as in the former book it already seems to have appeared in the angels, I see that some things must first be said by me concerning the angels themselves, by which it may be demonstrated, as far as is possible for us, how not unfitting nor incongruous is the fellowship said to exist between men and angels, so that not four (namely two of angels and as many of men), but rather two cities—that is, societies—may rightly be said to exist, one constituted in the good and the other in the evil, not only of angels but also of men.
That the contrary appetites of the good and the evil angels among themselves arose not from diverse natures and origins—since God, the good Author and Maker of all substances, created both—but from wills and desires, it is not lawful to doubt; while some constantly persist in the good common to all, which to them is God Himself, and in His eternity, truth, and love; others, delighting rather in their own power, as if they were their own good to themselves, slipped away from the higher good common to all and beatific, to their own private goods, and, possessing the pomp of elation in place of the most exalted eternity, the cunning of vanity in place of the most certain truth, the zeal of partisanship in place of indivisible love, became proud, deceitful, and envious.
The cause, therefore, of the blessedness of the former is to cleave to God; wherefore the cause of the misery of the latter is to be understood from the contrary, namely, not to cleave to God. For which reason, if, when it is asked why the former are blessed, it is rightly answered, 'Because they cleave to God'; and when it is asked why the latter are miserable, it is rightly answered, 'Because they do not cleave to God': there is no good of the rational or intellectual creature whereby it is blessed, save God. Thus, although not every creature can be blessed (for beasts, wood, stones, and whatever is of this kind do not attain or receive this gift), yet that which can, cannot from itself, since it is created from nothing, but from Him by whom it was created. For having obtained Him it is blessed, having lost Him it is miserable.
But He who is blessed not by another good, but by Himself as His own good, cannot therefore be miserable, because He cannot lose Himself. We say therefore that there is no immutable good save the one true and blessed God; and that the things which He made are indeed good because they are from Him, yet mutable because they are made not of Him but of nothing. Although therefore they are not supreme goods, since God is a greater good than they, yet those mutable goods are great which can cleave, in order to be blessed, to the immutable good, which is so far their good that without it they must necessarily be miserable. Nor on that account are the other things in this universe of creation better, because they cannot be miserable;
for neither must it be said that the other members of our body are better than the eyes because they cannot be blind. But just as a nature that has sensation, even when it suffers pain, is better than a stone which can in no way suffer pain, so a rational nature, even when miserable, is more excellent than that which lacks reason or sensation, and into which therefore misery cannot fall. Since this is so, to this nature, which has been created in such excellence that, although it is itself mutable, yet by cleaving to the immutable good, that is, the supreme God, it attains blessedness, and does not fulfill its want unless it is assuredly blessed, and to fulfill it nothing suffices save God—surely not to cleave to Him is a vice.
But every vice harms the nature, and through this is against nature. Therefore this nature differs from that which cleaves to God not by nature, but by vice; by which vice, nevertheless, the nature itself is shown to be very great and much to be praised. For the vice of that whose vice is rightly blamed is without doubt praised in its nature. For the right blame of a vice is that by it a praiseworthy nature is dishonored. As therefore, when the vice of the eyes is called blindness, this is shown, that sight pertains to the nature of the eyes; and when the vice of the ears is called deafness, hearing is demonstrated to pertain to their nature: so, when the vice of the angelic creature is named, by which it does not cleave to God, hence it is most plainly declared that it befits its nature to cleave to God.
Now how great is the praise of cleaving to God, so as to live for Him, to be wise from Him, to rejoice in Him, and to enjoy so great a good without death, without error, without trouble—who can worthily conceive or express it? Wherefore even by the vice of the evil angels, by which they do not cleave to God, since every vice harms the nature, it is sufficiently manifested that God created their nature so good that it is harmful to it not to be with God. CHAPTER II. That no essence is contrary to God, because from Him who supremely and ever is, that which is not seems to be wholly diverse. Let these things be said, and let no one, when we speak of the apostate angels, think that they could have had another nature as it were from another principle, nor that God is not the Author of their nature.
