The City of God

# ### ARGUMENT.

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5 AUGUSTINE AGAIN TREATS OF THE SIN OF THE FIRST MAN, AND TEACHES THAT

6 > IT IS THE CAUSE OF THE CARNAL LIFE AND VICIOUS AFFECTIONS OF MAN.

7 > ESPECIALLY HE PROVES THAT THE SHAME WHICH ACCOMPANIES LUST IS THE

8 > JUST PUNISHMENT OF THAT DISOBEDIENCE, AND INQUIRES HOW MAN, IF HE

9 > HAD NOT SINNED, WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE WITHOUT LUST TO PROPAGATE

10 > HIS KIND.

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14 1. *That the disobedience of the first man would have plunged all men into the

15 > endless misery of the second death, had not the grace of God rescued many.*

16 We have already stated in the preceding books that God,

17 desiring not only that the human race might be able

18 by their similarity of nature to associate with one another,

19 but also that they might be bound together in harmony and

20 peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all

21 men from one individual, and created man with such a

22 nature that the members of the race should not have died,

23 had not the two first (of whom the one was created out of

24 nothing, and the other out of him) merited this by their disobedience;

25 for by them so great a sin was committed, that by

26 it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted

27 also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to

28 death. And the kingdom of death so reigned over men, that

29 the deserved penalty of sin would have hurled all headlong

30 even into the second death, of which there is no end, had not

31 the undeserved grace of God saved some therefrom. And

32 thus it has come to pass, that though there are very many

33 and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs,

34 speech, arms, and dress, are distinguished by marked differences,

35 yet there are no more than two kinds of human society,

36 which we may justly call two cities, according to the language

37 of our Scriptures. The one consists of those who wish to live

38 after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the

39 spirit; and when they severally achieve what they wish, they

40 live in peace, each after their kind.

41 2. *Of carnal life, which is to be understood not only of living in bodily indulgence,

42 but also of living in the vices of the inner man.*

43 First, we must see what it is to live after the flesh, and what

44 to live after the spirit. For any one who either does not

45 recollect, or does not sufficiently weigh, the language of sacred

46 Scripture, may, on first hearing what we have said, suppose

47 that the Epicurean philosophers live after the flesh, because

48 they place man's highest good in bodily pleasure; and that

49 those others do so who have been of opinion that in some

50 form or other bodily good is man's supreme good; and that

51 the mass of men do so who, without dogmatizing or philosophizing

52 on the subject, are so prone to lust that they cannot

53 delight in any pleasure save such as they receive from bodily

54 sensations: and he may suppose that the Stoics, who place

55 the supreme good of men in the soul, live after the spirit; for

56 what is man's soul, if not spirit? But in the sense of the

57 divine Scripture both are proved to live after the flesh. For

58 by flesh it means not only the body of a terrestrial and mortal

59 animal, as when it says, "All flesh is not the same flesh,

60 but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of

61 beasts, another of fishes, another of birds,"[2] but it uses this

62 word in many other significations; and among these various

63 usages, a frequent one is to use flesh for man himself, the

64 nature of man taking the part for the whole, as in the words,

65 "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;"[3]

66 for what does he mean here by "no flesh" but "no man?"

67 And this, indeed, he shortly after says more plainly: "No man

68 shall be justified by the law;"[4] and in the Epistle to the

69 Galatians, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the

70 works of the law." And so we understand the words, "And

71 the Word was made flesh,"[5]—that is, man, which some not

72 accepting in its right sense, have supposed that Christ had not

73 a human soul.[6] For as the whole is used for the part in the

74 words of Mary Magdalene in the Gospel, "They have taken

75 away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him,"[7]

76 by which she meant only the flesh of Christ, which she supposed

77 had been taken from the tomb where it had been

78 buried, so the part is used for the whole, flesh being named,

79 while man is referred to, as in the quotations above cited.

80 Since, then, Scripture uses the word flesh in many ways,

81 which there is not time to collect and investigate, if we are to

82 ascertain what it is to live after the flesh (which is certainly

83 evil, though the nature of flesh is not itself evil), we must

84 carefully examine that passage of the epistle which the

85 Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, in which he says, "Now

86 the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery,

87 fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,

88 hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

89 envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of

90 the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time

91 past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the

92 kingdom of God."[8] This whole passage of the apostolic

93 epistle being considered, so far as it bears on the matter in

94 hand, will be sufficient to answer the question, what it is to

95 live after the flesh. For among the works of the flesh which

96 he said were manifest, and which he cited for condemnation,

97 we find not only those which concern the pleasure of the

98 flesh, as fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness,

99 revellings, but also those which, though they be remote from

100 fleshly pleasure, reveal the vices of the soul. For who does

101 not see that idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, variance, emulations,

102 wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, are vices rather of the

103 soul than of the flesh? For it is quite possible for a man to

104 abstain from fleshly pleasures for the sake of idolatry or some

105 heretical error; and yet, even when he does so, he is proved by

106 this apostolic authority to be living after the flesh; and in

107 abstaining from fleshly pleasure, he is proved to be practising

108 damnable works of the flesh. Who that has enmity has it

109 not in his soul? or who would say to his enemy, or to the

110 man he thinks his enemy, You have a bad flesh towards me,

111 and not rather, You have a bad spirit towards me? In fine,

112 if any one heard of what I may call "carnalities," he would

113 not fail to attribute them to the carnal part of man; so no

114 one doubts that "animosities" belong to the soul of man.

115 Why then does the doctor of the Gentiles in faith and verity

116 call all these and similar things works of the flesh, unless

117 because, by that mode of speech whereby the part is used for

118 the whole, he means us to understand by the word flesh the

119 man himself?

120 3. *That sin is caused not by the flesh, but by the soul, and that the corruption

121 contracted from sin is not sin, but sin's punishment.*

122 But if any one says that the flesh is the cause of all vices

123 and ill conduct, inasmuch as the soul lives wickedly only

124 because it is moved by the flesh, it is certain he has not

125 carefully considered the whole nature of man. For "the

126 corruptible body, indeed, weigheth down the soul."[9] Whence,

127 too, the apostle, speaking of this corruptible body, of which

128 he had shortly before said, "though our outward man perish,"[10]

129 says, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle

130 were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made

131 with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan,

132 earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is

133 from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found

134 naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being

135 burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed

136 upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life."[11] We

137 are then burdened with this corruptible body; but knowing

138 that the cause of this burdensomeness is not the nature and

139 substance of the body, but its corruption, we do not desire to

140 be deprived of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality.

141 For then, also, there will be a body, but it shall no

142 longer be a burden, being no longer corruptible. At present,

143 then, "the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the

144 earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon

145 many things," nevertheless they are in error who suppose that

146 all the evils of the soul proceed from the body.

147 Virgil, indeed, seems to express the sentiments of Plato in

148 the beautiful lines, where he says,—

149 "A fiery strength inspires their lives,

150 An essence that from heaven derives,

151 Though clogged in part by limbs of clay,

152 And the dull 'vesture of decay;'"[12]

153 but though he goes on to mention the four most common

154 mental emotions,—desire, fear, joy, sorrow,—with the intention

155 of showing that the body is the origin of all sins and

156 vices, saying,—

157 "Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,

158 And human laughter, human tears,

159 Immured in dungeon-seeming night,

160 They look abroad, yet see no light,"[13]

161 yet we believe quite otherwise. For the corruption of the

162 body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the

163 punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible

164 flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made

165 the flesh corruptible. And though from this corruption of

166 the flesh there arise certain incitements to vice, and indeed

167 vicious desires, yet we must not attribute to the flesh all

168 the vices of a wicked life, in case we thereby clear the devil

169 of all these, for he has no flesh. For though we cannot call

170 the devil a fornicator or drunkard, or ascribe to him any

171 sensual indulgence (though he is the secret instigator and

172 prompter of those who sin in these ways), yet he is exceedingly

173 proud and envious. And this viciousness has so possessed

174 him, that on account of it he is reserved in chains of

175 darkness to everlasting punishment.[14] Now these vices, which

176 have dominion over the devil, the apostle attributes to the

177 flesh, which certainly the devil has not. For he says

178 "hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envying" are the works

179 of the flesh; and of all these evils pride is the origin and

180 head, and it rules in the devil though he has no flesh. For

181 who shows more hatred to the saints? who is more at

182 variance with them? who more envious, bitter, and jealous?

183 And since he exhibits all these works, though he has no flesh,

184 how are they works of the flesh, unless because they are the

185 works of man, who is, as I said, spoken of under the name of

186 flesh? For it is not by having flesh, which the devil has not,

187 but by living according to himself,—that is, according to

188 man,—that man became like the devil. For the devil too,

189 wished to live according to himself when he did not abide in

190 the truth; so that when he lied, this was not of God, but of

191 himself, who is not only a liar, but the father of lies, he being

192 the first who lied, and the originator of lying as of sin.

193 4. *What it is to live according to man, and what to live according to God.*

194 When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according

195 to God, he is like the devil. Because not even an angel

196 might live according to an angel, but only according to God,

197 if he was to abide in the truth, and speak God's truth and

198 not his own lie. And of man, too, the same apostle says in

199 another place, "If the truth of God hath more abounded

200 through my lie;"[15]—"my lie," he said, and "God's truth."

201 When, then, a man lives according to the truth, he lives not

202 according to himself, but according to God; for He was

203 God who said, "I am the truth."[16] When, therefore, man

204 lives according to himself,—that is, according to man, not

205 according to God,—assuredly he lives according to a lie; not

206 that man himself is a lie, for God is his author and creator,

207 who is certainly not the author and creator of a lie, but

208 because man was made upright, that he might not live according

209 to himself, but according to Him that made him,—in other

210 words, that he might do His will and not his own; and not to

211 live as he was made to live, that is a lie. For he certainly

212 desires to be blessed even by not living so that he may be

213 blessed. And what is a lie if this desire be not? Wherefore

214 it is not without meaning said that all sin is a lie. For

215 no sin is committed save by that desire or will by which we

216 desire that it be well with us, and shrink from it being ill

217 with us. That, therefore, is a lie which we do in order that

218 it may be well with us, but which makes us more miserable

219 than we were. And why is this, but because the source of

220 man's happiness lies only in God, whom he abandons when

221 he sins, and not in himself, by living according to whom he

222 sins?

223 In enunciating this proposition of ours, then, that because

224 some live according to the flesh and others according to the

225 spirit there have arisen two diverse and conflicting cities,

226 we might equally well have said, "because some live according

227 to man, others according to God." For Paul says very

228 plainly to the Corinthians, "For whereas there is among you

229 envying and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk according to

230 man?"[17] So that to walk according to man and to be carnal

231 are the same; for by *flesh*, that is, by a part of man, man

232 is meant. For before he said that those same persons were

233 animal whom afterwards he calls carnal, saying, "For what

234 man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man

235 which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no

236 man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the

237 spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we

238 might know the things which are freely given to us of God.

239 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's

240 wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing

241 spiritual things with spiritual. But the animal man

242 perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are

243 foolishness unto him."[18] It is to men of this kind, then, that

244 is, to animal men, he shortly after says, "And I, brethren, could

245 not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal."[19]

246 And this is to be interpreted by the same usage, a part being

247 taken for the whole. For both the soul and the flesh, the

248 component parts of man, can be used to signify the whole

249 man; and so the animal man and the carnal man are not two

250 different things, but one and the same thing, viz. man living

251 according to man. In the same way it is nothing else than

252 men that are meant either in the words, "By the deeds of

253 the law there shall no *flesh* be justified;"[20] or in the words,

254 "Seventy-five *souls* went down into Egypt with Jacob."[21] In

255 the one passage, "no flesh" signifies "no man;" and in the

256 other, by "seventy-five souls" seventy-five men are meant.

257 And the expression, "not in words which man's wisdom

258 teacheth," might equally be "not in words which fleshly

259 wisdom teacheth;" and the expression, "ye walk according to

260 man," might be "according to the flesh." And this is still

261 more apparent in the words which followed: "For while one

262 saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not

263 men?" The same thing which he had before expressed by

264 "ye are animal," "ye are carnal," he now expresses by "ye

265 are men;" that is, ye live according to man, not according to

266 God, for if you lived according to Him, you should be gods.

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270 5. *That the opinion of the Platonists regarding the nature of body and soul is

271 > not so censurable as that of the Manichæans, but that even it is objectionable,

272 > because it ascribes the origin of vices to the nature of the flesh.*

273 There is no need, therefore, that in our sins and vices we

274 accuse the nature of the flesh to the injury of the Creator, for

275 in its own kind and degree the flesh is good; but to desert the

276 Creator good, and live according to the created good, is not good,

277 whether a man choose to live according to the flesh, or according

278 to the soul, or according to the whole human nature, which

279 is composed of flesh and soul, and which is therefore spoken of

280 either by the name flesh alone, or by the name soul alone. For

281 he who extols the nature of the soul as the chief good, and condemns

282 the nature of the flesh as if it were evil, assuredly is

283 fleshly both in his love of the soul and hatred of the flesh; for

284 these his feelings arise from human fancy, not from divine

285 truth. The Platonists, indeed, are not so foolish as, with the

286 Manichæans, to detest our present bodies as an evil nature;[22]

287 for they attribute all the elements of which this visible and

288 tangible world is compacted, with all their qualities, to God

289 their Creator. Nevertheless, from the death-infected members

290 and earthly construction of the body they believe the soul is so

291 affected, that there are thus originated in it the diseases of

292 desires, and fears, and joy, and sorrow, under which four perturbations,

293 as Cicero[23] calls them, or passions, as most prefer

294 to name them with the Greeks, is included the whole viciousness

295 of human life. But if this be so, how is it that Æneas

296 in Virgil, when he had heard from his father in Hades that

297 the souls should return to bodies, expresses surprise at this

298 declaration, and exclaims:

299 "O father! and can thought conceive

300 That happy souls this realm would leave,

301 And seek the upper sky,

302 With sluggish clay to reunite?

303 This direful longing for the light,

304 Whence comes it, say, and why?"[24]

305 This direful longing, then, does it still exist even in that

306 boasted purity of the disembodied spirits, and does it still

307 proceed from the death-infected members and earthly limbs?

308 Does he not assert that, when they begin to long to return

309 to the body, they have already been delivered from all these

310 so-called pestilences of the body? From which we gather

311 that, were this endlessly alternating purification and defilement

312 of departing and returning souls as true as it is most certainly

313 false, yet it could not be averred that all culpable and vicious

314 motions of the soul originate in the earthly body; for, on their

315 own showing, "this direful longing," to use the words of their

316 noble exponent, is so extraneous to the body, that it moves

317 the soul that is purged of all bodily taint, and is existing

318 apart from any body whatever, and moves it, moreover, to be

319 embodied again. So that even they themselves acknowledge

320 that the soul is not only moved to desire, fear, joy, sorrow, by

321 the flesh, but that it can also be agitated with these emotions

322 at its own instance.

323 6. *Of the character of the human will which makes the affections of the soul

324 right or wrong.*

325 But the character of the human will is of moment; because,

326 if it is wrong, these motions of the soul will be wrong, but if

327 it is right, they will be not merely blameless, but even praiseworthy.

328 For the will is in them all; yea, none of them is

329 anything else than will. For what are desire and joy but a

330 volition of consent to the things we wish? And what are

331 fear and sadness but a volition of aversion from the things

332 which we do not wish? But when consent takes the form of

333 seeking to possess the things we wish, this is called desire;

334 and when consent takes the form of enjoying the things we

335 wish, this is called joy. In like manner, when we turn with

336 aversion from that which we do not wish to happen, this

337 volition is termed fear; and when we turn away from that

338 which has happened against our will, this act of will is called

339 sorrow. And generally in respect of all that we seek or shun, as

340 a man's will is attracted or repelled, so it is changed and turned

341 into these different affections. Wherefore the man who lives

342 according to God, and not according to man, ought to be a lover

343 of good, and therefore a hater of evil. And since no one is

344 evil by nature, but whoever is evil is evil by vice, he who

345 lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a

346 perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because

347 of his vice, nor love the vice because of the man, but hate

348 the vice and love the man. For the vice being cursed, all

349 that ought to be loved, and nothing that ought to be hated,

350 will remain.

351 7. *That the words love and regard* (amor *and* dilectio) *are in Scripture used

352 indifferently of good and evil affection.*

353 He who resolves to love God, and to love his neighbour as

354 himself, not according to man but according to God, is on

355 account of this love said to be of a good will; and this is in

356 Scripture more commonly called charity, but it is also, even

357 in the same books, called love. For the apostle says that the

358 man to be elected as a ruler of the people must be a lover of

359 good.[25] And when the Lord Himself had asked Peter, "Hast

360 thou a regard for me (*diligis*) more than these?" Peter replied,

361 "Lord, Thou knowest that I love (*amo*) Thee." And

362 again a second time the Lord asked not whether Peter loved

363 (*amaret*) Him, but whether he had a regard (*diligeret*) for Him,

364 and he again answered, "Lord, Thou knowest that I love (*amo*)

365 Thee." But on the third interrogation the Lord Himself no

366 longer says, "Hast thou a regard (*diligis*) for me," but "Lovest

367 thou (*amas*) me?" And then the evangelist adds, "Peter was

368 grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou

369 (*amas*) me?" though the Lord had not said three times but only

370 once, "Lovest thou (*amas*) me?" and twice "*Diligis me?*" from

371 which we gather that, even when the Lord said "*diligis*," He used

372 an equivalent for "*amas*." Peter, too, throughout used one word

373 for the one thing, and the third time also replied, "Lord, Thou

374 knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love (*amo*) Thee."[26]

375 I have judged it right to mention this, because some are

376 of opinion that charity or regard (*dilectio*) is one thing, love

377 (*amor*) another. They say that *dilectio* is used of a good affection,

378 *amor* of an evil love. But it is very certain that even

379 secular literature knows no such distinction. However, it is

380 for the philosophers to determine whether and how they differ,

381 though their own writings sufficiently testify that they make

382 great account of love (*amor*) placed on good objects, and even

383 on God Himself. But we wished to show that the Scriptures

384 of our religion, whose authority we prefer to all writings whatsoever,

385 make no distinction between *amor*, *dilectio*, and *caritas*;

386 and we have already shown that *amor* is used in a good connection.

387 And if any one fancy that *amor* is no doubt used

388 both of good and bad loves, but that *dilectio* is reserved for

389 the good only, let him remember what the psalm says, "He

390 that loveth (*diligit*) iniquity hateth his own soul;"[27] and the

391 words of the Apostle John, "If any man love (*diligere*) the

392 world, the love (*dilectio*) of the Father is not in him."[28] Here

393 you have in one passage *dilectio* used both in a good and a bad

394 sense. And if any one demands an instance of *amor* being

395 used in a bad sense (for we have already shown its use in a

396 good sense), let him read the words, "For men shall be lovers

397 (*amantes*) of their own selves, lovers (*amatores*) of money."[29]

398 The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the

399 wrong will is ill-directed love. Love, then, yearning to have

400 what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy;

401 fleeing what is opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is

402 opposed to it, when it has befallen it, it is sadness. Now

403 these motions are evil if the love is evil; good if the love is

404 good. What we assert let us prove from Scripture. The

405 apostle "desires to depart, and to be with Christ."[30] And,

406 "My soul desired to long for Thy judgments;"[31] or if it is

407 more appropriate to say, "My soul longed to desire Thy judgments."

408 And, "The desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom."[32]

409 Yet there has always obtained the usage of understanding desire

410 and concupiscence in a bad sense if the object be not defined.

411 But joy is used in a good sense: "Be glad in the Lord, and

412 rejoice, ye righteous."[33] And, "Thou hast put gladness in my

413 heart."[34] And, "Thou wilt fill me with joy with Thy countenance."[35]

414 Fear is used in a good sense by the apostle when

415 he says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."[36]

416 And, "Be not high-minded, but fear."[37] And, "I fear, lest by

417 any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,

418 so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is

419 in Christ."[38] But with respect to sadness, which Cicero prefers

420 to call sickness (*ægritudo*), and Virgil pain (*dolor*) (as he

421 says, "*Dolent gaudentque*"[39]), but which I prefer to call sorrow,

422 because sickness and pain are more commonly used to express

423 bodily suffering,—with respect to this emotion, I say, the question

424 whether it can be used in a good sense is more difficult.

425 >

426 >

427 >

428 8. *Of the three perturbations, which the Stoics admitted in the soul of the wise

429 > man to the exclusion of grief or sadness, which the manly mind ought not

430 > to experience.*

431 Those emotions which the Greeks call εὐπαθείαι, and

432 which Cicero calls *constantiæ*, the Stoics would restrict to

433 three; and, instead of three "perturbations" in the soul of

434 the wise man, they substituted severally, in place of desire,

435 will; in place of joy, contentment; and for fear, caution;

436 and as to sickness or pain, which we, to avoid ambiguity,

437 preferred to call sorrow, they denied that it could exist in the

438 mind of a wise man. Will, they say, seeks the good, for this

439 the wise man does. Contentment has its object in good that

440 is possessed, and this the wise man continually possesses.

441 Caution avoids evil, and this the wise man ought to avoid.

442 But sorrow arises from evil that has already happened; and

443 as they suppose that no evil can happen to the wise man,

444 there can be no representative of sorrow in his mind. According

445 to them, therefore, none but the wise man wills, is

446 contented, uses caution; and that the fool can do no more

447 than desire, rejoice, fear, be sad. The former three affections

448 Cicero calls *constantiæ*, the last four *perturbationes*. Many,

449 however, call these last *passions*; and, as I have said, the

450 Greeks call the former εὐπαθείαι, and the latter παθήματα. And

451 when I made a careful examination of Scripture to find

452 whether this terminology was sanctioned by it, I came upon

453 this saying of the prophet: "There is no contentment to the

454 wicked, saith the Lord;"[40] as if the wicked might more properly

455 rejoice than be contented regarding evils, for contentment

456 is the property of the good and godly. I found also

457 that verse in the Gospel: "Whatsoever ye would that men

458 should do unto you, do ye even so unto them;"[41] which seems

459 to imply that evil or shameful things may be the object of

460 desire, but not of will. Indeed, some interpreters have added

461 "good things" to make the expression more in conformity

462 with customary usage, and have given this meaning, "Whatsoever

463 good deeds that ye would that men should do unto

464 you." For they thought that this would prevent any one

465 from wishing other men to provide him with unseemly, not to

466 say shameful, gratifications,—luxurious banquets, for example,—on

467 the supposition that if he returned the like to them he

468 would be fulfilling this precept. In the Greek Gospel, however,

469 from which the Latin is translated, "good" does not

470 occur, but only, "All things whatsoever ye would that men

471 should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," and, as I

472 believe, because "good" is already included in the word

473 "would;" for He does not say "desire."

