TEXT IS CROSS IN
THE BOOK
281 ;1 F252 v. 8 66-0^09
Fathers of the Church.
SI7
3 1 148 01038 6'
A - ~ r . ,
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THE FATHERS
OF THE CHURCH
A NEW TRANSLATION
VOLUME 8
EDITORIAL BOARD
ROY JOSEPH DEFERRARI
The Catholic University of America
Editorial Director
RUDOLPH ARBESMANN, O.S.A. BERNARD M. PEEBLES
Fordham University The Catholic University of America
STEPHAN KUTTNER ROBI:RT p - RUSSELL, O.S.A.
The Catholic University of America Villanova College
MARTIN R. P. McGuiRE ANSELM STRITTMATTER, O.S.B.
The Catholic University of America St. Anselms Priory
WILFRID PARSONS, SJ. JAMES EDWARD TOBIN
Georgetown University Queens College
GERALD G. WALSH, SJ.
Fordham University
SAINT AUGUSTINE
THE CITY OF GOD
BOOKS I-VII
Translated by
DEMETRIUS B. ZEMA, SJ.
and
GERALD G. WALSH, SJ.
With an introduction by
ETIENNE GILSON
The Catholic University of America Press
NIHIL OBSTAT:
IMPRIMATUR:
JOHN M. A. FEARNS, S.T.D.
Censor Librorum
FRANCIS CARDINAL SPELLMAN
Archbishop of New York
December 19, 1949
The Nihil obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or
pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained
therein that those who have granted the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur agree
with the contents^ opinions or statements expressed.
Copynght 7950, by
THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC.
All lights reserved
Reprinted 1962
Lithographed by
Sauls Lithograph Company, Inc.
Washington, D. C.
WRITINGS
OF
SAINT AUGUSTINE
VOLUME 6
CO NTENTS
FOREWORD, by Eticnne Gilson xi
THE PROBLEM OF A UNIVERSAL SOCIETY xil
THE CITY OF GOD AND UNIVERSAL SOCIETY xlv
CHRISTIAN WISDOM AND A WORLD SOCIETY .... Ixxxii
THE CITY OF GOD
BOOK I 17
BOOK II 75
BOOK III 129
BOOK IV 189
BOOK V 241
BOOK VI 303
BOOK VII 339
APPENDIX: A Letter of St. Augustine Concerning the
City of God 397
by
ETIENNE GILSON
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
(Toronto)
FOREWORD
HE CITY OF GOD (De civitate Dei] is not only one of
St. Augustine's masterpieces, but ranks, along with
the Confessions., among the classics of all literature. It
is hardly possible to analyze the contents of this vast work,
which, in spite of its overall plan, is marked by so many
digressions. The purpose of this Introduction is to focus the
reader's attention on Augustine's main theme, and to empha-
size its historical importance. In his notion of a universal
religious society is to be sought the origin of that Ideal of a
world society which is haunting the minds of so many today.
Augustine, it is true, did not pose exactly the same problem ;
that is why we should not read the City of God in the hope of
finding therein the solution. Nevertheless, the problem posed
and resolved by Augustine is certainly the origin of ours, and,
if we are failing to resolve our problem, it is probably be-
cause we are forgetting that its solution presupposes a solu-
tion of the problem resolved by Augustine.
Our contemporaries aspire after a complete unity of all
peoples: one world. They are quite right. The universal
society which they are endeavoring to organize aims at being a
political and temporal society. In this regard they are again
right. Perhaps their most serious mistake is in imagining that
a universal and purely natural society of men is possible
without a universal religious society, which would unite
men in the acceptance of the same supernatural truth and
in the love of the same supernatural good.
XI
xll FOREWORD
The Problem of a Universal Society
Christianity was born in the Roman Empire, which it-
self was merely a vast extension of the City of Rome, or,
if the formula seems imprudent, which owed to Rome its
laws, its order and whatever unity it possessed. But, first of
all, what was Rome? Many and divers explanations of
its origin have been proposed; and, since the specialists
themselves have not as yet found a solution of the problem
acceptable to everyone, it would be imprudent to make a
choice for them, and still more imprudent to build upon
any one of their hypotheses. 1 No one, however, doubts that
Rome, as Athens, was one of the ancient cities, each of
which was either a state or the center of a state. We are
safe in admitting that these cities were, first of all, peopled
by men united by the bond of common blood. 2 At the time
of Pericles, 451 B.C., it was still the law that only the
children of a legitimately married Athenian father and
mother could be citizens of Athens. The division of the Greek
cities into phratries and associations, a division found again in
the familia and Roman gens, soundly confirms this hypothesis.
1 A. Piganiol, Essai sur les origincs de Rome. (Paris 1917) .
2 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, 'Staat und Gesellschaft der Griechen/ in Die
Kultur der Gegenwart, II, 42-51, IV, 97, 100. Cf., also, Ernest Barker,
Greek Political Theory. Plato and his Predecessors (London 1917) , a
complete revision of the same author's Political Thought of Plato and
Aristotle, published in 1906. Note the interesting remark in the Pre-
face (p. viii) to the effect that the Laws are the most modern (or
mediaeval) of all the writings of Plato.
FOREWORD Xlll
However, it in no way rules out the penetrating views
formerly developed by Fustel de Coulanges in his classic
work. The Ancient City. Therein, the family was described
as already bound to religious beliefs and sacred rites, from
which it was inseparable. In direct opposition to historical
materialism, de Coulanges professed what might not too
incorrectly be called an 'historical spiritualism.' By this is
meant simply that, if man is no longer governed in our day
as he was twenty-five centuries ago, it is because he no
longer thinks as he thought then. 3 Thence comes the basic
thesis that 'history does not study material facts and insti-
tutions alone; its true object of study is the human mind;
it should aspire to know what this mind has believed, thought
and felt in the different ages of the life of the human race. 54
From such a viewpoint, it is religion which dominates from
on high the family and the ancient city. Founded on the
religious worship of the hearth, that is, of the household
fire, which was not simply metaphorical but real, each family
constituted first and foremost a closed society, which its
own worship separated from all other families. 'Religion
did not say to a man, showing him another man: That is
your brother. It said to him: That is a stranger; he cannot
participate in the religious acts of your hearth; he cannot
approach your family's tomb; he has other gods than yours,
and cannot unite with you in a common prayer; your gods
reject his adoration, and regard him as their enemy; he is
3 Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite Antique (Paris 1924) 2-3. All quotations
to this work are taken from the translation by Willard Small (Boston
1894) . Haunted by the harm done to France in the attempt to imitate
the ancient democracies during the revolution of 1789, Fustel de
Coulanges wanted to prove above all else that they are inimitable.
4 Ibid. 11, 9, 103-104; Small, p. 123.
FOREWORD
your foe, also.' 6 In order to constitute larger social groups
it was necessary, first of all, to overcome the separation
of families.
Let us suppose that families were grouped into gentes or
associations, gentes into tribes, and tribes into cities. There,
also we shall meet with worship : that of another group of di-
vinities, such as Zeus or Heracles, whose origin is uncertain,
but whom we know to have been placed above the worship of
the household gods, without, however, eliminating this latter
worship. The recognition of gods common to several families
alone made possible the birth of the city. 'Society developed
only so fast as religion enlarged its sphere. We cannot, indeed,
say that religious progress brought social progress; but, what
is certain is that they were both produced at the same time
and in remarkable accord. 36
That is why the ancient city, even after its expansion
into an empire, could not change its characteF. It is possible
to conceive of such an empire in two different ways: as a
philosopher might and as a politician. Philosophically speak-
ing, the idea is not new that the universe is one and that, in
a certain sense, it constitutes a single city. When we speak
5 That is doubtless why love played a secondary role in the ancient
family. 'The membeis of the ancient family were united by something
more powerful than birth, affection or physical strength; this was
the religion of the sacred me, and of dead ancestors/ (ibid. II, 1.40;
Small, p. 51) . To guarantee a continuous worship of the dead, marriage
was necessary, since children were necessary to perpetuate it. Whence,
the sacramental formula pronounced in the marriage contract: ducere
uxorem liberum quaerendorum causa (ibid. II, 3.52; Small, p. 65) .
'Everything in the family was divine' (ibid. II, 9 109; Small, p. 129) .
'Then a man loved his house as he now loves his Church* (ibid.) .
Even the slave was made a part of the household of the family by a
religious ceremony analogous to that of marriage, and took part in the
worship of the hearth. He was buried in the burial ground of the
family whose Lares had been his gods (ibid. II, 10 127; Small, p. 150) .
6 Ibid. Ill 3, 147; Small, pp. 172-173.
FOREWORD XV
today of 'one world, 9 we are retarding the course of the
history of philosophy. We understand by that expression
that the earth is one, whereas the Stoics already thought the
universe to be one. Moreover, how could it be at all, if it were
not one? The acceptance of the cosmic order and, with it,
of everything independent of us becomes from that time on
the first rule of wisdom. By this acceptance the wise man
considers himself part and parcel of an infinitely vaster
order than the particular political society in whose bosom
he was born. ( O Universe,' exclaimed Marcus Aurelius, 7
'all that is in tune with thee is in tune with me. Nothing
that is in due time for thee is too early or too late for me!
All that thy seasons bring, O Nature, is fruit for me! All
things come from thee, are in thee, go back to thee. There
is one who says: Dear City of Cecrops! Wilt thou not
say: O dear City of Zeus?' In this sense it is indeed true to
say that to be a citizen of the universe is to be a citizen
of the highest state, of which all other states are but house-
holds. 8
But, is it really a question here of a city? When Marcus
Aurelius said: 'As Antoninus, my country is Rome; as a
man, the world,' 9 he uttered a noble phrase. But, does
country mean the same in both cases? It is doubtful. For him,
Rome is a society of men; the world is the order of things.
The wise Stoic is a cosmopolitan. But, on the one hand,
7 To Himself 4.23 (Loeb Classical Library, p. 81) .
8 Ibid. 3.11 (Loeb, p. 59) . Cf. Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 4.4: The
very reason for our magnanimity in not shutting ourselves up within
the walls of one city, in going forth into intercourse with the whole
earth, and in claiming the world as our country, was that we might
have a wider field for our virtue' (Loeb, p. 229) . Cf. To Helvia on
Consolation, 9.1,7.
9 Marcus Aurelius, To Himself, 4.44.
FOREWORD
the universe is a whole much vaster than any society, even
if extended to the uttermost bounds of the earth; on the other
hand, it would be impossible to be actually a citizen of
the universe, because the cosmos is not a society. To enter
into a universal physical order, whose laws we accept and
of which we conceive ourselves as part and parcel, can well
be an act of wisdom, but it is not the performance of an act
of citizenship. In fact, the Stoics do not seem to have con-
ceived the ideal of a universal society co-extensive with
our planet and capable of uniting the whole of humanity.
It is not impossible, however, that their cosmopolitanism
indirectly contributed to the birth of such an idea. 10 For,
they conceived of the universe as unified and bound to-
gether by a force of 'harmony 3 or of 'sympathy' (homonoia] ;
and this could prompt the desire of uniting all men by
the bond of one and the same law. If we can rely on the
testimony of Eratosthenes, 11 Alexander the Great was con-
vinced that men should be divided only into good and bad.
This was contrary to the advice of those who divided men
into Greeks and barbarians; and who advised Alexander to
treat the former as friends, the latter as enemies. Still more
precisely, Plutarch 12 insists that Alexander undertook the
10 Cf. W.W.Tam, 'Alexander and the Unity of Mankind/ in Proceedings
of the British Academy, XIX, pp. 16-17, 28.
11 Strabo, Geography, 1.4.9 (Loeb, p. 249) .
12 Plutarch, Moralia, On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander 1.5-6 (Loeb,
vol. IV, pp. 395-7) . Several historians rely on this testimony and one or
two other similar ones in giving Alexander the honor of creating a
great intellectual revolution, the necessary prelude to the future
imperial system of the Western world. Cf. W.W.Tarn, op. cit, and also
E. Barker, Church, State and Study (London 1930) , 3. Without pre-
tending to read the mind of Alexander, placed so far as we are from
him in history, at least we can say that he was somewhat too much in
love with conquest; consequently, the ideal attributed to him by Plu-
tarch and other historians was less clearly outlined in Alexander's mind
than they would have us believe. Even if we grant that Alexander
FOREWORD XV11
Immense task of being not only the conqueror, but also
the civillzer of the globe. Along with the Greek religion and
Greek philosophy, he introduced everywhere the common
order, which respect for his own laws imposed. Conquer to
civilize, civilize to unite such, it seems, was his ideal.
Doubtless, it would be imprudent to attribute a solid his-
torical value to this testimony. But, even if we admit that
Plutarch has ascribed his own Stoicism to a warrior whose
ambition could just as well explain his undertakings, the
fact remains that the progressive conquest of the Greek
states and the Oriental peoples, followed by their absorption
into the unity of a single empire, could well appear as a
rough draft of a universal society. This prodigious expansion
of the Greek city by force of arms necessarily implied a corres-
ponding religious conquest or, at least, an effort to bring it
about. In securing his political domination, Alexander did not
fail to introduce the gods of Hellas into the conquered coun-
tries; we are not even surprised that he aimed at com-
pleting his work by demanding from the Macedonians and the
Greeks recognition of his own divinity. Callisthenes, the
philosopher and nephew of Aristotle, resolutely opposed
this move and was put to death in 327 B.C., at Alexander's
command.
A like evolution took place in the history of Rome, There,
the Latin Stoicism of a Seneca adapted itself very well to
a single country, namely, the world. A single city, common
invented the political notion of an empire, a fact which is not at all
certain, and suppose that he colored it with a humanitarian ideology,
which is still less sure, we certainly could not compare it with the
teaching of St. Paul, as E. Barker has done (op. tit. 4) . It would be
pure equivocation to compare two systems so essentially different. All
these interpretations, including my own, are disputable; against which
an antidote can be found in R. W. and A. J. Carlyle, A History of
Mediaeval Political Theory in the West I (London 1903) , 8ff.
XV111 FOREWORD
to men and to the gods, embracing the whole of reality,
bound together by the necessity of its laws the universe Is
truly the country of the wise Stoic, if he can be said to have a
country. 13 But here, once again, the field which is open for the
practice of his virtue is a cosmos rather than a true society.
Even if we admit that the Roman Empire, the successor to
that of Alexander (whose image decorated the seal of
Augustus), was able to give support to the illusion of Seneca,
we must remember that the Stoic recognition of the unity
of the world is not commensurable with the political unity
resulting from conquest. The Roman Law imposed by
Augustus does not have the same nature as the cosmic order
to which the Stoic was subject. In short, even to suppose that
Stoic dialectic made possible the reduction of one to the
other, there still is required the resigned consent of the
peoples of the earth to state domination, and, in the final
analysis, the domination of one man; and this will not con-
stitute the heartily desired and willingly maintained union
which every society worthy of the name takes for granted.
Here, as in the case of his Macedonian predecessor, the
divinity of the emperor expresses nothing more than a
necessity bound up with the very nature of the ancient city. 14
13 Cf. Seneca, To Marcia, Consolation, 18.1-2 (Loeb, p. 59), E. Barker,
op. cit. 6-11. It is not a question here of either denying or minimizing
the Stoic texts, where all men are invited to consider themselves as
members of one and the same society, but to state precisely that this
unity is bound up with the unity of the cosmos, of which society is but
one aspect. It is exact to say that Stoicism produced effects of dena-
tionalization analogous to those which we observe among some Chris-
tians; however, to admit citizenship of the world and to desire citi-
zenship in a human universal society are quite different; this remains
true even if this society, although not founded on a rejection of the
world, professes to have nothing to do with it.
14 Cf. G. Boissier, La religion romaine (Paris 1874) I, 173-177; cf., also,
the facts noted by E. Barker, op. cit. 4-6 and 11-20; also his bibliog-
raphy on p. 5, n. 2.
FOREWORD XIX
It is a mistake to make Augustus the pioneer of a political
revolution of world significance, or to make Alexander the
apostle of the brotherhood of men and the pioneer of the
union of the human race. The executioner of Callisthenes
had no right to this honor, and it was a pure justification of
force that Augustus demanded of the sacred character of
the law.
The meaning of these reservations requires a more de-
tailed account. It is indisputable that all these events and
teachings are so many symptoms of a more or less confused
desire to unite all men into a universal society. The empires
of Alexander and Augustus effectively broke down national
barriers, and probably encouraged the budding forth of
feelings of community more open than those which ordin-
arily accompany local nationalisms, whether political or
religious. It is certainly not impossible that Alexander and
especially Augustus colored their imperialisms with more
or less vague ideological justifications. However suspicious
they appear as mirrored in romantic history, those of the
ancients who affirm this fact could not have entirely in-
vented it, and their modern successors, if such is their
choice, have a right to follow them. Stoicism is a still more
significant symptom; first, because it was a revolution of the
mind and no longer political, and also because it did a good
deal to free the citizen from the limited framework of the
ancient city by directly incorporating him into the universe.
Nevertheless, when all has been said and done, the prob-
lem remains unsolved. It is a question of finding out where
and when the idea of a universal society of men first appeared.
Even to suppose that a conqueror succeeded in subjugating
the world, the idea of such an empire would still not be that
of a society. Such a monarch would want the unity of all
XX FOREWORD
in a common submission, not the union of all in an accord of
wills. As for the Stoic, even if he does conceive of the uni-
verse as a society, he is not thinking of a society of men ex-
tending beyond the city, which would gather together all
men on earth within the cosmos, and not be confused with
or declared equal to it in extent. Neither in these endeavors
nor in all this speculation do we see the idea of a universal
social body emerge, which would be related to individual cities
as the city itself is related to its families and through the
families to the different individuals; in short, a human city
worthy of the name. Without denying in any way that we
ought to see in these events and ideas eloquent signs of the
new idea, and without even debating whether they favored
the flowering and growth of this idea, we still must admit
that it has not yet arrived at fruition. In the exact form in
which we have here described it, it has sprung neither from
speculation on the cosmos nor from an empire, not even
the Roman Empire.
However, it was in the Roman Empire and during the
reign of Augustus that there appeared the gentle Founder
of a truly universal society. Yet, the origins of this event, so
decisive for the history of the world, are part and parcel of
the history of the Jews.
From the time of Abraham this people was both different
from and more than a simple race, since it was possible to
gain membership in it by a rite, namely, that of circum-
cision. 15 Likewise, from that time the whole line of Abraham's
descendants was blessed in the person of their ancestor and
15 The Scripture quotations to Old Testament are taken from The Holy
Bible, published by John Murphy Co.; to the New Testament from
the translation by Msgr. Ronald Knox. Circumcision was imposed by
Abraham upon all the men of his house, as well as those who were
born in his house, as the bought servants and strangers were circum-
cised with him. Cf. Gen. 17.27; 12-14.
FOREWORD XXI
chosen by Jahweh as His own people in which all the
nations of the earth would be blessed. 16 The mysterious
promise, made again to Isaac, was never revoked, but
the people of Israel were not yet able to foresee how it
would one day be fulfilled. As told by its priests, the his-
tory of this people was dominated by the covenant be-
tween God and itself, the terms of which Jahweh himself
had dictated. The conditions of this covenant were simple:
'If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant,
you shall be my peculiar possession above all people; for
all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a priestly
kingdom, and a holy nation,' In short, and in simple terms:
'And I will take you to myself for my people, I will be your
God. 317 In exchange for the exclusive worship which the
people of Israel would render Him, Jahweh assured them
of His exclusive protection against all the other peoples of
the earth. This day the Lord thy God hath commanded
thee to do these commandments and judgments; and to keep
and fulfill them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul
Thou hast chosen the Lord this day to be thy God, and
to walk in his ways and keep his ceremonies and precepts
and judgments, and obey his command. And the Lord
hath chosen thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he
hath spoken to thee, and to keep all his commandments;
and to make thee higher than all nations, which he hath
created, to his own praise, and name, and glory; that thou
mayest be a holy people of the Lord thy God as he hath
spoken.' 18
16 Gen. 17.3-6; 18.18; 22.15-18. For the promise made again to Isaac, c.
Gen. 26.4-5.
17 Exod. 6,7; 19.5-6.
18 Dem. 26.16-19.
XX11 FOREWORD
We could not Imagine a more perfect expression of a
more completely religious nationalism. Jahweh, the Creator
of the universe, is also the Creator of the peoples. Like the
universe itself, they belong to Him. Why should He not
freely choose one of them from among all others to make
of it His own people? Why should He not separate it from
all others and freely make a covenant with it against the
others? 19 That, in fact, is what happened; but, however
the Jewish people understood this covenant, Jahweh alone
knew the profound meaning of its terms and remained
master of its interpretation. 20 If it is true that there is but
one God, who alone is Creator and Sovereign of all peoples,
why should he make a covenant with only one of them?
That is what the Prophets of Israel finally asked themselves;
not, indeed, all of them, nor with an equally clear knowl-
edge of the ultimate implications of the problem; but some-
19 Lev. 20.26; Deut. 10.14-15, 28, 2.7,13. This testament between Jahweh
and His people against other peoples did not exclude the obligations
of justice and humanity toward the foreigners with whom the Jews
were on friendly terms. Cf. Lev. 19.30-34; Deut. 27.19. On the contrary,
it is difficult to find in ancient Israel, before the Prophets, a clearcut
allusion to the possibility of a religious society outside the framework
of the nation. There are some who doubt that the promise made by
Jahweh to Abraham (Gen. 12.3) is to be interpreted in this sense.
Cf., on this point, A. Causse, Israel et la vision de I'humanite (Stras-
bourg 1924) 16, n. 2. However, it is difficult for us, instructed by later
history, to understand it otherwise.
20 This covenant implies that the Jewish people were not yet completely
freed from polytheism at this period. If they constantly kept falling
back into idolatry, it was because they considered the gods of other
nations as proper to those nations, and Jahweh as their own God.
'Are not those things which thy god Charnos possesseth, due to thee
by right? But what the Lord our God hath obtained by conquest shall
be our possession.' (Judges 11.24). Cf. A. Lods, Israel des origines au
milieu du F///me siecle (Paris 1932) 526-529. This work points out
the already clearly defined tendencies to montheism in ancient Israel.
Let us add that the notion of Jahweh as He Who Is, however it was
first understood, ought to have led Israel to a strict monotheism. Cf.
E. Gilson, L'esprit de la philosophic medievale I (Paris 1932) 53.
FOREWORD XX111
times in terms such as would irresistibly call forth the vision
of an earth on which all peoples would finally be united in
the adoration of the same God. Yet, even in the well-known
texts, in which, by the mouth of Isaias, Jahweh called to
Himself all the peoples of the earth, their salvation still re-
mained bound up with the glory of Israel. 21 Established
as the light of the nations in order that salvation might
reach the ends of the earth, 22 Israel sometimes, like the
prophet Jonas, rebelled against the mission entrusted to
it by God. 23 And even those who did accept this mission never
ceased to imagine a planet whose center would be the
earthly Jerusalem. Jewish nationalism never sufficiently over-
came itself to the extent that its religious universalism, of
which monotheism was the germ, might completely triumph
over its religious imperialism.
21 'Judaism evolved between two poles without ever being able to over-
come the contradiction between the original nationalism and the
ethical aspirations which harassed the soul of Israel' (Cf. H. Causse,
op. cit. 26) . Perhaps it would be more exact to call these aspirations
religious, for the Prophets are on a plane quite different from that of
moralism. However, the formula is essentially true; cf. Isaias 45.20-25.
22 'And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to
raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel. Behold,
I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be
my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.' (Isa. 49.6) .
23 The prophecy of Jonas (4.10-11) is directed against the religious na-
tionalism of certain Jews. Having received from Jahweh the order to
go to Ninive to preach penance, Jonas fled to Tharsis, fearing that, if
he converted the inhabitants of Ninive, Jahweh would not pardon them
and Ninive would not be saved. That, in fact, is what happened.
Brought back to Ninive by Jahweh, Jonas fulfilled his mission, saved
Ninive, but underwent such remorse that he asked Jahweh that he
might die. The closing chapter of the beautiful and instructive book
emphasizes the idea of a Creator of all things, who is solicitous for all
men and not only the Jews. This lesson, an unpleasant one for some
Jews, attests the deep conviction which some of them felt regarding
the necessarily universal character of the worship of Jahweh. The
history of a Jewish prophet, constrained to convert Ninive and not
Jerusalem, states the problem in marvelous outline, a problem which
faced the Jews and which was resolved by Christianity.
FOREWORD
The preaching of Jesus Christ was in Israel, by Israel,
and, however little it consented, first of all for Israel; it was
the liberation from the contradiction in which the Jewish
people were involved. In bringing to all men the good news
of salvation, the Gospel revealed to them, above all else,
that they were all children of the same heavenly Father
and brothers of the Son of God, who had become man to
save them. That is why faith in the Word and Person of
Christ became from that moment the bond of a religious
society upon which neither race nor blood could impose
limits. Purely spiritual in its essence, the family of God's
children could still demand of its members the sensible
sign of a rite, but of a rite which would henceforth be
far different from circumcision. It is no longer a question
of adopting a foreigner into a race or a people, but of
introducing a new member into a spiritual society through
purification from sin: 'He who believes and is baptized will
be saved. 524 From that time on, the evangelization of the
whole world became a necessary task, for the propagation of
salvation was henceforth one with that of the faith which
saves: 'You, therefore, must go out, making disciples of all
nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
the commandments which I have given you. And behold I am
with you all through the days that are coming, until the
consummation of the world. 525
Yet, we know that after the death of Christ, even within
the folds of the newborn Church, there were still some
hesitations 26 and that for some time the distinction between
24 Mark 16.15-16.
25 Matt. 28.19-20.
26 Gal. 2.1-9.
FOREWORD XXV
the Church of the Synagogue and the Church of the Gentiles
was continued. Finally, however, the message of St. Paul
was to be understood by all: his mission was, in the name
of Jesus Christ, to bring to the obedience of the faith all
the Gentiles, both of Rome and Jerusalem, and, through
those of Rome, the entire world.
Here, it is surely a question of a society, for the Church
instituted by Christ 27 united men among themselves, not
to the universe which surrounded them. It was indeed a
society open to all, for the Gospel c is an instrument of God's
power that brings salvation to all who believe in it, Jew
first and then Greek. It reveals God's way of justifying us,
faith first and last; as the Scripture says. It is faith that
brings life to the just man.' 28 Here, everything indicates
that the society in question escaped, from its very beginning,
the limits of space and time, for it laid claim to the mind
alone. True circumcision is that of the heart. 29 Certainly,
the Jewish people were somewhat privileged, since it was
to them that the Word of God was first entrusted. But, the
conditions of salvation henceforth were the same for all
men. Going with incredible boldness to the heart of the
matter, the Apostle affirmed that 'it was not through obedi-
ence to the law, but through faith justifying them, that
Abraham and his posterity were promised the inheritance
of the world.' 30
If ever the word 'revelation' was admissible, here is cer-
tainly a case. By an extraordinary metamorphosis, the Jewish
perspective suddenly changed into a Christian outlook, and
27 Matt. 16.18.
28 Rom. 1.16-17.
29 Rom. 2.25-29.
30 Rom. 4,13-17; 9,6-13.
XXVI FOREWORD
at the exact moment when finally the message of Jesus un-
veiled the fullness of its meaning in the teaching of the
Apostle. It straightway laid hold of the past and the future.
Everything that the seed of Abraham had believed to be
true according to the flesh henceforth appeared as true ac-
cording to the spirit. That is why it thenceforth would be
true to say that 'there is no distinction made here between
Jew and Gentile; all alike have one Lord. 531 The mystery
which St. Paul had as his mission to announce is, in fact,
nothing else than the mystery of Christ, namely, that 'the
Gentiles are to win the same inheritance, to be made part of
the same body, to share the same divine promise, in Christ
Jesus.' 32 At the call of this universal vocation all barriers fall
and all distinctions are abolished; in this sense, at least, that,
taken in themselves and their own order, they cease to stand in
the way of the universal union of all men into a single body
whose soul is the faith. The true and authentic sons of Abra-
ham are henceforth to be all who live by faith. Through faith
in Jesus Christ you are all now God's sons. All you who have
been baptized in Christ's name have put on the person of
Christ; no more Jew or Gentile, no more slave and free-
man, no more male and female; you are all one person in
Jesus Christ. And if you belong to Christ, then you are indeed
Abraham's children; the promised inheritance is yours. 533
It was not possible to dismiss more majestically the ob-
stacles; it is important, however, to note that it is a question
of transcending rather than abolishing them. The vast encum-
31 Rom. 10.12; Gal. 3.1-18.
32 Eph. 3.6.7.
33 Gal. 3.26-29. By recalling such texts, Auguste Comte was led to main-
tain that St. Paul, not Jesus Christ, was the true founder of Catholi-
cism. After him, Charles Maurras insisted upon the same fanciful dis-
association of a pure Catholicism and the Christianity of which it was
born.
FOREWORD XXV11
brances of the temporal still exist beneath the spiritual unity
which was announced in the message of the Apostle. There are
still men and women, bond and free, Jews and Greeks, an
emperor who lays claim to taxes, and, finally, temporal au-
thorities to whom obedience is due out of a divinely imposed
duty. 34 How long would all that last? Doubtlessly, not long. 35
But, as long as it did endure, it had to be accepted. If there
were no longer Jew or Greek, it does not mean that, in ceas-
ing to be national, the Church became international. If there
were no longer bond or free, it does not mean that, in freeing
man from the Law by grace, the Church brought about an
economic or social revolution. She no more does away with
these distinctions than she does those of the two sexes; neither
more nor less. In fact, she ignores them, because her kingdom
is not of this world. Although the Christian lives upon this
earth, his life as a Christian is spent in a 'city' which is not
the earth, but heaven. 36
This teaching brought Christianity to grips with formi-
dable difficulties which it still faces in our own day. The
first difficulty is concerned with the very universality of the
society which it was to found. It affects at- the same time
both its foundation and its extent. It affects its foundation, be-
cause, if it rests on the common acceptance of a religious be-
lief transcending reason, it can be made universal only
through faith. But, the content of faith is not a knowledge
which can rationally be made universal. Christian apolo-
getics will, of course, bend all its efforts to place reason on
the side of faith. It would even be maintained, taking every-
thing into account, that the Christian faith was the most
34 Rom. 13.1-7.
35 Rom. 13.11-14.
36 Phil. 3.20.
XXV111 FOREWORD
reasonable thing in the world. But it is no less true that the
act of faith in the Word of God would always be irreducibly
distinguished from the simple assent to the evidence of a
rational proposition. How, then, universalize that which of
itself cannot humanly be made universal? In fact, it might
well be that it alone can be made universal, but such a long
time would be required before men would become aware of
the fact that perhaps they have not yet realized it. In the
meantime, the simple possibility of not giving assent to the
faith implies the possibility of two societies instead of one, a
possibility which would jeopardize the complete universality
of the first. Open to all whom faith in the message and Person
of Christ justifies, Christian society is immediately paral-
leled by another, to which belong all who exclude themselves
from Christianity. Let us set aside the problems which the
extension of Christian preaching presents, and let us not
ask about the fate of men who could not or cannot be touched
by its salutary message; these are different problems which,
like those of grace, are based exclusively on theology. Let
us consider only the problems which arise for those men who,
although familiar with the demands of the Christian faith,
refuse to accept it. How, then, by that very fact, would they
not become members of a society quite contrary to the first,
but which they enter of their own accord? The difficulty is
perhaps inseparable from the notion of a true society, that is,
one founded upon the consent of its members. A cosmos
which is merely a fact, or an empire which is also merely
a fact and whose cause is force, contains no such difficulty,
precisely because neither is a real society. Perhaps we should
conclude that there can be no truly universal society other
than that which is open to all, and which, as a consequence,
some are always free to reject. In the meantime, we should
FOREWORD XXIX
keep before our mind the state of the question, which, it
can be seen, is the very core of the problem.
A second problem directly concerns the possible relations
between Christian society and the temporal order. Inasmuch
as he believes in Christ, the Christian, we can say with St.
Paul, lives not upon the earth but in heaven. Here, a new
difficulty arises. For, if such is the faith of the Christian, the
more intense it is, the more it will draw him away from a
love of this world and especially from a love of the city. It
is not surprising, therefore, that one of the outstanding effects
of Christianity was denationalization. From this distance
and with the few documents at our disposal, it is difficult to
appraise the intensity, or appreciate the extent, of this pro-
cess. However, it must be taken into account, because it re-
mains today one of the constant manifestations of the problem,
and because, in fact, denationalization certainly did occur.
As early as the second century, in the Apology of Quadratus
(which was thought lost, but which we may possess under
the title, Letter to Diognetus], the double life, as it were,
which the Christian religion imposed upon its members, is
described with a truly surprising sharpness. Exteriorly, Chris-
tians differ in no way from the other men whose cities, langu-
age and customs they share. They are not men without a
country. Neither are they nationals like the others, for 'they
live, each in his native land but as though they were not
really at home there. They share in all duties like citizens,
yet suffer hardships like strangers. Every foreign land is for
them a fatherland and every fatherland is a foreign land.' 37
How could it be otherwise, if, while on earth, they have chosen
heaven as their abode? The curious statement of Tertullian
37 The Epistle to Diognetus, tr. by G.G.Walsh, in The Apostolic Fathers
(New York 1947) 359, in this series.
XXX FOREWORD
bears the same meaning: 'Nor is there aught more entirely
foreign to us than affairs of state. We acknowledge one all-
embracing commonwealth, the world. 338 It is a formula with
a distinctive Stoic ring, but which, as one historian has justly
remarked, nevertheless defines a paradoxically different posi-
tion: 'a cosmopolitanism based on an acosmism.' 39 In fact,
as we shall see when we examine the thought of St. Augustine
on this point, at the moment the Christian stand on the prob-
lem is defined, it is straightway resolved. For, it is correct
to say that the Christian is no longer a member of the cosmos
conceived in a Stoic sense; hence, he is no longer cosmopolitan
in the Stoic sense of the term. However, we might wonder
whether Christianity has not transformed the very notion of
cosmos to the point of making it a true society; in which case
the notion of Christian cosmopolitanism would carry a pre-
cise meeting.
Whatever we make of the point, the effect of denationaliz-
ation upon some Christians, due to their integration in a
society other than that of their earthly country, seems to be
an incontestable fact. How many times have they not been
reproached for it ! Not only did they refuse to the gods of the
empire the worship which was demanded and this was
enough to exclude them from their country but, like Ter-
tullian, they were disinterested in it to the point of con-
sidering themselves as foreigners. Harnack has both force-
38 Tertullian, Apologeticum 38, The play on words is lost in English:
(Nobis nulla magis res aliena est quam publica, Unatn omnium reni-
publicam agnoscimus, mundum*
39 'Es ist ein Kosmopolitismus auf akosmistischer Grundlage* (H. Scholz,
Glaube und Unglaube in der Weltgeschichte. Ein Kommentar zu
Augustinus De Civitate Dei, mil einem Exkurs: Fruitio Dei, ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Mystik [Leipzig 1911] 95) . For
further texts of analogous content, cf. A. Combes, La doctrine politique
de Saint Augustine (Paris 1927) 217-218.
FOREWORD XXXI
fully and rightly insisted on this meaning of the True Discourse
of Celsus. This was his advice to the Christians: Do not put
yourselves on the fringes of the Empire, and we shall try to
put up with you, 40 And now, we, in our turn, must insist that the
moment the problem is first posed the question arises whether
the very essence of Christianity does not inevitably produce
such a problem. From his own point of view, Celsus was right
in compelling Christians to choose between the two cities,
one of which they used without loving, the other they lovingly
served at the very time they made their abode in the first.
'They must make their choice between two alternatives. If
they refuse to render due service to the gods, and to respect
those who are set over this service, let them not come to man-
hood, or marry wives, or have children, or indeed take any
share in the affairs of life; but let them depart hence with
all speed and leave no posterity behind them, that such a
race may become extinct from the face of the earth. Or, on
the other hand, if they will take wives, and bring up children,
and taste the fruits of the earth, and partake of all the bless-
ings of life, and bear its appointed sorrows (for nature her-
self hath allotted sorrows to all men; for sorrows must exist,
and earth is the only place for them), then must they dis-
charge the duties of life until they are released from its
bonds, and render due honour to those beings who control the
40 A. von Harnack, Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den
ersten drei Jahrhunderten, (2 vol., Berlin 1934) I 47ff., in English
translation, The expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries,
by James Moffat (New York 1904) I 342ff. Cf. texts of Celsus in
Origen, Against Celsus 8.55; also, Pierre de Labriolle, La reaction
Paienne, (Paris 1934) 121-122. M. Labriolle maintains that the texts
of Celsus, are less profound and sincere than von Harnack pretends.
Fundamentally, however, he agrees with von Harnack, who is judging
the situation not from the texts of Celsus alone, but from an overall
view of the facts, and in this he is quite correct. Cf. Labriolle, op. cit.
169.
XXXlI FOREWORD
affairs of this life, if they would not show themselves un-
grateful to them. For it would be unjust in them, after re-
ceiving the good things which they dispense, to pay them no
tribute in return. 541
Certainly, the Christians were not without a reply. They
could proclaim their loyalty to the Empire, excluding, of
course, its worship and its gods. In addition to raising ob-
jections respecting the divinity of the emperor, which was
inseparable from the Empire, it was called to their attention
that, if their city was really not of this world, they ought to
quit it. The Fathers of the desert were Christians after
Celsus 5 own heart and, in a sense, they almost corroborated
his point of view. In a somewhat different sense, Origen
himself propounds almost the same opinion when, in his reply
to Celsus, he says that the Christians were not without a
country, since they found one in their churches. It is to
answer the question by asking it; it is the question which,
we have seen, is at the very heart of the history whose out-
standing features are being portrayed.
We do not claim that Christianity presented men with an
insoluble antinomy; rather, the contrary is true, since, what-
ever were their ideas, it was necessary for them to adapt them-
selves. But, Christianity certainly did provoke a conflict of
tendencies between those who, devoted entirely to their
earthly home, have no conception of anything beyond it and
those who are, above all, citizens of the heavenly City and,
consequently, are more or less inclined to be disinterested
41 Ibid.
FOREWORD XXX111
In their home here below. 42 Such a man was Tertulllan; such
also was Origen, who, without denying that Christianity
could better morality and so help the State, is nevertheless
described to us as having only a 'mediocre interest 3 in the
State, and as living on this earth as in a metaphysical dream,
or, perhaps more correctly, in a religious dream. If, indeed,
Origen intended that all cultivated Christians should re-
serve their activity for the service of the churches, the true
body of their own country (sy sterna patridos}^ and which
were installed in every city, 43 then let us admit that a pagan,
like Celsus, could be excused for maintaining that Christianity
was, if not seditious, at least a malady of the body politic.
Some of the first Christians discovered, and put into
practice, one of the possible answers to the new question
raised by Christianity; it was to renounce the world, that is,
to renounce the city. There were others, however, to whom
the diffusion of the Gospel could not help suggesting a
quite different, even contrary, solution. It was to Christianize
the city rather than renounce it, and, in Christianizing it,
to take it over. There is no proof that this was Constantine's
idea; that is a secret which evades the historian, like other
problems springing from the psychology of one individual.
Whatever were the motives which swayed him, the conver-
sion of a Roman emperor to Christianity is nonetheless an
42 This totalitarianism of the State is, let us recall, in the whole pagan
notion of the city. It is clearly affirmed by Aristotle in the Politics 8.1
(1337a27-30) : 'Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens
belongs to himself, for they all belong to the State, and are each of
them a part of the State, and the care of each part is inseparable from
the care of the whole' (Ross translation) . This problem is still quite
familiar. For the Greek notion of the State, cf. de Coulanges, op. cit.,
Bk. Ill, and E. Barker, Greek Political Theory. Plato and his Prede-
cessors (London 1918) , Ch. 1.
43 P. de Labriolle, op. cit. 168-9.
FOREWORD
historical fact of capital importance; however, it is perhaps
less important in its consequences than in the testimony it
gives of the conditions which brought about such a conver-
sion. 44
Thereby, and it is the least we can say, the Empire came
to terms with the Church, or, in other words, allowed it-
self to be Christianized. Henceforth, the Christians found
themselves in a completely new world. Henceforth, it was
possible to give an unreserved loyalty to the Empire, that is,
to serve the emperor without betraying God. A short time
before, the Christian had been a member of a persecuted
minority, or, in the best of conditions, living on the outer
fringes of the State; now, however, he had become a sub-
ject of a master who, in turn, recognized that he himself
owed allegiance to the same supreme Master as his own sub-
jects. Thus, the Christian citizen became the normal case in-
stead of an anomaly, and the day was clearly dawning when,
for all practical purposes, the qualities of member of the
Church and member of the State would coincide. 45 There-
after, as was justly remarked, it became impossible for the
members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy not to be, sooner or
later, members of the hierarchy which, under the emperor's
authority, ruled the State. The religious authority which the
emperor was to recognize in them also conferred upon them
a moral authority, which was not slow in making itself felt
44 Cf. Norman Baynes, 'Constantine the Great and the Christian Church/
in Proceedings of the British Academy XV (1929) . Mr. Baynes main-
tains that the dominant motive in Constan tine's actions was his con-
viction of a personal mission entrusted to him by the Christian God.
However, Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe (London 1932)
34, states that 'Whether Constantine himself was moved by considera-
tions of policy in his attitude to Christianity is a debatable point.'
However, he does not question Constantine's sincerity.
45 'The citizenship of the future lay in the membership of the Church/
(Dawson, op. cit, 35) .
FOREWORD XXXV
by remonstrances and even reprimands. Eusebius of Caesarea
in the East and St. Ambrose in the West did not hesitate
to make public use of it to such a degree that they are
recognized as the first exponents of the ideal of a Christian
state. 46 Even if we admit that the notion was not yet clearly
defined when, in 390 A.D., Ambrose severely reprimanded
the Emperor Theodosius for the massacre of Salonika, it
seems undeniable that there was already the beginning of
an awareness of this authority, or, at least, of its possibility
in principle.
In the immediate, but definitively ended, past, it was not
possible to serve God and the Empire simultaneously with
the same affection. Thereafter, the contrary was to be true;
Ambrose assured the Emperor Gratian that, when his sub-
jects betrayed God, they betrayed the Empire, a point which
the Arian rebellion against the faith manifestly proves.
Henceforth, the unity of the Empire was to be bound up
with the unity of the faith. 47
Thus did the holy people, described in the Old Testament,
rebuild itself in the light of the New. It was the same
history, since, basically, it was the same people, but this time
46 Cf. Dawson, op. cit. 44, for an excellent description of the new attitude
which a Christian ought to have toward the State.
47 'There is no doubt, Holy Emperor, because we have taken up arms
against the perfidious aliens, we shall receive the aid of the Catholic
faith which is so strong in you. There is clearly before us a cause for
divine wrath, because, where faith with God is broken straightway faith
with the Roman Empire is broken.' (St. Ambrose, De fide 3.16.139
[PL 16.612B]). Cf., also, St. Ambrose, Letter II 4 (PL 16.986, where
the heretic is represented as a danger to the body politic. Also to be
noted, in this regard, is the fact that St. Ambrose, like many in the
era of Gregory VII, is already anticipating some of the main theses of
St Peter Damian. Cf. St. Ambrose, De fide 1.5, 41-2 [PL 16.559];
1. 13, 84-85; [PL 16.570-71]; 4, 8, 78, [PL 16.658]; De Incarnatione 9.
89, [PL. 16.876]. As St. Ambrose himself says, 'it is not the law, but
the faith of Christ which has built the unity of the Church.' Letter 21
24, [PL 16.1057B].
FOREWORD
spread out over the whole known world, and, potentially,
the master of what yet remained to be discovered or con-
quered. Under a holy emperor, this people was allied^ by
the same treaty with God, from whom they hoped for union,
peace and prosperity in this world, while awaiting the glory
of the next. And what could be more wise and more reason-
able! Since the Empire was Christian, why should the Church
not protect the Empire? Was it not apparent that God Himself
in His providence had intended the Roman Empire ^of
Augustus to prepare for His Church a world already politi-
cally unified and at peace? Only baptize this Empire, and
it could become the center of a Christian universal society,
so that, by the very fact of being a Christian, a man could
enjoy membership in that society.
At least there were Christians who thought so, and no one
expressed the idea better than the poet Prudentius in his
poem against the pagan Symmachus, which was composed
between the years 385 and 388. The Roman Empire clearly
appeared to him as the providential preparation of a universal
society of men joined together by the bonds of Christianity.
The evidence he adduces is striking, even to us. A Christian
patriotism, that is, a love for Rome justified by Christianity
itself, was henceforth both conceivable and natural. 48 The
history of Rome became thereby an integral part of the uni-
versal history, which had as its central theme the Incarnation
of Christ, and which would be for so many of the early
Christians the only intelligible and true history of mankind.
'We live in every clime, as if a paternal city enclosed within
its single walls citizens of a single birthplace; we are all one
in heart within our paternal hearth. Now, men from afar and
over land and sea appear before a single and common court;
48 G. Boissier, La fin du paganisme II 153.
FOREWORD XXXV11
now, for business and the arts they gather together In the great
assembly; now, they contract marriages and one people is
formed from the mingling of different blood. This has been
achieved by so many triumphant successes of the Roman
Empire, believe me, that the way had been prepared for
Christ's advent, a way which the communal friendship of
our peace has built under Roman guidance. For, what
place could there be for God in a savage world, in the dis-
cordant breasts of men and in those who guard their own
rights by different laws, as was formerly the case? But, if
the mind, from its lofty throne, bridle impulsive rage and the
rebellious organs and bring every passion under the sway
of reason, then is built a stable way of life; then with surety
does it drink in God and live in submission to the one Lord.
Omnipotent One, now is Your hour; penetrate the earth
where no discord reigns. Now, O Christ, the world accepts
You, this world which peace and Rome together hold within
their grasp.' 49 It was a glorious hope, but the Roman Empire
49 Prudentius, Contra Symmachum 2.609-635. Cf. C. Dawson, op cit. 23.
G. Boissier, op. cit. II 137, quotes similar texts from Claudian and
Rutilius Namatianus. Cf. Claudian, On Stilicho's Consulship 3.150:
"Tis she alone who has received the conquered into her bosom and
like a mother, not an empress, protected the human race with a com-
mon name, summoning those whom she defeated to share her citi-
zenship and drawing together distant races with bonds of affection'
(Loeb, vol. II, p. 53) . Also, Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo
61ff., trans, by F. Savage-Armstrong, in Charles H. Keene, ed., Rutil-
ius Claudius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo, libri duo (London 1907) .
'One thou hast made for all, one Fatherland,
Fierce lords learn kindness from thy flag unfurled,
With conquered men thou sharest thine own rule,
One City made from what was once the world/
Rutilius wrote after the sack of Rome, but drew no Christian con-
clusion from this event. To him, it seemed that the gods were on
the side of Rome, and not Rome on the side of God (cf. verses 40
and 331) . The idea of the Roman Empire being willed by God as a
preparation for the Church is found again in Dante; cf. De monarchia
2.1&45 and passim, ed. W. H. V. Reade (Oxford 1916) .
xxxviii FOREWORD
was beginning to fall at the precise moment when Christians
thought of making full use of it.
On August 24, 410, Alaric entered Rome, and, al-
though a Christian, pillaged the city for a period of three
days. On the fourth day, his troops left the city, carrying
off vast booty and leaving behind a mass of corpses and
ruins. Thus, for the first time, an empire fell at the ^ very
moment the Church was hoping to find a support in it.
This was not, however, to be the last time. Nevertheless,
out of many similar experiences, this one remains, in a sense,
the most striking; for, it seemed at first glance that the fall of
Rome would bring about that of the Church. However,
it was the body of the faithful united only by the faith of
Christ, rather than the political Colossus united by arms,
which survived.
Such a lesson is not easily forgotten. The capture of
Rome by the barbarians made a deep impression upon the
entire Empire. The endless polemics between Christians and
pagans increased in violence and bitterness. 50 To analyze all
the arguments of both sides would be a task both long and
detailed, and, like the polemics themselves, would not bring
us to any goal. On the pagan side, there were two principal
and simple arguments from which all the 'others directly or
indirectly stemmed. First of all, Christian doctrine taught
renouncement of the world; consequently, it turned the
citizen away from the service of the state, a fact which
brought about the fall of Rome. Secondly, the destiny of
Rome was always bound up with the worship of her gods.
When the Christian religion first began to spread, the pagans
50 Cf. G. Boissier, op. cit., especially the chapter entitled X' Affaire de
1'autel de la Victoire' II 231-291.
FOREWORD XXXIX
proclaimed that their betrayed gods would visit terrible
punishments upon the Empire. No one would listen, but the
turn of events finally had justified their prophecy, and to
such an extent that it was no longer possible to refuse them
a hearing. The Empire had become Christian and it was
during the reign of a Christian emperor that Rome, for
the first time in her long history, was conquered and sacked.
How could anyone fail to understand a lesson so tragically
clear?
These objections were set down, as clearly as one could
want, in a letter from Marcellinus to the Bishop of Hippo.
In 412, the pagan Volusianus had addressed these objections
to Marcellinus, who in turn immediately begged Augustine
to write a reply. According to Marcellinus, Volusianus raised
the objection that the preaching and teaching of Christ was
in no way compatible with the duties and rights of citizens;
for, to quote an instance frequently alleged, among its
precepts there is found: 'Do not repay injury with injury/ 51
and, 'if a man strikes thee on thy right cheek, turn the other
cheek also towards him; if he is ready to go to law with thee
over thy coat, let him have it and thy cloak with it, if he
compels thee to attend him on a mile's journey, go two
miles with him.' 52 Now, it seems clear that such moral norms
could not be put into practice without bringing ruin to a
country. Who would suffer without retaliation the seizure
of his goods by an enemy? Would anyone, thenceforth,
refuse to punish according to the laws of war the devastation
of a Roman province? These are arguments with which we
are familiar, and which are constantly being revived by
'conscientious objectors.' They are based upon the deepest
51 Rom. 12.17.
52 Matt. 6.39-42.
FOREWORD
convictions of a Christian conscience, whose strength it
would be wrong to ignore. It is worth noting that the Christian
Marcellinus, and not the pagan Volusianus, raised the last
and most formidable argument, namely, that 'it is mani-
fest that very great calamities have befallen the country
under the government of emperors practising, for the most
part, the Christian religion. 553
The objection was urgent, and St. Augustine was not
slow to reply. He had been asked how it was possible to live
in the State as a Christian, and how it -was possible for a
State composed of Christians to endure, since the practice of
the Christian virtues would infallibly bring about the ruin
of the State. To this St. Augustine makes an unexpected reply,
namely, that the pagans themselves have already preached the
same virtues for which the Christians are being blamed. It
was scarcely necessary to recall this fact to such a cultured
man as Volusianus. Did not Sallust praise the Romans for
having chosen to forget injuries rather than punish the
offender? Did not Cicero praise Caesar because he was wont
to forget nothing but the wrongs done to him? 54 If we are
to judge from the history of Rome, the observance of these
laws has not worked out too badly. Again, it is necessary to
understand what the Gospel teaches. There are no com-
mandments compelling Christian soldiers to lay down their
arms or to refuse service. In fact, no one is forbidden to
give himself generously to the service of the State. On the
contrary, rather, let them give us such husbands and wives,
parents and children, such masters and slaves, such kings
and judges, such taxpayers and tax collectors, as the Chris-
53 St Augustine, Letter 136 2, trans, by J. G. Cunningham, in edition
by Marcus Dods (Edinburgh 1875) II 175.
54 Sallust, The War with Catiline 9.5 (Loeb, p. 17) . Cicero, Pro Ltgano
12.35. Cf. St Augustine, The City of God 2.18.2.
FOREWORD xli
tian religion has taught that men should be, and then let
them dare say that it is adverse to the State's well-being;
rather, let them no longer hesitate to confess that this doc-
trine, if it were obeyed, would be the salvation of the Empire. 55
But, how explain the fact that these calamities have be-
fallen Rome at the hands of certain Christian emperors?
Simply by denying the fact. It was not the Christianity
of the emperors which brought ruin upon the Empire; rather,
it was the vices within the Empire itself. For, whither might
not men have been carried away by the flood of appalling
wickedness, had God not finally planted the Cross of Christ
there? Read Sallust and Juvenal, and the lengths to which
immorality had gone will readily be seen. 56 Nascent Chris-
tianity is being blamed; the blame, however, should fall upon
dying paganism. Christian revelation had two distinct ends:
first, to save human society; second, to build up a society
which could be divine. It is difficult to see what the State
could fear from this twofold endeavor; but, what the State
could gain thereby is readily apparent, for Christianity will
achieve the first in striving after the second.
First, to save the political, human and natural society
from the inevitable ruin whither its corruption was ineluct-
ably leading it. It is not ignorance of the virtues required
to secure happiness and prosperity which is endangering
Roman society. Its members are very well aware of the
obligations imposed by a merely natural love of the Empire,
whose greatness was due to its past virtues, but which its
citizens have not the courage to put into practice. But, what
they did not have the strength to do out of love of country,
the Christian God demands of them out of love of Himself.
55 St. Augustine, Letter 138 2 15 (Dods ed. 206) .
56 The City of God 2.19.
xlli FOREWORD
Thus, in the general breakdown of morality and of ^ civic
virtues, divine Authority intervened to impose frugal jiving,
continence, friendship, justice and concord among citizens.
Henceforth, everyone professing Christian teaching and ob-
serving its precepts will, out of love of God, perform
whatever the welfare of the country demands out of self-
interest and on its own behalf. 57 Augustine was already
enuntiating the great principle which is to justify, always and
everywhere, the penetration of the Church into every human
city: Take to yourselves good Christians and you will be
given good citizens. Of course, the exigencies of the Gospel
will never be fully satisfied in this way. But, neither will
those of the world be satisfied in any other way, once the
most ardently genuine followers of the Gospel are resigned
finally to live in it; and whose goods, in spite of everything,
it is difficult to enjoy without ever making any return. On the
supposition that Christ did not expressly reserve for Himself
the things that are Caesar's there still remains the problem
of moral equity, concerning whose correct solution there
could be no hesitation.
Let us admit that the Christian virtues are useful to the
good order and prosperity of the commonwealth; still, it is
no less true that this order and prosperity cannot be their
proper end. This fact makes it quite clear that, to the extent
the State can be sure of the practice of the natural moral
virtues, of itself it can secure its own prosperity. Such was
eminently the case in the early days of Rome, whose virtues
St. Augustine, following the best traditions of the Latin
historians, did not hesitate to praise. Did not ancient Rome
owe its great success to the frugality, strength and purity of
57 St. Augustine, Letter 138 3.17 (Dods ed. 208) .
FOREWORD xliii
its way of life? Again, do not the origins of its decline date
from the decadence of its way of life, described so often by
its historians and poets? Far from being embarrassed by the
memory of a prosperous, although pagan, Rome, St. Augus-
tine sees in this prosperity the sign of a providential plan. If
God allowed this temporal greatness, which was obtained
through mere civic virtues, it was precisely in order that
no one might be deceived about, the proper end of the
Christian virtues. Since the world can enjoy prosperity with-
out the Christian virtues, then, certainly, they do not exist
in the view of the world. Tor in the most opulent and illustri-
ous Empire of Rome, God has shown how great is the influ-
ence of even civil virtues without true religion, in order that it
might be understood that, when this is added to such
virtues, men are made citizens of another Commonwealth,
of which the king is Truth, the law is Love and the duration
is Eternity. 358 The sufficiency of the political virtues in their
own order testifies to the supernatural specification of the
Christian virtues both in their essence and their end.
Thenceforth, two cities would always be present to the
thought of St. Augustine. To free the Church from all re-
sponsibility for the evils which had befallen Rome was,
for him, something else than to plead a losing cause after
the fashion of a shrewd lawyer. Since, as the Roman
writers admit, the decadence of the Empire and the causes
of the decadence antedate the advent of Christianity, re-
sponsibility for the decadence cannot be laid upon Chris-
tianity. Nevertheless, the disaster of 410 faced them. More-
over, the pagans never wearied of using this argument to
the full, an argument which, it must be agreed, was clothed
58 Ibid.
FOREWORD
in the garb of apparent truth. That Is why, in 413, St.
Augustine took upon himself the task of writing a reply. In
his Retractations, St. Augustine writes: 'When Rome was
devastated as a result of the invasion of the Goths under the
leadership of Alaric, the worshippers of the many false gods,
whom we are accustomed to call pagan, began, in their
attempt to blame this devastation on tHe Christian religion,
to blaspheme the true God with more bitterness and sharp-
ness than usual Wherefore, fired with a zeal for God's house,
I determined to write my book, The City of God, against their
blasphemies and errors.' 69
Of the twenty-two books which make up this work, the
last twelve are principally dedicated to a retracing of the
history of the 'two cities,' the City of God and the city of
this world, from their beginnings until their end which is
yet to come. If the work is entitled The City of God, it is
only because he has chosen the title from the more noble
of the two; nevertheless, it contains the history of both cities.
Augustine was not deceived about the real object of his work,
an enterprise dictated by the pressure of circumstances and
perhaps suggested by a question of Marcellinus, to whom
the work was dedicated. 60
The work actually contains a great deal more than a
vindication of the Church from the accusation of a given
moment. The drama, whose vicissitudes the work aims at
relating and interpreting, is literally of cosmic significance,
59 St. Augustine, Retractations 2.43.2.
60 St. Augustine, The City of God I (Preface) . A recently discovered
letter of St. Augustine, translated below (pp. 399-401) , bears upon the
author's purpose in composing the work and gives his summation of
the contents of the several parts. [Eds.]
FOREWORD
xlv
because it identifies itself with the history of the world. The
message which the Bishop of Hippo addresses to men is to
the effect that the whole world, from its beginning until its
final term, has as its unique end the constitution of a holy
Society, in view of which everything has been made, even the
universe itself. Perhaps never in the history of human specula-
tion has the notion of society undergone a change com-
parable in depth, or provoked such an enlarged perspective
in view of the change. Here, the City extends more than to the
very limits of the earth or world; it includes the world and
explains even the very existence of the world. Everything
that is, except God Himself whose work the City is, is for
the City and has no meaning apart from the City; if it is
possible to have faith in the ultimate intelligibility of the
smallest event and the humblest of creatures, it is the City
of God which possesses the secret.
II
The City of God and Universal Society
What is a city, considered not in the material, but in
the social, sense of the term? In vain would we search The
City of God, vast as its scope is, for an abstract and general
discussion of the problem as the philosophers envisaged it in
their attempt to define the nature of the social bond. St.
Augustine pursued his proper objective through innumberable
digressions, which can be called, not improperly, apolo-
xlvi FOREWORD
getic. 61 In more than one discussion, however, he does come
to grips with the problem, where philosophy as such is
judged from a Christian point of view. This is precisely the
case with the notion of the term 'city.' He does not discuss
the nature of the city as a philosopher indifferent to Chris-
tianity, nor as a Christian indifferent to philosophy, but as a
Christian who judges and, if necessary, reshapes its elements
in the light of faith.
When St. Augustine speaks of a human city, he is first
of all thinking of Rome and its history, such as the Latin
writers had described it to him. 62 If he was able to refute the
charge that the Church had caused the ruin of Rome, it
was, as we have seen, because Sallust himself had considered
Rome to be in ruins as a result of its own vices, and that
even before the advent of Christ. When St. Augustine asked
himself at what moment of its history Rome merited the name
of city, it was to -a pagan definition of a city that he appealed.
Thus, in passing judgment on pagan society according to the
laws set down by that society, he drew his inspiration from
rules which pagan society itself had to admit.
As St. Augustine saw it, the dominant feature in the
pagan concept of the city, which is both a political and a
social body, was the notion of justice. As Cicero, for ex-
61 H. Scholz, Glaube und Unglaube, iv. The author contradicts those
who see in The City of God a philosophy of history. In this he is
quite correct; however, it does not exclude the possibility of a phil-
osophy of history being derived several centuries later from The City
of God. According to Scholz, the central theme of the work is the
struggle between faith and infidelity (p.2) . This is a quite reasonable
conclusion; however, the simplest view, it would seem, is to admit
that the central theme of The City of God is, precisely, the City of
God.
62 City signifies society: 'civitas quae nihil aliud est quam hominum
multitudo aliquo 'societatis \}inculo colligata* (The City of God 15.8) .
FOREWORD xlvii
ample, conceived it, every society should resemble a sym-
phonic concert, in which the different notes of the instruments
and voices blend into a final harmony. What the musician
calls harmony, the politician calls concord. Without con-
cord, there is no city; but, without justice, there is no con-
cord. Consequently, justice is the first condition required
for the existence of the city. That is why St. Augustine felt
justified in concluding that, in spite of appearances to the
contrary, Rome had ceased to exist at the moment when,
according to one historian, Rome had lost all justice. It was
not enough to declare, along with Sallust, that Roman society
was then corrupt; it was necessary to affirm even as Augustine
did, in the words of Cicero, that, as a society, Rome had totally
ceased to exist. 63
But, was that going far enough? If we recall the thesis
already maintained by Augustine, 64 namely, that the re-
public of Rome had prospered because of its virtues, it
would seem quite possible to grant that it was a society
worthy of the name. The reason was, as St. Augustine had
written to Marcellinus in 412, that God wished to make
manifest the supernatural ideal of the Christian virtues, by
permitting ancient Rome to prosper without them. He
thereby granted a certain temporal efficacy to the civic
virtues of the pagans, and to Rome itself the character of
an authentic society. Certainly, Augustine would never com-
pletely deny it. For certain reasons, whether divine or human,
ancient Rome was, in its own way, a true society. The re-
public was certainly much better administered by the more
ancient Romans than by their successors; but, in the final
63 The City of God 2.21. St. Augustine somewhat forces the text of
Cicero which he quotes.
64 Cf. pp. xlii-xliv, above.
xlvlii FOREWORD
analysis, and in its own way, it was a society. However, in
the very context where Augustine made this admission, he
added that it was not a society; this fact he proves later,
using as his authority the difinitions of the social body al-
ready proposed by Cicero. There had never been a true
Roman society, because true justice had never reigned in
Rome. There, we are clearly facing a problem which cannot
be resolved simply. In a sense, there was a Roman Republic,
especially when, at its origin, there did reign a kind of
justice which in turn gave birth to a kind of society. How-
ever, since that justice was not a true justice, the society
it engendered was not a true society. Here, for the moment,
let us yield to the exigencies of logic and admit that there
never has been a Roman society, because there has never
been a true society; for, not to be a true society is to be no
society at all.
Taken in its strict meaning, this thesis implies that there
exists and can exist but a single city worthy of the name,
one which is truly a city, because it observes the laws of
65 The City of God 2.21: Rome 'never was a republic, because true
justice never had a place in it. ... But, accepting the more probable
definition of a republic, I admit there was a republic of a kind, and
certainly much better administered by the more ancient Romans
than their successors. But true justice exists only in that republic
whose founder and ruler is Christ; if anyone sees fit to call this a
republic, since we cannot deny that it is a commonweal. If, however,
this name which has become a commonplace in other contexts is
considered foreign to our way of speaking, we can certainly assert
that there is true justice in the City about which Sacred Scripture
says: Glorious things are said of Thee, O City of God' (Ps. 86.3) .
This eloquent text settles several points. First, the body of men in
submission to Christ forms a people; it could be called a republic of
Christians. The term "republic" had already been appropriated to
Rome; hence, it could be called a city. The term City of God was
borrowed from Scripture. However, we can still agree with H.
Scholz, op. cit. 78, that the notion of two opposed cities was suggested
to St. Augustine by Ticonius: 'Ecce duos tivitates, unam Dei et unam
diaboliS
FOREWORD
true justice; in short, the City whose head is Christ. Doubt-
less, there ought to be a second at least, namely, one which
is constituted by all men, whose head is not Christ. But this
latter is scarcely more than the castoffs of the former, and
exists because of that former. There could be no city of
injustice if there were no City of true justice. Every society
worthy of the name is, therefore, either the City of God
or defined in relation to the City of God. That such is
the absolute position of St. Augustine is undeniable and can
be substantiated by more than one proof.
However, the Roman virtues and the civic grandeur of
the Roman order raised problems for St. Augustine and, for
better or for worse, he had to take them into consideration.
The reason for this was the ambiguity of the notion of
justice. For, if the notion of true justice is clear, that of false
justice is not; and, so long as it is not known whether the
justice in question is a justice, it cannot be known whether
the society founded upon it is a society. That is doubtless
why St. Augustine, when examining the problem later on,
was led to a new definition of the social bond, wherein the
notion of justice was placed in the background, although
not entirely eliminated from the discussion. That fact has
been the object of regret, but the reason for the regret is
not obvious. 66
In any case, it is necessary, first of all, to understand why
St. Augustine was led to make a new definition. Identifica-
tion of the social bond with justice raised a twofold diffi-
culty: first, that raised in the case of Rome, from which we
have just seen how he escaped; second, that with regard to
66 A. J. Carlyle, 'St. Augustine and the City of God/ in F.J.C. Hearn-
shaw, The Social and Political Ideas of Some Great Mediaeval
Thinkers (London 1923) 42-52.
1 FOREWORD
the city which is not the City of God, a difficulty from which,
as we shall soon see, St. Augustine cannot really escape if
the social bond is a true justice. How could there be two cities
in a doctrine which teaches that, since every city is founded
on justice, there can be only the one City of Christ, which
is founded on the justice of Christ?
St. Augustine's dialectical procedure begins, with the defi-
nition of a people, taken from Cicero's now lost dialogue
On the Republic. 'A people/ Scipio is made to say, 'is a
multitude united by the recognition of a law and a commu-
nity of interests/ 67 To submit to the law is to submit to justice;
for, if there is no law(;tw) , how can there be justice (justitia)?
What is done with justice is done justly. Likewise, it would
not be possible to grant the title of just to the iniquitous de-
cisions handed down by men with no regard for justice. In
accordance with the principles laid down by Scipio and Ci-
cero, it follows that a multitude, not united by justice, does
not form a people. But, if there is no people, there can be
no res populi, that is, no res publica, or, to use a modern
term, no republic. What is justice, if not the virtue which
renders to everyone what is his due? And what is this justice
of men which tears man away from God in order to make
him subject to the demons? Is that rendering to everyone his
due? Yet, the Roman gods were nothing but demons; under
the guise of innumerable idols it was certainly the impure
spirits which were adored. 68 Hence, we must either refrain
from affirming that the Romans ever were a people which
would be somewhat difficult or we must define a people in
67 Populum esse definivit coetum multitudinis, juris consensu et utili-
tatis communione sociatum (The City of God 19.21) .
68 Ibid.
FOREWORD K
some way other than in relation to justice. This is what
St. Augustine eventually did. 69
After once more recalling that, if the Ciceronian definition
is true, then where there is no justice there can be no people, 70
St. Augustine proposed a quite different definition: A people
is an association of rational beings united by a unanim-
ous agreement upon those things which they love. 71 It is
not difficult to see what society Augustine had in mind when
69 In speaking of the new definition which we are about to examine,
Carlyle (p. 50) writes: 'Now I am by no means clear myself whether
the phrases of St. Augustine in this place represent a settled convic-
tion or a merely casual and isolated judgment. Many of the other
references which he makes to the State, while they correspond in
some measure with this definition, are ambiguous, though they would
seem to indicate a persistence in leaving out the moral or ethical
conception of the State. If this omission of St. Augustine's had been
carefully considered by him, and if it was deliberate and persistent,
it would represent a conception of the nature of political society
of the gravest significance, for it would mean that perhaps the most
influential of all Christian teachers desired to eliminate the concep-
tion of justice from the theory of the nature of the State ... I am
myself, therefore, not at all certain whether St. Augustine did deliber-
ately attempt to change the conception of the State. If he did, I
cannot but feel that it was a deplorable error for a great Christian
teacher.
'Happily the matter is not important, for if indeed he did not
make this mistake it had no significance in the history of Christian
ideas. It is a notable fact that this passage of St. Augustine is hardly
ever quoted at all in later Christian writers.'
This last fact seems to be correct; however, the first part is far
from it. St. Augustine eliminated the notion of justice from the
definition of a people, because there can be a people without
justice. That is precisely why he changed the Ciceronian definition
of a people. But he never intended to free any people from a respect
for justice. Besides, it is very doubtful whether the new Augustinian
definition of a people was without influence on the history of ideas.
One of the objects of the present introduction is to prove the contrary.
70 This is tantamount to saying that there can be but one people, the
people of the City of God; cf. The City of God 19.23.
71 Populus est coetus multitudinis rationalis, rerum quos diligit con-
cordi ratione sociatus (The City of God 19.24.)
Hi FOREWORD
he attempted to give a definition which should include all
societies. If we are interested in determining what association
of rational beings is especially founded on a common love of
the same thing, whither should we turn, if not to the Church
of Christ? Certainly, the Church is founded on the divine
Authority, which is the guarantee of her- teaching office ; the
faith upon which she is founded, however, is not for a moment
divorced from charity, which is the bond of union. At her
very origin stands charity, and it is this charity which holds
together that people which is united in the common love of
the good, whose pledge is the faith. Jesus Christ Himself bade
His disciples to love God and to love each other as He loved
them and as they loved Him. In His teaching, the two Com-
mandments of the Law become the 'great commandments'
and so obtain a completely new force, for they will henceforth
contain the whole Law and the Prophets. It is a wholly new
people to which Christ is addressing Himself when He speaks
thus to His disciples. The mutual love to which He binds them
and which He bestows upon them is, precisely, the sign by
which, from then on, the world would recognize Christians. 72
It is necessary to recall at this point the prayer of Jesus
to His Father, not only for His disciples, but also for His
disciples 3 disciples till the consummation of the world: 'It
is not only for them that I pray; I pray for those who are
to find faith in me through their word; that they may all be
onef that they too may be one in us, as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee; so that the world may come to believe
that it is thou who hast sent me. And I have given them the
privilege which thou gavest to me, that they should all be
one, as we are one; that while thou art in me, I may be in
72 Matt. 5.4348; 19.19; 22.34-40; Mark 12-29-31; Luke 6.27-36.
FOREWORD Hi!
them, and so they may be perfectly made one. So let the
world know that it is thou who hast sent me, and that thou
hast bestowed thy love upon them, as thou hast bestowed it
upon me. This, Father, is my desire, that all those whom
thou hast entrusted to me may be with me where I am, so
as to see my glory, thy gift made to me, in that love which
thou didst bestow upon me before the foundation of the
world. Father, thou art just; the world has never acknowl-
edged thee, but I have acknowledged thee, and these men
have acknowledged that thou didst send me. I have revealed,
and will reveal, thy name to them; so that the love thou hast
bestowed upon me may dwell in them, and I, too, may dwell
in them' 73
Thus was born a new human family, that of those predes-
tined to be the adopted sons of the Father in Jesus Christ. 74
In this family, as we have already said: 'there is no more
Gentile and Jew, no more circumcised and uncircumcised;
no one is barbarian or Scythian, no one is slave or free;
there is nothing but Christ in any of us.' 75 Finally, that is
why the Christians are members of the same body, whose
head is "Christ, 76 in which all are 'eager to preserve, 5 in a
mutual charity, 'that unity the Spirit gives you, whose bond
is peace.' 77
We would search the Scriptures in vain for an abstract
definition of a people. However, the New Testament gives
us a glimpse of the beginnings of the one whose essence St.
Augustine has just defined as the union of men who are
united by a common love of the same good.. This definition
73 John 27.20-26.
74 Eph. 1.5.
75 Col. 3.11.
76 1 Cor. 12.17; Eph. 7.22ff.; 4.15ff.; Col. 2.19; Rom. 12.4.
77 Eph. 4.3.
FOREWORD
of a society is purely religious and, as we shall see, even
mystical; this formula does not reveal itself as immediately
applicable to every kind of society, and above all to the
Roman Empire. The question whether a society is good or
bad is no longer identical with the question whether a cer-
tain group of men constitutes a people. The formula of
Cicero, interpreted by a Christian, holds in the case of a
single people, that is, the Christian people, which possesses
the only true justice, namely, the justice of Christ. The new
formula, on the contrary, makes it possible to admit that
peoples are worthy of the name of people, even though they
are unjust. 'Whatever be the object of its love, if the as-
semblage is composed of rational creatures, not beasts, and
provided it is united by a unanimous agreement, it is not
absurd to say that the better the love, the better the people,
the lower the love, the lower the people. According to this
definition, which is our own, the Roman people is a people
and the Roman weal [res ejus] is a common weal [res publica].*
Thus, in spite of their political decadence, brought about by
the condition of morals, the name of people cannot be denied
them, so long as there exists any kind of assemblage of ration-
al beings, united by the unanimous agreement of all its
members upon those things which they love. 'And,' St. Augus-
tine adds, 'what I have said of this people and this common-
weal is to be understood as applicable to the Athenians and all
the Greeks, to the Egyptians, and the Assyrians of Babylon,
and thus to each and every commonwealth, whether its
dominions be great or small. If, generally speaking, there is
a city of the impious, it certainly does not possess justice, yet
it is, nonetheless, a City. 578
78 The City of God 19.24.
FOREWORD IV
From among the innumerable cities throughout the world,
only two are of interest to St. Augustine: two cities, that is,
two societies of men. 79 Since the individual is to the city
as the letters of the alphabet to the word, we must seek the
origin of the two societies, into which men are divided, by
examining the component parts of the societies themselves.
