Whence divine providence admonishes us not to blame things unwisely, but diligently to inquire into the usefulness of things, and where our talent or infirmity fails, so to believe it hidden, as were certain things which we could scarcely find; because even that very concealment of usefulness is either an exercise of humility or an attrition of pride, since there is no nature at all that is evil, and this name is nothing but that of the privation of good. But from earthly things up to heavenly, and from visible up to invisible, there are some goods better than others, unequal for this very purpose, that they all might exist; and God is so great an artificer in great things that He is not less in small things—which small things are to be measured not by their own greatness (for there is none), but by the wisdom of the artificer;
just as in the appearance of a visible man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how almost nothing is taken from the body, and yet how much is taken from its beauty—since beauty consists not in bulk, but in the equality and proportion of the members! Nor indeed is it much to be wondered at that those who suppose some nature to be evil, arisen and propagated from a certain contrary principle of its own, are unwilling to accept this cause of the creation of things, namely that the good God should found good things; believing rather that He was brought by extreme necessity to these mundane labours, of repelling an evil rebelling against Himself, and mingled His own good nature with evil in order to coerce and overcome it—which nature, most foully polluted and most cruelly captivated and oppressed, He scarcely with great labour cleanses and frees;
yet not all of it, but that part which could not be purged from that defilement is to be the covering and chain of the vanquished and enclosed enemy. But the Manichaeans would not thus dote, or rather rave, if they believed the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and altogether incorruptible, to whom nothing can do harm; but with Christian soundness of mind judged the soul—which by its will could be changed for the worse and corrupted by sin, and thus deprived of the light of unchangeable truth—not to be a part of God, nor of that nature which is God's, but created by Him, far unequal to its Creator.
But it is much more to be wondered at, that even certain persons who believe together with us that there is one principle of all things, and that no nature which is not what God is can exist except from that Creator, were nevertheless unwilling to believe well and simply this so good and simple cause of fabricating the world—namely, that the good God should found good things, and that there should be after God things which are not what God is, yet good, which none but the good God would make.
但他們說，靈魂——固然不是神的部分，卻是神所造的——藉著背離其創造主而犯了罪，並且按照罪的差別，經由各種不同的墮落程度，從諸天直到地上，配得了各樣不同的身體作為枷鎖；他們又說，這就是這世界，而造世界的緣由正在於此：不是為要創造美善之物，而是為要約束邪惡之物。因此奧利振（Origenes）被公正地責備。因為在他稱之為《論本原》（Peri Archon，即 De Principiis）的書中，他持這種見解，並如此寫了下來。在此我極其驚異，難以言喻：這樣一位在教會文獻上如此博學而熟練的人，竟未留意，首先，這與具有如此崇高權威的聖經之意旨何等相悖——那聖經在神一切工作之後附加說：
But they say that souls—not indeed parts of God, yet made by God—sinned by withdrawing from their Creator, and that, by various degrees corresponding to the diversity of their sins, they merited diverse bodies as fetters, from the heavens down to the earth; and that this is the world, and that this was the reason for the making of the world—not that good things might be created, but that evil things might be restrained. On this account Origen is rightly blamed. For in the books he calls Peri Archon, that is, On First Principles, he held this view and wrote it. And here I marvel, beyond what can be said, that a man so learned and practised in ecclesiastical letters did not attend, first, to how contrary this was to the intention of Scripture, of so great an authority, which, appending to all the works of God the words:
'And God saw that it was good,' and when all was completed adding, 'And God saw all the things that he had made, and behold, they were very good,' willed no other cause of the world's making to be understood than that good things should be made by the good God. Here, if no one had sinned, the world would only have been adorned and filled with good natures; and because sin exists, not for that reason are all things filled with sins, since a far greater number of the good preserve the order of their nature in the heavenly places; nor did the evil will, because it refused to keep the order of nature, thereby escape the laws of the just God who orders all things well;
for just as a picture with a black colour set in its proper place, so the whole of things, if one could contemplate it, is beautiful even with sinners, although, considered in themselves, their own deformity is base. Next, Origen and whoever holds such views ought to have seen that, if this opinion were true—that the world was made so that souls, according to the deserts of their sins, might receive bodies as prison-houses in which they should be penally confined, the higher and lighter those who sinned less, the lower and heavier those who sinned more—then the demons, than whom there is nothing worse, ought to have had earthly bodies, than which there is nothing lower and heavier, rather than men, even good men.
