(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. AUGUSTIN

THE CITY OF GOD, BOOKS XVIII-XIX

[Translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.]


BOOK XVIII.

ARGUMENT: AUGUSTIN TRACES THE PARALLEL COURSES OF THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY
CITIES FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE END OF THE WORLD; AND ALLUDES TO THE
ORACLES REGARDING CHRIST, BOTH THOSE UTTERED BY THE SIBYLS, AND THOSE OF
THE SACRED PROPHETS WHO WROTE AFTER THE FOUNDATION OF ROME, HOSEA, AMOS,
ISAIAH, MICAH, AND THEIR SUCCESSORS.

CHAP. 1.--OF THOSE THINGS DOWN TO THE TIMES OF THE SAVIOUR WHICH HAVE BEEN
DISCUSSED IN THE SEVENTEEN BOOKS.

   I PROMISED to write of the rise, progress, and appointed end of the two
cities, one of which is God's, the other this world's, in which, so far as
mankind is concerned, the former is now a stranger. But first of all I
undertook, so far as His grace should enable me, to refute the enemies of
the city of God, who prefer their gods to Christ its founder, and fiercely
hate Christians with the most deadly malice. And this I have done in the
first ten books. Then, as regards my threefold promise which I have just
mentioned, I have treated distinctly, in the four books which follow the
tenth, of the rise of both cities. After that, I have proceeded from the
first man down to the flood in one book, which is the fifteenth of this
work; and from that again down to Abraham our work has followed both in
chronological order. From the patriarch Abraham down to the time of the
Israelite kings, at which we close our sixteenth book, and thence down to
the advent of Christ Himself in the flesh, to which period the seventeenth
book reaches. the city of God appears from my way of writing to have run
its course alone; whereas it did not run its course alone in this age, for
both cities, in their course amid mankind, certainly experienced chequered
times together just as from the beginning. But I did this in order that,
first of all, from the time when the promises of God began to be more
clear, down to the virgin birth of Him in whom those things promised from
the first were to be fulfilled, the course of that city which is God's
might be made more distinctly apparent, without interpolation of foreign
matter from the history of the other city, although down to the revelation
of the new covenant it ran its course, not in light, but in shadow. Now,
therefore, I think fit to do what I passed by, and show, so far as seems
necessary, how that other city ran its course from the times of Abraham, so
that attentive readers may compare the two.

CHAP. 2.--OF THE KINGS AND TIMES OF THE EARTHLY CITY WHICH WERE SYNCHRONOUS
WITH THE TIMES OF THE SAINTS, RECKONING FROM THE RISE OF ABRAHAM.

   The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and
in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship
of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and
the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own
interests and lusts, while what is longed for either suffices  for none, or
not for all, because it is not the very thing. For the vanquished succumb
to the victorious, preferring any sort of peace and safety to freedom
itself; so that they who chose to die rather than be slaves have been
greatly wondered at. For in almost all nations the very voice of nature
somehow proclaims, that those who happen to be conquered should choose
rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of
warlike destruction. This does not take place without the providence of
God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in
war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings.
Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly
interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of
the city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from
each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the
rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First came the
one, then the other. The former arose in the east, and, immediately on its
close, the latter in the west. I may speak of other kingdoms and other
kings as appendages of these.

   Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of Assyria,
was already the second king of that kingdom when Abraham was born in the
land of the Chaldees. There was also at that time a very small kingdom of
Sicyon, with which, as from an ancient date, that most universally learned
man Marcus Varro begins, in writing of the Roman race. For from these kings
of Sicyon he passes to the Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from
these to the Romans. Yet very little is related about these kingdoms,
before the foundation of Rome, in comparison with that of Assyria. For
although even Sallust, the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were
very famous in Greece, yet he thinks they were greater in fame than in
fact. For in speaking of them he says, "The deeds of the Athenians, as I
think, were very great and magnificent, but yet somewhat less than reported
by fame. But because writers of great genius arose among them, the deeds of
the Athenians were celebrated throughout the world as very great. Thus the
virtue of those who did them was held to be as great as men of transcendent
genius could represent it to be by the power of laudatory words."(1) This
city also derived no small glory from literature and philosophy, the study
of which chiefly flourished there. But as regards empire, none in the
earliest times was greater than the Assyrian, or so widely extended. For
when Ninus the son of Belus was king, he is reported to have subdued the
whole of Asia, even to the boundaries of Libya, which as to number is
called the third part, but as to size is found to be the half of the whole
world. The Indians in the eastern regions were the only people over whom he
did not reign; but after his death Semiramis his wife made war on them.
Thus it came to pass that all the people and kings in those countries were
subject to the kingdom and authority of the Assyrians, and did whatever
they were commanded. Now Abraham was born in that kingdom among the
Chaldees, in the time of Ninus. But since Grecian affairs are much better
known to us than Assyrian, and those who have diligently investigated the
antiquity of the Roman nation's origin have followed the order of time
through the Greeks to the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who
themselves are Latins, we ought on this account, where it is needful, to
mention the Assyrian kings, that it may appear how Babylon, like a first
Rome, ran its course along with the city of God, which is a stranger in
this world. But the things proper for insertion in this work in comparing
the two cities, that is, the earthly and heavenly, ought to be taken mostly
from the Greek and Latin kingdoms, where Rome herself is like a second
Babylon.

   At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon
respectively were Ninus and Europs, the first having been Belus and
Aegialeus. But when God promised Abraham, on his departure from Babylonia,
that he should become a great nation, and that in his seed all nations of
the earth should be blessed, the Assyrians had their seventh king, the
Sicyons their fifth; for the son of Ninus reigned among them after his
mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to death by him for
attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with him. Some think that
she founded Babylon, and indeed she may have founded it anew. But we have
told, in the sixteenth book, when or by whom it was founded. Now the son of
Ninus and Semiramis, who succeeded his mother in the kingdom, is also
called Ninus by some, but by others Ninias, a patronymic word. Telexion
then held the kingdom of the Sicyons. In his reign times were quiet and
joyful to such a degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god
by offering sacrifices and by celebrating games, which are said to have
been first instituted on this occasion.

CHAP. 3.--WHAT KINGS REIGNED IN ASSYRIA AND SICYON WHEN, ACCORDING TO THE
PROMISE, ISAAC WAS BORN TO ABRAHAM IN HIS HUNDREDTH YEAR, AND WHEN THE
TWINS ESAU AND JACOB WERE BORN OF REBECCA TO ISAAC IN HIS SIXTIETH YEAR.

   In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of Abraham,
was born to his father when he was a hundred years old, of Sarah his wife,
who, being barren and old, had already lost hope of issue. Aralius was then
the fifth king of the Assyrians. To Isaac himself, in his sixtieth year,
were born twin-sons, Esau and Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him,
their grandfather Abraham, who died on completing a hundred and seventy
years, being still alive, and reckoning his hundred and sixtieth year.(1)
At that time there reigned as the seventh kings,--among the Assyrians, that
more ancient Xerxes, who was also called Balaeus; and among the Sicyons,
Thuriachus, or, as some write his name, Thurimachus. The kingdom of Argos,
in which Inachus reigned first, arose in the time of Abraham's
grandchildren. And I must not omit what Varro relates, that the Sicyons
were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of their seventh king Thuriachus.
In the reign of Armamitres in Assyria and Leucippus in Sicyon as the eighth
kings, and of Inachus as the first in Argos, God spoke to Isaac, and
promised the same two things to him as to his father,--namely, the land of
Canaan to his seed, and the blessing of all nations in his seed. These same
things were promised to his son, Abraham's grandson, who was at first
called Jacob, afterwards Israel, when Belocus was the ninth king of
Assyria, and Phoroneus, the son of Inachus, reigned as the second king of
Argos, Leucippus still continuing king of Sicyon. In those times, under the
Argive king Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous by the institution of
certain laws and judges. On the death of Phoroneus, his younger brother
Phegous built a temple at his tomb, in which he was worshipped as God, and
oxen were sacrificed to him. I believe they thought him worthy of so great
honor, because in his part of the kingdom (for their father had divided his
territories between them, in which they reigned daring his life) he had
founded chapels for the worship of the gods, and had taught them to measure
time, by months and years, and to that extent to keep count and reckoning
of events. Men still uncultivated, admiring him for these novelties, either
fancied he was, or resolved that he should be made, a god after his death.
Io also is said to have been the daughter of Inachus, who was afterwards
called Isis, when she was worshipped in Egypt as a great goddess; although
others write that she came as a queen out of Ethiopia, and because she
ruled extensively and justly, and instituted for her subjects letters and
many useful things, such divine honor was given her there after she died,
that it any one said she had been human, he was charged with a capital
crime.

CHAP. 4.--OF THE TIMES OF JACOB AND HIS SON JOSEPH.

   In the reign of Balaeus, the ninth king of Assyria, and Mesappus, the
eighth of Sicyon, who is said by some to have been also called Cephisos (if
indeed the same man had both names, and those who put the other name in
their writings have not rather confounded him with another man), while Apis
was third king of Argos, Isaac died, a hundred and eighty years old, and
left his twin-sons a hundred and twenty years old. Jacob, the younger of
these, belonged to the city of God about which we write (the elder being
wholly rejected), and had twelve sons, one of whom, called Joseph, was sold
by his brothers to merchants going down to Egypt, while his grandfather
Isaac was still alive. But when he was thirty years of age, Joseph stood
before Pharaoh, being exalted out of the humiliation he endured, because,
in divinely interpreting the king's dreams, he foretold that there would be
seven years of plenty, the very rich abundance of which would be consumed
by seven other years of famine that should follow. On this account the king
made him ruler over Egypt, liberating him from prison, into which he had
been thrown for keeping his chastity intact; for he bravely preserved it
from his mistress, who wickedly loved him, and told lies to his weakly
credulous master, and did not consent to commit adultery with her, but fled
from her, leaving his garment in her hands when she laid hold of him. In
the second of the seven years of famine Jacob came down into Egypt to his
son with all he had, being a hundred and thirty years old, as he himself
said in answer to the king's question. Joseph was then thirty-nine, if we
add seven years of plenty and two of famine to the thirty he reckoned when
honored by the king.

CHAP. 5 --OF APIS KING OF ARGOS, WHOM THE EGYPTIANS CALLED SERAPIS,    AND
WORSHIPPED WITH DIVINE HONORS.

   In these times Apis king of Argos crossed over into Egypt in ships,
and, on dying there, was made Serapis, the chief god of all the Egyptians.
Now Varro gives this very ready reason why, after his death, he was called,
not Apis, but Serapis. The ark in which he was placed when dead, which
every one now calls a sarcophagus, was then called in Greek soro`s, and
they began to worship him when buried in it before his temple was built;
and from Soros and Apis he was called first [Sorosapis, or] Sorapis, and
then Serapis, by changing a letter, as easily happens. It was decreed
regarding him also, that whoever should say he had been a man should be
capitally punished. And since in every temple where Isis and Serapis were
worshipped there was also an image which, with finger pressed on the lips,
seemed to warn men to keep silence, Varro thinks this signifies that it
should be kept secret that they had been human. But that bull which, with
wonderful folly, deluded Egypt nourished with abundant delicacies in honor
of him, was not called Serapis, but Apis, because they worshipped him alive
without a sarcophagus. On the death of that bull, when they sought and
found a calf of the same color,--that is, similarly marked with certain
white spots,--they believed it was something miraculous, and divinely
provided for them. Yet it was no great thing for the demons, in order to
deceive them, to show to a cow when she was conceiving and pregnant the
image of such a bull, which she alone could see, and by it attract the
breeding passion of the mother, so that it might appear in a bodily shape
in her young, just as Jacob so managed with the spotted rods that the sheep
and goats were born spotted. For what men can do with real colors and
substances, the demons can very easily do by showing unreal forms to
breeding animals.

CHAP. 6.--WHO WERE KINGS OF ARGOS, AND OF ASSYRIA, WHEN JACOB DIED IN
EGYPT.

   Apis, then, who died in Egypt, was not the king of Egypt, but of Argos.
He was succeeded by his son Argus, from whose name the land was called
Argos and the people Argives, for under the earlier kings neither the place
nor the nation as yet had this name. While he then reigned over Argos, and
Eratus over Sicyon, and Balaeus still remained king, of Assyria, Jacob died
in Egypt a hundred and forty-seven years old, after he had, when dying,
blessed his sons and his grandsons by Joseph, and prophesied most plainly
of Christ, saying in the blessing of Judah, "A prince shall not fail out of
Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until those things come which are laid
up for him; and He is the expectation of the nations."(1) In the reign of
Argus, Greece began to use fruits, and to have crops of corn in cultivated
fields, the seed having been brought from other countries. Argus also began
to be accounted a god after his death, and was honored with a temple and
sacrifices. This honor was conferred in his reign,  before being given to
him, on a private individual for being the first to yoke oxen in the
plough. This was one Homogyrus, who was struck by lightning.

CHAP. 7.--WHO WERE KINGSWHEN JOSEPH DIED IN EGYPT.

   In the reign of Mamitus, the twelfth king of Assyria, and Plemnaeus,
the eleventh of Sicyon, while Argus still reigned over the Argives, Joseph
died in Egypt a hundred and ten years old. After his death, the people of
God, increasing wonderfully, remained in Egypt a hundred and forty-five
years, in tranquillity at first, until those who knew Joseph were dead.
Afterward, through envy of their increase, and the suspicion that they
would at length gain their freedom, they were oppressed with persecutions
and the labors of intolerable servitude, amid which, however, they still
grew, being multiplied with God-given fertility. During this period the
same kingdoms continued in Assyria and Greece.

CHAP. 8.--WHO WERE KINGS WHEN MOSES WAS BORN, AND WHAT GODS BEGAN TO BE
WORSHIPPED THEN.

   When Saphrus reigned as the fourteenth king of Assyria, and Orthopolis
as the twelfth of Sicyon, and Criasus as the fifth of Argos, Moses was born
in Eygpt, by whom the people of God were liberated from the Egyptian
slavery, in which they behoved to be thus tried that they might desire the
help of their Creator. Some have thought that Prometheus lived during the
reign of the kings now named. He is reported to have formed men out of
clay, because he was esteemed the best teacher of wisdom; yet it does not
appear what wise men there were in his days. His brother Atlas is said to
have been a great astrologer; and this gave occasion for the fable that he
held up the sky, although the vulgar opinion about his holding up the sky
appears rather to have been suggested by a high mountain named after him.
Indeed, from those times many other fabulous things began to be invented in
Greece; yet, down to Cecrops king of Athens, in whose reign that city
received its name, and in whose reign God brought His people out of Egypt
by Moses, only a few dead heroes are reported to have been deified
according to the vain superstition of the Greeks. Among these were
Melantomice, the wife of king Criasus, and Phorbas their son, who succeeded
his father as sixth king of the Argives, and Iasus, son of Triopas, their
seventh king, and their ninth king, Sthenelas, or Stheneleus, or
Sthenelus,--for his name is given differently by different authors. In
those times also, Mercury, the grandson of Atlas by his daughter Main, is
said to have lived, according to the common report in books. He was famous
for his skill in many arts, and taught them to men, for which they resolved
to make him, and even believed that he deserved to be, a god after death.
Hercules is said to have been later, yet belonging to the same period;
although some, whom I think mistaken, assign him an earlier date than
Mercury. But at whatever time they were born, it is agreed among grave
historians, who have committed these ancient things to writing, that both
were men, and that they merited divine honors from mortals because they
conferred on them many benefits to make this life more pleasant to them.
Minerva was far more ancient than these; for she is reported to have
appeared in virgin age in the times of Ogyges at the lake called Triton,
from which she is also styled Tritonia, the inventress truly of many works,
and the more readily believed to be a goddess because her origin was so
little known. For what is sung about her having sprung from the head of
Jupiter belongs to the region of poetry and fable, and not to that of
history and real fact. And historical writers are not agreed when Ogyges
flourished, in whose time also a great flood occurred,--not that greatest
one from which no man escaped except those who could get into the ark, for
neither Greek nor Latin history knew of it, yet a greater flood than that
which happened afterward in Deucalion's time. For Varro begins the book I
have already mentioned at this date, and does not propose to himself, as
the starting-point from which he may arrive at Roman affairs, anything more
ancient than the flood of Ogyges, that is, which happened in the time of
Ogyges. Now our writers of chronicles--first Eusebius, and afterwards
Jerome, who entirely follow some earlier historians in this opinion--relate
that the flood of Ogyges happened more than three hundred years after,
during the reign of Phoroneus, the second king of Argos. But whenever he
may have lived, Minerva was already worshipped as a goddess when Cecrops
reigned in Athens, in whose reign the city itself is reported to have been
rebuilt or founded.

CHAP. 9.--WHEN THE CITY OF ATHENS WAS FOUNDED, AND WHAT REASON VARRO
ASSIGNS FOR ITS NAME.

   Athens certainly derived its name from Minerva, who in Greek is called
Athhnh, and Varro points out the following reason why it was so called.
When an olive-tree suddenly appeared there, and water burst forth in
another place, these prodigies moved the king to send to the Delphic Apollo
to inquire what they meant and what he should do. He answered that the
olive signified Minerva, the water Neptune, and that the citizens had it in
their power to name their city as they chose, after either of these two
gods whose signs these were. On receiving this oracle, Cecrops convoked all
the citizens of either sex to give their vote, for it was then the custom
in those parts for the women also to take part in public deliberations.
When the multitude was consulted, the men gave their votes for Neptune, the
women for Minerva; and as the women had a majority of one, Minerva
conquered. Then Neptune, being enraged, laid waste the lands of the
Athenians, by casting up the waves of the sea; for the demons have no
difficulty in scattering any waters more widely. The same authority said,
that to appease his wrath the women should be visited by the Athenians with
the three-fold punishment--that they should no longer have any vote; that
none of their children should be named after their mothers; and that no one
should call them Athenians. Thus that city, the mother and nurse of liberal
doctrines, and of so many and so great philosophers, than whom Greece had
noticing more famous and noble, by the mockery of demons about the strife
of their gods, a male and female, and from the victory of the female one
through the women, received the name of Athens; and, on being damaged by
the vanquished god, was compelled to punish the very victory of the
victress, fearing the waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva. For
in the women who were thus punished, Minerva, who had conquered, was
conquered too, and could not even help her voters so far that, although the
right of voting was henceforth lost, and the mothers could not give their
names to the children, they might at least be allowed to be called
Athenians, and to merit the name of that goddess whom they had made
victorious over a male god by giving her their votes. What and how much
could be said about this, if we had not to hasten to other things in our
discourse, is obvious.

CHAP. 10.--WHAT VARRO REPORTS ABOUT THE TERM AREOPAGUS, AND ABOUT
DEUCALION'S FLOOD.

   Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against
the gods, lest he should find something dishonoring to their majesty; and
therefore he will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where the Apostle
Paul disputed with the Athenians, got this name because Mars, who in Greek
is called A'rhs, when he was charged with the crime of homicide, and was
judged by twelve gods in that field, was acquitted by the sentence of six;
because it was the custom, when the votes were equal, to acquit rather than
condemn. Against this opinion, which is much most widely published, he
tries, from the notices of obscure books, to support another reason for
this name, lest the Athenians should be thought to have called it Areopagus
from the words" Mars" and" field,"(1) as if it were the field of Mars, to
the dishonor of the gods, forsooth, from whom he thinks lawsuits and
judgments far removed. And he asserts that this which is said about Mars is
not less false than what is said about the three goddesses, to wit, Juno,
Minerva, and Venus, whose contest for the palm of beauty, before Paris as
judge, in order to obtain the golden apple, is not only related, but is
celebrated in songs and dances amid the applause of the theatres, in plays
meant to please the gods who take pleasure in these crimes of their own,
whether real or fabled. Varro does not believe these things, because they
are incompatible with the nature of the gods and of morality; and yet, in
giving not a fabulous but a historic reason for the name of Athens, he
inserts in his books the strife between Neptune and Minerva as to whose
name should be given to that city, which was so great that, when they
contended by the display of prodigies, even Apollo dared not judge between
them when consulted; but, in order to end the strife of the gods, just as
Jupiter sent the three goddesses we have named to Paris, so he sent them to
men, when Minerva won by the vote, and yet was defeated by the punishment
of her own voters, for she was unable to confer the title of Athenians on
the women who were her friends, although she could impose it on the men who
were her opponents. In these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the
successor of Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our Eusebius and
Jerome, while Cecrops himself still remained, the flood occurred which is
called Deucalion's, because it occurred chiefly in those parts of the earth
in which he reigned. But this flood did not at all reach Egypt or its
vicinity.

CHAP. II.--WHEN MOSES LED THE PEOPLE OUT OF EGYPT; AND WHO WERE KINGS WHEN
HIS SUCCESSOR JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN DIED.

   Moses led the people out of Egypt in the last time of Cecrops king of
Athens, when Ascatades reigned in Assyria, Marathus in Sicyon, Triopas in
Argos; and having led forth the people, he gave them at Mount Sinai the law
he received from God, which is called the Old Testament, because it has
earthly promises, and because, through Jesus Christ, there was to be a New
Testament, in which the kingdom of heaven should be promised. For the same
order behoved to be observed in this as is observed in each man who
prospers in God, according to the saying of the apostle, "That is not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural," since, as he says, and that
truly, "The first man of the earth, is earthly; the second man, from
heaven, is heavenly."(2) Now Moses ruled the people for forty years in the
wilderness, and died a hundred and twenty years old, after he had
prophesied of Christ by the types of carnal observances in the tabernacle,
priesthood, and sacrifices, and many other mystic ordinances. Joshua the
son of Nun succeeded Moses, and settled in the land of promise the people
he had brought in, having by divine authority conquered the people by whom
it was formerly possessed. He also died, after ruling the people twenty-
seven years after the death of Moses, when Amyntas reigned in Assyria as
the eighteenth king, Coracos as the sixteenth in Sicyon, Danaos as the
tenth in Argos, Ericthonius as the fourth in Athens.

CHAP. 12.--OF THE RITUALS OF FALSE GODS INSTITUTED BY THE KINGS OF GREECE
IN THE PERIOD FROM ISRAEL'S EXODUS FROM EGYPT DOWN TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA
THE SON OF NUN.

   During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to
the death of Joshua the son of Nun, through whom that people received the
land of promise, rituals were instituted to the false gods by the kings of
Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood, and
of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous life they then led in
migrating to and fro between the heights and the plains. For even the
Luperci,(3) when they ascend and descend the sacred path, are said to
represent the men who sought the mountain summits because of the inundation
of water, and returned to the lowlands on its subsidence. In those times,
Dionysus, who was also called Father Liber, and was esteemed a god after
death, is said to have shown the vine to his host in Attica. Then the
musical games were instituted for tile Delphic Apollo, to appease his
anger, through which they thought the regions of Greece were afflicted with
barrenness, because they had not defended his temple which Danaos burnt
when he invaded those lands; for they were warned by his oracle to
institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games to him
in Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which games the
olive was given as the prize to the victors, because they relate that
Minerva was the discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of the grape. In
those years Europa is alleged to have been carried off by Xanthus king of
Crete (to whom we find some give another name), and to have borne him
Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are more commonly reported to have
been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman. Now those who worship such gods
regard what we have said about Xanthus king of Crete as true history; but
this about Jupiter, which the poets sing, the theatres applaud, and the
people celebrate, as empty fable got up as a reason for games to appease
the deities, even with the false ascription of crimes to them. In those
times Hercules was held in honor in Tyre, but that was not the same one as
he whom we spoke of above. In the more secret history there are said to
have been several who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules,
whose great deeds are reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of
Antaeus the African, because that affair pertains to another Hercules), is
declared in their books to have burned himself on Mount (Eta, because he
was not able, by that strength with which he had subdued monsters, to
endure the disease under which he languished. At that time the king, or
rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged to have been the son of Neptune by
Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up his guests in
sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that Neptune committed
this adultery, lest the gods should be criminated; yet such things must be
ascribed to them by the poets and in the theatres, that they may be pleased
with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the parents of
Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua the son of Nun is
found to have died. But since they will have it that Minerva is a virgin,
they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in the struggle between them, poured
out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born of it
received that name; for in the Greek language e'ris is "strife," and
chthw`n "earth," of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must
be admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things
concerning their gods, and declare that this fabulous belief originated in
the fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan and Minerva had in
common, a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a
dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his parents
were unknown, he was called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had
the temple in common. Yet that fable accounts for the origin of his name
better than this history. But what does it matter to us? Let the one in
books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying
fables delight impure demons. Yet these religious men worship them as gods.
Still, while they deny these things concerning them they cannot clear them
of all crime, because at their demand they exhibit plays in which the very
things they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these
false and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an unreal
crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a
real one.

CHAP. 13.--WHAT FABLES WERE INVENTED AT THE TIME WHEN JUDGES BEGAN TO RULE
THE HEBREWS.

   After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had judges,
in whose times they were alternately humbled by afflictions on account of
their sins, and consoled by prosperity through the compassion of God. In
those times were invented the fables about Triptolemus, who, at the command
of Ceres, borne by winged snakes, bestowed corn on the needy lands in
flying over them; about that beast the Minotaur, which was shut up in the
Labyrinth, from which men who entered its inextricable mazes could find no
exit; about the Centaurs, whose form was a compound of horse and man; about
Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell; about Phryxus and his sister
Hellas, who fled, borne by a winged ram; about the Gorgon, whose hair was
composed of serpents, and who turned those who looked on her into stone;
about Bellerophon, who was carried by a winged horse called Pegasus; about
Amphion, who charmed and attracted the stones by the sweetness of his harp;
about the artificer Daedalus and his son Icarus, who flew on wings they had
fitted on; about Oedipus, who compelled a certain four-footed monster with
a human face, called a sphynx, to destroy herself by casting herself
headlong, having solved the riddle she was wont to propose as insoluble;
about Antaeus, who was the son of the earth, for which reason, on falling
on the earth, he was wont to rise up stronger, whom Hercules slew; and
perhaps there are others which I have forgotten. These fables, easily found
in histories containing a true account of events, bring us down to the
Trojan war, at which Marcus Varro has closed his second book about the race
of the Roman people; and they are so skillfully invented by men as to
involve no scandal to the gods. But whoever have pretended as to Jupiter's
rape of Ganymede, a very beautiful boy, that king Tantalus committed the
crime, and the fable ascribed it to Jupiter; or as to his impregnating
Danae as a golden shower, that it means that the woman's virtue was
corrupted by gold: whether these things were really done or only fabled in
those days, or were really done by others and falsely ascribed to Jupiter,
it is impossible to tell how much wickedness must have been taken for
granted in men's hearts that they should be thought able to listen to such
lies with patience. And yet they willingly accepted them, when, indeed, the
more devotedly they worshipped Jupiter, they ought the more severely to
have punished those who durst say such things of him. But they not only
were not angry at those who invented these things, but were afraid that the
gods would be angry at them if they did not act such fictions even in the
theatres. In those times Latona bore Apollo, not him of whose oracle we
have spoken above as so often consulted, but him who is said, along with
Hercules, to have fed the flocks of king Admetus; yet he was so believed to
be a god, that very many, indeed almost all, have believed him to be the
selfsame Apollo. Then also Father Liber made war in India, and led in his
army many women called Bacchae, who were notable not so much for valor as
for fury. Some, indeed, write that this Liber was both conquered and bound
and some that he was slain in Persia, even telling where he was buried; and
yet in his name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have instituted the
sacred, or rather the sacrilegious, Bacchanalia, of the outrageous vileness
of which the senate, after many years, became so much ashamed as to
prohibit them in the city of Rome. Men believed that in those times Perseus
and his wife Andromeda were raised into heaven after their death, so that
they were not ashamed or afraid to mark out their images by constellations,
and call them by their names.

CHAP. 14.--OF THE THEOLOGICAL POETS.

   During the same period of time arose the poets, who were also called
theologues, because they made hymns about the gods; yet about such gods as,
although great men, were yet but men, or the elements of this world which
the true God made, or creatures who were ordained as principalities and
powers according to the will of the Creator and their own merit. And if,
among much that was vain and false, they sang anything of the one true God,
yet, by worshipping Him along with others who are not gods, and showing
them the service that is due to Him alone, they did not serve Him at all
rightly; and even such poets as Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, were unable to
abstain from dishonoring their gods by fables. But yet these theologues
worshipped the gods, and were not worshipped as gods, although the city of
the ungodly is wont, I know not how, to set Orpheus over the sacred, or
rather sacrilegious, rites of hell. The wife of king Athamas, who was
called Ino, and her son Melicertes, perished by throwing themselves into
the sea, and were, according to popular belief, reckoned among the gods,
like other men of the same times, [among whom were] Castor and Pollux. The
Greeks, indeed, called her who was the mother of Melicertes, Leucothea, the
Latins, Matuta; but both thought her a goddess.

CHAP. 15.--OF THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF ARGOS, WHEN PICUS THE SON OF
SATURN FIRSTRECEIVEDHIS FATHER'S KINGDOM OF LAURENTUM.

   During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being
transferred to Mycene, from which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of
Laurentum arose, of which Picus son of Saturn was the first king, when the
woman Deborah judged the Hebrews; bill it was the Spirit of God who used
her as His agent, for she was also a prophetess, although her prophecy is
so obscure that we could not demonstrate, without a long discussion, that
it was uttered concerning Christ. Now the Laurentes already reigned in
Italy, from whom the origin of the Roman people is quite evidently derived
after the Greeks; yet the kingdom of Assyria still lasted, in which
Lampares was the twenty-third king when Picus first began to reign at
Laurentum. The worshippers of such gods may see what they are to think of
Saturn the father of Picus, who deny that he was a man; of whom some also
have written that he himself reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and
Virgil in his well- known book says,

  "That race indocile, and through mountains high     Dispersed, he
settled, and endowed with laws,     And named their country Latium, because
Latent within their coasts he dwelt secure.     Tradition says the golden
ages pure     Began when he was king."(1)

But they regard these as poetic fancies, and assert that the father of
Picus was Sterces rather, and relate that, being a most skillful
husbandman, he discovered that the fields could be fertilized by the dung
of animals, which is called stercus from his name. Some say he was called
Stercutius. But for whatever reason they chose to call him Saturn, it is
yet certain they made this Sterces or Stercutius a god for his merit in
agriculture; and they likewise received into the number of these gods Picus
his son, whom they affirm to have been a famous augur and warrior. Picus
begot Faunus, the second king of Laurentum; and he too is, or was, a god
with them. These divine honors they gave to dead men before the Trojan war.

CHAP. 16.--OF DIOMEDE, WHO AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY WAS PLACED AMONG
THE GODS, WHILE HIS COMPANIONS ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN CHANGED INTO BIRDS

   Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made
well known even to boys; for it was signally published and spread abroad,
both by its own greatness and by writers of excellent style. And this was
done in the reign of Latinus the son of Faunus, from whom the kingdom began
to be called Latium instead of Laurentum. The victorious Greeks, on leaving
Troy destroyed and returning to their own countries, were torn and crushed
by divers and horrible calamities. Yet even from among them they increased
the number of their gods for they made Diomede a god. They allege that his
return home was prevented by a divinely imposed punishment, and they prove,
not by fabulous and poetic falsehood, but by historic attestation, that his
companions were turned into birds. Yet they think that, even although he
was made a god, he could neither restore them to the human form by his own
power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter his king, as a favor granted to a new
inhabitant of heaven. They also say that his temple is in the island of
Diomedaea, not far from Mount Garganus in Apulia, and that these birds fly
round about this temple, and worship in it with such wonderful obedience,
that they fill their beaks with water and sprinkle it; and if Greeks, or
those born of the Greek race, come there, they are not only still, but fly
to meet them; but if they are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, and
wound them with such severe strokes as even to kill them. For they are said
to be well enough armed for these combats with their hard and large beaks.

CHAP. 17.--WHAT VARRO SAYS OF THE INCREDIBLE TRANSFORMATIONS OF MEN.

   In support of this story, Varro relates others no less incredible about
that most famous sorceress Circe, who changed the companions of Ulysses
into beasts, and about the Arcadians, who, by lot, swam across a certain
pool, and were turned into wolves there, and lived in the deserts of that
region with wild beasts like themselves. But if they never fed on human
flesh for nine years, they were restored to the human form on swimming back
again through the same pool. Finally, he expressly names one Demaenetus,
who, on tasting a boy offered up in sacrifice by the Arcadians to their god
Lycaeus according to their custom, was changed into a wolf, and, being
restored to his proper form in the tenth year, trained himself as a
pugilist, and was victorious at the Olympic games. And the same historian
thinks that the epithet Lycaeus was applied in Arcadia to Pan and Jupiter
for no other reason than this metamorphosis of men into wolves, because it
was thought it could not be wrought except by a divine power. For a wolf is
called in Greek luko`s, from which the name Lycaeus appears to be formed.
He says also that the Roman Luperci were as it were sprung of the seed of
these mysteries.

CHAP. 18.--WHAT WE SHOULD BELIEVE CONCERNING THE TRANSFORMATIONS WHICH SEEM
TO HAPPEN TO MEN THROUGH THE ART OF DEMONS.

   Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great
delusion wrought by the demons; and what shall we say but that men must fly
out of the midst of Babylon?(2) For this prophetic precept is to be
understood spiritually in this sense, that by going forward in the living
God, by the steps of faith, which worketh by love, we must flee out of the
city of this world, which is altogether a society of ungodly angels and
men. Yea, the greater we see the power of the demons to be in these depths,
so much the more tenaciously must we cleave to the Mediator through whom we
ascend from these lowest to the highest places. For if we should say these
things are not to be credited, there are not wanting even now some who
would affirm that they had either heard on the best authority, or even
themselves experienced, something of that kind. Indeed we ourselves, when
in Italy, heard such things about a certain region there where landladies
of inns, imbued with these wicked arts, were said to be in the habit of
giving to such travellers as they chose, or could manage, something in a
piece of cheese by which they were changed on the spot into beasts of
burden, and carried whatever was necessary, and were restored to their own
form when the work was done. Yet their mind did not become bestial, but
remained rational and human, just as Apuleius, in the books he wrote with
the title of The Golden Ass, has told, or feigned, that it happened to his
own self that, on taking poison, he became an ass, while retaining his
human mind.

   These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good
reason disbelieved. But it is to be most firmly believed that Almighty God
can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or favoring, and that the
demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power (for their created
being is itself angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except
what He may permit, whose judgments are often hidden, but never
unrighteous. And indeed the demons, if they really do such things as these
on which this discussion turns, do not create real substances, but only
change the appearance of things created by the true God so as to make them
seem to be what they are not. I cannot therefore believe that even the
body, much less the mind, can really be changed into bestial forms and
lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons; but the phantasm of
a man which even in thought or dreams goes through innumerable changes may,
when the man's senses are laid asleep or overpowered, be presented to the
senses of others in a corporeal form, in some indescribable way unknown to
me, so that men's bodies themselves may lie somewhere, alive, indeed, yet
with their senses locked up much more heavily and firmly than by sleep,
while that phantasm, as it were embodied in the shape of some animal, may
appear to the senses of others, and may even seem to the man himself to be
changed, just as he may seem to himself in sleep to be so changed, and to
bear burdens; and these burdens, if they are real substances, are borne by
the demons, that men may be deceived by beholding at the same time the real
substance of the burdens and the simulated bodies of the beasts of burden.
For a certain man called Praestantius used to tell that it had happened to
his father in his own house, that he took that poison in a piece of cheese,
and lay in his bed as if sleeping, yet could by no means be aroused. But he
said that after a few days he as it were woke up and related the things he
had suffered as if they had been dreams, namely, that he had been made a
sumpter horse, and, along with other beasts of burden, had carried
provisions for the soldiers of what is called the Rhoetian Legion, because
it was sent to Rhoetia. And all this was found to have taken place just as
he told, yet it had seemed to him to be his own dream. And another man
declared that in his own house at night, before he slept, he saw a certain
philosopher, whom he knew very well, come to him and explain to him some
things in the Platonic philosophy which he had previously declined to
explain when asked. And when he had asked this philosopher why he did in
his house what he had refused to do at home, he said, "I did not do it, but
I dreamed I had done it." And thus what the one saw when sleeping was shown
to the other when awake by a phantasmal image.

   These things have not come to us from persons we might deem unworthy of
credit, but from informants we could not suppose to be deceiving us.
Therefore what men say and have committed to writing about the Arcadians
being often changed into wolves by the Arcadian gods, or demons rather, and
what is told in song about Circe transforming the companions of Ulysses,(1)
if they were really done, may, in my opinion, have been done in the way I
have said. As for Diomede's birds, since their race is alleged to have been
perpetuated by constant propagation, I believe they were not made through
the metamorphosis of men, but were slyly substituted for them on their
removal, just as the hind was for Iphigenia, the daughter of king
Agamemnon. For juggleries of this kind could not be difficult for the
demons if permitted by the judgment of God; and since that virgin was
afterwards, found alive it is easy to see that a hind had been slyly
substituted for her. But because the companions of Diomede were of a sudden
nowhere to be seen, and afterwards could nowhere be found, being destroyed
by bad avenging angels, they were believed to have been changed into those
birds, which were secretly brought there from other places where such birds
were, and suddenly substituted for them by fraud. But that they bring water
in their beaks and sprinkle it on the temple of Diomede, and that they fawn
on men of Greek race and persecute aliens, is no wonderful thing to be done
by the inward influence of the demons, whose interest it is to persuade men
that Diomede was made a god, and thus to beguile them into worshipping many
false gods, to the great dishonor of the true God; and to serve dead men,
who even in their lifetime did not truly live, with temples, altars,
sacrifices, and priests, all which, when of the right kind, are due only to
the one living and true God.

CHAP. 19.--THAT AENEAS CAME INTO ITALY WHEN ABDON THE JUDGE RULED OVER THE
HEBREWS.

   After the capture and destruction of Troy, Aeneas, with twenty ships
laden with the Trojan relics, came into Italy, when Latinus reigned there,
Menestheus in Athens, Polyphidos in Sicyon, and Tautanos in Assyria, and
Abdon was judge of the Hebrews. On the death of Latinus, Aeneas reigned
three years, the same kings continuing in the above-named places, except
that Pelasgus was now king in Sicyon, and Samson was judge of the Hebrews,
who is thought to be Hercules, because of his wonderful strength. Now the
Latins made Aeneas one of their gods, because at his death he was nowhere
to be found. The Sabines also placed among the gods their first king,
Sancus, [Sangus], or Sanctus, as some call him. At that time Codrus king of
Athens exposed himself incognito to be slain by the Peloponnesian foes of
that city, and so was slain. In this way, they say, he delivered his
country. For the Peloponnesians had received a response from the oracle,
that they should overcome the Athenians only on condition that they did not
slay their king. Therefore he deceived them by appearing in a poor man's
dress, and provoking them, by quarrelling, to murder him. Whence Virgil
says, "Or the quarrels of Codrus."(1) And the Athenians worshipped this man
as a god with sacrificial honors. The fourth king of the Latins was Silvius
the son of Aeneas, not by Creusa, of whom Ascanius the third king was born,
but by Lavinia the daughter of Latinus, and he is said to have been his
posthumous child. Oneus was the twenty-ninth king of Assyria, Melanthus the
sixteenth of the Athenians, and Eli the priest was judge of the Hebrews;
and the kingdom of Sicyon then came to an end, after lasting, it is said,
for nine hundred and fifty- nine years.

CHAP. 20.--OF THE SUCCESSION OF THE LINE OF KINGS AMONG THE ISRAELITES
AFTER THE TIMES OF THE JUDGES.

   While these kings reigned in the places mentioned, the period of the
judges being ended, the kingdom of Israel next began with king Saul, when
Samuel the prophet lived. At that date those Latin kings began who were
surnamed Silvii, having that surname, in addition to their proper name,
from their predecessor, that son of Aeneas who was called Silvius; just as,
long afterward, the successors of Caesar Augustus were surnamed Caesars.
Saul being rejected, so that none of his issue should reign, on his death
David succeeded him in the kingdom, after he had reigned forty years. Then
the Athenians ceased to have kings after the death of Codrus, and began to
have a magistracy to rule the republic. After David, who also reigned forty
years, his son Solomon was king of Israel, who built that most noble temple
of God at Jerusalem. In his time Alba was built among the Latins, from
which thereafter the kings began to be styled kings not of the Latins, but
of the Albans, although in the same Latium. Solomon was succeeded by his
son Rehoboam, under whom that people was divided into two kingdoms, and its
separate parts began to have separate kings.

CHAP. 21.--OF THE KINGS OF LATIUM, THE FIRST AND TWELFTH OF WHOM, AENEAS
AND AVENTINUS, WERE MADE GODS.

   After Aeneas, whom they deified, Latium had eleven kings, none of whom
was deified. But Aventinus, who was the twelfth after Aeneas, having been
laid low in war, and buried in that hill still called by his name, was
added to the number of such gods as they made for themselves. Some, indeed,
were unwilling to write that he was slain in battle, but said he was
nowhere to be found, and that it was not from his name, but from the
alighting of birds, that hill was called Aventinus.(2) After this no god
was made in Latium except Romulus the founder of Rome. But two kings are
found between these two, the first of whom I shall describe in the
Virgilian verse:

   "Next came that Procas, glory of the Trojan race."(3)

   That greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, had its long duration
brought to a close in his time, the time of Rome's birth drawing nigh. For
the Assyrian empire was transferred to the Medes after nearly thirteen
hundred and five years, if we include the reign of Belus, who begot Ninus,
and, content with a small kingdom,was the first king there. Now Procas
reigned before Amulius. And Amulius had made his brother Numitor's
daughter, Rhea by name, who was also called Ilia, a vestal virgin, who
conceived twin sons by Mars, as they will have it, in that way honoring or
excusing her adultery, adding as a proof that a she-wolf nursed the infants
when exposed. For they think this kind of beast belongs to Mars so that the
she-wolf is believed to have given her teats to the infants, because she
knew they were the sons of Mars her lord; although there are not wanting
persons who say that when the crying babes lay exposed, they were first of
all picked up by I know not what harlot, and sucked her breasts first (now
harlots were called lupae, she-wolves, from which their vile abodes are
even yet called lupanaria), and that afterwards they came into the hands of
the shepherd Faustulus, and were nursed by Acca his wife. Yet what wonder
is it, if, to rebuke the king who had cruelly ordered them to be thrown
into the water, God was pleased, after divinely delivering them from the
water, to succor, by means of a wild beast giving milk, these infants by
whom so great a city was to be rounded? Amulius was succeeded in the Latian
kingdom by his brother Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus; and Rome was
rounded in the first year of this Numitor, who from that time reigned along
with his grandson Romulus.

CHAP. 22.--THAT ROME WAS FOUNDED WHEN THE ASSYRIAN KINGDOM PERISHED, AT
WHICH TIME HEZEKIAH REIGNED IN JUDAH.

   To be brief, the city of Rome was rounded, like another Babylon, and as
it were the daughter of the former Babylon, by which God was pleased to
conquer the whole world, and subdue it far and wide by bringing it into one
fellowship of government and laws. For there were already powerful and
brave peoples and nations trained to arms, who did not easily yield, and
whose subjugation necessarily involved great danger and destruction as well
as great and horrible labor. For when the Assyrian kingdom subdued almost
all Asia, although this was done by fighting, yet the wars could not be
very fierce or difficult, because the nations were as yet untrained to
resist, and neither so many nor so great as afterward; forasmuch as, after
that greatest and indeed universal flood, when only eight men escaped in
Noah's ark, not much more than a thousand years had passed when Ninus
subdued all Asia with the exception of India. But Rome did not with the
same quickness and facility wholly subdue all those nations of the east and
west which we see brought under the Roman empire, because, in its gradual
increase, in whatever direction it was extended, it found them strong and
warlike. At the time when Rome was rounded, then, the people of Israel had
been in the land of promise seven hundred and eighteen years. Of these
years twenty-seven belong to Joshua the son of Nun, and after that three
hundred and twenty-nine to the period of the judges. But from the time when
the kings began to reign there, three hundred and sixty-two years had
passed. And at that time there was a king in Judah called Ahaz, or, as
others compute, Hezekiah his successor, the best and most pious king, who
it is admitted reigned in the times of Romulus. And in that part of the
Hebrew nation called Israel, Hoshea had begun to reign.

CHAP. 23.--OF THE ERYTHRAEAN SIBYL, WHO IS KNOWN TO HAVE SUNG MANY THINGS
ABOUT CHRIST MORE PLAINLY THAN THE OTHER SIBYLS.(1)

   Some say the Erythraean sibyl prophesied at this time. Now Varro
declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one. This sibyl of Erythrae
certainly wrote some things concerning Christ which are quite manifest, and
we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and
unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some
interpreter unknown to me. For Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also
a proconsul, a man of most ready eloquence and much learning, when we were
speaking about Christ, produced a Greek manuscript, saying that it was the
prophecies of the Erythraean sibyl, in which he pointed out a certain
passage which had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that these
words could be read in them: Ihsou^s Xristos Theou^ huio`s swthr, which
means, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And these verses, of
which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as
translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm:

I  Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat of its standard, H  Ever
enduring, behold the King shall come through the ages, S  Sent to be here
in the flesh, and Judge at the last of the world. O  O God, the believing
and faithless alike shall behold Thee U  Uplifted with saints, when at last
the ages are ended. S  Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His
judgment.

CH  Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the earth. R  Rejected by
men are the idols and long hidden treasures; E  Earth is consumed by the
fire, and it searcheth the ocean and heaven; I  Issuing forth, it
destroyeth the terrible portals of hell. S  Saints in their body and soul
freedom and light shall inherit; T  Those who are guilty shall burn in fire
and brimstone for ever. O  Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish
his secrets; S  Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in the light.

TH  Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and gnashing of teeth; E
Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their chorus. O  Over and
gone is the splendor of moonlight, melted the heaven, U  Uplifted by Him
are the valleys, and cast down the mountains.

(H)U  Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty and lowly. I  Into
the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans are mingled. O  Oh, what an
end of all things! earth broken in pieces shall perish; S  Swelling
together at once shall the waters and flames flow in rivers.

S  Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down from heaven, W  Over
the wicked who groan in their guilt and their manifold sorrows. T
Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing chaos and hell. H  Every
king before God shall stand in that day to be judged. R  Rivers of fire and
brimstone shall fall from the heavens.

   In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given,
although not in the exact order of the lines as connected with the initial
letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, where
the Greek letter U occurs, Latin words could not be found beginning with
the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning. So that, if we
note down together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin
translation except those three in which we retain the letter T in the
proper place, they will express in five Greek words this meaning, "Jesus
Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And the verses are twenty-seven, which
is the cube of three. For three times three are nine; and nine itself, if
tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to the cube, comes to
twenty-seven. But if you join the initial letters of these five Greek
words, Ihsou^s Christos Theou^ huio`s swth'r, which mean, "Jesus Christ the
Son of God, the Saviour," they will make the word ichthu`s, that is,
"fish," in which word Christ is mystically understood, because He was able
to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as
in the depth of waters."(1)

   But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythraean, or, as some rather
believe, the Cumaean, in her whole poem, of which this is a very small
portion, not only has nothing that can relate to the worship of the false
or reigned gods, but rather speaks against them and their worshippers in
such a way that we might even think she ought to be reckoned among those
who belong to the city of God. Lactantius also inserted in his work the
prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl, he does not say which. But I
have thought fit to combine in a single extract, which may seem long, what
he has set down in many short quotations. She says; "Afterward He shall
come into the injurious hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God
buffets with profane hands, and with impure mouth will spit out envenomed
spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes. And He
will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out
what word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned
with a crown of thorns. And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for
His thirst: they will spread this table of inhospitality. For thou thyself,
being foolish, hast not understood thy God, deluding the minds of mortals,
but hast both crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall. But
the veil of the temple shall be rent; and at midday it shall be darker than
night for three hours. And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three
days; and then returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the
beginning of the resurrection being shown to the recalled." Lactantius made
use of these sibylline testimonies, introducing them bit by bit in the
course of his discussion as the things he intended to prove seemed to
require, and we have set them down in one connected series, uninterrupted
by comment, only taking care to mark them by capitals, if only the
transcribers do not neglect to preserve them hereafter. Some writers,
indeed, say that the Erythraean sibyl was not in the time of Romulus, but
of the Trojan war.

CHAP. 24.--THAT THE SEVEN SAGES FLOURISHED IN THE REIGN OF ROMULUS, WHEN
THE TEN TRIBES WHICH WERE CALLED ISRAEL WERE LED INTO CAPTIVITY BY THE
CHALDEANS, AND ROMULUS, WHEN DEAD, HAD DIVINE HONORS CONFERRED ON HIM.

   While Romulus reigned, Thales the Milesian is said to have lived, being
one of the seven sages, who succeeded the theological poets, of whom
Orpheus was the most renowned, and were called Sophoi', that is, sages.
During that time the ten tribes, which on the division of the people were
called Israel, were conquered by the Chaldeans and led captive into their
lands, while the two tribes which were called Judah, and had the seat of
their kingdom in Jerusalem, remained in the land of Judea. As Romulus, when
dead, could nowhere be found, the Romans, as is everywhere notorious,
placed him among the gods,--a thing which by that time had already ceased
to be done, and which was not done afterwards till the time of the Caesars,
and then not through error, but in flattery; so that Cicero ascribes great
praises to Romulus, because he merited such honors not in rude and
unlearned times, when men were easily deceived, but in times already
polished and learned, although the subtle and acute loquacity of the
philosophers had not yet culminated. But although the later times did not
deify dead men, still they did not cease to hold and worship as gods those
deified of old; nay, by images, which the ancients never had, they even
increased the allurements of vain and impious superstition, the unclean
demons effecting this in their heart, and also deceiving them by lying
oracles, so that even the fabulous crimes of the gods, which were not once
imagined by a more polite age, were yet basely acted in the plays in honor
of these same false deities. Numa reigned after Romulus; and although he
had thought that Rome would be better defended the more gods there were,
yet on his death he himself was not counted worthy of a place among them,
as if it were supposed that he had so crowded heaven that a place could not
be found for him there. They report that the Samian sibyl lived while he
reigned at Rome, and when Manasseh began to reign over the Hebrews,--an
impious king, by whom the prophet Isaiah is said to have been slain.

CHAP. 25.--WHAT PHILOSOPHERS WERE FAMOUS WHEN TARQUINIUS PRISCUS REIGNED
OVER THE ROMANS, AND ZEDEKIAH OVER THE HEBREWS, WHEN JERUSALEM WAS TAKEN
AND THE TEMPLE OVERTHROWN.

  When Zedekiah reigned over the Hebrews, and Tarquinius Priscus, the
successor of Ancus Martius, over the Romans, the Jewish people was led
captive into Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple built by Solomon being
overthrown. For the prophets, in chiding them for their iniquity and
impiety, predicted that these things should come to pass, especially
Jeremiah, who even stated the number of years. Pittacus of Mitylene,
another of the sages, is reported to have lived at that time. And Eusebius
writes that, while the people of God were held captive in Babylon, the five
other sages lived, who must be added to Thales, whom we mentioned above,
and Pittacus, in order to make up the seven. These are Solon of Athens,
Chilo of Lacedaemon, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, and Bias of
Priene. These flourished after the theological poets, and were called
sages, because they excelled other men in a certain laudable line of life,
and summed up some moral precepts in epigrammatic sayings. But they left
posterity no literary monuments, except that Solon is alleged to have given
certain laws to the Athenians, and Thales was a natural philosopher, and
left books of his doctrine in short proverbs. In that time of the Jewish
captivity, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophanes, the natural
philosophers, flourished. Pythagoras also lived then, and at this time the
name philosopher was first used.

CHAP. 26.--THAT AT THE TIME WHEN THE CAPTIVITY OF THE JEWS WAS BROUGHT TO
AN END, ON THE COMPLETION OF SEVENTY YEARS, THE ROMANS ALSO WERE FREED FROM
KINGLY RULE.

   At this time, Cyrus king of Persia, who also ruled the Chaldeans and
Assyrians, having somewhat relaxed the captivity of the Jews, made fifty
thousand of them return in order to rebuild the temple. They only began the
first foundations and built the altar; but, owing to hostile invasions,
they were unable to go on, and the work was put off to the time of Darius.
During the same time also those things were done which are written in the
book of Judith, which, indeed, the Jews are said not to have received into
the canon of the Scriptures. Under Darius king of Persia, then, on the
completion of the seventy years predicted by Jeremiah the prophet, the
captivity of the Jews was brought to an end, and they were restored to
liberty. Tarquin then reigned as the seventh king of the Romans. On his
expulsion, they also began to be free from the rule of their kings. Down to
this time the people of Israel had prophets; but, although they were
numerous, the canonical writings of only a few of them have been preserved
among the Jews and among us. In closing the previous book, I promised to
set down something in this one about them, and I shall now do so.

CHAP. 27.--OF THE TIMES OF THE PROPHETS WHOSE ORACLES ARE CONTAINED IN
BOOKS AND WHO SANG MANY THINGS ABOUT THE CALL OF THE GENTILES AT THE TIME
WHEN THE ROMAN KINGDOM BEGAN AND THE ASSYRIAN CAME TO AN END.

   In order that we may be able to consider these times, let us go back a
little to earlier times. At the beginning of the book of the prophet Hosea,
who is placed first of twelve, it is written, "The word of the Lord which
came to Hoses in the days of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah."(1) Amos also writes that he prophesied in the days of Uzziah, and
adds the name of Jeroboam king of Israel, who lived at the same time.(2)
Isaiah the son of Amos--either the above-named prophet, or, as is rather
affirmed, another who was not a prophet, but was called by the same name--
also puts at the head of his book these four kings named by Hosea, saying
by way of preface that he prophesied in their days.(3) Micah also names the
same times as those of his prophecy, after the days of Uzziah;(4) for he
names the same three kings as Hosea named,-- Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We
find from their own writings that these men prophesied contemporaneously.
To these are added Jonah in the reign of Uzziah, and Joel in that of
Jotham, who succeeded Uzziah. But we can find the date of these two
prophets in the chronicles,(5) Dot in their own writings, for they say
nothing about it themselves. Now these days extend from Procas king of the
Latins. or his predecessor Aventinus, down to Romulus king of the Romans,
or even to the beginning of the reign of his successor Numa Pompilius.
Hezekiah king of Judah certainly reigned till then. So that thus these
fountains of prophecy, as I may call them, burst forth at once during those
times when the Assyrian kingdom failed and the Roman began; so that, just
as in the first period of the Assyrian kingdom Abraham arose, to whom the
most distinct promises were made that all nations should be blessed in his
seed, so at the beginning of the western Babylon, in the time of whose
government Christ was to come in whom these promises were to be fulfilled,
the oracles of the prophets were given not only in spoken but in written
words, for a testimony that so great a thing should come to pass. For
although the people of Israel hardly ever lacked prophets from the time
when they began to have kings, these were only for their own use, not for
that of the nations. But when the more manifestly prophetic Scripture began
to be formed, which was to benefit the nations too, it was fitting that it
should begin when this city was founded which was to rule the nations.

CHAP. 28.--OF THE THINGS PERTAINING TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST WHICH HOSEA AND
AMOS PROHESIED.

   The prophet Hosea speaks so very profoundly that it is laborious work
to penetrate his meaning. But, according to promise, we must insert
something from his book. He says, "And it shall come to pass that in the
place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there they shall
be called the sons of the living God."(6) Even the apostles understood this
as a prophetic testimony of the calling of the nations who did not formerly
belong to God; and because this same people of the Gentiles is itself
spiritually among the children of Abraham, and for that reason is rightly
called Israel, therefore he goes on to say, "And the children of Judah and
the children of Israel shall be gathered together in one, and shall appoint
themselves one headship, and shall ascend from the earth."(7)  We should
but weaken the savor of this prophetic oracle if we set ourselves to
expound it. Let the reader but call to mind that cornerstone and those two
walls of partition, the one of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles,(8) and
he will recognize them, the one under the term sons of Judah, the other as
sons of Israel, supporting themselves by one and the same headship, and
ascending from the earth. But that those carnal Israelites who are sow
unwilling to believe in Christ shall afterward believe, that is, their
children shall (for they themselves, of course, shall go to their own place
by dying), this same prophet testifies, saying, "For the children of Israel
shall abide many days without a king, without a prince, without a
sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, without
manifestations."(9) Who does not see that the Jews are now thus? But let us
hear what he adds: "And afterward shall the children of Israel return, and
seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall be amazed at the
Lord and at His goodness in the latter days."(10) Nothing is clearer than
this prophecy, in which by David, as distinguished by the title of king,
Christ is to be understood, "who is made," as the apostle says, "of the
seed of David according to the flesh."(1) This prophet has also foretold
the resurrection of Christ on the third day, as it behoved to be foretold,
with prophetic loftiness, when he says, "He will heal us after two days,
and in the third day we shall rise again."(2)  In agreement with this the
apostle says to us, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which
are above."(3) Amos also prophesies thus concerning such things: "Prepare
thee, that thou mayst invoke thy God, O Israel; for lo, I am binding the
thunder, and creating the spirit, and announcing to men their Christ."(4)
And in another place he says, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle
of David that is fallen, and build up the breaches thereof: and I will
raise up his ruins, and will build them up again as in the days of old:
that the residue of men may inquire for me, and all the nations upon whom
my name is invoked, saith the Lord that doeth this."(5)

CHAP. 29.--WHAT THINGS ARE PREDICTED BY ISAIAH CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE
CHURCH.

   The prophecy of Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who
are called the minor from the brevity of their writings, as compared with
those who are called the greater prophets because they published larger
volumes. Isaiah belongs to the latter, yet I connect him with the two above
named, because he prophesied at the same time. Isaiah, then, together with
his rebukes of wickedness, precepts of righteousness, and predictions of
evil, also prophesied much more than the rest about Christ and the Church,
that is, about the King and that city which he founded; so that some say he
should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet. But, in order to
finish this work, I quote only one out of many in this place. Speaking in
the person of the Father, he says, "Behold, my servant shall understand,
and shall be exalted and glorified very much. As many shall be astonished
at Thee."(6) This is about Christ.

   But let us now hear what follows about the Church. He says, "Rejoice, O
barren, thou that barest not; break forth and cry, thou that didst not
travail with child: for many more are the children of the desolate than of
her that has an husband."(7) But these must suffice; and some things in
them ought to be expounded; yet I think those parts sufficient which are so
plain that even enemies must be compelled against their will to understand
them.

CHAP. 30--WHAT MICAH, JONAH, AND JOEL PROPHESIED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW
TESTAMENT.

   The prophet Micah, representing Christ under the figure of a great
mountain, speaks thus: "It shall come to pass in the last days, that the
manifested mountain of the Lord shall be prepared on the tops of the
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall hasten
unto it. Many nations shall go, and shall say, Come, let us go up into the
mountain of the Lord, and into the house of the God of Jacob; and He will
show us His way, and we will go in His paths: for out of Zion shall proceed
the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And He shall judge
among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off."(8) This prophet
predicts the very place in which Christ was born, saying, "And thou,
Bethlehem, of the house of Ephratah, art the least that can be reckoned
among the thousands of Judah; out of thee shall come forth unto me a
leader, to be the prince in Israel; and His going forth is from the
beginning, even from the days of eternity. Therefore will He give them [up]
even until the time when she that travaileth shall bring forth; and the
remnant of His brethren shall be converted to the sons of Israel. And He
shall stand, and see, and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, and
in the dignity of the name of the Lord His God: for now shall He be
magnified even to the utmost of the earth."(9)

   The prophet Jonah, not so much by speech as by his own painful
experience, prophesied Christ's death and resurrection much more clearly
than if he had proclaimed them with his voice. For why was he taken into
the whale's belly and restored on the third day, but that he might be a
sign that Christ should return from the depths of hell on the third day?

   I should be obliged to use many words in explaining all that Joel
prophesies in order to make clear those that pertain to Christ and the
Church. But there is one passage I must not pass by, which the apostles
also quoted when the Holy Spirit came down from above on the assembled
believers according to Christ's promise. He says, "And it shall come to
pass after these things, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream,
and your young men shall see visions: and even on my servants and mine
handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit."(1)

CHAP. 31.--OF THE PREDICTIONS CONCERNING THE SALVATION OF THE WORLD IN
CHRIST, IN OBADIAH, NAHUM, AND HABAKKUK.

   The date of three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk,
is neither mentioned by themselves nor given in the chronicles of Eusebius
and Jerome. For although they put Obadiah with Micah, yet when Micah
prophesied does not appear from that part of their writings in which the
dates are noted. And this, I think, has happened through their error in
negligently copying the works of others. But we could not find the two
others now mentioned in the copies of the chronicles which we have; yet
because they are contained in the canon, we ought not to pass them by.

   Obadiah, so far as his writings are concerned, the briefest of all the
prophets, speaks against Idumea, that is, the nation of Esau that reprobate
eider of the twin sons of Isaac and grandsons of Abraham. Now if, by that
form of speech in which a part is put for the whole, we take Idumea as put
for the nations, we may understand of Christ what he says among other
things, "But upon Mount Sion shall be safety, and there shall be a Holy
One."(2) And a little after, at the end of the same prophecy, he says, "And
those who are saved again shall come up out of Mount Sion, that they may
defend Mount Esau, and it shall be a kingdom to the Lord."(3) It is quite
evident this was fulfilled when those saved again out of Mount Sion--that
is, the believers in Christ from Judea, of whom the apostles are chiefly to
be acknowledged--went up to defend Mount Esau. How could they defend it
except by making safe, through the preaching of the gospel, those who
believed that they might be "delivered from the power of darkness and
translated into the kingdom of God?"(4) This he expressed as an inference,
adding, "And it shall be to the Lord a kingdom." For Mount Sion signifies
Jades, where it is predicted there shall be safety, and a Holy One, that
is, Christ Jesus. But Mount Esau is Idumea, which signifies the Church of
the Gentiles, which, as I have expounded, those saved again out of Sion
have defended that it should be a kingdom to the Lord. This was obscure
before it took place; but what believer does not find it out now that it is
done?

   As for the prophet Nahum, through him God says, "I will exterminate the
graven and the molten things: I will make thy burial. For lo, the feet of
Him that bringeth good tidings and announceth peace are swift upon the
mountains! O Judah, celebrate thy festival days, and perform thy vows; for
now they shall not go on any more so as to become antiquated. It is
completed, it is consumed, it is taken away. He ascendeth who breathes in
thy face, delivering thee out of tribulation."(5) Let him that remembers
the gospel call to mind who hath ascended from hell and breathed the Holy
Spirit in the face of Judah, that is, of the Jewish disciples; for they
belong to the New Testament, whose festival days are so spiritually renewed
that they cannot become antiquated. Moreover, we already see the graven and
molten things, that is, the idols of the false gods, exterminated through
the gospel, and given up to oblivion as of the grave, and we know that this
prophecy is fulfilled in this very thing.

   Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk
understood to say, "And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision
openly on a tablet of boxwood, that he that readeth these things may
understand. For the vision is yet for a time appointed, and it will arise
in the end, and will not become void: if it tarry, wait for it; because it
will surely come, and will not be delayed?"(6)

CHAP. 32.--OF THE PROPHECY THAT IS CONTAINED IN THE PRAYER AND SONG OF
HABAKKUK.

   In his prayer, with a song, to whom but the Lord Christ does he say, "O
Lord, I have heard Thy hearing, and was afraid: O Lord, I have considered
Thy works, and was greatly afraid?"(7) What is this but the inexpressible
admiration of the foreknown, new, and sudden salvation of men? "In the
midst of two living creatures thou shalt be recognized." What is this but
either between the two testaments, or between the two thieves, or between
Moses and Elias talking with Him on the mount? "While the years draw nigh,
Thou wilt be recognized; at the coming of the time Thou wilt be shown,"
does not even need exposition. "While my soul shall be troubled at Him, in
wrath Thou wilt be mindful of mercy." What is this but that He puts Himself
for the Jews, of whose nation He was, who were troubled with great anger
and crucified Christ, when He, mindful of mercy, said, "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do?(1)"God shall come from Teman, and the
Holy One from the shady and close mountain."(2) What is said here, "He
shall come from Teman," some interpret "from the south," or "from the
southwest," by which is signified the noonday, that is, the fervor of
charity and the splendor of truth. "The shady and close mountain" might be
understood in many ways, yet I prefer to take it as meaning the depth of
the divine Scriptures, in which Christ is prophesied: for in the Scriptures
there are many things shady and close which exercise the mind of the
reader; and Christ comes thence when he who has understanding finds Him
there. "His power covereth up the heavens, and the earth is full of His
praise." What is this but what is also said in the psalm, "Be Thou exalted,
O God, above the heavens; and Thy glory above all the earth?"(3) "His
splendor shall be as the light." What is it but that the fame of Him shall
illuminate believers? "Horns are in His hands." What is this but the trophy
of the cross? "And He hath placed the firm charity of His strength"(4)
needs no exposition. "Before His face shall go the word, and it shall go
forth into the field after His feet." What is this but that He should both
be announced before His coming hither and after His return hence? "He
stood, and the earth was moved." What is this but that "He stood" for
succor, "and the earth was moved" to believe? "He regarded, and the nations
melted;" that is, He had compassion, and made the people penitent. "The
mountains are broken with violence;" that is, through the power of those
who work miracles the pride of the haughty is broken "The everlasting hills
flowed down;" that is, they are humbled in time that they may be lifted up
for eternity. "I saw His goings [made] eternal for his labors;" that is, I
beheld His labor of love not left without the reward of eternity. "The
tents of Ethiopia shall be greatly afraid, and the tents of the land of
Midian" that is, even those nations which are not under the Roman
authority, being suddenly terrified by the news of Thy wonderful works,
shall become a Christian people. "Wert Thou angry at the rivers, O Lord? or
was Thy fury against the rivers? or was Thy rage against the sea? This is
said because He does not now come to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved.(5) "For Thou shall mount upon Thy horses, and
Thy riding shall be salvation;" that is, Thine evangelists shall carry
Thee, for they are guided by Thee, and Thy gospel is salvation to them that
believe in Thee. "Bending, Thou wilt bend Thy bow against the sceptres,
saith the Lord;" that is, Thou wilt threaten even the kings of the earth
with Thy judgment. "The earth shall be cleft with rivers;" that is, by the
sermons of those who preach Thee flowing in upon them, men's hearts shall
be opened to make confession, to whom it is said, "Rend your hearts and not
your garments."(6) What does "The people shall see Thee and grieve" mean,
but that in mourning they shall be blessed?(7) What is "Scattering the
waters in marching," but that by walking in those who everywhere proclaim
Thee, Thou wilt scatter hither and thither the streams of Thy doctrine?
What is "The abyss uttered its voice?" Is it not that the depth of the
human heart expressed what it perceived? The words, "The depth of its
phantasy," are an explanation of the previous verse, for the depth is the
abyss; and "Uttered its voice" is to be understood before them, that is, as
we have said, it expressed what it perceived. Now the phantasy is the
vision, which it did not hold or conceal, but poured forth in confession.
"The sun was raised up, and the moon stood still in her course;" that is,
Christ ascended into heaven, and the Church was established under her King.
"Thy darts shall go in the light;" that is, Thy words shall not be sent in
secret, but openly. For He had said to His own disciples, "What I tell you
in darkness, that speak ye in the light."(8) "By threatening thou shall
diminish the earth;" that is, by that threatening Thou shall humble men.
"And in fury Thou shall cast down the nations;" for in punishing those who
exalt themselves Thou dashest them one against another. "Thou wentest forth
for the salvation of Thy people, that Thou mightest save Thy Christ; Thou
hast sent death on the heads of the wicked." None of these words require
exposition. "Thou hast lifted up the bonds, even to the neck." This may be
understood even of the good bonds of wisdom, that the feet may be put into
its fetters, and the neck into its collar. "Thou hast struck off in
amazement of mind the bonds" must be understood for, He lifts up the good
and strikes off the bad, about. which it is said to Him, "Thou hast broken
asunder my bonds,"(1) and that "in amazement of mind," that is,
wonderfully. "The heads of the mighty shall be moved in it;" to wit, in
that wonder. "They shall open their teeth like a poor man eating secretly."
For some of the mighty among the Jews shall come to the Lord, admiring His
works and words, and shall greedily eat the bread of His doctrine in secret
for fear of the Jews, just as the Gospel has shown they did. "And Thou hast
sent into the sea Thy horses, troubling many waters," which are nothing
else than many people; for unless all were troubled, some would not be
converted with fear, others pursued with fury. "I gave heed, and my belly
trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into
my bones, and my habit of body was troubled under me." He gave heed to
those things which he said, and was himself terrified at his own prayer,
which he had poured forth prophetically, and in which he discerned things
to come. For when many people are troubled, he saw the threatening
tribulation of the Church, and at once acknowledged himself a member of it,
and said, "I shall rest in the day of tribulation," as being one of those
Who are rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.(2) "That I may ascend,"
he says, "among the people of my pilgrimage," departing quite from the
wicked people of his carnal kinship, who are not pilgrims in this earth,
and do not seek the country above.(3) "Although the fig-tree," he says,
"shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines the labor of the
olive shall lie, and the fields shall yield no meat; the sheep shall be cut
off from the meat, and there shall be no oxen in the stalls." He sees that
nation which was to slay Christ about to lose the abundance of spiritual
supplies, which, in prophetic fashion, he has set forth by the figure of
earthly plenty. And because that nation was to suffer such wrath of God,
because, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, it wished to establish
its own,(4) he immediately says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will
joy in God my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will set my
feet in completion; He will place me above the heights, that I may conquer
in His song," to wit, in that song of which something similar is said in
the psalm, "He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my goings, and put in
my mouth a new song, a hymn to our God."(5)  He therefore conquers in the
song of the Lord, who takes pleasure in His praise, not in his own; that
"He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."(6) But some copies have, "I
will joy in God my Jesus," which seems to me better than the version of
those who, wishing to put it in Latin, have not set down that very name
which for us it is dearer and sweeter to name.

CHAP. 33.--WHAT JEREMIAH AND ZEPHANIAH HAVE, BY THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT,
SPOKEN BEFORE CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CALLING OF THE NATIONS.

   Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the greater prophets, not of the
minor, like the others from whose writings I have just given extracts. He
prophesied when Josiah reigned in Jerusalem, and Ancus Martius at Rome,
when the captivity of the Jews was already at hand; and he continued to
prophesy down to the fifth month of the captivity, as we find from his
writings. Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets, is put along with him,
because he himself says that he prophesied in the days of Josiah; but he
does not say till when. Jeremiah thus prophesied not only in the times of
Ancus Martius, but also in those of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had
for their fifth king. For he had already begun to reign when that captivity
took place. Jeremiah, in prophesying of Christ, says, "The breath of our
mouth, the Lord Christ, was taken in our sins,"(7) thus briefly showing
both that Christ is our Lord and that He suffered for us. Also in another
place he says, "This is my God, and there shall none other be accounted of
in comparison of Him; who hath found out all the way of prudence, and hath
given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved: afterwards He was
seen on the earth, and conversed with men."(8) Some attribute this
testimony not to Jeremiah, but to his secretary, who was called Baruch; but
it is more commonly ascribed to Jeremiah. Again the same prophet says
concerning Him, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up
unto David a righteous shoot, and a King shall reign and shall be wise, and
shall do judgment and justice in the earth. In those days Judah shall be
saved, and Israel shall dwell confidently: and this is the name which they
shall call Him, Our righteous Lord."(9)  And of the calling of the nations
which was to come to pass, and which we now see fulfilled, he thus spoke:
"O Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of evils. to Thee shall the
nations come from the utmost end of the earth, saying, Truly our fathers
have worshipped lying images, wherein there is no profit." But that the
Jews, by whom He behoved even to be slain, were not going to acknowledge
Him, this prophet thus intimates: "Heavy is the heart through all; and He
is a man, and who shall know Him?"(2) That passage also is his which I have
quoted in the seventeenth book concerning the new testament, of which
Christ is the Mediator. For Jeremiah himself says, "Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will complete over the house of Jacob a new
testament," and the rest, which may be read there.(3)

   For the present I shall put down those predictions about Christ by the
prophet Zephaniah, who prophesied with Jeremiah. "Wait ye upon me, saith
the Lord, in the day of my resurrection, in the future; because it is my
determination to assemble the nations, and gather together the
kingdoms."(4) And again he says, "The Lord will be terrible upon them, and
will exterminate all the gods of the earth; and they shall worship Him
every man from his place, even all the isles of the nations."(5) And a
little after he says, "Then will I turn to the people a tongue, and to His
offspring, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him
under one yoke. From the borders of the rivers of Ethiopia: shall they
bring sacrifices unto me. In that day thou shall not be confounded for all
thy curious inventions, which thou hast done impiously against me: for then
I will take away from thee the Haughtiness of thy trespass; and thou shalt
no more magnify thyself above thy holy mountain. And I will leave in thee a
meek and humble people, and they who shall be left of Israel shall fear the
name of the Lord."(6) These are the remnant of whom the apostle quotes that
which is elsewhere prophesied: "Though the number of the children of Israel
be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved."(7) These are the
remnant of that nation who have believed in Christ.

CHAP. 34.--OF THE PROPHECY OF DANIEL AND EZEKIEL, OTHER TWO OF THE GREATER
PROPHETS.

   Daniel and Ezekiel, other two of the greater prophets, also first
prophesied in the very captivity of Babylon. Daniel even defined the time
when Christ was to come and suffer by the exact date. It would take too
long to show this by computation, and it has been done often by others
before us. But of His power and glory he has thus spoken: "I saw in a night
vision, and, behold, one like the Son of man was coming with the clouds of
heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of days, and He was brought into
His presence. And to Him there was given dominion, and honor, and a
kingdom: and all people, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him. His power is
an everlasting power, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom shall not
be destroyed."(8)

   Ezekiel also, speaking prophetically in the person of God the Father,
thus foretells Christ, speaking of Him in the prophetic manner as David,
because He assumed flesh of the seed of David, and on account of that form
of a servant in which He was made man, He who is the Son of God is also
called the servant of God. He says, "And I will set up over my sheep one
Shepherd, who will feed them, even my servant David; and He shall feed
them, and He shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and
my servant David a prince in the midst of them. I the Lord have spoken."(9)
And in another place he says, "And one King shall be over them all: and
they shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided any more
into two kingdoms: neither shall they defile themselves any more with their
idols, and their abominations, and all their iniquities. And I will save
them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will
cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And my
servant David shall be king over them, and there shall be one Shepherd for
them all."10

CHAP. 35.--OF THE PROPHECY OF THE THREE PROPHETS, HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, AND
MALACHI.

   There remain three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who
prophesied at the close of the captivity. Of these Haggai more openly
prophesies of Christ and the Church thus briefly: "Thus saith the Lord of
hosts, Yet one little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the earth,
and the sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the desired
of all nations shall come."(11)  The fulfillment of this prophecy is in
part already seen, and in part hoped for in the end. For He moved the
heaven by the testimony of the angels and the stars, when Christ became
incarnate. He moved the earth by the great miracle of His birth of the
virgin. He moved the sea and the dry land, when Christ was proclaimed both
in the isles and in the whole world. So we see all nations moved to the
faith; and the fulfillment of what follows, "And the desired of all nations
shall come," is looked for at His last coming. For ere men can desire and
wait for Him, they must believe and love Him.

   Zechariah says of Christ and the Church, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter
of Sion; shout joyfully, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King shall
come unto thee, just and the Saviour; Himself poor, and mounting an ass,
and a colt the foal of an ass: and His dominion shall be from Sea to sea,
and from the river even to the ends of the earth."(1) How this was done,
when the Lord Christ on His journey used a beast of burden of this kind, we
read in the Gospel, where, also, as much of this prophecy is quoted as
appears sufficient for the context. In another place, speaking in the
Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the remission of sins through His
blood, he says, "Thou also, by the blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth
Thy prisoners from the lake wherein is no water."(2) Different opinions may
be held, consistently with right belief, as to what he meant by this lake.
Yet it seems to me that no meaning suits better than that of the depth of
human misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are no
streams of righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity. For it is said of
it in the Psalms, "And He led me forth out of the lake of misery, and from
the miry clay."3

   Malachi, foretelling the Church which we now behold propagated through
Christ, says most openly to the Jews, in the person of God, "I have no
pleasure in you, and I will not accept a gift at your hand. For from the
rising even to the going down of the sun, my name is great among the
nations; and in every place sacrifice shall be made, and a pure oblation
shall be offered unto my name: for my name shall be great among the
nations, saith the Lord."(4) Since we can already see this sacrifice
offered to God in every place, from the rising of the sun to his going
down, through Christ's priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, while the
Jews, to whom it was said, "I have no pleasure in you, neither will I
accept a gift at your hand," cannot deny that their sacrifice has ceased,
why do they still look for another Christ, when they read this in the
prophecy, and see it fulfilled, which could not be fulfilled except through
Him? And a little after he says of Him, in the person of God, "My covenant
was with Him of life and peace: and I gave to Him that He might fear me
with fear, and be afraid before my name. The law of truth was in His mouth:
directing in peace He hath walked with me, and hath turned many away from
iniquity. For the Priest's lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek
the law at His mouth: for He is the Angel of the Lord Almighty."(5)  Nor is
it to be wondered at that Christ Jesus is called the Angel of the Almighty
God. For just as He is called a servant on account of the form of a servant
in which He came to men, so He is called an angel on account of the evangel
which He proclaimed to men. For if we interpret these Greek words, evangel
is "good news," and angel is "messenger." Again he says of Him, "Behold I
will send mine angel, and He will look out the way before my face: and the
Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into His temple, even the Angel of
the testament, whom ye desire. Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord Almighty,
and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand at His
appearing?"(6) In this place he has foretold both the first and second
advent of Christ: the first, to wit, of which he says, "And He shall come
suddenly into His temple;" that is, into His flesh, of which He said in the
Gospel, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up
again."(7) And of the second advent he says, "Behold, He cometh, saith the
Lord Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand
at His appearing?" But what he says, "The Lord whom ye seek, and the Angel
of the testament whom ye desire," just means that even the Jews, according
to the Scriptures which they read, shall seek and desire Christ. But many
of them did not acknowledge that He whom they sought and desired had come,
being blinded in their hearts, which were preoccupied with their own
merits. Now what he here calls the testament, either above, where he says,
"My testament had been with Him," or here, where he has called Him the
Angel of the testament, we ought, beyond a doubt, to take to be the new
testament, in which the things promised are eternal, and not the old, in
which they are only temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they
see the wicked abound in such temporal things, because they value them
greatly, and serve the true God to be rewarded with them. On this account,
to distinguish the eternal blessedness of the new testament, which shall be
given only to the good, from the earthly felicity of the old, which for the
most part is given to the bad as well, the same prophet says, "Ye have made
your words burdensome to me: yet ye have said, In what have we spoken ill
of Thee? Ye have said, Foolish is every one who serves God; and what profit
is it that we have kept His observances, and that we have walked as
suppliants before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now we call the aliens
blessed; yea, all that do wicked things are built up again; yea, they are
opposed to God and are saved. They that feared the Lord uttered these
reproaches every one to his neighbor: and the Lord hearkened and heard; and
He wrote a book of remembrance before Him, for them that fear the Lord and
that revere His name."(1) By that book is meant the New Testament. Finally,
let us hear what follows: "And they shall be an acquisition for me, saith
the Lord Almighty, in the day which I make; and I will choose them as a man
chooseth his son that serveth him. And ye shall return, and shall discern
between the just and the unjust, and between him that serveth God and him
that serveth Him not. For, behold, the day cometh burning as an oven, and
it shall burn them up; and all the aliens and all that do wickedly shall be
stubble: and the day that shall come will set them on fire, saith the Lord
Almighty, and shall leave neither root nor branch. And unto you that fear
my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise, and health shall be in His
wings; and ye shall go forth, and exult as calves let loose from bonds. And
ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet, in
the day in which I shall do [this], saith the Lord Almighty."(2) This day
is the day of judgment, of which, if God will, we shall speak more fully in
its own place.

CHAP. 36.--ABOUT ESDRAS AND THE BOOKS OF THE MACCABEES.

   After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the
same period of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude
Esdras also wrote, who is historical rather than prophetical, as is also
the book called Esther, which is found to relate, for the praise of God,
events not far from those times; unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be
understood as prophesying of Christ in that passage where, on a question
having arisen among certain young men as to what is the strongest thing,
when one had said kings, another wine, the third women, who for the most
part rule kings, yet that same third youth demonstrated that the truth is
victorious over all.(3) For by consulting the Gospel we learn that Christ
is the Truth. From this time, when the temple was rebuilt, down to the time
of Aristobulus, the Jews had not kings but princes; and the reckoning of
their dates is found, not in the Holy Scriptures which are called
canonical, but in others, among which are also the books of the Maccabees.
These are held as canonical, not by the Jews, but by the Church, on account
of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs, who, before
Christ had come in the flesh, contended for the law of God even unto death,
and endured most grievous and horrible evils.

CHAP. 37.--THAT PROPHETIC RECORDS ARE FOUND WHICH ARE MORE ANCIENT THAN ANY
FOUNTAIN OF THE GENTILE PHILOSOPHY.

   In the time of our prophets, then, whose writings had already come to
the knowledge of almost all nations. the philosophers of the nations had
not yet arisen,--at least, not those who were called by that name, which
originated with Pythagoras the Samian, who was becoming famous at the time
when the Jewish captivity ended. Much more, then, are the other
philosophers found to be later than the prophets. For even Socrates the
Athenian, the master of all who were then most famous, holding the pre-
eminence in that department that is called the moral or active, is found
after Esdras in the chronicles. Plato also was born not much later, who far
outwent the other disciples of Socrates. If, besides these, we take their
predecessors, who had not yet been styled philosophers, to wit, the seven
sages, and then the physicists, who succeeded Thales, and imitated his
studious search into the nature of things, namely, Anaximander, Anaximenes,
and Anaxagoras, and some others, before Pythagoras first professed himself
a philosopher, even these did not precede the whole of our prophets in
antiquity of time, since Thales, whom the others succeeded, is said to have
flourished in the reign of Romulus, when the stream of prophecy burst forth
from the fountains of Israel in those writings which spread over the whole
world. So that only those theological poets, Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus,
and, it may be, some others among the Greeks, are found earlier in date
than the Hebrew prophets whose writings we hold as authoritative. But not
even these preceded in time our true divine, Moses, who authentically
preached the one true God, and whose writings are first in the
authoritative canon; and therefore the Greeks, in whose tongue the
literature of this age chiefly appears, have no ground for boasting of
their wisdom, in which our religion, wherein is true wisdom, is not
evidently more ancient at least, if not superior. Yet it must be confessed
that before Moses there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks, but
among barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine which might be called
their wisdom, else it would not have been written in the holy books that
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,(1) as he was, when,
being born there, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh's daughter, he was also
liberally educated. Yet not even the wisdom of the Egyptians could be
antecedent in time to the wisdom of our prophets, because even Abraham was
a prophet. And what wisdom could there be in Egypt before Isis had given
them letters, whom they thought fit to worship as a goddess after her
death? Now Isis is declared to have been the daughter of Inachus, who first
began to reign in Argos when the grandsons of Abraham are known to have
been already born.

CHAP.38.--THAT THE ECCLESIASTICAL CANON HAS NOT ADMITTED CERTAIN WRITINGS
ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR TOO GREAT ANTIQUITY, LEST THROUGH THEM FALSE THINGS
SHOULD BE INSERTED INSTEAD OF TRUE.

   If I may recall far more ancient times, our patriarch Noah was
certainly even before that great deluge, and I might not undeservedly call
him a prophet, forasmuch as the ark he made, in which he escaped with his
family, was itself a prophecy of our times.(2) What of Enoch, the seventh
from Adam? Does not the canonical epistle of the Apostle Jude declare that
he prophesied?(3) But the writings of these men could not be held as
authoritative either among the Jews or us, on account of their too great
antiquity, which made it seem needful to regard them with suspicion, lest
false things should be set forth instead roof true. For some writings which
are said be theirs are quoted by those who, according to their own humor,
loosely believe what they please. But the purity of the canon has not
admitted these writings, not because the authority of these men who pleased
God is rejected, but because they are not believed to be theirs. Nor ought
it to appear strange if writings for which so great antiquity is claimed
are held in suspicion, seeing that in the very history of the kings of
Judah and Israel containing their acts, which we believe to belong to the
canonical Scripture, very many things are mentioned which are not explained
there, but are said to be found in other books which the prophets wrote,
the very names of these prophets being sometimes given, and yet they are
not found in the canon which the people of God received. Now I confess the
reason of this is hidden from me; only I think that even those men, to whom
certainly the Holy Spirit revealed those things which ought to be held as
of religious authority, might write some things as men by historical
diligence, and others as prophets by divine inspiration; and these things
were so distinct, that it was judged that the former should be ascribed to
themselves, but the latter to God speaking through them: and so the one
pertained to the abundance of knowledge, the other to the authority of
religion. In that authority the canon is guarded. So that, if any writings
outside of it are now brought forward under the name of the ancient
prophets, they cannot serve even as an aid to knowledge, because it is
uncertain whether they are genuine; and on this account they are not
trusted, especially those of them in which some things are found that are
even contrary to the truth of the canonical books, so that it is quite
apparent they do not belong to them.

CHAP. 39.--ABOUT THE HEBREW WRITTEN CHARACTERS WHICH THAT LANGUAGE ALWAYS
POSSESSED.

   Now we must not believe that Heber, from whose name the word Hebrew is
derived, preserved and transmitted the Hebrew language to Abraham only as a
spoken language, and that the Hebrew letters began with the giving of the
law through Moses; but rather that this language, along with its letters,
was preserved by that succession of fathers. Moses, indeed, appointed some
among the people of God to teach letters, before they could know any
letters of the divine law. The Scripture calls these men
grammateisagwgei^s, who may be called in Latin inductores or introductores
of letters, because they, as it were, introduce them into the hearts of the
learners, or rather lead those whom they teach into them. Therefore no
nation could vaunt itself over our patriarchs and prophets by any wicked
vanity for the antiquity of its wisdom; since not even Egypt, which is wont
falsely and vainly to glory in the antiquity of her doctrines, is found to
have preceded in time the wisdom of our patriarchs in her own wisdom, such
as it is. Neither will any one dare to say that they were most skillful in
wonderful sciences before they knew letters, that is, before Isis came and
taught them there. Besides, what, for the most part, was that memorable
doctrine of theirs which was called wisdom but astronomy, and it may be
some other sciences of that kind, which usually have more power to exercise
men's wit than to enlighten their minds with true wisdom? As regards
philosophy, which professes to teach men something which shall make them
happy, studies of that kind flourished in those lands about the times of
Mercury, whom they called Trismegistus, long before the sages and
philosophers of Greece, but yet after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph,
and even after Moses himself. At that time, indeed, when Moses was born,
Atlas is found to have lived, that great astronomer, the brother of
Prometheus, and maternal grandson of the eider Mercury, of whom that
Mercury Trismegistus was the grandson.

CHAP. 40.--ABOUT THE MOST MENDACIOUS VANITY OF THE EGYPTIANS, IN WHICH THEY
ASCRIBE TO THEIR. SCIENCE AN ANTIQUITY OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS.

   In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that
Egypt has understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred
thousand years. For in what books have they collected that number who
learned letters from Isis their mistress, not much more than two thousand
years ago? Varro, who has declared this, is no small authority in history,
and it does not disagree with the truth of the divine books. For as it is
not yet six thousand years since the first man, who is called Adam, are not
those to be ridiculed rather than refuted who try to persuade us of
anything regarding a space of time so different from, and contrary to, the
ascertained truth? For what historian of the past should we credit more
than him who has also predicted things to come which we now see fulfilled?
And the very disagreement of the historians among themselves furnishes a
good reason why we ought rather to believe him who does not contradict the
divine history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the citizens of the
impious city, scattered everywhere through the earth, when they read the
most learned writers, none of whom seems to be of contemptible authority,
and find them disagreeing among themselves about affairs most remote from
the memory of our age, cannot find out whom they ought to trust. But we,
being sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion, have no
doubt that whatever is opposed to it is most false, whatever may. be the
case regarding other things in secular books, which, whether true or false,
yield nothing of moment to our living rightly and happily.

CHAP. 41.--ABOUT THE DISCORD OF PHILOSOPHIC OPINION, AND THE CONCORD OF THE
SCRIPTURES THAT ARE HELD AS CANONICAL BY THE CHURCH.

   But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the
philosophers from whom we digressed to these things. They seem to have
labored in their studies for no other end than to find out how to live in a
way proper for laying hold of blessedness. Why, then, have the disciples
dissented from their masters, and the fellow-disciples from one another,
except because as men they have sought after these things by human sense
and human reasonings? Now, although there might be among them a desire of
glory, so that each wished to be thought wiser and more acute than another,
and in no way addicted to the judgment of others, but the inventor of his
own dogma and opinion, yet I may grant that there were some, or even very
many of them, whose love of truth severed them from their teachers or
fellow-disciples, that they might strive for what they thought was the
truth, whether it was so or not. But what can human misery do, or how or
where can it reach forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine authority
does not lead it? Finally, let our authors, among whom the canon of the
sacred books is fixed and bounded, be far from disagreeing in any respect.
It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people prating
in the schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so many and great
people, both learned and unlearned, in countries and cities, have believed
that God spoke to them or by them, i.e. the canonical writers, when they
wrote these books. There ought, indeed, to be but few of them, lest on
account of their multitude what ought to be religiously esteemed should
grow cheap; and yet not so few that their agreement should not be
wonderful. For among the multitude of philosophers, who in their works have
left behind them the monuments of their dogmas, no one will easily find any
who agree in all their opinions. But to show this is too long a task for
this work.

   But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping
city, that the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion have
been disapproved? The Epicureans asserted that human affairs were not under
the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding the opposite opinion,
agreed that they were ruled and defended by favorable and tutelary gods.
Yet were not both sects famous among the Athenians? I wonder, then, why
Anaxagoras was accused of a crime for saying that the sun was a burning
stone, and denying that it was a god at all; while in the same city
Epicurus flourished gloriously and lived securely, although he not only did
not believe that the sun or any star was a god, but contended that neither
Jupiter nor any of the gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers
and supplications of men might reach them!  Were not both Aristippus and
Antisthenes there, two noble philosophers and both Socratic? yet they
placed the chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory,
that the first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other
asserted that man was made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind. The one
also said that the wise man should flee from the republic; the other, that
he should administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather disciples to
follow his own sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and well-known porch, in
gymnasia, in gardens, in places public and private, they openly strove in
bands each for his own opinion, some asserting there was one world, others
innumerable worlds; some that this world had a beginning, others that it
had not; some that it would perish, others that it would exist always; some
that it was governed by the divine mind, others by chance and accident;
some that souls are immortal, others that they are mortal,--and of those
who asserted their immortality, some said they transmigrated through
beasts, others that it was by no means so; while of those who asserted
their mortality, some said they perished  immediately after the body,
others that they survived either a little while or a longer time, but not
always; some fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some in
both; others adding to the mind and body external good things; some
thinking that the bodily senses ought to be trusted always, some not
always, others never. Now what people, senate, power, or public dignity of
the impious city has ever taken care to judge between all these and oilier
well-nigh innumerable dissensions of the philosophers, approving and
accepting some, and disapproving and rejecting others? Has it not held in
its bosom at random, without any judgment, and confusedly, so many
controversies of men at variance, not about fields, houses, or anything of
a pecuniary nature, but about those things which make life either miserable
or happy? Even if some true things were said in it, yet falsehoods were
uttered with the same licence; so that such a city has not amiss received
the title of the mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we
remember we have already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its
king, how they wrangle among themselves in contradictory errors, since all
alike deservedly belong to him on account of their great and varied
impiety.

   But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these
Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, by no means
confounded with similar licence false prophets with the true prophets; but,
agreeing together, and differing in nothing, acknowledged and upheld the
authentic authors of their sacred books. These were their philosophers,
these were their sages, divines, prophets, and teachers of probity and
piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to them was wise and lived not
according to men, but according to God who hath spoken by them. If
sacrilege is forbidden there, God hath forbidden it. If it is said, "Honor
thy father and thy mother,"(1) God hath commanded it. If it is said, "Thou
shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not steal,"(2)
and other similar commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles have
enounced them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false
opinions, were able to see, and strove by laborious discussions to persuade
men of,--such as that God had made this world, and Himself most providently
governs it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the love of country, of
fidelity in friendship, of good works and everything pertaining to virtuous
manners, although they knew not to what end and what rule all these things
were to be referred,--all these, by words prophetic, that is, divine,
although spoken by men, were commended to the people in that city, and not
inculcated by contention in arguments, so that he who should know them
might be afraid of contemning, not the wit of men, but the oracle of God.

CHAP. 42.--BY WHAT DISPENSATION OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE THE SACRED SCRIPTURES
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WERE, TRANSLATED OUT OF HEBREW INTO GREEK, THAT THEY
MIGHT BE MADE KNOWN TO ALL THE NATIONS.

   One of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, desired to know and have these
sacred books. For after Alexander of Macedon, who is also styled the Great,
had by his most wonderful, but by no means enduring power, subdued the
whole of Asia, yea, almost the whole world, partly by force of arms, partly
by terror, and, among other kingdoms of the East, had entered and obtained
Judea also on his death his generals did not peaceably divide that most
ample kingdom among them for a possession, but rather dissipated it,
wasting all things by wars. Then Egypt began to have the Ptolemies as her
kings. The first of them, the son of Lagus, carried many captive out of
Judea into Egypt. But another Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, who succeeded
him, permitted all whom he had brought under the yoke to return free; and
more than that, sent kingly gifts to the temple of God, and begged Eleazar,
who was the high priest, to give him the Scriptures, which he had heard by
report were truly divine, and therefore greatly desired to have in that
most noble library he had made. When the high priest had sent them to him
in Hebrew, he afterwards demanded interpreters of him, and there were given
him seventy-two, out of each of the twelve tribes six men, most learned in
both languages, to wit, the Hebrew and Greek and their translation is now
by custom called the Septuagint. It is reported, indeed, that there was an
agreement in their words so wonderful, stupendous, and plainly divine, that
when they had sat at this work, each one apart (for so it pleased Ptolemy
to test their fidelity), they differed from each other in no word which had
the same meaning and force, or, in the order of the words; but, as if the
translators had been one, so what all had translated was one, because in
very deed the one Spirit had been in them all. And they received so
wonderful a gift of God, in order that the authority of these Scriptures
might be commended not as human but divine, as indeed it was, for the
benefit of the nations who should at some time believe, as we now see them
doing.

CHAP. 43.--OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION, WHICH, SAVING
THE HONOR OF THE HEBREW ORIGINAL, IS TO BE PREFERRED TO ALL TRANSLATIONS.

   For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred
oracles out of the Hebrew tongue into Greek, as Aquila, Symmathus, and
Theodotion, and also that translation which, as the name of the author is
unknown, is quoted as the fifth edition, yet the Church has received this
Septuagint translation just as if it were the only one; and it has been
used by the Greek Christian people, most of whom are not aware that there
is any other. From this translation there has also been made a translation
in the Latin tongue, which the Latin churches use. Our times, however, have
enjoyed the advantage of the presbyter Jerome, a man most learned, and
skilled in all three languages, who translated these same Scriptures into
the Latin speech, not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew.(1) But although
the Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of his to be faithful, while
they contend that the Septuagint translators have erred in many places,
still the churches of Christ judge that no one should be preferred to the
authority of so many men, chosen for this very great work by Eleazar, who
was then high priest; for even if there had not appeared in them one
spirit, without doubt divine, and the seventy learned men had, after the
manner of men, compared together the words of their translation, that what
pleased them all might stand, no single translator ought to be preferred to
them; but since so great a sign of divinity has appeared in them,
certainly, if any other translator, of their Scriptures from the Hebrew
into any other tongue is faithful, in that case he agrees with these
seventy translators, and if he is not found to agree with them, then we
ought to believe that the prophetic gift is with them. For the same Spirit
who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the
seventy men when they translated them, so that assuredly they could also
say something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both, because
it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same thing
differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet the same
meaning should shine forth to those of good understanding; and could omit
or add something, so that even by this it might be shown that there was in
that work not human bondage, which the translator owed to the words, but
rather divine power, which filled and ruled the mind of the translator.
Some, however, have thought that the Greek copies of the Septuagint version
should be emended from the Hebrew copies; yet they did not dare to take
away what the Hebrew lacked and the Septuagint had, but only added what was
found in the Hebrew copies and was lacking in the Septuagint, and noted
them by placing at the beginning of the verses certain marks in the form of
stars which they call asterisks. And those things which the Hebrew copies
have not, but the Septuagint have, they have in like manner marked at the
beginning of the verses by horizontal spit-shaped marks like those by which
we denote ounces; and many copies having these marks are circulated even in
Latin.(1) But we cannot, without inspecting both kinds of copies, find out
those things which are neither omitted nor added, but expressed
differently, whether they yield another meaning not in itself unsuitable,
or can be shown to explain the same meaning in another way. If, then, as it
behoves us, we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than what the Spirit
of God has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and is
not in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say
it through them, but only through the prophets. But whatever is in the
Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the same Spirit chose rather to
say through the latter, thus showing that both were prophets. For in that
manner He spoke as He chose, some things through Isaiah, some through
Jeremiah, some through several prophets, or else the same thing through
this prophet and through that. Further, whatever is found in both editions,
that one and the same Spirit willed to say through both, but so as that the
former preceded in prophesying, and the latter followed: in prophetically
interpreting them; because, as the one Spirit of peace was in the former
when they spoke true and concordant words, so the selfsame one Spirit hath
appeared in the latter, when, without mutual conference they yet
interpreted all things as if with one mouth.

CHAP. 44.--HOW THE THREAT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NINEVITES IS TO BE
UNDERSTOOD WHICH IN THE HEBREW EXTENDS TO FORTY DAYS, WHILE IN THE
SEPTUAGINT IT IS CONTRACTED TO THREE.

   But some one may say, "How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said
to the Ninevites, 'Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' or
forty days?"(2) For who does not see that the prophet could not say both,
when he was sent to terrify the city by the threat of imminent ruin? For if
its destruction was to take place on the third day, it certainly could not
be on the fortieth; but if on the fortieth, then certainly not on the
third. If, then, I am asked which of these Jonah may have said, I rather
think what is read in the Hebrew, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown." Yet the Seventy, interpreting long afterward, could say what
was different and yet pertinent to the matter, and agree in the self-same
meaning, although under a different signification. And this may admonish
the reader not to despise the authority of either, but to raise himself
above the history, and search for those things which the history itself was
written to set forth. These things, indeed, took place in the city of
Nineveh, but they also signified something else too great to apply to that
city; just as, when it happened that the prophet himself was three days in
the whale's belly, it signified besides, that He who is Lord of all the
prophets should be three days in the depths of hell. Wherefore, if that
city is rightly held as prophetically representing the Church of the
Gentiles, to wit, as brought down by penitence, so as no longer to be what
it had been, since this was done by Christ in the Church of the Gentiles,
which Nineveh represented, Christ Himself was signified both by the forty
and by the three days: by the forty, because He spent that number of days
with His disciples after the resurrection, and then ascended into heaven,
but by the three days, because He rose on the third day. So that, if the
reader desires nothing else than to adhere to the history of events, he may
be aroused from his sleep by the Septuagint interpreters, as well as the
prophets, to search into the depth of the prophecy, as if they had said, In
the forty days seek Him in whom thou mayest also find the three days,--the
one thou wilt find in His ascension, the other in His resurrection. Because
that which could be most suitably signified by both numbers, of which one
is used by Jonah the prophet, the other by the prophecy of the Septuagint
version, the one and self-same Spirit hath spoken. I dread prolixity, so
that I must not demonstrate this by many instances in which the seventy
interpreters may be thought to differ from the Hebrew, and yet, when well
understood, are found to agree. For which reason I also, according to my
capacity, following the footsteps of the apostles, who themselves have
quoted prophetic testimonies from both, that is, from the Hebrew and the
Septuagint, have thought that both should be used as authoritative, since
both are one, and divine. But let us now follow out as we can what remains.

CHAP. 45.--THAT THE JEWS CEASED TO HAVE PROPHETS AFTER THE REBUILDING OF
THE TEMPLE, AND FROM THAT TIME UNTIL THE BIRTH OF CHRIST WERE AFFLICTED
WITH CONTINUAL ADVERSITY, TO PROVE THAT THE BUILDING OF ANOTHER TEMPLE HAD
BEEN PROMISED BY PROPHETIC VOICES.

   The Jewish nation no doubt became worse after it ceased to have
prophets, just at the very time when, on the rebuilding of the temple after
the captivity in Babylon, it hoped to become better. For so, indeed, did
that carnal people understand what was foretold by Haggai the prophet,
saying, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the
former."(1) Now, that this is said of the new testament, he showed a little
above, where he says, evidently promising Christ, "And I will move all
nations, and the desired One shall come to all nations."(2) In this passage
the Septuagint translators giving another sense more suitable to the body
than the Head, that is, to the Church than to Christ, have said by
prophetic authority, "The things shall come that are chosen of the Lord
from all nations," that is, men, of whom Jesus saith in the Gospel, "Many
are called, but few are chosen."(3) For by such chosen ones of the nations
there is built, through the new testament, with living stones, a house of
God far more glorious than that temple was which was constructed by king
Solomon, and rebuilt after the captivity. For this reason, then, that
nation had no prophets from that time, but was afflicted with many plagues
by kings of alien race, and by the Romans themselves, lest they should
fancy that this prophecy of Haggai was fulfilled by that rebuilding of the
temple.

   For not long after, on the arrival of Alexander, it was subdued, when,
although there was no pillaging, because they dared not resist him, and
thus, being very easily subdued, received him peaceably, yet the glory of
that house was not so great as it was when under the free power of their
own kings. Alexander, indeed, offered up sacrifices in the temple of God,
not as a convert to His worship in true piety, but thinking, with impious
folly, that He was to be worshipped along with false gods. Then Ptolemy son
of Lagus, whom I have already mentioned, after Alexander's death carried
them captive into Egypt. His successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, most
benevolently dismissed them; and by him it was brought about, as I have
narrated a little before, that we should have the Septuagint version of the
Scriptures. Then they were crushed by the wars which are explained in the
books of the Maccabees. Afterward they were taken captive by Ptolemy king
of Alexandria, who was called Epiphanes. Then Antiochus king of Syria
compelled them by many and most grievous evils to worship idols, and filled
the temple itself with the sacrilegious superstitions of the Gentiles. Yet
their most vigorous leader Judas, who is also called Maccabaeus, after
beating the generals of Antiochus, cleansed it from all that defilement  of
idolatry.

   But not long after, one Alcimus, although an alien from the sacerdotal
tribe, was, through ambition, made pontiff, which was an impious thing.
After almost fifty years, during which they never had peace, although they
prospered in some affairs, Aristobulus first assumed the diadem among them,
and was made both king and pontiff. Before that, indeed, from the time of
their return from the Babylonish captivity and the rebuilding of the
temple, they had not kings, but generals or principes. Although a king
himself may be called a prince, from his principality in governing, and a
leader, because he leads the army, but it does not follow that all who are
princes and leaders may also be called kings, as that Aristobulus was. He
was succeeded by Alexander, also both king and pontiff, who is reported to
have reigned over them cruelly. After him his wife Alexandra was queen of
the Jews, and from her time downwards more grievous evils pursued them; for
this Alexandra's sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, when contending with each
other for the kingdom, called in the Roman forces against the nation of
Israel. For Hyrcanus asked assistance from them against his brother. At
that time Rome had already subdued Africa and Greece, and ruled extensively
in other parts of the world also, and yet, as if unable to bear her own
weight, had, in a manner, broken herself by her own size. For indeed she
had come to grave domestic seditions, and from that to social wars, and by
and by to civil wars, and had enfeebled and worn herself out so much, that
the changed state of the republic, in which she should be governed by
kings, was now imminent. Pompey then, a most illustrious prince of the
Roman people, having entered Judea with an army, took the city, threw open
the temple, not with the devotion of a suppliant, but with the authority of
a conqueror, and went, not reverently, but profanely, into the holy of
holies, where it was lawful for none but the pontiff to enter. Having
established Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and set Antipater over the
subjugated nation as guardian or procurator, as they were then called, he
led Aristobulus with him bound. From that time the Jews also began to be
Roman tributaries. Afterward Cassius plundered the very temple. Then after
a few years it was their desert to have Herod, a king of foreign birth, in
whose reign Christ was born. For the time had now come signified by the
prophetic Spirit through the mouth of the patriarch Jacob, when he says,
"There shall not be lacking a prince out of Judah, nor a teacher from his
loins, until He shall come for whom it is reserved; and He is the
expectation of the nations."(1) There lacked not therefore a Jewish prince
of the Jews until that Herod, who was the first king of a foreign race
received by them. THerefore it was now the time when He should come for
whom that was reserved which is promised in the New Testament, that He
should be the expectation of the nations. But it was not possible that the
nations should expect He would come, as we see they did, to do judgment in
the splendor of power, unless they should first believe in Him when He came
to suffer judgment in the humility of patience.

CHAP. 46.--OF THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR, WHEREBY THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH;
AND OF THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS AMONG ALL NATIONS, AS HAD BEEN
PROPHESIED.

   While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was
emperor at Rome, the state of the republic being already changed, and the
world being set at peace by him, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, man
manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father. For so
had the prophet foretold: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and
bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being
interpreted, is, God with us."(2) He did many miracles that He might
commend God in Himself, some of which, even as many as seemed sufficient to
proclaim Him, are contained in the evangelic Scripture. The first of these
is, that He was so wonderfully born, and the last, that with His body
raised up again from the dead He ascended into heaven. But the Jews who
slew Him, and would not believe in Him, because it behoved Him to die and
rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly
rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them,
and were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place
where they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us
that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ. And very many of them,
considering this, even before His passion, but chiefly after  His
resurrection, believed on Him, of whom it was predicted, "Though the number
of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be
saved."(3) But the rest are blinded, of whom it was predicted, "Let their
table be made before them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block.
Let their eyes be darkened lest they see, and bow down their back
alway."(4) Therefore, when they do not believe our Scriptures, their own,
which they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest perchance any one
should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies about Christ
which are quoted under the name of the sibyl, or of others, if such there
be, who do not belong to the Jewish people. For us, indeed, those suffice
which are quoted from the books of our enemies, to whom we make our
acknowledgment, on account of this testimony which, in spite of themselves,
they contribute by their possession of these books, while they themselves
are dispersed among all nations, wherever the Church of Christ is spread
abroad. For a prophecy about this thing was sent before in the Psalms,
which they also read, where it is written, "My God, His mercy shall prevent
me. My God hath shown me concerning mine enemies, that Thou shalt not slay
them, lest they should at last forget Thy law: disperse them in Thy
might."(5) Therefore God has shown the Church in her enemies the Jews the
grace of His compassion, since, as saith the apostle, "their offence is the
salvation of the Gentiles."(6) And therefore He has not slain them, that
is, He has not let the knowledge that they are Jews be lost in them,
although they have been conquered by the Romans, lest they should forget
the law of God, and their testimony should be of no avail in this matter of
which we treat. But it was not enough that he should say, "Slay them not,
lest they should at last forget Thy law," unless he had also added,
"Disperse them;" because if they had only been in their own land with that
testimony of the Scriptures, and not every where, certainly the Church
which is everywhere could not have had them as witnesses among all nations
to the prophecies which were sent before concerning Christ.

CHAP. 47.--WHETHER BEFORE CHRISTIAN TIMES THERE WERE ANY OUTSIDE OF THE
ISRAELITE RACE WHO BELONGED TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE HEAVENLY CITY.

   Wherefore if we read of any foreigner--that is, one neither born of
Israel nor received by that people into the canon of the sacred books--
having prophesied something about Christ, if it has come or shall come to
our knowledge, we can refer to it over and above; not that this is
necessary, even if wanting, but because it is not incongruous to believe
that even in other nations there may have been men to whom this mystery was
revealed, and who were also impelled to proclaim it, whether they were
partakers of the same grace or had no experience of it, but were taught by
bad angels, who, as we know, even confessed the present Christ, whom the
Jews did not acknowledge. Nor do I think the Jews themselves dare contend
that no one has belonged to God except the Israelites, since the increase
of Israel began on the rejection of his elder brother. For in very deed
there was no other people who were specially called the people of God; but
they cannot deny that there have been certain men even of other nations who
belonged, not by earthly but heavenly fellowship, to the true Israelites,
the citizens of the country that is above. Because, if they deny this, they
can be most easily confuted by the case of the holy and wonderful man Job,
who was neither a native nor a proselyte, that is, a stranger joining the
people of Israel, but, being bred of the Idumean race, arose there and died
there too, and who is so praised by the divine oracle, that no man of his
times is put on a level with him as regards justice and piety. And although
we do not find his date in the chronicles, yet from his book, which for its
merit the Israelites have received as of canonical authority, we gather
that he was in the third generation after Israel. And I doubt not it was
divinely provided, that from this one case we might know that among other
nations also there might be men pertaining to the spiritual Jerusalem who
have lived according to God and have pleased Him. And it is not to be
supposed that this was granted to any one, unless the one Mediator between
God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,(1) was divinely revealed to him; who was
pre-announced to the saints of old as yet to come in the flesh, even as He
is announced to us as having come, that the self-same faith through Him may
lead all to God who are predestinated to be the city of God, the house of
God, and the temple of God. But whatever prophecies concerning the grace of
God through Christ Jesus are quoted, they may be thought to have been
forged by the Christians. So that there is nothing of more weight for
confuting all sorts of aliens, if they contend about this matter, and for
supporting our friends, if they are truly wise, than to quote those divine
predictions about Christ which are written in the books of the Jews, who
have been torn from their native abode and dispersed over the whole world
in order to bear this testimony, so that the Church of Christ has
everywhere increased.

CHAP. 48.--THAT HAGGAI'S PROPHECY, IN WHICH HE SAID THAT THE GLORY OF THE
HOUSE OF GOD WOULD BE GREATER THAN THAT OF THE FIRST HAD BEEN,(2) WAS
REALLY FULFILLED, NOT IN THE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE, BUT IN THE CHURCH OF
CHRIST.

   This house of God is more glorious than that first one which was
constructed of wood and stone, metals and other precious things. Therefore
the prophecy of Haggai was not fulfilled in the rebuilding of that temple.
For it can never be shown to have had so much glory after it was rebuilt as
it had in the time of Solomon; yea, rather, the glory of that house is
shown to have been diminished, first by the ceasing of prophecy, and then
by the nation itself suffering so great calamities, even to the final
destruction made by the Romans, as the things above-mentioned prove. But
this house which pertains to the new testament is just as much more
glorious as the living stones, even believing, renewed men, of which it is
constructed are better. But it was typified by the rebuilding of that
temple for this reason, because the very renovation of that edifice
typifies in the prophetic oracle another testament which is called the new.
When, therefore, God said by the prophet just named, "And I will give peace
in this place,"(3) He is to be understood who is typified by that typical
place; for since by that rebuilt place is typified the Church which was to
be built by Christ, nothing else can be accepted as the meaning of the
saying, "I will give peace in this place," except I will give peace in the
place which that place signifies. For all typical things seem in some way
to personate those whom they typify, as it is said by the apostle, "That
Rock was Christ."(4) Therefore the glory of this new testament house is
greater than the glory of the old testament house; and it will show itself
as greater when it shall be dedicated. For then "shall come the desired of
all nations,"(5) as we read in the Hebrew. For before His advent He had not
yet been desired by all nations. For they knew not Him whom they ought to
desire, in whom they had not believed. Then, also, according to the
Septuagint interpretation (for it also is a prophetic meaning), "shall come
those who are elected of the Lord out of all nations." For then indeed
there shall come only those who are elected, whereof the apostle saith,
"According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
world."(6) For the Master Builder who said, "Many are called, but few are
chosen,"(1) did not say this of those who, on being called, came in such a
way as to be cast out from the feast, but would point out the house built
up of the elect, which henceforth shall dread no ruin. Yet because the
churches are also full of those who shall be separated by the winnowing as
in the threshing-floor, the glory of this house is not so apparent now as
it shall be when every one who is there shall be there always.

CHAP. 49.--OF THE INDISCRIMINATE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH, WHEREIN MANY
REPROBATE ARE IN THIS WORLD MIXED WITH THE ELECT

   In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the Church measures her
future loftiness by her present humility, and is exercised by goading
fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and dangerous temptations,
when she soberly rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there are many reprobate
mingled with the good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a
drag net;(2) and in this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without
distinction in the net, until it is brought ashore, when the wicked must be
separated from the good, that in the good, as in His temple, God may be all
in all. We acknowledge, indeed, that His word is now fulfilled who spake in
the psalm, and said, "I have announced and spoken; they are multiplied
above number."(3) This takes place now, since He has spoken, first by the
mouth of his forerunner John, and afterward by His own mouth, saying,
"Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."(4) He chose disciples, whom
He also called apostles,(5) of lowly birth, unhonored, and illiterate, so
that whatever great thing they might be or do, He might be and do it in
them. He had one among them whose wickedness He could use well in order to
accomplish His appointed passion, and furnish His Church an example of
bearing with the wicked. Having sown the holy gospel as much as that
behoved to be done by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, and rose
again, showing by His passion what we ought to suffer for the truth, and by
His resurrection what we ought to hope for in adversity; saving-always the
mystery of the sacrament, by which His blood was shed for the remission of
sins. He held converse on the earth forty days with His disciples, and in
their sight ascended into heaven, and after ten days sent the promised Holy
Spirit. It was given as the chief and most necessary sign of His coming on
those who had believed, that every one of them spoke in the tongues of all
nations; thus signifying that the unity of the catholic Church would
embrace all nations, and would in like manner speak in all tongues.

CHAP. 50.--OF THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, WHICH IS MADE MORE FAMOUS AND
POWERFUL BY THE SUFFERINGS OF ITS PREACHERS.

   Then was fulfilled that prophecy, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem;"(6) and the prediction of the
Lord Christ Himself, when, after the resurrection, "He opened the
understanding" of His amazed disciples "that they might understand the
Scriptures, and said unto them, that thus it is written, and thus it
behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem."(7) And again, when, in reply to their
questioning about the day of His last coming, He said, "It is not for you
to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own
power; but ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you,
and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and
Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth."(8) First of all, the Church
spread herself abroad from Jerusalem; and when very many in Judea and
Samaria had believed, she also went into other nations by those who
announced the gospel, whom, as lights, He Himself had both prepared by His
word and kindled by His Holy Spirit. For He had said to them, "Fear ye not
them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul."(9) And that
they might not be frozen with fear, they burned with the fire of charity.
Finally, the gospel of Christ was preached in the whole world, not only by
those who had seen and heard Him both before His passion and after His
resurrection, but also after their death by their successors, amid the
horrible persecutions, diverse torments and deaths of the martyrs, God also
bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and divers miracles and
gifts of the Holy Ghost,(10) that the people of the nations, believing in
Him who was crucified for their redemption, might venerate with Christian
love the blood of the martyrs which they had poured forth with devilish
fury, and the very kings by whose laws the Church had been laid waste might
become profitably subject to that name they had cruelly striven to take
away from the earth, and might begin to persecute the false gods for whose
sake the worshippers of the true God had formerly been persecuted.

CHAP. 51.--THAT THE CATHOLIC FAITH MAY BE CONFIRMED EVEN BY THE DISSENSIONS
OF THE HERETICS.

   But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human
race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics
under the Christian name to resist the Christian doctrine, as if they could
be kept in the city of God indifferently without any correction, just as
the city of confusion indifferently held the philosophers who were of
diverse and adverse opinions. Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who
savor anything morbid and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may
savor what is wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will not
amend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them,
become heretics, and, going without, are to be reckoned as enemies who
serve for her discipline. For even thus they profit by their wickedness
those true catholic members of Christ, since God makes a good use even of
the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that love Him.(1)
For all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds or malice depraves
them, exercise her patience if they receive the power to afflict her
corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked thought, they exercise
her wisdom: but at the same time, if these enemies are loved, they exercise
her benevolence, or even her beneficence, whether she deals with them by
persuasive doctrine or by terrible discipline. And thus the devil, the
prince of the impious city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the
city of God that sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm.
For without doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation
through prosperity, that she may not be broken by adversity, and trial
through adversity, that she may not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus
each is tempered by the other, as we recognize in the Psalms that voice
which arises from no other cause, "According to the multitude of my griefs
in my heart, Thy consolations have delighted my soul."(2) Hence also is
that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation."(3)

   For it is not to be thought that what the same teacher says can at any
time fail, "Whoever will live piously in Christ shall suffer
persecution."(4) Because even when those who are without do not rage, and
thus there seems to be, and really is, tranquillity, which brings very much
consolation, especially to the weak, yet there are not wanting, yea, there
are many within who by their abandoned manners torment the hearts of those
who live piously, since by them the Christian and catholic name is
blasphemed; and the dearer that name is to those who will live piously in
Christ, the more do they grieve that through the wicked, who have a place
within, it comes to be less loved than pious minds desire. The heretics
themselves also, since they are thought to have the Christian name and
sacraments, Scriptures, and profession, cause great grief in the hearts of
the pious, both because many who wish to be Christians are compelled by
their dissensions to hesitate, and many evil- speakers also find in them
matter for blaspheming the Christian name, because they too are at any rate
called Christians. By these and similar depraved manners and errors of men,
those who will live piously in Christ suffer persecution, even when no one
molests or vexes their body; for they suffer this persecution, not in their
bodies, but in their hearts. Whence is that word, "According to the
multitude of my griefs in my heart;" for he does not say, in my body. Yet,
on the other hand, none of them can perish, because the immutable divine
promises are thought of. And because the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth
them that are His;(5) for whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated [to
be] conformed to the image of His Son,"(6) none of them can perish;
therefore it follows in that psalm, "Thy consolations have delighted my
soul."(7) But that grief which arises in the hearts of the pious, who are
persecuted by the manners of bad or false Christians, is profitable to the
sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity in which they do not wish
them either to perish or to hinder the salvation of others. Finally, great
consolations grow out of their chastisement, which imbue the souls of the
pious with a fecundity as great as the pains with which they were troubled
concerning their own perdition. Thus in this world, in these evil days, not
only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but
even from that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was
righteous,(8) and thenceforth even to the end of this world, the Church has
gone forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the
consolations of God.

CHAP. 52.--WHETHER WE SHOULD BELIEVE WHAT SOME THINK, THAT, AS THE TEN
PERSECUTIONS WHICH ARE PAST HAVE BEEN FULFILLED, THERE REMAINS NO OTHER
BEYOND THE ELEVENTH, WHICH MUST HAPPEN IN THE VERY TIME OF ANTICHRIST.

   I do not think, indeed, that what some have thought or may think is
rashly said or believed, that until the time of Antichrist the Church of
Christ is not to suffer any persecutions besides those she has already
suffered,--that is, ten,--and that the eleventh and last shall be inflicted
by Antichrist. They reckon as the first that made by Nero, the second by
Domitian, the third by Trajan, the fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by
Severus, the sixth by Maximin, the seventh by Decius, the eighth by
Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian the tenth by Diocletian and Maximian. For
as there were ten plagues in Egypt before the people of God could begin to
go out, they think this is to be referred to as showing that the last
persecution by Antichrist must be like the eleventh plague, in which the
Egyptians, while following the Hebrews with hostility, perished in the Red
Sea when the people of God passed through on dry land. Yet I do not think
persecutions were prophetically signified by what was done in Egypt,
however nicely and ingeniously those who think so may seem to have compared
the two in detail, not by the prophetic Spirit, but by the conjecture of
the human mind, which sometimes hits the truth, and sometimes is deceived.
But what can those who think this say of the persecution in which the Lord
Himself was crucified? In which number will they put it? And if they think
the reckoning is to be made exclusive of this one, as if those must be
counted which pertain to the body, and not that in which the Head Himself
was set upon and slain, what can they make of that one which, after Christ
ascended into heaven, took place in Jerusalem, when the blessed Stephen was
stoned; when James the brother of John was slaughtered with the sword; when
the Apostle Peter was imprisoned to be killed, and was set free by the
angel; when the brethren were driven away and scattered from Jerusalem;
when Saul, who afterward became the Apostle Paul, wasted the Church; and
when he himself, publishing the glad tidings of the faith he had
persecuted, suffered such things as he had inflicted, either from the Jews
or from other nations, where he most fervently preached Christ everywhere?
Why, then, do they think fit to start with Nero, when the Church in her
growth had reached the times of Nero amid the most cruel persecutions;
about which it would be too long to say anything? But if they think that
only the persecutions made by kings ought to be reckoned, it was king Herod
who also made a most grievous one after the ascension of the Lord. And what
account do they give of Julian, whom they do not number in the ten? Did not
he persecute the Church, who forbade the Christians to teach or learn
liberal letters? Under him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor
after him, stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was
dismissed from his command in the army. I shall say nothing of what he did
at Antioch, except to mention his being struck with wonder at the freedom
and cheerfulness of one most faithful and steadfast young man, who, when
many were seized to be tortured, was tortured during a whole day, and sang
under the instrument of torture, until the emperor feared lest he should
succumb under the continued cruelties and put him to shame at last, which
made him dread and fear that he would be yet more dishonorably put to the
blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own recollection, did not Valens the
Arian, brother of the foresaid Valentinian, waste the catholic Church by
great persecution throughout the East? But how unreasonable it is not to
consider that the Church, which bears fruit and grows through the whole
world, may suffer persecution from kings in some nations even when she does
not suffer it in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a
persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted the
Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but catholics
there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from
certain brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and
unhesitatingly called to mind that they had seen these things? And what
took place in Persia of late? Was not persecution so hot against the
Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that some of the fugitives from it
came even to Roman towns? When I think of these and the like things, it
does not seem to me that the number of persecutions with which the Church
is to be tried can be definitely stated. But, on the other hand, it is no
less rash to affirm that there will be some persecutions by kings besides
that last one, about which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave
this undecided, supporting or refuting neither side of this question, but
only restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming either of
them.

CHAP. 53.--OF THE HIDDEN TIME OF THE FINAL PERSECUTION.

   Truly Jesus Himself shall extinguish by His presence that last
persecution which is to be made by Antichrist. For so it is written, that
"He shall slay him with the breath of His mouth, and empty him with the
brightness of His presence."(1) It is customary to ask, When shall that be?
But this is quite unreasonable. For had it been profitable for us to know
this, by whom could it better have been told than by God Himself, the
Master, when the disciples questioned Him? For they were not silent when
with Him, but inquired of Him, saying, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time
present the kingdom to Israel, or when?"(2) But He said, "It is not for you
to know the times, which the Father hath put in His own power." When they
got that answer, they had not at all questioned Him about the hour, or day,
or year, but about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute
definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from
the mouth of the Truth that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have
said that four hundred, some five hundred, others a thousand years, may be
completed from the ascension of the Lord up to His final coming. But to
point out how each of them supports his own opinion would take too long,
and is not necessary; for indeed they use human conjectures, and bring
forward nothing certain from the authority of the canonical Scriptures. But
on this subject He puts aside the figures of the calculators, and orders
silence, who says, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father
hath put in His own power."

   But because this sentence is in the Gospel, it is no wonder that the
worshippers of the many and false gods have been none the less restrained
from feigning that by the responses of the demons, whom they worship as
gods, it has been fixed how long the Christian religion is to last. For
when they saw that it could not be consumed by so many and great
persecutions, but rather drew from them wonderful enlargements, they
invented I know not what Greek verses, as if poured forth by a divine
oracle to some one consulting it, in which, indeed, they make Christ
innocent of this, as it were, sacrilegious crime, but add that Peter by
enchantments brought it about that the name of Christ should be worshipped
for three hundred and sixty-five years, and, after the completion of that
number of years, should at once take end. Oh the hearts of learned men! Oh,
learned wits, meet to believe such things about Christ as you are not
willing to believe in Christ, that His disciple Peter did not learn magic
arts from Him, yet that, although He was innocent, His disciple was an
enchanter, and chose that His name rather than his own should be worshipped
through his magic arts, his great labors and perils, and at last even the
shedding of his blood! If Peter the enchanter made the world so love
Christ, what did Christ the innocent do to make Peter so love Him? Let them
answer themselves then, and, if they can, let them understand that the
world, for the sake of eternal life, was made to love Christ by that same
supernal grace which made Peter also love Christ for the sake of the
eternal life to be received from Him, and that even to the extent of
suffering temporal death for Him. And then, what kind of gods are these who
are able to predict such things, yet are not able to avert them, succumbing
in such a way to a single enchanter and wicked magician (who, as they say,
having slain a yearling boy and torn him to pieces, buried him with
nefarious rites), that they permitted the sect hostile to themselves to
gain strength for so great a time, and to surmount the horrid cruelties of
so many great persecutions, not by resisting but by suffering, and to
procure the overthrow of their own images, temples, rituals, and oracles?
Finally, what god was it--not ours, certainly, but one of their own--who
was either enticed or compelled by so great wickedness to perform these
things? For those verses say that Peter bound, not any demon, but a god to
do these things. Such a god have they who have not Christ.

CHAP. 54.--OF THE VERY FOOLISH LIE OF THE PAGANS, IN FEIGNING THAT THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION WAS NOT TO LAST BEYOND THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE
YEARS.

   I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not
already passed by which lying divination has promised, and deceived vanity
has believed. But as a few years ago three hundred and sixty-five years
were completed since the time when the worship of the name of Christ was
established by His presence in the flesh, and by the apostles, what other
proof need we seek to refute that falsehood? For, not to place the
beginning of this period at the nativity of Christ, because as an infant
and boy He had no disciples, yet, when He began to have them, beyond doubt
the Christian doctrine and religion then became known through His bodily
presence, that is, after He was baptized in the river Jordan by the
ministry of John. For on this account that prophecy went before concerning
Him: "He shall reign from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the
ends of the earth."(1) But since, before He suffered and rose from the
dead, the faith had not yet been defined to all, but was defined in the
resurrection of Christ (for so the Apostle Paul speaks to the Athenians,
saying, "But now He announces to men that all everywhere should repent,
because He hath appointed a day in which to judge the world in equity, by
the Man in whom He hath defined the faith to all men, raising Him from the
dead"(2)), it is better that, in settling this question, we should start
from that point, especially because the Holy Spirit was then given, just as
He behoved to be given after the resurrection of Christ in that city from
which the second law, that is, the new testament, ought to begin. For the
first, which is called the old testament was given from Mount Sinai through
Moses. But concerning this which was to be given by Christ it was
predicted, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord out
of Jerusalem;"(3) whence He Himself said that repentance in His name
behoved to be preached among all nations, but yet beginning at
Jerusalem.(4) There, therefore, the worship of this name took its rise,
that Jesus should be believed in, who died and rose again. There this faith
blazed up with such noble beginnings, that several thousand men, being
converted to the name of Christ with wonderful alacrity, sold their goods
for distribution among the needy, thus, by a holy resolution and most
ardent charity, coming to voluntary poverty, and prepared themselves, amid
the Jews who raged and thirsted for their blood, to contend for the truth
even to death, not with armed power, but with more powerful patience. If
this was accomplished by no magic arts, why do they hesitate to believe
that the other could be done throughout the whole world by the same divine
power by which this was done? But supposing Peter wrought that enchantment
so that so great a multitude of men at Jerusalem was thus kindled to
worship the name of Christ, who had either seized and fastened Him to the
cross, or reviled Him when fastened there, we must still inquire when the
three hundred and sixty-five years must be completed, counting from that
year. Now Christ died when the Gemini were consuls, on the eighth day
before the kalends of April. He rose the third day, as the apostles have
proved by the evidence of their own senses. Then forty days after, He
ascended into heaven. Ten days after, that is, on the fiftieth after his
resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit; then three thousand men believed
when the apostles preached Him. Then, therefore, arose the worship of that
name, as we believe, and according to the real truth, by the efficacy of
the Holy Spirit, but, as impious vanity has reigned or thought, by the
magic arts of Peter. A little afterward, too, on a wonderful sign being
wrought, when at Peter's own word a certain beggar, so lame from his
mother's womb that he was carried by others and laid down at the gate of
the temple, where he begged alms, was made whole in the name of Jesus
Christ, and leaped up, five thousand men believed, and thenceforth the
Church grew by sundry accessions of believers. Thus we gather the very day
with which that year began, namely, that on which the Holy Spirit was sent,
that is, during the ides of May. And, on counting the consuls, the three
hundred and sixty-five years are found completed on the same ides in the
consulate of Honorius and Eutychianus. Now, in the following year, in the
consulate of Mallius Theodorus, when, according to that oracle of the
demons or figment of men, there ought already to have been no Christian
religion, it was not necessary to inquire, what perchance was done in other
parts of the earth. But, as we know, in the most noted and eminent city,
Carthage, in Africa, Gaudentius and Jovius, officers of the Emperor
Honorius, on the fourteenth day before the kalends of April, overthrew the
temples and broke the images of the false gods. And from that time to the
present, during almost thirty years, who does not see how much the worship
of the name of Christ has increased, especially after many of those became
Christians who had been kept back from the faith by thinking that
divination true, but saw when that same number of years was completed that
it was empty and ridiculous? We, therefore, who are called and are
Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in Him whom Peter believed,--being
edified by Peter's sermons about Christ, not poisoned by his incantations;
and not deceived by his enchantments, but aided by his good deeds. Christ
Himself, who was Peter's Master in the doctrine which leads to eternal
life, is our Master too.

   But let us now at last finish this book, after thus far treating of,
and showing as far as seemed sufficient, what is the mortal course of the
two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, which are mingled together from
the beginning down to the end. Of these, the earthly one has made to
herself of whom she would, either from any other quarter, or even from
among men, false gods whom she might serve by sacrifice; but she which is
heavenly and is a pilgrim on the earth does not make false gods, but is
herself made by the true God of, whom she herself must be the true
sacrifice. Yet both alike either enjoy temporal good things, or are
afflicted with temporal evils, but with diverse faith, diverse hope, and
diverse love, until they must be separated by the last judgment, and each
must receive her own end, of which there is no end. About these ends of
both we must next treat.


BOOK XIX.

ARGUMENT: IN THIS BOOK THE END OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE
HEAVENLY, IS DISCUSSED. AUGUSTIN REVIEWS THE OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
REGARDING THE SUPREME GOOD, AND THEIR VAIN EFFORTS TO MAKE FOR THEMSELVES A
HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE; AND, WHILE HE REFUTES THESE, HE TAKES OCCASION TO
SHOW WHAT THE PEACE AND HAPPINESS BELONGING TO THE HEAVENLY CITY, OR THE
PEOPLE OF CHRIST, ARE BOTH NOW AND HEREAFTER.

CHAP. 1.--THAT VARRO HAS MADE OUT THAT TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-EIGHT
DIFFERENT SECTS OF PHILOSOPHY MIGHT BE FORMED BY THE VARIOUS OPINIONS
REGARDING THE SUPREME GOOD.

   As I see that I have still to discuss the fit destinies of the two
cities, the earthly and the heavenly, I must first explain, so far as the
limits of this work allow me, the reasonings by which men have attempted to
make for themselves a happiness in this unhappy life, in order that it may
be evident, not only from divine authority, but also from such reasons as
can be adduced to unbelievers, how the empty dreams of the philosophers
differ from the hope which God gives to us, and from the substantial
fulfillment of it which He will give us as our blessedness. Philosophers
have expressed a great variety of, diverse opinions regarding the ends of
goods and of evils, and this question they have eagerly canvassed, that
they might, if possible, discover what makes a man happy. For the end of
our good is that for the sake of which other things are to be desired,
while it is to be desired for its own sake; and the end of evil is that on
account of which other things are to be shunned, while it is avoided on its
own account. Thus, by the end of good, we at present mean, not that by
which good is destroyed, so that it no longer exists, but that by which it
is finished, so that it becomes complete; and by the end of evil we mean,
not that which abolishes it, but that which completes its development.

   These two ends, therefore, are the supreme good and the supreme evil;
and, as I have said, those who have in this vain life professed the study
of wisdom have been at great pains to discover these ends, and to obtain
the supreme good and avoid the supreme evil in this life. And although they
erred in a variety of ways, yet natural insight has prevented them from
wandering from the truth so far that they have not placed the supreme good
and evil, some in the soul, some in the body, and some in both. From this
tripartite distribution of the sects of philosophy, Marcus Varro, in his
book De Philosophia,(1) has drawn so large a variety of opinions, that, by
a subtle and minute analysis of distinctions, he numbers without difficulty
as many as 288 sects,--not that these have actually existed, but sects
which are possible.

   To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own
introductory statement in the above- mentioned book, that there are four
things which men desire, as it were by nature without a master, without the
help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is
called virtue, and which is certainly learned:(2) either pleasure, which is
an agreeable stirring of the bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every
bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls by the one name,
pleasure; or the primary objects of nature,(1) which comprehend the things
already named and other things, either bodily, such as health, and safety,
and integrity of the members, or spiritual, such as the greater and less
mental gifts that are found in men. Now these four things--pleasure,
repose, the two combined, and the primary objects of nature--exist in us in
such sort that we must either desire virtue on their account, or them for
the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and consequently there
arise from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this consideration
tripled. I will illustrate this in one instance, and, having done so, it
will not be difficult to understand the others. According, then, as bodily
pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to Virtue, there are three
sects. It is subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to
virtue. Thus it is a duty of virtue to live for one's country, and for its
sake to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily
pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure also in
sexual intercourse. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for
its own sake, and virtue is chosen only for its sake, and to effect nothing
else than the attainment or preservation of bodily pleasure. And this,
indeed, is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure
it no longer deserves the name of virtue. Yet even this disgraceful
distortion has found some philosophers to patronize and defend it. Then
virtue is united to pleasure when neither is desired for the other's sake,
but both for their own. And therefore, as pleasure, according as it is
subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, makes three sects, so also do
repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the prime natural blessings, make
their three sects each. For as men's opinions vary, and these four things
are sometimes subjected, sometimes preferred, and sometimes united to
virtue, there are produced twelve sects. But this number again is doubled
by the addition of one difference, viz., the social life; for whoever
attaches himself to any of these sects does so either for his own sake
alone, or for the sake of a companion, for whom he ought to wish what he
desires for himself. And thus there will be twelve of those who think some
one of these opinions should be held for their own sakes, and other twelve
who decide that they ought to follow this or that philosophy not for their
own sakes only, but also for the sake of others whose good they desire as
their own. These twenty-four sects again are doubled, and become forty-
eight by adding a difference taken from the New Academy. For each of these
four and twenty sects can hold and defend their opinion as certain, as the
Stoics defended the position that the supreme good of man consisted solely
in virtue; or they can be held as probable, but not certain, as the New
Academics did. There are, therefore, twenty-four who hold their philosophy
as certainly true, other twenty-four who hold their opinions as probable,
but not certain. Again, as each person who attaches himself to any of these
sects may adopt the mode of life either of the Cynics or of the other
philosophers, this distinction will double the number, and so make ninety-
six sects. Then, lastly, as each of these sects may be adhered to either by
men who love a life of ease, as those who have through choice or necessity
addicted themselves to study, or by men who love a busy life, as those who,
while philosophizing, have been much occupied with state affairs and public
business, or by men who choose a mixed life, in imitation of those who have
apportioned their time partly to erudite leisure, partly to necessary
business: by these differences the number of the sects is tripled, and
becomes 288.

   I have thus, as briefly and lucidly as I could, given in my own words
the opinions which Varro expresses in his book. But how he refutes all the
rest of these sects, and chooses one, the Old Academy, instituted by Plato,
and continuing to Polemo, the fourth teacher of that school of philosophy
which held that their system was certain; and how on this ground he
distinguishes it from the New Academy,(2) which began with Polemo's
successor Arcesilaus, and held that all things are uncertain; and how he
seeks to establish that the Old Academy was as free from error as from
doubt,--all this, I say, were too long to enter upon in detail, and yet I
must not altogether pass it by in silence. Varro then rejects, as a first
step, all those differences which have multiplied the number of sects; and
the ground on which he does so is that they are not differences about the
supreme good. He maintains that in philosophy a sect is created only by its
having an opinion of its own different from other schools on the point of
the ends-in-chief. For man has no other reason for philosophizing than that
he may be happy; but that which makes him happy is itself the supreme good.
In other words, the supreme good is the reason of philosophizing; and
therefore that cannot be called a sect of philosophy which pursues no way
of its own towards the supreme good. Thus, when it is asked whether a wise
man will adopt the social life, and desire and be interested in the supreme
good of his friend as in his own, or will, on the contrary, do all that he
does merely for his own sake, there is no question here about the supreme
good, but only about the propriety of associating or not associating a
friend in its participation: whether the wise man will do this not for his
own sake, but for the sake of his friend in whose good he delights as in
his own. So, too, when it is asked whether all things about which
philosophy is concerned are to be considered uncertain, as by the New
Academy, or certain, as the other philosophers maintain, the question here
is not what end should be pursued, but whether or not we are to believe in
the substantial existence of that end; or, to put it more plainly, whether
he who pursues the supreme good must maintain that it is a true good, or
only that it appears to him to be true, though possibly it may be
delusive,--both pursuing one and the same good. The distinction, too, which
is founded on the dress and manners of the Cynics, does not touch the
question of the chief good, but only the question whether he who pursues
that good which seems to himself true should live as do the Cynics. There
were, in fact, men who, though they pursued different things as the supreme
good, some choosing pleasure, others virtue, yet adopted that mode of life
which  gave the Cynics their name. Thus, whatever it is which distinguishes
the Cynics from other philosophers, this has no bearing on the choice and
pursuit of that good which constitutes happiness. For if it had any such
bearing, then the same habits of life would necessitate the pursuit of the
same chief good, and all-verse habits would necessitate the pursuit of
different ends.

CHAP. 2.--HOW VARRO, BY REMOVING ALL THE DIFFERENCES WHICH DO NOT FORM
SECTS, BUT ARE MERELY SECONDARY QUESTIONS, REACHES THREE DEFINITIONS OF THE
CHIEF GOOD, OF WHICH WE MUST CHOOSE ONE.

   The same may be said of those three kinds of life, the life of studious
leisure and search after truth, the life of easy engagement in affairs, and
the life in which both these are mingled. When it is asked, which of these
should be adopted, this involves no controversy about the end of good, but
inquires which of these three puts a man in the best position for finding
and retaining the supreme good. For this good, as soon as a man finds it,
makes him happy; but lettered leisure, or public business, or the
alternation of these, do not necessarily constitute happiness. Many, in
fact, find it possible do adopt one or other of these modes of life, and
yet to miss what makes a man happy. The question, therefore, regarding the
supreme good and the supreme evil, and which distinguishes sects of
philosophy, is one; and these questions concerning the social life, the
doubt of the Academy, the dress and food of the Cynics, the three modes of
life--the active, the contemplative, and the mixed--these are different
questions, into none of which the question of the chief good enters. And
therefore, as Marcus Varro multiplied the sects to the number of 288 (or
whatever larger number he chose) by introducing these four differences
derived from the social life, the New Academy, the Cynics, and the
threefold form of life, so, by removing these differences as having no
bearing on the supreme good, and as therefore not constituting what can
properly be called sects, he returns to those twelve schools which concern
themselves with inquiring what that good is which makes man happy, and he
shows that one of these is true, the rest false. In other words, he
dismisses the distinction rounded on the threefold mode of life, and so
decreases the whole number by two-thirds, reducing the sects to ninety-six.
Then, putting aside the Cynic peculiarities, the number decreases by a
half, to forty-eight. Taking away next the distinction occasioned by the
hesitancy of the New Academy, the number is again halved, and reduced to
twenty-four. Treating in a similar way the diversity introduced by the
consideration of the social life, there are left but twelve, which this
difference had doubled to twenty-four. Regarding these twelve, no reason
can be assigned why they should not be called sects. For in them the sole
inquiry is regarding the supreme good and the ultimate evil,--that is to
say, regarding the supreme good, for this being found, the opposite evil is
thereby found. Now, to make these twelve sects, he multiplies by three
these four things--pleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the
primary objects of nature which Varro calls primigenia. For as these four
things are sometimes subordinated to virtue, so that they seem to be
desired not for their own sake, but for virtue's sake; sometimes preferred
to it, so that virtue seems to be necessary not on its own account, but in
order to attain these things; sometimes joined with it, so that both they
and virtue are desired for their own sakes,--we must multiply the four by
three, and thus we get twelve sects. But from those four things Varro
eliminates three--pleasure, repose, pleasure and repose combined--not
because he thinks these are not worthy of the place assigned them, but
because they are included in the primary objects of nature. And what need
is there, at any rate, to make a threefold division out of these two ends,
pleasure and repose, taking them first severally and then conjunctly, since
both they, and many other things besides, are comprehended in the primary
objects of nature? Which of the three remaining sects must be chosen? This
is the question that Varro dwells upon. For whether one of these three or
some other be chosen, reason forbids that more than one be true. This we
shall afterwards see; but meanwhile let us explain as briefly and
distinctly as we can how Varro makes his selection from these three, that
is, from the sects which severally hold that the primary objects of nature
are to be desired for virtue's sake, that virtue is to be desired for their
sake, and that virtue and these objects are to be desired each for their
own sake.

CHAP. 3.--WHICH OF THE THREE LEADING OPINIONS REGARDING THE CHIEF GOOD
SHOULD BE PREFERRED, ACCORDING TO VARRO, WHO FOLLOWS ANTIOCHUS AND THE OLD
ACADEMY.

   Which of these three is true and to be adopted he attempts to show in
the following manner. As it is the supreme good, not of a tree, or of a
beast, or of a god, but of man that philosophy is in quest of, he thinks
that, first of all, we must define man. He is of opinion that there are two
parts in human nature, body and soul, and makes no doubt that of these two
the soul is the better and by far the more worthy part. But whether the
soul alone is the man, so that the body holds the same relation to it as a
horse to the horseman, this he thinks has to be ascertained. The horseman
is not a horse and a man, but only a man, yet he is called a horseman,
because he is in some relation to the horse. Again, is the body alone the
man, having a relation to the soul such as the cup has to the drink? For it
is not the cup and the drink it contains which are called the cup, but the
cup alone; yet it is so called because it is made to hold the drink. Or,
lastly, is it neither the soul alone nor the body alone, but both together,
which are man, the body and the soul being each a part, but the whole man
being both together, as we call two horses yoked together a pair, of which
pair the near and the off horse is each a part, but we do not call either
of them, no matter how connected with the other, a pair, but only both
together? Of these three alternatives, then, Varro chooses the third, that
man is neither the body alone, nor the soul alone, but both together. And
therefore the highest good, in which lies the happiness of man, is composed
of goods of both kinds, both bodily and spiritual. And consequently he
thinks that the primary objects of nature are to be sought for their own
sake, and that virtue, which is the art of living, and can be communicated
by instruction, is the most excellent of spiritual goods. This virtue,
then, or art of regulating life, when it has received these primary objects
of nature which existed independently of it, and prior to any instruction,
seeks them all, and itself also, for its own sake; and it uses them, as it
also uses itself, that from them all it may derive profit and enjoyment,
greater or less, according as they are themselves greater or less; and
while it takes pleasure in all of them, it despises the less that it may
obtain or retain the greater when occasion demands. Now, of all goods,
spiritual or bodily, there is none at all to compare with virtue. For
virtue makes a good use both of itself and of all other goods in which lies
man's happiness; and where it is absent, no matter how many good things a
man has, they are not for his good, and consequently should not be called
good things while they belong to one who makes them useless by using them
badly. The life of man, then, is called happy when it enjoys virtue and
these other spiritual and bodily good things without which virtue is
impossible. It is called happier if it enjoys some or many other good
things which are not essential to virtue; and happiest of all, if it lacks
not one of the good things which pertain to the body and the soul. For life
is not the same thing as virtue, since not every life, but a wisely
regulated life, is virtue; and yet, while there can be life of some kind
without virtue, there cannot be virtue without life. This I might apply to
memory and reason, and such mental faculties; for these exist prior to
instruction, and without them there cannot be any instruction, and
consequently no virtue, since virtue is learned. But bodily advantages,
such as swiftness of foot, beauty, or strength, are not essential to
virtue, neither is virtue essential to them, and yet they are good things;
and, according to our philosophers, even these advantages are desired by
virtue for its own sake, and are used and enjoyed by it in a becoming
manner.

   They say that this happy life is also social, and loves the advantages
of its friends as its own, and for their sake wishes for them what it
desires for itself, whether these friends live in the same family, as a
wife, children, domestics; or in the locality where one's home is, as the
citizens of the same town; or in the world at large, as the nations bound
in common human brotherhood; or in the universe itself, comprehended in the
heavens and the earth, as those whom they call gods, and provide as friends
for the wise man, and whom we more familiarly call angels. Moreover, they
say that, regarding the supreme good and evil, there is no room for doubt,
and that they therefore differ from the New Academy in this respect, and
they are not concerned whether a philosopher pursues those ends which they
think true in the Cynic dress and manner of life or in some other. And,
lastly, in regard to the three modes of life, the contemplative, the
active, and the composite, they declare in favor of the third. That these
were the opinions and doctrines of the Old Academy, Varro asserts on the
authority of Antiochus, Cicero's master and his own, though Cicero makes
him out to have been more frequently in accordance with the Stoics than
with the Old Academy. But of what importance is this to us, who ought to
judge the matter on its own merits, rather than to understand accurately
what different men have thought about it?

CHAP. 4.--WHAT THE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE REGARDING THE SUPREME GOOD AND EVIL,
IN OPPOSITION TO THE PHILOSOPHERS, WHO HAVE MAINTAINED THAT THE SUPREME
GOOD IS IN THEMSELVES.

   If, then, we be asked what the city of God has to say upon these
points, and, in the first place, what its opinion regarding the supreme
good and evil is, it will reply that life eternal  is the supreme good,
death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the
other we must live rightly. And thus it is written, "The just lives by
faith,"(1) for we do not as yet see our good, and must therefore live by
faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so
only if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we
believe and pray. As for those who have supposed that the sovereign good
and evil are to be found in this life, and have placed it either in the
soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in
pleasure or in virtue, or in both; in repose or in virtue, or in both; in
pleasure and repose, or in virtue, or in all combined; in the primary
objects of nature, or in virtue, or in both,--all these have, with a
marvelous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in
themselves. Contempt has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying
by the prophet, "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men" (or, as the Apostle
Paul cites the passage, "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise") "that
they are vain."(2)

   For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this
life? Cicero, in the Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent
all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate was even his ability
here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of
nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen
accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt from any pain which may
dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish repose? The
amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its
integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its
vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity,--and which of these is it
that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes
and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings;
but what if some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers
from curvature of the spine to such an extent that his hands reach the
ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this destroy
all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall
I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of
which the one is given for the perception, and the other for the
comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains when a
man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease
makes a man delirious? We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears,
when we think of or see the actions and words of such frantic persons, and
consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment
and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of
those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own
intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using their
body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such
thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception
of truth, what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we
read in the true book of Wisdom, "The corruptible body weigheth down the
soul, and the earthly tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon
many things?"(3) And eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right
meaning to put upon the Greek hormh, is also reckoned among the primary
advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those pitiable
movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when
sense is deceived and reason deranged?

   In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of
nature, but succeeds to them as the result of learning, though it holds the
highest place among human good things, what is its occupation save to wage
perpetual war with vices,--not those that are outside of us, but within;
not other men's, but our own,--a war which is waged especially by that
virtue which the Greeks call swphrsunh, and we temperance,(1) and which
bridles carnal lusts, and prevents them from winning the consent of the
spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is no vice in us,
when, as the apostle says, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit;"(2) for
to this vice there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says,
"The spirit lusteth against the flesh." "For these two," he says, "are
contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you
would." But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme
good, unless that the flesh should cease to lust against the spirit, and
that there be no vice in us against which the spirit may lust? And as we
cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it,
let us by God's help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from
succumbing and yielding to the flesh that lusts against it, and to refuse
our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy
that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already
found the happiness which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so
wise that he has no conflict at all to maintain against his vices?

   What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all
its vigilance spent in the discernment of good from evil things, so that no
mistake may be admitted about what we should desire and what avoid? And
thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst of evils, or that evils
are in us; for it teaches us that it is an evil to consent to sin, and a
good to refuse this consent. And yet this evil, to which prudence teaches
and temperance enables us not to consent, is removed from this life neither
by prudence nor by temperance. And justice, whose office it is to render to
every man his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of
nature, so that the soul is subjected to God, and the flesh to the soul,
and consequently both soul and flesh to God,--does not this virtue
demonstrate that it is as yet rather laboring towards its end than resting
in its finished work? For the soul is so much the less subjected to God as
it is less occupied with the thought of God; and the flesh is so much the
less subjected to the spirit as it lusts more vehemently against the
spirit. So  long, therefore, as we are beset by this weakness, this plague,
this disease, how shall we dare to say that we are safe? and if not safe,
then how can we be already enjoying our final beatitude? Then that virtue
which goes by the name of fortitude is the plainest proof of the ills of
life, for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And
this holds good, no matter though the ripest wisdom co-exists with it. And
I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say
that these are no ills, though at the same time they allow the wise man to
commit suicide and pass out of this life if they become so grievous that he
cannot or ought not to endure them. But such is the stupid pride of these
men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in this life, and that
they can become happy by their own resources, that their wise man, or at
least the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even
though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer
any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself;
and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils
happy. 0 happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it? If it is
happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of
it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these are not evils
which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but
so to rave that it in one breath calls life happy and recommends it to be
given up? For who is so blind as not to see that if it were happy it would
not be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on account of the
infirmities that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and
acknowledge that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask, fortitude or
weakness which prompted Cato to kill himself? for he would not have done so
had he not been too weak to endure Caesar's victory. Where, then, is his
fortitude? It has yielded, it has succumbed, it has been so thoroughly
overcome as to abandon, forsake, flee this happy life. Or was it no longer
happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were these not evils which made
life miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?

   And therefore those who admit that these are evils, as the Peripatetics
do, and the Old Academy, the sect which Varro advocates, express a more
intelligible doctrine; but theirs also is a surprising mistake, for they
contend that this is a happy life which is beset by these evils, even
though they be so great that he who endures them should commit suicide to
escape them. "Pains and anguish of body," says Varro, "are evils, and so
much the worse in proportion to their severity; and to escape them you must
quit this life." What life, I pray? This life, he says, which is oppressed
by such evils. Then it is happy in the midst of these very evils on account
of which you say we must quit it? Or do you call it happy because you are
at liberty to escape these evils by death? What, then, if by some secret
judgment of God you were held fast and not permitted to die, nor suffered
to live without these evils?  In that case, at least, you would say that
such a life was miserable. It is soon relinquished, no doubt but this does
not make it not miserable; for were it eternal, you yourself would
pronounce it miserable. Its brevity, therefore, does not clear it of
misery; neither ought it to be called happiness because it is a brief
misery. Certainly there is a mighty force in these evils which compel a
man-- according to them even a wise man--to cease to be a man that he may
escape them, though they say, and say truly, that it is as it were the
first and strongest demand of nature that a man cherish himself, and
naturally therefore avoid death, and should so stand his own friend as to
wish and vehemently aim at continuing to exist as a living creature, and
subsisting in this union of soul and body. There is a mighty force in these
evils to overcome this natural instinct by which death is by every means
and with all a man's efforts avoided, and to overcome it so completely that
what was avoided is desired, sought after, and if it cannot in any other
way be obtained, is inflicted by the man on himself. There is a mighty
force in these evils which make fortitude a homicide,--if, indeed, that is
to be called fortitude which is so thoroughly overcome by these evils, that
it not only cannot preserve by patience the man whom it undertook to govern
and defend, but is itself obliged to kill him. The wise man, I admit, ought
to bear death with patience, but when it is inflicted by another. If, then,
as these men maintain, he is obliged to inflict it on himself, certainly it
must be owned that the ills which compel him to this are not only evils,
but intolerable evils. The life, then, which is either subject to
accidents, or environed with evils so considerable and grievous, could
never have been called happy, if the men who give it this name had
condescended to yield to the truth, and to be conquered by valid arguments,
when they inquired after the happy life, as they yield to unhappiness, and
are overcome by overwhelming evils, when they put themselves to death, and
if they had not fancied that the supreme good was to be found in this
mortal life; for the very virtues of this life, which are certainly its
best and most useful possessions, are all the more telling proofs of its
miseries in proportion as they are helpful against the violence of its
dangers, toils, and woes. For if these are true virtues,--and such cannot
exist save in those who have true piety,--they do not profess to be able to
deliver the men who possess them from all miseries; for true virtues tell
no such lies, but they profess that by the hope of the future world this
life, which is miserably involved in the many and great evils of this
world, is happy as it is also safe. For if not yet safe, how could it be
happy? And therefore the Apostle Paul, speaking not of men without
prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, but of those whose lives were
regulated by true piety, and whose virtues were therefore true, says, "For
we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man
seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then
do we with patience wait for it."(1) As, therefore, we are saved, so we are
made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for
a future salvation, so is it with our happiness, and this "with patience;"
for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought patiently to endure,
until we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall
be no longer anything to endure. Salvation, such as it shall be in the
world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. And this happiness
these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not see it, and
attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a
virtue which is as deceitful as it is proud.

CHAP. 5.--OF THE SOCIAL LIFE, WHICH, THOUGH MOST DESIRABLE, IS FREQUENTLY
DISTURBED BY MANY DISTRESSES.

   We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of
the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning
which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work)
either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if
the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all
the great grievances with which human society abounds in the misery of this
mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic writers makes
one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this
matter: "I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they
are additional cares."(1) What shall I say of the miseries of love which
Terence also recounts--"slights, suspicions, quarrels, war to-day, peace
to-morrow?"(2) Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often
occur even in honorable friendships? On all hands we experience these
slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils;
while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know
the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as
ignorant of what it might be to- morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more
friendly than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even
upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up,
and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by
the most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of
Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: "There are no
snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the
name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily
baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not
merely exists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine
it."(3) It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine saying, "A
man's foes are those of his own household,"(4)--words which one cannot hear
without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with
equanimity, and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended
friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at
the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always been
wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a
malicious disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of
life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is
larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is
never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of
disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?

CHAP. 6.--OF THE ERROR OF HUMAN JUDGMENTS WHEN THE TRUTH IS HIDDEN.

   What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and
which are necessary in communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy?
Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are, since the judges are men who
cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are therefore
frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture to ascertain
the truth regarding the crimes of other men. What shall I say of torture
applied to the accused himself? He is tortured to discover whether he is
guilty, so that, though innocent, he suffers most undoubted punishment for
crime that is still doubtful, not because it is proved that he committed
it, but because it is not ascertained that he did not commit it. Thus the
ignorance of the judge frequently involves an innocent person in suffering.
And what is still more unendurable--a thing, indeed, to be bewailed, and,
if that were possible, watered with fountains of tears--is this, that when
the judge puts the accused to the question, that he may not unwittingly put
an innocent man to death, the result of this lamentable ignorance is that
this very person, whom he tortured that he might not condemn him if
innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent. For if he has
chosen, in obedience to the philosophical instructions to the wise man, to
quit this life rather than endure any longer such tortures, he declares
that he has committed the crime which in fact he has not committed. And
when he has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in
ignorance whether he has put to death an innocent or a guilty person,
though he put the accused to the torture for the very purpose of saving
himself from condemning the innocent; and consequently he has both tortured
an innocent man to discover his innocence, and has put him to death without
discovering it. If such darkness shrouds social life, will a wise judge
take his seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he will. For human
society, which he thinks it a wickedness to abandon, constrains him and
compels him to this duty. And he thinks it no wickedness that innocent
witnesses are tortured regarding the crimes of which other men are accused;
or that the accused are put to the torture, so that they are often overcome
with anguish, and, though innocent, make false confessions regarding
themselves, and are punished; or that, though they be not condemned to die,
they often die during, or in consequence of, the torture; or that sometimes
the accusers, who perhaps have been prompted by a desire to benefit society
by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves condemned through the
ignorance of the judge, because they are unable to prove the truth of their
accusations though they are true, and because the witnesses lie, and the
accused endures the torture without being moved to confession. These
numerous and important evils he does not consider sins; for the wise judge
does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his
ignorance compels him, and because human society claims him as a judge. But
though we therefore acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less
condemn human life as miserable. And if he is compelled to torture and
punish the innocent because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is
he a happy as well as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more
profound considerateness and finer feeling were he to recognize the misery
of these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in that misery;
and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God "From my necessities
deliver Thou me."(1)

CHAP. 7.--OF THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES, BY WHICH THE INTERCOURSE OF MEN IS
PREVENTED; AND OF THE MISERY OF WARS, EVEN OF THOSE CALLED JUST.

   After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human
society,--the first being the house, and the second the city. And the
world, as it is larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the greater sea is
the more dangerous. And here, in the first place, man is separated from man
by the difference of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the
other's language, meet, and are not compelled to pass, but, on the
contrary, to remain in company, dumb animals, though of different species,
would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be.
For their common nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented
by diversity of language from conveying their sentiments to one another; so
that a man would more readily hold intercourse with his dog than with a
foreigner. But the imperial city has endeavored to impose on subject
nations not only her yoke, but her language, as a bond of peace, so that
interpreters, far from being scarce, are numberless. This is true; but how
many great wars, how much slaughter and bloodshed, have provided this
unity! And though these are past, the end of these miseries has not yet
come. For though there  have never been wanting, nor are yet wanting,
hostile nations beyond the empire, against whom wars have been and are
waged, yet, supposing there were no such nations, the very extent of the
empire itself has produced wars of a more obnoxious description--social and
civil wars--and with these the whore race has been agitated, either by the
actual conflict or the fear of a renewed outbreak. If I attempted to give
an adequate description of these manifold disasters, these stern and
lasting necessities, though I am quite unequal to the task, what limit
could I set? But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he
would not all the rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers
that he is a man; for if they were not just he would not wage them, and
would therefore be delivered from all wars. For it is the wrongdoing of the
opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this
wrong-doing, even though it gave rise to no war, would still be matter of
grief to man because it is man's wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who
thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless,
acknowledge that this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of
them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he
thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling.

CHAP. 8.--THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOOD MEN CANNOT BE SECURELY RESTED IN, SO
LONG AS THE DANGERS OF THIS LIFE FORCE US TO BE ANXIOUS.

   In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for an
enemy, and an enemy for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness,
is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends
our one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings and
calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are
scattered, the more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast
masses of the disasters of life may light upon them. For we are not only
anxious lest they suffer from famine, war, disease, captivity, or the
inconceivable horrors of slavery, but we are also affected with the much
more painful dread that their friendship may be changed into perfidy,
malice, and injustice. And when these contingencies actually occur,--as
they do the more frequently the more friends we have, and the more widely
they are scattered,--and when they come to our knowledge, who but the man
who has experienced it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We
would, in fact, prefer to hear that they were dead, although we could not
without anguish hear of even this. For if their life has solaced us with
the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with
no sadness? He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have
no friendly intercourse. Let him interdict or extinguish friendly
affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every
human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that no sweetness
shall distil into his spirit. But if this is utterly impossible, how shall
we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those whose life has been
sweet to us? Hence arises that grief which affects the tender heart like a
wound or a bruise, and which is healed by the application of kindly
consolation. For though the cure is affected all the more easily and
rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on this account
suppose that there is nothing at all to heal. Although, then, our present
life is afflicted, sometimes in a milder, sometimes in a more painful
degree, by the death of those very dear to us, and especially of useful
public men, yet we would prefer to hear that such men were dead rather than
to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue,--
in other words, that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for
misery the earth is full, and therefore it is written, "Is not human life
upon earth a trial?"(1) And with the same reference the Lord says. "Woe to
the world because of offenses!"(2) and again, "Because iniquity abounded,
the love of many shall wax cold."(3) And hence we enjoy some gratification
when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we
have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in
this life even the best of men are broken down or corrupted, or are in
danger of both results.

CHAP. 9--OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE HOLY ANGELS, WHICH MEN CANNOT BE SURE OF
IN THIS LIFE, OWING TO THE DECEIT OF THE DEMONS WHO HOLD IN BONDAGE THE
WORSHIPPERS OF A PLURALITY OF GODS.

   The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank
the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society,
advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the universe,
and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear
that the angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we
cannot mingle with them as familiarly as with men (which itself is one of
the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read,(4) sometimes
transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is
necessary to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God's
mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in disguise, while we
fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and
deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And
is this not a great misery of human life, that we are involved in such
ignorance as, but for God's mercy, makes us a prey to these demons? And it
is very certain that the philosophers of the godless city, who have main-
rained that the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the malignant
demons who rule that city, and whose eternal punishment is to be shared by
it. For the nature of these beings is sufficiently evinced by the sacred or
rather sacrilegious observances which form their worship, and by the filthy
games in which their crimes are celebrated, and which they themselves
originated and exacted from their worshippers as a fit propitiation.

CHAP. 10.--THE REWARD PREPARED FOR THE SAINTS AFTER THEY HAVE ENDURED THE
TRIAL OF THIS LIFE.

   But not even the saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and
most high God are safe from the manifold temptations and deceits of the
demons. For in this abode of  weakness, and in these wicked days, this
state of anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to seek with keener
longing for that security where peace is complete and unassailable. There
we shall enjoy the gifts of nature, that is to say, all that God the
Creator of all natures has bestowed upon ours,--gifts not only good, but
eternal,--not only of the spirit, healed now by wisdom, but also of the
body renewed by the resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be
struggling against any vice or evil, but shall enjoy the reward of victory,
the eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This is the final
blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end. Here,
indeed, we are said to be blessed when we have such peace as can be enjoyed
in a good life; but such blessedness. is mere misery compared to that final
felicity. When we mortals possess such peace as this mortal life can
afford, virtue, if we are living rightly, makes a right use of the
advantages of this peaceful condition; and when we have it not, virtue
makes a good use even of the evils a man suffers. But this is true virtue,
when it refers all the advantages it makes a good use of, and all that it
does in making good use of good and evil things, and itself also, to that
end in which we shall enjoy the best and greatest peace possible.

CHAP. 11.--OF THE HAPPINESS OF THE ETERNAL PEACE, WHICH CONSTITUTES THE END
OR TRUE PERFECTION OF THE SAINTS.

   And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that it
is the end of our good; and the rather because the Psalmist says of the
city of God, the subject of this laborious work, "Praise the Lord, O
Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion: for He hath strengthened the bars of thy
gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee; who hath made thy borders
peace."(1) For when the bars of her gates shall be strengthened, none shall
go in or come out from her; consequently we ought to understand the peace
of her borders as that final peace we are wishing to declare. For even the
mystical name of the city itself, that is, Jerusalem, means, as I have
already said, "Vision of Peace." But as the word peace is employed in
connection with things in this world in which certainly life eternal has no
place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city life
eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, "But now, being
freed from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto
holiness, and the end life eternal."(2) But, on the other hand, as those
who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose that the life of the wicked
is eternal life, either because of the immortality of the soul, which some
of the philosophers even have recognized, or because of the endless
punishment of the wicked, which forms a part of our faith, and which seems
impossible unless the wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable,
in order that every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that
the end or supreme good of this city is either peace in eternal life, or
eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that even in this
earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure,
nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying.
So that if we dwell for a little longer on this subject, we shall not, in
my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will attend both for the sake
of understanding what is the end of this city of which we speak, and for
the sake of the sweetness of peace which is dear to all.

CHAP. 12.--THAT EVEN THE FIERCENESS OF WAR AND ALL THE DISQUIETUDE OF MEN
MAKE TOWARDS THIS ONE END OF PEACE, WHICH EVERY NATURE DESIRES.

   Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to our
common nature, will recognize that if there is no man who does not wish to
be joyful, neither is there any one who does not wish to have peace. For
even they who make war desire nothing but victory,--desire, that is to say,
to attain to peace with glory. For what else is victory than the conquest
of those who resist us? and when this is done there is peace. It is
therefore with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who
take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And
hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man
seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace. For even
they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no
hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them
better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no peace, but only one more to
their mind. And in the case of sedition, when men have separated themselves
from the community, they yet do not effect what they wish, unless they
maintain some kind of peace with their fellow-conspirators. And therefore
even robbers take care to maintain peace with their comrades, that they may
with greater effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And
if an individual happen to be of such unrivalled strength, and to be so
jealous of partnership, that he trusts himself with no comrades, but makes
his own plots, and commits depredations and murders on his own account, yet
he maintains some shadow of peace with such persons as he is unable to
kill, and from whom he wishes to conceal his deeds. In his own home, too,
he makes it his aim to be at peace with his wife and children, and any
other members of his household; for unquestionably their prompt obedience
to his every look is a source of pleasure to him. And if this be not
rendered, he is angry, he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he
secures the calm peace of his own home, as occasion demands. For he sees
that peace cannot be maintained unless all the members of the same domestic
circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his own house. And
therefore if a city or nation offered to submit itself to him, to serve him
in the same style as he had made his household serve him, he would no
longer lurk in a brigand's hiding- places, but lift his head in open day as
a king, though the same coveteousness and wickedness should remain in him.
And thus all men desire to have peace with their own circle whom they wish
to govern as suits themselves. For even those whom they make war against
they wish to make their own, and impose on them the laws of their own
peace.

   But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of,--a man
so insociable and savage as to be called rather a semi-man than a man.(1)
Although, then, his kingdom was the solitude of a dreary cave, and he
himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named Kako's, which is
the Greek word for bad; though he had no wife to soothe him with endearing
talk, no children to play with, no sons to do his bidding, no friend to
enliven him with intercourse, not even his father Vulcan (though in one
respect he was happier than his father, not having begotten a monster like
himself); although he gave to no man, but took as he wished whatever he
could, from whomsoever he could, when he could yet in that solitary den,
the floor of which, as Virgil(2) says, was always reeking with recent
slaughter, there was nothing else than peace sought, a peace in which no
one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or alarm. With his
own body he desired to be at peace, and he was satisfied only in proportion
as he had this peace. For he ruled his members, and they obeyed him; and
for the sake of pacifying his mortal nature, which rebelled when it needed
anything, and of allaying the sedition of hunger which threatened to banish
the soul from the body, he made forays, slew, and devoured, but used the
ferocity and savageness he displayed in these actions only for the
preservation of his own life's peace. So that, had he been willing to make
with other men the same peace which he made with himself in his own cave,
he would neither have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man. Or if
the appearance of his body and his vomiting smoky fires frightened men from
having any dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways arose not from a
desire to do mischief, but from the necessity of finding a living. But he
may have had no existence, or, at least, he was not such as the poets
fancifully describe him, for they had to exalt Hercules, and did so at the
expense of Cacus. It is better, then, to believe that such a man or semi-
man never existed, and that this, in common with many other fancies of the
poets, is mere fiction. For the most savage animals (and he is said to have
been almost a wild beast) encompass their own species with a ring of
protecting peace. They cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring up their
young, though very many of them are not gregarious, but solitary,--not like
sheep, deer, pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes, eagles,
bats. For what tigress does not gently purr over her cubs, and lay aside
her ferocity to fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when circling
over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a nest, hatch the eggs, bring up
the young birds, and maintain with the mother of his family as peaceful a
domestic alliance as he can? How much more powerfully do the laws of man's
nature move him to hold fellowship and maintain peace with all men so far
as in him lies, since even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of
their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them,
that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through
love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that pride in
its perversity apes God. It abhors equality with other men under Him; but,
instead of His rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own upon its equals.
It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust
peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one kind or other. For there is
no vice so clean contrary to nature that it obliterates even the faintest
traces of nature.

   He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-
ordered to what is perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not
worthy to be called peace in comparison with the peace of the just. And yet
even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony with, and in
dependence on, and in some part of the order of things, for otherwise it
would have no existence at all. Suppose a man hangs with his head
downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of body and arrangement
of its members; for that which nature requires to be above is beneath, and
vice versa. This perversity disturbs the peace of the body, and is
therefore painful. Nevertheless the spirit is at peace with its body, and
labors for its preservation, and hence the suffering; but if it is banished
from the body by its pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds
together, there is in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and
hence the body remains suspended. And inasmuch as the earthly body tends
towards the earth, and rests on the bond by which it is suspended, it tends
thus to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place
for it to rest; and though now lifeless and without feeling, it does not
fall from the peace that is natural to its place in creation, whether it
already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply embalming
preparations to prevent the bodily frame from mouldering and dissolving, a
kind of peace still unites part to part, and keeps the whole body in a
suitable place on the earth,--in other words, in a place that is at peace
with the body. If, on the other hand, the body receive no such care, but be
left to the natural course, it is disturbed by exhalations that do not
harmonize with one another, and that offend our senses; for it is this
which is perceived in putrefaction until it is assimilated to the elements
of the world, and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet
throughout this process the laws of the most high Creator and Governor are
strictly observed, for it is by Him the peace of the universe is
administered. For although minute animals are produced from the carcass of
a larger animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the same Creator,
serve the animals they belong to in peace. And although the flesh of dead
animals be eaten by others, no matter where it be carried, nor what it be
brought into contact with, nor what it be converted and changed into, it
still is ruled by the same laws which pervade all things for the
conservation of every mortal race, and which bring things that fit one
another into harmony.

CHAP. 13.--OF THE UNIVERSAL PEACE WHICH THE LAW OF NATURE PRESERVES THROUGH
ALL DISTURBANCES, AND BY WHICH EVERY ONE REACHES HIS DESERT IN A WAY
REGULATED BY THE JUST JUDGE.

   The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned
arrangement of its parts. The petite of the irrational soul is the
harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the
harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-
ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace
between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law.
Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the
well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who
obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the
celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God,
and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquillity of
order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal,
each to its own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they
are such, do certainly not enjoy peace, but are severed from that
tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless,
inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly, miserable, they are by their
very misery connected with order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the
blessed, but they are disjoined from them by the law of order. And though
they are disquieted, their circumstances are notwithstanding adjusted to
them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of order, and therefore
some peace. But they are wretched because, although not wholly miserable,
they are not in that place where any mixture of misery is impossible. They
would, however, be more wretched if they had not that peace which arises
from being in harmony with the natural order of things. When they suffer,
their peace is in so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as
they do not suffer, and in so far as their nature continues to exist. As,
then, there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain without
some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but there cannot be
war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the existence of some
natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one
kind or other.

   And therefore there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot
exist; but there cannot be a nature in which there is no good. Hence not
even the nature of the devil himself is evil, in so far as it is nature,
but it was made evil by being perverted. Thus he did not abide in the
truth,(1) but could not escape the judgment of the Truth; he did not abide
in the tranquillity of order, but did not therefore escape the power of the
Ordainer. The good imparted by God to his nature did not screen him from
the justice of God by which order was preserved in his punishment; neither
did God punish the good which He had created, but the evil which the devil
had committed. God did not take back all He had imparted to his nature, but
something He took and something He left, that there might remain enough to
be sensible of the loss of what was taken. And this very sensibility to
pain is evidence of the good which has been taken away and the good which
has been left. For, were nothing good left, there could be no pain on
account of the good which had been lost. For he who sins is still worse if
he rejoices in his loss of righteousness. But he who is in pain, if he
derives no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health. And as
righteousness and health are both good things, and as the loss of any good
thing is matter of grief, not of joy,--if, at least, there is no
compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss of
bodily health,--certainly it is more suitable for a wicked man to grieve in
punishment than to rejoice in his fault. As, then, the joy of a sinner who
has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will, so his grief for the
good he has lost when he is punished is evidence of a good nature. For he
who laments the peace his nature has lost is stirred to do so by some
relics of peace which make his nature friendly to itself. And it is very
just that in the final punishment the wicked and godless should in anguish
bewail the loss of the natural advantages they enjoyed, and should perceive
that they were most justly taken from them by that God whose benign
liberality they had despised. God, then, the most wise Creator and most
just Ordainer of all natures, who placed the human race upon earth as its
greatest ornament, imparted to men some good things adapted to this life,
to wit, temporal peace, such as we can enjoy in this life from health and
safety and human fellowship, and all things needful for the preservation
and recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are accommodated to
our outward senses, light, night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and
everything the body requires to sustain, shelter, heal, or beautify it: and
all under this most equitable condition. that every man who made a good use
of these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should
receive ampler and better blessings, namely, the peace of immortality,
accompanied by glory and honor in an endless life made fit for the
enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used the
present blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive the
others.

CHAP. 14.--OF THE ORDER AND LAW WHICH OBTAIN IN HEAVEN AND EARTH, WHEREBY
IT COMES TO PASS THAT HUMAN SOCIETY IS SERVED BY THOSE WHO RULE IT.

   The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this result
of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city of God it is
connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if we were irrational animals,
we should desire nothing beyond the proper arrangement of the parts of the
body and the satisfaction of the appetites,--nothing, therefore, but bodily
comfort and abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might
contribute to the peace of the soul. For if bodily peace be awanting, a bar
is put to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot obtain the
gratification of its appetites. And these two together help out the mutual
peace of soul and body, the peace of harmonious life and health. For as
animals, by shunning pain, show that they love bodily peace, and, by
pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love peace of
soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of their
intense love of that peace which binds soul and body in close alliance.
But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in
common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his
intellect may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may
thus enjoy the well-ordered harmony of knowledge and action which
constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational soul. And for this
purpose he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by
desire, nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful
knowledge by which he may regulate his life and manners. But, owing to the
liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very pursuit of
knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may
obey without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as
to preserve his own freedom. And because, so long as he is in this mortal
body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by faith, not by sight; and he
therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace
which mortal man has with the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-
ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. But as this divine Master
inculcates two precepts,--the love of God and the love of our neighbor,--
and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love,--God,
himself, and his neighbor,--and that he who loves God loves himself
thereby, it follows that he must endeavor to get his neighbor to love God,
since he is ordered to love his neighbor as himself. He ought to make this
endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his
reach, even as he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he
needed it; and consequently he will be at peace, or in well-ordered
concord, with all men, as far as in him lies. And this is the order of this
concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second,
do good to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household
are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access
to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the apostle
says, "Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."(1) This
is the origin of domestic peace, or the well-ordered concord of those in
the family who rule and those who obey. For they who care for the rest
rule,--the husband the wife, the parents the children, the masters the
servants; and they who are cared for obey,--the women their husbands, the
children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of
the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to
the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to
command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the
duty they owe to others--not because they are proud of authority, but
because they love mercy.

CHAP. 15.--OF THE LIBERTY PROPER TO MAN'S NATURE, AND THE SERVITUDE
INTRODUCED BY SIN,--A SERVITUDE IN WHICH THE MAN WHOSE WILL IS WICKED IS
THE SLAVE OF HIS OWN LUST, THOUGH HE IS FREE SO FAR AS REGARDS OTHER MEN.

   This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has
created man. For "let them," He says, "have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing which
creepeth on the earth."(1) He did not intend that His rational creature,
who was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the
irrational creation,--not man over man, but man over the beasts. And hence
the righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather
than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative
position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with
justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin.
And this is why we do not find the word "slave" in any part of Scripture
until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a
name, therefore, introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the
Latin word for slave is supposed to be found in the circumstance that those
who by the law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by
their victors, and were hence called servants.(2) And these circumstances
could never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war,
our adversaries must be sinning; and every victory, even though gained by
wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of God, who humbles the
vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing their sins.
Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity, confessed
to God his own sins and the sins of his people, and declares with pious
grief that these were the cause of the captivity.(3) The prime cause, then,
of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow,--that
which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no
unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every
variety of offence. But our Master in heaven says, "Every one who doeth sin
is the servant of sin."(4) And thus there are many wicked masters who have
religious men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; "for
of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."(5) And
beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a
lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste
men's hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are
subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as
much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master. But
by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of
sin. This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed by that law which
enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance;
for if nothing had been done in violation of that law, there would have
been nothing to restrain by penal servitude. And therefore the apostle
admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them
heartily and with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their
masters, they may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by
serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness
pass away, and all principality and every human power be brought to
nothing, and God be all in all.

 CHAP. 16.--OF EQUITABLE RULE.

   And therefore, although our righteous fathers(6) had slaves, and
administered their domestic affairs so as to distinguish between the
condition of slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the blessings of
this life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in whom we hope for eternal
blessings, they took an equally loving oversight of all the members of
their household. And this is so much in accordance with the natural order,
that the head of the household was called paterfamilias; and this name has
been so generally accepted, that even those whose rule is unrighteous are
glad to apply it to themselves. But those who are true fathers of their
households desire and endeavor that all the members of their household,
equally with their own children, should worship and win God, and should
come to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer
necessary, because the duty of caring for their everlasting happiness has
also ceased; but, until they reach that home, masters ought to feel their
position of authority a greater burden than servants their service. And if
any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he
is corrected either by word or blow, or some kind of just and legitimate
punishment, such as society permits, that he may himself be the better for
it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which he had dislocated
himself. For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of
some greater benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man
at the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must not
only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish his sin,
so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his
experience, or others be warned by his example. Since, then, the house
ought to be the beginning or element of the city, and every beginning bears
reference to some end of its own kind, and every element to the integrity
of the whole of which it is an element, it follows plainly enough that
domestic peace has a relation to civic peace,--in other words, that the
well-ordered concord of domestic obedience and domestic rule has a relation
to the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic rule. And
therefore it follows, further, that the father of the family ought to frame
his domestic rule in accordance with the law of the city, so that the
household may be in harmony with the civic order.

CHAP. 17.--WHAT PRODUCES PEACE, AND WHAT DISCORD, BETWEEN THE HEAVENLY AND
EARTHLY CITIES.

   But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the
earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith
look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as pilgrims
such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them
from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down
the number of those burdens of the corruptible body which weigh upon the
soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are used by both kinds
of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely
different aim in using them. The earthly city, which does not live by
faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered
concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men's wills to
attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or
rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use
of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which
necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so long as it lives like a
captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received
the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it,
it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the
things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered;
and thus, as this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony
between them in regard to what belongs to it. But, as the earthly city has
had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by the divine teaching,
and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures or by demons,
supposed that many gods must be invited to take an interest in human
affairs, and assigned to each a separate function and a separate
department,--to one the body, to another the soul; and in the body itself,
to one the head, to another the neck, and each of the other members to one
of the gods; and in like manner, in the soul, to one god the natural
capacity was assigned, to another education, to another anger, to another
lust; and so the various affairs of life were assigned,--cattle to one,
corn to another, wine to another, oil to another, the woods to another,
money to another, navigation to another, wars and victories to another,
marriages to another, births and fecundity to another, and other things to
other gods: and as the celestial city, on the other hand, knew that one God
only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that service which
the Greeks call latrei'a, and which can be given only to a god, it has come
to pass that the two cities could not have common laws of religion, and
that the heavenly city has been compelled in this matter to dissent, and to
become obnoxious to those who think differently, and to stand the brunt of
their anger and hatred and persecutions, except in so far as the minds of
their enemies have been alarmed by the multitude of the Christians and
quelled by the manifest protection of God accorded to them. This heavenly
city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations,
and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling
about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly
peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various
these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It
therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that
it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the
worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced. Even the
heavenly city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself
of the peace of earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and
godliness, desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding the
acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes this earthly peace bear
upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and esteemed
the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the
perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in
God. When we shall have reached that peace, this mortal life shall give
place to one that is eternal, and our body shall be no more this animal
body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but a spiritual body
feeling no want, and in all its members subjected to the will. In its
pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this peace by faith; and by this
faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace
every good action towards God and man; for the life of the city is a social
life.

CHAP. 18.--HOW DIFFERENT THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE NEW ACADEMY IS FROM THE
CERTAINTY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

   As regards the uncertainty about everything which Varro alleges to be
the differentiating characteristic of the New Academy, the city of God
thoroughly detests such doubt as madness. Regarding matters which it
apprehends by the mind and reason it has most absolute certainty, although
its knowledge is limited because of the corruptible body pressing down the
mind, for, as the apostle says, "We know in part."(1) It believes also the
evidence of the senses which the mind uses by aid of the body; for [if one
who trusts his senses is sometimes deceived], he is more wretchedly
deceived who fancies he should never trust them. It believes also the Holy
Scriptures, old and new, which we call canonical, and which are the source
of the faith by which the just lives(2) and by which we walk without
doubting whilst we are absent from the Lord.(3) So long as this faith
remains inviolate and firm, we may without blame entertain doubts regarding
some things which we have neither perceived by sense nor by reason, and
which have not been revealed to us by the canonical Scriptures, nor come to
our knowledge through witnesses whom it is absurd to disbelieve.

CHAP. 19.--OF THE DRESS AND HABITS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE.

   It is a matter of no moment in the city of God whether he who adopts
the faith that brings men to God adopts it in one dress and manner of life
or another, so long only as he lives in conformity with the commandments of
God. And hence, when philosophers themselves become Christians, they are
compelled, indeed, to abandon their erroneous doctrines, but not their
dress and mode of living, which are no obstacle to religion. So that we
make no account of that distinction of sects which Varro adduced in
connection with the Cynic school, provided always nothing indecent or self-
indulgent is retained. As to these three modes of life, the contemplative,
the active, and the composite, although, so long as a man's faith is
preserved, he may choose any of them without detriment to his eternal
interests, yet he must never overlook the claims of truth and duty. No man
has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own
ease the service due to his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so
immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of God. The charm
of leisure must not be indolent vacancy of mind, but the investigation or
discovery of truth, that thus every man may make solid attainments without
grudging that others do the same. And, in active life, it is not the honors
or power of this life we should covet, since all things under the sun are
vanity, but we should aim at using our position and influence, if these
have been honorably attained, for the welfare of those who are under as, in
the way we have already explained.(4) It is to this the apostle refers when
he says, "He that desireth the episcopate desireth a good work."(5) He
wished to show that the episcopate is the title of a work, not of an honor.
It is a Greek word, and signifies that he who governs superintends or takes
care of those whom be governs: for epi' means over, and skopei^n, to see;
therefore episkopei^n means "to oversee."(6) So that he who loves to govern
rather than to do good is no bishop. Accordingly no one is prohibited from
the search after truth, for in this leisure may most laudably be spent; but
it is unseemly to covet the high position requisite for governing the
people, even though that position be held and that government be
administered in a seemly manner. And therefore holy leisure is longed for
by the love of truth; but it is the necessity of love to undertake
requisite business. If no one imposes this burden upon us, we are free to
sift and contemplate truth; but if it be laid upon us, we are necessitated
for love's sake to undertake it. And yet not even in this case are we
obliged wholly to relinquish the sweets of contemplation; for were these to
be withdrawn, the burden might prove more than we could bear.

CHAP. 20.--THAT THE SAINTS ARE IN THIS LIFE BLESSED IN HOPE.

   Since, then, the supreme good of the city of God is perfect and eternal
peace, not such as mortals pass into and out of by birth and death, but the
peace of freedom from all evil, in which the immortals ever abide; who can
deny that that future life is most blessed, or that, in comparison with it,
this life which now we live is most wretched, be it filled with all
blessings of body and soul and external things? And yet, if any man uses
this life with a reference to that other which he ardently loves and
confidently hopes for, he may well be called even now blessed, though not
in reality so much as in hope. But the actual possession of the happiness
of this life, without the hope of what is beyond, is but a false happiness
and profound misery. For the true blessings of the soul are not now
enjoyed; for that is no true wisdom which does not direct all its prudent
observations, manly actions, virtuous self-restraint, and just
arrangements, to that end in which God shall be all and all in a secure
eternity and perfect peace

CHAP. 21.--WHETHER THERE EVER WAS A ROMAN REPUBLIC ANSWERING TO THE
DEFINITIONS OF SCIPIO IN CICERO'S DIALOGUE.

   This, then, is the place where I should fulfill the promise gave in the
second book of this work,(1) and explain, as briefly and clearly as
possible, that if we are to accept the definitions laid down by Scipio in
Cicero's De Republica, there never was a Roman republic; for he briefly
defines a republic as the weal of the people. And if this definition be
true, there never was a Roman republic, for the people's weal was never
attained among the Romans. For the people, according to his definition, is
an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right and by a
community of interests. And what he means by a common acknowledgment of
right he explains at large, showing that a republic cannot be administered
without justice. Where, therefore, there is no true justice there can be no
right. For that which is done by right is justly done, and what is unjustly
done cannot be done by right. For the unjust inventions of men are neither
to be considered nor spoken of as rights; for even they themselves say that
right is that which flows from the fountain of justice, and deny the
definition which is commonly given by those who misconceive the matter,
that right is that which is useful to the stronger party. Thus, where there
is not true justice there can be no assemblage of men associated by a
common acknowledgment of right, and therefore there can be no people, as
defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then no weal of the people,
but only of some promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people.
Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no
people if it be not associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if
there is no right where there is no justice, then most certainly it follows
that there is no republic where there is no justice. Further, justice is
that virtue which gives every one his due. Where, then, is the justice of
man, when he deserts the true God and yields himself to impure demons? Is
this to give every one his due? Or is he who keeps back a piece of ground
from the purchaser, and gives it to a man who has no right to it, unjust,
while he who keeps back himself from the God who made him, and serves
wicked spirits, is just?

   This same book, De Republica, advocates the cause of justice against
injustice with great force and keenness. The pleading for injustice against
justice was first heard, and it was asserted that without injustice a
republic could neither increase nor even subsist, for it was laid down as
an absolutely unassailable position that it is unjust for some men to rule
and some to serve; and yet the imperial city to which the republic belongs
cannot rule her provinces without having recourse to this injustice. It was
replied in behalf of justice, that this ruling of the provinces is just,
because servitude may be advantageous to the provincials, and is so when
rightly administered,--that is to say, when lawless men are prevented from
doing harm. And further, as they became worse and worse so long as they
were free, they will improve by subjection. To confirm this reasoning,
there is added an eminent example drawn from nature: for "why," it is
asked, "does God rule man, the soul the body, the reason the passions and
other vicious parts of the soul?" This example leaves no doubt that, to
some, servitude is useful; and, indeed, to serve God is useful to all. And
it is when the soul serves God that it exercises a right control over the
body; and in the soul itself the reason must be subject to God if it is to
govern as it ought the passions and other vices. Hence, when a man does not
serve God, what justice can we ascribe to him, since in this case his soul
cannot exercise a just control over the body, nor his reason over his
vices? And if there is no justice in such an individual, certainly there
can be none in a community composed of such persons. Here, therefore, there
is not that common acknowledgment of right which makes an assemblage of men
a people whose affairs we call a republic. And why need I speak of the
advantageousness, the common participation in which, according to the
definition, makes a people? For although, if you choose to regard the
matter attentively, you will see that there is nothing advantageous to
those who live godlessly, as every one lives who does not serve God but
demons, whose wickedness you may measure by their desire to receive the
worship of men though they are most impure spirits, yet what I have said of
the common acknowledgment of right is enough to demonstrate that, according
to the above definition, there can be no people, and therefore no republic,
where there is no justice. For if they assert that in their republic the
Romans did not serve unclean spirits, but good and holy gods, must we
therefore again reply to this evasion, though already we have said enough,
and more than enough, to expose it? He must be an uncommonly stupid, or a
shamelessly contentious person, who has read through the foregoing books to
this point, and can yet question whether the Romans served wicked and
impure demons. But, not to speak of their character, it is written in the
law of the true God, "He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord
only, be shall be utterly destroyed."(1)  He, therefore, who uttered so
menacing a commandment decreed that no worship should be given either to
good or bad gods.

CHAP. 22.--WHETHER THE GOD WHOM THE CHRISTIANS SERVE IS THE TRUE GOD TO
WHOM ALONE SACRIFICE OUGHT TO BE PAID.

   But it may be replied, Who is this God, or what proof is there that He
alone is worthy to receive sacrifice from the Romans? One must be very
blind to be still asking who this God is. He is the God whose prophets
predicted the things we see accomplished. He is the God from whom Abraham
received the assurance, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed."(2)
That this was fulfilled in Christ, who according to the flesh sprang from
that seed, is recognized, whether they will or no, even by those who have
continued to be the enemies of this name. He is the God whose divine Spirit
spake by the men whose predictions I cited in the preceding books, and
which are fulfilled in the Church which has extended over all the world.
This is the God whom Varro, the most learned of the Romans, supposed to be
Jupiter, though he knows not what he says; yet I think it right to note the
circumstance that a man of such learning was unable to suppose that this
God had no existence or was contemptible, but believed Him to be the same
as the supreme God. In fine, He is the God whom Porphyry, the most learned
of the philosophers, though the bitterest enemy of the Christians,
confesses to be a great God, even according to the oracles of those whom he
esteems gods.

CHAP. 23.--PORPHYRY'S ACCOUNT OF THE RESPONSES GIVEN BY THE ORACLES OF THE
GODS CONCERNING CHRIST.

   For in his book called ek logi'wn philosophi'as, in which he collects
and comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the gods
concerning divine things, he says--I give his own words as they have been
translated from the Greek: "To one who inquired what god he should
propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo replied in
the following verses." Then the following words are given as those of
Apollo: "You will probably find it easier to write lasting characters on
the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air, than to restore
right feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted herself. Let her
remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to
her dead God, who was condemned by right-minded judges, and perished
ignominiously by a violent death." Then after these verses of Apollo (which
we have given in a Latin version that does not preserve the metrical form),
he goes on to say: "In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption
of the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians,
recognized God." See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the
preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his
explanation of Apollo's verses, in which he says that Christ was put to
death by right-minded or just judges,--in other words, that He deserved to
die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding Christ on the
lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it or
possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with Porphyry's opinions
or with other oracles, we shall in a little have something to say. In this
passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the interpreters of God, judged
justly in pronouncing Christ to be worthy of the most shameful death. He
should have listened, then, to this God of the Jews to whom he bears this
testimony, when that God says, "He that sacrificeth to any other god save
to the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed." But let us come to still
plainer expressions, and hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of
the Jews is. Apollo, he says, when asked whether word, i.e., reason, or law
is the better thing, replied in the following verses. Then he gives the
verses of Apollo, from which I select the following as sufficient: "God,
the Generator, and the King prior to all things, before whom heaven and
earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell tremble, and the deities
themselves are afraid, for their law is the Father whom the holy Hebrews
honor." In this oracle of his god Apollo, Porphyry avowed that the God of
the Hebrews is so great that the deities themselves are afraid before Him.
I am surprised, therefore, that when God said, He that sacrificeth to other
gods shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he
should be destroyed for sacrificing to other gods.

   This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ,
oblivious, as it were, of that contumely of his of which we have just been
speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only while asleep, and
recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they
awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing
belief, he says, "What we are going to say will certainly take some by
surprise. For the gods have declared that Christ was very pious, and has
become immortal, and that they cherish his memory: that the Christians,
however, are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error. And many other
such things," he says, "do the gods say against the Christians." Then he
gives specimens of the accusations made, as he says, by the gods against
them, and then goes on: "But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a
God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul,
and that if it has been severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you
refer to is that of a man foremost in piety: they worship it because they
mistake the truth." To this so-called oracular response he adds the
following words of his own: "Of this very pious man, then, Hecate said that
the soul, like the souls of other good men, was after death dowered with
immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance worship it. And to
those who ask why he was condemned to die, the oracle of the goddess
replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to torments, but the souls of
the pious abide in heaven. And the soul you inquire about has been the
fatal cause of error to other souls which were not fated to receive the
gifts of the gods, and to have the knowledge of immortal Jove. Such souls
are therefore hated by the gods; for they who were fated not to receive the
gifts of the gods, and not to know God, were fated to be involved in error
by means of him you speak of. He himself, however, was good, and heaven has
been opened to him as to other good men. You are not, then, to speak evil
of him, but to pity the folly of men: and through him men's danger is
imminent."

   Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed
by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians, or were
uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar design,--that is to
say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their
vituperation of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close the
way of eternal salvation, which is identical with Christianity? For they
believe that they are by no means counterworking their own hurtful craft by
promoting belief in Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is
also accepted; for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of
Christ declines to become a Christian, and is therefore not delivered from
their own rule by the Christ he praises. Besides, their praise of Christ is
so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus represented will not be
a true Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity,
and not also the divinity of Christ, and will thus be precluded from
salvation and from deliverance out of the meshes of these devilish lies.
For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate's praises of Christ than
with Apollo's calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ was put to death
by right-minded judges, implying that He was unrighteous. Hecate says that
He was a most pious man, but no more. The intention of both is the same, to
prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this be secured, men shall
never be rescued from their power. But it is incumbent on our philosopher,
or rather on those who believe in these pretended oracles against the
Christians, first of all, if they can, to bring Apollo and Hecate to the
same mind regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both praise
Him. And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would
notwithstanding repudiate the testimony of demons, whether favorable or
adverse to Christ. But when our adversaries find a god and goddess of their
own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other vituperating Him,
they can certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men
who blaspheme the Christians.

   When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself
to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he
exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error. But before I cite his
words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the
Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His
will? If willingly, how is He righteous? If against His will, how is He
blessed? However, let us hear the causes of this error. "There are," he
says," in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power
of evil demons. The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as
you have heard from the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious
persons from these very wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them
rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the
Father. This," he said, "the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how
they admonish the soul to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But
the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favors from
the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods and
their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused
to hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship
God, they refuse to do those things by which alone God is worshipped. For
God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing; but for us it
is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and
thus to make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating
His nature. For inquiry," says he, "purifies and imitation deifies us, by
moving us nearer to Him." He is right in so far as he proclaims God the
Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him. Of such precepts
the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the
life of the saints. But in speaking of the Christians he is in error, and
caluminates them as much as is desired by the demons whom he takes for
gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and
shameful actions which used to be done in the theatres and temples to
please the gods, and to compare with these things what is heard in our
churches, and what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison to
conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a
diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a
lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose
worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God, whom the Hebrew sages
worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of
heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and
love as our most blessed fellow-citizens. For in the law which God gave to
His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder: "He that
sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly
destroyed."(1) And that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends
only to the very wicked demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher
calls very small and inferior,--for even these are in the Scripture called
gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators
have shown in the psalm where it is said, "For all the gods of the nations
are demons,"(2)--that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to these
demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or some
of the celestials, it was immediately added, "save unto the Lord alone."(3)
The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned philosopher bears this
signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew people a law, composed in the Hebrew
language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now in every nation,
and in this law it is written, "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto
the Lord alone, he shall be utterly destroyed." What need is there to seek
further proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing? Seek, we need
not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but what
need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are thickly sown
and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may be
paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is one brief but decided,
even menacing, and certainly true utterance of that God whom the wisest of
our adversaries so highly extol. Let this be listened to, feared,
fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient soul cut off. "He that
sacrifices," He says, not because He needs anything, but because it behoves
us to be His possession. Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings,
"I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou needest not my
good."(1) For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and
worthy sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices,
which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained in the preceding
books. For through the prophets the oracles of God declared that the
sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would
cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun,
would offer one sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now see
accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed suitable to our
purpose in this work. And therefore, where there is not this righteousness
whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace,
so that it sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of
this obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the
vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so also
the community and people of the just, live by faith, which works by love,
that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbor
as himself,--there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a
common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests. But if
there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition be true, and
therefore there is no republic; for where there is no people there can be
no republic.

CHAP. 24.--THE DEFINITION WHICH MUST BE GIVEN OF A PEOPLE AND A REPUBLIC,
IN ORDER TO VINDICATE THE ASSUMPTION OF THESE TITLES BY THE ROMANS AND BY
OTHER KINGDOMS.

   But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another,
say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a
common agreement as to the objects of their love, then, in order to
discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they
love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable
beings and not of beasts, and is bound together by an agreement as to the
objects of love. it is reasonably called a people; and it will be a
superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests,
inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower. According to this
definition of ours, the Roman people is a people, and its weal is without
doubt a commonwealth or republic. But what its tastes were in its early and
subsequent days, and how it declined into sanguinary seditions and then to
social and civil wars, and so burst asunder or rotted off the bond of
concord in which the health of a people consists, history shows, and in the
preceding books I have related at large. And yet I would not on this
account say either that it was not a people, or that its administration was
not a republic, so long as there remains an assemblage of reasonable beings
bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of love. But what I
say of this people and of this republic I must be understood to think and
say of the Athenians or any Greek state, of the Egyptians, of the early
Assyrian Babylon, and of every other nation, great or small, which had a
public government. For, in general, the city of the ungodly, which did not
obey the command of God that it should offer no sacrifice save to Him
alone, and which, therefore, could not give to the soul its proper command
over the body, nor to the reason its just authority over the vices, is void
of true justice.

CHAP. 25.--THAT WHERE THERE IS NO TRUE RELIGION THERE ARE NO TRUE VIRTUES.

   For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the reason
the vices, if the soul and reason do not themselves obey God, as God has
commanded them to serve Him, they have no proper authority over the body
and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body and the vices can that
mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and which, instead of being
subject to His authority, is prostituted to the corrupting influences of
the most vicious demons? It is for this reason that the virtues which it
seems to itself to possess, and by which it restrains the body and the
vices that it may obtain and keep what it desires, are rather vices than
virtues so long as there is no reference to God in the matter. For although
some suppose that virtues which have a reference only to themselves, and
are desired only on their own account, are yet true and genuine virtues,
the fact is that even then they are inflated with pride, and are therefore
to be reckoned vices rather than virtues. For as that which gives life to
the flesh is not derived from flesh, but is above it, so that which gives
blessed life to man is not derived from man, but is something above him;
and what I say of man is true of every celestial power and virtue what,
soever.

CHAP. 26.--OF THE PEACE WHICH IS ENJOYED BY THE PEOPLE THAT ARE ALIENATED
FROM GOD, AND THE USE MADE OF IT BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THE TIME OF ITS
PILGRIMAGE.

   Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of
man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, "Blessed is the
people whose God is the Lord."(1) Miserable, therefore, is the people which
is alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of its own which is
not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall not in the end enjoy
it, because it makes no good use of it before the end. But it is our
interest that it enjoy this peace meanwhile in this life; for as long as
the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy the peace of Babylon. For from
Babylon the people of God is so freed that it meanwhile sojourns in its
company. And therefore the apostle also admonished the Church to pray for
kings and those in authority, assigning as the reason, "that we may live a
quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and love."(2) And the prophet
Jeremiah, when predicting the captivity that was to befall the ancient
people of God, and giving them the divine command to go obediently to
Babylonia, and thus serve their God, counselled them also to pray for
Babylonia, saying, "In the peace thereof shall ye have peace,"(3)--the
temporal peace which the good and the wicked together enjoy.

CHAP. 27.--THAT THE PEACE OF THOSE WHO SERVE GOD CANNOT IN THIS MORTAL LIFE
BE APPREHENDED IN ITS PERFECTION.

   But the peace which is peculiar to ourselves we enjoy now with God by
faith, and shall hereafter enjoy eternally with Him by sight. But the peace
which we enjoy in this life, whether common to all or peculiar to
ourselves, is rather the solace of our misery than the positive enjoyment
of felicity. Our very righteousness, too, though true in so far as it has
respect to the true good, is yet in this life of such a kind that it
consists rather in the remission of sins than in the perfecting of virtues.
Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its pilgrim state, for it
cries to God by the mouth of all its members, "Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors."(4)  And this prayer is efficacious not for those
whose faith is "without works and dead,"(5) but for those whose faith
"worketh by love."(6)  For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet
"pressed down by the corruptible body,"(7)  so long as it is in this mortal
condition, it has not perfect authority over vice, and therefore this
prayer is needed by the righteous. For though it exercises authority, the
vices do not submit without a struggle. For however well one maintains the
conflict, and however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals
in some evil thing, which, if it do not find ready expression in act, slips
out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought; and therefore his
peace is not full so long as he is at war with his vices. For it is a
doubtful conflict he wages with those that resist, and his victory over
those that are defeated is not secure, but full of anxiety and effort.
Amidst these temptations, therefore, of all which it has been summarily
said in the divine oracles, "Is not human life upon earth a temptation?"(8)
who but a proud man can presume that he so lives that he has no need to say
to God, "Forgive us our debts?" And such a man is not great, but swollen
and puffed up with vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who abundantly
gives grace to the humble. Whence it is said, "God resisteth the proud, but
giveth grace to the humble."(9)  In this, then, consists the righteousness
of a man, that he submit himself to God, his body to his soul, and his
vices, even when they rebel, to his reason, which either defeats or at
least resists them; and also that he beg from God grace to do his duty,(10)
and the pardon of his sins, and that he render to God thanks for all the
blessings he receives. But, in that final peace to which all our
righteousness has reference, and for the sake of which it is maintained, as
our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and incorruption, and shall have
no more vices, and as we shall experience no resistance either from
ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary that reason should rule
vices which no longer exist, but God shall rule the man, and the soul shall
rule the body, with a sweetness and facility suitable to the felicity of a
life which is done with bondage. And this condition shall there be eternal,
and we shall be assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this
blessedness and the blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme good.

CHAP. 28.--THE END OF THE WICKED.

   But, on the other hand, they who do not belong to this city of God
shall inherit eternal misery, which is also called the second death,
because the soul shall then be separated from God its life, and therefore
cannot be said to live, and the body shall be subjected to eternal pains.
And consequently this second death shall be the more severe, because no
death shall terminate it. But war being contrary to peace, as misery to
happiness, and life to death, it is not without reason asked what kind of
war can be found in the end of the wicked answering to the peace which is
declared to be the end of the righteous? The person who puts this question
has only to observe what it is in war that is hurtful and destructive, and
he shall see that it is nothing else than the mutual opposition and
conflict of things. And can he conceive a more grievous and bitter war than
that in  which the will is so opposed to passion, and passion to the will,
that their hostility can never be terminated by the victory of either, and
in which the violence of pain so conflicts with the nature of the body,
that neither yields to the other? For in this life, when this conflict has
arisen, either pain conquers and death expels the feeling of it, or nature
conquers and health expels the pain. But in the world to come the pain
continues that it may torment, and the nature endures that it may be
sensible of it; and neither ceases to exist, test punishment also should
cease. Now, as it is through the last judgment that men pass to these ends,
the good to the supreme good, the evil to the supreme evil, I will treat of
this judgment in the following book.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/II, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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