Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 3 part 69/87

How much more is man borne, in a certain manner, by the laws of his own nature, to enter into society and to maintain peace with all men, so far as in him lies—since even the wicked make war for the peace of their own, and wish, if they could, to make all men their own, that all and everything might serve one master; and by what means, save that they should consent to his peace either by loving or by fearing? For thus does pride perversely imitate God. For it hates equality with fellows under Him, but wishes to impose its own domination upon fellows in His stead. It hates, therefore, the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust peace. Yet it cannot help loving peace of some kind. For no one's vice is so contrary to nature as to destroy even the last traces of nature.

And so, the peace of the unjust, compared with the peace of the just, is seen not even to deserve the name of peace, by him who knows how to prefer right things to wrong, and ordered things to perverse. But that which is perverse must of necessity be in some measure, and out of some measure, and with some measure of the parts of things in which it is, or of which it consists, at peace; otherwise it would not exist at all. As if someone should hang head downwards, the position of the body and the order of the members is assuredly perverse, because that which nature requires to be above is below, and what nature wishes to be below is made to be above; this perversity disturbs the peace of the flesh and is therefore distressing: yet the soul is at peace with its body and is busy for its welfare, and therefore there is one who suffers:

and if the soul, driven out by these distresses, departs, so long as the framework of the members remains, what remains is not without a certain peace of its parts, and therefore there is still that which hangs. And because the earthly body strains toward the earth and resists the bond by which it is suspended, it tends toward the order of its own peace, and in a certain manner demands by the voice of its weight a place where it may rest; and now lifeless and without any sense, it nevertheless does not depart from the natural peace of its own order, whether when it holds that peace, or when it is borne toward it. For if medicaments and treatment be applied which do not allow the form of the corpse to dissolve and fall apart, a certain peace still joins the parts to the parts and applies the whole mass to an earthly and suitable, and on that account peaceful, place.

But if no care of embalming be applied, but it be left to the natural course, it is, as it were, in tumult with exhalations that are at variance among themselves and unsuited to our sense (for that is what is perceived in the stench), until it agrees with the elements of the world, and little by little, particle by particle, departs into their peace. Yet in no way is anything thereby withdrawn from the laws of that supreme Creator and Orderer, by whom the peace of the universe is administered; for although from the corpse of a larger animal tiny living creatures are born, by the same law of the Creator each little body serves its little souls in the peace of well-being; and although the flesh of the dead be devoured by other animals,

those same laws, diffused throughout all things for the welfare of every kind of mortal beings, pacifying things congruous with things congruous, are found wheresoever they be drawn, and to whatsoever things they be joined, and into whatsoever things they be converted and changed. CHAPTER XIII. Of the universal peace, which amid whatever disturbances cannot be taken away by the law of nature, since under a just Judge each one attains by appointment that which he has deserved by his will.

The peace of the body, then, is the ordered tempering of its parts; the peace of the irrational soul is the ordered repose of the appetites; the peace of the rational soul is the ordered agreement of knowledge and action; the peace of body and soul is the ordered life and health of the living being; the peace of mortal man and God is ordered obedience in faith under the eternal law; the peace of men is ordered concord; the peace of a household is the ordered concord of those who dwell together in commanding and obeying; the peace of a city is the ordered concord of the citizens in commanding and obeying; the peace of the heavenly city is the most ordered and most concordant fellowship in enjoying God and one another in God; the peace of all things is the tranquillity of order. Order is the disposition of equal and unequal things, assigning to each its own place.

Accordingly the wretched, since, in so far as they are wretched, they are assuredly not in peace, lack indeed the tranquillity of order, where there is no disturbance; yet because they are deservedly and justly wretched, they cannot, even in that very wretchedness of theirs, be outside order—not indeed joined to the blessed, but separated from them by the law of order. And when they are without disturbance, they are fitted, by whatever degree of agreement, to the things in which they are; and on this account there is in them some tranquillity of order, and therefore some peace. But they are wretched on this account, that, although in a certain security they do not suffer pain, yet they are not there where they ought to be secure and free from pain; and more wretched, if peace is not theirs along with that very law by which the natural order is administered.

