it were, the fulness of intellect; their explanation being, that in
Greek fulness [597] is expressed by the term choros, [598] and
intellect or mind by the term nous; [599] which etymology seems to be
favoured also by the Latin name, on the supposition that the first
part of the word (Saturnus) came from the Latin, and the second part
from the Greek: so that he got the title Saturnus as an equivalent to
satur, nous. [600] For they saw how absurd it was to have that Jupiter
regarded as a son of Time, whom they either considered, or wished to
have considered, eternal deity. Furthermore, however, according to
this novel interpretation, which it is marvellous that Cicero and
Varro should have suffered to escape their notice, if their ancient
authorities really had it, they call Jupiter the son of Saturn, thus
denoting him, it may be, as the spirit that proceedeth forth from that
supreme mind--the spirit which they choose to look upon as the soul of
this world, so to speak, filling alike all heavenly and all earthly
bodies. Whence comes also that saying of Maro, which I have cited a
little ago, namely, "All things are full of Jove"? Should they not,
then, if they are possessed of the ability, alter the superstitions
indulged in by men, just as they alter their interpretation; and
either erect no images at all, or at least build capitols to Saturn
rather than to Jupiter? For they also maintain that no rational soul
can be produced gifted with wisdom, except by participation in that
supreme and unchangeable wisdom of his; and this affirmation they
advance not only with respect to the soul of a man, but even with
respect to that same soul of the world which they also designate Jove.
Now we not only concede, but even very particularly proclaim, that
there is a certain supreme wisdom of God, by participation in which
every soul whatsoever that is constituted truly wise acquires its
wisdom. But whether that universal corporeal mass, which is called the
world, has a kind of soul, or, so to speak, its own soul, that is to
say, a rational life by which it can govern its own movements, as is
the case with every sort of animal, is a question both vast and
obscure. That is an opinion which ought not to be affirmed, unless its
truth is clearly ascertained; neither ought it to be rejected, unless
its falsehood is as clearly ascertained. And what will it matter to
man, even should this question remain for ever unsolved, since, in any
case, no soul becomes wise or blessed by drawing from any other soul
but from that one supreme and immutable wisdom of God?
36. The Romans, however, who have founded a Capitol in honour of
Jupiter, but none in honour of Saturn, as also these other nations
whose opinion it has been that Jupiter ought to be worshipped
pre-eminently and above the rest of the gods, have certainly not
agreed in sentiment with the persons referred to; who, in accordance
with that mad view of theirs, would dedicate their loftiest citadels
[601] rather to Saturn, if they had any power in these things, and who
most particularly would annihilate those mathematicians and
nativity-spinners [602] by whom this Saturn, whom their opponents
would designate the maker of the wise, has been placed with the
character of a deity of evil among the other stars. But this opinion,
nevertheless, has prevailed so mightily against them in the mind of
humanity, that men decline even to name that god, and call him Ancient
[603] rather than Saturn; and that in so fearful a spirit of
superstition, that the Carthaginians have now gone very near to change
the designation of their town, and call it the town of the Ancient
[604] more frequently than the town of Saturn. [605]
Footnotes
[577] Or, the breathed air--spiritum.
[578] Jer. xxiii. 24.
[579] Spiritum, breath.
[580] Aërem.
[581] Alluding to the derivation of the word Ægis = aigis, a goatskin,
from the Greek aix = goat.
[582] See the first book of his De Natura Deorum, c. 42. Compare also
Lactantius, De Falsa Religione, i. 11; and Varro, De Re Rustica, i.
48.
[583] The father of Roman literature, born B.C. 239 at Rudiæ in
Calabria, both a poet and a man of learning, and well versed, among
other things, in Oscan, Latin, and Greek--linguistic accomplishments
beyond his day. Of his writings we now possess only fragments,
preserved by Cicero, Macrobius, Aulus Gellius, and others.
[584] Tusculan Disputations, Book i. 13.
[585] Honorem opinionis.
[586] From the Third Oration against Catiline, § 1.
[587] Non figat sed fingat.
[588] On this Leo or Leon, see also Augustin's City of God, viii. 5.
Reference is often made to him by early Christian writers as a thinker
agreeing so far with the principles of Euhemerus (in whose time, or
perhaps somewhat before it, he flourished) as to teach that the gods
of the old heathen world were originally men. He is mentioned by
Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, iv. 29; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, i.
23; Tertullian, De Corona, c. 7; Tatian, etc.
[589] Reading, with Migne, Sed quid ad nos? Dicant se Jovem, etc.
Others give, Sed quid ad nos si decant, etc. = But what is it to us
although they say that they worship, etc. The si, however, is wanting
in the mss.
[590] Reading, with Migne, Quid dicunt de Saturno? Quem, etc. Others
give, Quid dicunt de Saturno qui = What do those say about Saturn who
worship Saturn? The mss. have quem.
[591] Quasi latentem indicat, in reference to the story introduced in
the Virgilian passage, that the country got its name, Latium, from the
disappearance of the god.
[592] The statue of Saturn represented him with a sickle or
pruning-knife in his hand.
[593] Migne's text gives, on the authority of mss., the reading, Nam
videris si fuit ille homo, etc. Others edit, Nam tametsi fuerit ille,
etc. = For although he may have been a man...yet we interpret, etc.
[594] For Kronos.
[595] Saturetur--saturated, abundantly furnished.
[596] Chronos, Kronos.
[597] Or satiety.
[598] Choros.
[599] Nous.
[600] Full, mind.
[601] Reading arces. Some editions give artes = arts.
[602] Genethliacos.
[603] Senex.
[604] Vicus Senis.
[605] Vicus Saturni.
Chapter XXIV.--Of the Fact that Those Persons Who Reject the God of
Israel, in Consequence Fail to Worship All the Gods; And, on the Other
Hand, that Those Who Worship Other Gods, Fail to Worship Him.
37. It is well understood, therefore, what these worshippers of images
are convicted in reality of revering, and what they attempt to colour
over. [606] But even these new interpreters of Saturn must be required
to tell us what they think of the God of the Hebrews. For to them also
it seemed right to worship all the gods, as is done by the heathen
nations, because their pride made them ashamed to humble themselves
under Christ for the remission of their sins. What opinion, therefore,
do they entertain regarding the God of Israel? For if they do not
worship Him then they do not worship all gods; and if they do worship
Him, they do not worship Him in the way that He has ordained for His
own worship, because they worship others also whose worship He has
interdicted. Against such practices He issued His prohibition by the
mouth of those same prophets by whom He also announced beforehand the
destined occurrence of those very things which their images are now
sustaining at the hands of the Christians. For whatever the
explanation may be, whether it be that the angels were sent to those
prophets to show them figuratively, and by the congruous forms of
visible objects, the one true God, the Creator of all things, to whom
the whole universe is made subject, and to indicate the method in
which He enjoined His own worship to proceed; or whether it was that
the minds of some among them were so mightily elevated by the Holy
Spirit, as to enable them to see those things in that kind of vision
in which the angels themselves behold objects: in either case it is
the incontestable fact, that they did serve that God who has
prohibited the worship of other gods; and, moreover, it is equally
certain, that with the faithfulness of piety, in the kingly and in the
priestly office, they ministered at once for the good of their
country, and in the interest of those sacred ordinances which were
significant of the coming of Christ as the true King and Priest.
Footnotes
[606] Reading colorare, as in the mss. Some editions give colere =
revere.
Chapter XXV.--Of the Fact that the False Gods Do Not Forbid Others to
Be Worshipped Along with Themselves. That the God of Israel is the
True God, is Proved by His Works, Both in Prophecy and in Fulfilment.
38. But further, in the case of the gods of the Gentiles (in their
willingness to worship whom they exhibit their unwillingness to
worship that God who cannot be worshipped together with them), let
them tell us the reason why no one is found in the number of their
deities who thinks of interdicting the worship of another; while they
institute them in different offices and functions, and hold them to
preside each one over objects which pertain properly to his own
special province. For if Jupiter does not prohibit the worship of
Saturn, because he is not to be taken merely for a man, who drove
another man, namely his father, out of his kingdom, but either for the
body of the heavens, or for the spirit that fills both heaven and
earth, and because thus he cannot prevent that supernal mind from
being worshipped, from which he is said to have emanated: if, on the
same principle also, Saturn cannot interdict the worship of Jupiter,
because he is not [to be supposed to be merely] one who was conquered
by that other in rebellion,--as was the case with a person of the same
name, by the hand of some one or other called Jupiter, from whose arms
he was fleeing when he came into Italy,--and because the primal mind
favours the mind that springs from it: yet Vulcan at least might [be
expected to] put under the ban the worship of Mars, the paramour of
his wife, and Hercules [might be thought likely to interdict] the
worship of Juno, his persecutor. What kind of foul consent must
subsist among them, if even Diana, the chaste virgin, fails to
interdict the worship, I do not say merely of Venus, but even of
Priapus? For if the same individual decides to be at once a hunter and
a farmer, he must be the servant of both these deities; and yet he
will be ashamed to do even so much as erect temples for them side by
side. But they may aver, that by interpretation Diana means a certain
virtue, be it what they please; and they may tell us that Priapus
really denotes the deity of fecundity, [607] --to such an effect, at
any rate, that Juno may well be ashamed to have such a coadjutor in
the task of making females fruitful. They may say what they please;
they may put any explanation upon these things which in their wisdom
they think fit: only, in spite of all that, the God of Israel will
confound all their argumentations. For in prohibiting all those
deities from being worshipped, while His own worship is hindered by
none of them, and in at once commanding, foretelling, and effecting
destruction for their images and sacred rites, He has shown with
sufficient clearness that they are false and lying deities, and that
He Himself is the one true and truthful God.
39. Moreover, to whom should it not seem strange that those
worshippers, now become few in number, of deities both numerous and
false, should refuse to do homage to Him of whom, when the question is
put to them as to what deity He is; they dare not at least assert,
whatever answer they may think to give, that He is no God at all? For
if they deny His deity, they are very easily refuted by His works,
both in prophecy and in fulfilment. I do not speak of those works
which they deem themselves at liberty not to credit, such as His work
in the beginning, when He made heaven and earth, and all that is in
them. [608] Neither do I specify here those events which carry us back
into the remotest antiquity, such as the translation of Enoch, [609]
the destruction of the impious by the flood, and the saving of
righteous Noah and his house from the deluge, by means of the [ark of]
wood. [610] I begin the statement of His doings among men with
Abraham. To this man, indeed, was given by an angelic oracle an
intelligible promise, which we now see in its realization. For to him
it was said, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed." [611] Of his
seed, then, sprang the people of Israel, whence came the Virgin Mary,
who was the mother of Christ; and that in Him all the nations are
blessed, let them now be bold enough to deny if they can. This same
promise was made also to Isaac the son of Abraham. [612] It was given
again to Jacob the grandson of Abraham. This Jacob was also called
Israel, from whom that whole people derived both its descent and its
name so that indeed the God of this people was called the God of
Israel: not that He is not also the God of the Gentiles, whether they
are ignorant of Him or now know Him; but that in this people He willed
that the power of His promises should be made more conspicuously
apparent. For that people, which at first was multiplied in Egypt, and
after a time was delivered from a state of slavery there by the hand
of Moses, with many signs and portents, saw most of the Gentile
nations subdued under it, and obtained possession also of the land of
promise, in which it reigned in the person of kings of its own, who
sprang from the tribe of Judah. This Judah, also, was one of the
twelve sons of Israel, the grandson of Abraham. And from him were
descended the people called the Jews, who, with the help of God
Himself, did great achievements, and who also, when He chastised them,
endured many sufferings on account of their sins, until the coming of
that Seed to whom the promise was given, in whom all the nations were
to be blessed, and [for whose sake] they were willingly to break in
pieces the idols of their fathers.
Footnotes
[607] Reading fecunditatis. Foeditatis, foulness, also occurs.
[608] Gen. i. 1.
[609] Gen. v. 24.
[610] Gen. vii.
[611] Gen. xxii. 18.
[612] Gen. xxvi. 4.
Chapter XXVI.--Of the Fact that Idolatry Has Been Subverted by the
Name of Christ, and by the Faith of Christians According to the
Prophecies.
40. For truly what is thus effected by Christians is not a thing which
belongs only to Christian times, but one which was predicted very long
ago. Those very Jews who have remained enemies to the name of Christ,
and regarding whose destined perfidy these prophetic writings have not
been silent, do themselves possess and peruse the prophet who says: "O
Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of evil, the Gentiles shall come
unto Thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our
fathers have worshipped mendacious idols, and there is no profit in
them." [613] Behold, that is now being done; behold, now the Gentiles
are coming from the ends of the earth to Christ, uttering things like
these, and breaking their idols! Of signal consequence, too, is this
which God has done for His Church in its world-wide extension, in that
the Jewish nation, which has been deservedly overthrown and scattered
abroad throughout the lands, has been made to carry about with it
everywhere the records of our prophecies, so that it might not be
possible to look upon these predictions as concocted by ourselves; and
thus the enemy of our faith has been made a witness to our truth. How,
then, can it be possible that the disciples of Christ have taught what
they have not learned from Christ, as those foolish men in their silly
fancies object, with the view of getting the superstitious worship of
heathen gods and idols subverted? Can it be said also that those
prophecies which are still read in these days, in the books of the
enemies of Christ, were the inventions of the disciples of Christ?
41. Who, then, has effected the demolition of these systems but the
God of Israel? For to this people was the announcement made by those
divine voices which were addressed to Moses: "Hear, O Israel; the Lord
thy God is one God." [614] "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is
in the earth beneath." [615] And again, in order that this people
might put an end to these things wherever it received power to do so,
this commandment was also laid upon the nation: "Thou shalt not bow
down to their gods, nor serve them; thou shalt not do after their
works, but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down
their images." [616] But who shall say that Christ and Christians have
no connection with Israel, seeing that Israel was the grandson of
Abraham, to whom first, as afterwards to his son Isaac, and then to
his grandson Israel himself, that promise was given, which I have
already mentioned, namely: "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed"?
That prediction we see now in its fulfilment in Christ. For it was of
this line that the Virgin was born, concerning whom a prophet of the
people of Israel and of the God of Israel sang in these terms:
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son; and they shall call
[617] His name Emmanuel." For by interpretation, Emmanuel means, "God
with us." [618] This God of Israel, therefore, who has interdicted the
worship of other gods, who has interdicted the making of idols, who
has commanded their destruction, who by His prophet has predicted that
the Gentiles from the ends of the earth would say, "Surely our fathers
have worshipped mendacious idols, in which there is no profit;" this
same God is He who, by the name of Christ and by the faith of
Christians, has ordered, promised, and exhibited the overthrow of all
these superstitions. In vain, therefore, do these unhappy men, knowing
that they have been prohibited from blaspheming the name of Christ,
even by their own gods, that is to say, by the demons who fear the
name of Christ, seek to make it out, that this kind of doctrine is
something strange to Him, in the power of which the Christians dispute
against idols, and root out all those false religions, wherever they
have the opportunity.
Footnotes
[613] Jer. xvi. 19.
[614] Deut. vi. 4. [See Revised Version, text and margin, for the
variations in the rendering of the Hebrew. Comp. Mark xii. 29 for
similar variations in the passage as cited in the New Testament.--R.]
[615] Exod. xx. 4.
[616] Exod. xxiii. 24. [Simulacra eorum. The Revised Version renders
"their pillars," with "obelisks" in the margin.--R.]
[617] Vocabunt.
[618] Isa. vii. 14; Matt. i. 23.
Chapter XXVII.--An Argument Urging It Upon the Remnant of Idolaters
that They Should at Length Become Servants of This True God, Who
Everywhere is Subverting Idols.
42. Let them now give their answer with respect to the God of Israel,
to whom, as teaching and enjoining such things, witness is borne not
only by the books of the Christians, but also by those of the Jews.
Regarding Him, let them ask the counsel of their own deities, who have
prevented the blaspheming of Christ. Concerning the God of Israel, let
them give a contumelious response if they dare. But whom are they to
consult? or where are they to ask counsel now? Let them peruse the
books of their own authorities. If they consider the God of Israel to
be Jupiter, as Varro has written (that I may speak for the time being
in accordance with their own way of thinking), why then do they not
believe that the idols are to be destroyed by Jupiter? If they deem
Him to be Saturn, [619] why do they not worship Him? Or why do they
not worship Him in that manner in which, by the voice of those
prophets through whom He has made good the things which He has
foretold, He has ordained His worship to be conducted? Why do they not
believe that images are to be destroyed by Him, and the worship of
other gods forbidden? If He is neither Jove nor Saturn (and surely, if
He were one of these, He would not speak out so mightily against the
sacred rites of their Jove and Saturn), who then is this God, who,
with all their consideration for other gods, is the only Deity not
worshipped by them, and who, nevertheless, so manifestly brings it
about that He shall Himself be the sole object of worship, to the
overthrow of all other gods, and to the humiliation of everything
proud and highly exalted, which has lifted itself up against Christ in
behalf of idols, persecuting and slaying Christians? But, in good
truth, men are now asking into what secret recesses these worshippers
withdraw, when they are minded to offer sacrifice; or into what
regions of obscurity they thrust back these same gods of theirs, to
prevent their being discovered and broken in pieces by the Christians.
Whence comes this mode of dealing, if not from the fear of those laws
and those rulers by whose instrumentality the God of Israel discovers
His power, and who are now made subject to the name of Christ. And
that it should be so He promised long ago, when He said by the
prophet: "Yea, all kings of the earth shall worship Him: all nations
shall serve Him." [620]
Footnotes
[619] Reading Si Saturnum putant. Others read, Si Saturnum Deum putant
= if they deem Saturn to be God, etc.
[620] Ps. lxxii. 11.
Chapter XXVIII.--Of the Predicted Rejection of Idols.
43. It cannot be questioned that what was predicted at sundry times by
His prophets is now being realized,--namely, the announcement that He
would disclaim His impious people (not, indeed, the people as a whole,
because even of the Israelites many have believed in Christ; for His
apostles themselves belonged to that nation), and would humble every
proud and injurious person, so that He should Himself alone be
exalted, that is to say, alone be manifested to men as lofty and
mighty; until idols should be cast away by those who believe, and be
concealed by those who believe not; when the earth is broken by His
fear, that is to say, when the men of earth are subdued by fear, to
wit, by fearing His law, or the law of those who, being at once
believers in His name and rulers among the nations, shall interdict
such sacrilegious practices.
44. For these things, which I have thus briefly stated in the way of
introduction, and with a view to their readier apprehension, are thus
expressed by the prophet: And now, O house of Jacob, come ye, and let
us walk in the light of the Lord. For He has disclaimed His people the
house of Israel, because the country was replenished, as from the
beginning, with their soothsayings as with those of strangers, and
many strange children were born to them. For their country was
replenished with silver and gold, neither was there any numbering of
their treasures; their land also is full of horses, neither was there
any numbering of their chariots: their land also is full of the
abominations of the works of their own hands, and they have worshipped
that which their own fingers have made. And the mean man [621] has
bowed himself, and the great man [622] has humbled himself; and I will
not forgive it them. And now enter ye into the rocks, and hide
yourselves in the earth from before the fear of the Lord, and from the
majesty of His power, when He arises to crush the earth: for the eyes
of the Lord are lofty, and man is low; and the haughtiness of men
shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For
the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is injurious
and proud, and upon every one that is lifted up and humbled, [623] and
they shall be brought low; and upon every cedar of Lebanon of the high
ones and the lifted up, [624] and upon every tree of the Lebanon of
Bashan, [625] and upon every mountain, and upon every high hill, [626]
and upon every ship of the sea, and upon every spectacle of the beauty
of ships. And the contumely of men shall be humbled and shall fall,
and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day; [627] and all things
made by hands they shall hide in dens, and in holes of the rocks, and
in caves of the earth, from before the fear of the Lord, and from the
majesty of His power, when He arises to crush the earth: for in that
day a man shall cast away the abominations of gold and silver, the
vain and evil things which they made for worship, in order to go into
the clefts of the solid rock, and into the holes of the rocks, from
before the fear of the Lord, and from the majesty of His power, when
He arises to break the earth in pieces. [628]
Footnotes
[621] Homo.
[622] Vir.
[623] The text gives humiliatum; but elatum seems to be required,
corresponding with the LXX meteoron.
[624] Reading cedrum Libani excelsorum et elatorum, which is given by
the mss., and is accordant with the LXX. hupselon kai meteoron. Some
editions give cedrum Libani excelsam et elatam = Every high and
elevated cedar of Lebanon.
[625] The LXX. here has kai epi pan dendron balanou Basan = And upon
every tree of the acorn of Bashan. For the balanou Augustin adopts
Libani, as if he read in the Greek Libanou.
[626] The fifteenth verse of our version is wholly omitted.
[627] [Ver. 18, though very relevant, is omitted: "And the idols shalt
utterly pass away."--R.]
[628] Isa. ii. 5-21. [The variations from the Hebrew are quite
numerous; compare the English versions.-- R.]
Chapter XXIX.--Of the Question Why the Heathen Should Refuse to
Worship the God of Israel; Even Although They Deem Him to Be Only the
Presiding Divinity of the Elements?
45. What do they say of this God of Sabaoth, which term, by
interpretation, means the God of powers or of armies, inasmuch as the
powers and the armies of the angels serve Him? What do they say of
this God of Israel; for He is the God of that people from whom came
the seed wherein all the nations were to be blessed? Why is He the
only deity excluded from worship by those very persons who contend
that all the gods ought to be worshipped? Why do they refuse their
belief to Him who both proves other gods to be false gods, and also
overthrows them? I have heard one of them declare that he had read, in
some philosopher or other, the statement that, from what the Jews did
in their sacred observances, he had come to know what God they
worshipped. "He is the deity," said he, "that presides over those
elements of which this visible and material universe is constructed;"
when in the Holy Scriptures of His prophets it is plainly shown that
the people of Israel were commanded to worship that God who made
heaven and earth, and from whom comes all true wisdom. But what need
is there for further disputation on this subject, seeing that it is
quite sufficient for my present purpose to point out how they
entertain any kind of presumptuous opinions regarding that God whom
yet they cannot deny to be a God? If, indeed, He is the deity that
presides over the elements of which this world consists, why is He not
worshipped in preference to Neptune, who presides over the sea only?
Why not, again, in preference to Silvanus, who presides over the
fields and woods only? Why not in preference to the Sun, who presides
over the day only, or who also rules over the entire heat of heaven?
Why not in preference to the Moon, who presides over the night only,
or who also shines pre-eminent for power over moisture? Why not in
preference to Juno, who is supposed to hold possession of the air
only? For certainly those deities, whoever they may be, who preside
over the parts, must necessarily be under that Deity who wields the
presidency over all the elements, and over the entire universe. But
this Deity prohibits the worship of all those deities. Why, then, is
it that these men, in opposition to the injunction of One greater than
those deities, not only choose to worship them, but also decline, for
their sakes, to worship Him? Not yet have they discovered any constant
and intelligible judgment to pronounce on this God of Israel; neither
will they ever discover any such judgment, until they find out that He
alone is the true God, by whom all things were created.
Chapter XXX.--Of the Fact That, as the Prophecies Have Been Fulfilled,
the God of Israel Has Now Been Made Known Everywhere.
46. Thus it was with a certain person named Lucan, one of their great
declaimers in verse. For a long time, as I believe, he endeavored to
find out, by his own cogitations, or by the perusal of the books of
his own fellow-countrymen, [629] who the God of the Jews was; and
failing to prosecute his inquiry in the way of piety, he did not
succeed. Yet he chose rather to speak of Him as the uncertain God whom
he did not find out, than absolutely to deny the title of God to that
Deity of whose existence he perceived proofs so great. For he says:
"And Judæa, devoted to the worship
Of an uncertain God." [630]
--Lucan, Book ii. towards the end.
And as yet this God, the holy and true God of Israel, had not done by
the name of Christ among all nations works so great as those which
have been wrought after Lucan's times up to our own day. But now who
is so obdurate as not to be moved, who so dull [631] as not to be
inflamed, seeing that the saying of Scripture is fulfilled, "For there
is not one that is hid from the heat thereof;" [632] and seeing also
that those other things which were predicted so long time ago in this
same Psalm from which I have cited one little verse, are now set forth
in their accomplishment in the clearest light? For under this term of
the "heavens" the apostles of Jesus Christ were denoted, because God
was to preside in them with a view to the publishing of the gospel.
Now, therefore, the heavens have declared the glory of God, and the
firmament has proclaimed the works of His hands. Day unto day has
given forth speech, and night unto night has shown knowledge. Now
there is no speech or language where their voices are not heard. Their
sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. Now hath He set His tabernacle in the sun, that is, in
manifestation; which tabernacle is His Church. For in order to do so
(as the words proceed in the passage) He came forth from His chamber
like a bridegroom; that is to say, the Word, wedded with the flesh of
man, came forth from the Virgin's womb. Now has He rejoiced as a
strong man, and has run His race. Now has His going forth been made
from the height of heaven, and His return even to the height of
heaven. [633] And accordingly, with the completest propriety, there
follows upon this the verse which I have already mentioned: "And there
is not one that is hid from the heat thereof [or, His heat]." And
still these men make choice of their little, weak, prating objections,
which are like stubble to be reduced to ashes in that fire, rather
than like gold to be purged of its dross by it; while at once the
fallacious monuments of their false gods have been brought to nought,
and the veracious promises of that uncertain God have been proved to
be sure.
Footnotes
[629] Per suorum libros.
[630] [...Et dedita sacris Incerti Judæa Dei.--R.]
[631] Reading torpidus; for which others give tepidus, cool.
[632] Ps. xix. 6.
[633] [Ps. xix. 1-6, partly in citation, partly in allegorizing
paraphrase.--R.]
Chapter XXXI.--The Fulfilment of the Prophecies Concerning Christ.
47. Wherefore let those evil applauders of Christ, who refuse to
become Christians, desist from making the allegation that Christ did
not teach that their gods were to be abandoned, and their images
broken in pieces. For the God of Israel, regarding whom it was
declared aforetime that He should be called the God of the whole
earth, is now indeed actually called the God of the whole earth. By
the mouth of His prophets He predicted that this would come to pass,
and by Christ He did bring it eventually to pass at the fit time.
Assuredly, if the God of Israel is now named the God of the whole
earth, what He has commanded must needs be made good; for He who has
given the commandment is now well known. But, further, that He is made
known by Christ and in Christ, in order that His Church may be
extended throughout the world, and that by its instrumentality the God
of Israel may be named the God of the whole earth, those who please
may read a little earlier in the same prophet. That paragraph may also
be cited by me. It is not so long as to make it requisite for us to
pass it by. Here there is much said about the presence, the humility,
and the passion of Christ, and about the body of which He is the Head,
that is, His Church, where it is called barren, like one that did not
bear. For during many years the Church, which was destined to subsist
among all the nations with its children, that is, with its saints, was
not apparent, as Christ remained yet unannounced by the evangelists to
those to whom He had not been declared by the prophets. Again, it is
said that there shall be more children for her who is forsaken than
for her who has a husband, under which name of a husband the Law was
signified, or the King whom the people of Israel first received. For
neither had the Gentiles received the Law at the period at which the
prophet spake; nor had the King of Christians yet appeared to the
nations, although from these Gentile nations a much more fruitful and
numerous multitude of saints has now proceeded. It is in this manner,
therefore, that Isaiah speaks, commencing with the humility [634] of
Christ, and turning afterwards to an address to the Church, on to that
verse which we have already instanced, where he says: And He who
brought thee out, the same God of Israel, shall be called the God of
the whole earth. [635] Behold, says he, my Servant shall deal
prudently, and shall be exalted and honoured exceedingly. As many
shall be astonied at Thee; so shall Thy marred visage, nevertheless,
be seen by all, and Thine honour by men. For so shall many nations be
astonied at Him, and the kings shall shut their mouths. For they shall
see to whom it has not been told of Him; and those who have not heard
shall understand. O Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is
the arm of the Lord revealed? We have proclaimed before Him as a
servant, [636] as a root in a thirsty soil; He hath no form nor
comeliness. And we have seen Him, and He had neither beauty nor
seemliness; but His countenance is despised, and His state rejected by
all men: a man stricken, and acquainted with the bearing of
infirmities; on account of which His face is turned aside, injured,
and little esteemed. He bears our infirmities, and is in sorrows for
us. And we did esteem Him to be in sorrows, and to be stricken and in
punishment. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and He was
enfeebled for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray, and the Lord hath given Him up for our sins. And whereas He
was evil entreated, He opened not His mouth; He was brought as a sheep
to the slaughter; and as a lamb before him who shears it is dumb, so
He opened not His mouth. In humility was His judgment taken. Who shall
declare His generation? For His life shall be cut off out of the land;
by the iniquities of my people is He led to death. Therefore shall I
give the wicked for His sepulture, and the rich on account of His
death; because He did no iniquity, neither was any deceit in His
mouth. The Lord is pleased to clear Him in regard to His stroke. [637]
If ye shall give your soul for your offences, ye shall see the seed of
the longest life. And the Lord is pleased to take away His soul from
sorrows, to show Him the light, and to set Him forth in sight, [638]
and to justify the righteous One who serves many well; and He shall
bear their sins. Therefore shall He have many for His inheritance, and
shall divide the spoils of the strong; for which reason His soul was
delivered over to death, and He was numbered with the transgressors,
and He bare the sins of many, and was delivered for their iniquities.
Rejoice, O barren, thou that dost not bear: exult, and cry aloud, thou
that dost not travail with child; for more are the children of the
desolate than those of her who has a husband. For the Lord hath said,
Enlarge the place of thy tent, and fix thy courts; [639] there is no
reason why thou shouldst spare: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen Thy
stakes firmly. Yea, again and again break thou forth on the right hand
and on the left. For thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and thou
shall inhabit the cities which were desolate. There is nothing for
thee to fear. For thou shall prevail, and be not thou confounded as if
thou shall be put to shame. For thou shall forget thy confusion for
ever: thou shall not remember the shame of thy widowhood, since I who
made thee am the Lord; the Lord is His name: and He who brought thee
out, the very God of Israel, shall be called the God of the whole
earth. [640]
48. What can be said in opposition to this evidence, and this
expression of things both foretold and fulfilled? If they suppose that
His disciples have given a false testimony on the subject of the
divinity of Christ, will they also doubt the passion of Christ? No:
they are not accustomed to believe that He rose from the dead; but, at
the same time, they are quite ready to believe that He suffered all
that men are wont to suffer, because they wish Him to be held to be a
man and nothing more. According to this, then, He was led like a sheep
to the slaughter; He was numbered with the transgressors; He was
wounded for our sins; by His stripes were we healed; His face was
marred, and little esteemed, and smitten with the palms, and defiled
with the spittle; His position was disfigured on the cross; He was led
to death by the iniquities of the people Israel; He is the man who had
no form nor comeliness when He was buffeted with the fists, when He
was crowned with the thorns, when He was derided as He hung (upon the
tree); He is the man who, as the lamb is dumb before its shearer,
opened not His mouth, when it was said to Him by those who mocked Him,
"Prophesy to us, thou Christ." [641] Now, however, He is exalted
verily, now He is honoured exceedingly; truly many nations are now
astonied at Him. [642] Now the kings have shut their mouth, by which
they were wont to promulgate the most ruthless laws against the
Christians. Truly those now see to whom it was not told of Him, and
those who have not heard understand. [643] For those Gentile nations
to whom the prophets made no announcement, do now rather see for
themselves how true these things are which were of old reported by the
prophets; [644] and those who have not heard Isaiah speak in his own
proper person, now understand from his writings the things which he
spoke concerning Him. For even in the said nation of the Jews, who
believed the report of the prophets, or to whom was that arm of the
Lord revealed, which is this very Christ who was announced by them,
[645] seeing that by their own hands they perpetrated those crimes
against Christ, the commission of which had been predicted by the
prophets whom they possessed? But now, indeed, He possesses many by
inheritance; and He divides the spoils of the strong, since the devil
and the demons have now been cast out and given up, and the
possessions once held by them have been distributed by Him among the
fabrics of His churches and for other necessary services.
Footnotes
[634] Reading humilitate; some editions give humanitate, the humanity.
[635] Isa. liv 5.
[636] Puer.
[637] Purgare deus illum de plaga.
[638] Figurare per sensum = set forth in sensible figure.
[639] Reading aulas tuas confige; others give caulas = thy folds.
[640] Isa. lii. 13-liv. 5. [The variations from the Hebrew, especially
in some of the more obscure passages, are worthy of notice. Compare
the Revised Version, text and margin, in loco.--R.]
[641] Matt. xxvi., xxvii.; Mark xiv., xv.; Luke xxii., xxiii.; John
xviii., xix.
[642] [Isa. lii. 15 (in the Revised Version): "So shall He sprinkle
many nations," with margin, "Or, startle."--R.]
[643] Rom. xv. 16, 21.
[644] Magis ipsæ vident quam vera nuntiata sint per prophetas.
[645] John xii. 37, 38; Rom. x. 16.
Chapter XXXII.--A Statement in Vindication of the Doctrine of the
Apostles as Opposed to Idolatry, in the Words of the Prophecies.
49. What, then, do these men, who are at once the perverse applauders
of Christ and the slanderers of Christians, say to these facts? Can it
be that Christ, by the use of magical arts, caused those predictions
to be uttered so long ago by the prophets? or have His disciples
invented them? Is it thus that the Church, in her extension among the
Gentile nations, though once barren, has been made to rejoice now in
the possession of more children than that synagogue had which, in its
Law or its King, had received, as it were, a husband? or is it thus
that this Church has been led to enlarge the place of her tent, and to
occupy all nations and tongues, so that now she lengthens her cords
beyond the limits to which the rights of the empire of Rome extend,
yea, even on to the territories of the Persians and the Indians and
other barbarous nations? or that, on the right hand by means of true
Christians, and on the left hand by means of pretended Christians, His
name is being made known among such a multitude of peoples? or that
His seed is made to inherit the Gentiles, so as now to inhabit cities
which had been left desolate of the true worship of God and the true
religion? or that His Church has been so little daunted by the threats
and furies of men, even at times when she has been covered with the
blood of martyrs, like one clad in purple array, that she has
prevailed over persecutors at once so numerous, so violent, and so
powerful? or that she has not been confounded, like one put to shame,
when it was a great crime to be or to become a Christian? or that she
is made to forget her confusion for ever, because, where sin had
abounded, grace did much more abound? [646] or that she is taught not
to remember the shame of her widowhood, because only for a little was
she forsaken and subjected to opprobrium, while now she shines forth
once more with such eminent glory? or, in fine, is it only a fiction
concocted by Christ's disciples, that the Lord who made her, and
brought her forth from the denomination of the devil and the demons,
the very God of Israel is now called the God of the whole earth; all
which, nevertheless, the prophets, whose books are now in the hands of
the enemies of Christ, foretold so long before Christ became the Son
of man?
50. From this, therefore, let them understand that the matter is not
left obscure or doubtful even to the slowest and dullest minds: from
this, I say, let these perverse applauders of Christ and execrators of
the Christian religion understand that the disciples of Christ have
learned and taught, in opposition to their gods, precisely what the
doctrine of Christ contains. For the God of Israel is found to have
enjoined in the books of the prophets that all these objects which
those men are minded to worship should be held in abomination and be
destroyed, while He Himself is now named the God of the whole earth,
through the instrumentality of Christ and the Church of Christ,
exactly as He promised so long time ago. For if, indeed, in their
marvellous folly, they fancy that Christ worshipped their gods, and
that it was only through them that He had power to do things so great
as these, we may well ask whether the God of Israel also worshipped
their gods, who has now fulfilled by Christ what He promised with
respect to the extension of His own worship through all the nations,
and with respect to the detestation and subversion of those other
deities? [647] Where are their gods? Where are the vaticinations of
their fanatics, and the divinations of their prophets? [648] Where are
the auguries, or the auspices, or the soothsayings, [649] or the
oracles of demons? Why is it that, out of the ancient books which
constitute the records of this type of religion, nothing in the form
either of admonition or of prediction is advanced to oppose the
Christian faith, or to controvert the truth of those prophets of ours,
who have now come to be so well understood among all nations? "We have
offended our gods," they say in reply, "and they have deserted us for
that reason: that explains it also why the Christians have prevailed
against us, and why the bliss of human life, exhausted [650] and
impaired, goes to wreck among us." We challenge them, however, to take
the books of their own seers, and read out to us any statement
purporting that the kind of issue which has come upon them would be
brought on them by the Christians: nay, we challenge them to recite
any passages in which, if not Christ (for they wish to make Him out to
have been a worshipper of their own gods), at least this God of
Israel, who is allowed to be the subverter of other deities, is held
up as a deity destined to be rejected and worthy of detestation. But
never will they produce any such passage, unless, perchance, it be
some fabrication of their own. And if ever they do cite any such
statement, the fact that it is but a fiction of their own will betray
itself in the unnoticeable manner in which a matter of so grave
importance is found adduced; whereas, in good truth, before what has
been predicted should have come to pass, it behoved to have been
proclaimed in the temples of the gods of all nations, with a view to
the timeous preparation and warning of all who are now minded [651] to
be Christians.
Footnotes
[646] Rom. v. 20.
[647] Deut. vii. 5.
[648] Pythonum.
[649] Aruspicia.
[650] Reading defessa; others give depressa, crushed.
[651] Others read nolunt, who refuse.
Chapter XXXIII.--A Statement in Opposition to Those Who Make the
Complaint that the Bliss of Human Life Has Been Impaired by the
Entrance of Christian Times.
51. Finally, as to the complaint which they make with respect to the
impairing of the bliss of human life by the entrance of Christian
times, if they only peruse the books of their own philosophers, who
reprehend those very things which are now being taken out of their way
in spite of all their unwillingness and murmuring, they will indeed
find that great praise is due to the times of Christ. For what
diminution is made in their happiness, unless it be in what they most
basely and luxuriously abused, to the great injury of their Creator?
or unless, perchance, it be the case that evil times originate in such
circumstances as these, in which throughout almost all states the
theatres are failing, and with them, too, the dens of vice and the
public profession of iniquity: yea, altogether the forums and cities
in which the demons used to be worshipped are falling. How comes it,
then, that they are falling, unless it be in consequence of the
failure of those very things, in the lustful and sacrilegious use of
which they were constructed? Did not their own Cicero, when commending
a certain actor of the name of Roscius, call him a man so clever as to
be the only one worthy enough to make it due for him to come upon the
stage; and yet, again, so good a man as to be the only one so worthy
as to make it due for him not to approach it? [652] What else did he
disclose with such remarkable clearness by this saying, but the fact
that the stage was so base there, that a person was under the greater
obligation not to connect himself with it, in proportion as he was a
better man than most? And yet their gods were pleased with such things
of shame as he deemed fit only to be removed to a distance from good
men. But we have also an open confession of the same Cicero, where he
says that he had to appease Flora, the mother of sports, by frequent
celebration; [653] in which sports such an excess of vice is wont to
be exhibited, that, in comparison with them, others are respectable,
from engaging in which, nevertheless, good men are prohibited. Who is
this mother Flora, and what manner of goddess is she, who is thus
conciliated and propitiated by a practice of vice indulged in with
more than usual frequency and with looser reins? How much more
honourable now was it for a Roscius to step upon the stage, than for a
Cicero to worship a goddess of this kind! If the gods of the Gentile
nations are offended because the supplies are lessened which are
instituted for the purpose of such celebrations, it is apparent of
what character those must be who are delighted with such things. But
if, on the other hand, the gods themselves in their wrath diminish
these supplies, their anger yields us better services than their
placability. Wherefore let these men either confute their own
philosophers, who have reprehended the same practices on the side of
wanton men; or else let them break in pieces those gods of theirs who
have made such demands upon their worshippers, if indeed they still
find any such deities either to break in pieces or to conceal. But let
them cease from their blasphemous habit of charging Christian times
with the failure of their true prosperity,--a prosperity, indeed, so
used by them that they were sinking into all that is base and
hurtful,--lest thereby they be only putting us all the more
emphatically in mind of reasons for the ampler praise of the power of
Christ.
Footnotes
[652] See Cicero's Oration in behalf of Roscius.
[653] See Cicero, Against Verres, 5.
Chapter XXXIV.--Epilogue to the Preceding.
52. Much more might I say on this subject, were it not that the
requirements of the task which I have undertaken compel me to conclude
this book, and revert to the object originally proposed. When, indeed,
I took it in hand to solve those problems of the Gospels which meet us
where the four evangelists, as it seems to certain critics, fail to
harmonize with each other, by setting forth to the best of my ability
the particular designs which they severally have in view, I was met
first by the necessity of discussing a question which some are
accustomed to bring before us,--the question, namely, as to the reason
why we cannot produce any writings composed by Christ Himself. For
their aim is to get Him credited with the writing of some other
composition, I know not of what sort, which may be suitable to their
inclinations, and with having indulged in no sentiments of antagonism
to their gods, but rather with having paid respect to them in a kind
of magical worship; and their wish is also to get it believed that His
disciples not only gave a false account of Him when they declared Him
to be the God by whom all things were made, while He was really
nothing more than a man, although certainly a man of the most exalted
wisdom, but also that they taught with regard to these gods of theirs
something different from what they had themselves learned from Him.
This is how it happens that we have been engaged preferentially in
pressing them with arguments concerning the God of Israel, who is now
worshipped by all nations through the medium of the Church of the
Christians, who is also subverting their sacrilegious vanities the
whole world over, exactly as He announced by the mouth of the prophets
so long ago, and who has now fulfilled those predictions by the name
of Christ, in whom He had promised that all nations should be blessed.
And from all this they ought to understand that Christ could neither
have known nor taught anything else with regard to their gods than
what was enjoined and foretold by the God of Israel through the agency
of these prophets of His by whom He promised, and ultimately sent,
this very Christ, in whose name, according to the promise given to the
fathers, when all nations were pronounced blessed, it has come to pass
that this same God of Israel should be called the God of the whole
earth. By this, too, they ought to see that His disciples did not
depart from the doctrine of their Master when they forbade the worship
of the gods of the Gentiles, with the view of preventing us from
addressing our supplications to insensate images, or from having
fellowship with demons, or from serving the creature rather than the
Creator with the homage of religious worship.
Chapter XXXV.--Of the Fact that the Mystery of a Mediator Was Made
Known to Those Who Lived in Ancient Times by the Agency of Prophecy,
as It is Now Declared to Us in the Gospel.
53. Wherefore, seeing that Christ Himself is that Wisdom of God by
whom all things were created, and considering that no rational
intelligences, whether of angels or of men, receive wisdom except by
participation in this Wisdom wherewith we are united by that Holy
Spirit through whom charity is shed abroad in our hearts [654] (which
Trinity at the same time constitutes one God), Divine Providence,
having respect to the interests of mortal men whose time-bound life
was held engaged in things which rise into being and die, [655]
decreed that this same Wisdom of God, assuming into the unity of His
person the (nature of) man, in which He might be born according to the
conditions of time, and live and die and rise again, should utter and
perform and bear and sustain things congruous to our salvation; and
thus, in exemplary fashion, show at once to men on earth the way for a
return to heaven, and to those angels who are above us, the way to
retain their position in heaven. [656] For unless, also, in the nature
of the reasonable soul, and under the conditions of an existence in
time, something came newly into being,--that is to say, unless that
began to be which previously was not,--there could never be any
passing from a life of utter corruption and folly into one of wisdom
and true goodness. And thus, as truth in the contemplative lives in
the enjoyment of things eternal, while faith in the believing is what
is due to things which are made, man is purified through that faith
which is conversant with temporal things, in order to his being made
capable of receiving the truth of things eternal. For one of their
noblest intellects, the philosopher Plato, in the treatise which is
named the Timæus, speaks also to this effect: "As eternity is to that
which is made, so truth to faith." Those two belong to the things
above,--namely, eternity and truth; these two belong to the things
below,--namely, that which is made and faith. In order, therefore,
that we may be called off from the lowest objects, and led up again to
the highest, and in order also that what is made may attain to the
eternal, we must come through faith to truth. And because all
contraries are reduced to unity by some middle factor, and because
also the iniquity of time alienated us from the righteousness of
eternity, there was need of some mediatorial righteousness of a
temporal nature; which mediatizing factor might be temporal on the
side of those lowest objects, but also righteous on the side of these
highest, [657] and thus, by adapting itself to the former without
cutting itself off from the latter, might bring back those lowest
objects to the highest. Accordingly, Christ was named the Mediator
between God and men, who stood between the immortal God and mortal
man, as being Himself both God and man, [658] who reconciled man to
God, who continued to be what He (formerly) was, but was made also
what He (formerly) was not. And the same Person is for us at once the
(centre of the) said faith in things that are made, and the truth in
things eternal.
54. This great and unutterable mystery, this kingdom and priesthood,
was revealed by prophecy to the men of ancient time, and is now
preached by the gospel to their descendants. For it behoved that, at
some period or other, that should be made good among all nations which
for a long time had been promised through the medium of a single
nation. Accordingly, He who sent the prophets before His own descent
also despatched the apostles after His ascension. Moreover, in virtue
of the man [659] assumed by Him, He stands to all His disciples in the
relation of the head to the members of His body. Therefore, when those
disciples have written matters which He declared and spake to them, it
ought not by any means to be said that He has written nothing Himself;
since the truth is, that His members have accomplished only what they
became acquainted with by the repeated statements of the Head. For all
that He was minded to give for our perusal on the subject of His own
doings and sayings, He commanded to be written by those disciples,
whom He thus used as if they were His own hands. Whoever apprehends
this correspondence of unity and this concordant service of the
members, all in harmony in the discharge of diverse offices under the
Head, will receive the account which he gets in the Gospel through the
narratives constructed by the disciples, in the same kind of spirit in
which he might look upon the actual hand of the Lord Himself, which He
bore in that body which was made His own, were he to see it engaged in
the act of writing. For this reason let us now rather proceed to
examine into the real character of those passages in which these
critics suppose the evangelists to have given contradictory accounts
(a thing which only those who fail to understand the matter aright can
fancy to be the case); so that, when these problems are solved, it may
also be made apparent that the members in that body have preserved a
befitting harmony in the unity of the body itself, not only by
identity in sentiment, but also by constructing records consonant with
that identity.
Footnotes
[654] Rom. v. 5.
[655] In rebus orientibus et occidentibus occupata tenebatur.
[656] Fieret et deorsum hominibus exemplum redeundi et eis qui sursum
sunt angelis exemplum manendi.
[657] Reading quæ medietas temporalis esset de imis, justa de summis.
Another version gives quæ medietas temporalis esset de imis mixta et
summis = which temporal mediatizing factor might be made up of the
lowest and the highest objects together, or = which might be a
temporal mediatizing factor made up, etc.
[658] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[659] Hominem.
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