Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 11 part 3/5

Now to that law were rendered testimonies of great miracle besides these which I have mentioned, and besides the voices which were uttered from the place of that ark. For when the same ark crossed over as they entered the land of promise, the river Jordan, standing still on its upper part and running down on its lower part, afforded a dry place of crossing both to the ark itself and to the people. Then, the ark having been carried around seven times, the walls of the city which first met them as hostile, worshipping after the manner of the Gentiles very many gods, suddenly fell, assaulted by no hand, struck by no battering-ram.

After these things, moreover, when they were now in the land of promise and that same ark had, on account of their sins, been captured by the enemy, those who had captured it placed it honourably in the temple of their god, whom they worshipped above the rest, and departing, shut it up; but on the morrow, when they had opened it, they found the image to which they made supplication fallen down and shamefully broken to pieces. Then they themselves, driven by prodigies and more shamefully punished, restored the ark of the divine testimony to the people from whom they had taken it. And what sort of a restoration it was! They set it upon a wagon, and yoked to it heifers from which they had drawn away the calves that were sucking, and let them go whithersoever they would, desiring here too to make trial of the divine power.

But those heifers, without any man to lead or guide them, treading steadfastly the way toward the Hebrews, nor recalled by the lowings of their hungering young, carried back a great sacrament to their worshippers. These things and suchlike are small to God, but great for the wholesome terrifying and instructing of mortals. For if the philosophers, and especially the Platonists, are praised for having been wiser than the rest, as I mentioned a little before, because they taught that divine providence administers these lowest and earthly things also, by the testimony of manifold beauties which are begotten not only in the bodies of animals but even in herbs and grass:

how much more evidently do those things attest divinity which are done at the hour of His proclamation, where that religion is commended which forbids sacrifice to all things celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, bidding it be offered to the one God only—who alone, loving and beloved, makes men blessed—and who, prefixing the appointed times of those sacrifices, and foretelling that they were to be changed for the better through a better Priest, testifies that He does not covet these things, but through them signifies other and more excellent things; not that He Himself may be exalted by these honours, but that we, kindled by the fire of His love to worship Him and to cleave to Him, may be roused to that which is good for us, not for Him. [XVIII] But will anyone say that these miracles are false, and were not done, but lyingly written?

Whoever says this, if he denies that any writings whatever are to be believed concerning these matters, can also say that no gods at all care for mortal affairs. For they persuaded men that they were to be worshipped in no other way than by the effects of marvellous works, of which the history of the Gentiles too is witness—the gods of which were able to display themselves as marvellous rather than to show themselves useful.

Wherefore, in this work of ours, of which we now have the tenth book in hand, we have not undertaken to refute those who either deny that there is any divine power, or contend that it does not care for human affairs, but those who prefer their own gods to our God, the Founder of the holy and most glorious City—not knowing that He Himself is also the invisible and unchangeable Founder of this visible and changeable world, and the most true Bestower of the blessed life not out of the things which He founded, but out of Himself. For His most truthful prophet says: But for me it is good to cleave to God. For concerning the end of the good, indeed, it is inquired among the philosophers, to the attaining of which all duties are to be referred. Nor did this man say:

But for me it is good to abound in riches, or to be distinguished by the purple and to excel by sceptre or diadem; nor, as some even of the philosophers did not blush to say: For me the pleasure of the body is good; nor what seemed better men to say something better: For me the virtue of my mind is good; but: For me, he says, it is good to cleave to God. This He had taught him, to whom alone sacrifice is to be offered, as His holy angels also, by the very attestation of miracles, admonished. Whence he himself too had become a sacrifice to Him, seized and burning with whose intelligible fire he glowed, and was borne, with holy longing, into His ineffable and incorporeal embrace.

But further, if the worshippers of many gods (whatever kind they suppose their gods to be) believe that miracles were wrought by them, whether from the histories of civil affairs or from magical books, or, as they more honourably think, theurgical books: what reason is there why they should be unwilling to believe that these things were done in those writings to which so much the greater faith is due, as He is great above all, to whom alone they enjoin that sacrifice be offered? [XIX] But those who think that these visible sacrifices are fitting for other gods, while to Him, as invisible, invisible and greater sacrifices are fitting for the greater and better One, and better sacrifices for the better One—such as are the offices of a pure mind and a good will: assuredly they know not that these are signs of those things, just as sounding words are signs of things.