But in fact, that we might understand that the deserts of souls are not to be weighed by the qualities of bodies, the basest demon received an aery body, while man—even now, though evil, of a far lesser and milder malice, and certainly before sinning—yet received an earthy body. What, moreover, could be said more foolish than that God the Artificer, in making this sun, that in one world there should be one sun, took no thought for the comeliness of beauty or even the welfare of corporeal things, but that it rather came about because one soul had so sinned that it deserved to be confined in such a body? And by this reasoning, if it had chanced that not one, but two—nay, not two, but ten or a hundred—had sinned in like and equal manner, this world would have a hundred suns?
That this did not happen was not provided for the welfare and comeliness of corporeal things by the Maker's wondrous foresight, but rather came about by so great a fall of one sinning soul, that it alone deserved such a body. Assuredly it is not the progress of souls—about which they know not what they say—but rather the progress of these very men, who savour such things and stray far from the truth, that deserves to be checked.
These three things, therefore, which I commended above, since they are to be sought in every creature—who made it, by what he made it, why he made it—so that the answer may be, 'God, through the Word, because it is good': whether by a mystical depth the Trinity itself is intimated to us, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, or whether something occurs which forbids that this be so understood in this place of the Scriptures, is a question of much discourse, nor must we press to explain everything in one volume. [XXIV] We believe and hold and faithfully preach that the Father begot the Word, that is, the Wisdom through whom all things were made, the only-begotten Son, one begetting one, the eternal begetting the coeternal, the supremely good begetting one equally good;
and that the Holy Spirit is at once the Spirit of both the Father and the Son, and himself consubstantial and coeternal with both; and that this whole is both a Trinity by reason of the propriety of the persons, and one God by reason of the inseparable divinity, just as he is one Almighty by reason of the inseparable omnipotence; yet so, that even when each singly is asked about, each one of them is answered to be both God and almighty; but when about all together, not three gods or three almighties, but one God almighty—so great is there in the three an inseparable unity, which willed thus to be proclaimed.
But whether the Holy Spirit of the good Father and the good Son, because he is common to both, can rightly be called the goodness of both, I do not dare rashly to precipitate a judgement; yet I would more readily venture to call him the holiness of both—not as it were a quality of both, but himself also a substance and the third person in the Trinity. To this the more probable reasoning leads me, that, although both the Father is Spirit and the Son is Spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son is holy, yet he himself is properly called the Holy Spirit, as the substantial and consubstantial holiness of both.
But if the divine goodness is nothing other than holiness, then surely it is a careful exercise of reason, not the audacity of presumption, that in the works of God, by a certain secret mode of speech whereby our attentiveness is exercised, the same Trinity is understood to be intimated to us—who made each creature, by what he made it, for what he made it. For the Father is understood of the Word, who said, 'Let it be made'; and what was made at his speaking was, beyond doubt, made through the Word; while in that which is said, 'God saw that it was good,' it is sufficiently signified that God, by no necessity, by no need of any advantage to himself, but by goodness alone, made what was made—that is, because it is good;
and this is said after it was made, so that the thing which was made might be shown to accord with the goodness for which it was made. If this goodness is rightly understood as the Holy Spirit, then the whole Trinity is intimated to us in its works. Hence is the origin and formation and blessedness of the holy City, which is on high in the holy angels. For if it be asked whence it is: God founded it; if whence it is wise: it is illumined by God; if whence it is happy: it enjoys God; subsisting, it is given measure; contemplating, it is enlightened; cleaving, it is gladdened; it is, it sees, it loves; it flourishes in the eternity of God, it shines in the truth of God, it rejoices in the goodness of God.
[XXV] As far as it is given to understand, from this the philosophers willed the discipline of wisdom to be threefold—or rather were able to observe that it is threefold (for they did not institute that it should be so, but rather discovered that it is so): of which one part should be called physical, another logical, the third ethical (whose Latin names are now frequent in the writings of many, so that they are called natural, rational, and moral—which we also touched on briefly in the eighth book);
not that it follows that these men thought anything concerning the Trinity, according to God, in these three—although Plato is said to have been the first to discover and commend this distribution, to whom neither did any but God seem to be the author of all natures, nor the giver of intelligence, nor the inspirer of that love by which one lives well and blessedly. But certainly, though concerning the nature of things, and concerning the method of investigating truth, and concerning the end of good—to which we ought to refer all that we do—diverse thinkers hold diverse views, yet in these three great and general questions all their attention is engaged.
