Site Map

ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 21

Argument—Of the end reserved for the city of the devil, namely, the eternal punishment of the
damned; and of the arguments which unbelief brings against it.
Chapter 1.—Of the Order of the Discussion, Which Requires that We First Speak of the Eternal
Punishment of the Lost in Company with the Devil, and Then of the Eternal Happiness of the
Saints.
I Propose, with such ability as God may grant me, to discuss in this book more thoroughly the
nature of the punishment which shall be assigned to the devil and all his retainers, when the two
cities, the one of God, the other of the devil, shall have reached their proper ends through Jesus
Christ our Lord, the Judge of quick and dead. And I have adopted this order, and preferred to speak,
first of the punishment of the devils, and afterwards of the blessedness of the saints, because the
body partakes of either destiny; and it seems to be more incredible that bodies endure in everlasting
torments than that they continue to exist without any pain in everlasting felicity. Consequently,
when I shall have demonstrated that that punishment ought not to be incredible, this will materially
aid me in proving that which is much more credible, viz., the immortality of the bodies of the saints
which are delivered from all pain. Neither is this order out of harmony with the divine writings,
in which sometimes, indeed, the blessedness of the good is placed first, as in the words, “They that
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
judgment;”1493 but sometimes also last, as, “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things which offend, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of His Father;”1494 and that, “These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous
into life eternal.”1495 And though we have not room to cite instances, any one who examines the
prophets will find that they adopt now the one arrangement and now the other. My own reason for
following the latter order I have given.
1493 John v. 29.
1494 Matt. xiii. 41–43.
1495 Matt. xxv. 46.
724
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Chapter 2.—Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.
What, then, can I adduce to convince those who refuse to believe that human bodies, animated
and living, can not only survive death, but also last in the torments of everlasting fires? They will
not allow us to refer this simply to the power of the Almighty, but demand that we persuade them
by some example. If, then, we reply to them, that there are animals which certainly are corruptible,
because they are mortal, and which yet live in the midst of flames; and likewise, that in springs of
water so hot that no one can put his hand in it with impunity a species of worm is found, which not
only lives there, but cannot live elsewhere; they either refuse to believe these facts unless we can
show them, or, if we are in circumstances to prove them by ocular demonstration or by adequate
testimony, they contend, with the same scepticism, that these facts are not examples of what we
453
seek to prove, inasmuch as these animals do not live for ever, and besides, they live in that blaze
of heat without pain, the element of fire being congenial to their nature, and causing it to thrive and
not to suffer,—just as if it were not more incredible that it should thrive than that it should suffer
in such circumstances. It is strange that anything should suffer in fire and yet live, but stranger
that it should live in fire and not suffer. If, then, the latter be believed, why not also the former?
Chapter 3.—Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.
But, say they, there is no body which can suffer and cannot also die. How do we know this?
For who can say with certainty that the devils do not suffer in their bodies, when they own that
they are grievously tormented? And if it is replied that there is no earthly body—that is to say, no
solid and perceptible body, or, in one word, no flesh—which can suffer and cannot die, is not this
to tell us only what men have gathered from experience and their bodily senses? For they indeed
have no acquaintance with any flesh but that which is mortal; and this is their whole argument, that
what they have had no experience of they judge quite impossible. For we cannot call it reasoning
to make pain a presumption of death, while, in fact, it is rather a sign of life. For though it be a
question whether that which suffers can continue to live for ever, yet it is certain that everything
which suffers pain does live, and that pain can exist only in a living subject. It is necessary, therefore,
that he who is pained be living, not necessary that pain kill him; for every pain does not kill even
those mortal bodies of ours which are destined to die. And that any pain kills them is caused by
the circumstance that the soul is so connected with the body that it succumbs to great pain and
withdraws; for the structure of our members and vital parts is so infirm that it cannot bear up against
that violence which causes great or extreme agony. But in the life to come this connection of soul
and body is of such a kind, that as it is dissolved by no lapse of time, so neither is it burst asunder
by any pain. And so, although it be true that in this world there is no flesh which can suffer pain
and yet cannot die, yet in the world to come there shall be flesh such as now there is not, as there
725
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
will also be death such as now there is not. For death will not be abolished, but will be eternal,
since the soul will neither be able to enjoy God and live, nor to die and escape the pains of the
body. The first death drives the soul from the body against her will: the second death holds the
soul in the body against her will. The two have this in common, that the soul suffers against her
will what her own body inflicts.
Our opponents, too, make much of this, that in this world there is no flesh which can suffer
pain and cannot die; while they make nothing of the fact that there is something which is greater
than the body. For the spirit, whose presence animates and rules the body, can both suffer pain
and cannot die. Here then is something which, though it can feel pain, is immortal. And this
capacity, which we now see in the spirit of all, shall be hereafter in the bodies of the damned.
Moreover, if we attend to the matter a little more closely, we see that what is called bodily pain is
rather to be referred to the soul. For it is the soul not the body, which is pained, even when the
pain originates with the body,—the soul feeling pain at the point where the body is hurt. As then
we speak of bodies feeling and living, though the feeling and life of the body are from the soul, so
also we speak of bodies being pained, though no pain can be suffered by the body apart from the
soul. The soul, then, is pained with the body in that part where something occurs to hurt it; and it
is pained alone, though it be in the body, when some invisible cause distresses it, while the body
is safe and sound. Even when not associated with the body it is pained; for certainly that rich man
was suffering in hell when he cried, “I am tormented in this flame.”1496 But as for the body, it suffers
no pain when it is soulless; and even when animate it can suffer only by the soul’s suffering. If,
therefore, we might draw a just presumption from the existence of pain to that of death, and conclude
that where pain can be felt death can occur, death would rather be the property of the soul, for to
it pain more peculiarly belongs. But, seeing that that which suffers most cannot die, what ground
is there for supposing that those bodies, because destined to suffer, are therefore, destined to die?
The Platonists indeed maintained that these earthly bodies and dying members gave rise to the
fears, desires, griefs, and joys of the soul. “Hence,” says Virgil (i.e., from these earthly bodies and
dying members),
“Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears.”1497
But in the fourteenth book of this work1498 we have proved that, according to the Platonists’
454
own theory, souls, even when purged from all pollution of the body, are yet pos sessed by a
monstrous desire to return again into their bodies. But where desire can exist, certainly pain also
can exist; for desire frustrated, either by missing what it aims at or losing what it had attained, is
turned into pain. And therefore, if the soul, which is either the only or the chief sufferer, has yet a
1496 Luke xvi. 24.
1497 Æneid, vi. 733.
1498 Ch. 3, 5, 6.
726
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
kind of immortality of its own, it is inconsequent to say that because the bodies of the damned shall
suffer pain, therefore they shall die. In fine, if the body causes the soul to suffer, why can the body
not cause death as well as suffering, unless because it does not follow that what causes pain causes
death as well? And why then is it incredible that these fires can cause pain but not death to those
bodies we speak of, just as the bodies themselves cause pain, but not therefore death, to the souls?
Pain is therefore no necessary presumption of death.
Chapter 4.—Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in
Fire.
If, therefore, the salamander lives in fire, as naturalists1499 have recorded, and if certain famous
mountains of Sicily have been continually on fire from the remotest antiquity until now, and yet
remain entire, these are sufficiently convincing examples that everything which burns is not
consumed. As the soul too, is a proof that not everything which can suffer pain can also die, why
then do they yet demand that we produce real examples to prove that it is not incredible that the
bodies of men condemned to everlasting punishment may retain their soul in the fire, may burn
without being consumed, and may suffer without perishing? For suitable properties will be
communicated to the substance of the flesh by Him who has endowed the things we see with so
marvellous and diverse properties, that their very multitude prevents our wonder. For who but God
the Creator of all things has given to the flesh of the peacock its antiseptic property? This property,
when I first heard of it, seemed to me incredible; but it happened at Carthage that a bird of this kind
was cooked and served up to me, and, taking a suitable slice of flesh from its breast, I ordered it to
be kept, and when it had been kept as many days as make any other flesh stinking, it was produced
and set before me, and emitted no offensive smell. And after it had been laid by for thirty days and
more, it was still in the same state; and a year after, the same still, except that it was a little more
shrivelled, and drier. Who gave to chaff such power to freeze that it preserves snow buried under
it, and such power to warm that it ripens green fruit?
But who can explain the strange properties of fire itself, which blackens everything it burns,
though itself bright; and which, though of the most beautiful colors, discolors almost all it touches
and feeds upon, and turns blazing fuel into grimy cinders? Still this is not laid down as an absolutely
uniform law; for, on the contrary, stones baked in glowing fire themselves also glow, and though
the fire be rather of a red hue, and they white, yet white is congruous with light, and black with
darkness. Thus, though the fire burns the wood in calcining the stones, these contrary effects do
not result from the contrariety of the materials. For though wood and stone differ, they are not
1499 Aristotle does not affirm it as a fact observed by himself, but as a popular tradition (Hist. anim. v. 19). Pliny is equally
cautious (Hist. nat. xxix. 23). Dioscorides declared the thing impossible (ii. 68).—Saisset.
727
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
contraries, like black and white, the one of which colors is produced in the stones, while the other
is produced in the wood by the same action of fire, which imparts its own brightness to the former,
while it begrimes the latter, and which could have no effect on the one were it not fed by the other.
Then what wonderful properties do we find in charcoal, which is so brittle that a light tap breaks
it and a slight pressure pulverizes it, and yet is so strong that no moisture rots it, nor any time causes
it to decay. So enduring is it, that it is customary in laying down landmarks to put charcoal
underneath them, so that if, after the longest interval, any one raises an action, and pleads that there
is no boundary stone, he may be convicted by the charcoal below. What then has enabled it to last
so long without rotting, though buried in the damp earth in which [its original] wood rots, except
this same fire which consumes all things?
Again, let us consider the wonders of lime; for besides growing white in fire, which makes
other things black, and of which I have already said enough, it has also a mysterious property of
conceiving fire within it. Itself cold to the touch, it yet has a hidden store of fire, which is not at
once apparent to our senses, but which experience teaches us, lies as it were slumbering within it
even while unseen. And it is for this reason called “quick lime,” as if the fire were the invisible
soul quickening the visible substance or body. But the marvellous thing is, that this fire is kindled
when it is extinguished. For to disengage the hidden fire the lime is moistened or drenched with
water, and then, though it be cold before, it becomes hot by that very application which cools what
455
is hot. As if the fire were departing from the lime and breathing its last, it no longer lies hid, but
appears; and then the lime lying in the coldness of death cannot be requickened, and what we before
called “quick,” we now call “slaked.” What can be stranger than this? Yet there is a greater marvel
still. For if you treat the lime, not with water, but with oil, which is as fuel to fire, no amount of
oil will heat it. Now if this marvel had been told us of some Indian mineral which we had no
opportunity of experimenting upon, we should either have forthwith pronounced it a falsehood, or
certainly should have been greatly astonished. But things that daily present themselves to our own
observation we despise, not because they are really less marvellous, but because they are common;
so that even some products of India itself, remote as it is from ourselves, cease to excite our
admiration as soon as we can admire them at our leisure.1500
The diamond is a stone possessed by many among ourselves, especially by jewellers and
lapidaries, and the stone is so hard that it can be wrought neither by iron nor fire, nor, they say, by
anything at all except goat’s blood. But do you suppose it is as much admired by those who own
it and are familiar with its properties as by those to whom it is shown for the first time? Persons
1500 So Lucretius, ii. 1025:
“Sed neque tam facilis res ulla ’st, quin ea primum
Difficilismagis ad credendum constet: itemque
Nil adeomagnum, nec tam mirabile quicquam
Principis, quod non minuant mirarier omnes
Paulatim.”
728
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
who have not seen it perhaps do not believe what is said of it, or if they do, they wonder as at a
thing beyond their experience; and if they happen to see it, still they marvel because they are unused
to it, but gradually familiar experience [of it] dulls their admiration. We know that the loadstone
has a wonderful power of attracting iron. When I first saw it I was thunderstruck, for I saw an iron
ring attracted and suspended by the stone; and then, as if it had communicated its own property to
the iron it attracted, and had made it a substance like itself, this ring was put near another, and lifted
it up; and as the first ring clung to the magnet, so did the second ring to the first. A third and a
fourth were similarly added, so that there hung from the stone a kind of chain of rings, with their
hoops connected, not interlinking, but attached together by their outer surface. Who would not be
amazed at this virtue of the stone, subsisting as it does not only in itself, but transmitted through
so many suspended rings, and binding them together by invisible links? Yet far more astonishing
is what I heard about this stone from my brother in the episcopate, Severus bishop of Milevis. He
told me that Bathanarius, once count of Africa, when the bishop was dining with him, produced a
magnet, and held it under a silver plate on which he placed a bit of iron; then as he moved his hand
with the magnet underneath the plate, the iron upon the plate moved about accordingly. The
intervening silver was not affected at all, but precisely as the magnet was moved backwards and
forwards below it, no matter how quickly, so was the iron attracted above. I have related what I
myself have witnessed; I have related what I was told by one whom I trust as I trust my own eyes.
Let me further say what I have read about this magnet. When a diamond is laid near it, it does not
lift iron; or if it has already lifted it, as soon as the diamond approaches, it drops it. These stones
come from India. But if we cease to admire them because they are now familiar, how much less
must they admire them who procure them very easily and send them to us? Perhaps they are held
as cheap as we hold lime, which, because it is common, we think nothing of, though it has the
strange property of burning when water, which is wont to quench fire, is poured on it, and of
remaining cool when mixed with oil, which ordinarily feeds fire.
Chapter 5.—That There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are
Nevertheless True.
Nevertheless, when we declare the miracles which God has wrought, or will yet work, and
which we cannot bring under the very eyes of men, sceptics keep demanding that we shall explain
these marvels to reason. And because we cannot do so, inasmuch as they are above human
comprehension, they suppose we are speaking falsely. These persons themselves, therefore, ought
to account for all these marvels which we either can or do see. And if they perceive that this is
impossible for man to do, they should acknowledge that it cannot be concluded that a thing has not
been or shall not be because it cannot be reconciled to reason, since there are things now in existence
of which the same is true. I will not, then, detail the multitude of marvels which are related in
729
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
books, and which refer not to things that happened once and passed away, but that are permanent
in certain places, where, if any one has the desire and opportunity, he may ascertain their truth; but
a few only I recount. The following are some of the marvels men tell us:—The salt of Agrigentum
456
in Sicily, when thrown into the fire, becomes fluid as if it were in water, but in the water it crackles
as if it were in the fire. The Garamantæ have a fountain so cold by day that no one can drink it, so
hot by night no one can touch it.1501 In Epirus, too, there is a fountain which, like all others, quenches
lighted torches, but, unlike all others, lights quenched torches. There is a stone found in Arcadia,
and called asbestos, because once lit it cannot be put out. The wood of a certain kind of Egyptian
fig-tree sinks in water, and does not float like other wood; and, stranger still, when it has been sunk
to the bottom for some time, it rises again to the surface, though nature requires that when soaked
in water it should be heavier than ever. Then there are the apples of Sodom which grow indeed to
an appearance of ripeness, but, when you touch them with hand or tooth, the peal cracks, and they
crumble into dust and ashes. The Persian stone pyrites burns the hand when it is tightly held in it
and so gets its name from fire. In Persia too, there is found another stone called selenite, because
its interior brilliancy waxes and wanes with the moon. Then in Cappadocia the mares are
impregnated by the wind, and their foals live only three years. Tilon, an Indian island, has this
advantage over all other lands, that no tree which grows in it ever loses its foliage.
These and numberless other marvels recorded in the history, not of past events, but of permanent
localities, I have no time to enlarge upon and diverge from my main object; but let those sceptics
who refuse to credit the divine writings give me, if they can, a rational account of them. For their
only ground of unbelief in the Scriptures is, that they contain incredible things, just such as I have
been recounting. For, say they, reason cannot admit that flesh burn and remain unconsumed, suffer
without dying. Mighty reasoners, indeed, who are competent to give the reason of all the marvels
that exist! Let them then give us the reason of the few things we have cited, and which, if they did
not know they existed, and were only assured by us they would at some future time occur, they
would believe still less than that which they now refuse to credit on our word. For which of them
would believe us if, instead of saying that the living bodies of men hereafter will be such as to
endure everlasting pain and fire without ever dying, we were to say that in the world to come there
will be salt which becomes liquid in fire as if it were in water, and crackles in water as if it were
in fire; or that there will be a fountain whose water in the chill air of night is so hot that it cannot
be touched, while in the heat of day it is so cold that it cannot be drunk; or that there will be a stone
which by its own heat burns the hand when tightly held, or a stone which cannot be extinguished
1501 Alluded to by Moore in his Melodies:
“The fount that played
In times of old through Ammon’s shade,
Though icy cold by day it ran,
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began
To burn when night was near.”
730
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
if it has been lit in any part; or any of those wonders I have cited, while omitting numberless others?
If we were to say that these things would be found in the world to come, and our sceptics were to
reply, “If you wish us to believe these things, satisfy our reason about each of them,” we should
confess that we could not, because the frail comprehension of man cannot master these and such-like
wonders of God’s working; and that yet our reason was thoroughly convinced that the Almighty
does nothing without reason, though the frail mind of man cannot explain the reason; and that while
we are in many instances uncertain what He intends, yet that it is always most certain that nothing
which He intends is impossible to Him; and that when He declares His mind, we believe Him whom
we cannot believe to be either powerless or false. Nevertheless these cavillers at faith and exactors
of reason, how do they dispose of those things of which a reason cannot be given, and which yet
exist, though in apparent contrariety to the nature of things? If we had announced that these things
were to be, these sceptics would have demanded from us the reason of them, as they do in the case
of those things which we are announcing as destined to be. And consequently, as these present
marvels are not non-existent, though human reason and discourse are lost in such works of God,
so those things we speak of are not impossible because inexplicable; for in this particular they are
in the same predicament as the marvels of earth.
Chapter 6.—That All Marvels are Not of Nature’s Production, But that Some are Due to Human
Ingenuity and Others to Diabolic Contrivance.
At this point they will perhaps reply, “These things have no existence; we don’t believe one of
them; they are travellers’ tales and fictitious romances;” and they may add what has the appearance
of argument, and say, “If you believe such things as these, believe what is recorded in the same
books, that there was or is a temple of Venus in which a candelabrum set in the open air holds a
457
lamp, which burns so strongly that no storm or rain extinguishes it, and which is therefore called,
like the stone mentioned above, the asbestos or inextinguishable lamp.” They may say this with
the intention of putting us into a dilemma: for if we say this is incredible, then we shall impugn
the truth of the other recorded marvels; if, on the other hand, we admit that this is credible, we shall
avouch the pagan deities. But, as I have already said in the eighteenth book of this work, we do
not hold it necessary to believe all that profane history contains, since, as Varro says, even historians
themselves disagree on so many points, that one would think they intended and were at pains to do
so; but we believe, if we are disposed, those things which are not contradicted by these books,
which we do not hesitate to say we are bound to believe. But as to those permanent miracles of
nature, whereby we wish to persuade the sceptical of the miracles of the world to come, those are
quite sufficient for our purpose which we ourselves can observe or of which it is not difficult to
find trustworthy witnesses. Moreover, that temple of Venus, with its inextinguishable lamp, so far
from hemming us into a corner, opens an advantageous field to our argument. For to this
731
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
inextinguishable lamp we add a host of marvels wrought by men, or by magic,—that is, by men
under the influence of devils, or by the devils directly,—for such marvels we cannot deny without
impugning the truth of the sacred Scriptures we believe. That lamp, therefore, was either by some
mechanical and human device fitted with asbestos, or it was arranged by magical art in order that
the worshippers might be astonished, or some devil under the name of Venus so signally manifested
himself that this prodigy both began and became permanent. Now devils are attracted to dwell in
certain temples by means of the creatures (God’s creatures, not theirs), who present to them what
suits their various tastes. They are attracted not by food like animals, but, like spirits, by such
symbols as suit their taste, various kinds of stones, woods, plants, animals, songs, rites. And that
men may provide these attractions, the devils first of all cunningly seduce them, either by imbuing
their hearts with a secret poison, or by revealing themselves under a friendly guise, and thus make
a few of them their disciples, who become the instructors of the multitude. For unless they first
instructed men, it were impossible to know what each of them desires, what they shrink from, by
what name they should be invoked or constrained to be present. Hence the origin of magic and
magicians. But, above all, they possess the hearts of men, and are chiefly proud of this possession
when they transform themselves into angels of light. Very many things that occur, therefore, are
their doing; and these deeds of theirs we ought all the more carefully to shun as we acknowledge
them to be very surprising. And yet these very deeds forward my present arguments. For if such
marvels are wrought by unclean devils, how much mightier are the holy angels! and what can not
that God do who made the angels themselves capable of working miracles!
If, then, very many effects can be contrived by human art, of so surprising a kind that the
uninitiated think them divine, as when, e.g., in a certain temple two magnets have been adjusted,
one in the roof, another in the floor, so that an iron image is suspended in mid-air between them,
one would suppose by the power of the divinity, were he ignorant of the magnets above and beneath;
or, as in the case of that lamp of Venus which we already mentioned as being a skillful adaptation
of asbestos; if, again, by the help of magicians, whom Scripture calls sorcerers and enchanters, the
devils could gain such power that the noble poet Virgil should consider himself justified in describing
a very powerful magician in these lines:
“Her charms can cure what souls she please,
Rob other hearts of healthful ease,
Turn rivers backward to their source,
And make the stars forget their course,
And call up ghosts from night:
The ground shall bellow ’neath your feet:
The mountain-ash shall quit its seat,
And travel down the height;”1502—
1502 Æneid, iv. 487–491.
732
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
if this be so, how much more able is God to do those things which to sceptics are incredible,
but to His power easy, since it is He who has given to stones and all other things their virtue, and
to men their skill to use them in wonderful ways; He who has given to the angels a nature more
mighty than that of all that lives on earth; He whose power surpasses all marvels, and whose wisdom
in working, ordaining, and permitting is no less marvellous in its governance of all things than in
its creation of all!
Chapter 7.—That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.
Why, then, cannot God effect both that the bodies of the dead shall rise, and that the bodies of
458
the damned shall be tormented in everlasting fire,—God, who made the world full of countless
miracles in sky, earth, air, and waters, while itself is a miracle unquestionably greater and more
admirable than all the marvels it is filled with? But those with whom or against whom we are
arguing, who believe both that there is a God who made the world, and that there are gods created
by Him who administer the world’s laws as His viceregents,—our adversaries, I say, who, so far
from denying emphatically, assert that there are powers in the world which effect marvellous results
(whether of their own accord, or because they are invoked by some rite or prayer, or in some magical
way), when we lay before them the wonderful properties of other things which are neither rational
animals nor rational spirits, but such material objects as those we have just cited, are in the habit
of replying, This is their natural property, their nature; these are the powers naturally belonging to
them. Thus the whole reason why Agrigentine salt dissolves in fire and crackles in water is that
this is its nature. Yet this seems rather contrary to nature, which has given not to fire but to water
the power of melting salt, and the power of scorching it not to water but to fire. But this they say,
is the natural property of this salt, to show effects contrary to these. The same reason, therefore,
is assigned to account for that Garamantian fountain, of which one and the same runlet is chill by
day and boiling by night, so that in either extreme it cannot be touched. So also of that other fountain
which, though it is cold to the touch, and though it, like other fountains, extinguishes a lighted
torch, yet, unlike other fountains, and in a surprising manner, kindles an extinguished torch. So of
the asbestos stone, which, though it has no heat of its own, yet when kindled by fire applied to it,
cannot be extinguished. And so of the rest, which I am weary of reciting, and in which, though
there seems to be an extraordinary property contrary to nature, yet no other reason is given for them
than this, that this is their nature,—a brief reason truly, and, I own, a satisfactory reply. But since
God is the author of all natures, how is it that our adversaries, when they refuse to believe what we
affirm, on the ground that it is impossible, are unwilling to accept from us a better explanation than
their own, viz., that this is the will of Almighty God,—for certainly He is called Almighty only
because He is mighty to do all He will,—He who was able to create so many marvels, not only
unknown, but very well ascertained, as I have been showing, and which, were they not under our
733
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
own observation, or reported by recent and credible witnesses, would certainly be pronounced
impossible? For as for those marvels which have no other testimony than the writers in whose
books we read them, and who wrote without being divinely instructed, and are therefore liable to
human error, we cannot justly blame any one who declines to believe them.
For my own part, I do not wish all the marvels I have cited to be rashly accepted, for I do not
myself believe them implicitly, save those which have either come under my own observation, or
which any one can readily verify, such as the lime which is heated by water and cooled by oil; the
magnet which by its mysterious and insensible suction attracts the iron, but has no affect on a straw;
the peacock’s flesh which triumphs over the corruption from which not the flesh of Plato is exempt;
the chaff so chilling that it prevents snow from melting, so heating that it forces apples to ripen;
the glowing fire, which, in accordance with its glowing appearance, whitens the stones it bakes,
while, contrary to its glowing appearance, it begrimes most things it burns (just as dirty stains are
made by oil, however pure it be, and as the lines drawn by white silver are black); the charcoal,
too, which by the action of fire is so completely changed from its original, that a finely marked
piece of wood becomes hideous, the tough becomes brittle, the decaying incorruptible. Some of
these things I know in common with many other persons, some of them in common with all men;
and there are many others which I have not room to insert in this book. But of those which I have
cited, though I have not myself seen, but only read about them, I have been unable to find trustworthy
witnesses from whom I could ascertain whether they are facts, except in the case of that fountain
in which burning torches are extinguished and extinguished torches lit, and of the apples of Sodom,
which are ripe to appearance, but are filled with dust. And indeed I have not met with any who
said they had seen that fountain in Epirus, but with some who knew there was a similar fountain
in Gaul not far from Grenoble. The fruit of the trees of Sodom, however, is not only spoken of in
books worthy of credit, but so many persons say that they have seen it that I cannot doubt the fact.
But the rest of the prodigies I receive without definitely affirming or denying them; and I have cited
them because I read them in the authors of our adversaries, and that I might prove how many things
many among themselves believe, because they are written in the works of their own literary men,
459
though no rational explanation of them is given, and yet they scorn to believe us when we assert
that Almighty God will do what is beyond their experience and observation; and this they do even
though we assign a reason for His work. For what better and stronger reason for such things can
be given than to say that the Almighty is able to bring them to pass, and will bring them to pass,
having predicted them in those books in which many other marvels which have already come to
pass were predicted? Those things which are regarded as impossible will be accomplished according
to the word, and by the power of that God who predicted and effected that the incredulous nations
should believe incredible wonders.
734
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Chapter 8.—That It is Not Contrary to Nature That, in an Object Whose Nature is Known, There
Should Be Discovered an Alteration of the Properties Which Have Been Known as Its Natural
Properties.
But if they reply that their reason for not believing us when we say that human bodies will
always burn and yet never die, is that the nature of human bodies is known to be quite otherwise
constituted; if they say that for this miracle we cannot give the reason which was valid in the case
of those natural miracles, viz., that this is the natural property, the nature of the thing,—for we
know that this is not the nature of human flesh,—we find our answer in the sacred writings, that
even this human flesh was constituted in one fashion before there was sin,—was constituted, in
fact, so that it could not die,—and in another fashion after sin, being made such as we see it in this
miserable state of mortality, unable to retain enduring life. And so in the resurrection of the dead
shall it be constituted differently from its present well-known condition. But as they do not believe
these writings of ours, in which we read what nature man had in paradise, and how remote he was
from the necessity of death,—and indeed, if they did believe them, we should of course have little
trouble in debating with them the future punishment of the damned,—we must produce from the
writings of their own most learned authorities some instances to show that it is possible for a thing
to become different from what it was formerly known characteristically to be.
From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled, Of the Race of the Roman People, I cite word for
word the following instance: “There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records
that, in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer,
there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never
happened before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said
that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges.” So great an author as Varro would certainly not have
called this a portent had it not seemed to be contrary to nature. For we say that all portents are
contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the
will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A
portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature. But
who can number the multitude of portents recorded in profane histories? Let us then at present fix
our attention on this one only which concerns the matter in hand. What is there so arranged by the
Author of the nature of heaven and earth as the exactly ordered course of the stars? What is there
established by laws so sure and inflexible? And yet, when it pleased Him who with sovereignty
and supreme power regulates all He has created, a star conspicuous among the rest by its size and
splendor changed its color, size, form, and, most wonderful of all, the order and law of its course!
Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers, if there were any then, by
which they tabulate, as by unerring computation, the past and future movements of the stars, so as
to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the morning star (Venus) never happened
before nor since. But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy
735
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God until victory should finish the battle he had
begun; and that it even went back, that the promise of fifteen years added to the life of king Hezekiah
might be sealed by this additional prodigy. But these miracles, which were vouchsafed to the merits
of holy men, even when our adversaries believe them, they attribute to magical arts; so Virgil, in
the lines I quoted above, ascribes to magic the power to
“Turn rivers backward to their source,
And make the stars forget their course.”
For in our sacred books we read that this also happened, that a river “turned backward,” was
stayed above while the lower part flowed on, when the people passed over under the above-mentioned
leader, Joshua the son of Nun; and also when Elias the prophet crossed; and afterwards, when his
460
disciple Elisha passed through it: and we have just mentioned how, in the case of king Hezekiah
the greatest of the “stars forgot its course.” But what happened to Venus, according to Varro, was
not said by him to have happened in answer to any man’s prayer.
Let not the sceptics then benight themselves in this knowledge of the nature of things, as if
divine power cannot bring to pass in an object anything else than what their own experience has
shown them to be in its nature. Even the very things which are most commonly known as natural
would not be less wonderful nor less effectual to excite surprise in all who beheld them, if men
were not accustomed to admire nothing but what is rare. For who that thoughtfully observes the
countless multitude of men, and their similarity of nature, can fail to remark with surprise and
admiration the individuality of each man’s appearance, suggesting to us, as it does, that unless men
were like one another, they would not be distinguished from the rest of the animals; while unless,
on the other hand, they were unlike, they could not be distinguished from one another, so that those
whom we declare to be like, we also find to be unlike? And the unlikeness is the more wonderful
consideration of the two; for a common nature seems rather to require similarity. And yet, because
the very rarity of things is that which makes them wonderful, we are filled with much greater wonder
when we are introduced to two men so like, that we either always or frequently mistake in
endeavoring to distinguish between them.
But possibly, though Varro is a heathen historian, and a very learned one, they may disbelieve
that what I have cited from him truly occurred; or they may say the example is invalid, because the
star did not for any length of time continue to follow its new course, but returned to its ordinary
orbit. There is, then, another phenomenon at present open to their observation, and which, in my
opinion, ought to be sufficient to convince them that, though they have observed and ascertained
some natural law, they ought not on that account to prescribe to God, as if He could not change
and turn it into something very different from what they have observed. The land of Sodom was
not always as it now is; but once it had the appearance of other lands, and enjoyed equal if not
richer fertility; for, in the divine narrative, it was compared to the paradise of God. But after it was
touched [by fire] from heaven, as even pagan history testifies, and as is now witnessed by those
who visit the spot, it became unnaturally and horribly sooty in appearance; and its apples, under a
deceitful appearance of ripeness, contain ashes within. Here is a thing which was of one kind, and
736
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
is of another. You see how its nature was converted by the wonderful transmutation wrought by
the Creator of all natures into so very disgusting a diversity,—an alteration which after so long a
time took place, and after so long a time still continues. As therefore it was not impossible to God
to create such natures as He pleased, so it is not impossible to Him to change these natures of His
own creation into whatever He pleases, and thus spread abroad a multitude of those marvels which
are called monsters, portents, prodigies, phenomena,1503 and which if I were minded to cite and
record, what end would there be to this work? They say that they are called “monsters,” because
they demonstrate or signify something; “portents,” because they portend something; and so forth.1504
But let their diviners see how they are either deceived, or even when they do predict true things, it
is because they are inspired by spirits, who are intent upon entangling the minds of men (worthy,
indeed, of such a fate) in the meshes of a hurtful curiosity, or how they light now and then upon
some truth, because they make so many predictions. Yet, for our part, these things which happen
contrary to nature, and are said to be contrary to nature (as the apostle, speaking after the manner
of men, says, that to graft the wild olive into the good olive, and to partake of its fatness, is contrary
to nature), and are called monsters, phenomena, portents, prodigies, ought to demonstrate, portend,
predict that God will bring to pass what He has foretold regarding the bodies of men, no difficulty
preventing Him, no law of nature prescribing to Him His limit. How He has foretold what He is
to do, I think I have sufficiently shown in the preceding book, culling from the sacred Scriptures,
both of the New and Old Testaments, not, indeed, all the passages that relate to this, but as many
as I judged to suffice for this work.
Chapter 9.—Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.
So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting punishment of the damned shall
come to pass—shall without fail come to pass,—“their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire
be quenched.”1505 In order to impress this upon us most forcibly, the Lord Jesus Himself, when
461
ordering us to cut off our members, meaning thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most
useful members of his body, says, “It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two
hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and
their fire is not quenched.” Similarly of the foot: “It is better for thee to enter halt into life, than
having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” So, too, of the eye: “It is better for thee to enter into the
1503 See the same collocation of words in Cic. Nat. deor. ii. 3.
1504 The etymologies given here by Augustin are, “monstra,” a monstrando; “ostenta,” ab ostendendo; “portenta,” a portendendo,
i.e. præostendendo; “prodigia,” quod porro dicant, i.e. futura prædicant.
1505 Isa. lxvi. 24.
737
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”1506 He did not shrink from using the same words three
times over in one passage. And who is not terrified by this repetition, and by the threat of that
punishment uttered so vehemently by the lips of the Lord Himself?
Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm
that the wicked, who are separated from the kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the
anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire is therefore not
inappropriately used to express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims “Who is offended,
and I burn not?”1507 The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it is written they
say, “As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart
of a man.”1508 But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall
suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by
a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,—for it is absurd to suppose that either
body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,—yet, for my own part, I find it easier to
understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture
is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily
understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For
we read in the ancient Scriptures, “The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms.”1509
It might have been more briefly said, “The vengeance of the ungodly.” Why, then, was it said,
“The flesh of the ungodly,” unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of
the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, “The vengeance of the flesh,” was to indicate
that this shall be the punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the second death,
as the apostle intimated when he said, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”1510, let each one
make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul,—the one
figuratively, the other really,—or assigning both really to the body. For I have already sufficiently
made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning without being consumed, in pain without
dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this is possible,
if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is wonderful in all nature. For it is God
Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have mentioned,
and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has enclosed these marvels in this world,
itself the greatest miracle of all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that
the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things are meant by bodily representations,
and that it belongs to the soul. But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the
1506 Mark ix. 43–48.
1507 2 Cor. xi. 29.
1508 Isa. li. 8.
1509 Ecclus. vii. 17.
1510 Rom. viii. 13.
738
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge as shall not require that their
own experience teach them the nature of these punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and
perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter. For “now we know in part, until that which is
perfect is come;”1511 only, this we believe about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall
certainly be pained by the fire.
Chapter 10.—Whether the Fire of Hell, If It Be Material Fire, Can Burn the Wicked Spirits, that
is to Say, Devils, Who are Immaterial.
Here arises the question: If the fire is not to be immaterial, analogous to the pain of the soul,
but material, burning by contact, so that bodies may be tormented in it, how can evil spirits be
punished in it? For it is undoubtedly the same fire which is to serve for the punishment of men and
of devils, according to the words of Christ: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels;”1512 unless, perhaps, as learned men have thought, the devils
462
have a kind of body made of that dense and humid air which we feel strikes us when the wind is
blowing. And if this kind of substance could not be affected by fire, it could not burn when heated
in the baths. For in order to burn, it is first burned, and affects other things as itself is affected.
But if any one maintains that the devils have no bodies, this is not a matter either to be laboriously
investigated, or to be debated with keenness. For why may we not assert that even immaterial
spirits may, in some extraordinary way, yet really be pained by the punishment of material fire, if
the spirits of men, which also are certainly immaterial, are both now contained in material members
of the body, and in the world to come shall be indissolubly united to their own bodies? Therefore,
though the devils have no bodies, yet their spirits, that is, the devils themselves, shall be brought
into thorough contact with the material fires, to be tormented by them; not that the fires themselves
with which they are brought into contact shall be animated by their connection with these spirits,
and become animals composed of body and spirit, but, as I said, this junction will be effected in a
wonderful and ineffable way, so that they shall receive pain from the fires, but give no life to them.
And, in truth, this other mode of union, by which bodies and spirits are bound together and become
animals, is thoroughly marvellous, and beyond the comprehension of man, though this it is which
is man.
I would indeed say that these spirits will burn without any body of their own, as that rich man
was burning in hell when he exclaimed, “I am tormented in this flame,”1513 were I not aware that it
is aptly said in reply, that that flame was of the same nature as the eyes he raised and fixed on
1511 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.
1512 Matt. xxv. 41.
1513 Luke xvi. 24.
739
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Lazarus, as the tongue on which he entreated that a little cooling water might be dropped, or as the
finger of Lazarus, with which he asked that this might be done,—all of which took place where
souls exist without bodies. Thus, therefore, both that flame in which he burned and that drop he
begged were immaterial, and resembled the visions of sleepers or persons in an ecstasy, to whom
immaterial objects appear in a bodily form. For the man himself who is in such a state, though it
be in spirit only, not in body, yet sees himself so like to his own body that he cannot discern any
difference whatever. But that hell, which also is called a lake of fire and brimstone,1514 will be
material fire, and will torment the bodies of the damned, whether men or devils,—the solid bodies
of the one, aerial bodies of the others; or if only men have bodies as well as souls, yet the evil
spirits, though without bodies, shall be so connected with the bodily fires as to receive pain without
imparting life. One fire certainly shall be the lot of both, for thus the truth has declared.
Chapter 11.—Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves
Lasted.
Some, however, of those against whom we are defending the city of God, think it unjust that
any man be doomed to an eternal punishment for sins which, no matter how great they were, were
perpetrated in a brief space of time; as if any law ever regulated the duration of the punishment by
the duration of the offence punished! Cicero tells us that the laws recognize eight kinds of
penalty,—damages, imprisonment, scourging, reparation,1515 disgrace, exile, death, slavery. Is there
any one of these which may be compressed into a brevity proportioned to the rapid commission of
the offence, so that no longer time may be spent in its punishment than in its perpetration, unless,
perhaps, reparation? For this requires that the offender suffer what he did, as that clause of the law
says, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”1516 For certainly it is possible for an offender to lose his eye
by the severity of legal retaliation in as brief a time as he deprived another of his eye by the cruelty
of his own lawlessness. But if scourging be a reasonable penalty for kissing another man’s wife,
is not the fault of an instant visited with long hours of atonement, and the momentary delight
punished with lasting pain? What shall we say of imprisonment? Must the criminal be confined
only for so long a time as he spent on the offence for which he is committed? or is not a penalty of
many years’ confinement imposed on the slave who has provoked his master with a word, or has
struck him a blow that is quickly over? And as to damages, disgrace, exile, slavery, which are
commonly inflicted so as to admit of no relaxation or pardon, do not these resemble eternal
punishments in so far as this short life allows a resemblance? For they are not eternal only because
1514 Rev. xx. 10.
1515 “Talio,” i.e. the rendering of like for like, the punishment being exactly similar to the injury sustained.
1516 Ex. xxi. 24.
740
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
the life in which they are endured is not eternal; and yet the crimes which are punished with these
most protracted sufferings are perpetrated in a very brief space of time. Nor is there any one who
would suppose that the pains of punishment should occupy as short a time as the offense; or that
463
murder, adultery, sacrilege, or any other crime, should be measured, not by the enor mity of the
injury or wickedness, but by the length of time spent in its perpetration. Then as to the award of
death for any great crime, do the laws reckon the punishment to consist in the brief moment in
which death is inflicted, or in this, that the offender is eternally banished from the society of the
living? And just as the punishment of the first death cuts men off from this present mortal city, so
does the punishment of the second death cut men off from that future immortal city. For as the
laws of this present city do not provide for the executed criminal’s return to it, so neither is he who
is condemned to the second death recalled again to life everlasting. But if temporal sin is visited
with eternal punishment, how, then, they say, is that true which your Christ says, “With the same
measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again?”1517 and they do not observe that
“the same measure” refers, not to an equal space of time, but to the retribution of evil or, in other
words, to the law by which he who has done evil suffers evil. Besides, these words could be
appropriately understood as referring to the matter of which our Lord was speaking when He used
them, viz., judgments and condemnation. Thus, if he who unjustly judges and condemns is himself
justly judged and condemned, he receives “with the same measure” though not the same thing as
he gave. For judgment he gave, and judgment he receives, though the judgment he gave was unjust,
the judgment he receives just.
Chapter 12.—Of the Greatness of the First Transgression, on Account of Which Eternal Punishment
is Due to All Who are Not Within the Pale of the Saviour’s Grace.
But eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human perceptions, because in the weakness
of our mortal condition there is wanting that highest and purest wisdom by which it can be perceived
how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. The more enjoyment man found
in God, the greater was his wickedness in abandoning Him; and he who destroyed in himself a
good which might have been eternal, became worthy of eternal evil. Hence the whole mass of the
human race is condemned; for he who at first gave entrance to sin has been punished with all his
posterity who were in him as in a root, so that no one is exempt from this just and due punishment,
unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the human race is so apportioned that in some
is displayed the efficacy of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution. For both could
not be displayed in all; for if all had remained1518 under the punishment of just condemnation, there
1517 Luke vi. 38.
1518 Remanerent. But Augustin constantly uses the imp. for the plup. subjunctive.
741
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
would have been seen in no one the mercy of redeeming grace. And, on the other hand, if all had
been transferred from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would have been manifested in
none. But many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may
thus be shown what was due to all. And had it been inflicted on all, no one could justly have found
fault with the justice of Him who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from
that just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the gratuitous bounty of Him
who delivers.
Chapter 13.—Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After
Death are Purgatorial.
The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are unpunished, suppose that all
punishment is administered for remedial purposes,1519 be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this
life or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished, may yet not amend. Hence
that passage of Virgil, where, when he had said of our earthly bodies and mortal members, that our
souls derive—
“Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears;
Immured in dungeon-seeming night,
They look abroad, yet see no light,”
goes on to say:
“Nay, when at last the life has fled,
And left the body cold and dead,
Ee’n then there passes not away
The painful heritage of clay;
Full many a long-contracted stain
Perforce must linger deep in grain.
So penal sufferings they endure
For ancient crime, to make them pure;
Some hang aloft in open view,
For winds to pierce them through and through,
1519 Plato’s own theory was that punishment had a twofold purpose, to reform and to deter. “No one punishes an offender on
account of the past offense, and simply because he has done wrong, but for the sake of the future, that the offense may not be
again committed, either by the same person or by any one who has seen him punished.”—See the Protagoras, 324, b, and Grote’s
Plato, ii. 41.
742
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
While others purge their guilt deep-dyed
In burning fire or whelming tide.”1520
They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death to be purgatorial; and as
464
the elements of air, fire, and water are superior to earth, one or other of these may be the instrument
of expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of earth. So Virgil hints at the
air in the words, “Some hang aloft for winds to pierce;” at the water in “whelming tide;” and at fire
in the expression “in burning fire.” For our part, we recognize that even in this life some punishments
are purgatorial,—not, indeed, to those whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them,
but to those who are constrained by them to amend their life. All other punishments, whether
temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by divine providence, are sent either on
account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man’s graces.
They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men and angels as well as of the good. For
even if any one suffers some hurt through another’s wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins
whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, who by His just though hidden judgment
permits it to be done, sins not. But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only,
by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest
judgment. But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those
everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is
not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal
punishment of the world to come.
Chapter 14.—Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.
Quite exceptional are those who are not punished in this life, but only afterwards. Yet that
there have been some who have reached the decrepitude of age without experiencing even the
slightest sickness, and who have had uninterrupted enjoyment of life, I know both from report and
from my own observation. However, the very life we mortals lead is itself all punishment, for it
is all temptation, as the Scriptures declare, where it is written, “Is not the life of man upon earth a
temptation?”1521 For ignorance is itself no slight punishment, or want of culture, which it is with
justice thought so necessary to escape, that boys are compelled, under pain of severe punishment,
to learn trades or letters; and the learning to which they are driven by punishment is itself so much
of a punishment to them, that they sometimes prefer the pain that drives them to the pain to which
they are driven by it. And who would not shrink from the alternative, and elect to die, if it were
proposed to him either to suffer death or to be again an infant? Our infancy, indeed, introducing
1520 Æneid, vi. 733.
1521 Job vii. 1.
743
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
us to this life not with laughter but with tears, seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to
encounter.1522 Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born, and that unnatural omen
portended no good to him. For he is said to have been the inventor of magical arts, though indeed
they were unable to secure to him even the poor felicity of this present life against the assaults of
his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians.
In short, the words of Scripture, “An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they
go out of their mother’s womb till the day that they return to the mother of all things,”1523—these
words so infallibly find fulfillment, that even the little ones, who by the layer of regeneration have
been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, yet suffer many ills, and
in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for a moment
suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future happiness, even though it has so increased
as to sever soul from body, and to terminate their life in that early age.
Chapter 15.—That Everything Which the Grace of God Does in the Way of Rescuing Us from the
Inveterate Evils in Which We are Sunk, Pertains to the Future World, in Which All Things are
Made New.
Nevertheless, in the “heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go
out of their mother’s womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things,” there is found
an admirable though painful monitor teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing us that this
life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous wickedness which was perpetrated in
Paradise, and that all to which the New Testament invites belongs to that future inheritance which
awaits us in the world to come, and is offered for our acceptance, as the earnest that we may, in its
own due time, obtain that of which it is the pledge. Now, therefore, let us walk in hope, and let us
by the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, and so make progress from day to day. For “the Lord
465
know eth them that are His;”1524 and “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of
God,”1525 but by grace, not by nature. For there is but one Son of God by nature, who in His
compassion became Son of man for our sakes, that we, by nature sons of men, might by grace
become through Him sons of God. For He, abiding unchangeable, took upon Him our nature, that
thereby He might take us to Himself; and, holding fast His own divinity, He became partaker of
our infirmity, that we, being changed into some better thing, might, by participating in His
righteousness and immortality, lose our own properties of sin and mortality, and preserve whatever
1522 Compare Goldsmith’s saying, “We begin life in tears, and every day tells us why.”
1523 Ecclus. xl. 1.
1524 2 Tim. ii. 19.
1525 Rom. viii. 14.
744
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
good quality He had implanted in our nature perfected now by sharing in the goodness of His
nature. For as by the sin of one man we have fallen into a misery so deplorable, so by the
righteousness of one Man, who also is God, shall we come to a blessedness inconceivably exalted.
Nor ought any one to trust that he has passed from the one man to the other until he shall have
reached that place where there is no temptation, and have entered into the peace which he seeks in
the many and various conflicts of this war, in which “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh.”1526 Now, such a war as this would have had no existence if human nature
had, in the exercise of free will, continued steadfast in the uprightness in which it was created. But
now in its misery it makes war upon itself, because in its blessedness it would not continue at peace
with God; and this, though it be a miserable calamity, is better than the earlier stages of this life,
which do not recognize that a war is to be maintained. For better is it to contend with vices than
without conflict to be subdued by them. Better, I say, is war with the hope of peace everlasting
than captivity without any thought of deliverance. We long, indeed, for the cessation of this war,
and, kindled by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance on that well-ordered peace in which
whatever is inferior is for ever subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God forbid) there
had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should still have preferred to endure the
hardness of this conflict, rather than, by our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to the dominion of
vice.
Chapter 16.—The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.
But such is God’s mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory, that
even the first age of man, that is, infancy, which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and
the second age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet understanding enough to undertake
this warfare, and therefore yields to almost every vicious pleasure (because though this age has the
power of speech,1527 and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind is still too weak to
comprehend the commandment), yet if either of these ages has received the sacraments of the
Mediator, then, although the present life be immediately brought to an end, the child, having been
translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, shall not only be saved from eternal
punishments, but shall not even suffer purgatorial torments after death. For spiritual regeneration
of itself suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death from the connection with
death which carnal generation forms.1528 But when we reach that age which can now comprehend
the commandment, and submit to the dominion of law, we must declare war upon vices, and wage
1526 Gal. v. 17.
1527 “Fari.”
1528 See Aug. Ep. 98, ad Bonifacium.
745
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
this war keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices have not gathered strength, by
habitual victory they are more easily overcome and subdued; but if they have been used to conquer
and rule, it is only with difficulty and labor they are mastered. And indeed this victory cannot be
sincerely and truly gained but by delighting in true righteousness, and it is faith in Christ that gives
this. For if the law be present with its command, and the Spirit be absent with His help, the presence
of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin, and adds the guilt of transgression.
Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are reckoned
virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are their informing principles.
Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they are conquered by the love
of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality that He might make
us partakers of His divinity. But few indeed are they who are so happy as to have passed their
youth without committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute or violent conduct, or by following
some godless and unlawful opinions, but have subdued by their greatness of soul everything in
466
them which could make them the slaves of carnal pleasures. The greater number having first
become transgressors of the law that they have received, and having allowed vice to have the
ascendency in them, then flee to grace for help, and so, by a penitence more bitter, and a struggle
more violent than it would otherwise have been, they subdue the soul to God, and thus give it its
lawful authority over the flesh, and become victors. Whoever, therefore, desires to escape eternal
punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass
from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except before
that final and dreadful judgment. We must not, however deny that even the eternal fire will be
proportioned to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to others less painful,
whether this result be accomplished by a variation in the temperature of the fire itself, graduated
according to every one’s merit, or whether it be that the heat remains the same, but that all do not
feel it with equal intensity of torment.
Chapter 17.—Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.
I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians
who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce
worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered
after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man’s sin. In
respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil himself
and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved,
should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not
without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for his theory of the ceaseless
746
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one state to the other
at fixed periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being merciful, by allotting to
the saints real miseries for the expiation of their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no
true and secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness. Very different, however,
is the error we speak of, which is dictated by the tenderness of these Christians who suppose that
the sufferings of those who are condemned in the judgment will be temporary, while the blessedness
of all who are sooner or later set free will be eternal. Which opinion, if it is good and true because
it is merciful, will be so much the better and truer in proportion as it becomes more merciful. Let,
then, this fountain of mercy be extended, and flow forth even to the lost angels, and let them also
be set free, at least after as many and long ages as seem fit! Why does this stream of mercy flow
to all the human race, and dry up as soon as it reaches the angelic? And yet they dare not extend
their pity further, and propose the deliverance of the devil himself. Or if any one is bold enough
to do so, he does indeed put to shame their charity, but is himself convicted of error that is more
unsightly, and a wresting of God’s truth that is more perverse, in proportion as his clemency of
sentiment seems to be greater.1529
Chapter 18.—Of Those Who Fancy That, on Account of the Saints’ Intercession, Man Shall Be
Damned in the Last Judgment.
There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted in conversation, who,
though they seem to reverence the holy Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly,
in their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion towards men. For they acknowledge
that it is truly predicted in the divine word that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment,
but they assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say they, God, having
compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers and intercessions of His saints. For if the
saints used to pray for them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how much more will they
do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For we cannot, they say, believe that
the saints shall lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the most perfect and
complete holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their enemies, should now, when
they are freed from sin, withhold from interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen
to so many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their prayers of all hindrance
to His answering them? And the passage of the psalm which is cited by those who admit that
1529 On the heresy of Origen, see Epiphanius (Epistola ad Joannem Hierosol.); Jerome (Epistola 61, ad Pammachium); and
Augustin (De Hæres, 43). Origen’s opinion was condemned by Anastasius (Jerome, Apologia adv. Ruffinum and Epistola 78,
ad Pammachium), and after Augustin’s death by Vigilius and Emperor Justinian, in the Fifth (OEcumenical Council, Nicephorus
Callistus, xvii. 27, and the Acts of the Council, iv. 11).—Coquæus.
747
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
467
wicked men and infidels shall be punished for a long time, though in the end delivered from all
sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking of as making much more for them.
The verse runs: “Shall God forget to be gracious? Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies?”1530
His anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of everlasting happiness to endless
punishment. But if He suffer them to be punished for a long time, or even at all, must He not shut
up His tender mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he does not say, Shall He
in anger shut up His tender mercies for a long period? but he implies that He will not shut them up
at all.
And they deny that thus God’s threat of judgment is proved to be false even though He condemn
no man, any more than we can say that His threat to overthrow Nineveh was false, though the
destruction which was absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did not say, “Nineveh
shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend their ways,” but without any such condition
He foretold that the city should be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain, was true because
God predicted the punishment which they deserved, although He was not to inflict it. For though
He spared them on their repentance yet He was certainly aware that they would repent, and,
notwithstanding, absolutely and definitely predicted that the city should be overthrown. This was
true, they say, in the truth of severity, because they were worthy of it; but in respect of the
compassion which checked His anger, so that He spared the suppliants from the punishment with
which He had threatened the rebellious, it was not true. If, then, He spared those whom His own
holy prophet was provoked at His sparing, how much more shall He spare those more wretched
suppliants for whom all His saints shall intercede? And they suppose that this conjecture of theirs
is not hinted at in Scripture, for the sake of stimulating many to reformation of life through fear of
very protracted or eternal sufferings, and of stimulating others to pray for those who have not
reformed. However, they think that the divine oracles are not altogether silent on this point; for
they ask to what purpose is it said, “How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast hidden for them
that fear Thee,”1531 if it be not to teach us that the great and hidden sweetness of God’s mercy is
concealed in order that men may fear? To the same purpose they think the apostle said, “For God
hath concluded all men in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all,”1532 signifying that no one
should be condemned by God. And yet they who hold this opinion do not extend it to the acquittal
or liberation of the devil and his angels. Their human tenderness is moved only towards men, and
they plead chiefly their own cause, holding out false hopes of impunity to their own depraved lives
by means of this quasi compassion of God to the whole race. Consequently they who promise this
impunity even to the prince of the devils and his satellites make a still fuller exhibition of the mercy
of God.
1530 Ps. lxxvii. 9.
1531 Ps. xxxi. 19.
1532 Rom. xi. 32.
748
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Chapter 19.—Of Those Who Promise Impunity from All Sins Even to Heretics, Through Virtue
of Their Participation of the Body of Christ.
So, too, there are others who promise this deliverance from eternal punishment, not, indeed, to
all men, but only to those who have been washed in Christian baptism, and who become partakers
of the body of Christ, no matter how they have lived, or what heresy or impiety they have fallen
into. They ground this opinion on the saying of Jesus, “This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.”1533 Therefore, say they, it follows that
these persons must be delivered from death eternal, and at one time or other be introduced to
everlasting life.
Chapter 20.—Of Those Who Promise This Indulgence Not to All, But Only to Those Who Have
Been Baptized as Catholics, Though Afterwards They Have Broken Out into Many Crimes and
Heresies.
There are others still who make this promise not even to all who have received the sacraments
of the baptism of Christ and of His body, but only to the catholics, however badly they have lived.
For these have eaten the body of Christ, not only sacramentally but really, being incorporated in
His body, as the apostle says, “We, being many, are one bread, one body;”1534 so that, though they
have afterwards lapsed into some heresy, or even into heathenism and idolatry, yet by virtue of this
one thing, that they have received the baptism of Christ, and eaten the body of Christ, in the body
of Christ, that is to say, in the catholic Church, they shall not die eternally, but at one time or other
468
obtain eternal life; and all that wickedness of theirs shall not avail to make their punishment eternal,
but only proportionately long and severe.
Chapter 21.—Of Those Who Assert that All Catholics Who Continue in the Faith Even Though
by the Depravity of Their Lives They Have Merited Hell Fire, Shall Be Saved on Account of
the “Foundation” Of Their Faith.
1533 John vi. 50, 51.
1534 1 Cor. x. 17.
749
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
There are some, too, who found upon the expression of Scripture, “He that endureth to the end
shall be saved,”1535 and who promise salvation only to those who continue in the Church catholic;
and though such persons have lived badly, yet, say they, they shall be saved as by fire through
virtue of the foundation of which the apostle says, “For other foundation hath no man laid than that
which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day of the
Lord shall declare it, for it shall be revealed by fire; and each man’s work shall be proved of what
sort it is. If any man’s work shall endure which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
But if any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so
as through fire.”1536 They say, accordingly, that the catholic Christian, no matter what his life be,
has Christ as his foundation, while this foundation is not possessed by any heresy which is separated
from the unity of His body. And therefore, through virtue of this foundation, even though the
catholic Christian by the inconsistency of his life has been as one building up wood, hay, stubble,
upon it, they believe that he shall be saved by fire, in other words, that he shall be delivered after
tasting the pain of that fire to which the wicked shall be condemned at the last judgment.
Chapter 22.—Of Those Who Fancy that the Sins Which are Intermingled with Alms-Deeds Shall
Not Be Charged at the Day of Judgment.
I have also met with some who are of opinion that such only as neglect to cover their sins with
alms-deeds shall be punished in everlasting fire; and they cite the words of the Apostle James, “He
shall have judgment without mercy who hath shown no mercy.”1537 Therefore, say they, he who
has not amended his ways, but yet has intermingled his profligate and wicked actions with works
of mercy, shall receive mercy in the judgment, so that he shall either quite escape condemnation,
or shall be liberated from his doom after some time shorter or longer. They suppose that this was
the reason why the Judge Himself of quick and dead declined to mention anything else than works
of mercy done or omitted, when awarding to those on His right hand life eternal, and to those on
His left everlasting punishment.1538 To the same purpose, they say, is the daily petition we make
in the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”1539 For, no doubt, whoever
pardons the person who has wronged him does a charitable action. And this has been so highly
commended by the Lord Himself, that He says, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
1535 Matt. xxiv. 13.
1536 1 Cor. iii. 11–15.
1537 Jas. ii. 13.
1538 Matt. xxv. 33.
1539 Matt. vi. 12.
750
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father
forgive your trespasses.”1540 And so it is to this kind of alms-deeds that the saying of the Apostle
James refers, “He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shown no mercy.” And our Lord,
they say, made no distinction of great and small sins, but “Your Father will forgive your sins, if ye
forgive men theirs.” Consequently they conclude that, though a man has led an abandoned life up
to the last day of it, yet whatsoever his sins have been, they are all remitted by virtue of this daily
prayer, if only he has been mindful to attend to this one thing, that when they who have done him
any injury ask his pardon, he forgive them from his heart.
When, by God’s help, I have replied to all these errors, I shall conclude this (twenty-first) book.
Chapter 23.—Against Those Who are of Opinion that the Punishment Neither of the Devil Nor of
Wicked Men Shall Be Eternal.
First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the Church has not been able to tolerate
the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and protracted
punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New Testament, did not
grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the blessedness of the heavenly
kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived that they could not invalidate
nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment,
saying, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”1541
469
For here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also
that declaration in the Apocalypse, “The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and
night for ever.”1542 In the former passage “everlasting” is used, in the latter “for ever;” and by these
words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless duration. And therefore no other reason,
no reason more obvious and just, can be found for holding it as the fixed and immovable belief of
the truest piety, that the devil and his angels shall never return to the justice and life of the saints,
than that Scripture, which deceives no man, says that God spared them not, and that they were
condemned beforehand by Him, and cast into prisons of darkness in hell,1543 being reserved to the
judgment of the last day, when eternal fire shall receive them, in which they shall be tormented
world without end. And if this be so, how can it be believed that all men, or even some, shall be
withdrawn from the endurance of punishment after some time has been spent in it? how can this
1540 Matt. vi. 14, 15.
1541 Matt. xxv. 41.
1542 Rev. xx. 10.
1543 2 Pet. ii. 4.
751
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
be believed without enervating our faith in the eternal punishment of the devils? For if all or some
of those to whom it shall be said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for
the devil and his angels,”1544 are not to be always in that fire, then what reason is there for believing
that the devil and his angels shall always be there? Or is perhaps the sentence of God, which is to
be pronounced on wicked men and angels alike, to be true in the case of the angels, false in that of
men? Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than the word of God. But
because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing
against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands. Then what a
fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal
life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms
in one and the same sentence, “These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into
life eternal!”1545 If both destinies are “eternal,” then we must either understand both as long-continued
but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative,—on the one hand, punishment
eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be
endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the
eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed
to it shall have no end.
Chapter 24.—Against Those Who Fancy that in the Judgment of God All the Accused Will Be
Spared in Virtue of the Prayers of the Saints.
And this reasoning is equally conclusive against those who, in their own interest, but under the
guise of a greater tenderness of spirit, attempt to invalidate the words of God, and who assert that
these words are true, not because men shall suffer those things which are threatened by God, but
because they deserve to suffer them. For God, they say, will yield them to the prayers of His saints,
who will then the more earnestly pray for their enemies, as they shall be more perfect in holiness,
and whose prayers will be the more efficacious and the more worthy of God’s ear, because now
purged from all sin whatsoever. Why, then, if in that perfected holiness their prayers be so pure
and all-availing, will they not use them in behalf of the angels for whom eternal fire is prepared,
that God may mitigate His sentence and alter it, and extricate them from that fire? Or will there,
perhaps, be some one hardy enough to affirm that even the holy angels will make common cause
with holy men (then become the equals of God’s angels), and will intercede for the guilty, both
men and angels, that mercy may spare them the punishment which truth has pronounced them to
deserve? But this has been asserted by no one sound in the faith; nor will be. Otherwise there is
1544 Matt. xxv. 41.
1545 Matt. xxv. 46.
752
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
no reason why the Church should not even now pray for the devil and his angels, since God her
Master has ordered her to pray for her enemies. The reason, then, which prevents the Church from
now praying for the wicked angels, whom she knows to be her enemies, is the identical reason
which shall prevent her, however perfected in holiness, from praying at the last judgment for those
men who are to be punished in eternal fire. At present she prays for her enemies among men,
because they have yet opportunity for fruitful repentance. For what does she especially beg for
them but that “God would grant them repentance,” as the apostle says, “that they may return to
soberness out of the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive according to his will?”1546
470
But if the Church were certified who those are, who, though they are still abiding in this life, are
yet predestinated to go with the devil into eternal fire, then for them she could no more pray than
for him. But since she has this certainty regarding no man, she prays for all her enemies who yet
live in this world; and yet she is not heard in behalf of all. But she is heard in the case of those
only who, though they oppose the Church, are yet predestinated to become her sons through her
intercession. But if any retain an impenitent heart until death, and are not converted from enemies
into sons, does the Church continue to pray for them, for the spirits, i.e., of such persons deceased?
And why does she cease to pray for them, unless because the man who was not translated into
Christ’s kingdom while he was in the body, is now judged to be of Satan’s following?
It is then, I say, the same reason which prevents the Church at any time from praying for the
wicked angels, which prevents her from praying hereafter for those men who are to be punished
in eternal fire; and this also is the reason why, though she prays even for the wicked so long as they
live, she yet does not even in this world pray for the unbelieving and godless who are dead. For
some of the dead, indeed, the prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for
those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life so wickedly that they can be
judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so well that they can be considered to have no need of
it.1547 As also, after the resurrection, there will be some of the dead to whom, after they have endured
the pains proper to the spirits of the dead, mercy shall be accorded, and acquittal from the punishment
of the eternal fire. For were there not some whose sins, though not remitted in this life, shall be
remitted in that which is to come, it could not be truly said, “They shall not be forgiven, neither in
this world, neither in that which is to come.”1548 But when the Judge of quick and dead has said,
“Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world,” and to those on the other side, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is
prepared for the devil and his angels,” and “These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the
1546 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26.
1547 [This contains the germ of the doctrine of purgatory, which was afterwards more fully developed by Pope Gregory I.,
and adopted by the Roman church, but rejected by the Reformers, as unfounded in Scripture, though Matt. xii. 32, and 1 Cor.
iii. 15, are quoted in support of it.—P.S.]
1548 Matt. xii. 32.
753
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
righteous into eternal life,”1549 it were excessively presumptuous to say that the punishment of any
of those whom God has said shall go away into eternal punishment shall not be eternal, and so
bring either despair or doubt upon the corresponding promise of life eternal.
Let no man then so understand the words of the Psalmist, “Shall God forget to be gracious?
shall He shut up in His anger His tender mercies”1550 as if the sentence of God were true of good
men, false of bad men, or true of good men and wicked angels, but false of bad men. For the
Psalmist’s words refer to the vessels of mercy and the children of the promise, of whom the prophet
himself was one; for when he had said, “Shall God forget to be gracious? shall He shut up in His
anger His tender mercies?” and then immediately subjoins, “And I said, Now I begin: this is the
change wrought by the right hand of the Most High,”1551 he manifestly explained what he meant
by the words, “Shall he shut up in His anger His tender mercies?” For God’s anger is this mortal
life, in which man is made like to vanity, and his days pass as a shadow.1552 Yet in this anger God
does not forget to be gracious, causing His sun to shine and His rain to descend on the just and the
unjust;1553 and thus He does not in His anger cut short His tender mercies, and especially in what
the Psalmist speaks of in the words, “Now I begin: this change is from the right hand of the Most
High;” for He changes for the better the vessels of mercy, even while they are still in this most
wretched life, which is God’s anger, and even while His anger is manifesting itself in this miserable
corruption; for “in His anger He does not shut up His tender mercies.” And since the truth of this
divine canticle is quite satisfied by this application of it, there is no need to give it a reference to
that place in which those who do not belong to the city of God are punished in eternal fire. But if
any persist in extending its application to the torments of the wicked, let them at least understand
it so that the anger of God, which has threatened the wicked with eternal punishment, shall abide,
but shall be mixed with mercy to the extent of alleviating the torments which might justly be
inflicted; so that the wicked shall neither wholly escape, nor only for a time endure these threatened
pains, but that they shall be less severe and more endurable than they deserve. Thus the anger of
God shall continue, and at the same time He will not in this anger shut up His tender mercies. But
even this hypothesis I am not to be supposed to affirm because I do not positively oppose it.1554
471
As for those who find an empty threat rather than a truth in such passages as these: “Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire;” and “These shall go away into eternal punishment;”1555
1549 Matt. xxv. 34, 41, 46.
1550 Ps. lxxvii. 9.
1551 Ps. lxxvii. 10.
1552 Ps. cxliv. 4.
1553 Matt. v. 45.
1554 It is the theory which Chrysostom adopts.
1555 Matt. xxv. 41, 46.
754
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
and “They shall be tormented for ever and ever;”1556 and “Their worm shall not die, and their fire
shall not be quenched,”1557—such persons, I say, are most emphatically and abundantly refuted, not
by me so much as by the divine Scripture itself. For the men of Nineveh repented in this life, and
therefore their repentance was fruitful, inasmuch as they sowed in that field which the Lord meant
to be sown in tears that it might afterwards be reaped in joy. And yet who will deny that God’s
prediction was fulfilled in their case, if at least he observes that God destroys sinners not only in
anger but also in compassion? For sinners are destroyed in two ways,—either, like the Sodomites,
the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like the Ninevites, the men’s sins are destroyed
by repentance. God’s prediction, therefore, was fulfilled,—the wicked Nineveh was overthrown,
and a good Nineveh built up. For its walls and houses remained standing; the city was overthrown
in its depraved manners. And thus, though the prophet was provoked that the destruction which
the inhabitants dreaded, because of his prediction, did not take place, yet that which God’s
foreknowledge had predicted did take place, for He who foretold the destruction knew how it should
be fulfilled in a less calamitous sense.
But that these perversely compassionate persons may see what is the purport of these words,
“How great is the abundance of Thy sweetness, Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear
Thee,”1558 let them read what follows: “And Thou hast perfected it for them that hope in Thee.”
For what means, “Thou hast hidden it for them that fear Thee,” “Thou hast perfected it for them
that hope in Thee,” unless this, that to those who through fear of punishment seek to establish their
own righteousness by the law, the righteousness of God is not sweet, because they are ignorant of
it? They have not tasted it. For they hope in themselves, not in Him; and therefore God’s abundant
sweetness is hidden from them. They fear God, indeed, but it is with that servile fear “which is
not in love; for perfect love casteth out fear.”1559 Therefore to them that hope in Him He perfecteth
His sweetness, inspiring them with His own love, so that with a holy fear, which love does not cast
out, but which endureth for ever, they may, when they glory, glory in the Lord. For the righteousness
of God is Christ, “who is of God made unto us,” as the apostle says, “wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption: as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”1560
This righteousness of God, which is the gift of grace without merits, is not known by those who
go about to establish their own righteousness, and are therefore not subject to the righteousness of
God, which is Christ.1561 But it is in this righteousness that we find the great abundance of God’s
sweetness, of which the psalm says, “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is.”1562 And this we rather
1556 Rev. xx. 10.
1557 Isa. lxvi. 24.
1558 Ps. xxxi. 19.
1559 1 John iv. 18.
1560 1 Cor. i. 30, 31.
1561 Rom. x. 3.
1562 Ps. xxxiv. 8.
755
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
taste than partake of to satiety in this our pilgrimage. We hunger and thirst for it now, that hereafter
we may be satisfied with it when we see Him as He is, and that is fulfilled which is written, “I shall
be satisfied when Thy glory shall be manifested.”1563 It is thus that Christ perfects the great
abundance of His sweetness to them that hope in Him. But if God conceals His sweetness from
them that fear Him in the sense that these our objectors fancy, so that men’s ignorance of His
purpose of mercy towards the wicked may lead them to fear Him and live better, and so that there
may be prayer made for those who are not living as they ought, how then does He perfect His
sweetness to them that hope in Him, since, if their dreams be true, it is this very sweetness which
will prevent Him from punishing those who do not hope in Him? Let us then seek that sweetness
of His, which He perfects to them that hope in Him, not that which He is supposed to perfect to
those who despise and blaspheme Him; for in vain, after this life, does a man seek for what he has
neglected to provide while in this life.
Then, as to that saying of the apostle, “For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may
have mercy upon all,”1564 it does not mean that He will condemn no one; but the foregoing context
shows what is meant. The apostle composed the epistle for the Gentiles who were already believers;
and when he was speaking to them of the Jews who were yet to believe, he says, “For as ye in times
past believed not God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these
also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.” Then he added the
words in question with which these persons beguile themselves: “For God concluded all in unbelief,
472
that He might have mercy upon all.” All whom, if not all those of whom he was speaking, just as
if he had said, “Both you and them?” God then concluded all those in unbelief, both Jews and
Gentiles, whom He foreknew and predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order
that they might be confounded by the bitterness of unbelief, and might repent and believingly turn
to the sweetness of God’s mercy, and might take up that exclamation of the psalm, “How great is
the abundance of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee, but hast
perfected to them that hope,” not in themselves, but “in Thee.” He has mercy, then, on all the
vessels of mercy. And what means “all?” Both those of the Gentiles and those of the Jews whom
He predestinated, called, justified, glorified: none of these will be condemned by Him; but we
cannot say none of all men whatever.
Chapter 25.—Whether Those Who Received Heretical Baptism, and Have Afterwards Fallen Away
to Wickedness of Life; Or Those Who Have Received Catholic Baptism, But Have Afterwards
Passed Over to Heresy and Schism; Or Those Who Have Remained in the Catholic Church in
1563 Ps. xvii. 15.
1564 Rom. xi. 32.
756
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Which They Were Baptized, But Have Continued to Live Immorally,—May Hope Through
the Virtue of the Sacraments for the Remission of Eternal Punishment.
But let us now reply to those who promise deliverance from eternal fire, not to the devil and
his angels (as neither do they of whom we have been speaking), nor even to all men whatever, but
only to those who have been washed by the baptism of Christ, and have become partakers of His
body and blood, no matter how they have lived, no matter what heresy or impiety they have fallen
into. But they are contradicted by the apostle, where he says, “Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variances, emulations, wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and the like: of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, for they which do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of God.”1565 Certainly this sentence of the apostle is false, if such persons
shall be delivered after any lapse of time, and shall then inherit the kingdom of God. But as it is
not false, they shall certainly never inherit the kingdom of God. And if they shall never enter that
kingdom, then they shall always be retained in eternal punishment; for there is no middle place
where he may live unpunished who has not been admitted into that kingdom.
And therefore we may reasonably inquire how we are to understand these words of the Lord
Jesus: “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever.”1566 And those, indeed, whom we are now answering, are refuted in their interpretation
of this passage by those whom we are shortly to answer, and who do not promise this deliverance
to all who have received the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s body, but only to the catholics,
however wickedly they live; for these, say they, have eaten the Lord’s body not only sacramentally,
but really, being constituted members of His body, of which the apostle says, “We being many are
one bread, one body.”1567 He then who is in the unity of Christ’s body (that is to say, in the Christian
membership), of which body the faithful have been wont to receive the sacrament at the altar, that
man is truly said to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ. And consequently heretics and
schismatics being separate from the unity of this body, are able to receive the same sacrament, but
with no profit to themselves,—nay, rather to their own hurt, so that they are rather more severely
judged than liberated after some time. For they are not in that bond of peace which is symbolized
by that sacrament.
But again, even those who sufficiently understand that he who is not in the body of Christ cannot
be said to eat the body of Christ, are in error when they promise liberation from the fire of eternal
punishment to persons who fall away from the unity of that body into heresy, or even into heathenish
1565 Gal. v. 19–21.
1566 John vi. 50, 51.
1567 1 Cor. x. 17.
757
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
superstition. For, in the first place, they ought to consider how intolerable it is, and how discordant
with sound doctrine, to suppose that many, indeed, or almost all, who have forsaken the Church
catholic, and have originated impious heresies and become heresiarchs, should enjoy a destiny
superior to those who never were catholics, but have fallen into the snares of these others; that is
to say, if the fact of their catholic baptism and original reception of the sacrament of the body of
Christ in the true body of Christ is sufficient to deliver these heresiarchs from eternal punishment.
For certainly he who deserts the faith, and from a deserter becomes an assailant, is worse than he
473
who has not deserted the faith he never held. And, in the second place, they are contradicted by
the apostle, who, after enumerating the works of the flesh, says with reference to heresies, “They
who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
And therefore neither ought such persons as lead an abandoned and damnable life to be confident
of salvation, though they persevere to the end in the communion of the Church catholic, and comfort
themselves with the words, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” By the iniquity of their
life they abandon that very righteousness of life which Christ is to them, whether it be by fornication,
or by perpetrating in their body the other uncleannesses which the apostle would not so much as
mention, or by a dissolute luxury, or by doing any one of those things of which he says, “They who
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Consequently, they who do such things shall
not exist anywhere but in eternal punishment, since they cannot be in the kingdom of God. For,
while they continue in such things to the very end of life, they cannot be said to abide in Christ to
the end; for to abide in Him is to abide in the faith of Christ. And this faith, according to the
apostle’s definition of it, “worketh by love.”1568 And “love,” as he elsewhere says, “worketh no
evil.”1569 Neither can these persons be said to eat the body of Christ, for they cannot even be
reckoned among His members. For, not to mention other reasons, they cannot be at once the
members of Christ and the members of a harlot. In fine, He Himself, when He says, “He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him,”1570 shows what it is in reality, and
not sacramentally, to eat His body and drink His blood; for this is to dwell in Christ, that He also
may dwell in us. So that it is as if He said, He that dwelleth not in me, and in whom I do not dwell,
let him not say or think that he eateth my body or drinketh my blood. Accordingly, they who are
not Christ’s members do not dwell in Him. And they who make themselves members of a harlot,
are not members of Christ unless they have penitently abandoned that evil, and have returned to
this good to be reconciled to it.
1568 Gal. v. 6.
1569 Rom. xiii. 10.
1570 John vi. 56.
758
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
Chapter 26.—What It is to Have Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation
as by Fire is Promised.
But, say they, the catholic Christians have Christ for a foundation, and they have not fallen
away from union with Him, no matter how depraved a life they have built on this foundation, as
wood, hay, stubble; and accordingly the well-directed faith by which Christ is their foundation will
suffice to deliver them some time from the continuance of that fire, though it be with loss, since
those things they have built on it shall be burned. Let the Apostle James summarily reply to them:
“If any man say he has faith, and have not works, can faith save him?”1571 And who then is it, they
ask, of whom the Apostle Paul says, “But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire?”1572 Let us
join them in their inquiry; and one thing is very certain, that it is not he of whom James speaks,
else we should make the two apostles contradict one another, if the one says, “Though a man’s
works be evil, his faith will save him as by fire,” while the other says, “If he have not good works,
can his faith save him?”
We shall then ascertain who it is who can be saved by fire, if we first discover what it is to have
Christ for a foundation. And this we may very readily learn from the image itself. In a building
the foundation is first. Whoever, then, has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal
things—not even those that are legitimate and allowed—are preferred to Him, has Christ as a
foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ,
yet Christ is not the foundation to that man; and much more if he, in contempt of wholesome
precepts, seek forbidden gratifications, is he clearly convicted of putting Christ not first but last,
since he has despised Him as his ruler, and has preferred to fulfill his own wicked lusts, in contempt
of Christ’s commands and allowances. Accordingly, if any Christian man loves a harlot, and,
attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now Christ for a foundation. But if any
one loves his own wife, and loves her as Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that he
has Christ for a foundation? But if he loves her in the world’s fashion, carnally, as the disease of
lust prompts him, and as the Gentiles love who know not God, even this the apostle, or rather Christ
by the apostle, allows as a venial fault. And therefore even such a man may have Christ for a
foundation. For so long as he does not prefer such an affection or pleasure to Christ, Christ is his
474
foundation, though on it he builds wood, hay, stubble; and therefore he shall be saved as by fire.
For the fire of affliction shall burn such luxurious pleasures and earthly loves, though they be not
damnable, because enjoyed in lawful wedlock. And of this fire the fuel is bereavement, and all
those calamities which consume these joys. Consequently the superstructure will be loss to him
who has built it, for he shall not retain it, but shall be agonized by the loss of those things in the
1571 Jas. ii. 14.
1572 1 Cor. iii. 15. [This is the chief passage quoted in favor of purgatory. See note on p. 470. The Apostle uses a figurative
term for narrow escape from perdition.—P.S.]
759
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
enjoyment of which he found pleasure. But by this fire he shall be saved through virtue of the
foundation, because even if a persecutor demanded whether he would retain Christ or these things,
he would prefer Christ. Would you hear, in the apostle’s own words, who he is who builds on the
foundation gold, silver, precious stones? “He that is unmarried,” he says, “careth for the things
that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.”1573 Would you hear who he is that buildeth
wood, hay, stubble? “But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may
please his wife.1574 “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,”—the
day, no doubt, of tribulation—“because,” says he, “it shall be revealed by fire.”1575 He calls
tribulation fire, just as it is elsewhere said, “The furnace proves the vessels of the potter, and the
trial of affliction righteous men.”1576 And “The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
If any man’s work abide”—for a man’s care for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord,
abides—“which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward,”—that is, he shall reap the fruit
of his care. “But if any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss,”—for what he loved he
shall not retain:—“ but he himself shall be saved,”—for no tribulation shall have moved him from
that stable foundation,—“yet so as by fire;”1577 for that which he possessed with the sweetness of
love he does not lose without the sharp sting of pain. Here, then, as seems to me, we have a fire
which destroys neither, but enriches the one, brings loss to the other, proves both.
But if this passage [of Corinthians] is to interpret that fire of which the Lord shall say to those
on His left hand, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,”1578 so that among these we are
to believe there are those who build on the foundation wood, hay, stubble, and that they, through
virtue of the good foundation, shall after a time be liberated from the fire that is the award of their
evil deserts, what then shall we think of those on the right hand, to whom it shall be said, “Come,
ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,”1579 unless that they are those who
have built on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? But if the fire of which our Lord speaks
is the same as that of which the apostle says, “Yet so as by fire,” then both—that is to say, both
those on the right as well as those on the left—are to be cast into it. For that fire is to try both,
since it is said, “For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and
the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”1580 If, therefore, the fire shall try both, in
order that if any man’s work abide—i.e., if the superstructure be not consumed by the fire—he may
1573 1 Cor. vii. 32.
1574 1 Cor. vii. 33.
1575 1 Cor. iii. 13.
1576 Ecclus. xxvii. 5.
1577 1 Cor. iii. 14, 15.
1578 Matt. xxv. 41.
1579 Matt. xxv. 34.
1580 1 Cor. iii. 13.
760
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
receive a reward, and that if his work is burned he may suffer loss, certainly that fire is not the
eternal fire itself. For into this latter fire only those on the left hand shall be cast, and that with
final and everlasting doom; but that former fire proves those on the right hand. But some of them
it so proves that it does not burn and consume the structure which is found to have been built by
them on Christ as the foundation; while others of them it proves in another fashion, so as to burn
what they have built up, and thus cause them to suffer loss, while they themselves are saved because
they have retained Christ, who was laid as their sure foundation, and have loved Him above all.
But if they are saved, then certainly they shall stand at the right hand, and shall with the rest hear
the sentence, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you;” and not at
the left hand, where those shall be who shall not be saved, and shall therefore hear the doom, “Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.” For from that fire no man shall be saved, because they
all shall go away into eternal punishment, where their worms shall not die, nor their fire be quenched,
in which they shall be tormented day and night for ever.
But if it be said that in the interval of time between the death of this body and that last day of
judgment and retribution which shall follow the resurrection, the bodies of the dead shall be exposed
to a fire of such a nature that it shall not affect those who have not in this life indulged in such
pleasures and pursuits as shall be consumed like wood, hay, stubble, but shall affect those others
475
who have carried with them structures of that kind; if it be said that such worldliness, being venial,
shall be consumed in the fire of tribulation either here only, or here and hereafter both, or here that
it may not be hereafter,—this I do not contradict, because possibly it is true. For perhaps even the
death of the body is itself a part of this tribulation, for it results from the first transgression, so that
the time which follows death takes its color in each case from the nature of the man’s building.
The persecutions, too, which have crowned the martyrs, and which Christians of all kinds suffer,
try both buildings like a fire, consuming some, along with the builders themselves, if Christ is not
found in them as their foundation, while others they consume without the builders, because Christ
is found in them, and they are saved, though with loss; and other buildings still they do not consume,
because such materials as abide for ever are found in them. In the end of the world there shall be
in the time of Antichrist tribulation such as has never before been. How many edifices there shall
then be, of gold or of hay, built on the best foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove,
bringing joy to some, loss to others, but without destroying either sort, because of this stable
foundation! But whosoever prefers, I do not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure,
but any of those relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom it is right to
love,—whosoever prefers these to Christ, and loves them after a human and carnal fashion, has not
Christ as a foundation, and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at all; for he shall not
possibly dwell with the Saviour, who says very explicitly concerning this very matter, “He that
loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me.”1581 But he who loves his relations carnally, and yet so that he does
1581 Matt. x. 37.
761
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
not prefer them to Christ, but would rather want them than Christ if he were put to the proof, shall
be saved by fire, because it is necessary that by the loss of these relations he suffer pain in proportion
to his love. And he who loves father, mother, sons, daughters, according to Christ, so that he aids
them in obtaining His kingdom and cleaving to Him, or loves them because they are members of
Christ, God forbid that this love should be consumed as wood, hay, stubble, and not rather be
reckoned a structure of gold, silver, precious stones. For how can a man love those more than
Christ whom he loves only for Christ’s sake?
Chapter 27.—Against the Belief of Those Who Think that the Sins Which Have Been Accompanied
with Almsgiving Will Do Them No Harm.
It remains to reply to those who maintain that those only shall burn in eternal fire who neglect
alms-deeds proportioned to their sins, resting this opinion on the words of the Apostle James, “He
shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy.”1582 Therefore, they say, he that
hath showed mercy, though he has not reformed his dissolute conduct, but has lived wickedly and
iniquitously even while abounding in alms, shall have a merciful judgment, so that he shall either
be not condemned at all, or shall be delivered from final judgment after a time. And for the same
reason they suppose that Christ will discriminate between those on the right hand and those on the
left, and will send the one party into His kingdom, the other into eternal punishment, on the sole
ground of their attention to or neglect of works of charity. Moreover, they endeavor to use the
prayer which the Lord Himself taught as a proof and bulwark of their opinion, that daily sins which
are never abandoned can be expiated through alms-deeds, no matter how offensive or of what sort
they be. For, say they, as there is no day on which Christians ought not to use this prayer, so there
is no sin of any kind which, though committed every day, is not remitted when we say, “Forgive
us our debts,” if we take care to fulfill what follows, “as we forgive our debtors.”1583 For, they go
on to say, the Lord does not say, “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
forgive you your little daily sins,” but “will forgive you your sins.” Therefore, be they of any kind
or magnitude whatever, be they perpetrated daily and never abandoned or subdued in this life, they
can be pardoned, they presume, through alms-deeds.
But they are right to inculcate the giving of aims proportioned to past sins; for if they said that
any kind of alms could obtain the divine pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual
enormity, if they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted, they would see that their doctrine
was absurd and ridiculous. For they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it were possible for
a very wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all manner of wickedness, by
1582 Jas. ii. 13.
1583 Matt. vi. 12.
762
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. And if it be most absurd and insane to make such an
476
acknowledgment, and if we still ask what are those fitting alms of which even the forerunner of
Christ said, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance,”1584 undoubtedly it will be found that
they are not such as are done by men who undermine their life by daily enormities even to the very
end. For they suppose that by giving to the poor a small fraction of the wealth they acquire by
extortion and spoliation they can propitiate Christ, so that they may with impunity commit the most
damnable sins, in the persuasion that they have bought from Him a license to transgress, or rather
do buy a daily indulgence. And if they for one crime have distributed all their goods to Christ’s
needy members, that could profit them nothing unless they desisted from all similar actions, and
attained charity which worketh no evil He therefore who does alms-deeds proportioned to his sins
must first begin with himself. For it is not reasonable that a man who exercises charity towards
his neighbor should not do so towards himself, since he hears the Lord saying, “Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself,”1585 and again, “Have compassion on thy soul, and please God.”1586 He then
who has not compassion on his own soul that he may please God, how can he be said to do
alms-deeds proportioned to his sins? To the same purpose is that written, “He who is bad to himself,
to whom can he be good?”1587 We ought therefore to do alms that we may be heard when we pray
that our past sins may be forgiven, not that while we continue in them we may think to provide
ourselves with a license for wickedness by alms-deeds.
The reason, therefore, of our predicting that He will impute to those on His right hand the
alms-deeds they have done, and charge those on His left with omitting the same, is that He may
thus show the efficacy of charity for the deletion of past sins, not for impunity in their perpetual
commission. And such persons, indeed, as decline to abandon their evil habits of life for a better
course cannot be said to do charitable deeds. For this is the purport of the saying, “Inasmuch as
ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.”1588 He shows them that they do not
perform charitable actions even when they think they are doing so. For if they gave bread to a
hungering Christian because he is a Christian, assuredly they would not deny to themselves the
bread of righteousness, that is, Christ Himself; for God considers not the person to whom the gift
is made, but the spirit in which it is made. He therefore who loves Christ in a Christian extends
alms to him in the same spirit in which he draws near to Christ, not in that spirit which would
abandon Christ if it could do so with impunity. For in proportion as a man loves what Christ
disapproves does he himself abandon Christ. For what does it profit a man that he is baptized, if
he is not justified? Did not He who said, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he shall
1584 Matt. iii. 8.
1585 Matt. xxii. 39.
1586 Ecclus. xxx. 24.
1587 Ecclus. xxi. 1.
1588 Matt. xxv. 45.
763
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
not enter into the kingdom of God,”1589 say also, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven?”1590 Why
do many through fear of the first saying run to baptism, while few through fear of the second seek
to be justified? As therefore it is not to his brother a man says, “Thou fool,” if when he says it he
is indignant not at the brotherhood, but at the sin of the offender,—for otherwise he were guilty of
hell fire,—so he who extends charity to a Christian does not extend it to a Christian if he does not
love Christ in him. Now he does not love Christ who refuses to be justified in Him. Or, again, if
a man has been guilty of this sin of calling his brother Fool, unjustly reviling him without any desire
to remove his sin, his alms-deeds go a small way towards expiating this fault, unless he adds to this
the remedy of reconciliation which the same passage enjoins. For it is there said, “Therefore, if
thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and
offer thy gift.”1591 Just so it is a small matter to do alms-deeds, no matter how great they be, for
any sin, so long as the offender continues in the practice of sin.
Then as to the daily prayer which the Lord Himself taught, and which is therefore called the
Lord’s prayer, it obliterates indeed the sins of the day, when day by day we say, “Forgive us our
debts,” and when we not only say but act out that which follows, “as we forgive our debtors;”1592
but we utter this petition because sins have been committed, and not that they may be. For by it
our Saviour designed to teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of infirmity and
darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we ought to pray, while we must pardon
those who sin against us that we ourselves also may be pardoned. The Lord then did not utter the
words, “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also forgive you your trespasses,”1593
477
in order that we might contract from this petition such confidence as should enable us to sin securely
from day to day, either putting ourselves above the fear of human laws, or craftily deceiving men
concerning our conduct, but in order that we might thus learn not to suppose that we are without
sins, even though we should be free from crimes; as also God admonished the priests of the old
law to this same effect regarding their sacrifices, which He commanded them to offer first for their
own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For even the very words of so great a Master and
Lord are to be intently considered. For He does not say, If ye forgive men their sins, your Father
will also forgive you your sins, no matter of what sort they be, but He says, your sins; for it was a
daily prayer He was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples already justified He was speaking.
What, then, does He mean by “your sins,” but those sins from which not even you who are justified
and sanctified can be free? While, then, those who seek occasion from this petition to indulge in
1589 John iii. 5.
1590 Matt. v. 20.
1591 Matt. v. 23, 24.
1592 Matt. vi. 12.
1593 Matt. vi. 14.
764
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
habitual sin maintain that the Lord meant to include great sins, because He did not say, He will
forgive you your small sins, but “your sins,” we, on the other hand, taking into account the character
of the persons He was addressing, cannot see our way to interpret the expression “your sins” of
anything but small sins, because such persons are no longer guilty of great sins. Nevertheless not
even great sins themselves—sins from which we must flee with a total reformation of life—are
forgiven to those who pray, unless they observe the appended precept, “as ye also forgive your
debtors.” For if the very small sins which attach even to the life of the righteous be not remitted
without that condition, how much further from obtaining indulgence shall those be who are involved
in many great crimes, if, while they cease from perpetrating such enormities, they still inexorably
refuse to remit any debt incurred to themselves, since the Lord says, “But if ye forgive not men
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses?”1594 For this is the purport of the
saying of the Apostle James also, “He shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no
mercy.”1595 For we should remember that servant whose debt of ten thousand talents his lord
cancelled, but afterwards ordered him to pay up, because the servant himself had no pity for his
fellow-servant, who owed him an hundred pence.1596 The words which the Apostle James
subjoins,“And mercy rejoiceth against judgment,”1597 find their application among those who are
the children of the promise and vessels of mercy. For even those righteous men, who have lived
with such holiness that they receive into the eternal habitations others also who have won their
friendship with the mammon of unrighteousness,1598 became such only through the merciful
deliverance of Him who justifies the ungodly, imputing to him a reward according to grace, not
according to debt. For among this number is the apostle, who says, “I obtained mercy to be
faithful.”1599
But it must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the eternal habitations are not of
such a character that their own life would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and
consequently in their case especially does mercy rejoice against judgment. And yet we are not on
this account to suppose that every abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life,
is to be received into the eternal habitations if only he has assisted the saints with the mammon of
unrighteousness,—that is to say, with money or wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if
rightfully acquired, is yet not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts riches, because it knows
not the true riches in which those persons abound, who even receive others also into eternal
habitations. There is then a certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand, so bad that those
1594 Matt. vi. 15.
1595 Jas. ii. 13.
1596 Matt. xviii. 23.
1597 Jas. ii. 13.
1598 Luke xvi. 9.
1599 1 Cor. vii. 25.
765
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
who adopt it are not helped towards the kingdom of heaven by any bountiful alms-giving by which
they may relieve the wants of the saints, and make friends who could receive them into eternal
habitations, nor, on the other hand, so good that it of itself suffices to win for them that great
blessedness, if they do not obtain mercy through the merits of those whom they have made their
friends. And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give expression to this sentence of the
Lord, in which He says, “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they
may receive you into everlasting habitations;”1600 and this very similar saying, “He that receiveth
a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous
man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward.”1601 For when that
poet described the Elysian fields, in which they suppose that the souls of the blessed dwell, he
placed there not only those who had been able by their own merit to reach that abode, but added,—
“And they who grateful memory won
By services to others done;”1602
478
that is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be remembered by them. Just as if
they used the expression so common in Christian lips, where some humble person commends
himself to one of the saints, and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so by deserving well
at his hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and what those sins are which
prevent a man from winning the kingdom of God by himself, but yet permit him to avail himself
of the merits of the saints, it is very difficult to ascertain, very perilous to define. For my own part,
in spite of all investigation, I have been up to the present hour unable to discover this. And possibly
it is hidden from us, lest we should become careless in avoiding such sins, and so cease to make
progress. For if it were known what these sins are which, though they continue, and be not
abandoned for a higher life, do yet not prevent us from seeking and hoping for the intercession of
the saints, human sloth would presumptuously wrap itself in these sins, and would take no steps to
be disentangled from such wrappings by the deft energy of any virtue, but would only desire to be
rescued by the merits of other people, whose friendship had been won by a bountiful use of the
mammon of unrighteousness. But now that we are left in ignorance of the precise nature of that
iniquity which is venial, even though it be persevered in, certainly we are both more vigilant in our
prayers and efforts for progress, and more careful to secure with the mammon of unrighteousness
friends for ourselves among the saints.
But this deliverance, which is effected by one’s own prayers, or the intercession of holy men,
secures that a man be not cast into eternal fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he
should after a time be rescued from it. For even those who fancy that what is said of the good
ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold, is to be referred
1600 Luke xvi. 9.
1601 Matt. x. 41.
1602 Æn.vi. 664.
766
NPNF (V1-02) Philip Schaff
to the saints, so that in proportion to their merits some of them shall deliver thirty men, some sixty,
some an hundred,—even those who maintain this are yet commonly inclined to suppose that this
deliverance will take place at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this impression, some one
who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves impunity on the ground that
all will be included in this method of deliverance, is reported to have very happily remarked, that
we should rather endeavor to live so well that we shall be all found among the number of those
who are to intercede for the liberation of others, lest these should be so few in number, that, after
they have delivered one thirty, another sixty, another a hundred, there should still remain many
who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions, and among them every one
who has vainly and rashly promised himself the fruit of another’s labor. But enough has been said
in reply to those who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred Scriptures as ourselves, but
who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive of the future rather as they themselves wish,
than as the Scriptures teach. And having given this reply, I now, according to promise, close this
book.

Go to Next Page