But when they suffer pain, in the part where they suffer pain, a disturbance of peace has been made; yet in that part there is still peace, in which neither does pain burn nor is the very framework dissolved. As, therefore, there is a certain life without pain, but pain cannot exist without some life: so there is a certain peace without any war, but war cannot exist without some peace—not according to that which is war, but according to that which is waged by, or in, those things which are natures of some kind; which would in no way exist, unless they subsisted by some peace of whatever sort. Wherefore there is a nature in which there is no evil, or even in which there can be no evil; but a nature in which there is no good, there cannot be.

Accordingly, not even the nature of the devil himself, in so far as it is a nature, is evil; but it is perversity that makes it evil. And so he did not stand in the truth, yet he did not escape the judgment of the truth; he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, nor yet did he flee from the power of the Orderer. The good of God, which is in his nature, does not withdraw him from the justice of God, by which he is ordered in punishment; nor there does God pursue the good which He created, but the evil which he committed. Neither indeed does He take away the whole of what He gave to the nature, but takes away something, leaves something, that there may be one to grieve over what He has taken away. And the very grief is testimony to the good taken away and the good left. For unless a good had been left, he could not grieve over the good lost.

For he who sins is worse, if he rejoices in the loss of righteousness; but he who is tormented, if he gains no good thereby, grieves over the loss of well-being. And since both righteousness and well-being are a good, and over the loss of a good one ought rather to grieve than to rejoice (if indeed there be no compensation of a better—but the righteousness of the soul is better than the health of the body): assuredly the unjust man more fittingly grieves in his punishment than he rejoiced in his sin. As, therefore, the joy over a good forsaken in sin is a witness of an evil will, so the grief over a good lost in punishment is a witness of a good nature. For he who grieves over the lost peace of his own nature, grieves over it out of certain remnants of peace, by which it comes about that nature is dear to itself.

But this rightly comes to pass in the final punishment, that the unjust and impious should bewail in their torments the losses of their natural goods, perceiving Him to be the most just remover of them who they despised as the most bountiful giver.

God, therefore, the most wise Creator and most just Orderer of all natures, who established the mortal human race as the greatest ornament of earthly things, gave to men certain goods suited to this life, that is, temporal peace according to the small measure of mortal life in the very safety and soundness and fellowship of their kind, and whatever things are necessary for guarding or recovering this peace (such as those which appropriately and conveniently lie open to the senses—light, voice, breathable airs, drinkable waters, and whatever is fitting for nourishing, covering, healing, and adorning the body), and that under this most equitable condition: that whoever among mortals shall have rightly used such goods, accommodated to the peace of mortals, shall receive ampler and better ones—namely, the very peace of immortality, and the glory and honour befitting it, in life eternal for the enjoyment of God and of one's neighbour in God;

but whoever has used them wrongly shall neither receive those, and shall lose these. CHAPTER XIV. Of the order and law, whether earthly or heavenly, by which human society is provided for even in ruling, and to which, in being provided for, it is made to serve. Every use, therefore, of temporal things is referred to the fruit of earthly peace in the earthly city; but in the heavenly city it is referred to the fruit of eternal peace. Wherefore, if we were irrational animals, we should seek nothing beyond the ordered tempering of the parts of the body and the repose of the appetites—nothing, then, beyond the rest of the flesh and an abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might profit the peace of the soul. For if peace of the body be lacking, the peace also of the irrational soul is impeded, because it cannot attain the repose of the appetites.

But both together profit that peace which the soul and the body have between themselves, that is, the peace of ordered life and health. For just as living creatures show that they love the peace of the body when they flee pain, and the peace of the soul when, for the sake of satisfying the needs of the appetites, they pursue pleasure: so by fleeing death they sufficiently indicate how greatly they love the peace by which soul and body are reconciled to one another. But because a rational soul is in man, he subjects all this, which he has in common with the beasts, to the peace of the rational soul, that with his mind he may contemplate something and act according to it, so that there may be in him the ordered agreement of knowledge and action, which we had called the peace of the rational soul.

For to this end he ought to wish neither to be troubled by pain, nor disturbed by desire, nor dissolved by death, that he may come to know something useful and according to that knowledge order his life and morals. But lest by the very zeal of knowledge, on account of the weakness of the human mind, he fall into the plague of some error, he has need of divine teaching, which he may surely obey, and of help, that he may obey freely. And because, so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a pilgrim away from the Lord, he walks by faith, not by sight; and on this account he refers all peace, whether of the body or of the soul or of both body and soul together, to that peace which mortal man has with the immortal God, that he may have an ordered obedience in faith under the eternal law.

But now, since God the Master teaches two chief precepts, that is, the love of God and the love of neighbour, in which man finds three things which he is to love—God, himself, and his neighbour—and he who loves God does not err in loving himself: it follows that he should take counsel also for his neighbour, that he should love God, whom he is commanded to love as himself (so for his wife, so for his children, so for his household, so for whatever other men he can), and that he should wish counsel to be taken for himself by his neighbour, if perchance he be in need; and on this account he will be at peace, so far as in him lies, with every man, in the peace of men, that is, in ordered concord, whose order is this: first, that he harm no one; then, that he profit whom he can. First, therefore, the care of his own is in him;

For he has readier and easier access to consult their welfare, whether by the order of nature or by that of human society itself. Hence the Apostle says: 'Whoever does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.' From this, then, arises also domestic peace, that is, the well-ordered concord of those dwelling together in commanding and obeying. For those who care for the rest command — as the husband the wife, parents their children, masters their servants. And those whose welfare is cared for obey — as wives their husbands, children their parents, servants their masters. But in the house of the just man who lives by faith and is still a pilgrim from that heavenly city, even those who command serve those whom they seem to command.

For they do not command out of a lust for domination, but from a duty of caring for others; not from the pride of ruling, but from the mercy of providing. CHAPTER XV. On natural liberty, and on servitude, whose first cause is sin; for a man of evil will, even if he is not the slave of another man, is the slave of his own lust. This the natural order prescribes; thus did God create man. For He said: 'Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.' He willed that man, made rational in His own image, should have dominion over none but the irrational creatures: not man over man, but man over the beast.

Hence the first righteous men were established as shepherds of flocks rather than as kings of men, so that even in this way God might intimate what the order of creation requires, and what the desert of sins demands. For the condition of servitude is rightly understood to have been imposed upon the sinner. And so nowhere in the Scriptures do we read of a slave before the just Noah punished his son's sin with that word. The name, therefore, was earned by guilt, not by nature. The origin of the word for slaves in the Latin tongue is believed to be derived from this: that those who by the law of war might have been killed, when they were preserved by the victors, became slaves, being named from being preserved (servando); and this very thing is not without the desert of sin. For even when a just war is waged, the opposing side fights on behalf of sin;

and every victory, even when it falls to the wicked, by divine judgment humbles the conquered, either correcting their sins or punishing them. A witness to this is the man of God, Daniel, who, set in captivity, confesses to God his own sins and the sins of his people, and with godly sorrow testifies that this is the cause of that captivity. The first cause of servitude, then, is sin, that man should be subjected to man by the bond of his condition; and this does not happen except by the judgment of God, with whom there is no iniquity, and who knows how to apportion diverse punishments to the deserts of those who offend. As the Lord on high says: 'Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin'; and thus many indeed who are religious serve masters who are unjust, yet not free masters:

for by whomever a man is overcome, to him also is he bound as a slave. And surely it is happier to be in servitude to a man than to lust, since that very lust of domination — to pass over other lusts — lays waste the hearts of mortals with the most savage tyranny. Among men, however, by that order of peace in which some are subjected to others, just as humility profits those who serve, so does pride harm those who dominate. But no one is by nature — in which God first created man — the slave of man or of sin. Yet even penal servitude is ordained by that law which commands the natural order to be preserved and forbids it to be disturbed; for if nothing had been done against that law, there would be nothing to be restrained by penal servitude.

Therefore the Apostle also admonishes servants to be subject to their masters and to serve them from the heart with good will; namely, that if they cannot be made free by their masters, they may in a certain way make their own servitude free, by serving not with crafty fear but with faithful love, until iniquity passes away and all human rule and power is brought to nothing and God is all in all. CHAPTER XVI. On the equitable right of ruling. Wherefore, although our righteous fathers had slaves, they so administered domestic peace as to distinguish, in regard to these temporal goods, the lot of their sons from the condition of their slaves; but in regard to the worship of God, in whom eternal goods are to be hoped for, they cared with equal love for all the members of their household.

This the natural order so prescribes that the name 'fathers of families' arose from it and became so widely current that even those who rule unjustly rejoice to be called by it. But those who are true fathers of families care for all in their household as for sons, for the worship and gaining of God, desiring and longing to come to the heavenly home, where the office of commanding mortals will not be necessary, because the office of caring for those who are already happy in that immortality will not be necessary; until which is reached, fathers ought to bear the fact that they rule more than slaves the fact that they serve.

But if anyone in the household, through disobedience, sets himself against domestic peace, he is corrected, whether by word or by stripe or by any other kind of just and lawful punishment, as far as human society permits, for the benefit of the one who is corrected, that he may be fitted again to the peace from which he had broken away. For just as it is not benevolence to help in such a way as to cause the loss of a greater good, so it is not innocence to spare in such a way as to allow one to fall into a graver evil. It belongs, therefore, to the duty of the innocent man not only to do harm to no one, but also to restrain from sin or to punish sin, so that either the one who is chastised may be corrected by the experience, or others deterred by the example.

Since, therefore, a man's house ought to be the beginning or a small part of the city, and every beginning is referred to some end of its own kind, and every part to the integrity of the whole of which it is a part, it appears plainly enough to follow that domestic peace is referred to civic peace — that is, that the well-ordered concord of those dwelling together in commanding and obeying is referred to the well-ordered concord of citizens in commanding and obeying. Thus it comes about that the father of a family ought to take his precepts from the law of the city, so as to govern his house in such a way that it is suited to the peace of the city. CHAPTER XVII. Whence the heavenly society has peace with the earthly city, and whence discord.

But the household of those who do not live by faith pursues an earthly peace from the things and conveniences of this temporal life; whereas the household of those who live by faith awaits those things which are promised as eternal in the future, and uses earthly and temporal things as a pilgrim — not as things by which it may be captivated and turned aside from where it tends toward God, but as things by which it may be sustained for the easier bearing, and by no means the increasing, of the burdens of the corruptible body, which weighs down the soul. Therefore the use of things necessary for this mortal life is common to both kinds of men and to both households; but the end of using them is to each its own, and widely different.

So too the earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and fixes the concord of citizens in commanding and obeying upon this: that there may be among them a certain harmony of human wills concerning the things pertaining to mortal life. But the heavenly city, or rather that part of it which is a pilgrim in this mortality and lives by faith, must of necessity make use even of this peace, until that mortality itself, to which such peace is necessary, passes away;

and through this, while it leads, as it were, a captive life of its pilgrimage among the earthly city, having already received the promise of redemption and the spiritual gift as a pledge, it does not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city by which those things are administered which are adapted to the sustaining of mortal life, so that, since this mortality itself is common to both, concord may be preserved between the two cities in the things that pertain to it.

But because the earthly city has had certain of its own wise men, whom divine teaching condemns, who, either suspecting or deceived by demons, believed that many gods must be conciliated for human affairs — to whose diverse offices, in a certain way, diverse matters were subject: to one the body, to another the soul; and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and each several part to a several god; likewise in the soul, to one the natural talent, to another learning, to another anger, to another desire;

and in the very things that pertain to life, to one cattle, to another wheat, to another wine, to another oil, to another the forests, to another money, to another navigation, to another wars and victories, to another marriages, to another childbirth and fruitfulness, and to others yet other things: but the heavenly city, knowing that one God alone must be worshipped, and that to Him alone is owed that service which in Greek is called latreia and is due to none but God, judged with faithful piety —

it came about that it could not have laws of religion in common with the earthly city, and that on account of these it had to dissent from it, and to be a burden to those who thought differently, and to endure their wrath and hatred and the assaults of persecutions, except when at times it warded off the minds of its adversaries by the terror of its own numbers, and always by divine aid. This heavenly city, therefore, while it is a pilgrim on earth, calls out citizens from all nations and gathers a pilgrim society in all tongues, taking no account of whatever is diverse in customs, laws, and institutions by which earthly peace is acquired or maintained;

abolishing or destroying none of them, but rather preserving and following them, since, though diverse among diverse nations, they are nevertheless directed toward one and the same end of earthly peace, provided they do not hinder the religion which teaches that the one most high and true God is to be worshipped. The heavenly city, therefore, even in this its pilgrimage makes use of the earthly peace, and, in the things pertaining to the mortal nature of men, it guards and seeks a harmony of human wills as far as may be allowed with piety and religion preserved, and it refers that earthly peace to the heavenly peace — which is so truly peace that it must be held and called the only peace, at least of the rational creature: namely, the most orderly and most harmonious fellowship of enjoying God, and of one another in God;

when this is reached, there will be no mortal life, but life plainly and certainly vital; nor an animal body, which while it is corrupted weighs down the soul, but a spiritual one, without any need, in every part subject to the will. This peace, while it is a pilgrim in faith, the heavenly city possesses, and by this faith it lives justly, when it refers to the attainment of that peace whatever good actions it performs toward God and neighbor, since the life of the city is altogether a social one. CHAPTER XVIII.

How greatly the doubt of the New Academy differs from the constancy of the Christian faith. But as for that distinction which Varro drew from the New Academics, to whom all things are uncertain, the City of God altogether detests such doubt as a kind of madness; for it has, concerning the things which it comprehends by mind and reason — even if only a little, on account of the corruptible body which weighs down the soul (since, as the Apostle says, 'we know in part') — nevertheless a most certain knowledge; and it trusts the senses in the evidence of any thing, which the mind uses through the body, since one is more wretchedly deceived who thinks that the senses are never to be trusted:

it believes also the Holy Scriptures, both old and new, which we call canonical, whence faith itself is conceived, by which the just man lives; through which we walk without doubting, as long as we are pilgrims away from the Lord; and as long as this is safe and certain, concerning certain things which we have perceived neither by sense nor by reason, nor have become clear to us through the canonical Scripture, nor have come to our knowledge through witnesses whom it is absurd not to believe, we doubt without just reproach. CHAPTER XIX. On the dress and manners of the Christian people. It pertains in no way to this city by what dress or manner of living anyone follows this faith, by which one comes to God, provided it is not contrary to the divine precepts;

hence, when philosophers themselves become Christians, it compels them to change not their dress or habit of life, which in no way hinders religion, but their false doctrines. Hence that distinction which Varro drew from the Cynics it cares nothing about at all, provided one does nothing basely and intemperately. But of those three kinds of life — the leisurely, the active, and that composed of both — although anyone may, with faith preserved, lead his life in any of them and attain to the everlasting rewards, it nevertheless matters what he holds by the love of truth, what he expends by the duty of charity. No one ought to be so leisured that in his very leisure he does not consider the benefit of his neighbor, nor so active that he does not seek the contemplation of God.

In leisure, it ought not to be an idle vacancy that delights, but either the seeking or the finding of truth, that each may make progress in it and not begrudge to another what he has found. In action, however, honor in this life is not to be loved, nor power, since all things under the sun are vain, but the work itself which is done through that honor or power, if it is done rightly and usefully — that is, that it may avail for the welfare of subjects, which is according to God; of which we have already disputed above. For this reason the Apostle says: 'He who desires the office of a bishop desires a good work.' He wished to expound what a bishopric is, because it is the name of a work, not of an honor.

For it is a Greek word, and derived from this: that he who is set over those over whom he is set 'oversees' them — that is, bears care of them; for skopos means intention; therefore episkopein, if we wish, we may say in Latin 'superintendere' (to superintend), so that he may understand that he is not a bishop who has loved to be set over rather than to be of profit. And so no one is forbidden from the zeal of knowing the truth, which belongs to praiseworthy leisure; but the higher position, without which a people cannot be governed, even if it be held and administered as is fitting, is nevertheless unbecomingly coveted. Wherefore the love of truth seeks a holy leisure; the necessity of charity undertakes just business.

If no one imposes this burden, we must be free for perceiving and beholding the truth; but if it is imposed, it must be undertaken on account of the necessity of charity: yet not even so should the delight of truth be wholly forsaken, lest that sweetness be withdrawn and this necessity overwhelm us. CHAPTER XX. That the citizens of the saints are, in the time of this life, blessed in hope. Wherefore, since the highest good of the City of God is eternal and perfect peace — not that through which mortals pass by being born and dying, but that in which immortals abide, suffering nothing adverse at all:

who is there who would either deny that life to be most blessed, or, in comparison with it, would not judge this life, which is led here — however full it may be of goods of mind and body and of external things — to be most wretched? Yet whoever so holds this life as to refer its use to that end which he loves most ardently and hopes for most faithfully, may not absurdly be called even now blessed — by that hope rather than by this present reality. But this present reality, without that hope, is a false blessedness and a great misery;