Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 6 part 1/4

[Preface] Since it is established that the fullness of all desirable things is felicity—which is not a goddess but a gift of God—and that therefore no god ought to be worshipped by men except Him who can make them happy (so that, were felicity herself a goddess, she alone would rightly be said to be worthy of worship): let us now consequently see for what cause God, who can also give those goods which even the not-good, and thereby the not-happy, are able to have, willed the Roman empire to be so great and so long-lasting. For that this was not done by that multitude of false gods whom they worshipped, we have already said much, and shall say more where it seems opportune.

[I] The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal according to the judgment or opinion of those who call those things fortuitous which either have no causes, or causes that do not proceed from any rational order, and those things fatal which, apart from the will of God and men, come to pass by the necessity of a certain order. Human kingdoms are altogether established by divine providence. And if anyone attributes this to fate because he calls the very will or power of God by the name of fate, let him hold his opinion but correct his language. For why does he not first say what he is afterwards going to say, when someone asks him what he meant by fate?

For when men hear this word, by the usual custom of speaking they understand nothing but the force of the position of the stars, such as it is when someone is born or conceived; which force some sever from the will of God, while others affirm that even this depends on His will. But those who suppose that the stars, without the will of God, determine what we shall do or what goods we shall have or what evils we shall suffer, are to be repelled from the ears of all—not only of those who hold the true religion, but even of those who wish to be worshippers of gods of whatever sort, however false. For what else does this opinion effect than that no God at all be worshipped or entreated?

Against these, however, our disputation is not now instituted, but against those who, in defence of those whom they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. But those who suspend the position of the stars—which in some manner determine what each person shall be, and what good shall befall him or what evil happen to him—upon the will of God, if they think that these same stars have received this power, delivered to them from the supreme power of God, so that they determine these things by their own will: they do great injury to heaven, in whose most illustrious senate, as it were, and most splendid court they suppose that crimes are decreed to be committed—crimes such as, had any earthly city decreed them, it would have deserved to be overthrown by the decree of the human race.

What judgment, then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men, upon whom a heavenly necessity is imposed, when He is Lord both of the stars and of men? Or if they do not say that the stars, having indeed received power from the most high God, determine these things by their own choice, but that in imposing such necessities they wholly fulfil His commands: is such a thing then to be thought concerning God Himself as seemed most unworthy to be thought concerning the will of the stars? But if the stars are said rather to signify these things than to cause them, so that that position is, as it were, a kind of speech foretelling the future, not effecting it (for this was the opinion of men by no means poorly learned)—yet the astrologers are not accustomed so to speak, as, for example, to say:

'Mars posited thus signifies a murderer,' but: 'makes a murderer'; nevertheless, granting that they do not speak as they ought, and that they should receive from the philosophers the rule of speech for foretelling those things which they think they find in the position of the stars: how comes it that they have never been able to say anything as to why, in the life of twins—in their actions, in their outcomes, in their professions, arts, honours, and other matters pertaining to human life, and in death itself—there is often so great a diversity that, as regards these things, many strangers are more like them than the twins are like each other, though separated in birth by the tiniest interval of time, yet sown in conception by a single act of intercourse and in one and the same moment?

[II] Cicero says that Hippocrates, the most noble physician, left it in writing that, when certain brothers had begun to sicken at the same time and their disease grew worse and abated at the same time, he suspected them to be twins; whom Posidonius the Stoic, much given to astrology, used to assert to have been born and conceived under the same constitution of the stars. Thus what the physician believed pertained to a most similar temperament of health, this the philosopher-astrologer ascribed to the force and constitution of the stars which existed at the time when they were conceived and born.

In this matter the medical conjecture is much more acceptable and, at close hand, more credible; since the parents, being affected in body as they were while they lay together, could so affect the beginnings of the conceived that, with the earlier increments derived from the mother's body, they were born with an equal state of health; and then, nourished in one house with the same food—where medicine testifies that the air, the situation of the place, and the force of the waters have very much to do with a body's being well or ill disposed—and accustomed also to the same exercises, they came to bear bodies so similar that they were even moved to fall sick at one time and from the same causes alike.

