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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 14

Argument—Augustin again treats of the sin of the first man, and teaches that it is the cause of
the carnal life and vicious affections of man. Especially he proves that the shame which accompanies
lust is the just punishment of that disobedience, and inquires how man, if he had not sinned, would
have been able without lust to propagate his kind.
Chapter 1.—That the Disobedience of the First Man Would Have Plunged All Men into the Endless
Misery of the Second Death, Had Not the Grace of God Rescued Many.
We have already stated in the preceding books that God, desiring not only that the human race
might be able by their similarity of nature to associate with one another, but also that they might
be bound together in harmony and peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all men
from one individual, and created man with such a nature that the members of the race should not
have died, had not the two first (of whom the one was created out of nothing, and the other out of
him) merited this by their disobedience; for by them so great a sin was committed, that by it the
human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity, liable to sin
and subject to death. And the kingdom of death so reigned over men, that the deserved penalty of
sin would have hurled all headlong even into the second death, of which there is no end, had not
the undeserved grace of God saved some therefrom. And thus it has come to pass, that though
there are very many and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs, speech, arms,
and dress, are distinguished by marked differences, yet there are no more than two kinds of human
society, which we may justly call two cities, according to the language of our Scriptures. The one
consists of those who wish to live after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the spirit;
and when they severally achieve what they wish, they live in peace, each after their kind.
638 This book is referred to in another work of Augustin’s (contra Advers. Legis et Prophet, i. 18), which was written about
the year 420.
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Chapter 2.—Of Carnal Life, Which is to Be Understood Not Only of Living in Bodily Indulgence,
But Also of Living in the Vices of the Inner Man.
First, we must see what it is to live after the flesh, and what to live after the spirit. For any one
who either does not recollect, or does not sufficiently weigh, the language of sacred Scripture, may,
on first hearing what we have said, suppose that the Epicurean philosophers live after the flesh,
because they place man’s highest good in bodily pleasure; and that those others do so who have
been of opinion that in some form or other bodily good is man’s supreme good; and that the mass
of men do so who, without dogmatizing or philosophizing on the subject, are so prone to lust that
they cannot delight in any pleasure save such as they receive from bodily sensations: and he may
suppose that the Stoics, who place the supreme good of men in the soul, live after the spirit; for
what is man’s soul, if not spirit? But in the sense of the divine Scripture both are proved to live
after the flesh. For by flesh it means not only the body of a terrestrial and mortal animal, as when
it says, “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts,
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another of fishes, another of birds,”639 but it uses this word in many other significations; and among
these various usages, a frequent one is to use flesh for man himself, the nature of man taking the
part for the whole, as in the words, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;”640 for
what does he mean here by “no flesh” but “no man?” And this, indeed, he shortly after says more
plainly: “No man shall be justified by the law;”641 and in the Epistle to the Galatians, “Knowing
that man is not justified by the works of the law.” And so we understand the words, “And the Word
was made flesh,”642—that is, man, which some not accepting in its right sense, have supposed that
Christ had not a human soul.643 For as the whole is used for the part in the words of Mary Magdalene
in the Gospel, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him,”644 by
which she meant only the flesh of Christ, which she supposed had been taken from the tomb where
it had been buried, so the part is used for the whole, flesh being named, while man is referred to,
as in the quotations above cited.
Since, then, Scripture uses the word flesh in many ways, which there is not time to collect and
investigate, if we are to ascertain what it is to live after the flesh (which is certainly evil, though
the nature of flesh is not itself evil), we must carefully examine that passage of the epistle which
the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, in which he says, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
639 1 Cor. xv. 39.
640 Rom. iii. 20.
641 Gal. iii. 11.
642 John i. 14.
643 The Apollinarians.
644 John xx. 13.
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variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings,
and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”645 This whole passage of the apostolic epistle
being considered, so far as it bears on the matter in hand, will be sufficient to answer the question,
what it is to live after the flesh. For among the works of the flesh which he said were manifest,
and which he cited for condemnation, we find not only those which concern the pleasure of the
flesh, as fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness, revellings, but also those which,
though they be remote from fleshly pleasure, reveal the vices of the soul. For who does not see
that idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, are vices
rather of the soul than of the flesh? For it is quite possible for a man to abstain from fleshly pleasures
for the sake of idolatry or some heretical error; and yet, even when he does so, he is proved by this
apostolic authority to be living after the flesh; and in abstaining from fleshly pleasure, he is proved
to be practising damnable works of the flesh. Who that has enmity has it not in his soul? or who
would say to his enemy, or to the man he thinks his enemy, You have a bad flesh towards me, and
not rather, You have a bad spirit towards me? In fine, if any one heard of what I may call
“carnalities,” he would not fail to attribute them to the carnal part of man; so no one doubts that
“animosities” belong to the soul of man. Why then does the doctor of the Gentiles in faith and
verity call all these and similar things works of the flesh, unless because, by that mode of speech
whereby the part is used for the whole, he means us to understand by the word flesh the man himself?
Chapter 3.—That the Sin is Caused Not by the Flesh, But by the Soul, and that the Corruption
Contracted from Sin is Not Sin But Sin’s Punishment.
But if any one says that the flesh is the cause of all vices and ill conduct, inasmuch as the soul
lives wickedly only because it is moved by the flesh, it is certain he has not carefully considered
the whole nature of man. For “the corruptible body, indeed, weigheth down the soul.”646 Whence,
too, the apostle, speaking of this corruptible body, of which he had shortly before said, “though
our outward man perish,”647 says, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For
in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so
be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan,
being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be
645 Gal. v. 19–21.
646 Wisd. ix. 15.
647 2 Cor. iv. 16.
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swallowed up in life.”648 We are then burdened with this corruptible body; but knowing that the
cause of this burdensomeness is not the nature and substance of the body, but its corruption, we do
not desire to be deprived of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality. For then, also, there
will be a body, but it shall no longer be a burden, being no longer corruptible. At present, then,
“the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind
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that museth upon many things,” nevertheless they are in error who suppose that all the evils of the
soul proceed from the body.
Virgil, indeed, seems to express the sentiments of Plato in the beautiful lines, where he says,—
“A fiery strength inspires their lives,
An essence that from heaven derives,
Though clogged in part by limbs of clay
And the dull ’vesture of decay;’”649
but though he goes on to mention the four most common mental emotions,—desire, fear, joy,
sorrow,—with the intention of showing that the body is the origin of all sins and vices, saying,—
“Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears,
Immured in dungeon-seeming nights
They look abroad, yet see no light,”650
yet we believe quite otherwise. For the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul,
is not the cause but the punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible flesh that made
the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible. And though from this corruption
of the flesh there arise certain incitements to vice, and indeed vicious desires, yet we must not
attribute to the flesh all the vices of a wicked life, in case we thereby clear the devil of all these,
for he has no flesh. For though we cannot call the devil a fornicator or drunkard, or ascribe to him
any sensual indulgence (though he is the secret instigator and prompter of those who sin in these
ways), yet he is exceedingly proud and envious. And this viciousness has so possessed him, that
on account of it he is reserved in chains of darkness to everlasting punishment.651 Now these vices,
which have dominion over the devil, the apostle attributes to the flesh, which certainly the devil
has not. For he says “hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envying” are the works of the flesh; and
of all these evils pride is the origin and head, and it rules in the devil though he has no flesh. For
who shows more hatred to the saints? who is more at variance with them? who more envious, bitter,
and jealous? And since he exhibits all these works, though he has no flesh, how are they works of
648 2 Cor. v. 1–4.
649 Æneid, vi. 730–32.
650 Ib. 733, 734.
651 On the punishment of the devil, see the De Agone Christi, 3–5, and De Nat. Boni, 33.
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the flesh, unless because they are the works of man, who is, as I said, spoken of under the name of
flesh? For it is not by having flesh, which the devil has not, but by living according to himself,—that
is, according to man,—that man became like the devil. For the devil too, wished to live according
to himself when he did not abide in the truth; so that when he lied, this was not of God, but of
himself, who is not only a liar, but the father of lies, he being the first who lied, and the originator
of lying as of sin.
Chapter 4.—What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God.
When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil. Because
not even an angel might live according to an angel, but only according to God, if he was to abide
in the truth, and speak God’s truth and not his own lie. And of man, too, the same apostle says in
another place, “If the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie;”652—“my lie,” he said, and
“God’s truth.” When, then, a man lives according to the truth, he lives not according to himself,
but according to God; for He was God who said, “I am the truth.”653 When, therefore, man lives
according to himself,—that is, according to man, not according to God,—assuredly he lives according
to a lie; not that man himself is a lie, for God is his author and creator, who is certainly not the
author and creator of a lie, but because man was made upright, that he might not live according to
himself, but according to Him that made him,—in other words, that he might do His will and not
his own; and not to live as he was made to live, that is a lie. For he certainly desires to be blessed
even by not living so that he may be blessed. And what is a lie if this desire be not? Wherefore it
is not without meaning said that all sin is a lie. For no sin is committed save by that desire or will
by which we desire that it be well with us, and shrink from it being ill with us. That, therefore, is
a lie which we do in order that it may be well with us, but which makes us more miserable than we
were. And why is this, but because the source of man’s happiness lies only in God, whom he
abandons when he sins, and not in himself, by living according to whom he sins?
In enunciating this proposition of ours, then, that because some live according to the flesh and
others according to the spirit, there have arisen two diverse and conflicting cities, we might equally
well have said, “because some live according to man, others according to God.” For Paul says very
plainly to the Corinthians, “For whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal,
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and walk according to man?”654 So that to walk according to man and to be carnal are the same;
for by flesh, that is, by a part of man, man is meant. For before he said that those same persons
were animal whom afterwards he calls carnal, saying, “For what man knoweth the things of a man,
652 Rom. iii. 7.
653 John xiv. 6.
654 1 Cor. iii. 3.
