concerning chaff that is so cooling that it does not let snow grow accustomed to melt, and so warming that it forces fruit to ripen; concerning bright fire, that according to its brightness, by baking stones, it makes them white, and contrary to that same brightness of its own, by burning, it blackens very many things. Such too is the fact that black spots are spread from bright oil; likewise that black lines are impressed from white silver; and concerning coals also, that when fire kindles them, they are so turned to the contrary that from the most beautiful woods they become foul, brittle from hard things, and incorruptible from corruptible things. Some of these things I myself know along with many others, some along with everyone, and very many other things which it would be too long to insert into this book.
But concerning those things which I have set down not as experienced but as read, except for that spring where burning torches are extinguished and extinguished ones are kindled, and the apples of the land of Sodom, outwardly as if ripe but inwardly smoky, I have been unable to find any suitable witnesses from whom I might hear whether they were true. And indeed I have found no one who would say he had seen that spring in Epirus, but men who knew of a similar one in Gaul, not far from the city of Grenoble. As for the fruits of the trees of Sodom, not only do writings worthy of trust attest them, but so many men say they have experienced them, that I cannot doubt of this. The rest, however, I so regard that I have resolved neither to deny nor to affirm them;
but I have set them down for this reason, namely, because I have read them among the historians of those against whom we argue, in order to show how many such things, and how many of those men, on no reason rendered, believe through writings in the works of their own learned writers — those very men who do not even deign, with a reason rendered, to believe us, when we say that the omnipotent God will do that which surpasses their experience and perception. For what better and more valid reason concerning such matters is rendered than when the Omnipotent is declared to be able to do, and is said to be about to do, the very things which He is there read to have foretold, where He foretold many other things which He is shown to have done?
For He Himself will do it, because He foretold that He would do it — the things that are thought impossible — He who promised and brought it about that things incredible should be believed by unbelieving nations. CHAPTER VIII. That it is not contrary to nature when, in some thing whose nature is known, something begins to be different from what was known. But if they reply that they do not believe what we say concerning human bodies that will always burn and never die, because they know that the nature of human bodies was constituted far otherwise — whence not even that reason can here be rendered which was rendered concerning those marvelous natures, so that it might be said: 'This force is natural, this is the nature of this thing' — since we know that this is not the nature of human flesh:
we have indeed something to answer from the sacred writings, namely, that this very human flesh was constituted otherwise before sin — that is, so that it could never undergo death — but otherwise after sin, such as it has become known in the hardship of this mortality, so that it cannot hold perpetual life; thus, therefore, it will be constituted otherwise than is known to us, in the resurrection of the dead. But since they do not believe these writings, where it is read what manner of man lived in paradise and how far he was free from the necessity of death (and if they believed these, we should certainly not be laboring so hard with them concerning the punishment of the damned which is to come): something must be brought forward from their own writings.
From those who were most learned among them, something must be brought forward, by which it may appear that it can come to pass that any given thing may be otherwise than it had previously been known to be by the determination of its own nature. There is in the books of Marcus Varro, whose title is 'On the Race of the Roman People,' a passage which I will here set down in the very words in which it is there read: 'In the heaven,' he says, 'a marvelous portent appeared: for the star of Venus, the most noble, which Plautus calls Vesperugo and Homer Hesperus, calling it the most beautiful, Castor writes that so great a portent occurred that it changed its color, magnitude, figure, and course; and that this happening took place neither before nor after.'
'This happening, the noble mathematicians Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples said, took place in the reign of King Ogyges.' Such a great authority as Varro would certainly not have called this a portent, unless it seemed to be contrary to nature. For we say that all portents are contrary to nature; but they are not. For how is that contrary to nature which comes to pass by the will of God, since the will of so great a Creator is surely the nature of every created thing? A portent therefore comes to pass not contrary to nature, but contrary to that which is the known nature. But who counts the multitude of portents which the history of the nations contains? But now let us attend to this one thing, which pertains to the matter of which we are treating.
What has been so ordered by the Author of the nature of heaven and earth as the most orderly course of the stars? What is so fixed and established by sure laws? And yet, when He willed it — He who rules with supreme command and power what He created — that star, most well-known above the rest for its magnitude and splendor, changed its color, magnitude, figure, and (what is more marvelous) the order and law of its own course. It assuredly threw into confusion then — if there were any yet at that time — the canons of the astrologers, which they keep written down, as by an unerring computation, concerning the past and future motions of the stars; following which canons they dared to say that this which happened to Lucifer (the morning star) had happened neither before nor after.