But to wish to draw the constitution of the heaven and stars, which existed when they were conceived or born, to this similarity of sickening—when so many things of the most diverse kind, with the most diverse effects and outcomes, could be conceived and born at the same time in the land of one region subject to the same heaven—is a mark of I know not what impudence. But we ourselves know twins who have not only diverse pursuits and travels, but also suffer disparate illnesses. Of this matter Hippocrates, as it seems to me, would render a most easy account: that through diverse foods and exercises—which come not from the body's temperament but from the soul's will—dissimilar states of health could befall them.

Moreover, it would be a marvel if Posidonius, or any other asserter of the fatal stars, could here find anything to say, unless he wished to trifle with the minds of the unskilled in matters which they do not understand. For what they attempt to accomplish from the tiny interval of time which the twins had between them as they were being born—on account of that particle of the heaven where the marking of the hour is placed, which they call the horoscope—either avails not so much as is the diversity found in the wills, acts, characters, and fortunes of twins, or avails even more than does the lowliness of birth, the same in twins, or the same nobility, of which they place the greatest diversity in nothing but the hour at which each is born.

And through this, if one is born so quickly after the other that the same part of the horoscope remains, I demand all things equal—which can be found in no twins; but if the slowness of the one following changes the horoscope, I demand different parents—which twins cannot have. [III] In vain, therefore, is that celebrated invention of the potter's wheel brought forward, which they report Nigidius, troubled by this question, to have given in reply—whence also he was called Figulus. For when he had spun the potter's wheel with all the force he could, while it was running he struck it twice in rapid succession with ink, as though at one point of it, with the utmost speed; then, when the motion had ceased, the marks he had made were found to be at no small interval apart on the rim of that wheel.

'Thus,' he said, 'in so great a swiftness of the heaven, even if one is born after the other with as great a speed as that with which I struck the wheel twice, in the space of the heaven it is a very great distance: hence,' he said, 'come whatever most dissimilar things are reported in the characters and fortunes of twins.' This figment is more fragile than the vessels which are fashioned by that spinning. For if there is so great a distance in the heaven—which cannot be comprehended by the constellations—that to one of the twins an inheritance falls and to the other it does not fall: how do they dare to pronounce, concerning others who are not twins, when they have inspected their constellations, such things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend and note in the moments of those being born?

But if for this reason they say such things in the nativities of others—because these pertain to more extended spaces of time; while those moments of minute parts, which twins being born can have between themselves, are assigned to the smallest matters, about which the astrologers are not wont to be consulted (for who would consult when he should sit, when he should walk about, when or what he should dine on?): do we speak of such things when in the characters, works, and fortunes of twins we show very many and very greatly diverse things? [IV] Two twins were born, in the ancient memory of the fathers (to speak of illustrious ones), one after the other in such a way that the latter held the heel of the former.

So great were the diversities in their life and characters, so great the disparity in their acts, so great the dissimilarity in the love of their parents, that the very distance between them made them even enemies to each other. Is it said that this was because while one walked the other sat, and while one slept the other watched, and while one spoke the other was silent—things which pertain to those minute particulars which cannot be comprehended by those who write down the constitution of the stars under which each is born, whence the astrologers are consulted? One underwent hired servitude, the other did not serve; one was loved by his mother, the other was not loved; one lost the honour which was held great among them, the other obtained it.

What of their wives, what of their children, what of their possessions—how great the diversity! If, then, these things pertain to those minute portions of time which twins have between themselves, and are not ascribed to the constellations: why, when the constellations of others have been inspected, are these things pronounced? But if they are pronounced for this reason—because they pertain not to incomprehensible minutiae but to spaces of time which can be observed and noted—what is that potter's wheel doing here, except that men having hearts of clay may be sent spinning in a circle, lest the empty babblings of the astrologers be convicted?

[V] What of those very men whose disease, because it appeared graver and lighter in both at the same time, Hippocrates, inspecting medically, suspected them to be twins—do they not sufficiently refute those who wish to give to the stars what came from the similar temperament of their bodies? For why did they sicken alike and at the same time, not one earlier and the other later, as they had been born, since assuredly both could not be born at the same time? Or if it brought no moment of difference that they were born at diverse times, so that they should sicken at diverse times: why do they contend that the diverse time in being born avails for the diversities of other things?