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save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God. Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we
might know the things which are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the
words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. But the animal man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they
are foolishness unto him.”655 It is to men of this kind, then, that is, to animal men, he shortly after
says, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.”656 And this
is to be interpreted by the same usage, a part being taken for the whole. For both the soul and the
flesh, the component parts of man, can be used to signify the whole man; and so the animal man
and the carnal man are not two different things, but one and the same thing, viz., man living according
to man. In the same way it is nothing else than men that are meant either in the words, “By the
deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;”657 or in the words, “Seventy-five souls went down
into Egypt with Jacob.”658 In the one passage, “no flesh” signifies “no man;” and in the other, by
“seventy-five souls” seventy-five men are meant. And the expression, “not in words which man’s
wisdom teacheth” might equally be “not in words which fleshly wisdom teacheth;” and the
expression, “ye walk according to man,” might be “according to the flesh.” And this is still more
apparent in the words which followed: “For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of
Apollos, are ye not men?” The same thing which he had before expressed by “ye are animal,” “ye
are carnal, he now expresses by “ye are men;” that is, ye live according to man, not according to
God, for if you lived according to Him, you should be gods.
Chapter 5.—That the Opinion of the Platonists Regarding the Nature of Body and Soul is Not So
Censurable as that of the Manichæans, But that Even It is Objectionable, Because It Ascribes
the Origin of Vices to the Nature of The Flesh.
There is no need, therefore, that in our sins and vices we accuse the nature of the flesh to the
injury of the Creator, for in its own kind and degree the flesh is good; but to desert the Creator
good, and live according to the created good, is not good, whether a man choose to live according
to the flesh, or according to the soul, or according to the whole human nature, which is composed
of flesh and soul, and which is therefore spoken of either by the name flesh alone, or by the name
soul alone. For he who extols the nature of the soul as the chief good, and condemns the nature of
655 1 Cor. ii. 11–14.
656 1 Cor. iii. 1.
657 Rom. iii. 20.
658 Gen. xlvi. 27.
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the flesh as if it were evil, assuredly is fleshly both in his love of the soul and hatred of the flesh;
for these his feelings arise from human fancy, not from divine truth. The Platonists, indeed, are
not so foolish as, with the Manichæans, to detest our present bodies as an evil nature;659 for they
attribute all the elements of which this visible and tangible world is compacted, with all their
qualities, to God their Creator. Nevertheless, from the death-infected members and earthly
construction of the body they believe the soul is so affected, that there are thus originated in it the
diseases of desires, and fears, and joy, and sorrow, under which four perturbations, as Cicero660
calls them, or passions, as most prefer to name them with the Greeks, is included the whole
viciousness of human life. But if this be so, how is it that Æneas in Virgil, when he had heard from
his father in Hades that the souls should return to bodies, expresses surprise at this declaration, and
exclaims:
“O father! and can thought conceive
That happy souls this realm would leave,
And seek the upper sky,
With sluggish clay to reunite?
This direful longing for the light,
Whence comes it, say, and why?”661
This direful longing, then, does it still exist even in that boasted purity of the disembodied
spirits, and does it still proceed from the death-infected members and earthly limbs? Does he not
assert that, when they begin to long to return to the body, they have already been delivered from
all these so-called pestilences of the body? From which we gather that, were this endlessly
alternating purification and defilement of departing and returning souls as true as it is most certainly
false, yet it could not be averred that all culpable and vicious motions of the soul originate in the
earthly body; for, on their own showing, “this direful longing,” to use the words of their noble
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exponent, is so extraneous to the body, that it moves the soul that is purged of all bodily taint, and
is existing apart from any body whatever, and moves it, moreover, to be embodied again. So that
even they themselves acknowledge that the soul is not only moved to desire, fear, joy, sorrow, by
the flesh, but that it can also be agitated with these emotions at its own instance.
Chapter 6.—Of the Character of the Human Will Which Makes the Affections of the Soul Right
or Wrong.
659 See Augustin, De Hæres. 46.
660 Tusc. Quæstiv. 6.
661 Æneid, vi. 719–21.
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But the character of the human will is of moment; because, if it is wrong, these motions of the
soul will be wrong, but if it is right, they will be not merely blameless, but even praiseworthy. For
the will is in them all; yea, none of them is anything else than will. For what are desire and joy but
a volition of consent to the things we wish? And what are fear and sadness but a volition of aversion
from the things which we do not wish? But when consent takes the form of seeking to possess the
things we wish, this is called desire; and when consent takes the form of enjoying the things we
wish, this is called joy. In like manner, when we turn with aversion from that which we do not
wish to happen, this volition is termed fear; and when we turn away from that which has happened
against our will, this act of will is called sorrow. And generally in respect of all that we seek or
shun, as a man’s will is attracted or repelled, so it is changed and turned into these different
affections. Wherefore the man who lives according to God, and not according to man, ought to be
a lover of good, and therefore a hater of evil. And since no one is evil by nature, but whoever is
evil is evil by vice, he who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect
hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of his vice, nor love the vice because of the
man, but hate the vice and love the man. For the vice being cursed, all that ought to be loved, and
nothing that ought to be hated, will remain.
Chapter 7.—That the Words Love and Regard (Amor and Dilectio) are in Scripture Used
Indifferently of Good and Evil Affection.
He who resolves to love God, and to love his neighbor as himself, not according to man but
according to God, is on account of this love said to be of a good will; and this is in Scripture more
commonly called charity, but it is also, even in the same books, called love. For the apostle says
that the man to be elected as a ruler of the people must be a lover of good.662 And when the Lord
Himself had asked Peter, “Hast thou a regard for me (diligis) more than these?” Peter replied, “Lord,
Thou knowest that I love (amo) Thee.” And again a second time the Lord asked not whether Peter
loved (amaret) Him, but whether he had a regard (diligeret)for Him, and, he again answered, “Lord,
Thou knowest that I love (amo) Thee.” But on the third interrogation the Lord Himself no longer
says, “Hast thou a regard (diligis) for me,”but “Lovest thou (amas) me?” And then the evangelist
adds, “Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, “Lovest thou (amas) me?” though
the Lord had not said three times but only once, “Lovest thou (amas) me?” and twice “Diligis me
?” from which we gather that, even when the Lord said “diligis,” He used an equivalent for “amas.”
Peter, too, throughout used one word for the one thing, and the third time also replied, “Lord, Thou
knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love (amo) Thee.”663
662 Tit. i. 8, according to Greek and Vulgate.
663 John xxi. 15–17. On these synonyms see the commentaries in loc.
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I have judged it right to mention this, because some are of opinion that charity or regard (dilectio)
is one thing, love (amor) another. They say that dilectio is used of a good affection, amor of an
evil love. But it is very certain that even secular literature knows no such distinction. However,
it is for the philosophers to determine whether and how they differ, though their own writings
sufficiently testify that they make great account of love (amor) placed on good objects, and even
on God Himself. But we wished to show that the Scriptures of our religion, whose authority we
prefer to all writings whatsoever, make no distinction between amor, dilectio, and caritas; and we
have already shown that amor is used in a good connection. And if any one fancy that amor is no
doubt used both of good and bad loves, but that dilectio is reserved for the good only, let him
remember what the psalm says, “He that loveth (diligit) iniquity hateth his own soul;”664 and the
words of the Apostle John, “If any man love (diligere) the world, the love (dilectio) of the Father
is not in him.”665 Here you have in one passage dilectio used both in a good and a bad sense. And
if any one demands an instance of amor being used in a bad sense (for we have already shown its
use in a good sense), let him read the words, “For men shall be lovers (amantes) of their own selves,
lovers (amatores) of money.”666
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The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-directed love. Love,
then, yearning to have what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy; fleeing what is
opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is opposed to it, when it has befallen it, it is sadness. Now
these motions are evil if the love is evil; good if the love is good. What we assert let us prove from
Scripture. The apostle “desires to depart, and to be with Christ.”667 And, “My soul desired to long
for Thy judgments;”668 or if it is more appropriate to say, “My soul longed to desire Thy judgments.”
And, “The desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom.”669 Yet there has always obtained the usage
of understanding desire and concupiscence in a bad sense if the object be not defined. But joy is
used in a good sense: “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous.”670 And, “Thou hast put
gladness in my heart.”671 And, “Thou wilt fill me with joy with Thy countenance.”672 Fear is used
in a good sense by the apostle when he says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”673
664 Ps. xi. 5.
665 1 John ii. 15.
666 2 Tim. iii. 2.
667 Phil. i. 23.
668 Ps. cxix. 20.
669 Wisd. vi. 20.
670 Ps. xxxii. 11.
671 Ps. iv. 7.
672 Ps. xvi. 11.
673 Phil. ii. 12.
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And, “Be not high-minded, but fear.”674 And, “I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”675
But with respect to sadness, which Cicero prefer to calls sickness (oegritudo), and Virgil pain (dolor)
(as he says, “Dolent gaudentque”676), but which I prefer to call sorrow, because sickness and pain
are more commonly used to express bodily suffering,—with respect to this emotion, I say, the
question whether it can be used in a good sense is more difficult.
Chapter 8.—Of the Three Perturbations, Which the Stoics Admitted in the Soul of the Wise Man
to the Exclusion of Grief or Sadness, Which the Manly Mind Ought Not to Experience.
