City of God
by Saint Augustine
translated by Nenry Bettenson
(Penguin Books, London, 1984)
“It is, perhaps, the last great prose work of classical Rome.”
-
Introduction, by John O’Meara,
(page xxxv)
“To worship ‘vanquished’ gods as protectors and defenders is to rely not on divinities but on defaulters.”
(page 9)
“To make war and to extend the realm by crushing other peoples, is good fortune in the eyes of the wicked; to the good, it is stern
necessity.”
( page 154)
“We Christians call rulers happy, if they rule with justice.”
(page 220)
“ ... it is only with a view to life eternal that anyone should be a Christian.”
(page 221)
“Stupidity glories in never yielding to the force of truth.”
(page 225)
“ ... the true philosopher is the lover of God, since the aim of philosophy is happiness, and he who has set his heart
on God will be happy in the enjoyment of him.”
(page 311)
“ ... the supremely important thing in religion is to model oneself on the object of one’s worship.”
(page 324)
“It is easier for a man to cease to be a man, by worshipping as gods things of his own creation than it is for things of man’s own creation to become gods as a result of his worship. ... So it is just that man should be sundered from him who made him, when he puts above himself that which he has created.`
(page 332)
“ ... it was necessary that the mediator between God and man should have a transient mortality, and a permanent blessedness, so that through that which is transient he might be conformed to the condition of those who are doomed to die, and might bring them back from the dead to that which is permanent.”
(page 360)
“If man comes near to God in proportion as he grows more like him, the unlikeness to God is the only separation from him, and the soul of man is estranged from that immaterial, eternal and unchangeable being in proportion as it craves for things that are temporal and changeable.”
(page 364)
“We need a mediator linked with us in our lowliness by reason of the mortal nature of is body, and yet able to render truly divine assistance for our purification and liberation, through the immortal justice of his spirit in virtue of which he has remained in his dwelling on high - not by spatial remoteness from us, but by his unique resemblance God.”
(page 364)
“ ... knowledge is valuable when charity informs it. Without charity, knowledge inflates; that is, it exalts man to an arrogance which is nothing but a kind of windy emptiness.”
(page 366)
“ ... no one, having started on the way to liberation, should look back with regret at his past life.”
(page 382)
“ ... so the visible form in which God - who exists in his invisible substance - became visible was not identical with God himself.”
(page 391)
“For it is only sins that separate men from God; and in this life purification from sins is not effected b our merit, but by the compassion of God, through his indulgence, not through our power. ... that is why grace has been bestowed on us through the intervention of a mediator, so that when we had been polluted b the sinful flesh we might be purified by ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’.”
(page 403)
“The soul is given to the body in order to do good, for it would not recognize evil if it did not do good.”
(page 418)
“ ... the world was not created in time but with time. ... But at the time of creation there could have been no past, because there was nothing created to provide the change and movement which is the condition of time.”
(page 436)
“When the created light so acts in coming to the knowledge of itself, there is one day.”
(page 437)
“ ... the statement, ‘God saw that it was good’makes it quite plain that God did not create under stress of an compulsion, or because he lacked something for his own needs; his only motive was goodness; he created because his creation was good.”
(page 457)
“A non-existent being cannot be mistaken; therefore I must exist, if I am mistaken. Then since my being mistaken proves that I exist, how can I be mistaken in thinking that I exist seeing that my mistake establishes my existence? Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist. It follows that I am not mistaken in knowing that I know. For just as I know that I exist, I also know that I know.”
(The argument of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum,“I think, therefore I exist.’)
(page 460)
“ ... there is only one Good which will bring happiness to a rational or intellectual creature; and that Good is God.”
(page 471)
“ ... the failure to adhere to God must be a perversion in this rational nature. ... it is not by nature but by perversion that the rebellious creation differs from the good, which adheres to God.”
(page 472)
“ ... God is existence in a supreme degree - he supremely is- and he is therefore immutable.”
(page 473)
“ ... no evil can harm God; but evils can harm natural substances liable to change and injury, although the very fact that perversions are perversions is a proof that such natures are in themselves good; if they were not good these faults would not harm them.”
(page 474)
“ ... no one is punished for faults of nature but for faults of will.”
(page 474)
“ ... when we know things not by perception but by its absence, we know them, in a sense, but not-knowing, so that they are not-known by being known.”
(page 480)
“Lust is not something wrong n a beautiful and attractive body; the fault is in a soul which perversely delights in sensual pleasures, to the neglect of that self-control by which we are made fit for spiritual realities far more beautiful, with a loveliness which cannot fade.”
