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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 19

Argument—In this book the end of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, is discussed.
Augustin reviews the opinions of the philosophers regarding the supreme good, and their vain
efforts to make for themselves a happiness in this life; and, while he refutes these, he takes occasion
to show what the peace and happiness belonging to the heavenly city, or the people of Christ, are
both now and hereafter.
Chapter 1.—That Varro Has Made Out that Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight Different Sects of
Philosophy Might Be Formed by the Various Opinions Regarding the Supreme Good.
As I see that I have still to discuss the fit destinies of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly,
I must first explain, so far as the limits of this work allow me, the reasonings by which men have
attempted to make for themselves a happiness in this unhappy life, in order that it may be evident,
not only from divine authority, but also from such reasons as can be adduced to unbelievers, how
the empty dreams of the philosophers differ from the hope which God gives to us, and from the
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substantial fulfillment of it which He will give us as our blessedness. Philosophers have expressed
a great variety of diverse opinions regarding the ends of goods and of evils, and this question they
have eagerly canvassed, that they might, if possible, discover what makes a man happy. For the
end of our good is that for the sake of which other things are to be desired, while it is to be desired
for its own sake; and the end of evil is that on account of which other things are to be shunned,
while it is avoided on its own account. Thus, by the end of good, we at present mean, not that by
which good is destroyed, so that it no longer exists, but that by which it is finished, so that it becomes
complete; and by the end of evil we mean, not that which abolishes it, but that which completes its
development. These two ends, therefore, are the supreme good and the supreme evil; and, as I have
said, those who have in this vain life professed the study of wisdom have been at great pains to
discover these ends, and to obtain the supreme good and avoid the supreme evil in this life. And
although they erred in a variety of ways, yet natural insight has prevented them from wandering
from the truth so far that they have not placed the supreme good and evil, some in the soul, some
in the body, and some in both. From this tripartite distribution of the sects of philosophy, Marcus
Varro, in his book De Philosophia,1259 has drawn so large a variety of opinions, that, by a subtle
and minute analysis of distinctions, he numbers without difficulty as many as 288 sects,—not that
these have actually existed, but sects which are possible.
To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own introductory statement in the
above-mentioned book, that there are four things which men desire, as it were by nature without a
master, without the help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is called
virtue, and which is certainly learned:1260 either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the bodily
sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls
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by the one name, pleasure; or the primary objects of nature,1261 which comprehend the things already
named and other things, either bodily, such as health, and safety, and integrity of the members, or
spiritual, such as the greater and less mental gifts that are found in men. Now these four
things—pleasure, repose, the two combined, and the primary objects of nature—exist in us in such
sort that we must either desire virtue on their account, or them for the sake of virtue, or both for
their own sake; and consequently there arise from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this
consideration tripled. I will illustrate this in one instance, and, having done so, it will not be difficult
to understand the others. According, then, as bodily pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to
virtue, there are three sects. It is subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to virtue.
Thus it is a duty of virtue to live for one’s country, and for its sake to beget children, neither of
which can be done without bodily pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure
also in sexual intercourse. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for its own sake, and
virtue is chosen only for its sake, and to effect nothing else than the attainment or preservation of
1259 Not extant.
1260 Alluding to the vexed question whether virtue could be taught.
1261 The prima naturæ, or πρῶτα κατὰ φύσιν of the Stoics.
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bodily pleasure. And this, indeed, is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure
it no longer deserves the name of virtue. Yet even this disgraceful distortion has found some
philosophers to patronize and defend it. Then virtue is united to pleasure when neither is desired
for the other’s sake, but both for their own. And therefore, as pleasure, according as it is subjected,
preferred, or united to virtue, makes three sects, so also do repose, pleasure and repose combined,
and the prime natural blessings, make their three sects each. For as men’s opinions vary, and these
four things are sometimes subjected, sometimes preferred, and sometimes united to virtue, there
are produced twelve sects. But this number again is doubled by the addition of one difference, viz.,
the social life; for whoever attaches himself to any of these sects does so either for his own sake
alone, or for the sake of a companion, for whom he ought to wish what he desires for himself. And
thus there will be twelve of those who think some one of these opinions should be held for their
own sakes, and other twelve who decide that they ought to follow this or that philosophy not for
their own sakes only, but also for the sake of others whose good they desire as their own. These
twenty-four sects again are doubled, and become forty-eight by adding a difference taken from the
New Academy. For each of these four and twenty sects can hold and defend their opinion as certain,
as the Stoics defended the position that the supreme good of man consisted solely in virtue; or they
can be held as probable, but not certain, as the New Academics did. There are, therefore, twenty-four
who hold their philosophy as certainly true, other twenty-four who hold their opinions as probable,
but not certain. Again, as each person who attaches himself to any of these sects may adopt the
mode of life either of the Cynics or of the other philosophers, this distinction will double the number,
and so make ninety-six sects. Then, lastly, as each of these sects may be adhered to either by men
who love a life of ease, as those who have through choice or necessity addicted themselves to study,
or by men who love a busy life, as those who, while philosophizing, have been much occupied with
state affairs and public business, or by men who choose a mixed life, in imitation of those who
have apportioned their time partly to erudite leisure, partly to necessary business: by these
differences the number of the sects is tripled, and becomes 288.
I have thus, as briefly and lucidly as I could, given in my own words the opinions which Varro
expresses in his book. But how he refutes all the rest of these sects, and chooses one, the Old
Academy, instituted by Plato, and continuing to Polemo, the fourth teacher of that school of
philosophy which held that their system was certain; and how on this ground he distinguishes it
from the New Academy,1262 which began with Polemo’s successor Arcesilaus, and held that all
things are uncertain; and how he seeks to establish that the Old Academy was as free from error
as from doubt,—all this, I say, were too long to enter upon in detail, and yet I must not altogether
pass it by in silence. Varro then rejects, as a first step, all those differences which have multiplied
the number of sects; and the ground on which he does so is that they are not differences about the
supreme good. He maintains that in philosophy a sect is created only by its having an opinion of
its own different from other schools on the point of the ends-in-chief. For man has no other reason
1262 Frequently called the Middle Academy; the New beginning with Carneades.
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for philosophizing than that he may be happy; but that which makes him happy is itself the supreme
good. In other words, the supreme good is the reason of philosophizing; and therefore that cannot
be called a sect of philosophy which pursues no way of its own towards the supreme good. Thus,
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when it is asked whether a wise man will adopt the social life, and desire and be interested in the
supreme good of his friend as in his own, or will, on the contrary, do all that he does merely for
his own sake, there is no question here about the supreme good, but only about the propriety of
associating or not associating a friend in its participation: whether the wise man will do this not
for his own sake, but for the sake of his friend in whose good he delights as in his own. So, too,
when it is asked whether all things about which philosophy is concerned are to be considered
uncertain, as by the New Academy, or certain, as the other philosophers maintain, the question here
is not what end should be pursued, but whether or not we are to believe in the substantial existence
of that end; or, to put it more plainly, whether he who pursues the supreme good must maintain
that it is a true good, or only that it appears to him to be true, though possibly it may be
delusive,—both pursuing one and the same good. The distinction, too, which is founded on the
dress and manners of the Cynics, does not touch the question of the chief good, but only the question
whether he who pursues that good which seems to himself true should live as do the Cynics. There
were, in fact, men who, though they pursued different things as the supreme good, some choosing
pleasure, others virtue, yet adopted that mode of life which gave the Cynics their name. Thus,
whatever it is which distinguishes the Cynics from other philosophers, this has no bearing on the
choice and pursuit of that good which constitutes happiness. For if it had any such bearing, then
the same habits of life would necessitate the pursuit of the same chief good, and diverse habits
would necessitate the pursuit of different ends.
Chapter 2.—How Varro, by Removing All the Differences Which Do Not Form Sects, But are
Merely Secondary Questions, Reaches Three Definitions of the Chief Good, of Which We Must
Choose One.
The same may be said of those three kinds of life, the life of studious leisure and search after
truth, the life of easy engagement in affairs, and the life in which both these are mingled. When it
is asked, which of these should be adopted, this involves no controversy about the end of good, but
inquires which of these three puts a man in the best position for finding and retaining the supreme
good. For this good, as soon as a man finds it, makes him happy; but lettered leisure, or public
business, or the alternation of these, do not necessarily constitute happiness. Many, in fact, find it
possible to adopt one or other of these modes of life, and yet to miss what makes a man happy.
The question, therefore, regarding the supreme good and the supreme evil, and which distinguishes
sects of philosophy, is one; and these questions concerning the social life, the doubt of the Academy,
the dress and food of the Cynics, the three modes of life—the active, the contemplative, and the
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mixed—these are different questions, into none of which the question of the chief good enters.
