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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 12

Argument—Augustin first institutes two inquiries regarding the angels; namely, whence is there
in some a good, and in others an evil will? and, what is the reason of the blessedness of the good,
and the misery of the evil? Afterwards he treats of the creation of man, and teaches that he is not
from eternity, but was created, and by none other than God.
Chapter 1.—That the Nature of the Angels, Both Good and Bad, is One and the Same.
It has already, in the preceding book, been shown how the two cities originated among the
angels. Before I speak of the creation of man, and show how the cities took their rise so far as
regards the race of rational mortals I see that I must first, so far as I can, adduce what may
demonstrate that it is not incongruous and unsuitable to speak of a society composed of angels and
men together; so that there are not four cities or societies,—two, namely, of angels, and as many
of men,—but rather two in all, one composed of the good, the other of the wicked, angels or men
indifferently.
524 Ps. xcv. 5.
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That the contrary propensities in good and bad angels have arisen, not from a difference in their
nature and origin, since God, the good Author and Creator of all essences, created them both, but
from a difference in their wills and desires, it is impossible to doubt. While some steadfastly
continued in that which was the common good of all, namely, in God Himself, and in His eternity,
truth, and love; others, being enamored rather of their own power, as if they could be their own
good, lapsed to this private good of their own, from that higher and beatific good which was common
to all, and, bartering the lofty dignity of eternity for the inflation of pride, the most assured verity
for the slyness of vanity, uniting love for factious partisanship, they became proud, deceived,
envious. The cause, therefore, of the blessedness of the good is adherence to God. And so the
cause of the others’ misery will be found in the contrary, that is, in their not adhering to God.
Wherefore, if when the question is asked, why are the former blessed, it is rightly answered, because
they adhere to God; and when it is asked, why are the latter miserable, it is rightly answered, because
they do not adhere to God,—then there is no other good for the rational or intellectual creature save
God only. Thus, though it is not every creature that can be blessed (for beasts, trees, stones, and
things of that kind have not this capacity), yet that creature which has the capacity cannot be blessed
of itself, since it is created out of nothing, but only by Him by whom it has been created. For it is
blessed by the possession of that whose loss makes it miserable. He, then, who is blessed not in
another, but in himself, cannot be miserable, because he cannot lose himself.
Accordingly we say that there is no unchangeable good but the one, true, blessed God; that the
things which He made are indeed good because from Him, yet mutable because made not out of
Him, but out of nothing. Although, therefore, they are not the supreme good, for God is a greater
good, yet those mutable things which can adhere to the immutable good, and so be blessed, are
very good; for so completely is He their good, that without Him they cannot but be wretched. And
the other created things in the universe are not better on this account, that they cannot be miserable.
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For no one would say that the other members of the body are superior to the eyes, because they
cannot be blind. But as the sentient nature, even when it feels pain, is superior to the stony, which
can feel none, so the rational nature, even when wretched, is more excellent than that which lacks
reason or feeling, and can therefore experience no misery. And since this is so, then in this nature
which has been created so excellent, that though it be mutable itself, it can yet secure its blessedness
by adhering to the immutable good, the supreme God; and since it is not satisfied unless it be
perfectly blessed, and cannot be thus blessed save in God,—in this nature, I say, not to adhere to
God, is manifestly a fault.525 Now every fault injures the nature, and is consequently contrary to
the nature. The creature, therefore, which cleaves to God, differs from those who do not, not by
nature, but by fault; and yet by this very fault the nature itself is proved to be very noble and
admirable. For that nature is certainly praised, the fault of which is justly blamed. For we justly
blame the fault because it mars the praiseworthy nature. As, then, when we say that blindness is
a defect of the eyes, we prove that sight belongs to the nature of the eyes; and when we say that
525 Vitium: perhaps “fault,” most nearly embraces all the uses of this word.
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deafness is a defect of the ears, hearing is thereby proved to belong to their nature;—so, when we
say that it is a fault of the angelic creature that it does not cleave to God, we hereby most plainly
declare that it pertained to its nature to cleave to God. And who can worthily conceive or express
how great a glory that is, to cleave to God, so as to live to Him, to draw wisdom from Him, to
delight in Him, and to enjoy this so great good, without death, error, or grief? And thus, since every
vice is an injury of the nature, that very vice of the wicked angels, their departure from God, is
sufficient proof that God created their nature so good, that it is an injury to it not to be with God.
Chapter 2.—That There is No Entity526 Contrary to the Divine, Because Nonentity Seems to Be
that Which is Wholly Opposite to Him Who Supremely and Always is.
This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak of the apostate angels,
that they could have another nature, derived, as it were, from some different origin, and not from
God. From the great impiety of this error we shall disentangle ourselves the more readily and
easily, the more distinctly we understand that which God spoke by the angel when He sent Moses
to the children of Israel: “I am that I am.”527 For since God is the supreme existence, that is to say,
supremely is, and is therefore unchangeable, the things that He made He empowered to be, but not
to be supremely like Himself. To some He communicated a more ample, to others a more limited
existence, and thus arranged the natures of beings in ranks. For as from sapere comes sapientia,
so from esse comes essentia,—a new word indeed, which the old Latin writers did not use, but
which is naturalized in our day,528 that our language may not want an equivalent for the Greek
οὐσία. For this is expressed word for word by essentia. Consequently, to that nature which
supremely is, and which created all else that exists, no nature is contrary save that which does not
exist. For nonentity is the contrary of that which is. And thus there is no being contrary to God,
the Supreme Being, and Author of all beings whatsoever.
Chapter 3.—That the Enemies of God are So, Not by Nature, But by Will, Which, as It Injures
Them, Injures a Good Nature; For If Vice Does Not Injure, It is Not Vice.
In Scripture they are called God’s enemies who oppose His rule, not by nature, but by vice;
having no power to hurt Him, but only themselves. For they are His enemies, not through their
526 Essentia.
527 Ex. iii. 14.
528 Quintilian calls it dura.
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power to hurt, but by their will to oppose Him. For God is unchangeable, and wholly proof against
injury. Therefore the vice which makes those who are called His enemies resist Him, is an evil not
to God, but to themselves. And to them it is an evil, solely because it corrupts the good of their
nature. It is not nature, therefore, but vice, which is contrary to God. For that which is evil is
contrary to the good. And who will deny that God is the supreme good? Vice, therefore, is contrary
to God, as evil to good. Further, the nature it vitiates is a good, and therefore to this good also it
is contrary. But while it is contrary to God only as evil to good, it is contrary to the nature it vitiates,
both as evil and as hurtful. For to God no evils are hurtful; but only to natures mutable and
corruptible, though, by the testimony of the vices themselves, originally good. For were they not
good, vices could not hurt them. For how do they hurt them but by depriving them of integrity,
beauty, welfare, virtue, and, in short, whatever natural good vice is wont to diminish or destroy?
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But if there be no good to take away, then no injury can be done, and conse quently there can be
no vice. For it is impossible that there should be a harmless vice. Whence we gather, that though
vice cannot injure the unchangeable good, it can injure nothing but good; because it does not exist
where it does not injure. This, then, may be thus formulated: Vice cannot be in the highest good,
and cannot be but in some good. Things solely good, therefore, can in some circumstances exist;
things solely evil, never; for even those natures which are vitiated by an evil will, so far indeed as
they are vitiated, are evil, but in so far as they are natures they are good. And when a vitiated nature
is punished, besides the good it has in being a nature, it has this also, that it is not unpunished.529
For this is just, and certainly everything just is a good. For no one is punished for natural, but for
voluntary vices. For even the vice which by the force of habit and long continuance has become
a second nature, had its origin in the will. For at present we are speaking of the vices of the nature,
which has a mental capacity for that enlightenment which discriminates between what is just and
what is unjust.
Chapter 4.—Of the Nature of Irrational and Lifeless Creatures, Which in Their Own Kind and
Order Do Not Mar the Beauty of the Universe.
But it is ridiculous to condemn the faults of beasts and trees, and other such mortal and mutable
things as are void of intelligence, sensation, or life, even though these faults should destroy their
corruptible nature; for these creatures received, at their Creator’s will, an existence fitting them,
by passing away and giving place to others, to secure that lowest form of beauty, the beauty of
seasons, which in its own place is a requisite part of this world. For things earthly were neither to
be made equal to things heavenly, nor were they, though inferior, to be quite omitted from the
529 With this may be compared the argument of Socrates in the Gorgias, in which it is shown that to escape punishment is
worse than to suffer it, and that the greatest of evils is to do wrong and not be chastised.