But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself both stood still, when the holy man Joshua the son of Nun had asked this of the Lord God, until the battle that had begun should end in victory, and that it went back, so that to King Hezekiah fifteen years added to his life might be signified, this prodigy being joined to God's promise. But these miracles too, which were granted to the merits of the saints, when those men believe they were done, they attribute to magic arts. Whence comes that which I mentioned above that Virgil said: 'to stay the water in rivers and turn the stars backward.'
For we read in the sacred writings that a river also stood still and flowed both above and below, when the people of God, with the aforesaid leader Joshua the son of Nun, were taking their way; and that this was done when the prophet Elijah was crossing over, and afterward his disciple Elisha; and we have just now mentioned that a very great star was turned back in the reign of Hezekiah. But as for what Varro wrote concerning Lucifer, it is not there said that it was granted to any man who asked for it. Let not the unbelievers, therefore, make for themselves a darkness out of their knowledge of natures, as though it could not come to pass that something be done divinely in some thing, so long as they have come to know its nature through their own human experience;
although even those very things which are known to all in the nature of things are no less marvelous, and would be astonishing to all who considered them, if men were wont to marvel at marvels that are not rare. For who, on consideration with reason, does not see that in the innumerable multitude of men and amid so great a likeness of nature, each one has so wondrously his own single countenance, that, unless they were like one another, their species could not be distinguished from the other animals; and again, unless they were unlike one another, the individuals could not be distinguished from the other men? Those, then, whom we confess to be alike, the same we find to be unlike. But the consideration of the unlikeness is the more marvelous, since the common nature seems more justly to demand likeness.
And yet, since those things which are rare are themselves marvelous, we wonder far more greatly when we find two men so alike that in distinguishing them we either always or frequently go astray. But although what I said was written by Varro — though he is a historian of these men and likewise most learned — perhaps they do not believe that it truly happened; or, because the other course of that same star did not last long, but a return was made to the accustomed one, they are less moved by this example. They have, therefore, another thing, which can even now be shown, and which I think ought to suffice for them, by which they may be admonished that, when they have noticed something in some constitution of nature and have made it most well-known to themselves, they ought not on that account to prescribe to God, as though He could not turn and change it into something far other than is known to them.
The land of Sodom was assuredly not such as it now is, but lay with a face like the rest, and abounded in equal or even greater fecundity; for in the divine words it was compared to the paradise of God. After it was touched from heaven, as their history too attests and as it is now beheld by those who come to those places, it is an object of horror with its prodigious soot, and its apples enclose an inner ash beneath a lying surface of ripeness. Behold, it was not such, and it is such. Behold, by the Creator of natures its nature has been turned into this most foul difference by a marvelous change; and what happened after so long a time, persists for so long a time.
As, therefore, it was not impossible for God to constitute the natures He willed, so it is not impossible for Him to change the natures He has constituted into whatever He may will. Whence also that multitude of those miracles grows like a forest, which are called monsters, signs, portents, prodigies; and if I should wish to recall and recount them, what would be the end of this work? Monsters indeed are said to be so named from 'showing' (monstrare), because by signifying they demonstrate something; and signs (ostenta) from 'displaying' (ostendere); and portents (portenta) from 'portending' (portendere), that is, from foreshowing; and prodigies (prodigia), because they 'say forth' (porro dicant), that is, they predict things to come.
But let their interpreters see for themselves how, out of these things — whether they are deceived, or whether by the instinct of those spirits whose care it is to entangle in the nets of harmful curiosity the souls of men worthy of such punishment — they sometimes even predict true things, or whether by saying many things they at some time hit upon something of the truth.
To us, however, these things which happen as it were contrary to nature and are said to happen contrary to nature (in which manner of speaking the Apostle too spoke, when he said that the wild olive was, contrary to nature, grafted in and made a partaker of the richness of the olive), and which are called monsters, signs, portents, prodigies — these ought to demonstrate this, to show or foreshow this, to predict this: that which God is about to do, which He has foretold He would do concerning the bodies of men, with no difficulty hindering, with no law of nature prescribing limits. But in what manner He foretold it, I think I have sufficiently shown in the previous book, by culling from the sacred Scriptures, both new and old, not indeed all the things pertaining to this, but those which I have judged sufficient for this work.