There was a moment in history when the unity of mankind
was perfectly realized, that is, when it was composed of a
single man. In fact, it was precisely to secure this unity
that God first created a single man, from whom all others
are sprung. In itself, this was not necessary; the earth could
be peopled today with the descendants of several men, simul-
taneously created at the beginning of time, to whose stock
each and every one would belong. Even so, the unification of
mankind would still be both desirable and possible; but,
through the one ancestor, from whom all men are sprung,
this unity is not only a realizable ideal, it is a fact. It is a
physical fact, since all men are related. Likewise, it is a moral
fact, for, instead of considering themselves bound together by
a mere likeness of nature, men are conscious of a real family
bond. None of the faithful could doubt that all men, regard-
less of race, color or appearance, have their origin in the first
man created by God, and that this first man was alone of his
kind. 80 There was no doubt in St. Augustine's mind that God
79 The City of God 15.1; cf. above, n. 2.
80 The anti-racism of St. Augustine embraces all men whatsoever their
state, even the pygmies, if there are such creatures; St. Augustine was
not sure if there were. He even included the Sciopodes, who shelter
themselves from the sun in the shade of one foot, and the Cynoce-
phali, who had dogs' heads and barked. Whoever is rational and
mortal, regardless of color or shape or sound of voice, is certainly
of the stock of Adam. None of the faithful (nullus fidelium) is to
doubt that all the above originated from the first creation. God knew
how to beautify the universe through the diversity of its parts. Cf.
The City of God 16.8.
Ivi FOREWORD
Himself had created the human race in this way so that men
might understand how pleasing unity, even in diversity, was
to God; 81 nor could they doubt that their unity was a family
unity. 82 Thus, men are naturally brothers in Adam even
before being supernaturally brothers in Christ; of this we are
assured by faith. 83
Nevertheless, two kinds of men appear at the very dawn
of human history: Cain and Abel. They were reasonable
beings, born of the same father, from whom their own mother
also came forth. They were both equally men, but of two
radically different wills, in which there is portrayed the pos-
sibility, at least, of two radically distinct societies. Accordingly,
as men follow the example of Cain or Abel, they place
themselves within the ranks of one or the other of two
peoples: of which one loves the good; the other, evil. The
first has as its founder Abel; the second, Cain. 84 From this
81 The City of God 12.22.
82 'God, therefore, created one single man, not, of course, that he was
to be deprived of all human society, but rather that in this way the
unity of society and the bond of concord might be more strongly
commended to him if they were joined together, not only through a
likeness of nature, but also by a family aftection.' (The City of God
12.22.)
$3 The fact that there is a natural unity in the human race is known
only by faith; Christians believe that God created a single man and
took from him the first woman, and that from this first couple all
humanity is sprung. The Creator could have done otherwise. If He
acted thus, it was precisely that the elect might be fully aware of their
unity. The unity of the human race is a model and figure of the
unity of the holy people called to adoption through Jesus Christ.
This whole outlook is based upon the faith. Cf. The City of God 12.22.
84 Enarrationes in psalm os 142.3: 'Antiqua ergo ista civitas Dei, semper
tolerans terrain, sperans coelwn, quae etiam Jerusalem vocatur et
Sion,' Cain was the first-born of the parents of the human race;
he belonged to the city of men. Then came Abel, who belonged to the
City of God. Cf. The City of God 15.1. To be noted here is the fact
that the term "city of men" does not signify the state or nation, but
the people of men whose end is not God. This is evident, since, as
men, Cain and Abel were in no way different.
FOREWORD
Ivii
beginning the history of the two peoples is identified with
universal history; rather, it is universal history. St. Augus-
tine has reviewed the highlights of this history; others after
him have repeated and enlarged it. It is not our purpose to
follow in the same path, but to examine how Augustine him-
self envisaged the two societies of which he speaks, and which
we have to define.
We said that societies are divided according to the division
of loves. When St. Augustine speaks of a 'City, 3 it is in a
figurative sense, or, as he himself states, a mystical sense, that
he does so; and it is in this sense that the term must be
understood. There is, on the one hand, the society or city of
all men, who, loving God in Christ, are predestined to reign
eternally with God. On the other hand, there is the city of
all those men who do not love God, and who are to suffer
eternal punishment along with the demons. St. Augustine
has, therefore, never conceived the idea of a single universal
society, but of two, both of which are universal at least in
the sense, that every man whatsoever is necessarily a citizen
of one or the other. 85 In this sense, it is true to say that two
loves have produced two cities: one, in which the love
of God unites all men; a second, wherein all citizens, regard-
less of time and place, are united by their love pf the world.
Augustine has differentiated the two societies in several ways:
love of God or love of the world; love of God to the point of
self-contempt or love of self carried to a contempt of God;
love of the flesh or love of the spirit. In every case, however,
they are distinguished by love, which is their very root. Yet,
by whatever name they are designated, it is still true to say
85 There is but one human race divided into two peoples. CL De vera
religione 50; The City of God 15.1; also, below, n. 91.
Iviii FOREWORD
that two loves have produced two cities. 86 While The City of
God was still a project, and long before he wrote its history,
it was thus that St. Augustine conceived of it. After he had
distinguished between a distorted love of self and holy charity,
he immediately added: These are two loves, the one of which
is holy, the other, unholy; one social, the other individualist;
one takes heed of the common utility because of the heavenly
society, the other reduces even the commonweal to its own
ends because of a proud lust of domination; the one is subject
to God, the other sets itself up as a rival to God; the one is
serene, the other tempestuous; the one peaceful, the other
quarrelsome; the one prefers truthfulness to deceitful praises,
the other is utterly avid of praise; the one is friendly, the other
jealous; the one desires for its neighbor what it would for
itself, the other is desirous of lording it over its neighbor;
the one directs its effort to the neighbor's good, the other
to its own.
These two loves were manifested in the angels before they
were manifested in men: one, in the good angels; the other,
in the bad. These two loves have created the distinction be-
tween the two cities, the one the City of the just, the other
the city of the wicked. Established among men in accordance
with the woi^derful and ineffable providence of God which
governs and orders all His creatures, and mingled together,
they live out their life upon this earth, until separated at the
last judgment: the one, in union with the good angels, to
enjoy eternal life in its King; the other, in company with the
bad angels, to be cast along with its king into everlasting
fire. 87 In this historical sketch of the two loves, there is con-
86 Enarr. in ps. 64,2. City of God 14.1 and 27; 15.1. Duos cwitates
faciunt duo amores; fecerunt cwitates duos amores duo.
87 De genesi ad litteram 11.15.
FOREWORD llX
tained universal history itself, as well as the basis of its
intelligibility. Tell me what a people loves and I shall tell
you what it is. 388
What, exactly, are these two cities? They are, as we have
said, two peoples whose nature is determined by the object
of their love. The term 'city 5 is already a symbolic mode of
designation, but there are terms still more symbolical:
Jerusalem, that is, vision of peace; and Babylon, that is, Babel
or confusion. 89 No matter the name, it is always the same
thing referred to, namely, two human societies. 90
To examine the notion still more closely, the surest method
is to describe the members of which these two societies are
composed. This St. Augustine has done in so many ways that
the reader's hesitations on the point are quite excusable, as
are some of his interpreters who have become lost in their
task. However, there is a guiding thread which leads us
securely through the labyrinth of texts. It is the principle,
several times enunciated by St. Augustine, that the two cities
of which he speaks recruit their citizens in accordance with
88 The City of God 19.24.
89 Every kind of society, however numerous, and diversified, is reducible
to two. St. Augustine has derived the term 'city' from Sacred
Scripture. He does not quote the texts, but he has already given an
indication; cf. above, n. 5; also, Ps. 47.2,3,9; 45.5-6. H. Scholz, op. cit.
71, n.l, gives other references to the New Testament (The last ref-
erence he gives should read Apoc. 21.2) . Cf. Scholz (pp. 71-81) for a
fruitful discussion of the notion anterior to St. Augustine. The texts
borrowed from Ticonius are particularly important (pp. 78-81) .
Ticonius had already spoken of Babylon as the City of the Impious,
and Jerusalem as the Church of the living God, Jerusalem means
Vision of peace'; Babylon, as Babel, means confusion. Cf. The City of
God 16.4; 18.2; 19.9.
90 St. Augustine remains faithful to the Greco-Roman tradition regard,
ing city and people. He distinguishes three organic forms of social
life (vita socialis) , the family, the city, the globe. Cf. The City of God
19.7. Scholz is correct in pointing out (pp. 85-6) that it is generally
quite wrong to translate civitas as 'state,' even though in a few rare
cases it would be correct.
FOREWORD
the law of the divine 'predestination 5 alone. All men are par-
tisans of one or the other society because they are predestined
to beatitude with God, or to eternal despair with the Devil. 91
Since there is no conceivable alternative, it is possible to
assert without fear of error that the quality of the citizen
of one or the other society depends, in the final analysis, on
the divine predestination, whose object every man is.
It is in this sense that we must interpret the terms used by
St. Augustine to designate the two cities. Some of the terms
offer no difficulty, as, for example, the City of God, or of
Christ and the city of the Devil; 92 or, the family of men who
live by faith and the family of men who do not live by faith;
the body of the faithful and the body of the unfaithful; the
society of religious men and the society of the irreligious,
that is, of those whom love of God unites and those united
through love of self. 93 On the other hand, doubts arise when
St. Augustine contrasts the earthly city and heavenly City,
the temporal city and the eternal City, or even the mortal
city and immortal society. 94 Both cities are in fact immortal;
the predestined who live in time are, nevertheless, members
of one of two eternal cities, and even on this earth it is possible
to be a member of the heavenly City by the very fact of being
predestined to it. 95 Sometimes, St. Augustine uses formulae
91 Quas etiam mystice appellamus civitates duos (The City of God 15.1) .
92 St. Augustine speaks several times of a City of God and a city
of the Devil. Christ is King in the first; the Devil, in the second.
He also calls the City of God the libera civitas. Cf. The City of God
17.20; 21.1.
93 The City of God 19.17.
94 The City of God 11.1. Also to be noted is the statement that 'There
is a City of God whose citizens we long to be with a love breathed
into us by its Creator.' Cf. also, The City of God 5.18; 21.11.
95 St. Augustine often and in exact terms presents the two cities as in-
termingled in this life. There is a part of the City of God which
lives on earth by faith during its heavenly pilgrimage. Cf. The City
of God 19.17; 22.6.
FOREWORD
Ixi
which are precise; sometimes, not. In case of doubt, the first
should serve as a rule of interpretation of the second. Every
city, regardless of how it is called, is reducible to that whose
King is God, or to that wherein the Devil reigns. The dif-
ferent terms of designation never signify other than that.
The unfortunately frequent absurdity of identifying the
city of the Devil with civil societies as such, or, as is some-
times said, the State, should be avoided. The two, in fact,
may happen to be identical, that is, in some given historical
instance; but, of themselves, they are always distinguish-
able. For example, Roman society of the decadence, with
all the vices which its poets, historians and moralists at-
tributed to it, was nothing more than a fragment of the
city of the Devil, a wayfarer on this earth en route to the evil
end which awaited it. Even after the advent of Christ,
inasmuch as such a society was to endure, what was there to
do except bear with it patiently and predict for it its final
outcome? The servants of God are commanded to forebear, if
necessary, with this wicked and most shameful republic,
whether they be kings, princes, judges, civil or military
officials, rich or poor, bond or free, male or female, in order to
procure, by this forbearance, a place of glory for themselves
in the most holy and august court of the angels, the heavenly
Republic, where the will of God is the law. 96 There can be
no possible doubt that the earthly republic which St.
Augustine condemns, is Rome; and the one which he holds
up in opposition to it is surely the City of God, in which alone
justice reigns, because its founder and head is Christ. 97 Else-
where, in speaking of the men who are 'citizens of the
96 The City of God 2.19.
97 The City of God 2.21.
FOREWORD
earthly republic,' 98 St. Augustine is certainly thinking of the
members of a people or of a State. However, in every case
it is neither the people nor the State which are condemned as
such; rather, they are condemned because they define their
end as on this earth and incorporate themselves into the city
of the Devil, whose law they accept. They are evil only in-
sofar as they aim at being exclusively of the earth; this is
enough to exclude them from the City of God.
The true definition of the earthly city is, therefore, entirely
different." It is not a question of determining whether a man
lives or does not live in one of the societies into which the
world is actually and inevitably divided, but whether he
himself defines his last end as on earth or in heaven. In the
first case, he is a citizen of the earthly city; in the second,
of the heavenly City. There is no change in the aspects of the
problem whether it be raised in relation to societies them-
selves or in relation to individuals. Those which are organized
toward the attainment of no more than earthly happiness are
for that very reason incorporated into the earthly city, namely,
the city of the Devil; those which are organized toward the
attainment of heavenly happiness are incorporated thereby
into the heavenly City, namely, the City of God. The exact
meaning of the earthly city is, therefore, the city of the sons of
the earth, that is, of the society whose members, bound as
they are by their exclusive and preponderant love of the things
of this world, consider the earth as their unique and true
City.
But, whether it is a question of either earth or Heaven,
what end do these cities pursue? When St. Augustine fully
98 The City of God 22.6.
99 Cf., on this point, H. Scholz, op. cit. 87-9; also, Otto Schilling, Die
Stoats- und Soziallehre des hi. Augustinus (Freiburg i Breisgau 1910)
54.
FOREWORD Ixiii
develops his thought on this question, he points out that every
social group sets as its objective the attainment of peace.
However, it is possible to conceive of and desire two distinct
kinds of peace, that of earth or that of Heaven. Nothing pre-
vents us from desiring both together, but there is a radical
difference between those who exclusively pursue earthly peace
and those who in addition desire a heavenly peace. Once
again, we come back to the distinction of the societies ac-
cording to their dominant wills. Every will which tends toward
the peace of God characterizes the people of the City of God;
every will which tends toward the peace of this world as the
final end characterizes the people of the earthly city. The
first will unites all those who make use of the world to possess
God; the second will unites all those who, whether they ac-
knowledge one God or several, aim at using God or the gods
to possess the world. 100 'Tell me what a people loves and I
shall tell you what it is.' If it is legitimate to identify a
specified people with the earthly city, it is only to the degree
that it has already incorporated itself through its prevailing
will into that city. It does not incorporate itself into the
earthly city because it exists in time, which its condition
as a creature demands, but by its refusal to make use of time
to possess eternity.
Just as human society as such is not identified with the
earthly city, so the Church is not identified with the City of
God. The City of God, as we have seen, includes all those
predestined to heavenly happiness, and only those. This, how-
ever, is not the case with the Church. No matter how strictly
we conceive of the Church, there can still be men who will
one day enjoy the vision of God, but who do not, as yet, belong
100 The City of God 15.7; 4.34; 15.15; 19.17.
FOREWORD
to the Church. St. Paul before his conversion is a typical ex-
ample: he was not in the Church of Christ, but he was a pre-
destined citizen of the City of God. On the other hand,
there are within the Church Christians who are not destined
to heavenly happiness; these are members of the Church, but
they are not citizens of the City of God. Nevertheless, just
as certain peoples are incorporated into the earthly city
because of their prevailing will, so the Church is, in fact and
by right in the very essence of her will, the incarnation of
the City of God.
That is why St. Augustine is perfectly correct when he
says that here below the two cities are enmeshed, that is,
'interlocked and fused 5 together. The expression is to be taken
in the strict sense; for, if the ideas of the cities are irreducibly
distinct to the point of mutual exclusion, their citizens are
not distinct while they are wayfarers in time as they are bound
to be. While St. Paul was persecuting the Christians, although
predestined to the City of God, he still mingled with the
people of the earthly city. The City of God numbers some
of its future citizens even among its enemies, just as during
its earthly pilgrimage it bears within its bosom men united to
it by communion in the sacraments, but who do not share the
eternal destiny of the saints. Enmeshed for the present, the
Last Judgment will separate them. 101 But, the members of
the Church who will not enjoy the beatitude of heaven art
those who, although in the Church, do not live according to
the Church. That is why the confusion, which can happen
between the members in time, does not alter the purity of her
essence. Those whose love aspires after the goods of this world,
even though they are members of the Church, are citizens
101 The City of God 1.35.
FOREWORD IxV
of the earthly city; the Church, however, never ceases to
aspire after the goods of the heavenly City. In this respect,
the Church as such is already identified with the City of
God, 102 because, just as those who live in the world according
to the world are already members of the earthly city, so those
who live in the Church according to the Church are already
reigning with Christ in the Kingdom of Christ. 103
Thus conceived, the City of God has defined boundaries,
although they are wholly spiritual, for they coincide with the
limits set by faith. Since the City of God is the Kingdom
of Christ, it is vivified from within by the faith of Christ from
which it has its life. It embraces all men who themselves live
by this faith, for, Christ reigns wherever faith reigns, and,
where Christ reigns, there also is the Kingdom of Christ.
This point is of extreme importance. Henceforth, this new
society will find itself constituted by the agreement of wills,
unified in the love of the same good proposed to them by the
same faith. The agreement of hearts presupposes an agree-
ment of minds; that is why the bond of the holy society is a
doctrine as well as a love : the love is a love of truth, a truth
which can be but a single truth, that of Christ. St. Augustine
has felt this point so deeply that he deduced from it a complete
doctrine on the essential difference between the attitude of the
world and that of the Church toward truth itself. He has, at
times, emphasized this opposition to the extent of conceiving
it as an opposition between the Church and the State.
Since the opposition in question can be only accidental
102 Several times St. Augustine identifies the Church with the City of
God, and also with the Kingdom of Christ. Cf. The City of God
8.24; 13.15; 16.2; 20.9.
103 On this earth, men belong to the City and the Kingdom of Christ.
Of those whose conversation is in heaven (Phil. 3.20) , it can be said
that they reign in His Kingdom; thus, that they are His Kingdom.
Cf. The City of God 20.9.
Ixvl FOREWORD
to the essence of states, let us set it aside and consider, first
of all, the two cities in themselves. The most striking feature
which distinguishes, in this regard, the earthly city from the
City of God is its agnosticism. The earthly city does not imply
the recognition of any truth common to all of its members,
whereas the City of God requires a single truth, whose accept-
ance is the guarantee of its unity and of its very existence.
The ancient philosophies promised happiness to man. They
pointed out the route to it, but there were no two philosophers
of any note in agreement on either the nature of happiness
or the path which would lead to it. The reasons for disagree-
ment were many: one, for example, is vanity, which strives
for originality at any cost, as well as for superiority in wisdom.
However, the principal reason is much deeper: because they
were men, these philosophers sought happiness as men, that
is, with human feelings and reasonings. In order to find the
truth and to agree upon it, there was needed the support of a
divine revelation both sure and common to all. Consequently,
the sacred authors proceeded in a completely different way.
Small in numbers, they all announced the same message, and
this unity of opinion was responsible for their tremendous
following. Thus, on one side there was a great number of
different philosophers, each one of whom had but few fol-
lowers; on the other there was a small number of sacred
writers, all of whom were in agreement and had a great
number of disciples.
That, fundamentally, explains why the attitude of the
State toward philosophy is not the same as that of the Church.
With a pagan people, the State remains indifferent to the
teachers of wisdom. The experience of history is decisive on
this point: never in the history of the earthly city has the State
so resolutely become the patron of any doctrine to the extent
FOREWORD Ixvii
of condemning all others. 'What leader of any philosophic
sect whatsoever has ever been approved in the city of the
Devil, to the extent of disapproving him who either thought
differently or contrariwise?' When he wrote these lines, St.
Augustine had particularly in mind the history of Athens,
where Epicureanism, which denied a divine providence, and
Stoicism, which held for a divine providence, were taught si-
multaneously. It was, however, important for human happi-
ness to know which was right and which wrong. Antisthenes
placed the sovereign good in pleasure; Aristippus, in virtue.
One asserted that the philosopher ought to flee from public
offices; the other, that one should strive after power. Let us
also take into consideration other points of doctrine no less
important: Is the soul mortal or immortal? Is there or is
there not a transmigration of souls? There are contradictions
at every turn. Has the State ever intervened for the sake
of agreement? Never! What people, what senate, what public
authority, what public power of the city of impiety has ever
taken the trouble to settle the philosophical dissensions and
the almost innumerable disputes that could be cited? When
have we ever seen one doctrine approved and authorized,
while others were disapproved and proscribed? Rather, have
we not seen the earthly city make no attempt at order, but,
on the contrary, tolerate confusedly in its bosom every kind
of controversy which places men at odds, not about houses
and fields and financial problems, but about the very sources
of happiness and unhappiness in life? Indeed, the pagan state
is a veritable Babylon; it is a city of confusion, and of the
worst kind of confusion, since it authorizes every sort of
error and has no interest in the truth. This is easily foreseeable,
for the earthly city has as its king the Devil, and what con-
cern is it of such a king if the most contradictory errors op-
Ixviii FOREWORD
pose each other in combat? However diverse these impieties
be, they all perform the Devil's work; it is enough that they
be false to guarantee his power.
St. Augustine, of course, did not foresee the official phi-
losophy of the Marxist State, which is to the City of the Devil
what the Church is to the City of God. The Marxist State,
however, is perhaps nothing more than a belated realization of
a necessity inherent in the very notion of a universal society.
From the moment the earthly city aspires after universality,
which is primarily attributed to the City of God, it becomes
necessary for it, in turn, to promulgate a single dogma and to
assign to all men one and the same earthly good, whose love,
common to all men, will make of them a single people and a
single city.
The 'intellectual order of the City of God, quite contrary
to that of the ancient city, prefigures rather that of the modern
city. If we compare the people of Israel with the Greek cities,
it is clear that, from the very beginning, the holy people
never knew such an indifference. This people immediately
distinguished between true and false prophets, and the perfect
agreement between the sacred authors was always taken as
an unmistakable mark of truth. 'It was they who were the
philosophers of the day, that is, the lovers of wisdom; they
were the sages, the theologians, the prophets and masters of
uprightness and piety. Whoever thought and lived as they did
not either think or live according to the standards of men, but
of God who spoke through them.'
What gives coherence and strength to such a teaching is
that it is founded on the authority of God. The authority
of human reason has proved its weakness by its own defeat.
Even the Devil can devise new schemes. Hence, not only did
St. Augustine fail to foresee the formation of a people, for
FOREWORD
Ixix
whom the State, proclaiming itself a teacher, would decree,
in its turn, a state-truth, but he even doubted that any
society whose sole end is this world could be interested in
any such problem. This does not mean, however, that philos-
ophy cannot teach, along with considerable error, some of
the truths accessible to reason. Long after the first enthusiasm
with which the reading of Plotinus had inspired him, St.
Augustine still did not forget the truths which the philosophers
spoke about God, the Author and Providence of the world,
about the excellence of virtue, love of country and trust in
friendship. All these truths, and a good many others, were
both well known and taught, but intermingled with number-
less errors; in addition, there was neither knowledge of the
end to which they were referred nor of the manner of their
relation to it. At the same time, however, the Prophets taught
these selfsame truths, but free of all error, as well as with an
authority both undeniable and definitive. The unity of the
people of God was due to the very unity of its doctrine. 104
The Church, the living incarnation of the City of God, did
nothing more than maintain the tradition of the Jewish
people whose' heir she was, and whose doctrine she enriched
by adding to the sacred deposit of the Old Testament that of
the New. Her catholicity, that is, her universality, obliged her
to preserve even more carefully the unity of this doctrine.
The diligence with which she endeavored to fulfill her duty
gave birth to a phenomenon, quite unknown to the ancients,
104 The City of God 18.41-43. An objection could be raised against this
thesis, since many differences were introduced into Scripture through
the diversity of translations. St. Augustine, however, had no anxieties
on this point. He considered even the deviations of translators as
inspired by God, so that they were, in a certain sense, prophets. CL
The City of God 18.43. If we realize how much profit St, Augustine
gained from some manifestly erroneous translations, we are inclined
to agree with him.
1XX FOREWORD
namely, heresy. Socrates was put to death for impiety toward
the gods, not for any doctrinal error concerning the nature
of the gods in general. Provided nothing was said against
its own gods, the ancient city could tolerate every kind of
theology. The City of God, however, could tolerate but one,
namely, the one whose acceptance guaranteed its unity as
well as its very existence. Whoever is at variance with this
doctrine breaks the bond of the City. This is exactly what
heresy does. In choosing its own truth, heresy acts as a
destructive force, aroused by the devils, to destroy from within
the City of God at the exact moment when, by the grace
of God, it was beginning to triumph over its enemies from
without. Thence did the Church, the incarnation of the City
of God on earth, derive the imperious duty of doctrinal in-
tolerance, an intolerance which was later to assume a
properly civic and social aspect during those periods when the
City of God, in a sense, absorbed the State, even though this
intolerance is essentially required only within the confines of
the heavenly City.
That it is required there is most manifest; it is for the heaven-
ly City a question of life and death. The Church could not per-
mit indifferently and without intervening that those who
speak in its name hold whatever doctrines they like. The City
of God, whose existence is bound to the unity of the faith,
cannot allow its teachers the right to attack and contradict
her, a right which the City of Confusion indifferently grants
to its philosophers. The only thing that could be done in such
a case was to intervene authoritatively in order to re-establish
unity by calling back those in error to the unity of the faith.
A man in error is not a heretic. But, if such a one becomes a
heretic by preferring his own interpretations to the doctrine
FOREWORD
from which the Church derives her life, there is nothing for
her to do except expel him from the body which he is at-
tempting to destroy. 105 Actually, she does not exclude him;
she merely declares that he has already excluded himself.
From this are begotten the opposite points of view of the
two cities regarding doctrine. On the one hand, there is
indifference and tolerance; on the other, dogmatism and an
essential intolerance. This Augustinian statement of the prob-
lem both describes a constant fact and points to the origin of
numberless difficulties. Some of these difficulties were apparent
to St. Augustine himself, but a great many still more serious
ones were to arise throughout the course of history. Since the
City of God is not of this world, it has no obligation of intol-
erance toward the things of this world; inasmuch as it does not
oblige the earthly city to renounce its proper mission, the City
of God places no obstacles in the way of any individual or
State. Let the Christians therefore think and live as they like :
what does it matter so long as they do not oblige others to
think as they do? Nevertheless, the City of God could not
sanction the earthly city; rather, it must blame, condemn
and, if possible, reform the latter. What means did it feel
it was authorized to use in such an intervention? Therein
lies the whole problem. The solution can vary according to
circumstances. However, if we cling to the position of St.
Augustine, the spiritual authority of the City of God cannot
but intervene to restrain the temporal liberty, which, according
to St. Augustine's own description, the earthly city claims as
its own. When the spiritual opposition between the two cities
r he City of God 18.51. On the problems raised by recourse to the
ecuiur power, <i. J. K. Nourrisson, La Philosophic de Saint Augustin
'Paris 1869) II 05-7.1 The evolution of Augustine's doctrine on this
105 The
secular
(Paris 1*869) II G5~78. The evolution of August!]
point is well treated in A. Combes, La Doctrine Politique de. S.
Augustin (Paris 1927) 352-409.
FOREWORD
unfolds in time, it inevitably degenerates into conflict, and,
although St. Augustine does not seem to have foreseen it,
it is not impossible to imagine an earthly city with a unity
modeled upon and organized against the heavenly City,
possessed of its own doctrinal authority, excluding every kind
of heresy and intolerant of all contradiction.
When the Bishop of Hippo wrote The City of God, there
were no indications that anything such as has just been
described would happen. Among the Greeks, there were two
hundred and eighty-eight different moral sects for the public
to choose from. Even if the definitions of the sovereign good
were reduced to three, as was done by Varro, there still re-
mains a choice, but a choice which was quite unacceptable to
a Christian. If he wanted to know what constituted the
sovereign good, the Christian turned to Revelation. There,
he learned what eternal life is, and he accepted it on faith. 106
Thereafter, everything is settled in the same way for all those
who accept the faith. The present life, into which the Chris-
tian is placed by birth, is for him nothing more than a time
of tribulations which he will face in each of the three grades
of the social order to which he must belong: his family
full of anxieties, his country full of injustice, the world full
of many disorders such as those which attend wars between
states or those which follow from the diversity of tongues
which leads a man to prefer the companionship of his dog
to that of a foreigner whose language he does not under-
stand. 107
Where shall we find a society worthy of the name and
sufficiently one to grant us peace? Shall it be the family?
the city? the earth? Shall it be, for instance, the unification
106 The City of God 19.4.
107 The City of God 19.5-6.
FOREWORD Ixxiii
of the world under one empire? That has been tried and the
failure is manifest. It is naive to think that the unification of
the world would suppress wars. In this, it is difficult to see
any progress. 108 Wherever we turn, this earth offers no refuge
for peace outside the Christian hope of a peace which finds
its fulfilment, not on this earth, but in the beatitude of
heaven. 109 That is the reason why Christians, even though
still in this world, are already living in the next. They already
share in its peace, but they can do so only by participating in
the order from which all peace is derived. This order itself
presupposes the knowledge of the truth, which one day the
vision of God will bestow, a knowledge which is already
sufficiently assured in this life through faith alone. At any rate,
it does assure it. That is exactly what St. Augustine says in one
of those celebrated formulae of his wherein is contained the
sum total of his doctrine: 'In order that the human mind,
haunted by the desire of knowledge, might not lapse into the
misery of error because of its weakness, there is necessary a
divine teaching authority which it can in security obey; there
is also necessary the grace of God that we may fully obey. 5
Grace does not destroy liberty; rather, it is the cornerstone of
liberty. Thus, in this land of exile, where the mortal body
hides from man the vision of God, faith alone is the guide. 110
And, since the whole human race is but one man en route to-
ward God, just as faith alone guarantees unity and peace
in the heart of man and in the bosom of each family, people
and empire, so also, and still more evidently, is it alone able
to guarantee the peace of the City of God. The peace of the
heavenly City is the ordered and harmonious society of those
108 The City of God 19.7.
109 The City of God 19.11.
110 The City of God 19.14.
FOREWORD
enjoying God and enjoying one another in God.' 111 This order
and harmony, however, is due to the submission to and the
acceptance of the eternal Law, brought about here below
through faith. 112
It is impossible to read St. Augustine without being im-
pressed by the great importance of his doctrine or without
frequently hesitating over its interpretation. There are so
many things which arise in his works that we are afraid of
attributing to him what is not contained in these writings.
except in a preparatory way; and at the same time we hesitate
to deny him what is contained herein, at least in germ, since
it found its origin there. We should like to be able to dis-
tinguish with certitude those consequences of his principles,
of which he was aware, from those which he did not and
could not foresee. But, can we? St. Augustine himself hesi-
tated and changed the application of his ideas to suit changing
circumstances; but the consequences of which he was aware
are few in number compared to the immense succession of
circumstances which he did not foresee and which did not
happen until after his time throughout the course of a fifteen-
century-long history. It is not easy now to know how St.
Augustine himself applied his principles to the diverse and
changing conditions of his own day; and to know how he
would have applied these principles to other conditions is
quite impossible. However, it is possible to define at least the
spirit of his doctrine and to outline its guiding features.
The two cities are alike contained in a single universe
whose head is its Creator, God. Contrary to the Stoics, how-
ever, St. Augustine did not conceive of the universe as a
city. Never did he speak of the cosmos as the City of God In
111 The City of God 19.13.
112 The City of God 19.14.
FOREWORD 1XXV
the same sense as a Stoic could speak of it as the City of Zeus.
For Augustine, a society can exist only among beings endowed
with reason. That is why we have seen him posit the universe
as the stage on which the history of societies unfolds; and if
on more than one point the universe is affected by this history,
it is not precisely its own proper history. In this sense, Augus-
tine profoundly differs from the Stoics. When he speaks of a
city, he has in mind not an order of things but a veritable
society.
If we take into consideration the sum total of rational
beings, including the angels, all appear to be subject to the
same history, which was prepared from all eternity in the
depths of the divine Providence and which began with the cre-
ation of the world and of time, and will finish only with the
end of the first and the consummation of the second. Augus-
tine, in fact, took up the task of writing a universal history; if
he was not the last to do so, he certainly seems to have been the
first. In what particularly concerns the nature of man, this
project implied the preliminary recognition of the unity of
mankind and consequently the unity of its history. That is
what he meant when he proposed to treat all men as a single
man whose history would be unfolded without interruption
from the beginning till the end of time. Although the expres-
sion itself is lacking, the notion of a universal history is
clearly implied in the work of St. Augustine.
Is the case the same regarding a philosophy of history?
Here, it is difficult to reply with a simple yes or no; for the
reply implies a certain notion of philosophy. In St. Augustine
himself, the presence of a Christian wisdom of history is un-
deniable, but it is not immediately clear whether, according
to him, a universal history would be possible without Revela-
tion, which alone can unveil for us the beginning and the
FOREWORD
end of the world. However, it is a fact that, largely because of
St. Augustine's influence, the notion of a universal history
has, later on, been thought to be possible. And there is cer-
tainly nothing contradictory in admitting that all men can be
considered as a collective entity whose single history is un-
folded in time. Consequently, it is the limits and method of
this history which are at stake, not its possibility.
When it Is a question of philosophy of history, the prob-
lem becomes more complex, for then we must ask whether,
from the point of view of St. Augustine himself, history was
open to an overall and purely rational, yet true, interpretation,
without the light of Revelation. It is certain, however, that St.
Augustine never attempted to formulate such a philosophy,
His explanation of universal history is essentially religious in
the sense that it derives its light from Revelation. He was,
therefore, actually a theologian of history. The interpretation
which he proposed gets its inspiration less from what we today
call philosophy than from what he himself called Wisdom;
by that he means the Wisdom which is not only from Christ,
but is Christ. Had he been questioned on this point, which no
one ever thought of doing, he would have been considerably
surprised. But, would he have admitted that reason alone
could take from universal history a sense which, within its
proper limits, would be both intelligible and true? Since the
case did not arise, the question has no historical meaning.
And, if there are strong reasons for thinking that he con-
sidered that such an attempt would have been ruinous, there
is no possibility of proving it.
Must we conclude, therefore, that St. Augustine has no
place in the formation of a philosophy of history? This is still
another question, quite distinct from the previous two; for,
If he did not think about it because the question never oc-
FOREWORD Ixxvii
curred to his mind, there is no ground for saying that his work
is not at the origin of the problem. On the contrary, every-
thing invites us to believe that the diverse philosophies of
history which developed after St. Augustine have been so
many attempts to resolve, with the light of natural reason
alone, a problem which was first posed by faith alone and
which cannot be resolved without the faith. In this sense, the
first theologian of history 113 would be the father of all the
philosophies of history, even if he had no such intention, and
even if they were not recognized for what they are : the ruins
of a vaster edifice in which alone they could find a full justi-
fication of their own truth, taken in an authentic sense, of
which they themselves were quite unaware.
If we admit that St. Augustine proposed this theology and
provoked the beginnings of this philosophy, there still remains
the question whether his doctrine implied the precise notion
of a single universal society. If the answer is yes, then we
still must ask: Which society was implied? We have already
seen that St. Augustine never spoke of one society, but of two,
into which the whole human race is divided, In this sense, his
doctrine is at the same time both broader and more restricted
than a doctrine of one universal society. It is broader, not only
because it includes the angels as well as men, but also because,
based upon a revelation which overflows the boundaries of
empirical history both past and future, it integrates into the
unity of a universal explanation both what man knows and
113 It is a question here of theology in the sense of a speculative doc-
trine. The entire Old Testament, together with the interpretation
which the New Testament gave to it, was already actually a universal
history of the known societies treated from the point of view of
Revelation, The history of the people of God was a history of the
divine plan for all peoples. A sketch of this history can be found in
Wisd. 10-19, which narrates how wisdom has directed the people from
the creation of Adam. It is already a discourse on universal history.
IxXVlii FOREWORD
what the Christian believes concerning his history. It is more
restricted, because its very unifying principle prevents it from
uniting all men into a single society. By right, such a single
and truly universal society should have been possible, for
it could have been achieved through the union of all rational
creatures in the same love of the same good. Actually, how-
ever, there was an immediate break. Since every society is the
union of a group of rational creatures in the communion of
the same love, the society of those who love God is irreducibly
cut off from those who do not love God. Whether a universal
earthly society in this world be possible or not, an absolutely
universal heavenly society of all men does seem impossible;
unless, at least, the fundamental distinction made by St.
Augustine between the city of the Devil and the City of
God be abolished.
There, it seems, is the first insurmountable obstacle to any
attempt to translate in terms of a universal human city the
Augustinian notion of the heavenly City. It will come as
no surprise that, in our own time, the mystery of Hell
haunted and distressed Charles Peguy. His own love, like
that of God, could not wish that any man be lost; he never
ceased asking himself how God, the Creator of men, could
permit that some be damned. If some are lost, then evil
is irremediable; and, even if the Church strives with all
her powers to achieve the widest possible unity, how are we
to atone for past failures and how can we fail to dread
those of the future?
The answer probably lies in the very nature of man. To
unite all men in view of the next world, the Church has
at her disposition in this world only faith. Now, it is
not enough that the Cross of Christ was planted on the
earth; there is still required that men be willing to look
FOREWORD
upon it and that those who have at one time looked upon
it do not close their eyes, never to look upon it again. Even
when they bear it upon their shoulders, men do not always
recognize that it is the Cross which God, after carrying
it Himself, gives them to bear. Thus, to look only to the
future, what means has the Church the City of Christ
on its way toward God at her disposition to gather to-
gether the whole flock into one fold under one shepherd?
In other words, what means does she have to make all
men accept the faith of which the Church is the depository
and which her love sets before men?
Love is not imposed by force; besides, the Church has no
force at her disposal Jesus Christ Himself had this power,
but He chose to delegate it to Caesar. But, perhaps Caesar
could be converted and through him, who legitimately
wielded this power, the earthly city could be fashioned
after the model of the City of God. It is not at all necessary
that what is in the world be of the world, that the earthly
be of the earth, and that the temporal constantly refuse
to see itself as a step toward the eternal. As the faith,
which transcends reason, can conquer and give under-
standing, could not the Church, which transcends all na-
tions and gains its members indiscriminately from every
race, country, tongue and state of life, even bestow upon
them a completely earthly unity and peace, a unity and
peace which they would enjoy immediately on earth, if,
as the Church invites them, they were all united by
faith in the love of Christ? Thus, at the time, when it
posed the faith as the frontier of any universal society, St.
Augustine's teaching suggested an ever-increasing effort to
push back this frontier to the very limits of the earth. In spite
of mishaps, Rome already had Christian emperors and re-
1XXX FOREWORD
malned Rome. If, perchance, St. Augustine did not clearly
conceive of a world united and at peace under a Christian em-
peror, who would find in the Christian faith itself the founda-
tion of a kind of temporal peace in this world while awaiting
the perfect peace of the next, he was not slow in pointing
out to sovereigns that such a policy would be a mark of
wisdom as well as their duty. With such a beginning, the
changing circumstances of history could suggest still more.
St. Augustine did not bequeath to his successors an ideal of
a universal human city united in view of purely temporal
ends proper to it; but it was enough that the City of God
exist in order to inspire men with the desire to organize the
earth into a single society made to the image and likeness of
the heavenly City.
If we examine St. Augustine's own teaching more closely,
we shall see why the notion of a temporal human society,
endowed with its own unity and including the whole human
race, could not present itself to his mind. The two cities which
he describes are, as we have seen, mystical, that is, supernatur-
al, in their very essence. The one is the City of truth, of the
good, of order, of peace; it is, indeed, a true society. The
other, since it is defined as the denial of the former, is the city
of error, of evil, of disorder and confusion; it is, in fact, a
mockery of a society worthy of the name. Midway between
these two cities, of which one is the negation of the other,
there is situated a neutral zone where the men of our day
hope to construct a third city, which would be temporal like
the earthly city, yet just in a temporal way, that is striving
toward a temporal justice obtainable by appropriate means.
Such an idea seems never to have occurred to St. Augustine;
at least, he never spoke of it.
FOREWORD
It was not through any failure to foresee the beneficent In-
fluence that the City of God, by the very fact of its existence,
can and ought to exercise on temporal societies, that the pos-
sibility of a unified temporal order, valid and justifiable in
itself from the point of view of its proper end, did not suggest
itself to St. Augustine; rather, it was due to the close associa-
tion between the two notions of world and of evil> so spon-
taneously linked together in his mind. He neither excluded
nor thought about such a possibility. He no more thought of
that than of a philosophy which, through the purely rational
methods at its disposal, would free itself from the confusion of
thought of the ancients and correctly resolve the problems
which belonged to its domain. He was prevented from doing
so less from principles than from his personal experience, for
the reading of Plotinus had sufficiently drawn his attention to
the incapacity of unaided natural reason fully to discover
truth. Granting Christianity, everything seemed to take place
for Augustine as if such a problem no longer existed, and
ought nevermore to arise; or, perhaps, as if the transcendent
importance of the building of the City of God relegated the
temporal order to a place so clearly secondary that it was no
longer worth the trouble to consider it for itself or to organize
it in view of its own ends.
In pressing this point still further, we finally come to realize
both the innermost meaning of The City of God and its
historical significance.
FOREWORD
III
Christian Wisdom and a World Society
The historical significance of The City of God can hardly
be exaggerated. From the point of view of St. Augustine him-
self, it was a companion to the Confessions, whose final
books deal with the history of Creation as told in Holy Writ.
With Creation the history of man began; that is, the centuries-
old tale of two cities, a tale which will end with the final
triumph of the City of God, the ultimate end and true final
cause of the divine work of Creation. Seen in the light of
Christian wisdom, the evolution of world history is a no less
striking 'confession 5 of the love and power of God than the
sight of His creation, and the awareness of the wonders
wrought by grace in the soul of His servant Augustine. Here
all is of a piece, and no great effort is needed to discover
in the Confessions the same general purpose as in St. Augus-
tine's monumental City of God. The great Bishop of Hippo
probably would never have written it except for the fall of
Rome and the ensuing controversies to which that event
gave rise; nevertheless, when the challenge came he was
prepared to meet it.
To his successors, St. Augustine bequeathed the ideal of
a society whose bond of union is the Divine Wisdom. Often
forgotten, sometimes even for centuries, this ideal has always
found men to bring it forth once more into the light of day
to be their inspiration. Frequently, the price of revival has
been the distortion of the ideal.
It would be a long story to relate how, throughout the
FOREWORD
centuries, certain individuals have aspired to establish the
City of God on earth, even to the extent of absorbing within
it the earthly city; whereas others have tried to transform
the Augustinian City of God into a purely earthly city. A
few indications will suggest, at least, the breadth of this
history and the interest which it presents.
Four centuries after the death of St. Augustine, a new
empire was just emerging in Western Europe; at its head
was the Emperor Charles, whose biography has all the
grandeur of a legend. During the lull between two military
campaigns, he was resting at the Palatine Academy; there
he learned Latin from Peter of Pisa, discussed ethics with
Alcuin, and read a good many books. He found much pleas-
ure in reading the works of St. Augustine, especially The
City of GW. m This brief sentence sets us dreaming. What
could have been the thoughts of the ruler of the Western
world around the year 800, when he read the history of
this city, much vaster than his own empire, which was
founded by God with the creation of the world, which every
nation had helped to build, and which would last as long
as time? Doubtless, he passed in review the greatness of his
own role in this history. He was aware of this role and,
what is more, he intended to play his part. Temporal ruler
of the nations which it was his care to lead to God under the
aegis of the Church, Charles might have thought that he
had brought the mystical city upon earth to embody it in an
empire: the body would be the empire; the soul, the mystical
city. Why would the Emperor have found delight in such a
book as The City of God, were it not because the empire
which he himself had built was the embodiment of the City
H4 Eirinhard, Vita Caroli Magrti Impemtoris no. 24, eel, with French
translation by L. Halphen (Paris 1923) 72.
FOREWORD
of God? He was not entirely wrong; his dream had the
reality at least of a dream. Yet, when he died in 814, his
empire perished with him.
Other empires were to come into being after that of Charles,
but they, too, disappeared in their turn, leaving behind
only a glorious memory and magnificent ruins. Who can say
how many empires have become ruins during the life of the
Church? Some have perished with the desire of serving the
Church, as the empires of Isabella the Catholic and of Charles
V; others have fallen, hoping to make use of her, as Napo-
leon Bonaparte; and the list is not yet complete. Doubtless,
the Church will remain as long as the earthly history of the
City of God lasts. Yet, such calamities carry a lesson, and
the history of the world is already long enough for us to have
learned that lesson well.
It would be more correct to say lessons/ for they are
both many and varied; however, our intention here is to
consider but one, of capital importance. Every Christian
thinks of his religion, first of all, as a means to his own salva-
tion which is quite right. The Gospel is addressed directly
to each one of us, as the eternally new Good News; the
message is that every man is a brother of Christ and a son
of God. The soundest guides of the spiritual life have ex-
pressed, each in his way and in unforgettable terms, the
individual character of the divine adoption and the duty it
imposes upon us, St. Bernard wrote: 'Be tfaou the first object
of thy consideration, and be thou also the last,' 115 It is a
challenge, whose full justification is made clear to us by
Pascal, that Christ saves us individually and each one for
himself: *I thought of thee in mine agony; I have sweated
115 St. Bernard, On Consideration 2.3, trans, by a Priest of Mount
Melleray (Dublin 1922) 41.
FOREWORD IXXXV
such drops of blood for thee. 3116 It is the first and foremost
lesson of all, but we must not forget that, when Christianity
came to change the history of the destiny of the individual,
the universal history of the world itself was changed.
The individuality of the Christian message is equaled
only by its universality. It is not without reason that the
Catholic Church signifies the Church of Christ, for Chris-
tianity is with complete right universal. From its very birth
it was universal, and from the fact alone that it appealed to
all men it bore within itself the germ of a universal society,
transcending differences of race and, consequently, freed
from the limits of both space and time. This revelation has
become so familiar to us that it has lost its striking newness.
But, it is easily seen that there is hidden within it an enduring
mystery unfathomable to the constantly renewed efforts, not
only of rulers, but of philosophers and sociologists, to accom-
modate it to their own advantage. From the dawn of Chris-
tianity till our own day, we can trace the unbroken history
of social reformers and self-appointed rnessiahs, attempting
finally to accomplish the work that God did not do, that is,
to establish the universal society, announced by the Gospel,
on its true foundation it does not matter to them what that
foundation is, provided only it be other than that of the
Gospel. This latter is a scandal to reason because it tran-
scends it. It is faith.
The idea of a certitude common to all men, and uniting
them with the bond of the same truth, was, therefore, some-
thing of a surprise; for us today it is commonplace. We meet
it everywhere, in manuals of civic education, in propaganda
harangues to colonials and even in electioneering speeches.
116 Blaise Pascal, Pcnsees 552, trans, by W. F. Trotter in Everyman's
Library (No. 874) 149,
Ixxxvi FOREWORD
On the other hand, we never meet with the assertion that
truth is the same for the illiterate and the learned, since it is
communicated to us through faith. That is the stumbling-
block for the men of today, the reason of which is easily
seen. If there is a modern philosophical proposition which
very few would dream of rejecting, it is that, since reason is
one and the same in all men, the only truths which can be
common to all men are those of reason.
On the other hand, is not faith, inasmuch as it is free
from the exigencies of rational demonstration, incommunica-
ble? If it is incommunicable, it constitutes a type of personal
conviction, respectable of course, but without any right to
impose itself and devoid of the means of universalizing itself.
The only truth which could be the same for all is that which
the learned teach the unlearned, namely, the truth of reason.
A curious feature of some of these modern philosophical
tenets is their venerable antiquity. How could their authors
be in doubt about them? For each one of us, history begins
at the exact spot where our knowledge of it begins. We con-
sider the substitution of mechanism for Aristotelian finality
in the explanation of the structure of living things as a con-
quest of modern thought. Yet, four centuries before Christ,
Aristotle presented purposiveness as a triumph of modern
thought over the outmoded mechanism of his predecessors.
So, also, in the first century of our era, the union of men
through rational truth was far from being a novelty. That
experiment had been tried and had turned out a failure,
although it had been carried on throughout five centuries of
philosophical speculation by men of genius who are still our
masters. All the avenues of knowledge were so carefully ex-
plored that it is unlikely that new ones will be found. There
was the monism of Pafmenides of Elea, the atomism of
FOREWORD
Democritus, the moralism of Socrates, the idealism of Plato,
the realism of Aristotle, the materialism of Zeno, the skeptic-
ism of Caraeades. Finally, mysticism was introduced by the
Pythagoreans of the first century before Christ; it is the last
resort of those who desire to know although their reason
is in doubt. All these represent so many efforts of pure, un-
aided reason, directed by the finest intellects of Greece, to
which we would owe our whole culture were there no
Gospel. Yet, there was no certitude about the world, about
man and his destiny, whose evidence could warrant the
assent of men. It was high time for St. Paul to speak in his
turn: 'What has become of the wise men, the scribes, the
philosophers of this age we live in? Must we not say that God
has turned our worldly wisdom to folly? When God showed
us his wisdom, the world, with all its wisdom, could not find
its way to God; and now God would use a foolish thing,
our preaching, to save those who will believe in it .... So
much wiser than men is God's foolishness; so much stronger
than men is God's weakness.* 117
These memorable and epoch-making words in the history
of the human spirit have been echoed by many Christian
apologists. Why did so many cultured men from the second
to the fourth century of our era, given over to every philo-
sophical discipline, eagerly embrace the new faith? Justin,
Arnobius, Lactantius, Hilary of Poitiers and a dozen more
gave the same response, namely, that faith in the Scriptures
was more reasonable than reason. What a strange myth of
history: Christianity extinguishing the torch of Greek reason
and suddenly plunging the Western world into the darkness
of faith !
H7 1 Cor, 1.20-25.
Ixxxviii FOREWORD
Texts proving the exact opposite are readily available
to anyone who cares to read them. Each and every one con-
sidered himself delivered from the darkness of reason by the
light of faith, the wisest of all wisdoms. It was a great scandal
to the aristocrats of life and learning to realize that twenty
years and more had been spent in vain, learning little that was
of any use; whereas the porters of Rome and Alexandria, and
even their own slaves, provided only that they were Christians,
had a ready response to every question. Without ever having
learned anything except from their humble catechists, these
poor people knew that there was but one God, Creator of
heaven and earth, who made man to His image and likeness,
who providentially watches over man personally, instructs him
in the ways of good and evil and conducts him along the
way which leads to eternal beatitude. How clear it all was!
But the time had come for God to take a hand. It had
been necessary to let man travel the way alone in order to
convince him, by his own failure to find it, that the help of
God was necessary and that this help was at hand. Lactantius
wrote: 118 'And because it was impossible that the divine
method of procedure should become known to man by his
own efforts, God did not suffer man any longer to err in
search of the light of wisdom, and to wander through in-
extricable darkness without any result of his labor, but at
length opened his eyes, and made the investigation of truth
His own gift, so that He might show the nothingness of human
wisdom, and point out to man wandering in error the way of
obtaining immortality/ But, it is precisely because it presents
itself to us as a faith that this message is addressed to all
men. 'Therefore, leaving the authors of the earthly phil-
118 Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 1.1 (Preface) , trans, by W. Fletcher.
FOREWORD
osophy, who bring forward nothing certain, let us approach
the right path; for, if I considered these to be sufficiently
suitable guides to a good life, I would both follow them
myself, and exhort others to follow them. But, since they
disagree among themselves with great contention, and are
for the most part at variance with themselves, it is evident
that their path Is by no means straightforward; since they
have severally marked out distinct paths for themselves
according to their own will, and have left great confusion
to those seeking for the truth. But, since the truth is revealed
from Heaven to us who have received the mystery of true
religion, and since we follow God, the Teacher of wisdom
and the Guide to truth, we call together all, without any
distinction either of sex or of age, to the heavenly pasture.'
Here, we see Christian wisdom laying claim to the
centuries-old right to found a universal society composed of
all those whose life and thought are regulated by the divine
teaching of faith. Here, there was no longer question of
founding an empire. This new society was to be generated
within the bosom of an empire. There was a time when, to
all appearances, it coincided with the empire, but this was
an illusion. Later, it seemed to be dependent upon empires;
the fact was, however, that it contained them. Empires within
the Church fell, without disturbing her by their fall. This
was because the bond of unity of the State was of quite a
different nature from that of the Church. It is not the law
which has united the Church, says St. Ambrose, but the
faith of God/ 19 No more was it a question of founding a
city of philosophers and savants, nor even of uniting into
a more or less vast community men under the hegemony of
119 Utter XXI 24. (PL 1 6, 1 057 B) .
XC FOREWORD
savants and philosophers, since, In order that they be able
to unite mankind under the rule of the same truth, it was
necessary that they agree among themselves. The city capable
of embracing all men is the City of God, that is, the Church.
It is precisely in order to be both one and open to all that
the Church must live by faith. Tiving by faith' 120 was the
way St. Augustine described the heavenly City, and the
charter of its divine foundation remains and has not been
altered,
The paradoxical problem, to which the Christian faith
once gave the answer, has not ceased to be raised in the
self-same terms. Rather, it has become more aggravated. On
the one hand, the preaching of the Gospel has given birth
in the hearts of men to the hope of a universal society of
all men, bound together by the bond of a common truth;
on the other hand, the continuous progress of science, truly
universal in its own order, and capable of giving universally
valid solutions for its proper problems, has powerfully
strengthened our natural confidence in the universality of rea-
son. Faithful to the profound inspiration of St. Augustine, the
Middle Ages had consecrated its best efforts to build this
Christian wisdom, whose common acceptance was to unite
all men into a single city. That explains the historical func-
tion of such immense edifices of ideas as the thirteenth-cent-
ury commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and
the Sumrnae of theology, of which that of St. Thomas stands
out as the masterpiece. Then, it was a question of marshaling
all the forces capable of leading men to the faith: first, the
force of reason, which is preambulatory; secondly, that of
faith itself in its effort to define, unfold and order itself.
120 The City of Cod 19.17.
FOREWORD XCi
Then there appeared on the scene a man endowed with the
apostolic spirit and whose intelligence, although somewhat
turbulent, was that of a prophet. His was the task of reveal-
ing to his contemporaries the ultimate meaning of the
work in which all were collaborating, yet without under-
standing it. From the galaxy of great doctors of the thirteenth
century, it was the particular glory of the Franciscan, Roger
Bacon, not only to be the herald of the social destiny of
Christian wisdom, but also to bring men to a lively aware-
ness of it. 121 No one else ever spoke so emphatically of it, and
he it was who gave it its final formulation. This friar knew
perfectly well why human reason, universal as it is in its own
right, could bring about no agreement. It is because our
minds are darkened by original sin. Where sin reigns, wisdom
cannot flourish; for, every mortal sin is, by its very character,
contrary to wisdom. Where, then, could wisdom be reborn
if not in the bosom of the Church, the universal society
whose end is the extirpation of sin? No philosophy can sur-
mount such an obstacle; only the wisdom of the faith has
such a power; this wisdom is the one perfect wisdom, be-
stowed by the one God upon one human race in view of a
single end, eternal life; it is contained in its entirety in Sacred
Scripture and is developed with the aid of philosophical
reason investigating the contents of the faith. What an ad-
mirable depth there is to this statement of the problem! A
single perfect wisdom bestowed upon one human race by
one God for a single end. Such is the charter of the only uni-
versally human city which is practically possible. Moreover,
that is why there can be but one, namely, the common-
121 Roger Bacon, Opus Majus (ed. Brewer) 1.33; also, Opus Tertium (ed.
Brewer) 72-73. Ct Rudolph Walz, Das Verhadtnis von Glaube und
Wissen bei Roger Bacon (Freiburg 1928) 108,
XC11 FOREWORD
wealth of the faithful, which we call Christianity; one wisdom,
one society under one head.
It is hardly worth noting that men were not convinced.
That is why we have witnessed, from the end of the Middle
Ages, one of the most moving dramas of all history: that
of men grasping eagerly for the universal City which God
proffers to them, yet attempting to build it as an earthly city.
Christian wisdom revealed the means along with the end; men
have accepted the end, but have rejected the means. The
scandal of the faith has not become easier to endure; it has
become less and less bearable, the more human reason fur-
thered its conquests and consolidated its empire. Hence, the
curious consequences, of which we could cite a score of
striking examples from the Renaissance to our own day, that
philosophy and science have usurped the social function of
Christian wisdom and have tried to build upon their own
universality an earthly society as vast as the City of God.
It would be enthralling to follow this history in all its de-
tails, but this, perhaps, is not necessary, for they are innumer-
able and their meaning is simple. In order that religion
might benefit from the universality of reason, it seemed first
that it was necessary to transform Christianity into a natural
religion. This could not be done without rationalizing dogma,
that is, by showing that, basically, Christian Revelation con-
tained nothing that pure reason had not always known.
Once this was done, the battle was already won. A universal
society could and ought to be produced of itself, whose
bond of union would be the universality of reason. How
many such dreamers has the modern world not known? How
many messiahs of a world saved finally by science and phil-
osophy? At the end of the sixteenth century the Italian Cam-
panella instituted his City of the Sun, whose head, as weU
FOREWORD XC111
as high priest and supreme sage, was the metaphysician, who
governs the world by the truth which is found in the great
book containing the rational theology of Campanella. To-
wards the end of the seventeenth century, the German
Leibniz, a philosopher and mathematician of genius, once
more set the work in motion. Today, however, many seem to
think he wrote his Discourse on Metaphysics as material for
the doctoral dissertations of later generations. But Leibniz
had quite another end in view. If the universal city had not yet
been established, the reason was that no universal truth had
been discovered capable of serving as the bond of union. In
the opinion of Leibniz, the Middle Ages had ignored science
and, consequently, philosophy as well; Descartes had erred
in both science and philosophy, but he himself, he thought,
had finally discovered the secrets of both sciences in infini-
tesimal calculus. Such was the gospel announced to the world
in the Discourse on Metaphysics; its author already visioned
the future city rising above the horizon. Reason, he said,
was to be the principle of a universal and perfect religion,
and it was only because men had made poor use of their
reason that the public revelation of the Messiah had become
necessary, 122 And who, if not Leibniz himself, had shown
man the correct use of reason? Read the moving chapters
which conclude the Discourse., or Jean Baruzi's admirable
Leibniz et l y organization religieuse de la terre, and it will be
readily apparent how profound was this philosopher's desire
for a universal society of men united by rational truth. Never-
theless, when he died at Hanover in 1716, there was only
one mourner in his funeral procession his own secretary.
122 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Discours de Metaphysique, eel. H.
Lestienne (Paris 1929) 84fL Cf. Jean Baruzi, op. dt. f 508, n. 2.
FOREWORD
Leibniz' close friend, John Ker von Kersland was later to
remark: 'He was buried like a highway robber. 3
There were still more messiahs to further the work. The
eighteenth century swarmed with them. It was, as has been
remarked, the age of the philosopher's City of God. Among
them were some very strange ones, for example, the Abb
de Saint-Pierre, whose Projet de ptix perpetuelle was a pre-
lude to the League of Nations. There were also great prophets,
such as Condorcet, who, in the revolutionary prison where he
was to take his own life, wrote his secularized version of
Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History entitled Tableau
historique des progres de I'esprit humain. Daunou was to
present it to France in 1795 in the name of the National
Assembly in these words: 'It is a classic book offered to
your republican schools by an ill-starred philosopher.* Since
the world reborn of reason was slow in coming, Henri de
Saint-Simon shortly afterwards founded his 'New Chris-
tianity' in virtue of a personal revelation from his ancestor,
the Emperor Charlemagne; his intention was to reorganize
the world with the aid of a true religion. What was Saint-
Simon's notion of religion? It was the application of the uni-
versal law of gravitation to societies. Religion is the collec-
tion of the applications of general science by means of which
the enlightened govern the ignorant. This new religion was
not yet dead before another was born with its dogmas, priest-
hood, supreme pontiff, orthodoxy and heresies. It was the
religion of Auguste Comte, whose formation can be followed
step by step in the three fascinating volumes of Henri Gouhier,
La jeunesse d* Auguste Comte et la formation du positivisme. in
The work of Comte is of interest to us because it is an exact
123 Cf., also, La vie d' Auguste Comte (Paris 1933) , by the same author.
FOREWORD XCV
rationalistic counterpart of the Christian solution of the prob-
lem of a universal society. We would readily term it an
absurd experiment, were it not for the warmth and occasion-
al light which Comte's volcanic genius sometimes sheds.
Rich with the experience accumulated throughout several
centuries of history, Auguste Comte well knew that the unity
of society drew its strength from its bond of union established
by the system of ideas which served as its inspiration. Every
social systematization thus depended upon a speculative
systematization; the social order of the Middle Ages, which
had derived its life from theological dogma, had disappeared
with it when Scholasticism had been destroyed by the meta-
physical dogma of the seventeenth century, which, in turn,
had succumbed to the scientific criticism of the end of the
eighteenth century. These events were irrevocable. The retro-
grade attempts of De Bonald and De Maistre to return Europe
to the Middle Ages had proved vain. All that was left to do
was to draw from science the general conclusions which, under
the name of 'positive philosophy,' were to form the unifying
dogma of the future society. For, philosophy would engender a
political system, followed by a religion whose supreme pontiff
would be Auguste Comte, who in turn would establish a
Western Republic, with Paris as the capital until such time
as it could be transferred to Constantinople, the future metrop-
olis of Humanity. Every provision was made for this society,
even to its army and navy, and to its coinage, which of course
would bear the image of Charlemagne. Comte neglected
nothing that would assure success. He was well aware that
a supreme pontiff could not pet along without the Jesuits;
consequently, he tried to win them to the cause and offered
them in exchange for their antiquated and outmoded dogma
the new positivist dogma which was to conquer the world.
XCVI FOREWORD
However, the Jesuits did not change popes. When Comte died
in 1857, he was less alone than Leibniz. He left behind in
Europe and in Brazil a handful of faithful, who continued
to live by his thought, but who gave no indication of con-
quering the earth. Occasionally, to refresh his memories of
ancient Paris, a visitor to the Musee Carnavalet looks out of a
window opening on a little street; immediately before him,
almost within arm's reach, he sees a dilapidated house on
whose facade there is a picture representing a kind of Blessed
Virgin or Virgin Mother; however, she is neither holy nor
virgin nor mother. When we think of the magnificent dream
which haunts this poor structure, we have no desire to smile;
the sight is too tragic. If providence has placed there the re-
mains of the Western Republic, it is doubtless that it may
one day be annexed to the nearby Musee as one more sou-
venir of old Paris. Nor is the end in sight. In our own day,
Russian Marxism is making strenuous efforts to turn the same
dream into concrete reality. Save for the element of nation-
alist propaganda, its whole content derives its inspiriation
from the will to ensure the unity of mankind; this time,
however, the unity is to be achieved not through spiritual
truths, but through economic unity. Men now seek their unify-
ing force in matter, which is a principle of individuation, and
therefore of division. Is this not one more case of a Chris-
tian idea gone mad? G. K. Chesterton once said that the
world is full of such ideas, and he was right. But, when it in
turn fails, which is inevitable, what next?
When the Christian becomes aware of the efforts of so
many noble spirits in search of a better and vaster society than
our own, he realizes the infinite value of the gift he has
received and the responsibility which acceptance of the gift
imposes upon him. This City common to all men already
FOREWORD XCV11
exists and continuously builds itself up from living stones
one by one, through the ceaselessly multiplied adherence of
all those who live by faith. That is why the Church so
diligently watches over the deposit of faith which has been
entrusted to her. Some find her severe, stubborn, intran-
sigent and, to use a term dear to the modern conscience,
intolerant. They would like her to be more flexible, more
accommodating, more open to the progress accomplished cen-
tury after century by human reason. Yet, how is it possible not
to see in the light of history the divine Wisdom which guides
her and the meaning of her fidelity? Twenty centuries of
philosophy will soon be added to the five centuries of experi-
ence of which St. Paul has written the appraisal. If the
great Apostle of the Gentiles were to return to our midst to-
day, would he speak otherwise? Philosophers are no more in
agreement in our day than in his in their answers to the
vital problems which man and his destiny pose for us. Our
philosophical dialogues are resolved into parallel monologues,
which the consciousness of fidelity to the party line dispenses
from all other justification.
The desire of the world-wide unity which fills the heart of
man will, in all likelihood, never die. Since the time it was
proffered them, even though in a mystical sense and on a
supernatural level, it has never been forgotten. Generation
after generation has honestly attempted to gather all men with-
in the walls of an earthly city modeled upon the heavenly Jeru-
salem. They have studied everything except the Christian
faith in order to find a common bond, but they have met with
failure. Perhaps the time is ripe to recall the age-old meta-
physical principle that the only force capable of preserving
a thing is the force which created it. It is completely useless
to pursue a Christian end except by Christian means. If we
XCV11I FOREWORD
really want one world, we must first have one Church, and
the only Church that is one is the Catholic Church.
Had we religious unity, we could peacefully enjoy all the
other unities. Basically, there is nothing wrong in attempt-
ing to achieve philosophical unity by philosophical means,
nor in trying to establish world unity through philosophical
unity. Philosophy really is a unifying force, as are science,
art, industry and economic forces. There is no single factor
in human unity that we can afford to despise. But, just
as every metaphysical undertaking is doomed to failure if
secondary principles replace those which are primary, so
also all efforts to unify mankind are bound to fail if the sole
principle of unification is overlooked, especially when that
principle is the unifying force of all the others. Philosophy,
science, art and economics all can help in achieving the
great work of uniting mankind, but neither individually nor
collectively is it in their power to accomplish it. The besetting
sin of all such undertakings is in the fact that they attempt,
without Christ, to fulfill the promise made by Christ to men.
Such an achievement is quite impossible. It is conceivable
that a number of men, more or less large, be unified under
the domination of other men or even of one individual;
however, if we are striving toward the unity of all men, we
must look beyond mankind for the unifying principle. The
only possible source of future unity lies not in multiplicity,
but above it. One World is impossible without One God and
One Church. In this truth lies the ever timely message con-
veyed to man by St. Augustine's City of God,
SAINT AUGUSTINE
THE CITY OF GOD
BOOKS I-VII
Translated by
by
DEMETRIUS B. ZEMA, S.J., Ph.D.
and
GERALD G. WALSH, S.J., MA (Qxon), Ph.D., S.T.D.
Fordham University
New York
August 3, 1949
IMPRIMI POTEST
JOHN J. McMAHON, SJ.
Provincial
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
Chapter
Preface 17
1 Foes of Christ's Name, for Christ's sake, were spared by
the barbarians during the sack in Rome 18
2 A novelty in the history of warfare, that the victors
should spare the vanquished for the sake of the gods
they worshiped 20
3 The folly of imagining that their tutelary gods could help
after they had failed to help Troy 21
4 The shrine of Juno in Troy saved none of the Greeks who
fled to it, whereas the churches of the Apostles saved
all who fled to them from the barbarians .... 24
5 What Cato felt about the general custom of war, of never
sparing the cities conquered from the enemy ... 25
6 Not even the Romans, when they conquered a city, ever
spared the vanquished who had sought refuge in the
temples 25
7 The cruelties perpetrated in the capture of Rome were
due to the customs of war, but the moderation practiced
was due to the power of Christ's Name 27
8 Good and evil fall alike to the lot of both virtuous and
wicked men 28
9 The reason why afflictions fall upon good and bad alike . 29
10 For just men, the privation of temporal goods is no loss
at all 33
11 The end of earthly life, be it long or short .... 37
12 When the burial of a Christian body is forbidden, his
soul suffers no evil thereby ........ 38
13 The reason why we should bury the bodies of the just . 40
Chapter Pa 8 e
14 Christians in captivity never lacked God's consolation . 42
15 Marcus Aurelius Regulus offers an example of a man
enduring voluntary captivity for religion ; except that,
in his case, it profited him nothing because of his
paganism . 42
16 Could the raping which holy virgins in captivity suffered
against their will pollute the virtue of their souls? . 45
17 Death freely chosen out of fear of pain or to avoid
dishonor 46
18 The outrage of another's lust which the soul, without giv-
ing consent, must suffer in the body 47
19 Of Lucretia, who stabbed herself because Tarquin's son
had raped her 49
20 Under no circumstances are Christians authorized to take
their own life 52
21 Instances where killing a man does not involve the crime
of homicide 53
22 Can suicide ever be a token of magnanimity ? . . . .54
23 What is to be said of the example of Cato, who slew him-
self because he could not bear the thought of Caesar's
victory? 56
24 In that virtue in which Regulus surpasses Cato, the Chris-
tians are still more distinguished 57
25 It is wrong to avoid one sin by committing another . . 59
26 In certain peculiar cases, the example of the saints is not
to be followed 60
27 Is it right to have recourse to suicide as a means of avert-
ing sin? . 61
28 By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to
work his sinful will on the bodies of the chaste ... 63
29 What reply should Christians make to the taunt of unbe-
lievers that Christ did not deliver His followers from
the fury of the enemy? . 65
30 Those who berate Christian times desire only to live in
shameful luxury 66
Chapter Page
31 The progressive series of vices which nourished the lust
of empire among the Romans 68
32 The introduction of stage plays 69
33 The vices of the Romans which the overthrow of their
country did not avail to reform 70
34 God's mercy alone mitigated the ruin of the city ... 71
35 On the children of the Church who are hidden among the
infidels, and false Christians in the bosom of the
Church 71
36 Matters to be discussed in the following treatises ... 72
BOOK TWO
1 Limits are to be set, even though argument still seems
called for 75
2 Recapitulation of matters treated in the first book . . 76
3 History is called upon to show the evils that befell the
Romans who worshiped their gods before Christianity
had spread 78
4 The pagan worshipers never received moral precepts
from their gods, and in their acts of worship prac-
tised every manner of obscenity 79
5 The obscenities with which the mothers of the gods,
Cybele, was honored by her devotees 80
6 The gods of the pagans never laid down a rule of right
living 82
7 Apart from the authority of the gods, the theories of
philosophers are of no value, because every man's
natural proneness to evil inclines him to act according
to the examples set by the gods rather than according
to the words of men 83
8 Of the stage plays in which the gods are not shocked,
but appeased, by the presentation of their depravities * 84
9 What the ancient Romans thought about restraints on
poetical license, to which the Greeks, following the
judgment of their gods, wanted to give free rein . . 85
Chapter
10 As a ruse to harm men, the demons are willing to allow
villainies to be told of them, whether true or false . . 88
11 Among the Greeks, actors were given part in public ad-
ministration because it was deemed unfair that they
who acted to appease the gods should be lightly es-
teemed by men 89
12 By taking from the poets permission to slander men,
while permitting it in the case of the gods, the Romans
showed more respect for themselves than for their
divinities 90
13 The Romans should have realized that their gods who
wanted to be worshiped by indecent performances were
unworthy of divine honors 91
14 Plato, who banned poets from a well-regulated city,
was more highly respected than the gods who are
pleased to be honored with stage plays 93
15 It was adulation rather than reason that prompted the
Romans to set up some of their gods 95
16 If the gods had any regard for righteousness, the Romans
should have received rules for a good life from them,
rather than have borrowed laws from other men . . 96
17 The rape of the Sabine women and other iniquities which
had free rein in Rome, even in the good old days . . 97
18 What the history of Sallust has to relate about the con-
duct of the Romans when restrained by fear or ren-
dered lax by security 99
19 The corruption of the Roman state before Christ banished
pagan worship 102
20 The kind of happiness the denouncers of Christianity
wish you to enjoy, and the code of morals by which
they wish to love 104
21 What Cicero thought of the Roman state 106
22 The gods of the Romans were never concerned to save
the republic from ruin wrought upon it by the cor-
ruption of morals Ill
Chapter
23 The vicissitudes of life on earth do not depend on the
favor or enmity of demons, but on the will of the
true God 113
24 The demons were demonstrably the abettors of Sulla's
infamous deeds 116
25 The evil spirits strive powerfully to incite men to wicked-
ness by lending through their example a kind of divine
authority to wicked deeds 118
26 What is to be thought of the demons' alleged secret teach-
ings on good morals, when their public worship is a
school for every kind of wickedness? 121
27 The subversion of order which went with the Romans'
practice of dedicating to their gods, in order to appease
them, the obscenities of the stage 123
28 The saving power of the Christian religion .... 124
29 Exhortation to the Romans to forsake idolatrous worship 125
BOOK THREE
1 Physical evils, which alone the wicked fear, occurred
during the entire period when the worship of the gods
prevailed 129
2 Did the gods worshiped by Romans and Greeks have
any reasons for abandoning Troy to destruction? . . 130
3 The gods had no right to be shocked by the adultery of
Paris, since, according to all accounts, adultery was
so common among themselves 132
4 Varro is of the opinion that it is expedient for men to pre-
tend that they have divine ancestry 133
5 There is no proof that the gods punished the adultery of
Paris, since they failed to avenge that of Romulus'
mother 133
6 The gods did not punish the fratricide of Romulus . . 134
7 The destruction of Troy, which was overthrown by Fim-
bria, one of the generals of Marius 136
Chapter Pa S e
8 Was it wise to place Rome under the protection of the
gods of Troy? ........... 138
9 Can one believe that the peace during Numa's reign was
a gift of the gods? .......... I 38
10 Was it desirable that the Roman Empire should expand
by a mad desire for war, when it could have enjoyed
peace and security by following the careful policy that
made it prosperous under Numa? ...... 139
11 Concerning the statue of the Cumaean Apollo, whose
tears are believed to have forewarned the Greeks of a
disaster, which he could do nothing to prevent . . . 142
12 How the horde of gods which the Romans added to those
instituted by Numa were of no help, in spite of their
numbers .............