And therefore, as Marcus Varro multiplied the sects to the number of 288 (or whatever larger
number he chose) by introducing these four differences derived from the social life, the New
Academy, the Cynics, and the threefold form of life, so, by removing these differences as having
no bearing on the supreme good, and as therefore not constituting what can properly be called sects,
he returns to those twelve schools which concern themselves with inquiring what that good is which
makes man happy, and he shows that one of these is true, the rest false. In other words, he dismisses
the distinction founded on the threefold mode of life, and so decreases the whole number by
two-thirds, reducing the sects to ninety-six. Then, putting aside the Cynic peculiarities, the number
decreases by a half, to forty-eight. Taking away next the distinction occasioned by the hesitancy
of the New Academy, the number is again halved, and reduced to twenty-four. Treating in a similar
way the diversity introduced by the consideration of the social life, there are left but twelve, which
this difference had doubled to twenty-four. Regarding these twelve, no reason can be assigned
why they should not be called sects. For in them the sole inquiry is regarding the supreme good
and the ultimate evil,—that is to say, regarding the supreme good, for this being found, the opposite
evil is thereby found. Now, to make these twelve sects, he multiplies by three these four
things—pleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the primary objects of nature which
Varro calls primigenia. For as these four things are sometimes subordinated to virtue, so that they
seem to be desired not for their own sake, but for virtue’s sake; sometimes preferred to it, so that
virtue seems to be necessary not on its own account, but in order to attain these things; sometimes
joined with it, so that both they and virtue are desired for their own sakes,—we must multiply the
four by three, and thus we get twelve sects. But from those four things Varro eliminates
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three—pleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combined—not because he thinks these are not worthy
of the place assigned them, but because they are included in the primary objects of nature. And
what need is there, at any rate, to make a threefold division out of these two ends, pleasure and
repose, taking them first severally and then conjunctly, since both they, and many other things
besides, are comprehended in the primary objects of nature? Which of the three remaining sects
must be chosen? This is the question that Varro dwells upon. For whether one of these three or
some other be chosen, reason forbids that more than one be true. This we shall afterwards see; but
meanwhile let us explain as briefly and distinctly as we can how Varro makes his selection from
these three, that is, from the sects which severally hold that the primary objects of nature are to be
desired for virtue’s sake, that virtue is to be desired for their sake, and that virtue and these objects
are to be desired each for their own sake.
Chapter 3.—Which of the Three Leading Opinions Regarding the Chief Good Should Be Preferred,
According to Varro, Who Follows Antiochus and the Old Academy.
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Which of these three is true and to be adopted he attempts to show in the following manner.
As it is the supreme good, not of a tree, or of a beast, or of a god, but of man that philosophy is in
quest of, he thinks that, first of all, we must define man. He is of opinion that there are two parts
in human nature, body and soul, and makes no doubt that of these two the soul is the better and by
far the more worthy part. But whether the soul alone is the man, so that the body holds the same
relation to it as a horse to the horseman, this he thinks has to be ascertained. The horseman is not
a horse and a man, but only a man, yet he is called a horseman, because he is in some relation to
the horse. Again, is the body alone the man, having a relation to the soul such as the cup has to
the drink? For it is not the cup and the drink it contains which are called the cup, but the cup alone;
yet it is so called because it is made to hold the drink. Or, lastly, is it neither the soul alone nor the
body alone, but both together, which are man, the body and the soul being each a part, but the whole
man being both together, as we call two horses yoked together a pair, of which pair the near and
the off horse is each a part, but we do not call either of them, no matter how connected with the
other, a pair, but only both together? Of these three alternatives, then, Varro chooses the third, that
man is neither the body alone, nor the soul alone, but both together. And therefore the highest
good, in which lies the happiness of man, is composed of goods of both kinds, both bodily and
spiritual. And consequently he thinks that the primary objects of nature are to be sought for their
own sake, and that virtue, which is the art of living, and can be communicated by instruction, is
the most excellent of spiritual goods. This virtue, then, or art of regulating life, when it has received
these primary objects of nature which existed independently of it, and prior to any instruction, seeks
them all, and itself also, for its own sake; and it uses them, as it also uses itself, that from them all
it may derive profit and enjoyment, greater or less, according as they are themselves greater or less;
and while it takes pleasure in all of them, it despises the less that it may obtain or retain the greater
when occasion demands. Now, of all goods, spiritual or bodily, there is none at all to compare with
virtue. For virtue makes a good use both of itself and of all other goods in which lies man’s
happiness; and where it is absent, no matter how many good things a man has, they are not for his
good, and consequently should not be called good things while they belong to one who makes them
useless by using them badly. The life of man, then, is called happy when it enjoys virtue and these
other spiritual and bodily good things without which virtue is impossible. It is called happier if it
enjoys some or many other good things which are not essential to virtue; and happiest of all, if it
lacks not one of the good things which pertain to the body and the soul. For life is not the same
thing as virtue, since not every life, but a wisely regulated life, is virtue; and yet, while there can
be life of some kind without virtue, there cannot be virtue without life. This I might apply to
memory and reason, and such mental faculties; for these exist prior to instruction, and without them
there cannot be any instruction, and consequently no virtue, since virtue is learned. But bodily
advantages, such as swiftness of foot, beauty, or strength, are not essential to virtue, neither is virtue
essential to them, and yet they are good things; and, according to our philosophers, even these
advantages are desired by virtue for its own sake, and are used and enjoyed by it in a becoming
manner.
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They say that this happy life is also social, and loves the advantages of its friends as its own,
and for their sake wishes for them what it desires for itself, whether these friends live in the same
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family, as a wife, children, domestics; or in the locality where one’s home is, as the citizens of the
same town; or in the world at large, as the nations bound in common human brotherhood; or in the
universe itself, comprehended in the heavens and the earth, as those whom they call gods, and
provide as friends for the wise man, and whom we more familiarly call angels. Moreover, they
say that, regarding the supreme good and evil, there is no room for doubt, and that they therefore
differ from the New Academy in this respect, and they are not concerned whether a philosopher
pursues those ends which they think true in the Cynic dress and manner of life or in some other.
And, lastly, in regard to the three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the composite,
they declare in favor of the third. That these were the opinions and doctrines of the Old Academy,
Varro asserts on the authority of Antiochus, Cicero’s master and his own, though Cicero makes
him out to have been more frequently in accordance with the Stoics than with the Old Academy.
But of what importance is this to us, who ought to judge the matter on its own merits, rather than
to understand accurately what different men have thought about it?
Chapter 4.—What the Christians Believe Regarding the Supreme Good and Evil, in Opposition to
the Philosophers, Who Have Maintained that the Supreme Good is in Themselves.
If, then, we be asked what the city of God has to say upon these points, and, in the first place,
what its opinion regarding the supreme good and evil is, it will reply that life eternal is the supreme
good, death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live
rightly. And thus it is written, “The just lives by faith,”1263 for we do not as yet see our good, and
must therefore live by faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so only
if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we believe and pray. As for
those who have supposed that the sovereign good and evil are to be found in this life, and have
placed it either in the soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in pleasure
or in virtue, or in both; in repose or in virtue, or in both; in pleasure and repose, or in virtue, or in
all combined; in the primary objects of nature, or in virtue, or in both,—all these have, with a
marvelous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in themselves. Contempt
has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying by the prophet, “The Lord knoweth the
thoughts of men” (or, as the Apostle Paul cites the passage, “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the
wise”) “that they are vain.”1264
1263 Hab. ii. 4.
1264 Ps. xciv. 11, and 1 Cor. iii. 20.
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For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? Cicero, in the
Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate
was even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature
be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise
man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish
repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity
blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity,—and
which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and
movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if some sickness
makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from curvature of the spine to such an extent
that his hands reach the ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this destroy
all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall I say of the fundamental
blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception, and the other
for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes
deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? We can
scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions and words of such
frantic persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment
and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of those who suffer from
demoniacal possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant
spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such
thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth, what can we hope
for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, “The corruptible
body weigheth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon
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many things?”1265 And eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put upon the
Greek ὁρμη, is also reckoned among the primary advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which
produces those pitiable movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when
sense is deceived and reason deranged?
In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of nature, but succeeds to them as
the result of learning, though it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its
occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices,—not those that are outside of us, but within;
not other men’s, but our own,—a war which is waged especially by that virtue which the Greeks
call σωφροσυνη, and we temperance,1266 and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents them from
winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is no vice in
us, when, as the apostle says, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit;”1267 for to this vice there is a
contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, “The spirit lusteth against the flesh.” “For these
1265 Wisdom ix. 15.
1266 Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. iii. 8.
1267 Gal. v. 17.
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two,” he says, “are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you would.”
But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme good, unless that the flesh should
cease to lust against the spirit, and that there be no vice in us against which the spirit may lust?
And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it, let us by God’s
help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the flesh that
lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy
that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the happiness which
we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he has no conflict at all to maintain
against his vices?