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universe. Since, then, in those situations where such things are appropriate, some perish to make
way for others that are born in their room, and the less succumb to the greater, and the things that
are overcome are transformed into the quality of those that have the mastery, this is the appointed
order of things transitory. Of this order the beauty does not strike us, because by our mortal frailty
we are so involved in a part of it, that we cannot perceive the whole, in which these fragments that
offend us are harmonized with the most accurate fitness and beauty. And therefore, where we are
not so well able to perceive the wisdom of the Creator, we are very properly enjoined to believe it,
lest in the vanity of human rashness we presume to find any fault with the work of so great an
Artificer. At the same time, if we attentively consider even these faults of earthly things, which
are neither voluntary nor penal, they seem to illustrate the excellence of the natures themselves,
which are all originated and created by God; for it is that which pleases us in this nature which we
are displeased to see removed by the fault,—unless even the natures themselves displease men, as
often happens when they become hurtful to them, and then men estimate them not by their nature,
but by their utility; as in the case of those animals whose swarms scourged the pride of the Egyptians.
But in this way of estimating, they may find fault with the sun itself; for certain criminals or debtors
are sentenced by the judges to be set in the sun. Therefore it is not with respect to our convenience
or discomfort, but with respect to their own nature, that the creatures are glorifying to their Artificer.
Thus even the nature of the eternal fire, penal though it be to the condemned sinners, is most
assuredly worthy of praise. For what is more beautiful than fire flaming, blazing, and shining?
What more useful than fire for warming, restoring, cooking, though nothing is more destructive
than fire burning and consuming? The same thing, then, when applied in one way, is destructive,
but when applied suitably, is most beneficial. For who can find words to tell its uses throughout
the whole world? We must not listen, then, to those who praise the light of fire but find fault with
its heat, judging it not by its nature, but by their convenience or discomfort. For they wish to see,
but not to be burnt. But they forget that this very light which is so pleasant to them, disagrees with
and hurts weak eyes; and in that heat which is disagreeable to them, some animals find the most
suitable conditions of a healthy life.
Chapter 5.—That in All Natures, of Every Kind and Rank, God is Glorified.
All natures, then, inasmuch as they are, and have therefore a rank and species of their own, and
a kind of internal harmony, are certainly good. And when they are in the places assigned to them
by the order of their nature, they preserve such being as they have received. And those things which
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have not received everlasting being, are altered for better or for worse, so as to suit the wants and
motions of those things to which the Creator’s law has made them subservient; and thus they tend
in the divine providence to that end which is embraced in the general scheme of the government
of the universe. So that, though the corruption of transitory and perishable things brings them to
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utter destruction, it does not prevent their producing that which was designed to be their result.
And this being so, God, who supremely is, and who therefore created every being which has not
supreme existence (for that which was made of nothing could not be equal to Him, and indeed
could not be at all had He not made it), is not to be found fault with on account of the creature’s
faults, but is to be praised in view of the natures He has made.
Chapter 6.—What the Cause of the Blessedness of the Good Angels Is, and What the Cause of the
Misery of the Wicked.
Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave
to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and
not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and
have turned to themselves who have no such essence. And this vice, what else is it called than
pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.”530 They were unwilling, then, to preserve their strength
for God; and as adherence to God was the condition of their enjoying an ampler being, they
diminished it by preferring themselves to Him. This was the first defect, and the first
impoverishment, and the first flaw of their nature, which was created, not indeed supremely existent,
but finding its blessedness in the enjoyment of the Supreme Being; whilst by abandoning Him it
should become, not indeed no nature at all, but a nature with a less ample existence, and therefore
wretched.
If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of their evil will? there is none.
For what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad? And
consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the
bad will. For if anything is the cause, this thing either has or has not a will. If it has, the will is
either good or bad. If good, who is so left to himself as to say that a good will makes a will bad?
For in this case a good will would be the cause of sin; a most absurd supposition. On the other
hand, if this hypothetical thing has a bad will, I wish to know what made it so; and that we may
not go on forever, I ask at once, what made the first evil will bad? For that is not the first which
was itself corrupted by an evil will, but that is the first which was made evil by no other will. For
if it were preceded by that which made it evil, that will was first which made the other evil. But if
it is replied, “Nothing made it evil; it always was evil,” I ask if it has been existing in some nature.
For if not, then it did not exist at all; and if it did exist in some nature, then it vitiated and corrupted
it, and injured it, and consequently deprived it of good. And therefore the evil will could not exist
in an evil nature, but in a nature at once good and mutable, which this vice could injure. For if it
did no injury, it was no vice; and consequently the will in which it was, could not be called evil.
530 Eccles. x. 13.
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But if it did injury, it did it by taking away or diminishing good. And therefore there could not be
from eternity, as was suggested, an evil will in that thing in which there had been previously a
natural good, which the evil will was able to diminish by corrupting it. If, then, it was not from
eternity, who, I ask, made it? The only thing that can be suggested in reply is, that something which
itself had no will, made the will evil. I ask, then, whether this thing was superior, inferior, or equal
to it? If superior, then it is better. How, then, has it no will, and not rather a good will? The same
reasoning applies if it was equal; for so long as two things have equally a good will, the one cannot
produce in the other an evil will. Then remains the supposition that that which corrupted the will
of the angelic nature which first sinned, was itself an inferior thing without a will. But that thing,
be it of the lowest and most earthly kind, is certainly itself good, since it is a nature and being, with
a form and rank of its own in its own kind and order. How, then, can a good thing be the efficient
cause of an evil will? How, I say, can good be the cause of evil? For when the will abandons what
is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil—not because that is evil to which it turns,
but because the turning itself is wicked. Therefore it is not an inferior thing which has made the
will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly and inordinately desiring an inferior
thing. For if two men, alike in physical and moral constitution, see the same corporal beauty, and
one of them is excited by the sight to desire an illicit enjoyment while the other steadfastly maintains
a modest restraint of his will, what do we suppose brings it about, that there is an evil will in the
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one and not in the other? What produces it in the man in whom it exists? Not the bodily beauty,
for that was presented equally to the gaze of both, and yet did not produce in both an evil will. Did
the flesh of the one cause the desire as he looked? But why did not the flesh of the other? Or was
it the disposition? But why not the disposition of both? For we are supposing that both were of a
like temperament of body and soul. Must we, then, say that the one was tempted by a secret
suggestion of the evil spirit? As if it was not by his own will that he consented to this suggestion
and to any inducement whatever! This consent, then, this evil will which he presented to the evil
suasive influence,—what was the cause of it, we ask? For, not to delay on such a difficulty as this,
if both are tempted equally and one yields and consents to the temptation while the other remains
unmoved by it, what other account can we give of the matter than this, that the one is willing, the
other unwilling, to fall away from chastity? And what causes this but their own wills, in cases at
least such as we are supposing, where the temperament is identical? The same beauty was equally
obvious to the eyes of both; the same secret temptation pressed on both with equal violence.
However minutely we examine the case, therefore, we can discern nothing which caused the will
of the one to be evil. For if we say that the man himself made his will evil, what was the man
himself before his will was evil but a good nature created by God, the unchangeable good? Here
are two men who, before the temptation, were alike in body and soul, and of whom one yielded to
the tempter who persuaded him, while the other could not be persuaded to desire that lovely body
which was equally before the eyes of both. Shall we say of the successfully tempted man that he
corrupted his own will, since he was certainly good before his will became bad? Then, why did
he do so? Was it because his will was a nature, or because it was made of nothing? We shall find
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that the latter is the case. For if a nature is the cause of an evil will, what else can we say than that
evil arises from good or that good is the cause of evil? And how can it come to pass that a nature,
good though mutable, should produce any evil—that is to say, should make the will itself wicked?
Chapter 7.—That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.
Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but
deficient, as the will itself is not an effecting of something, but a defect. For defection from that
which supremely is, to that which has less of being,—this is to begin to have an evil will. Now, to
seek to discover the causes of these defections,—causes, as I have said, not efficient, but
deficient,—is as if some one sought to see darkness, or hear silence. Yet both of these are known
by us, and the former by means only of the eye, the latter only by the ear; but not by their positive
actuality,531 but by their want of it. Let no one, then seek to know from me what I know that I do
not know; unless he perhaps wishes to learn to be ignorant of that of which all we know is, that it
cannot be known. For those things which are known not by their actuality, but by their want of it,
are known, if our expression may be allowed and understood, by not knowing them, that by knowing
them they may be not known. For when the eyesight surveys objects that strike the sense, it nowhere
sees darkness but where it begins not to see. And so no other sense but the ear can perceive silence,
and yet it is only perceived by not hearing. Thus, too, our mind perceives intelligible forms by
understanding them; but when they are deficient, it knows them by not knowing them; for “who
can understand defects?”532
Chapter 8.—Of the Misdirected Love Whereby the Will Fell Away from the Immutable to the
Mutable Good.