(page 481)
“ ... time, we suppose, did not begin with the sky, but existed before it; though not indeed in hours, days, months and years For these measurements of temporal spaces, which are by usage properly called “times”, evidently took their beginning from the motion of the stars; hence God said, in creating the, “Let them serve for signs and times and days and years.” Time, we suppose, existed before this in some changing movement, in which there was succession of before and after, in which everything could not be simultaneous. If then before the creation of the sky there was something of this sort in the angelic motions, and therefore time already existed and the angels moved in time from the moment of their creation, even so they have existed for all time, seeing that time began when they began.”
(page 491)
“ ... his goodness cannot be thought of as ever inactive, for otherwise his activity would be temporary, with an eternity of rest before it; and it would seem as if he repented of his former every-lasting leisure, and that was why he began to set to work. ... if we ascribe to God’s works a beginning in time, we obviously suggest the idea that in some way he disapproved of his own previous eternal inactivity ,and condemned it as sloth and idleness, and therefore changed his ways!”
(page 494)
“As for us, we are forbidden to suppose that God is in a different condition when he is at rest than when he is at work. ... So we must not think of God’s inactivity as involving sloth, or idleness, or laziness, any more than of his work as involving toil, effort, and industry. ... in God there was no new decision which altered or cancelled a previous intention; instead, it was with one and the same eternal and unchanging design that he effected his creation. ... he did not stand in need of his creation, but produced his creatures out of pure disinterested goodness, since he had continued in no less felicity without them from all eternity without beginning.”
(pages 495-496)
“ ... the death of the soul results when God abandons it, the death of the body when the soul departs.”
(page 510)
“ ... the punishment of sin has been turned by the great and wonderful grace of our Saviour to a good use, to the promotion of righteousness.”
(page 513)
“ ... when God said, ‘Where are you, Adam?’ Obviously God was not asking for information; he was rebuking Adam; and by the form of the rebuke he was warning him to take notice where he was, in that God was not with him.”
(page 524)
“ ... the soul is not the whole man; it is the better part of man, and the body is not the whole man; it is the lower part of him. It is the conjunction of the two parts that is entitled to the name of ‘man.’”
(page 541)
“ ... those who imagine that all the ills of the soul derive from the body are mistaken.”
(page 551)
“ ... the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause of the first sin, but its punishment. And it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful; it was the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible.
(page 551)
“ ... we must not attribute to the flesh all the faults of a wicked life, which would mean that we absolve the Devil of all those faults, since he has no flesh.”
(page 551)
“It is in fact not by the possession of flesh, which the Devil does not possess, that man has become like the Devil: it is by living by the rule of self, that is by the rule of man.”
(page 552)
“So when man lives by the standard of truth he lives not by his own standard, but by God’s. For it is God who has said, ‘I am the truth.’ By contrast, when he lives by his own standard, that is by man’s and not by God’s standard, then inevitably he lives by the standard of falsehood.”
(page 552)
“ ... the Scriptures of our religion, whose authority we rank above all other writings, do not distinguish between ‘love’and ‘fondness’ or ‘charity’.”
(page 557)
“ ... a rightly directed will is love in a good sense and a perverted will is love in a bad sense.”
(page 557)
“ ... God foreknew everything, and therefore could not have been unaware that man would sin.”
(page 568)
“ ... evil things cannot exist without the good, since te natural entities in which evil exists are certainly good, in so far as they are natural. Furthermore, an evil is eradicated not by the removal of some natural substance which had accrued to the original, or by the removal of any part of it, but by the healing and restoration of the original which had been corrupted and debased.”
(page 569)
“It was in secret that the first human beings began to be evil; and the result was that they slipped into open disobedience.”
(page 571)
“ ... the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit, was committed only when those who did it were already evil.”
( page 572)
“This then is the original evil: man regards himself as his own light, and turns away form that light which would make man himself a light if he would set his heart on it. This evil came first, in secret, and the result was the other evil, which was committed in the open. ... The fall that happens in secret inevitably precedes the fall that occurs in broad daylight, though the former is not recognized as a fall.”
(page 573)
“ ... [Adam] was delighted ... with the statement,‘You will be like gods.’ In fact they would have been better able to b e like gods if they had in obedience adhered to the supreme and real ground of their being, if they had not in pride made themselves their own ground.”
(page 573)
(Paul Tillich’s Ground of Being existential theology.)
“Even worse, and more deserving of condemnation, is the pride shown in the search for an excuse, even when the sins are clear as daylight. ... the woman’s pride blames the serpent, the man’s pride blames the woman.”
(page 574)
“ ... by our defiance of God [we] have only succeeded in becoming a nuisance to ourselves, and not to God. For he does not need our services as we need the service of our body, so that what we receive is punishment for ourselves, while what we have done is not punishment for him.”
(page 576)
“Bodily pain is really nothing but a distress of the soul arising form the body, and a kind of disagreement with what happens to the body.”
(page 576)
“Fornication, in fact, is called a depravity even by those who are depraved themselves.`
(page 579)
“ ... it was after the pair had been sent away from paradise that they came together to beget children, and did beget them.”
(page 583)
“ ... if there had been no sin, marriage would have been worthy of the happiness of paradise, and would have given birth to children to be loved, and yet would not have given rise to any lust to be ashamed of.”
(page 585)
“ ... life will only be truly happy when it is eternal.”
(page 590)
“ ... man lived in paradise as only as his wish was at one with God’s command.”
(page 590)
“ ... it was not in man’s power, even in paradise, to live a good life without the help of God, yet it was in his power to livean evil life.”
(page 592)
“ ... God was not unaware of any event in the future, and yet he did not, by his foreknowledge, compel anyone to sin.”
(page 593)
“ ... it is not the case that every bad man will become good, but no one will be good who was not bad originally,”
(page 596)
“ ... the good make use of this world in order to enjoy God, whereas the evil want ot make use of God in order to enjoy the world - those of them, that is, who still believe in the existence of God.”
(page 604)
“ ... man’s nature was created good by god, who is good; but it was made changeable by him who is changeless, since it was created from nothing. And so the will in that nature can turn away form good to do evil - and this through its own free choice; and it can also turn from evil to do good - but this can only be with the divine assistance.”
(pages 635-636)
“ ... it is customary in Scripture to apply the term ‘good’ also to those who are physically attractive.”
(page 639)
“Now God’s anger is not an agitation of his mind; it is a judgement by which punishment is inflicted on sin. And his consideration and reconsideration are his unchanging plan applied to things subject to change.”
(page 642)
“ ... in the prophetic history some things are recorded which have no prophetic significance in themselves; but they are there for the significant events to be attached to them, moored to them, as we might say.”
(page 653)
“ .. even if a grater divergence from the norm should appear, he whose operations no one has the right to criticize knows what he is about.”
(page 662)
“ ... the fact that God orders the circumcision not only of all the sons, but of the house-born slaves and the purchased slaves as well, this is evidence that this grace pertains to all men.”
(page 687)
“ ... many covenants are called God’s covenants, apart from the two principal ones, the Old and New, which anyone may get to know by reading them. But the first covenant, made with the first man, is certainly this: ‘On the day you eat, you will surely die.’”
(page 688)
“ ...
the process of birth rightly brings perdition on the infant because of the original sin by which God’s covenant was first broken, unless the rebirth sets him free; and circumcision was instituted as a sign of rebirth.”
(page 689)
“ ... there is no other way in which the human spirit can acquire self-knowledge except by trying its own strength in answering, not in word but in deed, what may be called the interrogation of temptation.”
(pages 693-694)
“The actions of men, but the operation of God!”
(page 701)
“ ... the ability to ‘perform justice and righteousness’ comes from God.”
(page 722)
“ ... God, who does not change his mind, as a man does. For when we are told that God changes his mind, or repents, this signifies an alteration in the course of history, though the divine prescience remains unchanged. Thus when it is said that God does not change his mind the meaning is that there is no alteration in him.”
(page 732)
“ ... David reigned in the earthyly Jerusalem, a son of the Heavenly Jerusalem.”
(page 753)
“ ... there is noting far-fetched in the belief that among other peoples besides the Jews there existed men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were compelled to go
on the proclaim what they knew”
(page 829)
“ ... right reason will not allow more than one sect to be right.”
(page 849)
“Life, to be sure, is not the same thing as virtue, since not every kind of life, but only the wise conduct of life is virtue. There can, indeed, be some sort of life without virtue; but there can be no virtue without any life at all.”
(page 850)
“ ... the less the soul has God in mind in all its thinking, the less it is subordinated to God.”
(page 854)
“ ... the admission that it is a life to be escaped from is an open confession of weakness.”
(page 855)
“ ... genuine virtues can exist only in those in whom true godliness is present.”
(page 857)
“ ... who are, in general, more friendly, or at any rate ought to be, than those within the walls of the same home? And yet, is anyone perfectly serene in that situation, when such grievous ills have so often arisen from the secret treachery of people within those walls? And the bitterness of these ills matches the sweetness of the peace that was reckoned
genjine, when it was in fact only a very clever pretence.”
(page 858)
“ ... those who pronounce judgement cannot see into the consciences of those on whom they pronounce it.”
(page 859)
“ ... when men cannot communicate their thoughts to each other, simply because of difference of language, all the similarity of their common human nature is of no avail to unite them in fellowship.”
(page 861)
“ ... how can it be that a man’s death should not be bitter if his life is sweet to us?”
(page 863
“ ... no creature’s perversion is so contrary to nature as to destroy the very last vestiges of its nature.”
page 869)
“ ... God, in punishing, does not chastise the good which he crated, but the evil which the Devil has committed.”
(page 871)
“ ... a sinner is in a worse state if he rejoices in the loss of righteousness; but as sinner who feels anguish, though he may gain no good from his anguish, is at least grieving at the loss of salvation.”
(page 871)
“ ... grief at the loss of good, when a man is punished, is evidence of a good nature.”
(page 871)
“ ... the most pitiless domination that devastates the heats of men, is that exercised by this very lust for domination.”
(page 875)
“ ... the duty of anyone who would be blameless includes not only doing no harm to anyone but also restraining a man from sin or punishing his sin, so that either the man who is chastised may be corrected by his experience, or others may be deterred by his example.”
(page 876)
“ ... where there is no justice there is no commonwealth. Moreover, justice is that virtue which assigns to everyone his due.”
(page 882)
“ ... people amongst whom there is no justice can never be said to have a commonwealth.”
(page 883)
“ ... the soul cannot be said to be alive in that state, when it is separated from the life of God, nor can the body, when it is subjected to eternal torments. And this is precisely the reason why this‘second death’ will be harder to bear, because it cannot come to an end in death.”
(page 894)
“ ... though there are good men in adversity and bad men in prosperity, which seems unjust, it remains true that, in general, bad
men come to a bad end, and good men enjoy eventual success.”
(page 897)
“ ... one thing is not hidden from the faith of the devout; and that is, that what is hidden is just.”
(page 898.)
“ ... any person is more securely in the Devil’s possession when he is not only estranged, from God but goes on to conceive a gratuitous hatred for God’s servants.”
(page 908)
“ ... the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the Church.”
(page 916)
“ ... it is by a transformation of the physical universe, not by its annihilation, that this world will pass away.`
(page 924)
“ ... the more holy a man is, and the deeper his longing for holiness, the more abundant is his weeping when he prays.”
(page 929)
“ ... God’s People will be made up of men of every race - though not all mankind will be there, since many will be enduring punishment.”
(page 943)
“ ... what sort of logic is it to make pain a proof of death when it is in fact the evidence of life!”
(page 966)
“ .. the fact of pain is not a cogent proof of future death.”
(page 968)
“ ... the fact that a rational explanation cannot be given for something does not mean that it could not have happened in the past, or that it could not happen in the future.”
(page 971)
“ ... one thing is utterly certain, that nothing that he wills is impossible for him, for we cannot believe that God is impotent, or that God is a liar.”
(page 973)
“ ... the use he makes of his creation is as wonderful as the act of creation itself.”
(page 976)
“ ... how can an event be contrary to nature when it happens by the will of God, since the will of the great Creator assuredly is the nature of every created thing? A portent, therefore, does not occur contrary to nature, but contrary to what is known of nature.”
(page 980)
“ ... just as it was not impossible for God to set in being natures according to his will, so it is afterwards not impossible for him to change those natures which he has set in being, in whatever way he chooses.”
(page 982)
“Now the reason why eternal punishment appears harsh and unjust to human sensibilities, is that in this feeble condition of those sensibilities under their condition or mortality man lacks the sensibility of the highest and purest wisdom, the sense which should enable him to feel the gravity of the wickedness in the first act of disobedience.”
(page 988)
“Punishments are a means of purification only to those who are disciplined and corrected by them. All other punishments, whether temporal or eternal, are imposed on every person in accordance with the treatment he is to receive form God’s providence; they are imposed either in retribution for sins, whether past sins or sins in which the person so chastised is still living, or else they serve to exercise and to display the virtues of the good.”
(page 990)
“ ... it is better to struggle against vices than to be free from conflict under their domination. Better war with the hope of everlasting peace than slavery without any thought of liberation.”
(page 993)
“ ... a man looks in vain, after he has quitted this mortal body, for something which he has not troubled to obtain while in the body.”
(page 1006)
“ ... God is not concerned about the recipient of a gift, but about its motive.”
(pages 1016-1017)
“ ... the more one loves what Christ disapproves the more one abandons Christ.”
(page 1017)
“ ... when a man gives charitable aid to a Christian it is not to a Christian that he gives it if he does not love Christ in that Christian.”
(page 1017)
“ ... the nature which enjoyed god proves that it was crated excellent by that very defect, by the fact that it is wretched simply because it does not enjoy God.”
(page 1023)
“ ... his greatest work was the creation of spirits, to whom he gave intelligence, making them capable of contemplating him, able to apprehend him; and he bound them together in one fellowship, wihc we call the Holy and HeavenlyCity.”
(page 1022)
“ ... when God is said to ‘change his will’, as, for example, when ‘he becomes angry’ with those people to whom ‘he was lenient’,it is the people who change, rather than God; and they find him, in a sense,‘changed’ in their experience.”
(page 1023)
“By sinning we lose our hold on piety and happiness; and yet in losing our happiness we do not lose the will to happiness.”
(page 1089)
“The saints will have no sensible recollection of past evils; theirs will be the second kind of forgetfulness by which they will be set free from them all, and they will be completely erased from their feelings.”
(page 1090)