13 By what law and treaties the Romans secured their first
wives ..............
14 The Romans waged a sacrilegious war against the Albani,
and gained the victory by their lust to dominate . . 147
15 How the Roman kings lived and died ...... 152
16 Of the first consuls of Rome, of whom one drove the other
out of the country, and then, after committing mon-
strous murders in Rome, died of mortal wounds in-
flicted by a wounded foe ......... 156
17 The gods the Romans worshiped failed to prevent the
calamities which plagued the republic after the inaugu-
ration of the consular rule ........ 158
18 Disasters crushed the Romans during the Punic wars,
and appeals to the gods for protection were futile . . 165
19 The calamity of the Second Punic War, in which the
forces of both belligerents were exhausted .... 168
20 The disaster suffered by the people of Saguntum, who,
hard driven because of their friendship for the Ro-
mans, were given no aid by the Roman gods . . . 169
Chapter Page
21 The Second and Third Punic Wars; Rome's ingratitude
toward Scipio, its deliverer, and the state of its moral
life at the time in which Sallust described it as excel-
lent 172
22 The edict of Mithridates inflicting the death penalty on
all Roman citizens found in Asia 175
23 The internal calamities which plagued the Roman state
after the prodigy by which madness seized all domestic
animals ^ 176
24 The reprisals which followed upon the revolt of the
Gracchi 177
25 The Temple of Concord built, by senatorial decree, on
the scene of slaughter 178
26 Wars of every kind broke out after the erection of the
Temple of Concord 179
27 The civil war of Marius and Sulla 180
28 The triumph of Sulla, the avenger of Marius's barbarity . 181
29 The Gothic invasions compared with the massacres which
the Romans suffered from the Gauls and from the lead-
ers of the civil wars 183
30 The long train of bloody wars which preceded the coming
of Christ 184
31 The effrontery of the pagans, who are no longer allowed
to worship idols, in blaming Christ for their present
woes, when so many afflictions were visited in them in
the time the gods were worshiped 186
BOOK FOUR
1 A summary of the first book 189
2 A summary of the second and third books 190
3 Whether an immense empire, acquired only by war, de-
serves to be accounted a blessing from the viewpoint
of wisdom or happiness? 193
Chapter
4 Without justice, kingdoms are like gangs of robbers . . 195
5 The runaway gladiators gained power almost equal to
that of kings 195
6 King Ninus was the first who sought to extend his power
by making war on his neighbors 197
7 Is the rise and fall of earthly kingdoms to be ascribed
to the help of the gods, or to their denial of such help ? 198
8 To which gods did the Romans fancy that Rome owed
its expansion and preservation, since they did not think
it wise to entrust anything to the protection of a single
god? 200
9 Are the extent and duration of the Roman Empire the
work of Jupiter, who is regarded by his worshipers as
the supreme god? 202
10 Opinions which led some people to set different gods to
preside over different parts of the world .... 203
11 The many gods of the polytheistic heaven are identified
by the learned pagans with one and the same Jupiter . 206
12 Absurd consequences of the view that God is the soul of
the world and the world is the body of God . . . 209
13 What of those who assert that rational creatures alone
are parts of one God ? 210
14 It is improper to ascribe the expansion of kingdoms to
Jupiter, for, if Victory is a goddess, as they say, then
she alone ought to be able to attend to that . . . .210
15 Is it proper for good men to desire to extend their
power? 211
16 Why did the Romans, who assign a god to every object
and every action, wish to place the Temple of Rest
outside the city gates? 212
17 If supreme power belongs to Jupiter, why should Victory
be considered a goddess? 213
18 How they distinguished felicity and fortune, two notions
they regard as divinities 214
8
Chapter Page
19 The women's Fortune 215
20 Concerning Virtue and Faith, whom the pagans honored
with temples and sacrifices, to the neglect of other
virtues which they should have similarly worshiped
had they regarded them as goddesses 216
21 Those who could not grasp the idea of one God should
at least have been satisfied with Virtue and Felicity . 217
22 The knowledge of the gods, which Varro boasts of having
brought to the Romans 219
23 Concerning Felicity, to whom the Romans, while they
lavished worship on a horde of gods, gave no divine
honors for a long time, though she alone would have
sufficed for all their needs 220
24 How the pagans justify themselves for worshiping God's
gifts as though they were gods 224
25 That one God alone should be worshiped, He who is
acknowledged as the giver of felicity, even though His
name be unknown 225
26 The plays in their honor which the gods exacted of their
worshipers 226
27 The three categories of divinities discussed by the pon-
tiff Scaevola 228
28 Did the worship of the gods prove of any help in the
acquisition and expansion of the Roman Empire? . . 229
29 The falsity of the augury which seemed to be a proof of
the strength and stability of the Roman Empire . . 230
30 The sort of ideas about the gods which even the pagan
worshipers admitted they entertained 232
31 The opinions of Varro, who rejected popular belief, and
held that the one God only was to be worshiped, but
did not attain to the knowledge of the true God . . . 234
Chapter Pa 8 e
32 The pretended advantage because of which rulers of the
people wished false religions to persist among the
nations subject to them 237
33 It is by the judgment and power of the true God that the
duration of the reigns of kings and kingdoms is or-
dained 237
34 The kingdom of the Jews was founded by the one true
God and was preserved so long as the Jews persevered
in true religion 238
BOOK FIVE
Preface 241
1 Neither the Roman Empire nor any other realm can be
explained by chance or the position of the stars . . 241
2 Twins may be alike or unlike in their health .... 243
3 The argument from the potter's wheel which Nigidius the
mathematician applied to twins 245
4 The great difference between the character and conduct
of the twins, Esau and Jacob 246
5 How to convince astrologers that they are professors
of nonsense 248
6 On twins of different sex 250
7 On the divination of days for marrying or planting or
sowing 252
8 On those who mean by fate, not the position of the stars,
but the series of causes which depends on the will of
God 254
9 On the foreknowledge of God and man's free will, as
against the definition of Cicero 256
10 Whether men's will are ruled by some kind of necessity 262
11 On the universal providence of God by means of His all-
embracing laws 265
10
Chapter Page
12 The true God rewarded the morality of the ancient Ro-
mans by the extension of their empire even though they
did not worship Him 226
13 On the love of praise which, though a vice, is held a
virtue because it lessens greater vices 272
14 On pruning the love of human praise because the glory
of the saints is all in God 274
15 God's temporal reward for the natural morality of the
Romans 276
16 The reward of the saints who are citizens of the Eternal
City, and for whom the examples of Roman virtues
were not without value 277
17 Roman success in war and what this contributed to those
they conquered 278
18 The lesson of all that the Romans did for human glory
and the earthly city is that Christians should be far
from boasting when they do anything out of love for
their everlasting Fatherland 280
19 The difference between the greed for glory and the lust
for domination 286
20 Whether good qualities are made subservient either to
fame or pleasure, it is equally disgraceful .... 289
21 The Roman Empire was ordained by the true God, who is
the source of all power and by whose providence all
things are ruled 291
22 It is God who decides the length and outcome of men's
wars 292
23 On the war in which Radagaisus, King of the Goths and
adorer of demons, was conquered, along with a vast
army, in a single day 294
24 On the true happiness of Christian emperors .... 296
11
Chapter
25 Of the prosperous days which God granted to the Chris-
tian emperor, Constantine 297
26 The faith and piety of emperor Theodosius .... 298
BOOK SIX
Preface 303
1 Of those who claim to worship the gods, not for temporal
gains, but with a view to eternal life 304
2 Varro's opinion of the pagan gods: he revealed such
kinds of gods and such rites that he would have been
more reverent not to have mentioned them at all . . 308
3 Varro's division of his books on the antiquity of things
human and divine 310
4 It follows from Varro's discussion that the worshipers
of the gods admit that secular interests preceded divine
worship 311
5 Of the three kinds of theology according to Varro: the
first, mythical; the second, physical; the third, political 314
6 The connection between mythical (or fabulous) theology
and political theology: an answer to Varro .... 317
7 The agreement and similarities of the poetical and politi-
cal theologies 320
8 On the interpretations in terms of theories of nature
which the pagan teachers adduce in defense of their
gods 324
9 The office of particular gods 326
10 Of Seneca's freedom of speech in attacking the state
theology with more force than Varro attacked the gods
of the poets 331
11 Seneca's opinion of the Jews 335
12 Once it has been shown that the gods of the pagans have
no power to help us even in our temporal life, it obvi-
ously follows that they can give no one eternal life . 336
12
Chapter
BOOK SEVEN
Preface 339
1 Granted that real divinity is not to be found in the politi-
cal theology, can it be believed that, at least, the select
gods are divine? 339
2 Who are the select gods and whether they are considered
above the functions of the commoner gods . . . 341
3 No good reason can be given for the selection of certain
of the gods, since in many cases the highest functions
are assigned to lower gods 342
4 The lesser gods, in so far as they were free from infamy,
were better off than the select gods whose infamy it
was that made them famous ........ 347
5 Esoteric doctrine and the naturalist interpretation of
pagan mythology 348
6 Varro teaches that God is the spirit of the universe and
yet that the universe in its parts has many souls, each
with a divine nature 350
7 On the reasonableness of distinguishing Janus and Ter-
minus as two gods 351
8 Why the worshipers of Janus imagined an image with two
faces and then wanted it to have four 352
9 On the power of Jupiter compared with that of Janus . 354
10 Is there a real distinction between Janus and Jupiter? . 356
11 Of the surnames of Jupiter which relate, not to many
gods, but to one and the same god 357
12 That Jupiter is also called Pecunia 359
13 When the nature of Saturn or of Genius is expounded, it
is shown to be one with Jupiter 360
14 On the functions of Mercury and Mars 361
15 Of the stars to which the pagans have given the names of
their gods 362
13
Chapter Page
16 On Apollo, Diana, and the other select gods whom the
pagans held to be parts of the universe 363
17 Even Varro admitted that what he said of the gods was
ambiguous 365
18 The best hypothesis to explain the inveterate error of
paganism 366
19 The attempt to reconcile interpretative theory and actual
fact in connection with the worship of Saturn . . . 367
20 The mysteries of the Eleusinian Ceres 369
21 The immoral rites in honor of Bacchus 370
22 On Neptune, Salacia, and Venilia 371
23 Varro takes the earth to be a goddess on the ground that
the world spirit which he thinks is God is diffused
even in the lowest part of his body and imparts to it
a divine force 372
24 Of the surnames of Tellus and what they mean; even
though they pointed to many realities, they should not
have been regarded as a proof of polytheism . . , 375
25 The symbolism of the emasculation of Attis according to
the esoteric doctrine of the Greeks 378
26 The obscene mysteries of the Great Mother .... 379
27 Of the nonsense of the naturalists, who neither worship
the true God nor worship in the way true Godhead
calls for 381
28 That Varro's theology is full of contradictions . . . 383
29 All that the naturalists referred to the universe and its
parts should have been referred to the one true God . 386
30 True religion so distinguishes the Creator from His crea-
tures that there is no danger of worshiping, in place of
the one God, as many gods as there are operations of
a single first principle 386
14
Chapter Page
31 Over and above His general blessings, God gives special
favors to the followers of truth 388
32 That at all times in the past there have been outward
signs pointing to the mystery of Christ's Redemption . 389
33 Only through the Christian religion could the deceits be
exposed of those malign spirits who rejoice that men
should be in error 389
34 On the books of Numa Pompilius which the Senate or-
dered to be burned lest the reasons for the rites as
given in the books might become publicly known . . 391
35 Of the hydromancy, or the visions of demons in water,
by which Numa was fooled 392
15
BOOK I
Preface
|Y DEAR MARCELLINUS : 1 This work which I have
begun makes good my promise to you. In it I am
undertaking nothing less than the task of defending
the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own
gods to its Founder. I shall consider it both in its temporal
stage here below (where it journeys as a pilgrim among sinners
and lives by faith) and as solidly established in its eternal
abode that blessed goal for which we patiently hope 'until
justice be turned into judgment,' 2 but which, one day, is to
1 Marcellinus, fervent Christian and, until his death in September, 413,
close friend of St. Augustine, was appointed by the Emperor Honorius
(395-423) as a Comissioner to deal with the dispute between Catholics
and Donatists in North Africa. Eager for the conversion of the pagan
but well-disposed imperial proconsul, Volusianus, he sought the help
of Augustine and was thus the occasion for the correspondence between
the proconsul and the saint which still survives and throws much light
on the beginnings of the City of God. Added to Volusianus' dogmatic
difficulties was the tremendous scandal, for a pagan, that, after eight
centuries of political stability under pagan worship and pagan philoso-
phy of life, Rome should be attacked and looted in 410 by Alaric the
Goth, less than one century after the conversion of Constantine to
Christianity and less than thirty years after the Emperor Gratian, at
the request of St. Ambrose, removed from the Senate the pagan altar
to Victory. It was to face this difficulty that St. Augustine began in 412
(and finished in 415) the first five Books which, as he tells us in his
Retractations (chap. 69) , were meant as a refutation of the pagan
position that polytheism is necessary for social prosperity and that the
prohibition of paean worship 'is the source of many calamities.'
2 Ps. 93.15.
17
18 SAINT AUGUSTINE
be the reward of excellence in a final victory and a perfect
peace. The task, I realize, is a high and hard one, but God
will help me. 3
I know, of course, what ingenuity and force of arguments
are needed to convince proud men of the power of humility.
Its loftiness is above the pinnacles of earthly greatness which
are shaken by the shifting winds of time not by reason of
human arrogance, but only by the grace of God. For, in
Holy Scripture, the King and Founder of the City of which
I have undertaken to speak revealed to His people the judg-
ment of divine law : 'God resisteth the proud and giveth grace
to the humble.' 4 Unfortunately the swollen spirit of human
pride claims for itself this high prerogative, which belongs to
God alone, and longs and loves to hear repeated in its own
praise the line : To be merciful to the conquered and beat the
haughty down.' 5
Hence, in so far as the general plan of the treatise demands
and my ability permits, I must speak also of the earthly city
of that city which lusts to dominate the world and which,
though nations betid to its yoke, is itself dominated by its
passion for dominion.
Chapter 1
From this earthly city issue the enemies against whom the
City of God must be defended. Some of them, it is true,
abjure their worldly error and become worthy members in
God's City. But many others, alas, break out in blazing hatred
against it and are utterly ungrateful, notwithstanding its
3 Ps. 61.9.
4 James 4.6; 1 Peter 5.5.
5 Virgil, Aeneid 6.853.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 19
Redeemer's signal gifts. For, they would no longer have a
voice to raise against it, had not its sanctuaries given them
asylum as they fled before the invaders' swords, and made it
possible for them to save that life of which they are so proud.
Have not even those very Romans whom the barbarians
spared for the sake of Christ assailed His Name? To this both
the shrines of the martyrs and the basilicas of the Apostles
bear witness : amid the city's devastation, these buildings gave
refuge not only to the faithful but even to infidels. Up to the
sacred threshold raged the murderous enemy, but the slayers'
fury went no farther. The merciful among the enemy con-
ducted to the churches those whom they had spared even
outside the holy precincts, to save them from others who
lacked such mercy. Even these ruthless men, who in other
places customarily indulged their ferocity against enemies,
put a rein to their murderous fury and curbed their mania
for taking captives, the moment they reached the holy places.
Here, the law of sanctuary forbade what the law of war else-
where permitted. Thus were saved many of those who now
cry down Christian culture and who blame Christ for the
calamities that befell the city. Indeed, that very mercy to
which they owe their lives and which was exercised in Christ's
Name they ascribe not to our Christ but to their Fate. Yet,
if they only had sense, they would see that the hardships and
cruelties they suffered from the enemy came from that Divine
Providence who makes use of war to reform the corrupt
lives of men. They ought to see that it is the way of Provi-
dence to test by such afflictions men of virtuous and exemp-
lary life, and to call them, once tried, to a better world, or to
keep them for a while on earth for the accomplishment of
other purposes. As for the fact that the fierce barbarians,
contrary to the usage of war, generally spared their lives for
20 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Christ's sake and, in particular, in places dedicated to Christ's
Name which by a merciful Providence were spacious enough
to afford refuge to large numbers this they should have
credited to Christian culture. They should thank God and,
if they would escape the pains of eternal fire, should turn to
His Name with all sincerity as many have, without sincerity,
in order to escape the results of the present ruin.
For, many of those whom you see heaping impudent abuse
on the servants of Christ would not have escaped the ruin
and massacre had they not falsely paraded as servants of
Christ. Now, with ungrateful pride, impious madness, and
perversity of heart, they work against that Name. They who
turned to that Name with a lying tongue, in order to enjoy
this temporal light, deserve the penalty of eternal darkness.
Chapter 2
The chronicles are filled with wars waged before Rome was
founded, and since it rose and grew to be an empire. Let the
pagans read these chronicles, and then adduce one single
instance of a city falling into the hands of a foe disposed to
spare men seeking refuge in the temples of their gods. Or let
them even point to a single barbarian chieftain who cap-
tured a town and then ordered his soldiers not to kill those
caught in any of the temples. Did not Aeneas see Priam cut
down before the altar, 'polluting with his blood the altar
fires of his own consecration?' 1 And did not Diomedes and
Ulysses 'cut down the sentries in the towered height; since
they grasped the holy image and dared with bloody hands
to touch the maiden chaplets of the goddess'? 2 Nor did that
1 Aeneid 2.501.
2 Ibid. 2.166ff.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 21
which follows come true: 'Since then the hope of Greece
ebbed and slid away/ 3 For, after this, they conquered; after
this, they wiped out Troy with fire and sword; after this, they
cut off Priam's head before the altar to which he fled. Nor
did Troy perish because it lost its Palladium Minerva. And
what had Minerva herself first lost that she should perish?
The guardians of her statue? To be sure, once they were slain,
Minerva could be taken away. It was not the effigy that
guarded the men, but the men who guarded the effigy. For
what earthly reason was Minerva worshiped as the protector
of the land and people, when she could not even protect the
guards of her temple?
Chapter 3
Just think of the kind of gods to whose protection the
Romans were content to entrust their city! No more pathetic
illusion could be imagined. Yet, the pagans are angry with us
because we speak so frankly of their divinities. However, they
feel no anger against their own writers. They even pay them
a fee to teach such nonsense, and think such teachers worthy
of public salary and honors. Take Virgil. Children must read
this greatest and best of all poets in order to impress their
tender minds so deeply that he may never be easily for-
gotten, much as the well-known words of Horace suggest:
The liquors that new vessel first contains ^
Behind them leave a taste that long remains.
3 Ibid.
1 Horace, Epistles 1.2.69.
22 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Now, in Virgil, Juno is pictured as the foe of the Trojans and
as saying, while she goads Aeolus, King of the Winds, against
them:
The nation that I hate in peace sails by,
With Troy and Troy's fallen gods to Italy. 2
Did they act wisely in placing Rome's immunity from de-
feat in the hands of such vanquished deities? Even assuming
that Juno spoke these words in a fit of feminine anger, not
knowing what she said, does not Aeneas himself, so often
styled 'the pious,' relate how
Panthus, a priest of Phoebus and the Tower,
Rushed with his nephew and the conquered gods
And, frantic, sought for shelter at my door. 3
Does he not admit that the very gods, whom he declares
'conquered' are entrusted to his protection rather than he to
theirs, when he is given the charge, 'To thee doth Troy com-
mend her gods, her all'? 4 If, then, Virgil describes such gods
as vanquished, and, because vanquished, needing a man's
help even to escape, surely it is folly to believe that it was wise
to entrust Rome to the safe-keeping of such divinities, and to
believe that Rome could never be destroyed unless it lost its
gods. In fact, to worship fallen gods as patrons and defenders
2 Virgil, Aeneid 1.67.
3 Ibid. 2.319ff.
4 Ibid. 2.293.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 23
is more like having poor odds 5 than good gods. It is much
more sensible to believe, not so much that Rome would have
been saved from destruction had not the gods perished, but
rather that the gods would have perished long ago had not
Rome made every effort to save them.
For, who does not see, if only he stops to consider, how
futile it is to presume that Rome could not be conquered
when protected by conquered custodians, and that the rea-
son it fell was that it lost its tutelary deities? Surely, the only
possible reason why Rome should fall was that it wanted vin-
cible protectors. Hence, when all these things were written
and sung about the fallen gods, it was not because the poets
took pleasure in lying, but because truth compelled intelligent
men to avow them. However, this matter will be more fitly
and more fully treated in subsequent chapters. Here I shall
do my best to wind up in few words what I began to say
about men's ingratitude.
These men, I say, hold Christ responsible for the evils
which they deservedly suffer for their wicked lives. They have
not the slightest appreciation of the fact, that, when they de-
served to be punished, they were spared for Christ's sake.
On the contrary, with impious perversity and bitterness, they
attack His Name with those very tongues which falsely
invoked that Name to save them. The very tongues which,
like cowards, they held in check in the sacred places when
safe, protected and unharmed by the. enemy for Christ's
sake, they now use to hurl malicious curses against Him.
5 ... tenere non numina bona, sed nomina \ No in " ?f* J* ^as
is the correct reading and not omina mala) should be translat ed as
bad debtors/ in the sense that the pagan ^toMtgy^***
tion in return for the worship given them; but ^for the sake of imitatmg
the paronomasia, numma . . . nomina 'gods' and odds have been used
See note in De civitate Dei, ed. Emanuel Hoffman, CSEL XXXX
(Vienna 1899) 8.
24 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 4
As I have already suggested, Troy herself, parent of the
Roman people, for all her sanctuaries of the gods, offered
to her pious citizens no protection from the fire and sword of
the Greeks. On the contrary, 'in Juno's sanctuary, with its
now emptied porticoes, the chosen sentries, Phoenix and
accursed Ulysses, were guarding the spoil. Here, the treasure
of Troy was flung in heaps, torn from robbed and ruined
shrines altars of the gods, chalices of solid gold, and stolen
vestments. And in a long file, children and frightened mothers
stood around. 51 They chose a temple consecrated to a high
goddess, not as a holy place from which it was forbidden to
remove captives, but as a prison house to encage them. And
now, compare the temple not of a god of the common sort
or of one of the rabble of lesser deities, but of Jupiter's own
sister and consort, and queen of all the gods compare that
with the churches raised in memory of the Apostles!
To the temple was dragged the plunder snatched from the
deities and burning temples, not to be distributed among the
vanquished, but to be divided among the victors; to the
basilicas, on the contrary, whatever was found elsewhere
that belonged to them was restored with the utmost reverence
and piety. In the temple, men lost their freedom; here, they
found it. There, captives were walled in; here, captivity was
banned. There, huijian beings were herded together by a
tyrannical foe in order to be carried away into slavery; here,
they were led by a merciful foe in order to be liberated.
Lastly, compare the Greek dandies plying their greed and
pride in the temple of Juno with the uncouth barbarians
1 Aeneid 2.761 ff.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 25
exercising mercy and humility toward the churches of Christ.
Some may be willing to believe that, in their victory, the
Greeks spared the temples of their common gods, and had
no heart to strike down or capture the wretched and beaten
Trojans who sought refuge there, and that Virgil, like a poet,
made the story out of his own head. The fact is, however, that
Virgil merely describes what enemies have the custom of
doing when sacking a town.
Chapter 5
Of that custom, according to Sallust, a historian of out-
standing truthfulness, Cato gives a sample in the speech on
the conspirators which he delivered in the Senate: 'Girls
and young boys are ravished, children are torn from their
parents' arms, matrons must submit to the victor's lust, tem-
ples and homes are plundered, murder and arson, weapons
and corpses, blood and lamentations everywhere.' 1 Had he
not mentioned temples, one might believe that enemies spared
the abodes of the gods. And note that those horrors were to
be feared for the Roman temples not merely from foreign
foes, but from Catiline and his associates, all highly respected
Senators and Roman citizens. But, I suppose, they were also
villains and traitors to their country.
Chapter 6
There is no need to speak of other warring nations who
never gave quarter to the victims they found in the temples
of the gods. Let us take a look at the Romans themselves.
Let us recall to mind and consider the Romans, whose chief
1 Sallust, Catilina 51.
26 SAINT AUGUSTINE
boast it was 'to be merciful to the conquered and beat the
haughty down,' 1 and who were more ready to forgive than
avenge a suffered wrong. Among the innumerable notable
cities they captured and destroyed in order to extend their
sway, where do we read that they passed over the temples
in order to give a chance of escape to those who took refuge
there. Is it possible that they were magnanimous enough to
do so, but that the chroniclers have made no mention of such
facts? Is it likely that their historians, who were on the look-
out for anything deserving of praise, would pass over what
they considered admirable examples of mercy?
That eminent Roman, Marcus Marcellus, who captured
the magnificent city of Syracuse is reported to have wept over
the prospect of its destruction and to have shed his own tears
for it before he shed the blood of its inhabitants. 2 He respected
the chastity of its women, and, before surrounding the city
he issued an ordinance forbidding an attack on the body of
any free person. 3 Yet, in keeping with the custom of war,
the city was laid waste, and we nowhere read that the general,
for all his clemency and concern for chastity, enjoined that
those who fled to a temple should enjoy immunity. No
chronicler would have failed to mention this, since both the
general's weeping and his decree against carnal license were
duly recorded.
Fabius, the conqueror of Tarentum, is praised for refrain-
ing from carrying off the statues of the gods. When his sec-
retary asked him what was to be done with the many sacred
images that had been captured, he spiced his mercy with a
touch of malice. He inquired what kind of statues they were.
1 Virgil, Aeneid 6.853.
2 C. Livy 25.24.
3 Ibid. 25.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 27
On being told that many of them were not only large in
size but also armed, he retorted: 'Let the Tarentines keep
their ill-tempered gods !' 4 If the Roman historians could men-
tion the tears and chivalrous mercy of Marcellus and the
laughing malice and mock restraint of Fabius, how could
they have forgotten to mention the fact that if those generals
had spared anyone in honor of some god or other, by for-
bidding slaughter or the taking of prisoners in temples?
Chapter 7
All the destruction, slaughter, plundering, burning, and
distress visited upon Rome in its latest calamity were but
the normal aftermath of war. It was something entirely new
that fierce barbarians, by an unprecedented turn of events,
showed such clemency that vast basilicas were designated
as places where refugees might assemble with assurance of
immunity. There, no one was to be slain or raped; many
destined for liberation were to be led there by the compassion-
ate enemy; from there, none was to be dragged away into cap-
tivity by a cruel foe. That this was in honor of the Name
of Christ and to the credit of Christian civilization is mani-
fest to all. To see this and not acknowledge it with praise is
ingratitude. To impugn those who give us credit is utterly
unreasonable. Let no man with sense ascribe this to the sav-
age ways of the barbarians. It was God who struck awe into
ruthless and bloodthirsty hearts, who curbed and wondrously
tamed them. God who long ago spoke these words by the
mouth of the Prophet; 'I will visit their iniquities with a rod:
and their sins with stripes. But My mercy I will not take away
from them.' 1
4 ibid. 27.16.
1 Pi. 88.SS.S4.
28 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 8
But, someone will say: 'How, then, is it that this divine
mercy was bestowed on impious and ungrateful man?' Surely,
the answer is that mercy was shown by the One who, day by
day, 'maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and
raineth upon the just and the unjust. 51 For, although some
who reflect on these truths repent and are converted from
their wickedness, others, according to the words of the Apostle,
despise 'the riches of His goodness and long-suffering, in the
hardness of their heart and impenitence' and treasure up to
themselves 'wrath against the day of wrath and revelation
of the just judgment of God Who will render to every man
according to his works.' 2 Nevertheless, God's patience is an
invitation to the wicked to do penance, just as God's scourge
is a school of patience for the good. In like manner, God's
mercy embraces the good with love, just as His severity cor-
rects the wicked with punishment. It has pleased Divine Provi-
dence to prepare for the just joys in the world to come in
which the unjust will have no part; and for the impious,
pains which will not afflict the virtuous. But, as for the paltry
goods and evils of this transitory world, these He allotted
alike to just and unjust, in order that men might not seek too
eagerly after those goods which they see even the wicked to
possess, or shrink too readily from those ills which commonly
afflict the just.
However, there is a vast difference between the manner in
which men use what we call prosperity and adversity. A good
man is neither puffed up by fleeting success nor broken by
adversity; whereas, a bad man is chastised by failure of this
sort because he is corrupted by success. God often shows His
1 Matt. 5.45.
2 Rom. 2.4ff.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 29
intervention more clearly by the way He apportions the
sweet and the bitter. For, if He visited every sin here below
with manifest penalty, it might be thought that no score
remained to be settled at the Last Judgment. On the other
hand, if God did not plainly enough punish sin on earth,
people might conclude that there is no such thing as Divine
Providence. So, too, in regard to the good things of life. If
God did not bestow them with patent liberality on some who
ask Him, we could possibly argue that such things did not
depend on His power. On the other hand, if He lavished them
on all who asked, we might have the impression that God is
to be served only for the gifts He bestows. In that case, the
service of God would not make us religious, but rather
covetous and greedy. In view of all that, when good and bad
men suffer alike, they are not, for that reason indistinguishable
because what they suffer is similar. The sufferers are different
even though the sufferings are the same trials; though what
they endure is the same, their virtue and vice are different.
For, in the same fire, gold gleams and straw smokes; under
the same flail the stalk is crushed and the grain threshed;
the lees are not mistaken for oil because they have issued
from the same press. So, too, the tide of trouble will test,
purify, and improve the good, but beat, crush, and wash away
the wicked. So it is that, under the weight of the same afflic-
tion, the wicked deny and blaspheme God, and the good pray
to Him and praise Him. The difference is not in what people
suffer but in the way they suffer. The same shaking that makes
fetid water stink makes perfume issue a more pleasant odor.
Chapter 9
What, then, did the Christians suffer in the great devasta-
tion of Rome which, if taken in a spirit of faith, would not
30 SAINT AUGUSTINE
have served for their greater good? For one thing, if they
humbly called to mind the sins for which God in His anger
filled the world with calamities, they will not judge them-
selves to be so little responsible for these sins as not to have
deserved some measure of temporal affliction even though
they were far from being criminals and godless men. The fact
is that everyone, however exemplary, yields to some prompt-
ings of concupiscence: if not to monstrous crimes, abysmal
villainy, and abominable impiety, at least to some sins, how-
ever rarely or if frequently however venially. Apart from
this fact, I say, is it easy to find anyone who treats as he
should those whose horrible pride, lust, avarice, damnable
depravity, and scoffing impiety caused God to lay desolate
the earth, as was threatened in prophecy? For the most part,
we hesitate to instruct, to admonish, and, as occasion demands,
to correct, and even to reprehend them. This we do either
because the effort wearies us, or we fear offending them, or
we avoid antagonizing them lest they thwart or harm us in
those temporal matters where our cupidity ever seeks to
acquire or our faint hearts fear to lose.
Thus, good men shun the wicked and hence will not share
in their damnation beyond the grave. Nevertheless, because
they wink at their worse sins and fear to frown even on their
minor transgressions, the good must in justice suffer temporal
afflictions in common with the rest even though they will
escape the eternal. Thus, when God's hand falls as heavily
on them as on the others, it is just that they should taste the
bitter things of this earthly life, because they loved the sweet
things and refused to feel compunction while others sinned.
At times, one hesitates to reprove or admonish evil-doers,
either because one seeks a more favorable moment or fears
that his rebuke may make them worse, and further, discour-
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 31
age weak brethren from striving to lead a good and holy life,
or turn them aside from the faith. In such circumstance, for-
bearance is not prompted by selfish considerations, but by
well-advised charity. What is reprehensible, however, is that,
while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of
wicked men, some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil
deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their
malice. To be sure, the motive behind their tolerance is
that they may suffer no hurt in the possession of those
temporal goods which virtuous and blameless men may law-
fully enjoy; still, there is more self-seeking here than becomes
men who are mere sojourners in this world and who profess
the hope of a home in heaven.
In truth, it is not only people of less lofty virtue, who live
in the married state, having (or seeking to have) children,
and possessing a home and household of their own people
such as St. Paul, in the first churches, instructed and admon-
ished how to live : 1 wives with husbands and husbands with
wives; children with parents and parents with children; ser-
vants with masters and masters with servants it is not only
such people who acquire transitory and earthly goods with
zest and lose them with chagrin, and, because of that, dare
not offend men whose immoral and vicious life revolts them.
Even those who profess a more perfect life and are free
from conjugal bonds and content with poorer food and dress
are also over-solicitous for their good name and security and
frequently forbear to reprehend the wicked, because they fear
their snares and violence. Though the good do not fear the
wicked to the point of stooping, under intimidation, to their
villainies and knavery, they often are unwilling to denounce
1 Col. 3.18-25; Eph. 5.22; 6.9.
32 SAINT AUGUSTINE
such things, even when they might convert some souls thereby.
Here again they fear that a possible failure to effect reform
might jeopardize their security and reputation. It is not that
they are convinced that these latter are an indispensable
means for the instruction of men. They are merely victims
of that human infirmity which loves the flattering tongue
and earthly life, and which dreads the censure of the crowd
and the anguish and death of the body. In other words, they
shirk this duty of fraternal correction because of a certain
slavishness to avarice, not because of the obligations of
charity.
Hence, this seems to me sufficient enough reason why the
good are scourged with the wicked as often as it pleases God
to punish degenerate morals with temporal sufferings. Both
are scourged, not because both lead a bad life, but because
both love an earthly life; not, indeed, to the same extent,
but yet both together a life which the good should think
little of in order that the bad, by being admonished and re-
formed, may attain to eternal life. If the wicked refuse to
join in the blessed endeavor, they should be suffered withal
and loved as enemies are loved in Christian charity, since, as
long as they live, there is always the possibility that they may
come to a better mind. In this respect, the good men to whom
the Prophet addresses these words, 'He is indeed taken away
in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the
watchman,' 2 have not merely an equal but a far graver reason
for concern or reflection. For this reason, overseers 3 or rulers
are set over the churches, to reprimand sin, not to spare it.
Nor is a man fully free from blame who is not in authority,
2 Ezech. 33.6.
3 St. Augustine's word is speculators, possibly a Latin equivalent for
episkopoi (bishops) or for skopoi (lay guardians of discipline) .
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK I 33
but who notices in those persons he meets in social life many
faults he should censure and admonish. He is blameworthy
if he fails to do this out of fear of hurting feelings or of losing
such things as he may licitly enjoy in this life, but to which he
is unduly attached. Finally, there is another reason, well
known to Job, why even good men must drink the bitter cup
of temporal adversity : in order that the human spirit may test
its mettle and come to know whether it loves God with the
virtue of religion and for His own sake.
Chapter 10
Take all those truths into due and thoughtful consideration
and then ask whether there has befallen men of faith and
piety any evil which could not work to their good, according
to the pregnant saying of St. Paul: 'We know that to them
that love God all things work together unto good.' 1 One
might say: They have lost everything they had. But, is that
really true? Have they, for instance, lost their faith? or their
piety? or any of those treasures of an interior life which make
a man rich before God? These are the treasures of Christian
men, and the Apostle Paul, who abounded in them, declared :
'But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought
nothing into this world, and certainly we can carry nothing
out. But having food, and wherewith to be covered, with
these we are content. For they that will become rich, fall into
temptation; and into the snare of the devil, and into many
unprofitable and hurtful devices which drown men into de-
struction and perdition. For the desire of money is the root
1 Rom. 8.28.
34 SAINT AUGUSTINE
of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith,
and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.' 2
Hence, if those who lost their possessions in that devastation
owned them in the spirit of the Apostle who was poor in goods
but rich in spirit, that is, if they used this world as if they
used it not, 3 then they could say with the sorely tried but
unconquerable Job: 'Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave and
the Lord hath taken away : as it hath pleased the Lord so is
it done: blessed be the name of the Lord.' 4 Like a good ser-
vant, Job regarded his Lord's will as his greatest wealth.
Following Him, he grew rich in spirit, and was not saddened
by having to abandon in life those things which he would
shortly have to abandon in death. But, those feebler souls,
who were attached to these goods of earth without loving
them more than Christ, realized by the loss of those goods how
much they had sinned through inordinate attachment. For,
according to the Apostle's words quoted above, their regret
was proportionate to the trouble they made for themselves.
Since they had made light of the lesson taught them by words,
it was fitting that they should be taught in the harder school
of experience. For, when the Apostle said: Tor they that
become rich fall into temptation,' 5 he rebuked not so much
wealth as the hankering after it. Further on, he bids Timothy:
'Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded nor
trust in the uncertainty of riches but in the living God (who
giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy). To do good, to be
rich in good works, to give easily, to communicate to others,
2 1 Tim. 6.6-10.
3 1 Cor. 7.31.
4 Job. 1.21.
5 1 Tim. 6.9.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 35
to lay up store for themselves in good foundation against the
time to come, that they may lay hold on the true life.' 6 They
that used their riches in this manner were compensated for
small losses by great gains. From the goods which they dis-
tributed to others and so placed in greater safety they derived
more happiness than they incurred sorrow from the goods
which they anxiously hoarded and so lost more easily.
Nothing could be really lost on earth save what one would
be ashamed to take to heaven. There were some who took to
heart their Lord's counsel: 'Lay not up to yourselves treas-
ures on earth : where the rust and moth consume, and where
thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves
treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth
consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.' 7 Those
in time of trial proved how wise they were in heeding the
teaching of that Master who is the very Truth and the most
faithful and invincible Guardian of their treasure. For, if
many rejoiced who kept their wealth where the enemy had
little chance of access, how much more truly and surely could
those rejoice who took God's warning and betook themselves
with their treasure whither the enemy could not possibly come
at all?
That is why my friend Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, exchanged
great wealth for voluntary poverty, and became very rich in
holiness. When the barbarians sacked his town of Nola and
he fell into their hands, in his heart he prayed thus, as he
later told me: 'O Lord, do not permit me to be troubled on
account of gold and silver; Thou knowest where all my treas-
ures are.' For, he had stored all his goods where he had been
6 1 Tim. 6.17-19.
7 Matt. 6.19-21.
36 SAINT AUGUSTINE
told to lay up treasures by Him who had foretold that these
miseries would come upon the world. Thus, those who obeyed
the Lord, who told them where and how they should lay up
their treasure, did not lose even their earthly riches to the
invading barbarians. But, those who lived to regret having
disobeyed the advice as to the disposal of their goods learned
the lesson if not by wise foresight, at least by subsequent
experience.
Some good Christians were tortured to reveal to their ene-
mies where their goods were hid. But, the good by which they
themselves were good they could neither reveal nor lose. Yet, if
they chose to be tortured rather than reveal the Mammon of
iniquity, they were not good. At the same time, those who
suffered for gold as much as one should suffer for Christ
needed to be admonished. They needed to learn to love Him,
who made martyrs rich with eternal bliss, rather than to love
gold and silver; to suffer for those was pitiable, indeed,
whether they concealed their possessions by lies or revealed
them by telling the truth. For, when facing torture, no one
lost Christ by confessing Him, and no one saved his gold
except by denying Him. On the whole, sufferings which taught
men to love an imperishable good were better than possessions
which tortured their owners to no purpose.
There were others who had nothing to reveal, but were not
believed and were put to the torture. Perhaps they had
yearned for wealth and were not by choice poor in spirit.
These had to be taught that it was not riches but covetousness
that deserved the torments to which they were subjected. Of
those who, to live a more perfect life, had laid up no gold or
silver, one or other may have been put to the torture in the
belief that they had hidden wealth. If this did happen, any-
one who thus confessed holy poverty surely confessed Christ
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 37
Himself. Though his word was not taken, such a martyr of
holy poverty surely was not tortured without recompense in
Heaven.
Prolonged famine, they say, caused many Christians to
waste away. Here again, by holy patience good Christians
turned suffering to excellent account. For, those who perished
of hunger were deliverd from the ills of this life, as they
might have been by sickness; those who did not perish were
taught the two-fold lesson of living more frugally and fasting
more frequently.
Chapter 11
To be sure, many Christians perished some of them by
the foulest kinds of death. If this is to be lamented, we never-
theless must recall that death is the common lot of all who
have been born on earth. This much I know: that not one
person died who was not destined sooner or later to die.
Moreover, life's ending abolishes all difference between a
long and a short life. For, of two things that no longer exist,
one can hardly be said to be better and the other worse, or
one longer and the other shorter. What difference does it
make what kind of death puts an end to life, when one from
whom it is taken away is not obliged to die again? Since,
with all the risks that daily threaten life, every mortal is in
a measure exposed to every kind of death and is uncertain
which of them he will meet, I ask which is preferable: to
suffer one form of death once for all, or to keep on living in
constant dread of all? I know, of course, how much more
readily people choose to keep on living in fear of many deaths
than to die once and fear no further death. But, what the
sensitive flesh shrinks from in trepidation is one thing, and
what the mind's clear-sighted and careful reason proves
38 SAINT AUGUSTINE
beyond doubt is quite another. No death is to be deemed evil
which has been preceded by a good life; nor can anything
make death evil save what follows it. Consequently, those
who must inevitably die need not be concerned how death
comes, but whither they must go when dead. Since good
Christians know that the death of the God-fearing pauper
with the dogs licking his sores was far better than that of the
impious rich man 'clothed in purple and fine linen,' 1 what
harm have those horrible deaths done to the dead who have
lived worthily?
Chapter 12
It is objected further that, amid such a general massacre,
it was not even possible to bury corpses. Genuine faith is not
too much horrified by this calamity, since it holds fast to the
prophetic assurance that not even devouring wild beasts can
harm the bodies of those who will rise again and from whose
heads not one hair shall perish. 1 Truth Himself would never
have said: Tear ye not them that kill the body and are not
able to kill the soul,' 2 if whatever the enemy might do to
the bodies of the slain could in any way imperil the life to
come. Surely, no one is absurd enough to contend that those
who kill the body are not to be feared before death, because
they can kill the body, and yet must be feared after death,
because they can prevent the burial of the body. In this view,
those who have power to do so much harm to a corpse give
the lie to Christ's words when He spoke of those 'who kill
the body and after that have no more that they can do.' 3
1 Luke 16.19ff.
1 Cf. Luke 21.18.
2 Matt. 10.28.
3 Luke 12.4.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 39
God forbid that Truth Himself should have uttered false-
hood. What His words mean is that they can do something
while they are killing, because there is feeling in the body
being killed, but that afterwards there is no more that they
can do, because there is no feeling in a body that is dead.
So, there may be many bodies of Christians that lie unburied,
but not a single one of them has been separated from the
Heaven and earth which are filled with the presence of Him
who knows how to bring back to life the work of His creative
hands. The Psalmist says: They have given the dead bodies
of Thy servants to be meat for the fowls of the air: the flesh
of Thy saints for the beasts of the earth. They have poured
out their blood as water, round about Jerusalem, and there
was none to bury them.' 4 But, that was said rather to set in
relief the barbarity of those who did such things rather than
the misery of those who suffered them. For, however ghastly
and shocking all this may be in the eyes of men, 'precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.'*
In view of all this, such things as funeral arrangements, the
manner of sepulture, and the pomp of the obsequies are meant
to be a solace to the living rather than a service to the dead.
A costly funeral can do no more good to a villain than a cheap
one or none at all can harm a saint. Magnificent in men's
eyes were the obsequies which a mob of servants provided for
the rich man clad in purple, but far more glorious in the
eyes of God were those of the ministering angels for the
beggar covered with sores they did not take him to a mar-
ble tomb, but bore him up to the bosom of Abraham.
Those against whom I have undertaken to vindicate the
City of God will smile at all this. But, even their own philo-
4 Ps. 78.2,3.
5 Ps. 115.15.
40 SAINT AUGUSTINE
sophers have thought little of the pomp of funerals; and, often
enough, entire armies, dying for an earthly fatherland, took
no thought as to where they would afterwards lie, or of what
beasts they would become the food so that without too much
exaggeration a poet could sing: 'All heaven is tomb to him
who lacks a grave.' 6 There is still less reason to scorn the
unburied bodies of Christians, when we remember the sure
promise that their flesh and all its members shall be restored
and renewed in the twinkling of an eye, not out of the earth
alone, but out of the mysterious recesses of all the other ele-
ments into which their disintegrated bodies were resolved.
Chapter 13
Nevertheless, that is no reason for treating with contempt
and carting away the bodies of the dead, particularly those
of just and believing men, which the Holy Spirit has used as
instruments and vessels for the performance of all good works.
For, if a father's ring, robe, and the like, are the dearer to
children the greater their affection for their parents, human
bodies, which are more intimate and close to us than anything
we can wear, are by no means to be spurned. These are not
merely for man's adornment or convenience; they are part
of his very nature. Hence, in former times, the funerals of
the just were arranged, their obsequies celebrated, and their
tombs prepared with reverent piety. While they themselves
were still living, they gave their children directions regarding
the burial or the transfer of their bodies, and we have it by
the angel's testimony that Tobias earned God's favor for
burying the dead. 1 Our Lord Himself, who was to rise on
6 Lucan, Pharsalia 8.819.
1 Cf. Tob. 2.9; 12.12ff.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 41
the third day, commended and urged others to commend
the good work of that pious woman who poured precious
ointment over His feet in preparation for His burial. 2 The
Gospel recalls with praise those devoted persons who received
His Body with loving care when It was taken down from the
cross and reverently saw to Its shrouding and burial.
These sacred authors do not mean to suggest that there is
any sensibility left in corpses, but they do point out, in order
to confirm belief in the Resurrection, that the bodies of the
dead come within the care of God's providence, and that He
looks with favor upon such works of piety. From those same
writers we learn to our profit how rich can be the reward
for the charity we practice toward those who are alive and
conscious, since God takes into full account whatever respect
and care we bestow upon the lifeless members of the human
body.
Many other things, also, which the Patriarchs said con-
cerning the transfer and interment of their bodies they meant
to be taken in a prophetic sense. This, however, is not the
place to discuss them at length, since what I have already
said suffices for our present purpose.
On the other hand, if the privations of things necessary
for the sustenance of life, such as food and clothing, entails
severe hardship without breaking down, in good men, the
virtues of patience and perseverance or destroying piety in
the soul, but rather puts virtue to the test and enhances its
fruitfulness, how much less will the absence of the customary
trappings at funerals and burials cause any harm to those
who already enjoy repose in the secret abodes of the just.
2 Cf. Matt. 26.10, 13f.
42 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 14
Again, it is complained, many Christians have been led
into captivity. This would be lamentable, indeed, if they had
been led to a place where they could not find their God.
But, Holy Scripture gives us instances of great consolations
bestowed even in such calamity. There were the three boys,
Daniel, and other Prophets who suffered captivity, but in no
case was God's comfort lacking.
In like manner, the same God who did not abandon the
Prophet Jonas even in the belly of a monster did not desert
His faithful ones in the power of a barbarous people, who
were, at least, human.
Those with whom I am at issue will prefer to jest at, rather
than to believe, these accounts; yet they will swallow the tale
of Orion of Methymna, the celebrated harper, thrown over-
board from a ship, then taken up on a dolphin's back and
brought to shore. Our account of Jonas the Prophet is more
incredible. It is more incredible because more wonderful. It
is more wonderful because it reveals a greater power.
Chapter 15
Yet, our detractors have, in the person of one of their
eminent men, a striking example of captivity willingly borne
for religion's sake. Marcus Aurelius Regulus, a Roman gen-
eral, was held in captivity by the Carthaginians. As they
preferred to have their own men liberated from Roman bond-
age rather than to hold Romans in their prisons, they des-
patched to Rome no less a man than Regulus, accompanied
by their own legates to negotiate the exchange. At the same
time, they bound him under oath to return to Carthage, in
case he failed to accomplish what they proposed. Regulus
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 43
set out on his mission, but, on reaching Rome, he persuaded
the Senate not to accede, urging his view that the exchange of
prisoners would not be to the advantage of the Roman re-
public. Having made his plea, he did not have to be com-
pelled to return to the enemy. Of his own accord, Regulus
kept the word he had sworn and returned to Carthage. There,
Rome's enemies slew him, after subjecting him to fiendish
torture. They packed him into a tight wooden box, spiked
with sharp nails on all sides, so that he could not lean in any
direction without being pierced. The agony of pain, together
with privation of sleep, snuffed out his life. Deservedly,
indeed, may one extol a courage that proved itself greater
than such a frightful ordeal. He had sworn by those gods to
return the gods the banning of whose worship, if you be-
lieve the cavilers, brought this terrible disaster upon man-
kind. Yet, if those gods who were honored that they might
make life prosperous here below willed or permitted a horrible
fate to overtake one who scrupulously kept his oath, imagine
what more frightful infliction they would, if angered, bring
down upon the head of a perjured man.
Why do I not confirm my argument with a double proof?
Regulus, no doubt, worshiped the gods so sincerely that to
keep his oath inviolate he was absolutely resolved not to
remain in his own country nor to betake himself anywhere
except back into the hands of his bitterest enemies. On the
one hand, if he regarded this obligation to the gods as profit-
able for his life on earth, which had so tragic an end, he was
surely deluded. For, his example shows that the gods are
utterly useless to secure temporal felicity for their worshipers.
Devoted as Regulus was to their worship, he was, notwith-
standing, led into captivity, and for being unwilling to violate
the oath he swore to them he was slain by being put through
44 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the agony of a newly-devised instrument of torture that for
devilry has no precedent in the memory of man.
If, on the other hand, the worship of the gods bestows
felicity as a reward in the life to come, why do the calumni-
ators of Christian civilization affirm that disaster came upon
Rome because she ceased to honor her deities? Honor them
as devotedly as she might, could she have tasted the waters
of bitterness to the extent that Regulus did? To deny this, one
would have to be so incredibly blind as to fly in the face of
the plain truth and to contend that the entire city could not
taste misery if she worshiped the gods, but that one man
could, or, in other words, that the power of their gods is
more adapted to preserve a multitude than to preserve indi-
viduals. Yet, do not individuals make up the multitude? If
they retort that, by reason of his strength of spirit, Marcus
Regulus could have found happiness even in his captivity
and amid those frightful torments, then I say to them: Go
and look rather for the true strength of spirit that can bring
happiness to the city also.
The happiness of a city and the happiness of individual
men spring from the same source, since a city is nothing else
than a multitude of men in harmonius association. I do not,
therefore, discuss what kind of virtue inspired Regulus. It
suffices, for the moment, that in view of his magnificent
gesture the pagans are compelled to admit that the gods are
honored not for material advantages or goods which are
external and incidental to man. Regulus preferred to forego
all such things rather than to offend the gods by whom he
swore. But what are we to do with people who boast of
having such a fellow citizen, but dread to have a whole city
of like quality? If they have no such dread, then let them
avow that the very evil which befell Regulus might befall
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 45
the city also, though it honor the gods no less conscientiously
than he did. What is more, let them cease heaping calumny
on the Christian era.
But, since this discussion started on the subject of Chris-
tian captives, let those who are impudent and stupid enough
to mock the most consoling of all religions reflect on the
example of Regulus and hold their peace. For, if it was no
discredit to the gods that a most devoted servant of theirs
who was faithful to his oath lost his native land and, in cap-
tivity among enemies, suffered a cruel and lingering death
by a new-fangled instrument of torture, then there is far less
cause to slander the profession of Christianity by reason of
the imprisonment of its holy followers. For, while these
martyrs looked forward with certain faith to a heavenly home,
they still knew that they were but pilgrims even in their own
country.
Chapter 16
The pagans fancy that they are throwing a colossal crime
in the face of the Christians when they put their captivity in
the worst light by charging further that rapes were wrought
not only on married women and marriageable maidens, but
also on consecrated virgins. Here, we are not to speak of
faith, or piety, or strictly of the virtue we call chastity, but
are to confine our discussion to the narrow limits of sense of
shame and reason. I am not so much concerned to give an
answer to strangers as to offer comfort to my fellow Chris-
tians. Therefore, let this stand as a firmly established truth:
The virtue which governs a good life controls from the seat of
the soul every member of the body, and the body is rendered
holy by the act of a holy will.
Thus, as long as the will remains unyielding, no crime,
46 SAINT AUGUSTINE
beyond the victim's power to prevent it without sin, and
which is perpetrated on the body or in the body, lays any
guilt on the soul. An attack on one's body may inflict not
merely physical pain, but may also excite carnal pleasure.
If such an act is perpetrated, it does not compromise the
virtue of chastity, to which the sufferer clings with an iron
will; it merely outrages the sense of shame. We must not
consider as committed with the will what could not, by the
very constitution of nature, occur without some fleshly satis-
faction.
Chapter 17
Anyone with a sense of sympathy will make allowances
for those unfortunate women who took their lives rather than
submit to such dishonor. Yet, no person with sense will be
scandalized at those who would not destroy themselves to
prevent another's sin. To be sure, if no one may kill on his
own authority even a guilty man no law grants such a
power to kill then, even a person taking his own life is, of
course, a homicide. He is the more guilty in killing himself, the
less responsibility he had for the cause that prompted his
suicide.
We justly abominate the crime of Judas, and He who is
Truth Itself judges that Judas by hanging himself heightened
rather than expiated that crime of dastardly betrayal be-
cause by despairing of God's mercy he abandoned himself
to an impenitent remorse and left no room in his soul for
saving sorrow. Still, for how much greater reason must one
who has nothing to expiate through such a self-imposed pen-
alty desist from self-destruction? When Judas killed himself,
he killed a guilty man. Yet, he went out of this life with the
guilt not only of Christ's death but of his own upon his soul,
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 47
because, though he died for one crime, he also died by the
commission of still another. Why, then, should a man, who
has done no wrong, wrong himself, and by killing himself
slay a guiltless man? In order to escape the attack of a
guilty man, why should one commit on himself a sin of his
own merely that another might not commit it on him?
Chapter 18
But, one may fear to be polluted by another's lust. Such
lust will not pollute, if it is another's lust; if it sullies us, then
it is not another's. Since chastity is a virtue of the soul, and
has as its companion fortitude, which is determined to under-
go any evil rather than consent to wrong, and since, more-
over, no man, be he ever so courageous and chaste, has it in
his absolute power to protect his body physically, but only to
consent or to resist with his will, what person of understand-
ing will deem that one's own chastity is lost if somebody
else satisfies his lust on a body that has been forcibly seized
and outraged? For, if chastity is lost in that manner, thert
chastity certainly is not a virtue of the soul, nor can it be
reckoned among those virtues which constitute a good life.
Rather, it must be regarded as one of the physical endow-
ments, such as strength, beauty, sound health, and the like,
which, if diminished, in no way impair a good and righteous
life. If chastity is no more than that, to what purpose should
one strive to preserve it even at the body's peril?
If, on the other hand, it is a virtue of the soul, then it is
not lost even though the body be outraged by force. In fact,
so long as the virtue of holy continence does not yield to the
impurity of carnal lust, the body itself is made holy thereby.
Hence, while the intention not to yield to the assaulters stands
firm, the body retains its purity because the will retains its
48 SAINT AUGUSTINE
intention and, so far as possible, the power to use the body
as a holy thing.
The body is not holy because its members are unimpaired,
or because they are untouched, for they can through any
accident suffer injury and violence, and oftentimes physi-
cians, in the interest of health, resort to surgery that makes
one shudder. Suppose a midwife, probing with her hand to
ascertain a maiden's virginity, either through malice or ig-
norance, or by accident, injures the virginal membrane. I
do not imagine that anyone would be so foolish as to think
that the maiden lost any of her bodily sanctity because of
this broken membrane. So long, therefore, as the will's reso-
lution the cause of the body's sanctity stands firm, an
impure attack by another person does not deprive the body
of its sanctity. This is preserved by its unshakeable continence.
On the contrary, take the case of a woman whose mind is
corrupted, who has broken the vows she swore to God, and
surrenders to her seducer to be dishonored by him. Consider-
ing her at the moment when she is on her way to accomplish
her purpose, can we say that her body is still holy now that
her soul's holiness, on which that of her body depends, is
utterly lost? Surely not. From this let us draw the lesson that
the body's holiness is never lost while the soul retains its
sanctity, even though the body is outraged; yet, the body's
sanctity can be lost along with that of the soul, even though
the body be untouched.
Thus, a woman has no reason to inflict death upon her-
self when, without consent on her part, she has been the victim
of violence and the object of another's outrage. How much
less reason to do so before the deed. Why should certain
homicide be committed while the actual commission of a
crime by another is still in doubt?
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK I 49
Chapter 19
I affirm, therefore, that in case of violent rape and of an
unshaken intention not to yield unchaste consent, the crime
is attributable only to the ravisher and not at all to the
ravished. To my cogent argument to this effect, some may
venture to take exception. Against these I maintain the truth
that not only the souls of Christian women who have been
forcibly violated during their captivity, but also their bodies,
remain holy.
Many recall, with high praise for her chastity, the noble
and ancient Roman matron, Lucretia. Upon her body, over-
powered by brute force, the son of King Tarquin inflicted his
lust. She revealed the crime of the villainous youth to her
husband Collatinus and her kinsman Brutus, both brave and
distinguished men, and bound them to avenge it. Then, be-
coming deeply despondent and unable to bear the shame of
the foul deed perpetrated on her body, she killed herself. What
judgment is to be passed on her? Is she to be regarded as an
adulterous or a chaste woman? Who will cudgel his brains in
trying to resolve the question? On this point someone has
declared, admirably and with truth: 'Wonderful to relate!
Two persons were involved, yet only one committed the
adultery!' Nobly and truly said. Seeing, in this connection,
only the foul passion of the one and the chaste will of the
other, and regarding not so much the union of bodies as the
opposition of wills, he declared: Two persons, but only one
adulterer.'
But, what are we to say of the heavy penalty paid by her
\vho did not commit adultery? The adulterer was driven out
of the country with his father, but she bore the extreme
penalty of death. If to be the unwilling victim of violent rape
is no unchastity, the punishing of a chaste woman is not
50 SAINT AUGUSTINE
justice. I appeal to you, laws and judges of Rome. After the
commission of a crime, you have never wanted a criminal
put to death without sentence of condemnation. If, therefore,
anyone brought this crime before you for judgment and it
were proved that the woman was slain not only unheard,
but also chaste and innocent, would you not impose a duly
severe penalty upon the perpetrator of such a deed?
This is the case of Lucretia. Yes, the much-lauded Lucretia
took the life of the guiltless, chaste, coerced Lucretia. Pro-
nounce your sentence. If you cannot, because the guilty
party is not present in court, why do you shower so much
praise on the slayer of a pure and innocent woman? In any
case, you can in no way defend her before the judges of the
lower regions; if they be of the kind of whom your poets
sing, since she is to be placed among those
. . . who guiltless spoiled themselves through black
despite,
And threw their souls to hell through hate of light. 1
And, should she crave to return to the upper world, 'Justice
and loveless fens forbid the passage thence.' 2 Could it be
that she is not in the upper world because she slew herself,
not without guilt, and with a bad conscience? What if only
she could know notwithstanding the young villain's violent
advances, she was lured by her own lust to acquiesce and,
stung with self-reproach, chose death as the way of atonement?
Not even then should she have made an end to herself, if she
could possibly do penance acceptable to the false gods.
However, if such be the case, and if the verdict, 'two
1 Virgil, Aeneid 6.431-436.
2 Ibid. 6.438.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 51
persons, but only one adulterer, 5 be false the truth being
that both committed adultery, one by open aggression and the
other by secret agreement then, she did not kill herself
with a clean conscience. That being so, her learned champions
cannot affirm that in the lower regions she is not ranged with
those 'who guiltless spoiled themselves.' Thus, the case is
pinned down by both horns of a dilemma: If the suicide is
condoned, the adultery is clear; if the adultery is disproved,
the suicide is doubly clear. There is no way out of the
dilemma. If she is an adulteress, why all the praise? If chaste,
why did she kill herself?
In connection with the noble example of Lucretia, and to
refute those who are incapable of grasping the idea of sanctity
and make sport of the Christian women forcibly violated in
captivity, I need only repeat what was said in her praise:
'Two persons, but only one adulterer.' In their eyes, she could
not have stained her name with an adulterous consent. The
fact is that, though free from adulterous intent, she killed
herself because she suffered an adulterer. She was not in love
with chastity; she was a victim of her sense of shame. The act
committed on her without her consent filled her with shame.
Being a Roman with a passion for praise, she was afraid that,
if she lived, men might think she did willingly what she had
endured by violence. Hence, as witness of her intention, she
decided to put that punishment before the eyes of men who
could not read her conscience. She was ashamed to be thought
a party to the deed if she bore with resignation the foul thing
done to her by another.
It was not in this way that women acted who endured
similar violation, yet are still alive. They did not avenge on
themselves others' wrongs, lest they add sins of their own to
the crimes of others. This they would have done had they
murdered themselves for shame because lustful enemies had
52 SAINT AUGUSTINE
made them victims of violence. They bear within them the
glory of chastity, in the testimony of their conscience, and
this they have in the eyes of their God. They ask for nothing
more, since this is the best way not to depart from the authority
of God's law by any ill-advised attempt to avoid the humilia-
tion of human suspicion.
Chapter 20
It is significant that in Holy Scripture no passage can be
found enjoining or permitting suicide either in order to
hasten our entry into immortality or to void or avoid
temporal evils. God's command, 'Thou shalt not kill/ 1
is to be taken as forbidding self-destruction, especially as
it does not add l thy neighbor,' as it does when it forbids
false witness, Thou shalt not bear false witness against
thy neighbor.' However, no one should think he is guiltless
when he bears false witness against himself, since the duty
to love one's neighbor is measured by the love of oneself, as
it is written, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' 2
To be sure, the commandment forbidding false witness has
another directly in view, and by misunderstanding the matter
some may judge that no one is obliged to be truthful to
himself. But, the fact is that a man who lies against himself
is no less guilty of false witness than if he lied against another.
All the more must we realize that no man may take his own
life, for, in the command, Thou shalt not kill,' there are no
limitations; hence, no one, not even the one who is com-
manded, is to be excepted.
Indeed, some people try to stretch the prohibition to cover
1 Exod. 20.13,16.
2 Matt. 22.39.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 53
beasts and cattle, and make it unlawful to kill any such ani-
mals. But, then, why not include plants and anything rooted
in and feeding on the soil? After all, things like this, though
devoid of feeling, are said to have life, and, therefore, can
die, and so be killed by violent treatment. St. Paul himself,
speaking of seeds, says, 'That which thou sowest is not quick-
ened, except it die first/ 3 while the Psalmist writes: 'And he
destroyed their vineyards with hail.' 4 Must we, then, when
we read, Thou shalt not kill,' understand that it is a crime
to pull up a shrub, and foolishly subscribe to the error of the
Manichaeans?
Putting this nonsense aside, we do not apply 'Thou shalt
not kill' to plants, because they have no sensation; or to
irrational animals that fly, swim, walk, or creep, because they
are linked to us by no association or common bond. By the
Creator's wise ordinance they are meant for our use, dead or
alive. It only remains for us to apply the commandment,
Thou shalt not kill,' to man alone, oneself and others. And,
of course, one who kills himself kills a man.
Chapter 21
The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human
being allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes kill-
ing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission
to an individual for a limited time. Since the agent of
authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible
for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment,
Thou shalt not kill,' to wage war at God's bidding, or for
the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to
death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.
3 1 COT. 15.36.
4 Ps. 77.47.
54 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Thus, Abraham was not only free from the guilt of crimi-
nal cruelty, but even commended for his piety, when he
consented to sacrifice his son, not, indeed, with criminal intent
but in obedience to God. 1 One may well ask, also, whether
it was not at God's command that Jephte killed his daughter
when she met him after he had vowed that he would sacri-
fice to God the first thing he encountered, if he returned
victorious from battle. 2 Samson crushed himself and his ene-
mies to death beneath the ruins of a building. He can only
be excused on the grounds that the Spirit of the Lord, who
wrought miracles through him, had bidden him to do so.
But, apart from such men excepted by the command of a just
law in general or of God, the very Source of justice, in a
special case, anyone who kills a human being, himself or
another, is guilty of murder.
Chapter 22
Those who have put an end to themselves may possibly
impress people with their courage, but are not to be com-
mended for sound judgment. If you consider the matter
rationally, courage is scarcely the right word to use when a
man does away with himself because he is unable to endure
adversity or the misdeeds of others. Surely, we should call it
cowardice when a man is not brave enough to bear up when
his body is in chains or when he has to face the folly of public
opinion. There is more courage in a man who faces rather
than flees the storms of life, and who holds cheap the opinion
of men, especially that of the rabble. For, what is public
opinion but a cloud of error, compared with the light and
purity of one's conscience.
1 Gen. 22.1-13.
2 Judges 11,30-39.
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK I 55
If taking one's own life is to be regarded as greatness of
soul, then this greatness was surely found in Cleombrotus. 1
He is said to have read Plato's book on the immortality of the
soul and then to have thrown himself headlong from a wall
to pass on to what he thought was a better life. He was not
driven to self-destruction by calamity or guilt, true or im-
agined, which he had not the courage to face. It was great-
ness of spirit alone that prompted him to rush at death
and thus sever the sweet links that bound him to this life. But,
the Plato whom he read could have told him that the action
was not good, whatever its greatness. Plato would have been
the first to commit suicide, or even prescribe it, had not that
same mind which saw that the soul was immortal seen that
suicide was wrong and ought to be forbidden.
It will be objected that many men have taken their lives
in order not to fall into the hands of their enemies. Here, we
are not inquiring whether this was so, but whether it was right.
Sound reason should come before examples and examples
should be rooted in reason, as is the case with the great saints
who are especially worthy of imitation. Neither the Patri-
archs nor the Prophets nor the Apostles offer any instance
of suicide. Christ the Lord Himself, who instructed them to
flee from city to city 2 if persecuted, could have bidden them
to do away with themselves in order not to fall into the
persecutors' hands. On the contrary, He neither bade nor
counseled even those to pass out of life for whom He promised
to prepare eternal mansions after their passage from earth.
So, let the pagans who know not God bring forward whatever
examples they will. One thing is clear: Suicide is a sin for
those who worship the one true God.
1 The MSS. read Theobrotus, a mistake for Cleombrotus. For Cleom-
brotus, cf. Cicero, Tusc. disput. I 34.84.
2 Matt. 10.23.
56 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 23
Apart from Lucretia, about whom I expressed my views
above, the pagan champions of suicide find it hard to single
out anyone whose authority they can set up as a norm, ex-
cept the celebrated Cato who killed himself at Utica. 1 He is
not the only example of suicide, but, as a learned and virtu-
ous man, what he did might be regarded as having been right
for him and not right for others. Of Cato's action I must
say, in the first place, that his own friends, some of them
learned, very wisely tried to dissuade him from his action,
and judged it to be the action of a cowardly rather than of a
brave spirit. For them, it was not an exhibition of virtue
forearming against wickedness, but a craven spirit flinching
before the frowns of fortune. In fact, Cato judged himself by
the advice he gave to his own beloved son. 2 For, if it was
infamy to live under a victorious Caesar, why did the father
lead the son on to such a disgrace by bidding him to place
all his hopes in Caesar's liberality? Why did he not compel
his son to die along with himself? If Torquatus gained ap-
plause by putting to death a gallant son who had engaged
the enemy against his orders and won, why did vanquished
Cato spare his vanquished son, but not himself? Was it
more shameful to be a victor contrary to orders than to sub-
mit to a victor contrary to honor?
Thus, Cato deemed it no disgrace to live under the vic-
torious Caesar; otherwise, he would have delivered his son
from that disgrace by his own sword. What else, then, remains
to be said but that Cato loved his son, whom he both hoped
and desired Caesar would spare, as much as he begrudged
1 Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. 42.10-13; Plutarch, Cato Minor, 65-70.
2 Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom. 43.10.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 57
Caesar the glory of pardoning him as Caesar is reported to
have said himself 3 or, to use a milder term, he was ashamed
of such a courtesy at Caesar's hands.
Chapter 24
Those against whom I am writing take it amiss that I
esteem Cato less than the saintly man Job, who preferred
to endure incredible afflictions in his body rather than to rid
himself of them by suicide. I also honor other holy men of
whom it is related, on the authority of our reliable books,
that they submitted to captivity and the tyranny of their
enemies rather than to take their own lives. But, even on the
authority of my opponents' books, I should place Regulus
above M. Cato. After all, Cato never defeated Caesar; when
he himself was defeated, he disdained to submit to the victor,
and to avoid subjection he decided to do away with himself.
Regulus, on the other hand, had once routed the Carthagini-
ans, and, as commander of the Roman forces, gained, not
a victory over his fellow citizens to be lamented, but a victory
over the enemy to be celebrated by the Roman republic. But,
when he later fell into their hands, he preferred captivity to
suicide. As a result, Regulus preserved with honor both his
power of endurance under the Carthaginians and the admira-
tion of his constancy in the hearts of the Romans, and thus
left his conquered body with the enemy and his indomitable
spirit with his fellow citizens. Nor was his refusal to do away
with himself prompted by his inordinate love of life. Of this
he gave ample proof when, in virtue of the oath he had sworn
to his enemies, he returned to them without the slightest
3 Plutarch, Cato Minor, 72; Julius Caesar 54.
58 SAINT AUGUSTINE
hesitation, after he had done more harm by his words in the
Senate than he had done by arms in battle.
Hence, his contempt for this life, shown by preferring to let
cruel enemies end his life by torture rather than to take it by
his own hand, is beyond doubt to be taken as his reasoned
conviction that suicide is a great crime. In the galaxy of
their most celebrated men distinguished for virtue, the
Romans can proudly point to no greater man than Regu-
lus a man whom no prosperity corrupted, for he remained
poor despite his great victory, and whom no adversity broke,
for he returned to incredible torments with resolute and un-
daunted spirit.
These eminently brave and notable men, who had only
an earthly fatherland to protect and who, indeed, worshiped
false gods but with sincerity, scrupulously observing the
oaths sworn to them had the right by the laws of war to
put their conquered foes to the sword. Nevertheless, they
refused to put themselves to the sword in the event of defeat.
Though they had no fear of death, they preferred to submit
to arrogant victors rather than take their own life. If those
men did so, with how much greater reason should Christians,
who adore the true God and have their hopes fixed on a
heavenly fatherland, recoil from that crime, even though
Divine Providence should bring them under the enemy's heel
for a time to test their virtue or to reform their ways. The
Most High never abandons His followers in their distress.
He deigned to come down to earth in humble estate for their
sake, especially as He knew that they are bound by no law
of war or the orders of any military power to put a vanquished
foe to the sword. What error, therefore, so insidious has
ever stolen into men's mind as to imagine that a man may
take his life because an enemy has wronged him or might
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK I 59
wrong him. A Christian may not even put to death the
enemy himself who has done, or intends to do, him mischief.
Chapter 25
But, it is objected, there is ground to fear that, when the
body is forcibly subjected to the enemy's lust, the will may be
insidiously induced by pleasure to yield consent to sin. Hence,
they say, to ward off such sin one is justified in committing
suicide, not so much to thwart the enemy's sin as one's own.
To this I answer that the soul that is subject to God and His
wisdom, rather than a slave to bodily pleasure, will by no
means give consent to carnal desire when that is aroused by
another's lust. But if it be true and the truth is obvious
that self-destruction is an abominable and damnable crime,
who is so foolish as to say: 'Let us sin now, lest we sin later.
Let us commit murder now, that we may not later, perhaps,
commit adultery.' If wickedness has such control that sin is
chosen instead of purity, is not a future and uncertain adultery
preferable to a present and certain murder?
Is it not preferable to perform a bad act which may be
expiated by penance rather than do a wrong that will leave
no room for repentance? I have said this for the sake of those
men or women who think that they should do mortal violence
to themselves in order to avoid a sin; not another's, but their
own possible sin of consenting to a pleasure provoked by
another's lust. God forbid that any Christian who puts his
trust in God and firmly relies on His aid should give sinful
consent to fleshly desires, however aroused. If that rebellious
concupiscence which still clings to our mortal flesh follows, as
it were, a law of its own independent of the law of our wi 1,
its stirrings in the body of one who gives no consent are surely
as free from fault as its stirrings in the body of one who is
asleep.
60 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 26
Again, we are told that in time of persecution certain holy
women, in order to escape the pursuers who threatened their
virtue, threw themselves into a river that they knew would
bear them away, and so met their end; in the Catholic
Church, their tombs are venerated like those of martyrs.
Regarding these women I will not venture to pronounce hasty
judgment. Whether, on the strength of certain thoroughly
reliable testimony, divine authority inspired the Church thus
to honor their memory, I cannot say. It may be so. For, what
if those holy women acted, not through human deception,
but at God's bidding; not in error, but under obedience? In
the case of Samson, we must believe that this was so.
When God commands and makes His command known
beyond doubt, who can call obedience an offence? Who will
reproach such pious homage paid to God? But, no one who
decides to sacrifice a son to God is free from guilt, just be-
cause Abraham did so and was commended for it. When a
soldier kills a man in obedience to the authority under which
he is lawfully commissioned, no law of his country holds him
guilty of murder. In fact, unless he does it, he is guilty of
desertion and disobedience. On the other hand, if he killed
on his own impulse and authority, he would have incurred the
guilt of murder. The same law which punishes him if he acts
without orders will punish him unless he obeys orders.
This is one's duty when a general commands; it is much
more so when God commands! Hence, one who knows that
he is forbidden to kill himself may yet do so if he is ordered
by one whose orders he dare not disobey. Only, let him make
certain that there is no doubt about the divine command.