This I do know, that the nature of God can never, nowhere, nowise be defective, and that natures
made of nothing can. These latter, however, the more being they have, and the more good they do
(for then they do something positive), the more they have efficient causes; but in so far as they are
defective in being, and consequently do evil (for then what is their work but vanity?), they have
deficient causes. And I know likewise, that the will could not become evil, were it unwilling to
become so; and therefore its failings are justly punished, being not necessary, but voluntary. For
its defections are not to evil things, but are themselves evil; that is to say, are not towards things
531 Specie.
532 Ps. xix. 12.
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that are naturally and in themselves evil, but the defection of the will is evil, because it is contrary
to the order of nature, and an abandonment of that which has supreme being for that which has
less. For avarice is not a fault inherent in gold, but in the man who inordinately loves gold, to the
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detriment of justice, which ought to be held in incomparably higher regard than gold. Neither is
luxury the fault of lovely and charming objects, but of the heart that inordinately loves sensual
pleasures, to the neglect of temperance, which attaches us to objects more lovely in their spirituality,
and more delectable by their incorruptibility. Nor yet is boasting the fault of human praise, but of
the soul that is inordinately fond of the applause of men, and that makes light of the voice of
conscience. Pride, too, is not the fault of him who delegates power, nor of power itself, but of the
soul that is inordinately enamored of its own power, and despises the more just dominion of a higher
authority. Consequently he who inordinately loves the good which any nature possesses, even
though he obtain it, himself becomes evil in the good, and wretched because deprived of a greater
good.
Chapter 9.—Whether the Angels, Besides Receiving from God Their Nature, Received from Him
Also Their Good Will by the Holy Spirit Imbuing Them with Love.
There is, then, no natural efficient cause or, if I may be allowed the expression, no essential
cause, of the evil will, since itself is the origin of evil in mutable spirits, by which the good of their
nature is diminished and corrupted; and the will is made evil by nothing else than defection from
God,—a defection of which the cause, too, is certainly deficient. But as to the good will, if we
should say that there is no efficient cause of it, we must beware of giving currency to the opinion
that the good will of the good angels is not created, but is co-eternal with God. For if they themselves
are created, how can we say that their good will was eternal? But if created, was it created along
with themselves, or did they exist for a time without it? If along with themselves, then doubtless
it was created by Him who created them, and, as soon as ever they were created, they attached
themselves to Him who created them, with the love He created in them. And they are separated
from the society of the rest, because they have continued in the same good will; while the others
have fallen away to another will, which is an evil one, by the very fact of its being a falling away
from the good; from which, we may add, they would not have fallen away had they been unwilling
to do so. But if the good angels existed for a time without a good will, and produced it in themselves
without God’s interference, then it follows that they made themselves better than He made them.
Away with such a thought! For without a good will, what were they but evil? Or if they were not
evil, because they had not an evil will any more than a good one (for they had not fallen away from
that which as yet they had not begun to enjoy), certainly they were not the same, not so good, as
when they came to have a good will. Or if they could not make themselves better than they were
made by Him who is surpassed by none in His work, then certainly, without His helpful operation,
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they could not come to possess that good will which made them better. And though their good will
effected that they did not turn to themselves, who had a more stinted existence, but to Him who
supremely is, and that, being united to Him, their own being was enlarged, and they lived a wise
and blessed life by His communications to them, what does this prove but that the will, however
good it might be, would have continued helplessly only to desire Him, had not He who had made
their nature out of nothing, and yet capable of enjoying Him, first stimulated it to desire Him, and
then filled it with Himself, and so made it better?
Besides, this too has to be inquired into, whether, if the good angels made their own will good,
they did so with or without will? If without, then it was not their doing. If with, was the will good
or bad? If bad, how could a bad will give birth to a good one? If good, then already they had a
good will. And who made this will, which already they had, but He who created them with a good
will, or with that chaste love by which they cleaved to Him, in one and the same act creating their
nature, and endowing it with grace? And thus we are driven to believe that the holy angels never
existed without a good will or the love of God. But the angels who, though created good, are yet
evil now, became so by their own will. And this will was not made evil by their good nature, unless
by its voluntary defection from good; for good is not the cause of evil, but a defection from good
is. These angels, therefore, either received less of the grace of the divine love than those who
persevered in the same; or if both were created equally good, then, while the one fell by their evil
will, the others were more abundantly assisted, and attained to that pitch of blessedness at which
they became certain they should never fall from it,—as we have already shown in the preceding
book.533 We must therefore acknowledge, with the praise due to the Creator, that not only of holy
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men, but also of the holy angels, it can be said that “the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts
by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them.”534 And that not only of men, but primarily and
principally of angels it is true, as it is written, “It is good to draw near to God.”535 And those who
have this good in common, have, both with Him to whom they draw near, and with one another, a
holy fellowship, and form one city of God—His living sacrifice, and His living temple. And I see
that, as I have now spoken of the rise of this city among the angels, it is time to speak of the origin
of that part of it which is hereafter to be united to the immortal angels, and which at present is being
gathered from among mortal men, and is either sojourning on earth, or, in the persons of those who
have passed through death, is resting in the secret receptacles and abodes of disembodied spirits.
For from one man, whom God created as the first, the whole human race descended, according to
the faith of Holy Scripture, which deservedly is of wonderful authority among all nations throughout
the world; since, among its other true statements, it predicted, by its divine foresight, that all nations
would give credit to it.
533 C. 13.
534 Rom. v. 5.
535 Ps. lxxiii. 28.
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Chapter 10.—Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s
Past.
Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the
nature and origin of the human race. For some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold
regarding the world itself, that they have always been. Thus Apuleius says when he is describing
our race, “Individually they are mortal, but collectively, and as a race, they are immortal.”536 And
when they are asked, how, if the human race has always been, they vindicate the truth of their
history, which narrates who were the inventors, and what they invented, and who first instituted
the liberal studies and the other arts, and who first inhabited this or that region, and this or that
island? they reply,537 that most, if not all lands, were so desolated at intervals by fire and flood, that
men were greatly reduced in numbers, and from these, again, the population was restored to its
former numbers, and that thus there was at intervals a new beginning made, and though those things
which had been interrupted and checked by the severe devastations were only renewed, yet they
seemed to be originated then; but that man could not exist at all save as produced by man. But they
say what they think, not what they know.
They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history
of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have
yet passed.538 And, not to spend many words in exposing the baselessness of these documents, in
which so many thousands of years are accounted for, nor in proving that their authorities are totally
inadequate, let me cite only that letter which Alexander the Great wrote to his mother Olympias,539
giving her the narrative he had from an Egyptian priest, which he had extracted from their sacred
archives, and which gave an account of kingdoms mentioned also by the Greek historians. In this
letter of Alexander’s a term of upwards of 5000 years is assigned to the kingdom of Assyria; while
in the Greek history only 1300 years are reckoned from the reign of Bel himself, whom both Greek
and Egyptian agree in counting the first king of Assyria. Then to the empire of the Persians and
Macedonians this Egyptian assigned more than 8000 years, counting to the time of Alexander, to
whom he was speaking; while among the Greeks, 485 years are assigned to the Macedonians down
to the death of Alexander, and to the Persians 233 years, reckoning to the termination of his
conquests. Thus these give a much smaller number of years than the Egyptians; and indeed, though
multiplied three times, the Greek chronology would still be shorter. For the Egyptians are said to
536 De Deo Socrates.
537 Augustin no doubt refers to the interesting account given by Critias, near the beginning of the Timæus, of the conversation
of Solon with the Egyptian priests.
538 Augustin here follows the chronology of Eusebius, who reckons 5611 years from the Creation to the taking of Rome by
the Goths; adopting the Septuagint version of the Patriarchal ages.
539 See above, viii. 5.
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have formerly reckoned only four months to their year;540 so that one year, according to the fuller
and truer computation now in use among them as well as among ourselves, would comprehend
three of their old years. But not even thus, as I said, does the Greek history correspond with the
Egyptian in its chronology. And therefore the former must receive the greater credit, because it
does not exceed the true account of the duration of the world as it is given by our documents, which
are truly sacred. Further, if this letter of Alexander, which has become so famous, differs widely
in this matter of chronology from the probable credible account, how much less can we believe
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these documents which, though full of fabu lous and fictitious antiquities, they would fain oppose
to the authority of our well-known and divine books, which predicted that the whole world would
believe them, and which the whole world accordingly has believed; which proved, too, that it had
truly narrated past events by its prediction of future events, which have so exactly come to pass!
