Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 18 part 1/4

[I] The promises of God, which were made to Abraham — to whose seed, as we have learned by God's own promising, both the nation of Israel is owed according to the flesh, and all the nations according to faith — in what manner they are fulfilled, the City of God, running its course through the order of the ages, will make plain. Since, therefore, the preceding book was brought to a close down to the reign of David, we now, beginning from that same reign, so far as seems sufficient for the work we have undertaken, treat of the remaining things that follow. This period, then — from the time when the holy Samuel began to prophesy, and thenceforward until the people of Israel were led captive into Babylon, and thence, after the Israelites returned according to the prophecy of the holy Jeremiah after seventy years, the house of God was restored — this whole period is that of the prophets.

For although both Noah the patriarch himself, in whose days the whole earth was destroyed by the flood, and others before and after, down to this time when kings began to be among the people of God, on account of certain things that were to come to pass through them — whether signified by some symbolic act or foretold — which pertained to the City of God and the kingdom of heaven, may not undeservedly be called prophets (especially since we read that some of them are more expressly so named, as Abraham, as Moses): yet the days of the prophets are chiefly and most especially called those from the time when Samuel began to prophesy, who both anointed Saul first, and, when he was rejected, David himself as king by God's command, from whose stock the rest were to succeed, for as long as it behoved them so to succeed.

Therefore, as to what things were foretold by the prophets concerning Christ, while the City of God ran through these times, its members dying and passing away and being born and succeeding — if I should wish to commemorate them all, one is carried on to an immensity; first, because Scripture itself, which, arranging in order the kings and their deeds and events, seems to be occupied as though with historical diligence in narrating things done, if it be considered and handled with the aid of God's Spirit, will be found intent no less — or rather more, or at least not less — upon foretelling things to come than upon setting forth things past;

(and how laborious and lengthy it is to track this out by scrutiny and to demonstrate it by discussion, and how many volumes it requires, who is ignorant that even moderately considers these things?) then, because those very things which are not doubted to pertain to prophecy are so many concerning Christ and the kingdom of heaven, which is the City of God, that to lay this open a greater disputation would be needed than the measure of this work demands. Accordingly I will so govern my pen, if I can, that in carrying out this work in the will of God I may neither say the things that are superfluous nor pass over the things that are sufficient.

[II] In the preceding book we said that from the beginning, in the promises of God to Abraham, two things were promised: one, namely, that his seed should possess the land of Canaan (which is signified where it is said: Go into the land which I will show thee, and I will make thee into a great nation); but the other far more excellent, not of a carnal but of a spiritual seed, through which he is the father not of the one Israelite nation only, but of all nations which follow the footsteps of his faith; which began to be promised in these words: And in thee shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; and thereafter by very many other testimonies we showed that these two things were promised.

Therefore Abraham's seed, that is, the people of Israel according to the flesh, was already in the land of promise, and there had already begun to reign, not only by holding and possessing the cities of their adversaries, but even by having kings; the promises of God concerning that people being now fulfilled in great part — not only those which were made to those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever others in their times, but also those which had been made through Moses himself, through whom that same people was freed from Egyptian servitude and through whom all things past were revealed, in his times, when he was leading the people through the wilderness.

But neither through the distinguished leader Joshua the son of Nun — through whom that people was led into the land of promise, and, the nations being conquered, he divided it among the twelve tribes as God had commanded, and then died — nor after him throughout the whole time of the judges, had the promise of God been fulfilled concerning the land of Canaan from a certain river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates; nor yet was it as yet being prophesied as future, but was being awaited as to be fulfilled. And it was fulfilled through David and his son Solomon, whose kingdom was extended over as great a space as had been promised; for they subdued all those peoples and made them tributary.

Thus, therefore, in the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the land of Canaan, under these kings the seed of Abraham had been so established that thereafter nothing remained by which that earthly promise of God might be fulfilled, except that in that same land, as far as pertains to temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should remain, through the succession of posterity, in an unshaken state, unto the end of this mortal age — if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God.