Wherefore, just as in praying and praising we direct significant utterances to Him to whom we offer in our heart the very things which we signify: so in sacrificing let us know that a visible sacrifice is to be offered to none other than to Him whose invisible sacrifice we ourselves ought to be in our hearts. Then do the angels favour us and rejoice with us, and, according to their powers, help us toward this very thing—the angels and the higher powers, mightier by their very goodness and piety. But if we should wish to render these things to them, they do not gladly accept them, and, when they are so sent to men that their presence is perceived, they most openly forbid it. There are examples in the holy writings.

Certain persons supposed that the honour which is due to God ought to be paid to angels, either by adoring or by sacrificing, and were forbidden by their admonition and bidden to render this to Him to whom alone they knew it lawful. The holy men of God also imitated the holy angels. For Paul and Barnabas, when a certain miracle of healing had been wrought in Lycaonia, were supposed to be gods, and the Lycaonians wished to immolate victims to them; which they, putting it away from themselves with humble piety, announced to them the God in whom they should believe. Nor for any other reason do those deceivers proudly exact this for themselves, save that they know it is due to the true God. For not, in truth, as Porphyry and not a few suppose, do they rejoice in the reek of corpses, but in divine honours.

They have, moreover, a great abundance of nests everywhere, and if they wished for more they could furnish these for themselves. Those spirits, therefore, who arrogate divinity to themselves take delight not in the smoke of any body whatever, but in the mind of the suppliant, over whom, once deceived and made subject, they may lord it, barring the way to the true God, so that a man may not be that God's sacrifice while he is offered in sacrifice to some being other than He. [XX] Hence that true Mediator — inasmuch as, by taking the form of a servant, He was made the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus — although in the form of God He receives sacrifice together with the Father, with whom He is also one God, nevertheless in the form of a servant chose rather to be a sacrifice than to receive one, lest by this very occasion anyone should suppose that sacrifice ought to be offered to any creature.

By this He is also priest, Himself the offerer, Himself also the oblation. Of this reality He willed that the Church's sacrifice should be the daily sacrament — the Church which, being the body of that Head, learns to offer herself through Him. Of this true sacrifice the ancient sacrifices of the saints were the manifold and varied signs, since this one thing was prefigured through many, as though one matter were expressed in many words, so that it might be greatly commended without weariness. To this supreme and true sacrifice all false sacrifices have given way.

[XXI] But within limited and predetermined times power has also been permitted to the demons, so that, by stirring up the men whom they possess, they may tyrannically wage enmity against the City of God, and may take sacrifices for themselves not only from those who offer them and demand them from the willing, but may even violently extort them from the unwilling by persecution. This power is not only not pernicious, but is even found to be useful to the Church, in order that the number of the martyrs may be completed — whom the City of God holds as citizens the more illustrious and honoured, the more bravely they contend even unto blood against the sin of impiety. These we should call, far more elegantly, if the custom of ecclesiastical speech would allow it, our heroes.

For this name is said to be derived from Juno, since in Greek Juno is called Hēra, and therefore, according to the fables of the Greeks, some son of hers was named Hērōs (Hero) — the fable signifying this, as it were mystically, that the air is assigned to Juno, where they hold that the heroes dwell together with the demons; by which name they call the souls of the dead who have some merit.

But by contrast our martyrs would be called heroes — if, as I said, the usage of ecclesiastical speech admitted it — not because they had any fellowship with the demons in the air, but because they conquered those very demons, that is, the aerial powers, and in them Juno herself, whatever she is thought to signify; who is not altogether unfittingly introduced by the poets as hostile to the virtues and envious of brave men who seek heaven. But again Virgil unhappily gives way and yields to her, so that, when in his poem she says, 'I am conquered by Aeneas,' Helenus advises Aeneas himself, as though with religious counsel, and says: 'Sing your vows gladly to Juno, and overcome the powerful mistress with suppliant gifts.'

From this opinion Porphyry — though not from his own view, but from that of others — says that a good god or genius does not come into a man unless a bad one has first been appeased; as though among them the evil deities were stronger than the good, since indeed the evil ones hinder the aids of the good, unless, being appeased, they yield place; and if the evil are unwilling, the good cannot benefit; whereas the evil can do harm, the good being unable to resist them. This is not the way of the true and truly holy religion. It is not thus that our martyrs conquer Juno, that is, the aerial powers that envy the virtues of the godly. Not at all, if it could be said in the customary way, do our heroes overcome Hēra by suppliant gifts, but by divine virtues.

For Scipio was more fittingly surnamed Africanus because he conquered Africa by valour, than if he had appeased his enemies with gifts that they might spare him. [XXII] With true piety the men of God cast out the hostile aerial power, contrary to piety, by exorcizing rather than by appeasing it, and they conquer all the temptations of its adversity by praying, not to it, but to their God against it. For it conquers or subjugates no one save by the fellowship of sin. Therefore it is conquered in the name of Him who took manhood upon Himself and acted without sin, so that in Him, the priest and sacrifice alike, there might be remission of sins — that is, through the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom, our sins being purged away, we are reconciled to God.

For men are separated from God by nothing but their sins, whose purgation in this life is wrought not by our own virtue, but by the divine mercy; through His indulgence, not through our power; since even that virtue, however small, which is called ours, has been granted to us by His goodness. We should indeed attribute much to ourselves in this flesh, did we not live under pardon until its laying-down. Therefore grace has been bestowed on us through the Mediator, so that, defiled by the flesh of sin, we might be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh. By this grace of God, in which He has shown His great mercy toward us, we are both governed in this life by faith, and after this life shall be brought to fullest perfection through the very vision of unchangeable truth.

[XXIII] Porphyry also says that it was answered by the divine oracles that we are not purified by the rites of the moon and sun, so that hereby it might be shown that a man can be purified by the rites of no gods. For by whose rites are men purified, if not by those of the moon and sun, whom they hold to be pre-eminent among the celestial gods? Then he says that it was expressed by the same oracle that the principles can purify, lest perchance, when it had been said that the rites of sun and moon do not purify, the rites of some other god from the throng should be believed to avail for purification. But what he means by 'principles,' as a Platonist, we know. For he speaks of God the Father and God the Son, whom in Greek he calls the paternal intellect or paternal mind;

but of the Holy Spirit he says either nothing, or nothing openly; though what other he calls the mean of these, I do not understand. For if, like Plotinus, where he discusses the three principal substances, this man too wished the nature of the soul to be understood as the third, he certainly would not call it the mean of these, that is, the mean of the Father and the Son. For Plotinus places the nature of the soul below the paternal intellect; but this man, when he says 'mean,' does not place it below, but sets it between. And doubtless he said this, as he could or as he would, which we call the Holy Spirit, the Spirit not of the Father only, nor of the Son only, but of both.

For the philosophers speak with free words, and in matters most difficult to understand they do not dread giving offence to religious ears. But for us it is right to speak according to a fixed rule, lest license of words should engender an impious opinion even about the realities that are signified by them.

[XXIV] Therefore we do not, when speaking of God, say two or three principles, just as it is not lawful for us to say two or three gods; although, when speaking of each single one — whether of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Spirit — we confess that each single one also is God, yet we do not say, as the Sabellian heretics do, that the same one is the Father who is also the Son, and the same Holy Spirit who is both the Father and the Son; but that the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son is neither the Father nor the Son. Truly, then, it was said that a man is not purified save by the Principle, although among them 'principles' were spoken of in the plural.

But Porphyry, being subject to the envious powers — of whom he was both ashamed and yet feared to censure freely — was unwilling to understand that the Lord Christ is the Principle by whose incarnation we are purified. For he despised Him in that very flesh which He assumed for the sacrifice of our purification, not understanding — in that pride of his — the great sacrament which the true and benign Mediator cast down by His humility, showing Himself in that mortality to mortals, whereas the malignant and deceitful mediators, by not having such mortality, more proudly exalted themselves and promised to wretched men a deceptive aid, as though immortals to mortals.

The good and true Mediator therefore showed that sin is the evil, not the substance or nature of the flesh, which, together with the soul of man, could both be assumed without sin and be possessed, and be laid aside in death and changed for the better in the resurrection; nor is even death itself — although it was the penalty of sin, which nevertheless He paid for us without sin — to be avoided by sinning, but rather, if the opportunity be given, to be endured for the sake of righteousness. For He was able to loose sins by dying precisely because He both died, and not for sin. This one that Platonist did not recognize to be the Principle; for he would have recognized Him to be purifying. For neither the flesh is the principle, nor the human soul, but the Word through whom all things were made.

