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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 22

Argument—This book treats of the end of the city of God, that is to say, of the eternal happiness
of the saints; the faith of the resurrection of the body is established and explained; and the work
concludes by showing how the saints, clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, shall be employed.
Chapter 1.—Of the Creation of Angels and Men.
As we promised in the immediately preceeding book, this, the last of the whole work, shall
contain a discussion of the eternal blessedness of the city of God. This blessedness is named eternal,
not because it shall endure for many ages, though at last it shall come to an end, but because,
according to the words of the gospel, “of His kingdom there shall be no end.”1603 Neither shall it
enjoy the mere appearance of perpetuity which is maintained by the rise of fresh generations to
occupy the place of those that have died out, as in an evergreen the same freshness seems to continue
permanently, and the same appearance of dense foliage is preserved by the growth of fresh leaves
in the room of those that have withered and fallen; but in that city all the citizens shall be immortal,
men now for the first time enjoying what the holy angels have never lost. And this shall be
accomplished by God, the most almighty Founder of the city. For He has promised it, and cannot
1603 Luke i. 33.
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lie, and has already performed many of His promises, and has done many unpromised kindnesses
to those whom He now asks to believe that He will do this also.
For it is He who in the beginning created the world full of all visible and intelligible beings,
among which He created nothing better than those spirits whom He endowed with intelligence,
and made capable of contemplating and enjoying Him, and united in our society, which we call the
holy and heavenly city, and in which the material of their sustenance and blessedness is God Himself,
as it were their common food and nourishment. It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free-will
of such a kind, that if he wished to forsake God, i.e., his blessedness, misery should forthwith
result. It is He who, when He foreknew that certain angels would in their pride desire to suffice
for their own blessedness, and would forsake their great good, did not deprive them of this power,
deeming it to be more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of evil than to prevent
the evil from coming into existence. And indeed evil had never been, had not the mutable
nature—mutable, though good, and created by the most high God and immutable Good, who created
all things good—brought evil upon itself by sin. And this its sin is itself proof that its nature was
originally good. For had it not been very good, though not equal to its Creator, the desertion of
God as its light could not have been an evil to it. For as blindness is a vice of the eye, and this very
fact indicates that the eye was created to see the light, and as, consequently, vice itself proves that
the eye is more excellent than the other members, because it is capable of light (for on no other
supposition would it be a vice of the eye to want light), so the nature which once enjoyed God
teaches, even by its very vice, that it was created the best of all, since it is now miserable because
it does not enjoy God. It is he who with very just punishment doomed the angels who voluntarily
fell to everlasting misery, and rewarded those who continued in their attachment to the supreme
good with the assurance of endless stability as the meed of their fidelity. It is He who made also
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man himself upright, with the same freedom of will,—an earthly animal, indeed, but fit for heaven
if he remained faithful to his Creator, but destined to the misery appropriate to such a nature if he
forsook Him. It is He who when He foreknew that man would in his turn sin by abandoning God
and breaking His law, did not deprive him of the power of free-will, because He at the same time
foresaw what good He Himself would bring out of the evil, and how from this mortal race, deservedly
and justly condemned, He would by His grace collect, as now He does, a people so numerous, that
He thus fills up and repairs the blank made by the fallen angels, and that thus that beloved and
heavenly city is not defrauded of the full number of its citizens, but perhaps may even rejoice in a
still more overflowing population.
Chapter 2.—Of the Eternal and Unchangeable Will of God.
It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God’s will; but so great is His wisdom
and power, that all things which seem adverse to His purpose do still tend towards those just and
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good ends and issues which He Himself has foreknown. And consequently, when God is said to
change His will, as when, e.g., He becomes angry with those to whom He was gentle, it is rather
they than He who are changed, and they find Him changed in so far as their experience of suffering
at His hand is new, as the sun is changed to injured eyes, and becomes as it were fierce from being
mild, and hurtful from being delightful, though in itself it remains the same as it was. That also is
called the will of God which He does in the hearts of those who obey His commandments; and of
this the apostle says, “For it is God that worketh in you both to will.”1604 As God’s “righteousness”
is used not only of the righteousness wherewith He Himself is righteous, but also of that which He
produces in the man whom He justifies, so also that is called His law, which, though given by God,
is rather the law of men. For certainly they were men to whom Jesus said, “It is written in your
law,”1605 though in another place we read, “The law of his God is in his heart.”1606 According to
this will which God works in men, He is said also to will what He Himself does not will, but causes
His people to will; as He is said to know what He has caused those to know who were ignorant of
it. For when the apostle says, “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of
God,”1607 we cannot suppose that God there for the first time knew those who were foreknown by
Him before the foundation of the world; but He is said to have known them then, because then He
caused them to know. But I remember that I discussed these modes of expression in the preceding
books. According to this will, then, by which we say that God wills what He causes to be willed
by others, from whom the future is hidden, He wills many things which He does not perform.
Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which never happen. They pray,
e.g., for certain individuals—they pray in a pious and holy manner—but what they request He does
not perform, though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them this will to pray.
And consequently, when the saints, in conformity with God’s mind, will and pray that all men be
saved, we can use this mode of expression: God wills and does not perform,—meaning that He
who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if we speak of that will of His which
is eternal as His foreknowledge, certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth
that He has willed,—not only past and present things, but even things still future. But before the
arrival of that time in which He has willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged before
all time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant not only of the time in
which it is to be, but even whether it shall be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills,—not because
God will then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event, which from eternity
has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall then come to pass.
1604 Phil. ii. 13.
1605 John viii. 17.
1606 Ps. xxxvii. 31.
1607 Gal. iv. 9.
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Chapter 3.—Of the Promise of Eternal Blessedness to the Saints, and Everlasting Punishment to
the Wicked.
Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see in Christ the fulfillment
of that which God promised to Abraham when He said, “In thy seed shall all nations be blessed,”1608
so this also shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said by the prophet,
“They that are in their sepulchres shall rise again,”1609 and also, “There shall be a new heaven and
a new earth: and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they shall find joy
and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy. And I will rejoice
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in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her.”1610
And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction: “At that time thy people shall be delivered,
every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust” (or, as
some interpret it, “in the mound”) “of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to
shame and everlasting contempt.”1611 And in another place by the same prophet: “The saints of
the Most High shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and
ever.”1612 And a little after he says, “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.”1613 Other prophecies
referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book, and others still which I have
not advanced are found written in the same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as
those also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For it is the same God
who promised both, and predicted that both would come to pass,—the God whom the pagan deities
tremble before, as even Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.
Chapter 4.—Against the Wise Men of the World, Who Fancy that the Earthly Bodies of Men Cannot
Be Transferred to a Heavenly Habitation.
But men who use their learning and intellectual ability to resist the force of that great authority
which, in fulfillment of what was so long before predicted, has converted all races of men to faith
and hope in its promises, seem to themselves to argue acutely against the resurrection of the body
while they cite what Cicero mentions in the third book De Republica. For when he was asserting
1608 Gen. xxii. 18.
1609 Isa. xxvi. 19.
1610 Isa. lxv. 17–19.
1611 Dan. xii. 1, 2.
1612 Dan. vii. 18.
1613 Dan. vii. 27.
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the apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus, he says: “Whose bodies were not taken up into heaven;
for nature would not permit a body of earth to exist anywhere except upon earth.” This, forsooth,
is the profound reasoning of the wise men, whose thoughts God knows that they are vain. For if
we were only souls, that is, spirits without any body, and if we dwelt in heaven and had no knowledge
of earthly animals, and were told that we should be bound to earthly bodies by some wonderful
bond of union, and should animate them, should we not much more vigorously refuse to believe
this, and maintain that nature would not permit an incorporeal substance to be held by a corporeal
bond? And yet the earth is full of living spirits, to which terrestrial bodies are bound, and with
which they are in a wonderful way implicated. If, then, the same God who has created such beings
wills this also, what is to hinder the earthly body from being raised to a heavenly body, since a
spirit, which is more excellent than all bodies, and consequently than even a heavenly body, has
been tied to an earthly body? If so small an earthly particle has been able to hold in union with
itself something better than a heavenly body, so as to receive sensation and life, will heaven disdain
to receive, or at least to retain, this sentient and living particle, which derives its life and sensation
from a substance more excellent than any heavenly body? If this does not happen now, it is because
the time is not yet come which has been determined by Him who has already done a much more
marvellous thing than that which these men refuse to believe. For why do we not more intensely
wonder that incorporeal souls, which are of higher rank than heavenly bodies, are bound to earthly
bodies, rather than that bodies, although earthly, are exalted to an abode which, though heavenly,
is yet corporeal, except because we have been accustomed to see this, and indeed are this, while
we are not as yet that other marvel, nor have as yet ever seen it? Certainly, if we consult sober
reason, the more wonderful of the two divine works is found to be to attach somehow corporeal
things to incorporeal, and not to connect earthly things with heavenly, which, though diverse, are
yet both of them corporeal.
Chapter 5.—Of the Resurrection of the Flesh, Which Some Refuse to Believe, Though the World
at Large Believes It.
But granting that this was once incredible, behold, now, the world has come to the belief that
the earthly body of Christ was received up into heaven. Already both the learned and unlearned
have believed in the resurrection of the flesh and its ascension to the heavenly places, while only
a very few either of the educated or uneducated are still staggered by it. If this is a credible thing
which is believed, then let those who do not believe see how stolid they are; and if it is incredible,
then this also is an incredible thing, that what is incredible should have received such credit. Here
then we have two incredibles,—to wit, the resurrection of our body to eternity, and that the world
should believe so incredible a thing; and both these incredibles the same God predicted should
come to pass before either had as yet occurred. We see that already one of the two has come to
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pass, for the world has believed what was incredible; why should we despair that the remaining
one shall also come to pass, and that this which the world believed, though it was incredible, shall
itself occur? For already that which was equally incredible has come to pass, in the world’s believing
an incredible thing. Both were incredible: the one we see accomplished, the other we believe shall
be; for both were predicted in those same Scriptures by means of which the world believed. And
the very manner in which the world’s faith was won is found to be even more incredible if we
consider it. Men uninstructed in any branch of a liberal education, without any of the refinement
of heathen learning, unskilled in grammar, not armed with dialectic, not adorned with rhetoric, but
plain fishermen, and very few in number,—these were the men whom Christ sent with the nets of
faith to the sea of this world, and thus took out of every race so many fishes, and even the
philosophers themselves, wonderful as they are rare. Let us add, if you please, or because you
ought to be pleased, this third incredible thing to the two former. And now we have three incredibles,
all of which have yet come to pass. It is incredible that Jesus Christ should have risen in the flesh
and ascended with flesh into heaven; it is incredible that the world should have believed so incredible
a thing; it is incredible that a very few men, of mean birth and the lowest rank, and no education,
should have been able so effectually to persuade the world, and even its learned men, of so incredible
a thing. Of these three incredibles, the parties with whom we are debating refuse to believe the
first; they cannot refuse to see the second, which they are unable to account for if they do not believe
the third. It is indubitable that the resurrection of Christ, and His ascension into heaven with the
flesh in which He rose, is already preached and believed in the whole world. If it is not credible,
how is it that it has already received credence in the whole world? If a number of noble, exalted,
and learned men had said that they had witnessed it, and had been at pains to publish what they
had witnessed, it were not wonderful that the world should have believed it, but it were very stubborn
to refuse credence; but if, as is true, the world has believed a few obscure, inconsiderable, uneducated
persons, who state and write that they witnessed it, is it not unreasonable that a handful of
wrong-headed men should oppose themselves to the creed of the whole world, and refuse their
belief? And if the world has put faith in a small number of men, of mean birth and the lowest rank,
and no education, it is because the divinity of the thing itself appeared all the more manifestly in
such contemptible witnesses. The eloquence, indeed, which lent persuasion to their message,
consisted of wonderful works, not words. For they who had not seen Christ risen in the flesh, nor
ascending into heaven with His risen body, believed those who related how they had seen these
things, and who testified not only with words but wonderful signs. For men whom they knew to
be acquainted with only one, or at most two languages, they marvelled to hear speaking in the
tongues of all nations. They saw a man, lame from his mother’s womb, after forty years stand up
sound at their word in the name of Christ; that handkerchiefs taken from their bodies had virtue to
heal the sick; that countless persons, sick of various diseases, were laid in a row in the road where
they were to pass, that their shadow might fall on them as they walked, and that they forthwith
received health; that many other stupendous miracles were wrought by them in the name of Christ;
and, finally, that they even raised the dead. If it be admitted that these things occurred as they are
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related, then we have a multitude of incredible things to add to those three incredibles. That the
one incredibility of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ may be believed, we accumulate
the testimonies of countless incredible miracles, but even so we do not bend the frightful obstinacy
of these sceptics. But if they do not believe that these miracles were wrought by Christ’s apostles
to gain credence to their preaching of His resurrection and ascension, this one grand miracle suffices
for us, that the whole world has believed without any miracles.
Chapter 6.—That Rome Made Its Founder Romulus a God Because It Loved Him; But the Church
Loved Christ Because It Believed Him to Be God.
Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his astonishment that the apotheosis of
Romulus should have been credited. I shall insert his words as they stand: “It is most worthy of
remark in Romulus, that other men who are said to have become gods lived in less educated ages,
when there was a greater propensity to the fabulous, and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded
to believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years ago, and already literature
and science had dispelled the errors that attach to an uncultured age.” And a little after he says of
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the same Romulus words to this effect: “From this we may perceive that Homer had flourished
long before Romulus, and that there was now so much learning in individuals, and so generally
diffused an enlightenment, that scarcely any room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted fables,
and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but this age [of Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to
reject whatever had not the air of truth.” Thus one of the most learned men, and certainly the most
eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it is surprising that the divinity of Romulus was believed in,
because the times were already so enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous fiction. But
who believed that Romulus was a god except Rome, which was itself small and in its infancy?