What goes on in one's conscience we know only from its mani-
festations; we presume not to judge its secrets that remain
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 61
hidden. 1 Tor what man knoweth the things of a man but
the spirit of a man that is in him? 5 This we declare and affirm
and emphatically accept as true: No man may inflict death
upon himself at will merely to escape from temporal difficul-
ties for this is but to plunge into those which are everlasting;
no man may do so even on account of another's sins, fearing
they may lead to a sin of one's own for we are not sullied
by others' sins; no man may do so on account of past sins
for to expiate them by penance we need life all the more; no
one may end his own life out of a desire to attain a better life
which he hopes for after death, because a better life after
death is not for those who perish by their own hand.
Chapter 27
There remains one argument for suicide, which I have
touched on already. It is to the effect that taking one's own
life ,is expedient in order to ward off falling into sin, either
through the allurements of pleasure or the violence of pain.
If we admit this argument, it will logically lead us to the fan-
tastic conclusion that men should prefer to end their lives
as soon as they have been cleansed by the 'laver of regenera-
tion, 51 and have received pardon for all their sins. That is
the proper moment for averting all future sins, when all past
sins are blotted out.
For, if self-inflicted death be morally right, why should
not that moment be chosen above all others? Why should any
baptized man hesitate to end his life? Why should a liberated
spirit enmesh itself again in the manifold hazards of this
life, when it is the easiest thing in the world for him ^ to stave
off everything by snuffing out his life? It is written: 'He that
1 1 Cor. 2.11.
1 Titus 3.5.
62 SAINT AUGUSTINE
loveth danger shall perish in it.' 2 Why, then, does a man love
so many grave dangers, or, if he does not love them, at least
lay himself open to them by clinging to a life which he may
lawfully cast off? But, what insensate folly has so perverted
the heart and blinded it to the truth that a man should fancy
that, though he must kill himself lest he be forced into sin
by one enemy who has overpowered him, he ought to keep
on living, and enduring a world, constantly beset with temp-
tations which come not only from one master, but from the
whole of life. Why waste time in those exhortations we address
to the newly-baptized, striving to enkindle in them a love
for virginal purity, or widowed continence, or conjugal
fidelity? We have simpler short-cuts for avoiding all danger
of sin: we can urge everyone, the moment he is cleansed of
his sins at the baptismal font, to rush himself off to death.
In that way, do we not dispatch him to the Lord sounder
and purer?
Now, if there be anyone who thinks that such an exhor-
tation should be attempted, I say he is not merely silly, he
is mad. After all, with what force could he say to a man,
'Kill yourself, lest to your slight sins you add a mortal one by
living subject to a barbarous and impure master,' when, ex-
cept he cast decency to the winds, he cannot say, 'Kill your-
self the moment your sins are absolved, lest you commit like
and worse sins while you live in a world alluring with filthy
pleasures, mad with unspeakable cruelty, arrayed against
you with errors and terrors'? Since it is wicked to speak
thus, it is undoubtedly wicked to kill onself. For, if there
could be any justifiable occasion for suicide, there would
certainly be none more justifiable than this. Since this is not
so, then there is none at all.
2 Eccli. 3.27.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 63
Chapter 28
Let not your life, then, O faithful followers of Christ be a
burden to you in case your chastity was made the sport of
enemies. You have ample and genuine assurance on that
point so long as your conscience assures you that you gave
no consent to the sins of those who were allowed the liberty
of committng them against you. If you ask me why they
were allowed the liberty, the answer is that the providence
of the Creator and Ruler of the world transcends human
reckoning, and that 'incomprehensible are His judgments
and . . . unsearchable His ways. 51 Nevertheless, carefully
scrutinize your own souls and see whether you were not
unduly puffed up about your virtue of purity, or continence,
or chastity, and whether you have not been led to envy others
by reason of the human praise bestowed on them for these
virtues.
I make no accusation about what I do not know, nor do
I hear what answer your consciences make to the questions
you ask. But, if they reply that the case is as I have supposed
it might be, then do not wonder that you have lost that
chastity which you displayed to win men's praises and retained
that love of chastity which cannot be displayed before men's
eyes. If you did not yield consent to the sin of your oppres-
sors, it was because God's grace came to your aid that you
might not lose it, whereas shame before men followed the
praise of men in order that your heart might not pour itself
out on this. In either case you may find solace, faint-hearted
ones, tested as you have been by the one experience, and
chastened by the other.
1 Rom. 11.33.
64 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Then, there are those faithful women whose consciences,
when interrogated, reply that they have never been puffed up
with pride by reason of their virginity or continence or con-
jugal chastity, but that 'consenting to the humble/ 2 that is,
in a spirit of humility, they rejoiced with fear and trembling
in the gift of God and envied no one who enjoyed the treasure
of like holiness and chastity. Far from that, they held in
little regard that human praise which, as a rule, is lavished
in greater measure the rarer the virtue that elicits the ap-
plause. They desired that the number of the pure should
increase rather than that they themselves should stand out as
more conspicuous among the few. Even those virtuous women
who are both chaste and unenvious, if they have been out-
raged by the barbarians, must not complain that this was
allowed; nor must they think that God is indifferent to such
outrages because He permits to happen what no man can
commit without punishment.
For, like an avalanche, some evil desires are let loose by
the secret judgment of God on earth, and are reserved for
His final and open judgment. Moreover, as regards those
Christian women whose conscience assures them that they
were not puffed up by their virtue of chastity, and who,
nevertheless, had suffered the enemy's outrages in their
flesh, it may possibly be that they had in them some latent
weakness which could have swollen to overwhelming pride
had they escaped this humiliation in the sack of the city.
Hence, just as death snatched some away, 'lest wickedness
should alter their understanding,' 3 so violence snatched some-
thing away from them lest prosperity should endanger their
chastity.
2 Rom. 12.16.
3 Wisd. 4.11.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 65
Hence, neither the women who were already puffed up
because they had suffered no immodest contact, nor those
who might possibly have been puffed up had not contact been
forced on them by the enemy, were robbed of their chastity,
but they learned humility. The former were delivered from a
pride that had already overtaken them; the latter, from a
pride that threatened them.
There is yet another point I should not fail to mention.
Some who suffered violence to their chastity might conceive
of this virtue as belonging to these qualities of the body
which endure so long as the body remains inviolate. Others
might think that sanctity of body and soul does not depend
solely on strength of will sustained by God's help. Still others
might conclude that it is not a blessing which cannot be taken
away from a person against his will. From such an error they
are probably now delivered. For, when they reflect on how
conscientiously they have served God, and when with un-
shaken faith they believe that He would by no means abandon
those who have sewed Him and invoked His aid so faithfully,
and when they further consider how pleasing is chastity in His
sight, then they can draw only one conclusion : that He would
never have permitted these evils if they could destroy in His
saints that purity of soul which He had bestowed on them and
delights to see in them.
Chapter 29
Hence, every servant of the most high and true God has
a comfort all his own, which is not an illusory assurance
resting on the hope of mutable and fleeting things. He has
also earthly life itself, which he may live without regret, for
it is a school training him for life eternal, a school in which
he learns to use temporal goods in the spirit of a pilgrim
66 SAINT AUGUSTINE
refusing to be enslaved by them, and in which his strength
is put to the proof or his character purified by the crosses he
has to bear. There are some who deride the probity of
Christ's followers and, when some temporal calamity hap-
pens to befall them, ask mockingly, ' Where is their God'? 1
Let them, when they are in similar distress, tell us where
their own gods are. For, it is in order to escape that very dis-
tress that they worship the gods and insist that they should
be worshiped.
Every member of the Christian family can answer: 'My
God is everywhere present; He is all everywhere, and no-
where confined by space; He can be present without being
visible, and absent without moving. Whenever He visits
me with misfortune, it is either to prove my merit or to punish
my sins, and for the temporal evils I have borne with holy
resignation He lays up for me an eternal reward. But, pray,
who are you that I should parley with you, especially about
your gods, and much less about my God, who is to be feared
above all gods. For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils:
but the Lord made the heavens.' 2
Chapter 30
Were your former and famous pontifex, Scipio Nasica,
still alive the man whom, amid the panic of the Punic War,
the Senate chose with one voice as the Roman citizen best
fitted to welcome to Rome the obscene rites of the Phrygian
goddess Cybele he would have obliged you to desist from
your impudent decision, and you would not even dare
to look him in the face. Why, then, now that disaster has laid
1 Ps. 78.10.
2 Ps. 95.4, 5.
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK I 67
a heavy hand on you, do you complain about Christian civi-
lization, if it be not that you desire to wallow securely in
voluptuousness and, free from all restraint, give free rein
to your profligate conduct? For, you do not desire to have
peace and abundance of all things, in order to use these goods
like decent men, that is, with measure, sobriety, temperance,
and piety. No, your purpose is rather to pursue every kind
of pleasure with insane extravagance; thus, out of your
prosperity, you conjure up that corruption of morals which
is more deadly than the fury of your enemies.
But that great man of yours, the chief pontifex, Scipio,
that man whom the whole Senate judged your best citizen,
fearing that that very calamity befall you, refused to consent
to the destruction of Carthage, then challenging Rome's
bid for power. He stood out against Cato, who was all for it.
For, Scipio feared complacent security as the enemy of feeble
spirits, and believed that a vigilant fear would be a better,
and a badly needed, teacher for the Romans. He was not
mistaken; the event proved how rightly he spoke. Carthage
was, indeed, destroyed, and the panic fear that haunted
the Roman republic was dispelled. But, a ghastly strain of
disastrous calamities speedily followed these palmy days. Peace
was undermined and shattered first by savage and bloody
strife, then by a concurrence of evil forces that broke out
into civil wars, with their horrible massacres and bloodshed,
and raging mania for proscriptions and plunder, so much so
that those Romans who in more virtuous days feared harm
only from their enemies, now that those days had become
degenerate, had to endure greater misery from their fellow
citizens. That very lust for power which among human vices
obsessed the Roman people more completely than any other,
68 SAINT AUGUSTINE
once it took possession of a few men of exceptional power
also made slaves of the rest of them, now a demoralized
and weary horde.
Chapter 31
For, once rooted in those arrogant spirits, would that
passion for rule check its career before it climbed the whole
ladder of public office to dynastic power? But, it would not
be possible for one to perpetuate himself in power were it
not for the prevalence of illicit favoritism, nor would such
favoritism have any chance to prevail except among a people
corrupted by greed and lust. For, a greedy and lustful people
is what issued from that degrading prosperity which the
famous Nasica, with sure foresight, sought to avert when he
opposed the annihilation of the vast, mighty, and rich enemy
state. This he did that fear might hold in check sensuality,
which, thus restrained, might not itself degenerate into de-
bauchery; and, with debauchery curbed, an end might be
made of avarice. If these vices were banished, Nasica rightly
thought, virtue would flourish and grow to the profit of the
State, and a measure of freedom befitting virtue would be an
abiding reward.
It was for those very reasons and because of his far-
seeing patriotism that the same chief priest I cannot repeat
too often that he was unanimously acclaimed by the Senate
of his time as the worthiest citizen gave cold reception to
the project of the Senate to build an amphitheatre, and in a
very earnest, emphatic, and impressive speech repressed their
enthusiasm for the scheme and convinced them that they
should not suffer the licentious ways of the Greeks to con-
taminate the sturdier life of their country, or tolerate foreign
depravity to undermine and enervate Roman character. He
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK I 69
spoke with such force and effect that his words stirred the
Senators' foresight to action, and they henceforth forbade
the laying out even of those movable seats which the public
had already begun to use.
With how much zeal would a man like Nasica have kept
the stage plays themselves far from Rome, if he had dared
defy the authority of those he regarded as gods. But, he
either did not know that those deities were mischievous de-
mons, or, if he did, he imagined that they should be propiti-
ated rather than condemned. Not yet had that heaven-sent
teaching been proclaimed to the nations, that teaching which
purified the heart by faith, inspired human desire to seek
eagerly for things heavenly and divine, and emancipated it
from the domination of arrogant demons.
Chapter 32
Learn, then, you who pretend ignorance, and mark well
the facts while you grumble against the One who delivered
you from such masters. The stage plays, those exhibitions of
depravity and unbounded license, were not introduced in
Rome by men's vices, but by the command of your gods.
Far more justifiably might you have paid divine honors to
your Scipio than worshiped gods such as those, for they were
not more virtuous than their high priest. And now mark
further, if your mind, besotted as it is with long draughts
of error, is still able to entertain a sane thought. Your gods,
in order to allay a plague that seized upon your bodies, ordered
stage plays in their honor, but your pontifex forbade the con-
struction of the stage in order to keep a plague from seiz-
ing your souls. If your mind retains enough sense to esteem
the soul more than the body, then choose whom you should
worship.
70 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Moreover, the plague did not abate when the wanton
madness of the stage plays took possession of a warlike people,
once accustomed only to the sports of the arena. It was the
work of wicked spirits crafty enough to know that that
pestilence would soon run its course. They seized the occasion,
to their great delight, to inject a more deadly contagion, not
into men's bodies, but into their souls. This contagion so
beclouded the wits of those wretches, so befouled and de-
ranged them, that even now for, future generations will
scarcely believe the story if it reaches them after the City
of Rome has been laid waste, those who were so infected by
the plague and were able to flee from Rome to Carthage
were day after day stampeding one another in a mad rush
after the clowns in the theatres.
Chapter 33
Are your minds bereft of reason? You are not merely mis-
taken; this is madness. Here are people in the East bewailing
Rome's humiliation, and great states in remote regions of
the earth holding public mourning and lamentation and
you Romans are searching for theaters, pouring into them,
filling them, behaving more irresponsibly than ever before.
It is this spiritual disease, degeneration, decline into im-
morality and indecency that Scipio feared when he opposed
the erection of theaters. He saw how easily ease and plenty
would soften and ruin you. He did not wish you to be free
from fear.
He did not think that the republic could be happy while
walls were standing, yet morals were collapsing. But, you
were more attached to the seductions of foul spirits than
to the wisdom of men with foresight. That is why you take
no blame for the evil you do, but blame Christianity for the
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 71
evil you suffer. Depraved by prosperity and unchastened by
adversity, you desire, in your security, not the peace of the
State but liberty for license. Scipio wanted you to have a
salutary fear of the enemy, lest you should rot in debauchery.
Though crushed by the enemy, you put no check on im-
morality, you learned no lessons from calamity; in the depths
of sorrows you still wallow in sin.
Chapter 34
Yet, you owe your survival to that God who, in sparing
you, warned you to amend your lives by penance. Despite
your ingratitude, He made it possible for you to escape from
the hands of the enemy either by professing to be His fol-
lowers or by taking refuge in the churches of the martyrs.
Romulus and Remus, we are told, with a view to increasing
the population of their city, opened an asylum where refu-
gees were to be immune from every molestation. That ad-
mirable example redounded to the honor of Christ. The
destroyers of the city re-established the institution of its
founders. But, what is remarkable is that what the founders
did to increase the number of their citizens the destroyers did
to save a number of their enemies.
Chapter 35
This or something fuller and fitter, if it can be found is
the core of the reply that the redeemed followers of Christ
the Lord and the pilgrim City of Christ the King should give
to their enemies. But, our city must remember that, in the
ranks of its enemies, lie hid fellow citizens to be, and that it is
well to bear with them as enemies until we can reach them in
their profession of faith. In like manner, the City of God
72 SAINT AUGUSTINE
itself, so long as it is a wayfarer on earth, harbors within
its ranks a number of those who, though externally associ-
ated in the common bond of the sacraments, will not be
associated in the eternal felicity of the saints. Some there
are who, covertly or overtly, join the enemy in abusing the
God whom they have promised to serve. They are to be
seen flocking sometimes to the theatres with the godless, and
at other times to the churches with us.
There is little reason to abandon hope of reclaiming some
of these persons, for among our most notorious adversaries
are men destined to be friends, however little they know it.
On earth, these two cities are linked and fused together,
only to be separated at the Last Judgment. And now, with
God's help, I must turn to what I think ought to be said
about the origin, progress, and respective destinations of the
two cities, in order to exalt the glory of the City of God, which
by contrast with other cities will gleam the more brightly.
Chapter 36
I still have something to say against those who hold our
religion responsible for the disaster to the Roman state, be-
cause it has forbidden them to sacrifice to their gods. Here,
I must remind you of all the grave calamities which have
occurred (or of as many as will suffice for my purpose), and
which the city itself, or the provinces subject to its rule,
had to endure long before their sacrifices were banned. For,
beyond all doubt, they would have laid at our door all of
those miseries, if at that time our religion had enlightened
their minds, and had forbidden their sacrilegious rites.
Then, I must show on account of what virtues and for
what reason the true God, in whose power are all kingdoms,
vouchsafed His help to spread the empire, while those fictions
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK I 73
they call gods gave no help at all, but, on the contrary,
worked untold harm by their deceptions and frauds. Lastly,
I shall argue against those who, though the ground is taken
from under their feet by the plainest possible proofs, attempt
to maintain that the gods are to be worshiped, not for the
benefit they could bestow in this life, but for the sake of
the life beyond the grave. The discussion of this question is,
I believe, a much more difficult task, calling for more subtle
reasoning. For, on this point, we are at issue, not with the
common run of philosophers, but with those who stand very
high in the esteem of our adversaries and who see eye to
eye with us on many things, such as the immortality of the
soul, the creation of the world by the true God, and His
providence governing the world He created. 1 Since these
same philosophers must be set right on those points in which
they differ with us, we cannot evade the duty of pointing out
their errors, so that, after disposing of the objections of the
impious, with the ability God will vouchsafe, we may vindi-
cate the City of God, and the true piety toward and worship
of that God who alone holds out the infallible promise of
eternal happiness. Here, we may bring the present book to
a close, and begin to take up the points next in order in a
new book.
1 An allusion to Platonists and Neo-platonists.
BOOK II
Chapter 1
|F MAN'S sickly understanding would not set plain
truth at defiance, but humbly submit this common
infirmity to the tonic of wholesome doctrine until,
by filial trust in God's help, it regained its strength, those
who think straight and express their thoughts in well-chosen
speech would have no need of many words to correct the
errors of baseless assumption. Unfortunately, however, there
prevails a major and malignant malady of fools, the victims
of which mistake their irrational impulses for truth and rea-
son, even when confronted with as much evidence as any man
has a right to expect from another. It may be an excess of
blindness which prevents them from seeing the most glaring
facts, or a perverse obstinacy which prevents them from ac-
cepting the facts when seen. This compels me to present more
diffusely, not for their closed eyes to see, but, so to speak, for
their hands to touch and feel, some obvious points.
Yet, if we always felt obliged to reply to counterstatements,
when would there be an end to the argument or a limit to
discussion? For, those who cannot grasp what is said, or, if
they understand the truth, are too obdurate to accept it, keep
on replying and, according to Holy Writ, 'speak iniquity' 1
and never weary of empty words. You can easily see what an
endless, wearisome, and fruitless task it would be, if I were
1 Ps. 93.4.
75
76 SAINT AUGUSTINE
to refute all the unconsidered objections of people who pig-
headedly contradict everything I say.
And so, my dear Marcellinus, I hope that neither you nor
any others, 2 for whose profit and pleasure this work is
offered in the love of Christ, will read what I write in the
spirit of men who demand an answer every time they hear
any objections and act like those silly women whom St. Paul
describes as 'ever learning and never attaining to the knowl-
edge of the truth.' 3
Chapter 2
When I began in the previous Book to speak of the City
of God which moved me to undertake, with God's help, this
entire work my first plan was to challenge the view of those
who hold that the Christian religion is responsible for all the
wars desolating this miserable world and, in particular, for
the recent barbarian sack of the City of Rome. 1 It is true
that the Christian religion forbids pagans to honor demons
with unspeakable sacrifices; but, as I pointed out, they should
thank Christ for the boon that, out of regard for His Name
and in disregard of the traditional usages of war, the bar-
barians gave them immunity in spacious Christian buildings.
What is more, they treated both the genuine followers of
Christ and many who through fear pretended to be such
with great concern. They refused to take measures against
them which the laws of war permitted.
2 This is the same Marcellinus mentioned in the Preface to Book I;
among the 'others/ St. Augustine no doubt included the pagan Volu-
sianus, the pro-consul of Africa, whose conversion to Christianity was
so close to the heart of Marcellinus.
3 2 Tim. 3.7.
1 By Alaric in A.D. 410.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 77
Thence arose the question: Why did God, on the one hand,
bestow His good things upon the impious and the thankless,
while, on the other, the enemy's hard blows fell with equal
weight upon the good and the wicked alike? In order to
answer this all-embracing question as fully as the scope of
my work demanded, I lingered on it for various reasons.
First, because many are disturbed in mind when they observe
how, in the daily round of life, God's gifts and man's bru-
talities oftentimes fall indifferently and indiscriminately to
the lot of both the good and the bad ; but, above all, because
I wanted to offer to those pure and holy women whose mod-
esty had been outraged by the barbarian soldiery, but whose
purity of soul had stood adamant, the consoling assurance that
they have no reason to bewail their lives, since there is no
personal guilt for them to bewail.
Then, I proceeded to address a few remarks to those who
shamelessly seek to defame Christian victims of calamity, and
especially the virtue of outraged women who have remained
undefiled and saintly. These calumniators, I pointed out, are
wicked, impious, and degenerate descendants not to say,
the worst enemies of those sturdier Romans whose many
noble deeds are on the lips of men and live in the pages of
history. The Rome founded and made great by the toil of
their ancestors these men made even lower while it was still
standing than when it fell. In the sack by the enemy only its
stones and timbers fell, but in the lives of these despicable
creatures everything collapsed, not merely the ramparts and
armaments of their walls, but likewise of their wills. The fire
of their base passions burned more fiercely in their hearts
than the flames that devoured the city's roofs.
With these observations, I brought the first Book to a
78 SAINT AUGUSTINE
close. Now, I propose to speak of the calamities that befell
the city from the beginning of its history, both at home and in
its provinces all of which our calumniators would have
attributed to the Christian religion, if at that time the Gospel
teaching had been freely bearing witness against their false
and deceiving gods.
Chapter 3
Bear in mind that, in recounting these things, I am still
dealing with those ignorant dupes who gave birth and popu-
lar currency to the saying: 'If there is a drought, blame the
Christians.' As for those among them who have received
a liberal education and appreciate the value of history, they
can very easily inform themselves. In order to arouse popular
hatred against us, they pretend ignorance and strive to instill
into people's minds the common notion that the misfortunes
which afflict the human race are due to the expansion of
Christianity and to the eclipse of the pagan gods by the bright
glory of its reputation and renown.
Let them, therefore, recall with me the calamities which
so often and in so many ways set back the prosperity of Rome,
and remember, too, that all this happened long before Christ
came in the flesh, long before His Name shone before men
with that glory which they vainly begrudge Him. In the face
of those disasters, let them defend their gods if they can, re-
membering that they were worshiped precisely to prevent
the evils recorded. Yet, if any of those evils befall them now,
we Christians must bear the blame. Why, then, did the gods
permit the misfortunes I shall mention to fall on their de-
votees before the promulgation of Christ's teaching provoked
their wrath and proscribed their sacrifices?
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK H 79
Chapter 4
In the first place, why were the gods so negligent as to
allow the morals of their worshipers to sink to so low a depth?
The true God leaves those who do not worship Him to their
own devices, but why did not those gods (whose worship, so
thankless men complain, is forbidden) lay down moral
precepts that would help their devotees to lead a decent life?
They should have had as much concern for their worshipers'
conduct as these had for their cult. But, some one will reply,
each man is bad by his own will. No one ever denied this!
Nevertheless, it was incumbent on protecting deities, not
to conceal from their worshipers the laws of a good life,
but to proclaim such laws from the housetops. It was for
them to seek out and call sinners to task through the medium
of prophets whose duty it was to threaten evil-doers with the
punishment awaiting them, and to hold out the promise of
reward for virtuous living.
Who ever heard such a thing proclaimed, fearlessly and
authoritatively, in the temples of the gods? I myself, in my
younger days, used to frequent the sacrilegious stage plays
and comedies. I used to watch the demoniacal fanatics and
listen to the choruses, and take delight in the obscene shows
in honor of their gods and goddesses, of the virgin Caelestis
and the Berecynthian Cybele, mother of the gods. Before
the latter's couch on the day of her solemn bathing, ribald
refrains were publicly sung about her by lewd actors that were
unfit for the ear of the mother of the gods, and of the mother
of any Senator or decent man so unspeakably bestial, in
fact, that even the mothers of the players themselves would
have been ashamed to listen. For, there is in human modesty
an inborn respect for parents which wickedness itself cannot
efface.
80 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Surely, the comedians themselves would have blushed to
rehearse at home before their mothers the obscene words
and actions which they uttered and performed in public
before the mother of the gods and in the presence of a vast
assemblage of both sexes. If curiosity could entice such num-
bers to come, a shocked sense of decency surely should have
hurried them home. If these enormities are religious service,
what can sacrilege be? If that bathing is purification, what
is pollution? And these were called dishes, or 'courses/ as
though a banquet were being celebrated at which the unclean
demons were regaled with their favorite tidbits. If any one
does not realize what kind of spirits find pleasure in such
obscenities, then he is either unaware that there are unclean
spirits wearing the deceptive masks of gods, or else he is lead-
ing the sort of life that prefers the demons, rather than the
true God, as gracious masters and angry foes.
Chapter 5
To evaluate my judgment on this matter, I shall appeal to
men who loathe, not to those who seek pleasure in, these de-
praved customs. I appeal to Scipio Nasica, who was formally
elected by the Senate as the best citizen, and in whose hands
the idol of the demon Cybele was received and carried into
the city. 1 He would tell us whether he would wish his mother
to have deserved so well of the State as to have divine honors
decreed to her such as the Greeks and Romans and other
peoples are known to have decreed to certain mortals whose
good services to them they highly valued, and whom they be-
1 P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica was chosen as 'best citizen' in 204 B.C. and
went to Ostia to receive the statue of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, sent
to Rome to deliver the city during the Second Punic War (218-202).
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK H 81
lieved to have attained immortality and to have been re-
ceived into the ranks of the gods. We may be sure that Scipio
could not but wish such good fortune to his mother, if at all
attainable.
Moreover, if I were further to ask Scipio whether he would
be pleased to see those vile indecencies given in honor of his
mother, would he not cry out in protest that he would sooner
see his mother in her grave than have her live to hear with
pleasure those outrageous things? God forbid that a Senator
of the Roman people, who forbade the erection of theatres
in the city of a virile nation, should bear to have his mother
worshiped as a goddess with pantomime rites such as she or
any honorable woman would blush to see or hear. How could
he be brought to believe that that admirable woman's sense
of modesty could be so distorted by divinity that she would
suffer her devotees to invoke her with rites so ribald and
coarse. Indeed, if she heard such filthy banter hurled at any
one, her kinsmen, husband, and children would be thoroughly
ashamed if she did not shut her eyes and leave the room.
It was such a mother of the gods as even the vilest human
being would be ashamed to own as his own mother, who, in
her attempt to captivate the hearts of the Romans, sought
after the best man. It was not, indeed, to make him a good
man by her counsel and help, but to deceive him by fraud
like the one of whom it is written : The woman catcheth the
precious soul of a man.' 2 The aim of this deception was that
the high-minded spirit, inflated by seemingly divine testimony,
and esteeming himself in reality the best, would strive no
more for that true piety and religion without which any
genius, however laudable, evaporates in pride and comes to
2 Prov. 6.26.
82 SAINT AUGUSTINE
nothing. How else but with deceptive purpose would that
goddess seek the best man, since she desires such bawdiness
in her worship as decent men shrink from even in their cups?
Chapter 6
This malevolence accounts for the fact that these deities
had no concern for the life and morals of the states and
peoples that worshiped them. With what result? They failed
to restrain their believers by any fear-inspiring prohibitions,
but allowed them to sink to the lowest depths of corruption,
and into these ghastly and execrable evils which attack not
fields and vineyards, house and property, not the body, the
soul's servant, but the master of the body, the soul itself.
If the divinities ever issued such a prohibition, give me a
hint, a proof of it.
Now, let no one come forward triumphantly and boast
that an upright and chaste life was inculcated by mysterious
doctrines whispered into the ears of a few chosen spirits as a
kind of esoteric religion. Let him point out or name any
places ever dedicated to assemblies of that sort not places
where scenes were enacted by obscene words and gestures of
players, like the Flight of the Kings, celebrated amid a riot
of licentiousness and exhibiting, rather, the flight of shame
and decency. Let him show places where the people heard
what the gods taught about refraining avarice, curbing am-
bition, controlling lust, where the unfortunate could learn
what Persius emphatically urges they should learn, when he
says:
Learn, wretches, and conceive the course of things,
What man is, and why nature forth him brings :
His settled bounds, from hence how soon he strays:
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK H 83
What wealth means; that for which the good man prays;
How to use money: how to give to friends,
What we in earth, and God in us intends.' 1
Let him tell in what places the gods taught these precepts or
their worshipers heard them again and again as I can indi-
cate churches built for this purpose in every part of the world
where the Christian religion spread.
Chapter 7
Perhaps they will venture to refer to the schools and dis-
cussions of the philosophers. To begin with, these are not
products of Rome, but of Greece. If they are to be termed
Roman because Greece became a Roman province, then they
are not the ordinances of deities, but the creations of human
imagination. By the keenness of mind with which they are en-
dowed, these men have striven to fathom the secrets of
nature, what is to be aimed at and what avoided in the do-
main of morals, and in the domain of logic what conclu-
sions are to be drawn with the rigorous sequence demanded
by the laws of reasoning, what conclusions do not follow or
even contradict their premises.
Some of them, so far as they were guided from on high,
made great discoveries; but, as far as they were hindered by
human nature, fell into error, especially when Divine Provi-
dence justly thwarted their pride in order to show them, even
by opposition, that the path of virtue starts from humility
and rises to higher things. I shall enquire into and discuss this
matter later, the true God and Lord willing. Meanwhile, I
may here observe that if the philosophers have discovered
1 Satires 3.66-72.
84 SAINT AUGUSTINE
anything that can aid one to lead a good life and attain eternal
happiness, how much more fitting would it be to adjudge
divine honors to such men !
How much more sensible and proper would it be to have
Plato's writings read in a temple dedicated to him than to
have the mutilation of the priests of Cybele, the consecration
of eunuchs, the slashing of insane men, in the temples of
the demons, the perpetration of every cruel and foul, or
foully cruel and cruelly foul, abomination that is wont to pass
for a religious rite. Far more profitable would it be, for in-
structing the young in justice, to read the laws of the gods
publicly than to give sham praise to the laws and institutions
of our ancestors. For, all the worshipers of such gods, when
once they are possessed by what Persius calls 'the burning
poison of lust,' 1 are more captivated by what Jupiter did
than by what Plato taught or Cato censured.
Thus, we read in Terence how a dissolute youth looks upon
a wall painting, 'in which the tale was told how Jove sent
down a shower of gold into the lap of Danae.' 2 He appeals
to the authority of this weighty example to justify his own
lust, with a boast that he did but imitate a god. 'And what
god?' he continues. 'Even he that shakes the loftiest temples
with thunder. Since he did thus, should a wretch of a man
like me not do the same? Why! I did it with all my heart.' 3
Chapter 8
But, it will be objected, these indecencies are not presented
in ceremonial worship, but only in the fables of the poets.
1 Ibid. 3.37,38, dira libido . . . ferventi tincta veneno.
2 Eunuchus 3.5.36ff.
3 Ibid. 42,43.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 85
I do not say that the mysteries are more shameful than the
theatricals; but I do affirm, and history will give the lie to
those who deny it, that those same plays for which the fancies
of the poets supply the dominant elements were not intro-
duced into their worship by the blind devotion of the Romans,
but the divinities themselves strictly commanded, and to
some extent, constrained their devotees to enact them in all
solemnity and dedicate them to their honor. This I alluded
to briefly in the first Book. For, it was when a plague was
getting the upper hand that the stage plays were first intro-
duced in Rome by the order of the pontifex.
In view of that, who would not deem himself justified in
ordinary life in following the kind of conduct vividly exhibited
to his eyes in the plays sanctioned by the gods, rather than
the laws written down and promulgated by mere human
judgment? If the poets misrepresented Jupiter as an adulterer,
the chaste gods should have blazed with anger and vengeance
that such a scandal was dramatized by men not because it
was being forgotten. These are only the less revolting among
the plays, namely, the comedies and the tragedies. These are
the dramatizations of poets' fables, amply spotted with in-
decencies, to be sure, but not composed in the obscene lan-
guage that befouls many others. Yet, mere boys are compelled
by their elders to read and learn these as part of what is
called a humane and liberal education.
Chapter 9
What the ancient Romans thought on this subject we
are told by Cicero in the books he wrote about the republic,
where in one of the discussions Scipio declares : 'The scandal-
ridden comedies could never have found favor with the public
86 SAINT AUGUSTINE
unless the standards of the day allowed it.' 1 The Greeks of
a former age, perverted though their taste was, were at least
consistent in their license. For, even by law, comedy was free
to make any allusion to anyone even by name. According to
Scipio Africanus 2 in the same work: 'No one was free from
attack or even persecution/ No one was spared. Grant that
some of the targets of its barbs were dishonorable demagogues
and political agitators like Cleon, Cleophon, and Hyperbolus. 3
That is tolerable although citizens of that type are better
black-marked by the censor than by the poet. But, to bespat-
ter with foul verse and drag on the stage such men as
Pericles, 4 after he had led his country in war and peace for
many years with great distinction, that was no more decent for
a poet than if our Plautus or Naevius 5 were to slander Publius
and Gnaeus Scipio, 6 or if Caecilius 7 were to revile Marcus
Cato."
A little further on he continues: 'On the contrary, among
1 De re publica 4.10.
2 Scipio Africanus Minor (185-129 B.C.) , one of the interlocutors in De
re publica.
3 Cleon (d. 422 B.C.) , the type par excellence of the uneducated but elo-
quent demagogue, is the butt of the satire of Aristophanes in such plays
as The Acharnians (425 B.C.) and The Knights (424 B.C.) . Cleophon and
Hyperbolus share the attacks.
4 Pericles (495-429 B.C.) , the leader of the Athenian democracy at its
greatest height in the second half of the fifth century B.C.
5 Titus Maecius Plautus (c. 245-184 B.C.) , the most popular of the Latin
comic dramatists. Maevius was older but less popular, and was finally
imprisoned for his attacks on leading citizens of Rome.
6 Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major (c. 235-183 B.C.) , the con-
queror of Hannibal at Zama in 202, was grandfather by adoption of
Scipio Africanus Minor and nephew of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus,
who was consul in 222, and in 211 was killed in battle in Spain.
7 Caecilius Statius (d. 168 B.C.) , a comic dramatist in the generation after
Plautus. His plays are no longer extant.
8 Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.) , usually known as Cato the Elder
or Cato the Censor, the stern upholder of public morals in Rome.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 87
the very few offenses for which capital punishment was im-
posed, our Twelve Tables 9 included that of publishing libel-
ous and defamatory verse. That is admirable. For, our lives
should not be subject to poets' irresponsible wit, but to the
judges of magistrates and to the orderly processes of law; and
we should come to hear no accusation except on the condition
that the accused is given the opportunity to reply and defend
himself in court.'
I have thought fit to cite these passages from the fourth
book of Cicero's De re publica word for word, except for a
few omissions and slight transpositions to make the sense
clearer. They are very relevant to the subject which I am
trying to make as plain as I can. Cicero's Africanus has other
observations to add, and concludes this passage by pointing
out that the old Romans viewed with disfavor both the flat-
tering or abusing on the stage of any man still alive. But, as
I said, the Greeks, who felt the impropriety of this, never-
theless allowed it for consistency's sake, since they saw that
their gods found the scurrilities in the dramatized fables ac-
ceptable and pleasing. This was so not only when these
were directed against men, but even against the gods them-
selves, whether the plays were the fictions of poets or true
relations of their depravities were enacted in the theatres.
It is a pity that their worshipers regarded them as a sub-
ject not merely for laughter, but also for imitation. It was
arrogance to spare the reputation of the rulers of the state
and of the citizens, when the divinities had so little regard
for their own.
9 Early code of Roman law, published in the middle of the fifth century
B.C.
88 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 10
To justify these low comedies, it is alleged that the tales
told of the gods are not true, but only fictitious inventions.
That itself is even more reprehensible, when you consider
the reverence due to religion. If you realize how great is
the demons' malice, what more cunning and clever trick to
deceive could be imagined? When an insult is flung into the
face of a good and capable ruler, is it not all the more un-
worthy for being far from truth and foreign to his way
of life? What penalty, then, is severe enough when such
dastardly and monstrous insults are offered to a god?
But, the evil spirits whom the pagans accept as gods are
content to have ascribed to themselves even villainies which
they have not committed, so long as by encouraging such
impostures they can entangle men's minds in a mesh of con-
fusion, and drag them to their destined fate together with
themselves. This they do when the depravities have been com-
mitted by men whom they rejoice to see taken for gods for
they rejoice over all human errors and the demons get
themselves adored by endless wicked frauds. They work the
same deception when men have not really committed the
villainies in question. The deceivers are glad to have them
imputed to the gods, so that men may find ample and
suitable warrant from heaven for perpetrating foul and
criminal deeds on earth.
Hence, when the Greeks realized that they had that sort
of divinities to serve, they deemed it altogether inadvisable,
in view of all the vices which were represented on the stage
as exploits of the gods, to protect themselves from the lam-
poons of the poets. Either they wished to be on a par with
gods in this matter, or they feared that by seeking a fairer
reputation than the gods enjoyed, and thus giving them-
selves the advantage, they would provoke the gods to wrath.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK II 89
Chapter 11
Consistently enough, the Greeks regarded even the actors
who presented those fables on the stage as worthy of high
public honor. It is related in the De re publica that Aeschines, 1
the great Atheian orator, became a statesman after he had
played tragedies in his youth, and that another tragic actor,
Aristodemus, 2 was sent on frequent embassies to King Philip
of Macedon, to negotiate matters of great import for peace
and war. In view of the fact that such arts and plays found
favor with their gods, it was not thought proper to think of
the actors as disreputable persons.
The Greeks conceived the matter perversely enough, but
quite in keeping with the character of their gods. They shrank
from any measures to protect their people from the barbs of
poets and actors, since the divinities themselves were not
against being burlesqued by the clowns. Hence, they pre-
ferred, not to despise, but rather to respect the actors who
mimicked the escapades which their gods found amusing.
By what reasoning could the Greeks honor priests by whose
hands sacrifices were offered to the gods, yet hold in low
esteem actors by whose pantomiming that pleasure was given
which the gods demanded in homage and as they let it be
known would angrily resent if withheld? For example,
Labeo, 3 a reputed expert in matters of this kind, distinguishes
good and evil spirits by their respective cults, maintaining that
evil gods are appeased by bloody sacrifices and doleful sup-
plications, and good ones by cheerful and pleasant ceremonies,
such as plays, banquets, and the so-called 'feasts of the gods.'
With God's help, I may discuss this in more detail later
1 Athenian orator (389-314 B.C) and rival of Demosthenes.
2 Aristodemus was on a commission, along with both Aeschines and Dem-
osthenes, to Philip of Macedon, after the fall of Olynthus in 347 B.C.
3 Author of a work De diis animalibus.
90 SAINT AUGUSTINE
on. My only point, for the moment, is whether honor is
offered to all the gods indiscriminately as though they were
all good (although, in fact, they were all wicked, since they
are unclean spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, the honors
should be distributed with discrimination, some for the good,
some for the bad. At all events, the Greeks have done well to
honor both the priests, who offer the sacrifices, and the actors
who perform the plays. Thus, they do obvious injustice to
none of their gods if the plays please them all. What is less
improper, they honor only those they regard as good if the
plays please only them.
Chapter 12
The Romans, on the contrary, as Scipio Africanus rejoiced
to recall in that memorable disputation, De re publica, refused
to have their lives and good name made the target of the
poets' gibes, even threatening with capital punishment any
one who dared to produce that kind of verse. They did this
out of a sense of self-respect, but, surely, with contempt and
irreverence for their gods. For, when the Roman people
realized that these divinities took the poets' jests and gibes
not only with patience, but even with pleasure, they regarded
such scurrilities as unworthy of themselves, but not of the
gods, and so protected themselves by law, while the gods were
left open to attack even in solemn ceremonies.
How, then, Scipio, do you approve when Roman poets are
denied freedom to slander a single Roman citizen, while you
see that they have spared none of your gods? Does the good
repute of your Senate mean more to you than that of the
Capitol? Is Rome by itself more to you than the whole of
heaven, that poets are forbidden by law to libel your fellow-
citizens while, unhindered by any Senator, censor, prince
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK H 91
or pontifex, they spew such foul abuse into the face of your
gods? Was it, then, wrong for Plautus or Naevius to slander
Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, or for Caecilius to slander M.
Cato, and right for Terence to excite the passions of youth
by flaunting the misconduct of great and mighty Jove?
Chapter 13
If Scipio were still alive, he might possibly reply: 'Who
were we to put a penalty on observance which the divinities
themselves invested with religious character? It was they who
introduced the Roman custom of having dedicated and per-
formed in their honor theatrical exhibitions which glorify
improprieties in word and deed.' Surely, it was more logical
to realize that those gods could not be true gods, worthy of
divine honors given by the State. Surely, decency and pro-
priety absolutely forbade that honor be rendered to gods
who demanded stage exhibits that are insulting to Romans.
How, then, I ask, did anyone come to think of worshiping,
instead of abominating, those evil spirits of deceit who de-
manded that their depravities be exhibited in public worship?
Moreover, though the Roman people were so sunk in super-
stition as to honor divinities whom they saw craving to have
their lewdness paraded in religious pageantry, they still had
enough regard for dignity and decency not to exalt, like
the Greeks, the actors of such farces. On the contrary, as
Scipio tells us in Cicero's De re public a, 'As long as the
Romans despised dramatic art and everything connected with
the stage, that type of men forfeited the respect of other
citizens and had their names struck off the roll of their tribe
with the brand of infamy.'
That is admirable good sense, for which the Roman people
must be given credit, but I could wish that it were consistent
92 SAINT AUGUSTINE
with itself, and carried into action. For, it was right for any
Roman citizen who chose the theatrical profession not only
to be kept out of posts of honor, but also to be excluded from
his own tribe by the censor's stigma. That was a spirit jealous
of the country's good name and genuinely Roman! But, in
the name of consistency, let someone explain to me why
actors are debarred from all public dignities, while the plays
they perform on the stage are made part of divine worship!
For a long time, in their more virtuous days, the Romans
knew nothing of stage masquers. If these had been sought to
satisfy men's lust, they would have crept in as the result of
corruption of men's morals. But, it was the gods who de-
manded the mummeries. How, then, can one cast out the
mummer through whom the deity is worshiped? How can the
performer of that theatrical indecency be stigmatized if the
god who demands it is adored? 1
In this controversy, let the Greeks and the Romans fight
out the issue. On the one side, the Greeks think they are right
in showing regard for actors because they worship the gods
who demand stage plays. On the other, the Romans will not
suffer actors to be a blot even on their low-born tribe, and
much less on the senatorial order. In this debate, the whole
question is brought to the point by the following argument.
The Greeks submit as a major premise: 'If gods of that sort
are to be worshiped, then, surely, men of that sort are to
be honored.' The Romans add the minor: 'But men of that
sort are in no way to be honored.' The Christian draws the
conclusion: 'Therefore, such gods are in no way to be wor-
shiped.'
1 ... qua fronte notatur actor, si adoratur exactor?
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK II 93
Chapter 14
The next question we may ask is: Why are not the poets
who fabricate such fables and who by the Law of the Twelve
Tables were forbidden to blacken any citizen's good name
why are they not put in the same disreputable class as the
actors, since they, too, bespatter the gods with infamous
jibes? How is a man justified who denounces the imperson-
ators of the god-defaming caricature of the poets, and yet
who commends their authors? Perhaps the palm should be
given to the Greek Plato. In conceiving the constitution of
the ideal State, he thought it proper to exclude from the
city the poets, as enemies of the truth. 1 He would tolerate
no insults to the gods, nor permit the minds of the people
to be mislead and perverted by fictions.
Now, compare Plato, a mere man, permitting no poets in
the city to impose upon the people, with the gods, who are
divine, itching to be honored with pantomimes. Even though
he could not convince them in argument, Plato urged the
frivolous and dissolute Greeks to abstain even from writing
such indecencies. The gods, on the other hand, compelled
even grave and respectable Romans to perform them. Nor
were they content merely with their being staged; they had
them dedicated and consecrated to themselves and solemnly
celebrated. To whom, then, should the city award divine
honors with greater propriety? To Plato, who strove to debar
those unspeakable obscenities, or to the demons who gloated
in deluding the men whom Plato failed to convince of the
truth?
Labeo was of the opinion that Plato should have been
numbered among the demi-gods, as were Hercules and Romu-
1 Republic, Book III.
94 SAINT AUGUSTINE
lus. He ranked the demigods above the heroes, counting both
as divinities. But, I do not hesitate to place the man he calls
a demigod not only above the heroes, but above the gods
themselves. For, there is a certain kinship between the laws of
the Romans and the dialogues of Plato, in so far as he repro-
bates all the fabrications of poets, while the Romans deny
to poets at least the right to calumniate people. Plato for-
bids poets to live within the precincts of a city; the Romans
exclude at least the impersonators of poetical fictions from
the citzen community, and would, no doubt, drive them out
altogether did they dare oppose the gods, who are responsible
for the plays.
In view of all this, how was it possible for the Roman people
to hope to receive from the gods any laws calculated to pro-
duce good morals or reform evil ones? The gods are beaten
and put to shame by the laws of Rome. The gods demand
plays in their honor; the Romans exclude the players from
all public honors. The gods order slanders on gods to be
paraded in poetical farces; the Romans punish the impu-
dent poets if they slander men. Meanwhile, that demigod
Plato not only rebuked the shamelessness of the gods, but also
pointed out what the Romans should do if they would be
true to their character. This he did when he permitted no
poets within a well-ordered state, on the ground that they
were willful liars or too inclined to set before poor mortals
the shabby doings of the deities as models to imitate.
On our part, we Christians regard Plato neither as a god
nor a demigod, nor do we place him on a level with any of
God's holy angels, or with a prophet of truth or apostle, or
with any martyr of Christ or simple Christian. The reason
for this statement will, God willing, be given in due course.
But, as long as you yourselves will have him as demigod, our
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 95
opinion is that he should be set above Romulus or Hercules,
for no historian or poet ever affirmed or imagined that Plato
slew his brother or committed a grievous crime; assuredly,
above Priapus or the dog-headed Anubis or the goddess
Fever, divinities whom the Romans partly adopted from
foreign cults and partly made their own.
How, then, could such divinities enact good laws and
ordinances either to ward off such widespread mental and
moral corruption or to eradicate it once it had taken root?
This the more so, since they did their utmost to sow the seeds
and nurture vice by their desire to have those depravities pre-
sented to the people on the public stage as the real or sup-
posed exploits of the gods, thus kindling, thus giving, as it
were, divine warrant to the rebellion of the basest human
impulses. Cicero was a voice crying in the desert when he
exclaimed, thinking of the poets: 'When they have won the
plaudits and approbation of the people as if it were the verdict
of an eminent judge, what darkness invades their mind, what
fears beset it, what passions inflame it? 52
Chapter 15
What determined the choice of these false gods was not
so much reason as adulation. They did not think their demi-
god Plato worthy of a shrine, for all his efforts to check by
argument those spiritual passions which corrupt men's morals
unless they are carefully controlled. Yet, they set their Romu-
lus above many of their gods, though in the light of their
own esoteric doctrine he should be regarded only as an
inferior divinity.
They even assigned to him a flamen of a priestly class,
2 De re publica 4.9.
96 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ranking, as the tassle on their caps revealed, so high in
Roman worship that only three gods were so honored: Jupi-
ter, with the Dial flamen; Mars, with the Martial; and
Romulus, with the Quirinal. His fellow citizens called him
Quirinus after their indulgent hearts had given him a place
in heaven. Thereby, Romulus stood higher in their esteem
than Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter's brothers; higher than
Saturn himself, their sire. Accordingly, they alloted to his
service the same high priesthood they had allotted to Jupiter,
as well as to Mars, his reputed father, presumably for his
sake.
Chapter 16
If the Romans had received a rule of life from their gods,
they would not have been obliged to borrow the laws of
Solon from the Athenians, as they did some [three hundred]
years 1 after Rome was founded. However, they did not retain
these laws in the torm they received them, but sought to im-
prove them by appropriate changes. Though Lycurgus 2 im-
agined that he had framed a constitution for the Spartans
by Apollo's bidding, the Romans very wisely rejected the tale
and refused to accept their laws from that source.
Numa Pompilius, who reigned next after Romulus, 3 is
reported to have framed a body of rules, however inadequate,
for the government of the State, and to these he added many
regulations concerning religious worship. Yet, no one ever
said that he received those laws from divine hands. 4 From
1 St. Augustine says aliquot annos, but Livy (3 31-34) tells the story of
three Roman ambassadors going to copy the laws of Solon as happening
299 years after the founding of Rome. The code which resulted became
known as the Twelve Tables.
2 During the seventh century B.C.
3 Romulus (753-715 BC); Numa Pompilius (715-673).
4 Cf., however, Book VII, Chapters 34, 35, for the story of Numa s hydro-
mancy.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 97
all this, it appears that the gods had no concern for the many
vices in thought, life, and conduct into which their worshipers
might fall, and which, as their own sages assure us, may cause
great states to fall even though the cities survive intact. In
fact, the gods, as pointed out above, contributed by every
means to swell the flood of vice.
Chapter 17
It may be argued that the reason why the gods did not
legislate for the Roman people was that, as Sallust says: 'By
nature more than by laws, justice and morality flourish among
the Romans.' 1 I presume, then, that it was this natural jus-
tice and morality that explains the rape of the Sabine women !
What could be more just and moral than that other people's
daughters should be decoyed under pretense of a circus and
then, not by parental consent, but by violence, be snatched
away by anyone who could! If the Sabines did wrong in
refusing to surrender their daughters upon demand how much
greater was the wrong in seizing them when not surrendered?
It was more just, one must suppose, to go to war with a
people for refusing to give their daughters in marriage to their
countrymen and neighbors who had requested them, than
with a people who demanded that their stolen daughters be
restored! So, the first kind of war would be declared; and
Mars would come to the aid of his son, battling to avenge with
arms the affront of the wives denied. By that strategy he would
win the women he desired. I suppose, by some imaginary right
of war, a victor might justly carry away wives unjustly de-
nied. Certainly, by no known right of peace could Romulus
seize women who were refused, and wage an iniquitous war
against their justly indignant parents.
1 Cattlina 9.
98 SAINT AUGUSTINE
However, one rather fortunate circumstance redeems that
notorious rape. The games of the circus remained as an insti-
tution to commemorate the infamous fraud, but the precedent
set by that crime met with no applause in the city and land
of the Romans. The Romans made a greater mistake by
making Romulus a god for themselves after his part in that
shameful event than by allowing his rape of women to receive
approval in any law or custom.
I presume that the same sense of 'justice and morality' ex-
plains another fact. After the expulsion of King Tarquin and
his sons, 2 one of whom raped Lucretia by violence, the consul
Junius Brutus compelled L. Tarquinius Collatinus, Lucretia's
husband, his colleague and a man above reproach, to resign
his office and remove himself from the city. Because of his
name and kinship with the Tarquins, he was allowed to
reside there no longer. This crime he perpetrated with the
connivance, or at least sufferance, of the very people who had
conferred the consulship both on Collatinus and on Brutus
himself.
Once more I take it that it was that same inborn disposi-
tion to 'justice and morality 5 that sealed the fate of Camillus.
In the course of a ten-year struggle with Veii, the Roman
people's bitterest foe, the Roman army fought badly and was
repeatedly shattered. Rome itself was on the point of panic,
fearing for its safety. Then M. Camillus, 3 one of the most
remarkable men of his time came forward, and conquered
and captured their flourishing city with remarkable ease.
But, his bravery aroused the envy of detractors and stung
2 The traditional date is 510 B.C.
3 The tradition of Marcus Funus Camillus is that he was made dictator
in five different critical years' 396, 390, 386, 368, and 367 B.C. In 396
he destroyed Ven; in 390 he delivered Rome from the Gauls.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK H 99
the pride of the tribunes of the people, who declared him
guilty of misconduct. The incredible ingratitude of the city
he had saved chilled him to the marrow, and, feeling certain
of condemnation, he betook himself into voluntary exile. In
his absence he was even fined ten thousand copper asses.
Not long after this, he once more saved his ungrateful coun-
try, this time from the Gauls.
It would be wearisome to rehearse all the immorality and
injustice that kept that Roman state in turmoil, while the
aristocracy did their utmost to keep the people under, and the
people struggled against subjection, with the leaders of both
sides swayed more by a desire to gain party advantage than
by any thought of what was right and good.
Chapter 18
I shall now desist and let Sallust testify. He was speaking
in praise of the Romans when he uttered those words which
prompted the present discussion: 'By nature more than by
laws, justice and morality flourished among the Romans.'* He
had in mind the time following the expulsion of the kings,
when the state saw a brief interval of extraordinary prosperity.
Yet, the same writer, in the very first words of the first book
of his History, avows that, even when the government of the
country passed from the hands of the kings to those of the
consuls, it was not long before the unjust dealings of those
in power caused the plebeians to break with the patricians.
The city was divided by other factions, too.
He recalled that between the second and the last Cartha-
ginian wars the Roman people lived in the best moral condi-
tions and the greatest harmony. But, he also added that that
1 Catilma 9.
100 SAINT AUGUSTINE
happy state was not due to a love of justice but to the fear
of a precarius peace as long as Carthage stood. It was to
hold corruption in check and to preserve good morals that
the famous Nasica opposed the destruction of Carthage. He
wanted vice restrained by fear.
The same Sallust immediately adds: 'But dissension, ava-
rice, and ambition, and all the rest of the vices that pros-
perity commonly engenders, multiplied beyond bounds once
Carthage fell.' 2 He wanted us to understand that even before
that event vices sprang up and spread. Then, he adds the
reasons for his statement : The wrongs done by the powerful,
the consequent break of the people with the aristocrats, and
the other domestic dissensions had happened from the be-
ginning. It was only after the expulsion of the kings, while fear
of Tarquin prevailed, and the war with the Etruscans con-
tinued, that justice and reasonableness reigned.' You can
see that the measure of equity and good order which marked
even the brief space after the banning and expulsion of the
kings must be ascribed to fear, as Sallust said fear of the
war which King Tarquin, after he was dragged from the
throne and driven out of the city, waged against the Romans,
with the help of the Etruscans.
Note well the statement he adds: Then the patricians be-
gan to treat the people like slaves, to dispose of life and limb
as arrogantly as the kings had done, to drive them from their
fields and, by excluding all others from participation, to mon-
opolize the government. But, oppressed by these outrages, and
especially by usury, while they had at the same time to bear
the burden of taxes for incessant wars and of military service
as well, the people rose up in arms, and entrenched themselves
2 Historiae 1.9.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 101
on the Sacred Mount and the Aventine. Thus, they then
secured for themselves tribunes and other rights. It was only
the Second Punic War that put an end to the dissensions and
struggles between the two classes.'
You see, then, what kind of people the Romans were, even
during the short space of time following the banishment of
the kings, the people of whom it was said that 'by nature
more than by laws, justice and morality flourished among
them.'
Moreover, if such were the times when the Roman state
was supposed to be at its fairest and best, what is one to
think and say of the subsequent period, after the destruction
of Carthage? Then, to use the words of the same historian,
'transformed little by little from the fairest and best, it be-
came the worst and the most immoral.' 3 In his History you
may read how succinctly Sallust recalls and describes these
times, and also gives the proof of the horrible degeneracy of
morals which prosperous times engendered, and which even-
tually produced a brood of civil wars. Trom that time on,'
he says, 'the morals of our forebears declined, not little by
little as before, but rushing headlong like a torrent. The
younger generation sank so deep into immorality and avarice
that it can justly be said that they were born neither to possess
property nor to leave in peace those who did.' 4 Sallust had
much more to say about the vices of Sulla and of the foul
state of the republic in other respects. Other writers say the
same, though not with the same mastery of description. I am
sure you can see, as anyone with eyes open must, into what
morass of immorality the republic was sunk before the coming
of our Heavenly King.
3 Catilina 5.
4 Historiae 1.12.
102 SAINT AUGUSTINE
All these deplorable things were done, not only before
Christ in the flesh began to teach, but even before He was
born of the Virgin. This mass of depravity belongs to pagan
times. The evils, somewhat mitigated before the fall of Carth-
age, reached the depths of abomination after that event. It
was the pagan gods whose sinister cunning planted in men's
minds the seeds which produced so evil a harvest. Yet, our
critics dare not impute this to their gods. By what strange
logic, then, do the pagans charge the present troubles to
Christ, whose life-giving doctrine forbids the worship of false
and deceiving gods and whose divine will abominates and
condemns the vicious and criminal actions of men? He weans
His children away from all this wickedness in a rotting and
tottering world, in order to establish an eternal City that will
be really glorious not by vain praise, but in very truth.
Chapter 19
Take a look at your Roman republic. I am not the first
to paint this picture. The writers, whose works we studied
in school for a fee, told the tale before Christ's coming. Re-
member? 'From a state of virtuous splendor it sank by gradu-
al change to one of shameful corruption.' It was before
Christ's coming, and after the destruction of Carthage, that
'the morals of our forefathers declined, not little by little as
before, but rushing headlong like a torrent. So deep into
immorality and avarice did the younger generation sink.'
Let our critics read to us any commandments which the
gods ever gave to their Roman people, setting bounds to
debauchery and greed. It is not merely that they had ab-
stained from any mention of chastity and modesty to the
people. They went so far as actually to demand lewdness and
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 103
indecency. They gave those things the sanction of divine ap-
proval.
As against all this, let them turn to our moral teachings.
The Prophets, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the
Epistles have thundered their condemnation of greed and
lust into the ears of the throngs assembled in every part of
the empire for the very purpose of hearing them. Sublime and
divinely inspired utterances, they are not like the cackle of
contentious philosophers, but like oracles from God's heaven.
But, strangely enough, while our pagan foes are slow to im-
pute to their gods the fact that immodesty, avarice, brutal
and shameful living turned the Roman commonwealth into
a 'sink of corruption' before the advent of Christ, they loudly
reproach the Christian religion for whatever bitter pill their
arrogance and their love of pleasure have to swallow at the
present time.
Yet, if all would but hear and practice what that religion
has to teach about the just and virtuous way to live 'kings
of the earth and all people: princes and all judges of the
earth, young men and maidens ... the young with the older,'
every age and sex, and even those to whom John the Baptist
addressed himself, the publicans and soldiers then, the
Roman Empire would by its happy state transform the coun-
tries of the world into so many lands flowing with milk and
honey and would rise to eternal life and reign in unending
bliss.
But, while one of you listens, another scoffs, and most of you
are drawn more by the flattery of vice than by the salutary aus-
terity of virtue. Thus, the servants of Christ, whether kings,
princes, or judges, simple soldiers or commanders, rich or
1 Ps. 148.11,12.
104 SAINT AUGUSTINE
poor, freemen or slaves, men or women, are bidden, if they
must, to put up with even an utterly vicious and degraded
commonwealth for, by such sufferance, they will win a place
in that supremely holy and exalted angelic assemblange and
heavenly country where God's will is law.
Chapter 20
The worshipers and devotees of those gods of yours, the
men who gaily ape their vices and depravities, are not in the
least disturbed to see their country wallow in a dismal swamp
of immorality. 'As long as it endures, 5 they say, c as long as
it prospers amid plenty and can boast of victories and enjoy
the security of peace, what do morals matter to us? What
concerns us more is that everyone should become richer and
richer, so as to be able to bear the costs of his daily excesses,
and to lord it over his economically weaker fellows. Let the
poor toady to the rich in order to fill their stomachs and enjoy
indolent ease under their patronage. Let the rich use the poor
to surround themselves with a crowd of satellites and to en-
hance their prestige. Let the mob applaud, not those who
think of what is good for them, but those who minister to
their pleasures. Let no one impose toil and trouble, or pro-
hibit impure pleasures. Rulers must not bother whether their
people are virtuous, if only they can keep them subject. The
people of the provinces must not obey the governors as guar-
dians of their morals, but as managers of their affairs and
purveyors of their pleasures. They are not to show them sin-
cere respect, but cower before them in base servility. As for
the laws, let them look to wrongs against property without
bothering about moral propriety.
No one should be brought to court, except one who has
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 105
done harm or nuisance to another's property, home, or limb,
or to an unwilling party. As for the rest, each man can do his
own sweet will with his goods, with his subjects, or with the
goods or subjects of any others who consent. Let there be
public harlots in abundance for all who would indulge their
lust, and, above all, for those who have no mistresses of their
own.
Let houses be built, spacious and exquisitely furnished, and
let people come to sumptuous banquets where each one can
gamble and drink and vomit and carouse day or night, as
much as he pleases or is able. Let the noise of dancing be
everywhere. Let the theatres resound with lewd merriment
and with every kind of cruel and vicious pleasure. Let the
man who dislikes these pleasures be branded as a public
enemy, and, should he attempt to interfere with them, let the
mob be free to hound him to death. Let those rulers be re-
garded as true gods who devote themselves to giving the
people a good time, and guarantee them its continuance. Let
them be worshiped in the manner they desire, and demand
the plays they please, in the company, or at the expense, of
their devotees. Only let them take care that no foe, no plague,
no calamity interfere with this reign of prosperity.
What man in his right senses would place this kind of
commonwealth on the same level with, I do not say the
Roman Empire, but with the house of Sardanapalus. 1
This king abandoned himself so completely to dissipation
that on his tomb he had inscribed that in death he possessed
only what in life his lust had enjoyed. If those pleasure-
seekers had a king of that sort, who indulged them in such
1 The luxurious king of Assyria, usually identified with Ashurbanipal
(669-625 B.C.) . Cicero, in the Tusculan Disputations (5.35) cites a Latin
metrical version of the supposed epitaph.
106 SAINT AUGUSTINE
things and placed not the slightest restraint on anyone's whim,
they would dedicate to him a temple and a high-priest more
readily than did the ancient Romans to Romulus.
Chapter 21
If no heed be paid to the one who declared the Roman
state a 'sink of iniquity/ and if my opponents, content if it
can but endure, are not moved by the shame and ignominy
of utter degeneration that floods it, let them note that it has
not merely become the 'sink of iniquity' described by Sallust,
but that, as Cicero maintains, it had long since perished, and
no longer endured as a state. Cicero lets that same Scipio who
had destroyed Carthage voice his opinion of the state at a
time when men felt a presentiment that it would soon be
brought low by the rottenness which Sallust describes. Cicero's
comments belong to that dramatic time of the murder of
Tiberias Gracchus, 1 who, as Sallust writes, stirred up danger-
ous revolts. His death is mentioned in the same work of
Cicero.
Scipio, then, had said: 'In playing the lute, or the flute, or
even in vocal music, the different notes should be kept in har-
mony. If they are changed into discoid, the trained ear can-
not endure it. That agreeable harmony, however, is produced
by the modulation of tones that are very dissimilar. In like
manner, as in music, out of the highest and the lowest classes,
1 Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, as tribune of the people in 133 B,C.,
proposed a land -distribution law and produced the crisis which led to
his murder by the conservatives led by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, who
had married Sempronia, the sister of the Gracchi. Scipio was found dead
in his bed in 129; and it is in this year that the dialogue of De re
pub I tea is placed.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK H 107
and of those that lie between, by a reasonable control, the
State is fashioned into a concordant whole by the consent of
very diverse elements. What musicians call harmony in
music, in the State is known as concord, the closest and
strongest bond of security in any commonwealth, and which
can in no way exist without justice.' 2 Then, further on, after
he had discussed more fully how much the State has to gain
from justice and how much to lose from the lack of it, Philus, 3
one of the participants in the discussion, took up the discourse
and earnestly begged that the question be treated more thor-
oughly, and that more be said about justice, especially as the
common opinion was that the State could not be governed
without justice. Scipio also agreed that the question must be
thrashed out and elucidated. His answer was that nothing
had as yet been said about the State that could serve as a
basis for further discussion until two facts were established:
first of all, the falsity of the view that the State can not be
governed without injustice, and, secondly, the solidity of the
truth that it can not be governed without absolute justice.
The consideration of that question was put off to the fol-
lowing day, and in the third Book the matter is introduced
amid a clash of opinions. Philus himself championed the stand
of those who held that the State could not be governed without
injustice being done, after he had solemnly disclaimed any
share in such opinion. With earnestness, he advocated the
case of injustice against justice, and by specious arguments
and illustrations he strove to prove that injustice was an ad-
vantage to the State, while justice served no useful purpose.
Then Laelius, in his turn, and at the instance of the whole
2 DC re publica 2.42.
3 L. Fabius Philus belonged to the literary circle of Scipio and his friend
Laelius.
108 SAINT AUGUSTINE
company, undertook to vindicate the claims of justice. With
all the emphasis he could command, he declared that the
State could have no greater enemy than injustice, and that
no commonwealth could either be governed or endure if jus-
tice did not dominate.
After the pros and cons of this question had been examined,
Scipio again took up the broken threads of the discussion, and,
going back to his definition of the republic, he endorsed in
a few words the stand that 'the commonwealth is the weal of
the people.' He defines the people as 'not any mass gather-
ing, but a multitude bound together by a mutual recognition
of rights and a mutual cooperation for the common good/ 4
He then proceeds to point out the advantage of defining terms
when engaged in a discussion, and from principles accurately
stated he concludes that you have a true commonwealth, that
is, the weal of the people, when it is rightly and justly ad-
ministered either by one monarch, or by a few men of rank,
or by all the people.
But, if the prince is unjust, or a tyrant (to use the Greek
word), or if the aristocrats are unjust (in which case their
group is merely a faction), or if the people themselves are
unjust ( and must be called, for lack of a better word, a tyrant
also), then the commonwealth is not merely bad, as it was
described in the discussion of the previous day, but is no com-
monwealth at all. The reason for that is that there is no longer
the welfare of the people, once a tyrant or a faction seizes it;
nor would the people, if unjust, be any longer a people, be-
cause they would not then be regarded as a multitude bound
together by a common recognition of rights, and a mutual
4 Populum autem non omnem coetum multitudinis, sed coetum iuris
consensu et utilitatis communione sociatum esse determinat (De re
pubtica 1.25) .
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 109
cooperation for the common good, as the standard definition
of a people demands.
When, therefore, the Roman republic was such as Sallust
describes it, it was not only Very wicked and corrupt 1 'a sink
of iniquity/ as he puts it it was no republic at all, if meas-
ured by the criterion established by its ablest representatives
when they met to debate the nature of a republic.
Tullius himself, at the beginning of his fifth book, quotes
the verse of the poet Ennius declaring: The Roman state
rests on the men and the morals of old,' and in his own words,
not those of Scipio or any other, remarks: 'That line for its
conciseness and truth sounds to me like the utterance of an
oracle. For, had not the state been blessed with a wholesome
body of citizens, and had not those men stood at the head,
neither men nor morals could have availed to found or so
long maintain a republic of such might to rule so far and
wide and so justly. Indeed, long before our time, it was the
custom of the land to appoint distinguished men who held
fast to the ancient traditions and the institutions of our fore-
fathers. Our own generation inherited the republic, an ex-
quisite masterpiece, indeed, though faded with age; but it
failed to restore its original colors. Worse, alas; it did not
even move a finger to preserve as much as its form, or its
barest outlines.
What is there left of the ancient virtue which the illustrious
poet Ennius declared was the mainstay of the Roman state?
We are aware only that it has been so utterly cast to the winds
that morals are not merely unobserved, but are positively ig-
nored. What can we say of the men? Precisely for want of men
the good old customs have been lost, and for so great an evil
not only are we responsible but we should face judgment,
like culprits fearing the penalty of death. By our own vices,
110 SAINT AUGUSTINE
not by chance, we have lost the republic, though we retain
the name.'
All this, Cicero avowed many years after the death of
Africanus, one of the disputants in the Republic, and before
the coming of Christ. 5 If such reproaches were expressed or
entertained after the triumphant advance of the Christian
religion, there is not a pagan who would not think of charging
them to the Christians. Why, then, did their gods not save
from disaster that republic which, long before Christ ap-
peared in the flesh, Cicero mournfully deplores as lost?
Let its panegyrists really take a look at the republic in the
day of those ancient men and customs. Let them ask whether
true justice flourished and inspired morality or was merely a
colored painting of justice, as Cicero himself unwittingly sug-
gests, while meaning to praise it.
We shall consider this later, 6 God willing. In its proper
place I shall endeavor to show that that ancient creation was
never a true republic, because in it true justice was never
practiced. I shall base my position on Cicero's own definitions,
in the light of which he briefly determined, through the mouth
of Scipio, what was a republic and what was a people. There
are many confirmatory opinions expressed in that discussion
both by himself and by the interlocutors he introduced.
However, according to some definitions that are nearer
the truth, it was a commonwealth of a sort, and it was better
governed by the earlier Romans than by those who came
later. But, true justice is not to be found save in that com-
monwealth, if we may so call it, whose Founder and Ruler
is Jesus Christ for, no one can deny that this is the weal of
the people. This name, with its varied meanings, is perhaps
5 The publication of De re publica is usually dated 54 B.C.
6 The promise is fulfilled in Book 19, Chapter 21.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK II 111
not quite in tune with our language, but this at least is cer-
tain: True justice reigns in that state of which Holy Scrip-
ture says: 'Glorious things are said of thee, O City of God.' 7
Chapter 22
But, concerning the subject under discussion, however de-
serving of praise they say the republic once was or still is,
the fact remains that by the testimony of their most well-
informed writers it had, long before Christ's coming, become
a sink of iniquity. Never a true republic, it had fallen through
the foulness of its morals. Surely, to prevent this fall, it was a
duty of its divine guardians to prescribe for their worshipers
a way of life and a code of morals. This people honored them
with temples, priests, and sacrifices of every sort, with count-
of grandiose festival plays. In all this, the devils looked only
less rites and solemn celebrations, and with an endless round
after their own interest. They cared nothing for the kind of
life the people led. In fact, they actively abetted evil living
so long as the people, in slavish fear, performed all those
rites in their honor.
If the gods did prescribe such a moral code, bring it out;
produce it; let us know what laws divinely given to the Roman
citizens were violated by the Gracchi when a whirlwind of
disorder followed their revolts. What laws did Marius and his
lieutenants Cinna and Carbo disregard when they plunged
into a civil war, 1 begun with wicked intention, carried on
with barbarity, and ended with savagery? What laws did
Sulla flout? He was a man whose whole life, morals, and
7 Ps. 86.3.
1 88-82 B.C.
112 SAINT AUGUSTINE
actions as described by Sallust and other historians make one
shudder. Was not, in fact, the republic of old already fallen?
In view of such public morals, who will dare to adduce, in
defence of the gods, the familiar phrase of Virgil: The gods,
by whom this empire stood, left all the temples and the altars
bare.' 2 If that be so, they have no reason to blame the Chris-
tian religion, as though their injured gods, on that account,
foresook them. As a matter of fact, their forebears, in their
rough way, drove from the altars of the city a whole mob of
lesser gods, like so many flies. Yet, where was this mob of
divinities at the crisis when, long before the old morals were
corrupted, Rome was captured and set in flames by the Gauls?
Were they, perhaps, on the scene, but asleep? For, on that
occasion almost the entire city fell into the power of the
enemy. The Capitoline Hill alone escaped, and it too, would
have been seized had not the geese, at least, kept watch while
the gods slumbered. 3
It was because of this that Rome, stooping to the super-
stition of the Egyptians and their adoration of beasts and birds,
adopted the custom of solemnizing the feast of the goose.
But, this is only in passing. I do not as yet intend to discuss
these accidental evils which came in the wake of hostile in-
vasion or of other misfortunes, and afflict the body rather
than the soul. At the moment, I am concerned with the im-
morality, as first seeping in little by little, then like a torrent
making a ruin of the republic though its roofs and walls
stood intact. This was so complete that great writers did not
hesitate to declare that the state had perished. The gods might
have departed with some right and left the temples and
2 Aeneid 2.351,352.
3 The Gauls entered Rome in 390 B c. The story of the geese is told by
Livy (5.47).
THE CITY OF GOD*. BOOK II 113
altars bare' in order to ruin the state, if the citizens had made
sport of any code of morality and justice which the gods had
given them. But, tell me, what sort of gods are those who re-
fused to live with a people that worshiped them, after they had
failed to teach their worshipers to give up a life of scandal
for one of decency?
Chapter 23
The gods seem even to have lent their aid in satisfying
the peoples' base desires. At all events, it can be shown that
they gave no aid in holding them in check. Did they not
assist Marius, a political upstart of low birth and a blood-
thirsty inciter and leader of civil war? He secured the consul-
ship for seven terms and died in the fullness of life during his
seventh consulship, before he could fall into the hands of
Sulla, who was about to emerge as victor. If the gods gave no
help to Marius, that is significant. It points to the fact that
a man, even without the favor of the gods, can achieve that
large measure of earthly prosperity which men have so much
at heart, and can be as powerful and happy as Marius was
and enjoy health, strength, riches, honors, respect and long
life, even though the gods are against him. On the other
hand, it can happen that men like the noble Regulus suffer
and die in captivity, slavery, destitution, sleeplessness, and
pain, though the gods smile on him with favor.