But since God knew that it would not do this, he used even its temporal punishments both to exercise in it the few of his own faithful ones, and to admonish those who were afterwards to be in all nations — as to that of which they needed to be admonished — in whom he was to fulfil the other promise, the New Testament being revealed through the incarnation of Christ.

[III] Wherefore, just as those divine oracles to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever other prophetic signs or sayings were made in the preceding sacred writings, so also the rest of the prophecies from this time of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, but partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as co-heirs of Christ through the New Testament, to possess eternal life and the kingdom of heaven; partly, then, to the bondwoman who bears children into bondage, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but partly to the free City of God, that is, the true Jerusalem, eternal in the heavens, whose children, living according to God, are pilgrims on earth.

But there are among them certain things which are understood to pertain to both — to the bondwoman properly, to the free woman figuratively. The utterances of the prophets, then, are found to be threefold: since some pertain to the earthly Jerusalem, some to the heavenly, and some to both. I see that what I say must be proved by examples. Nathan the prophet was sent to reprove king David for his grievous sin and to foretell to him the evils that ensued as future. Who would doubt that these and such-like things — whether publicly, that is, for the welfare or utility of the people, or privately, when each one for his own affairs merited divine utterances by which something future might be known for the use of temporal life — pertained to the earthly city? But where it is read:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a New Testament, not according to the testament which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord. For this is the testament which I will establish for the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: giving my laws into their mind, and I will write them upon their hearts; and I will see them, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: without doubt the Jerusalem above is prophesied, whose reward is God himself, and to have him and to be his own is there the highest and the whole good.

But to both pertains this very thing, that Jerusalem is called the City of God, and that in it a house of God is prophesied as future; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both came to pass in the earthly Jerusalem according to history, and were figures of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This kind of prophecy, as it were compacted and mingled from both, in the old canonical books which contain the narratives of things done, avails very greatly and has greatly exercised, and still exercises, the minds of those who search the sacred writings — so that what is read as historically foretold and fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, should also be inquired into, as to what it allegorically signifies to be fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to faith; to such a degree that it has seemed to some that there is nothing in those same books, whether foretold and accomplished, or accomplished though not foretold, which does not intimate something to be referred by a figurative signification to the supernal City of God and its children who are pilgrims in this life.

But if this is so, then the utterances of the prophets — or rather of all those Scriptures which are reckoned under the appellation of the Old Testament — will be twofold, not threefold. For there will be nothing there which pertains only to the earthly Jerusalem, if whatever is said or fulfilled there concerning her or on her account signifies something which is also to be referred by an allegorical prefiguration to the heavenly Jerusalem; but there will be only two kinds: one which pertains to the free Jerusalem, the other which pertains to both.

But to me, just as those seem to err greatly who think that no deeds recorded in that kind of literature signify anything beyond that which they were thus done, so those seem to dare too much who contend that absolutely everything there is wrapped up in allegorical significations. For this reason I have said that they are threefold, not twofold. For I hold this opinion, yet without blaming those who have been able to extract there, from any deed done, a sense of spiritual understanding — provided, at least, that the truth of the history be first preserved. But as for those things which are so said that they cannot be fitting to things done or to be done, whether humanly or divinely, what faithful person would doubt that they are not said in vain?

Who would not recall these to a spiritual understanding, if he can, or acknowledge that they are to be so recalled by one who can? [IV] Therefore, the course of the City of God, when it came to the times of the kings — when David first obtained the kingdom, Saul having been rejected, in such wise that his posterity thereafter reigned in earthly Jerusalem by a long succession — gave a figure, signifying and foretelling by a deed done that which is not to be passed over in silence, concerning the change of things to come, as regards the two testaments, the old and the new, wherein the priesthood and the kingdom were changed through a priest who is also a king, new and everlasting, who is Christ Jesus.