What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all its vigilance spent in the
discernment of good from evil things, so that no mistake may be admitted about what we should
desire and what avoid? And thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst of evils, or that evils
are in us; for it teaches us that it is an evil to consent to sin, and a good to refuse this consent. And
yet this evil, to which prudence teaches and temperance enables us not to consent, is removed from
this life neither by prudence nor by temperance. And justice, whose office it is to render to every
man his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of nature, so that the soul is
subjected to God, and the flesh to the soul, and consequently both soul and flesh to God,—does
not this virtue demonstrate that it is as yet rather laboring towards its end than resting in its finished
work? For the soul is so much the less subjected to God as it is less occupied with the thought of
God; and the flesh is so much the less subjected to the spirit as it lusts more vehemently against
the spirit. So long, therefore, as we are beset by this weakness, this plague, this disease, how shall
we dare to say that we are safe? and if not safe, then how can we be already enjoying our final
beatitude? Then that virtue which goes by the name of fortitude is the plainest proof of the ills of
life, for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And this holds good, no matter though
the ripest wisdom co-exists with it. And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers
can presume to say that these are no ills, though at the same time they allow the wise man to commit
suicide and pass out of this life if they become so grievous that he cannot or ought not to endure
them. But such is the stupid pride of these men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in
this life, and that they can become happy by their own resources, that their wise man, or at least
the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf,
dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer any conceivable calamity such as may compel him
to make away with himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils
happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it? If it is happy, let the wise man remain
in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these
are not evils which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but so to rave that
it in one breath calls life happy and recommends it to be given up? For who is so blind as not to
see that if it were happy it would not be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on
account of the infirmities that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge
that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask, fortitude or weakness which prompted Cato to kill himself?
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for he would not have done so had he not been too weak to endure Cæsar’s victory. Where, then,
is his fortitude? It has yielded, it has succumbed, it has been so thoroughly overcome as to abandon,
forsake, flee this happy life. Or was it no longer happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were
these not evils which made life miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?
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And therefore those who admit that these are evils, as the Peripatetics do, and the Old Academy,
the sect which Varro advocates, express a more intelligible doctrine; but theirs also is a surprising
mistake, for they contend that this is a happy life which is beset by these evils, even though they
be so great that he who endures them should commit suicide to escape them. “Pains and anguish
of body,” says Varro, “are evils, and so much the worse in proportion to their severity; and to escape
them you must quit this life.” What life, I pray? This life, he says, which is oppressed by such
evils. Then it is happy in the midst of these very evils on account of which you say we must quit
it? Or do you call it happy because you are at liberty to escape these evils by death? What, then,
if by some secret judgment of God you were held fast and not permitted to die, nor suffered to live
without these evils? In that case, at least, you would say that such a life was miserable. It is soon
relinquished, no doubt but this does not make it not miserable; for were it eternal, you yourself
would pronounce it miserable. Its brevity, therefore, does not clear it of misery; neither ought it
to be called happiness because it is a brief misery. Certainly there is a mighty force in these evils
which compel a man—according to them even a wise man—to cease to be a man that he may escape
them, though they say, and say truly, that it is as it were the first and strongest demand of nature
that a man cherish himself, and naturally therefore avoid death, and should so stand his own friend
as to wish and vehemently aim at continuing to exist as a living creature, and subsisting in this
union of soul and body. There is a mighty force in these evils to overcome this natural instinct by
which death is by every means and with all a man’s efforts avoided, and to overcome it so completely
that what was avoided is desired, sought after, and if it cannot in any other way be obtained, is
inflicted by the man on himself. There is a mighty force in these evils which make fortitude a
homicide,—if, indeed, that is to be called fortitude which is so thoroughly overcome by these evils,
that it not only cannot preserve by patience the man whom it undertook to govern and defend, but
is itself obliged to kill him. The wise man, I admit, ought to bear death with patience, but when it
is inflicted by another. If, then, as these men maintain, he is obliged to inflict it on himself, certainly
it must be owned that the ills which compel him to this are not only evils, but intolerable evils.
The life, then, which is either subject to accidents, or environed with evils so considerable and
grievous, could never have been called happy, if the men who give it this name had condescended
to yield to the truth, and to be conquered by valid arguments, when they inquired after the happy
life, as they yield to unhappiness, and are overcome by overwhelming evils, when they put
themselves to death, and if they had not fancied that the supreme good was to be found in this
mortal life; for the very virtues of this life, which are certainly its best and most useful possessions,
are all the more telling proofs of its miseries in proportion as they are helpful against the violence
of its dangers, toils, and woes. For if these are true virtues,—and such cannot exist save in those
who have true piety,—they do not profess to be able to deliver the men who possess them from all
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miseries; for true virtues tell no such lies, but they profess that by the hope of the future world this
life, which is miserably involved in the many and great evils of this world, is happy as it is also
safe. For if not yet safe, how could it be happy? And therefore the Apostle Paul, speaking not of
men without prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, but of those whose lives were regulated
by true piety, and whose virtues were therefore true, says, “For we are saved by hope: now hope
which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”1268 As, therefore, we are saved, so we are made
happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it
with our happiness, and this “with patience;” for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought
patiently to endure, until we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall be
no longer anything to endure. Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our
final happiness. And this happiness these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not
see it, and attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is
as deceitful as it is proud.
Chapter 5.—Of the Social Life, Which, Though Most Desirable, is Frequently Disturbed by Many
Distresses.
We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be
social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the
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nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny,
if the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with
which human society abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how
one of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in
this matter: “I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares.”1269
What shall I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts—“slights, suspicions, quarrels,
war to-day, peace to-morrow?”1270 Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur
even in honorable friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war,
all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we
do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant
of what it might be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in
the same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has
often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the
1268 Rom. viii. 24.
1269 Terent. Adelph. v. 4.
1270 Eunuch, i. 1.
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most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of
every one, and provoke a sigh: “There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under
the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily
baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but
overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it.”1271 It is also to this that allusion is made
by the divine saying, “A man’s foes are those of his own household,”1272—words which one cannot
hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and
sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he
cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have
always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious
disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we
say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal,
and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody
insurrections and civil wars?
Chapter 6.—Of the Error of Human Judgments When the Truth is Hidden.
What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and which are necessary
in communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they
are, since the judges are men who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are
therefore frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture to ascertain the truth regarding
the crimes of other men. What shall I say of torture applied to the accused himself? He is tortured
to discover whether he is guilty, so that, though innocent, he suffers most undoubted punishment
for crime that is still doubtful, not because it is proved that he committed it, but because it is not
ascertained that he did not commit it. Thus the ignorance of the judge frequently involves an
innocent person in suffering. And what is still more unendurable—a thing, indeed, to be bewailed,
and, if that were possible, watered with fountains of tears—is this, that when the judge puts the
accused to the question, that he may not unwittingly put an innocent man to death, the result of this
lamentable ignorance is that this very person, whom he tortured that he might not condemn him if
innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent. For if he has chosen, in obedience to
the philosophical instructions to the wise man, to quit this life rather than endure any longer such
tortures, he declares that he has committed the crime which in fact he has not committed. And
when he has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in ignorance whether he has put
to death an innocent or a guilty person, though he put the accused to the torture for the very purpose
1271 In Verrem, ii. 1. 15.
1272 Matt. x. 36.
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of saving himself from condemning the innocent; and consequently he has both tortured an innocent
man to discover his innocence, and has put him to death without discovering it. If such darkness
shrouds social life, will a wise judge take his seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he will.
For human society, which he thinks it a wickedness to abandon, constrains him and compels him
to this duty. And he thinks it no wickedness that innocent witnesses are tortured regarding the
crimes of which other men are accused; or that the accused are put to the torture, so that they are
often overcome with anguish, and, though innocent, make false confessions regarding themselves,
and are punished; or that, though they be not condemned to die, they often die during, or in
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consequence of, the torture; or that sometimes the accusers, who perhaps have been prompted by
a desire to benefit society by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves condemned through the
ignorance of the judge, because they are unable to prove the truth of their accusations though they
are true, and because the witnesses lie, and the accused endures the torture without being moved
to confession. These numerous and important evils he does not consider sins; for the wise judge
does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him,
and because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore acquit the judge of
malice, we must none the less condemn human life as miserable. And if he is compelled to torture
and punish the innocent because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is he a happy as well
as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more profound considerateness and finer feeling were
he to recognize the misery of these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in that misery;
and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God “From my necessities deliver Thou me.”1273
Chapter 7.—Of the Diversity of Languages, by Which the Intercourse of Men is Prevented; And
of the Misery of Wars, Even of Those Called Just.
After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human society,—the first being the
house, and the second the city. And the world, as it is larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the greater
sea is the more dangerous. And here, in the first place, man is separated from man by the difference
of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the other’s language, meet, and are not compelled
to pass, but, on the contrary, to remain in company, dumb animals, though of different species,
would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be. For their common
nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from conveying
their sentiments to one another; so that a man would more readily hold intercourse with his dog
than with a foreigner. But the imperial city has endeavored to impose on subject nations not only
her yoke, but her language, as a bond of peace, so that interpreters, far from being scarce, are
numberless. This is true; but how many great wars, how much slaughter and bloodshed, have
1273 Ps. xxv. 17.
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provided this unity! And though these are past, the end of these miseries has not yet come. For
though there have never been wanting, nor are yet wanting, hostile nations beyond the empire,
against whom wars have been and are waged, yet, supposing there were no such nations, the very
extent of the empire itself has produced wars of a more obnoxious description—social and civil
wars—and with these the whole race has been agitated, either by the actual conflict or the fear of
a renewed outbreak. If I attempted to give an adequate description of these manifold disasters,
these stern and lasting necessities, though I am quite unequal to the task, what limit could I set?
But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he would not all the rather lament the
necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage
them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars. For it is the wrongdoing of the opposing
party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this wrong-doing, even though it gave
rise to no war, would still be matter of grief to man because it is man’s wrong-doing. Let every
one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that
this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more
miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling.
Chapter 8.—That the Friendship of Good Men Cannot Be Securely Rested In, So Long as the
Dangers of This Life Force Us to Be Anxious.
In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for an enemy, and an enemy
for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness, is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual
love of true and good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings
and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered, the
more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light
upon them. For we are not only anxious lest they suffer from famine, war, disease, captivity, or
the inconceivable horrors of slavery, but we are also affected with the much more painful dread
that their friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and injustice. And when these
contingencies actually occur,—as they do the more frequently the more friends we have, and the
more widely they are scattered,—and when they come to our knowledge, who but the man who
has experienced it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We would, in fact, prefer to hear that
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they were dead, although we could not without anguish hear of even this. For if their life has
solaced us with the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with no sadness?
He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse. Let him
interdict or extinguish friendly affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every
human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that no sweetness shall distil into his spirit.
But if this is utterly impossible, how shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those
whose life has been sweet to us? Hence arises that grief which affects the tender heart like a wound
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or a bruise, and which is healed by the application of kindly consolation. For though the cure is
affected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on this
account suppose that there is nothing at all to heal. Although, then, our present life is afflicted,
sometimes in a milder, sometimes in a more painful degree, by the death of those very dear to us,
and especially of useful public men, yet we would prefer to hear that such men were dead rather
than to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue,—in other words, that
they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the earth is full, and therefore it is
written, “Is not human life upon earth a trial?”1274 And with the same reference the Lord says, “Woe
to the world because of offenses!”1275 and again, “Because iniquity abounded, the love of many
shall wax cold.”1276 And hence we enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though
their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by
which in this life even the best of men are broken down or corrupted, or are in danger of both
results.
Chapter 9.—Of the Friendship of the Holy Angels, Which Men Cannot Be Sure of in This Life,
Owing to the Deceit of the Demons Who Hold in Bondage the Worshippers of a Plurality of
Gods.
The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy
angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to
the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the
angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly
as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read,1277 sometimes
transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just
to deceive, there is great need of God’s mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in
disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness
of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And is this not a great misery of human
life, that we are involved in such ignorance as, but for God’s mercy, makes us a prey to these
demons? And it is very certain that the philosophers of the godless city, who have maintained that
the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the malignant demons who rule that city, and whose
eternal punishment is to be shared by it. For the nature of these beings is sufficiently evinced by
the sacred or rather sacrilegious observances which form their worship, and by the filthy games in
1274 Job vii. 1.
1275 Matt. xvii. 7.
1276 Matt. xxiv. 12.
1277 2 Cor. xi. 14.
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which their crimes are celebrated, and which they themselves originated and exacted from their
worshippers as a fit propitiation.
Chapter 10.—The Reward Prepared for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This Life.
But not even the saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and most high God are safe
from the manifold temptations and deceits of the demons. For in this abode of weakness, and in
these wicked days, this state of anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to seek with keener longing
for that security where peace is complete and unassailable. There we shall enjoy the gifts of nature,
that is to say, all that God the Creator of all natures has bestowed upon ours,—gifts not only good,
but eternal,—not only of the spirit, healed now by wisdom, but also of the body renewed by the
resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be struggling against any vice or evil, but shall enjoy
the reward of victory, the eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This is the final
blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end. Here, indeed, we are said to be
blessed when we have such peace as can be enjoyed in a good life; but such blessedness is mere
misery compared to that final felicity. When we mortals possess such peace as this mortal life can
afford, virtue, if we are living rightly, makes a right use of the advantages of this peaceful condition;
and when we have it not, virtue makes a good use even of the evils a man suffers. But this is true
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virtue, when it refers all the advantages it makes a good use of, and all that it does in making good
use of good and evil things, and itself also, to that end in which we shall enjoy the best and greatest
peace possible.
Chapter 11.—Of the Happiness of the Eternal Peace, Which Constitutes the End or True Perfection
of the Saints.
And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that it is the end of our good;
and the rather because the Psalmist says of the city of God, the subject of this laborious work,
“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion: for He hath strengthened the bars of thy
gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee; who hath made thy borders peace.”1278 For when
the bars of her gates shall be strengthened, none shall go in or come out from her; consequently we
ought to understand the peace of her borders as that final peace we are wishing to declare. For
even the mystical name of the city itself, that is, Jerusalem, means, as I have already said, “Vision
of Peace.” But as the word peace is employed in connection with things in this world in which
1278 Ps. cxlvii. 12–14.
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certainly life eternal has no place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city
life eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, “But now, being freed from sin, and
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life eternal.”1279 But, on the
other hand, as those who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose that the life of the wicked is
eternal life, either because of the immortality of the soul, which some of the philosophers even
have recognized, or because of the endless punishment of the wicked, which forms a part of our
faith, and which seems impossible unless the wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable,
in order that every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that the end or supreme good
of this city is either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that
even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire
with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying. So that if we dwell for a little longer on
this subject, we shall not, in my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will attend both for the
sake of understanding what is the end of this city of which we speak, and for the sake of the
sweetness of peace which is dear to all.
Chapter 12.—That Even the Fierceness of War and All the Disquietude of Men Make Towards
This One End of Peace, Which Every Nature Desires.
Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to our common nature, will
recognize that if there is no man who does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who does
not wish to have peace. For even they who make war desire nothing but victory,—desire, that is
to say, to attain to peace with glory. For what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist
us? and when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire for peace that wars are
waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle.
And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by
waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace. For even they who intentionally interrupt the
peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that
suits them better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no peace, but only one more to their mind.
And in the case of sedition, when men have separated themselves from the community, they yet
do not effect what they wish, unless they maintain some kind of peace with their fellow-conspirators.
And therefore even robbers take care to maintain peace with their comrades, that they may with
greater effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And if an individual happen to be
of such unrivalled strength, and to be so jealous of partnership, that he trusts himself with no
comrades, but makes his own plots, and commits depredations and murders on his own account,
yet he maintains some shadow of peace with such persons as he is unable to kill, and from whom
1279 Rom. vi. 22.
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he wishes to conceal his deeds. In his own home, too, he makes it his aim to be at peace with his
wife and children, and any other members of his household; for unquestionably their prompt
obedience to his every look is a source of pleasure to him. And if this be not rendered, he is angry,
he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he secures the calm peace of his own home, as
occasion demands. For he sees that peace cannot be maintained unless all the members of the same
domestic circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his own house. And therefore if a
city or nation offered to submit itself to him, to serve him in the same style as he had made his
household serve him, he would no longer lurk in a brigand’s hiding-places, but lift his head in open
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day as a king, though the same coveteousness and wicked ness should remain in him. And thus
all men desire to have peace with their own circle whom they wish to govern as suits themselves.
For even those whom they make war against they wish to make their own, and impose on them the
laws of their own peace.
But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of,—a man so insociable and
savage as to be called rather a semi-man than a man.1280 Although, then, his kingdom was the
solitude of a dreary cave, and he himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named Κακός,
which is the Greek word for bad; though he had no wife to soothe him with endearing talk, no
children to play with, no sons to do his bidding, no friend to enliven him with intercourse, not even
his father Vulcan (though in one respect he was happier than his father, not having begotten a
monster like himself); although he gave to no man, but took as he wished whatever he could, from
whomsoever he could, when he could yet in that solitary den, the floor of which, as Virgil1281 says,
was always reeking with recent slaughter, there was nothing else than peace sought, a peace in
which no one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or alarm. With his own body he
desired to be at peace, and he was satisfied only in proportion as he had this peace. For he ruled
his members, and they obeyed him; and for the sake of pacifying his mortal nature, which rebelled
when it needed anything, and of allaying the sedition of hunger which threatened to banish the soul
from the body, he made forays, slew, and devoured, but used the ferocity and savageness he displayed
in these actions only for the preservation of his own life’s peace. So that, had he been willing to
make with other men the same peace which he made with himself in his own cave, he would neither
have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man. Or if the appearance of his body and his
vomiting smoky fires frightened men from having any dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways
arose not from a desire to do mischief, but from the necessity of finding a living. But he may have
had no existence, or, at least, he was not such as the poets fancifully describe him, for they had to
exalt Hercules, and did so at the expense of Cacus. It is better, then, to believe that such a man or
semi-man never existed, and that this, in common with many other fancies of the poets, is mere
fiction. For the most savage animals (and he is said to have been almost a wild beast) encompass
their own species with a ring of protecting peace. They cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring
1280 He refers to the giant Cacus.
1281 Æneid, viii. 195.