From the impiety of which error each will be the more readily and easily free, the more keenly he can understand what God said through the angel when He sent Moses to the children of Israel: 'I am that I am.' For since God is the supreme essence, that is, supremely is, and therefore is immutable: to the things which He created from nothing He gave being, but not supremely to be, as He Himself is;
and to some He gave to be more, to others to be less, and thus ordered the natures of essences by degrees (for just as from that which is to be wise wisdom is named, so from that which is to be essence is named, by a new word indeed, which the old authors of the Latin tongue did not use, but now in our times become customary, that there should not be lacking even to our language that which the Greeks call ousia; for this word was expressed word for word, so that it might be said essentia); and through this, to that nature which supremely is, by whose making are whatsoever things are, there is no contrary nature except that which is not. For to that which is, not to be is contrary.
And therefore to God, that is, to the supreme essence and Author of all essences of whatever kind, no essence is contrary. CHAPTER III. On the enemies of God, who are such not by nature but by a contrary will, which, while it harms them, harms a good nature; for a vice, if it does not harm, is not. But those are called in the Scriptures enemies of God who oppose His rule not by nature but by vices, being able to harm Him in nothing, but only themselves. For they are enemies by the will of resisting, not by the power of injuring. For God is immutable and in every way incorruptible. Therefore the vice by which those who are called His enemies resist God is an evil not to God but to themselves, and this for no other reason than that it corrupts in them the good of their nature.
The nature, therefore, is not contrary to God, but the vice, because evil is contrary to good. But who would deny God to be supremely good? The vice, then, is contrary to God, as evil to good. Moreover the nature which it vitiates is also good; whence it is contrary to this good also; but to God only as evil to good, while to the nature which it vitiates it is not only evil but also harmful. For no evils are harmful to God, but to the mutable and corruptible natures, which are nevertheless good even by the testimony of the vices themselves. For if they were not good, the vices could not harm them. For what do the vices do them by harming, save take away integrity, beauty, health, virtue, and whatever good of the nature is wont to be withdrawn or diminished by vice?
But if it should be wholly lacking, it harms not by taking away any good, and through this neither is it a vice. For it cannot be that there should be a vice and that it should not harm. Whence it is gathered that, although a vice cannot harm the immutable good, yet it cannot harm save a good, because it is not present save where it harms. This can also be said in this way: that a vice can be neither in the supreme good nor save in some good. Good things, therefore, can exist somewhere alone, evil things alone nowhere; since even those natures which were vitiated from the beginning of an evil will, in so far as they are vitiated, are evil, but in so far as they are natures, are good. And when a vitiated nature is in punishments, besides the fact that it is a nature, even this is there good, that it is not unpunished.
For this is just, and everything just is without doubt good. For no one pays penalties for natural vices, but for voluntary ones. For even that vice which, strengthened by habit or by too great progress, has grown as it were naturally, took its beginning from the will. For we are now speaking of the vices of that nature in which there is a mind capable of intelligible light, by which the just is discerned from the unjust. CHAPTER IV. On the natures of irrational things or of things lacking life, which in their own kind and order do not depart from the beauty of the universe.
For the rest, to think damnable the vices of beasts and trees and other mutable and mortal things, lacking altogether intellect or sensation or life, by which their dissoluble nature is corrupted, is ridiculous, since these creatures received that mode by the nod of the Creator, so that by yielding and succeeding they might carry out the lowest beauty of the seasons, congruous in its own kind to the parts of this world. For earthly things were not to be made equal to heavenly, nor on that account ought these to be lacking to the universe, because those others are better. When therefore in these places, where such things were fitting to be, some things arising as others fail, and lesser things give way to greater and the conquered are turned into the qualities of the conquerors, this is the order of transient things.
The beauty of which order delights us not, for this reason: that, being woven into a part of it according to the condition of our mortality, we cannot perceive the whole, to which the particulars that offend us aptly and becomingly conform. Whence to us, who are less fit to contemplate it, the providence of the Maker is most rightly enjoined to be believed, lest we dare in any point to reprehend the work of so great an Artificer with the vanity of human rashness. Although even the vices of earthly things, which are neither voluntary nor penal, commend the natures themselves—of which there is none whatsoever whose Author and Maker is not God—if we prudently attend, by the same reasoning, because in them too it displeases us that there is taken away by vice that which pleases us in the nature;
This is simply because to human beings the natures themselves are often displeasing when they become harmful to them—displeasing to those who consider not the natures but their own advantage, like those animals by whose abundance the pride of the Egyptians was scourged. But in this same way men could even find fault with the sun, since certain offenders, or those who do not pay their debts, are by order of the judges set out in the sun. It is therefore not from our convenience or inconvenience, but considered in itself, that a nature gives glory to its Maker. Thus also the nature of the eternal fire is without any doubt praiseworthy, although destined to be a punishment for the condemned and ungodly. For what is more beautiful than fire as it blazes, glows, and shines? What more useful than fire as it warms, heals, and cooks? Yet nothing is more troublesome than it as it burns.