Then afterwards it was necessary that succeeding generations should preserve the tradition of their
ancestors; that, drinking in this superstition with their mother’s milk, the state might grow and come
to such power that it might dictate this belief, as from a point of vantage, to all the nations over
whom its sway extended. And these nations, though they might not believe that Romulus was a
god, at least said so, that they might not give offence to their sovereign state by refusing to give its
founder that title which was given him by Rome, which had adopted this belief, not by a love of
error, but an error of love. But though Christ is the founder of the heavenly and eternal city, yet it
did not believe Him to be God because it was founded by Him, but rather it is founded by Him, in
virtue of its belief. Rome, after it had been built and dedicated, worshipped its founder in a temple
as a god; but this Jerusalem laid Christ, its God, as its foundation, that the building and dedication
might proceed. The former city loved its founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter
believed Christ to be God, and therefore loved Him. There was an antecedent cause for the love
of the former city, and for its believing that even a false dignity attached to the object of its love;
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so there was an antecedent cause for the belief of the latter, and for its loving the true dignity which
a proper faith, not a rash surmise, ascribed to its object. For, not to mention the multitude of very
striking miracles which proved that Christ is God, there were also divine prophecies heralding Him,
prophecies most worthy of belief, which being already accomplished, we have not, like the fathers,
to wait for their verification. Of Romulus, on the other hand, and of his building Rome and reigning
in it, we read or hear the narrative of what did take place, not prediction which beforehand said
that such things should be. And so far as his reception among the gods is concerned, history only
records that this was believed, and does not state it as a fact; for no miraculous signs testified to
the truth of this. For as to that wolf which is said to have nursed the twin-brothers, and which is
considered a great marvel, how does this prove him to have been divine? For even supposing that
this nurse was a real wolf and not a mere courtezan, yet she nursed both brothers, and Remus is
not reckoned a god. Besides, what was there to hinder any one from asserting that Romulus or
Hercules, or any such man, was a god? Or who would rather choose to die than profess belief in
his divinity? And did a single nation worship Romulus among its gods, unless it were forced
through fear of the Roman name? But who can number the multitudes who have chosen death in
the most cruel shapes rather than deny the divinity of Christ? And thus the dread of some slight
indignation, which it was supposed, perhaps groundlessly, might exist in the minds of the Romans,
constrained some states who were subject to Rome to worship Romulus as a god; whereas the
dread, not of a slight mental shock, but of severe and various punishments, and of death itself, the
most formidable of all, could not prevent an immense multitude of martyrs throughout the world
from not merely worshipping but also confessing Christ as God. The city of Christ, which, although
as yet a stranger upon earth, had countless hosts of citizens, did not make war upon its godless
persecutors for the sake of temporal security, but preferred to win eternal salvation by abstaining
from war. They were bound, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, burned, torn in pieces, massacred, and
yet they multiplied. It was not given to them to fight for their eternal salvation except by despising
their temporal salvation for their Saviour’s sake.
I am aware that Cicero, in the third book of his De Republica, if I mistake not, argues that a
first-rate power will not engage in war except either for honor or for safety. What he has to say
about the question of safety, and what he means by safety, he explains in another place, saying,
“Private persons frequently evade, by a speedy death, destitution, exile, bonds, the scourge, and
the other pains which even the most insensible feel. But to states, death, which seems to emancipate
individuals from all punishments, is itself a punishment; for a state should be so constituted as to
be eternal. And thus death is not natural to a republic as to a man, to whom death is not only
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necessary, but often even desirable. But when a state is destroyed, obliterated, annihilated, it is
as if (to compare great things with small) this whole world perished and collapsed.” Cicero said
this because he, with the Platonists, believed that the world would not perish. It is therefore agreed
that, according to Cicero, a state should engage in war for the safety which preserves the state
permanently in existence though its citizens change; as the foliage of an olive or laurel, or any tree
of this kind, is perennial, the old leaves being replaced by fresh ones. For death, as he says, is no
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punishment to individuals, but rather delivers them from all other punishments, but it is a punishment
to the state. And therefore it is reasonably asked whether the Saguntines did right when they chose
that their whole state should perish rather than that they should break faith with the Roman republic;
for this deed of theirs is applauded by the citizens of the earthly republic. But I do not see how
they could follow the advice of Cicero, who tell us that no war is to be undertaken save for safety
or for honor; neither does he say which of these two is to be preferred, if a case should occur in
which the one could not be preserved without the loss of the other. For manifestly, if the Saguntines
chose safety, they must break faith; if they kept faith, they must reject safety; as also it fell out.
But the safety of the city of God is such that it can be retained, or rather acquired, by faith and with
faith; but if faith be abandoned, no one can attain it. It is this thought of a most steadfast and patient
spirit that has made so many noble martyrs, while Romulus has not had, and could not have, so
much as one to die for his divinity.
Chapter 7.—That the World’s Belief in Christ is the Result of Divine Power, Not of Human
Persuasion.
But it is thoroughly ridiculous to make mention of the false divinity of Romulus as any way
comparable to that of Christ. Nevertheless, if Romulus lived about six hundred years before Cicero,
in an age which already was so enlightened that it rejected all impossibilities, how much more, in
an age which certainly was more enlightened, being six hundred years later, the age of Cicero
himself, and of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, would the human mind have refused to listen
to or believe in the resurrection of Christ’s body and its ascension into heaven, and have scouted
it as an impossibility, had not the divinity of the truth itself, or the truth of the divinity, and
corroborating miraculous signs, proved that it could happen and had happened? Through virtue of
these testimonies, and notwithstanding the opposition and terror of so many cruel persecutions, the
resurrection and immortality of the flesh, first in Christ, and subsequently in all in the new world,
was believed, was intrepidly proclaimed, and was sown over the whole world, to be fertilized richly
with the blood of the martyrs. For the predictions of the prophets that had preceded the events were
read, they were corroborated by powerful signs, and the truth was seen to be not contradictory to
reason, but only different from customary ideas, so that at length the world embraced the faith it
had furiously persecuted.
Chapter 8.—Of Miracles Which Were Wrought that the World Might Believe in Christ, and Which
Have Not Ceased Since the World Believed.
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Why, they say, are those miracles, which you affirm were wrought formerly, wrought no longer?
I might, indeed, reply that miracles were necessary before the world believed, in order that it might
believe. And whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies that he may believe, is himself a great
prodigy, because he does not believe, though the whole world does. But they make these objections
for the sole purpose of insinuating that even those former miracles were never wrought. How, then,
is it that everywhere Christ is celebrated with such firm belief in His resurrection and ascension?
How is it that in enlightened times, in which every impossibility is rejected, the world has, without
any miracles, believed things marvellously incredible? Or will they say that these things were
credible, and therefore were credited? Why then do they themselves not believe? Our argument,
therefore, is a summary one—either incredible things which were not witnessed have caused the
world to believe other incredible things which both occurred and were witnessed, or this matter
was so credible that it needed no miracles in proof of it, and therefore convicts these unbelievers
of unpardonable scepticism. This I might say for the sake of refuting these most frivolous objectors.
But we cannot deny that many miracles were wrought to confirm that one grand and health-giving
miracle of Christ’s ascension to heaven with the flesh in which He rose. For these most trustworthy
books of ours contain in one narrative both the miracles that were wrought and the creed which
they were wrought to confirm. The miracles were published that they might produce faith, and the
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faith which they produced brought them into greater prominence. For they are read in congregations
that they may be believed, and yet they would not be so read unless they were believed. For even
now miracles are wrought in the name of Christ, whether by His sacraments or by the prayers or
relics of His saints; but they are not so brilliant and conspicuous as to cause them to be published
with such glory as accompanied the former miracles. For the canon of the sacred writings, which
behoved to be closed,1614 causes those to be everywhere recited, and to sink into the memory of all
the congregations; but these modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population in
the midst of which they are wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot. For frequently they
are known only to a very few persons, while all the rest are ignorant of them, especially if the state
is a large one; and when they are reported to other persons in other localities, there is no sufficient
authority to give them prompt and unwavering credence, although they are reported to the faithful
by the faithful.
The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there, and by which a blind man was
restored to sight, could come to the knowledge of many; for not only is the city a large one, but
also the emperor was there at the time, and the occurrence was witnessed by an immense concourse
of people that had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius, which had long
lain concealed and unknown, but were now made known to the bishop Ambrose in a dream, and
1614 Another reading has diffamatum, “published.”
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discovered by him. By virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was scattered, and
he saw the light of day.1615
But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which was wrought upon Innocentius,
ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture, a cure wrought at Carthage, in my presence, and under my
own eyes? For when I and my brother Alypius,1616 who were not yet clergymen,1617 though already
servants of God, came from abroad, this man received us, and made us live with him, for he and
all his household were devotedly pious. He was being treated by medical men for fistulæ, of which
he had a large number intricately seated in the rectum. He had already undergone an operation,
and the surgeons were using every means at their command for his relief. In that operation he had
suffered long-continued and acute pain; yet, among the many folds of the gut, one had escaped the
operators so entirely, that, though they ought to have laid it open with the knife, they never touched
it. And thus, though all those that had been opened were cured, this one remained as it was, and
frustrated all their labor. The patient, having his suspicions awakened by the delay thus occasioned,
and fearing greatly a second operation, which another medical man—one of his own domestics—had
told him he must undergo, though this man had not even been allowed to witness the first operation,
and had been banished from the house, and with difficulty allowed to come back to his enraged
master’s presence,—the patient, I say, broke out to the surgeons, saying, “Are you going to cut me
again? Are you, after all, to fulfill the prediction of that man whom you would not allow even to
be present?” The surgeons laughed at the unskillful doctor, and soothed their patient’s fears with
fair words and promises. So several days passed, and yet nothing they tried did him good. Still
they persisted in promising that they would cure that fistula by drugs, without the knife. They
called in also another old practitioner of great repute in that department, Ammonius (for he was
still alive at that time); and he, after examining the part, promised the same result as themselves
from their care and skill. On this great authority, the patient became confident, and, as if already
well, vented his good spirits in facetious remarks at the expense of his domestic physician, who
had predicted a second operation. To make a long story short, after a number of days had thus
uselessly elapsed, the surgeons, wearied and confused, had at last to confess that he could only be
1615 A somewhat fuller account of this miracle is given by Augustin in the Confessions, ix. 16. See also Serm. 286, and
Ambrose, Ep. 22. A translation of this epistle in full is given in Isaac Taylor’s Ancient Christianity, ii. 242, where this miracle
is taken as a specimen of the so-called miracles of that age, and submitted to a detailed examination. The result arrived at will
be gathered from the following sentence: “In the Nicene Church, so lax were the notions of common morality, and in so feeble
a manner did the fear of God influence the conduct of leading men, that, on occasions when the Church was to be served, and
her assailants to be confounded, they did not scruple to take upon themselves the contrivance and execution of the most degrading
impostures.”—P. 270. It is to be observed, however, that Augustin was, at least in this instance, one of the deceived. [On
Augustin’s views on post-apostolic miracles see Card. Newman, Essay on Miracles, Nitzsch, Augustinus Lehre vom Wunder
(Berlin, 1865) and Schaff, Church History, vol. iii. 460, sqq.—P.S.]
1616 Alypius was a countryman of Augustin, and one of his most attached friends. See the Confessions, passim.
1617 Cleros.
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cured by the knife. Agitated with excessive fear, he was terrified, and grew pale with dread; and
when he collected himself and was able to speak, he ordered them to go away and never to return.
Worn out with weeping, and driven by necessity, it occurred to him to call in an Alexandrian, who
was at that time esteemed a wonderfully skillful operator, that he might perform the operation his
rage would not suffer them to do. But when he had come, and examined with a professional eye
486
the traces of their careful work, he acted the part of a good man, and persuaded his patient to allow
those same hands the satisfaction of finishing his cure which had begun it with a skill that excited
his admiration, adding that there was no doubt his only hope of a cure was by an operation, but that
it was thoroughly inconsistent with his nature to win the credit of the cure by doing the little that
remained to be done, and rob of their reward men whose consummate skill, care, and diligence he
could not but admire when be saw the traces of their work. They were therefore again received to
favor; and it was agreed that, in the presence of the Alexandrian, they should operate on the fistula,
which, by the consent of all, could now only be cured by the knife. The operation was deferred till
the following day. But when they had left, there arose in the house such a wailing, in sympathy
with the excessive despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at a funeral,
and we could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily; Saturninus of
blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the deacons of the
church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them all survives,—a
man to be named by us with due reverence,—and with him I have often spoken of this affair, as
we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found that he distinctly
remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that evening according to their
custom, he besought them, with pitiable tears, that they would do him the honor of being present
next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his suffering. For such was the terror his former
pains had produced, that he made no doubt he would die in the hands of the surgeons. They
comforted him, and exhorted him to put his trust in God, and nerve his will like a man. Then we
went to prayer; but while we, in the usual way, were kneeling and bending to the ground, he cast
himself down, as if some one were hurling him violently to the earth, and began to pray; but in
what a manner, with what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood of tears, with what groans
and sobs, that shook his whole body, and almost prevented him speaking, who can describe!
Whether the others prayed, and had not their attention wholly diverted by this conduct, I do not
know. For myself, I could not pray at all. This only I briefly said in my heart: “O Lord, what
prayers of Thy people dost Thou hear if Thou hearest not these?” For it seemed to me that nothing
could be added to this prayer, unless he expired in praying. We rose from our knees, and, receiving
the blessing of the bishop, departed, the patient beseeching his visitors to be present next morning,
they exhorting him to keep up his heart. The dreaded day dawned. The servants of God were
present, as they had promised to be; the surgeons arrived; all that the circumstances required was
ready; the frightful instruments are produced; all look on in wonder and suspense. While those
who have most influence with the patient are cheering his fainting spirit, his limbs are arranged on
the couch so as to suit the hand of the operator; the knots of the bandages are untied; the part is
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bared; the surgeon examines it, and, with knife in hand, eagerly looks for the sinus that is to be
cut. He searches for it with his eyes; he feels for it with his finger; he applies every kind of scrutiny:
he finds a perfectly firm cicatrix! No words of mine can describe the joy, and praise, and
thanksgiving to the merciful and almighty God which was poured from the lips of all, with tears
of gladness. Let the scene be imagined rather than described!
In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very devout woman of the highest rank in the
state. She had cancer in one of her breasts, a disease which, as physicians say, is incurable.
Ordinarily, therefore, they either amputate, and so separate from the body the member on which
the disease has seized, or, that the patient’s life may be prolonged a little, though death is inevitable
even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies, following, as they say, the advice of
Hippocrates. This the lady we speak of had been advised to by a skillful physician, who was
intimate with her family; and she betook herself to God alone by prayer. On the approach of Easter,
she was instructed in a dream to wait for the first woman that came out from the baptistery1618 after
being baptized, and to ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore. She did so, and was
immediately cured. The physician who had advised her to apply no remedy if she wished to live
a little longer, when he had examined her after this, and found that she who, on his former
examination, was afflicted with that disease was now perfectly cured, eagerly asked her what remedy
she had used, anxious, as we may well believe, to discover the drug which should defeat the decision
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of Hippocrates. But when she told him what had happened, he is said to have replied, with reli
gious politeness, though with a contemptuous tone, and an expression which made her fear he
would utter some blasphemy against Christ, “I thought you would make some great discovery to
me.” She, shuddering at his indifference, quickly replied, “What great thing was it for Christ to
heal a cancer, who raised one who had been four days dead?” When, therefore, I had heard this, I
was extremely indignant that so great a miracle wrought in that well-known city, and on a person
who was certainly not obscure, should not be divulged, and I considered that she should be spoken
to, if not reprimanded on this score. And when she replied to me that she had not kept silence on
the subject, I asked the women with whom she was best acquainted whether they had ever heard
of this before. They told me they knew nothing of it. “See,” I said, “what your not keeping silence
amounts to, since not even those who are so familiar with you know of it.” And as I had only
briefly heard the story, I made her tell how the whole thing happened, from beginning to end, while
the other women listened in great astonishment, and glorified God.
A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given in his name for baptism, and had been
prohibited the day before his baptism from being baptized that year, by black woolly-haired boys
who appeared to him in his dreams, and whom he understood to be devils, and when, though they
trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he had ever yet experienced, he refused to obey them,
1618 Easter and Whitsuntide were the common seasons for administering baptism, though no rule was laid down till towards
the end of the sixth century. Tertullian thinks these the most appropriate times, but says that every time is suitable. See Turtull,
de Baptismo, c. 19.
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but overcame them, and would not defer being washed in the laver of regeneration, was relieved
in the very act of baptism, not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but also of the
disease itself, so that, though he lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from gout; and yet
who knows of this miracle? We, however, do know it, and so, too, do the small number of brethren
who were in the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might come.