Those emotions which the Greeks call εὐπαθείαι, and which Cicero calls constantioe, the Stoics
would restrict to three; and, instead of three “perturbations” in the soul of the wise man, they
substituted severally, in place of desire, will; in place of joy, contentment; and for fear, caution;
and as to sickness or pain, which we, to avoid ambiguity, preferred to call sorrow, they denied that
it could exist in the mind of a wise man. Will, they say, seeks the good, for this the wise man does.
Contentment has its object in good that is possessed, and this the wise man continually possesses.
Caution avoids evil, and this the wise man ought to avoid. But sorrow arises from evil that has
already happened; and as they suppose that no evil can happen to the wise man, there can be no
representative of sorrow in his mind. According to them, therefore, none but the wise man wills,
is contented, uses caution; and that the fool can do no more than desire, rejoice, fear, be sad. The
former three affections Cicero calls constantioe, the last four perturbationes. Many, however, calls
these last passions; and, as I have said, the Greeks call the former εὐπαθείαι, and the latter πάθη.
And when I made a careful examination of Scripture to find whether this terminology was sanctioned
by it, I came upon this saying of the prophet: “There is no contentment to the wicked, saith the
Lord;”677 as if the wicked might more properly rejoice than be contented regarding evils, for
contentment is the property of the good and godly. I found also that verse in the Gospel:
“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them?”678 which seems to
imply that evil or shameful things may be the object of desire, but not of will. Indeed, some
interpreters have added “good things,” to make the expression more in conformity with customary
usage, and have given this meaning, “Whatsoever good deeds that ye would that men should do
unto you.” For they thought that this would prevent any one from wishing other men to provide
674 Rom. xi. 20.
675 2 Cor. xi. 3.
676 Æneid, vi. 733.
677 Isa. lvii. 21.
678 Matt. vii. 12.
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him with unseemly, not to say shameful gratifications,—luxurious banquets, for example,—on the
supposition that if he returned the like to them he would be fulfilling this precept. In the Greek
Gospel, however, from which the Latin is translated, “good” does not occur, but only, “All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” and, as I believe,
because “good” is already included in the word “would;” for He does not say “desire.”
Yet though we may sometimes avail ourselves of these precise proprieties of language, we are
not to be always bridled by them; and when we read those writers against whose authority it is
unlawful to reclaim, we must accept the meanings above mentioned in passages where a right sense
can be educed by no other interpretation, as in those instances we adduced partly from the prophet,
partly from the Gospel. For who does not know that the wicked exult with joy? Yet “there is no
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contentment for the wicked, saith the Lord.” And how so, unless because contentment, when the
word is used in its proper and distinctive significance, means something different from joy? In like
manner, who would deny that it were wrong to enjoin upon men that whatever they desire others
to do to them they should themselves do to others, lest they should mutually please one another by
shameful and illicit pleasure? And yet the precept, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so to them,” is very wholesome and just. And how is this, unless because the will
is in this place used strictly, and signifies that will which cannot have evil for its object? But
ordinary phraseology would not have allowed the saying, “Be unwilling to make any manner of
lie,”679 had there not been also an evil will, whose wickedness separates if from that which the
angels celebrated, “Peace on earth, of good will to men.”680 For “good” is superfluous if there is
no other kind of will but good will. And why should the apostle have mentioned it among the
praises of charity as a great thing, that “it rejoices not in iniquity,” unless because wickedness does
so rejoice? For even with secular writers these words are used indifferently. For Cicero, that most
fertile of orators, says, “I desire, conscript fathers, to be merciful.”681 And who would be so pedantic
as to say that he should have said “I will” rather than “I desire,” because the word is used in a good
connection? Again, in Terence, the profligate youth, burning with wild lust, says, “I will nothing
else than Philumena.”682 That this “will” was lust is sufficiently indicated by the answer of his old
servant which is there introduced: “How much better were it to try and banish that love from your
heart, than to speak so as uselessly to inflame your passion still more!” And that contentment was
used by secular writers in a bad sense that verse of Virgil testifies, in which he most succinctly
comprehends these four perturbations,—
“Hence they fear and desire, grieve and are content”683
679 Ecclus. vii. 13.
680 Luke ii. 14.
681 Cat. i. 2.
682 Ter, Andr. ii. 1, 6.
683 Æneid, vi. 733.
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The same author had also used the expression, “the evil contentments of the mind.”684 So that
good and bad men alike will, are cautious, and contented; or, to say the same thing in other words,
good and bad men alike desire, fear, rejoice, but the former in a good, the latter in a bad fashion,
according as the will is right or wrong. Sorrow itself, too, which the Stoics would not allow to be
represented in the mind of the wise man, is used in a good sense, and especially in our writings.
For the apostle praises the Corinthians because they had a godly sorrow. But possibly some one
may say that the apostle congratulated them because they were penitently sorry, and that such
sorrow can exist only in those who have sinned. For these are his words: “For I perceive that the
same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were
made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance; for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that
ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not
to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For, behold, this selfsame thing that
ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you!”685 Consequently the Stoics
may defend themselves by replying,686 that sorrow is indeed useful for repentance of sin, but that
this can have no place in the mind of the wise man, inasmuch as no sin attaches to him of which
he could sorrowfully repent, nor any other evil the endurance or experience of which could make
him sorrowful. For they say that Alcibiades (if my memory does not deceive me), who believed
himself happy, shed tears when Socrates argued with him, and demonstrated that he was miserable
because he was foolish. In his case, therefore, folly was the cause of this useful and desirable
sorrow, wherewith a man mourns that he is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics maintain not
that the fool, but that the wise man, cannot be sorrowful.
Chapter 9.—Of the Perturbations of the Soul Which Appear as Right Affections in the Life of the
Righteous.
But so far as regards this question of mental perturbations, we have answered these philosophers
in the ninth book687 of this work, showing that it is rather a verbal than a real dispute, and that they
seek contention rather than truth. Among ourselves, according to the sacred Scriptures and sound
doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, who live according to God in the pilgrimage of this
life, both fear and desire, and grieve and rejoice. And because their love is rightly placed, all these
affections of theirs are right. They fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve
because they themselves groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their
684 Æneid, v. 278.
685 2 Cor. vii. 8–11.
686 Tusc. Disp. iii. 32.
687 C. 4, 5.
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body;688 they rejoice in hope, because there “shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
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Death is swallowed up in victory.”689 In like manner they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they
grieve in sin, they rejoice in good works. They fear to sin, because they hear that “because iniquity
shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”690 They desire to persevere, because they hear that
it is written, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.”691 They grieve for sin, hearing that “If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”692 They rejoice in
good works, because they hear that “the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.”693 In like manner, according
as they are strong or weak, they fear or desire to be tempted, grieve or rejoice in temptation. They
fear to be tempted, because they hear the injunction, “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be
tempted.”694 They desire to be tempted, because they hear one of the heroes of the city of God
saying, “Examine me, O Lord, and tempt me: try my reins and my heart.”695 They grieve in
temptations, because they see Peter weeping;696 they rejoice in temptations, because they hear James
saying, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”697
And not only on their own account do they experience these emotions, but also on account of
those whose deliverance they desire and whose perdition they fear, and whose loss or salvation
affects them with grief or with joy. For if we who have come into the Church from among the
Gentiles may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who glories in his infirmities, the teacher
(doctor) of the nations in faith and truth, who also labored more than all his fellow-apostles, and
instructed the tribes of God’s people by his epistles, which edified not only those of his own time,
but all those who were to be gathered in,—that hero, I say, and athlete of Christ, instructed by Him,
anointed of His Spirit, crucified with Him, glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining a great conflict
on the theatre of this world, and being made a spectacle to angels and men,698 and pressing onwards
for the prize of his high calling,699—very joyfully do we with the eyes of faith behold him rejoicing
688 Rom. viii. 23.
689 1 Cor. xv. 54.
690 Matt. xxiv. 12.
691 Matt. x. 22.
692 1 John i. 8.
693 2 Cor. ix. 7.
694 Gal. vi. l.
695 Ps. xxvi. 2.
696 Matt. xxvi. 75.
697 Jas. i. 2.
698 1 Cor. iv. 9.
699 Phil. iii. 14.
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with them that rejoice, and weeping with them that weep;700 though hampered by fightings without
and fears within;701 desiring to depart and to be with Christ;702 longing to see the Romans, that he
might have some fruit among them as among other Gentiles;703 being jealous over the Corinthians,
and fearing in that jealousy lest their minds should be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ;704
having great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for the Israelites,705 because they, being ignorant
of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God;706 and expressing not only his sorrow, but bitter
lamentation over some who had formally sinned and had not repented of their uncleanness and
fornications.707
If these emotions and affections, arising as they do from the love of what is good and from a
holy charity, are to be called vices, then let us allow these emotions which are truly vices to pass
under the name of virtues. But since these affections, when they are exercised in a becoming way,
follow the guidance of right reason, who will dare to say that they are diseases or vicious passions?
Wherefore even the Lord Himself, when He condescended to lead a human life in the form of a
slave, had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these emotions where He judged they should be
exercised. For as there was in Him a true human body and a true human soul, so was there also a
true human emotion. When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the hard-heartedness of the Jews
moved Him to sorrowful indignation,708 that He said, “I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye
may believe,”709 that when about to raise Lazarus He even shed tears,710 that He earnestly desired
to eat the passover with His disciples,711 that as His passion drew near His soul was sorrowful,712
these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed to Him. But as He became man when it pleased
Him, so, in the grace of His definite purpose, when it pleased Him He experienced those emotions
in His human soul.
700 Rom. xii. 15.
701 2 Cor. vii. 5.
702 Phil. i. 23.
703 Rom. i. 11–13.
704 2 Cor. xi. 1–3.
705 Rom. ix. 2.
706 Rom. x. 3.
707 2 Cor. xii. 21.