Why could they travel at diverse times, take wives at diverse times, beget children at diverse times, and many other things, for this reason—because they were born at diverse times—and yet could not, from the same cause, also sicken at diverse times? For if the disparate delay of being born changed the horoscope and introduced disparity into other matters: why did that remain in their illnesses which the conception had in the equality of time? Or if the fates of health are in conception, while those of other matters are said to be in birth, they ought not, when the constellations of the nativities have been inspected, to say anything concerning health, since the hour of conception is not given them to inspect.

But if they foretell illnesses without having inspected the horoscope of conception, because the moments of birth indicate them: how would they tell either one of these twins, from the hour of nativity, when he was going to sicken, since the other, who did not have the same hour of nativity, would necessarily sicken equally? Then I ask: if there is so great a distance of time in the nativity of twins that on account of it their constellations must be made diverse—because of the diverse horoscope and hence the diverse cardinal points, in which so great a force is placed that from this even their fates are diverse—whence could this happen, since their conception cannot have a diverse time?

Or if the fates for being born could be disparate for two conceived at one moment of time, why could not also the fates for living and dying be disparate for two born at one moment of time? For if the one moment in which both were conceived did not prevent one being born earlier and the other later: why, if two are born at one moment, does anything prevent one dying earlier and the other later? If a conception of one moment permits twins in the womb to have diverse fortunes, why should not a nativity of one moment also permit any two persons on earth to have diverse fortunes—and thus all the fabrications of this art, or rather this vanity, be done away?

What is this—why do two conceived at one time, at one moment, under one and the same position of the heaven, have diverse fates which lead them to a nativity at diverse hours; and yet two born at one moment of time, under one and the same position of the heaven, from two mothers, cannot have diverse fates which lead them to a diverse necessity of living or dying? Or do the conceived not yet have fates, which they cannot have unless they be born? What, then, is it that they say—that if the hour of conception be found, many things can be said by these men more divinely? Whence also this is proclaimed by some: that a certain wise man chose the hour in which he should lie with his wife, that he might beget a marvellous son.

Whence, finally, comes also this: that concerning those twins sickening alike, Posidonius, the great astrologer and likewise philosopher, used to reply that it came about because they had been born at the same time and conceived at the same time. For he certainly added conception for this reason, lest it should be said to him that they could not clearly have been born at the same time, whom it was agreed had been altogether conceived at the same time; so that this fact, that they sickened alike and together, he might not attribute to a proximate equal temperament of the body, but might bind this equality of health too to sidereal connections. If, then, there is so great a force in conception toward the equality of fates, they ought not, by being born, to have had those same fates changed.

Or if the fates of twins are changed because they are born at diverse times, why do we not rather understand that they had already been changed, so that they should be born at diverse times? Does not, then, the will of the living change the fates of nativity, since the order of those being born changes the fates of conception? [VI] And yet, even in the very conceptions of twins, where certainly the moments of time are the same for both, whence comes it that under the same fatal constellation one is conceived male, the other female? We know twins of different sex; both are still alive, both still flourish in age;

and although their bodily forms are similar to each other, as much as is possible in a diverse sex, yet in the plan and purpose of life they are so unlike that—besides the acts which must necessarily distinguish the feminine from the masculine (in that the one serves in the office of a count and is almost always travelling away from his home, while the other does not depart from her native soil and her own estate)—moreover (which is the more incredible, if astral fates be believed, but not at all wonderful, if the wills of men and the gifts of God be considered) the one is married, the other is a consecrated virgin; the one begot numerous offspring, the other did not even marry. But indeed, they say, the force of the horoscope avails very much. How null this is, I have already sufficiently discoursed. But whatever it be, they say it avails at birth; does it also avail at conception?

—where it is manifest that there was but a single act of intercourse, and so great is the force of nature that, when a woman has conceived, she cannot afterward conceive another at all; whence it is necessary that the moments of conception be the same in twins. Or is it perchance that, because they were born under a diverse horoscope, either he was changed into a male, or she into a female, while they were being born? Since, then, it could be said not altogether absurdly that certain sidereal influences avail for differences of bodies alone—just as we see, in the sun's approaches and recessions, even the seasons of the year itself to be varied, and by the increases and decreases of the moon certain kinds of things to be augmented and diminished, such as sea-urchins and shellfish and the marvellous tides of the ocean;

but that the wills of the soul are not subjected to the positions of the stars: now these men, when they try to bind even our acts thereto, admonish us to inquire whence this reasoning of theirs cannot hold good even in bodies themselves. For what is so pertinent to the body as the body's sex? And yet, under the same position of the stars, twins of diverse sex could be conceived. Whence what more foolish thing can be said or believed than that the position of the stars, which was the same for both at the hour of conception, could not bring it about that the one with whom it had the same constellation should not have a sex diverse from his brother; and yet the position of the stars, which was at the hour of their being born, could bring it about that he should differ from her by so great a distance of virginal sanctity?

[VII] Now who could bear this—that in choosing days they contrive certain new fates for their own acts? That man, forsooth, was not born so as to have an admirable son, but rather so as to beget a contemptible one, and therefore the learned man chose the hour in which he should have intercourse with his wife. He made, then, a fate which he did not have, and from his own deed there began to be fatal what had not been in his nativity. O singular folly! A day is chosen that a wife may be married; I believe for this reason—because one may fall upon a day that is not good, unless it be chosen, and marry unhappily. Where, then, is what the stars had already decreed for one being born?

Or can a man, by the choice of a day, change what has already been appointed for him, while what he himself has appointed in choosing the day cannot be changed by some other power? Then, if only men, and not all things that are under heaven, are subject to the constellations, why do they choose one set of days as suitable for planting vines or trees or crops, and other days for cattle—either for taming them or for admitting the males, by which the herds of mares or of oxen may be impregnated—and other things of this kind? But if chosen days avail for these matters because, according to the diversities of temporal moments, the position of the stars rules over all earthly bodies whether animate or inanimate:

let them consider how innumerable are the things which, under one point of time, are either born or arise or begin, and yet have such diverse outcomes, that they may persuade any boy that these observations are to be laughed at. For who is so senseless as to dare to say that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes, and little worms have severally diverse moments of coming to birth? Yet men are wont, in order to test the skill of astrologers, to bring to them the constellations of dumb animals, whose birth, for the sake of this exploration, they diligently observe at home; and they prefer those astrologers to the rest who, having inspected the constellations, say that it was not a man who was born, but a beast.

They even dare to say what kind of beast—whether fit for wool, or for carrying loads, or for the plough, or for guarding the house. For they are tested even as to the fates of dogs, and with great acclamations of admirers they give such answers. So foolish are men as to imagine that, when a man is born, the other births of things are so restrained that, under the same tract of heaven, not even a fly is born along with him. For if they admit the fly, the reasoning proceeds which, by moderate approaches step by step, would lead them from flies to camels and elephants.

Nor do they wish to observe this: that when a day has been chosen for sowing a field, so many grains come into the earth at the same time, sprout at the same time, and, when the crop has come up, grow green, mature, and turn golden together; and yet of the ears coeval with the rest and, so to speak, congerminal, some the blight destroys, some the birds ravage, some men pluck up. How will they say that these had different constellations, which they behold to have such diverse outcomes? Or will they be ashamed to choose days for these matters, and deny that they pertain to a heavenly decree, and subject to the stars men alone, to whom alone on earth God has given free wills?

When all these things are considered, it is not without reason believed that, when astrologers give many wonderfully true answers, this comes to pass by the hidden prompting of spirits that are not good, whose concern it is to insert and to fix in human minds these false and harmful opinions about the fates set by the stars, and not by any art of noting and inspecting the horoscope, which is no art at all. But as for those who call by the name of fate, not the position of the stars as it is when anything is conceived or born or begun, but the whole connection and sequence of causes by which everything happens that does happen:

with such men there is no need to labor and contend much over a controversy about a word, since they attribute this very order and connection of causes to the will and power of the most high God, who is most rightly and most truly believed both to know all things before they come to pass and to leave nothing unordered; from whom are all powers, although the wills of all are not from him. That it is chiefly this very will of the most high God, whose power extends invincibly through all things, that they call fate, is thus proved. These verses are Annaeus Seneca's, unless I am mistaken: 'Lead me, O highest Father and ruler of the lofty heaven, wherever it has pleased you; there shall be no delay in obeying. Here I am, unwearied. Suppose I refuse: I shall follow groaning, and though evil I shall suffer what I might have done as a good man.'