An old comedian of Curubis1619 was cured at baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia,
and, being delivered from both afflictions, came up out of the font of regeneration as if he had had
nothing wrong with his body. Who outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few who
might hear it elsewhere? But we, when we heard of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order
of the holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained the fact on the information of
persons whose word we could not doubt.
Hesperius, of a tribunitian family, and a neighbor of our own,1620 has a farm called Zubedi in
the Fussalian district;1621 and, finding that his family, his cattle, and his servants were suffering
from the malice of evil spirits, he asked our presbyters, during my absence, that one of them would
go with him and banish the spirits by his prayers. One went, offered there the sacrifice of the body
of Christ, praying with all his might that that vexation might cease. It did cease forthwith, through
God’s mercy. Now he had received from a friend of his own some holy earth brought from
Jerusalem, where Christ, having been buried, rose again the third day. This earth he had hung up
in his bedroom to preserve himself from harm. But when his house was purged of that demoniacal
invasion, he began to consider what should be done with the earth; for his reverence for it made
him unwilling to have it any longer in his bedroom. It so happened that I and Maximinus bishop
of Synita, and then my colleague, were in the neighborhood. Hesperius asked us to visit him, and
we did so. When he had related all the circumstances, he begged that the earth might be buried
somewhere, and that the spot should be made a place of prayer where Christians might assemble
for the worship of God. We made no objection: it was done as he desired. There was in that
neighborhood a young countryman who was paralytic, who, when he heard of this, begged his
parents to take him without delay to that holy place. When he had been brought there, he prayed,
and forthwith went away on his own feet perfectly cured.
There is a country-seat called Victoriana, less than thirty miles from Hippo-regius. At it there
is a monument to the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither a young man was carried,
who, when he was watering his horse one summer day at noon in a pool of a river, had been taken
possession of by a devil. As he lay at the monument, near death, or even quite like a dead person,
the lady of the manor, with her maids and religious attendants, entered the place for evening prayer
and praise, as her custom was, and they began to sing hymns. At this sound the young man, as if
electrified, was thoroughly aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the altar, and held it as if
1619 A town near Carthage.
1620 This may possibly mean a Christian.
1621 Near Hippo.
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he did not dare or were not able to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it; and the devil in
him, with loud lamentation, besought that he might be spared, and confessed where and when and
488
how he took possession of the youth. At last, declaring that he would go out of him, he named one
by one the parts of his body which he threatened to mutilate as he went out and with these words
he departed from the man. But his eye, falling out on his cheek, hung by a slender vein as by a
root, and the whole of the pupil which had been black became white. When this was witnessed by
those present (others too had now gathered to his cries, and had all joined in prayer for him),
although they were delighted that he had recovered his sanity of mind, yet, on the other hand, they
were grieved about his eye, and said he should seek medical advice. But his sister’s husband, who
had brought him there, said, “God, who has banished the devil, is able to restore his eye at the
prayers of His saints.” Therewith he replaced the eye that was fallen out and hanging, and bound
it in its place with his handkerchief as well as he could, and advised him not to loose the bandage
for seven days. When he did so, he found it quite healthy. Others also were cured there, but of
them it were tedious to speak.
I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil, on anointing
herself with oil, mixed with the tears of the prebsyter who had been praying for her. I know also
that a bishop once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that he was cured
on the spot.
There was a fellow-townsman of ours at Hippo, Florentius, an old man, religious and poor, who
supported himself as a tailor. Having lost his coat, and not having means to buy another, he prayed
to the Twenty Martyrs,1622 who have a very celebrated memorial shrine in our town, begging in a
distinct voice that he might be clothed. Some scoffing young men, who happened to be present,
heard him, and followed him with their sarcasm as he went away, as if he had asked the martyrs
for fifty pence to buy a coat. But he, walking on in silence, saw on the shore a great fish, gasping
as if just cast up, and having secured it with the good-natured assistance of the youths, he sold it
for curing to a cook of the name of Catosus, a good Christian man, telling him how he had come
by it, and receiving for it three hundred pence, which he laid out in wool, that his wife might exercise
her skill upon, and make into a coat for him. But, on cutting up the fish, the cook found a gold ring
in its belly; and forthwith, moved with compassion, and influenced, too, by religious fear, gave it
up to the man, saying, “See how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed you.”
When the bishop Projectus was bringing the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen to the
waters of Tibilis, a great concourse of people came to meet him at the shrine. There a blind woman
entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the relics. He gave her the flowers
he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes, and forthwith saw. Those who were
present were astounded, while she, with every expression of joy, preceded them, pursuing her way
without further need of a guide.
1622 Augustin’s 325th sermon is in honor of these martyrs.
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Lucillus bishop of Sinita, in the neighborhood of the colonial town of Hippo, was carrying in
procession some relics of the same martyr, which had been deposited in the castle of Sinita. A
fistula under which he had long labored, and which his private physician was watching an opportunity
to cut, was suddenly cured by the mere carrying of that sacred fardel,1623—at least, afterwards there
was no trace of it in his body.
Eucharius, a Spanish priest, residing at Calama, was for a long time a sufferer from stone. By
the relics of the same martyr, which the bishop Possidius brought him, he was cured. Afterwards
the same priest, sinking under another disease, was lying dead, and already they were binding his
hands. By the succor of the same martyr he was raised to life, the priest’s cloak having been brought
from the oratory and laid upon the corpse.
There was there an old nobleman named Martial, who had a great aversion to the Christian
religion, but whose daughter was a Christian, while her husband had been baptized that same year.
When he was ill, they besought him with tears and prayers to become a Christian, but he positively
refused, and dismissed them from his presence in a storm of indignation. It occurred to the
son-in-law to go to the oratory of St. Stephen, and there pray for him with all earnestness that God
might give him a right mind, so that he should not delay believing in Christ. This he did with great
groaning and tears, and the burning fervor of sincere piety; then, as he left the place, he took some
of the flowers that were lying there, and, as it was already night, laid them by his father’s head,
who so slept. And lo! before dawn, he cries out for some one to run for the bishop; but he happened
at that time to be with me at Hippo. So when he had heard that he was from home, he asked the
presbyters to come. They came. To the joy and amazement of all, he declared that he believed,
489
and he was baptized. As long as he remained in life, these words were ever on his lips: “Christ,
receive my spirit,” though he was not aware that these were the last words of the most blessed
Stephen when he was stoned by the Jews. They were his last words also, for not long after he
himself also gave up the ghost.
There, too, by the same martyr, two men, one a citizen, the other a stranger, were cured of gout;
but while the citizen was absolutely cured, the stranger was only informed what he should apply
when the pain returned; and when he followed this advice, the pain was at once relieved.
Audurus is the name of an estate, where there is a church that contains a memorial shrine of
the martyr Stephen. It happened that, as a little boy was playing in the court, the oxen drawing a
wagon went out of the track and crushed him with the wheel, so that immediately he seemed at his
last gasp. His mother snatched him up, and laid him at the shrine, and not only did he revive, but
also appeared uninjured.
A religious female, who lived at Caspalium, a neighboring estate, when she was so ill as to be
despaired of, had her dress brought to this shrine, but before it was brought back she was gone.
However, her parents wrapped her corpse in the dress, and, her breath returning, she became quite
well.
1623 See Isaac Taylor’s Ancient Christianity, ii. 354.
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At Hippo a Syrian called Bassus was praying at the relics of the same martyr for his daughter,
who was dangerously ill. He too had brought her dress with him to the shrine. But as he prayed,
behold, his servants ran from the house to tell him she was dead. His friends, however, intercepted
them, and forbade them to tell him, lest he should bewail her in public. And when he had returned
to his house, which was already ringing with the lamentations of his family, and had thrown on his
daughter’s body the dress he was carrying, she was restored to life.
There, too, the son of a man, Irenæus, one of our tax-gatherers, took ill and died. And while
his body was lying lifeless, and the last rites were being prepared, amidst the weeping and mourning
of all, one of the friends who were consoling the father suggested that the body should be anointed
with the oil of the same martyr. It was done, and he revived.
Likewise Eleusinus, a man of tribunitian rank among us, laid his infant son, who had died, on
the shrine of the martyr, which is in the suburb where he lived, and, after prayer, which he poured
out there with many tears, he took up his child alive.
What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work, that I cannot record
all the miracles I know; and doubtless several of our adherents, when they read what I have narrated,
will regret that I have omitted so many which they, as well as I, certainly know. Even now I beg
these persons to excuse me, and to consider how long it would take me to relate all those miracles,
which the necessity of finishing the work I have undertaken forces me to omit. For were I to be
silent of all others, and to record exclusively the miracles of healing which were wrought in the
district of Calama and of Hippo by means of this martyr—I mean the most glorious Stephen—they
would fill many volumes; and yet all even of these could not be collected, but only those of which
narratives have been written for public recital. For when I saw, in our own times, frequent signs
of the presence of divine powers similar to those which had been given of old, I desired that
narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of these things.
It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius, and though many of
the miracles which have been wrought by it have not, as I have the most certain means of knowing,
been recorded, those which have been published amount to almost seventy at the hour at which I
write. But at Calama, where these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles
were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more.
At Uzali, too, a colony near Utica, many signal miracles were, to my knowledge, wrought by
the same martyr, whose relics had found a place there by direction of the bishop Evodius, long
before we had them at Hippo. But there the custom of publishing narratives does not obtain, or, I
should say, did not obtain, for possibly it may now have been begun. For, when I was there recently,
a woman of rank, Petronia, had been miraculously cured of a serious illness of long standing, in
which all medical appliances had failed, and, with the consent of the above-named bishop of the
place, I exhorted her to publish an account of it that might be read to the people. She most promptly
obeyed, and inserted in her narrative a circumstance which I cannot omit to mention, though I am
compelled to hasten on to the subjects which this work requires me to treat. She said that she had
been persuaded by a Jew to wear next her skin, under all her clothes, a hair girdle, and on this girdle
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a ring, which, instead of a gem, had a stone which had been found in the kidneys of an ox. Girt
with this charm, she was making her way to the threshold of the holy martyr. But, after leaving
490
Carthage, and when she had been lodging in her own demesne on the river Bagrada, and was now
rising to continue her journey, she saw her ring lying before her feet. In great surprise she examined
the hair girdle, and when she found it bound, as it had been, quite firmly with knots, she conjectured
that the ring had been worn through and dropped off; but when she found that the ring was itself
also perfectly whole, she presumed that by this great miracle she had received somehow a pledge
of her cure, whereupon she untied the girdle, and cast it into the river, and the ring along with it.
This is not credited by those who do not believe either that the Lord Jesus Christ came forth from
His mother’s womb without destroying her virginity, and entered among His disciples when the
doors were shut; but let them make strict inquiry into this miracle, and if they find it true, let them
believe those others. The lady is of distinction, nobly born, married to a nobleman. She resides at
Carthage. The city is distinguished, the person is distinguished, so that they who make inquiries
cannot fail to find satisfaction. Certainly the martyr himself, by whose prayers she was healed,
believed on the Son of her who remained a virgin; on Him who came in among the disciples when
the doors were shut; in fine,—and to this tends all that we have been retailing,—on Him who
ascended into heaven with the flesh in which He had risen; and it is because he laid down his life
for this faith that such miracles were done by his means.
Even now, therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read
of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will; but they are not as well known, nor are
they beaten into the memory, like gravel, by frequent reading, so that they cannot fall out of mind.
For even where, as is now done among ourselves, care is taken that the pamphlets of those who
receive benefit be read publicly, yet those who are present hear the narrative but once, and many
are absent; and so it comes to pass that even those who are present forget in a few days what they
heard, and scarcely one of them can be found who will tell what he heard to one who he knows
was not present.
One miracle was wrought among ourselves, which, though no greater than those I have
mentioned, was yet so signal and conspicuous, that I suppose there is no inhabitant of Hippo who
did not either see or hear of it, none who could possibly forget it. There were seven brothers and
three sisters of a noble family of the Cappadocian Cæsarea, who were cursed by their mother, a
new-made widow, on account of some wrong they had done her, and which she bitterly resented,
and who were visited with so severe a punishment from Heaven, that all of them were seized with
a hideous shaking in all their limbs. Unable, while presenting this loathsome appearance, to endure
the eyes of their fellow-citizens, they wandered over almost the whole Roman world, each following
his own direction. Two of them came to Hippo, a brother and a sister, Paulus and Palladia, already
known in many other places by the fame of their wretched lot. Now it was about fifteen days before
Easter when they came, and they came daily to church, and specially to the relics of the most
glorious Stephen, praying that God might now be appeased, and restore their former health. There,
and wherever they went, they attracted the attention of every one. Some who had seen them
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elsewhere, and knew the cause of their trembling, told others as occasion offered. Easter arrived,
and on the Lord’s day, in the morning, when there was now a large crowd present, and the young
man was holding the bars of the holy place where the relics were, and praying, suddenly he fell
down, and lay precisely as if asleep, but not trembling as he was wont to do even in sleep. All
present were astonished. Some were alarmed, some were moved with pity; and while some were
for lifting him up, others prevented them, and said they should rather wait and see what would
result. And behold! he rose up, and trembled no more, for he was healed, and stood quite well,
scanning those who were scanning him. Who then refrained himself from praising God? The
whole church was filled with the voices of those who were shouting and congratulating him. Then
they came running to me, where I was sitting ready to come into the church. One after another
they throng in, the last comer telling me as news what the first had told me already; and while I
rejoiced and inwardly gave God thanks, the young man himself also enters, with a number of others,
falls at my knees, is raised up to receive my kiss. We go in to the congregation: the church was
full, and ringing with the shouts of joy, “Thanks to God! Praised be God!” every one joining and
shouting on all sides, “I have healed the people,” and then with still louder voice shouting again.
Silence being at last obtained, the customary lessons of the divine Scriptures were read. And when
I came to my sermon, I made a few remarks suitable to the occasion and the happy and joyful
feeling, not desiring them to listen to me, but rather to consider the eloquence of God in this divine
491
work. The man dined with us, and gave us a careful ac count of his own, his mother’s, and his
family’s calamity. Accordingly, on the following day, after delivering my sermon, I promised that
next day I would read his narrative to the people.1624 And when I did so, the third day after Easter
Sunday, I made the brother and sister both stand on the steps of the raised place from which I used
to speak; and while they stood there their pamphlet was read.1625 The whole congregation, men and
women alike, saw the one standing without any unnatural movement, the other trembling in all her
limbs; so that those who had not before seen the man himself saw in his sister what the divine
compassion had removed from him. In him they saw matter of congratulation, in her subject for
prayer. Meanwhile, their pamphlet being finished, I instructed them to withdraw from the gaze of
the people; and I had begun to discuss the whole matter somewhat more carefully, when lo! as I
was proceeding, other voices are heard from the tomb of the martyr, shouting new congratulations.
My audience turned round, and began to run to the tomb. The young woman, when she had come
down from the steps where she had been standing, went to pray at the holy relics, and no sooner
had she touched the bars than she, in the same way as her brother, collapsed, as if falling asleep,
and rose up cured. While, then, we were asking what had happened, and what occasioned this
noise of joy, they came into the basilica where we were, leading her from the martyr’s tomb in
perfect health. Then, indeed, such a shout of wonder rose from men and women together, that the
exclamations and the tears seemed like never to come to an end. She was led to the place where
1624 See Augustin’s Sermons, 321.
1625 Sermon, 322.
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she had a little before stood trembling. They now rejoiced that she was like her brother, as before
they had mourned that she remained unlike him; and as they had not yet uttered their prayers in
her behalf, they perceived that their intention of doing so had been speedily heard. They shouted
God’s praises without words, but with such a noise that our ears could scarcely bear it. What was
there in the hearts of these exultant people but the faith of Christ, for which Stephen had shed his
blood?
Chapter 9.—That All the Miracles Which are Done by Means of the Martyrs in the Name of Christ
Testify to that Faith Which the Martyrs Had in Christ.
To what do these miracles witness, but to this faith which preaches Christ risen in the flesh,
and ascended with the same into heaven? For the martyrs themselves were martyrs, that is to say,
witnesses of this faith, drawing upon themselves by their testimony the hatred of the world, and
conquering the world not by resisting it, but by dying. For this faith they died, and can now ask
these benefits from the Lord in whose name they were slain. For this faith their marvellous constancy
was exercised, so that in these miracles great power was manifested as the result. For if the
resurrection of the flesh to eternal life had not taken place in Christ, and were not to be accomplished
in His people, as predicted by Christ, or by the prophets who foretold that Christ was to come, why
do the martyrs who were slain for this faith which proclaims the resurrection possess such power?
For whether God Himself wrought these miracles by that wonderful manner of working by which,
though Himself eternal, He produces effects in time; or whether He wrought them by servants, and
if so, whether He made use of the spirits of martyrs as He uses men who are still in the body, or
effects all these marvels by means of angels, over whom He exerts an invisible, immutable,
incorporeal sway, so that what is said to be done by the martyrs is done not by their operation, but
only by their prayer and request; or whether, finally, some things are done in one way, others in
another, and so that man cannot at all comprehend them,—nevertheless these miracles attest this
faith which preaches the resurrection of the flesh to eternal life.
Chapter 10.—That the Martyrs Who Obtain Many Miracles in Order that the True God May Be
Worshipped, are Worthy of Much Greater Honor Than the Demons, Who Do Some Marvels
that They Themselves May Be Supposed to Be God.
Here perhaps our adversaries will say that their gods also have done some wonderful things, if
now they begin to compare their gods to our dead men. Or will they also say that they have gods
taken from among dead men, such as Hercules, Romulus, and many others whom they fancy to
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have been received into the number of the gods? But our martyrs are not our gods; for we know
that the martyrs and we have both but one God, and that the same. Nor yet are the miracles which
they maintain to have been done by means of their temples at all comparable to those which are
done by the tombs of our martyrs. If they seem similar, their gods have been defeated by our
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martyrs as Pharaoh’s magi were by Moses. In reality, the demons wrought these marvels with the
same impure pride with which they aspired to be the gods of the nations; but the martyrs do these
wonders, or rather God does them while they pray and assist, in order that an impulse may be given
to the faith by which we believe that they are not our gods, but have, together with ourselves, one
God. In fine, they built temples to these gods of theirs, and set up altars, and ordained priests, and
appointed sacrifices; but to our martyrs we build, not temples as if they were gods, but monuments
as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect altars at these monuments that
we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the martyrs and of ourselves; and in this
sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank as men of God who conquered the world by
confessing Him, but they are not invoked by the sacrificing priest. For it is to God, not to them,
he sacrifices, though he sacrifices at their monument; for he is God’s priest, not theirs. The sacrifice
itself, too, is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them, because they themselves are this
body. Which then can more readily be believed to work miracles? They who wish themselves to
be reckoned gods by those on whom they work miracles, or those whose sole object in working
any miracle is to induce faith in God, and in Christ also as God? They who wished to turn even
their crimes into sacred rites, or those who are unwilling that even their own praises be consecrated,
and seek that everything for which they are justly praised be ascribed to the glory of Him in whom
they are praised? For in the Lord their souls are praised. Let us therefore believe those who both
speak the truth and work wonders. For by speaking the truth they suffered, and so won the power
of working wonders. And the leading truth they professed is that Christ rose from the dead, and
first showed in His own flesh the immortality of the resurrection which He promised should be
ours, either in the beginning of the world to come, or in the end of this world.
Chapter 11.—Against the Platonists, Who Argue from the Physical Weight of the Elements that
an Earthly Body Cannot Inhabit Heaven.
But against this great gift of God, these reasoners, “whose thoughts the Lord knows that they
are vain”1626 bring arguments from the weights of the elements; for they have been taught by their
master Plato that the two greatest elements of the world, and the furthest removed from one another,
are coupled and united by the two intermediate, air and water. And consequently they say, since
the earth is the first of the elements, beginning from the base of the series, the second the water
1626 Ps. xciv. 11.
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above the earth, the third the air above the water, the fourth the heaven above the air, it follows
that a body of earth cannot live in the heaven; for each element is poised by its own weight so as
to preserve its own place and rank. Behold with what arguments human infirmity, possessed with
vanity, contradicts the omnipotence of God! What, then, do so many earthly bodies do in the air,
since the air is the third element from the earth? Unless perhaps He who has granted to the earthly
bodies of birds that they be carried through the air by the lightness of feathers and wings, has not
been able to confer upon the bodies of men made immortal the power to abide in the highest heaven.
The earthly animals, too, which cannot fly, among which are men, ought on these terms to live
under the earth, as fishes, which are the animals of the water, live under the water. Why, then, can
an animal of earth not live in the second element, that is, in water, while it can in the third? Why,
though it belongs to the earth, is it forthwith suffocated if it is forced to live in the second element
next above earth, while it lives in the third, and cannot live out of it? Is there a mistake here in the
order of the elements, or is not the mistake rather in their reasonings, and not in the nature of things?
I will not repeat what I said in the thirteenth book,1627 that many earthly bodies, though heavy like
lead, receive from the workman’s hand a form which enables them to swim in water; and yet it is
denied that the omnipotent Worker can confer on the human body a property which shall enable it
to pass into heaven and dwell there.
But against what I have formerly said they can find nothing to say, even though they introduce
and make the most of this order of the elements in which they confide. For if the order be that the
earth is first, the water second, the air third, the heaven fourth, then the soul is above all. For
Aristotle said that the soul was a fifth body, while Plato denied that it was a body at all. If it were
a fifth body, then certainly it would be above the rest; and if it is not a body at all, so much the
more does it rise above all. What, then, does it do in an earthly body? What does this soul, which
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is finer than all else, do in such a mass of matter as this? What does the lightest of substances do
in this ponderosity? this swiftest substance in such sluggishness? Will not the body be raised to
heaven by virtue of so excellent a nature as this? and if now earthly bodies can retain the souls
below, shall not the souls be one day able to raise the earthly bodies above?
If we pass now to their miracles which they oppose to our martyrs as wrought by their gods,
shall not even these be found to make for us, and help out our argument? For if any of the miracles
of their gods are great, certainly that is a great one which Varro mentions of a vestal virgin, who,
when she was endangered by a false accusation of unchastity, filled a sieve with water from the
Tiber, and carried it to her judges without any part of it leaking. Who kept the weight of water in
the sieve? Who prevented any drop from falling from it through so many open holes? They will
answer, Some god or some demon. If a god, is he greater than the God who made the world? If a
demon, is he mightier than an angel who serves the God by whom the world was made? If, then,
a lesser god, angel, or demon could so sustain the weight of this liquid element that the water might
seem to have changed its nature, shall not Almighty God, who Himself created all the elements,
1627 C. 18.
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be able to eliminate from the earthly body its heaviness, so that the quickened body shall dwell in
whatever element the quickening spirit pleases?
Then, again, since they give the air a middle place between the fire above and the water beneath,
how is it that we often find it between water and water, and between the water and the earth? For
what do they make of those watery clouds, between which and the seas air is constantly found
intervening? I should like to know by what weight and order of the elements it comes to pass that
very violent and stormy torrents are suspended in the clouds above the earth before they rush along
upon the earth under the air. In fine, why is it that throughout the whole globe the air is between
the highest heaven and the earth, if its place is between the sky and the water, as the place of the
water is between the sky and the earth?
Finally, if the order of the elements is so disposed that, as Plato thinks, the two extremes, fire
and earth, are united by the two means, air and water, and that the fire occupies the highest part of
the sky, and the earth the lowest part, or as it were the foundation of the world, and that therefore
earth cannot be in the heavens, how is fire in the earth? For, according to this reasoning, these two
elements, earth and fire, ought to be so restricted to their own places, the highest and the lowest,
that neither the lowest can rise to the place of the highest, nor the highest sink to that of the lowest.
Thus, as they think that no particle of earth is or shall ever be in the sky so we ought to see no
particle of fire on the earth. But the fact is that it exists to such an extent, not only on but even
under the earth, that the tops of mountains vomit it forth; besides that we see it to exist on earth for
human uses, and even to be produced from the earth, since it is kindled from wood and stones,
which are without doubt earthly bodies. But that [upper] fire, they say, is tranquil, pure, harmless,
eternal; but this [earthly] fire is turbid, smoky, corruptible, and corrupting. But it does not corrupt
the mountains and caverns of the earth in which it rages continually. But grant that the earthly fire
is so unlike the other as to suit its earthly position, why then do they object to our believing that
the nature of earthly bodies shall some day be made incorruptible and fit for the sky, even as now
fire is corruptible and suited to the earth? They therefore adduce from their weights and order of
the elements nothing from which they can prove that it is impossible for Almighty God to make
our bodies such that they can dwell in the skies.
Chapter 12.—Against the Calumnies with Which Unbelievers Throw Ridicule Upon the Christian
Faith in the Resurrection of the Flesh.
But their way is to feign a scrupulous anxiety in investigating this question, and to cast ridicule
on our faith in the resurrection of the body, by asking, Whether abortions shall rise? And as the
Lord says, “Verily I say unto you, not a hair of your head shall perish,”1628 shall all bodies have an
1628 Luke xxi. 18.
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equal stature and strength, or shall there be differences in size? For if there is to be equality, where
shall those abortions, supposing that they rise again, get that bulk which they had not here? Or if
they shall not rise because they were not born but cast out, they raise the same question about
children who have died in childhood, asking us whence they get the stature which we see they had
not here; for we will not say that those who have been not only born, but born again, shall not rise
again. Then, further, they ask of what size these equal bodies shall be. For if all shall be as tall
and large as were the tallest and largest in this world, they ask us how it is that not only children
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but many full-grown persons shall receive what they here did not possess, if each one is to receive
what he had here. And if the saying of the apostle, that we are all to come to the “measure of the
age of the fullness of Christ,”1629 or that other saying, “Whom He predestinated to be conformed to
the image of His Son,”1630 is to be understood to mean that the stature and size of Christ’s body
shall be the measure of the bodies of all those who shall be in His kingdom, then, say they, the size
and height of many must be diminished; and if so much of the bodily frame itself be lost, what
becomes of the saying, “Not a hair of your head shall perish?” Besides, it might be asked regarding
the hair itself, whether all that the barber has cut off shall be restored? And if it is to be restored,
who would not shrink from such deformity? For as the same restoration will be made of what has
been pared off the nails, much will be replaced on the body which a regard for its appearance had
cut off. And where, then, will be its beauty, which assuredly ought to be much greater in that
immortal condition than it could be in this corruptible state? On the other hand, if such things are
not restored to the body, they must perish; how, then, they say, shall not a hair of the head perish?
In like manner they reason about fatness and leanness; for if all are to be equal, then certainly there
shall not be some fat, others lean. Some, therefore, shall gain, others lose something. Consequently
there will not be a simple restoration of what formerly existed, but, on the one hand, an addition
of what had no existence, and, on the other, a loss of what did before exist.
The difficulties, too, about the corruption and dissolution of dead bodies,—that one is turned
into dust, while another evaporates into the air; that some are devoured by beasts, some by fire,
while some perish by shipwreck or by drowning in one shape or other, so that their bodies decay
into liquid, these difficulties give them immoderate alarm, and they believe that all those dissolved
elements cannot be gathered again and reconstructed into a body. They also make eager use of all
the deformities and blemishes which either accident or birth has produced, and accordingly, with
horror and derision, cite monstrous births, and ask if every deformity will be preserved in the
resurrection. For if we say that no such thing shall be reproduced in the body of a man, they suppose
that they confute us by citing the marks of the wounds which we assert were found in the risen
body of the Lord Christ. But of all these, the most difficult question is, into whose body that flesh
shall return which has been eaten and assimilated by another man constrained by hunger to use it
so; for it has been converted into the flesh of the man who used it as his nutriment, and it filled up
1629 Eph. iv. 13.
1630 Rom. viii. 29.
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those losses of flesh which famine had produced. For the sake, then, of ridiculing the resurrection,
they ask, Shall this return to the man whose flesh it first was, or to him whose flesh it afterwards
became? And thus, too, they seek to give promise to the human soul of alternations of true misery
and false happiness, in accordance with Plato’s theory; or, in accordance with Porphyry’s, that,
after many transmigrations into different bodies, it ends its miseries, and never more returns to
them, not, however, by obtaining an immortal body, but by escaping from every kind of body.
Chapter 13.—Whether Abortions, If They are Numbered Among the Dead, Shall Not Also Have
a Part in the Resurrection.
To these objections, then, of our adversaries which I have thus detailed, I will now reply, trusting
that God will mercifully assist my endeavors. That abortions, which, even supposing they were
alive in the womb, did also die there, shall rise again, I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny,
although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not
attain to the resurrection of the dead. For either all the dead shall not rise, and there will be to all
eternity some souls without bodies though they once had them,—only in their mother’s womb,
indeed; or, if all human souls shall receive again the bodies which they had wherever they lived,
and which they left when they died, then I do not see how I can say that even those who died in
their mother’s womb shall have no resurrection. But whichever of these opinions any one may
adopt concerning them, we must at least apply to them, if they rise again, all that we have to say
of infants who have been born.
Chapter 14.—Whether Infants Shall Rise in that Body Which They Would Have Had Had They
Grown Up.
What, then, are we to say of infants, if not that they will not rise in that diminutive body in
which they died, but shall receive by the marvellous and rapid operation of God that body which
time by a slower process would have given them? For in the Lord’s words, where He says, “Not
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a hair of your head shall perish,”1631 it is asserted that nothing which was possessed shall be wanting;
but it is not said that nothing which was not possessed shall be given. To the dead infant there was
wanting the perfect stature of its body; for even the perfect infant lacks the perfection of bodily
size, being capable of further growth. This perfect stature is, in a sense, so possessed by all that
they are conceived and born with it,—that is, they have it potentially, though not yet in actual bulk;
1631 Luke xxi. 18
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just as all the members of the body are potentially in the seed, though, even after the child is born,
some of them, the teeth for example, may be wanting. In this seminal principle of every substance,
there seems to be, as it were, the beginning of everything which does not yet exist, or rather does
not appear, but which in process of time will come into being, or rather into sight. In this, therefore,
the child who is to be tall or short is already tall or short. And in the resurrection of the body, we
need, for the same reason, fear no bodily loss; for though all should be of equal size, and reach
gigantic proportions, lest the men who were largest here should lose anything of their bulk and it
should perish, in contradiction to the words of Christ, who said that not a hair of their head should
perish, yet why should there lack the means by which that wonderful Worker should make such
additions, seeing that He is the Creator, who Himself created all things out of nothing?
Chapter 15.—Whether the Bodies of All the Dead Shall Rise the Same Size as the Lord’s Body.
It is certain that Christ rose in the same bodily stature in which He died, and that it is wrong to
say that, when the general resurrection shall have arrived, His body shall, for the sake of equalling
the tallest, assume proportions which it had not when He appeared to the disciples in the figure
with which they were familiar. But if we say that even the bodies of taller men are to be reduced
to the size of the Lord’s body, there will be a great loss in many bodies, though He promised that,
not a hair of their head should perish. It remains, therefore, that we conclude that every man shall
receive his own size which he had in youth, though he died an old man, or which he would have
had, supposing he died before his prime. As for what the apostle said of the measure of the age of
the fullness of Christ, we must either understand him to refer to something else, viz., to the fact
that the measure of Christ will be completed when all the members among the Christian communities
are added to the Head; or if we are to refer it to the resurrection of the body, the meaning is that all
shall rise neither beyond nor under youth, but in that vigor and age to which we know that Christ
had arrived. For even the world’s wisest men have fixed the bloom of youth at about the age of
thirty; and when this period has been passed, the man begins to decline towards the defective and
duller period of old age. And therefore the apostle did not speak of the measure of the body, nor
of the measure of the stature, but of “the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.”
Chapter 16.—What is Meant by the Conforming of the Saints to the Image of The Son of God.
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Then, again, these words, “Predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son of God,”1632
may be understood of the inner man. So in another place He says to us, “Be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind.”1633 In so far, then, as we are transformed
so as not to be conformed to the world, we are conformed to the Son of God. It may also be
understood thus, that as He was conformed to us by assuming mortality, we shall be conformed to
Him by immortality; and this indeed is connected with the resurrection of the body. But if we are
also taught in these words what form our bodies shall rise in, as the measure we spoke of before,
so also this conformity is to be understood not of size, but of age. Accordingly all shall rise in the
stature they either had attained or would have attained had they lived to their prime, although it
will be no great disadvantage even if the form of the body be infantine or aged, while no infirmity
shall remain in the mind nor in the body itself. So that even if any one contends that every person
will rise again in the same bodily form in which he died, we need not spend much labor in disputing
with him.
Chapter 17.—Whether the Bodies of Women Shall Retain Their Own Sex in the Resurrection.
From the words, “Till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness
of Christ,”1634 and from the words, “Conformed to the image of the Son of God,”1635 some conclude
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that women shall not rise women, but that all shall be men, because God made man only of earth,
and woman of the man. For my part, they seem to be wiser who make no doubt that both sexes
shall rise. For there shall be no lust, which is now the cause of confusion. For before they sinned,
the man and the woman were naked, and were not ashamed. From those bodies, then, vice shall
be withdrawn, while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of woman is not a vice, but nature. It
shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and child-bearing; nevertheless the female
members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a new beauty, which, so far from provoking
lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and clemency of God, who both made what was
not and delivered from corruption what He made. For at the beginning of the human race the
woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even
then Christ and His Church should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was
the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and
there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church
is “built up.” For Scripture used this very word, not saying “He formed” or “framed,” but “built
1632 Rom. viii. 29.
1633 Rom. xii. 2.
1634 Eph. iv. 13.
1635 Rom. viii. 29.
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her up into a woman;”1636 whence also the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ,1637
which is the Church. The woman, therefore, is a creature of God even as the man; but by her
creation from man unity is commended; and the manner of her creation prefigured, as has been
said, Christ and the Church. He, then, who created both sexes will restore both. Jesus Himself
also, when asked by the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, which of the seven brothers should
have to wife the woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the
law enjoined, says, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”1638 And though
it was a fit opportunity for His saying, She about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man,
and not a woman, He said nothing of the kind; but “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”1639 They shall be equal to the angels in
immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need, because
they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection, not women, but
marriages; and He uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted would have
been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist, if this had in
truth been foreknown by Him. But, indeed, He even affirmed that the sex should exist by saying,
“They shall not be given in marriage,” which can only apply to females; “Neither shall they marry,”
which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world accustomed to marry
and be given in marriage, only they shall there make no such marriages.
Chapter 18.—Of the Perfect Man, that Is, Christ; And of His Body, that Is, The Church, Which is
His Fullness.
To understand what the apostle means when he says that we shall all come to a perfect man,
we must consider the connection of the whole passage, which runs thus: “He that descended is the
same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some,
apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we
all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure
of the age of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie
in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in Him in all things, which is the
Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which
1636 Gen. ii. 22.
1637 Eph. iv. 12.
1638 Matt. xxii. 29.
1639 Matt. xxii. 30.
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every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh
increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love.”1640 Behold what the perfect man is—the
head and the body, which is made up of all the members, which in their own time shall be perfected.
But new additions are daily being made to this body while the Church is being built up, to which
it is said, “Ye are the body of Christ and His members;”1641 and again, “For His body’s sake,” he
says, “which is the Church;”1642 and again, “We being many are one head, one body.”1643 It is of
the edification of this body that it is here, too, said, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work
of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ;” and then that passage of which we are
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now speaking is added, “Till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of
God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ,” and so on. And he shows
of what body we are to understand this to be the measure, when he says, “That we may grow up
into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined
together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in
the measure of every part.” As, therefore, there is a measure of every part, so there is a measure
of the fullness of the whole body which is made up of all its parts, and it is of this measure it is
said, “To the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” This fullness he spoke of also in the
place where he says of Christ, “And gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church,1644
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”1645 But even if this should be referred
to the form in which each one shall rise, what should hinder us from applying to the woman what
is expressly said of the man, understanding both sexes to be included under the general term “man?”
For certainly in the saying, “Blessed is he who feareth the Lord,”1646 women also who fear the Lord
are included.
Chapter 19.—That All Bodily Blemishes Which Mar Human Beauty in This Life Shall Be Removed
in the Resurrection, the Natural Substance of the Body Remaining, But the Quality and Quantity
of It Being Altered So as to Produce Beauty.
What am I to say now about the hair and nails? Once it is understood that no part of the body
shall so perish as to produce deformity in the body, it is at the same time understood that such things
1640 Eph. iv. 10–16.
1641 1 Cor. xii. 27.
1642 Col. i. 24.
1643 1 Cor. x. 17.
1644 Another reading is, “Head over all the Church.”
1645 Eph. i. 22, 23.
1646 Ps. cxii. 1.
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as would have produced a deformity by their excessive proportions shall be added to the total bulk
of the body, not to parts in which the beauty of the proportion would thus be marred. Just as if,
after making a vessel of clay, one wished to make it over again of the same clay, it would not be
necessary that the same portion of the clay which had formed the handle should again form the
new handle, or that what had formed the bottom should again do so, but only that the whole clay
should go to make up the whole new vessel, and that no part of it should be left unused. Wherefore,
if the hair that has been cropped and the nails that have been cut would cause a deformity were
they to be restored to their places, they shall not be restored; and yet no one will lose these parts at
the resurrection, for they shall be changed into the same flesh, their substance being so altered as
to preserve the proportion of the various parts of the body. However, what our Lord said, “Not a
hair of your head shall perish,” might more suitably be interpreted of the number, and not of the
length of the hairs, as He elsewhere says, “The hairs of your head are all numbered.”1647 Nor would
I say this because I suppose that any part naturally belonging to the body can perish, but that
whatever deformity was in it, and served to exhibit the penal condition in which we mortals are,
should be restored in such a way that, while the substance is entirely preserved, the deformity shall
perish. For if even a human workman, who has, for some reason, made a deformed statue, can
recast it and make it very beautiful, and this without suffering any part of the substance, but only
the deformity to be lost,—if he can, for example, remove some unbecoming or disproportionate
part, not by cutting off and separating this part from the whole, but by so breaking down and mixing
up the whole as to get rid of the blemish without diminishing the quantity of his material,—shall
we not think as highly of the almighty Worker? Shall He not be able to remove and abolish all
deformities of the human body, whether common ones or rare and monstrous, which, though in
keeping with this miserable life, are yet not to be thought of in connection with that future
blessedness; and shall He not be able so to remove them that, while the natural but unseemly
blemishes are put an end to, the natural substance shall suffer no diminution?
And consequently overgrown and emaciated persons need not fear that they shall be in heaven
of such a figure as they would not be even in this world if they could help it. For all bodily beauty
consists in the proportion of the parts, together with a certain agreeableness of color. Where there
is no proportion, the eye is offended, either because there is something awanting, or too small, or
too large. And thus there shall be no deformity resulting from want of proportion in that state in
which all that is wrong is corrected, and all that is defective supplied from resources the Creator
wots of, and all that is excessive removed without destroying the integrity of the substance. And
as for the pleasant color, how conspicuous shall it be where “the just shall shine forth as the sun in
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the kingdom of their Father!”1648 This brightness we must rather believe to have been concealed
from the eyes of the disciples when Christ rose, than to have been awanting. For weak human
eyesight could not bear it, and it was necessary that they should so look upon Him as to be able to
1647 Luke xii. 7.
1648 Matt. xiii. 43.
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recognize Him. For this purpose also He allowed them to touch the marks of His wounds, and also
ate and drank,—not because He needed nourishment, but because He could take it if He wished.
Now, when an object, though present, is invisible to persons who see other things which are present,
as we say that that brightness was present but invisible by those who saw other things, this is called
in Greek ἀορασία; and our Latin translators, for want of a better word, have rendered this cæcitas
(blindness) in the book of Genesis. This blindness the men of Sodom suffered when they sought
the just Lot’s gate and could not find it. But if it had been blindness, that is to say, if they could
see nothing, then they would not have asked for the gate by which they might enter the house, but
for guides who might lead them away.
But the love we bear to the blessed martyrs causes us, I know not how, to desire to see in the
heavenly kingdom the marks of the wounds which they received for the name of Christ, and possibly
we shall see them. For this will not be a deformity, but a mark of honor, and will add lustre to their
appearance, and a spiritual, if not a bodily beauty. And yet we need not believe that they to whom
it has been said, “Not a hair of your head shall perish,” shall, in the resurrection, want such of their
members as they have been deprived of in their martyrdom. But if it will be seemly in that new
kingdom to have some marks of these wounds still visible in that immortal flesh, the places where
they have been wounded or mutilated shall retain the scars without any of the members being lost.
While, therefore, it is quite true that no blemishes which the body has sustained shall appear in the
resurrection, yet we are not to reckon or name these marks of virtue blemishes.
Chapter 20.—That, in the Resurrection, the Substance of Our Bodies, However Disintegrated, Shall
Be Entirely Reunited.
Far be it from us to fear that the omnipotence of the Creator cannot, for the resuscitation and
reanimation of our bodies, recall all the portions which have been consumed by beasts or fire, or
have been dissolved into dust or ashes, or have decomposed into water, or evaporated into the air.
Far from us be the thought, that anything which escapes our observation in any most hidden recess
of nature either evades the knowledge or transcends the power of the Creator of all things. Cicero,
the great authority of our adversaries, wishing to define God as accurately as possible, says, “God
is a mind free and independent, without materiality, perceiving and moving all things, and itself
endowed with eternal movement.”1649 This he found in the systems of the greatest philosophers.
Let me ask, then, in their own language, how anything can either lie hid from Him who perceives
all things, or irrevocably escape Him who moves all things?
This leads me to reply to that question which seems the most difficult of all,—To whom, in the
resurrection, will belong the flesh of a dead man which has become the flesh of a living man? For
1649 Cic. Tusc. Quæst. i. 27.
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if some one, famishing for want and pressed with hunger, use human flesh as food,—an extremity
not unknown, as both ancient history and the unhappy experience of our own days have taught
us,—can it be contended, with any show of reason, that all the flesh eaten has been evacuated, and
that none of it has been assimilated to the substance of the eater though the very emaciation which
existed before, and has now disappeared, sufficiently indicates what large deficiencies have been
filled up with this food? But I have already made some remarks which will suffice for the solution
of this difficulty also. For all the flesh which hunger has consumed finds its way into the air by
evaporation, whence, as we have said, God Almighty can recall it. That flesh, therefore, shall be
restored to the man in whom it first became human flesh. For it must be looked upon as borrowed
by the other person, and, like a pecuniary loan, must be returned to the lender. His own flesh,
however, which he lost by famine, shall be restored to him by Him who can recover even what has
evaporated. And though it had been absolutely annihilated, so that no part of its substance remained
in any secret spot of nature, the Almighty could restore it by such means as He saw fit. For this
sentence, uttered by the Truth, “Not a hair of your head shall perish,” forbids us to suppose that,
though no hair of a man’s head can perish, yet the large portions of his flesh eaten and consumed
by the famishing can perish.
From all that we have thus considered, and discussed with such poor ability as we can command,
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we gather this conclusion, that in the resurrection of the flesh the body shall be of that size which
it either had attained or should have attained in the flower of its youth, and shall enjoy the beauty
that arises from preserving symmetry and proportion in all its members. And it is reasonable to
suppose that, for the preservation of this beauty, any part of the body’s substance, which, if placed
in one spot, would produce a deformity, shall be distributed through the whole of it, so that neither
any part, nor the symmetry of the whole, may be lost, but only the general stature of the body
somewhat increased by the distribution in all the parts of that which, in one place, would have been
unsightly. Or if it is contended that each will rise with the same stature as that of the body he died
in, we shall not obstinately dispute this, provided only there be no deformity, no infirmity, no
languor, no corruption,—nothing of any kind which would ill become that kingdom in which the
children of the resurrection and of the promise shall be equal to the angels of God, if not in body
and age, at least in happiness.
Chapter 21.—Of the New Spiritual Body into Which the Flesh of the Saints Shall Be Transformed.
Whatever, therefore, has been taken from the body, either during life or after death shall be
restored to it, and, in conjunction with what has remained in the grave, shall rise again, transformed
from the oldness of the animal body into the newness of the spiritual body, and clothed in
incorruption and immortality. But even though the body has been all quite ground to powder by
some severe accident, or by the ruthlessness of enemies, and though it has been so diligently scattered
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to the winds, or into the water, that there is no trace of it left, yet it shall not be beyond the
omnipotence of the Creator,—no, not a hair of its head shall perish. The flesh shall then be spiritual,
and subject to the spirit, but still flesh, not spirit, as the spirit itself, when subject to the flesh, was
fleshly, but still spirit and not flesh. And of this we have experimental proof in the deformity of
our penal condition. For those persons were carnal, not in a fleshly, but in a spiritual way, to whom
the apostle said, “I could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.”1650 And a man is
in this life spiritual in such a way, that he is yet carnal with respect to his body, and sees another
law in his members warring against the law of his mind; but even in his body he will be spiritual
when the same flesh shall have had that resurrection of which these words speak, “It is sown an
animal body, it shall rise a spiritual body.”1651 But what this spiritual body shall be and how great
its grace, I fear it were but rash to pronounce, seeing that we have as yet no experience of it.
Nevertheless, since it is fit that the joyfulness of our hope should utter itself, and so show forth
God’s praise, and since it was from the profoundest sentiment of ardent and holy love that the
Psalmist cried, “O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house,”1652 we may, with God’s help, speak
of the gifts He lavishes on men, good and bad alike, in this most wretched life, and may do our best
to conjecture the great glory of that state which we cannot worthily speak of, because we have not
yet experienced it. For I say nothing of the time when God made man upright; I say nothing of the
happy life of “the man and his wife” in the fruitful garden, since it was so short that none of their
children experienced it: I speak only of this life which we know, and in which we now are, from
the temptations of which we cannot escape so long as we are in it, no matter what progress we
make, for it is all temptation, and I ask, Who can describe the tokens of God’s goodness that are
extended to the human race even in this life?
Chapter 22.—Of the Miseries and Ills to Which the Human Race is Justly Exposed Through the
First Sin, and from Which None Can Be Delivered Save by Christ’s Grace.
That the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to
be called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the
profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all the errors that enfold the children of Adam,
and from which no man can be delivered without toil, pain, and fear? Is it not proved by his love
of so many vain and hurtful things, which produces gnawing cares, disquiet, griefs, fears, wild joys,
quarrels, lawsuits, wars, treasons, angers, hatreds, deceit, flattery, fraud, theft, robbery, perfidy,
pride, ambition, envy, murders, parricides, cruelty, ferocity, wickedness, luxury, insolence,
1650 1 Cor. iii. 1.
1651 1 Cor. xv. 44.
1652 Ps. xxvi. 8.
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impudence, shamelessness, fornications, adulteries, incests, and the numberless uncleannesses and
unnatural acts of both sexes, which it is shameful so much as to mention; sacrileges, heresies,
blasphemies, perjuries, oppression of the innocent, calumnies, plots, falsehoods, false witnessings,
unrighteous judgments, violent deeds, plunderings, and whatever similar wickedness has found its
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way into the lives of men, though it cannot find its way into the conception of pure minds? These
are indeed the crimes of wicked men, yet they spring from that root of error and misplaced love
which is born with every son of Adam. For who is there that has not observed with what profound
ignorance, manifesting itself even in infancy, and with what superfluity of foolish desires, beginning
to appear in boyhood, man comes into this life, so that, were he left to live as he pleased, and to do
whatever he pleased, he would plunge into all, or certainly into many of those crimes and iniquities
which I mentioned, and could not mention?
But because God does not wholly desert those whom He condemns, nor shuts up in His anger
His tender mercies, the human race is restrained by law and instruction, which keep guard against
the ignorance that besets us, and oppose the assaults of vice, but are themselves full of labor and
sorrow. For what mean those multifarious threats which are used to restrain the folly of children?
What mean pedagogues, masters, the birch, the strap, the cane, the schooling which Scripture says
must be given a child, “beating him on the sides lest he wax stubborn,”1653 and it be hardly possible
or not possible at all to subdue him? Why all these punishments, save to overcome ignorance and
bridle evil desires—these evils with which we come into the world? For why is it that we remember
with difficulty, and without difficulty forget? learn with difficulty, and without difficulty remain
ignorant? are diligent with difficulty, and without difficulty are indolent? Does not this show what
vitiated nature inclines and tends to by its own weight, and what succor it needs if it is to be
delivered? Inactivity, sloth, laziness, negligence, are vices which shun labor, since labor, though
useful, is itself a punishment.
But, besides the punishments of childhood, without which there would be no learning of what
the parents wish,—and the parents rarely wish anything useful to be taught,—who can describe,
who can conceive the number and severity of the punishments which afflict the human race,—pains
which are not only the accompaniment of the wickedness of godless men, but are a part of the
human condition and the common misery,—what fear and what grief are caused by bereavement
and mourning, by losses and condemnations, by fraud and falsehood, by false suspicions, and all
the crimes and wicked deeds of other men? For at their hands we suffer robbery, captivity, chains,
imprisonment, exile, torture, mutilation, loss of sight, the violation of chastity to satisfy the lust of
the oppressor, and many other dreadful evils. What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from
without,—extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail,
earthquakes, houses falling; or from the stumbling, or shying, or vice of horses; from countless
poisons in fruits, water, air, animals; from the painful or even deadly bites of wild animals; from
the madness which a mad dog communicates, so that even the animal which of all others is most
1653 Ecclus. xxx. 12.
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gentle and friendly to its own master, becomes an object of intenser fear than a lion or dragon, and
the man whom it has by chance infected with this pestilential contagion becomes so rabid, that his
parents, wife, children, dread him more than any wild beast! What disasters are suffered by those
who travel by land or sea! What man can go out of his own house without being exposed on all
hands to unforeseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own doorstep, breaks
his leg, and never recovers. What can seem safer than a man sitting in his chair? Eli the priest fell
from his, and broke his neck. How many accidents do farmers, or rather all men, fear that the crops
may suffer from the weather, or the soil, or the ravages of destructive animals? Commonly they
feel safe when the crops are gathered and housed. Yet, to my certain knowledge, sudden floods
have driven the laborers away, and swept the barns clean of the finest harvest. Is innocence a
sufficient protection against the various assaults of demons? That no man might think so, even
baptized infants, who are certainly unsurpassed in innocence, are sometimes so tormented, that
God, who permits it, teaches us hereby to bewail the calamities of this life, and to desire the felicity
of the life to come. As to bodily diseases, they are so numerous that they cannot all be contained
even in medical books. And in very many, or almost all of them, the cures and remedies are
themselves tortures, so that men are delivered from a pain that destroys by a cure that pains. Has
not the madness of thirst driven men to drink human urine, and even their own? Has not hunger
driven men to eat human flesh, and that the flesh not of bodies found dead, but of bodies slain for
the purpose? Have not the fierce pangs of famine driven mothers to eat their own children, incredibly
savage as it seems? In fine, sleep itself, which is justly called repose, how little of repose there
sometimes is in it when disturbed with dreams and visions; and with what terror is the wretched
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mind overwhelmed by the appearances of things which are so presented, and which, as it were so
stand out before the senses, that we can not distinguish them from realities! How wretchedly do
false appearances distract men in certain diseases! With what astonishing variety of appearances
are even healthy men sometimes deceived by evil spirits, who produce these delusions for the sake
of perplexing the senses of their victims, if they cannot succeed in seducing them to their side!
From this hell upon earth there is no escape, save through the grace of the Saviour Christ, our
God and Lord. The very name Jesus shows this, for it means Saviour; and He saves us especially
from passing out of this life into a more wretched and eternal state, which is rather a death than a
life. For in this life, though holy men and holy pursuits afford us great consolations, yet the blessings
which men crave are not invariably bestowed upon them, lest religion should be cultivated for the
sake of these temporal advantages, while it ought rather to be cultivated for the sake of that other
life from which all evil is excluded. Therefore, also, does grace aid good men in the midst of present
calamities, so that they are enabled to endure them with a constancy proportioned to their faith.
The world’s sages affirm that philosophy contributes something to this,—that philosophy which,
according to Cicero, the gods have bestowed in its purity only on a few men. They have never
given, he says, nor can ever give, a greater gift to men. So that even those against whom we are
disputing have been compelled to acknowledge, in some fashion, that the grace of God is necessary
for the acquisition, not, indeed, of any philosophy, but of the true philosophy. And if the true
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philosophy—this sole support against the miseries of this life—has been given by Heaven only to
a few, it sufficiently appears from this that the human race has been condemned to pay this penalty
of wretchedness. And as, according to their acknowledgment, no greater gift has been bestowed
by God, so it must be believed that it could be given only by that God whom they themselves
recognize as greater than all the gods they worship.
Chapter 23.—Of the Miseries of This Life Which Attach Peculiarly to the Toil of Good Men,
Irrespective of Those Which are Common to the Good and Bad.
But, irrespective of the miseries which in this life are common to the good and bad, the righteous
undergo labors peculiar to themselves, in so far as they make war upon their vices, and are involved
in the temptations and perils of such a contest. For though sometimes more violent and at other
times slacker, yet without intermission does the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh, so that we cannot do the things we would,1654 and extirpate all lust, but can only refuse
consent to it, as God gives us ability, and so keep it under, vigilantly keeping watch lest a semblance
of truth deceive us, lest a subtle discourse blind us, lest error involve us in darkness, lest we should
take good for evil or evil for good, lest fear should hinder us from doing what we ought, or desire
precipitate us into doing what we ought not, lest the sun go down upon our wrath, lest hatred provoke
us to render evil for evil, lest unseemly or immoderate grief consume us, lest an ungrateful disposition
make us slow to recognize benefits received, lest calumnies fret our conscience, lest rash suspicion
on our part deceive us regarding a friend, or false suspicion of us on the part of others give us too
much uneasiness, lest sin reign in our mortal body to obey its desires, lest our members be used as
the instruments of unrighteousness, lest the eye follow lust, lest thirst for revenge carry us away,
lest sight or thought dwell too long on some evil thing which gives us pleasure, lest wicked or
indecent language be willingly listened to, lest we do what is pleasant but unlawful, and lest in this
warfare, filled so abundantly with toil and peril, we either hope to secure victory by our own strength,
or attribute it when secured to our own strength, and not to His grace of whom the apostle says,
“Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ;”1655 and in another
place he says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”1656 But
yet we are to know this, that however valorously we resist our vices, and however successful we
are in overcoming them, yet as long as we are in this body we have always reason to say to God,
Forgive us our debts.”1657 But in that kingdom where we shall dwell for ever, clothed in immortal
1654 Gal. v. 17.
1655 1 Cor. xv. 57.
1656 Rom. viii. 37.
1657 Matt. vi. 12.
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bodies, we shall no longer have either conflicts or debts,—as indeed we should not have had at any
time or in any condition, had our nature continued upright as it was created. Consequently even
this our conflict, in which we are exposed to peril, and from which we hope to be delivered by a
final victory, belongs to the ills of this life, which is proved by the witness of so many grave evils
to be a life under condemnation.
502 Chapter 24.—Of the Blessings with Which the Creator Has Filled This Life, Obnoxious Though
It Be to the Curse.
But we must now contemplate the rich and countless blessings with which the goodness of
God, who cares for all He has created, has filled this very misery of the human race, which reflects
His retributive justice. That first blessing which He pronounced before the fall, when He said,
“Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth,”1658 He did not inhibit after man had sinned, but
the fecundity originally bestowed remained in the condemned stock; and the vice of sin, which has
involved us in the necessity of dying, has yet not deprived us of that wonderful power of seed, or
rather of that still more marvellous power by which seed is produced, and which seems to be as it
were inwrought and inwoven in the human body. But in this river, as I may call it, or torrent of
the human race, both elements are carried along together,—both the evil which is derived from
him who begets, and the good which is bestowed by Him who creates us. In the original evil there
are two things, sin and punishment; in the original good, there are two other things, propagation
and conformation. But of the evils, of which the one, sin, arose from our audacity, and the other,
punishment, from God’s judgment, we have already said as much as suits our present purpose. I
mean now to speak of the blessings which God has conferred or still confers upon our nature,
vitiated and condemned as it is. For in condemning it He did not withdraw all that He had given
it, else it had been annihilated; neither did He, in penally subjecting it to the devil, remove it beyond
His own power; for not even the devil himself is outside of God’s government, since the devil’s
nature subsists only by the supreme Creator who gives being to all that in any form exists.
Of these two blessings, then, which we have said flow from God’s goodness, as from a fountain,
towards our nature, vitiated by sin and condemned to punishment, the one, propagation, was
conferred by God’s benediction when He made those first works, from which He rested on the
seventh day. But the other, conformation, is conferred in that work of His wherein “He worketh
hitherto.”1659 For were He to withdraw His efficacious power from things, they should neither be
able to go on and complete the periods assigned to their measured movements, nor should they
even continue in possession of that nature they were created in. God, then, so created man that He
1658 Gen. i. 28.
1659 John v. 17.
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gave him what we may call fertility, whereby he might propagate other men, giving them a congenital
capacity to propagate their kind, but not imposing on them any necessity to do so. This capacity
God withdraws at pleasure from individuals, making them barren; but from the whole race He has
not withdrawn the blessing of propagation once conferred. But though not withdrawn on account
of sin, this power of propagation is not what it would have been had there been no sin. For since
“man placed in honor fell, he has become like the beasts,”1660 and generates as they do, though the
little spark of reason, which was the image of God in him, has not been quite quenched. But if
conformation were not added to propagation, there would be no reproduction of one’s kind. For
even though there were no such thing as copulation, and God wished to fill the earth with human
inhabitants, He might create all these as He created one without the help of human generation.
And, indeed, even as it is, those who copulate can generate nothing save by the creative energy of
God. As, therefore, in respect of that spiritual growth whereby a man is formed to piety and
righteousness, the apostle says, “Neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but
God that giveth the increase,”1661 so also it must be said that it is not he that generates that is anything,
but God that giveth the essential form; that it is not the mother who carries and nurses the fruit of
her womb that is anything, but God that giveth the increase. For He alone, by that energy wherewith
“He worketh hitherto,” causes the seed to develop, and to evolve from certain secret and invisible
folds into the visible forms of beauty which we see. He alone, coupling and connecting in some
wonderful fashion the spiritual and corporeal natures, the one to command, the other to obey, makes
a living being. And this work of His is so great and wonderful, that not only man, who is a rational
animal, and consequently more excellent than all other animals of the earth, but even the most
diminutive insect, cannot be considered attentively without astonishment and without praising the
Creator.
It is He, then, who has given to the human soul a mind, in which reason and understanding lie
as it were asleep during infancy, and as if they were not, destined, however, to be awakened and
exercised as years increase, so as to become capable of knowledge and of receiving instruction, fit
to understand what is true and to love what is good. It is by this capacity the soul drinks in wisdom,
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and becomes endowed with those virtues by which, in prudence, fortitude, temperance, and
righteousness, it makes war upon error and the other inborn vices, and conquers them by fixing its
desires upon no other object than the supreme and unchangeable Good. And even though this be
not uniformly the result, yet who can competently utter or even conceive the grandeur of this work
of the Almighty, and the unspeakable boon He has conferred upon our rational nature, by giving
us even the capacity of such attainment? For over and above those arts which are called virtues,
and which teach us how we may spend our life well, and attain to endless happiness,—arts which
are given to the children of the promise and the kingdom by the sole grace of God which is in
Christ,—has not the genius of man invented and applied countless astonishing arts, partly the result
1660 Ps. xlix. 20.
1661 1 Cor. iii. 7.
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of necessity, partly the result of exuberant invention, so that this vigor of mind, which is so active
in the discovery not merely of superfluous but even of dangerous and destructive things, betokens
an inexhaustible wealth in the nature which can invent, learn, or employ such arts? What
wonderful—one might say stupefying—advances has human industry made in the arts of weaving
and building, of agriculture and navigation! With what endless variety are designs in pottery,
painting, and sculpture produced, and with what skill executed! What wonderful spectacles are
exhibited in the theatres, which those who have not seen them cannot credit! How skillful the
contrivances for catching, killing, or taming wild beasts! And for the injury of men, also, how
many kinds of poisons, weapons, engines of destruction, have been invented, while for the
preservation or restoration of health the appliances and remedies are infinite! To provoke appetite
and please the palate, what a variety of seasonings have been concocted! To express and gain
entrance for thoughts, what a multitude and variety of signs there are, among which speaking and
writing hold the first place! what ornaments has eloquence at command to delight the mind! what
wealth of song is there to captivate the ear! how many musical instruments and strains of harmony
have been devised! What skill has been attained in measures and numbers! with what sagacity
have the movements and connections of the stars been discovered! Who could tell the thought that
has been spent upon nature, even though, despairing of recounting it in detail, he endeavored only
to give a general view of it? In fine, even the defence of errors and misapprehensions, which has
illustrated the genius of heretics and philosophers, cannot be sufficiently declared. For at present
it is the nature of the human mind which adorns this mortal life which we are extolling, and not the
faith and the way of truth which lead to immortality. And since this great nature has certainly been
created by the true and supreme God, who administers all things He has made with absolute power
and justice, it could never have fallen into these miseries, nor have gone out of them to miseries
eternal, —saving only those who are redeemed,—had not an exceeding great sin been found in the
first man from whom the rest have sprung.
Moreover, even in the body, though it dies like that of the beasts, and is in many ways weaker
than theirs, what goodness of God, what providence of the great Creator, is apparent! The organs
of sense and the rest of the members, are not they so placed, the appearance, and form, and stature
of the body as a whole, is it not so fashioned, as to indicate that it was made for the service of a
reasonable soul? Man has not been created stooping towards the earth, like the irrational animals;
but his bodily form, erect and looking heavenwards, admonishes him to mind the things that are
above. Then the marvellous nimbleness which has been given to the tongue and the hands, fitting
them to speak, and write, and execute so many duties, and practise so many arts, does it not prove
the excellence of the soul for which such an assistant was provided? And even apart from its
adaptation to the work required of it, there is such a symmetry in its various parts, and so beautiful
a proportion maintained, that one is at a loss to decide whether, in creating the body, greater regard
was paid to utility or to beauty. Assuredly no part of the body has been created for the sake of
utility which does not also contribute something to its beauty. And this would be all the more
apparent, if we knew more precisely how all its parts are connected and adapted to one another,
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and were not limited in our observations to what appears on the surface; for as to what is covered
up and hidden from our view, the intricate web of veins and nerves, the vital parts of all that lies
under the skin, no one can discover it. For although, with a cruel zeal for science, some medical
men, who are called anatomists, have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes even of sick
persons who died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body
to learn the nature of the disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured, yet those relations
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of which I speak, and which form the concord,1662 or, as the Greeks call it, “harmony,” of the whole
body outside and in, as of some instrument, no one has been able to discover, because no one has
been audacious enough to seek for them. But if these could be known, then even the inward parts,
which seem to have no beauty, would so delight us with their exquisite fitness, as to afford a
profounder satisfaction to the mind—and the eyes are but its ministers—than the obvious beauty
which gratifies the eye. There are some things, too, which have such a place in the body, that they
obviously serve no useful purpose, but are solely for beauty, as e.g. the teats on a man’s breast, or
the beard on his face; for that this is for ornament, and not for protection, is proved by the bare
faces of women, who ought rather, as the weaker sex, to enjoy such a defence. If, therefore, of all
those members which are exposed to our view, there is certainly not one in which beauty is sacrificed
to utility, while there are some which serve no purpose but only beauty, I think it can readily be
concluded that in the creation of the human body comeliness was more regarded than necessity.
In truth, necessity is a transitory thing; and the time is coming when we shall enjoy one another’s
beauty without any lust,—a condition which will specially redound to the praise of the Creator,
who, as it is said in the psalm, has “put on praise and comeliness.”1663
How can I tell of the rest of creation, with all its beauty and utility, which the divine goodness
has given to man to please his eye and serve his purposes, condemned though he is, and hurled into
these labors and miseries? Shall I speak of the manifold and various loveliness of sky, and earth,
and sea; of the plentiful supply and wonderful qualities of the light; of sun, moon, and stars; of the
shade of trees; of the colors and perfume of flowers; of the multitude of birds, all differing in
plumage and in song; of the variety of animals, of which the smallest in size are often the most
wonderful,—the works of ants and bees astonishing us more than the huge bodies of whales? Shall
I speak of the sea, which itself is so grand a spectacle, when it arrays itself as it were in vestures
of various colors, now running through every shade of green, and again becoming purple or blue?
Is it not delightful to look at it in storm, and experience the soothing complacency which it inspires,
by suggesting that we ourselves are not tossed and shipwrecked?1664 What shall I say of the
numberless kinds of food to alleviate hunger, and the variety of seasonings to stimulate appetite
which are scattered everywhere by nature, and for which we are not indebted to the art of cookery?
1662 Coaptatio, a word coined by Augustin, and used by him again in the De Trin. iv. 2.
1663 Ps. civ. 1.
1664 He apparently has in view the celebrated passage in the opening of the second book of Lucretius. The uses made of this
passage are referred to by Lecky, Hist. of European Morals, i. 74.
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How many natural appliances are there for preserving and restoring health! How grateful is the
alternation of day and night! how pleasant the breezes that cool the air! how abundant the supply
of clothing furnished us by trees and animals! Who can enumerate all the blessings we enjoy? If
I were to attempt to detail and unfold only these few which I have indicated in the mass, such an
enumeration would fill a volume. And all these are but the solace of the wretched and condemned,
not the rewards of the blessed. What then shall these rewards be, if such be the blessings of a
condemned state? What will He give to those whom He has predestined to life, who has given
such things even to those whom He has predestined to death? What blessings will He in the blessed
life shower upon those for whom, even in this state of misery, He has been willing that His
only-begotten Son should endure such sufferings even to death? Thus the apostle reasons concerning
those who are predestined to that kingdom: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him
up for us all, how shall He not with Him also give us all things?”1665 When this promise is fulfilled,
what shall we be? What blessings shall we receive in that kingdom, since already we have received
as the pledge of them Christ’s dying? In what condition shall the spirit of man be, when it has no
longer any vice at all; when it neither yields to any, nor is in bondage to any, nor has to make war
against any, but is perfected, and enjoys undisturbed peace with itself? Shall it not then know all
things with certainty, and without any labor or error, when unhindered and joyfully it drinks the
wisdom of God at the fountain-head? What shall the body be, when it is in every respect subject
to the spirit, from which it shall draw a life so sufficient, as to stand in need of no other nutriment?
For it shall no longer be animal, but spiritual, having indeed the substance of flesh, but without any
fleshly corruption.
Chapter 25.—Of the Obstinacy of Those Individuals Who Impugn the Resurrection of the Body,
Though, as Was Predicted, the Whole World Believes It.
The foremost of the philosophers agree with us about the spiritual felicity enjoyed by the blessed
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in the life to come; it is only the resurrection of the flesh they call in question, and with all their
might deny. But the mass of men, learned and unlearned, the world’s wise men and its fools, have
believed, and have left in meagre isolation the unbelievers, and have turned to Christ, who in His
own resurrection demonstrated the reality of that which seems to our adversaries absurd. For the
world has believed this which God predicted, as it was also predicted that the world would
believe,—a prediction not due to the sorceries of Peter,1666 since it was uttered so long before. He
who has predicted these things, as I have already said, and am not ashamed to repeat, is the God
before whom all other divinities tremble, as Porphyry himself owns, and seeks to prove, by
1665 Rom. viii. 32.
1666 VideBook xviii. c. 53.
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testimonies from the oracles of these gods, and goes so far as to call Him God the Father and King.
Far be it from us to interpret these predictions as they do who have not believed, along with the
whole world, in that which it was predicted the world would believe in. For why should we not
rather understand them as the world does, whose belief was predicted, and leave that handful of
unbelievers to their idle talk and obstinate and solitary infidelity? For if they maintain that they
interpret them differently only to avoid charging Scripture with folly, and so doing an injury to that
God to whom they bear so notable a testimony, is it not a much greater injury they do Him when
they say that His predictions must be understood otherwise than the world believed them, though
He Himself praised, promised, accomplished this belief on the world’s part? And why cannot He
cause the body to rise again, and live for ever? or is it not to be believed that He will do this, because
it is an undesirable thing, and unworthy of God? Of His omnipotence, which effects so many great
miracles, we have already said enough. If they wish to know what the Almighty cannot do, I shall
tell them He cannot lie. Let us therefore believe what He can do, by refusing to believe what He
cannot do. Refusing to believe that He can lie, let them believe that He will do what He has promised
to do; and let them believe it as the world has believed it, whose faith He predicted, whose faith
He praised, whose faith He promised, whose faith He now points to. But how do they prove that
the resurrection is an undesirable thing? There shall then be no corruption, which is the only evil
thing about the body. I have already said enough about the order of the elements, and the other
fanciful objections men raise; and in the thirteenth book I have, in my own judgment, sufficiently
illustrated the facility of movement which the incorruptible body shall enjoy, judging from the ease
and vigor we experience even now, when the body is in good health. Those who have either not
read the former books, or wish to refresh their memory, may read them for themselves.
Chapter 26.—That the Opinion of Porphyry, that the Soul, in Order to Be Blessed, Must Be Separated
from Every Kind of Body, is Demolished by Plato, Who Says that the Supreme God Promised
the Gods that They Should Never Be Ousted from Their Bodies.
But, say they, Porphyry tells us that the soul, in order to be blessed, must escape connection
with every kind of body. It does not avail, therefore, to say that the future body shall be incorruptible,
if the soul cannot be blessed till delivered from every kind of body. But in the book above mentioned
I have already sufficiently discussed this. This one thing only will I repeat,—let Plato, their master,
correct his writings, and say that their gods, in order to be blessed, must quit their bodies, or, in
other words, die; for he said that they were shut up in celestial bodies, and that, nevertheless, the
God who made them promised them immortality,—that is to say, an eternal tenure of these same
bodies, such as was not provided for them naturally, but only by the further intervention of His
will, that thus they might be assured of felicity. In this he obviously overturns their assertion that
the resurrection of the body cannot be believed because it is impossible; for, according to him,
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when the uncreated God promised immortality to the created gods, He expressly said that He would
do what was impossible. For Plato tells us that He said, “As ye have had a beginning, so you cannot
be immortal and incorruptible; yet ye shall not decay, nor shall any fate destroy you or prove
stronger than my will, which more effectually binds you to immortality than the bond of your nature
keeps you from it.” If they who hear these words have, we do not say understanding, but ears, they
cannot doubt that Plato believed that God promised to the gods He had made that He would effect
an impossibility. For He who says, “Ye cannot be immortal, but by my will ye shall be immortal,”
what else does He say than this, “I shall make you what ye cannot be?” The body, therefore, shall
be raised incorruptible, immortal, spiritual, by Him who, according to Plato, has promised to do
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that which is impossible. Why then do they still exclaim that this which God has promised, which
the world has believed on God’s promise as was predicted, is an impossibility? For what we say
is, that the God who, even according to Plato, does impossible things, will do this. It is not, then,
necessary to the blessedness of the soul that it be detached from a body of any kind whatever, but
that it receive an incorruptible body. And in what incorruptible body will they more suitably rejoice
than in that in which they groaned when it was corruptible? For thus they shall not feel that dire
craving which Virgil, in imitation of Plato, has ascribed to them when he says that they wish to
return again to their bodies.1667 They shall not, I say, feel this desire to return to their bodies, since
they shall have those bodies to which a return was desired, and shall, indeed, be in such thorough
possession of them, that they shall never lose them even for the briefest moment, nor ever lay them
down in death.
Chapter 27.—Of the Apparently Conflicting Opinions of Plato and Porphyry, Which Would Have
Conducted Them Both to the Truth If They Could Have Yielded to One Another.
Statements were made by Plato and Porphyry singly, which if they could have seen their way
to hold in common, they might possibly have became Christians. Plato said that souls could not
exist eternally without bodies; for it was on this account, he said, that the souls even of wise men
must some time or other return to their bodies. Porphyry, again, said that the purified soul, when
it has returned to the Father, shall never return to the ills of this world. Consequently, if Plato had
communicated to Porphyry that which he saw to be true, that souls, though perfectly purified, and
belonging to the wise and righteous, must return to human bodies; and if Porphyry, again, had
imparted to Plato the truth which he saw, that holy soul, shall never return to the miseries of a
corruptible body, so that they should not have each held only his own opinion, but should both
have held both truths, I think they would have seen that it follows that the souls return to their
bodies, and also that these bodies shall be such as to afford them a blessed and immortal life. For,
1667 Virg. Æn. vi. 751.
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according to Plato, even holy souls shall return to the body; according to Porphyry, holy souls shall
not return to the ills of this world. Let Porphyry then say with Plato, they shall return to the body;
let Plato say with Porphyry, they shall not return to their old misery: and they will agree that they
return to bodies in which they shall suffer no more. And this is nothing else than what God has
promised,—that He will give eternal felicity to souls joined to their own bodies. For this, I presume,
both of them would readily concede, that if the souls of the saints are to be reunited to bodies, it
shall be to their own bodies, in which they have endured the miseries of this life, and in which, to
escape these miseries, they served God with piety and fidelity.
Chapter 28.—What Plato or Labeo, or Even Varro, Might Have Contributed to the True Faith of
the Resurrection, If They Had Adopted One Another’s Opinions into One Scheme.
Some Christians, who have a liking for Plato on account of his magnificent style and the truths
which he now and then uttered, say that he even held an opinion similar to our own regarding the
resurrection of the dead. Cicero, however, alluding to this in his Republic, asserts that Plato meant
it rather as a playful fancy than as a reality; for he introduces a man1668 who had come to life again,
and gave a narrative of his experience in corroboration of the doctrines of Plato. Labeo, too, says
that two men died on one day, and met at a cross-road, and that, being afterwards ordered to return
to their bodies, they agreed to be friends for life, and were so till they died again. But the resurrection
which these writers instance resembles that of those persons whom we have ourselves known to
rise again, and who came back indeed to this life, but not so as never to die again. Marcus Varro,
however, in his work On the Origin of the Roman People, records something more remarkable; I
think his own words should be given. “Certain astrologers,” he says, “have written that men are
destined to a new birth, which the Greeks call palingenesy. This will take place after four hundred
and forty years have elapsed; and then the same soul and the same body, which were formerly
united in the person, shall again be reunited.” This Varro, indeed, or those nameless astrologers,—for
he does not give us the names of the men whose statement he cites,—have affirmed what is indeed
not altogether true; for once the souls have returned to the bodies they wore, they shall never
afterwards leave them. Yet what they say upsets and demolishes much of that idle talk of our
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adversaries about the impossibility of the resurrection. For those who have been or are of this
opinion, have not thought it possible that bodies which have dissolved into air, or dust, or ashes,
or water, or into the bodies of the beasts or even of the men that fed on them, should be restored
again to that which they formerly were. And therefore, if Plato and Porphyry, or rather, if their
disciples now living, agree with us that holy souls shall return to the body, as Plato says, and that,
nevertheless, they shall not return to misery, as Porphyry maintains, —if they accept the consequence
1668 In the Republic, x.
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of these two propositions which is taught by the Christian faith, that they shall receive bodies in
which they may live eternally without suffering any misery,—let them also adopt from Varro the
opinion that they shall return to the same bodies as they were formerly in, and thus the whole
question of the eternal resurrection of the body shall be resolved out of their own mouths.
Chapter 29.—Of the Beatific Vision.