474 Yet though we may sometimes avail ourselves of these

475 precise proprieties of language, we are not to be always

476 bridled by them; and when we read those writers against

477 whose authority it is unlawful to reclaim, we must accept

478 the meanings above mentioned in passages where a right

479 sense can be educed by no other interpretation, as in those

480 instances we adduced partly from the prophet, partly from

481 the Gospel. For who does not know that the wicked exult

482 with joy? Yet "there is no *contentment* for the wicked,

483 saith the Lord." And how so, unless because contentment,

484 when the word is used in its proper and distinctive significance,

485 means something different from joy? In like manner,

486 who would deny that it were wrong to enjoin upon men that

487 whatever they desire others to do to them they should themselves

488 do to others, lest they should mutually please one

489 another by shameful and illicit pleasure? And yet the precept,

490 "Whatsoever ye *would* that men should do unto you, do

491 ye even so to them," is very wholesome and just. And how is

492 this, unless because the will is in this place used strictly, and

493 signifies that will which cannot have evil for its object? But

494 ordinary phraseology would not have allowed the saying, "Be

495 unwilling to make any manner of lie,"[42] had there not been

496 also an evil will, whose wickedness separates it from that

497 which the angels celebrated, "Peace on earth, of good will to

498 men."[43] For "good" is superfluous if there is no other

499 kind of will but good will. And why should the apostle have

500 mentioned it among the praises of charity as a great thing,

501 that "it rejoices not in iniquity," unless because wickedness

502 does so rejoice? For even with secular writers these words

503 are used indifferently. For Cicero, that most fertile of

504 orators, says, "I desire, conscript fathers, to be merciful."[44]

505 And who would be so pedantic as to say that he should have

506 said "I will" rather than "I desire," because the word is used

507 in a good connection? Again, in Terence, the profligate

508 youth, burning with wild lust, says, "I will nothing else than

509 Philumena."[45] That this "will" was lust is sufficiently indicated

510 by the answer of his old servant which is there introduced:

511 "How much better were it to try and banish that love

512 from your heart, than to speak so as uselessly to inflame your

513 passion still more!" And that contentment was used by secular

514 writers in a bad sense, that verse of Virgil testifies, in which

515 he most succinctly comprehends these four perturbations,—

516 "Hence they fear and desire, grieve and are content."[46]

517 The same author had also used the expression, "the evil

518 contentments of the mind."[47] So that good and bad men

519 alike will, are cautious, and contented; or, to say the same

520 thing in other words, good and bad men alike desire, fear,

521 rejoice, but the former in a good, the latter in a bad fashion,

522 according as the will is right or wrong. Sorrow itself, too,

523 which the Stoics would not allow to be represented in the

524 mind of the wise man, is used in a good sense, and especially

525 in our writings. For the apostle praises the Corinthians

526 because they had a godly sorrow. But possibly some one

527 may say that the apostle congratulated them because they

528 were penitently sorry, and that such sorrow can exist only in

529 those who have sinned. For these are his words: "For I

530 perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though

531 it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were

532 made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance; for ye were

533 made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive

534 damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance

535 to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the

536 world worketh death. For, behold, this selfsame thing that

537 ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in

538 you!"[48] Consequently the Stoics may defend themselves by

539 replying,[49] that sorrow is indeed useful for repentance of sin,

540 but that this can have no place in the mind of the wise man,

541 inasmuch as no sin attaches to him of which he could

542 sorrowfully repent, nor any other evil the endurance or experience

543 of which could make him sorrowful. For they say

544 that Alcibiades (if my memory does not deceive me), who

545 believed himself happy, shed tears when Socrates argued with

546 him, and demonstrated that he was miserable because he was

547 foolish. In his case, therefore, folly was the cause of this

548 useful and desirable sorrow, wherewith a man mourns that he

549 is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics maintain not

550 that the fool, but that the wise man, cannot be sorrowful.

551 9. *Of the perturbations of the soul which appear as right affections in the

552 life of the righteous.*

553 But so far as regards this question of mental perturbations,

554 we have answered these philosophers in the ninth book[50]

555 of this work, showing that it is rather a verbal than a real

556 dispute, and that they seek contention rather than truth.

557 Among ourselves, according to the sacred Scriptures and

558 sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, who live

559 according to God in the pilgrimage of this life, both fear and

560 desire, and grieve and rejoice. And because their love is

561 rightly placed, all these affections of theirs are right. They

562 fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve

563 because they themselves groan within themselves, waiting for

564 the adoption, the redemption of their body;[51] they rejoice in

565 hope, because there "shall be brought to pass the saying that

566 is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."[52] In like

567 manner they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they grieve

568 in sin, they rejoice in good works. They fear to sin, because

569 they hear that "because iniquity shall abound, the love of

570 many shall wax cold."[53] They desire to persevere, because

571 they hear that it is written, "He that endureth to the end

572 shall be saved."[54] They grieve for sin, hearing that "If we say

573 that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is

574 not in us."[55] They rejoice in good works, because they hear

575 that "the Lord loveth a cheerful giver."[56] In like manner,

576 according as they are strong or weak, they fear or desire to

577 be tempted, grieve or rejoice in temptation. They fear to be

578 tempted, because they hear the injunction, "If a man be overtaken

579 in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one

580 in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also

581 be tempted."[57] They desire to be tempted, because they hear

582 one of the heroes of the city of God saying, "Examine me,

583 O Lord, and tempt me: try my reins and my heart."[58] They

584 grieve in temptations, because they see Peter weeping;[59] they

585 rejoice in temptations, because they hear James saying, "My

586 brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations."[60]

587 And not only on their own account do they experience

588 these emotions, but also on account of those whose deliverance

589 they desire and whose perdition they fear, and whose

590 loss or salvation affects them with grief or with joy. For

591 if we who have come into the Church from among the Gentiles

592 may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who

593 glories in his infirmities, the teacher (*doctor*) of the nations

594 in faith and truth, who also laboured more than all his fellow-apostles,

595 and instructed the tribes of God's people by his

596 epistles, which edified not only those of his own time, but

597 all those who were to be gathered in,—that hero, I say, and

598 athlete of Christ, instructed by Him, anointed of His Spirit,

599 crucified with Him, glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining

600 a great conflict on the theatre of this world, and being

601 made a spectacle to angels and men,[61] and pressing onwards

602 for the prize of his high calling,[62]—very joyfully do we with

603 the eyes of faith behold him rejoicing with them that rejoice,

604 and weeping with them that weep;[63] though hampered

605 by fightings without and fears within;[64] desiring to depart

606 and to be with Christ;[65] longing to see the Romans, that he

607 might have some fruit among them as among other Gentiles;[66]

608 being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing in that

609 jealousy lest their minds should be corrupted from the chastity

610 that is in Christ;[67] having great heaviness and continual

611 sorrow of heart for the Israelites,[68] because they, being ignorant

612 of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their

613 own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the

614 righteousness of God;[69] and expressing not only his sorrow,

615 but bitter lamentation over some who had formally sinned

616 and had not repented of their uncleanness and fornications.[70]

617 If these emotions and affections, arising as they do from

618 the love of what is good and from a holy charity, are to

619 be called vices, then let us allow these emotions which are

620 truly vices to pass under the name of virtues. But since

621 these affections, when they are exercised in a becoming way,

622 follow the guidance of right reason, who will dare to say

623 that they are diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore even

624 the Lord Himself, when He condescended to lead a human

625 life in the form of a slave, had no sin whatever, and yet

626 exercised these emotions where He judged they should be

627 exercised. For as there was in Him a true human body and

628 a true human soul, so was there also a true human emotion.

629 When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the hard-heartedness

630 of the Jews moved Him to sorrowful indignation,[71] that

631 He said, "I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye may

632 believe,"[72] that when about to raise Lazarus He even shed

633 tears,[73] that He earnestly desired to eat the passover with

634 His disciples,[74] that as His passion drew near His soul was

635 sorrowful,[75] these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed

636 to Him. But as He became man when it pleased Him, so,

637 in the grace of His definite purpose, when it pleased Him He

638 experienced those emotions in His human soul.

639 But we must further make the admission, that even when

640 these affections are well regulated, and according to God's

641 will, they are peculiar to this life, not to that future life we

642 look for, and that often we yield to them against our will.

643 And thus sometimes we weep in spite of ourselves, being

644 carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable desire, but

645 by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore, these affections

646 arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the Lord

647 Jesus, for even His infirmity was the consequence of His

648 power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we

649 are rather worse men than better if we have none of these

650 emotions at all. For the apostle vituperated and abominated

651 some who, as he said, were "without natural affection."[76]

652 The sacred Psalmist also found fault with those of whom he

653 said, "I looked for some to lament with me, and there was

654 none."[77] For to be quite free from pain while we are in this

655 place of misery is only purchased, as one of this world's

656 literati perceived and remarked,[78] at the price of blunted sensibilities

657 both of mind and body. And therefore that which

658 the Greeks call ἀπάθεια, and what the Latins would call, if

659 their language would allow them, "impassibilitas," if it be

660 taken to mean an impassibility of spirit and not of body, or,

661 in other words, a freedom from those emotions which are contrary

662 to reason and disturb the mind, then it is obviously a

663 good and most desirable quality, but it is not one which is

664 attainable in this life. For the words of the apostle are the

665 confession, not of the common herd, but of the eminently

666 pious, just, and holy men: "If we say we have no sin, we

667 deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."[79] When there

668 shall be no sin in a man, then there shall be this ἀπάθεια.

669 At present it is enough if we live without crime; and he

670 who thinks he lives without sin puts aside not sin, but

671 pardon. And if that is to be called apathy, where the mind

672 is the subject of no emotion, then who would not consider

673 this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It may, indeed,

674 reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness we

675 hope for shall be free from all sting of fear or sadness; but

676 who that is not quite lost to truth would say that neither

677 love nor joy shall be experienced there? But if by apathy a

678 condition be meant in which no fear terrifies nor any pain

679 annoys, we must in this life renounce such a state if we

680 would live according to God's will, but may hope to enjoy

681 it in that blessedness which is promised as our eternal condition.

682 For that fear of which the Apostle John says, "There is

683 no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because

684 fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in

685 love,"[80]—that fear is not of the same kind as the Apostle

686 Paul felt lest the Corinthians should be seduced by the

687 subtlety of the serpent; for love is susceptible of this fear,

688 yea, love alone is capable of it. But the fear which is not in

689 love is of that kind of which Paul himself says, "For ye

690 have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear."[81] But

691 as for that "clean fear which endureth for ever,"[82] if it is to

692 exist in the world to come (and how else can it be said to

693 endure for ever?), it is not a fear deterring us from evil

694 which may happen, but preserving us in the good which

695 cannot be lost. For where the love of acquired good is

696 unchangeable, there certainly the fear that avoids evil is, if

697 I may say so, free from anxiety. For under the name of

698 "clean fear" David signifies that will by which we shall

699 necessarily shrink from sin, and guard against it, not with the

700 anxiety of weakness, which fears that we may strongly sin,

701 but with the tranquillity of perfect love. Or if no kind of

702 fear at all shall exist in that most imperturbable security of

703 perpetual and blissful delights, then the expression, "The fear

704 of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever," must be taken in the

705 same sense as that other, "The patience of the poor shall not

706 perish for ever."[83] For patience, which is necessary only

707 where ills are to be borne, shall not be eternal, but that which

708 patience leads us to will be eternal. So perhaps this "clean

709 fear" is said to endure for ever, because that to which fear

710 leads shall endure.

711 And since this is so,—since we must live a good life in

712 order to attain to a blessed life,—a good life has all these

713 affections right, a bad life has them wrong. But in the

714 blessed life eternal there will be love and joy, not only right,

715 but also assured; but fear and grief there will be none.

716 Whence it already appears in some sort what manner of persons

717 the citizens of the city of God must be in this their

718 pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh,—that

719 is to say, according to God, not according to man,—and what

720 manner of persons they shall be also in that immortality

721 whither they are journeying. And the city or society of the

722 wicked, who live not according to God, but according to man,

723 and who accept the doctrines of men or devils in the worship

724 of a false and contempt of the true divinity, is shaken with

725 those wicked emotions as by diseases and disturbances. And

726 if there be some of its citizens who seem to restrain and, as

727 it were, temper those passions, they are so elated with ungodly

728 pride, that their disease is as much greater as their

729 pain is less. And if some, with a vanity monstrous in proportion

730 to its rarity, have become enamoured of themselves

731 because they can be stimulated and excited by no emotion,

732 moved or bent by no affection, such persons rather lose all

733 humanity than obtain true tranquillity. For a thing is not

734 necessarily right because it is inflexible, nor healthy because

735 it is insensible.

736 10. *Whether it is to be believed that our first parents in Paradise, before they

737 sinned, were free from all perturbation.*

738 But it is a fair question, whether our first parent or first

739 parents (for there was a marriage of two), before they sinned,

740 experienced in their animal body such emotions as we shall

741 not experience in the spiritual body when sin has been

742 purged and finally abolished. For if they did, then how

743 were they blessed in that boasted place of bliss, Paradise?

744 For who that is affected by fear or grief can be called absolutely

745 blessed? And what could those persons fear or suffer

746 in such affluence of blessings, where neither death nor ill-health

747 was feared, and where nothing was wanting which a

748 good will could desire, and nothing present which could

749 interrupt man's mental or bodily enjoyment? Their love to

750 God was unclouded, and their mutual affection was that of

751 faithful and sincere marriage; and from this love flowed a

752 wonderful delight, because they always enjoyed what was

753 loved. Their avoidance of sin was tranquil; and, so long as

754 it was maintained, no other ill at all could invade them and

755 bring sorrow. Or did they perhaps desire to touch and eat

756 the forbidden fruit, yet feared to die; and thus both fear and

757 desire already, even in that blissful place, preyed upon those

758 first of mankind? Away with the thought that such could

759 be the case where there was no sin! And, indeed, this is

760 already sin, to desire those things which the law of God

761 forbids, and to abstain from them through fear of punishment,

762 not through love of righteousness. Away, I say, with

763 the thought, that before there was any sin, there should

764 already have been committed regarding that fruit the very

765 sin which our Lord warns us against regarding a woman:

766 "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed

767 adultery with her already in his heart."[84] As happy,

768 then, as were these our first parents, who were agitated by no

769 mental perturbations, and annoyed by no bodily discomforts,

770 so happy should the whole human race have been, had they

771 not introduced that evil which they have transmitted to their

772 posterity, and had none of their descendants committed

773 iniquity worthy of damnation; but this original blessedness

774 continuing until, in virtue of that benediction which said,

775 "Increase and multiply,"[85] the number of the predestined

776 saints should have been completed, there would then have

777 been bestowed that higher felicity which is enjoyed by the

778 most blessed angels,—a blessedness in which there should

779 have been a secure assurance that no one would sin, and no

780 one die; and so should the saints have lived, after no taste of

781 labour, pain, or death, as now they shall live in the resurrection,

782 after they have endured all these things.

783 11. *Of the fall of the first man, in whom nature was created good, and can be

784 restored only by its Author.*

785 But because God foresaw all things, and was therefore not

786 ignorant that man also would fall, we ought to consider this

787 holy city in connection with what God foresaw and ordained,

788 and not according to our own ideas, which do not embrace

789 God's ordination. For man, by his sin, could not disturb the

790 divine counsel, nor compel God to change what He had

791 decreed; for God's foreknowledge had anticipated both,—that

792 is to say, both how evil the man whom He had created good

793 should become, and what good He Himself should even thus

794 derive from him. For though God is said to change His

795 determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture

796 says even that God repented[86]), this is said with reference to

797 man's expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not

798 with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown

799 that He would do. Accordingly God, as it is written, made

800 man upright,[87] and consequently with a good will. For if

801 he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright.

802 The good will, then, is the work of God; for God created

803 him with it. But the first evil will, which preceded all man's

804 evil acts, was rather a kind of falling away from the work of

805 God to its own works than any positive work. And therefore

806 the acts resulting were evil, not having God, but the will

807 itself for their end; so that the will or the man himself, so

808 far as his will is bad, was as it were the evil tree bringing

809 forth evil fruit. Moreover, the bad will, though it be not in

810 harmony with, but opposed to nature, inasmuch as it is a vice

811 or blemish, yet it is true of it as of all vice, that it cannot

812 exist except in a nature, and only in a nature created out of

813 nothing, and not in that which the Creator has begotten of

814 Himself, as He begot the Word, by whom all things were

815 made. For though God formed man of the dust of the earth,

816 yet the earth itself, and every earthly material, is absolutely

817 created out of nothing; and man's soul, too, God created out

818 of nothing, and joined to the body, when He made man. But

819 evils are so thoroughly overcome by good, that though they

820 are permitted to exist, for the sake of demonstrating how the

821 most righteous foresight of God can make a good use even of

822 them, yet good can exist without evil, as in the true and

823 supreme God Himself, and as in every invisible and visible

824 celestial creature that exists above this murky atmosphere;

825 but evil cannot exist without good, because the natures in

826 which evil exists, in so far as they are natures, are good.

827 And evil is removed, not by removing any nature, or part of

828 a nature, which had been introduced by the evil, but by

829 healing and correcting that which had been vitiated and

830 depraved. The will, therefore, is then truly free, when it is

831 not the slave of vices and sins. Such was it given us by

832 God; and this being lost by its own fault, can only be restored

833 by Him who was able at first to give it. And therefore the

834 truth says, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free

835 indeed;"[88] which is equivalent to saying, If the Son shall save

836 you, ye shall be saved indeed. For He is our Liberator,

837 inasmuch as He is our Saviour.

838 Man then lived with God for his rule in a paradise at once

839 physical and spiritual. For neither was it a paradise only

840 physical for the advantage of the body, and not also spiritual

841 for the advantage of the mind; nor was it only spiritual to

842 afford enjoyment to man by his internal sensations, and not

843 also physical to afford him enjoyment through his external

844 senses. But obviously it was both for both ends. But after

845 that proud and therefore envious angel (of whose fall I have

846 said as much as I was able in the eleventh and twelfth books

847 of this work, as well as that of his fellows, who, from being

848 God's angels, became his angels), preferring to rule with a

849 kind of pomp of empire rather than to be another's subject,

850 fell from the spiritual Paradise, and essaying to insinuate his

851 persuasive guile into the mind of man, whose unfallen condition

852 provoked him to envy now that himself was fallen, he

853 chose the serpent as his mouthpiece in that bodily Paradise

854 in which it and all the other earthly animals were living with

855 those two human beings, the man and his wife, subject to

856 them, and harmless; and he chose the serpent because, being

857 slippery, and moving in tortuous windings, it was suitable for

858 his purpose. And this animal being subdued to his wicked

859 ends by the presence and superior force of his angelic nature,

860 he abused as his instrument, and first tried his deceit upon

861 the woman, making his assault upon the weaker part of that

862 human alliance, that he might gradually gain the whole, and

863 not supposing that the man would readily give ear to him, or

864 be deceived, but that he might yield to the error of the woman.

865 For as Aaron was not induced to agree with the people when

866 they blindly wished him to make an idol, and yet yielded to

867 constraint; and as it is not credible that Solomon was so blind

868 as to suppose that idols should be worshipped, but was drawn

869 over to such sacrilege by the blandishments of women; so we

870 cannot believe that Adam was deceived, and supposed the

871 devil's word to be truth, and therefore transgressed God's law,

872 but that he by the drawings of kindred yielded to the woman,

873 the husband to the wife, the one human being to the only

874 other human being. For not without significance did the

875 apostle say, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman

876 being deceived was in the transgression;"[89] but he speaks

877 thus, because the woman accepted as true what the serpent

878 told her, but the man could not bear to be severed from his

879 only companion, even though this involved a partnership in

880 sin. He was not on this account less culpable, but sinned

881 with his eyes open. And so the apostle does not say, "He did

882 not sin," but "He was not deceived." For he shows that he

883 sinned when he says, "By one man sin entered into the

884 world,"[90] and immediately after more distinctly, "In the likeness

885 of Adam's transgression." But he meant that those are

886 deceived who do not judge that which they do to be sin; but

887 he knew. Otherwise how were it true "Adam was not deceived?"

888 But having as yet no experience of the divine

889 severity, he was possibly deceived in so far as he thought his

890 sin venial. And consequently he was not deceived as the

891 woman was deceived, but he was deceived as to the judgment

892 which would be passed on his apology: "The woman

893 whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did

894 eat."[91] What need of saying more? Although they were

895 not both deceived by credulity, yet both were entangled in

896 the snares of the devil, and taken by sin.

897 12. *Of the nature of man's first sin.*

898 If any one finds a difficulty in understanding why other

899 sins do not alter human nature as it was altered by the transgression

900 of those first human beings, so that on account of it

901 this nature is subject to the great corruption we feel and see,

902 and to death, and is distracted and tossed with so many furious

903 and contending emotions, and is certainly far different from

904 what it was before sin, even though it were then lodged in an

905 animal body,—if, I say, any one is moved by this, he ought

906 not to think that that sin was a small and light one because

907 it was committed about food, and that not bad nor noxious,

908 except because it was forbidden; for in that spot of singular

909 felicity God could not have created and planted any evil thing.

910 But by the precept He gave, God commended obedience, which

911 is, in a sort, the mother and guardian of all the virtues in the

912 reasonable creature, which was so created that submission is

913 advantageous to it, while the fulfilment of its own will in

914 preference to the Creator's is destruction. And as this commandment

915 enjoining abstinence from one kind of food in the

916 midst of great abundance of other kinds was so easy to keep,—so

917 light a burden to the memory,—and, above all, found no resistance

918 to its observance in lust, which only afterwards sprung

919 up as the penal consequence of sin, the iniquity of violating

920 it was all the greater in proportion to the ease with which it

921 might have been kept.

922 13. *That in Adam's sin an evil will preceded the evil act.*

923 Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already

924 they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never

925 been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the

926 origin of our evil will but pride? For "pride is the beginning

927 of sin."[92] And what is pride but the craving for undue

928 exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul

929 abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and

930 becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes

931 its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls

932 away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it

933 more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if

934 the will had remained stedfast in the love of that higher and

935 changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence

936 and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find

937 satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted;

938 the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the

939 truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his

940 wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was

941 a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even

942 in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then,—that is to

943 say, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit,—was committed

944 by persons who were already wicked. That "evil

945 fruit"[93] could be brought forth only by "a corrupt tree." But

946 that the tree was evil was not the result of nature; for certainly

947 it could become so only by the vice of the will, and

948 vice is contrary to nature. Now, nature could not have been

949 depraved by vice had it not been made out of nothing. Consequently,

950 that it is a nature, this is because it is made by

951 God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is

952 made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away[94] as to

953 become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself,

954 his being became more contracted than it was when he clave

955 to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself,

956 that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is

957 not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate to that.