If they grant this, then they flatly confess that the gods do
them no good, and that to worship them is time lost. For,
if those gods arranged things so that the people were taught
principles directly opposed to the virtues of the soul and de-
cency of life, for which men expect a reward after death,
and if even as regards transitory and temporal blessings
the gods have no power to hurt those they hate or benefit those
114 SAINT AUGUSTINE
they love, what is the sense of making such ado about their
worship? Why should men utter any complaint in times of
depression and gloom, as though the gods had withdrawn
themselves under insult, and why, on their account, should
anyone bespatter Christ's religion with vile abuse?
If they have any power to do good or evil in these mat-
ters, why did they lend their aid to the scoundrel Marius and
deny it to the noble Regulus? Is not this proof to anyone
that they are the most unjust and wicked of beings? If any
imagine that that is the more reason why they should be
feared and worshiped, even there they are mistaken, for it
is known that the noble Regulus honored them no less than
Marius. It is also an error to fancy that, because the gods
smiled on Marius more than they did on Regulus, a wicked
life is therefore the best choice. For, there was Metellus, 1 a
man highly esteemed among the Romans. He had five sons
who filled consular office, and, beyond that, he was blessed
in temporal goods. In contrast, there was Catiline, an un-
speakably wicked man, who lived in crushing poverty and
who fell miserably in the civil war he had criminally let
loose. And there is the truest and securest kind of happiness
which is the lot only of the good who worship the true God,
who alone has the power to bestow it.
Thus, when the old republic was dying from the corrosion
of low morals, the gods did not move a finger to guide or cor-
rect those morals and thus save it from death. On the contrary,
they contributed to the depravity and corruption, that it
might more surely die. It is of no use for them to pose as virtu-
ous and to pretend that they departed because they were
1 Qumtus Caecilius Metellus Macedonius, a commander in Macedonia
in 146 B.C., and consul in 143, died in 115, just before his fourth son
became consul.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK H 115
repelled by the depravity of the citizens. They were on the
spot; they are discovered and convicted. They could neither
help by their counsels nor hide by their silence.
I need not recall how the sympathetic people of Minturnae
implored their goddess Marica in her grove that Marius
might succeed in everything; then, how he was rescued from
a desperate situation and returned safe, and ferocious at
the head of a ferocious army and against Rome. How mur-
derous, barbarous, and more savage than an enemy's was his
victory there may be read in the histories.
But, as I said, I need not recall this. In any case, I do not
attribute the bloodstained success of Marius to some Marica
or other, but to God's secret providence. Providence uses
such means to silence our enemies and save those unbelievers
from their errors who are without prejudice and are wise
enough to learn. For, though the demons have some power in
these matters, they have only as much as the hidden will of
Almighty God allows them. This is in order that we may
not, in view of such deceptions, overestimate earthly suc-
cess, which, as in the case of Marius, is as a rule bestowed
also upon the wicked; again, that we may in other respects
regard it as an evil thing, seeing that, despite the demons,
many good and religious souls, devoted to the true God, have
enjoyed it in large measure. Neither should we consider that
the same unclean spirits should be appeased or feared, if
only on account of these earthly goods or evils. For, neither
wicked men on earth, nor the demons, can do all they de-
sire, save in so far as is allowed by God's ordinance, whose
judgments no man can fully comprehend, or justly reprehend.
116 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 24
As for Sulla 1 himself, who brought his times so low that
the preceding period, of which he posed as the champion or
reformer, was by comparison more desirable, Titus Livy tells
the following incident. It took place at the moment when
Sulla first moved his army to march to Rome against Marius.
At the sacrifice to the gods, the animal's entrails showed such
favorable omens that the augur Postumius offered to de-
liver himself to custody and lose his head if, with the help
of the gods, Sulla failed to carry to a successful conclusion the
plans he had in mind. Note that the gods had not yet 'de-
parted and left the temples and the altars bare' when they
were predicting the outcome of Sulla's war, without giving
a thought to the reform of the man himself. In prophecy, they
promised him huge success, but there was not one word of
warning to curb his insatiable greed.
Again, while he was waging war against Mithridates in
Asia, Jupiter sent him, through Lucius Titus, the assurance
that he would vanquish Mithridates, and so it happened.
Later, while Sulla was planning to return to Rome to
avenge his own and his friends' wrongs in a bloody civil
war Jupiter reminded him by a soldier of the sixth legion
that he had prophesied his victory over Mithridates, and now
promised him power to recover the republic from its enemies,
even at the cost of blood. Sulla asked the soldier to describe
the shape of the vision he had seen. When the soldier did
so, Sulla remembered that it was the same as the one previ-
ously described by that Titus who brought the prediction
that he would crush Mithridates.
Now, what answer can they give to this pertinent question :
1 Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 BC.) became dictator in Rome in
82 and abdicated in 79. He died after a year of excessive indulgence.
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK II 117
Why were the gods so solicitous to announce those successes
as happy events, while not one of them bothered about warn-
ing Sulla to amend his ways? They knew that he was on the
point of unloosing such a criminal civil war as would not
merely drag the republic in the mud, but would reduce it to
ruins. It is one more indication of what the demons are. As I
have so often suggested, and as we know from Sacred Scrip-
ture, and as the facts themselves reveal, their business is to
see that they are taken for gods and worshiped accordingly,
that such honors be bestowed upon them as will make their
worshipers accomplices in an evil cause, most damnable in
God's judgment.
On a later occasion, when Sulla reached Tarentum and
there offered sacrifice, he beheld in the upper part of a calf's
liver the likeness of a golden crown. This the augur Postumius
interpreted as presaging a brilliant victory, and bade him
eat that part of the entrails all alone. A few minutes later,
the slave of a certain Lucius Pontius prophesied in a loud
voice: 'Sulla, I bring you a message from Bellona: Victory
is yours!' Adding that the capitol would be burned down, he
rushed out of the camp. The next day he was back, very ex-
cited, to announce that the capitol was already in ashes. And
in ashes it was. It was an easy matter for an evil spirit both
to foresee the event and to announce it so quickly.
But, mark well, for this is much to our purpose, what
sort of gods those men choose for masters who blaspheme
the Savior because He delivers the hearts of the faithful from
the Devil's domination. The man who played the prophet
shouted: 'Sulla, victory is yours! 5 And, to make it credible
that he spoke by divine inspiration, he announced a proxi-
mate event that soon occurred in a place far distant from the
man through whom the spirit spoke. But, note, he did not
118 SAINT AUGUSTINE
cry: 'Sulla, keep away from criminal acts' of which as
victor he perpetrated the most horrible. In the golden crown
in the calf's liver Sulla had seen the signal token of his vic-
tory. But, if gods who give such signs were good gods and
not wicked demons, surely in those entrails they would have
rather pointed out how abominable in themselves and how
disastrous to Sulla himself were the evils that lay ahead.
That victory which enhanced his dignity brought disaster
to his cupidity; for, casting moderation aside, he brought more
ruin upon his moral character than upon the bodies of his
enemies. This truly sad and lamentable outcome was not
foretold to him by those gods, either by entrails or auguries, or
by any dream or divination. They feared his reform more than
they did his defeat. Their aim was to make the conqueror of
the Roman people a slave to shameful vices, and thus to chain
him more securely to the demons themselves.
Chapter 25
Only a man who prefers to imitate that sort of god rather
than, with God's grace, to reject their company will fail to
see, from facts like these, how those sinister spirits try to cast
a kind of glamor of divine authority on wicked acts. They
were actually seen, on a plain in Campania, fighting a pitched
battle among themselves, shortly before the citizen armies
were locked in a bloody encounter in the same place. 1 At first,
deafening noises rent the air; soon after, many people re-
ported how for several days they had seen two columns in
battle, and, when the battle was over, they found as many
1 The prodigy is supposed to have occurred during the civil war in the
year 85 B.C., not far from Capua.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK II 119
footprints, like those of men and horses, as might be expected
from so great an engagement.
Now, one point of the story if the gods really fought
against gods is that civil wars among men cannot be con-
demned. Another is that such gods must be either malicious
or miserable. If, on the other hand, the fight was a mere
sham, it had no purpose but to make the Romans believe that,
when they broke out in civil strife, they did no wrong, since
the gods had given the example. The civil wars had already
begun, heralded by sundry battles and unspeakably savage
massacres. Already, a tragic episode had struck horror into
many. A soldier, while stripping the spoils off a slain foe,
saw that the body was that of his own brother. With a curse
against fratricidal wars, he turned the sword upon himself and
fell by his brother's side.
To the end that men might not feel the horror of such
abominations, but that their lust for criminal wars might be
kindled to greater frenzy, the malignant spirits, whom the
Romans took for gods and thought worthy of honor and
worship, willed to appear before men as fighting with one
another. Thus, with the spectacle of battling gods before them,
Romans would not be deterred by love of country from initi-
ating similar conflicts, but would rather see human villainy
condoned by the example of the gods. It was the same cunning
which the unclean devils used when they demanded stage
plays to be performed in their honor, in which, as I have
pointed out, the scandals of the gods were exhibited before
men's eyes, both in the musical pantomimes and in drama-
tizations of fables. Whether the spectator believed that the
gods really did such things or not, he nevertheless knew that
the gods were immensely pleased to have their villainies per-
formed and that, therefore, he could do likewise without
qualm.
120 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Lest any man think that whenever the poets tell of the
fighting gods they are penning rebukes rather than encomi-
ums, the gods themselves, in order to deceive men, set the
seal of approval on their songs. They did so not only by
having their battles portrayed by the actors on the stage, but
by doing their own fighting in open field before men's eyes.
We have felt bound to say this because their own authors
had frankly declared and written that, because of the de-
praved morals of the Roman citizens, the republic had gone
to pieces, leaving no trace of its old self, long before the com-
ing of our Lord Jesus Christ. This disaster they refuse to
blame on their gods, but they blame on our Christ the passing
ills to which men never yield in life or death. While our
Christ constantly inculcates lofty precepts to uphold good
morals and to denounce evil ones, the gods issued no such
precepts to the people who worshiped them and did nothing
to save the republic from doom. On the contrary, by their
example they gave, in a sense, wicked approval to the corrup-
tion of those morals, and thus did everything to destroy the
republic.
There is no one, I hope, who will dare any longer to
assert that the republic fell into ruin because the gods 'de-
parted and left the temples and the altars bare/ on the
ground that, being friends of virtue, they were repelled by
the vices of men. For, by the fact that no end of auspices,
auguries, and divinations revealed them as boasting of their
foresight and as abettors of war, they stand convicted of
having remained where they were. If they had really de-
parted, the Romans in their civil wars would have been led
merely by their passions and would have been less savage
than they were under the spur of the demons' instigations.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 121
Chapter 26
This being the case, one question needs answering. Openly
and without concealment, the bestial indecencies, crimes, and
misdeeds of the gods were paraded before the people to be
seen and to be taken as patterns of life. This was done at the
instance of the gods themselves, who threatened the penalty
of their wrath if those spectacles were not consecrated to their
honor, at regular intervals, with all pomp and circumstance.
By the pleasure they take in such abominations, the demons
prove themselves to be unclean spirits. By the revelation of
their vices and infamous actions, they avow themselves to be
the inciters of scandalous and unclean living. It was they
who solicited from the brazen actor class the formal represen-
tation of these depravities real or imaginary, and forced it
upon decent people. How, then, can anyone think, in face of
all this, that these devils impart certain precepts of good
morals to a chosen coterie of saints, so to speak, in their holy
of holies and in the secret recesses of their temples?
If this is true, there is all the more reason to recognize and
unmask the malice of these unclean spirits. So powerful is
the attraction of the virtue of purity that practically every
human being is pleased to hear it praised, and no one is so
sunk in depravity as to have lost all sense of decency. Hence,
unless the malignity of the demons somewhere 'transformed
itself into an angel of light/ 1 as we read in our Scripture, it
cannot carry out its business of deception.
So it happens that, in public, impious impurity shouts into
people's ears with noisy din, while in private, hidden chastity
is scarcely heard of even by a few. For depravity there is
1 2 Cor. 11.14.
122 SAINT AUGUSTINE
notoriety; for decency, only concealment. Decency goes into
hiding; indecency goes on parade. Evil action summons a
mob; a good discourse scarcely finds a handful of listeners.
It is as though virtue were matter for shame, and vice for
boasting. Such is the perversion in the temples of the demons,
in those haunts of deceit. The esoteric instructions are to en-
snare the decent few; the public worship is to keep the im-
moral majority from reform.
I do not know when or where the elect of the goddess
Caelestls ever heard any maxims of chastity. This I do know.
Before the temple gates where I saw her idol standing, the
mob poured in from all sides, each one finding room wherever
he could elbow himself in. I was all eyes and ears for the
plays that were being enacted. My morbid gaze shifted from
one side to the other, now falling on a procession of strum-
pets, now on the virgin goddess, now on the humble supplica-
tions being addressed to her, now on the foul antics being
enacted before her face. I saw no modest actors, no actions
that had a touch of shame. Every honor was done to obscenity.
Everyone knew what gratified the whim of the virgin god-
dess, and an exhibition was put on in the temple that gave
even experienced matrons something to take home. Some
women turned in shame from the filthy gestures of the actors,
learning the artistry of vice only by furtive glances.
They felt abashed before men to gaze openly on the im-
pure motions, yet they did not dare, with a pure heart, to
reprobate the rites of the goddess they worshiped. In the
temple those obscenities were openly taught which, at home,
are done only in the dark. The only wonder for a decent-
minded man if there were any was that there should be
any remorse when men practice those indecencies which the
gods were so eager to have acted on the open stage as a part
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK H 123
of religion and, in fact, become angry when they are not per-
formed.
What other spirit inflames minds with a secret itch to
commit adulteries, and gloats over them when commited,
except one who finds delight in such celebrations? Such a
spirit it is which sets up diabolical idols in the temples, and in
the plays loves the images of vices; which whispers words of
righteousness in secret in order to deceive the virtuous few,
while in the open multiplies incitements to depravity in order
to drag to itself the mass of wicked men.
Chapter 27
Tullius, a man of importance though a poor philosopher,
about to assume the edileship, shouts into the citizens' ears
that among the duties of his office is that of appeasing the
Mother Flora by a festival of plays 1 the piety of whose
performance, I may add, is usually in proportion to their
lewdness. In another place, 2 speaking at a time when he was
consul and the state was facing a most dangerous crisis, he
informs us that these plays went on for ten days on end, and
that nothing was left undone which was calculated to pro-
pitiate the gods. Thereby it is suggested that it was better to
placate gods of that kind with debauchery than anger them
with continence; to soothe them with unbounded lewdness
than to enrage them with decency.
Enemies, with all their beastly ferocity, could not inflict
more harm than gods inflicted by the unspeakable foulness
they demanded as an appeasement for keeping the enemy at
bay. In order to avert the menace to the body, the gods were
1 Contra Verrem 5.14.
2 In Catilinam 3.8.
124 SAINT AUGUSTINE
placated by the defeat of virtue in the soul. They would make
no defense against enemies storming men's walls until they
themselves had ruined men's wills.
The performers of these propitiatory orgies, so wanton, im-
pure, shameless, wicked, and foul, were disfranchised, ostra-
cized, and branded with infamy by the admirable moral
instinct of ancient Rome; yet the orgies themselves, so shame-
ful, revolting, and repugnant to true religion, the seductive
and slanderous fables about the gods, and their actions,
whether villainously and foully committed or more villain-
ously and foully feigned for the public to see and hear all
these the mass of citizens were taught to drink in. Seeing that
they delighted the gods, the Romans believed that they should
not only be performed in their honor, but also be imitated.
At the same time, the people learned nothing of the supposed
lessons in good morals imparted to the few and with such
secrecy if imparted at all. It was feared not so much that
the lessons would be followed in practice as that they would
become common knowledge.
Chapter 28
People are wicked and thankless who grumble and com-
plain against being delivered from the hellish yoke of these
unclean powers, and from the penalty for keeping such com-
pany. People complain against being led out of the dark night
of ruinous unbelief into the light of life-giving faith. Fast in
the grip of the malign spirit, they grumble because othei
people stream into the church to render a pure worship tc
God, where, for modesty's sake, men are on one side anc
women on the other. These other people hear how to live
their brief span on earth virtuously and, after this life, to live
happily forever. There, from an elevation within everyone':
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK II 1 25
view, arc expounded the words of Holy Scripture and the
doctrine of righteous living, and how those who put them
into practice receive their reward, and those who refuse to
do so listen to their damnation.
Though some may come to mock the precepts they hear,
they will either experience an unexpected change of heart
and lay aside their insolence or, out of sheer awe and shame,
they will restrain it. In the place where the commandments
of the true God are preached, His miracles related, His boun-
ties praised, and His graces implored, no foul or scandalous
deed will be set before them to look at and to imitate.
Chapter 29
Why, then, do not you Romans with your noble character,
you sons of the Reguli, Scaevolae, Scipii, and Fabricii, let
your hearts go out to these better things. Look at the difference
between these things and the base arrogance and deceiving
wickedness of the demons. However great and good your
natural gifts may be, it takes true piety to make them pure
and perfect; with impiety, they merely end in loss and pain.
Choose now your course, not to seek glory in yourself, but to
find it infallibly in the true God. At one time, you could
enjoy the applause of your people, but by God's mysterious
providence the true religion was not there for you to choose.
But, it is now day; awake as you awoke in the persons of
those men in whose sterling virtue and sufferings for the faith
we glory. They battled on all sides against hostile powers
and, conquering by their fearless death, 'have purchased this
country for us with their blood.' 1 To this Country we plead-
1 Aeneid 11.24,25.
126 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ingly invite you. Join its citizens, for it offers more than mere
sanctuary, it offers the true remission of your sins.
Give no heed to the degenerate progeny who blame Christ
and Christians for what they call bad times, and long for
times which assure them, not a peaceful life, but undisturbed
wickedness. Such times were never to your liking, not even
for an earthly fatherland. Reach out now for the heavenly
country. You will have very little to suffer for it, and in it
you will reign in very truth, and forever. In that land there
is no Vestal altar, no statue of Jupiter on the Capitol, but
the one true God, who 'will not limit you in space or time,
but will give an empire universal and eternal.' 2 Seek no false
and lying gods; rather, cast them from you with scorn and
shine forth in true freedom. They are not gods, but fiendish
spirits, to whom your eternal happiness is a torment. Never
did Juno so intensely begrudge the Trojans, your ancestors
in the flesh, the battlements of Rome, as do those demons,
whom you still fancy to be gods, begrudge an everlasting
home to the whole human race.
You have already, in part, passed judgment on these spirits,
for, while you placated them with stage plays, you branded
with infamy the actors who performed them. Let your free-
dom assert its rights against the unclean spirits who have
placed upon you the obligation of solemnly exhibiting their
shame as though it were a holy thing.
You took civic rights away from performers of Olympian
scandals. Now, beseech the true God to take away from you
those gods who delight in immoralities in lust, if the sins
are facts; in lying, if they are feigned. You did well to ostra-
cize the mimes and mummers from civil society. Keep a
2 Ibid. 1.278,279.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK II 127
sharper watch now. Divine majesty is in no" way appeased by
arts which dishonor man's dignity. How, then, can you place
in the ranks of the holy powers of heaven gods who delight
in homage so unclean, while you banned from the lowest ranks
of Roman citizens the men who enacted such homage?
Glorious beyond compare is the heavenly city. There, vic-
tory is truth, dignity is holiness, peace is happiness, life is
eternity. If you blushed to tolerate that sort of men among
your citizens, how much less will the heavenly city tolerate
that sort of gods? Wherefore, if you long to reach that blessed
country, shun the company of demons. Gods who are pro-
pitiated by infamous rites are unworthy of the worship of
decent men. Deny religious rites to the gods, by a Christian
reform, just as you denied civil dignity to the actors, by the
censor's decree.
As regards earthly happiness and physical evils which alone
the wicked wish to enjoy or refuse to endure, I shall show
in the sequel that not even over these have those demons the
control people imagine. Indeed, even if they did have, then
we should scorn those things rather than, for their sake, wor-
ship those gods and so fail to attain the blessings they be-
grudge us. However, not even over those things have demons
the power attributed to them by those who maintain that
they must on that account be propitiated. But, as I said,
more of this later. Here, I bring this book to a close.
BOOK III
Chapter 1
|T SEEMS TO ME I have already said enough about the
evils which work havoc on men's souls and morals,
and which they must shun at all costs. I have shown
that, far from having done aught to save their worshipers from
the miseries that lay heavy upon them, the false gods did their
utmost to increase the burden beyond endurance.
I must now turn to those calamities which are the only
things our accusers have no wish to endure. Such are hunger,
disease, war, plunder, imprisonment, massacre, and horrors
such as I have mentioned in Book I. Though these do not
make men evil, evildoers regard them as the only evil. Yet,
they feel no shame that they themselves are evil amid the things
they praise as good. They are more pained if their villa is poor
than if their life is bad, as though man's greatest good were to
have everything good except himself.
The fact is that the gods did not ward off the evils which
pagans dread, even at a time when they were freely worshiped.
At various times and in different places before the coming
of our Redeemer, calamities beyond counting and descrip-
tion were scourging mankind. Yet, what others besides your
recreant gods did the world worship? I except, of course, the
Hebrew nation, and a few individuals beyond its pale, where-
ever by God's grace and His secret and righteous judgment
they were found worthy.
Not to enlarge too much, I shall say nothing of the dread-
ful afflictions which other people have everywhere suffered.
Confining myself to Rome alone and to the Roman Empire,
129
130 SAINT AUGUSTINE
that is, to the city itself and to the people linked with it
either by alliance or by subjection, I shall speak of the visi-
tations they experienced before the coming of Christ, but after
their incorporation into the Roman body politic.
Chapter 2
To begin with, there is the case of Troy, or Ilium, the
cradle of the Roman people. Though I alluded to this in the
first Book, I must not omit it or ignore it here. Troy had and
worshiped the Roman gods. Why, then, was it conquered, cap-
tured, and destroyed by the Greeks? Pagans, of course, will
reply that Priam had to pay the price for his father Lao-
medon's perjury. 1 If so, Apollo and Neptune must have
given mercenary aid to Laomedon. He pledged them pay,
so it is said, and then went back on his word. That is most
remarkable! To think that Apollo, who is called the Seer,
should engage in so vast a venture and not know that Lao-
medon would default in his promise! Nor does it reflect
credit on Neptune himself, his uncle, Jupiter's brother, and
King of the Sea, to have been in the dark about the future.
Yet, Homer, the poet who is said to have lived before Rome's
foundation, represents this divinity to us as uttering a mo-
mentous prophecy about the race of Aeneas, whose progeny
founded Rome, and whom Neptune, as Homer tells us,
snatched up in a cloud to save him from the murderous sword
of Achilles, although, as Virgil avows,
1 Priam's father, Laomedon, violated a pledge he had given to Poseidon
(or Neptune) and Apollo, and this perjury was reckoned the real cause
of Troy's fall. Cf. Iliad 21.441-460; Horace, Odes 4.3.18-24; Acneid
4.542; Georgics 1.502.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 131
All his will was to destroy
His own creation, perjured Troy. 2
So, we have the spectacle of two mighty divinities, Neptune
and Apollo, unable to tell that Laomedon was going to cheat
them of their pay, building up the walls of Troy and all
for nothing but ingratitude. Pagans should reflect whether it
is really not more criminal to believe in such gods than to vio-
late one's oath to them. Homer himself has not given easy
credence to the fable, for, while on the one hand he repre-
sents Neptune battling against the Trojans, on the other he
has Apollo righting for them, in spite of the fact that, as the
fable runs, both took offense at the perjury. Hence, if they
so swallow the fables, they should blush for worshiping that
sort of deities; if they do not swallow them, then they should
not appeal to the Trojans' perjury, or should at least find
it strange that the gods should punish perjury on the part of
the Trojans and welcome it with pleasure on the part of
the Romans.
How could it possibly happen that, 'in a state so great and
so sunk in corruption,' Catiline's conspiracy could count a
large number of those 'who made their living by hand and
tongue plying perjury and murder of their fellow citizens'? 3
How else can you explain the fact that bribery so often stole
the decisions of Senators, and so often the vote of the citizens,
both at the polls and in certain cases that were tried before
them in public assemblies, except that they, too, resorted to
the crime of perjury? For, even when, amid the general
let-down of morals, the ancient custom of taking oath was re-
tained, that was not to restrain people from wrong-doing
through religious awe, but in order to add perjury to their
other crimes.
2 Aeneid 5.810,811.
3 Sallust, Catiltna 14.1.
132 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 3
In view of all this, there is no basis for thinking that the
gods allegedly the 'pillars of the empire' 1 but manifestly
beaten by the greater might of the Greeks were aroused to
anger by the Trojans' perjury. Nor did the adultery of Paris
sometimes alleged to justify their abandoning Troy kindle
their wrath. For, as a rule, they are the perpetrators and teach-
ers of evil, not its avengers. 'As I have learned the story,'
writes Sallust, 'in the beginning the city of Rome was founded
and possessed by the Trojans, who, led by Aeneas, wandered
about as refugees with no fixed home.' 2 If, therefore, the
gods thought fit to avenge the adultery of Paris, they should
have visited their penalties more on the Romans, or at least
equally on them, since it was the mother of Aeneas who
comitted that crime.
But, how could they detest the misdeed in Paris when they
did not detest the adultery of his associate Venus with
Anchises (to mention no others) by whom she begot Aeneas?
Was it because the former was comitted in the face of Mene-
laus j wrath; the latter, with Vulcan's connivance? I suppose
the gods are not jealous of their wives to the extent of not
deigning to share them with men ! But, perhaps I may seem
to be scoffing at these fables, and not treating so weighty a
matter with due seriousness.
Well, then, if you please, let us suppose that Aeneas was
not the son of Venus. I agree to that, provided it be also
admitted that neither was Romulus the son of Mars. If the
one be true, why not the other? Or is it licit for gods to con-
sort casually with the wives of mortals and illicit for mortal
1 Cf. Aeneid 2.352.
2 Catilina 6.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 133
men to do the same with goddesses? Those are hard, or
rather incredible, terms: that what was lawful to Mars by
Venus' law should not be lawful to Venus by her own law.
But, both have the support of Roman authority, for, in times
nearer to us, Caesar was no less convinced that he was de-
scended from Venus than was Romulus that Mars was his
father.
Chapter 4
Someone may say to me: 'Do you believe all that stuff?'
My answer is that I do not. Even one of the most learned
pagans, Varro, if not with outright decisiveness and confi-
dence, still cautiously avows that all this is sheer nonsense.
For all that, he affirms that it is expedient for states that men
of valor should claim divine lineage, however shallow the pre-
tence. This is on the theory that, by that sublime fiction, the
human spirit, urged on by the self-assurance of being divinely
born, will venture into great exploits and, by the confidence
such illusion inspires, achieve more signal success.
You cannot but observe how wide a door this view, which
I have summarized in my own words, would open to sham
and false pretence. This is especially so where lies even about
the gods are regarded as advantageous to the people. Endless
fictions will be invented, and invested with a so-called sacred
and religious character.
Chapter 5
We may pass over without discussion the question whether
Venus could possibly have borne Aeneas as a a result of her
liaison with Anchises, or whether Mars could have begotten
Romulus from his intimacy with Numitor's daughter. A very
134 SAINT AUGUSTINE
similar question arises even in our own Scriptures as to
whether the fallen angels committed fornication with the
'daughters of men/ 1 which brought into being a race of
giants, men of extraordinary size and strength, who increased
and peopled the earth. Let us argue both cases as one. If the
adulteries we read about concerning Aeneas' mother and
Romulus' father be true, how can the gods take offense at
the adulteries of men, since they take such things as a matter
of course among themselves? Even if the tales are untrue,
the gods should not become angered at the real adulteries
of men, since they are pleased to have false ones attributed to
themselves. Besides, if the misconduct of Mars is discredited
for the sake of saving Venus, then no divine seduction can
excuse the mother of Romulus.
Further, she was a priestess of Vesta, and for that reason
the gods were bound to wreak greater vengeance upon the
Romans for her sacrilege than upon the Trojans for the
adultery of Paris. The ancient Romans buried alive any Vestal
priestesses caught in adultery, although they never punished by
death other women guilty of the same crime. Thus, they
inflicted severer penalties on what they regarded as the dese-
cration of the shrines of the gods than on the violation of the
marriage bond among men.
Chapter 6
Here is another instance. If the crimes of mortals angered
the gods so much that, when offended by the act of Paris,
they abandoned Troy to destruction by fire and sword, then
the murder of Romulus' brother should have incensed them
against the Romans and much more than the deception of
1 Gen. 6.4.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 135
a Greek husband did against the Trojans. Surely, fratricide
in a newly founded state should have provoked them more
than adultery in a state already established in power. More-
over, it is irrelevant whether Romulus ordered the murder,
or committed it with his own hand as many boldly deny, or
doubt in shame, or dissemble in sorrow. I need not delay,
therefore, in examining in detail testimonies of many writers
already verified. One thing is certain: Romulus' brother was
slain neither by open enemies nor by strangers.
Whether Romulus himself committed the murder or merely
ordered its commission, the fact is that he was more fully
master of the Romans than Paris was of the Trojans. Why,
then, did the seducer of another man's wife kindle the wrath
of the gods, while the murderer of his own brother begged
for the Romans the protection of the gods? If that crime was
not committed by Romulus directly or indirectly, it still cried
aloud for vengeance, and, since the whole state treated it as
a light matter, the whole state committed the crime. Thus,
the state slew not merely a brother, but, even worse, a father.
The one brother was as. much the founder of the state as the
other; when one was removed by the crime, the other was
thereby barred from becoming ruler.
I do not think there is any way of telling for what guilt
Troy deserved to be abandoned by the gods and come to
ruin, or for what good Rome deserved to become their abode
and be set on the road to prosperity. Perhaps it was because
the gods fled in defeat and betook themselves to the people
they were to dupe and mislead. Or, better, they remained
on the site of Troy to deceive the new settlers, according to
their custom, while here in Rome, having greater scope for
lying tricks, they were given greater honors and glory.
136 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 7
In the first fury of the civil wars, what wrong had Troy
committed to deserve a destruction at the hands of Fimbria, 1
the worst scoundrel on Marius' side, more savage and cruel
than that formerly wrought by the Greeks? In the earlier
calamity, many took to flight and many others were taken
captive and allowed to live, at least in slavery. But, Fimbria
issued an order to spare no one, and then fired the entire
city with everyone in it. All this Troy had to suffer not from
the Greeks incensed by Trojan wickedness, but from the
Romans, who had reaped success from Troy's misfortune.
The gods who guarded them both brought no aid to avert
disasters; rather, to tell the truth, they were utterly powerless
to do so.
Did the gods, even at that time, 'depart and leave the
temples and altars bare' gods who had kept the city stand-
ing after it had arisen from the ashes and ruins in which the
Greeks had left it? But, if they had already departed, I would
like to know why. I find the conduct of the inhabitants as
laudable as that of the gods is blameworthy. The Trojans
had closed the gates against Fimbria in order to hold the city
intact for Sulla. That is why Fimbria not merely fired the
city, with its inhabitants, but utterly wiped it out. Sulla was
still leader of the more respectable party, and he was still
making every effort to deliver the republic by force of arms.
He had not yet sensed the tragic outcome of these auspicious
beginnings. Could the people of that city have done anything
more proper, honorable, loyal, and more worthy of their
kinship with Rome than to hold the city for the more patri-
1 C. Flavius Fimbria, friend of Marius in the civil war and commander
in Asia until his suicide in 84 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK III 137
otic Roman party and to shut its gates in the face of the be-
trayer of the Roman state?
How tragically this loyal act turned out for the Trojans,
let the champions of the gods observe. It is urged that the gods
deserted the adulterers and left Troy to the torches of the
Greeks so that, from its ashes, a chaster Rome might arise.
Then, why did they later desert the same city when it was
bound to Rome by ties of kinship, and had not risen in revolt
against Rome, its noble daughter, but had kept its faith
staunchly and devotedly with its more legitimate party? Why
did they then leave it to be wiped out, not by the valorous
Greeks, but by the vilest creature that ever bore a Roman
name?
If the gods frowned on the cause which was upheld by
Sulla's party and which made the unfortunate Trojans hold
the city with closed gates, why did the gods promise and pre-
dict such happy prospects for this same Sulla? Do they not
reveal in this their true colors as flatterers of the fortunate
rather than defenders of the downcast. Hence, not even then
was it because the gods departed that Troy was overthrown.
For the demons, ever ready to deceive, did all they could.
Together with the city, all the statues of idols went down
in ashes and ruins except the statue of Minerva. According
to Livy, 2 this remained intact in spite of the total destruction
of her temple. This was not that it might be said in their
praise: 'y e patron gods that always Troy protect,' 3 but that
it might not be urged in their defence that 'the gods departed
and left temples and the altars bare.' They were allowed to
save that statue, not as proof of their power, but of their pres-
ence there.
2 In one of the lost books of Livy.
3 Aeneid 9.247.
138 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 8
After the tragic lesson of Troy, was it a wise decision to
entrust the protection of Rome to the gods of Ilium? It may
be answered that, by the time Troy fell before Fimbria's on-
slaught, the gods had already taken up their permanent abode
in Rome. How, then, explain the preservation of Minerva's
image? If they were in Rome when Fimbria razed Troy, I
presume they were in Troy when the Gauls seized and set
fire to Rome itself ! Having extremely sharp ears and extremely
fast legs, at the scream of the geese they were back in a flash
to protect at least the Capitoline Hill, which had escaped
capture. Too bad that the warning to return was heard too
late to save the rest of the city !
Chaper 9
It is also a matter of common belief that the gods gave
their aid to Numa Pompilius, Romulus' successor. The result
was that, during his entire reign, peace reigned with him,
and the gates of the Temple of Janus, ordinarily open in time
of war, were closed. The reason alleged is that the king
established many sacred rites for the Romans. Certainly, that
distinguished man deserves our congratulations for so long
a peace. But, it is a pity that he failed to put it to good use,
and that, instead of indulging in harmful experiment, he did
not seek the true God in all sincerity. In truth, the gods did
not bestow that peaceful interval, but perhaps th^y would
not have made such a dupe of him, had they not found him
so idle. The less busy they found him, the more busy they
became. We learn from Varro how Numa schemed, and what
tricks he used to associate such gods with him and with his
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK HI 1 39
kingdom. But, God willing, I shall discuss that in more detail
in the proper place. 1
Since we are here dealing with their alleged favors of the
gods, let it be granted that peace is indeed a great blessing.
But, it is a blessing which, like sun and rain and other necessi-
ties of life, the true God bestows even on the ungrateful and
the wicked. Now, if those gods conferred so priceless a bless-
ing upon Rome under Pompilius, why did they never vouch-
safe it to the Roman Empire even when most deserving of
commendation? Were the sacrifices more effective when first
introduced than when offered afterwards?
At first, they did not exist, and were therefore instituted;
later, they did exist, and were preserved for the good they
might do. But, how is one to explain the phenomenon that
the forty-three, 2 or, as some would have it, thirty-nine years
of Numa's reign enjoyed unbroken peace, while after that,
in the long stretch of years from Rome's beginnings to Augus-
tus, only the single year after the First Punic War can be
recorded and that as an outstanding miracle in which the
Romans could shut the gates of the war temple. 3 Note that
the sacrifices had already been instituted, and the gods them-
selves had been installed, those gods whom the sacrifices in-
vited to assume the supervision and protection of the com-
monwealth.
Chapter 10
The pagans will probably reply that the Roman Empire
could not have attained its vast extent and achieved a glory
1 Cf., below, VII 34.
2 From 715 to 673, according to Livy (1.21) .
3 The First Punic War lasted from 264 to 241 B.C. The Temple of Janus
was closed in 235.
140 SAINT AUGUSTINE
so great except by constant warfare. A fitting answer, indeed!
To became great, must the Empire be in a turmoil? Is it not
better for men's bodies to be of moderate stature and be
healthy than to be gigantic and chronically diseased? Having
attained that size, they know no rest; the larger the limbs,
the sharper the pangs that torment them. What would have
been the harm, or, rather, would it not have been for the
best, had those times endured to which Sallust refers? He
says, 'In the beginning, the kings (the first title by which
rulers were known) varied in character. Some cultivated
mental powers; others, physical strength. Yet, men lived their
lives undisturbed by greed, each content with his own.' 1 In
order to extend the Empire so widely, need that have hap-
pened which Virgil deprecates when he says: 'Little by little
a more wicked and degenerate age crept in, with the fury of
war and greed for wealth.' 2
It will be urged that the Romans had an obviously just
reason for all the wars that were declared and waged, since
the enemy fell upon them with force, and not thirst for
human glory but sheer necessity to protect their lives and
liberty drove them to self-defense. Well, let that 'obviously'
pass. This is what Sallust writes:
'After the commonwealth of the Romans had, through
good laws, morals, and increase of territory, achieved a
measure of success and power, its wealth, as often hap-
pens among men, became the object of other people's
envy. Sure enough, neighboring kings and tribes began
to attack the Romans. A few of their allies came to their
1 Catilina 2.
2 Aeneid 8.326,327.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 141
aid ; the rest, struck with fear, kept far from danger. But
the Ramans, both at home and in the army, diligently
hastened preparations, encouraged one another, and
marched against the enemy to protect their freedom,
their country, and their king. Having warded off danger
by their valor, they brought aid to their allies and friends,
seeking to form friendships by conferring, rather than by
receiving, benefits. 53
By such intelligent industry did Rome develop its power.
But, while Numa reigned, was it the invasions and provo-
cations to war by aggressors that brought about the long
period of peace, or did that peace endure because there
was no threat of attack? Even then, Rome was provoked to
war, yet she did not counter-attack. By continuing to adopt
this policy of conciliating enemies without crushing them in
battle or striking fear into them by an armed attack, Rome
might always have ruled in peace and have kept the gates
of Janus forever closed. If this was impossible, then it follows
that Rome enjoyed peace, not because the gods willed it,
but merely so long as neighbors on the frontier willed not to
goad her into war. Unless, of course, we suppose that gods
of this type have gall enough to sell to a man something that
lies in a third party's power.
It is worth noting up to what point the wickedness of the
demons is permitted to alarm or to sway wills that are wicked.
For, if they always had such power, and there were no higher
and more mysterious powers to counteract their plots, they
could always control matters of peace as well as military
victories, for such events are almost invariably shaped and
3 Catilina 2.
142 SAINT AUGUSTINE
carried into effect by human wills. That more often than not
such events occur in spite of the wishes of the gods is a fact
attested not only by the fables which, for all their lies, may
hint at or symbolize an element of truth, but also by Roman
history itself.
Chapter 11
It was because the god was helpless that, as the fables
tell us, the statue of Apollo at Cumae shed tears for four
days while the Romans were waging war against the Achaeans
and King Aristonicus. 1 Shocked by the prodigy, the sooth-
sayers were about to fling the statue into the sea, when the
elders of Cumae intervened. They related that the same mys-
terious phenomenon had been observed in the same statue
when the Romans were at war with Antiochus 2 and the
Persians. 3 They further affirmed that, because the Romans
were victorious, gifts were sent to their Apollo by a sena-
torial decree.
The soothsayers, considered expert in these matters, were
called on to explain. They answered that the reason why
the tears shed by Apollo's statue meant victory for the Romans
was that Cumae was a colony of Greek origin, and that the
weeping Apollo portended disaster and humiliation for the
country whence he had come, Greece itself. Shortly there-
1 The reference seems to be to the Fourth Macedonian War (149-146) ,
but in that case the mention of Aristonicus is out of place. The MSS.
vary from Aristonicum and Stratonicum to Tratonicum and Istratini-
cum. Is it possible that the original reading was Andriscum? Andriscus,
a pretended son of Perseus, the hero of the Third Macedonian War,
provoked the Fourth and was defeated by Q. Caecilius Metellus.
2 Antiochus III invaded Greece in 192, but was defeated by M. Acilius
Glabrio and M. Porcius Cato in Thessaly in 191.
3 Perseus, successor of Philip V of Macedon, was defeated at the Battle of
Pydna (168 B.C.) by L. Aemilius Paullus.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 143
after, news came that King Aristonicus had been defeated
and captured, a defeat which, of course, deeply displeased
and grieved Apollo, as the tears of the marble image declared.
Hence, the descriptions of the poets give us of the habits of the
demons are not altogether fantastic, and, though fabulous in
character, do contain something like the truth. Thus, we
read in Virgil how Diana sorrowed over Camilla 4 and how
Hercules wept at the prospect of the slaying of Pallas. 6 So,
perhaps, with Numa Pompilius himself. He enjoyed peace,
but without knowing or caring who was the bestower of that
gift. In his idle moments he began to consider to what gods
he might entrust the security and kingdom of Rome. He did
not think that the true, omnipotent, and supreme God con-
cerned Himself about earthly affairs. On the other hand, he
remembered that the Trojan gods which Aeneas had brought
with him had proved powerless to preserve for any length of
time either the realm of Troy or that of Lavinium, which
Aeneas himself had founded. So, he thought best to provide
other deities, whose duty it would be to stand by the older gods
(some of whom had come to Rome with Romulus, and others
had passed over after the destruction of Alba), either as
guardians of deserters, or as assistants of weaklings.
Chapter 12
Rome was not content with the many rites and sacrifices
established by Numa, for the great temple of Jupiter had not
yet been erected. It was King Tarquin who built the Capi-
toline. Aesculapius of Epidaurus managed to get to Rome.
4 Aeneid 11.836-849.
5 Ibid. 10.457-469.
1 The cult was introduced in 293 B.C.
144 SAINT AUGUSTINE
He was a skilled physician, and he wanted to be in the cele-
brated city to practice his profession with greater renown.
Then, the Mother of the gods migrated to Rome from some
out-of-the-way place called Pessinus. 2 For, of course, it was
beneath her dignity to lurk in obscurity while her son was
enthroned on the Capitoline. The Mother of all the gods
followed some of her children to Rome, but she got there
ahead of the others. I should be a bit surprised, though, if
she really give birth to dog-headed Cynocephalus, who
came from Egypt much later. Whether the goddess Fever
was also one of her children, I leave it to Aesculapius, her
great-grandson, to say. But, whatever her origin, I do not
suppose that the immigrant gods will dare declare a goddess
of low birth is a citizen of Rome.
It would be hard to count this horde of divinities native
and foreign, heavenly and earthly, gods of the sea, of the
fountains, of the rivers, and, as Varro says, gods definite and
dubious, and in every category, male and female, even among
animals. Under the protecting shield of such an army of
gods, Rome should never have been troubled and afflicted
by that frightful succession of disasters, of which I shall men-
tion but a few.
The smoke from innumerable sacrifices that went up like
a signal of distress showed that Rome had assembled too
many gods for her protection. By instituting and assigning
temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests for their service, Rome
provoked the anger of the true and all-highest God, to whom
alone this worship is properly due. Actually, she led a hap-
pier life with fewer gods. But, as she grew in extent, she felt
2 Cybelc was worshiped at Pessinus in Asia Minor. For the transportation
of her statue to Rome, cf. Livy 29.10,11.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK HI 145
bound to employ more gods, like a bigger ship that employs
more sailors. I suppose that Rome lost confidence in the
fewer gods of old to sustain her in her greatness, though, in
contrast to her more degenerate days, she enjoyed more
prosperity under the lesser number. For, considering the old
days under the kings, apart from Numa Pompilius, of whom
I have already spoken, what a disaster was the strife that led
to the murder of Romulus' brother !
Chapter 13
How was it that neither Juno who, along with her hus-
band Jupiter, 'cherished Rome's lording sons, the nation of
the gown' 1 nor Venus herself, was able to help the descen-
dants of Venus' son, Aeneas, to be worthy of decent and
honorable marriages? Was the lack of women so great that
the Romans had to snatch them by fraud and be forced to
battle with their fathers-in-law? The tragic result was that the
wretched women, still smarting from the wrong their hus-
bands did them, were dowered by their fathers' blood. The
Romans beat their neighbors in this battle, but at what a
price for victory blood and the burial of kinsmen and neigh-
bors! With deep emotion and justifiable sorrow does Lucan
bewail 'the worse than civil wars in the Emathian plains,
and right surrendering to wrong' 2 when a single father-in-law,
Caesar, and one son-in-law, Pompey, lost Julia, Caesars
daughter and Pompey's wife. 3
Thus did the Romans win in battle. With hands bloodied
by the slaughter of fathers-in-law, they forced sorrowful em-
1 Aeneid 1.281,282.
2 Pharsalia 1.2.
3 Julia died in 54 B.C., while her father was in Britain.
146 SAINT AUGUSTINE
braces from daughters who dared not mourn dead fathers
out of fear of angering victorious husbands. While the battle
raged, the women looked on, not knowing for whose victory
to pray. Nuptials of that kind are Bellona's, not Venus', gift
to the Romans. Or, perhaps, Allecto, that hellish fury, now
that Juno favored their side, had had more power against the
Romans than when, at Juno's bidding, she was goaded
against Aeneas. 4
Andromache was happier in captivity than those brides of
the Romans in their married lot. For, though Pyrrhus forced
Andromache to embrace him, at least he shed no more Tro-
jan blood; but the Romans massacred in war the fathers
whose daughters they had taken as their wives. Andromache,
slave to the victor, had only to mourn the dead without fear
of further bloodshed. The Sabine women, wives to men at
war, feared the death of their fathers when the husbands
left, mourned the dead when they returned, yet could give no
free expression to fears or sorrows. They were faced with the
tragic alternative either dutifully to mourn the slaying of
tribesmen, kinsmen, brothers and parents, or to take a callous
delight in their husbands' victories. To add to their grief, in
the shifting fortunes of battle, some lost husbands by the
swords of kinsmen, some lost both husbands and kin when
each was slain by the other.
Nor was the peril less on the Roman side when the Sabines
laid siege to the city and the Romans defended themselves
behind closed gates. When the gates were opened by treachery,
the enemy poured in, and in the Forum itself sons-in-law and
fathers-in-law fell upon one another with the most savage
ferocity. When the abductors were losing the day, they fled
4 Aeneid 7.323ff.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 147
inside their houses, and thus stained with disgrace those pre-
vious victories, already sufficiently disgraceful and deplor-
able.
At this juncture, Romulus, losing faith in the valor of his
Romans, implored Jupiter that they might stand fast hence
Jupiter's title of Stator. But, that would not have put an
end to the slaughter had not the abducted women, with hair
disheveled, rushed forward, and casting themselves at their
fathers' feet, appeased their all too just anger, not with vic-
torious arms, but with filial supplications.
Then, Romulus, who could not tolerate his brother's joint
rule, was compelled to divide the kingdom with Titus Tatius,
King of the Sabines. No one expected Romulus, who could
not endure his twin brother, to suffer Tatius for any length
of time. Tatius was slain, and Romulus, with an eye to be-
coming a greater god, obtained sole rule over the kingdom.
What sort of nuptial rites are these, what sort of occasions
for wars, what bonds of brotherhood, kinship, or alliance,
what claims to divinity? Finally, what a political life entrusted
to such a mob of divinities! You can realize how much else
could be said, if matters I must yet treat of did not urge me
to pass on without delay.
Chapter 14
How did things go under the kings who followed Numa?
How disastrous both to themselves and to the Romans was
the war to which the Albani were provoked because the long
peace Numa achieved had become of small account to the
Romans! How repeatedly did both the Roman and the
Alban troops slaughter one another, with a consequent weak-
ening of their respective cities! The celebrated Alba, which
148 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Ascanius, 1 son of Aeneas, founded, and which might, in a
truer sense than Troy, be called the mother of Rome, was
drawn into war by King Tullus Hostilius. 2 Plunging into the
struggle with Rome, both sides dealt out death till, after many
battles, both sank from exhaustion.
It was agreed to decide the issue of war by trial of com-
bat, three brothers being chosen from the one side, and three
from the other. From the Romans the three Horatii came for-
ward, and from the Albans the three Curiatii. Two Horatii
were vanquished and slain by the three Curiatii, but the three
Curiatii suffered the same fate at the hands of the third
Horatius. So, Rome came off the victor, even in this last
battle, at the cost of slaughter only one out of six returned.
On both sides, the loss and the tears were those of the race of
Aeneas, of the descendants of Ascanius, the offspring of
Venus, the grandchildren of Jupiter! In this worse than a
civil war, a daughter city fought against the mother city.
On the heels of this battle of the bands of brothers followed
another horrible and ghastly tragedy. Before the war, both
communities had lived on friendly terms and, as was proper
between neighbors and kinsmen, a sister of the Horatii mar-
ried one of the Curiatii. After the battle, the wife saw her
husband's arms as spoils in the possession of her brother. She
burst into tears; thereupon, she was struck down by her
brother. It seems to me that this one woman's feelings were
more humane than those of all the Roman people. I do not
see any fault in her tears. How could there be? It was natural
for her to weep over the husband to whom she had pledged
troth as it was, in a way, even for the brother who had slain
1 Ibid. 1.267-271.
2 The traditional dates are 673-641 B.C. for the reign of Tullus Hostilius.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK III 149
the man to whom he had given his sister. That is why Virgil
praises dutiful Aeneas for weeping over the enemy he had slain
with his own hand. 3 That is why Marcellus 4 shed tears over
Syracuse as he reflected how a city at the height of its glory
had fallen at a stroke under his attack, and shared the com-
mon fate of all earthly things. If men can be commended for
shedding tears over the enemies they conquered, then, in the
name of natural affection, I beg indulgence for the woman
who wept over the husband her brother had slain. Yet, while
that unfortunate woman was mourning her husband killed by
her brother, Rome was rejoicing over an incredibly destruc-
tive war against the mother city, over a victory paid for by
torrents of blood, shed on both sides by her own kinsmen.
Do not speak to me of victory and of glory! Put foolish
prejudice aside. See and weigh and judge the dreadful facts
in their stark reality. Present the indictment against Alba as
the rape of Helen was presented against Troy. There is no
similarity between the two cases. All we can say is that
Tullus kindled those wars to win his idle people back to war
and to renew the discontinued triumphs of his troops.' 5 Such
is the vice that occasioned the horrible crime of the civil and
fratricidal war, although Sallust makes only a passing refer-
ence to it. Speaking briefly, with admiration, of the earlier
times when men lived free from greed and every man was
content with what he had, he says, 'But, when Cyrus in Asia,
and the Spartans and Athenians in Greece, began to subju-
gate cities and peoples, then they began to hold lust for
3 Aeneid 10.821-828.
4 Marcus Claudius Marcellus (268-208 B.C.) invaded Sicily during the
Second Punic War, and captured Syracuse in 212, in spite of the
defenses prepared by Archimedes (287-212) .
5 Aeneid 6.814,815.
150 SAINT AUGUSTINE
domination as just cause for war, and to consider that their
highest glory rested on the widest possible expansion of their
frontiers!' 6 And so the passage continues, but, for my present
purpose, these words are enough. That lust for power harasses
and afflicts the human race with serious evils. Under the spell
of this lust, Rome rejoiced over her conquest of Alba, and
called boasting of her crime, glory. Tor the sinner is praised
in the desires of his soul: and the unjust man is blessed,' 7 as
our Holy Scriptures declare.
We should tear away screens and deceptive disguises, and
examine facts with honest eyes. Let no one say to me : So and
so was great because he fought and defeated so and so. Even
gladiators fight; even gladiators win. Even their savagery
receives the prize of applause. But, it seems to me preferable by
far to pay any penalty inertia may bring rather than to seek
the glory which wars like that can win. Suppose two gladi-
ators marched into the arena to fight each other to the
death, and one was the father, the other, his son could any
man endure it? Would any man not stop it if he could? How,
then, could war between a mother and daughter city be
reckoned glorious? Was this different from the gladiatorial
combat because the battleground was not the narrower space
of the arena, but vast plains heaped with the corpses, not of
two gladiators, but of the numberless warriors of two na-
tions; and because those battles were not fought within the
confines of the amphitheatre, but were offered as an unholy
spectacle to the world at large, before the eyes of men then
living and of generations yet to come, as long as history should
record the infamy?
6 Catilma 2.
7 Ps. 9.24.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 151
Yet, those tutelary deities of the Roman Empire, looking
on as spectators of such bloody contests in a theatre, were
avid for more. They were not sated till the sister of the
Horatii was, by the sword of her own brother, sent to join
the two slain Curiatii, that there might be three victims on
each side, and that victorious Rome might have no fewer
dead than defeated Alba. Then, that Rome might reap the
full fruit of victory, Alba was razed to the ground Alba
where, after Troy, which the Greeks burnt to ashes, and after
Lavinium, where Aeneas had set up a foreign and fugitive
kingdom, the Trojan divinities had taken up their third
abode.
But, perhaps, as was their custom, they had departed from
Alba, and hence Alba was destroyed. The gods had gone,
'leaving the temples and altars bare' those gods by whose
aid that kingdom had endured. They had now departed for
the third time, and with the greatest foresight, that Rome
might be the fourth place entrusted to them. They were dis-
pleased with Alba, where Amulius reigned after driving out
his brother; they were pleased with Rome, where Romulus
reigned afetr murdering his brother. But, we are told that,
before Alba was demolished, its inhabitants were transported
to Rome, so as to 'make one city of the two.
Granted that such was the case, Alba, the mother city,
seat of Ascanius and dwelling-place of the Trojan gods, was
also destroyed by the daughter city. That the surviving rem-
nants of the two populations might be united as one, the
dreadful bond of union was sealed by the blood previously
shed on both sides. I need not rehearse in detail how re-
peatedly, under the succeeding kings, the same wars flared
up. Seemingly terminated by victory time and again, they
were concluded in terrific slaughter. Peace treaty after peace
152 SAINT AUGUSTINE
treaty, alliance after alliance, followed between fathers-in-law
and sons-in-law, their children and their children's children;
yet, after each, the same thing began all over again. Unmis-
takable proof of this dreadful state of affairs is the fact that
no king ever shut the war gates. No king, therefore, with all
the gods to protect him, ever knew what it was to reign in
peace.
Chapter 15
How did the kings themselves end their careers? As for
Romulus, you can choose between a flattering fable that he
was received by the gods into heaven, or you can take the
word of the Roman writers who relate that, when he was
torn to pieces by the Senate because of his intolerable inso-
lence, the Senate bribed a certain Julius Proculus to say that
Romulus had appeared to him, charging him to tell the
Roman people to give him divine honors. In this way the
people were put down and pacified, after they had begun an
insurrection against the Senate.
Then, there was an eclipse of the sun, which the simple-
minded populace, not knowing that it was explainable by the
sun's regular course, attributed to the power of Romulus. If
the eclipse was taken as the sun in mourning, it would have
been more natural for them to believe that Romulus had been
murdered, and that, by the failing of the sun's light, the crime
was revealed. That phenomenon did in truth occur when
our Lord was crucified by the cruelty and impiety of the
Jews. That this latter darkening of the sun was not caused
by the normal course of the heavenly bodies is sufficiently
proved by the fact that it occurred at the time of the Jewish
Pasch. This is celebrated under a full moon, while a natural
eclipse is possible only at the end of the lunar phase.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 153
Cicero himself made it sufficiently clear that the reception
of Romulus among the gods is a fiction rather than a fact.
Even while paying a tribute to him in the De re public a, he
says by the tongue of Scipio : 'His very name had such a hold
on people's minds that, when he suddenly disappeared during
an eclipse of the sun, it was commonly believed that he had
been raised to fellowship with the gods, an honor no mortal
man, unless he were a prodigy of virtue, could achieve. 51
Surely, what Cicero says about his sudden disappearance is
meant to imply either a violent storm or a well-concealed
murder. Besides, other Roman writers add to the story of the
eclipse the circumstance of a sudden thunderstorm, which
could either have screened the murder or itself have killed
him.
Speaking, in the same book, of Tullus Hostilius,, the third
king after Romulus, who was also killed by lightning, Cicero
states that people did not believe that Tullus was received
among the gods after that kind of death because, presumably,
the Romans would have cheapened what they believed (or
were made to believe) about Romulus, if the same honor be
too readily conceded to another. He also says quite openly
in his charge against Catiline: 'We have placed Romulus, the
founder of this city, in the rank of the gods, partly out of
kindness, and partly because of popular opinion/ 2 implying
that Romulus' assumption was not a fact, but, as a kindly
reward for his virtues, a story that was spread far and wide.
But, in his dialogue, the Hortensius, referring to the regular
eclipses of the sun, he says: 'In order that the sun bring about
the same darkness as at Romulus' death, which occurred
1 De re publica 2.10.
2 In Catilinam 3.1.
154 SAINT AUGUSTINE
during an eclipse.' Here, where Cicero was writing a dis-
cussion, not a panegyric, he did not hesitate to treat the
death of Romulus as that of an ordinary man.
As for the rest of the Roman kings, except Numa Pompilius
and Ancus Martius, who died of illness, their deaths were
unspeakably dreadful! Tullus Hostilius, the conqueror and
destroyer of Alba, as I have already said, was, together with
his whole household, burned to cinders by lightning. Priscus
Tarquinius 3 was slain by his predecessor's sons. Servius Tullius
was foully murdered by his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus,
who succeeded him on the throne. Yet, after the horrible
parricide committed against the worthiest king of the Romans,
the gods had not 'gone and left the temples and the altars
bare,' as they did when, outraged by Paris' rape of Helen, they
abandoned wretched Troy to the torch and the sword of the
Greeks. What is more, Tarquinius himself mounted the throne
after shedding the blood of his father-in-law.
The gods saw this infamous parricide seize the throne over
his father-in-law's body. They saw him elated by victory in
many wars. They saw him build the capitol with the spoils
of war. They did not depart ; they were present, and remained
to look on. They permitted their sovereign Jupiter to preside
and rule over them in that lofty temple, the work of a kins-
man's assassin. Nor must we imagine that Tarquinius was
free from guilt when he built the Capitol and was only driven
from the city for crimes committed later. On the contrary, it
was by a monstrous crime that he entered upon that very
reign during which he built the Capitol.
His subsequent expulsion and exclusion from the city were
not because he had any part in the rape of Lucretia. This was
3 The traditional dates are: Tarquinius Priscus, 616-578; Servius Tullius,
578-534; Tarquinius Superbus, 534-510.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 155
his son's crime, committed not only without his knowledge,
but also in his absence he was then besieging the city of
Ardea, waging war for the Roman people. What action he
would have taken had he learned of his son's villainy, we do
not know. Yet, without inquiring or ascertaining what was in
his mind, the people stripped him of his power. The army re-
ceived orders to desert him, and, on its return to the city,
the gates were shut and Tarquinius barred from returning.
However he continued to harass the Romans by arousing
their neighbors against them. But, he was deserted by those
on whose aid he relied and was unable to recover the throne.
He retired to the town of Tusculum, near Rome, where, we
are told, together with his wife, he spent fourteen years as
a private citizen. Presumably, he died a more enviable death
than that of his father-in-law, who, it is believed, was mur-
dered by his daughter's husband, with her acquiescence.
Yet, the Romans did not name him Tarquinius 'the Cruel'
or 'the Criminal, 5 but 'the Proud,' probably because their own
pride could not endure his insolent tyranny.
They made so little of his revolting murder of his father-
in-law, their best king, as to make his murderer their ruler.
I wonder whether so great a reward granted for so horrible
a crime was not an even more infamous crime on their part.
Nevertheless, the gods did not depart, 'leaving the temples
and the altars bare.' Unless, perhaps, someone may possibly
offer as defense for those gods the plea that they remained
in Rome rather to inflict more effective punishment on the
Romans than to aid them with favors, deluding them by
hollow triumphs while crushing them by disastrous wars.
Under such conditions did the Romans lead their lives
under the kings, during the happy times of the republic, till
the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud. That period lasted for
156 SAINT AUGUSTINE
243 years, during which, in spite of all those victories bought
at the price of so much blood and so many disasters, that
empire spread scarcely twenty miles beyond the walls of
Rome. That falls far short of a territory which could compare
with the present extent of any city of the Getuli.
Chapter 16
From the time of the kings let us now proceed to the subse-
quent period, when, according to the statement of Sallust,
life was regulated by fair and equitable law 'until the fear
inspired by Tarquinius and the hard-fought war with the
Etruscans came to an end.' For as long as the Etruscans aided
Tarquinius' attempts to re-enter the kingdom, Rome was
shaken by a violent war. Hence, Sallust says that the republic
was governed by fair and equitable law because danger
threatened, not because justice so counseled. In that brief
space of time, what a nightmare was the year that saw the
election of the first consuls, after the overthrow of the kingly
power! In fact, the first consuls did not even complete their
year of office.
Junius Brutus began by driving his colleague, Lucius
Tarquinius Collatinus, out of both his office and the city.
Soon after that, Brutus himself fell in battle, slain by the
enemy he slew. Before that, he had with his own hands killed
his sons and his brothers-in-law, whom he detected in a con-
spiracy to restore Tarquinius, a deed which Virgil first com-
mended, but very soon mildly deplored. For after saying:
'His sons convict of turbulent transgression
He kills to quit his country from oppression.' 1
1 Aeneid 6.820-823.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IH 157
he presently lamented, 'Unhappy father, howsoe'er the deed
be judged by after days.' By this he means to say that, in
whatever light posterity may regard those deeds, though they
praise and applaud them, the man who puts his sons to death
is a wretched creature. As if to give some solace to that un-
happy man, he adds: 'Love of country and an irresistible de-
sire for praise conquer him.'
Take the case of Brutus, the man who slew his own sons,
the man who wounded to death Tarquinius' son, his foe, who
was in turn slain by the latter, and died long before King Tar-
quinius. In this man Brutus was there not avenged, apparently,
the innocence of his colleague Collatinus, who, good citi-
zen though he was, suffered at Tarquinius' expulsion the same
fate as that of the tyrant himself?
The same Brutus was, indeed, also a blood relation of
Tarquinius, but the similarity of his surname ruined Colla-
tinus, his full name being Collatinus Tarquinius. Hence, he
should have been compelled to change his name, not his
country. Finally, by omitting a word from his name, he might
have been called simply Lucius Collatinus. Thus he did not
lose what he could have lost without damage, but, as first
consul and good citizen, he was stripped of his office and
rights of citizenship. Is the abominable villainy of Junius
Brutus no asset at all for the republic to redound to his
glory? Does 'Love of country and an irresistible desire for
praise conquer him' and compel him to perpetrate even this
villainy?
No sooner was the tyrant Tarquinius driven out than Lucre-
tia's husband, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, was elected
consul together with Brutus. How justly were the people con-
cerned with the good character in the citizen, and not with
his name ! But, how unjustly did Brutus rob his colleague in
158 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the new dignity, both of his office and of his country, while
he could have robbed him of his surname only, if he had cause
for offence. These crimes were committed, these calamities
occurred, at a time when in the republic 'life was regulated
by fair and equitable law.' Lucretius, who succeeded Brutus
in office, was carried off by disease before finishing his year.
Publius Valerius, who followed Collatinus, and Marcus Hora-
tius, who filled the place of the dead Lucretius, brought to a
close that black and mournful year. That year saw no less
than five consuls appear and disappear, that very year in
which the Roman republic so auspiciously inaugurated the
new consular office and dignity.
Chapter 17
When fear had somewhat abated, not because there was
respite from wars, but because the people felt their burden
less, and when the time had come to an end in which 'life
was regulated by fair and equitable law,' there followed the
events which are thus briefly chronicled by Sallust :
Then the patricians began to treat the people like slaves,
to dispose of life and limb as arrogantly as the kings had
done, to drive them from their fields, and by excluding all
others from participation, to monopolize the government.
But, oppressed by these outrages, and especially by usury,
while they had at the same time to bear the burden of taxes
for incessant wars and of military service as well, the people
rose up in arms, and entrenched themselves on the Sacred
Mount and the Aventine. Thus, they then secured for them-
selves tribunes of the people and other rights. It was only
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 159
the Second Punic War that put an end to the dissensions
and struggles between the two classes/ 1
But, to what purpose do I waste time writing these things
and imposing them on my readers? Sallust has given us a
summary of the wretched condition of the commonwealth in
that long period, and through the many years preceding the
Second Punic War, when the republic was harassed by in-
cessant foreign wars and torn asunder by domestic quarrels
and civil war. Those boasted victories did not bring the last-
ing joys of the blessed, but only the hollow comfort of a for-
lorn and restless people. They were, moreover, deluding in-
ducements to submit to more and more useless misery, and
all to no purpose.
I hope that good and sensible Romans will not censure me
for saying these things. Such men need no urging or caution-
ing from me. Indignation on their part is out of the question,
for I am saying nothing harsher, or more harshly, than their
own writers, whose equal I am neither in style nor in leisure
for composition. All Romans have pored over those writers,
and they still compel their children to do the same. How can
they resent my words, when they could not resent my using
the following passage of Sallust?
There broke out numerous riots and uprisings, culminating
in civil wars, while a handful of dictators with a number of
followers snatched at power under the honorable name of
the Senate or the people. Amid the general corruption, both
worthy and unworthy citizens were raised to power, not be-
cause of their services to the common weal, but according
to each one's wealth and capacity for wrong-doing. A man
1 Hist. 1.9.
160 SAINT AUGUSTINE
had only to champion the existing order of things to be held
in honor.' 2
Surely, those writers felt that the historian had a right
to speak freely about the dark parts of their city's past. They
felt obliged to praise it in many passages, since they had no
idea of a nobler city, in which they could be enrolled as citi-
zens of eternity. What should I be expected to do? I have a
greater claim to freedom because I have a stronger and surer
hope in God, and because it is more called for in view of the
charge that our Christ is responsible for the present ills a
charge calculated to alienate weaker and simpler souls from
that City in which alone life can be unendingly happy. As for
their gods, I say nothing worse against them than well-
known authors whom they themselves read and boast about
have said. Indeed, it is from those very authors that I took
the facts of the story not all of them and not with their skill
in the telling.
Where, then, wfere those gods whom people falsely think
should be worshiped in order to gain the brief and deceptive
enjoyment of this world? Where were those gods when the
Romans were being crushed by overwhelming disasters, those
gods who, with lying cunning, were imposing themselves
as objects of worship? Where were they when the consul
Valerius was killed while defending the Capitol, fired by
slaves and bandits? He could have done more to bring aid
to Jupiter's temple than that mob of gods with their highest
and best king, whose temple Valerius himself had saved.
Where were they when the city, already exhausted by endless
revolts, awaiting in a moment of respite the return of the
2 ibid. 1.10.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK III 161
envoys sent to Athens to borrow its laws, 3 was ravaged by
famine and disease?
Where were they when the people, again suffering from
famine, appointed the first minister of food? As the famine
became worse, Spurius Maelius, who distributed grain among
the hungry people, was accused of aspiring to the kingship.
At the instance of the same minister, and by the decree of
the old and decrepit dictator, Lucius Quintius, he was killed
by the hand of the master of the knights, A. Servilius, an act
which threw the city into a state of indescribable anarchy and
danger. 4 Where were the gods then? Where were they when
another deadly plague broke out and, as the helpless gods
looked on, the long and much afflicted people conceived the
idea of resorting to the celebration of lectisternia? something
they had never done before? Beds were spread in honor of
the gods, and from this the ceremony derived its religious,
or rather sacrilegious, name.
Where were they when for ten years 6 the Roman army
fought unsuccessfully at Veii, and suffered many a bloody
defeat, until Furius Camillus finally came to their aid, and
was subsequently rewarded with banishment for his services
to the ungrateful city? Where were they when the Gauls cap-
tured Rome, sacked it, fired it, deluged it in blood? 7 Where
were they when that other dreadful pestilence 8 spread death
abroad and carried off, among others, the illustrious Furius
3 The traditional date of the mission is 454 B.C.
4 L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, called from the plough to be dictator in
458 and again in 439. In the latter year, Spurius Maelius was murdered
by Caius Servilius Ahala, the magister equitum.
5 Feasts for the gods. Their images were set on couches, like diners at
an ancient feast, and food was prepared as for a banquet.
6 From 405 to 396 B.C.
7 390 B.C.
8 365 B.C.
162 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Camillas, the hero who first defended a thankless republic
against Veii, and then avenged it against the Gauls? During
this pestilence, the Romans first introduced stage plays, thus
inflicting a new plague, not on their bodies, but, what is far
more fatal, on their manners and morals.
Where were they at the time when another frightful plague
was started, as it was believed, by the poisons spread by wo-
men whose characters, by the testimony of many noble ladies,
were more poisonous than any contagion? 9 Where were they
when the two consuls, with their armies, were caught by the
Samnites in the Caudine Forks 10 and compelled to sign a
dishonorable treaty, by the terms of which the Romans de-
livered 600 knights as hostages and the rest, stripped of their
arms and cloaks, had to pass under the enemy's yoke, wear-
ing only a single garment? Where were they when, while
another pestilence was taking heavy toll of the rest, a bolt of
lightning struck down a great number in the army itself? Or
again, during still another malignant epidemic, when Rome
was compiled to entreat Aesculapius, 11 as it would the god
of medicine, to come from Epidaurus to lend his services?
Was it, perhaps, because the habitual debauchery of his youth
had disqualified for the study of medicine Jupiter, lord of
all the gods, who for so long had sat enthroned in the Capitol?
Where were the gods when the Lucani, the Brutii, the
Samnites, the Etruscans, and the Gallic Senones, joined in
one vast hostile alliance, first killed the Roman envoys, then
crushed the army, and menaced the praetor with seven
tribunes and 13,000 troops? 12 Again, where were they when,
9 The story is told by Livy (8.18)
10 In 321 B.C., during the Second Samnite War (326-304) .
11 293 B.C. Cf. Chapter 12, above.
12 283 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 163
at the climax of a long series of bloody insurrections in Rome
which drove the people at sword's point to the Janiculum, 18
the mischief wrought by this crisis was so intolerable that, as
generally happens in times of great danger, a dictator was
appointed in the person of Hortensius? This man brought the
people back to the city, and then suddenly died while still
in office, a fate which had befallen no other dictator before
him? The blame for this falls all the more heavily on the
gods because the god-physician Aesculapius was at hand.
After that, so many wars broke out on all sides that, for
lack of fighting men, it became necessary to conscript even
the proletarians so called because, rendered incapable of
fighting by their wretched poverty, they were fit only to beget
children. 14 Then, summoned to their aid by the people of
Tarentum, Pyrrhus, King of Greece, declared himself the
enemy of the Romans. So, he put the question to Apollo as to
what the future had in store for him on the field of battle.
Apollo gave this ambiguous reply: 'I declare, O Pyrrhus,
that you the Romans can conquer,' 15 a reply so worded that
whichever of the two things happened, he would still be
regarded as a god. Thus, whether Pyrrhus defeated, or was
beaten by, the Romans, Apollo could await either issue as an
infallible prophet.
The mutual slaughter of the two armies that followed was
frightful beyond all description. In one battle Pyrrhus emerged
the victor, wherefore he, understanding the oracle in his favor
13 The secession of the plebs in 286 led to the lex hortensia, by which
plebiscita were given the same authority as leges.
15 Aio te Aecida Romanes vincere posse. St. Augustine gives a version
from memory, Dtco te, Pyrrhe, vincere posse Romanos. Pyrrhus landed
in Italy in 280, was victor at Heraclea and won a 'Pyrrhic victory' at
Ausculum, but was defeated at Beneventum in 275.
164 SAINT AUGUSTINE
might proclaim Apollo a divine prophet, had it not happened
that in a second battle the Romans were victorious. To add
to the horrors of the war, plague broke out, this time concen-
trating its violence on women, and carrying them off with
child before they could give normal birth. Here, I presume,
Aesculapius found excuse for offering no help, on the plea
that his function was that of chief physician and not of ob-
stetrician. Even cattle died off in the same way, in such num-
bers that it was feared the animal species would become
extinct.
How can I describe that horrible and unforgettable win-
ter? It raged with such incredible fury that in the Forum
itself snow piled up mountains high, and the Tiber was frozen
solid for forty endless days. If such a calamity were to hap-
pen now, imagine the clamor the enemies of Christianity
would raise! What of still another of those devastating epi-
demics, raging for a long time and destroying countless num-
bers? As it dragged on its deadly course into a second year,
in the helpless presence of Aesculapius, the desparing citizens
had recourse to the Sibylline books. In that kind of oracle,
Cicero tells us, people place great faith in the interpreters,
though these latter merely offer conjectures on doubtful mat-
ters as best they can, or as they will.
Their answer, in this case, was that the cause of the plague
was the fact that many private persons were occupying a great
number of the sacred shrines. Thus was Aesculapius once
more acquitted of the grave charge of incompetence or of
indolence. But, how was it possible for so many people to
invade those sacred places without anyone protesting, save
that the prayers to that horde of deities were in the long run
found to be a waste of time and effort. The worshipers gradu-
ally abandoned the shrines, and, v/hen vacant, they could at
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 165
least be used to meet human needs without anyone being
shocked.
In the hope of seeing the plague abate, the shrines were
zealously reclaimed and reconverted for worship, but they fell
back into the old state of neglect, were appropriated by indi-
viduals and again fell into oblivion. Had this not happened,
Varro's great learning would not have received due credit
for having preserved a record of many of those forgotten
sanctuaries in the book he wrote on sacred edifices. How-
ever, the reclaiming of the temples brought about no cessation
of the epidemic, but only ingenious exculpation of the gods.
