yet not even so is the delight in truth to be wholly forsaken, lest that sweetness be withdrawn and this necessity crush us. [Chapter XX] Wherefore, since the supreme good of the City of God is peace eternal and perfect — not that through which mortals pass by being born and dying, but that in which the immortal abide, suffering nothing adverse at all — who is there that would either deny that life to be most blessed, or, in comparison with it, would not judge this present life, however filled it be with goods of soul and body and external things, to be most wretched? Yet whoever so holds this present life as to refer its use to that end which he loves most ardently and hopes for most faithfully, may not absurdly be called even now blessed — by that hope rather than by this present reality.
But this present reality without that hope is a false blessedness and a great misery; for it does not make use of the true goods of the soul, since that is no true wisdom which does not direct toward that end — where God shall be all in all, in certain eternity and perfect peace — the purpose it exercises in the things it prudently discerns, bravely performs, temperately restrains, and justly distributes. [Chapter XXI] Wherefore now is the place, that I may set forth as briefly and clearly as I can what I promised in the second book of this work to demonstrate: that, according to the definitions which Scipio employs in Cicero's books On the Commonwealth, there never was a Roman commonwealth. For he briefly defines a commonwealth to be the concern of a people.
If this definition is true, there never was a Roman commonwealth, because there never was the concern of a people, which he wished to be the definition of a commonwealth. For he defined a people to be an assembled multitude associated by a consent to right and by a community of interest. But what he means by consent to right, he explains by discussion, showing thereby that a commonwealth cannot be carried on without justice; where, therefore, there is no true justice, there can be no right. For what is done by right is assuredly done justly; but what is done unjustly cannot be done by right. For the unjust enactments of men are not to be called or accounted rights.
For they themselves say that this too is right which has flowed from the fountain of justice, and that it is false — as is wont to be said by certain persons who think wrongly — that that is right which is useful to him who has the greater power. Wherefore, where there is no true justice, there can be no association of men united by a consent to right, and therefore no people according to that definition of Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then no concern of a people, but of a multitude of some sort, which is not worthy of the name of a people. And through this, if a commonwealth is the concern of a people, and there is no people that is not associated by a consent to right, and there is no right where there is no justice: beyond doubt it is concluded that where there is no justice, there is no commonwealth.
Furthermore, justice is that virtue which distributes to each his own. What justice, then, is that of a man which takes the man himself away from the true God and subjects him to unclean demons? Is this to distribute to each his own? Is he who takes an estate from him who bought it and hands it over to one who has no right in it unjust; and is he just who takes himself away from the God who is his Lord, by whom he was made, and serves malignant spirits? Certainly, in those very books On the Commonwealth, it is disputed most keenly and forcibly against injustice on behalf of justice.
And since, when the case was first argued on the side of injustice against justice, and it was said that a commonwealth could not stand nor be carried on except through injustice, this had been laid down as it were the strongest point — that it is unjust that men should serve other men as their masters; yet unless a sovereign city, whose is a great commonwealth, follows this injustice, it cannot rule over its provinces: it was answered on the side of justice that it is just precisely for this reason, that servitude is useful to such men, and that it is done for their advantage when it is rightly done, that is, when license to do wrong is taken away from the wicked, and the subdued will be better off, because when unsubdued they were worse off;
and, that this reasoning might be confirmed, a noble example was as it were taken from nature, and it was said: 'Why then does God command man, the soul the body, reason lust and the other vicious parts of the soul?' Plainly by this example it has been sufficiently taught that servitude is useful to some, and that indeed to serve God is useful to all. But the soul serving God rightly commands the body, and in the soul itself, reason subject to God as its Lord rightly commands lust and the other vices. Wherefore, where a man does not serve God, what justice is to be supposed to be in him? Since indeed, not serving God, in no way can the soul justly command the body, or human reason command the vices.