958 And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another

959 name, "self-pleasers." For it is good to have the heart

960 lifted up, yet not to one's self, for this is proud, but to the

961 Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the

962 humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which,

963 strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride

964 which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory,

965 that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious

966 humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and

967 nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore

968 humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride,

969 being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection

970 and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition;

971 and then comes to pass what is written: "Thou castedst

972 them down when they lifted up themselves."[95] For he does

973 not say, "when they had been lifted up," as if first they were

974 exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but "when they lifted

975 up themselves" even then they were cast down,—that is to say,

976 the very lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is

977 that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as

978 it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city

979 of God, and in the person of Christ its King; while the contrary

980 vice of pride, according to the testimony of the sacred

981 writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly

982 this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities

983 of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly

984 men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels

985 that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned

986 by love of self, the other by love of God.

987 The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open

988 and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man

989 not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made

990 him listen with pleasure to the words, "Ye shall be as gods,"[96]

991 which they would much more readily have accomplished by

992 obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by

993 proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not

994 by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of

995 the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and

996 by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who

997 truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which

998 prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and

999 which thus turns him away from that light by which, had he

1000 followed it, he would himself have become light,—this wicked

1001 desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open

1002 sin was but its consequence. For that is true which is

1003 written, "Pride goeth before destruction, and before honour

1004 is humility;"[97] that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin,

1005 while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation

1006 ruin, though no sooner is the Highest forsaken than a

1007 fall is begun? But who does not recognise it as ruin, when

1008 there occurs an evident and indubitable transgression of the

1009 commandment? And consequently, God's prohibition had

1010 reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be

1011 defended on any pretence of doing what was righteous.[98] And

1012 I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into

1013 an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves,

1014 as already, by pleasing themselves, they had fallen.

1015 For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was

1016 dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly presumed and

1017 satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred Psalmist

1018 when he says, "Fill their faces with shame, that they may

1019 seek Thy name, O Lord;"[99] that is, that they who have pleased

1020 themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and

1021 satisfied with Thee in seeking Thy glory.

1022 14. *Of the pride in the sin, which was worse than the sin itself.*

1023 But it is a worse and more damnable pride which casts

1024 about for the shelter of an excuse even in manifest sins, as

1025 these our first parents did, of whom the woman said, "The

1026 serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;" and the man said, "The

1027 woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the

1028 tree, and I did eat."[100] Here there is no word of begging

1029 pardon, no word of entreaty for healing. For though they

1030 do not, like Cain, deny that they have perpetrated the deed,

1031 yet their pride seeks to refer its wickedness to another,—the

1032 woman's pride to the serpent, the man's to the woman. But

1033 where there is a plain transgression of a divine commandment,

1034 this is rather to accuse than to excuse oneself. For

1035 the fact that the woman sinned on the serpent's persuasion,

1036 and the man at the woman's offer, did not make the transgression

1037 less, as if there were any one whom we ought rather

1038 to believe or yield to than God.

1039 15. *Of the justice of the punishment with which our first parents were visited for

1040 their disobedience.*

1041 Therefore, because the sin was a despising of the authority

1042 of God,—who had created man; who had made him in His own

1043 image; who had set him above the other animals; who had

1044 placed him in Paradise; who had enriched him with abundance

1045 of every kind and of safety; who had laid upon him neither

1046 many, nor great, nor difficult commandments, but, in order to

1047 make a wholesome obedience easy to him, had given him a

1048 single very brief and very light precept by which He reminded

1049 that creature whose service was to be free that He was Lord,—it

1050 was just that condemnation followed, and condemnation

1051 such that man, who by keeping the commandments should

1052 have been spiritual even in his flesh, became fleshly even in

1053 his spirit; and as in his pride he had sought to be his own

1054 satisfaction, God in His justice abandoned him to himself,

1055 not to live in the absolute independence he affected, but

1056 instead of the liberty he desired, to live dissatisfied with himself

1057 in a hard and miserable bondage to him to whom by

1058 sinning he had yielded himself, doomed in spite of himself

1059 to die in body as he had willingly become dead in spirit,

1060 condemned even to eternal death (had not the grace of God

1061 delivered him) because he had forsaken eternal life. Whoever

1062 thinks such punishment either excessive or unjust shows

1063 his inability to measure the great iniquity of sinning where

1064 sin might so easily have been avoided. For as Abraham's

1065 obedience is with justice pronounced to be great, because the

1066 thing commanded, to kill his son, was very difficult, so in

1067 Paradise the disobedience was the greater, because the difficulty

1068 of that which was commanded was imperceptible.

1069 And as the obedience of the second Man was the more

1070 laudable because He became obedient even "unto death,"[101] so

1071 the disobedience of the first man was the more detestable

1072 because he became disobedient even unto death. For where

1073 the penalty annexed to disobedience is great, and the thing

1074 commanded by the Creator is easy, who can sufficiently estimate

1075 how great a wickedness it is, in a matter so easy, not to

1076 obey the authority of so great a power, even when that power

1077 deters with so terrible a penalty?

1078 In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was

1079 the punishment of disobedience in that sin? For what else

1080 is man's misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that

1081 in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could

1082 do, he now wills to do what he cannot? For though he

1083 could not do all things in Paradise before he sinned, yet he

1084 wished to do only what he could do, and therefore he could

1085 do all things he wished. But now, as we recognise in his

1086 offspring, and as divine Scripture testifies, "Man is like to

1087 vanity."[102] For who can count how many things he wishes

1088 which he cannot do, so long as he is disobedient to himself,

1089 that is, so long as his mind and his flesh do not obey his

1090 will? For in spite of himself his mind is both frequently

1091 disturbed, and his flesh suffers, and grows old, and dies; and

1092 in spite of ourselves we suffer whatever else we suffer, and

1093 which we would not suffer if our nature absolutely and in all

1094 its parts obeyed our will. But is it not the infirmities of the

1095 flesh which hamper it in its service? Yet what does it

1096 matter *how* its service is hampered, so long as the fact remains,

1097 that by the just retribution of the sovereign God whom we

1098 refused to be subject to and serve, our flesh, which was subjected

1099 to us, now torments us by insubordination, although

1100 our disobedience brought trouble on ourselves, not upon God?

1101 For He is not in need of our service as we of our body's;

1102 and therefore what we did was no punishment to Him, but

1103 what we receive is so to us. And the pains which are called

1104 bodily are pains of the soul in and from the body. For what

1105 pain or desire can the flesh feel by itself and without the

1106 soul? But when the flesh is said to desire or to suffer, it is

1107 meant, as we have explained, that the man does so, or some

1108 part of the soul which is affected by the sensation of the

1109 flesh, whether a harsh sensation causing pain, or gentle, causing

1110 pleasure. But pain in the flesh is only a discomfort of the

1111 soul arising from the flesh, and a kind of shrinking from its

1112 suffering, as the pain of the soul which is called sadness is a

1113 shrinking from those things which have happened to us in

1114 spite of ourselves. But sadness is frequently preceded by

1115 fear, which is itself in the soul, not in the flesh; while bodily

1116 pain is not preceded by any kind of fear of the flesh, which

1117 can be felt in the flesh before the pain. But pleasure is preceded

1118 by a certain appetite which is felt in the flesh like a

1119 craving, as hunger and thirst and that generative appetite

1120 which is most commonly identified with the name "lust,"

1121 though this is the generic word for all desires. For anger

1122 itself was defined by the ancients as nothing else than the

1123 lust of revenge;[103] although sometimes a man is angry even at

1124 inanimate objects which cannot feel his vengeance, as when

1125 one breaks a pen, or crushes a quill that writes badly. Yet

1126 even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of

1127 revenge, and is, so to speak, a mysterious kind of shadow of

1128 [the great law of] retribution, that they who do evil should

1129 suffer evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge, which is

1130 called anger; there is a lust of money, which goes by the

1131 name of avarice; there is a lust of conquering, no matter by

1132 what means, which is called opinionativeness; there is a lust

1133 of applause, which is named boasting. There are many and

1134 various lusts, of which some have names of their own, while

1135 others have not. For who could readily give a name to the

1136 lust of ruling, which yet has a powerful influence in the

1137 soul of tyrants, as civil wars bear witness?

1138 16. *Of the evil of lust,—a word which, though applicable to many vices, is

1139 specially appropriated to sexual uncleanness.*

1140 Although, therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when

1141 no object is specified, the word lust usually suggests to the

1142 mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation.

1143 And this lust not only takes possession of the whole body

1144 and outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and

1145 moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion

1146 is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which

1147 results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing

1148 indeed is this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which

1149 it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended. What

1150 friend of wisdom and holy joys, who, being married, but

1151 knowing, as the apostle says, "how to possess his vessel in

1152 sanctification and honour, not in the disease of desire, as the

1153 Gentiles who know not God,"[104] would not prefer, if this were

1154 possible, to beget children without this lust, so that in this

1155 function of begetting offspring the members created for this

1156 purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but

1157 should be actuated by his volition, in the same way as his

1158 other members serve him for their respective ends? But

1159 even those who delight in this pleasure are not moved to it

1160 at their own will, whether they confine themselves to lawful

1161 or transgress to unlawful pleasures; but sometimes this lust

1162 importunes them in spite of themselves, and sometimes fails

1163 them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in

1164 the mind, it stirs not in the body. Thus, strangely enough,

1165 this emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to

1166 beget offspring, but also refuses to serve lascivious lust; and

1167 though it often opposes its whole combined energy to the

1168 soul that resists it, sometimes also it is divided against itself,

1169 and while it moves the soul, leaves the body unmoved.

1170 17. *Of the nakedness of our first parents, which they saw after their base and

1171 shameful sin.*

1172 Justly is shame very specially connected with this lust;

1173 justly, too, these members themselves, being moved and

1174 restrained not at our will, but by a certain independent

1175 autocracy, so to speak, are called "shameful." Their condition

1176 was different before sin. For as it is written, "They

1177 were naked and were not ashamed,"[105]—not that their nakedness

1178 was unknown to them, but because nakedness was not

1179 yet shameful, because not yet did lust move those members

1180 without the will's consent; not yet did the flesh by its disobedience

1181 testify against the disobedience of man. For they

1182 were not created blind, as the unenlightened vulgar fancy;[106]

1183 for Adam saw the animals to whom he gave names, and of Eve

1184 we read, "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and

1185 that it was pleasant to the eyes."[107] Their eyes, therefore, were

1186 open, but were not open to this, that is to say, were not

1187 observant so as to recognise what was conferred upon them

1188 by the garment of grace, for they had no consciousness of

1189 their members warring against their will. But when they

1190 were stripped of this grace,[108] that their disobedience might be

1191 punished by fit retribution, there began in the movement of

1192 their bodily members a shameless novelty which made nakedness

1193 indecent: it at once made them observant and made

1194 them ashamed. And therefore, after they violated God's

1195 command by open transgression, it is written: "And the eyes

1196 of them both were opened, and they knew that they were

1197 naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves

1198 aprons."[109] "The eyes of them both were opened," not

1199 to see, for already they saw, but to discern between the good

1200 they had lost and the evil into which they had fallen. And

1201 therefore also the tree itself which they were forbidden to

1202 touch was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

1203 from this circumstance, that if they ate of it it would impart

1204 to them this knowledge. For the discomfort of sickness

1205 reveals the pleasure of health. "They knew," therefore,

1206 "that they were naked,"—naked of that grace which prevented

1207 them from being ashamed of bodily nakedness while

1208 the law of sin offered no resistance to their mind. And thus

1209 they obtained a knowledge which they would have lived in

1210 blissful ignorance of, had they, in trustful obedience to God,

1211 declined to commit that offence which involved them in the

1212 experience of the hurtful effects of unfaithfulness and disobedience.

1213 And therefore, being ashamed of the disobedience

1214 of their own flesh, which witnessed to their disobedience

1215 while it punished it, "they sewed fig leaves together, and

1216 made themselves aprons," that is, cinctures for their privy

1217 parts; for some interpreters have rendered the word by

1218 *succinctoria*. *Campestria* is, indeed, a Latin word, but it

1219 is used of the drawers or aprons used for a similar purpose

1220 by the young men who stripped for exercise in the *campus*;

1221 hence those who were so girt were commonly called *campestrati*.

1222 Shame modestly covered that which lust disobediently

1223 moved in opposition to the will which was thus punished

1224 for its own disobedience. Consequently all nations, being

1225 propagated from that one stock, have so strong an instinct to

1226 cover the shameful parts, that some barbarians do not uncover

1227 them even in the bath, but wash with their drawers

1228 on. In the dark solitudes of India also, though some philosophers

1229 go naked, and are therefore called gymnosophists,

1230 yet they make an exception in the case of these members,

1231 and cover them.

1232 18. *Of the shame which attends all sexual intercourse.*

1233 Lust requires for its consummation darkness and secrecy;

1234 and this not only when unlawful intercourse is desired, but

1235 even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized.

1236 Where there is no fear of punishment, these permitted

1237 pleasures still shrink from the public eye. Even where provision

1238 is made for this lust, secrecy also is provided; and while

1239 lust found it easy to remove the prohibitions of law, shamelessness

1240 found it impossible to lay aside the veil of retirement. For

1241 even shameless men call this shameful; and though they love

1242 the pleasure, dare not display it. What! does not even conjugal

1243 intercourse, sanctioned as it is by law for the propagation

1244 of children, legitimate and honourable though it be, does

1245 it not seek retirement from every eye? Before the bridegroom

1246 fondles his bride, does he not exclude the attendants, and even

1247 the paranymphs, and such friends as the closest ties have

1248 admitted to the bridal chamber? The greatest master of

1249 Roman eloquence says, that all right actions wish to be set in

1250 the light, *i.e.* desire to be known. This right action, however,

1251 has such a desire to be known, that yet it blushes to be seen.

1252 Who does not know what passes between husband and wife

1253 that children may be born? Is it not for this purpose that

1254 wives are married with such ceremony? And yet, when this

1255 well-understood act is gone about for the procreation of children,

1256 not even the children themselves, who may already have

1257 been born to them, are suffered to be witnesses. This right

1258 action seeks the light, in so far as it seeks to be known, but

1259 yet dreads being seen. And why so, if not because that

1260 which is by nature fitting and decent is so done as to be

1261 accompanied with a shame-begetting penalty of sin?

1262 19. *That it is now necessary, as it was not before man sinned, to bridle anger

1263 and lust by the restraining influence of wisdom.*

1264 Hence it is that even the philosophers who have approximated

1265 to the truth have avowed that anger and lust are vicious

1266 mental emotions, because, even when exercised towards objects

1267 which wisdom does not prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned

1268 and inordinate manner, and consequently need the

1269 regulation of mind and reason. And they assert that this third

1270 part of the mind is posted as it were in a kind of citadel, to give

1271 rule to these other parts, so that, while it rules and they serve,

1272 man's righteousness is preserved without a breach.[110] These

1273 parts, then, which they acknowledge to be vicious even in a

1274 wise and temperate man, so that the mind, by its composing

1275 and restraining influence, must bridle and recall them from

1276 those objects towards which they are unlawfully moved, and

1277 give them access to those which the law of wisdom sanctions,—that

1278 anger, *e.g.*, may be allowed for the enforcement of a just

1279 authority, and lust for the duty of propagating offspring,—these

1280 parts, I say, were not vicious in Paradise before sin,

1281 for they were never moved in opposition to a holy will towards

1282 any object from which it was necessary that they should be

1283 withheld by the restraining bridle of reason. For though

1284 now they are moved in this way, and are regulated by a

1285 bridling and restraining power, which those who live temperately,

1286 justly, and godly exercise, sometimes with ease, and

1287 sometimes with greater difficulty, this is not the sound health

1288 of nature, but the weakness which results from sin. And how

1289 is it that shame does not hide the acts and words dictated by

1290 anger or other emotions, as it covers the motions of lust,

1291 unless because the members of the body which we employ for

1292 accomplishing them are moved, not by the emotions themselves,

1293 but by the authority of the consenting will? For he

1294 who in his anger rails at or even strikes some one, could not

1295 do so were not his tongue and hand moved by the authority

1296 of the will, as also they are moved when there is no anger.

1297 But the organs of generation are so subjected to the rule of

1298 lust, that they have no motion but what it communicates.

1299 It is this we are ashamed of; it is this which blushingly

1300 hides from the eyes of onlookers. And rather will a man

1301 endure a crowd of witnesses when he is unjustly venting his

1302 anger on some one, than the eye of one man when he innocently

1303 copulates with his wife.

1304 20. *Of the foolish beastliness of the Cynics.*

1305 It is this which those canine or cynic[111] philosophers have

1306 overlooked, when they have, in violation of the modest instincts

1307 of men, boastfully proclaimed their unclean and shameless

1308 opinion, worthy indeed of dogs, viz., that as the matrimonial

1309 act is legitimate, no one should be ashamed to perform it

1310 openly, in the street or in any public place. Instinctive

1311 shame has overborne this wild fancy. For though it is related[112]

1312 that Diogenes once dared to put his opinion in practice, under

1313 the impression that his sect would be all the more famous if

1314 his egregious shamelessness were deeply graven in the memory

1315 of mankind, yet this example was not afterwards followed.

1316 Shame had more influence with them, to make them blush

1317 before men, than error to make them affect a resemblance to

1318 dogs. And possibly, even in the case of Diogenes, and those

1319 who did imitate him, there was but an appearance and pretence

1320 of copulation, and not the reality. Even at this day

1321 there are still Cynic philosophers to be seen; for these are

1322 Cynics who are not content with being clad in the *pallium*,

1323 but also carry a club; yet no one of them dares to do this

1324 that we speak of. If they did, they would be spat upon, not

1325 to say stoned, by the mob. Human nature, then, is without

1326 doubt ashamed of this lust; and justly so, for the insubordination

1327 of these members, and their defiance of the will, are the

1328 clear testimony of the punishment of man's first sin. And it

1329 was fitting that this should appear specially in those parts

1330 by which is generated that nature which has been altered for

1331 the worse by that first and great sin,—that sin from whose evil

1332 connection no one can escape, unless God's grace expiate in

1333 him individually that which was perpetrated to the destruction

1334 of all in common, when all were in one man, and which

1335 was avenged by God's justice.

1336 21. *That man's transgression did not annul the blessing of fecundity pronounced

1337 upon man before he sinned, but infected it with the disease of lust.*

1338 Far be it, then, from us to suppose that our first parents in

1339 Paradise felt that lust which caused them afterwards to blush

1340 and hide their nakedness, or that by its means they should

1341 have fulfilled the benediction of God, "Increase and multiply

1342 and replenish the earth;"[113] for it was after sin that lust

1343 began. It was after sin that our nature, having lost the power

1344 it had over the whole body, but not having lost all shame,

1345 perceived, noticed, blushed at, and covered it. But that

1346 blessing upon marriage, which encouraged them to increase

1347 and multiply and replenish the earth, though, it continued

1348 even after they had sinned, was yet given before they sinned,

1349 in order that the procreation of children might be recognised

1350 as part of the glory of marriage, and not of the punishment of

1351 sin. But now, men being ignorant of the blessedness of Paradise,

1352 suppose that children could not have been begotten there

1353 in any other way than they know them to be begotten now,

1354 *i.e.* by lust, at which even honourable marriage blushes; some

1355 not simply rejecting, but sceptically deriding the divine Scriptures,

1356 in which we read that our first parents, after they sinned,

1357 were ashamed of their nakedness, and covered it; while others,

1358 though they accept and honour Scripture, yet conceive that

1359 this expression, "Increase and multiply," refers not to carnal

1360 fecundity, because a similar expression is used of the soul in

1361 the words, "Thou wilt multiply me with strength in my

1362 soul;"[114] and so, too, in the words which follow in Genesis,

1363 "And replenish the earth, and subdue it," they understand by

1364 the earth the body which the soul fills with its presence, and

1365 which it rules over when it is multiplied in strength. And

1366 they hold that children could no more then than now be

1367 begotten without lust, which, after sin, was kindled, observed,

1368 blushed for, and covered; and even that children would not

1369 have been born in Paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact

1370 it turned out. For it was after they were expelled from it

1371 that they came together to beget children, and begot them.

1372 22. *Of the conjugal union as it was originally instituted and blessed by God.*

1373 But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase

1374 and multiply and replenish the earth in virtue of the

1375 blessing of God, is a gift of marriage as God instituted it

1376 from the beginning before man sinned, when He created them

1377 male and female,—in other words, two sexes manifestly distinct.

1378 And it was this work of God on which His blessing

1379 was pronounced. For no sooner had Scripture said, "Male

1380 and female created He them,"[115] than it immediately continues,

1381 "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Increase,

1382 and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it," etc.