Chapter 11.—Of Those Who Suppose that This World Indeed is Not Eternal, But that Either There
are Numberless Worlds, or that One and the Same World is Perpetually Resolved into Its
Elements, and Renewed at the Conclusion of Fixed Cycles.
There are some, again, who, though they do not suppose that this world is eternal, are of opinion
either that this is not the only world, but that there are numberless worlds or that indeed it is the
only one, but that it dies, and is born again at fixed intervals, and this times without number;541 but
they must acknowledge that the human race existed before there were other men to beget them.
For they cannot suppose that, if the whole world perish, some men would be left alive in the world,
as they might survive in floods and conflagrations, which those other speculators suppose to be
partial, and from which they can therefore reasonably argue that a few then survived whose posterity
would renew the population; but as they believe that the world itself is renewed out of its own
material, so they must believe that out of its elements the human race was produced, and then that
the progeny of mortals sprang like that of other animals from their parents.
540 It is not apparent to what Augustin refers. The Arcadians, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 7), divided their year into
three months, and the Egyptians divided theirs into three seasons: each of these seasons having four months, it is possible that
Augustin may have referred to this. See Wilkinson’s excursus on the Egyptian year, in Rawlinson’s Herod. Book ii.
541 The former opinion was held by Democritus and his disciple Epicurus; the latter by Heraclitus, who supposed that “God
amused Himself” by thus renewing worlds.
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Chapter 12.—How These Persons are to Be Answered, Who Find Fault with the Creation of Man
on the Score of Its Recent Date.
As to those who are always asking why man was not created during these countless ages of the
infinitely extended past, and came into being so lately that, according to Scripture, less than 6000
years have elapsed since He began to be, I would reply to them regarding the creation of man, just
as I replied regarding the origin of the world to those who will not believe that it is not eternal, but
had a beginning, which even Plato himself most plainly declares, though some think his statement
was not consistent with his real opinion.542 If it offends them that the time that has elapsed since
the creation of man is so short, and his years so few according to our authorities, let them take this
into consideration, that nothing that has a limit is long, and that all the ages of time being finite,
are very little, or indeed nothing at all, when compared to the interminable eternity. Consequently,
if there had elapsed since the creation of man, I do not say five or six, but even sixty or six hundred
thousand years, or sixty times as many, or six hundred or six hundred thousand times as many, or
this sum multiplied until it could no longer be expressed in numbers, the same question could still
be put, Why was he not made before? For the past and boundless eternity during which God
abstained from creating man is so great, that, compare it with what vast and untold number of ages
you please, so long as there is a definite conclusion of this term of time, it is not even as if you
compared the minutest drop of water with the ocean that everywhere flows around the globe. For
of these two, one indeed is very small, the other incomparably vast, yet both are finite; but that
space of time which starts from some beginning, and is limited by some termination, be it of what
extent it may, if you compare it with that which has no beginning, I know not whether to say we
should count it the very minutest thing, or nothing at all. For, take this limited time, and deduct
from the end of it, one by one, the briefest moments (as you might take day by day from a man’s
life, beginning at the day in which he now lives, back to that of his birth), and though the number
of moments you must subtract in this backward movement be so great that no word can express it,
yet this subtraction will sometime carry you to the beginning. But if you take away from a time
which has no beginning, I do not say brief moments one by one, nor yet hours, or days, or months,
or years even in quantities, but terms of years so vast that they cannot be named by the most skillful
arithmeticians,—take away terms of years as vast as that which we have supposed to be gradually
consumed by the deduction of moments,—and take them away not once and again repeatedly, but
always, and what do you effect, what do you make by your deduction, since you never reach the
beginning, which has no existence? Wherefore, that which we now demand after five thousand
odd years, our descendants might with like curiosity demand after six hundred thousand years,
supposing these dying generations of men continue so long to decay and be renewed, and supposing
542 The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavored in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timæus.
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posterity continues as weak and ignorant as ourselves. The same question might have been asked
by those who have lived before us and while man was even newer upon earth. The first man himself
in short might the day after or the very day of his creation have asked why he was created no sooner.
And no matter at what earlier or later period he had been created, this controversy about the
commencement of this world’s history would have had precisely the same difficulties as it has now.
Chapter 13.—Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All
Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First.
This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means of solving than by
introducing cycles of time, in which there should be a constant renewal and repetition of the order
of nature;543 and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly recur, one passing
away and another coming, though they are not agreed as to whether one permanent world shall
pass through all these cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and be renewed
so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena—the things which have been, and those which
are to be, coinciding. And from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal soul
that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless transmigration between delusive blessedness
and real misery. For how can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so
eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the misery that is approaching, or,
knowing it, is in misery and fear? Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries forever, then there
happens in time a new thing which time shall not end. Why not, then, the world also? Why may
not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by following the straight path of sound doctrine, we
escape, I know not what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.
Some, too, in advocating these recurring cycles that restore all things to their original cite in
favor of their supposition what Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes: “What is that which hath
been? It is that which shall be. And what is that which is done? It is that which shall be done:
and there is no new thing under the sun. Who can speak and say, See, this is new? It hath been
already of old time, which was before us.”544 This he said either of those things of which he had
just been speaking—the succession of generations, the orbit of the sun, the course of rivers,—or
else of all kinds of creatures that are born and die. For men were before us, are with us, and shall
be after us; and so all living things and all plants. Even monstrous and irregular productions, though
differing from one another, and though some are reported as solitary instances, yet resemble one
another generally, in so far as they are miraculous and monstrous, and, in this sense, have been,
543 Antoninus says (ii. 14): “All things from eternity are of like forms, and come round in a circle.” Cf. also ix. 28, and the
references to more ancient philosophical writers in Gataker’s notes in these passages.
544 Eccles. i. 9, 10. So Origen, de Prin. iii. 5, and ii. 3.
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and shall be, and are no new and recent things under the sun. However, some would understand
these words as meaning that in the predestination of God all things have already existed, and that
thus there is no new thing under the sun. At all events, far be it from any true believer to suppose
that by these words of Solomon those cycles are meant, in which, according to those philosophers,
the same periods and events of time are repeated; as if, for example, the philosopher Plato, having
taught in the school at Athens which is called the Academy, so, numberless ages before, at long
but certain intervals, this same Plato and the same school, and the same disciples existed, and so
also are to be repeated during the countless cycles that are yet to be,—far be it, I say, from us to
believe this. For once Christ died for our sins; and, rising from the dead, He dieth no more. “Death
hath no more dominion over Him;545 and we ourselves after the resurrection shall be “ever with the
Lord,”546 to whom we now say, as the sacred Psalmist dictates, “Thou shall keep us, O Lord, Thou
shall preserve us from this generation.”547 And that too which follows, is, I think, appropriate
enough: “The wicked walk in a circle,” not because their life is to recur by means of these circles,
which these philosophers imagine, but because the path in which their false doctrine now runs is
circuitous.
Chapter 14.—Of the Creation of the Human Race in Time, and How This Was Effected Without
Any New Design or Change of Purpose on God’s Part.
What wonder is it if, entangled in these circles, they find neither entrance nor egress? For they
know not how the human race, and this mortal condition of ours, took its origin, nor how it will be
brought to an end, since they cannot penetrate the inscrutable wisdom of God. For, though Himself
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eternal, and without beginning, yet He caused time to have a beginning; and man, whom He had
not previously made He made in time, not from a new and sudden resolution, but by His
unchangeable and eternal design. Who can search out the unsearchable depth of this purpose, who
can scrutinize the inscrutable wisdom, wherewith God, without change of will, created man, who
had never before been, and gave him an existence in time, and increased the human race from one
individual? For the Psalmist himself, when he had first said, “Thou shalt keep us, O Lord, Thou
shall preserve us from this generation for ever,” and had then rebuked those whose foolish and
impious doctrine preserves for the soul no eternal deliverance and blessedness adds immediately,
“The wicked walk in a circle.” Then, as if it were said to him, “What then do you believe, feel,
know? Are we to believe that it suddenly occurred to God to create man, whom He had never
before made in a past eternity,—God, to whom nothing new can occur, and in whom is no
545 Rom. vi. 9.
546 1 Thess. iv. 16.
547 Ps. xii. 7.
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changeableness?” the Psalmist goes on to reply, as if addressing God Himself, “According to the
depth of Thy wisdom Thou hast multiplied the children of men.” Let men, he seems to say, fancy
what they please, let them conjecture and dispute as seems good to them, but Thou hast multiplied
the children of men according to the depth of thy wisdom, which no man can comprehend. For
this is a depth indeed, that God always has been, and that man, whom He had never made before,
He willed to make in time, and this without changing His design and will.
Chapter 15.—Whether We are to Believe that God, as He Has Always Been Sovereign Lord, Has
Always Had Creatures Over Whom He Exercised His Sovereignty; And in What Sense We
Can Say that the Creature Has Always Been, and Yet Cannot Say It is Co-Eternal.