CHAPTER IX. On Gehenna and the quality of the eternal punishments. That, therefore, which God said through His prophet concerning the everlasting torment of the damned, shall come to pass, shall altogether come to pass: 'Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.' For to commend this the more vehemently, the Lord Jesus also, when He put the members which cause a man to stumble for those men whom one loves as his own right members, and commanded that they be cut off, said: 'It is good for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go into Gehenna, into the inextinguishable fire, where their worm shall not die and the fire shall not be quenched.' Likewise concerning the foot:
'It is good for you,' He says, 'to enter into life everlasting lame, rather than having two feet to be cast into the Gehenna of inextinguishable fire, where their worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.' Not otherwise does He say also concerning the eye: 'It is good for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire, where their worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.' It did not weary Him to say the same words three times in one passage. Whom would that repetition not terrify, and that admonition of so vehement a punishment from the divine mouth?
But both of these — the fire, namely, and the worm — those who wish them to pertain to the punishments of the soul, not of the body, say that those who have been separated from the kingdom of God are also burned by grief of soul, repenting late and fruitlessly; and therefore they contend that fire could not unfittingly be put for this burning grief; whence comes that saying of the Apostle: 'Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?' They think the worm too should be understood in the same way. For it is written, they say: 'As the moth the garment, and the worm the wood, so sorrow tortures the heart of a man.' But those who do not doubt that there will be punishments both of soul and of body in that torment, affirm that the body is burned by fire, but the soul is gnawed in a certain manner by the worm of sorrow.
And although this is said more credibly — since it is altogether absurd that there pain either of body or of soul should be lacking — yet I find it easier to say that both pertain to the body, rather than neither, and that the pain of soul is therefore left unspoken in those words of the divine Scripture, because it is understood to be a consequence, even if it is not said, that, the body so suffering, the soul too should be tortured with a barren repentance. For it is read also in the old Scriptures: 'The vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and the worm.' It could have been said more briefly: 'The vengeance on the ungodly.' Why then was it said, 'on the flesh of the ungodly,' unless because both — that is, both the fire and the worm — will be the punishment of the flesh?
Or if He wished to say 'vengeance on the flesh' for this reason, because that will be punished in man which he lived according to the flesh (for on this account he will come into the second death, which the Apostle signified, saying: 'For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die'), let each one choose what pleases him: either to assign the fire to the body and the worm to the soul — this one literally, that one figuratively — or both literally to the body. For I have already sufficiently argued above that living beings can even live in fires, in burning without consuming, in pain without death, by the miracle of the most omnipotent Creator; and whoever denies that this is possible to Him, is ignorant from Whom comes whatever he marvels at in all natures.
For He Himself is the God who made all the miracles, great and small, in this world, which we have mentioned, and incomparably more which we have not mentioned, and enclosed these same in this world itself, which is the one and greatest miracle of all. Let each one therefore choose one of the two, whichever pleases him, whether he judges that the worm pertains to the body properly, or to the soul, the word being transferred from corporeal things to incorporeal. But which of these is true, the matter itself will more readily indicate, when the knowledge of the saints will be so great that for knowing those punishments experience will not be necessary to them, but that wisdom which will then be full and perfect will alone suffice for knowing this also (for now we know in part, until that which is perfect shall come);
provided only that we in no way believe that those bodies will be such as to be affected by no pains from fire. CHAPTER X. Whether the fire of Gehenna, if it is corporeal, can by its touch burn the malign spirits, that is, incorporeal demons. Here it occurs to inquire: If there will not be an incorporeal fire, such as is the pain of the soul, but a corporeal one, harmful by touch, so that bodies can be tormented by it — in what manner will there be in it also the punishment of the malign spirits? For the same fire will be assigned, namely, to the punishment of men and of demons, as Christ says: 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.'
Unless it be that there are even to the demons certain bodies of their own, as it has seemed to learned men, made of this thick and humid air, whose impulse is felt when the wind blows. And if this kind of element could suffer nothing from fire, it would not burn when heated in the baths. For in order that it may burn, it is first burned itself, and acts while it suffers. But if anyone asserts that the demons have no bodies at all, this is not a matter to be labored over with painstaking inquiry, nor to be contended over with contentious disputation.