And if in such a man there is no justice at all, beyond doubt there is none either in an assembly of men which consists of such men. Here, then, there is not that consent to right which makes a multitude of men a people, whose concern is said to be a commonwealth. For as to interest, what shall I say — that community of interest by which, as this definition has it, an associated assembly of men is called a people? For, if you attend carefully, there is no interest at all for those who live impiously, as everyone lives who does not serve God but serves demons — demons the more impious in proportion as they wish sacrifice to be offered to them, though they be most unclean spirits, as though they were gods:
nevertheless, what we have said concerning the consent to right I think is enough to make it apparent that, by this definition, that is no people whose concern is said to be a commonwealth, in which there is no justice. For if they say that the Romans in their commonwealth served not unclean spirits, but good and holy gods: are the same things to be repeated so many times, which we have already said enough — nay, more than enough? For who that has come to this point through the earlier books of this work could still doubt that the Romans served evil and impure demons, unless he be either exceedingly stupid or most shamelessly contentious? But, to say nothing of what sort they are whom they worshipped with sacrifices: in the law of the true God it is written, 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods shall be rooted out, save unto the Lord only.'
Neither to good nor to evil gods, then, did He wish sacrifice to be offered, who commanded this with so great a threat. [Chapter XXII] But it may be answered: 'Who is this God, or by what proof is He shown worthy, that the Romans ought to have obeyed Him, so as to worship no one of the gods besides Him with sacrifices?' It is of great blindness still to ask who this God is. He is the God whose prophets foretold these things which we behold. He is the God from whom Abraham received the answer: 'In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.' That this is fulfilled in Christ, who according to the flesh sprang from that seed, even those very persons who have remained enemies of this name recognize, whether they will or no.
He is the God whose divine Spirit spoke through those men whose predictions, fulfilled through the Church which we see spread throughout the whole world, I have set down in the earlier books. He is the God whom Varro, the most learned of the Romans, supposes to be Jupiter — though he knows not what he is saying; which nevertheless I thought worth recording, because a man of such great learning could neither reckon this God to be no god at all nor a base one. For he believed Him to be the one whom he judged the supreme god. Finally, He is the God whom the most learned of the philosophers, though a most bitter enemy of the Christians, Porphyry, confesses to be a great God, even by the oracles of those whom he takes to be gods.
[Chapter XXIII] For in the books which he entitles Concerning the Philosophy of Oracles, in which he sets forth and records the as-it-were divine responses on matters pertaining to philosophy — to set down his very words, as they have been translated from the Greek tongue into Latin — he says: 'To one asking by what god he might placate and recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo says this in verses.' Then the words, as of Apollo, are these: 'Perhaps you may more easily write on water in imprinted letters, or, spreading out light wings, fly through the air like a bird, than recall to sense your polluted, impious wife.
Let her go on as she wishes, persisting in empty deceptions, and lamenting in falsehoods a dead God, one whom judges of upright sentiment condemned, whom a most shameful death, bound with iron amid a public spectacle, destroyed.' Then, after these verses of Apollo, which were rendered into Latin without keeping the meter, he adds and says: 'In these verses, indeed, Apollo made manifest the incurableness of their opinion, saying that the Jews receive God more than these do.' Behold, where in disparaging Christ he set the Jews before the Christians, confessing that the Jews receive God. For thus he expounded the verses of Apollo, where he says Christ was slain by judges of upright sentiment, as though, they judging justly, he was deservedly punished.
Let them see what the lying prophet of Apollo said concerning Christ, and this man believed — or perhaps this very man himself fabricated that the prophet said what he did not say. How consistent he is with himself, or how he makes even the oracles themselves agree together, we shall see hereafter; here, however, he says that the Jews, as receivers of God, judged rightly concerning Christ, in that they resolved He was to be tormented with a most shameful death. Therefore the God of the Jews, to whom he bears witness, ought to have been heard, saying: 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods shall be rooted out, save unto the Lord only.' But let us come to more manifest things, and hear how great a God he declares the God of the Jews to be. Again, to the things which he asked of Apollo, which is better, word or reason, or law:
'He answered,' he says, 'saying these things in verses.' And then he subjoins the verses of Apollo, among which are these, that I may cull from thence as much as is enough: 'Unto God, indeed, the begetter and the king before all things, at whom heaven and earth and sea and the hidden things of the underworld tremble, and the very deities shudder in dread; whose law is the Father, whom the exceedingly holy Hebrews honor.' By such an oracle of his own god Apollo, Porphyry declared the God of the Hebrews to be so great that even the deities themselves shudder before Him. Since, then, this God has said, 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods shall be rooted out,' I marvel that Porphyry himself did not shudder, and did not fear to be rooted out by sacrificing to the gods.
This philosopher also says good things about Christ, as though forgetful of that insult of his, of which we spoke a little before, or as though in dreams his gods had cursed Christ, and, waking, they had recognized Him to be good and had worthily praised Him. Then, as though about to bring forth something marvelous and incredible: 'Contrary to expectation,' he says, 'it will assuredly seem to some to be what we are about to say. For the gods have pronounced Christ most pious and made immortal, and they make mention of Him with good report; but the Christians,' he says, 'they call polluted and defiled and entangled in error, and they use many such blasphemies against them.' Then he subjoins as it were oracles of the gods blaspheming the Christians, and after these:
'But concerning Christ,' he says, 'to those asking whether He is God, Hecate says: "You know that the immortal soul goes on after the body; but cut off from wisdom it ever wanders. That soul belongs to a man most eminent in piety; this soul they worship who are estranged from the truth."' Then, after the words of this as-it-were oracle, weaving in his own: 'A most pious man, therefore,' he says, 'she called Him, and His soul, like that of other pious men, granted immortality after death; and this soul the Christians in their ignorance worship.' 'And to those asking,' he says, 'Why then was He condemned? the goddess answered by an oracle: The body indeed is ever exposed to weakening torments, but the soul of the pious has its seat in the heavenly abode.
But that soul fatally gave to other souls — to whom the fates did not grant to obtain the gifts of the gods nor to have knowledge of the immortal Jupiter — that they should be entangled in error. Therefore, on this account, they are hated by the gods, because, to those to whom it was not given by fate to know God nor to receive gifts from the gods, this One fatally gave that they should be entangled in error. But He Himself is pious, and, like the pious, has departed into heaven.'
'And so Him indeed you shall not blaspheme, but you shall pity the madness of men, from Him arising in them a ready and headlong peril.' Who is so foolish as not to understand that either these oracles were fabricated by a cunning man, and one most hostile to the Christians, or that these responses were given by impure demons with a like design — namely, that, because they praise Christ, they might on that account be believed to censure the Christians truthfully, and thus, if they could, might block up the way of eternal salvation, in which each becomes a Christian? For, in their thousand-formed cunning for doing harm, they perceive that it is not contrary to their purpose if they be believed when they praise Christ, provided that they be believed also when they censure the Christians;
so that they may make him who has believed both such a praiser of Christ that he is unwilling to be a Christian, and thus, though praised by Him, Christ nevertheless does not free him from the dominion of these demons; especially because they so praise Christ that whoever believes in Him as such as He is proclaimed by them is no true Christian, but a Photinian heretic, who knows Christ only as man and not also as God, and therefore cannot be saved through Him, nor avoid or loose the snares of these lying demons. But we can approve neither Apollo censuring Christ nor Hecate praising Him. For the one wishes Christ to be believed unrighteous, whom he says was slain by judges of upright sentiment;
the other makes Him a man most pious, but a man only. Yet there is one and the same intention of both, that they may not have men be Christians, because, unless they be Christians, they will not be able to be rescued from the power of these demons. But let this philosopher, or rather those who believe such oracles as it were against the Christians, first bring it about, if they can, that Hecate and Apollo agree between themselves concerning Christ Himself, and either both condemn Him or both together praise Him. But if they could do this, none the less should we shun as deceiving demons both the censurers and the praisers of Christ. But since their god and goddess disagree between themselves concerning Christ, the one by censuring, the other by praising:
assuredly men do not believe them when they blaspheme the Christians, if they themselves think rightly. But surely, whether it be Porphyry or Hecate that praises Christ — while he says that Christ Himself fatally gave to the Christians that they should be entangled in error — yet he discloses the causes, as he supposes, of this same error. Which causes, before I set them forth from his words, I first ask: if Christ fatally gave to the Christians the entanglement of error, did He give it willing or unwilling? If willing, how is He just? If unwilling, how is He blessed? But now let us hear the causes of the error itself. 'There are,' he says, 'certain earthly spirits, most petty, subjected in a certain place to the power of evil demons.
By these the wise men of the Hebrews (of whom one was even this Jesus, as you have heard from the divine utterances of Apollo which were quoted above) — by these, then, the Hebrews forbade the religious to have to do with these worst demons and lesser spirits, and prohibited them from being occupied with them; but rather to venerate the heavenly gods, and still more to venerate God the Father. This, moreover,' he says, 'the gods also enjoin, and in the passages above we have shown how they admonish men to turn their mind to God, and everywhere command Him to be worshipped.