For my own part, indeed, as I dare not say that there ever was a time when the Lord God was
not Lord,548 so I ought not to doubt that man had no existence before time, and was first created in
time. But when I consider what God could be the Lord of, if there was not always some creature,
I shrink from making any assertion, remembering my own insignificance, and that it is written,
“What man is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of the Lord is?
For the thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our devices are but uncertain. For the corruptible
body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon
many things.”549 Many things certainly do I muse upon in this earthly tabernacle, because the one
thing which is true among the many, or beyond the many, I cannot find. If, then, among these many
thoughts, I say that there have always been creatures for Him to be Lord of, who is always and ever
has been Lord, but that these creatures have not always been the same, but succeeded one another
(for we would not seem to say that any is co-eternal with the Creator, an assertion condemned
equally by faith and sound reason), I must take care lest I fall into the absurd and ignorant error of
maintaining that by these successions and changes mortal creatures have always existed, whereas
the immortal creatures had not begun to exist until the date of our own world, when the angels were
created; if at least the angels are intended by that light which was first made, or, rather, by that
heaven of which it is said, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”550 The angels,
at least did not exist before they were created; for if we say that they have always existed, we shall
seem to make them co-eternal with the Creator. Again, if I say that the angels were not created in
time, but existed before all times, as those over whom God, who has ever been Sovereign, exercised
His sovereignty, then I shall be asked whether, if they were created before all time, they, being
creatures, could possibly always exist. It may perhaps be replied, Why not always, since that which
548 Cf. de Trin. v. 17.
549 Wisdom ix. 13–15.
550 Gen. i. 1.
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is in all time may very properly be said to be “always?” Now so true is it that these angels have
existed in all time that even before time was they were created; if at least time began with the
heavens, and the angels existed before the heavens. And if time was even before the heavenly
bodies, not indeed marked by hours, days, months, and years,—for these measures of time’s periods
which are commonly and properly called times, did manifestly begin with the motion of the heavenly
bodies, and so God said, when He appointed them, “Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for
days, and for years,”551—if, I say, time was before these heavenly bodies by some changing
movement, whose parts succeeded one another and could not exist simultaneously, and if there was
some such movement among the angels which necessitated the existence of time, and that they
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from their very creation should be subject to these temporal changes, then they have existed in all
time, for time came into being along with them. And who will say that what was in all time, was
not always?
But if I make such a reply, it will be said to me, How, then, are they not co-eternal with the
Creator, if He and they always have been? How even can they be said to have been created, if we
are to understand that they have always existed? What shall we reply to this? Shall we say that
both statements are true? that they always have been, since they have been in all time, they being
created along with time, or time along with them, and yet that also they were created? For, similarly,
we will not deny that time itself was created, though no one doubts that time has been in all time;
for if it has not been in all time, then there was a time when there was no time. But the most foolish
person could not make such an assertion. For we can reasonably say there was a time when Rome
was not; there was a time when Jerusalem was not; there was a time when Abraham was not; there
was a time when man was not, and so on: in fine, if the world was not made at the commencement
of time, but after some time had elapsed, we can say there was a time when the world was not. But
to say there was a time when time was not, is as absurd as to say there was a man when there was
no man; or, this world was when this world was not. For if we are not referring to the same object,
the form of expression may be used, as, there was another man when this man was not. Thus we
can reasonably say there was another time when this time was not; but not the merest simpleton
could say there was a time when there was no time. As, then, we say that time was created, though
we also say that it always has been, since in all time time has been, so it does not follow that if the
angels have always been, they were therefore not created. For we say that they have always been,
because they have been in all time; and we say they have been in all time, because time itself could
no wise be without them. For where there is no creature whose changing movements admit of
succession, there cannot be time at all. And consequently, even if they have always existed, they
were created; neither, if they have always existed, are they therefore co-eternal with the Creator.
For He has always existed in unchangeable eternity; while they were created, and are said to have
been always, because they have been in all time, time being impossible without the creature. But
time passing away by its changefulness, cannot be co-eternal with changeless eternity. And
551 Gen. i. 14.
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consequently, though the immortality of the angels does not pass in time, does not become past as
if now it were not, nor has a future as if it were not yet, still their movements, which are the basis
of time, do pass from future to past; and therefore they cannot be co-eternal with the Creator, in
whose movement we cannot say that there has been that which now is not, or shall be that which
is not yet. Wherefore, if God always has been Lord, He has always had creatures under His
dominion,—creatures, however, not begotten of Him, but created by Him out of nothing; nor
co-eternal with Him, for He was before them though at no time without them, because He preceded
them, not by the lapse of time, but by His abiding eternity. But if I make this reply to those who
demand how He was always Creator, always Lord, if there were not always a subject creation; or
how this was created, and not rather co-eternal with its Creator, if it always was, I fear I may be
accused of recklessly affirming what I know not, instead of teaching what I know. I return, therefore,
to that which our Creator has seen fit that we should know; and those things which He has allowed
the abler men to know in this life, or has reserved to be known in the next by the perfected saints,
I acknowledge to be beyond my capacity. But I have thought it right to discuss these matters without
making positive assertions, that they who read may be warned to abstain from hazardous questions,
and may not deem themselves fit for everything. Let them rather endeavor to obey the wholesome
injunction of the apostle, when he says, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man
that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”552 For if an infant receive
nourishment suited to its strength, it becomes capable, as it grows, of taking more; but if its strength
and capacity be overtaxed, it dwines away in place of growing.
Chapter 16.—How We are to Understand God’s Promise of Life Eternal, Which Was Uttered
Before the “Eternal Times.”
I own that I do not know what ages passed before the human race was created, yet I have no
doubt that no created thing is co-eternal with the Creator. But even the apostle speaks of time as
eternal, and this with reference, not to the future, but, which is more surprising, to the past. For he
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says, “In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the eternal times, but hath
in due times manifested His word.”553 You see he says that in the past there have been eternal times,
which, however, were not co-eternal with God. And since God before these eternal times not only
existed, but also, “promised” life eternal, which He manifested in its own times (that is to say, in
due times), what else is this than His word? For this is life eternal. But then, how did He promise;
552 Rom. xii. 3.
553 Titus i. 2, 3. Augustin here follows the version of Jerome, and not the Vulgate. Comp. Contra Priscill. 6, and de Gen.
c. Man. iv. 4.
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for the promise was made to men, and yet they had no existence before eternal times? Does this
not mean that, in His own eternity, and in His co-eternal word, that which was to be in its own time
was already predestined and fixed?
Chapter 17.—What Defence is Made by Sound Faith Regarding God’s Unchangeable Counsel and
Will, Against the Reasonings of Those Who Hold that the Works of God are Eternally Repeated
in Revolving Cycles that Restore All Things as They Were.
Of this, too, I have no doubt, that before the first man was created, there never had been a man
at all, neither this same man himself recurring by I know not what cycles, and having made I know
not how many revolutions, nor any other of similar nature. From this belief I am not frightened by
philosophical arguments, among which that is reckoned the most acute which is founded on the
assertion that the infinite cannot be comprehended by any mode of knowledge. Consequently, they
argue, God has in his own mind finite conceptions of all finite things which He makes. Now it
cannot be supposed that His goodness was ever idle; for if it were, there should be ascribed to Him
an awakening to activity in time, from a past eternity of inactivity, as if He repented of an idleness
that had no beginning, and proceeded, therefore, to make a beginning of work. This being the case,
they say it must be that the same things are always repeated, and that as they pass, so they are
destined always to return, whether amidst all these changes the world remains the same,—the world
which has always been, and yet was created,—or that the world in these revolutions is perpetually
dying out and being renewed; otherwise, if we point to a time when the works of God were begun,
it would be believed that He considered His past eternal leisure to be inert and indolent, and therefore
condemned and altered it as displeasing to Himself. Now if God is supposed to have been indeed
always making temporal things, but different from one another, and one after the other, so, that He
thus came at last to make man, whom He had never made before, then it may seem that He made
man not with knowledge (for they suppose no knowledge can comprehend the infinite succession
of creatures), but at the dictate of the hour, as it struck him at the moment, with a sudden and
accidental change of mind. On the other hand, say they, if those cycles be admitted, and if we
suppose that the same temporal things are repeated, while the world either remains identical through
all these rotations, or else dies away and is renewed, then there is ascribed to God neither the slothful
ease of a past eternity, nor a rash and unforeseen creation. And if the same things be not thus
repeated in cycles, then they cannot by any science or prescience be comprehended in their endless
diversity. Even though reason could not refute, faith would smile at these argumentations, with
which the godless endeavor to turn our simple piety from the right way, that we may walk with
them “in a circle.” But by the help of the Lord our God, even reason, and that readily enough,
shatters these revolving circles which conjecture frames. For that which specially leads these men
astray to refer their own circles to the straight path of truth, is, that they measure by their own
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human, changeable, and narrow intellect the divine mind, which is absolutely unchangeable,
infinitely capacious, and without succession of thought, counting all things without number. So
that saying of the apostle comes true of them, for, “comparing themselves with themselves, they
do not understand.”554 For because they do, in virtue of a new purpose, whatever new thing has
occurred to them to be done (their minds being changeable), they conclude it is so with God; and
thus compare, not God,—for they cannot conceive God, but think of one like themselves when
they think of Him,—not God, but themselves, and not with Him, but with themselves. For our
part, we dare not believe that God is affected in one way when He works, in another when He rests.