The very same fire, then, when applied otherwise is found destructive, which when fittingly used is found most beneficial. For who is able to set forth in words its uses throughout the whole world? Nor should those be heeded who praise the light in fire but find fault with its heat, doing so, that is, not according to the power of its nature but according to their own convenience or inconvenience. For they wish to see, but do not wish to be burned. Yet they pay too little attention to the fact that that very light, which surely pleases even them, harms weak eyes by its unsuitability, while in that heat, which displeases them, certain animals through its suitability live in good health. CHAPTER V. That in every kind and measure of nature the Creator is praiseworthy.
All natures, therefore, since they exist and on that account have their own measure, their own form, and a certain peace of their own within themselves, are assuredly good; and when they are there where they ought to be according to the order of nature, they preserve their being to the extent they have received it. And those which have not received an everlasting existence are, according to the use and movement of things to which they are subjected by the law of the Creator, changed for the better or the worse, tending by divine providence toward that outcome which the plan of governing the universe embraces; in such a way that not even so great a corruption as carries mutable and mortal natures all the way to destruction so causes what was to cease to be, that there does not consequently arise from it that which ought to be.
Since these things are so, God, who supremely is, and by whom therefore was made every essence that does not supremely exist (because that which was made out of nothing ought not to be equal to Him, nor could it in any way exist if it had not been made by Him), is neither to be blamed for the offence of any vices, and is to be praised in the consideration of all natures. CHAPTER VI. What is the cause of the blessedness of the good angels, and what the cause of the misery of the evil angels. Accordingly the truest cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this: that they cleave to Him who supremely is. But when the cause of the misery of the evil angels is sought, it deservedly occurs to us that, having turned away from Him who supremely is, they turned to themselves, who do not supremely exist;
and this vice—by what other name should it be called than pride? For pride is the beginning of all sin. They were unwilling, therefore, to keep their strength fixed upon Him; and they who would have been greater had they cleaved to Him who supremely is, by preferring themselves preferred that which is less. This was the first defect, the first impoverishment, and the first vice of that nature which was so created that it neither supremely existed and yet, for having blessedness, could enjoy Him who supremely is; from whom, when turned away, it became indeed not nothing, but nonetheless less, and on that account became wretched. Moreover, if the efficient cause of this evil will is sought, nothing is found. For what is it that makes the will evil, when it is the will itself that does the evil work?
And through this, the evil will is the efficient cause of the evil work, but of the evil will there is no efficient cause. For if some thing exists, it either has or has not some will; if it has, it certainly has either a good one or an evil one; if a good one, who would be so foolish as to say that a good will makes the will evil? For then, if so, the good will would be the cause of sin—than which nothing more absurd can be thought. But if that thing which is supposed to make the will evil itself also has an evil will, then I ask, in turn, what thing made that will; and so, that there may be some limit to the inquiry, I inquire after the cause of the first evil will. For that evil will is not the first which was made by an evil will;
but that one is first which no will made. For if something preceded by which it was made, that which made the other is prior. If it is answered that no thing made it, and that therefore it always existed, I ask whether it existed in some nature. For if it existed in no nature, it did not exist at all; but if in some nature, it was vitiating and corrupting it, and was harmful to it, and through this was depriving it of good. And therefore an evil will could not exist in an evil nature, but in a good one—mutable, however—to which this vice could do harm. For if it did no harm, it was assuredly not a vice, and through this it must not be said to have been an evil will. But if it did harm, it certainly did harm by taking away or diminishing good.
Therefore an evil will could not be everlasting in that thing in which a natural good had preceded—a good which the evil will, by harming, could take away. If then it was not everlasting, I ask who made it. It remains to be said that the thing which made the evil will was one in which there was no will. I ask whether this is superior, or inferior, or equal. But the superior is surely better; how then would it be the will of nothing, rather than of a good will? Assuredly this same holds of an equal also. For as long as two are equally of good will, the one does not produce in the other an evil will. It remains that an inferior thing, which has no will, produced the evil will of the angelic nature which first sinned.