But the unlearned and those of impious nature, to whom in truth fate did not grant to obtain gifts from the gods nor to have knowledge of the immortal Jupiter, not hearkening either to the gods or to the divine men, refused indeed all the gods, but the forbidden demons — these they did not hate, but revered. While pretending to worship God, they do not do those things alone by which God is adored. For God indeed, as the Father of all, needs nothing; but it is well with us when we adore Him through justice and chastity and the other virtues, making our very life a prayer to Him by imitation and inquiry concerning Him. For inquiry,' he says, 'purifies;
imitation deifies, by working our disposition toward Him.' Well indeed did he proclaim God the Father, and he told with what manners He is to be worshipped; with which precepts the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, whenever the life of the saints is either commanded or praised. But concerning the Christians he errs, or rather calumniates, as much as the demons wish, whom he supposes to be gods; as though it were difficult for anyone to recall what shameful, what disgraceful things were done in the theaters and temples in the service of the gods, and to attend to what things are read, said, and heard in the churches, or what is offered to the true God, and from this to understand where is the edifying and where the ruin of morals.
But who told him this, or inspired it, save a diabolical spirit — so empty and open a lie, that the demons, forbidden to be worshipped by the Hebrews, are rather revered by the Christians than hated? But that God whom the wise men of the Hebrews worshipped forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the heavenly holy angels and powers of God, whom, as most blessed citizens, we venerate and love in this our mortal pilgrimage, thundering forth in His law which He gave to His Hebrew people, and saying very menacingly: 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods shall be rooted out.'
And lest anyone should suppose that the precept forbidding sacrifice was given concerning the worst demons and earthly spirits, which this man calls petty or lesser (because these too are called gods in the holy Scriptures — not of the Hebrews, but of the Gentiles; as the seventy translators plainly put it in the psalm, saying, 'For all the gods of the Gentiles are demons') — lest anyone, then, should suppose that sacrifice was forbidden to those demons indeed, but permitted to the heavenly ones, whether all or some, He at once added: 'Save unto the Lord only,' that is, save unto the Lord alone; lest perchance, in that He says 'unto the Lord only,' anyone should believe the sun (sol) to be the Lord, to whom he might think sacrifice should be offered; which is most easily found not to be so understood in the Greek Scriptures.
The God of the Hebrews, therefore, to whom even so great a philosopher bears so great a testimony, gave a law to His Hebrew people, written in the Hebrew tongue, not obscure and unknown, but already published abroad among all nations; in which law it is written: 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods shall be rooted out, save unto the Lord only.' What need is there to search out in this law of His and in the prophets many things concerning this matter — nay, not to search them out, for they are not hidden or rare, but to gather together the open and frequent testimonies and to set them in this my discussion, by which it appears clearer than light that the true and supreme God willed sacrifice to be offered to none at all save to Himself alone?
Behold this one thing, spoken briefly — nay, grandly, menacingly, yet truthfully — by that God whom their most learned men so eminently proclaim: let it be heard, feared, fulfilled, lest eradication overtake the disobedient. 'He that sacrificeth unto the gods,' He says, 'shall be rooted out, save unto the Lord only' — not that He has need of anything, but because it is expedient for us that we should be His. For to Him it is sung in the sacred writings of the Hebrews: 'I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou hast no need of my goods.' And His most splendid and best sacrifice is we ourselves, that is, His city, whose mystery we celebrate by our oblations, which are known to the faithful, as we have discussed in the preceding books.
For the divine oracles, through the Hebrew prophets, proclaimed aloud that the sacrifices which the Jews offered in the shadow of things to come would cease, and that the nations from the rising of the sun even to its setting would offer one sacrifice — as we now behold coming to pass; and of these oracles we have brought forward such as seemed sufficient, and have already sprinkled them throughout this work. Wherefore, where that righteousness does not exist by which the one and supreme God, according to His grace, rules an obedient city, so that it sacrifices to none but Him alone, and whereby in all men belonging to that city and obedient to God the soul faithfully commands the body, and reason the vices, in lawful order —
so that, just as one righteous man, so also the assembly and people of the righteous may live by faith, which works through love, whereby a man loves God as God ought to be loved, and his neighbor as himself — where, then, that righteousness does not exist, assuredly there is no assembly of men associated by a common acknowledgment of right and by a community of interest. And if this does not exist, surely there is no people, if this is the true definition of a people. Therefore neither is there a commonwealth, for where there is no people there is no thing of the people. But if a people be defined not in this way but in another, as, for instance, if one should say:
"A people is an assembly of a rational multitude associated by a harmonious communion in the things which it loves" — then indeed, in order to perceive of what character each people is, those things must be looked at which it loves. Yet whatever it may love, if it is an assembly of a multitude not of beasts but of rational creatures, and is associated by a harmonious communion in the things which it loves, it is not absurdly called a people; and assuredly it is the better the more it agrees in better things, and the worse the more it agrees in worse things. According to this definition of ours, the Roman people is a people, and its affair is without doubt a commonwealth.
But what this people loved in its earliest times and in the following ones, and by what morals, coming to the most bloody seditions and thence to the social and civil wars, it broke and corrupted that very concord which is, in a manner, the health of a people — history bears witness, of which we have set down much in the preceding books. Nor for all that would I say either that it is not a people, or that its affair is not a commonwealth, so long as there remains an assembly of a rational multitude of whatever kind, associated by a harmonious communion in the things which it loves.
But what I have said of this people and of this commonwealth, let me be understood to have said and thought of the Athenians or of any Greeks whatever, of the Egyptians, of that earlier Babylon of the Assyrians, when in their commonwealths they held empires whether small or great, and of any other whatsoever of the other nations. For in general the city of the impious, which is not ruled by God who obeys Him — so that it offers sacrifice to none but Himself, and whereby in that city both the soul rightly commands the body and reason the vices — lacks the truth of righteousness.
For however laudably the soul may seem to command the body and reason the vices, if the soul and reason itself do not serve God as God Himself has commanded that He be served, then in no way does it rightly command the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress over the body and the vices can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God and not subjected to His rule, but is prostituted to the corrupting influence of the most vicious demons? Accordingly, the virtues which it thinks it possesses, and by which it commands the body and the vices, if it refers them to anything whatever — for obtaining or holding it — save to God, then even these virtues are rather vices than virtues. For although by some they are then reckoned to be true and honorable virtues, when they are referred to themselves and are not sought for the sake of anything else,
even then they are inflated and proud, and therefore are to be judged not virtues but vices. For just as that which makes the flesh to live is not from the flesh but above the flesh, so that which makes a man to live blessedly is not from man but above man; and not only man, but also any heavenly power and virtue whatsoever. Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say: Blessed is the people whose Lord is its God. Wretched, therefore, is the people that is estranged from this God. Yet even it loves a certain peace of its own, not to be disapproved, which indeed it will not have in the end, because it does not use it well before the end.
But that it may meanwhile have this peace in this life is even in our interest; for so long as the two cities are intermingled, we also make use of the peace of Babylon, out of which the people of God is so delivered by faith that meanwhile it sojourns as a stranger within her. On which account the Apostle also admonished the Church to pray for her kings and those in high place, adding and saying: That we may lead a quiet and tranquil life with all piety and charity; and the prophet Jeremiah, when he foretold captivity to the ancient people of God and by divine command charged them to go obediently into Babylon, serving their God even by that patience, himself also admonished that prayer be made for her, saying:
For in her peace is your peace — meaning, of course, that temporal peace which meanwhile is common to good and bad alike. But our own peace is both here with God through faith, and will be for ever with Him through sight. But here, whether that common peace or our own proper peace, such is the peace that it is rather a solace of misery than a joy of blessedness. Our very righteousness too, though true because directed to the true end of good, is yet so great in this life that it consists rather in the remission of sins than in the perfection of virtues. Witness is the prayer of the whole city of God which sojourns on earth. For through all its members it cries to God: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
Nor is this prayer efficacious for those whose faith, without works, is dead, but for those whose faith works through love. For because reason, though subjected to God, yet in this mortal condition and corruptible body which weighs down the soul, does not perfectly command the vices, therefore such a prayer is necessary for the righteous. For assuredly, although the vices are commanded, they are by no means commanded without conflict; and certainly something of weakness creeps in at this point, even for one who fights well, or who lords it over such enemies now conquered and subdued, whereby if not by an easy deed, at least by a slipping word or a flitting thought, sin is committed.