Therefore the flesh does not cleanse by itself, but through the Word by which it was assumed, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. For when He spoke mystically of His flesh to be eaten, and those who did not understand withdrew in offence, saying, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?' He answered to the rest who remained, 'It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing.' The Principle, therefore, having assumed soul and flesh, cleanses both the soul and the flesh of them that believe. Hence, when the Jews asked who He was, He answered that He was the Principle. This we, carnal, weak, subject to sins, and wrapped in the darkness of ignorance, could by no means perceive, unless we were cleansed and healed by Him, through that which we were and were not.

For we were men, but we were not righteous; whereas in His incarnation there was a human nature, but it was righteous, not sinful. This is the mediation by which a hand was stretched out to the fallen and prostrate; this is the seed ordained through angels, in whose edicts the Law also was given, by which both the one God was commanded to be worshipped, and this Mediator who was to come was promised. [XXV] By faith in this sacrament even the righteous of old could be cleansed by living devoutly, not only before the Law was given to the Hebrew people (for neither a preaching God nor the angels were wanting to them), but also in the very times of the Law, although it seemed to hold carnal promises under figures of spiritual things, on account of which it is called the Old Testament.

For there were prophets then also, through whom, as through angels, the same promise was proclaimed; and of their number was he whose so great and divine sentence concerning the end of human good I mentioned a little before: 'But for me it is good to cleave to God.' In which psalm the distinction of the two testaments, which are called the Old and the New, is plainly enough declared. For on account of the carnal and earthly promises, when he saw them abounding to the impious, he says that his feet were almost moved and his steps well-nigh poured out in a fall, as though he had served God in vain, when he perceived the despisers of Him flourishing in that felicity which he had expected from Him;

and that he laboured in the inquiry of this matter, wishing to apprehend why it should be so, until he entered into the sanctuary of God and understood, concerning the last things of those who seemed happy, that he had been in error. Then he understood that they, in that they had exalted themselves — as he says — had been cast down and had failed and perished on account of their iniquities; and that all that height of temporal felicity had become to them as the dream of one awaking, who suddenly finds himself deprived of the deceitful joys he was dreaming. And since on this earth or in the earthly city they seemed great to themselves: 'O Lord,' he says, 'in Thy city Thou wilt bring their image to nothing.'

Yet how useful it was for him to seek even these earthly things from none but the one true God, in whose power are all things, he shows plainly enough where he says: 'I am become as a beast before Thee, and I am ever with Thee.' 'As a beast,' he said, meaning surely 'not understanding.' 'For I ought to have desired from Thee those things which cannot be common to me with the impious, whom, when I perceived abounding in them, I supposed that I had served Thee in vain, since even they possessed these things, who had refused to serve Thee. Yet I am ever with Thee, because even in the desire of such things I did not seek other gods.' And by this it follows: 'Thou hast held my right hand; in Thy will Thou hast led me, and with glory Thou hast taken me up';

as though all those things which he saw abounding among the impious, and by which he was almost overthrown, pertained to the left hand. 'For what have I in heaven,' he says, 'and what have I desired from Thee upon earth?' He reproves himself and is justly displeased with himself, because, when he had so great a good in heaven (which he afterwards understood), he sought from his God upon earth a thing transitory, fragile, and, in a manner, a muddy felicity. 'My heart and my flesh have failed,' he says, 'O God of my heart' — failing indeed with a good failing, from the lower to the higher; whence in another psalm it is said, 'My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord'; and again in another, 'My soul has failed for Thy salvation.' Yet when he had spoken of both, that is, of the heart and the flesh failing, he did not add:

'God of my heart and of my flesh,' but 'God of my heart.' For through the heart the flesh is cleansed. Whence the Lord says: 'Cleanse the things that are within, and the things that are without shall be clean.' Then he says that his portion is God Himself, not something from Him, but Himself. 'God,' he says, 'of my heart, and my portion is God forever'; which, among the many things that are chosen by men, it pleased him should be chosen. 'For behold,' he says, 'those who put themselves far from Thee shall perish; Thou hast destroyed everyone that goes a-whoring from Thee' — that is, who wishes to be the prostitute of many gods. Whence follows that saying, on account of which the other things from the same psalm seemed worth quoting: 'But for me it is good to cleave to God' — not to go far off, not to go a-whoring after many.

But to cleave to God will then be perfected, when all that is to be freed has been freed. Now, however, that comes to pass which follows: 'To put my hope in God.' For hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he also hope for? says the Apostle. But if we hope for that which we see not, we wait for it through patience. Being now, then, established in this hope, let us do what follows, and let us also be, according to our small measure, angels of God, that is, His messengers, announcing His will and praising His glory and grace. Whence, having said, 'To put my hope in God,' he says, 'that I may announce all Thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion.' This is the most glorious City of God; this knows and worships the one God;

this the holy angels announced, who invited us to their fellowship and willed that we should be their fellow-citizens in it; who are not pleased that we should worship them as our gods, but along with them worship their God and ours; nor that we should sacrifice to them, but along with them be a sacrifice to God. Therefore, no one doubting who considers these things with the malignant obstinacy laid aside, all the immortal blessed ones, who do not envy us (for if they envied, they would not be blessed), but rather love us, that we too may be blessed together with them — these favour us more, help us more, when we worship the one God together with them, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, than if we worshipped them themselves by sacrifices.

[XXVI] In some way, as it seems to me, Porphyry was ashamed before his theurgist friends. For he understood these things after a fashion, but did not freely defend himself against the worship of many gods. He said, indeed, that there are some angels who, descending below, announce divine things to theurgic men; but others who, upon earth, declare the things that are the Father's, and His height and depth. Are we then to believe that these angels, whose ministry is to declare the will of the Father, wish us to be made subject to any but Him whose will they announce to us? Whence even this Platonist himself best admonishes that they are rather to be imitated than invoked.

We ought not, therefore, to fear lest we offend the immortal and blessed ones who are subject to the one God, by not sacrificing to them. For what they know is due to none but the one true God — to whom they too, by cleaving, are blessed — that beyond doubt they do not wish to be exhibited to themselves, neither through any signifying figure, nor through the very reality which is signified by the sacraments. This arrogance belongs to the proud and wretched demons, from whom the piety of those subject to God — and blessed from cleaving to none other than Him — is far different. For the attainment of which good it behoves that they too should, with sincere kindness, favour us; not arrogating to themselves that we should be made subject to them, but announcing Him under whom we may be associated with them in peace.

Why do you still tremble, O philosopher, to have a free voice against the powers that envy both true virtues and the gifts of the true God? Already you have distinguished the angels who announce the Father's will from those angels who, drawn down by some art, descend to theurgic men. Why do you still honour them, so as to say that they pronounce divine things? What divine things, pray, do they pronounce, who do not announce the Father's will? Surely they are those whom the envious one has bound with sacred prayers, lest they should furnish purgation to the soul, and could not, by the good one who — as you say — desires to purify, be loosed from those bonds and restored to their own power.

Do you still doubt that these are malignant demons? Or do you perhaps feign not to know, while you are unwilling to offend the theurgists, by whom, deceived through curiosity, you learned these pernicious and insane things as though for a great benefit? Do you dare to lift up into heaven, above this air once transcended, this envious thing — not a power, but a pestilence, and, not to call it a mistress, but, as you yourself confess, rather a handmaid of the envious — and to place it among your gods, even the starry ones, or even to defame the very stars with these reproaches? [XXVII] How much more humanly and tolerably did your fellow-follower, the Platonist Apuleius, err, who, honouring the demons ranked below the moon and downward, yet, willing or unwilling, confessed that they are agitated by the maladies of the passions and the disturbances of the mind;

yet the higher gods of heaven, pertaining to the ethereal spaces — whether visible, whom he beheld shining conspicuously, the sun and moon and the other lights there, or invisible, whom he supposed to exist — he separated, with as great a disputation as he could, from every stain of these perturbations! But you learned this not from Plato, but from Chaldean masters, to exalt human vices into the ethereal or empyreal heights of the world and the celestial firmaments, so that your gods might pronounce divine things to the theurgists; above which divine things you nevertheless make yourself, by the intellectual life, higher, so that to you, forsooth, as to a philosopher, the purgations of the theurgic art seem in no way necessary;

but you nevertheless impose them on others, so as to render this as it were a fee to your masters, in that you seduce to these things those who cannot philosophize — things which you confess to be useless to yourself as one capable of higher things; so that, namely, whoever are removed from the virtue of philosophy, which is too arduous and belongs to few, may, on your authority, seek out theurgic men, by whom they may be purified — not indeed in the intellectual soul, but at least in the spiritual soul; and since, incomparably, the multitude of those who are loath to philosophize is greater, more are compelled to come to your secret and unlawful masters than to the Platonic schools.