But even that thing itself, whatever inferior thing it be, down to the lowest earth—since it is a nature and an essence—is without doubt good, having its own measure and form in its own kind and order. How then is a good thing the efficient cause of an evil will? How, I say, is a good the cause of an evil? For when the will, forsaking the higher, turns itself to lower things, it becomes evil—not because that to which it turns is evil, but because the turning itself is perverse. Therefore it was not the inferior thing that made the will evil, but the will desired the inferior thing in a depraved and disordered way, by the very fact that it was a created thing. For if any two men, equally disposed in mind and body, should behold
the beauty of one body—and at the sight of it one of them is moved to enjoy it unlawfully, while the other remains steadfast in a chaste will—what do we suppose to be the cause, that in the one an evil will arises, in the other it does not arise? What thing produced it in the one in whom it arose? For surely not that beauty of the body; for it did not produce the will in both, since indeed it met the gaze of both alike. Is the flesh of the beholder the cause? Why not also of the other? Or is it the mind? Why not of both? For we have stated beforehand that both were equally disposed in mind and in body. Or must it be said that the one of them was tempted by the hidden suggestion of a malignant spirit—as though he did not, by his own will, consent to that very suggestion and persuasion of whatever kind?
This consent, then—this evil will which he applied to the one persuading evilly—what thing produced it in him, we ask. For that this hindrance too may be removed from the present question: if both are tempted by the same temptation, and one yields and consents to it, while the other remains the same as he had been—what else appears, except that the one was unwilling, and the other willing, to fall away from chastity? And whence, except by his own will, when the disposition of body and mind had been the same in both? The same beauty was seen by the eyes of both alike; the same hidden temptation pressed upon both alike. Therefore, for those wishing to know what thing produced in the one of them his own evil will, if they look well, nothing presents itself.
For if we say that he himself produced it, what was he himself before the evil will, except a good nature, whose author is God, who is the immutable good? He, then, who says of the man that consented to the tempter and persuader (to whom the other did not consent) for the unlawful use of a beautiful body—which was present to be seen by both alike, since before that sight and temptation both were alike in mind and body—that this man made for himself the evil will, since he had certainly been good before the evil will: let him ask why he made it, whether because he is a nature, or because he was made out of nothing; and he will find that the evil will begins to be, not from the fact that he is a nature, but from the fact that the nature was made out of nothing.
For if a nature is the cause of an evil will, what else are we compelled to say, except that evil comes from good, and that good is the cause of evil?—if indeed an evil will arises from a good nature. But how can it come about that a good nature, although mutable, before it has an evil will, should do something evil, that is, the evil will itself? CHAPTER VII. That the efficient cause of an evil will is not to be sought. Let no one, therefore, seek the efficient cause of an evil will; for it is not efficient but deficient, since the will itself is not an effecting but a defecting. For to fall away from that which supremely is, to that which exists in a lesser degree—this is to begin to have an evil will.
But to wish to find the causes of these defections—since they are not, as I have said, efficient but deficient—is as if someone should wish to see darkness or to hear silence; both of which are nonetheless known to us, the one only through the eyes, the other only through the ears, yet not in a form, but in the privation of form. Let no one, then, seek to learn from me what I know that I do not know—unless perhaps in order to learn not to know that which must be known to be impossible to be known. For those things which are known not in a form but in its privation, if they can be spoken or understood, are in a certain manner known by not-knowing, so that by knowing they are not-known. For when the keen edge even of the bodily eye runs through bodily forms, nowhere does it see darkness except where it begins not to see.