And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the saints shall be
employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no
longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand
the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within
the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our
understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that “peace of God which,” as
the apostle says, “passeth all understanding,”1669—that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic
understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it passeth ours there is no doubt; but if it passeth
that of the angels,—and he who says “all understanding” seems to make no exception in their
favor,—then we must understand him to mean that neither we nor the angels can understand, as
God understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless this passeth all understanding
but His own. But as we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in
His peace, both in ourselves, and with our neighbor, and with God our chief good, in this respect
the angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind
them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he was
who said, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect is come;”1670 and
“Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.”1671 Such also is now the vision of the
holy angels, who are also called our angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of darkness,
and receiving the earnest of the Spirit, are translated into the kingdom of Christ, and already begin
to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of
which we have now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels, as Christ is
God’s and also ours. They are God’s, because they have not abandoned Him; they are ours, because
we are their fellow-citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, “See that ye despise not one of these little
ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always see the face of my Father which is
in heaven.”1672 As, then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus see. Wherefore the
1669 Phil. iv. 7.
1670 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.
1671 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
1672 Matt. xviii. 10.
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apostle uses the words cited a little ago, “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
face.” This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John also says, “When
He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”1673 By “the face” of God we
are to understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to that which in our bodies
we call by that name.
And so, when I am asked how the saints shall be employed in that spiritual body, I do not say
what I see, but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, “I believed, therefore
have I spoken.”1674 I say, then, they shall in the body see God; but whether they shall see Him by
means of the body, as now we see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that is a
difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints shall then have such bodies that they shall
not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that every one
who shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance, saw
his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master’s observation and
accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy, how
much more shall the saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes be shut,
but though they themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be “that which is perfect,” of
which the apostle says, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect
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is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” Then, that he may illustrate as well as
possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived, not only by ordinary men,
but even by the foremost of the saints, he says, “When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spake
as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as
also I am known.”1675 If, then, even in this life, in which the prophetic power of remarkable men
is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood,
Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts, shall we say that when that which
is perfect is come, and the corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and
offers no impediment to it, the saints shall need bodily eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of
them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint version, these are the prophet’s words: “Did
not my heart go with thee, when the man came out of his chariot to meet thee, and thou tookedst
his gifts?”1676 Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it from the Hebrew, “Was not my heart present
when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee?” The prophet said that he saw this with his
heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt. But how much more abundantly shall the
saints enjoy this gift when God shall be all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have
their office and their place, and shall be used by the spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet
1673 1 John iii. 2.
1674 Ps. cxvi. 10.
1675 1 Cor. xiii. 11, 12.
1676 2 Kings v. 26.
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did not forego the use of his eyes for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them
to see his absent servant, and though he could have seen these present objects in spirit, and with
his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from
us to say that in the life to come the saints shall not see God when their eyes are shut, since they
shall always see Him with the spirit.
But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they shall see Him with the bodily
eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess,
manifestly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look
upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For
though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as He, Himself says by the prophet, “I fill heaven
and earth,”1677 we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on earth;
but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no
bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior power,—the power not of keen
sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can
discern nothing but bodily substances,—but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it
was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job
while yet in this mortal body, when he says to God, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and melt away, and count myself
dust and ashes;”1678 although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eye of the
heart, of which the apostle says, “Having the eyes of your heart illuminated.”1679 But that God shall
be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and Master
says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”1680 But whether in the future life God
shall also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question.
The expression of Scripture, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,”1681 may without
difficulty be understood as if it were said, “And every man shall see the Christ of God.” And He
certainly was seen in the body, and shall be seen in the body when He judges quick and dead. And
that Christ is the salvation of God, many other passages of Scripture witness, but especially the
words of the venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant Christ, said,
“Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen
Thy salvation.”1682 As for the words of the above-mentioned Job, as they are found in the Hebrew
manuscripts, “And in my flesh I shall see God,”1683 no doubt they were a prophecy of the resurrection
1677 Jer. xxiii. 24.
1678 Job xlii. 5, 6.
1679 Eph. i. 18.
1680 Matt. v. 8.
1681 Luke iii. 6.
1682 Luke ii. 29, 30.
1683 Job xix. 26. [Rev. Vers.; “from my flesh,” with the margin: “without my flesh.”—P.S.]
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of the flesh; yet he does not say “by the flesh.” And indeed, if he had said this, it would still be
possible that Christ was meant by “God;” for Christ shall be seen by the flesh in the flesh. But
even understanding it of God, it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in the flesh when I see God.
Then the apostle’s expression, “face to face,”1684 does not oblige us to believe that we shall see God
by the bodily face in which are the eyes of the body, for we shall see Him without intermission in
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spirit. And if the apostle had not referred to the face of the inner man, he would not have said,
“But we, with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the
same image, from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord.”1685 In the same sense we understand
what the Psalmist sings, “Draw near unto Him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be
ashamed.”1686 For it is by faith we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the spirit, not of the
body. But as we do not know what degree of perfection the spiritual body shall attain,—for here
we speak of a matter of which we have no experience, and upon which the authority of Scripture
does not definitely pronounce,—it is necessary that the words of the Book of Wisdom be illustrated
in us: “The thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our fore-castings uncertain.”1687
For if that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they attempt to make out that intelligible or
mental objects are so seen by the mind, and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body, that the
former cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the mind itself without
the body,—if this reasoning were trustworthy, then it would certainly follow that God could not
be seen by the eye even of a spiritual body. But this reasoning is exploded both by true reason and
by prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the truth as to say that God has no
cognisance of sensible objects? Has He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this
knowledge? Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha, does this not
sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by the spirit without the help of the body?
For when that servant received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material transaction, yet the
prophet saw it not by the body, but by the spirit. As, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by
the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that spirit also is seen by the
body? For God is a spirit. Besides, each man recognizes his own life—that life by which he now
lives in the body, and which vivifies these earthly members and causes them to grow—by an interior
sense, and not by his bodily eye; but the life of other men, though it is invisible, he sees with the
bodily eye. For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by seeing at once
both the body and the life which we cannot see save by the eye? But a life without a body we
cannot see thus.
Wherefore it may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible, that we shall in the future world
see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that we shall most
1684 1 Cor. xiii. 12.
1685 2 Cor. iii. 18.
1686 Ps. xxxiv. 5.
1687 Wisd. ix. 14.
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distinctly recognize God everywhere present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual,
and shall see Him, not as now we understand the invisible things of God, by the things which are
made,1688 and see Him darkly, as in a mirror, and in part, and rather by faith than by bodily vision
of material appearances, but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we shall see wherever
we turn our eyes. As we do not believe, but see that the living men around us who are exercising
vital functions are alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies, but see it most distinctly
by means of their bodies, so, wherever we shall look with those spiritual eyes of our future bodies,
we shall then, too, by means of bodily substances behold God, though a spirit, ruling all things.
Either, therefore, the eyes shall possess some quality similar to that of the mind, by which they
may be able to discern spiritual things, and among these God,—a supposition for which it is difficult
or even impossible to find any support in Scripture,—or, which is more easy to comprehend, God
will be so known by us, and shall be so much before us, that we shall see Him by the spirit in
ourselves, in one another, in Himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in every created thing
which shall then exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in every body which the keen vision
of the eye of the spiritual body shall reach. Our thoughts also shall be visible to all, for then shall
be fulfilled the words of the apostle, “Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both
will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart,
and then shall every one have praise of God.”1689
Chapter 30.—Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath.
How great shall be that felicity, which shall be tainted with no evil, which shall lack no good,
and which shall afford leisure for the praises of God, who shall be all in all! For I know not what
other employment there can be where no lassitude shall slacken activity, nor any want stimulate to
labor. I am admonished also by the sacred song, in which I read or hear the words, “Blessed are
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they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they will be still praising Thee.”1690 All the members and
organs of the incorruptible body, which now we see to be suited to various necessary uses, shall
contribute to the praises of God; for in that life necessity shall have no place, but full, certain,
secure, everlasting felicity. For all those parts1691 of the bodily harmony, which are distributed
through the whole body, within and without, and of which I have just been saying that they at
present elude our observation, shall then be discerned; and, along with the other great and marvellous
discoveries which shall then kindle rational minds in praise of the great Artificer, there shall be the
1688 Rom. i. 20.
1689 1 Cor. iv. 5.
1690 Ps. lxxxiv. 4.
1691 Numbers.
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enjoyment of a beauty which appeals to the reason. What power of movement such bodies shall
possess, I have not the audacity rashly to define, as I have not the ability to conceive. Nevertheless
I will say that in any case, both in motion and at rest, they shall be, as in their appearance, seemly;
for into that state nothing which is unseemly shall be admitted. One thing is certain, the body shall
forthwith be wherever the spirit wills, and the spirit shall will nothing which is unbecoming either
to the spirit or to the body. True honor shall be there, for it shall be denied to none who is worthy,
nor yielded to any unworthy; neither shall any unworthy person so much as sue for it, for none but
the worthy shall be there. True peace shall be there, where no one shall suffer opposition either
from himself or any other. God Himself, who is the Author of virtue, shall there be its reward; for,
as there is nothing greater or better, He has promised Himself. What else was meant by His word
through the prophet, “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,”1692 than, I shall be their
satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire,—life, and health, and nourishment, and plenty,
and glory, and honor, and peace, and all good things? This, too, is the right interpretation of the
saying of the apostle, “That God may be all in all.”1693 He shall be the end of our desires who shall
be seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness. This outgoing of affection,
this employment, shall certainly be, like eternal life itself, common to all.
But who can conceive, not to say describe, what degrees of honor and glory shall be awarded
to the various degrees of merit? Yet it cannot be doubted that there shall be degrees. And in that
blessed city there shall be this great blessing, that no inferior shall envy any superior, as now the
archangels are not envied by the angels, because no one will wish to be what he has not received,
though bound in strictest concord with him who has received; as in the body the finger does not
seek to be the eye, though both members are harmoniously included in the complete structure of
the body. And thus, along with his gift, greater or less, each shall receive this further gift of
contentment to desire no more than he has.
Neither are we to suppose that because sin shall have no power to delight them, free will must
be withdrawn. It will, on the contrary, be all the more truly free, because set free from delight in
sinning to take unfailing delight in not sinning. For the first freedom of will which man received
when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas
this last freedom of will shall be superior, inasmuch as it shall not be able to sin. This, indeed, shall
not be a natural ability, but the gift of God. For it is one thing to be God, another thing to be a
partaker of God. God by nature cannot sin, but the partaker of God receives this inability from
God. And in this divine gift there was to be observed this gradation, that man should first receive
a free will by which he was able not to sin, and at last a free will by which he was not able to
sin,—the former being adapted to the acquiring of merit, the latter to the enjoying of the reward.1694
But the nature thus constituted, having sinned when it had the ability to do so, it is by a more
1692 Lev. xxvi. 12.
1693 1 Cor. xv. 28.
1694 Or, the former to a state of probation, the latter to a state of reward.
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abundant grace that it is delivered so as to reach that freedom in which it cannot sin. For as the
first immortality which Adam lost by sinning consisted in his being able not to die, while the last
shall consist in his not being able to die; so the first free will consisted in his being able not to sin,
the last in his not being able to sin. And thus piety and justice shall be as indefeasible as happiness.
For certainly by sinning we lost both piety and happiness; but when we lost happiness, we did not
lose the love of it. Are we to say that God Himself is not free because He cannot sin? In that city,
then, there shall be free will, one in all the citizens, and indivisible in each, delivered from all ill,
filled with all good, enjoying indefeasibly the delights of eternal joys, oblivious of sins, oblivious
of sufferings, and yet not so oblivious of its deliverance as to be ungrateful to its Deliverer.
The soul, then, shall have an intellectual remembrance of its past ills; but, so far as regards
sensible experience, they shall be quite forgotten. For a skillful physician knows, indeed,
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professionally almost all diseases; but experimentally he is ignorant of a great number which he
himself has never suffered from. As, therefore, there are two ways of knowing evil things,—one
by mental insight, the other by sensible experience, for it is one thing to understand all vices by the
wisdom of a cultivated mind, another to understand them by the foolishness of an abandoned
life,—so also there are two ways of forgetting evils. For a well-instructed and learned man forgets
them one way, and he who has experimentally suffered from them forgets them another,—the
former by neglecting what he has learned, the latter by escaping what he has suffered. And in this
latter way the saints shall forget their past ills, for they shall have so thoroughly escaped them all,
that they shall be quite blotted out of their experience. But their intellectual knowledge, which
shall be great, shall keep them acquainted not only with their own past woes, but with the eternal
sufferings of the lost. For if they were not to know that they had been miserable, how could they,
as the Psalmist says, for ever sing the mercies of God? Certainly that city shall have no greater joy
than the celebration of the grace of Christ, who redeemed us by His blood. There shall be
accomplished the words of the psalm, “Be still, and know that I am God.”1695 There shall be the
great Sabbath which has no evening, which God celebrated among His first works, as it is written,
“And God rested on the seventh day from all His works which He had made. And God blessed the
seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began
to make.”1696 For we shall ourselves be the seventh day, when we shall be filled and replenished
with God’s blessing and sanctification. There shall we be still, and know that He is God; that He
is that which we ourselves aspired to be when we fell away from Him, and listened to the voice of
the seducer, “Ye shall be as gods,”1697 and so abandoned God, who would have made us as gods,
not by deserting Him, but by participating in Him. For without Him what have we accomplished,
save to perish in His anger? But when we are restored by Him, and perfected with greater grace,
we shall have eternal leisure to see that He is God, for we shall be full of Him when He shall be
1695 Ps. xlvi. 10.
1696 Gen. ii. 2, 3.
1697 Gen. iii. 5.
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all in all. For even our good works, when they are understood to be rather His than ours, are imputed
to us that we may enjoy this Sabbath rest. For if we attribute them to ourselves, they shall be servile;
for it is said of the Sabbath, “Ye shall do no servile work in it.”1698 Wherefore also it is said by
Ezekiel the prophet, “And I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they
might know that I am the Lord who sanctify them.”1699 This knowledge shall be perfected when
we shall be perfectly at rest, and shall perfectly know that He is God.
This Sabbath shall appear still more clearly if we count the ages as days, in accordance with
the periods of time defined in Scripture, for that period will be found to be the seventh. The first
age, as the first day, extends from Adam to the deluge; the second from the deluge to Abraham,
equalling the first, not in length of time, but in the number of generations, there being ten in each.
From Abraham to the advent of Christ there are, as the evangelist Matthew calculates, three periods,
in each of which are fourteen generations,—one period from Abraham to David, a second from
David to the captivity, a third from the captivity to the birth of Christ in the flesh. There are thus
five ages in all. The sixth is now passing, and cannot be measured by any number of generations,
as it has been said, “It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own
power.”1700 After this period God shall rest as on the seventh day, when He shall give us (who shall
be the seventh day) rest in Himself.1701 But there is not now space to treat of these ages; suffice it
to say that the seventh shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening,
but by the Lord’s day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, and
prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest and
see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other
end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?
I think I have now, by God’s help, discharged my obligation in writing this large work. Let
those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let
those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God. Amen.
1698 Deut. v. 14.
1699 Ezek. xx. 12.
1700 Acts. i. 7.
1701 [On Augustin’s view of the millennium and the first resurrection, see Bk. xx. 6–10.—P.S.]
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