Thus, although in each of these there is a manifold discrepancy of opinions as to what each man should pursue, yet that there is some cause of nature, some form of knowledge, some rule of life, no one hesitates. There are also three things which are regarded in every craftsman who is to accomplish something: nature, teaching, and practice—nature to be judged by natural talent, teaching by knowledge, practice by fruit. Nor am I ignorant that, properly, fruit belongs to the one who enjoys, and use to the one who uses, and that this seems to be the difference: that we are said to enjoy that thing which delights us of itself, not to be referred to another; but to use that thing which we seek for the sake of another (whence temporal things are rather to be used than enjoyed, that we may deserve to enjoy the eternal; not like the perverse, who wish to enjoy money but to use God;
since they do not spend money for the sake of God, but worship God for the sake of money); yet, by that mode of speech which pious custom has established, we both use fruits and enjoy uses. For fruits, properly so called, are of the fields, which we all indeed use temporally. In this manner, then, I have spoken of 'use' in these three which I noted are to be regarded in man—namely, nature, teaching, and practice. From these, for the obtaining of the blessed life, the discipline was found by the philosophers to be threefold, as I said: natural on account of nature, rational on account of teaching, moral on account of practice. If, therefore, our nature were from ourselves, then surely we should have begotten our own wisdom, nor should we take care to attain it by teaching, that is, by learning from elsewhere;
and our love, proceeding from ourselves and referred back to ourselves, would suffice for living blessedly, nor would it need any other good to enjoy. But now, because our nature has God as the author of its being, without doubt we must have him also as teacher, that we may truly be wise; and him too as the bestower of inmost sweetness, that we may be blessed. [XXVI] And we indeed recognize in ourselves an image of God—that is, of that supreme Trinity—an image not equal, nay, very far distant, neither coeternal, and (to say the whole more briefly) not of the same substance as God, yet one than which nothing among the things made by him is nearer to God in nature, though still to be perfected by reformation, that it may also be nearest in likeness.
For we both are, and know that we are, and love that being and knowing. And in these three which I have named, no falsity resembling truth disturbs us. For we do not touch these, as we touch those things which are outside, by any bodily sense—as we perceive colours by seeing, sounds by hearing, odours by smelling, flavours by tasting, hard and soft things by handling; of which sensible things we also turn over in thought their images, most like to them yet no longer corporeal, hold them in memory, and through them are roused to desire of them. But without any illusory imagining of fancies or phantasms, it is most certain to me that I am, and that I know and love this. In these truths I dread none of the arguments of the Academics who say, 'What if you are deceived?' For if I am deceived, I am.
For he who does not exist surely cannot be deceived either; and by this very fact, I am, if I am deceived. Since therefore I am, if I am deceived, how am I deceived that I am, when it is certain that I am, if I am deceived? Since therefore it would be I who am deceived, even if I were deceived, without doubt I am not deceived in that I know that I am. And it follows, consequently, that neither am I deceived in that I know that I know. For just as I know that I am, so also I know this very thing, that I know. And when I love these two, I add that same love as a certain third thing, of no lesser estimation than the things I know. For neither am I deceived that I love, since in these things which I love I am not deceived; although even if they were false, it would still be true that I love false things.
For by what reasoning could I rightly be reprehended and rightly forbidden from loving false things, if it were false that I love them? But since these things are both true and certain, who doubts that, when they are loved, that very love of them is also true and certain? Furthermore, there is no one who is unwilling to exist, just as there is no one who is unwilling to be blessed. For how can one be blessed if he is nothing? [XXVII] So truly, by a certain natural force, is existence itself sweet, that not for any other reason do even those who are wretched refuse to perish; and, when they feel themselves to be wretched, they wish rather that their wretchedness, not they themselves, be taken away.
To those also who seem to themselves, and plainly are, most wretched, and who are judged wretched not only by the wise (because they are foolish) but also by those who think themselves blessed (because they are poor and beggars)—if anyone should give immortality, in which not even their wretchedness itself would die, and should propose to them that, if they were unwilling to be forever in the same wretchedness, they would then be nothing anywhere and would in every way perish—assuredly they would exult with joy and would thus choose ever to be, rather than not to be at all. Of this the very well-known feeling of such men is witness. For why do they fear to die, and prefer to live in that misery rather than end it by death, unless because it sufficiently appears how nature shrinks from not being?