'The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.' Assuredly, in this last verse most evidently he called that 'fate' which above he had called the will of the most high Father; to which he says he is ready to obey, so that he may be led as one willing, lest he be dragged as one unwilling; since, namely, 'The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.' Those Homeric verses too support this sentiment, which Cicero translated into Latin: 'Such are the minds of men, as the father Jupiter himself has illumined the fruit-bearing lands with his light.' Nor in this question would a poet's opinion carry authority;

but since he says that the Stoics, in asserting the power of fate, were accustomed to make use of these verses from Homer, the discussion concerns not the opinion of that poet, but that of these philosophers, since through these verses, which they bring to bear on the disputation they hold concerning fate, it is most openly declared what they think fate to be, since they call it Jupiter, whom they suppose to be the highest god, from whom they say the connection of the fates depends. Cicero strives to refute these men in such a way that he thinks he can prevail nothing against them unless he does away with divination. This he attempts to abolish by denying that there is any knowledge of future things, and by contending with all his might that there is absolutely none, whether in man or in God, and no prediction of things at all.

Thus he both denies God's foreknowledge and attempts to overthrow all prophecy, clearer than light, by empty argumentations, and by setting up against himself certain oracles which can easily be refuted; yet these too he does not convincingly overcome. But in refuting the conjectures of these astrologers his eloquence reigns supreme, because they are truly of such a kind that they destroy and refute themselves. Yet far more tolerable are those who establish the fates set by the stars than this man who takes away the foreknowledge of future things. For to confess that God exists and to deny that he foreknows future things is the most open insanity. Since he himself saw this, he even attempted that which is written: 'The fool has said in his heart: There is no God'; but not in his own person.

For he saw how odious and offensive it would be, and therefore in his books On the Nature of the Gods he made Cotta dispute about this matter against the Stoics, and he preferred to pronounce judgment in favor of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he had assigned the defense of the Stoics' side, rather than in favor of Cotta, who contended that there is no divine nature. But in his books On Divination he in his own person most openly attacks the foreknowledge of future things. And he seems to do all this lest he should consent that fate exists and should lose free will. For he supposes that, if knowledge of future things be granted, fate follows so necessarily that it can in no way be denied.

But in whatever way these most tortuous wranglings and disputations of the philosophers may stand, we, just as we confess the most high and true God, so also we confess his will and his supreme power and his foreknowledge; nor do we fear that we do not by will what we do by will, because he, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived, foreknew that we would do it. This is what Cicero feared, so as to attack foreknowledge; and the Stoics feared it, so as to deny that all things come to pass by necessity, although they contended that all things come to pass by fate. What, then, is it that Cicero feared in the foreknowledge of future things, so that he strove to undermine it by a detestable disputation? Namely, that if all future things are foreknown, they will come in that order in which they were foreknown to be about to come;

and if they will come in this order, the order of things is certain to the foreknowing God; and if the order of things is certain, the order of causes is certain, for nothing can happen unless some efficient cause has preceded it; but if the order of causes is certain, by which everything happens that does happen, then, he says, all things that happen come to pass by fate. And if this is so, nothing is in our power and there is no choice of the will; and if we grant this, he says, all human life is overthrown, laws are given in vain, in vain are reproaches and praises, blame and exhortations applied, and no justice has established rewards for the good and punishments for the wicked.

Therefore, lest these unworthy, absurd, and pernicious consequences should follow for human affairs, he refuses to have foreknowledge of future things; and he confines the religious mind within these straits, so that it must choose one of two things: either that there is something in our will, or that there is foreknowledge of future things; since he judges that both cannot be, but that if one is affirmed, the other is taken away; if we choose foreknowledge of future things, the choice of the will is taken away; if we choose the choice of the will, foreknowledge of future things is taken away. And so he, being a great and learned man, and one who consulted most fully and most skillfully for human life, chose out of these two the free choice of the will;