For both Samuel, substituted in God's service when the priest Eli was rejected — discharging at once the office of priest and of judge — and king David, established in the kingdom when Saul was cast off, prefigured this of which I speak. Samuel's mother Hannah also, who was formerly barren and was gladdened by a later fruitfulness, seems to prophesy nothing else when, exulting, she pours out her thanksgiving to the Lord, when with the same devotion with which she had vowed him she returns to God that same boy born and weaned. For she says: My heart is confirmed in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God. My mouth is enlarged over my enemies, I have rejoiced in thy salvation. For there is none holy as the Lord, and there is none righteous as our God;

there is none holy besides thee. Boast not, and speak not lofty things, nor let arrogant speech go forth from your mouth. For the Lord is a God of knowledge, and a God who prepares his own designs. The bow of the mighty he has made weak, and the weak are girded with strength; the full of bread are diminished, and the hungry have passed over the earth. For the barren has borne seven, and she that had many children is grown feeble. The Lord kills and makes alive, he leads down to the nether world and brings back. The Lord makes poor and enriches, he humbles and exalts. He raises up the poor from the earth, and lifts up the needy from the dunghill, that he may set him with the mighty of the people, and giving them a throne of glory as an inheritance;

granting the vow to him that vows, and he has blessed the years of the righteous, for not in his own strength is man mighty. The Lord shall make his adversary weak, the Lord is holy. Let not the prudent glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and let not the rich glory in his riches; but in this let him that glories glory, to understand and to know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth. The Lord has ascended into the heavens and has thundered; he himself shall judge the ends of the earth, for he is just; and he gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of his Christ. Shall these words then be thought to be those of a mere little woman, giving thanks for a son born to her?

Is the mind of man so turned away from the light of truth that it does not perceive that the words this woman poured forth surpass the measure of a woman? Moreover, he who is fittingly moved by the very things which have now begun to be fulfilled even in this earthly pilgrimage, does he not fix his attention and behold and recognize, through this woman — whose very name, that is, Hannah, is interpreted 'his grace' — the Christian religion itself, the City of God itself, whose king and founder is Christ, and finally the very grace of God, thus speaking by a prophetic spirit, from which the proud are estranged so that they fall, and by which the humble are filled so that they rise, which above all this hymn resounded?

Unless perhaps someone is going to say that this woman prophesied nothing at all, but only praised God in exultant proclamation on account of the son whom she obtained by her prayer. What then does she mean when she says: 'He has made the bow of the mighty weak, and the weak are girded with strength; those full of bread are brought low, and the hungry have passed over the earth; for the barren has borne seven, and she that was rich in children has grown weak'? Had she herself borne seven, though she had been barren? She had but one when she said these things; nor did she afterward bear seven, or six so that Samuel himself would be the seventh, but three males and two females. Then, when as yet no one reigned over that people, consider what she set at the end:

'He gives strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ' — whence did she say this, if she was not prophesying? Let the Church of Christ therefore speak, the city of the great King, full of grace, fruitful in offspring; let her acknowledge and speak what was so long before prophesied of her through the mouth of this devout mother: 'My heart is strengthened in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God.' Truly is the heart strengthened and the horn truly exalted, because it is not in herself but in the Lord her God. 'My mouth is enlarged over my enemies,' because even in the straits of tribulations the word of God is not bound, nor bound in its bound heralds. 'I have rejoiced,' she says, 'in Thy salvation.' This is Christ, that Jesus whom Simeon, as we read in the Gospel, an old man embracing the little child, recognized as the Great One:

'Now,' he said, 'Lord, Thou dost dismiss Thy servant in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.' Let the Church therefore say: 'I have rejoiced in Thy salvation; for there is none holy as the Lord, and there is none righteous as our God' — as one holy and sanctifying, righteous and justifying. 'There is none holy besides Thee,' for no one becomes holy except by Thee. And so it follows: 'Do not boast, and do not speak lofty things, neither let arrogant speech come forth from your mouth; for the Lord is the God of knowledge.' He knows you, even where no one knows; 'for whoever thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceives himself.'

These things are said against the adversaries of the City of God who belong to Babylon, who presume upon their own strength, who glory in themselves and not in the Lord; among whom are also the carnal Israelites, earth-born citizens of the earthly Jerusalem, who, as the Apostle says, being ignorant of the righteousness of God (that is, the righteousness which God gives to man, He who alone is righteous and justifying) and wishing to establish their own (that is, as though won by themselves for themselves, not imparted by Him), have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God — surely because they are proud, thinking that they can please God by their own means and not by God's, He who is the God of knowledge and therefore also the judge of consciences, seeing there the thoughts of men, that they are vain, if they are of men and are not from Him.