1383 And though all these things may not unsuitably be interpreted

1384 in a spiritual sense, yet "male and female" cannot be

1385 understood of two things in one man, as if there were in him

1386 one thing which rules, another which is ruled; but it is quite

1387 clear that they were created male and female, with bodies of

1388 different sexes, for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and

1389 so increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the earth; and it

1390 is great folly to oppose so plain a fact. It was not of the

1391 spirit which commands and the body which obeys, nor of the

1392 rational soul which rules and the irrational desire which is

1393 ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme and

1394 the active which is subject, nor of the understanding of the

1395 mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial

1396 union by which the sexes are mutually bound together,

1397 that our Lord, when asked whether it were lawful for any

1398 cause to put away one's wife (for on account of the hardness

1399 of the hearts of the Israelites Moses permitted a bill of

1400 divorcement to be given), answered and said, "Have ye not

1401 read that He which made them at the beginning made them

1402 male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave

1403 father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they

1404 twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain,

1405 but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let

1406 not man put asunder."[116] It is certain, then, that from the

1407 first men were created, as we see and know them to be now,

1408 of two sexes, male and female, and that they are called one,

1409 either on account of the matrimonial union, or on account of

1410 the origin of the woman, who was created from the side of the

1411 man. And it is by this original example, which God Himself

1412 instituted, that the apostle admonishes all husbands to love

1413 their own wives in particular.[117]

1414 >

1415 >

1416 >

1417 23. *Whether generation should have taken place even in Paradise had man not

1418 > sinned, or whether there should have been any contention there between

1419 > chastity and lust.*

1420 But he who says that there should have been neither copulation

1421 nor generation but for sin, virtually says that man's

1422 sin was necessary to complete the number of the saints. For

1423 if these two by not sinning should have continued to live

1424 alone, because, as is supposed, they could not have begotten

1425 children had they not sinned, then certainly sin was necessary

1426 in order that there might be not only two but many righteous

1427 men. And if this cannot be maintained without absurdity,

1428 we must rather believe that the number of the saints fit to

1429 complete this most blessed city would have been as great

1430 though no one had sinned, as it is now that the grace of God

1431 gathers its citizens out of the multitude of sinners, so long as

1432 the children of this world generate and are generated.[118]

1433 And therefore that marriage, worthy of the happiness of

1434 Paradise, should have had desirable fruit without the shame

1435 of lust, had there been no sin. But how that could be, there

1436 is now no example to teach us. Nevertheless, it ought not to

1437 seem incredible that one member might serve the will without

1438 lust then, since so many serve it now. Do we now move our

1439 feet and hands when we will to do the things we would by

1440 means of these members? do we meet with no resistance in

1441 them, but perceive that they are ready servants of the will,

1442 both in our own case and in that of others, and especially of

1443 artisans employed in mechanical operations, by which the

1444 weakness and clumsiness of nature become, through industrious

1445 exercise, wonderfully dexterous? and shall we not believe

1446 that, like as all those members obediently serve the will, so

1447 also should the members have discharged the function of

1448 generation, though lust, the award of disobedience, had been

1449 awanting? Did not Cicero, in discussing the difference of

1450 governments in his *De Republica*, adopt a simile from human

1451 nature, and say that we command our bodily members as

1452 children, they are so obedient; but that the vicious parts of

1453 the soul must be treated as slaves, and be coerced with a more

1454 stringent authority? And no doubt, in the order of nature,

1455 the soul is more excellent than the body; and yet the soul

1456 commands the body more easily than itself. Nevertheless

1457 this lust, of which we at present speak, is the more shameful

1458 on this account, because the soul is therein neither master of

1459 itself, so as not to lust at all, nor of the body, so as to keep

1460 the members under the control of the will; for if they were

1461 thus ruled, there should be no shame. But now the soul is

1462 ashamed that the body, which by nature is inferior and subject

1463 to it, should resist its authority. For in the resistance

1464 experienced by the soul in the other emotions there is less

1465 shame, because the resistance is from itself, and thus, when it

1466 is conquered by itself, itself is the conqueror, although the

1467 conquest is inordinate and vicious, because accomplished by

1468 those parts of the soul which ought to be subject to reason,

1469 yet, being accomplished by its own parts and energies, the

1470 conquest is, as I say, its own. For when the soul conquers

1471 itself to a due subordination, so that its unreasonable motions

1472 are controlled by reason, while it again is subject to God, this

1473 is a conquest virtuous and praiseworthy. Yet there is less

1474 shame when the soul is resisted by its own vicious parts than

1475 when its will and order are resisted by the body, which is

1476 distinct from and inferior to it, and dependent on it for life

1477 itself.

1478 But so long as the will retains under its authority the other

1479 members, without which the members excited by lust to resist

1480 the will cannot accomplish what they seek, chastity is preserved,

1481 and the delight of sin foregone. And certainly, had

1482 not culpable disobedience been visited with penal disobedience,

1483 the marriage of Paradise should have been ignorant of this

1484 struggle and rebellion, this quarrel between will and lust, that

1485 the will may be satisfied and lust restrained, but those members,

1486 like all the rest, should have obeyed the will. The field

1487 of generation[119] should have been sown by the organ created

1488 for this purpose, as the earth is sown by the hand. And

1489 whereas now, as we essay to investigate this subject more

1490 exactly, modesty hinders us, and compels us to ask pardon of

1491 chaste ears, there would have been no cause to do so, but we

1492 could have discoursed freely, and without fear of seeming

1493 obscene, upon all those points which occur to one who meditates

1494 on the subject. There would not have been even words

1495 which could be called obscene, but all that might be said of

1496 these members would have been as pure as what is said of

1497 the other parts of the body. Whoever, then, comes to the

1498 perusal of these pages with unchaste mind, let him blame his

1499 disposition, not his nature; let him brand the actings of his

1500 own impurity, not the words which necessity forces us to use,

1501 and for which every pure and pious reader or hearer will very

1502 readily pardon me, while I expose the folly of that scepticism

1503 which argues solely on the ground of its own experience, and

1504 has no faith in anything beyond. He who is not scandalized

1505 at the apostle's censure of the horrible wickedness of the women

1506 who "changed the natural use into that which is against

1507 nature,"[120] will read all this without being shocked, especially

1508 as we are not, like Paul, citing and censuring a damnable uncleanness,

1509 but are explaining, so far as we can, human generation,

1510 while with Paul we avoid all obscenity of language.

1511 >

1512 >

1513 >

1514 24. *That if men had remained innocent and obedient in Paradise, the generative

1515 > organs should have been in subjection to the will as the other members are.*

1516 The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman

1517 received it, as need required, the generative organs being

1518 moved by the will, not excited by lust. For we move at

1519 will not only those members which are furnished with joints

1520 of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and fingers, but we move also

1521 at will those which are composed of slack and soft nerves: we

1522 can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or bend and

1523 twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the

1524 muscles of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the

1525 very tenderest of the viscera except the brain, and are therefore

1526 carefully sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all

1527 purposes of inhaling and exhaling the breath, and of uttering

1528 and modulating the voice, are obedient to the will when we

1529 breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing, just as the bellows obey

1530 the smith or the organist. I will not press the fact that some

1531 animals have a natural power to move a single spot of the

1532 skin with which their whole body is covered, if they have felt

1533 on it anything they wish to drive off,—a power so great, that

1534 by this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake

1535 off flies that have settled on them, but even spears that have

1536 fixed in their flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power; but

1537 is this any reason for supposing that God could not give it to

1538 such creatures as He wished to possess it? And therefore

1539 man himself also might very well have enjoyed absolute

1540 power over his members had he not forfeited it by his disobedience;

1541 for it was not difficult for God to form him so

1542 that what is now moved in his body only by lust should have

1543 been moved only at will.

1544 We know, too, that some men are differently constituted

1545 from others, and have some rare and remarkable faculty of

1546 doing with their body what other men can by no effort do,

1547 and, indeed, scarcely believe when they hear of others doing.

1548 There are persons who can move their ears, either one at a

1549 time, or both together. There are some who, without moving

1550 the head, can bring the hair down upon the forehead, and

1551 move the whole scalp backwards and forwards at pleasure.

1552 Some, by lightly pressing their stomach, bring up an incredible

1553 quantity and variety of things they have swallowed, and produce

1554 whatever they please, quite whole, as if out of a bag.

1555 Some so accurately mimic the voices of birds and beasts and

1556 other men, that, unless they are seen, the difference cannot be

1557 told. Some have such command of their bowels, that they

1558 can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce

1559 the effect of singing. I myself have known a man who was

1560 accustomed to sweat whenever he wished. It is well known

1561 that some weep when they please, and shed a flood of tears.

1562 But far more incredible is that which some of our brethren

1563 saw quite recently. There was a presbyter called Restitutus,

1564 in the parish of the Calamensian[121] Church, who, as often as he

1565 pleased (and he was asked to do this by those who desired to

1566 witness so remarkable a phenomenon), on some one imitating

1567 the wailings of mourners, became so insensible, and lay in a

1568 state so like death, that not only had he no feeling when they

1569 pinched and pricked him, but even when fire was applied to

1570 him, and he was burned by it, he had no sense of pain except

1571 afterwards from the wound. And that his body remained

1572 motionless, not by reason of his self-command, but because

1573 he was insensible, was proved by the fact that he breathed

1574 no more than a dead man; and yet he said that, when any one

1575 spoke with more than ordinary distinctness, he heard the voice,

1576 but as if it were a long way off. Seeing, then, that even in

1577 this mortal and miserable life the body serves some men by

1578 many remarkable movements and moods beyond the ordinary

1579 course of nature, what reason is there for doubting that, before

1580 man was involved by his sin in this weak and corruptible

1581 condition, his members might have served his will for the

1582 propagation of offspring without lust? Man has been given

1583 over to himself because he abandoned God, while he sought

1584 to be self-satisfying; and disobeying God, he could not obey

1585 even himself. Hence it is that he is involved in the obvious

1586 misery of being unable to live as he wishes. For if he lived

1587 as he wished, he would think himself blessed; but he could

1588 not be so if he lived wickedly.

1589 25. *Of true blessedness, which this present life cannot enjoy.*

1590 However, if we look at this a little more closely, we see

1591 that no one lives as he wishes but the blessed, and that no

1592 one is blessed but the righteous. But even the righteous

1593 himself does not live as he wishes, until he has arrived where

1594 he cannot die, be deceived, or injured, and until he is assured

1595 that this shall be his eternal condition. For this nature demands;

1596 and nature is not fully and perfectly blessed till it

1597 attains what it seeks. But what man is at present able to

1598 live as he wishes, when it is not in his power so much as to

1599 live? He wishes to live, he is compelled to die. How, then,

1600 does he live as he wishes who does not live as long as he

1601 wishes? or if he wishes to die, how can he live as he wishes,

1602 since he does not wish even to live? Or if he wishes to die,

1603 not because he dislikes life, but that after death he may live

1604 better, still he is not yet living as he wishes, but only has the

1605 prospect of so living when, through death, he reaches that

1606 which he wishes. But admit that he lives as he wishes,

1607 because he has done violence to himself, and forced himself

1608 not to wish what he cannot obtain, and to wish only what he

1609 can (as Terence has it, "Since you cannot do what you will,

1610 will what you can"[122]), is he therefore blessed because he is

1611 patiently wretched? For a blessed life is possessed only by

1612 the man who loves it. If it is loved and possessed, it must

1613 necessarily be more ardently loved than all besides; for whatever

1614 else is loved must be loved for the sake of the blessed

1615 life. And if it is loved as it deserves to be,—and the man

1616 is not blessed who does not love the blessed life as it deserves,—then

1617 he who so loves it cannot but wish it to be eternal.

1618 Therefore it shall then only be blessed when it is eternal.

1619 26. *That we are to believe that in Paradise our first parents begat offspring

1620 without blushing.*

1621 In Paradise, then, man lived as he desired so long as he

1622 desired what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment

1623 of God, and was good by God's goodness; he lived without any

1624 want, and had it in his power so to live eternally. He had

1625 food that he might not hunger, drink that he might not thirst,

1626 the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was

1627 in his body no corruption, nor seed of corruption, which could

1628 produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward

1629 disease, no outward accident. Soundest health blessed

1630 his body, absolute tranquillity his soul. As in Paradise there

1631 was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt

1632 from the vicissitudes of fear and desire. No sadness of any

1633 kind was there, nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly

1634 flowed from the presence of God, who was loved "out of a

1635 pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned."[123]

1636 The honest love of husband and wife made a sure harmony

1637 between them. Body and spirit worked harmoniously together,

1638 and the commandment was kept without labour. No

1639 languor made their leisure wearisome; no sleepiness interrupted

1640 their desire to labour.[124] In tanta facilitate rerum et

1641 felicitate hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem

1642 seri sine libidinis morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur

1643 illa membra quo cætera, et sine ardoris illecebroso stimulo

1644 cum tranquillitate animi et corporis nulla corruptione integritatis

1645 infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris. Neque enim quia

1646 experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est; quando

1647 illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea

1648 potestas, sicut opus esset, adhiberet; ita tunc potuisse utero

1649 conjugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti,

1650 sicut nunc potest eadem integritate salva ex utero

1651 virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti. Eadem quippe via

1652 posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad pariendum

1653 non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis impulsus feminea

1654 viscera relaxaret: sic ad fœtandum et concipiendum non libidinis

1655 appetitus, sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret.

1656 We speak of things which are now shameful, and

1657 although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as

1658 they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels

1659 us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by

1660 modesty than to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse

1661 might suggest. For since that which I have been

1662 speaking of was not experienced even by those who might

1663 have experienced it,—I mean our first parents (for sin and its

1664 merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless

1665 generation on their part),—when sexual intercourse is spoken

1666 of now, it suggests to men's thoughts not such a placid obedience

1667 to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but

1668 such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced.

1669 And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind

1670 conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme

1671 and supremely good Creator of all natures, who aids and rewards

1672 good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad,

1673 and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which He

1674 might people His city with the fixed number of citizens which

1675 His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned

1676 human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since

1677 the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but

1678 by grace, and showing, not only in the case of the redeemed,

1679 but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace

1680 He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges

1681 that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by

1682 gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company

1683 of those with whom he might justly have borne a common

1684 punishment, and is allowed to go scathless. Why, then,

1685 should God not have created those whom He foresaw would

1686 sin, since He was able to show in and by them both what their

1687 guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under

1688 His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder

1689 of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things?

1690 27. *Of the angels and men who sinned, and that their wickedness did not

1691 disturb the order of God's providence.*

1692 The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the

1693 "great works of the Lord which accomplish His will."[125] For

1694 He who by His providence and omnipotence distributes to

1695 every one his own portion, is able to make good use not only

1696 of the good, but also of the wicked. And thus making a

1697 good use of the wicked angel, who, in punishment of his first

1698 wicked volition, was doomed to an obduracy that prevents

1699 him now from willing any good, why should not God have

1700 permitted him to tempt the first man, who had been created

1701 upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had been

1702 so constituted, that if he looked to God for help, man's goodness

1703 should defeat the angel's wickedness; but if by proud

1704 self-pleasing he abandoned God, his Creator and Sustainer,

1705 he should be conquered. If his will remained upright,

1706 through leaning on God's help, he should be rewarded; if it

1707 became wicked, by forsaking God, he should be punished.

1708 But even this trusting in God's help could not itself be

1709 accomplished without God's help, although man had it in his

1710 own power to relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing

1711 himself. For as it is not in our power to live in this

1712 world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our

1713 power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those

1714 do who kill themselves, so it was not in man's power, even in

1715 Paradise, to live as he ought without God's help; but it was

1716 in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut

1717 short his happiness, and incur very just punishment. Since,

1718 then, God was not ignorant that man would fall, why should

1719 He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who

1720 hated and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was

1721 unaware that he should be conquered, but because He foresaw

1722 that by the man's seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil

1723 himself should be conquered, to the greater glory of the

1724 saints. All was brought about in such a manner, that neither

1725 did any future event escape God's foreknowledge, nor did His

1726 foreknowledge compel any one to sin, and so as to demonstrate

1727 in the experience of the intelligent creation, human

1728 and angelic, how great a difference there is between the

1729 private presumption of the creature and the Creator's protection.

1730 For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in

1731 God's power to prevent both angels and men from sinning?

1732 But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to

1733 show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and

1734 what good by His grace.

1735 28. *Of the nature of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly.*

1736 Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves:

1737 the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God;

1738 the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of

1739 self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in

1740 the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the

1741 greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience.

1742 The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other

1743 says to its God, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of

1744 mine head."[126] In the one, the princes and the nations it

1745 subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the

1746 princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter

1747 obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one

1748 delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its

1749 rulers; the other says to its God, "I will love Thee, O Lord,

1750 my strength."[127] And therefore the wise men of the one

1751 city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their

1752 own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known

1753 God "glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but

1754 became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was

1755 darkened; professing themselves to be wise,"—that is, glorying

1756 in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,—"they

1757 became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God

1758 into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and

1759 four-footed beasts, and creeping things." For they were

1760 either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images,

1761 "and worshipped and served the creature more than the

1762 Creator, who is blessed for ever."[128] But in the other city

1763 there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers

1764 due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the

1765 society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men,

1766 "that God may be all in all."[129]

BOOK XV

4 #### ARGUMENT.

5 >

6 >

7 >

8 HAVING TREATED IN THE FOUR PRECEDING BOOKS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TWO

9 > CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY, AUGUSTINE EXPLAINS THEIR

10 > GROWTH AND PROGRESS IN THE FOUR BOOKS WHICH FOLLOW; AND, IN

11 > ORDER TO DO SO, HE EXPLAINS THE CHIEF PASSAGES OF THE SACRED HISTORY

12 > WHICH BEAR UPON THIS SUBJECT. IN THIS FIFTEENTH BOOK HE

13 > OPENS THIS PART OF HIS WORK BY EXPLAINING THE EVENTS RECORDED IN

14 > GENESIS FROM THE TIME OF CAIN AND ABEL TO THE DELUGE.

15 1. *Of the two lines of the human race which from first to last divide it.*

16 OF the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life

17 of our first parents there, and of their sin and punishment,

18 many have thought much, spoken much, written much.

19 We ourselves, too, have spoken of these things in the foregoing

20 books, and have written either what we read in the

21 Holy Scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from

22 them. And were we to enter into a more detailed investigation

23 of these matters, an endless number of endless questions

24 would arise, which would involve us in a larger work than the

25 present occasion admits. We cannot be expected to find

26 room for replying to every question that may be started by

27 unoccupied and captious men, who are ever more ready to ask

28 questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I

29 trust we have already done justice to these great and difficult

30 questions regarding the beginning of the world, or of the soul,

31 or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed

32 into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according

33 to man, the other of those who live according to God. And

34 these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities

35 of men, of which the one is predestined to reign

36 eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment

37 with the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it

38 we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have said

39 enough about their origin, whether among the angels, whose

40 numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it

41 seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the

42 time when our two first parents began to propagate the race

43 until all human generation shall cease. For this whole time

44 or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who

45 are born succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning

46 which we treat.

47 Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain

48 was the first-born, and he belonged to the city of men; after

49 him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For

50 as in the individual the truth of the apostle's statement is

51 discerned, "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which

52 is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,"[130] whence

53 it comes to pass that each man, being derived from a condemned

54 stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal,

55 and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards, when he is

56 grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human

57 race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their

58 course by a series of deaths and births, the citizen of this

59 world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this

60 world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace,

61 elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a

62 citizen above. By grace,—for so far as regards himself he is

63 sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its

64 origin; but God, like a potter (for this comparison is introduced

65 by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought),

66 of the same lump made one vessel to honour, another to dishonour.[131]

67 But first the vessel to dishonour was made, and

68 after it another to honour. For in each individual, as I have

69 already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that

70 from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily

71 remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved, to

72 which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we

73 have reached it, we may abide. Not, indeed, that every

74 wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who

75 was not first of all wicked; but the sooner any one becomes

76 a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and

77 abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded

78 of Cain that he built a city,[132] but Abel, being a sojourner,

79 built none. For the city of the saints is above, although

80 here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the

81 time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in

82 the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised

83 kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with

84 their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.

85 2. *Of the children of the flesh and the children of the promise.*

86 There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a

87 symbol and foreshadowing image of this city, which served

88 the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be,

89 rather than of making it present; and this image was itself

90 called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though

91 not itself the reality. Of this city which served as an image,

92 and of that free city it typified, Paul writes to the Galatians

93 in these terms: "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law,

94 do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham

95 had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free

96 woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after

97 the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which

98 things are an allegory:[133] for these are the two covenants;

99 the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,

100 which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and

101 answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with

102 her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is

103 the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren

104 that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not:

105 for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath

106 an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children

107 of promise. But as then he that was born after the

108 flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it

109 is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out

110 the bond woman and her son: for the son of the bond woman

111 shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And

112 we, brethren, are not children of the bond woman, but of

113 the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."[134]

114 This interpretation of the passage, handed down to us with

115 apostolic authority, shows how we ought to understand the

116 Scriptures of the two covenants—the old and the new. One

117 portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly

118 city, not having a significance of its own, but signifying

119 another city, and therefore serving, or "being in bondage."

120 For it was founded not for its own sake, but to prefigure

121 another city; and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed

122 by another preceding figure. For Sarah's handmaid

123 Agar, and her son, were an image of this image. And as the

124 shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah,

125 the free woman, who prefigured the free city (which again was

126 also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem),

127 therefore said, "Cast out the bond woman and her son;

128 for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my

129 son Isaac," or, as the apostle says, "with the son of the free

130 woman." In the earthly city, then, we find two things—its

131 own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the

132 heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city

133 by nature vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace freeing

134 nature from sin; whence the former are called "vessels of

135 wrath," the latter "vessels of mercy."[135] And this was typified

136 in the two sons of Abraham,—Ishmael, the son of Agar the

137 handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac was

138 born of the free woman Sarah, according to the promise. Both,

139 indeed, were of Abraham's seed; but the one was begotten by

140 natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the

141 one birth, human action is revealed; in the other, a divine

142 kindness comes to light.

143 3. *That Sarah's barrenness was made productive by God's grace.*

144 Sarah, in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and

145 being resolved that she would have at least through her handmaid

146 that blessing she saw she could not in her own person

147 procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband, to whom she

148 herself had been unable to bear children. From him she required

149 this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another's

150 womb. And thus Ishmael was born according to the common

151 law of human generation, by sexual intercourse. Therefore it

152 is said that he was born "according to the flesh,"—not because

153 such births are not the gifts of God, nor His handiwork, whose

154 creative wisdom "reaches," as it is written, "from one end to

155 another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things,"[136]

156 but because, in a case in which the gift of God, which was

157 not due to men and was the gratuitous largess of grace, was

158 to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given in

159 a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature

160 denies children to persons of the age which Abraham and

161 Sarah had now reached; besides that, in Sarah's case, she was

162 barren even in her prime. This nature, so constituted that

163 offspring could not be looked for, symbolized the nature of

164 the human race vitiated by sin and by just consequence condemned,

165 which deserves no future felicity. Fitly, therefore,

166 does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children of grace,

167 the citizens of the free city, who dwell together in everlasting

168 peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a

169 ministering love that rejoices in the common joy of all, of

170 many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect

171 concord.

172 4. *Of the conflict and peace of the earthly city.*

173 But the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it

174 will no longer be a city when it has been committed to the

175 extreme penalty), has its good in this world, and rejoices in

176 it with such joy as such things can afford. But as this is

177 not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses,

178 this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars,

179 quarrels, and such victories as are either life-destroying or

180 short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another

181 part of it seeks to triumph over the nations through itself in

182 bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is inflated with

183 pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts

184 upon the common casualties of our mortal condition, and is

185 rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it

186 than elated with the successes already achieved, this victory,

187 though of a higher kind, is still only short-lived; for it cannot

188 abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated.

189 But the things which this city desires cannot justly

190 be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than

191 all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the

192 sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to

193 attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there

194 remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not

195 while there were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment

196 of those things which were too small to satisfy both.

197 This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained by

198 what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains

199 with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates

200 to congratulate the victor, and style it a desirable peace?

201 These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the

202 gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the

203 heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace

204 never-ending, and so inordinately covet these present good

205 things that they believe them to be the only desirable things,

206 or love them better than those things which are believed to

207 be better,—if this be so, then it is necessary that misery

208 follow and ever increase.

209 5. *Of the fratricidal act of the founder of the earthly city, and the corresponding

210 crime of the founder of Rome.*

211 Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide.

212 Overcome with envy, he slew his own brother, a citizen of

213 the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot

214 be surprised that this first specimen, or, as the Greeks say,

215 archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a corresponding

216 crime at the foundation of that city which was destined

217 to reign over so many nations, and be the head of this earthly

218 city of which we speak. For of that city also, as one of their

219 poets has mentioned, "the first walls were stained with a

220 brother's blood,"[137] or, as Roman history records, Remus was

221 slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference

222 between the foundation of this city and of the earthly

223 city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both citizens

224 of the earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding

225 the Roman republic, but both could not have as much

226 glory as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have

227 the glory of ruling would certainly rule less if his power were

228 shared by a living consort. In order, therefore, that the

229 whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed;

230 and by this crime the empire was made larger indeed,

231 but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but

232 better. Now these brothers, Cain and Abel, were not both

233 animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer

234 envy the other because he feared that, by both ruling, his own

235 dominion would be curtailed,—for Abel was not solicitous to

236 rule in that city which his brother built,—he was moved by

237 that diabolical, envious hatred with which the evil regard the

238 good, for no other reason than because they are good while

239 themselves are evil. For the possession of goodness is by no

240 means diminished by being shared with a partner either permanent

241 or temporarily assumed; on the contrary, the possession

242 of goodness is increased in proportion to the concord and

243 charity of each of those who share it. In short, he who is

244 unwilling to share this possession cannot have it; and he who

245 is most willing to admit others to a share of it will have the

246 greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel, then, between

247 Romulus and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided

248 against itself; that which fell out between Cain and Abel

249 illustrated the hatred that subsists between the two cities, that

250 of God and that of men. The wicked war with the wicked;

251 the good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good

252 men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war; though,

253 while only going on towards perfection, they war to this extent,

254 that every good man resists others in those points in

255 which he resists himself. And in each individual "the flesh

256 lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh."[138]

257 This spiritual lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal

258 lust of another man; or carnal lust may be at war with the

259 spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good and

260 wicked men are at war; or, still more certainly, the carnal

261 lusts of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together,

262 just as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health

263 of those who are under the treatment of grace attains final

264 victory.

265 >

266 >

267 >

268 6. *Of the weaknesses which even the citizens of the city of God suffer during this

269 > earthly pilgrimage in punishment of sin, and of which they are healed by

270 > God's care.*

271 This sickliness—that is to say, that disobedience of which

272 we spoke in the fourteenth book—is the punishment of the

273 first disobedience. It is therefore not nature, but vice; and

274 therefore it is said to the good who are growing in grace, and

275 living in this pilgrimage by faith, "Bear ye one another's

276 burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."[139] In like manner it

277 is said elsewhere, "Warn them that are unruly, comfort the

278 feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.

279 See that none render evil for evil unto any man."[140] And in

280 another place, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which

281 are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;

282 considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."[141] And elsewhere,

283 "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."[142] And

284 in the Gospel, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go

285 and tell him his fault between thee and him alone."[143] So too

286 of sins which may create scandal the apostle says, "Them

287 that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear."[144] For

288 this purpose, and that we may keep that peace without which

289 no man can see the Lord,[145] many precepts are given which

290 carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness; among which we may

291 number that terrible word in which the servant is ordered to

292 pay his formerly remitted debt of ten thousand talents, because

293 he did not remit to his fellow-servant his debt of two hundred

294 pence. To which parable the Lord Jesus added the words, "So

295 likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from

296 your hearts forgive not every one his brother."[146] It is thus

297 the citizens of the city of God are healed while still they sojourn

298 in this earth and sigh for the peace of their heavenly

299 country. The Holy Spirit, too, works within, that the medicine

300 externally applied may have some good result. Otherwise,

301 even though God Himself make use of the creatures

302 that are subject to Him, and in some human form address our

303 human senses, whether we receive those impressions in sleep

304 or in some external appearance, still, if He does not by His

305 own inward grace sway and act upon the mind, no preaching

306 of the truth is of any avail. But this God does, distinguishing

307 between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, by

308 His own very secret but very just providence. When He

309 Himself aids the soul in His own hidden and wonderful ways,

310 and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the

311 apostle teaches, rather the punishment of sin, does not reign

312 in our mortal body to obey the lusts of it, and when we no

313 longer yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness,[147]

314 then the soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires,

315 and, God possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even

316 in this life, and afterwards, with perfected health and endowed

317 with immortality, will reign without sin in peace everlasting.

318 7. *Of the cause of Cain's crime and his obstinacy, which not even the word of

319 God could subdue.*

320 But though God made use of this very mode of address

321 which we have been endeavouring to explain, and spoke to

322 Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate

323 Himself to our first parents and converse with them as a

324 companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he not

325 fulfil his wicked intention of killing his brother even after

326 he was warned by God's voice? For when God had made a

327 distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain's, regarding

328 Abel's, which was doubtless intimated by some visible

329 sign to that effect; and when God had done so because the

330 works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain

331 was very wroth, and his countenance fell. For thus it is

332 written: "And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth,

333 and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly,

334 but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned? Fret

335 not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt

336 rule over him."[148] In this admonition administered by God to

337 Cain, that clause indeed, "If thou offerest rightly, but dost

338 not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?" is obscure, inasmuch

339 as it is not apparent for what reason or purpose it was

340 spoken, and many meanings have been put upon it, as each

341 one who discusses it attempts to interpret it according to the

342 rule of faith. The truth is, that a sacrifice is "rightly offered"

343 when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone we must

344 sacrifice. And it is "not rightly distinguished" when we do

345 not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials of

346 the offering, or the person offering, or the person to whom it

347 is presented, or those to whom it is distributed for food after

348 the oblation. Distinguishing[149] is here used for discriminating,—whether

349 when an offering is made in a place where it ought

350 not or of a material which ought to be offered not there but

351 elsewhere; or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or

352 of a material suitable not then but at some other time; or when

353 that is offered which in no place nor any time ought to be

354 offered; or when a man keeps to himself choicer specimens

355 of the same kind than he offers to God; or when he or any

356 other who may not lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation.

357 In which of these particulars Cain displeased God, it is

358 difficult to determine. But the Apostle John, speaking of

359 these brothers, says, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked

360 one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because

361 his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous."[150]

362 He thus gives us to understand that God did not respect his

363 offering because it was not rightly "distinguished" in this, that

364 he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself.

365 For this all do who follow not God's will but their

366 own, who live not with an upright but a crooked heart, and

367 yet offer to God such gifts as they suppose will procure from

368 Him that He aid them not by healing but by gratifying their

369 evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly

370 city, that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning

371 victoriously and peacefully on earth not through love of doing

372 good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that

373 they may enjoy God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they

374 may enjoy the world would fain use God,—those of them, at

375 least, who have attained to the belief that He is and takes an

376 interest in human affairs. For they who have not yet attained

377 even to this belief are still at a much lower level. Cain, then,

378 when he saw that God had respect to his brother's sacrifice,

379 but not to his own, should have humbly chosen his good

380 brother as his example, and not proudly counted him his

381 rival. But he was wroth, and his countenance fell. This angry

382 regret for another person's goodness, even his brother's, was

383 charged upon him by God as a great sin. And He accused him

384 of it in the interrogation, "Why art thou wroth, and why is thy

385 countenance fallen?" For God saw that he envied his brother,

386 and of this He accused him. For to men, from whom the

387 heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful and quite

388 uncertain whether that sadness bewailed his own wickedness

389 by which, as he had learned, he had displeased God, or his

390 brother's goodness, which had pleased God, and won His

391 favourable regard to his sacrifice. But God, in giving the

392 reason why He refused to accept Cain's offering and why

393 Cain should rather have been displeased at himself than at

394 his brother, shows him that though he was unjust in "not

395 rightly distinguishing," that is, not rightly living and being

396 unworthy to have his offering received, he was more unjust by

397 far in hating his just brother without a cause.

398 Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just,

399 and good. "Fret not thyself," He says, "for unto thee shall

400 be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him." Over his

401 brother, does He mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then,

402 but sin? For He had said, "Thou hast sinned," and then

403 He added, "Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning,

404 and thou shalt rule over it."[151] And the "turning" of sin to

405 the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of

406 sin can be laid at no other man's door but his own. For this

407 is the health-giving medicine of penitence, and the fit plea

408 for pardon; so that, when it is said, "To thee its turning," we

409 must not supply "shall be," but we must read, "To thee let its

410 turning be," understanding it as a command, not as a prediction.

411 For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does

412 not prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects it by repentance;

413 otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely

414 become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that

415 carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, "The flesh

416 lusteth against the spirit,"[152] among the fruits of which lust he

417 names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited

418 to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the

419 words "shall be," and read, "To thee shall be its turning, and

420 thou shalt rule over it." For when the carnal part which the

421 apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, "It is not I who

422 do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,"[153] that part which the

423 philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the

424 mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason

425 from illicit motions,—when, then, this part has been moved to

426 perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and if it obey the

427 word of the apostle, "Yield not your members instruments of

428 unrighteousness unto sin,"[154] it is turned towards the mind and

429 subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as

430 a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was

431 kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he

432 sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set

433 as an example. "Fret not thyself," or compose thyself, He

434 says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in

435 your mortal body to fulfil it in the lusts thereof, nor yield

436 your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. "For

437 to thee shall be its turning," so long as you do not encourage

438 it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire.

439 "And thou shalt rule over it;" for when it is not allowed any

440 external actings, it yields itself to the rule of the governing

441 mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions.

442 There is something similar said in the same divine

443 book of the woman, when God questioned and judged them

444 after their sin, and pronounced sentence on them all,—the devil

445 in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in

446 their own persons. For when He had said to her, "I will

447 greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow

448 shalt thou bring forth children," then He added, "and thy

449 turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."[155]

450 What is said to Cain about his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence

451 of his flesh, is here said of the woman who had

452 sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is to rule

453 his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the

454 apostle, "He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man

455 ever yet hated his own flesh."[156] This flesh, then, is to be

456 healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned

457 to destruction as if it were alien to our nature. But Cain received

458 that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did not

459 wish to amend. In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him;

460 and, having entrapped his brother, he slew him. Such was

461 the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure of the

462 Jews who slew Christ the Shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured

463 by Abel the shepherd of sheep: but as this is an allegorical

464 and prophetical matter, I forbear to explain it now;

465 besides, I remember that I have made some remarks upon it

466 in writing against Faustus the Manichæan.[157]

467 8. *What Cain's reason was for building a city so early in the history

468 of the human race.*

469 At present it is the history which I aim at defending, that

470 Scripture may not be reckoned incredible when it relates that

471 one man built a city at a time in which there seem to have

472 been but four men upon earth, or rather indeed but three,

473 after one brother slew the other,—to wit, the first man the

474 father of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch, by whose

475 name the city was itself called. But they who are moved by

476 this consideration forget to take into account that the writer

477 of the sacred history does not necessarily mention all the

478 men who might be alive at that time, but those only whom

479 the scope of his work required him to name. The design of

480 that writer (who in this matter was the instrument of the

481 Holy Ghost) was to descend to Abraham through the successions

482 of ascertained generations propagated from one man,

483 and then to pass from Abraham's seed to the people of God,

484 in whom, separated as they were from other nations, was

485 prefigured and predicted all that relates to the city whose

486 reign is eternal, and to its king and founder Christ, which

487 things were foreseen in the Spirit as destined to come; yet

488 neither is this object so effected as that nothing is said of the

489 other society of men which we call the earthly city, but

490 mention is made of it so far as seemed needful to enhance

491 the glory of the heavenly city by contrast to its opposite.

492 Accordingly, when the divine Scripture, in mentioning the

493 number of years which those men lived, concludes its account

494 of each man of whom it speaks, with the words, "And he

495 begat sons and daughters, and all his days were so and so,

496 and he died," are we to understand that, because it does not

497 name those sons and daughters, therefore, during that long

498 term of years over which one lifetime extended in those early

499 days, there might not have been born very many men, by

500 whose united numbers not one but several cities might have

501 been built? But it suited the purpose of God, by whose

502 inspiration these histories were composed, to arrange and distinguish

503 from the first these two societies in their several

504 generations,—that on the one side the generations of men,

505 that is to say, of those who live according to man, and on the

506 other side the generations of the sons of God, that is to

507 say, of men living according to God, might be traced down

508 together and yet apart from one another as far as the deluge,

509 at which point their dissociation and association are exhibited:

510 their dissociation, inasmuch as the generations of both lines

511 are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending from

512 the fratricide Cain, the other from Seth, who had been born to

513 Adam instead of him whom his brother slew; their association,

514 inasmuch as the good so deteriorated that the whole race

515 became of such a character that it was swept away by the

516 deluge, with the exception of one just man, whose name was

517 Noah, and his wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law,

518 which eight persons were alone deemed worthy to escape

519 from that desolating visitation which destroyed all men.

520 Therefore, although it is written, "And Cain knew his wife,

521 and she conceived and bare Enoch, and he builded a city and

522 called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch,"[158]

523 it does not follow that we are to believe this to have been

524 his first-born; for we cannot suppose that this is proved by

525 the expression "he knew his wife," as if then for the first

526 time he had had intercourse with her. For in the case of

527 Adam, the father of all, this expression is used not only when

528 Cain, who seems to have been his first-born, was conceived,

529 but also afterwards the same Scripture says, "Adam knew

530 Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare a son, and

531 called his name Seth."[159] Whence it is obvious that Scripture

532 employs this expression neither always when a birth is recorded

533 nor then only when the birth of a first-born is mentioned.

534 Neither is it necessary to suppose that Enoch was

535 Cain's first-born because he named his city after him. For

536 it is quite possible that though he had other sons, yet for

537 some reason the father loved him more than the rest. Judah

538 was not the first-born, though he gives his name to Judæa

539 and the Jews. But even though Enoch was the first-born of

540 the city's founder, that is no reason for supposing that the

541 father named the city after him as soon as he was born; for

542 at that time he, being but a solitary man, could not have

543 founded a civic community, which is nothing else than a

544 multitude of men bound together by some associating tie.

545 But when his family increased to such numbers that he had

546 quite a population, then it became possible to him both to

547 build a city, and give it, when founded, the name of his son.

548 For so long was the life of those antediluvians, that he who

549 lived the shortest time of those whose years are mentioned in

550 Scripture attained to the age of 753 years.[160] And though no

551 one attained the age of a thousand years, several exceeded the

552 age of nine hundred. Who then can doubt that during the

553 lifetime of one man the human race might be so multiplied that

554 there would be a population to build and occupy not one but

555 several cities? And this might very readily be conjectured

556 from the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much more

557 than four hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew race so

558 increased, that in the exodus of that people from Egypt there

559 are recorded to have been six hundred thousand men capable

560 of bearing arms,[161] and this over and above the Idumæans, who,

561 though not numbered with Israel's descendants, were yet sprung

562 from his brother, also a grandson of Abraham; and over and

563 above the other nations which were of the same stock of

564 Abraham, though not through Sarah,—that is, his descendants

565 by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc.

566 9. *Of the long life and greater stature of the antediluvians.*

567 Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will

568 doubt that Cain might have built a city, and that a large

569 one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of

570 men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very

571 length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians

572 and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do

573 not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than

574 now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil,

575 asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which

576 had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of

577 those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and

578 hurled, and cast it,—

579 "Scarce twelve strong men of later mould

580 That weight could on their necks uphold;"[162]

581 thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced

582 mightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much

583 more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But

584 the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to

585 the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through

586 the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident,

587 and in which bones of incredible size have been found or have

588 rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the

589 shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it

590 were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I

591 fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe,

592 belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary

593 men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in

594 stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have

595 there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature,

596 though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned

597 man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller

598 will be the bodies of men.[163] And he mentions that Homer

599 in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he

600 does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character

601 of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true.

602 But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered

603 prove the size of the bodies of the ancients,[164] and will

604 do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the

605 length of an antediluvian's life cannot now be proved by any

606 such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account

607 to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements

608 of past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting,

609 as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future.

610 And even that same Pliny[165] tells us that there is still a nation

611 in which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown

612 to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is

613 quite beyond our own experience, why should we not believe

614 the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to

615 believe that in other places there is what is not here, while

616 we do not believe that in other times there has been anything

617 but what is now?

618 10. *Of the different computation of the ages of the antediluvians, given by the

619 Hebrew manuscripts and by our own.*[166]

620 Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I

621 cannot account between our manuscripts and the Hebrew, in

622 the very number of years assigned to the antediluvians, yet

623 the discrepancy is not so great that they do not agree about

624 their longevity. For the very first man, Adam, before he

625 begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived

626 230 years, but in the Hebrew mss. 130. But after he begot

627 Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the

628 Hebrew give 800. And thus, when the two periods are taken

629 together, the sum agrees. And so throughout the succeeding

630 generations, the period before the father begets a son is always

631 made shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew, but the period

632 after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the

633 Hebrew than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods

634 together, the result is the same in both. And in the sixth

635 generation there is no discrepancy at all. In the seventh,

636 however, of which Enoch is the representative, who is recorded

637 to have been translated without death because he

638 pleased God, there is the same discrepancy as in the first

639 five generations, 100 years more being ascribed to him by

640 our mss. before he begat a son. But still the result agrees;

641 for according to both documents he lived before he was

642 translated 365 years. In the eighth generation the discrepancy

643 is less than in the others, and of a different kind. For

644 Methuselah, whom Enoch begat, lived, before he begat his

645 successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according

646 to the Hebrew reading; and in our mss. again these years

647 are added to the period after he begat his son; so that in this

648 case also the sum-total is the same. And it is only in the

649 ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech, Methuselah's

650 son and Noah's father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum-total;

651 and even in this case it is slight. For the Hebrew mss.

652 represent him as living twenty-four years more than ours

653 assign to him. For before he begat his son, who was called

654 Noah, six years fewer are given to him by the Hebrew mss.

655 than by ours; but after he begat this son, they give him thirty

656 years more than ours; so that, deducting the former six, there

657 remains, as we said, a surplus of twenty-four.

658 11. *Of Methuselah's age, which seems to extend fourteen years beyond the

659 deluge.*

660 From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our

661 own arises the well-known question as to the age of Methuselah;[167]

662 for it is computed that he lived for fourteen years

663 after the deluge, though Scripture relates that of all who

664 were then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark

665 escaped destruction by the flood, and of these Methuselah was

666 not one. For, according to our books, Methuselah, before he

667 begat the son whom he called Lamech, lived 167 years; then

668 Lamech himself, before his son Noah was born, lived 188

669 years, which together make 355 years. Add to these the

670 age of Noah at the date of the deluge, 600 years, and this

671 gives a total of 955 from the birth of Methuselah to the

672 year of the flood. Now all the years of the life of Methuselah

673 are computed to be 969; for when he had lived 167

674 years, and had begotten his son Lamech, he then lived after

675 this 802 years, which makes a total, as we said, of 969

676 years. From this, if we deduct 955 years from the birth of

677 Methuselah to the flood, there remain fourteen years, which

678 he is supposed to have lived after the flood. And therefore

679 some suppose that, though he was not on earth (in which it

680 is agreed that every living thing which could not naturally

681 live in water perished), he was for a time with his father,

682 who had been translated, and that he lived there till the flood

683 had passed away. This hypothesis they adopt, that they may

684 not cast a slight on the trustworthiness of versions which the

685 Church has received into a position of high authority,[168] and

686 because they believe that the Jewish mss. rather than our

687 own are in error. For they do not admit that this is a mistake

688 of the translators, but maintain that there is a falsified

689 statement in the original, from which, through the Greek, the

690 Scripture has been translated into our own tongue. They say

691 that it is not credible that the seventy translators, who simultaneously

692 and unanimously produced one rendering, could

693 have erred, or, in a case in which no interest of theirs was

694 involved, could have falsified their translation; but that the

695 Jews, envying us our translation of their Law and Prophets,

696 have made alterations in their texts so as to undermine the

697 authority of ours. This opinion or suspicion let each man

698 adopt according to his own judgment. Certain it is that

699 Methuselah did not survive the flood, but died in the very

700 year it occurred, if the numbers given in the Hebrew mss.

701 are true. My own opinion regarding the seventy translators

702 I will, with God's help, state more carefully in its

703 own place, when I have come down (following the order

704 which this work requires) to that period in which their

705 translation was executed.[169] For the present question, it is

706 enough that, according to our versions, the men of that age

707 had lives so long as to make it quite possible that, during

708 the lifetime of the first-born of the two sole parents then

709 on earth, the human race multiplied sufficiently to form a

710 community.

711 12. *Of the opinion of those who do not believe that in these primitive times men

712 lived so long as is stated.*

713 For they are by no means to be listened to who suppose

714 that in those times years were differently reckoned, and were

715 so short that one of our years may be supposed to be equal

716 to ten of theirs. So that they say, when we read or hear that

717 some man lived 900 years, we should understand ninety,—ten

718 of those years making but one of ours, and ten of ours

719 equalling 100 of theirs. Consequently, as they suppose,

720 Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth, and

721 Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when his

722 son Enos was born, though the Scripture calls these months

723 205 years. For, on the hypothesis of those whose opinion we

724 are explaining, it was customary to divide one such year as

725 we have into ten parts, and to call each part a year. And

726 each of these parts was composed of six days squared; because

727 God finished His works in six days, that He might rest the

728 seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability in the

729 eleventh book.[170] Now six squared, or six times six, gives

730 thirty-six days; and this multiplied by ten amounts to 360

731 days, or twelve lunar months. As for the five remaining days

732 which are needed to complete the solar year, and for the

733 fourth part of a day, which requires that into every fourth or

734 leap-year a day be added, the ancients added such days as the

735 Romans used to call "intercalary," in order to complete the

736 number of the years. So that Enos, Seth's son, was nineteen

737 years old when his son Cainan was born, though Scripture

738 calls these years 190. And so through all the generations in

739 which the ages of the antediluvians are given, we find in our

740 versions that almost no one begat a son at the age of 100 or

741 under, or even at the age of 120 or thereabouts; but the

742 youngest fathers are recorded to have been 160 years old and

743 upwards. And the reason of this, they say, is that no one

744 can beget children when he is ten years old, the age spoken

745 of by those men as 100, but that sixteen is the age of puberty,

746 and competent now to propagate offspring; and this is the age

747 called by them 160. And that it may not be thought incredible

748 that in these days the year was differently computed

749 from our own, they adduce what is recorded by several writers

750 of history, that the Egyptians had a year of four months, the

751 Acarnanians of six, and the Lavinians of thirteen months.[171]

752 The younger Pliny, after mentioning that some writers reported

753 that one man had lived 152 years, another ten more,

754 others 200, others 300, that some had even reached 500 and

755 600, and a few 800 years of age, gave it as his opinion that

756 all this must be ascribed to mistaken computation. For some,

757 he says, make summer and winter each a year; others make

758 each season a year, like the Arcadians, whose years, he says,

759 were of three months. He added, too, that the Egyptians, of

760 whose little years of four months we have spoken already,

761 sometimes terminated their year at the wane of each moon;

762 so that with them there are produced lifetimes of 1000

763 years.

764 By these plausible arguments certain persons, with no desire

765 to weaken the credit of this sacred history, but rather to

766 facilitate belief in it by removing the difficulty of such incredible

767 longevity, have been themselves persuaded, and think

768 they act wisely in persuading others, that in these days the

769 year was so brief that ten of their years equal but one of ours,

770 while ten of ours equal 100 of theirs. But there is the

771 plainest evidence to show that this is quite false. Before

772 producing this evidence, however, it seems right to mention

773 a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the Hebrew

774 manuscripts we could at once refute this confident statement;

775 for in them Adam is found to have lived not 230 but 130

776 years before he begat his third son. If, then, this mean

777 thirteen years by our ordinary computation, then he must

778 have begotten his first son when he was only twelve or thereabouts.

779 Who can at this age beget children according to the

780 ordinary and familiar course of nature? But not to mention

781 him, since it is possible he may have been able to beget his

782 like as soon as he was created,—for it is not credible that he was

783 created so little as our infants are,—not to mention him, his

784 son was not 205 years old when he begat Enos, as our versions

785 have it, but 105, and consequently, according to this

786 idea, was not eleven years old. But what shall I say of his

787 son Cainan, who, though by our version 170 years old, was by

788 the Hebrew text seventy when he beget Mahalaleel? If

789 seventy years in those times meant only seven of our years,

790 what man of seven years old begets children?

791 13. *Whether, in computing years, we ought to follow the Hebrew or the

792 Septuagint.*

793 But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one

794 of the Jews' lies. This, however, we have disposed of above,

795 showing that it cannot be that men of so just a reputation as

796 the seventy translators should have falsified their version.

797 However, if I ask them which of the two is more credible,

798 that the Jewish nation, scattered far and wide, could have

799 unanimously conspired to forge this lie, and so, through envying

800 others the authority of their Scriptures, have deprived

801 themselves of their verity; or that seventy men, who were

802 also themselves Jews, shut up in one place (for Ptolemy king

803 of Egypt had got them together for this work), should have

804 envied foreign nations that same truth, and by common consent

805 inserted these errors: who does not see which can be

806 more naturally and readily believed? But far be it from any

807 prudent man to believe either that the Jews, however malicious

808 and wrong-headed, could have tampered with so many

809 and so widely-dispersed manuscripts; or that those renowned

810 seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the

811 truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly

812 maintain, that when first their labours began to be transcribed

813 from the copy in Ptolemy's library, some such misstatement

814 might find its way into the first copy made, and from it might

815 be disseminated far and wide; and that this might arise from

816 no fraud, but from a mere copyist's error. This is a sufficiently

817 plausible account of the difficulty regarding Methuselah's life,

818 and of that other case in which there is a difference in the

819 total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in which there

820 is a methodical resemblance in the falsification, so that uniformly

821 the one version allots to the period before a son and

822 successor is born 100 years more than the other, and to the

823 period subsequent 100 years less, and *vice versâ*, so that the

824 totals may agree,—and this holds true of the first, second,

825 third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generations,—in these cases

826 error seems to have, if we may say so, a certain kind of constancy,

827 and savours not of accident, but of design.

828 Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes

829 the Hebrew from the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture,

830 and which consists of a uniform addition and deduction of

831 100 years in each lifetime for several consecutive generations,

832 is to be attributed neither to the malice of the Jews

833 nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy translators,

834 but to the error of the copyist who was first allowed

835 to transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned

836 king. For even now, in cases where numbers

837 contribute nothing to the easier comprehension or more satisfactory

838 knowledge of anything, they are both carelessly

839 transcribed, and still more carelessly emended. For who will

840 trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several

841 tribes of Israel contained? He sees no resulting benefit of

842 such knowledge. Or how many men are there who are aware

843 of the vast advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in

844 this case, in which during so many consecutive generations

845 100 years are added in one manuscript where they are not

846 reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the son

847 and successor, the years which were wanting are added, it is

848 obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed

849 to insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive

850 number of years only because each year was excessively brief,

851 and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his

852 statement of their age of puberty at which they became able

853 to beget children. For, lest the incredulous might stumble

854 at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that

855 100 of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation

856 he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever

857 he found the age below 160 years or thereabouts, deducting

858 these years again from the period after the son's

859 birth, that the total might harmonize. By this means he

860 intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age,

861 without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the

862 lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the

863 sixth generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines

864 us all the rather to believe that when the circumstance

865 we have referred to required his alterations, he made them;

866 seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made no

867 alteration. For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew

868 MS. that Jared lived before he begat Enoch 162 years, which,

869 according to the short year computation, is sixteen years and

870 somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation;

871 and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years,

872 and so make the age twenty-six years of the usual length;

873 and of course it was not necessary to deduct, after the son's

874 birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus it

875 comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation

876 between the two manuscripts.

877 This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the

878 eighth generation, while the Hebrew books assign 182[172]

879 years to Methuselah before Lamech's birth, ours assign to

880 him twenty less, though usually 100 years are added to this

881 period; then, after Lamech's birth, the twenty years are restored,

882 so as to equalize the total in the two books. For if

883 his design was that these 170 years be understood as seventeen,

884 so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was no need

885 for him adding anything, so there was none for his subtracting

886 anything; for in this case he found an age fit for the generation

887 of children, for the sake of which he was in the habit of

888 adding those 100 years in cases where he did not find the

889 age already sufficient. This difference of twenty years we

890 might, indeed, have supposed had happened accidentally, had

891 he not taken care to restore them afterwards as he had

892 deducted them from the period before, so that there might

893 be no deficiency in the total. Or are we perhaps to suppose

894 that there was the still more astute design of concealing the

895 deliberate and uniform addition of 100 years to the first

896 period and their deduction from the subsequent period,—did

897 he design to conceal this by doing something similar, that is to

898 say, adding and deducting, not indeed a century, but some

899 years, even in a case in which there was no need for his

900 doing so? But whatever may be thought of this, whether

901 it be believed that he did so or not, whether, in fine, it be

902 so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any

903 diversity is found in the books, since both cannot be true to

904 fact, we do well to believe in preference that language out

905 of which the translation was made into another by translators.

906 For there are three Greek mss., one Latin, and one Syriac,

907 which agree with one another, and in all of these Methuselah

908 is said to have died six years before the deluge.

909 14. *That the years in those ancient times were of the same length as our own.*

910 Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the

911 enormously protracted lives of those men the years were not

912 so short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours,

913 but were of as great length as our own, which are measured

914 by the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that Scripture

915 states that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of

916 Noah's life. But why in the same place is it also written,

917 "The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six

918 hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the

919 twenty-seventh day of the month,"[173] if that very brief year (of

920 which it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six

921 days? For so scant a year, if the ancient usage dignified

922 it with the name of year, either has not months, or its month

923 must be three days, so that it may have twelve of them. How

924 then was it here said, "In the six hundredth year, the second

925 month, the twenty-seventh day of the month," unless the

926 months then were of the same length as the months now?

927 For how else could it be said that the flood began on the

928 twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards,

929 at the end of the flood, it is thus written: "And the ark rested

930 in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month,

931 on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually

932 until the eleventh month: on the first day of the

933 month were the tops of the mountains seen."[174] But if the

934 months were such as we have, then so were the years. And

935 certainly months of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh

936 day. Or if every measure of time was diminished in

937 proportion, and a thirtieth part of three days was then called

938 a day, then that great deluge, which is recorded to have lasted

939 forty days and forty nights, was really over in less than four

940 of our days. Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity?

941 Far be this error from us,—an error which seeks to

942 build up our faith in the divine Scriptures on false conjecture,

943 only to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that

944 the day then was what it now is, a space of four-and-twenty

945 hours, determined by the lapse of day and night; the month

946 then equal to the month now, which is defined by the rise

947 and completion of one moon; the year then equal to the year

948 now, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with the

949 addition of five days and a-fourth to adjust it with the course

950 of the sun. It was a year of this length which was reckoned

951 the six hundredth of Noah's life; and in the second month,

952 the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began,—a

953 flood which, as is recorded, was caused by heavy rains continuing

954 for forty days, which days had not only two hours

955 and a little more, but four-and-twenty hours, completing a

956 night and a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived

957 more than 900 years, which were years as long as those

958 which afterwards Abraham lived 175 of, and after him his

959 son Isaac 180, and his son Jacob nearly 150, and some time

960 after, Moses 120, and men now seventy or eighty, or not

961 much longer, of which years it is said, "their strength is

962 labour and sorrow."[175]

963 But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist

964 between our own and the Hebrew text does not touch the

965 longevity of the ancients; and if there is any diversity so

966 great that both versions cannot be true, we must take our

967 ideas of the real facts from that text out of which our own

968 version has been translated. However, though any one who

969 pleases has it in his power to correct this version, yet it is

970 not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed to

971 emend the Septuagint from the Hebrew text in the many

972 places where they seem to disagree. For this difference has

973 not been reckoned a falsification; and for my own part I am

974 persuaded it ought not to be reckoned so. But where the

975 difference is not a mere copyist's error, and where the sense is

976 agreeable to truth and illustrative of truth, we must believe

977 that the divine Spirit prompted them to give a varying version,

978 not in their function of translators, but in the liberty of prophesying.

979 And therefore we find that the apostles justly

980 sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the Hebrew

981 when they adduce proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have

982 promised to treat this subject more carefully, if God help me,

983 in a more fitting place, I will now go on with the matter in

984 hand. For there can be no doubt that, the lives of men being

985 so long, the first-born of the first man could have built a city,—a

986 city, however, which was earthly, and not that which is

987 called the city of God, to describe which we have taken in

988 hand this great work.

989 >

990 >

991 >

992 15. *Whether it is credible that the men of the primitive age abstained from

993 > sexual intercourse until that date at which it is recorded that they begat

994 > children.*

995 Some one, then, will say, Is it to be believed that a man

996 who intended to beget children, and had no intention of continence,

997 abstained from sexual intercourse a hundred years and

998 more, or even, according to the Hebrew version, only a little

999 less, say eighty, seventy, or sixty years; or, if he did not

1000 abstain, was unable to beget offspring? This question admits

1001 of two solutions. For either puberty was so much later as the

1002 whole life was longer, or, which seems to me more likely, it

1003 is not the first-born sons that are here mentioned, but those

1004 whose names were required to fill up the series until Noah

1005 was reached, from whom again we see that the succession is

1006 continued to Abraham, and after him down to that point of

1007 time until which it was needful to mark by pedigree the

1008 course of the most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger

1009 in this world, and seeks the heavenly country. That which

1010 is undeniable is that Cain was the first who was born of man

1011 and woman. For had he not been the first who was added

1012 by birth to the two unborn persons, Adam could not have said

1013 what he is recorded to have said, "I have gotten a man by

1014 the Lord."[176] He was followed by Abel, whom the elder

1015 brother slew, and who was the first to show, by a kind of

1016 foreshadowing of the sojourning city of God, what iniquitous

1017 persecutions that city would suffer at the hands of wicked

1018 and, as it were, earth-born men, who love their earthly origin,

1019 and delight in the earthly happiness of the earthly city. But

1020 how old Adam was when he begat these sons does not appear.

1021 After this the generations diverge, the one branch deriving

1022 from Cain, the other from him whom Adam begot in the room

1023 of Abel slain by his brother, and whom he called Seth, saying,

1024 as it is written, "For God hath raised me up another seed for

1025 Abel whom Cain slew."[177] These two series of generations

1026 accordingly, the one of Cain, the other of Seth, represent the

1027 two cities in their distinctive ranks, the one the heavenly city,

1028 which sojourns on earth, the other the earthly, which gapes

1029 after earthly joys, and grovels in them as if they were the

1030 only joys. But though eight generations, including Adam, are

1031 registered before the flood, no man of Cain's line has his age

1032 recorded at which the son who succeeded him was begotten.

1033 For the Spirit of God refused to mark the times before the

1034 flood in the generations of the earthly city, but preferred to do

1035 so in the heavenly line, as if it were more worthy of being

1036 remembered. Further, when Seth was born, the age of his

1037 father is mentioned; but already he had begotten other sons,

1038 and who will presume to say that Cain and Abel were the

1039 only ones previously begotten? For it does not follow that

1040 they alone had been begotten of Adam, because they alone

1041 were named in order to continue the series of generations

1042 which it was desirable to mention. For though the names of

1043 all the rest are buried in silence, yet it is said that Adam

1044 begot sons and daughters; and who that cares to be free from

1045 the charge of temerity will dare to say how many his offspring

1046 numbered? It was possible enough that Adam was divinely

1047 prompted to say, after Seth was born, "For God hath raised

1048 up to me another seed for Abel," because that son was to be

1049 capable of representing Abel's holiness, not because he was born

1050 first after him in point of time. Then because it is written,

1051 "And Seth lived 205 years," or, according to the Hebrew reading,

1052 "105 years, and begat Enos,"[178] who but a rash man could

1053 affirm that this was his first-born? Will any man do so to

1054 excite our wonder, and cause us to inquire how for so many

1055 years he remained free from sexual intercourse, though without

1056 any purpose of continuing so, or how, if he did not abstain, he

1057 yet had no children? Will any man do so when it is written

1058 of him, "And he begat sons and daughters, and all the days

1059 of Seth were 912 years, and he died?"[179] And similarly regarding

1060 those whose years are afterwards mentioned, it is not

1061 disguised that they begat sons and daughters.

1062 Consequently it does not at all appear whether he who is

1063 named as the son was himself the first begotten. Nay, since

1064 it is incredible that those fathers were either so long in attaining

1065 puberty, or could not get wives, or could not impregnate

1066 them, it is also incredible that those sons were their first-born.

1067 But as the writer of the sacred history designed to descend by

1068 well-marked intervals through a series of generations to the

1069 birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, he

1070 mentioned not those sons who were first begotten, but those

1071 by whom the succession was handed down.

1072 Let me make this clearer by here inserting an example, in

1073 regard to which no one can have any doubt that what I am

1074 asserting is true. The evangelist Matthew, where he designs

1075 to commit to our memories the generation of the Lord's flesh

1076 by a series of parents, beginning from Abraham and intending

1077 to reach David, says, "Abraham begat Isaac;"[180] why did he

1078 not say Ishmael, whom he first begat? Then "Isaac begat

1079 Jacob;" why did he not say Esau, who was the first-born?

1080 Simply because these sons would not have helped him to

1081 reach David. Then follows, "And Jacob begat Judah and

1082 his brethren:" was Judah the first begotten? "Judah," he

1083 says, "begat Pharez and Zara;" yet neither were these twins

1084 the first-born of Judah, but before them he had begotten

1085 three other sons. And so in the order of the generations he

1086 retained those by whom he might reach David, so as to proceed

1087 onwards to the end he had in view. And from this we

1088 may understand that the antediluvians who are mentioned

1089 were not the first-born, but those through whom the order of

1090 the succeeding generations might be carried on to the patriarch

1091 Noah. We need not, therefore, weary ourselves with discussing

1092 the needless and obscure question as to their lateness of reaching

1093 puberty.

1094 16. *Of marriage between blood-relations, in regard to which the present law

1095 could not bind the men of the earliest ages.*

1096 As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first

1097 marriage of the man who was made of dust, and his wife who

1098 was made out of his side, required the union of males and

1099 females in order that it might multiply, and as there were no

1100 human beings except those who had been born of these two,

1101 men took their sisters for wives,—an act which was as certainly

1102 dictated by necessity in these ancient days as afterwards it

1103 was condemned by the prohibitions of religion. For it is

1104 very reasonable and just that men, among whom concord is

1105 honourable and useful, should be bound together by various

1106 relationships; and that one man should not himself sustain

1107 many relationships, but that the various relationships should

1108 be distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind

1109 together the greatest number in the same social interests.

1110 "Father" and "father-in-law" are the names of two relationships.

1111 When, therefore, a man has one person for his

1112 father, another for his father-in-law, friendship extends itself

1113 to a larger number. But Adam in his single person was

1114 obliged to hold both relations to his sons and daughters, for

1115 brothers and sisters were united in marriage. So too Eve

1116 his wife was both mother and mother-in-law to her children

1117 of both sexes; while, had there been two women, one the

1118 mother, the other the mother-in-law, the family affection

1119 would have had a wider field. Then the sister herself by

1120 becoming a wife sustained in her single person two relationships,

1121 which, had they been distributed among individuals, one

1122 being sister, and another being wife, the family tie would have

1123 embraced a greater number of persons. But there was then

1124 no material for effecting this, since there were no human

1125 beings but the brothers and sisters born of those two first

1126 parents. Therefore, when an abundant population made it

1127 possible, men ought to choose for wives women who were not

1128 already their sisters; for not only would there then be no

1129 necessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done, it would be

1130 most abominable. For if the grandchildren of the first pair,

1131 being now able to choose their cousins for wives, married

1132 their sisters, then it would no longer be only two but three

1133 relationships that were held by one man, while each of these

1134 relationships ought to have been held by a separate individual,

1135 so as to bind together by family affection a larger number.

1136 For one man would in that case be both father, and father-in-law,

1137 and uncle[181] to his own children (brother and sister now

1138 man and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and

1139 mother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not

1140 only brother and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also,

1141 being the children of brother and sister. Now, all these

1142 relationships, which combined three men into one, would have

1143 embraced nine persons had each relationship been held by

1144 one individual, so that a man had one person for his sister,

1145 another his wife, another his cousin, another his father, another

1146 his uncle, another his father-in-law, another his mother, another

1147 his aunt, another his mother-in-law; and thus the social bond

1148 would not have been tightened to bind a few, but loosened to

1149 embrace a larger number of relations.

1150 And we see that, since the human race has increased and

1151 multiplied, this is so strictly observed even among the profane

1152 worshippers of many and false gods, that though their

1153 laws perversely allow a brother to marry his sister,[182] yet custom,

1154 with a finer morality, prefers to forego this licence; and

1155 though it was quite allowable in the earliest ages of the

1156 human race to marry one's sister, it is now abhorred as a

1157 thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom has

1158 very great power either to attract or to shock human feeling.

1159 And in this matter, while it restrains concupiscence within

1160 due bounds, the man who neglects and disobeys it is justly

1161 branded as abominable. For if it is iniquitous to plough

1162 beyond our own boundaries through the greed of gain, is it

1163 not much more iniquitous to transgress the recognised boundaries

1164 of morals through sexual lust? And with regard to

1165 marriage in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage between

1166 cousins, we have observed that in our own time the

1167 customary morality has prevented this from being frequent,

1168 though the law allows it. It was not prohibited by divine

1169 law, nor as yet had human law prohibited it; nevertheless,

1170 though legitimate, people shrank from it, because it lay so

1171 close to what was illegitimate, and in marrying a cousin

1172 seemed almost to marry a sister,—for cousins are so closely

1173 related that they are called brothers and sisters,[183] and are

1174 almost really so. But the ancient fathers, fearing that near

1175 relationship might gradually in the course of generations

1176 diverge, and become distant relationship, or cease to be relationship

1177 at all, religiously endeavoured to limit it by the

1178 bond of marriage before it became distant, and thus, as it

1179 were, to call it back when it was escaping them. And on

1180 this account, even when the world was full of people, though

1181 they did not choose wives from among their sisters or half-sisters,

1182 yet they preferred them to be of the same stock as

1183 themselves. But who doubts that the modern prohibition of

1184 the marriage even of cousins is the more seemly regulation,—not

1185 merely on account of the reason we have been urging,

1186 the multiplying of relationships, so that one person might not

1187 absorb two, which might be distributed to two persons, and

1188 so increase the number of people bound together as a family,

1189 but also because there is in human nature I know not what

1190 natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which restrains us

1191 from desiring that connection which, though for propagation,

1192 is yet lustful, and which even conjugal modesty blushes over,

1193 with any one to whom consanguinity bids us render respect?

1194 The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the

1195 case of mortals a kind of seed-bed of the city; but while

1196 the earthly city needs for its population only generation, the

1197 heavenly needs also regeneration to rid it of the taint of

1198 generation. Whether before the deluge there was any bodily

1199 or visible sign of regeneration, such as was afterwards enjoined

1200 upon Abraham when he was circumcised, or what kind of

1201 sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But it

1202 does inform us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed

1203 to God, as appeared also in the case of the two first brothers;

1204 Noah, too, is said to have offered sacrifices to God when he

1205 had come forth from the ark after the deluge. And concerning

1206 this subject we have already said in the foregoing books

1207 that the devils arrogate to themselves divinity, and require

1208 sacrifice that they may be esteemed gods, and delight in these

1209 honours on no other account than this, because they know

1210 that true sacrifice is due to the true God.

1211 17. *Of the two fathers and leaders who sprang from one progenitor.*

1212 Since, then, Adam was the father of both lines,—the father,

1213 that is to say, both of the line which belonged to the earthly,

1214 and of that which belonged to the heavenly city,—when Abel

1215 was slain, and by his death exhibited a marvellous mystery,

1216 there were henceforth two lines proceeding from two fathers,

1217 Cain and Seth, and in those sons of theirs, whom it behoved

1218 to register, the tokens of these two cities began to appear

1219 more distinctly. For Cain begat Enoch, in whose name he

1220 built a city, an earthly one, which was not from home in this

1221 world, but rested satisfied with its temporal peace and happiness.

1222 Cain, too, means "possession;" wherefore at his birth

1223 either his father or mother said, "I have gotten a man through

1224 God." Then Enoch means "dedication;" for the earthly city

1225 is dedicated in this world in which it is built, for in this

1226 world it finds the end towards which it aims and aspires.

1227 Further, Seth signifies "resurrection," and Enos his son signifies

1228 "man," not as Adam, which also signifies man but is

1229 used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman, as it is

1230 written, "Male and female created He them, and blessed them,

1231 and called their name Adam,"[184] leaving no room to doubt that

1232 though the woman was distinctively called Eve, yet the name

1233 Adam, meaning man, was common to both. But Enos means

1234 man in so restricted a sense, that Hebrew linguists tell us it

1235 cannot be applied to woman: it is the equivalent of the

1236 "child of the resurrection," when they neither marry nor are

1237 given in marriage.[185] For there shall be no generation in that

1238 place to which regeneration shall have brought us. Wherefore

1239 I think it not immaterial to observe that in those generations

1240 which are propagated from him who is called Seth,

1241 although daughters as well as sons are said to have been

1242 begotten, no woman is expressly registered by name; but in

1243 those which sprang from Cain at the very termination to

1244 which the line runs, the last person named as begotten is a

1245 woman. For we read, "Methusael begat Lamech. And

1246 Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was

1247 Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare

1248 Jabal: he was the father of the shepherds that dwell in tents.

1249 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all

1250 such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also

1251 bare Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and

1252 iron: and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah."[186] Here terminate

1253 all the generations of Cain, being eight in number,

1254 including Adam,—to wit, seven from Adam to Lamech, who

1255 married two wives, and whose children, among whom a woman

1256 also is named, form the eighth generation. Whereby it is

1257 elegantly signified that the earthly city shall to its termination

1258 have carnal generations proceeding from the intercourse

1259 of males and females. And therefore the wives themselves

1260 of the man who is the last named father of Cain's line are

1261 registered in their own names,—a practice nowhere followed

1262 before the deluge save in Eve's case. Now as Cain, signifying

1263 possession, the founder of the earthly city, and his son

1264 Enoch, meaning dedication, in whose name it was founded,

1265 indicate that this city is earthly both in its beginning and in

1266 its end,—a city in which nothing more is hoped for than can

1267 be seen in this world,—so Seth, meaning resurrection, and

1268 being the father of generations registered apart from the

1269 others, we must consider what this sacred history says of

1270 his son.

1271 18. *The significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and His body

1272 the Church.*

1273 "And to Seth," it is said, "there was born a son, and he

1274 called his name Enos: he hoped to call on the name of the

1275 Lord God."[187] Here we have a loud testimony to the truth.

1276 Man, then, the son of the resurrection, lives in hope: he

1277 lives in hope as long as the city of God, which is begotten

1278 by faith in the resurrection, sojourns in this world. For in

1279 these two men, Abel, signifying "grief," and his brother Seth,

1280 signifying "resurrection," the death of Christ and His life from

1281 the dead are prefigured. And by faith in these is begotten

1282 in this world the city of God, that is to say, the man who has

1283 hoped to call on the name of the Lord. "For by hope," says

1284 the apostle, "we are saved: but hope that is seen is not

1285 hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

1286 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with

1287 patience wait for it."[188] Who can avoid referring this to a

1288 profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the

1289 name of the Lord God when his sacrifice is mentioned in

1290 Scripture as having been accepted by God? Did not Seth

1291 himself hope to call on the name of the Lord God, of whom

1292 it was said, "For God hath appointed me another seed instead

1293 of Abel?" Why then is this which is found to be

1294 common to all the godly specially attributed to Enos, unless

1295 because it was fit that in him, who is mentioned as the

1296 first-born of the father of those generations which were separated

1297 to the better part of the heavenly city, there should be

1298 a type of the man, or society of men, who live not according

1299 to man in contentment with earthly felicity, but according to

1300 God in hope of everlasting felicity? And it was not said, "He

1301 hoped in the Lord God," nor "He called on the name of the

1302 Lord God," but "He hoped to call on the name of the Lord

1303 God." And what does this "hoped to call" mean, unless it

1304 is a prophecy that a people should arise who, according to the

1305 election of grace, would call on the name of the Lord God?

1306 It is this which has been said by another prophet, and which

1307 the apostle interprets of the people who belong to the grace

1308 of God: "And it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the

1309 name of the Lord shall be saved."[189] For these two expressions,

1310 "And he called his name Enos, which means man," and

1311 "He hoped to call on the name of the Lord God," are sufficient

1312 proof that man ought not to rest his hopes in himself;

1313 as it is elsewhere written, "Cursed is the man that trusteth

1314 in man."[190] Consequently no one ought to trust in himself

1315 that he shall become a citizen of that other city which is not

1316 dedicated in the name of Cain's son in this present time, that

1317 is to say, in the fleeting course of this mortal world, but in

1318 the immortality of perpetual blessedness.

1319 19. *The significance of Enoch's translation.*

1320 For that line also of which Seth is the father has the

1321 name "Dedication" in the seventh generation from Adam,

1322 counting Adam. For the seventh from him is Enoch, that

1323 is, Dedication. But this is that man who was translated

1324 because he pleased God, and who held in the order of the

1325 generations a remarkable place, being the seventh from Adam,

1326 a number signalized by the consecration of the Sabbath. But,

1327 counting from the diverging point of the two lines, or from

1328 Seth, he was the sixth. Now it was on the sixth day God

1329 made man, and consummated His works. But the translation

1330 of Enoch prefigured our deferred dedication; for though

1331 it is indeed already accomplished in Christ our Head, who

1332 so rose again that He shall die no more, and who was Himself

1333 also translated, yet there remains another dedication of

1334 the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the foundation,

1335 and this dedication is deferred till the end, when all shall

1336 rise again to die no more. And whether it is the house of

1337 God, or the temple of God, or the city of God, that is said to

1338 be dedicated, it is all the same, and equally in accordance with

1339 the usage of the Latin language. For Virgil himself calls the

1340 city of widest empire "the house of Assaracus,"[191] meaning the

1341 Romans, who were descended through the Trojans from Assaracus.

1342 He also calls them the house of Æneas, because

1343 Rome was built by those Trojans who had come to Italy

1344 under Æneas.[192] For that poet imitated the sacred writings,

1345 in which the Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called

1346 the house of Jacob.

1347 >

1348 >

1349 >

1350 20. *How it is that Cain's line terminates in the eighth generation, while Noah,

1351 > though descended from the same father, Adam, is found to be the tenth

1352 > from him.*

1353 Some one will say, If the writer of this history intended,

1354 in enumerating the generations from Adam through his son

1355 Seth, to descend through them to Noah, in whose time the

1356 deluge occurred, and from him again to trace the connected

1357 generations down to Abraham, with whom Matthew begins

1358 the pedigree of Christ the eternal King of the city of God,

1359 what did he intend by enumerating the generations from Cain,

1360 and to what terminus did he mean to trace them? We

1361 reply, To the deluge, by which the whole stock of the earthly

1362 city was destroyed, but repaired by the sons of Noah. For

1363 the earthly city and community of men who live after the

1364 flesh will never fail until the end of this world, of which our

1365 Lord says, "The children of this world generate, and are generated."[193]

1366 But the city of God, which sojourns in this world,

1367 is conducted by regeneration to the world to come, of which

1368 the children neither generate nor are generated. In this

1369 world generation is common to both cities; though even now

1370 the city of God has many thousand citizens who abstain from

1371 the act of generation; yet the other city also has some citizens

1372 who imitate these, though erroneously. For to that city belong

1373 also those who have erred from the faith, and introduced

1374 divers heresies; for they live according to man, not according

1375 to God. And the Indian gymnosophists, who are said to

1376 philosophize in the solitudes of India in a state of nudity, are

1377 its citizens; and they abstain from marriage. For continence

1378 is not a good thing, except when it is practised in the faith of

1379 the highest good, that is, God. Yet no one is found to have

1380 practised it before the deluge; for indeed even Enoch himself,

1381 the seventh from Adam, who is said to have been translated

1382 without dying, begat sons and daughters before he was translated,

1383 and among these was Methuselah, by whom the succession

1384 of the recorded generations is maintained.

1385 Why, then, is so small a number of Cain's generations

1386 registered, if it was proper to trace them to the deluge, and

1387 if there was no such delay of the date of puberty as to preclude

1388 the hope of offspring for a hundred or more years? For

1389 if the author of this book had not in view some one to whom

1390 he might rigidly trace the series of generations, as he designed

1391 in those which sprang from Seth's seed to descend to Noah,

1392 and thence to start again by a rigid order, what need was

1393 there of omitting the first-born sons for the sake of descending

1394 to Lamech, in whose sons that line terminates,—that is

1395 to say, in the eighth generation from Adam, or the seventh

1396 from Cain,—as if from this point he had wished to pass on to

1397 another series, by which he might reach either the Israelitish

1398 people, among whom the earthly Jerusalem presented a prophetic

1399 figure of the heavenly city, or to Jesus Christ, "according

1400 to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever,"[194] the

1401 Maker and Ruler of the heavenly city? What, I say, was the

1402 need of this, seeing that the whole of Cain's posterity were

1403 destroyed in the deluge? From this it is manifest that they

1404 are the first-born sons who are registered in this genealogy.

1405 Why, then, are there so few of them? Their numbers in the

1406 period before the deluge must have been greater, if the date

1407 of puberty bore no proportion to their longevity, and they had

1408 children before they were a hundred years old. For supposing

1409 they were on an average thirty years old when they began to

1410 beget children, then, as there are eight generations, including

1411 Adam and Lamech's children, 8 times 30 gives 240 years;

1412 did they then produce no more children in all the rest of the

1413 time before the deluge? With what intention, then, did he

1414 who wrote this record make no mention of subsequent generations?

1415 For from Adam to the deluge there are reckoned,

1416 according to our copies of Scripture, 2262 years,[195] and according

1417 to the Hebrew text, 1656 years. Supposing, then, the

1418 smaller number to be the true one, and subtracting from

1419 1656 years 240, is it credible that during the remaining

1420 1400 and odd years until the deluge the posterity of Cain

1421 begat no children?

1422 But let any one who is moved by this call to mind that

1423 when I discussed the question, how it is credible that those

1424 primitive men could abstain for so many years from begetting

1425 children, two modes of solution were found,—either a puberty

1426 late in proportion to their longevity, or that the sons registered

1427 in the genealogies were not the first-born, but those through

1428 whom the author of the book intended to reach the point

1429 aimed at, as he intended to reach Noah by the generations of

1430 Seth. So that, if in the generations of Cain there occurs no

1431 one whom the writer could make it his object to reach by

1432 omitting the first-borns and inserting those who would serve

1433 such a purpose, then we must have recourse to the supposition

1434 of late puberty, and say that only at some age beyond a

1435 hundred years they became capable of begetting children, so

1436 that the order of the generations ran through the first-borns,

1437 and filled up even the whole period before the deluge, long

1438 though it was. It is, however, possible that, for some more

1439 secret reason which escapes me, this city, which we say is

1440 earthly, is exhibited in all its generations down to Lamech

1441 and his sons, and that then the writer withholds from recording

1442 the rest which may have existed before the deluge. And

1443 without supposing so late a puberty in these men, there might

1444 be another reason for tracing the generations by sons who were

1445 not first-borns, viz. that the same city which Cain built, and

1446 named after his son Enoch, may have had a widely extended

1447 dominion and many kings, not reigning simultaneously, but

1448 successively, the reigning king begetting always his successor.

1449 Cain himself would be the first of these kings; his son

1450 Enoch, in whose name the city in which he reigned was built,

1451 would be the second; the third Irad, whom Enoch begat;

1452 the fourth Mehujael, whom Irad begat; the fifth Methusael,

1453 whom Mehujael begat; the sixth Lamech, whom Methusael

1454 begat, and who is the seventh from Adam through Cain.

1455 But it was not necessary that the first-born should succeed

1456 their fathers in the kingdom, but those would succeed who

1457 were recommended by the possession of some virtue useful to

1458 the earthly city, or who were chosen by lot, or the son who

1459 was best liked by his father would succeed by a kind of

1460 hereditary right to the throne. And the deluge may have

1461 happened during the lifetime and reign of Lamech, and may

1462 have destroyed him along with all other men, save those who

1463 were in the ark. For we cannot be surprised that, during so

1464 long a period from Adam to the deluge, and with the ages of

1465 individuals varying as they did, there should not be an equal

1466 number of generations in both lines, but seven in Cain's, and

1467 ten in Seth's; for as I have already said, Lamech is the seventh

1468 from Adam, Noah the tenth; and in Lamech's case not one

1469 son only is registered, as in the former instances, but more,

1470 because it was uncertain which of them would have succeeded

1471 when he died, if there had intervened any time to reign

1472 between his death and the deluge.

1473 But in whatever manner the generations of Cain's line are

1474 traced downwards, whether it be by first-born sons or by the

1475 heirs to the throne, it seems to me that I must by no means

1476 omit to notice that, when Lamech had been set down as the

1477 seventh from Adam, there were named, in addition, as many

1478 of his children as made up this number to eleven, which is

1479 the number signifying sin; for three sons and one daughter

1480 are added. The wives of Lamech have another signification,

1481 different from that which I am now pressing. For at present

1482 I am speaking of the children, and not of those by whom the

1483 children were begotten. Since, then, the law is symbolized

1484 by the number ten,—whence that memorable Decalogue,—there

1485 is no doubt that the number eleven, which goes beyond[196]

1486 ten, symbolizes the transgression of the law, and consequently

1487 sin. For this reason, eleven veils of goat's skin were ordered

1488 to be hung in the tabernacle of the testimony, which served

1489 in the wanderings of God's people as an ambulatory temple.

1490 And in that haircloth there was a reminder of sins, because

1491 the goats were to be set on the left hand of the Judge; and

1492 therefore, when we confess our sins, we prostrate ourselves in

1493 haircloth, as if we were saying what is written in the psalm,

1494 "My sin is ever before me."[197] The progeny of Adam, then,

1495 by Cain the murderer, is completed in the number eleven,

1496 which symbolizes sin; and this number itself is made up by

1497 a woman, as it was by the same sex that beginning was made

1498 of sin by which we all die. And it was committed that the

1499 pleasure of the flesh, which resists the spirit, might follow;

1500 and so Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, means "pleasure."

1501 But from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth, there are ten

1502 generations. And to Noah three sons are added, of whom,

1503 while one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father; so

1504 that, if you deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to

1505 the number, you get twelve,—a number signalized in the case

1506 of the patriarchs and of the apostles, and made up of the parts

1507 of the number seven multiplied into one another,—for three

1508 times four, or four times three, give twelve. These things

1509 being so, I see that I must consider and mention how these

1510 two lines, which by their separate genealogies depict the two

1511 cities, one of earth-born, the other of regenerated persons,

1512 became afterwards so mixed and confused, that the whole

1513 human race, with the exception of eight persons, deserved to

1514 perish in the deluge.

1515 >

1516 >

1517 >

1518 21. *Why it is that, as soon as Cain's son Enoch has been named, the genealogy

1519 > is forthwith continued as far as the deluge, while after the mention of

1520 > Enos, Seth's son, the narrative returns again to the creation of man.*

1521 We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain's posterity,

1522 after Enoch, in whose name the city was built, has

1523 been first of all mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated

1524 down to that terminus of which I have spoken, and at which

1525 that race and the whole line was destroyed in the deluge;

1526 while, after Enos the son of Seth has been mentioned, the

1527 rest are not at once named down to the deluge, but a clause

1528 is inserted to the following effect: "This is the book of the

1529 generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in

1530 the likeness of God made He him; male and female created

1531 He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in

1532 the day when they were created."[198] This seems to me to be

1533 inserted for this purpose, that here again the reckoning of the

1534 times may start from Adam himself,—a purpose which the

1535 writer had not in view in speaking of the earthly city, as if

1536 God mentioned it, but did not take account of its duration.

1537 But why does he return to this recapitulation after mentioning

1538 the son of Seth, the man who hoped to call on the name

1539 of the Lord God, unless because it was fit thus to present

1540 these two cities, the one beginning with a murderer and

1541 ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges to his

1542 two wives that he had committed murder), the other built

1543 up by him who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord

1544 God? For the highest and complete terrestrial duty of the

1545 city of God, which is a stranger in this world, is that which

1546 was exemplified in the individual who was begotten by him

1547 who typified the resurrection of the murdered Abel. That

1548 one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city, not yet

1549 indeed complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure

1550 foreshows. The son of Cain, therefore, that is, the son of

1551 possession (and of what but an earthly possession?), may have

1552 a name in the earthly city which was built in his name. It

1553 is of such the Psalmist says, "They call their lands after their

1554 own names."[199] Wherefore they incur what is written in another

1555 psalm: "Thou, O Lord, in Thy city wilt despise their image."[200]

1556 But as for the son of Seth, the son of the resurrection, let him

1557 hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For he prefigures

1558 that society of men which says, "But I am like a green olive-tree

1559 in the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of

1560 God."[201] But let him not seek the empty honours of a famous

1561 name upon earth, for "Blessed is the man that maketh the

1562 name of the Lord his trust, and respecteth not vanities nor

1563 lying follies."[202] After having presented the two cities, the one

1564 founded in the material good of this world, the other in hope

1565 in God, but both starting from a common gate opened in Adam

1566 into this mortal state, and both running on and running out

1567 to their proper and merited ends, Scripture begins to reckon

1568 the times, and in this reckoning includes other generations,

1569 making a recapitulation from Adam, out of whose condemned

1570 seed, as out of one mass handed over to merited damnation,

1571 God made some vessels of wrath to dishonour and others

1572 vessels of mercy to honour; in punishment rendering to the

1573 former what is due, in grace giving to the latter what is not

1574 due: in order that by the very comparison of itself with the

1575 vessels of wrath, the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth,

1576 may learn not to put confidence in the liberty of its own will,

1577 but may hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For will,

1578 being a nature which was made good by the good God, but

1579 mutable by the immutable, because it was made out of nothing,

1580 can both decline from good to do evil, which takes place when

1581 it freely chooses, and can also escape the evil and do good,

1582 which takes place only by divine assistance.

1583 >

1584 >

1585 >

1586 22. *Of the fall of the sons of God who were captivated by the daughters of men,

1587 > whereby all, with the exception of eight persons, deservedly perished in

1588 > the deluge.*

1589 When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of

1590 will, increased and advanced, there arose a mixture and confusion

1591 of the two cities by their participation in a common

1592 iniquity. And this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned

1593 by woman, though not in the same way; for these

1594 women were not themselves betrayed, neither did they persuade

1595 the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly city

1596 and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners

1597 from the first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the

1598 sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns

1599 in this world. Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but

1600 that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it

1601 even to the wicked. And thus, when the good that is great

1602 and proper to the good was abandoned by the sons of God,

1603 they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good,

1604 but common to the good and the evil; and when they were

1605 captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners

1606 of the earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the

1607 godly ways they had followed in their own holy society. And

1608 thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a

1609 temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in

1610 preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable

1611 good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through

1612 no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every

1613 created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with

1614 an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when

1615 it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately. It is this

1616 which some one has briefly said in these verses in praise of

1617 the Creator:[203] "These are Thine, they are good, because Thou

1618 art good who didst create them. There is in them nothing

1619 of ours, unless the sin we commit when we forget the order

1620 of things, and instead of Thee love that which Thou hast

1621 made."

1622 But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is

1623 loved and not another thing in His stead, He cannot be

1624 evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because

1625 we do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live

1626 well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it is a brief

1627 but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love;

1628 and on this account, in the Canticles, the bride of Christ, the

1629 city of God, sings, "Order love within me."[204] It was the

1630 order of this love, then, this charity or attachment, which the

1631 sons of God disturbed when they forsook God, and were enamoured

1632 of the daughters of men.[205] And by these two names

1633 (sons of God and daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently

1634 distinguished. For though the former were by nature

1635 children of men, they had come into possession of another

1636 name by grace. For in the same Scripture in which the sons

1637 of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are

1638 also called angels of God; whence many suppose that they

1639 were not men but angels.

1640 >

1641 >

1642 >

1643 23. *Whether we are to believe that angels, who are of a spiritual substance, fell in

1644 > love with the beauty of women, and sought them in marriage, and that

1645 > from this connection giants were born.*

1646 In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing

1647 reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels,

1648 inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with

1649 women. For it is written, "Who maketh His angels spirits,"[206]

1650 that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels

1651 by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages.

1652 For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as

1653 "angelus," means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist

1654 speaks of their bodies when he adds, "and His ministers a

1655 flaming fire," or means that God's ministers ought to blaze

1656 with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the

1657 same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared

1658 to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also

1659 touched. There is, too, a very general rumour, which many

1660 have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy

1661 persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate,

1662 that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called "incubi,"

1663 had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied

1664 their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses

1665 by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity

1666 is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny

1667 it.[207] From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine

1668 whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance

1669 (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt

1670 by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling

1671 sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means

1672 believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so

1673 fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter

1674 said, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast

1675 them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness,

1676 to be reserved unto judgment."[208] I think he rather speaks of

1677 those who first apostatized from God, along with their chief

1678 the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form

1679 of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most

1680 ample testimony that even godly men have been called angels;

1681 for of John it is written: "Behold, I send my messenger (angel)

1682 before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way."[209] And the

1683 prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated

1684 to him, was called an angel.[210]

1685 But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the

1686 fruit of the connection between those who are called angels of

1687 God and the women they loved were not men like our own

1688 breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our

1689 own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater

1690 size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few

1691 years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished

1692 by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father and

1693 mother, who by her gigantic size overtopped all others? Surprising

1694 crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that

1695 which struck them most was the circumstance that neither

1696 of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature.

1697 Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of

1698 God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection

1699 with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men,

1700 that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection

1701 with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the

1702 canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of

1703 this; its words are: "And it came to pass, when men began

1704 to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born

1705 unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men

1706 that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all

1707 which they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall

1708 not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his

1709 days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were

1710 giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when

1711 the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they

1712 bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of

1713 renown."[211] These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate

1714 that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in

1715 which the sons of God took wives of the children of men,

1716 when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair.

1717 For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are

1718 beautiful in appearance "good." But after this connection

1719 had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words

1720 are: "There were giants in the earth in those days, *and also

1721 after that*, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters

1722 of men." Therefore there were giants both before, "in those

1723 days," and "also after that." And the words, "they bare

1724 children to them," show plainly enough that before the sons

1725 of God fell in this fashion they begat children to God, not to

1726 themselves,—that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual

1727 intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation, intending

1728 to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens

1729 to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels

1730 would bear the message, that they should place their hope in

1731 God, like him who was born of Seth the son of resurrection,

1732 and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which

1733 hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings,

1734 and brethren in the family of which God is the Father.

1735 But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not

1736 being men, as some suppose, Scripture itself decides, which

1737 unambiguously declares that they were men. For when it had

1738 first been stated that "the angels of God saw the daughters of

1739 men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all

1740 which they chose," it was immediately added, "And the Lord

1741 God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for

1742 that they also are flesh." For by the Spirit of God they had

1743 been made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining

1744 towards lower things, they are called men, a name of nature,

1745 not of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the

1746 Spirit, and by their desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint

1747 indeed calls them both angels of God and sons of

1748 God, though all the copies do not show this, some having

1749 only the name "sons of God." And Aquila, whom the Jews

1750 prefer to the other interpreters,[212] has translated neither angels

1751 of God nor sons of God, but sons of gods. But both are

1752 correct. For they were both sons of God, and thus brothers

1753 of their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and

1754 they were sons of gods, because begotten by gods, together

1755 with whom they themselves also were gods, according to that

1756 expression of the psalm: "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of

1757 you are children of the Most High."[213] For the Septuagint

1758 translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of

1759 prophecy; so that, if they made any alterations under His

1760 authority, and did not adhere to a strict translation, we could

1761 not doubt that this was divinely dictated. However, the

1762 Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to be susceptible

1763 of either translation, "sons of God," or "sons of

1764 gods."

1765 Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are

1766 called apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown

1767 to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures

1768 has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained

1769 succession. For though there is some truth in these

1770 apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements,

1771 that they have no canonical authority. We cannot

1772 deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine

1773 writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical

1774 epistle. But it is not without reason that these writings

1775 have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved

1776 in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive

1777 priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion,

1778 and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were

1779 his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as

1780 genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved

1781 the canonical books by a successive transmission. So

1782 that the writings which are produced under his name, and

1783 which contain these fables about the giants, saying that their

1784 fathers were not men, are properly judged by prudent men to

1785 be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by

1786 heretics under the names both of other prophets, and, more

1787 recently, under the names of the apostles, all of which, after

1788 careful examination, have been set apart from canonical authority

1789 under the title of Apocrypha. There is therefore no

1790 doubt that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical

1791 Scriptures, there were many giants before the deluge, and that

1792 these were citizens of the earthly society of men, and that the

1793 sons of God, who were according to the flesh the sons of Seth,

1794 sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness.

1795 Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from

1796 these. For all of their children were not giants; but there

1797 were more then than in the remaining periods since the

1798 deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it

1799 might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size

1800 and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose

1801 blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better

1802 and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar

1803 property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad

1804 alike. It is this which another prophet confirms when he

1805 says, "These were the giants, famous from the beginning,

1806 that were of so great stature, and so expert in war. Those

1807 did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge

1808 unto them; but they were destroyed because they had

1809 no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness."[214]

1810 24. *How we are to understand this which the Lord said to those who were

1811 to perish in the flood: "Their days shall be* 120 *years."*

1812 But that which God said, "Their days shall be an hundred

1813 and twenty years," is not to be understood as a prediction that

1814 henceforth men should not live longer than 120 years,—for

1815 even after the deluge we find that they lived more than 500

1816 years,—but we are to understand that God said this when Noah

1817 had nearly completed his fifth century, that is, had lived 480

1818 years, which Scripture, as it frequently uses the name of the

1819 whole for the largest part, calls 500 years. Now the deluge

1820 came in the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month; and

1821 thus 120 years were predicted as being the remaining span of

1822 those who were doomed, which years being spent, they should

1823 be destroyed by the deluge. And it is not unreasonably

1824 believed that the deluge came as it did, because already there

1825 were not found upon earth any who were not worthy of

1826 sharing a death so manifestly judicial,—not that a good man,

1827 who must die some time, would be a jot the worse of such a

1828 death after it was past. Nevertheless there died in the deluge

1829 none of those mentioned in the sacred Scripture as descended

1830 from Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the

1831 deluge: "The Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was

1832 great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts

1833 of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented[215] the

1834 Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him

1835 at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom I

1836 have created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast,

1837 and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for I am

1838 angry that I have made them."[216]

1839 25. *Of the anger of God, which does not inflame His mind, nor disturb His

1840 unchangeable tranquillity.*

1841 The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind,

1842 but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin.

1843 His thought and reconsideration also are the unchangeable

1844 reason which changes things; for He does not, like man,

1845 repent of anything He has done, because in all matters His

1846 decision is as inflexible as His prescience is certain. But if

1847 Scripture were not to use such expressions as the above, it

1848 would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all

1849 classes of men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it

1850 may alarm the proud, arouse the careless, exercise the inquisitive,

1851 and satisfy the intelligent; and this it could not do, did

1852 it not first stoop, and in a manner descend, to them where they

1853 lie. But its denouncing death on all the animals of earth and

1854 air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was

1855 approaching: not that it threatens destruction to the irrational

1856 animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.

1857 26. *That the ark which Noah was ordered to make figures in every respect

1858 Christ and the church.*

1859 Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man,

1860 and, as the truthful Scripture says, a man perfect in his generation,—not

1861 indeed with the perfection of the citizens of the

1862 city of God in that immortal condition in which they equal

1863 the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in their sojourn

1864 in this world,—inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make

1865 an ark, in which he might be rescued from the destruction of

1866 the flood, along with his family, *i.e.* his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law,

1867 and along with the animals who, in obedience to God's

1868 command, came to him into the ark: is certainly a figure

1869 of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say,

1870 of the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung

1871 the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.[217] For

1872 even its very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent

1873 the human body in which He came, as it had been foretold.

1874 For the length of the human body, from the crown of

1875 the head to the sole of the foot, is six times its breadth from

1876 side to side, and ten times its depth or thickness, measuring

1877 from back to front: that is to say, if you measure a man as

1878 he lies on his back or on his face, he is six times as long from

1879 head to foot as he is broad from side to side, and ten times as

1880 long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark

1881 was made 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in

1882 height. And its having a door made in the side of it certainly

1883 signified the wound which was made when the side of

1884 the Crucified was pierced with the spear: for by this those

1885 who come to Him enter; for thence flowed the sacraments by

1886 which those who believe are initiated. And the fact that it

1887 was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the immoveable

1888 steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you

1889 turn a cube, it still stands. And the other peculiarities of

1890 the ark's construction are signs of features of the church.

1891 But we have not now time to pursue this subject; and,

1892 indeed, we have already dwelt upon it in the work we wrote

1893 against Faustus the Manichean, who denies that there is anything

1894 prophesied of Christ in the Hebrew books. It may be

1895 that one man's exposition excels another's, and that ours is

1896 not the best; but all that is said must be referred to this

1897 city of God we speak of, which sojourns in this wicked world

1898 as in a deluge, at least if the expositor would not widely miss

1899 the meaning of the author. For example, the interpretation

1900 I have given in the work against Faustus, of the words, "with

1901 lower, second, and third storeys shalt thou make it," is, that

1902 because the church is gathered out of all nations, it is said to

1903 have two storeys, to represent the two kinds of men,—the circumcision,

1904 to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle

1905 otherwise calls them, Jews and Gentiles; and to have three

1906 storeys, because all the nations were replenished from the

1907 three sons of Noah. Now any one may object to this interpretation,

1908 and may give another which harmonizes with the

1909 rule of faith. For as the ark was to have rooms not only on

1910 the lower, but also on the upper storeys, which were called

1911 "third storeys," that there might be a habitable space on the

1912 third floor from the basement, some one may interpret these

1913 to mean the three graces commended by the apostle,—faith,

1914 hope, and charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed

1915 to represent those three harvests in the gospel, thirty-fold,

1916 sixtyfold, an hundredfold,—chaste marriage dwelling in

1917 the ground floor, chaste widowhood in the upper, and chaste

1918 virginity in the top storey. Or any better interpretation may

1919 be given, so long as the reference to this city is maintained.

1920 And the same statement I would make of all the remaining

1921 particulars in this passage which require exposition, viz. that

1922 although different explanations are given, yet they must all

1923 agree with the one harmonious catholic faith.

1924 >

1925 >

1926 >

1927 27. *Of the ark and the deluge, and that we cannot agree with those who receive

1928 > the bare history, but reject the allegorical interpretation, nor with those

1929 > who maintain the figurative and not the historical meaning.*

1930 Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were

1931 written for no purpose, or that we should study only the

1932 historical truth, apart from any allegorical meanings; or, on

1933 the contrary, that they are only allegories, and that there were

1934 no such facts at all, or that, whether it be so or no, there

1935 is here no prophecy of the church. For what right-minded

1936 man will contend that books so religiously preserved during

1937 thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly a succession,

1938 were written without an object, or that only the bare

1939 historical facts are to be considered when we read them?

1940 For, not to mention other instances, if the number of the

1941 animals entailed the construction of an ark of great size,

1942 where was the necessity of sending into it two unclean and

1943 seven clean animals of each species, when both could have

1944 been preserved in equal numbers? Or could not God, who

1945 ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race,

1946 restore them in the same way He had created them?

1947 But they who contend that these things never happened,

1948 but are only figures setting forth other things, in the first

1949 place suppose that there could not be a flood so great that the

1950 water should rise fifteen cubits above the highest mountains,

1951 because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top of

1952 Mount Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is

1953 none of that thicker atmosphere in which winds, clouds, and

1954 rains have their origin. They do not reflect that the densest

1955 element of all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny

1956 that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then, do these

1957 measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth

1958 can be raised to those aerial altitudes, and that water cannot,

1959 while they admit that water is lighter, and liker to ascend

1960 than earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the

1961 heavier and lower element, has for so many ages scaled to the

1962 tranquil æther, while water, the lighter, and more likely to

1963 ascend, is not suffered to do the same even for a brief space

1964 of time?

1965 They say, too, that the area of that ark could not contain

1966 so many kinds of animals of both sexes, two of the unclean

1967 and seven of the clean. But they seem to me to reckon only

1968 one area of 300 cubits long and 50 broad, and not to remember

1969 that there was another similar in the storey above, and yet

1970 another as large in the storey above that again; and that there

1971 was consequently an area of 900 cubits by 150. And if we

1972 accept what Origen[218] has with some appropriateness suggested,

1973 that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, "learned

1974 in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,"[219] who delighted in geometry,

1975 may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say

1976 that one is equal to six of our cubits, then who does not see

1977 what a capacity these dimensions give to the ark? For as to

1978 their objection that an ark of such size could not be built, it

1979 is a very silly calumny; for they are aware that huge cities

1980 have been built, and they should remember that the ark was

1981 an hundred years in building. Or, perhaps, though stone can

1982 adhere to stone when cemented with nothing but lime, so that

1983 a wall of several miles may be constructed, yet plank cannot be

1984 riveted to plank by mortices, bolts, nails, and pitch-glue, so as

1985 to construct an ark which was not made with curved ribs but

1986 straight timbers, which was not to be launched by its builders

1987 but to be lifted by the natural pressure of the water when it

1988 reached it, and which was to be preserved from shipwreck as

1989 it floated about rather by divine oversight than by human

1990 skill.

1991 As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about

1992 the very minute creatures, not only such as mice and lizards,

1993 but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there

1994 were not in the ark a larger number of them than was determined

1995 by God in His command, those persons who are moved

1996 by this difficulty are to be reminded that the words "every

1997 creeping thing of the earth" only indicate that it was not

1998 needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can live in

1999 the water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the

2000 sea-birds that swim on its surface. Then, when it is said

2001 "male and female," no doubt reference is made to the repairing

2002 of the races, and consequently there was no need for

2003 those creatures being in the ark which are born without the

2004 union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from their corruption;

2005 or if they were in the ark, they might be there as they

2006 commonly are in houses, not in any determinate numbers;

2007 or if it was necessary that there should be a definite number

2008 of all those animals that cannot naturally live in the water,

2009 that so the most sacred mystery which was being enacted

2010 might be bodied forth and perfectly figured in actual realities,

2011 still this was not the care of Noah or his sons, but of God.

2012 For Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the

2013 ark, but gave them entrance as they came seeking it. For

2014 this is the force of the words, "They shall come unto thee,"[1]—not,

2015 that is to say, by man's effort, but by God's will. But

2016 certainly we are not required to believe that those which

2017 have no sex also came; for it is expressly and definitely said,

2018 "They shall be male and female."[220] For there are some

2019 animals which are born out of corruption, but yet afterwards

2020 they themselves copulate and produce offspring, as flies; but

2021 others, which have no sex, like bees. Then, as to those animals

2022 which have sex, but without ability to propagate their kind,

2023 like mules and she-mules, it is probable that they were not in

2024 the ark, but that it was counted sufficient to preserve their

2025 parents, to wit, the horse and the ass; and this applies to all

2026 hybrids. Yet, if it was necessary for the completeness of the

2027 mystery, they were there; for even this species has "male

2028 and female."

2029 Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of

2030 the carnivorous animals,—whether, without transgressing the

2031 command which fixed the number to be preserved, there were

2032 necessarily others included in the ark for their sustenance;

2033 or, as is more probable, there might be some food which was

2034 not flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many

2035 animals whose food is flesh eat also vegetable products and

2036 fruits, especially figs and chestnuts. What wonder is it,

2037 therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed by God

2038 what would suit each, so that without flesh he prepared and

2039 stored provision fit for every species? And what is there

2040 which hunger would not make animals eat? Or what could

2041 not be made sweet and wholesome by God, who, with a

2042 divine facility, might have enabled them to do without food

2043 at all, had it not been requisite to the completeness of so

2044 great a mystery that they should be fed? But none but a

2045 contentious man can suppose that there was no prefiguring of

2046 the church in so manifold and circumstantial a detail. For

2047 the nations have already so filled the church, and are comprehended

2048 in the framework of its unity, the clean and unclean

2049 together, until the appointed end, that this one very

2050 manifest fulfilment leaves no doubt how we should interpret

2051 even those others which are somewhat more obscure, and

2052 which cannot so readily be discerned. And since this is so,

2053 if not even the most audacious will presume to assert that

2054 these things were written without a purpose, or that though the

2055 events really happened they mean nothing, or that they did not

2056 really happen, but are only allegory, or that at all events they

2057 are far from having any figurative reference to the church;

2058 if it has been made out that, on the other hand, we must

2059 rather believe that there was a wise purpose in their being

2060 committed to memory and to writing, and that they did

2061 happen, and have a significance, and that this significance has

2062 a prophetic reference to the church, then this book, having

2063 served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on

2064 to trace in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses

2065 of the two cities,—the earthly, that lives according to men,

2066 and the heavenly, that lives according to God.

BOOK XVI

7 #### ARGUMENT.

8 >

9 >

10 >

11 IN THE FORMER PART OF THIS BOOK, FROM THE FIRST TO THE TWELFTH CHAPTER,

12 > THE PROGRESS OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY,

13 > FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM, IS EXHIBITED FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE: IN THE

14 > LATTER PART, THE PROGRESS OF THE HEAVENLY ALONE, FROM ABRAHAM

15 > TO THE KINGS OF ISRAEL, IS THE SUBJECT.

16 1. *Whether, after the deluge, from Noah to Abraham, any families can be

17 found who lived according to God.*

18 It is difficult to discover from Scripture, whether, after the

19 deluge, traces of the holy city are continuous, or are so

20 interrupted by intervening seasons of godlessness, that not a

21 single worshipper of the one true God was found among

22 men; because from Noah, who, with his wife, three sons, and

23 as many daughters-in-law, achieved deliverance in the ark

24 from the destruction of the deluge, down to Abraham, we do

25 not find in the canonical books that the piety of any one is

26 celebrated by express divine testimony, unless it be in the

27 case of Noah, who commends with a prophetic benediction

28 his two sons Shem and Japheth, while he beheld and foresaw

29 what was long afterwards to happen. It was also by this

30 prophetic spirit that, when his middle son—that is, the son

31 who was younger than the first and older than the last born—had

32 sinned against him, he cursed him not in his own person,

33 but in his son's (his own grandson's), in the words, "Cursed

34 be the lad Canaan; a servant shall he be unto his brethren."[221]

35 Now Canaan was born of Ham, who, so far from covering his

36 sleeping father's nakedness, had divulged it. For the same

37 reason also he subjoins the blessing on his two other sons, the

38 oldest and youngest, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of

39 Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall gladden

40 Japheth, and he shall dwell in the houses of Shem."[222] And

41 so, too, the planting of the vine by Noah, and his intoxication

42 by its fruit, and his nakedness while he slept, and the other

43 things done at that time, and recorded, are all of them pregnant

44 with prophetic meanings, and veiled in mysteries.[223]

45 2. *What was prophetically prefigured in the sons of Noah.*

46 The things which then were hidden are now sufficiently

47 revealed by the actual events which have followed. For who

48 can carefully and intelligently consider these things without

49 recognising them accomplished in Christ? Shem, of whom

50 Christ was born in the flesh, means "named." And what is

51 of greater name than Christ, the fragrance of whose name is

52 now everywhere perceived, so that even prophecy sings of it

53 beforehand, comparing it in the Song of Songs[224] to ointment

54 poured forth? Is it not also in the houses of Christ, that is,

55 in the churches, that the "enlargement" of the nations dwells?

56 For Japheth means "enlargement." And Ham (*i.e.* hot), who

57 was the middle son of Noah, and, as it were, separated himself

58 from both, and remained between them, neither belonging

59 to the first-fruits of Israel nor to the fulness of the Gentiles,

60 what does he signify but the tribe of heretics, hot with the

61 spirit, not of patience, but of impatience, with which the

62 breasts of heretics are wont to blaze, and with which they

63 disturb the peace of the saints? But even the heretics yield

64 an advantage to those that make proficiency, according to the

65 apostle's saying, "There must also be heresies, that they which

66 are approved may be made manifest among you."[225] Whence,

67 too, it is elsewhere said, "The son that receives instruction

68 will be wise, and he uses the foolish as his servant."[226] For

69 while the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about

70 many articles of the catholic faith, the necessity of defending

71 them forces us both to investigate them more accurately, to

72 understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more

73 earnestly; and the question mooted by an adversary becomes

74 the occasion of instruction. However, not only those who

75 are openly separated from the church, but also all who glory

76 in the Christian name, and at the same time lead abandoned

77 lives, may without absurdity seem to be figured by Noah's

78 middle son: for the passion of Christ, which was signified

79 by that man's nakedness, is at once proclaimed by their profession,

80 and dishonoured by their wicked conduct. Of such,

81 therefore, it has been said, "By their fruits ye shall know

82 them."[227] And therefore was Ham cursed in his son, he being,

83 as it were, his fruit. So, too, this son of his, Canaan, is fitly

84 interpreted "their movement," which is nothing else than their

85 work. But Shem and Japheth, that is to say, the circumcision

86 and uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise calls

87 them, the Jews and Greeks, but called and justified, having

88 somehow discovered the nakedness of their father (which

89 signifies the Saviour's passion), took a garment and laid it

90 upon their backs, and entered backwards and covered their

91 father's nakedness, without their seeing what their reverence

92 hid. For we both honour the passion of Christ as accomplished

93 for us, and we hate the crime of the Jews who crucified

94 Him. The garment signifies the sacrament, their backs

95 the memory of things past: for the church celebrates the

96 passion of Christ as already accomplished, and no longer

97 to be looked forward to, now that Japheth already dwells in

98 the habitations of Shem, and their wicked brother between

99 them.

100 But the wicked brother is, in the person of his son (*i.e.*

101 his work), the boy, or slave, of his good brothers, when good

102 men make a skilful use of bad men, either for the exercise of

103 their patience or for their advancement in wisdom. For the

104 apostle testifies that there are some who preach Christ from

105 no pure motives; "but," says he, "whether in pretence or in

106 truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and

107 will rejoice."[228] For it is Christ Himself who planted the

108 vine of which the prophet says, "The vine of the Lord of

109 hosts is the house of Israel;"[229] and He drinks of its wine,

110 whether we thus understand that cup of which He says, "Can

111 ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of?"[230] and, "Father,

112 if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,"[231] by which He

113 obviously means His passion. Or, as wine is the fruit of

114 the vine, we may prefer to understand that from this vine,

115 that is to say, from the race of Israel, He has assumed flesh

116 and blood that He might suffer; "and he was drunken," that

117 is, He suffered; "and was naked," that is, His weakness

118 appeared in His suffering, as the apostle says, "though He

119 was crucified through weakness."[232] Wherefore the same

120 apostle says, "The weakness of God is stronger than men;

121 and the foolishness of God is wiser than men."[233] And when

122 to the expression "he was naked" Scripture adds "in his

123 house," it elegantly intimates that Jesus was to suffer the

124 cross and death at the hands of His own household, His own

125 kith and kin, the Jews. This passion of Christ is only

126 externally and verbally professed by the reprobate, for what

127 they profess they do not understand. But the elect hold in

128 the inner man this so great mystery, and honour inwardly in

129 the heart this weakness and foolishness of God. And of this

130 there is a figure in Ham going out to proclaim his father's

131 nakedness; while Shem and Japheth, to cover or honour it,

132 went in, that is to say, did it inwardly.

133 These secrets of divine Scripture we investigate as well as

134 we can. All will not accept our interpretation with equal

135 confidence, but all hold it certain that these things were

136 neither done nor recorded without some foreshadowing of

137 future events, and that they are to be referred only to Christ

138 and His church, which is the city of God, proclaimed from

139 the very beginning of human history by figures which we

140 now see everywhere accomplished. From the blessing of the

141 two sons of Noah, and the cursing of the middle son, down

142 to Abraham, or for more than a thousand years, there is, as

143 I have said, no mention of any righteous persons who worshipped

144 God. I do not therefore conclude that there were

145 none; but it had been tedious to mention every one, and

146 would have displayed historical accuracy rather than prophetic

147 foresight. The object of the writer of these sacred books, or

148 rather of the Spirit of God in him, is not only to record the

149 past, but to depict the future, so far as it regards the city of

150 God; for whatever is said of those who are not its citizens,

151 is given either for her instruction, or as a foil to enhance her

152 glory. Yet we are not to suppose that all that is recorded

153 has some signification; but those things which have no signification

154 of their own are interwoven for the sake of the things

155 which are significant. It is only the ploughshare that cleaves

156 the soil; but to effect this, other parts of the plough are

157 requisite. It is only the strings in harps and other musical

158 instruments which produce melodious sounds; but that they

159 may do so, there are other parts of the instrument which are

160 not indeed struck by those who sing, but are connected with

161 the strings which are struck, and produce musical notes. So

162 in this prophetic history some things are narrated which have

163 no significance, but are, as it were, the framework to which the

164 significant things are attached.

165 3. *Of the generations of the three sons of Noah.*

166 We must therefore introduce into this work an explanation

167 of the generations of the three sons of Noah, in so far as that

168 may illustrate the progress in time of the two cities. Scripture