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up their young, though very many of them are not gregarious, but solitary,—not like sheep, deer,
pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes, eagles, bats. For what tigress does not gently purr
over her cubs, and lay aside her ferocity to fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when circling
over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a nest, hatch the eggs, bring up the young birds, and
maintain with the mother of his family as peaceful a domestic alliance as he can? How much more
powerfully do the laws of man’s nature move him to hold fellowship and maintain peace with all
men so far as in him lies, since even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own
circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but
one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that
pride in its perversity apes God. It abhors equality with other men under Him; but, instead of His
rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own upon its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of
God, and loves its own unjust peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one kind or other. For there
is no vice so clean contrary to nature that it obliterates even the faintest traces of nature.
He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-ordered to what is
perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with
the peace of the just. And yet even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony with, and
in dependence on, and in some part of the order of things, for otherwise it would have no existence
at all. Suppose a man hangs with his head downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of body
and arrangement of its members; for that which nature requires to be above is beneath, and vice
versâ. This perversity disturbs the peace of the body, and is therefore painful. Nevertheless the
spirit is at peace with its body, and labors for its preservation, and hence the suffering; but if it is
banished from the body by its pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds together, there is
in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and hence the body remains suspended. And
inasmuch as the earthly body tends towards the earth, and rests on the bond by which it is suspended,
it tends thus to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place for it to rest; and
though now lifeless and without feeling, it does not fall from the peace that is natural to its place
in creation, whether it already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply embalming
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preparations to prevent the bodily frame from mouldering and dissolving, a kind of peace still
unites part to part, and keeps the whole body in a suitable place on the earth,—in other words, in
a place that is at peace with the body. If, on the other hand, the body receive no such care, but be
left to the natural course, it is disturbed by exhalations that do not harmonize with one another, and
that offend our senses; for it is this which is perceived in putrefaction until it is assimilated to the
elements of the world, and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet throughout this
process the laws of the most high Creator and Governor are strictly observed, for it is by Him the
peace of the universe is administered. For although minute animals are produced from the carcass
of a larger animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the same Creator, serve the animals they
belong to in peace. And although the flesh of dead animals be eaten by others, no matter where it
be carried, nor what it be brought into contact with, nor what it be converted and changed into, it
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still is ruled by the same laws which pervade all things for the conservation of every mortal race,
and which bring things that fit one another into harmony.
Chapter 13.—Of the Universal Peace Which the Law of Nature Preserves Through All Disturbances,
and by Which Every One Reaches His Desert in a Way Regulated by the Just Judge.
The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The
peace of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul
the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and
harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered
obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic
peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil
peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered
and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the
tranquillity of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its
own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such, do certainly not enjoy
peace, but are severed from that tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless,
inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are by their very misery connected with
order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the blessed, but they are disjoined from them by the
law of order. And though they are disquieted, their circumstances are notwithstanding adjusted to
them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of order, and therefore some peace. But they
are wretched because, although not wholly miserable, they are not in that place where any mixture
of misery is impossible. They would, however, be more wretched if they had not that peace which
arises from being in harmony with the natural order of things. When they suffer, their peace is in
so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as they do not suffer, and in so far as their nature
continues to exist. As, then, there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain without
some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but there cannot be war without some kind
of peace, because war supposes the existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot
exist without peace of one kind or other.
And therefore there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot exist; but there cannot be
a nature in which there is no good. Hence not even the nature of the devil himself is evil, in so far
as it is nature, but it was made evil by being perverted. Thus he did not abide in the truth,1282 but
could not escape the judgment of the Truth; he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, but did not
therefore escape the power of the Ordainer. The good imparted by God to his nature did not screen
him from the justice of God by which order was preserved in his punishment; neither did God
1282 John viii. 44.
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punish the good which He had created, but the evil which the devil had committed. God did not
take back all He had imparted to his nature, but something He took and something He left, that
there might remain enough to be sensible of the loss of what was taken. And this very sensibility
to pain is evidence of the good which has been taken away and the good which has been left. For,
were nothing good left, there could be no pain on account of the good which had been lost. For he
who sins is still worse if he rejoices in his loss of righteousness. But he who is in pain, if he derives
no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health. And as righteousness and health are both
good things, and as the loss of any good thing is matter of grief, not of joy,—if, at least, there is no
compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss of bodily health,—certainly
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it is more suitable for a wicked man to grieve in punishment than to rejoice in his fault. As, then,
the joy of a sinner who has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will, so his grief for the
good he has lost when he is punished is evidence of a good nature. For he who laments the peace
his nature has lost is stirred to do so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly to
itself. And it is very just that in the final punishment the wicked and godless should in anguish
bewail the loss of the natural advantages they enjoyed, and should perceive that they were most
justly taken from them by that God whose benign liberality they had despised. God, then, the most
wise Creator and most just Ordainer of all natures, who placed the human race upon earth as its
greatest ornament, imparted to men some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace,
such as we can enjoy in this life from health and safety and human fellowship, and all things needful
for the preservation and recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are accommodated to our
outward senses, light, night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and everything the body requires
to sustain, shelter, heal, or beautify it: and all under this most equitable condition, that every man
who made a good use of these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should receive
ampler and better blessings, namely, the peace of immortality, accompanied by glory and honor in
an endless life made fit for the enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used
the present blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive the others.
Chapter 14.—Of the Order and Law Which Obtain in Heaven and Earth, Whereby It Comes to
Pass that Human Society Is Served by Those Who Rule It.
The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this result of earthly peace in the
earthly community, while in the city of God it is connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if
we were irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper arrangement of the parts
of the body and the satisfaction of the appetites,—nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and
abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the peace of the soul. For
if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot
obtain the gratification of its appetites. And these two together help out the mutual peace of soul
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and body, the peace of harmonious life and health. For as animals, by shunning pain, show that
they love bodily peace, and, by pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love
peace of soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of their intense love of that
peace which binds soul and body in close alliance. But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates
all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect
may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered
harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational
soul. And for this purpose he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by desire,
nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful knowledge by which he may regulate
his life and manners. But, owing to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very
pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey
without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to preserve his own
freedom. And because, so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by
faith, not by sight; and he therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace which
mortal man has with the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience of faith to
eternal law. But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts,—the love of God and the love of
our neighbor,—and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love,—God, himself,
and his neighbor,—and that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he must endeavor
to get his neighbor to love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbor as himself. He ought to
make this endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his reach, even as
he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he needed it; and consequently he will be at
peace, or in well-ordered concord, with all men, as far as in him lies. And this is the order of this
concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second, do good to every one he
can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household are his care, for the law of nature and of society
gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the apostle
says, “Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied
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the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”1283 This is the origin of domestic peace, or the well-ordered
concord of those in the family who rule and those who obey. For they who care for the rest rule,—the
husband the wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they who are cared for
obey,—the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the
family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the celestial city,
even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of
power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others—not because they are proud of authority,
but because they love mercy.
1283 1 Tim. v. 8.
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Chapter 15.—Of the Liberty Proper to Man’s Nature, and the Servitude Introduced by Sin,—A
Servitude in Which the Man Whose Will is Wicked is the Slave of His Own Lust, Though He
is Free So Far as Regards Other Men.
This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has created man. For “let them,”
He says, “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
creeping thing which creepeth on the earth.”1284 He did not intend that His rational creature, who
was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation,—not man
over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made
shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative position
of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition
of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the word “slave” in any part of
Scripture until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore,
introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for slave is supposed to be found
in the circumstance that those who by the law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes
preserved by their victors, and were hence called servants.1285 And these circumstances could never
have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war, our adversaries must be sinning;
and every victory, even though gained by wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of God, who
humbles the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing their sins. Witness that
man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity, confessed to God his own sins and the sins of
his people, and declares with pious grief that these were the cause of the captivity.1286 The prime
cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow,—that which does
not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how
to award fit punishments to every variety of offence. But our Master in heaven says, “Every one
who doeth sin is the servant of sin.”1287 And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious
men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; “for of whom a man is overcome, of
the same is he brought in bondage.”1288 And beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave
of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men’s
hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a
peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm
to the master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin.
This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of
1284 Gen. i. 26.
1285 Servus, “a slave,” from servare, “to preserve.”
1286 Dan. ix.
1287 John viii. 34.
1288 2 Pet. ii. 19.
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the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had been done in violation of that law,
there would have been nothing to restrain by penal servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes
slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and with good-will, so that, if they
cannot be freed by their masters, they may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by
serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away, and all principality
and every human power be brought to nothing, and God be all in all.
Chapter 16.—Of Equitable Rule.
And therefore, although our righteous fathers1289 had slaves, and administered their domestic
affairs so as to distinguish between the condition of slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the
blessings of this life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in whom we hope for eternal blessings,
they took an equally loving oversight of all the members of their household. And this is so much
in accordance with the natural order, that the head of the household was called paterfamilias; and
this name has been so generally accepted, that even those whose rule is unrighteous are glad to
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apply it to themselves. But those who are true fathers of their households desire and endeavor that
all the members of their household, equally with their own children, should worship and win God,
and should come to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer necessary,
because the duty of caring for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but, until they reach that
home, masters ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants their service.
And if any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected
either by word or blow, or some kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits,
that he may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which he
had dislocated himself. For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater
benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at the risk of his falling into graver
sin. To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish
his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be
warned by his example. Since, then, the house ought to be the beginning or element of the city,
and every beginning bears reference to some end of its own kind, and every element to the integrity
of the whole of which it is an element, it follows plainly enough that domestic peace has a relation
to civic peace,—in other words, that the well-ordered concord of domestic obedience and domestic
rule has a relation to the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic rule. And therefore it
follows, further, that the father of the family ought to frame his domestic rule in accordance with
the law of the city, so that the household may be in harmony with the civic order.
1289 The patriarchs.
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Chapter 17.—What Produces Peace, and What Discord, Between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities.
But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this
life; while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and
use as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them from God,
but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of
the corruptible body which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are
used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely different
aim in using them. The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the
end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of
men’s wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part
of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until
this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so long as it lives like
a captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the promise of redemption,
and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it, it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city,
whereby the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, as
this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs
to it. But, as the earthly city has had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by the divine
teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures or by demons, supposed that
many gods must be invited to take an interest in human affairs, and assigned to each a separate
function and a separate department,—to one the body, to another the soul; and in the body itself,
to one the head, to another the neck, and each of the other members to one of the gods; and in like
manner, in the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned, to another education, to another
anger, to another lust; and so the various affairs of life were assigned,—cattle to one, corn to another,
wine to another, oil to another, the woods to another, money to another, navigation to another, wars
and victories to another, marriages to another, births and fecundity to another, and other things to
other gods: and as the celestial city, on the other hand, knew that one God only was to be
worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that service which the Greeks call λατρεία, and which
can be given only to a god, it has come to pass that the two cities could not have common laws of
religion, and that the heavenly city has been compelled in this matter to dissent, and to become
obnoxious to those who think differently, and to stand the brunt of their anger and hatred and
persecutions, except in so far as the minds of their enemies have been alarmed by the multitude of
the Christians and quelled by the manifest protection of God accorded to them. This heavenly city,
then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of
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pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions
whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are,
they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and
abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance
to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced. Even the heavenly city, therefore,
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while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the peace of earth, and, so far as it can without
injuring faith and godliness, desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding the
acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven;
for this alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as
it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God.
When we shall have reached that peace, this mortal life shall give place to one that is eternal, and
our body shall be no more this animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but a
spiritual body feeling no want, and in all its members subjected to the will. In its pilgrim state the
heavenly city possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to
the attainment of that peace every good action towards God and man; for the life of the city is a
social life.
Chapter 18.—How Different the Uncertainty of the New Academy is from the Certainty of the
Christian Faith.
As regards the uncertainty about everything which Varro alleges to be the differentiating
characteristic of the New Academy, the city of God thoroughly detests such doubt as madness.
Regarding matters which it apprehends by the mind and reason it has most absolute certainty,
although its knowledge is limited because of the corruptible body pressing down the mind, for, as
the apostle says, “We know in part.”1290 It believes also the evidence of the senses which the mind
uses by aid of the body; for [if one who trusts his senses is sometimes deceived], he is more
wretchedly deceived who fancies he should never trust them. It believes also the Holy Scriptures,
old and new, which we call canonical, and which are the source of the faith by which the just lives1291
and by which we walk without doubting whilst we are absent from the Lord.1292 So long as this
faith remains inviolate and firm, we may without blame entertain doubts regarding some things
which we have neither perceived by sense nor by reason, and which have not been revealed to us
by the canonical Scriptures, nor come to our knowledge through witnesses whom it is absurd to
disbelieve.
Chapter 19.—Of the Dress and Habits of the Christian People.
1290 1 Cor. xiii. 9.
1291 Hab. ii. 4.
1292 2 Cor. v. 6.
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It is a matter of no moment in the city of God whether he who adopts the faith that brings men
to God adopts it in one dress and manner of life or another, so long only as he lives in conformity
with the commandments of God. And hence, when philosophers themselves become Christians,
they are compelled, indeed, to abandon their erroneous doctrines, but not their dress and mode of
living, which are no obstacle to religion. So that we make no account of that distinction of sects
which Varro adduced in connection with the Cynic school, provided always nothing indecent or
self-indulgent is retained. As to these three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the
composite, although, so long as a man’s faith is preserved, he may choose any of them without
detriment to his eternal interests, yet he must never overlook the claims of truth and duty. No man
has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his
neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation
of God. The charm of leisure must not be indolent vacancy of mind, but the investigation or
discovery of truth, that thus every man may make solid attainments without grudging that others
do the same. And, in active life, it is not the honors or power of this life we should covet, since all
things under the sun are vanity, but we should aim at using our position and influence, if these have
been honorably attained, for the welfare of those who are under us, in the way we have already
explained.1293 It is to this the apostle refers when he says, “He that desireth the episcopate desireth
a good work.”1294 He wished to show that the episcopate is the title of a work, not of an honor. It
is a Greek word, and signifies that he who governs superintends or takes care of those whom he
governs: for ἐπί means over, and σκοπεῖν, to see; therefore ἐπισκοπεῖν means “to oversee.”1295
So that he who loves to govern rather than to do good is no bishop. Accordingly no one is prohibited
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from the search after truth, for in this leisure may most laudably be spent; but it is unseemly to
covet the high position requisite for governing the people, even though that position be held and
that government be administered in a seemly manner. And therefore holy leisure is longed for by
the love of truth; but it is the necessity of love to undertake requisite business. If no one imposes
this burden upon us, we are free to sift and contemplate truth; but if it be laid upon us, we are
necessitated for love’s sake to undertake it. And yet not even in this case are we obliged wholly
to relinquish the sweets of contemplation; for were these to be withdrawn, the burden might prove
more than we could bear.
Chapter 20.—That the Saints are in This Life Blessed in Hope.
1293 Ch. 6.
1294 1 Tim. iii. 1.
1295 Augustin’s words are: ἐτί, quippe, super; σκοπός, vero, intentio est: ergo ἐπισκοπεῖν, si velimus, latine superintendere
possumus dicere.
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Since, then, the supreme good of the city of God is perfect and eternal peace, not such as mortals
pass into and out of by birth and death, but the peace of freedom from all evil, in which the immortals
ever abide; who can deny that that future life is most blessed, or that, in comparison with it, this
life which now we live is most wretched, be it filled with all blessings of body and soul and external
things? And yet, if any man uses this life with a reference to that other which he ardently loves
and confidently hopes for, he may well be called even now blessed, though not in reality so much
as in hope. But the actual possession of the happiness of this life, without the hope of what is
beyond, is but a false happiness and profound misery. For the true blessings of the soul are not
now enjoyed; for that is no true wisdom which does not direct all its prudent observations, manly
actions, virtuous self-restraint, and just arrangements, to that end in which God shall be all and all
in a secure eternity and perfect peace.
Chapter 21.—Whether There Ever Was a Roman Republic Answering to the Definitions of Scipio
in Cicero’s Dialogue.
This, then, is the place where I should fulfill the promise gave in the second book of this work,1296
and explain, as briefly and clearly as possible, that if we are to accept the definitions laid down by
Scipio in Cicero’s De Republica, there never was a Roman republic; for he briefly defines a republic
as the weal of the people. And if this definition be true, there never was a Roman republic, for the
people’s weal was never attained among the Romans. For the people, according to his definition,
is an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right and by a community of interests.
And what he means by a common acknowledgment of right he explains at large, showing that a
republic cannot be administered without justice. Where, therefore, there is no true justice there
can be no right. For that which is done by right is justly done, and what is unjustly done cannot be
done by right. For the unjust inventions of men are neither to be considered nor spoken of as rights;
for even they themselves say that right is that which flows from the fountain of justice, and deny
the definition which is commonly given by those who misconceive the matter, that right is that
which is useful to the stronger party. Thus, where there is not true justice there can be no assemblage
of men associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and therefore there can be no people,
as defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then no weal of the people, but only of some
promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people. Consequently, if the republic is the weal
of the people, and there is no people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right,
and if there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no
republic where there is no justice. Further, justice is that virtue which gives every one his due.
Where, then, is the justice of man, when he deserts the true God and yields himself to impure
1296 Ch. 21.
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demons? Is this to give every one his due? Or is he who keeps back a piece of ground from the
purchaser, and gives it to a man who has no right to it, unjust, while he who keeps back himself
from the God who made him, and serves wicked spirits, is just?
This same book, De Republica, advocates the cause of justice against injustice with great force
and keenness. The pleading for injustice against justice was first heard, and it was asserted that
without injustice a republic could neither increase nor even subsist, for it was laid down as an
absolutely unassailable position that it is unjust for some men to rule and some to serve; and yet
the imperial city to which the republic belongs cannot rule her provinces without having recourse
to this injustice. It was replied in behalf of justice, that this ruling of the provinces is just, because
servitude may be advantageous to the provincials, and is so when rightly administered,—that is to
say, when lawless men are prevented from doing harm. And further, as they became worse and
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worse so long as they were free, they will improve by subjection. To confirm this reasoning, there
is added an eminent example drawn from nature: for “why,” it is asked, “does God rule man, the
soul the body, the reason the passions and other vicious parts of the soul?” This example leaves
no doubt that, to some, servitude is useful; and, indeed, to serve God is useful to all. And it is when
the soul serves God that it exercises a right control over the body; and in the soul itself the reason
must be subject to God if it is to govern as it ought the passions and other vices. Hence, when a
man does not serve God, what justice can we ascribe to him, since in this case his soul cannot
exercise a just control over the body, nor his reason over his vices? And if there is no justice in
such an individual, certainly there can be none in a community composed of such persons. Here,
therefore, there is not that common acknowledgment of right which makes an assemblage of men
a people whose affairs we call a republic. And why need I speak of the advantageousness, the
common participation in which, according to the definition, makes a people? For although, if you
choose to regard the matter attentively, you will see that there is nothing advantageous to those
who live godlessly, as every one lives who does not serve God but demons, whose wickedness you
may measure by their desire to receive the worship of men though they are most impure spirits, yet
what I have said of the common acknowledgment of right is enough to demonstrate that, according
to the above definition, there can be no people, and therefore no republic, where there is no justice.
For if they assert that in their republic the Romans did not serve unclean spirits, but good and holy
gods, must we therefore again reply to this evasion, though already we have said enough, and more
than enough, to expose it? He must be an uncommonly stupid, or a shamelessly contentious person,
who has read through the foregoing books to this point, and can yet question whether the Romans
served wicked and impure demons. But, not to speak of their character, it is written in the law of
the true God, “He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly
destroyed.”1297 He, therefore, who uttered so menacing a commandment decreed that no worship
should be given either to good or bad gods.
1297 Ex. xxii. 20.
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Chapter 22.—Whether the God Whom the Christians Serve is the True God to Whom Alone
Sacrifice Ought to Be Paid.
But it may be replied, Who is this God, or what proof is there that He alone is worthy to receive
sacrifice from the Romans? One must be very blind to be still asking who this God is. He is the
God whose prophets predicted the things we see accomplished. He is the God from whom Abraham
received the assurance, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.”1298 That this was fulfilled in Christ,
who according to the flesh sprang from that seed, is recognized, whether they will or no, even by
those who have continued to be the enemies of this name. He is the God whose divine Spirit spake
by the men whose predictions I cited in the preceding books, and which are fulfilled in the Church
which has extended over all the world. This is the God whom Varro, the most learned of the
Romans, supposed to be Jupiter, though he knows not what he says; yet I think it right to note the
circumstance that a man of such learning was unable to suppose that this God had no existence or
was contemptible, but believed Him to be the same as the supreme God. In fine, He is the God
whom Porphyry, the most learned of the philosophers, though the bitterest enemy of the Christians,
confesses to be a great God, even according to the oracles of those whom he esteems gods.
Chapter 23.—Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning
Christ.
For in his book called ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, in which he collects and comments upon the
responses which he pretends were uttered by the gods concerning divine things, he says—I give
his own words as they have been translated from the Greek: “To one who inquired what god he
should propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo replied in the following
verses.” Then the following words are given as those of Apollo: “You will probably find it easier
to write lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air, than to restore right
feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her
foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned by right-minded
judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent death.” Then after these verses of Apollo (which
we have given in a Latin version that does not preserve the metrical form), he goes on to say: “In
these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption of the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather
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than the Christians, recognized God.” See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the
preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his explanation of Apollo’s verses,
in which he says that Christ was put to death by right-minded or just judges,—in other words, that
1298 Gen. xxii. 18.
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He deserved to die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding Christ on the lying interpreter
of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it or possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement
with Porphyry’s opinions or with other oracles, we shall in a little have something to say. In this
passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing
Christ to be worthy of the most shameful death. He should have listened, then, to this God of the
Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that God says, “He that sacrificeth to any other god
save to the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed.” But let us come to still plainer expressions, and
hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of the Jews is. Apollo, he says, when asked whether
word, i.e., reason, or law is the better thing, replied in the following verses. Then he gives the
verses of Apollo, from which I select the following as sufficient: “God, the Generator, and the
King prior to all things, before whom heaven and earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell
tremble, and the deities themselves are afraid, for their law is the Father whom the holy Hebrews
honor.” In this oracle of his god Apollo, Porphyry avowed that the God of the Hebrews is so great
that the deities themselves are afraid before Him. I am surprised, therefore, that when God said,
He that sacrificeth to other gods shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he
should be destroyed for sacrificing to other gods.
This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ, oblivious, as it were, of that
contumely of his of which we have just been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only
while asleep, and recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they awoke.
For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing belief, he says, “What we are
going to say will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that Christ was very
pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish his memory: that the Christians, however,
are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error. And many other such things,” he says, “do the
gods say against the Christians.” Then he gives specimens of the accusations made, as he says, by
the gods against them, and then goes on: “But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a
God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and that if it has been
severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you refer to is that of a man foremost in piety: they
worship it because they mistake the truth.” To this so-called oracular response he adds the following
words of his own: “Of this very pious man, then, Hecate said that the soul, like the souls of other
good men, was after death dowered with immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance
worship it. And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the oracle of the goddess replied,
The body, indeed, is always exposed to torments, but the souls of the pious abide in heaven. And
the soul you inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls which were not fated to
receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the knowledge of immortal Jove. Such souls are therefore
hated by the gods; for they who were fated not to receive the gifts of the gods, and not to know
God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you speak of. He himself, however, was
good, and heaven has been opened to him as to other good men. You are not, then, to speak evil
of him, but to pity the folly of men: and through him men’s danger is imminent.”
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Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed by a clever man with a
strong animus against the Christians, or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar
design,—that is to say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their vituperation
of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close the way of eternal salvation, which is
identical with Christianity? For they believe that they are by no means counter working their own
hurtful craft by promoting belief in Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is also
accepted; for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of Christ declines to become a
Christian, and is therefore not delivered from their own rule by the Christ he praises. Besides, their
praise of Christ is so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus represented will not be a
true Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity, and not also the divinity of
Christ, and will thus be precluded from salvation and from deliverance out of the meshes of these
devilish lies. For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate’s praises of Christ than with
Apollo’s calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ was put to death by right-minded judges,
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implying that He was unrighteous. Hecate says that He was a most pious man, but no more. The
intention of both is the same, to prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this be secured,
men shall never be rescued from their power. But it is incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on
those who believe in these pretended oracles against the Christians, first of all, if they can, to bring
Apollo and Hecate to the same mind regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both
praise Him. And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would notwithstanding repudiate
the testimony of demons, whether favorable or adverse to Christ. But when our adversaries find a
god and goddess of their own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other vituperating Him,
they can certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men who blaspheme the
Christians.
When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself to the Christians as a
fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error.
But before I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the
Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how
is He righteous? If against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes of this
error. “There are,” he says,” in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power of
evil demons. The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from
the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very wicked demons and
minor spirits, and taught them rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the
Father. This,” he said, “the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the soul
to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not
destined to receive favors from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods
and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to hate, but have
venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things by
which alone God is worshipped. For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing;
but for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to make
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life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature. For inquiry,” says he, “purifies
and imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him.” He is right in so far as he proclaims God
the Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him. Of such precepts the prophetic
books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the life of the saints. But in speaking of
the Christians he is in error, and caluminates them as much as is desired by the demons whom he
takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and shameful actions
which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods, and to compare with these
things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison
to conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a diabolical spirit has
told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather
than hated the demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the Hebrew
sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of heaven and divine
powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most blessed fellow-citizens.
For in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder:
“He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.”1299 And
that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends only to the very wicked demons and earthly
spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and inferior,—for even these are in the Scripture
called gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown in the
psalm where it is said, “For all the gods of the nations are demons,”1300—that no one might suppose,
I say, that sacrifice to these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or
some of the celestials, it was immediately added, “save unto the Lord alone.”1301 The God of the
Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew
people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now
in every nation, and in this law it is written, “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord
alone, he shall be utterly destroyed.” What need is there to seek further proofs in the law or the
prophets of this same thing? Seek, we need not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult
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to find; but what need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are thickly sown and
obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme
and true God? Here is one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance of that
God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol. Let this be listened to, feared, fulfilled,
that there may be no disobedient soul cut off. “He that sacrifices,” He says, not because He needs
anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession. Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew
Scriptures sings, “I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou needest not my good.”1302
1299 Ex. xxii. 20.
1300 Ps. xcvi. 5.
1301 Augustin here warns his readers against a possible misunderstanding of the Latin word for alone (soli), which might be
rendered “the sun.”
1302 Ps. xvi. 2.
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For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy sacrifice, and it is this
mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained
in the preceding books. For through the prophets the oracles of God declared that the sacrifices
which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would cease, and that the nations, from
the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now
see accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed suitable to our purpose in this work.
And therefore, where there is not this righteousness whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient
city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens
of this obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the vices in the rightful order,
so that, as the individual just man, so also the community and people of the just, live by faith, which
works by love, that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbor as
himself,—there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of
right, and by a community of interests. But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition
be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there is no people there can be no republic.
Chapter 24.—The Definition Which Must Be Given of a People and a Republic, in Order to Vindicate
the Assumption of These Titles by the Romans and by Other Kingdoms.
But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another, say that a people is an
assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their
love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they
love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and
is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably called a people; and it
will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in
proportion as it is bound together by lower. According to this definition of ours, the Roman people
is a people, and its weal is without doubt a commonwealth or republic. But what its tastes were in
its early and subsequent days, and how it declined into sanguinary seditions and then to social and
civil wars, and so burst asunder or rotted off the bond of concord in which the health of a people
consists, history shows, and in the preceding books I have related at large. And yet I would not on
this account say either that it was not a people, or that its administration was not a republic, so long
as there remains an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as
to the objects of love. But what I say of this people and of this republic I must be understood to
think and say of the Athenians or any Greek state, of the Egyptians, of the early Assyrian Babylon,
and of every other nation, great or small, which had a public government. For, in general, the city
of the ungodly, which did not obey the command of God that it should offer no sacrifice save to
Him alone, and which, therefore, could not give to the soul its proper command over the body, nor
to the reason its just authority over the vices, is void of true justice.
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Chapter 25.—That Where There is No True Religion There are No True Virtues.
For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the reason the vices, if the soul
and reason do not themselves obey God, as God has commanded them to serve Him, they have no
proper authority over the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body and the vices
can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and which, instead of being subject to His
authority, is prostituted to the corrupting influences of the most vicious demons? It is for this reason
that the virtues which it seems to itself to possess, and by which it restrains the body and the vices
that it may obtain and keep what it desires, are rather vices than virtues so long as there is no
reference to God in the matter. For although some suppose that virtues which have a reference
only to themselves, and are desired only on their own account, are yet true and genuine virtues, the
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fact is that even then they are inflated with pride, and are therefore to be reckoned vices rather
than virtues. For as that which gives life to the flesh is not derived from flesh, but is above it, so
that which gives blessed life to man is not derived from man, but is something above him; and what
I say of man is true of every celestial power and virtue whatsoever.
Chapter 26.—Of the Peace Which is Enjoyed by the People that are Alienated from God, and the
Use Made of It by the People of God in the Time of Its Pilgrimage.
Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the
sacred writings of the Hebrews say, “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.”1303 Miserable,
therefore, is the people which is alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of its own
which is not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall not in the end enjoy it, because it makes
no good use of it before the end. But it is our interest that it enjoy this peace meanwhile in this
life; for as long as the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy the peace of Babylon. For from
Babylon the people of God is so freed that it meanwhile sojourns in its company. And therefore
the apostle also admonished the Church to pray for kings and those in authority, assigning as the
reason, “that we may live a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and love.”1304 And the prophet
Jeremiah, when predicting the captivity that was to befall the ancient people of God, and giving
them the divine command to go obediently to Babylonia, and thus serve their God, counselled them
also to pray for Babylonia, saying, “In the peace thereof shall ye have peace,”1305—the temporal
peace which the good and the wicked together enjoy.
1303 Ps. cxliv. 15.
1304 1 Tim. ii. 2; var. reading, “purity.”
1305 Jer. xxix. 7.
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Chapter 27.—That the Peace of Those Who Serve God Cannot in This Mortal Life Be Apprehended
in Its Perfection.
But the peace which is peculiar to ourselves we enjoy now with God by faith, and shall hereafter
enjoy eternally with Him by sight. But the peace which we enjoy in this life, whether common to
all or peculiar to ourselves, is rather the solace of our misery than the positive enjoyment of felicity.
Our very righteousness, too, though true in so far as it has respect to the true good, is yet in this
life of such a kind that it consists rather in the remission of sins than in the perfecting of virtues.
Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its pilgrim state, for it cries to God by the mouth of
all its members, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”1306 And this prayer is efficacious
not for those whose faith is “without works and dead,”1307 but for those whose faith “worketh by
love.”1308 For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet “pressed down by the corruptible body,”1309
so long as it is in this mortal condition, it has not perfect authority over vice, and therefore this
prayer is needed by the righteous. For though it exercises authority, the vices do not submit without
a struggle. For however well one maintains the conflict, and however thoroughly he has subdued
these enemies, there steals in some evil thing, which, if it does not find ready expression in act,
slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought; and therefore his peace is not full so long
as he is at war with his vices. For it is a doubtful conflict he wages with those that resist, and his
victory over those that are defeated is not secure, but full of anxiety and effort. Amidst these
temptations, therefore, of all which it has been summarily said in the divine oracles, “Is not human
life upon earth a temptation?”1310 who but a proud man can presume that he so lives that he has no
need to say to God, “Forgive us our debts?” And such a man is not great, but swollen and puffed
up with vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who abundantly gives grace to the humble. Whence
it is said, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”1311 In this, then, consists the
righteousness of a man, that he submit himself to God, his body to his soul, and his vices, even
when they rebel, to his reason, which either defeats or at least resists them; and also that he beg
from God grace to do his duty,1312 and the pardon of his sins, and that he render to God thanks for
all the blessings he receives. But, in that final peace to which all our righteousness has reference,
and for the sake of which it is maintained, as our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and
incorruption, and shall have no more vices, and as we shall experience no resistance either from
1306 Matt. vi. 12.
1307 Jas. ii. 17.
1308 Gal. v. 6.
1309 Wisdom ix. 15.
1310 Job vii. 1.
1311 Jas. iv. 6; 1 Pet. v. 5.
1312 Gratia meritorum.
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ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary that reason should rule vices which no longer
exist, but God shall rule the man, and the soul shall rule the body, with a sweetness and facility
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suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with bondage. And this condition shall there be
eternal, and we shall be assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this blessedness and the
blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme good.
Chapter 28.—The End of the Wicked.
But, on the other hand, they who do not belong to this city of God shall inherit eternal misery,
which is also called the second death, because the soul shall then be separated from God its life,
and therefore cannot be said to live, and the body shall be subjected to eternal pains. And
consequently this second death shall be the more severe, because no death shall terminate it. But
war being contrary to peace, as misery to happiness, and life to death, it is not without reason asked
what kind of war can be found in the end of the wicked answering to the peace which is declared
to be the end of the righteous? The person who puts this question has only to observe what it is in
war that is hurtful and destructive, and he shall see that it is nothing else than the mutual opposition
and conflict of things. And can he conceive a more grievous and bitter war than that in which the
will is so opposed to passion, and passion to the will, that their hostility can never be terminated
by the victory of either, and in which the violence of pain so conflicts with the nature of the body,
that neither yields to the other? For in this life, when this conflict has arisen, either pain conquers
and death expels the feeling of it, or nature conquers and health expels the pain. But in the world
to come the pain continues that it may torment, and the nature endures that it may be sensible of
it; and neither ceases to exist, lest punishment also should cease. Now, as it is through the last
judgment that men pass to these ends, the good to the supreme good, the evil to the supreme evil,
I will treat of this judgment in the following book.

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