And therefore, when they know they are about to die, they desire that this mercy be shown them as a great benefit—that they may live somewhat longer in the same misery and die more slowly. Beyond doubt, then, they indicate with what great gratitude they would receive immortality, at least such as should have no end of beggary. What of this? Do not all animals, even the irrational, to whom it is not given to reflect on these things—from immense dragons to tiny little worms—show by all the movements they can that they wish to exist, and on this account flee destruction? What of this?
Trees and all shrubs, which have no sense by which to avoid destruction by manifest motion—do they not, in order to send forth into the air the safe shoot of their crown, fasten another root into the earth, whereby to draw nourishment and thus in a certain manner preserve their own being? Finally, even bodies themselves, which have not only no sense, but not even any seminal life, yet so either leap up to the heights, or descend to the depths, or are poised in the midst, as to guard their own essence there where, according to their nature, they are able to be. And now, how greatly knowledge is loved, and how unwilling human nature is to be deceived, may be understood even from this: that anyone would rather lament in a sound mind than rejoice in madness.
This great and wonderful power belongs to no mortal living things save man, although some of them have a much keener sense of the eyes than we for beholding this light; but they cannot attain that incorporeal light by which our mind is in a certain manner irradiated, so that we can rightly judge concerning all these things. For in so far as we grasp it, in so far can we do this. Yet nevertheless there is present in the senses of irrational animals, if in no way knowledge, at least certainly a certain likeness of knowledge; while other corporeal things are called sensible not because they perceive, but because they are perceived. Of these, in shrubs there is this likeness to the senses: that they are nourished and generate.
Yet nevertheless both these and all corporeal things have their causes hidden in nature; but they offer their forms, by which the structure of this visible world is comely, to be perceived by the senses, so that, in place of that which they cannot know, they seem, as it were, to wish to become known. But we so grasp these things by bodily sense that we do not judge concerning them by bodily sense. For we have another sense, that of the inner man, far more excellent than this, by which we perceive the just and the unjust—the just through an intelligible form, the unjust through the privation of it. To the office of this sense there comes neither the sharpness of the pupil, nor the opening of the ear, nor the passages of the nostrils, nor the taste of the throat, nor any bodily touch.
There I am certain both that I am and that I know this, and these things I love, and that I love them I am likewise certain. [XXVIII] But concerning those two—namely essence and knowledge—how greatly they are loved in us, and in what manner, even in other things which are below, there is found a certain likeness of them, though a differing one, we have said enough, as far as the plan of this undertaken work seemed to demand; but concerning the love by which they are loved, whether that love itself is also loved, it has not been said. But it is loved; and this we prove from the fact that in men who are more rightly loved, love itself is the more loved. For a man is not deservedly called good who knows what is good, but who loves it.
Why then, in our very selves, do we not also perceive that we love the very love by which we love whatever good we love? For there is also a love by which that which ought not to be loved is loved; and this love he hates in himself who cherishes that love by which that is loved which ought to be loved. For both can be in one man, and this is good for a man: that, by the increase of that by which we live well, this may decrease by which we live ill, until the whole of what we live is healed to perfection and changed into good. For if we were beasts, we should love the carnal life and what is according to its sense, and this would be our sufficient good; and, according to this, when it went well with us, we should seek nothing else.
Likewise, if we were trees, we could indeed love nothing by any perceiving motion, yet we should seem, as it were, to seek that whereby we might be more fruitful and more abundantly productive. If we were stones or waves or wind or flame or anything of this kind, without any sense or life at all, yet there would not be lacking to us, as it were, a certain appetite for our own places and order. For the weights of bodies are, as it were, the loves of bodies, whether they strive downward by gravity or upward by lightness. For a body is borne by its weight, just as a mind by its love, whithersoever it is borne.