708 Mark iii. 5.
709 John xi. 15.
710 John xi. 35.
711 Luke xxii. 15.
712 Matt. xxvi. 38.
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But we must further make the admission, that even when these affections are well regulated,
and according to God’s will, they are peculiar to this life, not to that future life we look for, and
that often we yield to them against our will. And thus sometimes we weep in spite of ourselves,
being carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable desire; but by praiseworthy charity. In us,
therefore, these affections arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the Lord Jesus, for
even His infirmity was the consequence of His power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this
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life, we are rather worse men than better if we have none of these emotions at all. For the apostle
vituperated and abominated some who, as he said, were “without natural affection.”713 The sacred
Psalmist also found fault with those of whom he said, “I looked for some to lament with me, and
there was none.”714 For to be quite free from pain while we are in this place of misery is only
purchased, as one of this world’s literati perceived and remarked,715 at the price of blunted
sensibilities both of mind and body. And therefore that which the Greeks call ἀπαθεια, and what
the Latins would call, if their language would allow them, “impassibilitas,” if it be taken to mean
an impassibility of spirit and not of body, or, in other words, a freedom from those emotions which
are contrary to reason and disturb the mind, then it is obviously a good and most desirable quality,
but it is not one which is attainable in this life. For the words of the apostle are the confession, not
of the common herd, but of the eminently pious, just, and holy men: “If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”716 When there shall be no sin in a man, then there
shall be this απάθεια. At present it is enough if we live without crime; and he who thinks he lives
without sin puts aside not sin, but pardon. And if that is to be called apathy, where the mind is the
subject of no emotion, then who would not consider this insensibility to be worse than all vices?
It may, indeed, reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness we hope for shall be free
from all sting of fear or sadness; but who that is not quite lost to truth would say that neither love
nor joy shall be experienced there? But if by apathy a condition be meant in which no fear terrifies
nor any pain annoys, we must in this life renounce such a state if we would live according to God’s
will, but may hope to enjoy it in that blessedness which is promised as our eternal condition.
For that fear of which the Apostle John says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth
out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love,”717—that fear is
not of the same kind as the Apostle Paul felt lest the Corinthians should be seduced by the subtlety
of the serpent; for love is susceptible of this fear, yea, love alone is capable of it. But the fear which
is not in love is of that kind of which Paul himself says, “For ye have not received the spirit of
713 Rom. i. 31.
714 Ps. lxix. 20.
715 Crantor, an Academic philosopher quoted by Cicero, Tusc Quæst. iii. 6.
716 1 John i. 8.
717 1 John iv. 18.
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bondage again to fear.”718 But as for that “clean fear which endureth for ever,”719 if it is to exist in
the world to come (and how else can it be said to endure for ever?), it is not a fear deterring us from
evil which may happen, but preserving us in the good which cannot be lost. For where the love of
acquired good is unchangeable, there certainly the fear that avoids evil is, if I may say so, free from
anxiety. For under the name of “clean fear” David signifies that will by which we shall necessarily
shrink from sin, and guard against it, not with the anxiety of weakness, which fears that we may
strongly sin, but with the tranquillity of perfect love. Or if no kind of fear at all shall exist in that
most imperturbable security of perpetual and blissful delights, then the expression, “The fear of
the Lord is clean, enduring for ever,” must be taken in the same sense as that other, “The patience
of the poor shall not perish for ever.”720 For patience, which is necessary only where ills are to be
borne, shall not be eternal, but that which patience leads us to will be eternal. So perhaps this “clean
fear” is said to endure for ever, because that to which fear leads shall endure.
And since this is so,—since we must live a good life in order to attain to a blessed life, a good
life has all these affections right, a bad life has them wrong. But in the blessed life eternal there
will be love and joy, not only right, but also assured; but fear and grief there will be none. Whence
it already appears in some sort what manner of persons the citizens of the city of God must be in
this their pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh,—that is to say, according to God,
not according to man,—and what manner of persons they shall be also in that immortality whither
they are journeying. And the city or society of the wicked, who live not according to God, but
according to man, and who accept the doctrines of men or devils in the worship of a false and
contempt of the true divinity, is shaken with those wicked emotions as by diseases and disturbances.
And if there be some of its citizens who seem to restrain and, as it were, temper those passions,
they are so elated with ungodly pride, that their disease is as much greater as their pain is less. And
if some, with a vanity monstrous in proportion to its rarity, have become enamored of themselves
because they can be stimulated and excited by no emotion, moved or bent by no affection, such
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persons rather lose all humanity than obtain true tranquillity. For a thing is not necessarily right
because it is inflexible, nor healthy because it is insensible.
Chapter 10.—Whether It is to Be Believed that Our First Parents in Paradise, Before They Sinned,
Were Free from All Perturbation.
But it is a fair question, whether our first parent or first parents (for there was a marriage of
two), before they sinned, experienced in their animal body such emotions as we shall not experience
718 Rom. viii. 15.
719 Ps. xix. 9.
720 Ps. ix. 18.
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in the spiritual body when sin has been purged and finally abolished. For if they did, then how
were they blessed in that boasted place of bliss, Paradise? For who that is affected by fear or grief
can be called absolutely blessed? And what could those persons fear or suffer in such affluence of
blessings, where neither death nor ill-health was feared, and where nothing was wanting which a
good will could desire, and nothing present which could interrupt man’s mental or bodily enjoyment?
Their love to God was unclouded, and their mutual affection was that of faithful and sincere marriage;
and from this love flowed a wonderful delight, because they always enjoyed what was loved. Their
avoidance of sin was tranquil; and, so long as it was maintained, no other ill at all could invade
them and bring sorrow. Or did they perhaps desire to touch and eat the forbidden fruit, yet feared
to die; and thus both fear and desire already, even in that blissful place, preyed upon those first of
mankind? Away with the thought that such could be the case where there was no sin! And, indeed,
this is already sin, to desire those things which the law of God forbids, and to abstain from them
through fear of punishment, not through love of righteousness. Away, I say, with the thought, that
before there was any sin, there should already have been committed regarding that fruit the very
sin which our Lord warns us against regarding a woman: “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”721 As happy, then, as were these
our first parents, who were agitated by no mental perturbations, and annoyed by no bodily
discomforts, so happy should the whole human race have been, had they not introduced that evil
which they have transmitted to their posterity, and had none of their descendants committed iniquity
worthy of damnation; but this original blessedness continuing until, in virtue of that benediction
which said, “Increase and multiply,”722 the number of the predestined saints should have been
completed, there would then have been bestowed that higher felicity which is enjoyed by the most
blessed angels,—a blessedness in which there should have been a secure assurance that no one
would sin, and no one die; and so should the saints have lived, after no taste of labor, pain, or death,
as now they shall live in the resurrection, after they have endured all these things.
Chapter 11.—Of the Fall of the First Man, in Whom Nature Was Created Good, and Can Be Restored
Only by Its Author.
But because God foresaw all things, and was therefore not ignorant that man also would fall,
we ought to consider this holy city in connection with what God foresaw and ordained, and not
according to our own ideas, which do not embrace God’s ordination. For man, by his sin, could
not disturb the divine counsel, nor compel God to change what He had decreed; for God’s
foreknowledge had anticipated both,—that is to say, both how evil the man whom He had created
721 Matt. v. 28.
722 Gen. i. 28.
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good should become, and what good He Himself should even thus derive from him. For though
God is said to change His determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture says even
that God repented723), this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes,
and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that He would do. Accordingly
God, as it is written, made man upright,724 and consequently with a good will. For if he had not
had a good will, he could not have been upright. The good will, then, is the work of God; for God
created him with it. But the first evil will, which preceded all man’s evil acts, was rather a kind of
falling away from the work of God to its own works than any positive work. And therefore the
acts resulting were evil, not having God, but the will itself for their end; so that the will or the man
himself, so far as his will is bad, was as it were the evil tree bringing forth evil fruit. Moreover,
the bad will, though it be not in harmony with, but opposed to nature, inasmuch as it is a vice or
blemish, yet it is true of it as of all vice, that it cannot exist except in a nature, and only in a nature
created out of nothing, and not in that which the Creator has begotten of Himself, as He begot the
Word, by whom all things were made. For though God formed man of the dust of the earth, yet
the earth itself, and every earthly material, is absolutely created out of nothing; and man’s soul,
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too, God created out of nothing, and joined to the body, when He made man. But evils are so
thoroughly overcome by good, that though they are permitted to exist, for the sake of demonstrating
how the most righteous foresight of God can make a good use even of them, yet good can exist
without evil, as in the true and supreme God Himself, and as in every invisible and visible celestial
creature that exists above this murky atmosphere; but evil cannot exist without good, because the
natures in which evil exists, in so far as they are natures, are good. And evil is removed, not by
removing any nature, or part of a nature, which had been introduced by the evil, but by healing and
correcting that which had been vitiated and depraved. The will, therefore, is then truly free, when
it is not the slave of vices and sins. Such was it given us by God; and this being lost by its own
fault, can only be restored by Him who was able at first to give it. And therefore the truth says, “If
the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;”725 which is equivalent to saying, If the Son
shall save you, ye shall be saved indeed. For He is our Liberator, inasmuch as He is our Saviour.
Man then lived with God for his rule in a paradise at once physical and spiritual. For neither
was it a paradise only physical for the advantage of the body, and not also spiritual for the advantage
of the mind; nor was it only spiritual to afford enjoyment to man by his internal sensations, and not
also physical to afford him enjoyment through his external senses. But obviously it was both for
both ends. But after that proud and therefore envious angel (of whose fall I have said as much as
I was able in the eleventh and twelfth books of this work, as well as that of his fellows, who, from
being God’s angels, became his angels), preferring to rule with a kind of pomp of empire rather
than to be another’s subject, fell from the spiritual Paradise, and essaying to insinuate his persuasive
723 Gen. vi. 6, and 1 Sam. xv. 11.
724 Eccles. vii. 29.
725 1 John viii. 36.
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guile into the mind of man, whose unfallen condition provoked him to envy now that himself was
fallen, he chose the serpent as his mouthpiece in that bodily Paradise in which it and all the other
earthly animals were living with those two human beings, the man and his wife, subject to them,
and harmless; and he chose the serpent because, being slippery, and moving in tortuous windings,
it was suitable for his purpose. And this animal being subdued to his wicked ends by the presence
and superior force of his angelic nature, he abused as his instrument, and first tried his deceit upon
the woman, making his assault upon the weaker part of that human alliance, that he might gradually
gain the whole, and not supposing that the man would readily give ear to him, or be deceived, but
that he might yield to the error of the woman. For as Aaron was not induced to agree with the
people when they blindly wished him to make an idol, and yet yielded to constraint; and as it is not
credible that Solomon was so blind as to suppose that idols should be worshipped, but was drawn
over to such sacrilege by the blandishments of women; so we cannot believe that Adam was
deceived, and supposed the devil’s word to be truth, and therefore transgressed God’s law, but that
he by the drawings of kindred yielded to the woman, the husband to the wife, the one human being
to the only other human being. For not without significance did the apostle say, “And Adam was
not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression;”726 but he speaks thus, because
the woman accepted as true what the serpent told her, but the man could not bear to be severed
from his only companion, even though this involved a partnership in sin. He was not on this account
less culpable, but sinned with his eyes open. And so the apostle does not say, “He did not sin,” but
“He was not deceived.” For he shows that he sinned when he says, “By one man sin entered into
the world,”727 and immediately after more distinctly, “In the likeness of Adam’s transgression.”
But he meant that those are deceived who do not judge that which they do to be sin; but he knew.
Otherwise how were it true “Adam was not deceived?” But having as yet no experience of the
divine severity, he was possibly deceived in so far as he thought his sin venial. And consequently
he was not deceived as the woman was deceived, but he was deceived as to the judgment which
would be passed on his apology: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and
I did eat.”728 What need of saying more? Although they were not both deceived by credulity, yet
both were entangled in the snares of the devil, and taken by sin.
Chapter 12.—Of the Nature of Man’s First Sin.
If any one finds a difficulty in understanding why other sins do not alter human nature as it was
altered by the transgression of those first human beings, so that on account of it this nature is subject
726 1 Tim. ii. 14.
727 Rom. v. 12.
728 Gen. iii. 12.
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to the great corruption we feel and see, and to death, and is distracted and tossed with so many
furious and contending emotions, and is certainly far different from what it was before sin, even
though it were then lodged in an animal body,—if, I say, any one is moved by this, he ought not
to think that that sin was a small and light one because it was committed about food, and that not
bad nor noxious, except because it was forbidden; for in that spot of singular felicity God could
not have created and planted any evil thing. But by the precept He gave, God commended obedience,
which is, in a sort, the mother and guardian of all the virtues in the reasonable creature, which was
so created that submission is advantageous to it, while the fulfillment of its own will in preference
to the Creator’s is destruction. And as this commandment enjoining abstinence from one kind of
food in the midst of great abundance of other kinds was so easy to keep,—so light a burden to the
memory,—and, above all, found no resistance to its observance in lust, which only afterwards
sprung up as the penal consequence of sin, the iniquity of violating it was all the greater in proportion
to the ease with which it might have been kept.
Chapter 13.—That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act.
Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for
the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil
will but pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.”729 And what is pride but the craving for undue
exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave
as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction.
And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than
itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that
higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would
not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman
would not have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have preferred the request
of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial trangression to cleave
to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then,—that is to say, the
trangression of eating the forbidden fruit,—was committed by persons who were already wicked.
That “evil fruit”730 could be brought forth only by “a corrupt tree.” But that the tree was evil was
not the result of nature; for certainly it could become so only by the vice of the will, and vice is
contrary to nature. Now, nature could not have been depraved by vice had it not been made out of
nothing. Consequently, that it is a nature, this is because it is made by God; but that it falls away
729 Ecclus. x. 13.
730 Matt. vii. 18.
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from Him, this is because it is made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away731 as to become
absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became more contracted than it
was when he clave to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself, that is, to be his
own satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate to
that. And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another name, “self-pleasers.” For
it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one’s self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this
is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which,
strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed,
to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables
us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore
humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very
act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition; and
then comes to pass what is written: “Thou castedst them down when they lifted up themselves.”732
For he does not say, “when they had been lifted up,” as if first they were exalted, and then afterwards
cast down; but “when they lifted up themselves” even then they were cast down,—that is to say,
the very lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is that humility is specially recommended
to the city of God as it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city of God, and in
the person of Christ its King; while the contrary vice of pride, according to the testimony of the
sacred writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly this is the great difference
which distinguishes the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly men,
the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels that adhere to their party, and the one
guided and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God.
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The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God
had forbidden, had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with
pleasure to the words, “Ye shall be as gods,”733 which they would much more readily have
accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to
themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation
of the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he
fell away from Him who truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which prompts man
to please himself as if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light by
which, had he followed it, he would himself have become light,—this wicked desire, I say, already
secretly existed in him, and the open sin was but its consequence. For that is true which is written,
“Pride goeth before destruction, and before honor is humility;”734 that is to say, secret ruin precedes
open ruin, while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner
731 Defecit.
732 Ps. lxxiii. 18.
733 Gen. iii. 5.
734 Prov. xviii. 12.
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is the Highest forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize it as ruin, when there
occurs an evident and indubitable transgression of the commandment? And consequently, God’s
prohibition had reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be defended on any pretense
of doing what was righteous.735 And I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into
an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves, as already, by pleasing
themselves, they had fallen. For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was dissatisfied
with himself, than when he boldly presumed and satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred
Psalmist when he says, “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Thy name, O Lord;”736 that
is, that they who have pleased themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied
with Thee in seeking Thy glory.
Chapter 14.—Of the Pride in the Sin, Which Was Worse Than the Sin Itself.
But it is a worse and more damnable pride which casts about for the shelter of an excuse even
in manifest sins, as these our first parents did, of whom the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me,
and I did eat;” and the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree, and I did eat.”737 Here there is no word of begging pardon, no word of entreaty for healing.
For though they do not, like Cain, deny that they have perpetrated the deed, yet their pride seeks
to refer its wickedness to another,—the woman’s pride to the serpent, the man’s to the woman.
But where there is a plain trangression of a divine commandment, this is rather to accuse than to
excuse oneself. For the fact that the woman sinned on the serpent’s persuasion, and the man at the
woman’s offer, did not make the transgression less, as if there were any one whom we ought rather
to believe or yield to than God.
Chapter 15.—Of the Justice of the Punishment with Which Our First Parents Were Visited for
Their Disobedience.
Therefore, because the sin was a despising of the authority of God,—who had created man;
who had made him in His own image; who had set him above the other animals; who had placed
him in Paradise; who had enriched him with abundance of every kind and of safety; who had laid
upon him neither many, nor great, nor difficult commandments, but, in order to make a wholesome
735 That is to say, it was an obvious and indisputable transgression.
736 Ps. lxxxiii. 16.
737 Gen. iii. 12, 13.
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obedience easy to him, had given him a single very brief and very light precept by which He
reminded that creature whose service was to be free that He was Lord,—it was just that condemnation
followed, and condemnation such that man, who by keeping the commandments should have been
spiritual even in his flesh, became fleshly even in his spirit; and as in his pride he had sought to be
his own satisfaction, God in His justice abandoned him to himself, not to live in the absolute
independence he affected, but instead of the liberty he desired, to live dissatisfied with himself in
a hard and miserable bondage to him to whom by sinning he had yielded himself, doomed in spite
of himself to die in body as he had willingly become dead in spirit, condemned even to eternal
death (had not the grace of God delivered him) because he had forsaken eternal life. Whoever
thinks such punishment either excessive or unjust shows his inability to measure the great iniquity
of sinning where sin might so easily have been avoided. For as Abraham’s obedience is with justice
pronounced to be great, because the thing commanded, to kill his son, was very difficult, so in
Paradise the disobedience was the greater, because the difficulty of that which was commanded
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was imperceptible. And as the obedience of the second Man was the more laudable because He
became obedient even “unto death,”738 so the disobedience of the first man was the more detestable
because he became disobedient even unto death. For where the penalty annexed to disobedience
is great, and the thing commanded by the Creator is easy, who can sufficiently estimate how great
a wickedness it is, in a matter so easy, not to obey the authority of so great a power, even when
that power deters with so terrible a penalty?
In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was the punishment of disobedience in that
sin? For what else is man’s misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that in consequence
of his not being willing to do what he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot? For though
he could not do all things in Paradise before he sinned, yet he wished to do only what he could
do, and therefore he could do all things he wished. But now, as we recognize in his offspring,
and as divine Scripture testifies, “Man is like to vanity.”739 For who can count how many things
he wishes which he cannot do, so long as he is disobedient to himself, that is, so long as his
mind and his flesh do not obey his will? For in spite of himself his mind is both frequently
disturbed, and his flesh suffers, and grows old, and dies; and in spite of ourselves we suffer
whatever else we suffer, and which we would not suffer if our nature absolutely and in all its
parts obeyed our will. But is it not the infirmities of the flesh which hamper it in its service?