Indeed, to say that He is affected at all, is an abuse of language, since it implies that there comes
to be something in His nature which was not there before. For he who is affected is acted upon,
and whatever is acted upon is changeable. His leisure, therefore, is no laziness, indolence, inactivity;
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as in His work is no labor, effort, industry. He can act while He reposes, and repose while He
acts. He can begin a new work with (not a new, but) an eternal design; and what He has not made
before, He does not now begin to make because He repents of His former repose. But when one
speaks of His former repose and subsequent operation (and I know not how men can understand
these things), this “former” and “subsequent” are applied only to the things created, which formerly
did not exist, and subsequently came into existence. But in God the former purpose is not altered
and obliterated by the subsequent and different purpose, but by one and the same eternal and
unchangeable will He effected regarding the things He created, both that formerly, so long as they
were not, they should not be, and that subsequently, when they began to be, they should come into
existence. And thus, perhaps, He would show, in a very striking way, to those who have eyes for
such things, how independent He is of what He makes, and how it is of His own gratuitous goodness
He creates, since from eternity He dwelt without creatures in no less perfect a blessedness.
Chapter 18.—Against Those Who Assert that Things that are Infinite555 Cannot Be Comprehended
by the Knowledge of God.
As for their other assertion, that God’s knowledge cannot comprehend things infinite, it only
remains for them to affirm, in order that they may sound the depths of their impiety, that God does
not know all numbers. For it is very certain that they are infinite; since, no matter of what number
you suppose an end to be made, this number can be, I will not say, increased by the addition of one
more, but however great it be, and however vast be the multitude of which it is the rational and
scientific expression, it can still be not only doubled, but even multiplied. Moreover, each number
554 2 Cor. x. 12. Here, and in Enar. in Ps. xxxiv. and also in Cont. Faust. xxii. 47, Augustin follows the Greek, and not the
Vulgate.
555 I.e.indefinite, or an indefinite succession of things.
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is so defined by its own properties, that no two numbers are equal. They are therefore both unequal
and different from one another; and while they are simply finite, collectively they are infinite.
Does God, therefore, not know numbers on account of this infinity; and does His knowledge extend
only to a certain height in numbers, while of the rest He is ignorant? Who is so left to himself as
to say so? Yet they can hardly pretend to put numbers out of the question, or maintain that they
have nothing to do with the knowledge of God; for Plato,556 their great authority, represents God
as framing the world on numerical principles: and in our books also it is said to God, “Thou hast
ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight.”557 The prophet also says,” Who bringeth
out their host by number.”558 And the Saviour says in the Gospel, “The very hairs of your head are
all numbered.”559 Far be it, then, from us to doubt that all number is known to Him “whose
understanding,” according to the Psalmist, “is infinite.”560 The infinity of number, though there be
no numbering of infinite numbers, is yet not incomprehensible by Him whose understanding is
infinite. And thus, if everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the
comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God,
for it is comprehensible by His knowledge. Wherefore, if the infinity of numbers cannot be infinite
to the knowledge of God, by which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should
presume to fix limits to His knowledge, and say that unless the same temporal thing be repeated
by the same periodic revolutions, God cannot either foreknow His creatures that He may make
them, or know them when He has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply manifold, and
uniform in its variety, comprehends all incomprehensibles with so incomprehensible a
comprehension, that though He willed always to make His later works novel and unlike what went
before them, He could not produce them without order and foresight, nor conceive them suddenly,
but by His eternal foreknowledge.
Chapter 19.—Of Worlds Without End, or Ages of Ages.561
I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether these times which are called
“ages of ages” are joined together in a continuous series, and succeed one another with a regulated
diversity, and leave exempt from their vicissitudes only those who are freed from their misery, and
abide without end in a blessed immortality; or whether these are called “ages of ages,” that we may
556 Again in the Timæus.
557 Wisdom xi. 20.
558 Isa. xl. 26.
559 Matt. x. 30.
560 Ps. cxlvii. 5.
561 De sæculis sæculorum.
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understand that the ages remain unchangeable in God’s unwavering wisdom, and are the efficient
causes, as it were, of those ages which are being spent in time. Possibly “ages” is used for “age,”
so that nothing else is meant by “ages of ages” than by “age of age,” as nothing else is meant by
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“heavens of heavens” than by “heaven of heaven.” For God called the firmament, above which
are the waters, “Heaven,” and yet the psalm says, “Let the waters that are above the heavens praise
the name of the Lord.”562 Which of these two meanings we are to attach to “ages of ages,” or
whether there is not some other and better meaning still, is a very profound question; and the subject
we are at present handling presents no obstacle to our meanwhile deferring the discussion of it,
whether we may be able to determine anything about it, or may only be made more cautious by its
further treatment, so as to be deterred from making any rash affirmations in a matter of such
obscurity. For at present we are disputing the opinion that affirms the existence of those periodic
revolutions by which the same things are always recurring at intervals of time. Now whichever of
these suppositions regarding the “ages of ages” be the true one, it avails nothing for the substantiating
of those cycles; for whether the ages of ages be not a repetition of the same world, but different
worlds succeeding one another in a regulated connection, the ransomed souls abiding in well-assured
bliss without any recurrence of misery, or whether the ages of ages be the eternal causes which rule
what shall be and is in time, it equally follows, that those cycles which bring round the same things
have no existence; and nothing more thoroughly explodes them than the fact of the eternal life of
the saints.
Chapter 20.—Of the Impiety of Those Who Assert that the Souls Which Enjoy True and Perfect
Blessedness, Must Yet Again and Again in These Periodic Revolutions Return to Labor and
Misery.
What pious ears could bear to hear that after a life spent in so many and severe distresses (if,
indeed, that should be called a life at all which is rather a death, so utter that the love of this present
death makes us fear that death which delivers us from it,) that after evils so disastrous, and miseries
of all kinds have at length been expiated and finished by the help of true religion and wisdom, and
when we have thus attained to the vision of God, and have entered into bliss by the contemplation
of spiritual light and participation in His unchangeable immortality, which we burn to attain,—that
we must at some time lose all this, and that they who do lose it are cast down from that eternity,
truth, and felicity to infernal mortality and shameful foolishness, and are involved in accursed woes,
in which God is lost, truth held in detestation, and happiness sought in iniquitous impurities? and
that this will happen endlessly again and again, recurring at fixed intervals, and in regularly returning
periods? and that this everlasting and ceaseless revolution of definite cycles, which remove and
562 Ps. cxlviii. 4.
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restore true misery and deceitful bliss in turn, is contrived in order that God may be able to know
His own works, since on the one hand He cannot rest from creating and on the other, cannot know
the infinite number of His creatures, if He always makes creatures? Who, I say, can listen to such
things? Who can accept or suffer them to be spoken? Were they true, it were not only more prudent
to keep silence regarding them, but even (to express myself as best I can) it were the part of wisdom
not to know them. For if in the future world we shall not remember these things, and by this oblivion
be blessed, why should we now increase our misery, already burdensome enough, by the knowledge
of them? If, on the other hand, the knowledge of them will be forced upon us hereafter, now at
least let us remain in ignorance, that in the present expectation we may enjoy a blessedness which
the future reality is not to bestow; since in this life we are expecting to obtain life everlasting, but
in the world to come are to discover it to be blessed, but not everlasting.