Chapter 18
During the Punic Wars, victory for a long time hung in
the balance between the two great powers battling with all the
strength and resources at their command. Meanwhile, what
a number of small nations were crushed out of existence!
How many prosperous and illustrious cities were razed to the
ground; how many communities reduced to misery, even to
utter ruin! How many lands and regions were devastated
throughout their length and breadth ! How often did victory
favor first one side, then the other! What a holocaust of lives
of combatants and noncombatants ! What mighty fleets were
destroyed in battles and storms! Any attempt on my part to
relate and recall these events would merely turn me into a
chronicler.
Stricken by panic, the city of Rome had hasty recourse to
vain and ridiculous remedies. By command of the Sibylline
Books, the secular games 1 were again celebrated. They were
meant to be celebrated century by century, but had already
1 The ludi saeculares were rein trod uced in 249 B.C.
166 SAINT AUGUSTINE
fallen into oblivion in happier days. The pontiffs resumed the
celebration of the sacred games in honor of the nether gods,
which had also been abolished in the good old days. Of
course, when the games came back, the deities of the lower
world, swelled by the host of the dead, wanted to have a good
time as though miserable men, with their ferocious wars,
murderous hatreds, and alternating and deadly victories, had
not 'already provided games and sumptuous banquets enough
for the devils in hell.
Surely, in the first Punic War, nothing was more tragic
than the defeat of the Romans in which the heroic Regulus
himself was taken prisoner as I have mentioned already
in Books I and II. He was most certainly a great man and on
a previous occasion had beaten the Carthaginians and tamed
their spirit. He would have even brought the First Punic
War to an end, had not a craving for fame and glory led him
to impose on the weary Carthaginians harsher conditions
than they could bear. If that man's unforeseen capture,
humiliating imprisonment, fidelity to his oath, and barbarous
death do not strike shame into those gods, then indeed they
are brazen and bloodless.
Within the walls of the city itself there was no lack of
misfortunes during this period. The waters of the Tiber rose
abnormally above the banks and flooded almost the entire
lower section of Rome. 2 Some buildings collapsed at the
first violence of the flood and others by the constant seeping
of the stagnant water. On top of this disaster followed an
even more destructive fire, which razed the taller buildings
around the Forum, and did not even spare the Temple of
Vesta fire's faithful shrine. For here, the Vestal Virgins,
2 In 247 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK ffl 167
condemned to, rather than honored by, such service, duti-
fully fed a fire with wood and kept it perpetually alive. But,
on that occasion, the fire not merely lived, it raged with
savage fury. Terrified by its onrush, the Virgins could not
rescue from the flames the fateful penates, which had already
brought ruin to the three cities where they had been, but the
pontifex Metellus, without a thought for his own safety,
rushed in and rescued them, though he was badly burned.
Either the fire had no respect for its own pontiff, or else
the god of fire was there, but would not have fled, even
though he could.
Hence, the man was a greater protection to the gods of
Vesta than the gods were to the man. For, if the gods were
unable by their own power to turn back the fire, how could
they save from flood and conflagration the city whose security
rested, as people imagined, in their hands? The event made
it more than ever clear that such a thing was beyond their
power.
I would not bring all this up if the pagans would only
admit that those sacred emblems were instituted not to pro-
tect earthly, but to symbolize eternal, goods. In that case,
if those things were to perish as do all material and visible
things, that would be no loss to the higher benefits their insti-
tution was meant to secure. They could always be replaced
and serve the same purposes. But, by a strange blindness,
the Romans imagine that the material security and the tem-
poral well-being of the city could be guaranteed against loss by
means of sacred objects that are liable to destruction. Yet,
though it is made obvious to them that, even if those sacred
objects remain safe, they bring only misfortune and the break-
down of security, they still are ashamed to give up a belief
they cannot defend.
168 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 19
It would take too long for me to recount the deadly and
widely extended clashes between the two warring nations.
They struggled till the victor almost succumbed with the
victim. This is admitted even by those historians whose pur-
pose is to glorify the Roman Empire rather than to tell the
truth about the Roman wars. Follow Hannibal's march: he
sets out from Spain, crosses the Pyrenees, overruns Gaul, and
cuts his way through the Alps. Having gathered strength
by plunder and conquest in the course of the long drive, his
forces poured like a torrent down through the Italian passes.
Many a bloody battle was fought; many a time did the
Romans go down in defeat ! Many a town surrendered to the
enemy; many more suffered capture and ruin! How many
ferocious battles there were in which the slaughter of the
Romans covered Hannibal with glory !
What can one say of the indescribably frightful catastrophe
at Cannae? 1 There, ruthless as he was, Hannibal, we are
told was so glutted with the slaughter of his bitterest enemies
that he ordered his men to cease killing. From that battle
Hannibal sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings, an-
nouncing thereby that the number of slain Roman nobles was
so great that they could be more easily measured than counted.
Likewise, the still greater number of common and ringless
soldiers who perished could be more easily conjectured than
given in figures.
At length, fighting men became so scarce that the Romans
were compelled to enlist released criminals and liberated
slaves, and with them organize what was more like a new
1 216 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 169
army of riff-raff than reinforcements of the line. But the
slaves or, as they now had the right to be called, the freed-
men who were to fight for the Roman republic had no
weapons. These the Romans took from the temples, as if
saying to their gods: 'Surrender the arms which you have
kept idle so long, against this very possibility that our slaves
might be able to use those weapons to advantage, which you,
our protecting gods, have had no power to use.'
Then, as the treasury had no money to pay the soldiery,
private resources came to the aid of the state. Each one gave
what he had, so completely that the Senators themselves
were entirely stripped of every ounce of gold, except for a
ring and an amulet, which each one kept as a sad token of
rank. The remaining estates and tribes were even more im-
poverished. Who could endure those pagans if they were
reduced to such destitution in our own days, seeing that we
can hardly stand them now, when out of sheer love of ex-
travagant pleasure they can lavish more on comedians than
could be scraped together for the legions in the old days and
in a moment of extreme national danger?
Chapter 20
Of the tragic events that marked the course of the Second
Punic War, none was more pathetic and more deplorable
than the fate of Saguntum. This city of Spain, of all cities
friendliest to the Roman people, was totally destroyed for
standing firm in its loyalty. Hannibal, having broken his
treaty with the Romans, took every occasion to provoke them
into a new war. Hence, he savagely laid siege to Saguntum. 1
When the news of this reached Rome, envoys Were sent to
1 219 B.C.
170 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Hannibal demanding that he raise the siege. Rebuffed by
Hannibal, they proceeded to Carthage to protest the violation
of the treaty, but returned to Rome with nothing accom-
plished.
In the meantime, that unfortunate city, one of the most
flourishing and most highly esteemed both by its own country
and by Rome, was razed to the ground by the Carthaginians
in the eighth or ninth month of the siege. One shudders with
horror as he reads the story of its destruction, and much more
so as he writes about it. But, I shall briefly tell the story,
for it is very relevant to the subject under consideration. To
begin with, famine raged so devastatingly in the city that,
according to some reports, people fed on the corpses of their
own dead. Then, having reached the point of exhaustion, the
people of Saguntum, determined not to fall captive to Hanni-
bal, erected an immense pyre, and into its flames they all
plunged, stabbing one another to death as they did so.
This is where the gods should have gone into action, those
gluttons and swaggering humbugs who open their mouths for
the fat of the sacrifices and throw into people's eyes the dust
of the ambiguous oracles. This is where they might have done
something to bring aid to a city friendly to the Roman people.
They should not have suffered her to perish for keeping her
pledged faith. For, they were the very ones who presided as
mediators when Saguntum bound herself to the Roman state
by treaty. For standing firm by the pact she had entered into
with deliberation in the presence of the gods, accepted with
loyalty, and sealed with an oath, that noble city was be-
leaguered, conquered, and destroyed by a treacherous foe.
If those same gods later on frightened Hannibal far away
from the very walls of Rome, by thunder and lightning, they
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 171
should have done something similar on the previous occasion
before the walls of Saguntum.
I even venture to say that those gods could have shown
their rage with more honor to themselves, in behalf of Rome's
friends than in behalf of the Romans. These friends of Rome
faced a deadly peril without assistance, in order to keep their
faith with the Romans, while the Romans, fighting for
themselves, were able to face Hannibal with ampler re-
sources. If, therefore, the gods were really the guardians of
Rome's prosperity and glory, they should have kept its name
clear of the stigma which the tragedy of Saguntum cast upon
it. It is foolish to believe that it was due to their protection
that Rome survived despite Hannibal's victory, when we know
that they were unable to bring aid to the city of Saguntum
because of her friendship for Rome, and save her from ruin.
Suppose that the Saguntines were a Christian people, and
had to suffer a calamity of this kind for their faith in the Gos-
pel. They would not, of course, have taken their lives by fire
and sword. But, assuming that they had to suffer disaster for
their faith, their sufferings would have been brightened by
their trust in Christ, which held out to them not a fleeting,
but an eternal, reward. As for those gods who are supposed
to be worshiped, and whose worship is demanded, in order to
assure the enjoyment of transitory goods for a brief moment
here below, what more can their advocates and apologists
say in their favor, in view of the victims of Saguntum, than
they could say about the death of R'egulus? 2
However, there is this difference. In his case, the victim
2 Marcus Atilius Regulus, consul (for the second time) in 256, defeated
the Carthaginian navy at Ecnomus, but, after landing, was defeated by
Xanthippus in 255 and imprisoned for five years. The story of his
mission to Rome and return to torture and death in Carthage must be
placed after the defeat of Hasdrubal in 251.
172 SAINT AUGUSTINE
was only one man; in this, the entire population of a city.
But, in either case, the calamity was the price of keeping
pledged faith. To keep this, Regulus preferred to return to
the enemy, and Saguntum refused to surrender to Hannibal.
Does the observance of loyalty arouse the wrath of the
gods? Can not only individual men, but even whole cities,
meet doom in spite of their protection? Let them take their
choice. If those gods frown on loyalty to one's oath, let them
look for traitors to worship them. If, even under their pat-
ronage, men and cities are allowed to perish amid suffer-
ings beyond count and measure, then their worship brings no
reward of happiness here below. Let those, therefore, who
imagine that the loss of the sacred trinkets of their gods means
misfortune lay aside their ill will toward us. For, not only if
the gods remain, but even if they are propitious, our accusers
could not only grumble about their misery, as they are now
doing, but might also be subjected to barbarous torments,
and then be utterly destroyed, as were Regulus and the
Saguntines.
Chapter 21
We come now to the period between the Second and
the Third and last Punic Wars. 1 In order to keep within
the scope of my work, I must pass over many details. It is the
period in which Sallust describes the Romans as living on a
high moral level and in perfect harmony. It was in this period
of high morality and perfect concord that the illustrious
Scipio, by his incredibly brilliant generalship, saved Rome and
1 The Second Punic War, begun in 218, ended in 201; the Third began
in 149 and ended three years later with the destruction of Carthage.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 173
Italy, brought to an end that monstrously brutal, ominous,
and perilous Second Punic War, defeated Hannibal, and
conquered Carthage. From his youth, his life is described as
devoted to the gods and nurtured in the atmosphere of the
temple. Yet, this hero was made the target of envious enemies'
accusations, and was driven from the city which he had
saved and liberated by his valor. Like a man without a
country, he retired to Linterno, on the Campanian coast,
where he spent the rest of his days. After his brilliant triumph,
he never had any desire to return to Rome. In fact, we are
told, he gave orders forbidding that, even after his death,
his bones be brought to his ungrateful country for funeral
rites.
Shortly after the victory of the proconsul Gnaeus Manlius
over the Gallo-Grecians, 2 we see for the first time Asiatic
luxury invading Rome, more sinister than an enemy. Then,
for the first time, we read of gilded beds and precious car-
pets being seen in Rome. Then, too, were women cithara-
players and other accompaniments of debauchery first intro-
duced at banquets. But, my purpose is to speak of evils which
men suffer unwillingly, not of those which they deliberately
bring upon themselves. Hence, what I said of Scipio's fate,
namely, of his dying outside the country he saved, a victim
of his enemies, is more relevant to the present discussion. The
Roman gods who are venerated for the sake of earthly hap-
piness made him no return for driving Hannibal from their
temples.
But, since Sallust speaks of the high morality of that
period, I thought fit to mention the licentiousness that then
2 Gnaeus Manlius Vulso commanded an expedition against the Galatians
in 189 B.C.
174 SAINT AUGUSTINE
invaded Rome from Asia, in order to make it perfectly clear
that Sallust's eulogy is to be understood only relatively. What
he says is true only by way of comparison with other times,
when morals had sunk even lower because of violent dissen-
sions. For it was then, in the interval between the Second and
the last Punic Wars, that the notorious Voconian Law 3 was
passed, which excluded a woman from the benefits of in-
heritance even though she was the only daughter. I do not
know what can be imagined more iniquitious than this law.
Nevertheless, the misery of the whole period which separated
the two Punic Wars was not wholly unendurable. Abroad,
the armed forces were worn out by wars, but were compen-
sated by victories. At home, no dissensions raged, as in other
years. But, in the last Punic War, by one vigorous thrust, the
second Scipio, who was on that account surnamed 'the
African,' destroyed the rival of the Roman Empire down to
its very roots. From then on, because of the flood of immor-
ality caused by a period of prosperity and security, the Roman
republic itself was overwhelmed by a mounting tide of dis-
asters. Thus, the sudden fall of Carthage did more harm to
Rome than its prolonged hostility.
Such were the conditions under which Romans lived dur-
ing the long period preceding the time of Augustus Caesar. 4
Augustus did not, as pagans believe, wrest from the Romans
their glorious liberty, but only a contentious, pernicious,
thoroughly anemic, and languishing liberty. Making his royal
will the law in everything, he put new life and vigor into a
state that was tottering, as it were, with decrepit old age.
3 Passed by the efforts of the tribune of the people, Q. Voconius Saxa,
in 169.
4 Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, born in 63 B.C., defeated
(with Antony's help) the murderers of Julius Caesar at Philippi in 42.
After the battle of Actium in 31, he became the master of the Roman
Empire. He died in A.D. 14.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK m 175
For many other reasons, I say nothing about the endless
calamities that wars brought on during those years, nor about
that indelible stain on Roman honor, the ignominious treaty
with Numantia. 5 The sacred chickens had flown out from
their coop, and this, people said, was an omen of disaster for
the consul Mancinus just as though it was under other
omens that other Roman generals moved against Numantia
during all those years in which that little city had harassed
the besieging Roman army, and had begun to strike with
terror the mighty republic of Rome itself.
Chapter 22
I need say no more about this, but there is one disaster
about which I cannot possibly keep silent. That is the order
which Mithridates, King of Asia, issued, that Roman citizens
traveling in Asia, of whom there were large numbers engaged
in business, should all be massacred on one and the same
day. 1 The order was executed. What a ghastly spectacle to
see men suddenly, without warning, barbarously struck down
wherever they were, in the field or on the road, in town or
at home, in the street, the forum or the temple, in bed or at
table. No one can describe the groans of the dying, the tears of
the onlookers even those of the very executioners. Think of
the cruelty of forcing hosts not only to witness those butcher-
ies in their homes, but to perpetrate them; and to change
suddenly from friendly courtesy to bloody murder in an at-
mosphere of peace. Here, the wounds were inflicted on both
sides: the victim was stabbed in the body; the assailant, in
5 The treaty concluded in 137 B.C. by C Hostilius Mancinus and repudi-
ated by the Roman Senate,
B.C,
176 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the soul. Had all those unfortunates, by any chance, despised
the omens? When they left their homes to go on the journey
from which they were not to return, did they have 'neither
domestic nor public gods to consult?
If this be true, then our pagan accusers have no reason, on
this head, to complain about Christianity. The Romans have
long regarded these absurdities with scorn. If they did con-
sult the auguries, then what good did it do them at a time
when those things were authorized, though only by human
laws, and no one forbade them?
Chapter 23
I must turn now to recount, as briefly as possible, those
misfortunes which were so distressing because they struck so
close at home our uncivilized civil discords, seditions that
were, rather, open wars between cities, in which blood was
shed in torrents, in which fraternal enmity was not expressed
in electoral struggles and mutual recriminations, but in the
rattle and rage of weapons. Social wars, slave wars, civil
wars they all spilled Roman blood, they made a waste and
desert of Italy!
Before the Latins arose against Rome in the social war, 1
all the domestic animals, like dogs, horses, donkeys, oxen,
and other cattle subject to man, suddenly went mad. For-
getting their domestic gentleness, they broke out from their
barns and stalls, wandered at large, and kept at a distance
not only strangers, but even their own masters who attempted
to approach them. Anyone who dared to come near them did
1 Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus proposed a law to limit land holdings
in 133. He was opposed by the nobles led by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica
and was murdered. His brother Gaius became tribune in 123, and con-
tinued the reform legislation. He was killed in 121.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 177
so at the risk of life and limb. If this phenomenon was an
omen of evil, how dreadful must the evil have been! If it
was not, it was in itself evil enough. If such a prodigy had
occurred in our times, we would have to endure in our pagan
accusers a more ferocious horde of beasts than the older
Romans did in their maddened animals.
Chapter 24
The first of the civil upheavals was the revolt of the Gracchi,
provoked by the agrarian laws. 1 The Gracchi's proposal was
that the lands unjustly held by the aristocracy should be
divided among the people. But, the bold attempt to abolish
the deep-rooted abuse turned out to be even more ruinous
than risky. What slaughter followed the assassination of the
first Gracchus and that of his brother not long after ! It was
not only a matter of public executions, but it was by mob
violence and by bloody rioting that patricians and plebeians
slew one another.
After the assassination of the younger Gracchus, the consul
Lucius Opimius, who had raised an army against him within
the city, and had overthrown and slain both Gracchus and
his confederates, then massacred a vast number of citizens.
He instituted a trial, and by way of judicial inquest found
the rest guilty, and, we are informed, put three thousand men
to death. One can imagine how great was the toll of victims
claimed by the armed violence of the mobs, when a deliberate
judicial trial could take so many lives. Gracchus' assassin sold
his victim's head to the consul for its weight in gold, a bargain
concluded before the massacre. In this, the ex-consul, Marcus
Fulvius, also lost his life, together with his children.
l 91-88 B.C.
178 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 25
It was surely with a feeling for paradox that the Senate
ordered a temple in honor of Concord to be erected on the
very spot where the bloody riot broke out and cost the lives
of so many citizens, high and low. It was meant as a witness
of the penalty paid by the Gracchi, a warning to strike the
eyes and stir the memories of demagogues. Actually, the rais-
ing of a temple to that goddess merely made the gods a
laughing-stock for, surely, if Concord had been in the city,
it would not have been torn by so many disorders. Unless,
of course, we prefer to say that the goddess Concord, guilty
of deserting the lives of her fellow citizens, deserved to be
shut up in that temple, as in a prison.
If they had wanted to be in accord with history, they
should rather have built a temple in honor of Discord. There
is no real reason why Concord should be a goddess and Dis-
cord not, or why, according to Labeo's distinction, the one
should not be good and the other bad. In fact, the only
reason that led Labeo to make the distinction was that in
Rome he saw a temple dedicated to Fever as well as to
Health. According to that reasoning, a temple should have
been built not only to Concord, but also to Discord.
In fact, the Romans took a risk in choosing to live under
the frown of so evil a goddess. They forgot that the cause of
Troy's destruction was ultimately to be traced to Discord's
displeasure. It was because she was not invited with the other
gods that she caused a quarrel among the three goddesses
by throwing the golden apple among them. This was the
beginning of the rift among the gods, the triumph of Venus,
the rape of Helen, and the destruction of Troy. It may be,
then, that she resented the slight of not being thought worthy
of a temple along with the other gods, and on that account
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 179
kept the city in such turmoil. Imagine her anger when she
saw a temple dedicated to her rival on the spot of the no-
torious massacre, that is, on the very scene of her own
exploit !
When I ridicule these absurdities, the pagan scholars and
sages rage with indignation. Yet, the devotees of the good and
the bad gods cannot escape the Concord and Discord dilemma.
Either they discarded these divinities in favor of Fever and
Bellona, in whose honor they built temples in the old days,
or they worshiped them also. In this case, Concord deserted
them, and raging Discord flung them headlong into civil
war.
Chapter 26
As an impressive curb to rebellion, they chose to set the
Temple of Concord before the eyes of agitators as a reminder
of the death penalty inflicted on the Gracchi. If any proof of
the futility of this device were needed, it may be found in the
greater evils that followed. From that time on, the dema-
gogues strove, not to avoid the example set by the Gracchi,
but to outdo their designs. Thus acted Lucius Saturninus, the
tribune of the people, 1 and Gaius Servilius, the praetor, and,
some years afterwards, Marcus Drusus. The revolts which
these men engineered were the signal for the horrible mass-
acres that immediately followed, and for the social wars
that broke out later. Convulsed by these conflicts, Italy was
reduced to indescribable ruin and its population decimated.
On the heels of the social wars followed the servile and
the civil wars. 2 The battles fought and the blood shed arc
1 First, in 102 BC.; and a second time in 100. Gaius Servilius Glaucia was
praetor in 100. Marcus Drusus was tribune of the people in 91.
2 Social War, 91-88; Civil War, 88-82; Third Servile War, 73-71.
180 SAINT AUGUSTINE
beyond description. Almost all the nations of Italy, the back-
bone of the Roman Empire, were beaten down as though
they were barbarians. Even the historians have scarcely found
words to describe what happened when a handful of gladi-
ators, less than seventy in number, started the servile war:
the mass of slaves, mad with rage, that swelled their numbers,
the many Roman generals they slew, the cities and regions
they devastated as they swept on. That was not the only war
of slaves. Hordes of slaves also ravaged the province of Mace-
donia, and, later, Sicily and the maritime coast. It is im-
possible to find words fit to describe the numberless and fright-
ful robberies they committed, and the formidable piratical
raids on the shipping lanes.
Chapter 27
With his hands still dripping with the blood of hundreds
of his political rivals whom he had massacred, Marius fled
from Rome in defeat. The city had scarcely time to regain its
breath, when, in Cicero's words, 'in the sequel Cinna and
Marius got the upper hand. The lights of the city were
quenched when its most illustrious men were slain. Later,
Sulla took revenge for this bloody victory, and it is needless
to recall how frightful was the slaughter of the citizens and
the disaster to the state.' 1 Of this act of revenge, which did
more harm than if the crimes avenged had been left un-
punished, Lucan has this to add: The remedy exceeded
due measure, and the hand followed the trail of the disease
too far. The guilty ones perished, but at a time when none
but the guilty could survive.' 2
1 In Catilinam 3.10.
2 Pharsalia 2.142-144.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 181
In the war between Marius and Sulla, besides the numbers
slain in the battles outside Rome, in the city itself, the
streets, the squares, the forums, the theatres, and the temples
overflowed with corpses. It is hard to say whether the victors
butchered more people while fighting for victory, or after
they had won it. Close upon the success of Marius when he
fought his way back from exile, not to mention the massacres
perpetrated everywhere, the head of the consul Octavius
was exposed on the rostra; 3 the two Caesar brothers were
killed in their own homes by Fimbria; the two Crassi, father
and son, were slain before each other's eyes; Baebius and
Numitorius were dragged along with hooks and died when
their bodies broke open; Catulus escaped from his enemies'
hands by taking poison ; Merula, the flamen of Jupiter, opened
his veins, and with his blood made a libation to Jupiter.
Before the eyes of Marius himself, every one was struck down
whose salute he refused to acknowledge by raising his right
hand.
Chapter 28
Then followed Sulla's victory. It was meant to avenge those
atrocities, but was won only at the cost of numberless citizens'
lives. When the war was over, the bitter animosities kept
alive in time of peace made the victory even more atrocious.
For, after the old and new massacres ordered by the elder
Marius, came a wave of bloodier ones instigated by his par-
tisans, Carbo and the younger Marius. When they saw Sulla
overshadowing them, threatening not only their hope for
victory but even their lives, in desperation they spread havoc
all around by further butcheries of their own. Not content
3 87 B.C.
182 SAINT AUGUSTINE
with the widespread slaughter, they surrounded the Senate
house and dragged the Senators from the Curia, as from a
prison, to execution. The pontifex himself, Mucius Scaevola,
was cut down as he threw his arms around the altar in the
Temple of Vesta, a spot which the Romans held more sacred
than any other, and with his blood almost extinguished the
fire kept always burning by the constant vigilance of the
Vestals.
Then, the victorious Sulla marched into the city. It was
amid the furies not of war but of peace that he ordered 7,000
men slaughtered in a state villa, after they had capitulated
and laid down their arms. Throughout the city, followers of
Sulla put to the sword any they pleased. It was impossible to
count the many corpses until Sulla was advised to leave
alive some of the conquered, in order that the victors might
have subjects to rule over. Finally a halt was called to the
orgy of authorized and indiscriminate murder. In its stead,
a list, greeted with loud applause, was posted, giving the
names of 2,000 men of two upper classes, equestrian and
senatorial, and marking them for death or proscription. The
number caused consternation, but the limit put to it was
reassuring; there was less grief that so many were doomed
than there was joy that the rest need no longer fear. Among
those who were doomed to die, the fiendish manner of their
execution wrung pity even from those who enjoyed their
grim security. One victim was torn to pieces, not with weapons
but with bare hands, thus affording the spectacle of human
beings dismembering a live man with more ferocity than
wild beasts do a corpse thrown to them. Another wretch
had his eyes scooped out, and then, while his limbs were
being hacked off piecemeal, his life, or rather his death, was
forcibly prolonged in an agony of torture. Some splendid
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK III 183
cities were sold at auction like small farms, but one of them
was ordered to be led to execution, like a single culprit,
and saw its entire population massacred.
The atrocities were committed in a period of peace follow-
ing a war, not to hasten the winning of a victory, but that
the victory once won might not be underestimated. Peace vied
with war in a contest of ferocity, and peace won. War struck
down men in arms; peace, men without weapons. Accord-
ing to the rules of war, the man who was struck, struck back
if he could; by the rules of that peace, the man who escaped
was not to live, but to die without a struggle.
Chapter 29
No fury of foreign nations and no ruthlessness of bar-
barians can be compared with this victory of citizens over
fellow citizens. Rome never witnessed a crime so fateful, black,
and revolting. It can be compared neither with the incursion
of the Gauls long ago, nor with that of the Goths more
recently, nor with the ferocity which Marius and Sulla and
other men of light and leading in their parties in Rome vented
on members of their own body. The Gauls, it is true, mass-
acred the Senators, wherever they could find trace of them
throughout the city, except those who found refuge in the
stronghold of the Capitol, which somehow got defended.
But, the Gauls at least sold for gold the lives of those who
were on that rock. They could not take them with the sword,
but they could have snuffed them out by means of a siege.
On the other hand, the Goths spared so many Senators that
it is a wonder they killed any at all.
Sulla, while Marius was still alive, took up his quarters
on the Capitol which the Gauls had failed to take, and thence
gave the signal for the butchery we know. When Marius fled,
184 SAINT AUGUSTINE
only to return more savage and more bloodthirsty than before,
he proceeded by senatorial decree to rob many of their lives
and property. But, once Sulla was gone, nothing was left
too sacred for Marius' partisans to profane. They did not
even spare the life of Mucius, a fellow citizen, a Senator, a
pontifex whom they cut down with his arms pitifully clinging
to the shrine which was believed to hold the destinies of
Rome, Finally, not to mention other assassinations too numer-
ous to reckon, there is the last black list of Sulla, which de-
creed the doom of more senators than the Goths were able
even to plunder.
Chapter 30
What, therefore, could show more effrontery, audacity,
impudence, folly, and even madness, than for the pagans to
refuse to blame those past calamities on their gods while they
charge the present disasters to our Christ? The barbarous
civil wars which, on the admission of their own historians,
were more vindictive than all foreign wars on record, and
which not only plagued the republic but utterly ruined it, all
occurred many years before the coming of Christ. By a natural
sequence of ill-fated cause and effect, the war between Marius
and Sulla led to the wars of Sertorius and Catiline, 1 the former
of whom was proscribed by Sulla and the latter encouraged.
From these, spring the wars of Lepidus and Catulus, 2 of whom
Lepidus sought to undo Sulla's work and Catulus to uphold
it. Then followed the conflict between Pompey and Caesar.
Pompey had been Sulla's follower, but had matched and
even outstripped him. Caesar, however, could not allow
1 In 78 B.C. and 63.
2 77 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK HI 185
Pompey a power he himself did not have, and gained the
upper hand over his rival when he defeated and slew him.
So we come to the other Caesar, later called Augustus, during
whose reign Christ was born.
Augustus himself waged civil wars with more than one
opponent, wars in which perished many an illustrious man,
not least among them being Cicero, the celebrated orator,
who gave us the masterly treatise on the art of governing the
State. This same Gaius Caesar was murdered in the very
precincts of the Curia by a clique of senators turned con-
spirators, who alleged that their victim had schemed to seize
power and that they were acting in defense of the republic's
liberty. Yet, their victim was the very man who had put down
Pompey, and who had used his victory with clemency by
sparing the lives of his adversaries and restoring to them their
dignities.
As heir of Caesar's power there rose up a man of far
different character, a man befouled and degraded by every
vice, that Antony whom Cicero withstood with all his might
in the name of that same liberty. Then came forward a young
man of high character, that other Caesar, Gaius Caesar's
adopted son, who, as I said, was later given the title of
Augustus. To this young Caesar, Cicero lent all his support,
in an effort to strengthen his power against Antony. He hoped
that, once Antony was checked and crushed, Caesar would
bring back freedom to the State. But, the orator was an
extraordinarily blind prophet. He did not foresee that the
very young man he was aiding to office and power was to de-
liver Cicero's own life into Antony's hands as a sort of peace-
offering, and was to subject to his own dictatorship the
country's liberty, to the restoration of which Cicero had de-
voted so much of his oratory.
186 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 31
Let the pagans blame their own gods for all their woes,
instead of repaying our Christ with ingratitude for all His
good gifts. Certain it is that, when calamities rained upon
them, 'the altars streamed with Sabaean incense and were
fresh with fragrance of chaplets.' 1 While Romans were shed-
ding Roman blood, not only in ordinary places, but before
the very altars of the gods, the pagan priesthood was held
in honor, the shrines were bright, all was sacrifices, plays and
orgies in the temples. Note that Cicero sought no temple for
sanctuary, because that had been of no avail for Mucius.
But, the pagans of our day, while they have far less reason
to decry the era, have either fled for sanctuary to the
most hallowed Christian places, or have been taken there
by the barbarians to save their lives.
I need not repeat what I have already said or mention
anything I had to omit, but one thing is certain, and anyone
whose mind is free from bias will readily admit it: If man-
kind had embraced Christ's teaching before the Punic Wars,
and if there had followed the terrible devastation of those
wars in Europe and Africa, there is not one of those intoler-
able critics who would not have blamed those evils on the
Christian religion.
Their outcries would have been even more intolerable,
especially in what touches the Romans, if the invasion of the
Gauls, or the inundation of the Tiber and the devastating
fires, or, what was worse, the horrors of those civil wars of
evil memory had occurred after the acceptance and spread of
Christianity. Other calamities befell, so appalling as to
seem the work of demons. Suppose that these, too, had
1 Aeneid 1.416, 417
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK III 187
occurred in Christian times. Against what other people but
Christians would they have been charged as crimes?
I shall say nothing of the merely freakish phenomena, which
caused little harm: talking cattle, unborn infants uttering
words in the mother's womb, flying serpents, women and
hens turned male, and the like. These things are recorded in
their books, not of fables but of history, and, whether they
are true or false, strike men with wonderment but do no
harm. However, when earth, clay, and stones (real stones,
not hail, commonly called 'stones' ) rained from the sky, these,
indeed, could also do serious harm.
In those books we read that, when the lava poured down
from the crater of Mt. Aetna to the shore, the sea became
such a caldron that it calcined the rocks and melted the
pitch from the ships. Incredible as a marvel, this was also
harmful as an occurrence. On another occasion, the writers
tell us, a similar eruption poured such a deluge of ashes
upon Sicily that the houses of Catania were overwhelmed by
it and collapsed under the weight. Moved with pity by that
disaster, the Romans remitted the tribute for that year. It is
also written that Africa was already a Roman province when
a swarm of locusts of monstrous proportions swooped down
on the land, devoured the fruit and leaves on the trees, and
then plunged into the sea in an enormous cloud. When the
dead insects were washed ashore, infecting the air by their
corruption, a pestilence set in, so violent that in the kingdom
of Masinissa alone 800,000 men are reported to have perished,
and many more in the regions that lay close to the coast.
We are further assured that in Utica, out of 30,000 people,
only 10,000 were left alive. Now, if the half-wits we have to
endure and must answer were to witness all these catastrophes
occurring in Christian times, there is not one of them who
188 SAINT AUGUSTINE
would not saddle them on Christianity. But, they will blame
their gods for none of those misfortunes. Indeed, they demand
the restoration of their worship, so that they may be preserved
from these and lesser evils, despite the fact that when their
forebears worshiped the gods, they suffered greater calamities
by far.
BOOK IV
Chapter 1
N THE FIRST PAGES of this work on the City of God,
I saw fit to give an answer to its enemies. Running
mad after the pleasures of earth and eagerly grasp-
ing at fleeting goods, they denounce the Christian religion,
the only salutary and true one, for any hardship they suffer
rather through God's merciful admonition than through the
severity of His punishment.
Among our accusers there is an ignorant rabble, incited
by the authority of the learned to cast greater odium upon
us. These simple souls imagine that the abnormal calamities
that have occurred in our own day were entirely unknown in
the past. This foolish opinion is encouraged even by those
who know it to be false, but who pretend ignorance in order
to give an air of truth to their grumblings. Hence, I have gone
to the books in which their own historians have recorded, for
men's information, the things that happened in the past, and
from these I have proved two important facts: first, that the
actual events were far different from what these people
imagined; second, that the false gods which pagans then
worshiped in the open, and now worship under cover, were
unclean spirits, malignant and lying demons. The truth of
this is clear from the fact that these demons go so far as to
take delight in their own villainies, to the extent of wanting
them exhibited, either as facts or as fictions, in the festivals
celebrated in their honor. I have also pointed out that, as
189
190 SAINT AUGUSTINE
long as these villainies are exhibited for imitation under di-
vine sanction, so to speak, it is impossible to restrain weak
humans from actually reproducing in their own lives the
abominable acts committed by the gods.
My proofs were not guesses. I have drawn them partly
from my own recent recollection, for I have seen with my
own eyes those indecent dramas, performed in homage to
such divinities. I have drawn them also from the writings
of those who left accounts of these mythological exploits, not
with the intention of casting disgrace upon the gods, but of
doing them honor. Thus, Varro, one of their most learned and
authoritative scholars, wrote various books on human and
divine institutions. But, when he arranged his topics in the
order of their importance, grouping human affairs in one
book, and divine in another, he by no means classed stage
plays under human, but under divine institutions. He was
certain that, if none but good and decent men lived in Rome,
stage plays would have found no place among human insti-
tutions. Nor did Varro so classify things on his own authority.
Since he was born and educated in Rome, he simply found
stage plays a part of the pagan religious rites.
At the end of Book I, I briefly sketched what I had in
mind to say in the sequel. Part of that I have told in the two
books that followed, but I realize what I still owe to my
expectant readers.
Chapter 2
I promised to advance some facts that would show the error
of those who blame our religion for the woes of the Roman
state, and to recall, as they occurred to me according to their
gravity and in sufficient number, the calamities which Rome
and the provinces of the Empire had to endure in times
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 191
before their sacrifices were forbidden. All these calamities
they would certainly have blamed on us, if our faith had by
then shed its light on them or banned their sacrifices. These
matters I have sufficiently described, I think, in Books II and
III. In the second, I dealt with the moral evils which must
be regarded as the only real and serious calamities. In Book
III, I treated of those calamities which alone foolish people
dread to face, those evils which affect the body and material
goods, and which ordinarily even the good have to suffer. As
for their own moral evils, our pagan accusers accept them
not only patiently, but gladly. I have spoken only of the
city of Rome and its imperial possessions, and have not even
extended my discussion to Caesar Augustus, and I covered
very few evils.
What if I had chosen to review and to emphasize, not the
kind of evils which men inflict on one another, such as the
ravages and devastations brought on by wars, but those which
the elements of nature let loose upon the earth? To these
Apuleius briefly refers in a passage of his treatise, De mundo,
where he says that all earthly things are subject to change, to
transformation, and to annihilation. 1 To use his own words,
he relates that tremendous earthquakes made yawning chasms
in the ground, swallowing cities with their inhabitants. Cloud-
bursts deluged entire regions; what had been continents were
turned into islands by the onrush of near and distant waters.
Other places became accessible as the surrounding waters
withdrew, and men could reach them on foot. Cities were
1 Lucius Apuleius Afer, author of The Golden Ass, On the World, On
the Philosophy of Plato, a platonist philosopher and rhetorician who
flourished in the second century and who is often alluded to by St.
Augustine. He does not cite here the exact words of Apuleius, in spite
of the ut verbis eius utar.
192 SAINT AUGUSTINE
beaten to the ground by windstorms and hurricanes. Confla-
grations kindled by lightning swallowed up in flames whole
regions in the East, while on the coasts of the West water-
spouts and floods caused similar devastation. So, also, on one
occasion the craters overflowed from the summit of Mt.
Aetna and down the slopes rushed torrents of flaming lava
ignited by divine power.
If I had wished to gather these and similar occurrences
from history and other sources, I could never finish the tragic
story of all that came to pass before the Name of Christ had
put bounds to all the follies so dangerous to true salvation.
I also promised to point out the Roman virtues, and the
reasons why the true God to whose power all kingdoms
are subject deigned to bless the Empire with increase. I also
proposed to show how those beings the pagans imagine to be
gods contributed 'nothing, and how, on the contrary, they
worked immense harm by their frauds and deceptions. That,
1 take it, is the topic I must now discuss, and, in particular,
the growth of the Roman Empire. On the wicked deceits of
the demons whom the Romans worshiped as gods, and on
the incalculable harm those demons did to Roman morals, I
have already commented at some length, principally in
Book II.
On the other hand, in the three completed Books, where-
ever it seemed opportune, I pointed out how much comfort,
even amid the hardships of war, God brought both to the
good and to the wicked. This He did through the Name of
Christ, whom the barbarians reverenced counter to the ways
of war. Thus, 'He maketh His sun to rise upon the good and
bad and raineth upon the just and unjust.' 2
2 Matt. 5.45.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 193
Chapter 3
Let us now consider on what grounds our adversaries
affirm that the immensity and long duration of the Roman
Empire are gifts of those gods whom, they insist, they have
honorably worshiped by the homage of infamous plays per-
formed by the ministrations of infamous men. I would first
like to find an answer to this question: Is it reasonable and
wise to glory in the extent and greatness of the Empire when
you can in no way prove that there is any real happiness in
men perpetually living amid the horrors of war, perpetually
wading in blood? Does it matter whether it is the blood of
their fellow citizens or the blood of their enemies? It is still
human blood, in men perpetually haunted by the gloomy
spectre of fear and driven by murderous passions. The happi-
ness arising from such conditions is a thing of glass, of mere
glittering brittleness. One can never shake off the horrible
dread that it may suddenly shiver into fragments.
In order to be perfectly clear on this point, we must not
be carried away by hollow verbal blasts and allow our
judgment to be confused by the high-sounding words of
prattlers about nations, kingdoms, and provinces. Let us
imagine two individuals for each man, like a letter in a
word, is an integral part of a city or of a kingdom, however
extensive. Of these two men, let us suppose that one is poor,
or, better, in moderate circumstances; the other, extremely
wealthy. But, our wealthy man is haunted by fear, heavy with
cares, feverish with greed, never secure, always restless, breath-
less from endless quarrels with his enemies. By these miseries,
he adds to his possessions beyond measure, but he also piles
up for himself a mountain of distressing worries. The man of
modest means is content with a small and compact patri-
mony. He is loved by his own, enjoys the sweetness of peace
194 SAINT AUGUSTINE
in his relations with kindred, neighbors, and friends, is re-
ligious and pious, of kindly disposition, healthy in body, self-
restrained, chaste in morals, and at peace with his conscience.
I wonder if there is anyone so senseless as to hesitate over
which of the two to prefer. What is true of these two indi-
viduals is likewise true of two families, two nations, two
kingdoms; the analogy holds in both cases. If we apply it with
care and correct our judgment accordingly, it will be easy
to see on which side lies folly and on which true happiness.
Hence, if the true God is adored, and if He is given the
service of true sacrifice and of an upright life, then it is bene-
ficial for good men to extend their empire far and wide
and to rule for a long time. This is beneficial, not so much
for themselves as for their subjects. Fear of God, and upright-
ness, God's great gifts, are enough for the true happiness of
rulers, since this will enable them to spend this life well and
thus win life eternal. On this earth, therefore, rule by good
men is a blessing bestowed, not so much on themselves as
upon mankind. But the rule of wicked men brings greater
harm to themselves, since they ruin their own souls by the
greater ease with which they can do wrong.
As for their subjects, only their own villainy can harm
them. For, whatever injury wicked masters inflict upon good
men is to be regarded, not as a penalty for wrong-doing, but
as a test for their virtues. Thus, a good man, though a slave,
is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For
he serves, not one man alone, but, what is worse, as many
masters as he has vices. For, it is in reference to vice that
the Holy Scripture says: 'For by whom a man is overcome,
of the same also he is the slave.' 1
1 2 Pet. 2.19.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 195
Chapter 4
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized
brigandage? For, what are bands of brigands but petty king-
doms? They also are groups of men, under the rule of a
leader, bound together by a common agreement, dividing
their booty according to a settled principle. If this band of
criminals, by recruiting more criminals, acquires enough
power to occupy regions, to capture cities, and to subdue
whole populations, then it can with fuller right assume the
title of kingdom, which in the public estimation is conferred
upon it, not by the renunciation of greed, but by the increase
of impunity.
The answer which a captured pirate gave to the celebrated
Alexander the Great was perfectly accurate and correct.
When that king asked the man what he meant by infesting the
sea, he boldly replied: 'What you mean by warring on the
whole world. I do my fighting on a tiny ship, and they call
me a pirate; you do yours with a large fleet, and they call you
Commander.'
Chapter 5
I shall not press the inquiry as to what kind of people
Romulus gathered around him to populate the city, since
they gave him much to think about. His idea seemed to be
that, if they gave up their bandit life and were received into
the new city, they need no longer fear the penalties hanging
over their heads, dread of which had driven them to commit
more desperate crimes. Thenceforth, they would be a more
peaceful element in human society. But, this much I say:
The Roman Empire, which had already grown mighty by
the conquest of many nations and had become an object of
196 SAINT AUGUSTINE
dread to the rest, itself experienced bitter anxiety and grave
fear. Only with great effort was it able to ward off a tremen-
dous disaster when a handful of gladiators in Campania broke
away from their school, organized a large army, put it under
the command of three generals, and spread havoc and blood-
shed throughout Italy. 1
Let them tell us which of the gods made it possible for a
small and contemptible gang of bandits to become a power
strong enough to strike fear into the Romans, despite their
forces and citadels. Will any one say that, because the day of
their power was short, no help was therefore given from
above? As though any man's life were a long affair! On that
reckoning, then, the gods aid no one to sovereign power, since
each individual lives but a brief time, and no one can regard
it as a blessing, since, in a short space, for every individual
man, and hence for all men together, it 'is a vapor which
. . . shall vanish away.' 2
What does it matter to those who worshiped the gods
under Romulus, and are now long dead, that the Roman
Empire grew to such proportions after their death? They are
now only pleading their own causes in the lower regions, and
whether their causes are good or bad is irrelevant here. This
may be said of all, since each one, carrying the burden of his
actions for the few short days of life, passed swiftly across
the stage of imperial power even though a long chain seems
formed by the men who died and those who succeeded them
in power.
Even if one must credit the gods for the benefactions of a
brief period, then the gladiators just mentioned benefited from
1 The Third Servile War, led by the gladiator Spartacus, 73-71 B.C.
2 James 4.15.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 197
the help of the gods in no small degree. They broke the chains
of their bondage, ran off, escaped, raised a large and strong
army, and, acting under the directions and orders of their
chiefs, struck fear into the mighty Roman Empire. When
several Roman generals could not put them down, they
captured much booty, gained an impressive number of vic-
tories, plunged into dissipation, and gave free reign to indul-
gence. Until they were finally put down, and that with the
greatest difficulty, they lived like kings in splendor. But, let
us pass to more important topics.
Chapter 6
Summarizing the historian Trogus Pompeius, Justinus
wrote in Latin a history of Greece, or, to be more exact, of the
non-Roman nations. 1 He begins as follows: 'At the dawn of
history, races and nations were ruled by kings raised to that
eminence of power, not by courting popular favor, but by the
recognition of the self-restraint which characterizes good men.
The people were not bound by laws [for the will of the
ruler took the place of law 2 ]. They were more concerned
in protecting their boundaries than in extending them. The
jurisdiction of each king ended with the frontiers of his
kingdom. Ninus, King of the Assyrians, driven by a lust for
power hitherto unknown, was the first to change this time-
honored and, I may say, inherited, tradition among the na-
tions. He was the first to carry war into the territory of his
neighbors and to subjugate, as far as the confines of Libya,
1 The historian Justinus, who flourished in the second half of the second
century, composed a History in forty-four volumes which was supposed
to be an epitome of the longer work of Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, a
contemporary of Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) .
2 The words in brackets do not appear in the best MSS.
198 SAINT AUGUSTINE
backward tribes as yet unable to defend themselves.' A little
further on he writes: 'Ninus thus consolidated the wide
extent of the power he sought, by remaining in constant oc-
cupation of the captured lands. Acquiring more power by
conquest of his frontier-neighbors, he passed on to successive
conquests. He made each victory a stepping stone to another,
until he finally subdued the nations of the entire Orient.'
Whatever the trustworthiness of Justinus or Trogus, for it
appears from more reliable sources that, in some matters, they
did not report the truth, other historians do agree that King
Ninus expanded the Empire of the Assyrians far and wide.
Moreover, it stood for such a long time that the Roman Em-
pire itself has not yet endured so long. As the writers of
chronological history assure us, the Assyrian Empire lasted
for 1240 years, 3 from the first of Ninus' reign till it passed
into the hands of the Medes. Can waging war on neighbors,
and then, by a series of wars, crushing and enslaving peace-
ful nations be called anything else but colossal brigandage?
Chapter 7
If the Assyrian Empire grew so vast and lasted so long
without any help from the gods, why should the extensive
territory and the long duration of the Roman Empire be
credited to the Roman divinities? Whatever cause explains
the growth of the one must explain the growth of the other.
Should they insist that even the Assyrian Empire must thank
the gods for their help, I ask : What gods? The nations Nimus
vanquished and brought under his yoke worshiped the same
gods as he. If the Assyrians had special gods of their own,
3 The number is taken from Eusebius* Chronicle. The destruction of
Nineveh by Cyaxares, King of the Medes, is usually dated 612 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 199
better skilled in building and preserving their empire, were
they dead when the empire fell? Or, having received no pay,
did they decide to pass over to the side of the Medes for
larger pay promised to them? And did they, in turn, accept
the invitation of Cyrus 1 and the ampler reward he held out
to them to go over to the Persians? These people still continue,
after the vast but short-lived empire of Alexander the Great,
to hold sway over large regions of the East.
If that be so, the gods are traitors for deserting and passing
over to the enemy. Even a man refused to perpetrate such
an infamy. This was Camillus, 2 who, for having conquered
and occupied a formidable city, was rewarded with the
ingratitude of Rome, in whose name he had fought. But, for-
getting the injustice, Camillus thought only of his country,
and saved it a second time from the hands of the Gauls. If
the gods are not traitors, then they are not as powerful as
gods should be, since they can be overcome by human wit
or force. Or again, if, fighting among themselves, the gods
are beaten, not by men, but by other gods, the special tutel-
aries of each city, then they, too, carry on feuds of their own,
in which each one joins according to the interests of his
party. At any rate, the city owed no more worship to its own
gods than it did to others who might bring it help.
Finally, however one is to take this passing over to the
enemy, or flight, or migration, or desertion in battle, one
thing is certain. In those early days, and in those parts of
the world which saw the empires in question crash amid the
havoc of war and fall into other hands, the name of Christ
had not yet been preached. If twelve hundred and more
1 Cyrus the Great deposed Astyages, successor to Cyaxares, in 550 B.C.
and took Babylon in 538.
2 For Camillus, see above, II 17 and III 17.
200 SAINT AUGUSTINE
years ago, when the Assyrian Empire fell, the Christian re-
ligion had proclaimed an eternal kingdom and forbade sac-
rilegious worship of false gods, what would the foolish people
of that race have said? What else but that the empire which
had endured for so many centuries perished precisely because
its cults were abandoned and the Christian religion was ac-
cepted in their place.
In a stupid complaint such as this, which might well have
been made in those days, our accusers may well see their
own image as in a mirror. If there is any shame left in them,
they should blush to repeat it. However, the Roman Empire
has been violently buffeted by storms, but not shattered. It
experienced violent storms, too, before Christ's name was
heard, but it weathered them all. Hence, there is no reason
to despair in our own times. For, who can tell what is God's
design in this matter?
Chapter 8
Let us now examine, if you please, which one god, or which
gods, out of the vast horde the Romans adore, they believe
particularly responsible for the growth and preservation of
the Empire. Surely, they will not dare to ascribe any part
of so superb and stately a work to the goddess of the sewers,
for example, or to Volupia, so called from voluptuousness, or
to Lubentina, who derives her name from lust, or to Vati-
canus, who presides over the wailing (vagitus) of babies, or
to Cunina, whose business is to attend to cradles (cuna).
It is impossible to mention in one passage of this book all the
names of the gods and goddesses which the pagans could
scarcely find place for in the huge volumes where they indi-
cate the special function assigned to each divinity.
They did not even believe that the protection of the
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 201
countryside should be entrusted to any one god, but appointed
Rusina over the plains, Jugatinus over the mountain tops,
Collatina over the hills, Vallorina over the valleys. They
could not even find a single goddess Segetia to whom alone
they might entrust all the crops, but for the sown seed, as long
as it lay underground, they would have a goddess Seia, and,
from the moment it sprouted to the time of its harvest, a
Segetia to act as guardian. When the wheat was gathered and
garnered, a Tutilina was to keep it safe. Surely, that one
goddess Segetia alone could have managed things from the
sprouting of the green blades to the drying of the ear3.
It was not enough for the lovers of a swarm of gods to
see the poor soul spurn the chaste embrace of the one true
God, and prostitute itself to the rabble of demons. They
wanted Proserpina in charge of the sprouting seed, the god
Nodutus over the joints and knobs of the stalk, and Volutina
over the sheaths enclosing the ears. When the sheaths open
and the ears break through, then the goddess Patelana is
on duty. When the new ears reach the height of the old stalks,
the goddess Hostilina is put to work, because hostire was a
verb the ancients used to mean 'to get even with. 5 When the
wheat ripened, the goddess Flora was on the job. When it
grew milky, the god Lacturnus presided; the goddess Matuta,
when it ripened; Runcina, when it was 'runcated,' that is,
pulled out of the ground. I refrain from naming all the
specialists. It revolts me, though it does not shame them.
However, I have mentioned these very few instances to
make clear that they have no right to affirm that the estab-
lishment, growth, and preservation of the Empire were due
to that sort of divinities. Each was so confined to his par-
ticular function that no entire task was entrusted to any single
one of them. How could Segetia take care of the Empire,
202 SAINT AUGUSTINE
when she was not permitted to look after both the crops
and the orchards? How could Cunina give thought to mili-
tary affairs, when she was not allowed to go beyond minding
babies' cradles? How could Nodutus give aid in war, when
his sphere was restricted to the knots of the joints, and could
not even include the sheath of the ear?
People post a single gatekeeper to guard the house, and,
because he is a man, he is quite sufficient. But the pagans had
to post three gods: Forculus at the door, Cardea at the
hinges, Limentinus at the threshold. Forculus was evidently
unable to guard the hinges and threshold, too.
Chapter 9
Leaving aside the swarm of petty gods, at least for a
while, let us consider the activity of the major gods, which
made Rome great enough to rule for so long over so many
peoples. That, no doubt, is the work of Jupiter. These people
look upon him as the king of all gods and goddesses, in token
of which his sceptre and his temple are set on the Capitoline
hilltop. Of him they brag though it was a poet's expression
in the words: 'Everything is full of Jove.' 1 Varro, too,
believes that Jupiter is also worshiped, under another name,
by those who adore one single God without making any
images of him. If that be true, why have the Romans, like
other pagan races, dishonored him by making a statue in his
likeness? Varro himself objected to the practice, so much so
that, though he had to yield to the force of perverse custom
in so large a state, he did not hesitate to declare and write
that those who introduced statues among the people 'robbed
them of reverence, and put error in its place.'
1 Virgil, Eclogues 3.60.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 203
Chapter 10
Why did they also provide Jupiter with a wife, Juno, and
call her 'sister and spouse'? Because, they say, Jupiter repre-
sents the ether and Juno the air, and these two elements are
conjoined one as the upper and the other as the lower at-
mosphere. But, if Juno occupies a part of the world, the state-
ment, 'Everything is full of Jove' is not true of Jupiter. Docs
each one fill both parts, and are the two mates in each and
both of those elements and at the same time? Then, why is
the ether assigned to Jove and the air to Juno? At any rate,
these two should have been enough. Why, then, is the sea
allotted to Neptune and the earth to Pluto? And, that neither
might lack a consort, Salacia is given to Neptune and Proser-
pina to Pluto. For, as they try to explain, just as Juno occu-
pies the lower part of the atmosphere, the air, so Salacia occu-
pies the lower part of the sea, and Proserpina the lower part
of the earth.
They seek in vain for devices on which to construct their
fairy tales. If things were as they imagine, their ancient sages
should have postulated three constituent elements of the
world, not four, so that each of the elements might be as-
signed to each pair of divinities. But, in fact, they emphatically
stated that ether is one thing; air, another. Yet, water, whether
higher or lower, is still water. Even if you assume some
difference in the levels, water is still certainly water. As for
the lower earth, what else can it be but earth, however much
it may differ from the upper?
You now have the physical world constituted, all complete,
of four or of three elements. Where will you put Minerva?
What part is she to hold and fill? There stands her temple
on the Capitoline besides the others, though she is not their
daughter. If they say that her domain is in the upper ether,
204 SAINT AUGUSTINE
a notion which led the poets to conceive of her as sprung
from the head of Jupiter, why is she not named queen of
the gods, since she is above Jupiter? Was it because it would
not be proper to set the daughter above the father? Then,
why was not that same rule of right relations applied to
Jupiter and Saturn? Was it because Saturn was beaten in
battle? But, do gods go to war? Of course not, they say, that
is a mere fable. We do not believe in tales; we must think
better of the gods. Then, why was not the father of Jupiter
given an equal place of honor, if not a higher? Because, they
allege, Saturn is only a symbol of the duration of time. There-
fore, in worshiping Saturn, they worship Time, implying that
Jupiter, king of the gods, has Time for his father. Why,
then, is it improper to say that Jupiter and Juno are born
of Time, if he is the sky and she the earth, since both heaven
and earth were created? This bit of theology is also down in
the books of their scholars and sages.
Virgil 1 drew his inspiration, not from poetical fancies,
but from the treatises of philosophers, when he wrote : Then
the almighty father, the ether, came down in fruitful rain,
in the bosom of his joyful spouse,' 2 meaning, in the bosom of
Tellus or Earth. Even here they see some difference in the
earth itself. They think that Terra is one thing, Tellus another,
and Tellumo still another, and give to each deity a name
of its own, a function of its own, and a shrine and sacrifice
of its own. Moreover, they also call this same Terra mother
of the gods, so that one can have more patience with the
reveries of the poets than with the sacred, but not poetical,
books of the pagans, which make Juno not only 'sister and
1 Acneid 1.47.
2 Georgia 2.325,826.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK IV 205
spouse/ but also mother, of Jupiter. They would also identi-
fy this same Earth with Ceres, and likewise with Vesta.
More commonly, however, they believe that Vesta is but
the fire that warms the hearth failing which, there would be
no city. Hence, the custom of dedicating virgins to its ser-
vice, because nothing is born of fire, just as nothing is born
of virgins. Surely, a stupid notion like this deserved to be
banished and abolished by the One who was born of a virgin.
Who can endure to see them paying to fire even the honor due
to chastity, and yet feeling no shame in giving the name
Venus to Vesta? When they do this they make a mockery
of the virginity which is honored in her servants. For, if
Vesta is merely Venus, how could virgins minister to her with-
out imitating Venus? Are there two Venuses; one a virgin
and the other a wife? Or, rather, three one Vesta for vir-
gins, another for married women, and a third for harlots?
To this last, the Phoenicians offered the gift of prostituting
their daughters before they gave them husbands.
Which of the three is the wife of Vulcan? Surely, not the
virgin, since she has a husband. Heaven forbid that we should
say the prostitute, lest we seem to cast dishonor on the son
of Juno and the fellow worker of Minerva. Therefore, we
must take it that Vulcan's wife is the Venus of the married
women. We can only hope that such women will not imitate
her affair with Mars! Again, they say that I go back to the
fables. But, why get angry at me for saying such things about
their gods, instead of at themselves for feasting their eyes
on the villainies of those gods performed on the stage? And,
though it would have been impossible to believe, had it not
been proved beyond all doubt, the representations of these
scandals were inaugurated as a tribute to the gods themselves.
206 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 11
On the basis of every argument drawn from physical phe-
nomena and from their discussions, let the learned pagans
maintain all they please about Jove. Now, let him be the soul
of this material world, filling and moving the vast structure
of the universe, formed and compounded of four elements,
or of as many as they please. Now, let Jupiter yield some
parts of it to his sister and brothers. Again, let him be the
ether embracing the underlying air, Juno. Now, let him be
the entire sky and air together, and let him with fertile rains
and seeds fecundate the earth his wife and mother at the
same time, for this is no scandal among the gods. Finally,
not to run through all their theories, let him be the unique
god to whom, according to the thinking of many, the cele-
brated poet refers when he says : 'God pervades all lands and
all depths of the sea, all heights of the heavens.' 1
Let him be Jupiter in the ether, Juno in the air, Neptune
in the sea, Salacia in the depths of the sea, Pluto in the earth,
Proserpina in the lower world, Vesta on domestic hearths,
Vulcan in the forgers' furnace, the sun, moon and stars in
the heavens, Apollo in the soothsayers, Mercury in com-
merce, the initiator as Janus, the terminator as Terminus.
Let him be Saturn in time, Mars and Bellona in wars,
Bacchus in the vineyards, Ceres in the wheatfields, Diana in
the forests, Minerva in intellects. Finally, let him even be,
if I may say so, in the horde of common gods. As Liber, let
him preside over male seed; as Libra, over female. Let him
be Dispater, who brings infants into the world; let him be
the goddess Mena, appointed to supervise women's periods,
and Lucina, invoked by women in childbirth. Let him come
1 Georgics 4.221,222.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 207
to the aid of the newly born by lifting them from the lap of
the earth, and be called Ops; let him open the mouths of
wailing babies, and be called the god Vaticanus; let him lift
them from the ground, and be called the goddess Levana;
and, by guarding the cradles, be called Cunina. Let none
but himself be in those goddesses who foretell the destinies
of the newly born, and are called Carmentes.
Let him preside over chance events as Fortune, and as the
goddess Rumina let him nurse the suckling, for ruma was the
ancient word for breast. As the goddess Potina, let him ad-
minister drink; as the goddess Educa, proffer food. From
the terror of infants, let him be called Paventia; from sudden
hope, Venilia; from lust, Volupia; from activity, Agenoria;
from the impulses that drive a man to excessive activity, the
goddess Stimula; by inspiring energy, the divinity Strenua;
by teaching to count, Numeria; by teaching to sing, Camena.
For the counsels he gives, let him be Census; for suggest-
ing good judgments, the goddess Sentia. Let him be the god-
dess Juventas, who takes charge of the entry into youth after
a boy has assumed the toga. Let him also be Fortuna Barbata,
who puts a beard on those grown to manhood although, if
they really wished to honor grown men they would have
addressed a male divinity by a male name, Barbatus from his
beard, like Nodutus from the knots, or, least, they would not
have called him Fortuna, since he had a beard, but For-
tunius. As the god Jugatinus, let Jupiter join couples in
marriage; when the virgin wife's girdle is loosed, let him
be invoked as the goddess Virginiensis. Let him be Mutunus,
or Tutunus, known among the Greeks as Priapus.
If the pagans are not ashamed of it, let the one Jupiter
be all the things I have said, and all the things I have not
said for there is much I could not say. Let him be all these
208 SAINT AUGUSTINE
gods and goddesses, whether they are all parts of him, as
some would have it, or powers, as those believe who like to
conceive of him as the world-soul. This latter is the view of
their great and very learned men.
If this be true I do not yet inquire just what the situ-
ation is what could the Romans lose if, with a wiser econo-
my, they should worship one God? What part of His creation
would be despised if He himself were adored? If it is to be
feared that some parts of Jupiter would be enraged for
being passed over or ignored, then it is not true, as they main-
tain, that he is the all-embracing total life of one life-giving
being, who contains all the other gods as being his powers, or
members, or parts. But if one part can become angry, another
be pacified, and a third be irritated independently of one
another then, each has its own life distinct from the rest.
On the other hand, if it be maintained that all parts
together, that is, the totality of Jove himself, could be angered
if his parts were not worshiped also, individually, that is
talking sheer nonsense. No single one of those parts would
be overlooked as long as the object of worship is the very
totality which contains them all. To avoid endless details,
let me observe that when they assert that all the heavenly
bodies are parts of Jove, that all have life and rational souls,
and that all are most certainly gods, there are certain things
they overlook. They do not see, for example, how many gods
remain without worship, how many have no temples or altars
built to them, and to how few of the heavenly bodies they
thought of dedicating such things, and of offering special
sacrifices. If, therefore, the stars are wrathful because each
is not given its own special worship, do not the pagans dread
to live under the wrath of the entire heaven, since they ap-
peased only a few gods?
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 209
But, if their worship comprises all the gods because all
are contained in the Jove they honor by that procedure, they
could invoke them all in the person of the one Jove. In this
way, no one would become offended, since, as part of that
unity, no one would be slighted. This would be preferable to
worshiping only a few, thereby giving just cause of resentment
to those who are ignored, and who are far more numerous.
Their resentment would be particularly justified if, among
the worshiped ones shining in splendor, they saw Priapus in
his obscene nakedness given a primary place.
Chapter 12
What can be said of another absurdity? It should stir men
of intelligence, and even the ordinary man for no intellec-
tual genius is needed here to lay aside bitter contention, and
face squarely this question : Is God the soul of the world, and
is the world as the body of this soul in such wise that the
two together make up a living organism composed of body
and soul? Does this God, like nature's womb, so to speak,
contain all things in Himself, so that His soul, which vitalizes
the entire mass, is the source of the life and the soul of all
living things, according to the lot determined for each one
at birth? Does nothing remain which is not a part of God?
If this be true, does anyone fail to see how impious and
blasphemous is the conclusion that follows: When anyone
tramples on anything, he tramples on God; when he kills
any living thing, he kills God! I refuse to set forth all the
conclusions which thinking men can draw, but which they
cannot express without shame.
210 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 13
If they contend that only rational animals, as men are,
are parts of God, then, on the assumption that the whole
world is God, I really fail to see how they can exclude brute
animals from being parts of Him. But, there is no need of
arguing about that. Only consider the same rational being,
man. Can you imagine anything more absurd than that,
when a boy is whipped, God is whipped? Who but a madman
could tolerate the idea that 'parts' of God should become lust-
ful, wicked, impious, and thoroughly damnable? Then, by
what right could God frown on those who do not worship
Him, since it is His own 'parts' who do not do so?
The only thing left for our adversaries is to admit that
all the gods have their own lives, that each one lives for
himself, that none of them is part of anything. All are to be
worshiped as far as they can be known and worshiped, but
there are too many for all to be worshiped. Because Jupiter
is their king, for that reason, I suppose, he is given credit
for the establishment and growth of the Roman Empire. If
this is not his achievement, what other god do they believe
capable of undertaking a task so vast? Is not each busy with
his own duties and particular work, no one interfering with
another? So, they conclude that only by the King of the gods
could the kingdom of men have been extended and made
great.
Chapter 14
At this point, I ask : Why is not the empire itself a god of
some kind? If Victory is a goddess, why not the empire?
What need is there of Jupiter himself in this matter, if Vic-
tory shows herself favorable and propitious, and always goes
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 211
to the side of those she would see victorious? Once her favor
and good will are gained, what nations would retain their
independence, even if Jupiter had nothing to do, or was
otherwise engaged? What kingdom would refuse to surrender?
But, possibly, just men hesitate to engage in unjust wars or
to provoke peaceful neighbors who are doing no kind of
wrong, merely for aggrandisement. If they really feel that
way, I highly approve and commend their sentiments.
Chapter 15
Let our accusers consider, therefore, that perhaps it is
not fitting for good men to rejoice in the extent of their
power. For, what really increased the empire's expansion was
the wickedness of those against whom wars were justly waged.
The empire would, indeed, have remained small if the
peace and fair-dealing of their neighbors had provoked no
wars. Thus, in a happier state of human relations, all king-
doms would remain small, and rejoice in their neighborly
concord. Thus, also, there would have been in the world a
great many nations, as there are many families in a city.
Hence, wars and conquests may rejoice unprincipled men,
but are a sad necessity in the eyes of men of principle. How-
ever, it would be still more unfortunate for wrong-doers to
dominate just men; so, even this necessity may properly be
regarded by good men as fortunate.
But, beyond doubt, it is a greater blessing to have a good
and friendly neighbor than to have to subdue one who has
taken up arms against you. It is a sign of bad will to desire
a detestable and dangerous neighbor, just to have someone
to conquer. If, therefore, by waging, not unscrupulous and
criminal, but just, wars, the Romans succeeded in building
212 SAINT AUGUSTINE
up a mighty empire, why should not the wickedness of others
be adored as a goddess? In fact, we know that such wicked-
ness had much to do with the expansion of the empire. It
aroused obnoxious people, against whom just wars might be
waged, with consequent additions to the empire. Why, then,
should not the wickedness of foreign nations be accounted a
goddess, if Fear, Dread, and Fever deserved to be divinized
by the Romans?
Hence, as a result of the activity of these two divinities,
the Wickedness of others and the goddess Victory, when
Wickedness caused wars, Victory brought them to a success-
ful issue, and the empire grew mightier even while Jove was
taking a holiday. For, what was there left for him to do,
while those gifts which might be regarded as coming from his
hands were themselves considered gods, called gods, wor-
shiped as gods, and supplicated for favors? He, too, might
indeed have a part to play here, if he were called Empire, as
she is called Victory. Or, if the Empire is Jove's gift, why is
not Victory also so regarded? That would certainly have
been the case, if, instead of a stone figure in the Capitol,
people acknowledged and adored the true 'King of kings
and Lord of lords.'
Chapter 16
What most astonishes me is that pagans attached a di-
vinity to every object and to almost every motion. They in-
stituted public rites for all these gods and goddesses. Thus,
they called Agenoria the goddess who stirred to action;
Stimula, the one who spurred on to excessive action; Murcia,
the one who went to the other extreme and held a man back
from action, making him murcidus, as Pompeius says, that
is, inordinately languid and inactive; and Strenua, who im-
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 213
pells to vigorous action. But, strange to say, they paid no
such honor to the goddess Repose, although there was a tem-
ple to Quies outside the Colline Gate. Was this neglect a sign
of a restless spirit, or did it, rather, mean that the man who
insisted on worshiping that mob of gods or, rather, demons
could not find that rest to which the true Physician invites
us in the words: 'Learn of Me, because I am meek, and
humble of heart: and you shall find rest for your souls'? 1
Chapter 17
They may possibly reply that Jupiter is the one who sends
Victory on her mission and that, in compliance with the wishes
of the King of the gods, she goes to the people designated, and
fights on their side. This, however, can truly be said, not of
that Jupiter they arbitrarily imagine to be King of the gods,
but only of that true King of the ages, who despatches, not
Victory, who has no real existence, but His angel, and grants
victory to whom He wills. His designs may at times be hidden,
but they can never be wicked.
If Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also a god,
joined to Victory either as husband, brother, or son? These
pagans have conceived notions about the gods which, if
created by the poet's fancy, or criticized by us, they would
brand as ridiculous poets' dreams, unworthy of being predi-
cated of real gods. Yet, they did not ridicule themselves,
either for reading such absurdities in the poets, or for actually
worshiping them in the temples. The pagans should, there-
fore, invoke Jupiter in all their needs and address their sup-
plications to him alone. For, if Victory is a divinity subject
to that King, and he sent her anywhere, she could not dare
oppose him and do what she herself pleased.
1 Matt. 11.29.
214 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 18
How does it happen that Felicity is also a goddess? They
built her a temple, rewarded her with an altar, and performed
suitable rites in her honor. Therefore, she alone should have
been worshiped. For, what good is absent when she is present,
and what sense is there in also believing in, and paying wor-
ship to, the goddess Fortune? Is Felicity one thing and For-
tune another? Yes, they say, because fortune can be adverse,
while, if felicity is adverse, it is not felicity. Surely, we must
regard the divinities of both sexes (supposing they can have
sex) as nothing but good. Plato says so, the other philosophers
say so, and distinguished leaders of the state and of the
people say so.
How does it happen, then, that the goddess Fortune is
now good, now evil? Can it be that when she is evil she is
no longer a goddess, but suddenly turned into a malevolent
demon? How many goddesses of that kind are there? As many,
surely, as there are fortunate men, or men who enjoy good
fortune. But, as there are many other men who at one and
the same time with the others are pursued by evil fortune,
would Fortune, if it were the bad one, be good and bad at
the same time: Good to some; bad to others? Or is the For-
tune who is a goddess always good? Then, she is Felicity;
why give her two names? However, we can bear with that,
since it is common enough to call the same thing by two
names.
But, why give them different temples, different altars,
different rites? That, they allege, is because felicity is to be
understood as the happy state awarded to good people for
the good things they have already done, while the fortune
which men call good falls to the good and the bad indis-
criminately, taking no account of merits. Hence, she is
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 215
called Fortune. But, how can that be good which favors
both the good and the bad without distinction? Why pay
divine honors to a being who gropes about so blindly that
for the most part she passes by her own suppliants and clings
to her defamers? Or, if her devotees do anything to deserve
her favorable attention and good will, then she takes their
merits into account and does not stumble upon them by
chance.
What are we to think of that definition of Fortune? What
are we to think of a deity who derives her name from chance
happenings? If she is merely chance, it is sheer waste of time
to worship her. If, on the contrary, she discriminates among
her suppliants in order to benefit the good, then she is not
chance. Does Jupiter send her wherever he will? In that
case, he alone should be worshiped. For, Fortune cannot re-
fuse to obey any command of his, or go wherever he may
wish to send her. Let only the wicked be her suppliants, the
people who have no intention of acquiring those merits by
which Felicity might be attracted.
Chapter 19
The pagans make so much of this alleged divinity they
call Fortune that, as one tradition has it, her statue (which
was dedicated by women and therefore called Fortuna Mulie-
bris) actually spoke and declared more than once that the
women had honored her in true religious form. We need not
wonder if that is really true. It is not hard for evil spirits to
practise deception even with such tricks. But, the fact that
the goddess who spoke is the one who happens upon people
by accident, not the one who seeks out the meritorious, should
have put the pagans on their guard against the demons' wiles.
216 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Why was Fortune loquacious and Felicity silent? Only in
order that men, once they had Fortune on their side, might
go on leading any kind of life, knowing that Fortune would
bestow her favor on them without considering whether or not
they deserved it. At any rate, if Fortune did speak, it should
have been the Fortune of men rather than of women to
avoid the impression that the prodigy was nothing but the
gossip of the women who dedicated the statue.
Chapter 20
The pagans also deified Virtue. Surely, if she were really
a goddess, she should have been set above many other
divinities. Since, however, she is not a goddess, but a gift
of God, we should beg virtue from the only one who can
bestow it. The whole swarm of false gods will vanish like
mist. But, why was Faith also reckoned a goddess, and she,
too, given a temple and an altar? Any one who comes to
know faith really and practically already builds her a temple
in his heart. But, how can the pagans know what faith is,
when its first and highest demand is that men should believe
in the true God? Why was not virtue enough for them, since
faith is included in it? They thought it necessary to make a
fourfold division of virtue: prudence, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. Since each of these kinds has its own sub-
species, faith is reckoned a part of justice, and is accorded
first place among us who appreciate the significance of the
words: The just men liveth by faith.' 1 I am astonished at
the fanatical multipliers of gods. If faith is a goddess, why
did they insult so many other goddesses by ignoring them and
not raising temples and altars in their honor also?
1 Rom. 1.17 (from Hab. 2.4) .
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 217
Why was not temperance thought worthy to be a goddess?
Many men of high rank won no small glory in her name.
Finally, why was not fortitude ranked among the deities?
She stood by Mucius when he held his right hand in the
flame. She stood by Curtius, who for his country plunged
headlong into the chasm. She stood by the Decii, father and
son, when they sacrificed their lives for the safety of the
army. Whether it was real fortitude which inspired these
men is not the question here. Why did not prudence, why did
not wisdom deserve a divine abode? Is it because they are
all honored under the general title of Virtue? Then, He
alone who is God could have been honored, since the rest
of the gods are looked upon as parts of Him. But in that one
general virtue are included faith and chastity, and both of
these had altars in their own temples.