For why should we not say that even incorporeal spirits can, in marvelous yet true ways, be afflicted by the punishment of corporeal fire, if the spirits of men — themselves assuredly incorporeal too — could both now be enclosed in corporeal members, and then will be able to be bound indissolubly by the chains of their own bodies? The demon-spirits, therefore — nay rather, the demons who are spirits — will cleave (even if they have no bodies), though incorporeal, to corporeal fires, to be tormented; not so that the fires to which they will cleave should themselves, by their juncture, be inspired and become living beings composed of spirit and body, but, as I have said, by cleaving in marvelous and ineffable ways, receiving punishment from the fires, not giving life to the fires;
because that other manner also, by which spirits cleave to bodies and become living beings, is altogether marvelous and cannot be comprehended by man — and this man himself is. I should indeed say that the spirits will so burn without any body of their own, just as that rich man was burning in hell, when he said: 'I am tormented in this flame,' were it not that I see it can fittingly be answered that such was that flame as were the eyes which he lifted up and saw Lazarus, such as the tongue for which he desired a little moisture to be poured, such as the finger of Lazarus from which he begged that this be done for him — where nevertheless there were souls without bodies.
Thus, therefore, both that flame with which he was set ablaze, and that little drop which he begged for, were incorporeal — such as are also the things seen by those who sleep, or by those who in ecstasy behold incorporeal things, which nevertheless have a likeness of bodies. For man himself too, when he is in such visions with the spirit, not the body, nevertheless then sees himself so like to his own body that he cannot distinguish at all. But that Gehenna, which is also called the lake of fire and brimstone, will be a corporeal fire and will torment the bodies of the damned — either of both men and demons, the solid bodies of men, the airy bodies of demons; or only the bodies of men with their spirits, while the demons are spirits cleaving without bodies, taking on punishment, not imparting life to the corporeal fires.
For one fire will be for both, as the Truth has said. CHAPTER XI. Whether it accords with the reason of justice that the times of punishments be not more extended than were those of the sins. But thus some of those against whom we defend the City of God think it unjust that anyone be condemned to eternal punishment for sins, however great, committed in but a small time — as though the justice of any law ever regarded this, that each be punished for as long a span of time as that during which he committed the act for which he is punished. Tullius (Cicero) writes that there are eight kinds of punishment in the laws: fine, fetters, scourging, retaliation, disgrace, exile, death, slavery.
Which of these is it that is compressed into a short time according to the swiftness of each sin, so that vengeance is taken in as small a delay of time as that in which the deed is found to have been perpetrated — unless perhaps retaliation? For this aims at this, that each one suffer what he did. Whence comes that saying of the law: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' For it can come to pass that anyone lose an eye in as short a time, by the severity of the vengeance, as that in which he himself took it from another by the wickedness of his sin. But further, if it be a matter of reason to avenge with a scourging a kiss fixed upon another man's wife, would not he who did that in a moment of time be scourged through an incomparable space of hours, and the sweetness of a scant pleasure be punished with a long-lasting pain?
What of this: in chains, ought anyone to be judged liable to remain only as long as the act lasted by which he earned to be bound? When most justly a slave in fetters pays the penalty of years, who, by a word or a blow that passes in an instant, either provoked or struck his master? And now loss of goods, disgrace, exile, and slavery, when for the most part they are inflicted in such a way that no pardon relaxes them — do they not, in proportion to the measure of this life, seem like the eternal penalties? They cannot, of course, be eternal, because neither does the life itself, which is punished by them, reach into eternity; and yet the sins that are avenged by penalties of the longest duration are committed in the briefest span of time.
Nor has anyone ever held that the torments of the guilty should be brought to an end as quickly as a murder, or adultery, or sacrilege, or any other crime whatsoever was committed — a crime to be measured not by length of time but by the magnitude of its iniquity and impiety. But as for one who is punished with death for some great crime, do the laws reckon his punishment to be the interval in which he is killed, which is very brief, and not rather that they remove him forever from the society of the living? Now, to remove men from this mortal city by the punishment of the first death is the same as to remove men from that immortal city by the punishment of the second death. For just as the laws of this city do not bring it about that one who has been slain is recalled into it,
so too the laws of that city do not bring it about that one condemned by the second death is recalled into eternal life. How then, they say, is it true, what your Christ says: 'With what measure you have measured, it shall be measured back to you,' if a temporal sin is punished with an eternal penalty? But they do not notice that the same measure is spoken of not on account of an equal span of time, but on account of the reciprocity of evil — that is, that whoever has done evil should suffer evil. Although this may properly be taken in that matter of which the Lord was speaking when He said it, namely concerning judgments and condemnations. Accordingly, one who judges and condemns unjustly, if he is judged and condemned justly, receives in the same measure, although not the same thing that he gave. For by judgment he acted, and by judgment he suffers;
although by his condemnation he did what was unrighteous, by his condemnation he suffers what is righteous. CHAPTER XII. On the magnitude of the first transgression, on account of which eternal punishment is owed to all who shall have been outside the grace of the Saviour. But eternal punishment seems harsh and unjust to human perceptions, because in this weakness of mortal senses there is lacking that sense of the highest and purest wisdom by which one might perceive how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. For the more a man had enjoyed God, the greater the impiety with which he forsook God, and he became deserving of eternal evil, who destroyed in himself a good that could have been eternal. Hence the whole mass of the human race is condemned;
since he who first committed this was punished together with that nature which had been rooted in him as in its stock, so that none is freed from this just and due penalty except by merciful and undeserved grace; and thus the human race is so apportioned that in some it is shown what merciful grace avails, and in the rest what just vengeance avails. For neither would be shown in all; because, if all remained in the penalties of just condemnation, merciful grace would appear in none; and again, if all were transferred from darkness into light, the truth of retribution would appear in none. In which retribution there are far more than in the other portion, so that thereby it may be shown what was owed to all.
But if it were rendered to all, no one would justly rebuke the justice of the avenger; whereas, because so many are thence delivered, there is ground for rendering the greatest thanks to the gratuitous gift of the deliverer. CHAPTER XIII. Against the opinion of those who think that punishments are applied to the guilty after death for the sake of purgation. The Platonists, indeed, although they would have no sins go unpunished, nevertheless think that all penalties are applied for amendment, whether inflicted by human laws or by divine, whether in this life or after death, if either one is spared here, or is so punished that he is not corrected here.
Hence comes that famous saying of Maro, where, after he had spoken of earthly bodies and dying members, that 'from these the souls fear and desire, grieve and rejoice, nor look up to the air, shut in by darkness and in a blind prison,' he went on to add and say: 'Nay, even when with the last light life has left them' (that is, when on the final day this life has left them), 'still,' he says, 'not all evil departs from the wretched, nor do all bodily plagues wholly withdraw, and it is utterly necessary that many things long compacted should grow inveterate in wondrous ways. Therefore they are exercised with penalties and pay the punishments of their old evils: some are spread out, suspended empty to the winds; for others the infection of guilt is washed away beneath a vast whirlpool, or is burned out with fire.'
Those who hold this opinion would have no penalties after death except purgatorial ones, so that — since above the earth the elements of water, air, and fire are higher — one may be cleansed through expiatory penalties by some one of these from whatever was contracted by earthly contagion. Air, indeed, is understood in his words 'suspended to the winds'; water in his words 'beneath a vast whirlpool'; and fire is expressed by its own name when he said 'or is burned out with fire.' But we, for our part, confess that even in this mortal life there are certain purgatorial penalties — not those by which they are afflicted whose life is either made no better thereby, or rather made worse — but they are purgatorial to those who, being restrained by them, are corrected.
All other penalties, whether temporary or everlasting, according as each one is to be dealt with by divine providence, are inflicted either for sins — whether past, or in which he who is punished still lives — or for the exercising and manifesting of virtues through men and angels, whether good or evil. For even if someone should suffer some evil through another's wickedness or error, the man indeed sins who, whether through ignorance or injustice, does some evil to anyone; but God does not sin, who by a just, though hidden, judgment permits it to happen. But temporal penalties some suffer in this life only, some after death, some both now and then, yet nevertheless before that most severe and final judgment.
But not all who endure temporal penalties after death come into the eternal penalties that are to be after that judgment. For to some, as we have already said above, what is not remitted in this age is remitted in the age to come — that is, that they may not be punished with the eternal punishment of the age to come. CHAPTER XIV. On the temporal penalties of this life, to which the human condition is subject. But very rare are those who pay no penalties in this life, but only after it. Yet that there have been some who, even up to decrepit old age, have felt not so much as the slightest little fever and have led a tranquil life, we ourselves have known and have heard;