Yet what does it matter how its service is hampered, so long as the fact remains, that by the just
retribution of the sovereign God whom we refused to be subject to and serve, our flesh, which
was subjected to us, now torments us by insubordination, although our disobedience brought
trouble on ourselves, not upon God? For He is not in need of our service as we of our body’s;
738 Phil. ii. 8.
739 Ps. cxliv. 4.
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and therefore what we did was no punishment to Him, but what we receive is so to us. And
the pains which are called bodily are pains of the soul in and from the body. For what pain or
desire can the flesh feel by itself and without the soul? But when the flesh is said to desire or
to suffer, it is meant, as we have explained, that the man does so, or some part of the soul which
is affected by the sensation of the flesh, whether a harsh sensation causing pain, or gentle,
causing pleasure. But pain in the flesh is only a discomfort of the soul arising from the flesh,
and a kind of shrinking from its suffering, as the pain of the soul which is called sadness is a
shrinking from those things which have happened to us in spite of ourselves. But sadness is
frequently preceded by fear, which is itself in the soul, not in the flesh; while bodily pain is not
preceded by any kind of fear of the flesh, which can be felt in the flesh before the pain. But
pleasure is preceded by a certain appetite which is felt in the flesh like a craving, as hunger and
thirst and that generative appetite which is most commonly identified with the name” lust,”
though this is the generic word for all desires. For anger itself was defined by the ancients as
nothing else than the lust of revenge;740 although sometimes a man is angry even at inanimate
objects which cannot feel his vengeance, as when one breaks a pen, or crushes a quill that writes
badly. Yet even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of revenge, and is, so to speak,
a mysterious kind of shadow of [the great law of] retribution, that they who do evil should suffer
evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge, which is called anger; there is a lust of money, which
goes by the name of avarice; there is a lust of conquering, no matter by what means, which is
called opinionativeness; there is a lust of applause, which is named boasting. There are many
and various lusts, of which some have names of their own, while others have not. For who
could readily give a name to the lust of ruling, which yet has a powerful influence in the soul
of tyrants, as civil wars bear witness?
Chapter 16.—Of the Evil of Lust,—A Word Which, Though Applicable to Many Vices, is Specially
Appropriated to Sexual Uncleanness.
Although, therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when no object is specified, the word lust
usually suggests to the mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation. And this lust not
only takes possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself felt within,
and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite,
so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed is
this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended.
740 Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. iii. 6 and iv. 9. So Aristotle.
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What friend of wisdom and holy joys, who, being married, but knowing, as the apostle says, “how
to possess his vessel in santification and honor, not in the disease of desire, as the Gentiles who
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know not God,”741 would not prefer, if this were possi ble, to beget children without this lust, so
that in this function of begetting offspring the members created for this purpose should not be
stimulated by the heat of lust, but should be actuated by his volition, in the same way as his other
members serve him for their respective ends? But even those who delight in this pleasure are not
moved to it at their own will, whether they confine themselves to lawful or transgress to unlawful
pleasures; but sometimes this lust importunes them in spite of themselves, and sometimes fails
them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in the mind, it stirs not in the body. Thus,
strangely enough, this emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to beget offspring, but
also refuses to serve lascivious lust; and though it often opposes its whole combined energy to the
soul that resists it, sometimes also it is divided against itself, and while it moves the soul, leaves
the body unmoved.
Chapter 17.—Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and
Shameful Sin.
Justly is shame very specially connected with this lust; justly, too, these members themselves,
being moved and restrained not at our will, but by a certain independent autocracy, so to speak, are
called “shameful.” Their condition was different before sin. For as it is written, “They were naked
and were not ashamed,”742—not that their nakedness was unknown to them, but because nakedness
was not yet shameful, because not yet did lust move those members without the will’s consent; not
yet did the flesh by its disobedience testify against the disobedience of man. For they were not
created blind, as the unenlightened vulgar fancy;743 for Adam saw the animals to whom he gave
names, and of Eve we read, “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant
to the eyes.”744 Their eyes, therefore were open, but were not open to this, that is to say, were not
observant so as to recognize what was conferred upon them by the garment of grace, for they had
no consciousness of their members warring against their will. But when they were stripped of this
grace,745 that their disobedience might be punished by fit retribution, there began in the movement
741 1 Thess. iv. 4.
742 Gen. ii. 25.
743 An error which arose from the words, The eyes of them both were opened, Gen. iii. 7.—See De Genesi ad lit. ii. 40.
744 Gen. iii. 6.
745 This doctrine and phraseology of Augustin being important in connection with his whole theory of the fall, we give some
parallel passages to show that the words are not used at random: De Genesi ad lit. xi. 41; De Corrept. et Gratia, xi. 31; and
especially Cont. Julian. iv. 82.
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of their bodily members a shameless novelty which made nakedness indecent: it at once made
them observant and made them ashamed. And therefore, after they violated God’s command by
open transgression, it is written: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”746 “The eyes of
them both were opened,” not to see, for already they saw, but to discern between the good they had
lost and the evil into which they had fallen. And therefore also the tree itself which they were
forbidden to touch was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from this circumstance,
that if they ate of it it would impart to them this knowledge. For the discomfort of sickness reveals
the pleasure of health. “They knew,” therefore, “that they were naked,”—naked of that grace which
prevented them from being ashamed of bodily nakedness while the law of sin offered no resistance
to their mind. And thus they obtained a knowledge which they would have lived in blissful ignorance
of, had they, in trustful obedience to God, declined to commit that offence which involved them
in the experience of the hurtful effects of unfaithfulness and disobedience. And therefore, being
ashamed of the disobedience of their own flesh, which witnessed to their disobedience while it
punished it, “they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons,” that is, cinctures for
their privy parts; for some interpreters have rendered the word by succinctoria. Campestria is,
indeed, a Latin word, but it is used of the drawers or aprons used for a similar purpose by the young
men who stripped for exercise in the campus; hence those who were so girt were commonly called
campestrati. Shame modestly covered that which lust disobediently moved in opposition to the
will, which was thus punished for its own disobedience. Consequently all nations, being propagated
from that one stock, have so strong an instinct to cover the shameful parts, that some barbarians
do not uncover them even in the bath, but wash with their drawers on. In the dark solitudes of India
also, though some philosophers go naked, and are therefore called gymnosophists, yet they make
an exception in the case of these members and cover them.
Chapter 18.—Of the Shame Which Attends All Sexual Intercourse.
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Lust requires for its consummation darkness and secrecy; and this not only when un lawful
intercourse is desired, but even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized. Where there is
no fear of punishment, these permitted pleasures still shrink from the public eye. Even where
provision is made for this lust, secrecy also is provided; and while lust found it easy to remove the
prohibitions of law, shamelessness found it impossible to lay aside the veil of retirement. For even
shameless men call this shameful; and though they love the pleasure, dare not display it. What!
does not even conjugal intercourse, sanctioned as it is by law for the propagation of children,
legitimate and honorable though it be, does it not seek retirement from every eye? Before the
746 Gen. iii. 7.
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bridegroom fondles his bride, does he not exclude the attendants, and even the paranymphs, and
such friends as the closest ties have admitted to the bridal chamber? The greatest master of Roman
eloquence says, that all right actions wish to be set in the light, i.e., desire to be known. This right
action, however, has such a desire to be known, that yet it blushes to be seen. Who does not know
what passes between husband and wife that children may be born? Is it not for this purpose that
wives are married with such ceremony? And yet, when this well-understood act is gone about for
the procreation of children, not even the children themselves, who may already have been born to
them, are suffered to be witnesses. This right action seeks the light, in so far as it seeks to be known,
but yet dreads being seen. And why so, if not because that which is by nature fitting and decent is
so done as to be accompanied with a shame-begetting penalty of sin?
Chapter 19.—That It is Now Necessary, as It Was Not Before Man Sinned, to Bridle Anger and
Lust by the Restraining Influence of Wisdom.
Hence it is that even the philosophers who have approximated to the truth have avowed that
anger and lust are vicious mental emotions, because, even when exercised towards objects which
wisdom does not prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned and inordinate manner, and consequently
need the regulation of mind and reason. And they assert that this third part of the mind is posted
as it were in a kind of citadel, to give rule to these other parts, so that, while it rules and they serve,
man’s righteousness is preserved without a breach.747 These parts, then, which they acknowledge
to be vicious even in a wise and temperate man, so that the mind, by its composing and restraining
influence, must bridle and recall them from those objects towards which they are unlawfully moved,
and give them access to those which the law of wisdom sanctions,—that anger, e.g., may be allowed
for the enforcement of a just authority, and lust for the duty of propagating offspring,—these parts,
I say, were not vicious in Paradise before sin, for they were never moved in opposition to a holy
will towards any object from which it was necessary that they should be withheld by the restraining
bridle of reason. For though now they are moved in this way, and are regulated by a bridling and
restraining power, which those who live temperately, justly, and godly exercise, sometimes with
ease, and sometimes with greater difficulty, this is not the sound health of nature, but the weakness
which results from sin. And how is it that shame does not hide the acts and words dictated by anger
or other emotions, as it covers the motions of lust, unless because the members of the body which
we employ for accomplishing them are moved, not by the emotions themselves, but by the authority
of the consenting will? For he who in his anger rails at or even strikes some one, could not do so
were not his tongue and hand moved by the authority of the will, as also they are moved when there
is no anger. But the organs of generation are so subjected to the rule of lust, that they have no
747 See Plato’s Republic, book iv.
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motion but what it communicates. It is this we are ashamed of; it is this which blushingly hides
from the eyes of onlookers. And rather will a man endure a crowd of witnesses when he is unjustly
venting his anger on some one, than the eye of one man when he innocently copulates with his
wife.
Chapter 20.—Of the Foolish Beastliness of the Cynics.
It is this which those canine or cynic748 philosophers have overlooked, when they have, in
violation of the modest instincts of men, boastfully proclaimed their unclean and shameless opinion,
worthy indeed of dogs, viz., that as the matrimonial act is legitimate, no one should be ashamed to
perform it openly, in the street or in any public place. Instinctive shame has overborne this wild
fancy. For though it is related749 that Diogenes once dared to put his opinion in practice, under the
impression that his sect would be all the more famous if his egregious shamelessness were deeply
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graven in the memory of mankind, yet this example was not afterwards followed. Shame had more
influence with them, to make them blush before men, than error to make them affect a resemblance
to dogs. And possibly, even in the case of Diogenes, and those who did imitate him, there was but
an appearance and pretence of copulation, and not the reality. Even at this day there are still Cynic
philosophers to be seen; for these are Cynics who are not content with being clad in the pallium,
but also carry a club; yet no one of them dares to do this that we speak of. If they did, they would
be spat upon, not to say stoned, by the mob. Human nature, then, is without doubt ashamed of this
lust; and justly so, for the insubordination of these members, and their defiance of the will, are the
clear testimony of the punishment of man’s first sin. And it was fitting that this should appear
specially in those parts by which is generated that nature which has been altered for the worse by
that first and great sin,—that sin from whose evil connection no one can escape, unless God’s grace
expiate in him individually that which was perpetrated to the destruction of all in common, when
all were in one man, and which was avenged by God’s justice.
Chapter 21.—That Man’s Transgression Did Not Annul the Blessing of Fecundity Pronounced
Upon Man Before He Sinned But Infected It with the Disease of Lust.
Far be it, then, from us to suppose that our first parents in Paradise felt that lust which caused
them afterwards to blush and hide their nakedness, or that by its means they should have fulfilled
748 The one word being the Latin form, the other the Greek, of the same adjective.
749 By Diogenes Laertius, vi. 69, and Cicero, De Offic. i. 41.
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the benediction of God, “Increase and multiply and replenish the earth;”750 for it was after sin that
lust began. It was after sin that our nature, having lost the power it had over the whole body, but
not having lost all shame, perceived, noticed, blushed at, and covered it. But that blessing upon
marriage, which encouraged them to increase and multiply and replenish the earth, though it
continued even after they had sinned, was yet given before they sinned, in order that the procreation
of children might be recognized as part of the glory of marriage, and not of the punishment of sin.
But now, men being ignorant of the blessedness of Paradise, suppose that children could not have
been begotten there in any other way than they know them to be begotten now, i.e., by lust, at which
even honorable marriage blushes; some not simply rejecting, but sceptically deriding the divine
Scriptures, in which we read that our first parents, after they sinned, were ashamed of their nakedness,
and covered it; while others, though they accept and honor Scripture, yet conceive that this
expression, “Increase and multiply,” refers not to carnal fecundity, because a similar expression is
used of the soul in the words, “Thou wilt multiply me with strength in my soul;”751 and so, too, in
the words which follow in Genesis, “And replenish the earth, and subdue it,” they understand by
the earth the body which the soul fills with its presence, and which it rules over when it is multiplied
in strength. And they hold that children could no more then than now be begotten without lust,
which, after sin, was kindled, observed, blushed for, and covered; and even that children would
not have been born in Paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact it turned out. For it was after they
were expelled from it that they came together to beget children, and begot them.
Chapter 22.—Of the Conjugal Union as It Was Originally Instituted and Blessed by God.
But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase and multiply and replenish the
earth in virtue of the blessing of God, is a gift of marriage as God instituted it from the beginning
before man sinned, when He created them male and female,—in other words, two sexes manifestly
distinct. And it was this work of God on which His blessing was pronounced. For no sooner had
Scripture said, “Male and female created He them,”752 than it immediately continues, “And God
blessed them, and God said unto them, Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it,” etc. And though all these things may not unsuitably be interpreted in a spiritual sense, yet “male
and female” cannot be understood of two things in one man, as if there were in him one thing which
rules, another which is ruled; but it is quite clear that they were created male and female, with
bodies of different sexes, for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and so increasing, multiplying,
and replenishing the earth; and it is great folly to oppose so plain a fact. It was not of the spirit
750 Gen. i. 28.
751 Ps. cxxxviii. 3.
752 Gen. i. 27, 28.
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which commands and the body which obeys, nor of the rational soul which rules and the irrational
desire which is ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme and the active which is
subject, nor of the understanding of the mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial
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union by which the sexes are mutually bound together, that our Lord, when asked whether it were
lawful for any cause to put away one’s wife (for on account of the hardness of the hearts of the
Israelites Moses permitted a bill of divorcement to be given), answered and said, “Have ye not read
that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause
shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder.”753 It is certain, then, that from the first men were created, as we see and
know them to be now, of two sexes, male and female, and that they are called one, either on account
of the matrimonial union, or on account of the origin of the woman, who was created from the side
of the man. And it is by this original example, which God Himself instituted, that the apostle
admonishes all husbands to love their own wives in particular.754
Chapter 23.—Whether Generation Should Have Taken Place Even in Paradise Had Man Not Sinned,
or Whether There Should Have Been Any Contention There Between Chastity and Lust.
But he who says that there should have been neither copulation nor generation but for sin,
virtually says that man’s sin was necessary to complete the number of the saints. For if these two
by not sinning should have continued to live alone, because, as is supposed, they could not have
begotten children had they not sinned, then certainly sin was necessary in order that there might
be not only two but many righteous men. And if this cannot be maintained without absurdity, we
must rather believe that the number of the saints fit to complete this most blessed city would have
been as great though no one had sinned, as it is now that the grace of God gathers its citizens out
of the multitude of sinners, so long as the children of this world generate and are generated.755
And therefore that marriage, worthy of the happiness of Paradise, should have had desirable
fruit without the shame of lust, had there been no sin. But how that could be, there is now no
example to teach us. Nevertheless, it ought not to seem incredible that one member might serve
the will without lust then, since so many serve it now. Do we now move our feet and hands when
we will to do the things we would by means of these members? do we meet with no resistance in
them, but perceive that they are ready servants of the will, both in our own case and in that of others,
and especially of artisans employed in mechanical operations, by which the weakness and clumsiness
753 Matt. xix. 4, 5.
754 Eph. v. 25.
755 Luke xx. 34.
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of nature become, through industrious exercise, wonderfully dexterous? and shall we not believe
that, like as all those members obediently serve the will, so also should the members have discharged
the function of generation, though lust, the award of disobedience, had been awanting? Did not
Cicero, in discussing the difference of governments in his De Republica, adopt a simile from human
nature, and say that we command our bodily members as children, they are so obedient; but that
the vicious parts of the soul must be treated as slaves, and be coerced with a more stringent
authority? And no doubt, in the order of nature, the soul is more excellent than the body; and yet
the soul commands the body more easily than itself. Nevertheless this lust, of which we at present
speak, is the more shameful on this account, because the soul is therein neither master of itself, so
as not to lust at all, nor of the body, so as to keep the members under the control of the will; for if
they were thus ruled, there should be no shame. But now the soul is ashamed that the body, which
by nature is inferior and subject to it, should resist its authority. For in the resistance experienced
by the soul in the other emotions there is less shame, because the resistance is from itself, and thus,
when it is conquered by itself, itself is the conqueror, although the conquest is inordinate and
vicious, because accomplished by those parts of the soul which ought to be subject to reason, yet,
being accomplished by its own parts and energies, the conquest is, as I say, its own. For when the
soul conquers itself to a due subordination, so that its unreasonable motions are controlled by reason,
while it again is subject to God, this is a conquest virtuous and praiseworthy. Yet there is less
shame when the soul is resisted by its own vicious parts than when its will and order are resisted
by the body, which is distinct from and inferior to it, and dependent on it for life itself.
But so long as the will retains under its authority the other members, without which the members
excited by lust to resist the will cannot accomplish what they seek, chastity is preserved, and the
delight of sin foregone. And certainly, had not culpable disobedience been visited with penal
disobedience, the marriage of Paradise should have been ignorant of this struggle and rebellion,
this quarrel between will and lust, that the will may be satisfied and lust restrained, but those
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members, like all the rest, should have obeyed the will. The field of generation756 should have
been sown by the organ created for this purpose, as the earth is sown by the hand. And whereas
now, as we essay to investigate this subject more exactly, modesty hinders us, and compels us to
ask pardon of chaste ears, there would have been no cause to do so, but we could have discoursed
freely, and without fear of seeming obscene, upon all those points which occur to one who meditates
on the subject. There would not have been even words which could be called obscene, but all that
might be said of these members would have been as pure as what is said of the other parts of the
body. Whoever, then, comes to the perusal of these pages with unchaste mind, let him blame his
disposition, not his nature; let him brand the actings of his own impurity, not the words which
necessity forces us to use, and for which every pure and pious reader or hearer will very readily
pardon me, while I expose the folly of that scepticism which argues solely on the ground of its own
experience, and has no faith in anything beyond. He who is not scandalized at the apostle’s censure
756 See Virgil, Georg. iii. 136.
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of the horrible wickedness of the women who “changed the natural use into that which is against
nature,”757 will read all this without being shocked, especially as we are not, like Paul, citing and
censuring a damnable uncleanness, but are explaining, so far as we can, human generation, while
with Paul we avoid all obscenity of language.
Chapter 24.—That If Men Had Remained Innocent and Obedient in Paradise, the Generative Organs
Should Have Been in Subjection to the Will as the Other Members are.