Chapter 21
Not truth, but folly, created these goddesses. These are
gifts of the true God, and not goddesses at all. Where virtue
and felicity are found, what else remains to be desired? If
virtue and felicity cannot suffice a man, what will? For,
virtue includes all things to be done, and felicity all things
to be desired. If extent and duration of empire are blessings,
they affect that same felicity. If Jupiter was worshiped that he
might grant these blessings, why did they fail to understand
that those things are gifts of God, and not divinities? Even
if they took them for divinities, they could at least have
dispensed with the rest of the polytheistic horde.
Let us examine the functions which our accusers have
arbitrarily assigned to all the gods and goddesses, and ask
them to discover, if they can, any boon which any god could
bestow on a man possessed of virtue and felicity. What
218 SAINT AUGUSTINE
knowledge would one need to beg from Mercury or Minerva,
when virtue in itself contains all blessings? The ancients
defined virtue as the art of living well and rightly assum-
ing that the Latin ars was derived from the Greek arete, or
virtue. But, if virtue comes only to the clever, what need was
there of the god, Pater Catius, to make men alert or sharp,
since Felicity could furnish this? To be born clever is surely
a stroke of felicity. Therefore, even if the unborn child could
not supplicate the goddess Felicitas to be kind and grant him
that gift, she would confer upon the parents, her devotees,
the happiness of bringing forth talented children.
To what purpose would women in childbirth invoke Lucina,
when, with Felicitas attending, they could not only bear
the child safely, but also bear good children? For the same
reason, why recommend children to the goddess Ops as they
come into the world; to the god Vaticanus when they cry;
to the goddess Cunina as they lie in the cradle ; to the goddess
Rumina whey they suck; to the god Statilinus when they
begin to stand; to the goddess Adeona when they toddle to-
ward you; to Abeona when the toddle away; to the goddess
Mens that they have a good mind; to the deities Volumnus
and Volumna that they may will good things; to the nuptial
divinities that they may marry well; to the agricultural gods
that they may gather abundance of produce, especially to
the goddess Fructesea herself; to Mars and Bellona that they
may fight well in war; to the goddess Victory that they may
win; to the god Honos that they may be honored; to the
goddess Pecunia that they may always have plenty of money;
to the god Aesculanus and his son Argentinus that they may
always have copper and silver coin?
They make Aesculanus the father of Argentinus, because
copper money came into use before silver money. I am sur-
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 219
prised that Argentinus did not beget Aurinus, since gold coin
came into use even later. If the pagans had had that god,
they would have set him before his father Argentinus and
his grandfather Aesculanus, just as they now place Jove before
Saturn. What need, therefore, was there of worshiping and
invoking a horde of divinities to obtain spiritual, corporal, or
external blessing? These divinities are so numerous that I
have not mentioned them all, nor could the pagans them-
selves provide gods, or fragments of gods, for all the goods
of human life, taken singly or in parts. Since the one goddess
Felicity could have conferred all possible favors with an
enormous and simple economy of effort, should any other
divinity be sought either to bring down blessings or to ward
off misfortunes?
Why should one have to supplicate the divinity Fessona
in behalf of the weary ; the goddess Pellonia for repulsing ene-
mies; the physicians Apollo or Aesculapius in behalf of the
sick, or both together when the danger was great? What
need of importuning the god Spinensis for clearing thorns
from the fields, or the goddess Rubigo for keeping off mil-
dew? With Felicity's protecting presence, either no evils would
arise, or they would be most easily banished. Finally, since
we are dealing with the two goddesses Virtue and Felicity, if
felicity is a reward of virtue, it is not a goddess, but a gift
of God; if it is a goddess, why cannot it be said to bestow
virtue, since even to attain virtue is a great felicity?
Chapter 22
What, therefore, is to be thought of the inestimable service
which Varro boasts of having done for his countrymen, not
only be enumerating the gods the Romans must worship,
220 SAINT AUGUSTINE
but also by specifying the function appropriate to each? It
is useless, he says, to know a certain doctor by name and ap-
pearance, but not to know what a doctor is. So, also, it is
useless to know that Aesculapius is a god, but not to know
that he can give you good health, and consequently not to
know why you should invoke him.
To drive home his point, he uses another comparison. It
is impossible for anyone, he says, not merely to live well,
but to live at all, if he does not know who is a smith, who a
baker, who a plasterer; if he does not know from whom he
can seek household necessaries, whom to take as helper, whom
as leader, whom as teacher. In like manner, he assures us,
there can be no doubt that a knowledge of the gods is use-
ful only when one has an idea in what affairs each god has
efficacy, ability and power. Thus,' he continues, 'we shall be
able to know which god to call upon and invoke for any
need, so that we may not ask, like the clowns, for water from
Bacchus and wine from the Lymphae. 5 Useful knowledge,
indeed! We would have been grateful to Varro if he had
taught the truth, taught men that they should adore the one
true God, from whom all gifts come.
Chapter 23
But, to keep to our subject, if their books and rituals tell
the truth, and Felicity is a goddess, why was she alone not
worshiped, since it was in her power to bestow all blessings
and make men happy by a short cut? What else but to be
happy does any man desire? Why did so many rulers of Rome
ignore so mighty a goddess till Lucullus erected a temple in
her honor? 1 Why did Romulus himself, who desired to found
1 in 75 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 221
a happy city, not build a temple for her in the first place, and
not have to beg the other gods for anything since nothing is
lacking if she is present? He himself would never have become
king, or later, as they fancy, a god, had she not stood by him.
Why, then, did he thrust upon the Romans so many gods:
Janus, Jove, Mars, Picus, Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules, and
the rest? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, Sol, Luna,
Vulcan, Lux, and still others (including Cloacina), yet scorn
Felicity? Why should Numa omit her from among so many
other gods and goddesses? Could he not see her for the crowd?
Assuredly, King Hostilius himself would not have dragged in
the new divinities Fear and Dread to be propitiated, had he
known her or been one of her devotees. For, had she been
there, Fear and Dread would not merely have departed ap-
peased they would have been driven out and would have
fled.
Again, how was it that the Roman Empire expanded far
and wide, yet no one worshiped Felicity? Was the Empire
more extensive than happy? How can there be real felicity
where there is no real piety? Piety is the true worship of the
true God, not the worship of a host of false gods every one
a demon. Even afterwards, when Felicity had been given a
place among the gods, the terrible infelicity of the civil wars
followed. Was Felicity perhaps justifiably angered for being
passed over so long and then at last brought in, not to her
honor, but to the disgrace of seeing herself put on a level
with Priapus and Cloacina, Fear and Dread, Fever and others
who were not divinities worth worshiping, but a disgrace
to their worshipers? Lastly, if it seemed unworthy of so great
a goddess to associate her with the worship of a disreputable
rabble, why was she not accorded higher honors than the
rest? It is intolerable to think that Felicity was not ranked
222 SAINT AUGUSTINE
with the divine Counsellors, who, they say, form Jupiter's
council, or with the gods they call 'select.' A temple should
have been built to her which, in eminence of position and in
magnificence of architecture, would be unsurpassed. Why
should she not have an even better one than Jupiter himself?
For, who but Felicity gave Jupiter his kingdom, supposing
that he was really happy as king? Felicity is more blessed
than a kingdom. No one doubts that it is easy to find a man
who shrinks from becoming a king, but no man can be found
who does not wish to be happy.
Suppose that the temples and altars of the other gods
filled the available space on which a larger and more mag-
nificent temple might be raised to Felicity. Suppose, too,
that by means of auguries, or by any other procedure judged
effectual, the gods were asked their wishes as to whether they
would make room for Felicity. Jupiter himself would yield
his place, that Felicity might have it upon the very crest
of the Capitoline Hill. Nor would anyone protest against
Felicity unless, which is impossible, he wished to be unhappy.
Were Jupiter asked his opinion, he certainly would not
have been so discourteous as the three gods, Mars, Terminus,
and Juventas, were to him when they utterly refused to re-
linquish their place to their superior and king. The story is
told by their own writers that King Tarquinius wished to
build a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus. But, he perceived
that the site he thought most proper and suitable was already
occupied by other gods, of whom many had their temples
in the area where the Capitol was eventually erected. Not
venturing, therefore, to take any steps without their consent,
and feeling confident that they would defer to the wishes of
a mighty divinity who was also their chief, Tarquinius had
the augurs ask whether they would not resign their place
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 223
to Jove. The answer was definitely affirmative, on the part
of all save the ones I mentioned: Mars, Terminus, and
Juventas. That is why the Capitol was constructed in such
a way as to enclose the three, but with their statues so hidden
away that the greatest sages of Rome could scarcely tell where
they stood.
Jupiter himself would never treat Felicity so discour-
teously as Terminus, Mars and Juventas had treated him.
The very ones who would not make way for Jove would un-
questionably yield place to Felicity, who had made him their
king. If they did not yield, it was not out of disrespect, but
because they preferred to remain unknown in Felicity's temple
rather than sit in majesty without her in their own places.
Thus, with Felicity enthroned on a spacious and lofty
seat, the citizens would soon learn from whom to beg the
fulfillment of every good desire. Common sense alone would
prompt them to reject the rest of the useless rabble of gods,
to confine their worship to Felicity, and to pray to her
alone. Into her temple alone would stream citizens who de-
sired to be happy and none would not. Thus, the felicity
which was sought from all the gods would be enough from
Felicity alone. For, who wishes to receive from any god any-
thing but felicity, or whatever he judges conducive to it?
Therefore, if Felicity has it in her power to abide with whom
she will and she has, if she is a goddess what folly to seek
felicity from some other god, when you can obtain it from
Felicity herself !
Hence, this goddess should be honored above all other
deities in the grandeur of her place of enthronement. For, as
may be read in their writings, the ancient Romans worshiped
a certain Summanus, to whom they ascribed the thunder of
the night, above Jove, who ruled the thunder of the day.
224 SAINT AUGUSTINE
But, after a magnificent and lofty temple was raised to
Jove, the grandeur of the structure drew the multitude in
such numbers that soon one was scarcely to be found who
had heard the name of Summanus, or who recalled even
having read about him.
But, if Felicity is not a goddess because, in truth, it is
one of God's gifts, then seek the God who can bestow it.
Forsake the deadly pack of false deities which the foolish
rabble run after, making for themselves gods out of God's
gifts, and by their obstinate self-will offending God Himself,
the Author of the gifts. No man can avoid infelicity who wor-
ships Felicity as a goddess and turns his back on the Giver
of felicity, even as he cannot but hunger who licks the picture
of a loaf and fails to ask the real loaf of the man who has it.
Chapter 24
Let us now consider the pagans' arguments. They ask:
Are we to consider that our ancestors were so stupid as not
to realize these virtues to be God's gifts, and not gods in
themselves? Since they knew that such gifts are not bestowed
on anyone except by some god, whose name they did not
know, they simply designated gods by the name of those
gifts they believed conferred by the gods. They did this by
modifying the words, as when they called the war goddess
Bellona, not Bellum; the goddess of cradles Cunina, not
Cuna; the harvest god Segetia, not Seges; the orchard god-
dess Pomona, not Pomum; the cattle goddess Bubona, not
Bos.
Or, on the other hand, without changing the word at
all, they simply, by a mental distinction, transferred the names
of the things themselves to the goddesses. Thus, when they
called Pecunia the goddess who gives money, they by no
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 225
means mistook the money for the goddess herself. So also
with Virtue, who bestows virtue; Honor, who confers honor;
Concord, who grants concord; Victory, who accords victory.
So, they conclude, when Felicity is called a goddess, they
understand thereby not the felicity that is given, but the
divinity who gives felicity.
Chapter 25
On the basis of this explanation, we may possibly find less
difficulty in drawing to our way of thinking those who have
not hardened their hearts unduly. For, human weakness has
become aware that only a god has the power to bestow feli-
city, and those men were conscious of this who paid worship
to the crowd of deities with Jupiter as their sovereign. Since
they were ignorant of the name of Him who bestows felicity,
they decided to call Him by the name of His gift. They, thus
made it clear that the Jupiter they worshiped could give no
felicity, but only that other deity which was to be worshiped
under the name of Felicity.
I entirely agree that they believed felicity to be the gift of
a God unknown to them. Then let them seek Him, let them
adore Him. He suffices. Let them reject the noisy rabble of
demons! Let this God not suffice that man if there is such
a man whom His gift does not suffice. Let the worship
of the true God, the Giver of felicity, not suffice the man
who is not content with receiving that felicity. But, let the
man for whom happiness suffices and a man should desire
no more serve the one God from whom happiness comes.
He is not the one they call Jupiter, for, if Jupiter were the
bestower of felicity, they would not be seeking, under the
name of the same felicity, for another god or goddess to give
them felicity. Nor would they have thought of paying Jupi-
226 SAINT AUGUSTINE
ter himself an honor so deeply stained with infamy. For, he
is considered a betrayer of other men's wives and an unnatural
lover and robber of a lovely boy.
Chapter 26
But, writes Cicero : 'These were inventions of Homer, who
transferred human weaknesses to the gods. Would that he
had transferred divine virtues to us.' 1 Justly is that serious-
minded man indignant at the poet who invented the scan-
dalous actions of the gods. Why, then, are the stage plays,
in which these villainies are declaimed, sung and acted, pre-
sented in honor of the gods, and written down by the most
learned pagans as parts of their religion? Here, Cicero should
have cried out, not against the fictions of the poets, but
against the institutions of the ancients. But, would not they,
in their turn, cry out and ask: 'What have we done? The
gods themselves demanded those scandals to be performed
in their honor. They wickedly ordered them, threatening
non-compliance with reprisal. They pitilessly punished any
neglect and, when the neglect was remedied, showed signs
that they were appeased.' A proof of their extraordinary
power and of the wonders they could work is the incident
I am about to relate.
Titus Latinius, a Roman farmer and head of a family,
was bidden in a dream to go to the Senate and tell the fathers
to restore the Roman stage plays. The reason given him was
that, on the first day of their presentation, a criminal had
been ordered to public execution, and that the gods had found
no pleasure in the painful affair. What they looked for in
1 Tusculan Disputations 1.26.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 227
the plays was diversion. The next day, the man did not dare
carry out the order he had received in the dream. On the
second night, therefore, he received a more menacing order,
but, as he again failed to carry it out, he lost his son. On the
third night, he was warned that, should he again fail to
obey, a still worse penalty threatened. Again his courage
failed, and this time he was stricken with a painful and
horrible disease.
Then, on the advice of friends, he reported the affair to
the magistrates and had himself carried to the Senate in
a litter. When he told his drefam, the illness suddenly left
him, and he walked off on his own feet a cured man. Struck
with wonder at so great a prodigy, the Senate voted a renewal
of the plays with a fourfold appropriation of money. Any
man of sense can see that men, under the domination of
demons, are compelled to perform for gods of that sort acts
which sound judgment would pronounce indecent. From
such a slavery only the grace of God through Jesus Christ
our Lord can deliver them.
In those plays, the misdeeds of the gods are represented
as the poets imagined them, yet the Senate ordered the re-
newal of those plays, because the gods commanded them to
do so. In those stage plays the vilest actors sang, acted and
amused Jupiter, as a corrupter of purity. If those obscenities
were fables, Jupiter should have been infuriated. But, if he
took delight in his debaucheries even when unreal, then to
worship him is to serve the Devil himself. Is this the being
who founded, extended, and preserved the Roman Empire
a being more contemptible than any Roman who sickened
at beholding those scenes of debauchery? Is he the one to
give us happiness a god whose worship was attended by
such depravity, and one who would have been so disgrace-
fully angry, were he not so worshiped?
228 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 27
We are told in pagan writings that the learned pontifex
Scaevola distinguished three classes of divinities handed down
to us: the first, by the poets; the second, by the philosophers;
the third, by the statesmen. According to him, the first cate-
gory is useless, because the poets imagined the gods full of
vices. The second is ill-suited to states, because there was in
it much that was superfluous, and certain things in it would
be dangerous for the people to know. As to the superfluous,
that is of little importance, for even lawyers have a saying,
'What is left over does no harm.'
But, what is that which it would be harmful for the
people to know? 'It would be,' he says, 'to say openly that
Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor, and Pollux are not gods. For,
the philosophers inform us that they were human beings,
and went to their graves like human beings.' What else do
they reveal? 'That the cities have no true images of those
who are gods, since the true God has neither sex, nor age,
nor definite bodily form.' The pontifex wishes to keep the
people ignorant of this, for he considers it to be true. Yet,
he judges it expedient to deceive the citizens in matters of
religion. Nor does Varro himself hesitate to affirm the same
thing in his work On Divine Things.
A glorious religion indeed! A haven of refuge for a weak
man in need of liberation ! When he seeks the truth that makes
him free, it is thought best for him to be duped ! In the same
writings, Scaevola makes no secret of the reasons he had for
rejecting the gods of the poets. It is because 'they so distort
them that the gods cannot be compared even with decent
men. One they turn into a thief, another into an adulterer,
and otherwise make them talk and act like degenerates and
fools, such as the three goddesses who fought among them-
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 229
selves for the prize of beauty, and destroyed Troy when two
of them were bested by Venus. Jove himself is transformed
into a bull or a swan in order to carry on amours with some
wanton or other. A goddess marries a man. Saturn devours
his children. In fine, no prodigy nor vice can be imagined
which is not here, however, utterly irreconcilable with their
divine nature.
O Scaevola, pontifex, abolish those plays if you can. For-
bid the people to pay to the immortal gods honors of that
sort, in which they feast their eyes on divine depravities, and
imitate them, as far as possible, in their own lives. If the
people retort : 'You, yourselves, high priests, brought them to
us,' beg of the gods at whose instigation you imposed those
horrors to exact no performance of them in their honor !
If these rites are evil, and therefore utterly incompatible
with the majesty of the gods, then the wrong done to them
is the greater because the tales are concocted with impunity.
But, they will not listen to you; they are demons, teachers of
depravity, delighting in obscenity. They take it as no affront
to have such things written about them. But, they would take
it as an intolerable affront if these indecencies were not ex-
hibited in their solemn festivals. In fact, if you appeal to
Jupiter against them, especially since many of his own evil
deeds are acted in the plays, though you proclaim him the
divine ruler and governor of the world, are you not offering
him the greatest insult when you associate his worship with
that of those filthy divinities, and name him their king?
Chapter 28
Gods of that sort, appeased, or rather dishonored, and
thereby more vicious for taking delight in the filthy false-
hoods ascribed to them than they would have taken if they
230 SAINT AUGUSTINE
were true, could never have extended and preserved the
Roman Empire. Were this in their power, it is upon the
Greeks they should have conferred so great a favor. For, in
this kind of religious observance, in stage plays, I mean, the
Greeks treated the gods with more honor and dignity. They
did not themselves dodge the barbs of the poets, by which
they saw the gods torn to pieces, since they gave their poets
full freedom to abuse any persons they pleased, nor did they
class the comedians themselves as infamous. On the contrary,
they even held them worthy of high honors.
Just as the Romans could have had gold money without
worshiping the god Aurinus, so they could have had silver
and copper money without worshiping either Argentinus or
his father Aesculanus. So with the rest, which it would be
wearisome for me to repeat. So, also, they could have had
their empire, though by no means against the will of the
true God. But, if they had ignored and despised that mob of
false gods, and, with sincere faith and right living, acknowl-
edged and worshiped that one God alone, they would have
won a better kingdom, whether large or small, here below,
and, with or without one here, they would have received an
eternal one hereafter.
Chapter 29
What sort of an augury was that, which the pagans ac-
claimed as so wonderful? I mean the one I mentioned above,
by which Mars, Terminus, and Juventas refused to give place
to Jove, the King of the gods. This, the pagans claim, indi-
cated that the race of Mars the Romans should give place
to none ; that no one should drive the Romans from their fron-
tiers set for them by the god Terminus; and that, by the
aid of the goddess Juventas, the youth of Rome would yield
THE CITY OF GOD*. BOOK IV 231
to no one. Do they realize how inconsistently they treat as
the King of their gods and the bestower of their kingdom
one whom the auguries set down as an enemy to whom it
would be honorable not to yield? Though, indeed, if these
things are true, they have nothing to fear. They will not
admit that those gods who would not give place to Jove have
given place to Christ. Yet, with no change in the frontiers of
the empire, they have yielded to Christ and have been driven
from the temples, and especially from the hearts of their
worshipers.
Before Christ came in the flesh, and before what I have
quoted from their books was written, but after that augury
occurred under King Tarquinius, the Roman army was sev-
eral times scattered or put to flight. Thus, the augury accord-
ing to which Juventas did not give place to Jove was proved
false. The race of Mars was overcome within the city itself
by the attack of the conquering Gauls, and the frontiers
of the empire were contracted by the defection of many cities
to Hannibal. So, the trustworthiness of the auspices was
made void, and all that remained was the defiance of Jove,
not by gods, but by demons. For, it is one thing not to have
given place at all, and another to have given place and then to
have returned.
Later on, by the will of Hadrian, the eastern frontiers of
the empire were changed. 1 For, he surrendered to the Persian
Empire three splendid provinces, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and
Assyria. Thus, it would appear that the god Terminus, who
was to protect the Roman frontiers for them, and who, ac-
cording to that fine divination, would not give place even
to Jove, was more afraid of Hadrian, a king of men, than
1 In 117 B.C.
232 SAINT AUGUSTINE
of the King of the gods. Those provinces were later recovered,
but almost within our memory Terminus again gave ground,
when Julian, obeying the oracles of those gods, stupidly
ordered the supply ships to be burned. 2 Thus, the army, left
without provisions and with the leader slain by the enemy,
was so weakened that, terrified by the death of the general,
not a single soldier would have escaped the fierce attack of
the enemy had they not accepted a treaty which set limits
to the empire. The ceded territory is still held by the enemy,
though the compromise was not as harmful as the agreement
made by Hadrian.
Thus, it was a futile augury, for the god Terminus, who
would not yield to Jove, yielded to the will of Hadrian, to the
imprudence of Julian, and to the compulsion of Jovian. This
the more intelligent and serious-minded among the Romans
understand. But, against the custom of the state, which had
been delivered into bondage to the rites of the demons, they
could do little, since they themselves, though they realized
the futility of these rites, still thought that nature, though
created under the rule and dominion of the one true God,
should be accorded the divine worship due to Him alone. St.
Paul states this in the words, 'and served the creature rather
than the Creator, who is blessed forever.' 3 There was need of
the aid of this true God who sent holy men of real piety to die
for the true religion, that the world might be freed from false
ones.
Chapter 30
Cicero, who was an augur, scoffed at the auguries, and
2 A.D. 363
3 Rom. 1.25.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK IV 233
reproved men for regulating their lives by the bird calls of a
raven or a little crow. But, that philosopher of the New
Academy, who holds that nothing is certain, does not, perhaps,
deserve to be trusted in these matters. Quintus Lucilius Bal-
bus discusses these points in Cicero's De natura deorum (Book
II), and, though he traces these superstitions to nature and
gives them physical and philosophical interpretations, he
takes offense at the institution of images and the belief in
fables. He says, 'Do you not see, then, that from the good
and useful knowledge gained from physical things reason
was misled toward imaginary and fictitious gods? This gave
rise to false opinions, disturbing errors, and even old-woman-
ish superstitions. We knew the outward appearance of the
gods, their age, their clothing, their ornaments, as well as their
genealogies, their marriages, their relations, all transformed
to the likeness of human weakness. For, they are pictured as
having disordered minds; we know their passions, their
infirmities, their rages. Nor, as the fables relate, have they
been free from wars, not only as when in Homer some gods
gave aid to one side, some to the other, of two opposing
armies, but also they waged war among themselves, as with
the Titans or with the Giants. These things are asserted and
most foolishly believed, though they are frivolous and utterly
groundless.' 1
Such, then, is the admission of those who defend the gods
of the pagans. Yet, though Balbus confesses that some fables
pertain to superstition, he regards as true religion what he
seems to teach according to the doctrine of the Stoics. He
states: 'Not only the philosophers, but also our ancestors,
distinguished between superstition and religion. For, those
who prayed for entire days and sacrificed that their children
1 De natura deorum 2.28.
234 SAINT AUGUSTINE
might outlive them [superstites] were called superstitious.'
It is plain that, out of reverence for the custom of the state,
he would like to praise the religion of the ancients and to dis-
tinguish it from superstition, but he cannot find a way to do
this. For, if those who prayed for entire days and offered
sacrifices were called superstitious by the ancients, should not
this name be given also to those who instituted images of
the gods differing in age and clothing, and devised genea-
logies of gods, consorts and relations? When he blames these
practices as superstitious, the guilt attaches to the ancients
who instituted and worshiped such images, and also to him-
self, for, though in his public utterances he tried to keep
himself free from superstition, he held that these images
must be venerated. But, what he said so eloquently in this
discussion he dared not even whisper in public.
Let us Christians give thanks to the Lord our God not
to heaven and earth, as Cicero says, but to Him who made
heaven and earth. He it is who, through the most sublime
humility of Christ, by the preaching of the Apostles, by the
faith of the martyrs who lived by and died for the truth, and
by the free service of His followers, uprooted from the hearts
of religious men and from the temples of the superstitious
those false beliefs which Balbus so haltingly reproved.
Chapter 31
What of Varro himself? We regret that he included stage
plays among religious rites, though he did this against his
better judgment. When, as a religious man, in many places
he encouraged the worship of the gods, does he not admit that
he is not of his own conviction following those beliefs, which,
he asserts, owed their institution to the Roman state? He does
not hesitate to admit that, if he were to found a new state,
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 235
he would take his gods and their titles from the order of
nature. But, since among the ancients it was the custom to
hold as accepted fact the names and surnames as handed
down by their ancestors, he says that he felt it a duty to write
and study diligently, to the end that the common people might
desire rather to worship the gods than to despise them. In
these words that astute man clearly shows that he has not
revealed all those things which would appear despicable, not
only to himself, but even to the common crowd, if they were
revealed.
Some might think I imagined this, except that he stated
elsewhere, speaking of religious matters, not only that many
things were true of which the knowledge was of no advantage
to the common people, but also that, even if they were false,
it was expedient that the people believe them true. For this
reason the Greeks concealed their sacrifices and mysteries
by silence and behind walls. Here, he certainly lays bare
the schemes of the supposed wise men by whom states and
peoples were governed. These falsehoods afford great de-
light to the evil demons, who take possession of both the de-
ceivers and the deceived, and from whose domination there
is no liberation save by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
This brilliant and learned writer also states that it seems
to him that only those who believed God to be the soul gov-
erning the world through motion and reason realized what
God was. This shows that, even though he had not as yet
attained the truth that the true God is not a soul, but the
Creator and Maker of the soul, yet, had he been free to go
against public opinion, he would have admitted and argued
that one God, governing the world through motion and
reason, should be worshiped. Then there would remain but
236 SAINT AUGUSTINE
one dispute with him on this matter namely, that he should
say that God was a soul, and not rather the Creator of the
soul.
He states, also, that for more than 170 years the ancient
Romans worshiped gods without an image. 'If this custom,'
he says, 'had endured to the present, the gods would have
been reverenced by a purer worship.' In favor of this
opinion, he brings forward as witness, among others, the
Jewish nation, and he does not hesitate to conclude that
passage by saying that those who first set up images of the gods
for the people took awe away from their fellow citizens and
added to their errors. He wisely considered that the gods
can be readily despised when seen in the lifelessness of images.
He does not say that they transmitted error, but added to
their errors, for he wishes it to be understood that there were
errors even without the images. Hence, when he states that
only those who believed God to be the soul governing the
world had realized what God is, and that he considers that
religion would be more purely observed without images, who
can fail to see how close he has come to the truth? For, if he
could have opposed so inveterate an error, it would have
been by his belief in one God by whom the world is governed,
and by his contention that this God should be worshiped
without an image. Having come so close to the truth in this,
he might perhaps have been easily reminded of the muta-
bility of the soul, and thus might have recognized as the true
God that immutable Nature which created the soul.
Hence, whatever mockeries of the countless gods such men
have set forth in their writings, they have been compelled
to such admissions by the hidden will of God, but they made
no attempt to persuade others. So, whatever arguments we
have drawn from their books we have brought forward to
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK IV 237
refute those who refuse to acknowledge from what mighty
and malignant power of the demons we have been set free
by the precious sacrifice of the holy Blood which was shed
for us and by the gift of the Spirit which has been bestowed
upon us.
Chapter 32
Varro also states, regarding the genealogies of the gods,
that the people were inclined to follow the poets rather than
the philosophers. Thus, their ancestors, the ancient Romans,
believed in the sex and generation of the gods, and arranged
marriages for them. This seems to have been done for no rea-
son save that it was the business of prudent and wise men
to deceive the people in matters of religion, and by this
deception not only to worship but to imitate the demons,
whose chief desire was to deceive. For, just as the demons
have no power except over those whom they lead astray
by their deception, so also human rulers not, indeed, the
just, but those who resemble the demons in the name of
religion convince the people of the truth of what they them-
selves know to be false, thus binding them more closely to the
state, that they may hold them subject. What weak and ig-
norant man could escape the combined deceit of rulers and
demons?
Chapter 33
Thus, it is God, the Author and Bestower of happiness,
and the sole true God who bestows kingdoms both on the
good and the bad. Since He is God and not mere chance, He
does not do this rashly, but by a divine disposition of events
and dates which is unknown to us, but known to Him. He does
238 SAINT AUGUSTINE
this, not as one subject to the course of temporal things, but
as Lord and Director. He bestows happiness only on the good.
Kings or slaves may have it or lack it, but it is possessed com-
pletely only in the life in which no one is a slave. The reason
why He gives earthly rule both to the good and to the evil
is lest those who are but beginners in His service should mis-
take these gifts as important. This is the mystery of the Old
Testament, in which the New was hidden, that all the gifts
and the promises were of this world, yet, the spiritually minded
understood even then, though they did not openly make it
clear to others, that eternal life was symbolized by temporal
gifts and that true beatitude consisted in quite different gifts
of God.
Chapter 34
Thus, that men might know that those earthly goods, which
alone men desire who can think of nothing else, are at the
disposal of the one God and not of the multitude of false
gods in whom the Romans believed, He multiplied His
people in Egypt from a very few, and delivered them by won-
derful miracles. Their women did not have to invoke Lucina
that their children might be multiplied, and the tribe in-
creased beyond belief, since God Himself preserved them
from the Egyptians who were persecuting them and who
wished to destroy all their children. Without the aid of the
Goddess Rumina, the children were nursed; without the aid
of Cunina, they lay in their cradles; without Educa and
Potina, they ate and drank; without the aid of the multi-
tude of childish gods, they were brought up; they were
married without the nuptial gods and begot children without
the aid of Priapus. Without invoking Neptune, they crossed
the sea that opened before them, and their pursuers were
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK IV 239
drowned in the returning flood. They dedicated nothing to
any goddess Mannia when they received manna from heaven,
nor did they worship the Nymphs and Lymphae when water
flowed from the cleft rock to quench their thirst. Without
foolish rites to Mars and Bellona, they waged war and won
victory, not as the gift of some goddess Victoria, but as the
gift of God. They had grain without Segetia, oxen without
Bubona, honey without Mellona, apples without Pomona;
in fact, all that Romans hoped for from their prayers to the
false gods, the Jews received more abundantly from the one
true God. If they had not sinned against Him, misled by
evil curiosity and by magic arts to worship alien gods and
idols, and finally to kill Christ, they might have lived happily
in that same kingdom, however small it was. They are now
scattered over the whole world, by the providence of the one
true God, and all images, groves, shrines, and temples of the
false gods are overthrown, and the sacrifices forbidden. Yet,
this may be seen in their own books that all was foretold
by the prophets, lest they might think, when they read the
same things in ours, that we have made them up. But now,
not to be too prolix in this book, let us turn to what is to
follow in the next.
BOOK V
Preface
|E HAVE NOW SEEN, first, that happiness (or the full
possession of all that the heart can long for) is not
a goddess but a gift of God and, second, that the
only God whom men should worship is the One who can
make them happy so that, if Felicity were in fact a goddess,
she alone should claim our worship.
We must now turn to consider why God, who can give
such gifts as can be shared by men who are not good and,
therefore, not happy willed that the Roman Empire should
spread so widely and endure so long. Certainly, as I have
already said and, if need be, shall repeat, this cannot be at-
tributed to the multitude of false gods whom the Romans wor-
shiped.
Chapter 1
The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman Empire
was neither fortune nor fate. (I am using these words in
the sense of those who say or think that fortune, or chance,
is what happens without cause or rational explanation,
and that fate is what is bound to happen, in spite even of
the will of God or of men.) On the contrary, Divine Provi-
dence alone explains the establishment of kingdoms among
241
242 SAINT AUGUSTINE
men. As for those who speak of fate, but mean by fate the
will and power of God, they should keep their conception
but change their expression. Surely, though, it is best to say
at once what one will have to say as soon as one is asked
what is meant by fate. Ordinarily, when people hear the word
fate they think of nothing but the position of the stars at the
moment of one's birth or conception. This position is for
some independent of, and for others dependent on, the will
of God. As for those who think that the stars determine, inde-
pendently of God's will, what we are to do and have and
suffer, they should be given no hearing by anyone none,
certainly, by those who profess the true religion, and none
even by those who worship any kind of gods, however false.
For, the conclusion from their way of thinking is that no
God at all should be either adored or implored.
For the moment, my argument is not directed against
sincere pagans, but only against those who, in defense of what
they call gods, attack the Christian religion. However, even
those who think the stars are dependent on the will of God
(in determining what human beings are to be and have and
suffer) do the heavens a great wrong, if they imagine that
the stars have their power so communicated to them by
God's supreme power that they remain responsible for what
they determine. For, how can we suppose if I may so speak
that the unblemished justice of that brilliant Senate of the
Stars could choose to have crimes committed, the like of which
no state on earth could command without facing a sentence
of suppression at the bar of world opinion?
God is the Lord of both stars and men. But, what kind of
rule over men's actions is left to God if men are necessarily
determined by the stars?
On the other hand, suppose, as many do, that the stars
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 243
have their power from the supreme God, but that, in impos-
ing necessity on men, they merely carry out God's command
without any responsibility of their own. In that case, we
should have to impute to the will of God what, as we have
just seen, would be monstrous to impute even to the stars.
There are some men who prefer to say that the stars
rather signify than cause men's fate, that a particular posi-
tion is like a form of words which causes us to know, but does
not cause, what happens in the future. This view was shared
by men of no mean learning. However, this is not the way
that astrologers usually speak. For example, they do not
say: 'Such and such a position of Mars signifies a murder.'
What they say is: 'makes a murderer.' Yet, even when we
concede that they do not express themselves as they should
and that they ought to learn from philosophers the right way
to say what they think they have found in the stars, diffi-
culties still remain. For example, they have never been able
to explain why twins are so different in what they do and
achieve, in their professions and skills, in the honors they
receive, and in other aspects of their lives and deaths. In all
such matters, twins are often less like each other than like
complete strangers; yet, twins are born with practically no
interval of time between their births and are conceived in
precisely the same moment of a single sexual semination.
Chapter 2
Cicero tells us that the eminent doctor, Hippocrates, 1 once
wrote that he suspected two brothers to be twins because
they both fell sick, then reached the crisis of the sickness and
finally recovered, in each case, at the same time; while
1 Hippocrates of Cos lived between 460 and 357 B.C.
244 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Posidonius, 2 the Stoic, who was greatly interested in astrolo-
gy, used to insist that such brothers must have been con-
ceived and born with identical horoscopes. Thus, what the
doctor attributed to a similar predisposition of bodily health,
the philosopher-astrologer ascribed to the power and arrange-
ment of the stars at the moment of conception and birth.
In a matter like this, the medical hypothesis is far more
acceptable and obviously more credible, since the parents'
condition at the time of conception could easily affect the
embryos, and it would be no wonder if the twins should be
born with the same kind of health, since they had developed
in the same way in their mother's womb. In the same way,
they would be nourished with similar food in the same house,
and would share the same climate, environment, and water
all of which, according to medical science, can help or hinder
health. Moreover, they would be accustomed to the same
kind of exercise, and so, having their bodies in the same
condition, they would be likely to get sick at the same time
and for the same reason.
On the other hand, it is nothing short of impudence to
pretend that the movement of the heavens and stars at the
moment of conception and birth can explain such similarity
in the matter of sickness. One has only to remember how
many beings differing in kind, character, and consequent
capacities can be conceived and born in any one time and
place and under the same conditions of the heavens. I my-
self have known twins who not only acted differently and
traveled in different places, but were likewise quite unlike
in health. And, as far as I can see, Hippocrates could easily
explain these differences of health in terms of food and exer-
2 Posidonius of Rhodes, a teacher of Cicero, died in 50 B.C.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 245
c ise factors which depend, not on the temper of one's body,
but on the choice of one's will.
It would be surprising, indeed, if either Posidonius or any
other advocate of siderial influence could find any explana-
tion unless he wanted to play on the ignorance of simple
minds. I know they may try to explain differences by appeal-
ing to the tiny interval of time between the precise moments
of twin's births and, hence, to the precise part of the heavens
which marks the hour of birth and which is called the horo-
scope. But, this is either too little to explain the variety in
the wills, actions, character, and fortune of twins, or eke
it is too much to explain their identity in lowliness or nobility
of social class since the only explanation of class distinc-
tions is supposed to be the hour in which people happen to be
born.
And so it is that, if one twin is born so quickly after the
other that the same part of the horoscope remains for both,
I have a right to expect to find a total likeness, which, as a
fact, is never to be found in twins; or, if the delay in the
birth of the second twin changes the horoscope, I should
expect to find different parents which, of course, no twins
can have.
Chapter 3
It is of no use, therefore, to call in the well-known argument
from the potter's wheel, whihc Nigidius 1 is said to have in-
voked when worried by the problem of twins and which
won him the nickname of 'potter.' He took a potter's wheel
1 Teacher, philosopher, and friend of Cicero. He sided with Pompey in
the civil war and, after the Battle of Pharsalia (48 B.C.) , retired to Egypt
where he died.
246 SAINT AUGUSTINE
and turned it with all his might. Then, while it was spinning
around, he made two dots with ink as fast as he could and,
to all appearances, in the identical spot. When the wheel
came to rest, the two dots he had made were found far
apart on the surface of the wheel. 'And so it is with twins,'
he said. 'Even though they are born in as quick succession
as I made the dots on the wheel, the velocity of the heavens
would set the horoscopes far apart. This explains,' he added,
'the very great differences which are recorded in the charac-
ters and fortunes of twins.'
Alas! this figment of the imagination is more fragile than
the vessels shaped by the spinning of the potter's wheel. For,
if there is enough gap in the sky between the horoscopes of
twins to explain why one gets the inheritance and the other
does not, how can anyone dare to predict, from the horoscopes
of those who are not twins, differences like sex, which no
one can explain, and ascribe these to the factors operating at
the moment of birth?
It is no answer to say that such prognostications relate
to non-twins where greater differences in time are in ques-
tion, whereas the tiny differences in time between births of
twins explain only such trivial differences concerning which
astrologers are never consulted for example, when one is
to sit, or to walk, or when and what one is to eat. The fact is
that such trivialities are not in question when you point out
the very many and very great differences in the works and
ways of twins.
Chapter 4
To mention only the best known of the twins recorded in
the ancient tradition of our fathers, two twins were born at
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 247
so short an interval of time that the second had a hold on the
foot of the first. 1 Yet, they were so unlike in their lives, char-
acter, conduct, and the love their parents bore them that
this unlikeness made them enemies one of the other. When
I say unlike, I do not mean that one would sit while the other
walked, or that one slept while the other was awake, or that
one talked while the other kept quiet for these are the kind
of differences that depend on the tiny variations of horo-
scopes which have to be neglected by those who observe
the stars at the moment of birth with a view of consulting
the astrologers.
One of our twins led a life of servile toil, while the other
served no one. One was loved by his mother, the other was
not. One lost the title to primogeniture, which was then so
highly esteemed, and the other obtained it. Further, there
were immense differences between them in regard to their
wives, children, and possessions. If such differences are to be
explained by those split seconds between the births of twins
which are considered negligible in their horoscopes, why are
such matters mentioned when other people's horoscopes
are in question? If, on the other hand, predictions are made
about matters like these on the assumption that they do not
depend on the negligible elements of time but on those mo-
ments which can be observed and set down, then what lesson
can we draw from the potter's wheel but this, that men have
minds as malleable as clay that can be spun around and
around without being able to stop to confute the absurdities
of the astrologers.
1 Gen. 25.25.
248 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 5
A good way to refute those who attribute to the stars what
depends on a similarity of bodily dispositions is to recall the
two boys whom Hippocrates thought to be twins after he had
examined medically the simultaneous fluctuations in their
health. Considering that they could not be born at the same
time, why did not one get sick after the other, in the order of
their births, rather than that both should get sick in the same
way and at the same time? Why did their sickness and re-
covery occur simultaneously and not successively, in the order
in which they were born for, certainly, they could not have
been born simultaneously?
Or are we to suppose that being born at different times
makes no difference in regard to falling sick? If so, why do the
astrologers pretend that being born at different times makes
a difference in regard to other matters? If they could travel
at different times, marry at different times, beget children at
different times, and so on, all because they were born at
different times, why, for the same reason, could they not get
sick at different times? Why should we go to the simultaneous
conceptions to find a horoscope in regard to health, when
succession in the moments of birth changes the horoscopes
in regard to other matters?
On the other hand, if we are to admit that fate in regard
to health depends on conception, while fate in regard to
other matters depends on the hour of birth, then there ought
to be no predictions about health from the inspection of natal
stars since from such an inspection nothing is known about
the moment of conception. Or, if predictions are to be made
in regard to health, even when no horoscope was taken at
conception, on the ground that the moments of birth are
sufficient, how could the sickness of either of our twins have
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 249
been foretold from the moment of birth, since the fellow twin
was fated to have the same hour of sickness, though he had
a different moment of birth?
Another difficulty. Granted that there is enough difference
in the time of the births of twins to call for different constella-
tions on account of their different horoscopes and, conse-
quently, different ascendant stars 1 for, here lies the power
that controls different fates why should this be so, when
there can be no difference in the times of their conception? Or,
if twins conceived at the same moment can have such different
fates in regard to the moments of their birth, why cannot others
who are born at the same time have equally different fates
in regard both to their lives and deaths. After all, the identity
of the moment in which they were conceived did not prevent
one being born first and the other second. Why, then, if two
people are born at the identical time, should anything pre-
vent one from dying first and the other afterwards? If simul-
taneous conception is compatible with twins having such
diverse fortunes in the womb, why should not simultaneous
births be compatible with persons having diverse fortunes
during their lives on earth? But, if this is so, then all the
conclusions (or rather, illusions) of this science go up in
smoke.
Let us ask ourselves why it is that those conceived at pre-
cisely the same time and under the identical arrangement
of the stars have different fates, leading them to be born at
different times, yet, persons born of two mothers at precisely
the same time and under the same stars may not have different
fates leading them of necessity to differences of life and death?
Must we answer that when we are conceived we do not yet
1 ... divtrsos omnes car dines.
250 SAINT AUGUSTINE
have our fixed fates, but must wait until we are born? Then,
why do the astrologers claim that, if only they knew the hour
of individual's conceptions, their divinations would be much
more marvelous? That is why some of them are fond of telling
of the philosopher who picked out the precise moment for
cohabiting with his wife, so that she might bear him a genius.
So, too, this is why the great astrologer-philosopher, Posi-
donius, explained the phenomenon of the two twins who
became simultaneously sick, by saying that they were both
conceived and born at the same time. His point in noting the
conception was that it might be argued that they could not
be born at precisely the same time, even though it was
obvious that they had been conceived together. At all costs,
he wanted to link the simultaneous sickness, not to similarity
of physical predisposition as the immediate cause, but to
the stars.
But, if there is such efficacy in the moment of conception
in producing such similarity of fates, like destinies should not
be made unlike at birth. Or, if we admit that the destinies of
twins are changed because they are born at different times,
why should we not admit that the fates had already been
changed so that they might be born at different moments.
Surely, if the order of being born can change the destiny fixed
by conception, then the wills of living persons can change
the destiny fixed by birth.
Chapter 6
In any case, how does it happen that of twins conceived
at precisely the same moment and under the same fate-fixing
constellation, one is a boy and the other a girl? I know two
such twins, both alive and vigorous in health. They are as
alike in looks as a man and a woman can be, but their lives,
CITY OF GOD: BOOK V 251
outwardly and inwardly, are altogether different. Some of the
differences may be explained by their sex, as that the one is
a staff officer in the army and so practically always away from
home, while his sister never leaves her own country and not
even her own neighborhood. But, the other differences are
inexplicable if one believes in fate, and only become intelli-
gible when one thinks in terms of free will and God's grace.
The brother is a married man with a large family; the sister,
a consecrated virgin, who never married.
Nevertheless, people argue, there is much value in a horo-
scope. Truly, I have already shown, it has no value at all.
Or, if it has any value at all, it is only the horoscope taken at
birth if we may believe the astrologers themselves. But, what
of the horoscope at the moment of conception? The point
here is that there can be only one moment for the conception
of twins; nature itself takes care that no woman who is
already pregnant can conceive a second time. Yet, they were
born with different horoscopes. Ought we to draw the ridicu-
lous conclusion that, while they were being born, either he
was turned into a boy or she into a girl?
Another argument of the astrologers is taken from the fact
it is not altogether absurd to say that certain sidereal influ-
ences bring about different physical phenomena. Thus, we
see the changes in the seasons with the coming and going of
the sun, and certain kinds of things grow bigger and smaller
with the waxing and waning of the moon. This is the case
with sea urchins and mussels and with the spring and neap
tides. Why, then, they argue, should not human wills be sub-
ject to the position of the stars? But, this attempt to link
human acts with the stars prompts us to ask why, in regard
to our twins, not even their assumptions in regard to bodies
seem to be verified.
252 SAINT AUGUSTINE
For instance, what is more pertinent to the body than
sex? Yet, under precisely identical stellar influences, twins
of diverse sex can be conceived. Think, then, how silly it is
to say or believe that the position of the stars, identical for
both brother and sister at the moment of conception, could
not prevent her from having the same horoscope but a dif-
ferent sex, while the position of the stars at the times when
they were born could make the sister so unlike the brother
in the practice of virginity.
Chapter 7
Why, then, should anyone put up with the pretense of
the astrologers that fates are fixed to the days we choose for
certain actions. Yet, I suppose, the philosopher who picked
and chose the moment for cohabiting with his wife acted on
the assumption that he was not himself well enough born
to have a fine son, but the sort of person likely to beget a
scatterbrain. He made for himself a destiny which he lacked,
and from that moment something became fated which was
not in his stars. A fine bit of folly ! A day is chosen for mar-
riage, on the ground, I suppose, that without such a choice
the day might be inauspicious and he be unhappily married.
In that case, what becomes of what the stars determined
at the moment of his birth? Can a man change, by the choice
of a day, a fate already fixed for him? If so, why cannot the
fate fixed by the choice of a day be changed by still some other
power? And, if human beings alone are subject to the stars
and not the rest of the things under the sun, why do men
choose the days for planting vines or trees or hedges in one
way, and the days for breaking in horses or bringing in the
stallion or bull for breeding purposes, and so on, in some other
way? If one imagines that the choosing of such days has any
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 253
efficacy in these matters, on the ground that everything on
earth, living and non-living, is determined by the position of
the stars, then let the star-gazers recall the vast number of
beings that begin or are born at any one moment of time,
yet turn out very differently from one another, and he will
realize how ridiculous even to a child such watching of the
stars would be. On the other hand, no one is so senseless as
to declare that every tree, plant, beast, serpent, bird, fish, and
worm has each its own individual moment of coming to be.
Yet, there are people who, often enough, try out the skill
of astrologers by bringing to them the horoscopes of dumb
animals, the precise moment of whose birth they have noted
with care. And, of course, those are ranked above the rest as
astrologers who can tell from the inspection of a horoscope
that it was that of a beast and not of a man. Some of them
make bold to guess what kind of animal is in question,
whether it is for wool-bearing or for cart-pulling or for the
plough or for the guarding of the house. They try to tell the
fortune of dogs, and their predictions are hailed with enthusi-
astic applause. Thus, people can be mad enough to believe
that, when a human being is born, all other births come to
such a standstill that not even a fly can be born in that
neighborhood at that same moment. For, once they admit
that flies can be born; they will be led little by little from
flies to camels and elephants.
Such people fail to remark that, on the day chosen for
sowing, innumerable seeds fall into the ground at the same
moment and grow together and sprout and shoot, and the
stalks grow and ripen and turn white at the same time; yet,
of the ears which are, so to speak, congerminal, some rot,
others are eaten by birds, others are plucked by men. How can
254 SAINT AUGUSTINE
anyone pretend that for each of these different outcomes
there must be assigned a different constellation?
You would think that the fatalists would repent of choos-
ing days for dumb creatures, recognizing that they are not
subject to the decrees of the sky. In that case, the only crea-
tures left for them to subject to the stars would be the only
creatures on earth to whom God has given free wills !
My conclusion from all this is that we are right in believing
that when astrologers hit, as they often do, on some correct
predictions, this is not the conclusion from some non-existent
science of horoscope observation, but is done by the prompt-
tings of evil spirits, whose business it is to persuade men, and
keep them persuaded, of the false and dangerous opinion that
men's destinies are settled by the stars.
Chapter 8
There are some, however, who define fate, not as the
arrangement of stars at conception, birth, or other beginning-
to-be, but as the total series of causes which brings about all
that happens. With these there is no need to enter into a
lengthy debate on the use of words, since they attribute to
the will and power of God the order and dependence of
causes. They are perfectly right in believing that God allows
nothing to remain unordered and that He knows all things
before they come to pass. He is the Cause of all causes, al-
though not of all choices.
It is easy to prove that by Fate they mean, primarily, the
will of the supreme God whose power cannot be prevented
from reaching everywhere. It was Annaeus Seneca, 1 I think,
who wrote in verse:
1 L. Annaeus Seneca (5 B.C.-A.D. 65) , philosopher and teacher of Nero
and contemporary of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. The verses are
found in his Letters, No. 107.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 255
Lead where Thou wilt, Father and Lord of the world.
Mine to obey, boldly, without delay.
Should e'er my will resist the right and good,
I'll take in tears whatever ill may come.
Fate leads or drags men willy-nilly on. 2
Obviously, in the last line he means by fate the will of the
'Father and Lord' mentioned in the first line. This will he
is ready to obey to be led willingly or, if need be, dragged
reluctantly. The fact is that 'Fate leads or drags men willy-
nilly on.'
There is the same idea in some lines of Homer which Cicero,
when he put them into Latin, took to mean :
Men's minds are led by whatsoever rays
High Jove has cast upon their earthly ways. 3
Not, of course, that Cicero thought the poet's opinion has
any authority in such matters, but he notes that the Stoic
philosophers used to cite these lines of Homer when they were
defending the power of fate. Thus, there is question here,
not of the opinion of the poet, but of the thought of the
philosopher. It is clear from these verses, which they used
in their discussions, that they meant by fate the supreme
divinity, whom they called Jupiter, and from whom all des-
tinies depend.
2 Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. ,
3 The original Greek lines are Odyssey 18.136,137. Cicero's translation
appears in none of his extant works.
256 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 9
Cicero 1 attempts to refute these Stoics, but he can find
no way of doing so without getting rid of divination; this
he does by denying all knowledge of what is future. He makes
every effort to prove that there can be no foreknowledge,
whether in God or in man, and, therefore, no possibility of
prediction. Thus, he denies the foreknowledge of God and
seeks to get rid even of the clearest cases of prophecy by base-
less arguments and by limiting himself to such oracles as are
easy to refute. The fact is that he does not confute even these.
However, he makes a masterly refutation of the conjectures
of the astrologers for the simple reason that their mutual
contradictions are their best refutation.
Nevertheless, for all their sidereal fates, the astrologers are
nearer the truth than Cicero with his denial of all knowledge
of the future, for it is plain nonsense for a man to admit that
God exists and then to deny that He can know the future.
Cicero realized this, but was rash enough to fulfill the words
of the Scripture: The fool has said in his heart: There is
no God/ 2 It is true, he does not do this in his own name.
This, he knew, was too risky. Instead, in his work On the
Nature of the Gods he lets Cotta 3 play the role, in arguing
against the Stoics, of denying the existence of any divine na-
ture. Cicero chose to give his vote to Lucilius Balbus, 4 who
defended the Stoic position, but, in his work On Divination,
Cicero openly and in his own name attacks all foreknowledge
of the future.
1 Cicero, De divinatwne, especially Book II.
2 Ps. 13 1.
3 C. Aurelius Cotta, consul in 75 B c , is one of the speakers in both De
oratore and De natura deorum. He represents a form of Academic
skepticism in philosophy.
4 Qumtus Lucilius Balbus represents Stoic philosophy in the dialogue.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 257
It is true, he seems to do this only to save free will and to
reject the necessity of fate. His point is that, once any knowl-
edge of the future is admitted, it is logically impossible to deny
fate.
But, be these tortuous strifes and disputations of the philo-
sophers what they will, we who profess belief in the supreme
and true God confess, likewise, His will, His supreme power,
His foreknowledge. Nor are we dismayed by the difficulty
that what we choose to do freely is done of necessity, because
He whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived foreknew that
we would choose to do it. This was the fear that made Cicero
oppose foreknowledge. It was this fear, too, that led the
Stoics to admit that not everything happened of necessity,
even though they held that everything happens by fate.
Let us examine, then, this fear of foreknowledge which
led Cicero to attempt to deny it in his detestable disputation.
He argues thus. If all that is future is foreknown, each event
will occur in the order in which it is foreknown that it will
occur. But, if things happen in this order, the order of things
is known for certain in the mind of God who foreknows them.
But, if the order of events is known for certain, then the order
of causes is known for certain since nothing can happen
without a preceding efficient cause. If, however, the order
of causes, by which all that happens is known for certain,
then, he says, all that happens happens by fate. But, if this is
so, nothing is left to our own power and, therefore, there is
no choice in our will. But, he goes on, once we admit this,
all human life becomes topsy-turvy; laws are made in vain;
there is no point in reproaches or in praise, in scolding or in
exhortation; there is no ground in justice for rewarding the
good or punishing the wicked.
Thus, his motive for rejecting foreknowledge of the future
258 SAINT AUGUSTINE
was to avoid unworthy, absurd and dangerous implications
for human society. He narrows down the choices of a de-
vout mind to one or other of these alternatives: either the
power of choice or foreknowledge. It seemed to him impossible
that both could exist. If one stands, the other falls. If we
choose foreknowledge, we lose free choice; if we choose free
choice, we must lose knowledge of the future.
Magnanimous and learned as he was, and with no thought
but to save human nature as best he could, Cicero made his
choice. He chose free choice. To make it certain, he denied
foreknowledge. Thus, to make men free, he made them give
up God.
A man of faith wants both. He professes both and with a
devout faith he holds both firmly. But how, one asks? For,
if there is foreknowledge of the future, logical step follows
logical step until we reach a point where nothing is left in
the will. On the other hand, if we start from power in the
will, the steps lead in the opposite direction until we come
to the conclusion that foreknowledge is non-existent. This is
how the reverse argument runs. If there is free choice, not all
is fixed by fate. If not all is fixed by fate, there is no certain
order of all causes. If there is no certain order of causes, there
is no certain order of events known in the mind of God, since
events cannot happen without preceding and efficient causes.
If the order of events is not certain in the foreknowledge of
God, not all things happen as He foresaw they would happen.
But, if all does not happen as He foresaw it would happen,
then, Cicero argues, in God there is no foreknowledge of
all that is to happen.
Our stand against such bold and impious attacks on God
is to say that God knows all things before they happen; yet,
we act by choice in all those things where we feel and know
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 259
that we cannot act otherwise than willingly. And yet, so far
from saying that everything happens by fate, we say that
nothing happens by fate for the simple reason that the word
'fate' means nothing. The word means nothing, since the only
reality in the mind of those who use the word namely, the
arrangement of the stars at the moment of conception or birth
is, as we show, pure illusion.
We do not deny, of course, an order of causes in which
the will of God is all-powerful. On the other hand, we do
not give this order the name fate, except in a sense in which
the word 'fate' is derived from /an, to speak. For, of course,
we cannot reject what is written in Holy Scripture: 'God
hath spoken once, these two things have I heard, that power
belongeth to God and mercy to Thee, O Lord, for Thou wilt
render to everyone according to his works.' 5 The 'once' here
means 'once and for all.' God spoke once and for all because
He knows unalterably all that is to be, all that He is to do.
In this way, we might use the word 'fate' to mean what God
has 'spoken' [fatum], except that the meaning of the word
has already taken a direction in which we do not want men's
minds to move.
However, our main point is that, from the fact that to God
the order of all causes is certain, there is no logical deduction
that there is no power in the choice of our will. The fact is
that our choices fall within the order of the causes which is
known for certain to God and is contained in His foreknowl-
edge for, human choices are the causes of human acts. It
follows that He who foreknew the causes of all things could
not be unaware that our choices were among those causes
which were foreknown as the causes of our acts.
5 Ps. 61.12.
260 SAINT AUGUSTINE
In this matter it is easy enough to refute Cicero by his own
admission, namely, that nothing happens without a preced-
ing efficient cause. It does not help him to admit that nothing
happens without a cause and then to argue that not every
cause is fated, since some causes are either fortuitous or
natural or voluntary. He admits that nothing happens without
a preceding cause; that is enough to refute him.
As for the causes which are called fortuitous hence, the
name of fortune we do not say they are unreal. We say they
are latent, in the sense that they are hidden in the will either
of the true God or one of His spirits. And, of course, still
less do we dissociate from the will of Him who is the Author
and Builder of all nature, the causes which Cicero calls
'natural.' There remain the voluntary causes. They are the
choices of God or of angels or of men or of certain animals
if, indeed we may call 'choices' the instinctive movements of
irrational animals by which they seek or avoid what is good
or bad for their nature. By the choices of angels I mean those
of the good ones we call the angels of God or of the wicked
ones we call demons or the angels of the Devil. So of men,
there are the choices of good men and of bad men.
From this we conclude that the only efficient causes of all
things are voluntary causes, that is to say, causes of the same
nature as the spirit or breath of life. Of course, the air or wind
can be said to breathe; 6 but, being a body, it is not the
breath or spirit of life. The Spirit of Life, which gives life
to all and is the Creator of all matter and of every created
spirit is God, a Spirit, indeed, but uncreated. In His will is
the supreme power which helps the good choices of created
6 Nam et aer iste seu ventus dicittur spintus.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 261
spirits, judges the evil ones, and orders all of them, giving
powers to some and not to others.
As He is the Creator of all natures, so is He the giver of all
powers though He is not the maker of all choices. 7 Evil
choices are not from Him, for they are contrary to the nature
which is from Him. Thus, bodies are subject to wills. Some
bodies are subject to our wills to the wills of all mortal
animals, but especially those of men rather than of
beasts. Some bodies are subject to the wills of angels. And
absolutely all bodies are subject to the will of God ; as, indeed,
are all wills, too, since they have no power save what He
gave them.
Thus, God is the Cause of all things a cause that makes
but is not made. Other causes make, but they are themselves
made for example, all created spirits and, especially, ra-
tional spirits. Material causes which are rather passive than
active are not to be included among efficient causes, for their
power is limited to what the wills of spirits work through them.
It does not follow, therefore, that the order of causes,
known for certain though it is in the foreknowing mind of
God, brings it about that there is no power in our will, since
our choices themselves have an important place in the order
of causes.
And so, let Cicero argue with those who hold that this
order of causes is fixed by fate, or, rather, is the reality they
call fate. Our main objection is to the word fate, which is
usually given a false sense. As for Cicero, we object to him
even more than the Stoics do when he denies that the order
of all causes is fixed and clearly known in the foreknowledge
7 ... omnium potestatum dator, non voluntatum.
262 SAINT AUGUSTINE
of God. Cicero must either deny that God exists and this,
in fact, is what he attempts to do in the name of Cotta in his
work On the Nature of the Gods or else, if he admits God's
existence while denying His foreknowledge, what he says
amounts to nothing more than what 'the fool hath said in
his heart: There is no God.' The fact is that one who does not
foreknow the whole of the future is most certainly not God.
Our conclusion is that our wills have power to do all that
God wanted them to do and foresaw they could do. Their
power, such as it is, is a real power. What they are to do they
themselves will most certainly do, because God foresaw both
that they could do it and that they would do it and His knowl-
edge cannot be mistaken. Thus, if I wanted to use the word
'fate' for anything at all, I should prefer to say that 'fate' is
the action of a weak person, while 'choice' is the act of the
stronger man who holds the weak man in his power, rather
than to admit that the choice of our will is taken away by
that order of causes which the Stoics arbitrarily call fate.
Chapter 10
It follows that we need not be afraid of that necessity
which frightened the Stoics into distinguishing various kinds
of causes. They sought to free certain causes from necessity
while others were subject to it. Among the causes which they
wanted free from necessity they reckoned our wills. Obviously,
wills could not be free if subject to necessity.
Now, if by necessity we mean one that is in no way in our
power, but which has its way even when our will is opposed
to it, as is the case with the necessity to die, then, our choices
of living well or ill obviously are not subject to this kind of
necessity. The fact is that we do many things which we would
most certainly not do if we did not choose to do them. The
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 263
most obvious case is our willing itself. For, if we will, there
is an act of willing; there is none if we do not want one.
We would certainly not make a choice if we did not choose
to make it. On the other hand, if we take necessity to mean
that in virtue of which something must be so and so or must
happen in such and such a way, I do not see that we should
be afraid of such necessity taking away our freedom of will.
We do not put the life of God and the foreknowledge of
God under any necessity when we say that God must live an
eternal life and must know all things. Neither do we lessen
His power when we say He cannot die or be deceived. This
is the kind of inability which, if removed, would make God
less powerful than He is. God is rightly called omnipotent,
even though He is unable to die and be deceived. We call
Him omnipotent because He does whatever He wills to do
and suffers nothing that He does not will to suffer. He would
not, of course, be omnipotent, if He had to suffer anything
against His will. It is precisely because He is omnipotent that
for Him some things are impossible.
So with us, when we say we must choose freely when we
choose at all, what we say is true; yet, we do not subject
free choice to any necessity which destroys our liberty. Our
choices, therefore, are our own, and they effect, whenever
we choose to act, something that would not happen if we
had not chosen. Even when a person suffers against his will
from the will of others, there is a voluntary act not, indeed,
of the person who suffers. However, a human will prevails
although the power which permits this is God's. (For, wher-
ever there is a mere will without power to carry out what it
chooses, it would be impeded by a stronger will. Even so,
there would be no will in such a condition unless there were
a will, and not merely the will of another but the will of the
264 SAINT AUGUSTINE
one choosing, even though he is unable to carry out his
choice. ) Therefore, whatever a man has to suffer against his
will is not to be attributed to the choices of man or of angels
or of any created spirit, but to His choice who gives to wills
whatever power they have.
It does not follow, therefore, that there is no power in our
will because God foreknew what was to be the choice in our
will. For, He who had this foreknowledge had some fore-
knowledge. Furthermore, if He who foresaw what was to be
in our will foresaw, not nothing, but something, it follows that
there is a power in our will, even though He foresaw it.
The conclusion is that we are by no means under compul-
sion to abandon free choice in favor of divine foreknowledge,
nor need we deny God forbid ! that God knows the future,
as a condition for holding free choice. We accept both. As
Christians and philosophers, we profess both foreknowledge,
as a part of our faith; free choice, as a condition of responsible
living. It is hard to live right if one's faith in God is wrong.
Far be it from us, then, to deny, in the interest of our
freedom, the foreknowledge of God by whose power we are
or are to be free. It follows, too, that laws are not in vain,
nor scoldings and encouragements, nor praise and blame.
He foresaw that such things should be. Such things have as
much value as He foresaw they would have. So, too, prayers
are useful in obtaining these favors which He foresaw He
would bestow on those who should pray for them. There was
justice in instituting rewards and punishments for good and
wicked deeds. For, no one sins because God foreknew that he
would sin. In fact, the very reason why a man is undoubtedly
responsible for his own sin, when he sins, is because He whose
foreknowledge cannot be deceived foresaw, not the man's fate
or fortune or what not, but that the man himself would be
CITY OF GOD: BOOK V 265
responsible for his own sin. No man sins unless it is his choice
to sin; and his choice not to sin, that, too, God foresaw.
Chapter 11
This supreme and true God with His Word and Holy
Spirit which are one with Him this one omnipotent God
is the creator and maker of every soul and of every body. All
who find their joy in truth and not in mere shadows derive
their happiness from Him. He made man a rational animal,
composed of soul and body. He permitted man to sin but not
with impunity and He pursued him with His mercy. He gave
men both good and bad their being, as He gave being to
the rocks. He let men share generative life in common with the
trees, and the life of the senses with the beasts of the fields, but
the life of intelligence only with the angels. God is the Author
of all measure, form, and order; of all size, number and
weight. 1 He is the source of every nature, of whatever sort
or condition ; of the seed of every form and the form of every
seed and the movement of both seeds and forms. He gave to
all flesh its beginning, beauty, health, and power of repro-
duction; the arrangement of its members and the general
well-being of a balanced whole. To His irrational creatures
He gave memory, perception, and appetite, but to His rational
creatures He added a mind with intelligence and will.
He left no part of this creation without its appropriate
peace, for in the last and least of all His living things the very
entrails are wonderfully ordered not to mention the beauty
of birds' wings, and the flowers of the fields and the leaves of
trees. And above the beauty of sky and earth is that of angels
and of man. How, then, can anyone believe that it was the
1 ... a quo est omnis modus, omnis sptcies, omnis ordo; a quo est
mcnsura, numcrus, pondus.
266 SAINT AUGUSTINE
will of God to exempt from the laws of His providence the rise
and fall of political societies?
Chapter 12
We may now turn to consider the virtues of the Romans
and to ask why the true God, in whose hands are all the king-
doms of the earth, deigned to help them in building up their
empire. It was with this question in mind that I wrote both
the preceding Books, dealing with the impotence of the gods
whom the Romans felt it a duty to worship in such foolish
ways, and likewise the earlier chapters of the present Book.
I had to dispose of the question of fate. Otherwise, anyone
forced to give up the idea that the worship of the pagan gods
could help, in the rise and progress of the Roman Empire,
might fall back on some kind of destiny rather than attribute
it to the all-powerful will of the supreme God.
As far as one can learn from their recorded history, the
earliest and most primitive Romans, like all other peoples with
the single exception of the Hebrews, worshiped false gods
and offered sacrifices, not to God, but to demons. Yet, we
read, they were 'avid for praise, liberal with money, pursuers
of high glory and hard- won wealth.' 1 Glory was their most
ardent love. They lived for honor, and for it they did not
hesitate to die. This single measureless ambition crushed their
lesser greeds. It was their glory to conquer and control others,
and a dishonor for their fatherland not to be free. Their first
ambition was to make it free; their next, to make it a master
of the world.
Hence, refusing to endure kingly domination, 'they ap-
pointed two rulers to govern for one year at a time'; 2 and they
1 Sallust, Catilina 7.
2 Ibid. 6.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 267
called them consuls rather than kings or lords meaning men
who advised rather than reigned or dominated over them.
And although, as a matter of fact, a king merely means a man
who can rule and the word kingdom is derived from king,
they looked on the pomp of royalty as a pride of domination
rather than as a part of the discipline of a ruler or the
benevolence of a counselor.
Hence, they drove out King Tarquinius and instituted
consuls. The result was, to quote from Sallust's flattering
account of the Romans, that 'with freedom won, the city
grew at an incredible rate, because of their passionate greed
for glory.' 3 Thus, passionate greed for praise and glory worked
many wonders worthy, according to human standards, of
praise and honor.
The same Sallust praises the great and outstanding men
of his own age, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar. 4 He observes
that, for a long period, the republic had no outstanding hero,
but that, in his own lifetime, these two were highly distin-
guished in their careers, though different in their characters.
His eulogy of Caesar pictures a man dreaming of a great
empire, an army, a new war in which his prowess could be
proved. Thus, the hearts of men of great worth were filled
with the longing that the goddess of war should rush poor
peoples into strife and goad them into her bloody scourge
for no purpose but to have a stage for military valor. Such was
the fruit of this passionate greed for praise and glory.
Thus, the achievements of the Romans had two sources:
first, the love of liberty; second, the desire for domination,
praise, and glory. Their great poet, Virgil, bears witness to
this double passion in his lines:
3 Ibid. 7.
4 Cato of Utica and Julius Caesar.
268 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Porsenna bade them take Tarquinius back
Or face the siege his serried host maintained.
But Romans rushed to arms; and freedom reigned. 5
So, in those days, it was considered virtue either to live in
freedom or to die in war. The trouble was that, once they
were free, such a passion for glory took hold of them that
liberty without a lust for domination seemed too little for
them. Greatness was now reckoned by what the poet puts into
the mouth of Jove :
Nay, Juno's rage,
That fills with fear the earth and sea and skies,
Will change to better counsel and to wise
Designs. She will cherish Rome in peace
And war and, as the ages pass, in Greece
And Crete and in the East and West, deploy
The domination of the race of Troy. 6
Obviously, what the poet puts into the mouth of Jove as a
prophecy, Virgil himself had already known and seen as a
fact of history. But, what I wanted to show, in citing these
verses, was that the Romans ranked domination so close to
liberty that it shared in the same high praise.
This explains how the same poet, Virgil, could prefer
the Roman arts of reigning and ruling, of conquest and con-
trol, to the softer arts of other peoples. Thus, he wrote :
5 Aeneid 8.646-648.
6 Ibid. 1.379-285.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 269
Let others breathe their bronzes into life
And make their marbles flush like human faces,
Astonish judges in the courts of law
And count the stars in all the skiey places . . .
O Rome, your art, remember, is to rule:
To teach the humbler, tame the prouder, races. 7
The ancient Romans were all the more skillful in the arts
of war because they were so little addicted to indulgence and
the enervation of mind and body that goes with the greed for
making money and the consequent corruption of morals, the
robbing of less-privileged citizens to pay the producers of
immoral shows. However, in the time when Sallust wrote
and Virgil sang, this corruption of morals was already
everywhere apparent. Romans now sought for honors and
fame, not by the older ways, but by the crooked paths of
chicanery and guile. This explains why Sallust writes: 'At
first, ambition more than greed moved men's hearts, and,
vice as it was, ambition was more of a virtue than greed.
Good and bad men are alike in seeking glory, honor, and
political control; but, the former take the right road while
the latter, knowing no better ways, use chicanery and guile. 18
The better way to reach honor, glory, and dominion is by
virtue, not by conniving and lying. A good citizen seeks
rewards as a bad one does, but the good citizen takes the
right way. This way is his virtue, and by this he seeks the goal
of glory, honor and dominion. That this was the way of the
ancient Romans we may see from the two temples which they
7 Ibid. 6.847-853.
8 Catilina 11.
270 SAINT AUGUSTINE
built very close together, the temples of Virtue and Honor
the gifts of God being mistaken for gods. From this, it is
easy enough to see that they reckoned honor as the goal of
virtue and that even good men thought of honor as their
reward. As for the wicked who had no virtue, they sought
for honor by the evil means of guile and fraud.
Cato is rightly praised more than Caesar, for, as Sallust
says of him: The less he sought for glory the more it followed
him.' 9 However, the only kind of glory they were greedy for
was merely the reputation of a good name among men;
whereas, virtue rests not on others' judgments but on the
witness of one's own conscience, and, therefore, is better than
a good name. Hence, the Apostle says : Tor our glory is this,
the testimony of our conscience' ; 10 and in another place : 'But
let everyone prove his own work, and so he shall have glory
in himself only, and not in another. 511 Therefore, virtue
should not pursue the glory, honor, and dominion which they
sought, even though their good men sought to reach these
ends by good means, but these things should follow virtue.
There is no true virtue save that which pursues the end
which is man's true good. It follows, therefore, that Cato
should not have sought the honors he sought, but his city
should have given them to him because of his virtue and with-
out his asking for them.
Granted, then, that there were two men of outstanding
virtue in Sallust's time, Caesar and Cato, the virtue of Cato
seems far nearer to true virtue than Caesar's. It is well, there-
fore, to go to Cato for an opinion on the state of the city as
it was in his day and as it had been in the past. 'Do not think,'
9 Ibid. 54.
10 2 Cor. 1.12.
11 Gal. 6.4.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 271
he says, 'that our fathers made our city great by arms. Had
this been the case, we would have a far finer city than we have,
for we have more citizens and more allies, more arms and
horse than they. They had other means to make them great,
which we lack: industry at home and justice in their rule
abroad, a spirit of freedom in political discussion unstained
by wickedness or lust. In place of these virtues, we have lust
and greed, public need and private opulence; we praise
wealth, but practice sloth; we treat the good and bad alike;
we rob virtue to reward ambition. No wonder with each
one consulting his own interest, thinking only of lust at home
and of fortune or favors in public life that the republic is
helpless to defend itself.' 12
In reading words like these of Cato (or, rather, of Sallust),
it is easy to imagine that, in the good old days, all or most
of the Romans were like those who are here praised. It was
not so. How else could there be any truth in what I cited
from Sallust in my second Book. He speaks of oppression of
the weak by the strong, and the consequent breaking away of
the people from their leaders, and other domestic troubles,
from the very beginning. He says that equitable and moder-
ate laws prevailed only so long after the expulsion of the
Kings as fear of Tarquinius lasted, and until the fierce war
with the Etruscans, which had begun because of him, came
to an end.