So too it pertains not to any other sense, but to the ears alone, to perceive silence, which nonetheless is in no way perceived except by not-hearing. Thus our mind indeed beholds intelligible forms by understanding; but where these are lacking, it learns them by not-knowing. For 'who understands his transgressions?' CHAPTER VIII. On the perverse love by which the will falls away from the immutable good to a mutable good. This I know: that the nature of God can never, nowhere, in no part fail; and that those things can fail which have been made out of nothing. Yet these, in proportion as they more truly exist and do good things (for then they do something), have efficient causes; but in proportion as they fail and from this do evil things (for what then do they do but vanities?)—
they have deficient causes. Likewise I know that in whomsoever an evil will arises, it arises in him in such a way that, if he were unwilling, it would not arise; and therefore not necessary but voluntary defects are followed by a just penalty. For one fails not toward evil things, but evilly—that is, not toward evil natures, but evilly, because contrary to the order of natures, from that which supremely is to that which exists in a lesser degree. For avarice is not a vice of gold, but of the man who perversely loves gold, justice being abandoned, which ought incomparably to have been set above gold; nor is luxury a vice of beautiful and pleasant bodies, but of the soul that perversely loves bodily pleasures, temperance being neglected, by which we are joined to things spiritually more beautiful and incorruptibly more pleasant;
nor is boastfulness a vice of human praise, but of the soul that perversely loves to be praised by men, the testimony of conscience being despised; nor is pride a vice of the one who gives power, or even of power itself, but of the soul that perversely loves its own power, the more just power of a mightier one being scorned. And through this, whoever perversely loves the good of any nature whatsoever, even if he obtains it, himself becomes evil in the good and wretched, being deprived of a better good. CHAPTER IX. Whether the holy angels have the same one as the author of their good will, whom they have as Creator of their nature, through the Holy Spirit, charity being poured out in them.
Since, then, there is no natural or, if it may be so said, essential efficient cause of an evil will (for from the will itself begins the evil of mutable spirits, by which the good of the nature is diminished and depraved, nor does anything but a defection—by which God is forsaken—produce such a will; and the cause even of this defection assuredly fails): if we should say that there is no efficient cause even of a good will, we must beware lest the good will of the good angels be believed not to be made, but to be coeternal with God. Since, then, they themselves were made, how shall it be said that their good will was not made? Moreover, since it was made, was it made together with them, or were they without it first? But if together with them, there is no doubt that it was made by Him by whom they too were made; and as soon as they were made, they cleaved, by love,
cleaved to Him by whom they were made, with whom they were made. And these are separated from the fellowship of those others by this: that they remained in that same good will, while these others, by falling away from it, were changed—changed, that is, by an evil will, by this very fact that they fell away from the good one; from which they would not have fallen away, if at least they had been unwilling. But if the good angels existed first without a good will, and made it in themselves, God not working it, then they were made better by themselves than by Him. God forbid. For what were they, without a good will, except evil? Or if for this reason not evil, because no evil will was in them either (for they had not fallen away from that which they had not yet begun to have), then certainly they were not yet such, not yet so good as they began to be when they had a good will.
But if they could not make themselves better than He had made them—He than whom no one makes anything better—then assuredly they could not have a good will, by which they might be better, except by the working aid of the Creator. And when their good will brought it about that they should turn, not to themselves who existed in a lesser degree, but to Him who supremely is, and by cleaving to Him should exist more fully, and by participation in Him should live wisely and blessedly: what else is shown, except that the will, however good, would have been needy, destined to remain in mere desire, unless He who had made the good nature out of nothing, capable of Himself, should from Himself make it better by filling it—first making it more eager by stirring it up?
For this too must be examined: if the good angels made the good will in themselves, did they make it by some will, or by none? If by none, then assuredly they did not make it at all. If by some will, was it an evil or a good one? If evil, how could an evil will be the maker of a good will? If good, then they already had it. And who had made this, except He who created them with a good will—that is, with the chaste love by which they might cleave to Him—at once both founding their nature for them and bestowing grace? Whence it must be believed that the holy angels never existed without a good will, that is, without the love of God.
But those others, who, although they were created good, are nonetheless evil (evil by their own will, which the good nature did not produce, except when it of its own accord fell away from the good—so that the cause of evil is not the good, but a defection from the good)—either received a lesser grace of divine love than those who persevered in the same, or, if both were created equally good, then, while these fell by an evil will, those others were more abundantly assisted and attained to that fullness of blessedness whereby they became most certain that they would never fall; as we have already treated in the book which this one follows.
It must therefore be confessed, with due praise of the Creator, that what is written—that the charity of God has been poured forth in them through the Holy Spirit who has been given to them—pertains not to holy men alone, but can truly be said of the holy angels also; and that this good belongs not only to men, but primarily and chiefly to the angels: as it is written, 'But for me it is good to cleave to God.' Those to whom this good is common have, both with Him to whom they cleave and among themselves, a holy fellowship, and are one City of God, and likewise His living sacrifice and His living temple. A part of which—