And if they maintain that no one can attain to the blessedness of the world to come, unless in
this life he has been indoctrinated in those cycles in which bliss and misery relieve one another,
how do they avow that the more a man loves God, the more readily he attains to blessedness,—they
who teach what paralyzes love itself? For who would not be more remiss and lukewarm in his love
for a person whom he thinks he shall be forced to abandon, and whose truth and wisdom he shall
come to hate; and this, too, after he has quite attained to the utmost and most blissful knowledge
of Him that he is capable of? Can any one be faithful in his love, even to a human friend, if he
knows that he is destined to become his enemy?563 God forbid that there be any truth in an opinion
which threatens us with a real misery that is never to end, but is often and endlessly to be interrupted
by intervals of fallacious happiness. For what happiness can be more fallacious and false than that
in whose blaze of truth we yet remain ignorant that we shall be miserable, or in whose most secure
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citadel we yet fear that we shall be so? For if, on the one hand, we are to be ignorant of coming
calamity, then our present misery is not so short-sighted for it is assured of coming bliss. If, on the
other hand, the disaster that threatens is not concealed from us in the world to come, then the time
of misery which is to be at last exchanged for a state of blessedness, is spent by the soul more
happily than its time of happiness, which is to end in a return to misery. And thus our expectation
of unhappiness is happy, but of happiness unhappy. And therefore, as we here suffer present ills,
and hereafter fear ills that are imminent, it were truer to say that we shall always be miserable than
that we can some time be happy.
But these things are declared to be false by the loud testimony of religion and truth; for religion
truthfully promises a true blessedness, of which we shall be eternally assured, and which cannot
be interrupted by any disaster. Let us therefore keep to the straight path, which is Christ, and, with
Him as our Guide and Saviour, let us turn away in heart and mind from the unreal and futile cycles
of the godless. Porphyry, Platonist though he was, abjured the opinion of his school, that in these
563 Cicero has the same (de Amicitia, 16): Quonam modo quisquam amicus esse poterit, cui se putabit inimicum esse posse?
He also quotes Scipio to the effect that no sentiment is more unfriendly to friendship than this, that we should love as if some
day we were to hate.
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cycles souls are ceaselessly passing away and returning, either being struck with the extravagance
of the idea, or sobered by his knowledge of Christianity. As I mentioned in the tenth book,564 he
preferred saying that the soul, as it had been sent into the world that it might know evil, and be
purged and delivered from it, was never again exposed to such an experience after it had once
returned to the Father. And if he abjured the tenets of his school, how much more ought we
Christians to abominate and avoid an opinion so unfounded and hostile to our faith? But having
disposed of these cycles and escaped out of them, no necessity compels us to suppose that the
human race had no beginning in time, on the ground that there is nothing new in nature which, by
I know not what cycles, has not at some previous period existed, and is not hereafter to exist again.
For if the soul, once delivered, as it never was before, is never to return to misery, then there happens
in its experience something which never happened before; and this, indeed, something of the greatest
consequence, to wit, the secure entrance into eternal felicity. And if in an immortal nature there
can occur a novelty, which never has been, nor ever shall be, reproduced by any cycle, why is it
disputed that the same may occur in mortal natures? If they maintain that blessedness is no new
experience to the soul, but only a return to that state in which it has been eternally, then at least its
deliverance from misery is something new, since, by their own showing, the misery from which it
is delivered is itself, too, a new experience. And if this new experience fell out by accident, and
was not embraced in the order of things appointed by Divine Providence, then where are those
determinate and measured cycles in which no new thing happens, but all things are reproduced as
they were before? If, however, this new experience was embraced in that providential order of
nature (whether the soul was exposed to the evil of this world for the sake of discipline, or fell into
it by sin), then it is possible for new things to happen which never happened before, and which yet
are not extraneous to the order of nature. And if the soul is able by its own imprudence to create
for itself a new misery, which was not unforeseen by the Divine Providence, but was provided for
in the order of nature along with the deliverance from it, how can we, even with all the rashness of
human vanity, presume to deny that God can create new things—new to the world, but not to
Him—which He never before created, but yet foresaw from all eternity? If they say that it is indeed
true that ransomed souls return no more to misery, but that even so no new thing happens, since
there always have been, now are, and ever shall be a succession of ransomed souls, they must at
least grant that in this case there are new souls to whom the misery and the deliverance from it are
new. For if they maintain that those souls out of which new men are daily being made (from whose
bodies, if they have lived wisely, they are so delivered that they never return to misery) are not
new, but have existed from eternity, they must logically admit that they are infinite. For however
great a finite number of souls there were, that would not have sufficed to make perpetually new
men from eternity,—men whose souls were to be eternally freed from this mortal state, and never
afterwards to return to it. And our philosophers will find it hard to explain how there is an infinite
564 C. 30.
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number of souls in an order of nature which they require shall be finite, that it may be known by
God.
And now that we have exploded these cycles which were supposed to bring back the soul at
fixed periods to the same miseries, what can seem more in accordance with godly reason than to
believe that it is possible for God both to create new things never before created, and in doing so,
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to preserve His will unaltered? But whether the number of eternally redeemed souls can be
continually increased or not, let the philosophers themselves decide, who are so subtle in determining
where infinity cannot be admitted. For our own part, our reasoning holds in either case. For if the
number of souls can be indefinitely increased, what reason is there to deny that what had never
before been created, could be created? since the number of ransomed souls never existed before,
and has yet not only been once made, but will never cease to be anew coming into being. If, on
the other hand, it be more suitable that the number of eternally ransomed souls be definite, and that
this number will never be increased, yet this number, whatever it be, did assuredly never exist
before, and it cannot increase, and reach the amount it signifies, without having some beginning;
and this beginning never before existed. That this beginning, therefore, might be, the first man was
created.
Chapter 21.—That There Was Created at First But One Individual, and that the Human Race Was
Created in Him.
Now that we have solved, as well as we could, this very difficult question about the eternal God
creating new things, without any novelty of will, it is easy to see how much better it is that God
was pleased to produce the human race from the one individual whom He created, than if He had
originated it in several men. For as to the other animals, He created some solitary, and naturally
seeking lonely places,—as the eagles, kites, lions, wolves, and such like; others gregarious, which
herd together, and prefer to live in company,—as pigeons, starlings, stags, and little fallow deer,
and the like: but neither class did He cause to be propagated from individuals, but called into being
several at once. Man, on the other hand, whose nature was to be a mean between the angelic and
bestial, He created in such sort, that if he remained in subjection to His Creator as his rightful Lord,
and piously kept His commandments, he should pass into the company of the angels, and obtain,
without the intervention of death,565 a blessed and endless immortality; but if he offended the Lord
his God by a proud and disobedient use of his free will, he should become subject to death, and
live as the beasts do,—the slave of appetite, and doomed to eternal punishment after death. And
therefore God created only one single man, not, certainly, that he might be a solitary, bereft of all
society, but that by this means the unity of society and the bond of concord might be more effectually
565 Coquaeus remarks that this is levelled against the Pelagians.
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commended to him, men being bound together not only by similarity of nature, but by family
affection. And indeed He did not even create the woman that was to be given him as his wife, as
he created the man, but created her out of the man, that the whole human race might derive from
one man.
Chapter 22.—That God Foreknew that the First Man Would Sin, and that He at the Same Time
Foresaw How Large a Multitude of Godly Persons Would by His Grace Be Translated to the
Fellowship of the Angels.
And God was not ignorant that man would sin, and that, being himself made subject now to
death, he would propagate men doomed to die, and that these mortals would run to such enormities
in sin, that even the beasts devoid of rational will, and who were created in numbers from the waters
and the earth, would live more securely and peaceably with their own kind than men, who had been
propagated from one individual for the very purpose of commending concord. For not even lions
or dragons have ever waged with their kind such wars as men have waged with one another.566 But
God foresaw also that by His grace a people would be called to adoption, and that they, being
justified by the remission of their sins, would be united by the Holy Ghost to the holy angels in
eternal peace, the last enemy, death, being destroyed; and He knew that this people would derive
profit from the consideration that God had caused all men to be derived from one, for the sake of
showing how highly He prizes unity in a multitude.
Chapter 23.—Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God.
God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul endowed with reason
and intelligence, so that he might excel all the creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so
gifted. And when He had formed the man out of the dust of the earth, and had willed that his soul
566 “Quando leoni
Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam
Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?
Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem
Perpetuam; sævis inter se convenit ursis.
Ast homini,”etc.
Juvenal, Sat. xv. 160—5.
—See also the very striking lines which precede these.
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should be such as I have said,—whether He had already made it, and now by breathing imparted
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it to man, or rather made it by breathing, so that that breath which God made by breathing (for
what else is “to breathe” than to make breath?) is the soul,567—He made also a wife for him, to aid
him in the work of generating his kind, and her He formed of a bone taken out of the man’s side,
working in a divine manner. For we are not to conceive of this work in a carnal fashion, as if God
wrought as we commonly see artisans, who use their hands, and material furnished to them, that
by their artistic skill they may fashion some material object. God’s hand is God’s power; and He,
working invisibly, effects visible results. But this seems fabulous rather than true to men, who
measure by customary and everyday works the power and wisdom of God, whereby He understands
and produces without seeds even seeds themselves; and because they cannot understand the things
which at the beginning were created, they are sceptical regarding them—as if the very things which
they do know about human propagation, conceptions and births, would seem less incredible if told
to those who had no experience of them; though these very things, too, are attributed by many
rather to physical and natural causes than to the work of the divine mind.