Since therefore we are men, created after the image of our Creator, whose is true eternity, eternal truth, eternal and true charity, and who is himself the eternal and true and dear Trinity, neither confused nor separated: in these things indeed which are below us, since they would neither in any way exist, nor be contained in any species, nor either seek or hold any order, unless they had been made by him who supremely is, who is supremely wise, who is supremely good—let us, as it were running through all the things he has made with wondrous stability, gather up his footprints, as it were impressed more deeply here, less there;
but contemplating his image in our very selves, let us, like that younger son of the Gospel, return to ourselves and rise up and go back to him from whom by sinning we had departed. There our being will not have death, there our knowing will not have error, there our loving will not have offence. But now, although we hold these three things of ours as certain, and do not believe them on the testimony of others but ourselves perceive them as present and discern them with a most truthful inner gaze—yet, since we cannot know through ourselves how long they will be, or whether they will never be lacking, and whither they will come if ill done, but whither if well done, we therefore either seek or have other witnesses on this matter;
and why there ought to be no doubt concerning their trustworthiness, this is not the place, but a later one, for discussing more diligently. In this book, however, concerning the City of God—which is not a pilgrim in the mortality of this life, but immortal ever in the heavens, that is, concerning the holy angels cleaving to God, who neither ever were nor shall be deserters, and between whom and those who, deserting the eternal light, were made darkness, God first divided, as we have already said—let us, with his help, explain what we have begun as best we can.
[XXIX] For those holy angels do not learn God through sounding words, but through the very presence of immutable truth, that is, his only-begotten Word, and that Word itself, and the Father, and their Holy Spirit; and that this is an inseparable Trinity, and that the single persons in it are substance, and that yet all are not three gods but one God—these things they so know that these are better known to them than we ourselves are known to ourselves. The creation itself, too, they know better there—that is, in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which it was made—than in the thing itself; and by this, they know themselves also better there than in themselves, yet also in themselves. For they were made, and are something other than he who made them.
There, therefore, they know as in daytime cognition, but in themselves as in evening cognition, as we have already said above. For it makes a great difference whether something is known in that reason according to which it was made, or in itself; just as the rectitude of lines or the truth of figures is known in one way when it is beheld as understood, in another way when it is written in the dust; and justice is known in one way in immutable truth, in another way in the soul of a just man. So then the rest: as the firmament between the upper and lower waters, which was called heaven; as the gathering-together of the waters below, and the baring of the earth, and the establishment of herbs and trees; as the constitution of the sun and moon and stars;
as, from the waters, the animals—namely birds and fishes and swimming beasts; as whatever things walk and creep upon the earth, and man himself, who was to excel all things upon the earth. All these things are known in one way by the angels in the Word of God, where they have their causes and reasons, that is, those according to which they were made, remaining immutably; in another way in themselves—by that former, clearer cognition, by this latter, more obscure one, as of art and of works; which works, however, when they are referred to the praise and veneration of the Creator himself, then, as it were, the morning dawns in the minds of those who contemplate.
[XXX] These things, moreover, on account of the perfection of the number six repeated six times in the same day, are narrated as completed in six days—not because time's delay was necessary to God, as if he could not have created all things at once, which afterward should perform their times by fitting movements; but because through the number six the perfection of the works was signified. For the number six is the first that is completed by its own parts, that is, by its sixth part, and its third, and its half, which are one and two and three, which brought into a sum make six. But in this consideration of numbers those are to be understood as 'parts' which can be said to be an aliquot part—as the half, the third, the fourth, and so on, named from some number.
For it cannot, for example, because in the number nine the number four is some part of it, therefore be said what aliquot part it is; but one can, for it is a ninth of it; and three can, for it is a third of it. But these two parts joined together—namely the ninth and the third, that is, one and three—are far from its whole sum, which is nine. Likewise in ten, four is some part of it, but it cannot be said what aliquot part it is; one, however, can, for it is a tenth part of it. It has also a fifth, which is two; it has also a half, which is five. But these three parts of it—the tenth and the fifth and the half, that is, one and two and five—brought together do not complete ten; for they are eight.
But the parts of the number twelve, brought into a sum, exceed it; for it has a twelfth, which is one; it has a sixth, which is two; it has a fourth, which is three; it has a third, which is four; it has also a half, which is six; but one and two and three and four and six make not twelve, but more, that is, sixteen. This I thought should be briefly recalled to commend the perfection of the number six, which is the first, as I said, that is itself perfected by its parts brought into a sum; in which God perfected his works. Whence the theory of number is not to be despised, which shines forth, in many places of the holy Scriptures, as of how great value it is to be esteemed, to those who diligently contemplate. Nor without cause was it said in the praises of God: