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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 11

Argument—Here begins the second part445of this work, which treats of the origin, history, and
destinies of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly. In the first place, Augustin shows in this
book how the two cities were formed originally, by the separation of the good and bad angels; and
takes occasion to treat of the creation of the world, as it is described in Holy Scripture in the
beginning of the book of Genesis.
Chapter 1.—Of This Part of the Work, Wherein We Begin to Explain the Origin and End of the
Two Cities.
The city of God we speak of is the same to which testimony is borne by that Scripture, which
excels all the writings of all nations by its divine authority, and has brought under its influence all
kinds of minds, and this not by a casual intellectual movement, but obviously by an express
providential arrangement. For there it is written, “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of
God.”446 And in another psalm we read, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of
our God, in the mountain of His holiness, increasing the joy of the whole earth.”447 And, a little
after, in the same psalm, “As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in
the city of our God. God has established it for ever.” And in another, “There is a river the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.”448 From these and similar testimonies, all of
which it were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired
us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship. To this Founder of the holy city the citizens
of the earthly city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God of gods, not of false, i.e.,
of impious and proud gods, who, being deprived of His unchangeable and freely communicated
light, and so reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power, eagerly grasp at their own private
privileges, and seek divine honors from their deluded subjects; but of the pious and holy gods, who
445 Written in the year 416 or 417.
446 Ps. lxxxvii. 3.
447 Ps. xlviii. 1.
448 Ps. xlvi. 4.
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are better pleased to submit themselves to one, than to subject many to themselves, and who would
rather worship God than be worshipped as God. But to the enemies of this city we have replied in
the ten preceding books, according to our ability and the help afforded by our Lord and King. Now,
recognizing what is expected of me, and not unmindful of my promise, and relying, too, on the
same succor, I will endeavor to treat of the origin, and progress, and deserved destinies of the two
cities (the earthly and the heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are in this present world commingled,
and as it were entangled together. And, first, I will explain how the foundations of these two cities
were originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.
Chapter 2.—Of the Knowledge of God, to Which No Man Can Attain Save Through the Mediator
Between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus.
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It is a great and very rare thing for a man, after he has contemplated the whole creation,
corporeal and incorporeal, and has discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by the continued
soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable substance of God, and, in that height of
contemplation, to learn from God Himself that none but He has made all that is not of the divine
essence. For God speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears,
so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him that hears the sound, nor even by
means of a spiritual being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar states;
for even in this case He speaks as if to the ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance
of a body He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of space,—for visions are exact
representations of bodily objects. Not by these, then, does God speak, but by the truth itself, if any
one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with the body. For He speaks to that part of man
which is better than all else that is in him, and than which God Himself alone is better. For since
man is most properly understood (or, if that cannot be, then, at least, believed) to be made in God’s
image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he rises above those lower parts he has in common
with the beasts, which brings him nearer to the Supreme. But since the mind itself, though naturally
capable of reason and intelligence is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not merely from
delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually
healed, and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in the first place, to be impregnated
with faith, and so purified. And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently towards
the truth, the truth itself, God, God’s Son, assuming humanity without destroying His divinity,449
established and founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to man’s God through a
God-man. For this is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as man
that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the way lieth between him who goes, and the place
449 Homine assumto, non Deo consumto.
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whither he goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it
is, what boots it to know whither he should go? Now the only way that is infallibly secured against
all mistakes, is when the very same person is at once God and man, God our end, man our way.450
Chapter 3.—Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit.
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own
lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical,
which has paramount authority, and to which we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not
to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain the knowledge of present objects
by the testimony of our own senses,451 whether internal or external, then, regarding objects remote
from our own senses, we need others to bring their testimony, since we cannot know them by our
own, and we credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are sensibly present. Accordingly,
as in the case of visible objects which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and likewise
with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which are perceived452 by the mind and spirit,
i.e., which are remote from our own interior sense, it behoves us to trust those who have seen them
set in that incorporeal light, or abidingly contemplate them.
Chapter 4.—That the World is Neither Without Beginning, Nor Yet Created by a New Decree of
God, by Which He Afterwards Willed What He Had Not Before Willed.
Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible, the greatest is God. But, that the
world is, we see; that God is, we believe. That God made the world, we can believe from no one
more safely than from God Himself. But where have we heard Him? Nowhere more distinctly
than in the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said, “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.”453 Was the prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; but the
wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there,454 and wisdom insinuates itself into holy
souls, and makes them the friends of God and His prophets, and noiselessly informs them of His
450 Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo.
451 A clause is here inserted to give the etymology of proesentia from proe sensibus.
452 Another derivation, sententia from sensus, the inward perception of the mind.
453 Gen. i. 1.
454 Prov. viii. 27.
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works. They are taught also by the angels of God, who always behold the face of the Father,455 and
announce His will to whom it befits. Of these prophets was he who said and wrote, “In the beginning
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God created the heavens and the earth.” And so fit a witness was he of God, that the same Spirit
of God, who revealed these things to him, enabled him also so long before to predict that our faith
also would be forthcoming.
But why did God choose then to create the heavens and earth which up to that time He had not
made?456 If they who put this question wish to make out that the world is eternal and without
beginning, and that consequently it has not been made by God, they are strangely deceived, and
rave in the incurable madness of impiety. For, though the voices of the prophets were silent, the
world itself, by its well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all visible
things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has been created, and also that it could not have
been created save by God, whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and invisible. As for those457
who own, indeed, that it was made by God, and yet ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational
beginning, so that in some scarcely intelligible way the world should always have existed a created
world they make an assertion which seems to them to defend God from the charge of arbitrary
hastiness, or of suddenly conceiving the idea of creating the world as a quite new idea, or of casually
changing His will, though He be unchangeable. But I do not see how this supposition of theirs can
stand in other respects, and chiefly in respect of the soul; for if they contend that it is co-eternal
with God, they will be quite at a loss to explain whence there has accrued to it new misery, which
through a previous eternity had not existed. For if they said that its happiness and misery ceaselessly
alternate, they must say, further, that this alternation will continue for ever; whence will result this
absurdity, that, though the soul is called blessed, it is not so in this, that it foresees its own misery
and disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and supposes that it will be neither disgraced nor
wretched, but always blessed, then it is blessed because it is deceived; and a more foolish statement
one cannot make. But if their idea is that the soul’s misery has alternated with its bliss during the
ages of the past eternity, but that now, when once the soul has been set free, it will return henceforth
no more to misery, they are nevertheless of opinion that it has never been truly blessed before, but
begins at last to enjoy a new and uncertain happiness; that is to say, they must acknowledge that
some new thing, and that an important and signal thing, happens to the soul which never in a whole
past eternity happened it before. And if they deny that God’s eternal purpose included this new
experience of the soul, they deny that He is the Author of its blessedness, which is unspeakable
impiety. If, on the other hand, they say that the future blessedness of the soul is the result of a new
decree of God, how will they show that God is not chargeable with that mutability which displeases
them? Further, if they acknowledge that it was created in time, but will never perish in time,—that
455 Matt. xviii. 10.
456 A common question among the Epicureans; urged by Velleius in Cic. De. Nat. Deor. i. 9, adopted by the Manichæans
and spoken to by Augustin in the Conf. xi. 10, 12, also in De Gen. contra Man. i. 3.
457 The Neo-Platonists.
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it has, like number,458 a beginning but no end,—and that, therefore, having once made trial of misery,
and been delivered from it, it will never again return thereto, they will certainly admit that this takes
place without any violation of the immutable counsel of God. Let them, then, in like manner believe
regarding the world that it too could be made in time, and yet that God, in making it, did not alter
His eternal design.
Chapter 5.—That We Ought Not to Seek to Comprehend the Infinite Ages of Time Before the
World, Nor the Infinite Realms of Space.
Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who agree that God is the Creator of the
world, but have difficulties about the time of its creation, and what reply, also, they can make to
difficulties we might raise about the place of its creation. For, as they demand why the world was
created then and no sooner, we may ask why it was created just here where it is, and not elsewhere.
For if they imagine infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God could not have been
idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the world infinite realms of space, in which, if any
one says that the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it not follow that they must
adopt Epicurus’ dream of innumerable worlds? with this difference only, that he asserts that they
are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they will hold that they are
made by God’s hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless immensity of space, stretching
interminably in every direction round the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they
suppose Him to make cannot be destroyed. For here the question is with those who, with ourselves,
believe that God is spiritual, and the Creator of all existences but Himself. As for others, it is a
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condescension to dispute with them on a religious ques tion, for they have acquired a reputation
only among men who pay divine honors to a number of gods, and have become conspicuous among
the other philosophers for no other reason than that, though they are still far from the truth, they
are near it in comparison with the rest. While these, then, neither confine in any place, nor limit,
nor distribute the divine substance, but, as is worthy of God, own it to be wholly though spiritually
present everywhere, will they perchance say that this substance is absent from such immense spaces
outside the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little one compared with the infinity
beyond), the one, namely, in which is the world? I think they will not proceed to this absurdity.
Since they maintain that there is but one world, of vast material bulk, indeed, yet finite, and in its
own determinate position, and that this was made by the working of God, let them give the same
account of God’s resting in the infinite times before the world as they give of His resting in the
infinite spaces outside of it. And as it does not follow that God set the world in the very spot it
occupies and no other by accident rather than by divine reason, although no human reason can
458 Number begins at one, but runs on infinitely.
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comprehend why it was so set, and though there was no merit in the spot chosen to give it the
precedence of infinite others, so neither does it follow that we should suppose that God was guided
by chance when He created the world in that and no earlier time, although previous times had been
running by during an infinite past, and though there was no difference by which one time could be
chosen in preference to another. But if they say that the thoughts of men are idle when they conceive
infinite places, since there is no place beside the world, we reply that, by the same showing, it is
vain to conceive of the past times of God’s rest, since there is no time before the world.
Chapter 6.—That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate
the Other.
For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this, that time does not exist without some
movement and transition, while in eternity there is no change, who does not see that there could
have been no time had not some creature been made, which by some motion could give birth to
change,—the various parts of which motion and change, as they cannot be simultaneous, succeed
one another,—and thus, in these shorter or longer intervals of duration, time would begin? Since
then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the Creator and Ordainer of time, I do not see
how He can be said to have created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless it be said
that prior to the world there was some creature by whose movement time could pass. And if the
sacred and infallible Scriptures say that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, in
order that it may be understood that He had made nothing previously,—for if He had made anything
before the rest, this thing would rather be said to have been made “in the beginning,”—then assuredly
the world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time. For that which is made in time is
made both after and before some time,—after that which is past, before that which is future. But
none could then be past, for there was no creature by whose movements its duration could be
measured. But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world’s creation change
and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in
these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then
made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized.
What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive,
and how much more to say!
Chapter 7.—Of the Nature of the First Days, Which are Said to Have Had Morning and Evening,
Before There Was a Sun.
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We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting, and no morning but
by the rising, of the sun; but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported
to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God,
and God, we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night;
but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is
beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly
believe it. For either it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper parts of the
world, far removed from our sight, or from the spot where the sun was afterwards kindled; or under
the name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits, the city
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of which the apostle says, “Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven;”459 and in
another place, “For ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of
the night, nor of darkness.”460 Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak of a morning and
evening of this day also. For the knowledge of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of
the Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into morning when the creature is drawn to
the praise and love of the Creator; and night never falls when the Creator is not forsaken through
love of the creature. In fine, Scripture, when it would recount those days in order, never mentions
the word night. It never says, “Night was,” but “The evening and the morning were the first day.”
So of the second and the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created things contemplated by
themselves is, so to speak, more colorless than when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the
art by which they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure than night; and yet, as
I said, morning returns when the creature returns to the praise and love of the Creator. When it
does so in the knowledge of itself, that is the first day; when in the knowledge of the firmament,
which is the name given to the sky between the waters above and those beneath, that is the second
day; when in the knowledge of the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth, that
is the third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less luminaries, and all the stars, that is
the fourth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that swim in the waters and that fly in the air,
that is the fifth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that live on the earth, and of man himself,
that is the sixth day.461
Chapter 8.—What We are to Understand of God’s Resting on the Seventh Day, After the Six Days’
Work.
459 Gal. iv. 26.
460 1 Thess. v. 5.
461 Comp. de Gen. ad Lit. i. and iv.
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When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from all His works, and hallowed it, we are
not to conceive of this in a childish fashion, as if work were a toil to God, who “spake and it was
done,”—spake by the spiritual and eternal, not audible and transitory word. But God’s rest signifies
the rest of those who rest in God, as the joy of a house means the joy of those in the house who
rejoice, though not the house, but something else, causes the joy. How much more intelligible is
such phraseology, then, if the house itself, by its own beauty, makes the inhabitants joyful! For in
this case we not only call it joyful by that figure of speech in which the thing containing is used
for the thing contained (as when we say, “The theatres applaud,” “The meadows low,” meaning
that the men in the one applaud, and the oxen in the other low), but also by that figure in which the
cause is spoken of as if it were the effect, as when a letter is said to be joyful, because it makes its
readers so. Most appropriately, therefore, the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning
thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest. And this the prophetic narrative
promises also to the men to whom it speaks, and for whom it was written, that they themselves,
after those good works which God does in and by them, if they have managed by faith to get near
to God in this life, shall enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was pre-figured to the ancient people of
God by the rest enjoined in their sabbath law, of which, in its own place, I shall speak more at large.
Chapter 9.—What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the Creation of the Angels.
At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin of the holy city, and first of the holy
angels, who constitute a large part of this city, and indeed the more blessed part, since they have
never been expatriated, I will give myself to the task of explaining, by God’s help, and as far as
seems suitable, the Scriptures which relate to this point. Where Scripture speaks of the world’s
creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if mention of them is
made, it is implicitly under the name of “heaven,” when it is said, “In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth,” or perhaps rather under the name of “light,” of which presently. But
that they were wholly omitted, I am unable to believe, because it is written that God on the seventh
day rested from all His works which He made; and this very book itself begins, “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth,” so that before heaven and earth God seems to have made
nothing. Since, therefore, He began with the heavens and the earth,—and the earth itself, as Scripture
adds, was at first invisible and formless, light not being as yet made, and darkness covering the
face of the deep (that is to say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for where light is not,
darkness must needs be),—and then when all things, which are recorded to have been completed
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in six days, were created and arranged, how should the angels be omitted, as if they were not among
the works of God, from which on the seventh day He rested? Yet, though the fact that the angels
are the work of God is not omitted here, it is indeed not explicitly mentioned; but elsewhere Holy
Scripture asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn of the Three Children in the Furnace
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it was said, “O all ye works of the Lord bless ye the Lord;”462 and among these works mentioned
afterwards in detail, the angels are named. And in the psalm it is said, “Praise ye the Lord from
the heavens, praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels; praise ye Him, all His hosts.
Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of heavens;
and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded,
and they were created.”463 Here the angels are most expressly and by divine authority said to have
been made by God, for of them among the other heavenly things it is said, “He commanded, and
they were created.” Who, then, will be bold enough to suggest that the angels were made after the
six days’ creation? If any one is so foolish, his folly is disposed of by a scripture of like authority,
where God says, “When the stars were made, the angels praised me with a loud voice.”464 The
angels therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made the fourth day. Shall we then say
that they were made the third day? Far from it; for we know what was made that day. The earth
was separated from the water, and each element took its own distinct form, and the earth produced
all that grows on it. On the second day, then? Not even on this; for on it the firmament was made
between the waters above and beneath, and was called “Heaven,” in which firmament the stars
were made on the fourth day. There is no question, then, that if the angels are included in the works
of God during these six days, they are that light which was called “Day,” and whose unity Scripture
signalizes by calling that day not the “first day,” but “one day.”465 For the second day, the third,
and the rest are not other days; but the same “one” day is repeated to complete the number six or
seven, so that there should be knowledge both of God’s works and of His rest. For when God said,
“Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation
of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable
Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God;
so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and
be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God,
by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world,”466—this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in
himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who
are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being
deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good
has received the name “evil.”467
462 Ver. 35.
463 Ps. cxlviii. 1–5.
464 Job xxxviii. 7.
465 Vives here notes that the Greek theologians and Jerome held, with Plato, that spiritual creatures were made first, and used
by God in the creation of things material. The Latin theologians and Basil held that God made all things at once.
466 John i. 9.
467 Mali enim nulla natura est: sed amissio boni, mali nomen accepit.
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Chapter 10.—Of the Simple and Unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One God, in
Whom Substance and Quality are Identical.
There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and therefore alone unchangeable, and this
is God. By this Good have all others been created, but not simple, and therefore not unchangeable.
“Created,” I say,—that is, made, not begotten. For that which is begotten of the simple Good is
simple as itself, and the same as itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both together
with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy is in Scripture, as it were,
appropriated. And He is another than the Father and the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the
Son. I say “another,” not “another thing,” because He is equally with them the simple Good,
unchangeable and co-eternal. And this Trinity is one God; and none the less simple because a
Trinity. For we do not say that the nature of the good is simple, because the Father alone possesses
it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Ghost alone; nor do we say, with the Sabellian heretics, that it is
only nominally a Trinity, and has no real distinction of persons; but we say it is simple, because it
is what it has, with the exception of the relation of the persons to one another. For, in regard to
this relation, it is true that the Father has a Son, and yet is not Himself the Son; and the Son has a
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Father, and is not Himself the Father. But, as regards Himself, irrespective of relation to the other,
each is what He has; thus, He is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the Life which
He has.
It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is called simple, because it has not
anything which it can lose, and because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a cup and
the liquor, or a body and its color, or the air and the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom.
For none of these is what it has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body color, nor the air light and heat,
nor the mind wisdom. And hence they can be deprived of what they have, and can be turned or
changed into other qualities and states, so that the cup may be emptied of the liquid of which it is
full, the body be discolored, the air darken, the mind grow silly. The incorruptible body which is
promised to the saints in the resurrection cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but the
bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not the same thing. For the quality of
incorruption resides entire in each several part, not greater in one and less in another; for no part
is more incorruptible than another. The body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part; and
one part of it is larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger more incorruptible than the smaller.
The body, then, which is not in each of its parts a whole body, is one thing; incorruptibility, which
is throughout complete, is another thing;—for every part of the incorruptible body, however unequal
to the rest otherwise, is equally incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is not more incorrupt than the finger
because it is larger than the finger; so, though finger and hand are unequal, their incorruptibility is
equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance
of the body is one thing, the quality of incorruption another. And therefore the body is not what it
has. The soul itself, too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it is redeemed), will
be so by participating in the unchangeable wisdom, which it is not; for though the air be never
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robbed of the light that is shed abroad in it, it is not on that account the same thing as the light. I
do not mean that the soul is air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive a spiritual
nature;468 but, with much dissimilarity, the two things have a kind of likeness, which makes it
suitable to say that the immaterial soul is illumined with the immaterial light of the simple wisdom
of God, as the material air is irradiated with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of
this light, grows dark, (for material darkness is nothing else than air wanting light,469) so the soul,
deprived of the light of wisdom, grows dark.
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly divine are called simple,
because in them quality and substance are identical, and because they are divine, or wise, or blessed
in themselves, and without extraneous supplement. In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom
is called “manifold”470 because it contains many things in it; but what it contains it also is, and it
being one is all these things. For neither are there many wisdoms, but one, in which are untold and
infinite treasures of things intellectual, wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things
visible and changeable which were created by it.471 For God made nothing unwittingly; not even
a human workman can be said to do so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only those
things which He had known. Whence flows a very striking but true conclusion, that this world
could not be known to us unless it existed, but could not have existed unless it had been known to
God.
Chapter 11.—Whether the Angels that Fell Partook of the Blessedness Which the Holy Angels
Have Always Enjoyed from the Time of Their Creation.
And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call angels were never at any time or in
any way darkness, but, as soon as they were made, were made light; yet they were not so created
in order that they might exist and live in any way whatever, but were enlightened that they might
live wisely and blessedly. Some of them, having turned away from this light, have not won this
wise and blessed life, which is certainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence of its
eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though darkened with folly, and this they cannot lose
even if they would. But who can determine to what extent they were partakers of that wisdom
468 Plutarch (De Plac. Phil. i. 3, and iv. 3) tells us that this opinion was held by Anaximenes of Miletus, the followers of
Anaxagoras, and many of the Stoics. Diogenes the Cynic, as well, as Diogenes of Appollonia seems to have adopted the same
opinion. See Zeller’s Stoics, pp. 121 and 199.
469 Ubi lux non est, tenebræ sunt, non quia aliquid sunt tenebræ, sed ipsa lucis absentia tenebræ dicuntur.—Aug. De. Gen.
contra Man. 7.
470 Wisdom vii. 22.
471 The strongly Platonic tinge of this language is perhaps best preserved in a bare literal translation.
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before they fell? And how shall we say that they participated in it equally with those who through
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it are truly and fully blessed, resting in a true certainty of eternal felicity? For if they had equally
participated in this true knowledge, then the evil angels would have remained eternally blessed
equally with the good, because they were equally expectant of it. For, though a life be never so
long, it cannot be truly called eternal if it is destined to have an end; for it is called life inasmuch
as it is lived, but eternal because it has no end. Wherefore, although everything eternal is not
therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be truly and perfectly blessed except it
be eternal, the life of these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and therefore not
eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the one case fear, in the other ignorance, prevented them
from being blessed. And even if their ignorance was not so great as to breed in them a wholly false
expectation, but left them wavering in uncertainty whether their good would be eternal or would
some time terminate, this very doubt concerning so grand a destiny was incompatible with the
plenitude of blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For we do not so narrow and
restrict the application of the term “blessedness” as to apply it to God only,472 though doubtless He
is so truly blessed that greater blessedness cannot be; and, in comparison of His blessedness, what
is that of the angels, though, according to their capacity, they be perfectly blessed?
Chapter 12.—A Comparison of the Blessedness of the Righteous, Who Have Not Yet Received
the Divine Reward, with that of Our First Parents in Paradise.
And the angels are not the only members of the rational and intellectual creation whom we call
blessed. For who will take upon him to deny that those first men in Paradise were blessed previously
to sin, although they were uncertain how long their blessedness was to last, and whether it would
be eternal (and eternal it would have been had they not sinned),—who, I say, will do so, seeing
that even now we not unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a righteous and holy
life, in hope of immortality, who have no harrowing remorse of conscience, but obtain readily
divine remission of the sins of their present infirmity? These, though they are certain that they
shall be rewarded if they persevere, are not certain that they will persevere. For what man can
know that he will persevere to the end in the exercise and increase of grace, unless he has been
certified by some revelation from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while He deceives
none, informs few regarding this matter? Accordingly, so far as present comfort goes, the first man
in Paradise was more blessed than any just man in this insecure state; but as regards the hope of
future good, every man who not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he shall eternally enjoy
472 Vives remarks that the ancients defined blessedness as an absolutely perfect state in all good, peculiar to God. Perhaps
Augustin had a reminiscence of the remarkable discussion in the Tusc. Disp. lib. v., and the definition, Neque ulla alia huic
verbo, quum beatum dicimus, subjecta notio est, nisi, secretis malis omnibus, cumulata bonorum complexio.
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the most high God in the company of angels, and beyond the reach of ill,—this man, no matter
what bodily torments afflict him, is more blessed than was he who, even in that great felicity of
Paradise, was uncertain of his fate.473
Chapter 13.—Whether All the Angels Were So Created in One Common State of Felicity, that
Those Who Fell Were Not Aware that They Would Fall, and that Those Who Stood Received
Assurance of Their Own Perseverance After the Ruin of the Fallen.
From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness which an intelligent being
desires as its legitimate object results from a combination of these two things, namely, that it
uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety,
and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels
of light we piously believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default lost that light, did
not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned, reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was
of any duration before they fell, we must allow them a blessedness of some kind, though not that
which is accompanied with foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels were
created, some were created in ignorance either of their perseverance or their fall, while others were
most certainly assured of the eternity of their felicity,—if it is hard to believe that they were not
all from the beginning on an equal footing, until these who are now evil did of their own will fall
away from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to believe that the holy angels are now
uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and do not know regarding themselves as much as we have
been able to gather regarding them from the Holy Scriptures. For what catholic Christian does not
know that no new devil will ever arise among the good angels, as he knows that this present devil
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will never again return into the fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel promises to the
saints and the faithful that they will be equal to the angels of God; and it is also promised them that
they will “go away into life eternal.”474 But if we are certain that we shall never lapse from eternal
felicity, while they are not certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors. But as the
truth never deceives, and as we shall be their equals, they must be certain of their blessedness. And
because the evil angels could not be certain of that, since their blessedness was destined to come
to an end, it follows either that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels were
assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the perdition of the others; unless, possibly, some
one may say that the words of the Lord about the devil “He was a murderer from the beginning,
and abode not in the truth,”475 are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer from the
473 With this chapter compare the books De Dono Persever, and De Correp. et Gratia.
474 Matt. xxv. 46.
475 John viii. 44.
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beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made, but also that
he did not abide in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was accordingly never blessed
with the holy angels, but refused to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a private
lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and deceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot
be eluded; and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they are, proudly feigns, and
mocks himself with a state of things that does not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John says
thus becomes intelligible: “The devil sinneth from the beginning,”476—that is, from the time he
was created he refused righteousness, which none but a will piously subject to God can enjoy.
Whoever adopts this opinion at least disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any
other pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from some adverse evil principle
a nature proper to himself. These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they acknowledge
with ourselves the authority of the gospels, they do not notice that the Lord did not say, “The devil
was naturally a stranger to the truth,” but “The devil abode not in the truth,” by which He meant
us to understand that he had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had abode, he would have become
a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness along with the holy angels.477
Chapter 14.—An Explanation of What is Said of the Devil, that He Did Not Abide in the Truth,
Because the Truth Was Not in Him.
Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins
the reason, saying, “because the truth is not in him.” Now, it would be in him had he abode in it.
But the phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, “He abode not in the truth, because the
truth is not in him,” it seems as if the truth’s not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in
it; whereas his not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him. The same form
of speech is found in the psalm: “I have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God,”478
where we should expect it to be said, Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee.
But when he had said, “I have called,” then, as if some one were seeking proof of this, he
demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God’s hearing it; as if he had
said, The proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.
476 1 John iii. 8.
477 Cf. Gen. ad Lit. xl. 27 et seqq.
478 Ps. xvii. 6.
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Chapter 15.—How We are to Understand the Words, “The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.”
As for what John says about the devil, “The devil sinneth from the beginning”479 they480 who
suppose it is meant hereby that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin
be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic proofs,—either what Isaiah
says when he represents the devil under the person of the king of Babylon, “How art thou fallen,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!”481 or what Ezekiel says, “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of
God; every precious stone was thy covering,”482 where it is meant that he was some time without
sin; for a little after it is still more explicitly said, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways?” And if these
passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also, “He abode not
in the truth,” that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from this passage, “The
devil sinneth from the beginning,” it is not to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his
created existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to
sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: “This is the
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beginning of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels,”483 which agrees with
the psalm, where it is said, “There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein.”484
But these passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport
of the angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the
handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the beasts,
which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without
which nothing can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature, which
surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of the Most High!
Chapter 16.—Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated by Their Utility, or
According to the Natural Gradations of Being.
For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God the Creator’s essence, those
which have life are ranked above those which have none; those that have the power of generation,
or even of desiring, above those which want this faculty. And, among things that have life, the
479 1 John iii. 8.
480 The Manichæans.
481 Isa. xiv. 12.
482 Ezek. xxviii. 13.
483 Job xl. 14 (LXX.).
484 Ps. civ. 26.
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sentient are higher than those which have no sensation, as animals are ranked above trees. And,
among the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not intelligence,—men, e.g., above
cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal such as the angels, above the mortal, such as men.
These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each man
finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some
things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had
we the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place
they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g.,
would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But there is little to wonder
at in this, seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest
dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the
reason of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the
necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing
in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its need; reason looks
for what the mental light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titilates the
bodily sense. But of such consequence in rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of
love, that though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by the scale of justice, good
men are of greater value than bad angels.
Chapter 17.—That the Flaw of Wickedness is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature, and Has Its
Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will.
It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness of the devil, that we are to
understand these words, “This is the beginning of God’s handiwork;”485 for, without doubt,
wickedness can be a flaw or vice486 only where the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too,
is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be
no vice, unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the wicked will
is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of
good natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good
natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good by God’s
creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery
of His angels,—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those whom he wishes to injure by
them. And because God, when He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future malignity,
and foresaw the good which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This
485 Job. xl. 14 (LXX.).
486 It must be kept in view that “vice” has, in this passage, the meaning of sinful blemish.
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leviathan whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,”487 that we may see that, even while God in
His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make
use of him when he became wicked.
Chapter 18.—Of the Beauty of the Universe, Which Becomes, by God’s Ordinance, More Brilliant
by the Opposition of Contraries.
For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose future
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wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good He
could turn him, thus embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with
antitheses. For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of speech.
They might be called in Latin “oppositions,” or, to speak more accurately, “contrapositions;” but
this word is not in common use among us,488 though the Latin, and indeed the languages of all
nations, avail themselves of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place where he says, “By the armor
of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good
report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live;
as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”489 As, then, these oppositions of contraries lend
beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of
contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly
stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: “Good is set against evil, and life against death:
so is the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are two
and two, one against another.”490
Chapter 19.—What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, “God Divided the Light from
the Darkness.”
Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly this advantage, that it causes
many opinions about the truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning
487 Ps. civ. 26.
488 Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.
489 2 Cor. vi. 7–10.
490 Ecclus. xxxiii. 15.
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in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be either confirmed by the
testimony of obvious facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity
is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other
interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the
discussion of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we
understand that the angels were created when that first light was made, and that a separation was
made between the holy and the unclean angels, when, as is said, “God divided the light from the
darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” For He alone could
make this discrimination, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and
that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as
regards the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven
that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. “Let there be,” He says,
“lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;” and shortly after He says,
“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the
earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.”491 But
between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination
of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition
of those angels who are turned away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide,
from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future, could not be hidden
or uncertain.
Chapter 20.—Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and Darkness, “And God Saw
the Light that It Was Good.”
Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing that when God said,
“Let there be light, and there was light,” it was immediately added, “And God saw the light that it
was good.” No such expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the darkness,
and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal of His approval might seem to be set
on such darkness, as well as on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of disapprobation,
as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement
that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but after the division is recorded. “And God
set them,” so runs the passage, “in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that
it was good.” For He approved of both, because both were sinless. But where God said, “Let there
491 Gen. i. 14–18.
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be light, and there was light; and God saw the light that it was good;” and the narrative goes on,
“and God divided the light from the darkness! and God called the light Day, and the darkness He
called Night,” there was not in this place subjoined the statement, “And God saw that it was good,”
lest both should be designated good, while one of them was evil, not by nature, but by its own fault.
And therefore, in this case, the light alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic
darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.
Chapter 21.—Of God’s Eternal and Unchangeable Knowledge and Will, Whereby All He Has
Made Pleased Him in the Eternal Design as Well as in the Actual Result.
For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain, “And God saw that it was good,”
than the approval of the work in its design, which is the wisdom of God? For certainly God did
not in the actual achievement of the work first learn that it was good, but, on the contrary, nothing
would have been made had it not been first known by Him. While, therefore, He sees that that is
good which, had He not seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it is plain that
He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good. Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when
the universe was completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy.492 And Plato was not so foolish
as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed by the novelty of His creation; but he wished
thus to indicate that the work now completed met with its Maker’s approval, as it had while yet in
design. It is not as if the knowledge of God were of various kinds, knowing in different ways things
which as yet are not, things which are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion does
He look forward to what is future, nor at what is present, nor back upon what is past; but in a manner
quite different and far and profoundly remote from our way of thinking. For He does not pass from
this to that by transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness; so that
of those things which emerge in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and
the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal presence.
Neither does He see in one fashion by the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of
mind and body; nor does His present knowledge differ from that which it ever was or shall be, for
those variations of time, past, present, and future, though they alter our knowledge, do not affect
His, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”493 Neither is there any growth
from thought to thought in the conceptions of Him in whose spiritual vision all things which He
knows are at once embraced. For as without any movement that time can measure, He Himself
moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure. And
492 The reference is to the Timæus, p. 37 C., where he says, “When the parent Creator perceived this created image of the
eternal Gods in life and motion, He was delighted, and in His joy considered how He might make it still liker its model.”
493 Jas. i. 17.
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therefore He saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it was good to make it. And
when He saw it made, He had not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge of
it; as if He had less knowledge before He made what He saw. For certainly He would not be the
perfect worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition from His
finished works. Wherefore, if the only object had been to inform us who made the light, it had
been enough to say, “God made the light;” and if further information regarding the means by which
it was made had been intended, it would have sufficed to say, “And God said, Let there be light,
and there was light,” that we might know not only that God had made the world, but also that He
had made it by the word. But because it was right that three leading truths regarding the creature
be intimated to us, viz., who made it, by what means, and why, it is written, “God said, Let there
be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good.” If, then, we ask who made
it, it was “God.” If, by what means, He said “Let it be,” and it was. If we ask, why He made it,
“it was good.” Neither is there any author more excellent than God, nor any skill more efficacious
than the word of God, nor any cause better than that good might be created by the good God. This
also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world, that good works
might be made by a good God;494 whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of these
things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted genius, penetrated to things spiritual
and invisible through the things that are created, or was instructed regarding them by those who
had discerned them.
217 Chapter 22.—Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a Part of This Good
Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There is Some Natural Evil.
This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of God,—this cause, I say, so
just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those
who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognized by some heretics,495 because there
are, forsooth, many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but injure
this thin blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment. They
do not consider how admirable these things are in their own places, how excellent in their own
natures, how beautifully adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much grace they contribute to the
universe by their own contributions as to a commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to
ourselves, if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,—so that even poisons, which
494 The passage referred to is in the Timæus p. 29 D.: “Let us say what was the cause of the Creator’s forming this universe.
He was good; and in the good no envy is ever generated about anything whatever. Therefore, being free from envy, He desired
that all things should, as much as possible, resemble Himself.”
495 The Manichæans, to wit.
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are destructive when used injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used in conformity
with their qualities and design; just as, on the other hand, those things which give us pleasure, such
as food, drink, and the light of the sun, are found to be hurtful when immoderately or unseasonably
used. And thus divine providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to investigate
their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there
is a utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were other things which we all but
failed to discover. For this concealment of the use of things is itself either an exercise of our
humility or a levelling of our pride; for no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for nothing but
the want of good. But from things earthly to things heavenly, from the visible to the invisible, there
are some things better than others; and for this purpose are they unequal, in order that they might
all exist. Now God is in such sort a great worker in great things, that He is not less in little
things,—for these little things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does not exist),
but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be
shaved off, how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!—for that
is not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of the members. But we do not
greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some evil nature has been generated and propagated
by a kind of opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause of the creation was this,
that the good God produced a good creation. For they believe that He was driven to this enterprise
of creation by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil that warred against Him, and that He mixed
His good nature with the evil for the sake of restraining and conquering it; and that this nature of
His, being thus shamefully polluted, and most cruelly oppressed and held captive, He labors to
cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains does not wholly succeed; but such part of it as could
not be cleansed from that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the conquered and
incarcerated enemy. The Manichæans would not drivel, or rather, rave in such a style as this, if
they believed the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely incorruptible, and subject
to no injury; and if, moreover, they held in Christian sobriety, that the soul which has shown itself
capable of being altered for the worse by its own will, and of being corrupted by sin, and so, of
being deprived of the light of eternal truth,—that this soul, I say, is not a part of God, nor of the
same nature as God, but is created by Him, and is far different from its Creator.
Chapter 23.—Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.
But it is much more surprising that some even of those who, with ourselves, believe that there
is one only source of all things, and that no nature which is not divine can exist unless originated
by that Creator, have yet refused to accept with a good and simple faith this so good and simple a
reason of the world’s creation, that a good God made it good; and that the things created, being
different from God, were inferior to Him, and yet were good, being created by none other than He.
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But they say that souls, though not, indeed, parts of God, but created by Him, sinned by abandoning
God; that, in proportion to their various sins, they merited different degrees of debasement from
heaven to earth, and diverse bodies as prison-houses; and that this is the world, and this the cause
of its creation, not the production of good things, but the restraining of evil. Origen is justly blamed
for holding this opinion. For in the books which he entitles περὶ αρχῶν, that is, Of Origins, this is
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his sentiment, this his utterance. And I can not sufficiently express my astonishment, that a man
so erudite and well versed in ecclesiastical literature, should not have observed, in the first place,
how opposed this is to the meaning of this authoritative Scripture, which, in recounting all the
works of God, regularly adds, “And God saw that it was good;” and, when all were completed,
inserts the words, “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”496
Was it not obviously meant to be understood that there was no other cause of the world’s creation
than that good creatures should be made by a good God? In this creation, had no one sinned, the
world would have been filled and beautified with natures good without exception; and though there
is sin, all things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of the heavenly inhabitants
preserve their nature’s integrity. And the sinful will though it violated the order of its own nature,
did not on that account escape the laws of God, who justly orders all things for good. For as the
beauty of a picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye that has skill to discern
it, the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is
a sad blemish.
In the second place, Origen, and all who think with him, ought to have seen that if it were the
true opinion that the world was created in order that souls might, for their sins, be accommodated
with bodies in which they should be shut up as in houses of correction, the more venial sinners
receiving lighter and more ethereal bodies, while the grosser and graver sinners received bodies
more crass and grovelling, then it would follow that the devils, who are deepest in wickedness,
ought, rather than even wicked men, to have earthly bodies, since these are the grossest and least
ethereal of all. But in point of fact, that we might see that the deserts of souls are not to be estimated
by the qualities of bodies, the wickedest devil possesses an ethereal body, while man, wicked, it is
true, but with a wickedness small and venial in comparison with his, received even before his sin
a body of clay. And what more foolish assertion can be advanced than that God, by this sun of
ours, did not design to benefit the material creation, or lend lustre to its loveliness, and therefore
created one single sun for this single world, but that it so happened that one soul only had so sinned
as to deserve to be enclosed in such a body as it is? On this principle, if it had chanced that not
one, but two, yea, or ten, or a hundred had sinned similarly, and with a like degree of guilt, then
this world would have one hundred suns. And that such is not the case, is due not to the considerate
foresight of the Creator, contriving the safety and beauty of things material, but rather to the fact
that so fine a quality of sinning was hit upon by only one soul, so that it alone has merited such a
body. Manifestly persons holding such opinions should aim at confining, not souls of which they
496 Gen. i. 31.
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know not what they say, but themselves, lest they fall, and deservedly, far indeed from the truth.
And as to these three answers which I formerly recommended when in the case of any creature the
questions are put, Who made it? By what means? Why? that it should be replied, God, By the Word,
Because it was good,—as to these three answers, it is very questionable whether the Trinity itself
is thus mystically indicated, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or whether there is
some good reason for this acceptation in this passage of Scripture,—this, I say, is questionable,
and one can’t be expected to explain everything in one volume.
Chapter 24.—Of the Divine Trinity, and the Indications of Its Presence Scattered Everywhere
Among Its Works.
We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the Father begat the Word, that is, Wisdom,
by which all things were made, the only-begotten Son, one as the Father is one, eternal as the Father
is eternal, and, equally with the Father, supremely good; and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit alike
of Father and of Son, and is Himself consubstantial and co-eternal with both; and that this whole
is a Trinity by reason of the individuality497 of the persons, and one God by reason of the indivisible
divine substance, as also one Almighty by reason of the indivisible omnipotence; yet so that, when
we inquire regarding each singly, it is said that each is God and Almighty; and, when we speak of
all together, it is said that there are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but one God Almighty;
so great is the indivisible unity of these Three, which requires that it be so stated. But, whether the
Holy Spirit of the Father, and of the Son, who are both good, can be with propriety called the
goodness of both, because He is common to both, I do not presume to determine hastily.
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Nevertheless, I would have less hesitation in saying that He is the holiness of both, not as if He
were a divine attribute merely, but Himself also the divine substance, and the third person in the
Trinity. I am the rather emboldened to make this statement, because, though the Father is a spirit,
and the Son a spirit, and the Father holy, and the Son holy, yet the third person is distinctively
called the Holy Spirit, as if He were the substantial holiness consubstantial with the other two. But
if the divine goodness is nothing else than the divine holiness, then certainly it is a reasonable
studiousness, and not presumptuous intrusion, to inquire whether the same Trinity be not hinted at
in an enigmatical mode of speech, by which our inquiry is stimulated, when it is written who made
each creature, and by what means, and why. For it is the Father of the Word who said, Let there
be. And that which was made when He spoke was certainly made by means of the Word. And by
the words, “God saw that it was good,” it is sufficiently intimated that God made what was made
497 Proprietas. [The Greeks call it ἰδιώτης or ἴδιον, i.e. the propriety or characteristic individuality of each divine person,
namely the fatherhood, paternitas, ἀγεννησια, of the first person; the sonship, filiatio, generatio, γεννησία, of the second person;
the procession, processio, ἐκπόρευσις, of the third person.—P.S.]
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not from any necessity, nor for the sake of supplying any want, but solely from His own goodness,
i.e., because it was good. And this is stated after the creation had taken place, that there might be
no doubt that the thing made satisfied the goodness on account of which it was made. And if we
are right in understanding; that this goodness is the Holy Spirit, then the whole Trinity is revealed
to us in the creation. In this, too, is the origin, the enlightenment, the blessedness of the holy city
which is above among the holy angels. For if we inquire whence it is, God created it; or whence
its wisdom, God illumined it; or whence its blessedness, God is its bliss. It has its form by subsisting
in Him; its enlightenment by contemplating Him; its joy by abiding in Him. It is; it sees; it loves.
In God’s eternity is its life; in God’s truth its light; in God’s goodness its joy.
Chapter 25.—Of the Division of Philosophy into Three Parts.
As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that philosophers have aimed at a threefold
division of science, or rather, were enabled to see that there was a threefold division (for they did
not invent, but only discovered it), of which one part is called physical, another logical, the third
ethical. The Latin equivalents of these names are now naturalized in the writings of many authors,
so that these divisions are called natural, rational, and moral, on which I have touched slightly in
the eighth book. Not that I would conclude that these philosophers, in this threefold division, had
any thought of a trinity in God, although Plato is said to have been the first to discover and
promulgate this distribution, and he saw that God alone could be the author of nature, the bestower
of intelligence, and the kindler of love by which life becomes good and blessed. But certain it is
that, though philosophers disagree both regarding the nature of things, and the mode of investigating
truth, and of the good to which all our actions ought to tend, yet in these three great general questions
all their intellectual energy is spent. And though there be a confusing diversity of opinion, every
man striving to establish his own opinion in regard to each of these questions, yet no one of them
all doubts that nature has some cause, science some method, life some end and aim. Then, again,
there are three things which every artificer must possess if he is to effect anything,—nature,
education, practice. Nature is to be judged by capacity, education by knowledge, practice by its
fruit. I am aware that, properly speaking, fruit is what one enjoys, use [practice] what one uses.
And this seems to be the difference between them, that we are said to enjoy that which in itself,
and irrespective of other ends, delights us; to use that which we seek for the sake of some end
beyond. For which reason the things of time are to be used rather than enjoyed, that we may deserve
to enjoy things eternal; and not as those perverse creatures who would fain enjoy money and use
God,—not spending money for God’s sake, but worshipping God for money’s sake. However, in
common parlance, we both use fruits and enjoy uses. For we correctly speak of the “fruits of the
field,” which certainly we all use in the present life. And it was in accordance with this usage that
I said that there were three things to be observed in a man, nature, education, practice. From these
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the philosophers have elaborated, as I said, the threefold division of that science by which a blessed
life is attained: the natural having respect to nature, the rational to education, the moral to practice.
If, then, we were ourselves the authors of our nature, we should have generated knowledge in
ourselves, and should not require to reach it by education, i.e., by learning it from others. Our
love, too, proceeding from ourselves and returning to us, would suffice to make our life blessed,
and would stand in need of no extraneous enjoyment. But now, since our nature has God as its
requisite author, it is certain that we must have Him for our teacher that we may be wise; Him, too,
to dispense to us spiritual sweetness that we may be blessed.
220 Chapter 26.—Of the Image of the Supreme Trinity, Which We Find in Some Sort in Human Nature
Even in Its Present State.
And we indeed recognize in ourselves the image of God, that is, of the supreme Trinity, an
image which, though it be not equal to God, or rather, though it be very far removed from
Him,—being neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, consubstantial with Him,—is yet nearer
to Him in nature than any other of His works, and is destined to be yet restored, that it may bear a
still closer resemblance. For we both are, and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our
knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming illusion disturbs us; for we do
not come into contact with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things outside of
us,—colors, e.g., by seeing, sounds by hearing, smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft
objects by touching,—of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but not
themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire
the objects. But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain
that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the
arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am.498
For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since
I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is certain that I am if I am
deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I
am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing
that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two
things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For neither
am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even
if these were false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly be blamed
498 This is one of the passages cited by Sir William Hamilton, along with the Cogito, ergo sum of Descartes, in confirmation
of his proof, that in so far as we are conscious of certain modes of existence, in so far we possess an absolute certainty that we
exist. See note A in Hamilton’s Reid, p. 744.
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and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since they are true
and real, who doubts that when they are loved, the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as
there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish to be. For
how can he be happy, if he is nothing?
Chapter 27.—Of Existence, and Knowledge of It, and the Love of Both.
And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so pleasant, that even the wretched
are, for no other reason, unwilling to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not
that they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their
own esteem, and in point of fact, are utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise
men on account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and who think them
wretched because they are poor and destitute,—if any one should give these men an immortality,
in which their misery should be deathless, and should offer the alternative, that if they shrank from
existing eternally in the same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any
condition, on the instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to exist always, even
in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The well-known feeling of such men witnesses to
this. For when we see that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than end it by
death, is it not obvious enough how nature shrinks from annihilation? And, accordingly, when
they know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown them, that they
may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it by death. And so they indubitably
prove with what glad alacrity they would accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless
destruction. What! do not even all irrational animals, to whom such calculations are unknown,
from the huge dragons down to the least worms, all testify that they wish to exist, and therefore
shun death by every movement in their power? Nay, the very plants and shrubs, which have no
such life as enables them to shun destruction by movements we can see, do not they all seek in
their own fashion to conserve their existence, by rooting themselves more and more deeply in the
earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out healthy branches towards the sky? In
fine, even the lifeless bodies, which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet either seek the
upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an intermediate position, so that they may protect their
existence in that situation where they can exist in most accordance with their nature.
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And how much human nature loves the knowledge of its existence, and how it shrinks from
being deceived, will be sufficiently understood from this fact, that every man prefers to grieve in
a sane mind, rather than to be glad in madness. And this grand and wonderful instinct belongs to
men alone of all animals; for, though some of them have keener eyesight than ourselves for this
world’s light, they cannot attain to that spiritual light with which our mind is somehow irradiated,
so that we can form right judgments of all things. For our power to judge is proportioned to our
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acceptance of this light. Nevertheless, the irrational animals, though they have not knowledge,
have certainly something resembling knowledge; whereas the other material things are said to be
sensible, not because they have senses, but because they are the objects of our senses. Yet among
plants, their nourishment and generation have some resemblance to sensible life. However, both
these and all material things have their causes hidden in their nature; but their outward forms, which
lend beauty to this visible structure of the world, are perceived by our senses, so that they seem to
wish to compensate for their own want of knowledge by providing us with knowledge. But we
perceive them by our bodily senses in such a way that we do not judge of them by these senses.
For we have another and far superior sense, belonging to the inner man, by which we perceive what
things are just, and what unjust,—just by means of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of it.
This sense is aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor by the orifice of the ear, nor by the
air-holes of the nostrils, nor by the palate’s taste, nor by any bodily touch. By it I am assured both
that I am, and that I know this; and these two I love, and in the same manner I am assured that I
love them.
Chapter 28.—Whether We Ought to Love the Love Itself with Which We Love Our Existence and
Our Knowledge of It, that So We May More Nearly Resemble the Image of the Divine Trinity.
We have said as much as the scope of this work demands regarding these two things, to wit,
our existence, and our knowledge of it, and how much they are loved by us, and how there is found
even in the lower creatures a kind of likeness of these things, and yet with a difference. We have
yet to speak of the love wherewith they are loved, to determine whether this love itself is loved.
And doubtless it is; and this is the proof. Because in men who are justly loved, it is rather love
itself that is loved; for he is not justly called a good man who knows what is good, but who loves
it. Is it not then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love wherewith we love whatever good
we love? For there is also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to love; and this love
is hated by him who loves that wherewith he loves what ought to be loved. For it is quite possible
for both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is good for a man, to the end that this love
which conduces to our living well may grow, and the other, which leads us to evil may decrease,
until our whole life be perfectly healed and transmuted into good. For if we were beasts, we should
love the fleshly and sensual life, and this would be our sufficient good; and when it was well with
us in respect of it, we should seek nothing beyond. In like manner, if we were trees, we could not,
indeed, in the strict sense of the word, love anything; nevertheless we should seem, as it were, to
long for that by which we might become more abundantly and luxuriantly fruitful. If we were
stones, or waves, or wind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we should want, indeed, both sensation
and life, yet should possess a kind of attraction towards our own proper position and natural order.
For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried downwards by
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their weight, or upwards by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit by love,
whithersoever it is borne.499 But we are men, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity
is true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is eternal and true, and who Himself is the eternal,
true, and adorable Trinity, without confusion, without separation; and, therefore, while, as we run
over all the works which He has established, we may detect, as it were, His footprints, now more
and now less distinct even in those things that are beneath us, since they could not so much as exist,
or be bodied forth in any shape, or follow and observe any law, had they not been made by Him
who supremely is, and is supremely good and supremely wise; yet in ourselves beholding His
image, let us, like that younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and return to Him
from whom by our sin we had departed. There our being will have no death, our knowledge no
error, our love no mishap. But now, though we are assured of our possession of these three things,
not on the testimony of others, but by our own consciousness of their presence, and because we
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see them with our own most truthful interior vision, yet, as we cannot of our selves know how
long they are to continue, and whether they shall never cease to be, and what issue their good or
bad use will lead to, we seek for others who can acquaint us of these things, if we have not already
found them. Of the trustworthiness of these witnesses, there will, not now, but subsequently, be
an opportunity of speaking. But in this book let us go on as we have begun, with God’s help, to
speak of the city of God, not in its state of pilgrimage and mortality, but as it exists ever immortal
in the heavens,—that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain their allegiance to God, who
never were, nor ever shall be, apostate, between whom and those who forsook light eternal and
became darkness, God, as we have already said, made at the first a separation.
Chapter 29.—Of the Knowledge by Which the Holy Angels Know God in His Essence, and by
Which They See the Causes of His Works in the Art of the Worker, Before They See Them in
the Works of the Artist.
Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by audible words, but by the presence to
their souls of immutable truth, i.e., of the only-begotten Word of God; and they know this Word
Himself, and the Father, and their Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is indivisible, and that the three
persons of it are one substance, and that there are not three Gods but one God; and this they so
know that it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves. Thus, too, they know the
creature also, not in itself, but by this better way, in the wisdom of God, as if in the art by which it
was created; and, consequently, they know themselves better in God than in themselves, though
they have also this latter knowledge. For they were created, and are different from their Creator.
In Him, therefore, they have, as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves, a twilight knowledge,
499 Compare the Confessions, xiii. 9.
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according to our former explanations.500 For there is a great difference between knowing a thing
in the design in conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself,—e.g., the straightness
of lines and correctness of figures is known in one way when mentally conceived, in another when
described on paper; and justice is known in one way in the unchangeable truth, in another in the
spirit of a just man. So is it with all other things,—as, the firmament between the water above and
below, which was called the heaven; the gathering of the waters beneath, and the laying bare of
the dry land, and the production of plants and trees; the creation of sun, moon, and stars; and of the
animals out of the waters, fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep; and of everything that walks
or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who excels all that is on the earth,—all these things are
known in one way by the angels in the Word of God, in which they see the eternally abiding causes
and reasons according to which they were made, and in another way in themselves: in the former,
with a clearer knowledge; in the latter, with a knowledge dimmer, and rather of the bare works than
of the design. Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and adoration of the Creator Himself,
it is as if morning dawned in the minds of those who contemplate them.
Chapter 30.—Of the Perfection of the Number Six, Which is the First of the Numbers Which is
Composed of Its Aliquot Parts.
These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same day being six times
repeated), because six is a perfect number,—not because God required a protracted time, as if He
could not at once create all things, which then should mark the course of time by the movements
proper to them, but because the perfection of the works was signified by the number six. For the
number six is the first which is made up of its own501 parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and half, which
are respectively one, two, and three, and which make a total of six. In this way of looking at a
number, those are said to be its parts which exactly divide it, as a half, a third, a fourth, or a fraction
with any denominator, e.g., four is a part of nine, but not therefore an aliquot part; but one is, for
it is the ninth part; and three is, for it is the third. Yet these two parts, the ninth and the third, or
one and three, are far from making its whole sum of nine. So again, in the number ten, four is a
part, yet does not divide it; but one is an aliquot part, for it is a tenth; so it has a fifth, which is two;
and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth, a fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five,
added together, do not make ten, but eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts added together
exceed the whole; for it has a twelfth, that is, one; a sixth, or two; a fourth, which is three; a third,
which is four; and a half, which is six. But one, two, three, four, and six make up, not twelve, but
500 Ch. 7.
501 Or aliquot parts.
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more, viz., sixteen. So much I have thought fit to state for the sake of illustrating the perfection
of the number six, which is, as I said, the first which is exactly made up of its own parts added
together; and in this number of days God finished His work.502 And, therefore, we must not despise
the science of numbers, which, in many passages of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent service
to the careful interpreter.503 Neither has it been without reason numbered among God’s praises,
“Thou hast ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight.”504
Chapter 31.—Of the Seventh Day, in Which Completeness and Repose are Celebrated.
But, on the seventh day (i.e., the same day repeated seven times, which number is also a perfect
one, though for another reason), the rest of God is set forth, and then, too, we first hear of its being
hallowed. So that God did not wish to hallow this day by His works, but by His rest, which has no
evening, for it is not a creature; so that, being known in one way in the Word of God, and in another
in itself, it should make a twofold knowledge, daylight and dusk (day and evening). Much more
might be said about the perfection of the number seven, but this book is already too long, and I fear
lest I should seem to catch at an opportunity of airing my little smattering of science more childishly
than profitably. I must speak, therefore, in moderation and with dignity, lest, in too keenly following
“number,” I be accused of forgetting “weight” and “measure.” Suffice it here to say, that three is
the first whole number that is odd, four the first that is even, and of these two, seven is composed.
On this account it is often put for all numbers together, as, “A just man falleth seven times, and
riseth up again,”505—that is, let him fall never so often, he will not perish (and this was meant to
be understood not of sins, but of afflictions conducing to lowliness). Again, “Seven times a day
will I praise Thee,”506 which elsewhere is expressed thus, “I will bless the Lord at all times.”507
And many such instances are found in the divine authorities, in which the number seven is, as I
said, commonly used to express the whole, or the completeness of anything. And so the Holy
Spirit, of whom the Lord says, “He will teach you all truth,”508 is signified by this number.509 In it
is the rest of God, the rest His people find in Him. For rest is in the whole, i.e., in perfect
502 Comp. Aug. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 2, and De Trinitate, iv. 7.
503 For passages illustrating early opinions regarding numbers, see Smith’s Dict. art. Number.
504 Wisd. xi. 20.
505 Prov. xxiv. 16.
506 Ps. cxix. 164.
507 Ps. xxxiv. 1.
508 John xvi. 13.
509 In Isa. xi. 2, as he shows in his eighth sermon, where this subject is further pursued; otherwise, one might have supposed
he referred to Rev. iii. 1.
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completeness, while in the part there is labor. And thus we labor as long as we know in part; “but
when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”510 It is even
with toil we search into the Scriptures themselves. But the holy angels, towards whose society and
assembly we sigh while in this our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal home,
so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and felicity of rest. It is without difficulty that they
help us; for their spiritual movements, pure and free, cost them no effort.
Chapter 32.—Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World.
But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels are not referred to when it is
said, “Let there be light, and there was light;” if he suppose or teach that some material light, then
first created, was meant, and that the angels were created, not only before the firmament dividing
the waters and named “the heaven,” but also before the time signified in the words, “In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth;” if he allege that this phrase, “In the beginning,” does not
mean that nothing was made before (for the angels were), but that God made all things by His
Wisdom or Word, who is named in Scripture “the Beginning,” as He Himself, in the gospel, replied
to the Jews when they asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning;511—I will not contest
the point, chiefly because it gives me the liveliest satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated in the
very beginning of the book of Genesis. For having said “In the Beginning God created the heaven
and the earth,” meaning that the Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where it says,
“How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom hast Thou made them all”512), a little afterwards
mention is fitly made of the Holy Spirit also. For, when it had been told us what kind of earth God
created at first, or what the mass or matter was which God, under the name of “heaven and earth,”
had provided for the construction of the world, as is told in the additional words, “And the earth
was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” then, for the sake of
completing the mention of the Trinity, it is immediately added, “And the Spirit of God moved upon
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the face of the waters.” Let each one, then, take it as he pleases; for it is so profound a passage,
that it may well suggest, for the exercise of the reader’s tact, many opinions, and none of them
widely departing from the rule of faith. At the same time, let none doubt that the holy angels in
their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal with God, yet secure and certain of eternal
and true felicity. To their company the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and not only says,
“They shall be equal to the angels of God,”513 but shows, too, what blessed contemplation the angels
510 l Cor. xiii. 10.
511 Augustin refers to John viii. 25; see p. 195. He might rather have referred to Rev. iii. 14.
512 Ps. civ. 24.
513 Matt. xxii. 30.
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themselves enjoy, saying, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto
you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”514
Chapter 33.—Of the Two Different and Dissimilar Communities of Angels, Which are Not
Inappropriately Signified by the Names Light and Darkness.
That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the lowest parts of this world, where they
are, as it were, incarcerated till their final damnation in the day of judgment, the Apostle Peter very
plainly declares, when he says that “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to
hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved into judgment.”515 Who, then, can
doubt that God, either in foreknowledge or in act, separated between these and the rest? And who
will dispute that the rest are justly called “light?” For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping
only and not yet enjoying equality with them, are already called “light” by the apostle: “For ye
were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.”516 But as for these apostate angels,
all who understand or believe them to be worse than unbelieving men are well aware that they are
called “darkness.” Wherefore, though light and darkness are to be taken in their literal signification
in these passages of Genesis in which it is said, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light,”
and “God divided the light from the darkness,” yet, for our part, we understand these two societies
of angels,—the one enjoying God, the other swelling with pride; the one to whom it is said, “Praise
ye Him, all His angels,”517 the other whose prince says, “All these things will I give Thee if Thou
wilt fall down and worship me;”518 the one blazing with the holy love of God, the other reeking
with the unclean lust of self-advancement. And since, as it is written, “God resisteth the proud,
but giveth grace unto the humble,”519 we may say, the one dwelling in the heaven of heavens, the
other cast thence, and raging through the lower regions of the air; the one tranquil in the brightness
of piety, the other tempest-tossed with beclouding desires; the one, at God’s pleasure, tenderly
succoring, justly avenging,—the other, set on by its own pride, boiling with the lust of subduing
and hurting; the one the minister of God’s goodness to the utmost of their good pleasure, the other
held in by God’s power from doing the harm it would; the former laughing at the latter when it
does good unwillingly by its persecutions, the latter envying the former when it gathers in its
pilgrims. These two angelic communities, then, dissimilar and contrary to one another, the one
514 Matt. xviii. 10.
515 2 Peter ii. 4.
516 Eph. v. 8.
517 Ps. cxlviii. 2.
518 Matt. iv. 9.
519 Jas. iv. 6.
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both by nature good and by will upright, the other also good by nature but by will depraved, as they
are exhibited in other and more explicit passages of holy writ, so I think they are spoken of in this
book of Genesis under the names of light and darkness; and even if the author perhaps had a different
meaning, yet our discussion of the obscure language has not been wasted time; for, though we have
been unable to discover his meaning, yet we have adhered to the rule of faith, which is sufficiently
ascertained by the faithful from other passages of equal authority. For, though it is the material
works of God which are here spoken of, they have certainly a resemblance to the spiritual, so that
Paul can say, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night,
nor of darkness.”520 If, on the other hand, the author of Genesis saw in the words what we see, then
our discussion reaches this more satisfactory conclusion, that the man of God, so eminently and
divinely wise, or rather, that the Spirit of God who by him recorded God’s works which were
finished on the sixth day, may be supposed not to have omitted all mention of the angels whether
he included them in the words “in the beginning,” because He made them first, or, which seems
most likely, because He made them in the only-begotten Word. And, under these names heaven
and earth, the whole creation is signified, either as divided into spiritual and material, which seems
the more likely, or into the two great parts of the world in which all created things are contained,
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so that, first of all, the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are enumerated according to
the mystic number of the days.
Chapter 34.—Of the Idea that the Angels Were Meant Where the Separation of the Waters by the
Firmament is Spoken Of, and of that Other Idea that the Waters Were Not Created.
Some,521 however, have supposed that the angelic hosts are somehow referred to under the name
of waters, and that this is what is meant by “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters:”522
that the waters above should be understood of the angels, and those below either of the visible
waters, or of the multitude of bad angels, or of the nations of men. If this be so, then it does not
here appear when the angels were created, but when they were separated. Though there have not
been wanting men foolish and wicked enough523 to deny that the waters were made by God, because
it is nowhere written, “God said, Let there be waters.” With equal folly they might say the same
of the earth, for nowhere do we read, “God said, Let the earth be.” But, say they, it is written, “In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Yes, and there the water is meant, for both
520 1 Thess. v. 5.
521 Augustin himself published this idea in his Conf. xiii. 32 but afterwards retracted it, as “said without sufficient consideration”
(Retract. II. vi. 2). Epiphanius and Jerome ascribe it to Origen.
522 Gen. i. 6.
523 Namely, the Audians and Sampsæans, insignificant heretical sects mentioned by Theodoret and Epiphanius.
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are included in one word. For “the sea is His,” as the psalm says, “and He made it; and His hands
formed the dry land.”524 But those who would understand the angels by the waters above the skies
have a difficulty about the specific gravity of the elements, and fear that the waters, owing to their
fluidity and weight, could not be set in the upper parts of the world. So that, if they were to construct
a man upon their own principles, they would not put in his head any moist humors, or “phlegm”
as the Greeks call it, and which acts the part of water among the elements of our body. But, in
God’s handiwork, the head is the seat of the phlegm, and surely most fitly; and yet, according to
their supposition, so absurdly that if we were not aware of the fact, and were informed by this same
record that God had put a moist and cold and therefore heavy humor in the uppermost part of man’s
body, these world-weighers would refuse belief. And if they were confronted with the authority
of Scripture, they would maintain that something else must be meant by the words. But, were we
to investigate and discover all the details which are written in this divine book regarding the creation
of the world, we should have much to say, and should widely digress from the proposed aim of this
work. Since, then, we have now said what seemed needful regarding these two diverse and contrary
communities of angels, in which the origin of the two human communities (of which we intend to
speak anon) is also found, let us at once bring this book also to a conclusion.

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