'And He prepares,' she says, 'His devices.' What devices do we suppose these to be, save that the proud should fall and the humble should rise? These very devices she carries out, saying: 'The bow of the mighty has been made weak, and the weak are girded with strength.' The bow has been made weak — that is, the intention of those who seem to themselves so mighty that they can fulfil the divine commandments by human sufficiency without God's gift and aid; and those are girded with strength whose inward voice is: 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.' 'Those full of bread,' she says, 'are brought low, and the hungry have passed over the earth.' Who are to be understood as full of bread, save those same seemingly mighty ones, that is, the Israelites, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted?

But among that people the children of the handmaid are brought low (by which phrase, though less correct in Latin, is well expressed the fact that from being greater they were made less), because even in those very loaves — that is, in the divine oracles which the Israelites alone at that time received out of all the nations — they savour earthly things. But the Gentiles, to whom that law had not been given, after they came to those oracles through the New Testament, by much hungering passed over the earth, because in them they savoured not earthly but heavenly things. And, as though the reason were sought why this came to pass: 'Because,' she says, 'the barren has borne seven, and she that was rich in children has grown weak.'

Here the whole of what was being prophesied shone forth to those who recognize the number seven, by which the perfection of the whole Church is signified. On this account also the Apostle John writes to seven churches, thereby showing that he is writing to the fulness of the one Church; and in the Proverbs of Solomon, prefiguring this beforehand, Wisdom 'has built herself a house and set up seven pillars.' For the City of God was barren in all the nations before this offspring, which we behold, arose. We behold also that the earthly Jerusalem, which was rich in children, is now made weak; for whatever children of the free woman were in her were her strength; but now, because there is the letter and there is not the spirit, having lost her strength she is made weak.

'The Lord kills and makes alive; He has killed her who was rich in children, and has made alive this barren one who bore seven.' Although it may more fittingly be understood that He makes alive the very same whom He has killed. For she as it were repeated this by adding: 'He brings down to hell and brings back.' For those to whom the Apostle says, 'If you are dead with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God,' are surely killed by the Lord for their good; to whom he adds, 'Savour the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth,' so that they themselves may be those who, being hungry, passed over the earth. 'For you are dead,' he says — behold in what manner God kills for our good; then it follows: 'And your life is hidden with Christ in God;'

Behold in what manner God makes those same ones alive. But did He bring the same ones down to hell and bring them back? Both of these, without controversy among the faithful, we see rather fulfilled in Him — namely, in our Head, with whom the Apostle said our life is hidden in God. For He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, in this manner surely killed Him; and because He raised Him from the dead, He made the same One alive again. And because in the prophecy His voice is recognized: 'Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,' He brought the same One down to hell and brought Him back. By this His poverty we have been enriched. 'For the Lord makes poor and makes rich.' Now that we may know what this means, let us hear what follows: 'He humbles and exalts' —

surely He humbles the proud and exalts the humble. For what is read elsewhere, 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble,' this whole discourse of her contains, whose name is interpreted as 'His grace.' But now, as for what is added: 'He raises up the poor man from the earth,' I understand this of no one better than of Him who for our sake became poor, though He was rich, that by His poverty, as was said a little before, we might be enriched. For He raised Him from the earth so quickly that His flesh did not see corruption. Nor will I alienate from Him what is added: 'And from the dunghill He lifts up the needy.' For the same one who is poor is needy;

but the dunghill from which he is lifted up is most rightly understood to be the persecuting Jews, in whose number when the Apostle had said that he had persecuted the Church: 'The things which were gain to me,' he says, 'these I have counted loss for Christ; and not only detriments, but I have even esteemed them as dung, that I might gain Christ.' From the earth therefore was raised up that poor man above all the rich, and from that dunghill was lifted up above all the wealthy that needy man, that he might sit with the mighty of the people, to whom He says: 'You shall sit upon twelve seats' — and giving them the seat of glory as an inheritance; for those mighty ones had said: 'Behold, we have left all and have followed Thee.' This vow they had most mightily vowed.