The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman received it, as need required, the
generative organs being moved by the will, not excited by lust. For we move at will not only those
members which are furnished with joints of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and fingers, but we move
also at will those which are composed of slack and soft nerves: we can put them in motion, or
stretch them out, or bend and twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the muscles
of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the very tenderest of the viscera except the brain, and
are therefore carefully sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all purposes of inhaling and
exhaling the breath, and of uttering and modulating the voice, are obedient to the will when we
breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing, just as the bellows obey the smith or the organist. I will not
press the fact that some animals have a natural power to move a single spot of the skin with which
their whole body is covered, if they have felt on it anything they wish to drive off,—a power so
great, that by this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake off flies that have settled on
them, but even spears that have fixed in their flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power; but is this
any reason for supposing that God could not give it to such creatures as He wished to possess it?
And therefore man himself also might very well have enjoyed absolute power over his members
had he not forfeited it by his disobedience; for it was not difficult for God to form him so that what
is now moved in his body only by lust should have been moved only at will.
We know, too, that some men are differently constituted from others, and have some rare and
remarkable faculty of doing with their body what other men can by no effort do, and, indeed,
scarcely believe when they hear of others doing. There are persons who can move their ears, either
one at a time, or both together. There are some who, without moving the head, can bring the hair
down upon the forehead, and move the whole scalp backwards and forwards at pleasure. Some,
by lightly pressing their stomach, bring up an incredible quantity and variety of things they have
swallowed, and produce whatever they please, quite whole, as if out of a bag. Some so accurately
mimic the voices of birds and beasts and other men, that, unless they are seen, the difference cannot
be told. Some have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at
pleasure, so as to produce the effect of singing. I myself have known a man who was accustomed
757 Rom. i. 26.
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to sweat whenever he wished. It is well known that some weep when they please, and shed a flood
of tears. But far more incredible is that which some of our brethren saw quite recently. There was
a presbyter called Restitutus, in the parish of the Calamensian758 Church, who, as often as he pleased
(and he was asked to do this by those who desired to witness so remarkable a phenomenon), on
some one imitating the wailings of mourners, became so insensible, and lay in a state so like death,
that not only had he no feeling when they pinched and pricked him, but even when fire was applied
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to him, and he was burned by it, he had no sense of pain except afterwards from the wound. And
that his body remained motionless, not by reason of his self-command, but because he was insensible,
was proved by the fact that he breathed no more than a dead man; and yet he said that, when any
one spoke with more than ordinary distinctness, he heard the voice, but as if it were a long way
off. Seeing, then, that even in this mortal and miserable life the body serves some men by many
remarkable movements and moods beyond the ordinary course of nature, what reason is there for
doubting that, before man was involved by his sin in this weak and corruptible condition, his
members might have served his will for the propagation of offspring without lust? Man has been
given over to himself because he abandoned God, while he sought to be self-satisfying; and
disobeying God, he could not obey even himself. Hence it is that he is involved in the obvious
misery of being unable to live as he wishes. For if he lived as he wished, he would think himself
blessed; but he could not be so if he lived wickedly.
Chapter 25.—Of True Blessedness, Which This Present Life Cannot Enjoy.
However, if we look at this a little more closely, we see that no one lives as he wishes but the
blessed, and that no one is blessed but the righteous. But even the righteous himself does not live
as he wishes, until he has arrived where he cannot die, be deceived, or injured, and until he is
assured that this shall be his eternal condition. For this nature demands; and nature is not fully and
perfectly blessed till it attains what it seeks. But what man is at present able to live as he wishes,
when it is not in his power so much as to live? He wishes to live, he is compelled to die. How,
then, does he live as he wishes who does not live as long as he wishes? or if he wishes to die, how
can he live as he wishes, since he does not wish even to live? Or if he wishes to die, not because
he dislikes life, but that after death he may live better, still he is not yet living as he wishes, but
only has the prospect of so living when, through death, he reaches that which he wishes. But admit
that he lives as he wishes, because he has done violence to himself, and forced himself not to wish
758 The position of Calama is described by Augustin as between Constantine and Hippo, but nearer Hippo.—Contra I.it.
Petil. ii. 228. A full description of it is given in Poujoulat’s Histoire de S. Augustin, i. 340, who says it was one of the most
important towns of Numidia, eighteen leagues south of Hippo, and represented by the modern Ghelma. It is to its bishop,
Possidius, we owe the contemporary Life of Augustin.
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what he cannot obtain, and to wish only what he can (as Terence has it, “Since you cannot do what
you will, will what you can”759), is he therefore blessed because he is patiently wretched? For a
blessed life is possessed only by the man who loves it. If it is loved and possessed, it must necessarily
be more ardently loved than all besides; for whatever else is loved must be loved for the sake of
the blessed life. And if it is loved as it deserves to be,—and the man is not blessed who does not
love the blessed life as it deserves,—then he who so loves it cannot but wish it to be eternal.
Therefore it shall then only be blessed when it is eternal.
Chapter 26.—That We are to Believe that in Paradise Our First Parents Begat Offspring Without
Blushing.
In Paradise, then, man lived as he desired so long as he desired what God had commanded. He
lived in the enjoyment of God, and was good by God’s goodness; he lived without any want, and
had it in his power so to live eternally. He had food that he might not hunger, drink that he might
not thirst, the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was in his body no corruption,
nor seed of corruption, which could produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward
disease, no outward accident. Soundest health blessed his body, absolute tranquillity his soul. As
in Paradise there was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt from the vicissitudes
of fear and desire. No sadness of any kind was there, nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly
flowed from the presence of God, who was loved “out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and
faith unfeigned.”760 The honest love of husband and wife made a sure harmony between them.
Body and spirit worked harmoniously together, and the commandment was kept without labor.
No languor made their leisure wearisome; no sleepiness interrupted their desire to labor.761 In tanta
facilitate rerum et felicitate hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem seri sine libidinis
morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur illa membra qua cætera, et sine ardoris illecebroso
stimulo cum tranquillitate animi et corporis nulla corruptione integritatis infunderetur gremio
maritus uxoris. Neque enim quia experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est; quando
illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea potestas, sicut opus esset, adhiberet;
ita tunc potuisse utero conjugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti, sicut nunc
potest eadem integritate salva ex utero virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti. Eadem quippe via
posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad pariendum non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis
759 Andr. ii. 1, 5.
760 1 Tim. i. 5.
761 Compare Basil’s Homily on Paradise, and John Damascene, De Fide Orthod. ii. 11.
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impulsus feminea viscera relaxaret: sic ad foetandum et concipiendum non libidinis appetitus,
sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret. We speak of things which are now shameful,
and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became
shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty than
to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse might suggest. For since that which I have been
speaking of was not experienced even by those who might have experienced it,—I mean our first
parents (for sin and its merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless generation
on their part),—when sexual intercourse is spoken of now, it suggests to men’s thoughts not such
a placid obedience to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but such violent acting of lust
as they themselves have experienced. And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind
conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme and supremely good Creator of all
natures, who aids and rewards good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad, and rules
both, was not destitute of a plan by which He might people His city with the fixed number of citizens
which His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned human race, discriminating them
not now by merits, since the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but by grace, and
showing, not only in the case of the redeemed, but also in those who were not delivered, how much
grace He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges that he has been rescued from
evil, not by deserved, but by gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company of those
with whom he might justly have borne a common punishment, and is allowed to go scathless.
Why, then, should God not have created those whom He foresaw would sin, since He was able to
show in and by them both what their guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under
His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder of the wicked could not pervert the
right order of things?
Chapter 27.—Of the Angels and Men Who Sinned, and that Their Wickedness Did Not Disturb
the Order of God’s Providence.
The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the “great works of the Lord which accomplish
His will.”762 For He who by His providence and omnipotence distributes to every one his own
portion, is able to make good use not only of the good, but also of the wicked. And thus making
a good use of the wicked angel, who, in punishment of his first wicked volition, was doomed to an
obduracy that prevents him now from willing any good, why should not God have permitted him
to tempt the first man, who had been created upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had
been so constituted, that if he looked to God for help, man’s goodness should defeat the angel’s
wickedness; but if by proud self-pleasing he abandoned God, his Creator and Sustainer, he should
762 Ps. cxi. 2.
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be conquered. If his will remained upright, through leaning on God’s help, he should be rewarded;
if it became wicked, by forsaking God, he should be punished. But even this trusting in God’s help
could not itself be accomplished without God’s help, although man had it in his own power to
relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing himself. For as it is not in our power to live in
this world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our power to refuse this nourishment
and cease to live, as those do who kill themselves, so it was not in man’s power, even in Paradise,
to live as he ought without God’s help; but it was in his power to live wickedly, though thus he
should cut short his happiness, and incur very just punishment. Since, then, God was not ignorant
that man would fall, why should He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who hated
and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was unaware that he should be conquered. but because
He foresaw that by the man’s seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil himself should be
conquered, to the greater glory of the saints. All was brought about in such a manner, that neither
did any future event escape God’s foreknowledge, nor did His foreknowledge compel any one to
sin, and so as to demonstrate in the experience of the intelligent creation, human and angelic, how
great a difference there is between the private presumption of the creature and the Creator’s
protection. For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in God’s power to prevent both angels
and men from sinning? But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show both what
evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace.
Chapter 28.—Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly.
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to
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the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former,
in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest
glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the
other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.”763 In the one, the princes
and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects
serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights
in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love
Thee, O Lord, my strength.”764 And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to
man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God
“glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying in their own
wisdom, and being possessed by pride,—“they became fools, and changed the glory of the
763 Ps. iii. 3.
764 Ps. xviii. 1.
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incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts,
and creeping things.” For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images,
“and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”765 But
in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the
true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men,
“that God may be all in all.”766

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