Chapter 24.—Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any, Even the Least Creature.
But in this book we have nothing to do with those who do not believe that the divine mind made
or cares for this world. As for those who believe their own Plato, that all mortal animals—among
whom man holds the pre-eminent place, and is near to the gods themselves—were created not by
that most high God who made the world, but by other lesser gods created by the Supreme, and
exercising a delegated power under His control,—if only those persons be delivered from the
superstition which prompts them to seek a plausible reason for paying divine honors and sacrificing
to these gods as their creators, they will easily be disentangled also from this their error. For it is
blasphemy to believe or to say (even before it can be understood) that any other than God is creator
of any nature, be it never so small and mortal. And as for the angels, whom those Platonists prefer
to call gods, although they do, so far as they are permitted and commissioned, aid in the production
of the things around us, yet not on that account are we to call them creators, any more than we call
gardeners the creators of fruits and trees.
Chapter 25.—That God Alone is the Creator of Every Kind of Creature, Whatever Its Nature or
Form.
567 See this further discussed in Gen. ad Lit. vii. 35, and in Delitzsch’s Bibl. Psychology.
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For whereas there is one form which is given from without to every bodily substance,—such
as the form which is constructed by potters and smiths, and that class of artists who paint and fashion
forms like the body of animals,—but another and internal form which is not itself constructed, but,
as the efficient cause, produces not only the natural bodily forms, but even the life itself of the
living creatures, and which proceeds from the secret and hidden choice of an intelligent and living
nature,—let that first-mentioned form be attributed to every artificer, but this latter to one only,
God, the Creator and Originator who made the world itself and the angels, without the help of world
or angels. For the same divine and, so to speak, creative energy, which cannot be made, but makes,
and which gave to the earth and sky their roundness,—this same divine, effective, and creative
energy gave their roundness to the eye and to the apple; and the other natural objects which we
anywhere see, received also their form, not from without, but from the secret and profound might
of the Creator, who said, “Do not I fill heaven and earth?”568 and whose wisdom it is that “reacheth
from one end to another mightily; and sweetly doth she order all things.”569 Wherefore I know not
what kind of aid the angels, themselves created first, afforded to the Creator in making other things.
I cannot ascribe to them what perhaps they cannot do, neither ought I to deny them such faculty as
they have. But, by their leave, I attribute the creating and originating work which gave being to
all natures to God, to whom they themselves thankfully ascribe their existence. We do not call
gardeners the creators of their fruits, for we read, “Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he
that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.”570 Nay, not even the earth itself do we call a creator,
though she seems to be the prolific mother of all things which she aids in germinating and bursting
forth from the seed, and which she keeps rooted in her own breast; for we likewise read, “God
giveth it a body, as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.”571 We ought not even to
call a woman the creatress of her own offspring; for He rather is its creator who said to His servant,
“Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee.”572 And although the various mental emotions of
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a pregnant woman do produce in the fruit of her womb similar qualities,—as Jacob with his peeled
wands caused piebald sheep to be produced,—yet the mother as little creates her offspring as she
created herself. Whatever bodily or seminal causes, then, may be used for the production of things,
either by the cooperation of angels, men, or the lower animals, or by sexual generation; and whatever
power the desires and mental emotions of the mother have to produce in the tender and plastic
foetus corresponding lineaments and colors; yet the natures themselves, which are thus variously
affected, are the production of none but the most high God. It is His occult power which pervades
all things, and is present in all without being contaminated, which gives being to all that is, and
modifies and limits its existence; so that without Him it would not be thus, or thus, nor would have
568 Jer. xxiii. 24.
569 Wisdom viii. 1.
570 1 Cor. iii. 7.
571 1 Cor. xv. 38.
572 Jer. i. 5.
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any being at all.573 If, then, in regard to that outward form which the workman’s hand imposes on
his work, we do not say that Rome and Alexandria were built by masons and architects, but by the
kings by whose will, plan, and resources they were built, so that the one has Romulus, the other
Alexander, for its founder; with how much greater reason ought we to say that God alone is the
Author of all natures, since He neither uses for His work any material which was not made by Him,
nor any workmen who were not also made by Him, and since, if He were, so to speak, to withdraw
from created things His creative power, they would straightway relapse into the nothingness in
which they were before they were created? “Before,” I mean, in respect of eternity, not of time.
For what other creator could there be of time, than He who created those things whose movements
make time?574
Chapter 26.—Of that Opinion of the Platonists, that the Angels Were Themselves Indeed Created
by God, But that Afterwards They Created Man’s Body.
It is obvious, that in attributing the creation of the other animals to those inferior gods who
were made by the Supreme, he meant it to be understood that the immortal part was taken from
God Himself, and that these minor creators added the mortal part; that is to say, he meant them to
be considered the creators of our bodies, but not of our souls. But since Porphyry maintains that
if the soul is to be purified all entanglement with a body must be escaped from; and at the same
time agrees with Plato and the Platonistsin thinking that those who have not spent a temperate and
honorable life return to mortal bodies as their punishment (to bodies of brutes in Plato’s opinion,
to human bodies in Porphyry’s); it follows that those whom they would have us worship as our
parents and authors, that they may plausibly call them gods, are, after all, but the forgers of our
fetters and chains,—not our creators, but our jailers and turnkeys, who lock us up in the most bitter
and melancholy house of correction. Let the Platonists, then, either cease menacing us with our
bodies as the punishment of our souls, or preaching that we are to worship as gods those whose
work upon us they exhort us by all means in our power to avoid and escape from. But, indeed,
both opinions are quite false. It is false that souls return again to this life to be punished; and it is
false that there is any other creator of anything in heaven or earth, than He who made the heaven
and the earth. For if we live in a body only to expiate our sins, how says Plato in another place,
that the world could not have been the most beautiful and good, had it not been filled with all kinds
573 Compare de Trin. iii. 13–16.
574 See Book xi. 5.
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of creatures, mortal and immortal?575 But if our creation even as mortals be a divine benefit, how
is it a punishment to be restored to a body, that is, to a divine benefit? And if God, as Plato
continually maintains, embraced in His eternal intelligence the ideas both of the universe and of
all the animals, how, then, should He not with His own hand make them all? Could He be unwilling
to be the constructor of works, the idea and plan of which called for His ineffable and ineffably to
be praised intelligence?
Chapter 27.—That the Whole Plenitude of the Human Race Was Embraced in the First Man, and
that God There Saw the Portion of It Which Was to Be Honored and Rewarded, and that Which
Was to Be Condemned and Punished.
With good cause, therefore, does the true religion recognize and proclaim that the same God
who created the universal cosmos, created also all the animals, souls as well as bodies. Among the
terrestrial animals man was made by Him in His own image, and, for the reason I have given, was
made one individual, though he was not left solitary. For there is nothing so social by nature, so
unsocial by its corruption, as this race. And human nature has nothing more appropriate, either for
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the prevention of discord, or for the healing of it, where it exists, than the remembrance of that
first parent of us all, whom God was pleased to create alone, that all men might be derived from
one, and that they might thus be admonished to preserve unity among their whole multitude. But
from the fact that the woman was made for him from his side, it was plainly meant that we should
learn how dear the bond between man and wife should be. These works of God do certainly seem
extraordinary, because they are the first works. They who do not believe them, ought not to believe
any prodigies; for these would not be called prodigies did they not happen out of the ordinary course
of nature. But, is it possible that anything should happen in vain, however hidden be its cause, in
so grand a government of divine providence? One of the sacred Psalmists says, “Come, behold
the works of the Lord, what prodigies He hath wrought in the earth.”576 Why God made woman
out of man’s side, and what this first prodigy prefigured, I shall, with God’s help, tell in another
place. But at present, since this book must be concluded, let us merely say that in this first man,
who was created in the beginning, there was laid the foundation, not indeed evidently, but in God’s
foreknowledge, of these two cities or societies, so far as regards the human race. For from that
man all men were to be derived—some of them to be associated with the good angels in their
reward, others with the wicked in punishment; all being ordered by the secret yet just judgment of
575 The deity, desirous of making the universe in all respects resemble the most beautiful and entirely perfect of intelligible
objects, formed it into one visible animal, containing within itself all the other animals with which it is naturally allied.—Timæus,
c. xi.
576 Ps. xlvi. 8.
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God. For since it is written, “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth,”577 neither can His grace
be unjust, nor His justice cruel.
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