But whence came this to them, save from Him of whom it is here immediately said: 'Granting the vow to him who vows'? Otherwise they would be among those mighty ones whose bow has been made weak. 'Granting,' she says, 'the vow to him who vows.' For no one could vow to the Lord anything right, unless he received from Him that which he should vow. It follows: 'And He has blessed the years of the just,' that he may live with Him without end, He to whom it is said: 'And Thy years shall not fail.' For there the years stand fast, but here they pass away, nay, they perish; for before they come, they are not; and when they have come, they will not be, because they come with their own ending. Of these two, that is, 'granting the vow to him who vows' and 'He has blessed the years of the just,' the one is what we do, the other what we receive.

But this latter is not received from God the bestower, unless with Him as helper the former is first accomplished: 'For not in his own strength is a man mighty. The Lord shall make his adversary weak' — namely, him who envies and resists the man who vows, that he may not be able to fulfil what he has vowed. It can also be understood from the ambiguous Greek as 'his own adversary.' For when the Lord has begun to possess us, assuredly the adversary who had been ours becomes His and shall be overcome by us — but not by our own powers, because not in his own strength is a man mighty. The Lord therefore shall make His adversary weak, the Lord who is holy; that he may be overcome by the saints, whom the Lord, holy of holies, makes holy.

And on this account 'let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glories glory in this, to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth.' In no small measure does he understand and know the Lord who understands and knows that this too is given him by the Lord, namely, that he should understand and know the Lord. 'For what hast thou,' says the Apostle, 'which thou hast not received? But if thou hast also received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received?' — that is, as though it were from thyself that thou hast whereof to glory. Moreover, he does judgment and justice who lives rightly. And he lives rightly who obeys God who commands;

and the end of the commandment — that is, that to which the commandment is referred — is charity, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. Furthermore, this charity, as the Apostle John testifies, is from God. To do judgment and justice, therefore, is from God. But what is meant by 'in the midst of the earth'? For surely those who dwell in the farthest parts of the earth ought not to fail to do judgment and justice. Who would say this? Why then is it added, 'in the midst of the earth'? Whereas, if it were not added and it were only said, 'to do judgment and justice,' this commandment would rather pertain to both kinds of men, both the inlanders and those by the sea.

But lest anyone should think that after the end of the life which is lived in this body there remains time for doing the judgment and justice which he did not do while he was in the flesh, and that thus the divine judgment can be escaped: 'in the midst of the earth' seems to me to be said as meaning 'while each one lives in the body.' For in this life each one carries about his own earth, which, when the man dies, the common earth receives, and will surely restore to him when he rises again. Accordingly, in the midst of the earth — that is, while our soul is enclosed within this earthly body — judgment and justice must be done, which will profit us hereafter, when each one receives according to those things which he has done through the body, whether good or evil. For the Apostle there said 'through the body' meaning during the time in which he lived in the body.

For if anyone with malignant mind and impious thought should blaspheme, and yet not carry it out with any members of the body, he will not on that account be free of guilt because he did not accomplish it by any motion of the body, since he did this during that time in which he also possessed a body. In this way that too can fittingly be understood which is read in the Psalm: 'But God our King before the ages has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth' — so that the Lord Jesus may be taken as our God, who is before the ages, because through Him the ages were made, working our salvation in the midst of the earth, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.

Then, after it had been prophesied in these words of Hannah how he ought to glory who glories — not in himself, of course, but in the Lord — on account of the recompense which is to be at the day of judgment: 'The Lord,' she says, 'has ascended into the heavens and has thundered; He Himself shall judge the ends of the earth, because He is just.' She has surely kept the order of the confession of the faithful. For the Lord Christ ascended into heaven, and from thence He is to come to judge the living and the dead. For who ascended, as the Apostle says, except He who also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same also who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things. Through His clouds therefore He thundered, which, when He had ascended, He filled with the Holy Spirit.