As soon as the crisis was over, the Senators began to lord
it over the people, to treat them as harshly as kings had done,
to drive them from the common lands, and to monopolize
the government to the exclusion of everyone else. Dissensions
continued between the leaders in power and the recalcitrant
12 Catiline 52.
272 SAINT AUGUSTINE
people until the Second Punic War. Only then did fear
return to temper the trouble by a more serious preoccupation
and reduce the angry spirits to a semblance of civic concord.
However, the administration continued to be directed by
a small group of relatively good men, through whose foresight
the evils of the times were tempered and made sufficiently
tolerable for the general welfare to continue to increase. This
is Sallust's explanation. After collecting all he could, from
reading and tradition, concerning the achievements of the
Roman people in peace and war, on sea and land, he made a
point of seeking to explain such continued success. He realized
that, again and again, with a handful of men, the Romans
had faced vast armies of their enemies and with a few troops
waged wars with well-provided kings. His conclusion, after
mature reflection, so he tells us, is that only the exceptional
ability of a few citizens brought it about that a people so few
and poor could defeat others so numerous and rich. 'But,'
Sallust goes on to say, 'once the city had fallen a victim to
luxury and laziness, the Republic by its very size ministered
to the vices of the rulers and magistrates. 513 Thus, what Cato
really praises is the virtue of the few who sought for glory,
honor, and dominion in the right way. It was virtue that ex-
plained the Roman industry, which, according to Cato, filled
the public coffers while the private citizens remained poor.
When, in turn, corruption of morals set in, vice had the
opposite effect : it made for public need and private opulence.
Chapter 13
And so it was that, after many monarchies had been famous
in the East, God willed that there should be an empire in the
13 Ibid. 53.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 273
West. It was to be later in time, but greater in size and im-
portance. It was God's way of checking the wickedness of
many nations. He put this task in the hands of men whose
glory it was to work for the welfare of their own nation in
return for honor, praise, and glory. They were men ready to
sacrifice private interest to the common good ; in the name of
their single weakness, love of glory, they conquered greed for
gold and many other passions.
Because, of course, rightly considered, the love of glory
is a sin, as even the poet Horace recognized:
The greed of glory? 'Tis a cancerous vice.
The antidote? You read my volume thrice. 1
So, too, in his Odes, Horace hoped to tame the lust for
domination with lines like these: Conquer your greed and
then a wider kingdom falls to your lot than if you warred
as far as Libyan deserts, conquering all peoples Punic or
Spanish. 2
This much is true. It is not given to all men to tame their
shameful lusts by Christian faith, by the grace of the Holy
Spirit and out of love of Everlasting Beauty, but they do the
best they can out of love of human praise and glory. If they
are not great saints, they are, at least, less sinful than the un-
restrained. They may be less than saints but, at least, they are
lovelier than the viler sinners. This was clear enough to Cicero
when he wrote, in his work On the Commonwealth, the sec-
tion on the education of the ruler of a city. He says that the
future ruler should be nourished with glory, and he goes on
1 Horace, Epistulae 1.1.36,37.
2 Odes 2,2.9-12.
274 SAINT AUGUSTINE
to recall that the ancient Romans achieved astonishingly
splendid results out of a motive of glory. 3
Thus the Romans did nothing to repress the sin of seeking
glory. On the contrary, they thought it useful for the common-
weal and, therefore, to be fostered and encouraged. Even in
his philosophical works, Cicero does nothing to disguise this
pernicious disease, but rather proclaims it openly. Even when
he is treating of those studies which are to be pursued for
what is truly good and not merely for the sake of the passing
breath of human praise, he sets forth this statement as a
general principle: 'The arts are fed by honor and studies
are stimulated by praise, while nothing is attempted where
no men give approval.' 4
Chapter 14
What is certain is that it is better to resist this passion than
to yield to it. For, the freer a man is from this vice, the more
like he is to God. Even though the lust for glory is never
wholly eradicated from the heart in this life and the tempta-
tion assails men of advanced virtue, it should at least be tem-
pered by our love of justice, so that, should we find among the
things which are unattempted, because 'no man give ap-
proval,' something that is good or right, human respect should
be ashamed and should yield to the love of truth.
It is because this weakness is an enemy of Christian faith,
in so far as the heart is more moved by greed for glory than
by the fear or love of God, that our Lord asked: 'How can
you believe, who receive glory one from another : and the glory
3 De re publica 5.75.
4 Tusculan Disputations 1.2.4.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 275
which is from God alone, you do not seek?' 1 In the same way,
the Evangelist says of those who believed in Him but were
ashamed to confess Him openly : 'They loved the glory of men
more than the glory of God. 52
It was different with the Apostles. They were once preach-
ing Christ's Name in a place where it was not merely not
given approval to recall Cicero's words about nothing being
'attempted where no men give approval' but was held in
the highest detestataion. Keeping in mind what they had
been told by the Teacher and Healer of their minds and
souls, 'He that will deny me before men, I will also deny him
before my Father who is in heaven,' or 'before the angels
of God,' 3 they were not deterred, in spite of curses and insults,
fierce persecution and cruel penalties, from preaching the
salvation of the world in the face of the world's scorn and
hostility.
Their holy words and works and way of life, which some-
how broke the opposition of the hardest hearts and filled them
with the peace of righteousness, won for them an immense
glory in the Church of Christ. They took no complacency in
this, as though it were the purpose of their virtue, but, on the
contrary, referred their glory to the glory of God, by whose
grace they were able to do what they did. And, with the flame
of grace in their own souls, they fired those for whom they
worked with the flame of the love of the same God who
made the Apostles what they were.
For, their Master had taught them not to pursue virtue for
the sake of human glory: 'Take heed that you do not your
justice before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall
1 John 5.44.
2 John 12.43.
3 Matt. 10.33; Luke 12.9.
276 SAINT AUGUSTINE
not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven/ 4 On the
other hand, He did not want them so to misunderstand these
words as to fear to please men and so, by concealing their
virtue, to help them less. Hence, He pointed out to them
the motive they should have in making themselves known to
the world. 'So let your light shine before men,' He told
them, 'that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father who is in heaven.' 5 Not, notice, 'that you may be
seen by them,' not, that is, with the intention that they may
be converted to you since you by yourselves are nothing
but 'that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,'
so that, by being converted to Him, they become as you are.
After the Apostles came the martyrs men greater than
Scaevola or the Curtii or Decii, not because of what they did
to themselves, but because a vast multitude of them with true
piety and, therefore, with true virtue endured what other
men made them suffer. It was different with pagan heroes.
They were citizens of the earthly city, of a kingdom not
in heaven but on earth, and the only purpose of all their duties
was the city's temporal security. They knew nothing of ever-
lasting life, but only of a succession of living and dying mor-
tals. What other glory could they love but the fame by which,
when they were dead, they might seem to live on the lips of
those who praised them?
Chapter 15
For these pagan heroes there was not to be the divine
grace of everlasting life along with His holy angels in His
heavenly City, for the only road to this Society of the Blessed
4 Matt. 6.1.
5 Matt. 5.16.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 277
is true piety, that is, that religious service or latreia (to use
the Greek word) which is offered to the One true God. On
the other hand, if God did not grant them at least the tem-
poral glory of a splendid Empire, there would have been no
reward for the praiseworthy efforts or virtues by which they
strove to attain that glory. When our Lord said: 'Amen I
say to you they have received their reward/ 1 He had in mind
those who do what seems to be good in order to be glorified
by men.
After all, the pagans subordinated their private property
to the common welfare, that is, to the republic and the public
treasury. They resisted the temptation to avarice. They gave
their counsel freely in the councils of the state. They indulged
in neither public crime nor private passion. They thought
they were on the right road when they strove, by all these
means, for honors, rule, and glory. Honor has come to them
from almost all peoples. The rule of their laws has been
imposed on many peoples. And in our day, in literature and
in history, glory has been given them by almost everyone.
They have no right to complain of the justice of the true
and supreme God. 'They have received their reward.'
Chapter 16
The reward of the saints is altogether different. They were
men who, while on earth, suffered reproaches for the City
of God which is so much hated by the lovers of this world.
That City is eternal. There, no one is born because no one
dies. There, there reigns that true and perfect happiness which
is not a goddess, but a gift of god toward whose beauty we
can but sigh in our pilgrimage on earth, though we hold the
Matt. 6.2,5.
278 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pledge of it by faith. In that City, the sun does not 'rise upon
the good and bad' 1 for the Sun of Justice cherishes the good
alone. There, where the Truth is a treasure shared by all,
there is no need to pinch the poor to fill the coffers of the
state.
It was, then, not only to reward the Roman heroes with
human glory that the Roman Empire spread. It had a purpose
for the citizens of the Eternal City during their pilgrimage
on earth. Meditating long and seriously on those great ex-
amples, they could understand what love of their Heavenly
Fatherland should be inspired by everlasting life, since a
fatherland on earth has been so much loved by citizens in-
spired by human glory.
Chapter 17
When it is considered how short is the span of human life,
does it really matter to a man whose days are numbered what
government he must obey, so long as he is not compelled to
act against God or his conscience? And, what injury did the
Romans do to those they conquered, save that they imposed
their laws by means of war and slaughter? It is true, they
would have triumphed better by compact than by conquest.
But then they would have had less glory. The fact is that the
Romans lived under the identical laws they imposed on
others. And all could have been arranged without the help
of Mars, Bellona, and Victoria. But, no war, no victor; and
that would have put the Romans on the same level with other
peoples. This would have been the case, especially, if the
Romans had done earlier what they were kind and gracious
enough to do later, namely, to make the privilege of a few
1 Matt. 5.45.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 279
a fellowship of all, and to call all who belonged to the Roman
Empire citizens of Rome. The only exception to this was
the lower class of people who had no property of their own.
These lived at the public expense. They were well off in
the sense that the food that might have been taken from them
by their conquerors was guaranteed to them by the state and
provided by good administrators.
So far as I can see, it makes no difference at all to political
security or public order to maintain the purely human dis-
tinction between conquerors and conquered peoples. It adds
nothing to the state but empty pomp fit reward for those
who wage fierce battles out of lust for human glory. Do not
the Romans pay taxes for their lands as others do? Are they
more free to learn than others are? Are there not many
Senators in foreign lands who do not even know what Rome
looks like. When all the boasting is over, what is any man but
just another man? And, even though a crooked world came
to admit that men should be honored only according to merit,
even human honor would be of no great value. It is smoke
that weighs nothing.
Yet, in this matter, too, let us turn to our profit the goodness
of God, our Lord. Let us reflect what good things they de-
spised, what suffering they sustained, what passions they
subdued for human glory the sole reward such marvelous
virtues merited. Let it help us to suppress our pride when we
think of the difference between their city and ours and to
reflect how little we can claim to have done if, to gain our
City, we do a little good or endure certain ills, when they
have done and suffered so much for the sake of the earthly
city which is already theirs. Our City is as different from theirs
as heaven from earth, as everlasting life from passing pleasure,
as solid glory from empty praise, as the company of angels
280 SAINT AUGUSTINE
from the companionship of mortals, as the Light of Him who
made the sun and moon is brighter than the light of sun and
moon. We can learn from this, too, that the remission of sins
which makes us citizens of the Eternal City was faintly adum-
brated when Romulus gathered the first citizens of his city
by providing a sanctuary and immunity for a multitude of
criminals.
Chapter 18
If, for the sake of this temporal and earthly city, Brutus 1
could have his own sons put to death a sacrifice which the
eternal and heavenly City compels none of us to make why
should we think much of giving up all the pleasures, how-
ever enjoyable, of this world? It is surely more difficult to put
one's own sons to death than to give to the poor, or to lose
altogether, at the call of faith or justice, what one has earned
and hoped to save for one's children. The riches of this earth
can make neither us nor our children happy, if they are to be
lost while we are alive or, after we are dead, are to pass to
people we do not know or, perhaps, dislike. Only God can
make us happy, for He is the true riches of our souls. As for
Brutus, who killed his sons, we know how unhappy he was
from the poet who has praised him :
What, though 'twas Freedom called for filicide?
And what, though after ages gave him glory?
Poor Brutus was unhappy till he died. 2
However, the next line offers some consolation : 'Yet, love for
1 Cf. Book III, Ch. 16.
2 Aeneid 6,820-822.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 281
Rome and glory made him strong.' These are the two motives
freedom and the greed for fame that made the Romans so
marvelously successful. If, then, fathers could slay their sons
for the sake of fame and freedom among mortal men, what
wonder if, for the sake of true freedom, we do not kill them
but rather add the poor of Christ to the number of our sons?
This is a freedom which makes us free from servitude to sin
and death and the Devil. And we are moved, not by a pas-
sion for men's praise, but by a charity that seeks to free men,
not from a king like Tarquinius, but from devils and the
Prince of demons.
Consider, too, that other Roman leader, Torquatus. 3 He
killed his son, not for being the enemy of his country, but its
friend. Only, the son acted against the authority of his state in
acting against the command of the general, his father, and
allowing his youthful ardor to be provoked into an attack on
the enemy. The attack was successful, but he was put to
death lest his example of disobedience should do more harm
than the glory of his victory, good. Those, then, who despise
earthly goods which are far less dear to them than children
and do this under the laws of their eternal home, have little
right to boast.
Again, take Furius Camillus. 4 If he could, first, save his
country from the yoke of its bitter enemies, the Veientes, then
find himself condemned by rival countrymen, and yet once
more save his ungrateful nation from the Gauls because he
knew no better place where he could live in glory, why need
we make a hero of a Christian who has suffered some grave
wrong from enemies within the Church, and then does not
3 Cf. Book I, Ch. 23.
4 Cf. Book II, Ch. 17.
282 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pass over to its enemies the heretics, or does not start some
heresy of his own, but defends the Church from the dangerous
dogmas of the heretics? After all, there is only one Church
where one can gain eternal life, whatever heresy may offer
in the way of human glory.
Remember Mucius, 5 who tried to kill Porsenna when he
was threatening to conquer Rome, and by mistake killed
another? Determined to bring about a peace, there before
the eyes of Porsenna, he held his hand in a flame of an altar
fire, saying that many others like him had vowed Porsenna's
death. And Porsenna, frightened by the fortitude and deter-
mination of men like that, at once put an end to the war
and declared peace. Why, then, should a Christian think he
has fully merited the Kingdom of Heaven if for its sake he has
willingly thrust one of his hands in the fire, or even if he
has lost his whole body in the flames as a victim of persecu-
tion?
Or take Curtius. 6 He spurred his horse and plunged into a
great chasm in the earth, in obedience to an oracle of the gods
commanding that the Romans should cast into the chasm the
most precious thing they had. No Roman could believe that
they had anything more precious than their armed warriors,
and it followed that, to obey the gods, an armed warrior had
to meet his death by plunging into the chasm. Why, then,
must a Christian say he has done something great for the
Eternal City, when he has not even cast himself into such a
death but has merely suffered it at the hands of some enemy
of the faith? After all, better than any oracle, he has the
assurance of his Lord who is King of his Country: Tear ye
5 Cf. Book IV, Ch. 20.
6 Ibid.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 283
not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the
soul.' 7
The Decii 8 offered up their lives and, in a sense, conse-
crated the act with a formula of words, so that, as they fell,
their blood might placate the anger of the gods and so save
the Roman army. There is no reason, then, even for the holy
martyrs to imagine that they have done anything deserving
citizenship in that City of true and everlasting felicity, simply
because they have striven, to the shedding of their blood,
for the sake of their brothers or, for that matter, of the ene-
mies who shed their blood. After all, they were under a law
to love with the faith of charity and the charity of faith.
There is the example of Marcus Pulvillus. 9 While dedi-
cating a temple in honor of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, he
was falsely informed by some of his enemies that his son had
died. They hoped that he would be too moved to continue,
and his colleague thus would have the glory of the dedica-
tion. But, the greed for glory conquered the grief in his broken
heart. He remained unmoved, and told them to bury the boy
without benefit of a funeral ceremony. What, then, of the
disciple, solicitous for his father's burial to whom our Lord
said: 'Follow me and let the dead bury the dead'? 10 Why
should we say that he did anything outstanding for the holy
Gospel? Is it not by such preaching that the citizens of the
heavenly country are brought together and freed from many
errors?
Recall how Marcus Regulus, 11 rather than break his oath,
7 Matt. 10.28
8 Cf. Book IV, Ch. 20.
9 Cf. Livy 2.8.
10 Matt. 8.22.
11 Cf. Book I, Ch. 15.
284 SAINT AUGUSTINE
returned from Rome to Carthage, after telling the Romans
that no one who had been in slavery to the Africans could
maintain the dignity of a Roman citizen. Whereupon, the
Carthaginians tortured him to death for the speech he had
made against them in the Senate. What kind of cruelty, then,
should we not endure in order to remain true to that City into
whose blessedness we are led by the truth of faith. Is anything
really 'Rendered to the Lord for all the things He hath ren-
dered us' 12 even when a man, for the sake of the true faith
which is owing to God, suffers the kind of treatment that
Regulus suffered for the sake of the good faith which he owed
his direst enemies?
Or, suppose a Christian walks the way of voluntary poverty,
which, in this pilgrimage of life, is the quickest way to the
home where God Himself is our true riches. How can he dare
to boast, once he has heard or read the story of Lucius
Valerius? 13 He died while he was consul, but he was so poor
that a collection had to be taken among the people to pay
for the funeral. Or, let a Christian hear or read the story of
Quintius Cincinnatus. 14 He owned no more than four acres
of land and he was ploughing them with his own hands when
he was taken off to be dictator which is, of course, more
than being a consul. But, once he had defeated the enemy
and gained immense glory, he returned to his former poverty.
Even though a Christian can be seduced by no earthly prom-
ise from citizenship in the Eternal City, he should learn not
to boast of what he has done. Fabricius, 15 who was loaded
down by the gifts of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, and was prom-
12 Ps. 115.12.
13 Actually, P. Valerius Publicola; cf. Livy 2.16.
14 This occurred during the Aequian War in 458 B.C.; cf. Livy 3.26-29.
15 C. Fabricius Luscinus; the story is told by Plutarch, 'Life of Pyrrhus' 20.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 285
ised a quarter of the kingdom if only he would secede from
Rome, preferred to remain there in poverty as a private
citizen. For the Romans, the Commonwealth meant the
common wealth, the people's wealth, the country's wealth.
When it was at the height of its opulence, Rome's citizens
were so poor in private that once, when a man who twice
had been consul was found to have ten pounds of silver hidden
in a vase, he was accused by the censor and expelled from
the Senate of those poor men. Even those were poor by whose
triumphs the public treasury was filled. Surely, Christians
have a better motive for holding all their wealth in common.
They have the ideal, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles
of dividing 'to all, according as everyone had need . . .;
neither did anyone say that aught of the things which he
possessed was his own, but all things were common unto
them.' 16 And they ought to understand that they have no
reason to talk boastfully about this. After all, they are doing
very little more to gain citizenship with the angels than the
pagans did to maintain their Roman greatness.
All such stories which are found in the Roman writers
would never have become known and never have been retold
so frequently had not the Roman Empire spread so far and
wide and developed with such astonishing success. What the
Romans wanted was an empire large and long enduring, fa-
mous for its citizens of shining virtues. They got what they
wanted. They received their reward. But, their example is
meant as a lesson for us. If we do not practice for the glorious
City of God the virtues which, in some sense, are like those
which they practiced for the sake of glory in the city on
earth, we ought to be ashamed; if we do practice them, we
16 Acts 2.45; 4.32.
286 SAINT AUGUSTINE
have no reason to be proud. For, as the Apostle says: 'the
sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.' 17 Whereas,
their life might well be compared with the human and tem-
poral glory they received.
Another lesson concerns those who put Christ to death. It
was revealed in the New Testament, what was not clear from
the Old, that the one and true God should be worshiped for
the sake of everlasting life and unending rewards and citizen-
ship in the Heavenly City and not for any earthly and tem-
poral returns. It is not surprising that the Jews fell a prey
to the glory of the Romans, that those who by wickedness
killed and rejected the Giver of the true glory of the Eternal
City should fall before those who sought, and secured at least
with virtues of a sort, their glory on earth.
Chapter 19
There is certainly a difference between the passion for hu-
man glory and the passion for domination. Although it is
easy to slip from immoderate greed of human glory into a
burning passion for domination, those who seek true glory
though merely in the mouths of men nevertheless are care-
ful not to offend men of sound judgment. For, in moral
matters, much that is good is rightly praised even by many
who do not practice what they praise, and it is by these
praiseworthy virtues that glory, rule, and domination are
sometimes sought. Sallust had this in mind when he spoke
of the virtuous man seeking by 'the right road.'
On the other hand, a man who is out to dominate and
rule, without regard for a good name and without any fear
17 Rom. 8.18.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 287
of displeasing men of sound judgment, will usually try to
get what he wants even at the price of open and flagrant
crimes. Thus, a man who is greedy for glory will seek for
it by the right road, or, if he uses 'wiles and guile/ will pre-
tend to be good even though he is not. Therefore, for a man
who is truly good, it is a great virtue to despise glory with
a contempt that is known to God, but hidden from the judg-
ment of men. For, anything he could do to make his con-
tempt of glory appear before the eyes of men might be taken
as a bid for more praise and so of more glory; then, there
would be nothing he could do to prove the suspicions un-
founded. But, a man who cares nothing for the judgments of
those who praise him cares nothing for the rash judgments
of those who suspect him although, if he is a good man, he
will not be indifferent to their salvation. Anyone whose vir-
tues are from the Spirit of God will be so in love with right-
eousness as to love his very enemies, and he will so love
those who hate him or slander him that he will want to
correct them and have them for his friends, if not on earth,
at least in Heaven. When people praise him, he will think
little of the praise, but he will not think little of their love
for him; and, out of fear of deceiving those who love him,
he will not mislead those who praise him. So, he will do the
best he can to have the praise referred to Him who is the
Source of all in man that can be rightly praised.
But, to despise glory out of greed for domination is to be
worse than a wild beast either in cruelty or in lust. Some
Romans were guilty of this. They kept their lust for power
even when they lost their love of honor. History proves that
there have been many such people. The first to reach the top-
most pinnacle of this vice was the Emperor Nero. He was
so lost in lust, that his conscience balked at nothing that a
288 SAINT AUGUSTINE
man could do. He was so cruel, that only those who knew
him could believe he had any tenderness in him.
Nevertheless, even to such men power to dominate is
given only by the providence of the supreme God and only
when He judges that human license calls for such lords. The
wisdom of God, speaking in the words of Revelation, makes
this clear: 'Through me kings reign and through me tyrants
dominate the earth.' 1 And, lest the line of Virgil, 'my pledge of
peace to hold the tyrant's hand,' 2 should lead us to take
'tyrant' in the old meaning of 'heroes' rather than in that of
very bad and wicked kings, it is openly said in another text
of Scripture that God 'maketh a man that is a hypocrite to
reign for the sins of the people.' 3
So far, I have been trying to show to the best of my ability
why the one true and just God aided the Romans, who were
good men, at least according to the standard of the earthly
city, to achieve the glory of a very great empire. But, the text
just cited suggests that there may be another and more hid-
den cause, in those differences in human merits which are
better known to God than to us. We have to remember that
those who are not citizens of the Eternal City (the City of
God, as it is called in our revealed writings 4 ) are better
citizens of the city on earth when they have even virtue moti-
vated by glory rather than no virtue at all although, of
course, all who have the true faith are agreed that, without
true religion or the right worship of the true God, no one
can have true virtue, and that no virtue motivated by human
glory can be true.
1 Prov. 8.15,16.
2 Aeneid 7.266.
3 Job. 34.30.
4 Ps. 45.5; 4
47.2; 86.3.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK V 299
Now, nothing could be better for the world than that, by
the mercy of God, those should be in power who join to
true faith and a good life the art of political government.
Such men attribute all their virtues, however many they may
have on earth, to the grace of God, who bestows them on
those who desire them and, believing in Him, pray for them.
And such men understand how far they fall short of the per-
fection of holiness such as exists in the society of the holy
angels, toward which they are striving. However much, then,
we praise and glorify that virtue -which is without true faith
and is motivated by human glory, it is not to be compared
even with the tiny beginnings of the holiness of the saints
for which we must look only to the grace and mercy of the
true God.
Chapter 20
Those philosophers who regard virtue as the ultimate
human good try to make those others feel ashamed of them-
selves who think highly enough of the virtues, but who sub-
ordinate them to physical pleasure, making pleasure an end
in itself and virtues merely a means to this end. They do this
by picturing Pleasure enthroned like a high-born queen, sur-
rounded by ministering virtues who watch her every nod,
ready to do whatever she bids them. Thus, she bids Prudence
to examine carefully in what way Pleasure may be both su-
preme and safe. She commands Justice to render whatever
services she can in the interest of friendships which are neces-
sary for bodily comfort, and to avoid doing wrong, lest
Pleasure might be jeopardized by the breaking of laws. She
bids Fortitude keep her mistress, Pleasure, very much in
mind, so that, when the body suffers some affliction, short of
death, the memory of former pleasures may mitigate the
290 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pangs of present pain. She orders Temperance to take just
so much of food or of other pleasant things that health may
not be endangered by any excess, or Pleasure (which, for
the Epicureans, is mainly a matter of bodily health) be seri-
ously checked.
Thus, the virtues with all the glory of their dignity are
made to minister to Pleasure, like the servants of an imperious
but ill-famed mistress. The Stoics are right when they say
that no picture could be more ugly and ignominious and diffi-
cult for good people to look at than this. But, I do not see
how the picture becomes much more beautiful if we imagine
the virtues ministering to human glory. For, if Glory is not
exactly a lovely lady, she has a certain vanity and inanity
about her. Certainly, it ill becomes the gravity and solidity of
the virtues to be her servants; so that, apart from pleasing men
and serving their vain glory, Prudence should make no pro-
vision, Justice should share nothing, Fortitude tolerate nothing,
Temperance moderate nothing. Ugly as this picture is, it
fits those self-complacent and seeming philosophers who, in
the guise of despising glory, pay no heed to what others think.
Their virtue, if they have any, is just as much a slave to glory,
though in a different way. For what is the self-complacent
man but a slave to his own self-praise.
It is different with the man who believes in, hopes in,
loves, and truly worships God. He gives more attention to
the defects in which he takes no pleasure than to whatever
virtues he may have and which are not so much pleasing to
him as to the truth. And whatever he finds that is pleasing he
attributes solely to the mercy of Him whom he fears to dis-
please, thanking God meanwhile for the defects which have
been corrected and praying for the correction of the others.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 291
Chapter 21
The conclusion from all this is that the power to give a
people a kingdom or empire belongs only to the same true
God who gives the Kingdom of Heaven with its happiness
only to those who believe in Him, while He gives the earthly
city to both believers and unbelievers alike, according to His
Will which can never be unjust. This much of what I have
said so far God wanted to be clear to us. However, it would
be too much for me and beyond my powers to discuss men's
hidden merits and to measure in an open balance those
which have been rewarded by the establishment of kingdoms.
This much I know. The one true God, who never permits
the human race to be without the working of His wisdom and
His power, granted to the Roman people an empire, when
He willed it and as large as He willed it. It was the same God
who gave kingdoms to the Assyrians and even to the Persians
by whom, according to their Scriptures, only two gods are
worshiped, one good and one evil. So, too, to the Hebrew
people, of whom I have already said enough concerning
their exclusive worship of none but the one true God and also
concerning the period of their rule.
This is the God who gave corn to the Persians without re-
gard to their worshiping the goddess of corn, Segetia. He
gave other gifts of lands to peoples who gave no worship to
all those gods whom the Romans assigned, sometimes singly
and sometimes in groups, to the care of each particular
thing. He gave the Romans their empire without regard to
the worship of all those gods that seemed to them the con-
dition of their conquests.
It was this God, too, who gave power to men, to Marius
and Caesar, to Augustus and Nero, to the Vespasians, father
292 SAINT AUGUSTINE
and son, who were such kindly emperors, and also to Domi-
tian who was so cruel; and, not to mention all the others, to
Constantine the Christian and to Julian the Apostate the
man whose marvelous gifts were poisoned by his lust for
power. Julian fell a victim to a silly and sacrilegious occultism.
He put his trust in vain oracles and, relying on them for
victory, he once burned the ships transporting his supplies.
On another occasion, he let rash ardor get the better of him.
He paid the price of recklessness by his death in enemy coun-
try, and his army was left in such straits that its only hope
to escape was in contradiction of the prophecy of the god,
Terminus, which I mentioned above 1 by changing the fron-
tiers of the Roman Empire. The fact was that the god Termi-
nus, who defied Jupiter, yielded to necessity.
All such things the one true God rules and governs accord-
ing to His will. And, though His reasons may be hidden, they
have never been unjust.
Chapter 22
The length of wars, whether short or long, depends, like
all other afflictions and consolations of mankind, on the justice
and mercy of Divine Will. The war against the pirates and
the Third Punic War were conducted, respectively, by Pom-
pey and Scipio with incredible speed and finished in the
shortest of time. 1 The war against the rebellious gladiators,
which cost the Romans the defeat of many generals and two
1 Cf. Book IV, Chs. 23, 29.
1 The war against the pirates in 57 B.C was ended in less than forty days.
The Third Punic War lasted from 149 to 146 B c., but came to a rapid
conclusion after Scipio took command in 147.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 293
consuls and the devastation and desolation of a large part of
Italy, ended after a short three years of carnage. 2
When the Piceni, Marsi and Peligni, who were Italians
and not aliens, revolted in the name of liberty after a long
and faithful submission to the Roman yoke, the Romans who
had now conquered many peoples and had wiped out Car-
thage found themselves in this Italian war. More than once
suffering defeat, Rome counted among her dead two consuls
and some noble Senators. However, not even this calamity
was too long drawn out. It came to an end in the fifth year. 1
It was different with the Second Punic War. It lasted for
eighteen years and the devastations and defeats of the republic
reduced the Roman forces almost to extinction. In two battles,
almost 70,000 Romans fell. 4 The First Punic War lasted no
less than twenty-three years; 5 the Mithridatic War, forty. 1
And let no one imagine that the more primitive Romans were
more vigorous in the rapid prosecution of their wars. In the
good old days, so famous for all kinds of valor, the Samnite
War 7 lasted nearly fifty years, and during it the Romans were
once so worsted that they were made to pass under the yoke.
However, they violated the peace treaty which they had ac-
cepted, because it was not for the sake of justice that they
2 The Third Servile War (73-71 BC), started by Spartacus, was ended
by Pompey.
3 The Social War, begun in 90 B c., was ended in 88 The two consuli,
P. Rutilms Lupus and L. Porcius Cato, were killed in 90 and 8&
respectively.
4 The war lasted from 218 to 202 B c. At the Battle of Trasimene Lake
(217) , 15,000 Romans were lost; at the Battle of Cannae (216), accord-
ing to Livy (2249), 45,000 were lost.
5 264-241 B.C.
6 St. Augustine is here following Orosius (322) , but the usual dates for
the three Mithridatic Wars are: 88-84; 83-81; 74-64 B c.
7 Another following of Orosius; actually, the dates of the first three Sam-
nite Wars were: 343-341; 326-304; 298-290 B.C.. A final short Samnite
War was decided in 272.
294 SAINT AUGUSTINE
loved glory, but rather, it seems, justice for the sake of glory.
I have recalled these facts because some who are ignorant
of history, or at least, pretend to be ignorant pounce on our
religion the very moment they notice that a war lasts a little
longer in the Christian era. If there were no Christianity, they
claim, and if only the gods were worshiped in the ancient
way, then the Roman valor which used to end wars so
quickly with the help of Mars and Bellona would end this
war, too. Let these people recall when they have read what
I have written how protracted were the wars of the pagan
Romans, how varied in their outcome, how tragic the defeats.
Let them remember that the whole earth, like a stormy sea,
is always beaten by the storm of such calamities. Let them
tell the truth even when it hurts, and stop injuring themselves
by insensate obloquies against God, and injuring others by
playing on their ignorance.
Chapter 23
These men, who should be rejoicing with gratitude over
a very recent marvel of the mercy of God, are doing every-
thing they can to bury the fact in oblivion. Were I to keep
silence I should be as ungrateful as they are.
The facts are these. Radagaisus, King of the Goths, had an
immense and ferocious army. He was already on the outskirts
of the city, ready for a sudden attack on the Romans. 1 Yet,
in a single day, so quickly was he conquered that not one
Roman was wounded, let alone killed, while more than
100,000 of his men were strewn about the ground and he
himself was captured and very properly put to death.
Suppose a man as irreligious as Radagaisus had entered
1 A.D. 406.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 295
Rome with his pagan troops, whom would he have spared?
What respect would he have shown for the graves of the mar-
tyrs? Would he have spared any man out of fear of God?
Would any blood have remained unshed, any modesty have
been left unmolested? And what a shout the pagans would
have raised to honor their gods, and how they would have
boasted that Radagaisus had shown such power and been vic-
torious because he had offered daily sacrifice and prayers to
the gods whose worship the Christian religion had forbidden
in Rome.
While he was approaching the place where, by the omni-
potence of God, he was conquered, his fame spread far and
wide. I was at Carthage at the time and I was told that the
pagans believed and boasted and were spreading the word
that Radagaisus, befriended, defended and helped by the
gods to whom he was said to offer daily sacrifice, could never
be overcome by men who refused to offer sacrifices to the
Roman gods and forbade them to be offered by others.
And, now, for this great mercy of God, the puzzled pagans
offer no thanks. First, God decided to punish with a Bar-
barian invasion sins that were deserving of a worse visitation.
Then, He tempered His indignation with His mercy, and
allowed Radagaisus to be miraculously defeated. He did not
want weak minds to be turned by any glory given to the
demons whose aid had been invoked. But, a little later, He
allowed Rome to be taken by barbarians who had such
reverence for Christianity that, counter to all previous cus-
toms of war, they spared all who took sanctuary in the holy
places. At the same time, these barbarians were so hostile
to the demons and the rites of pagan sacrifices on which Rada-
gaisus had relied that, in the name of Christianity, they waged
a fiercer war on these gods than on living men.
296 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Thus it is that the true Lord and Governor of the world
has been merciful even while punishing the Romans. He has
shown by the marvelous victory over the worshipers of demons
that pagan sacrifices have no value for temporal life. His
purpose was to save the half-Christians those who are
Christians not by inflexible convictions but by cautious pru-
dence from deserting the true religion and to help them
persevere in faithful expectation of Eternal Life.
Chaper 24
When we say that some of the Christian emperors are
blest, we do not mean they are happy because they reigned
many years; or because, when they died in peace, their sons
reigned in their steads; or because they conquered the enemies
of the republic; or because they were warned in time to put
down the rebellions of seditious citizens. Such rewards and
consolations in this troubled life have been rightly bestowed
even on those who have worshiped pagan gods and who did
not belong, like Christians, to the Kingdom of God. The
reason for this is God's mercy. He does not want those who
believe in Him to look upon such favors as God's highest
gifts.
We call those Christian emperors happy who govern with
justice, who are not puffed up by the tongues of flatterers or
the services of sychophants, but remember that they are men.
We call them happy when they think of sovereignty as a
ministry of God and use it for the spread of true religion ; when
they fear and love and worship God; when they are in love
with the Kingdom in which they need fear no fellow sharers;
when they are slow to punish, quick to forgive; when they
punish, not out of private revenge, but only when forced by
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 297
the order and security of the republic, and when they pardon,
not to encourage impunity, but with the hope of reform ; when
they temper with mercy and generosity the inevitable harsh-
ness of their decrees.
We call those happy who are all the more disciplined in
their lusts just because they are freer to indulge them; who
prefer to curb the waywardness of their own passions rather
than to rule the peoples of the world, and who do this not out
of vain glory but out of love for everlasting bliss ; men, finally,
who, for their sins, do not fail to offer to the true God the
sacrifice of humility, repentance, and prayer.
We say of such Christian emperors that they are, in this
life, happy in their hope, but destined to be happy in reality
when that day shall come for which we live in hope.
Chapter 25
God who is good did not wish that men who believed in
Him and adored Him for the sake of eternal life should think
that none but those who sought the aid of demons, who are
powerful in such matters, could attain to worldly greatness
or political dominion. For this reason, the Christian Emperor
Constantine, no suppliant of the demons but a worshiper of
the true God, was loaded with more earthly favors than any
man could dare to hope for. It was granted to him to found
a great city, daughter and companion of Rome and of her
empire, yet without a single temple or statue of the pagan
gods. His reign was long, 1 and alone, like another Augustus,
he ruled and defended the whole Roman world. In the plan-
ning and conducting of his wars he was most successful, and
1 A.D. 306-337.
298 SAINT AUGUSTINE
he never failed to defeat the usurpers who opposed him. Worn
out by sickness and his years, he died in a good old age and
left the succession to his sons.
On the other hand, God did not wish any emperor to be-
come a Christian merely to enjoy the good fortune of a
Constantine no one should become a Christian for any
motive but eternal life. And so, to Jovian He gave a shorter
reign than to Julian. 2 He allowed Gratian 3 to die by the sword
of a usurper though the death was far less tragic than that
of the great Pompey, a worshiper of the Roman gods. Pom-
pey failed to be revenged by Cato, whom he had left as his
heir to carry on the civil war; whereas Gratian little as
Christian souls look for such solace was revenged by Theo-
dosius whom he made co-regent, preferring, as he did, a
firm alliance to personal power, and preferring Theodosius
to his younger brother.
Chapter 26
Theodosius 1 was not only true to the fidelity he owed while
Gratian was alive, but, after his death, he received Gratian's
young brother Valentinian as a Christian welcomes an or-
phan and he protected him with fatherly affection. Valen-
tinian had been driven out by Maximus, the murderer of
Gratian. Had Theodosius been moved by lust for power
more than by love of doing good, he could easily have rid
himself of Valentinian after reducing him to poverty. Instead,
2 Julian, 361-363; Jovian, from June 363 to February 364.
3 Gratian was made co-emperor by his father Valentinian in 367. He was
full emperor from 375 to 383.
1 Theodosius became co-Augustus in 379; he reigned until 395.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK v 299
he not only maintained Valentinian in his imperial dignity,
but showered on him every sign of graciousness and favor.
In the meantime, Maximus' initial success had made him
an enemy to be feared. In this crisis, Theodosius was not
tempted by recourse to any illicit and sacrilegious oracles, but
preferred to consult the hermit John in the Egyptian desert, a
servant of God who was famous far and wide for his spirit
of prophecy. The answer came back that victory was certain.
As soon as Theodosius had disposed of the usurper Maxi-
mus, he restored the young Valentinian, whom he both
pitied and esteemed, to the part of the empire from which he
had been driven. Valentinian died shortly after naturally or
by some traitorous design and the usurper Eugenius had
himself illegally elected as his successor. Theodosius, assured
by another ^prophetic intimation, took up arms against the
immensely powerful army of this tyrant and, more by pray-
ers than battles, overcame him. Soldiers who took part in the
war have told me that they felt their weapons torn from their
hands. So fierce a wind blew from where Theodosius had his
forces that it not merely halted enemy javelins and arrows but
blew them back into their own faces. Hence, the poet Claudian
who was no friend of Christianity sang in praise of
Theodosius :
O Happy man, of whom your God is fond,
Your bugles call, and all the winds respond. 2
And so he conquered, as he believed he would and as had
been predicted. His first step was to demolish the statues of
Jupiter which had been set up in the Alps with rites and in-
2 De tertio consulatu Honorii Augusti, lines 96-98.
300 SAINT AUGUSTINE
cantations for his harm. Jove's lightnings, which were made
of gold, he gave with cheerful generosity to his couriers. To
cap the pleasant occasion, they jokingly replied that it was a
pleasure to be struck by lightning of that sort. The children
of his enemies (who had been killed, not by his orders, but
in the heat of battle) sought sanctuary in a church, although
they were not Christians. Theodosius, whose only desire was
that they should become Christians, treated them with Chris-
tian charity, allowed them to keep their property and titles,
and even added to them. After the victory, he allowed no one
to seek any private vengeance.
Unlike Cinna, Marius, Sulla, and others who fought civil
wars and kept up a battle of hate even after the heat of battle
was over, Theodosius always began his wars with reluctance,
and never ended them with rancor. For all his preoccupations
from the very start of his reign, he found time, by wise and
temperate laws, to help the Church, struggling with her
enemies, much as the heretic Valens, 3 by his indulgence to the
Arians, had done it grievous harm. He was happier, in fact,
to be a member of the Church than monarch of the world.
On the ground that even temporal prosperity is the gift of
the true God and not of pagan divinities, he ordered their
idols to be everywhere destroyed.
As for his religious humility, it was never more marvelously
revealed than in the case of the Thessalonians. 4 They had
committed a grave crime, but he promised pardon at the
petition of the bishop. However, under pressure from the
members of his retinue, he yielded to vengeance. Thereupon,
ecclesiastical authority compelled him to make reparation,
3 Emperor of the East, 364-378.
4 The classical account of the incident is in Gibbon, Decline and Fall,
Vol. Ill, Ch. 27.
CITY OF GOD: BOOK V 301
and the people who saw him, penitent and prostrate in all
his princely trappings, were now more inclined to sob and
intercede for him than, when he was angered, they had feared
his vengeance.
It was such good deeds and others like them, too many to
mention here, which Theodosius took with him when he left
behind the fleeting puff of all this human pomp and power.
Their reward is the everlasting bliss which is given by God
only to those who are truly devout. Other glories and good
things in this life God gives to the good and the evil alike
as He gives to all the sky and light and air, the earth and
fruits, the soul and body of man, his senses and mind and
life. And among God's temporal gifts is the greatness of this
or that empire which Providence dispenses as occasion calls.
There is another defense of the gods which, I see, must now
be answered. Confuted by the most cogent proofs and con-
vinced that no amount of false divinities can help us to obtain
those temporal goods which only fools can passionately de-
sire, our pagan friends try to claim that their gods are to be
worshiped, not for favors in this present life, but for favors
after death. As for those who want to worship shadows for
the sake of worldly satisfactions and childishly complain that
this is not permitted, I think they have been sufficiently refuted
in these first five books. As soon as I had published the first
three and they had gained a wide circulation, I was told that
a number of writers were preparing some kind of a rebuttal
of what I had written. Later, I was told that this was already
written, but that they were waiting for a time when it would
be less perilous to publish it. My advice to them is to stop
hoping for what cannot help them. It is easy, of course, for
anyone to imagine he has replied, simply because he was
unwilling to keep quiet.
302 SAINT AUGUSTINE
For, who is more talkative than a man who has nothing
to say? An empty head, if it will, can make more noise than
one that is full of truth. Only truth convinces. Let these men
consider carefully all that I have written. If they will do this
with an unprejudiced mind, they may come to see that their
brash garrulity, and worse, the quips of their miming and
mumming, have left my arguments unanswered. It may be
better for them to keep their fiddle-faddle to themselves and
to learn from the wise rather than be lauded by fools.
Perhaps they are not waiting for liberty to speak the truth,
but merely for a license to lie. I can only hope that theirs
will not be the lot of the man in Cicero who thought he was
happy because he was free to sin. 'O unhappy the man for
whom lust was lawful.' 5 Anyone who thinks that a license
to lie will make him happy will be far happier if he is silenced
by the law. But if, in the meantime, these men will put aside
their baseless boasting and, here and now, in the interest of
genuine debate, question any point they will, then in a friendly
discussion, fair, serious, and free, they will get all the answers
I am able to give them.
5 Cf. Tusculan Disputations 5.1935.
BOOK VI
Preface
|N THE FIVE preceding Books, I have, I hope, suffi-
ciently refuted those who think that many gods are
to be venerated and worshiped. Such people hold
that, in order to gain advantages for this mortal life and men's
temporal affairs, the gods are to be served with an adoration
which the Greeks call latreia and which is due to the true
God alone. Christian truth makes clear that these gods are
false, that they are useless idols, or unclean spirits, or danger-
ous demons, or, at best, mere creatures and not the Creator.
Of course, as everyone knows, neither my five Books nor
any five hundred books are sufficient to silence folly and
pertinacity. It is the glory of vain men never to yield to the
truth. Such vain glory is a deadly passion for those it domin-
ates. It is a disease that, in spite of every effort, is never cured
not because the doctor is inept, but because the patient is
incurable.
Those others, however, who reflect on what they read and
judge it with little or no obstinacy in their previous error, will
easily come to feel that, in the five Books which I have just
finished, I have said more, rather than less, than the question
in debate required. They will also agree that the ill will against
the Christian religion which is stirred up by people ignorant
of history and who blame on us the disasters of life and the
crumbling and collapse of civilization is without foundation.
It is not a conclusion of right thinking and reasoning, but
the evidence of reckless and malicious animosity. The facts
303
304 SAINT AUGUSTINE
arc clear, even though some of the scholars pretend not to
know them, or, yielding to irrational hate, deliberately en-
courage the bigotry.
Chapter 1
My next purpose, then, as I have already indicated, will be
the refutation and instruction of those who hold that the gods
of the pagans, which Christianity rejects, are to be worshiped,
not on account of this life, but with a view to life after death.
The starting point of this discussion will be the revealed truth
of the holy psalm: 'Blessed is the man whose trust is in the
name of the Lord; and who hath not had regard to vanities
and lying follies.' 1
In the din of all the lying inanities and insanities of men,
it is bearable enough to listen to the voice of those philosophers
who scorned the erroneous opinions of the populace. But,
the people themselves set up idols for their gods and then
invented all sorts of discreditable fictions about their im-
mortals, or else believed in fictions already current and mixed
these fictions with their sacred rites and ceremonies.
The philosophers were not always free to speak openly,
but in their academic discussions they hinted at their rejection
of popular superstitions. With such men, then, I find no
difficulty in debating this question: Whether it is better to
worship the one God who created all spiritual and corporal
realities and to worship Him with a view to life after death,
or to worship the many gods whom the best and greatest of
the philosophers felt to have been made and set in their lofty
positions by Him?
First, a word about the gods I mentioned in Book IV as
1 Ps. 395.
THE CITY OF GOD I BOOK VI 305
having some paltry and particular function assigned to them.
No philosopher, I am sure, would dream of discussing
whether such gods can give us immortal life. But, what of
those men, some of them extremely learned and acute, who
boast of having written useful books of instructions to help
people to know why each of the different gods is to be prayed
to, and what is to be asked of each, and how to avoid the
unbecoming absurdity of asking, like a clown on the stage, for
water from Bacchus or for wine from the Lymphae? Would
they take responsibility for a person who, when praying the
immortal gods and asking the Lymphae for wine and getting
the answer: 'We have only water, ask Bacchus for wine,'
should rightly say: If you have no wine, give me, at any rate,
your immortal life?
Just think of the monstrous absurdity of the Lymphae
answering with a laugh for, according to Virgil, 2 they are
given to laughter 'O man, do you think we have power to
give you life [vitam], when you have just been told that we
can't even give you wine [vitem]\ 9 (I am supposing that,
unlike the demons, they would not try to deceive him.) It is
indeed monstrous and absurd to ask or hope for eternal life
from gods like this. Here they are so assigned to such tiny
and fragmentary adjuncts of our sad and transient life that,
when you ask one of them for something in the department
of another, you get a situation as ridiculous as a scurrilous
embarassment on the stage.
If we have a right to laugh in the theatre where actors
know their parts, we should laugh still louder at ignorant
fools in real life. Yet, in regard to gods and goddesses set
up by various cities, learned men have discovered and listed
2 Eclogues 3.9: . . . sed faciles Nymphae risere.
306 SAINT AUGUSTINE
what each must be asked for, for example, what we should ask
of Bacchus, the Lymphae, Vulcan, and the rest, many of
whom but not all that I might have done I mentioned
in Book IV. Just think. If it is a mistake to ask wine of
Ceres, bread of Bacchus, water of Vulcan, fire from the
Lymphae, you can imagine how crazy we ought to consider
a man who should ask any of such gods for eternal life. To
confirm the point, recall what was said when we were dis-
cussing the question whether any of the gods or goddesses
could be thought powerful enough to confer on men an earthly
kingdom. It was shown, after an exhaustive discussion, that
certainly political societies could not be constituted by any
of the many, false divinities. Would it, then, not be as irre-
ligious as it would be ridiculous to think that any of the gods
could confer that membership in eternal society which is most
certainly incomparably better than membership in all the
earthly kingdoms put together?
We saw, too, that the reason why such gods can give no
kingdoms to men on earth was not the impropriety of beings
so great and lofty deigning to bother with anything so small
and lowly. In the light of human weakness, we have a right
to despise even the crumbling peaks of earthly power, yet
there is not one of those gods to whom a man would not be
ashamed of committing the giving and preserving of human
political societies. But if, as we have seen especially from the
last two Books, no one of that crowd of gods, little or lofty,
was fit to give a mortal society to mortal men, how much less
could they make immortal citizens out of mortal men.
Here is another argument that is valid for those who think
the gods are to be worshiped, not with a view to benefits in
this life, but only in the life after death. Certainly, then, the
gods are not to be worshiped for the sake of those separate
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 307
and particular things which are only by a stretch of im-
agination, and not in reality, in the power of this or that
particular god. Yet, this is the position of those who think the
worship of the gods is necessary for benefits in this present life.
I have done the best I could in the last five Books to dispose
of such people.
Let us suppose for a moment that those who worship the
goddess, Youth, were always in the flower of youth, while
those who neglected her always died young or suffered the
listlessness of old age; or, again, suppose that Fortuna Barbata
always prematurely clothed the cheeks of her worshipers with
a lovely beard, while her scorners were left beardless or had
nothing but down. At least we could say that, within their
limited sphere, these divinities could do what they were sup-
posed to do. But, it would follow that we should not ask
Juventas for eternal life since it was not her job to give us
even a beard; nor ask Fortuna Barbata for any good in the
life to come, since, in this life, she has no power to give us
the vigor of youth which goes with the growing of beards.
There is, then, no need to worship such gods for the sake
of the benefits they are supposed to confer. The fact is that
many who worship Juventas had nothing of the youthful
vigor of many who paid so much worship; and many who
have prayed to Fortuna Barbata had a shapeless beard or none
at all, and are the laughing stock of finely bearded men who
paid her no sort of service. No human intelligence is so dull
as to believe that a worship of such gods can bear any fruit
in eternity, when the worship with a view to temporal and
passing benefits and within the sphere of their competence
is seen to be silly and vain.
Such gods, then, cannot give us eternal life. Not even those
who wanted them to be worshiped by the ignorant populace
308 SAINT AUGUSTINE
dared to make such a claim. They were content to divide
up the occupations of earthly life, and, to keep all of their
gods busy, assigned to each god a particular job.
Chapter 2
No one has investigated the gods with more care than
Marcus Varro. No other scholar has discovered so much, no
one has given more care to the matter, no one has made
such acute distinctions, no one has written so diligently and
so much as he. His style may not be remarkable, but what
he has written is so replete with facts and ideas that in the
sphere of secular or liberal scholarship he may be called the
master of history as Cicero is the prince of style.
Cicero himself confirms what I say. In his Academic a he
speaks of his discussion with Marcus Varro as with a man
'who is easily the most brilliant of his age and, undoubtedly,
the most learned.' 1 He does not say 'elegant in style' or 'most
eloquent' because, in fact, Varro does not shine as a writer;
but he does say that he was 'brilliant' and in the Academic a,
where he treats of skepticism in philosophy, Cicero adds that
Varro was undoubtedly 'most learned.' In fact, in this in-
stance, Cicero was so certain as to exclude his habitual
skepticism. It is as though he forgot that he was a Skeptical
philosopher at least in regard to this one matter, even in a
defense of Skeptical philosophy. In his first book, in discussing
the literary works of Varro, Cicero has this to say: 'When
we had lost our way in our city, as though we were strangers,
your books showed us the way home. We finally learned who
and where we were. You left nothing untouched : the antiquity
of our country, the periods of its history, the rules of worship,
1 Ac ad. Post. Ill, proemium.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 309
the priestly laws, our domestic and public life, the topography
of our cities and the names, divisions, functions, and causes
of all things human and divine.'
The poet Terentian had this remarkable and exceptional
scholarship in mind when he wrote of Varro as 'a man of
universal knowledge.' 2 He had read so much that we marvel
he had time to write. He wrote so much that no one man,
you would think, could read it all. Now, this man, so bril-
liant and so learned, could not have set down things about
the gods more ridiculous, offensive, and scandalous, even if
he had set out as an opponent and critic of the so-called
religion about which he writes, and if he had taken the view
that it was not religion at all but merely superstition.
Yet, while Varro worshiped the gods and felt they should
be worshiped, his very work about them indicates his fear
about their survival. He was not so much afraid of foreign
invaders as of the devastation by his own people's indiffer-
ence, and it was to save the gods from this, he says, and to
keep them alive in the memory of good men that he wrote
his works. He was performing a more useful service, he felt,
than Metellus in saving the Vestal Palladium from the flames
and Aeneas in saving the gods from the ruins of Troy. Yet,
the fact is that he has set forth things for the whole world to
read which are abhorrent to philosophers and fools and are
of no service at all to true religion. It looks very much as
though, for all his acumen and learning, he had none of that
liberty of spirit which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and was,
in fact, a slave to legalism, and tradition; yet, below his super-
ficial commendation of. pagan religion, there is a hint of his
real convictions in some of his admissions.
2 Vir doctissimus undccumque Varro is line 2846 of Book IV of the De
metris of Terentianus Maurus, who lived in the third century.
310 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 3
Varro wrote forty-one books under the title Antiquities.
He divided his matter under two headings, human and divine,
devoting twenty-five books to the former and sixteen to the
latter. He followed the plan of devoting six books to each of
four subdivisions under the heading 'Things Human': Per-
sons, Places, Times, and Actions dealing in the first six with
persons, in the second six with places, and the third six with
times, in the fourth and last six, with actions. These four sixes
make twenty-four. At the beginning he placed one book by
itself, as a general introduction to the whole. In general, he
followed a similar plan in regard to divine things, as far as
the subject matter allowed.
Sacred actions are performed by persons in certain places
at definite times. And these are the four topics he treats,
giving three books to each. The first three deal with the per-
sons who perform the rites, the next three with places, the
third with times, the fourth with the rites. Here, too, he is
careful to make the distinctions: Who, Where, When and
What. The main topic he was expected to deal with was: To
whom. Hence, the last three deal with the gods; the five threes
making fifteen in all. To make up the total of sixteen which I
mentioned, he placed one book by itself at the beginning to
serve as a general introduction.
Thus, there were five main divisions. Immediately after the
introduction came the three books dealing with persons. These
were again subdivided, so that the first dealt with the pon-
tiffs, the next with augurs, the third with the Sacred College
of Fifteen. 1 Of the second three books dealing with places,
1 The custodians and interpreters of the Sibylline books, instituted by
Tarquinius Superbus and brought up to the number fifteen by Sulla.
THE CITY OF GOD! BOOK VI 311
the first was about shrines; the second, about temples; the
third, about sacred places. The next four dealt with time or
holy days. The first of these was concerned with festivals; the
next, with circus games; the third, with theatrical perfor-
mances. Of the fourth trio of books dealing with worship,
one concerned consecrations; the next, private worship; the
last, public rites.
At the end of this procession, so to speak, of religious ob-
servances come the gods themselves, to whom all the obser-
vances are directed. They are dealt with in three other books,
of which, the first concerned the known gods; the second,
the unknown gods; the third and last dealt with the select
major divinities.
Chapter 4
Now, in this whole series of volumes, so beautiful in the
skillful arrangement of matter, one will look in vain for any
mention of eternal life. Indeed, it would be illogical to hope
or to wish for any such mention. From what I have already
said and, still more from what remains to be said, the reason
for this is obvious to anyone who is not blinded by his own
obstinacy. Everything here treated of is an invention either
of men or of demons not of 'good demons,' to use their
own expression, but, to speak plainly, of unclean spirits and
manifestly malign spirits. All of these foster the idea that the
human soul has so little reality that it is incapable of reach-
ing and finding rest in unchanging and eternal truth. These
malign spirits work secretly and with incredible hatred to
fill the minds of wicked people. Sometimes, they openly
work on people's senses and call in lying witnesses in their
favor.
Varro gives a reason for treating of human things first
312 SAINT AUGUSTINE
and of divine things later, namely, because cities came into
existence first and only later instituted religious rites, But, the
fact is that true religion owed its foundation to no city; it
was itself the foundation of a wholly celestial city. True re-
ligion is the revelation and teaching of the true God who is
the Giver of eternal life to those who worship him truly.
Varro's justification for treating first of human things and
secondly of divine, on the ground that divine worship was in-
stituted by men, is expressed as follows: 'As a painter comes
before the painting and the builder before the building, so do
cities come before the things which cities instituted.' He ad-
mits, however, that, if he had been writing a complete treatise
on the nature of the gods, he would have treated first of the
gods and then of men. He seems to imply either that he had
no intention of treating of all but only of some of the gods,
or that some, though not all, of the gods need not have
existed before men.
But, how then, explain that when, in his last three books,
he treats of known, unknown, and select gods he seems to
want to include all of the gods? What can he really mean
when he writes: 'If I were writing of the divine and human
natures in their totality, I should have first finished the treat-
ment of the gods before entering on a discussion of man'?
Is he writing of all, or of some, or of none of the gods? If of
all, then the treatment of gods certainly should come first;
if of some, there still is no reason why the treatment should
not come first. Is it a reproach to man that a few of the gods
should be preferred to the whole of humanity? And, even if
this is so in regard to the whole of humanity, is it too much of
a reproach that a part of the gods should be preferred to the
Romans?
His books dealing with human matters do not cover the
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 313
whole world, but only the city of Rome. These books, he says,
rightly came before the books dealing with divine matters,
for the reason, so he says, that the painter comes before the
painting and the builder before the building. His assumption
is always the same, that religion, like a picture or a building,
is the creation of men. We are left with the possibility that he
had in mind to write of none of the gods and, without wanting
to say this openly, made his intention clear enough to those
who read between the lines.
Certainly, when a man says 'not all,' he is usually under-
stood as meaning 'some (though, of course, he might be taken
to mean 'none' since 'none' is neither 'some' nor 'all' ) . Judg-
ing from what he says, if he had been writing of all of the
gods, he should have treated of them before treating of human
matters; even though he does not say so, truth demands that
he should have treated even of some of the gods not to
insist on all of them before treating of merely Roman mat-
ters. But, what he was dealing with came properly after the
discussion of Rome. The conclusion is that he was treating
of nothing divine at all.
He had no intention of putting human things before di-
vine things, but he refused to put fictions before facts. In
what he writes about human matters, he follows the historians
who deal with facts. In what he writes about what he calls
'divine' matters, what does he do but give us feelings about
fancies? Here, we have the subtle significance of what he did,
both in writing about the 'gods' in second place and in giving
an explanation of why he did it.
If he had given no explanation, it might have been possible
to find some other defense of his arrangement. However, in
the very explanation which Varro gives, he left no other inter-
pretation open. He made it clear, not that he was preferring
314 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the nature of man to the nature of god, but that he was treat-
ing of men before treating of human institutions. Thus, he
confesses that his books dealing with 'divine' matters were
based, not on facts concerning the nature of god, but on
fancy which is another name for error. As I pointed out in
Book IV, he made this clear in another place, where he says
he would have written according to the rule of nature if he
himself had founded a new city, but that, since he was deal-
ing with an old city, he could do nothing but follow the tra-
dition he found there.
Chapter 5
What are we to think of his division of theology, or the
systematic treatment of the divine, into three kinds, of which
the first is called mythical, the second physical, and the third
political? In Latin, we should call the first (if the word were
in use) 'fabular'; but, let us call it fabulous, since the Greek
mythos is the same as the Latin fabula. We may call the
second 'natural,' for that word is in common use. The third
was given the Latin name 'political' by Varro himself. His
own explanation runs as follows: 'What they call "mythical"
is what is especially in use among the poets; "physical" the-
ology is used by the philosophers; and "political" by ordinary
citizens. In the first of these theologies are found many fictions
unworthy of the dignity and nature of immortal beings. For,
in this kind of theology one divinity [Minerva] was born
from another's head, a second [Bacchus] from a thigh, a
third [Pegasus] from drops of blood; some gods [e.g., Mer-
cury] were thieves, others [e.g., Jupiter] adulterers, and still
others [e.g., Apollo] slaves of men, and in general deeds are
attributed to gods which are not merely human but abnormal.'
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 315
Here he could speak boldly and with impunity and he
did so without a shadow of ambiguity of the wrong done to
divinity by lying fables. He was talking of 'fabulous' theology,
not of natural or political theology, and he felt free to attack
it. But, listen to what he says of the second kind of theology.
It is the kind, he says, 'about which the philosophers have
left many books discussing such questions as: Who are the
gods? Where are they to be found? Of what kind and char-
acter are they? When did they begin? Are they eternal? Do
they originate in fire (as Heraclitus thought), or from num-
bers (according to Pythagoras), or from atoms (as Epicurus
said)? There is much else all of which is more tolerable to
listen to inside a classroom than out in the streets.'
He found nothing to blame in this theology of the philoso-
phers the genus physicon as they call it save that he men-
tions the controversies which have made the philosophers
the fathers of many dissident sects. He wants the people in
the street to have none of this theology. He locks it behind
the walls of the schoolrooms. Yet, he did not remove from
the man in the street the filthy fancies of the poets!
Oh! how pious are the ears of the people and, among
them, the Roman people! They are too sensitive to listen to
what philosophers have to say about the immortal gods, but
they listen, and listen gladly, to what poets fancy (because
this is counter to the dignity and nature of immortal beings)
or to what the actors perform (because on the stage, the gods
are not merely men but cads.) And what is worse, to believe
the poets and players, such things not merely please, but
placate, the gods !
'Very well,' someone will say, but let us hear how Varro
explains political theology. We want to separate, as Varro
himself did, fabulous and natural theology the genus mythi-
316 SAINT AUGUSTINE
con and the genus physicon from political theology which
is now in question.' Well, I can see why we should separate
the fabulous for the simple reason that it is false, filthy, and
unfit for discussion. But, why should we separate the natural
from the political? Would that not be to admit that the poli-
tical itself is in need of correction. If a thing is natural, what
can be wrong with it, and why should we exclude it? And, if
what we call political is not natural, what can make it worth
our discussion?
It was, in fact, Varro's own reason for putting this discus-
sion of human things before the discussion of divine things
that, in what he called 'divine' things, he was following, not
nature, but human conventions. Let us take a look at his
'political theology.' 'There is,' he says, 'a third kind, which
the people, and particularly the priests, in the cities ought to
know and practice. It belongs to this theology to explain
what gods should be worshiped in public and by what rites
and sacrifices each one should do this.' What follows is note-
worthy. 'The first kind of theology is suitable for the theatre;
the second, for the world; the third, for the city.' It is easy
to see to what kind he gives the palm. Obviously, to the second,
the theology of the philosopher, as he himself calls it. When
he says this belongs to the world, he is relating it to that
which, in the Stoic view, is the highest of realities. The other
two theologies, the first and third, those of the theatre and
the city, he does not distinguish, but rather lumps together.
It does not at once follow that what belongs to a city can
belong to the world, although cities are part of the world.
For, it can happen that in a city, by reason of false opinions,
things can be believed or worshiped which have no real ex-
istence either in the world or outside of it. But the theatre and
city go together. Whoever saw a theatre except in a city? It
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 317
was the city that started the theatre, and its only purpose was
the representation of plays on the stage. But, what are such
representations apart from the gods? This brings us back
to the beings which are described with such skill in Varro's
books.
Chapter 6
Marcus Varro, you may be 'the most brilliant' man of your
age and 'undoubtedly the most learned.' Still, you are a man,
not God. You have not even been raised by the Spirit of God
to see truly and to tell freely the nature of the divine. Never-
theless, you see clearly enough to separate what is divine from
the silly imaginings of men. Yet, you are afraid to denounce
popular opinions which are false, and official traditions which
are shams, even though you know in your heart that they are
repugnant to what is divine and even to such divinity as our
poor human intelligence discerns in the elements of the world.
This is clear from your own constant references to these opin-
ions and from the tone of all the writings of your friends.
Your human gifts, however remarkable, do not help you
here. In straits like these, human learning, however broad
and deep, is of no avail. Your heart is with the God of nature,
but your head bows where the state wills. You pour out re-
venge by openly attacking the gods of mythology but, willy-
nilly, what you spill falls on the state divinities, too. You say
that the mythical and political gods are at home on the stage
and in the cities, while the natural gods are at home in the
world. But, your point is that the world was made by God, but
theatres and cities by men, and that the same gods who are
adored in the temples are derided on the stage, and the same
gods to whom sacrifice is offered have plays written in their
honor.
318 SAINT AUGUSTINE
It would have been more like a gentleman and a scholar
to have divided the gods into those which are natural and
those which were introduced by men, and to say of these
latter that the account given by the poets differs from that of
the priests, but that both accounts are so close in the fellow-
ship of falsehood as to delight the demons whose only battle
is with the teaching of truth.
I shall discuss 'natural' theology later; omitting it for the
moment, I merely ask: Is anyone willing to ask or hope for
eternal life from the mythical gods on the stage or the civic
gods in the comic shows?
God forbid may the true god save men from so gross and
insane a sacrilege ! Just imagine asking eternal life from gods
who are pleased and placated by plays which rehearse their
own sins. I should think that no one is so irrational and so
irreligious as to dance on the edge of such madness. No,
neither by mythical nor by political theology does anyone ob-
tain eternal life. The former sows filthy fancies about the gods;
the latter reaps by keeping them alive. The one spreads lies,
and the other gathers them up; the one belittles divinity with
imaginary sins and the other represents this wickedness and
calls it public worship; the one puts into song the unmention-
able imaginings bf men and the other consecrates such things
for the festivals of the gods; the one sings sins and crimes
and the other loves them; whatever the one discovers or in-
vents the other approves and enjoys.
Both theologies are a disgrace and both should be con-
demned, but, while the theatrical theology merely teaches
turpitude in public, the popular theology wears it like a jewel.
Imagine looking for eternal life in places where our brief and
passing life is so polluted ! If the company of wicked men can
so poison our life, once they have won a way into our hearts
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 319
and minds, what should we say of fellowship with devils who
are worshiped by their own wickedness? The truer the wicked-
ness, the worse for the devils; and, the more it is slanderous,
the worse for our worship.
I know that some who read what I am writing and are
ignorant of things as they are will imagine that only those
things in the celebration of such gods are shocking, ridiculous,
and unworthy of the divine majesty which are sung by poets
and acted on the stage, while the worship of the priests, unlike
that of the actors, is pure and free from impropriety. If this
were so, no one would ever have thought that dirty plays
should be used to honor the gods, and still less would the gods
themselves have ordered them to be played. The fact is that
no one is ashamed to worship the gods by such plays in the
theatres, because the very same things take place in the
temples.
The conclusion is that when Varro tried to distinguish
political theology from the mythical and natural, he merely
meant that it was something fashioned out of the other two
rather than a third, distinct, and separate thing. It was a say-
ing of his that what the poets write is too low for the people
to follow and that what the philosophers think is too high for
the people to pry into. 'Although they are different, much
has been borrowed from both and put to the account of the
people. Hence,' he says, 'I shall describe what is common to
both along with what is proper to political theology although
this should rely more on the alliance of the philosophers than
on that of the poets.' Is there, then, no alliance with the poets?
The fact is that in another place he says that, in regard to the
genealogies of the gods, the people lean more to the poets than
to the philosophers. In the one place he is talking of what
ought to be; in the other, of what actually is. He makes the
320 SAINT AUGUSTINE
point that philosophers write for our instructions, while poets
write for our amusement. He implies that the people ought
not to follow the poets when they write about the crimes of
the gods although they amuse both the people and the gods.
He insists that the poets write to amuse, not to instruct. They
write such things as the gods like and the people like to look
at.
Chapter 7
The poetical theology of the stage and the shows, full as it
is of license and lewdness, is taken up into that which is
political; and the whole of a theology which people of judg-
ment reproach and reject is reckoned as a part of a theology
which should be cherished and adhered to. When I say a part,
I do not mean, as I have partly proved, an incongruous part,
foreign to the whole body and merely tagged on and ill-
connected; I mean a part, like a member of a body, congru-
ously and harmoniously incorporated.
Take, for example, the statues, the shapes, ages, sex, and
general characteristics of the gods. Both the poets and the
pontiffs have the same bearded Jupiter, the same beardless
Mercury. Both the players and the priests have given the same
abnormal pudenda to Priapus. He is one and the same
whether he makes people laugh as he struts across the stage
or whether he is being prayed to in the temple enclosure. Sat-
urn is old and Apollo young, and the masks of the actors are
not unlike the statues in the sanctuaries. Forculus, who is in
charge of doors, and Limentinus, who is in charge of thresh-
olds, are male; Cardea, who presides over hinges and is
placed between them, is feminine. Are not such points which
the poets thought unfit to put into poems found in the books
dealing with divinities? Does the Diana of the theatre wear
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 321
arms, while in the temples she is a simple girl? Or does the
stage Apollo alone play the lyre, while the Delphic Apollo re-
frains from that art? But all this is decent enough in compari-
son with more shameful things. What conception of Jupiter
did they have when they set up a statue of his nurse in the
Capitol?
Surely, all this agrees with Euhemerus, who declared that
all such gods were simply mortals 1 and Euhemerus was
more than a garrulous story-teller, he was a hard-working his-
torian. And, what shall we say of those who turned a college
of priests, the Epulones, into gods to sit with Jupiter like para-
sites at his table? What is this but to make a comedy out of
the cult of the gods? Certainly, if any comedian said that
Jupiter had invited parasites as his guests at table, it would
be taken as a joke. Yet, Varro said it; and he said it, not in
jest, but in praise of the gods. He wrote this, not in the books
about human things, but in the books on what is divine; and
there, not in connection with stage shows, but in an exposi-
tion of the laws of the Capitol. Still under the force of such
facts, he breaks down and confesses that, just as men made
gods in their own image, so they have believed that gods in-
dulge in human pleasures.
Of course, the evil spirits have been busy at worL It was
their business to fix false ideas in men's minds by the plays.
They had something to do with the story of the warden of
the temple of Hercules, who, finding himself with nothing to
do and in a holiday mood, took to playing dice. With one hand
he would shoot for Hercules and with the other for himself,
with the understanding that if he won he would take enough
of the temple funds to pay for a dinner for himself and a lady
1 In his HierA anagrapht, written about 300 B.C.
322 SAINT AUGUSTINE
friend, and, if Hercules won, he would pay from his own
pocket to provide the same pleasure for the god. Then, having
beaten himself with the hand of Hercules, he payed his debt
by providing the meal and, for a girl friend, the lovely Laren-
tina. The girl fell asleep in the temple and dreamed that
Hercules, after his pleasure, told her that when she left the
temple she would find in the first young man she met a re-
ward which she should regard as being paid by Hercules
himself. She left, and the first young man she met was the
wealthy Tarutius. He fell in love with her, lived with her a
long time, and when he died made her his heir. Not to be out-
done in generosity, and imagining that this would please the
gods, she bequeathed to the Roman people the immense
wealth which had come to her as a divine reward. When she
died, the will was found. And they say that for what she had
done she was awarded divine honors.
Now, if all this had been a poet's dream or a scene from
a play, it would no doubt have been reckoned a part of myth-
ical theology and regarded as unworthy of a place in the
theology of the people. Unfortunately, we have it on the
authority of Varro himself that this scandalous story belongs
to the people, not to the poets; to the guardians of the cults,
not to the comedians; to the temples, not to the theatres; to
political, not to mythical, theology. No wonder the actors
have such success in representing with their theatrical art the
turpitude of the gods as it really is, and no wonder the priests
find it impossible, by their rites and ceremonies, to reveal a
virtue in the gods which is non-existent.
Think of the rites of Juno, celebrated in her beloved island
of Samos where she was given in marriage to Jupiter; of the
rites of Ceres, and the search for Proserpina after she had been
carried off by Pluto; of the rites of Venus and the lamentations
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 323
over her lover Adonis, the lovely youth who is killed by the
fang of a boar; of the rites of Cybele, the mother of the gods,
in which she falls in love with the lovely Attis and then, mad
with jealousy, mutilates him, while a chorus of eunuchs, called
Galli, lament the calamity.
There is nothing on the stage more indecent than stories
like these. Why, then, does anyone try to separate such fables
and fancies of the poets, as belonging to the theatre, from
that political theology which is said to belong to the state,
and, what is worse, on the pretense of separating what is in-
decent and dishonorable from what is proper and becoming.
If anything, we should be grateful to the comedians who have
had some regard for men's eyes in their shows and have not
revealed in all their nakedness things which are hidden behind
the walls of the temples.
And, if the things which are shown by day are so detestable,
can any good be said of what happens under the cover of
darkness? As for what they do in the dark with eunuchs and
perverts, let that remain on their own consciences. The men
themselves, miserably and criminally enervated and corrupted,
are present for all to see. Let them try, if they can, to persuade
anyone that such men minister to any holy purpose. Yet, it is
undeniable that they are numbered with those who live within
the sacred precincts. If we are ignorant of what is done, we
know by whom it is done. We know that on the stage, at least,
no one ever heard of a eunuch or pervert taking part even in
a chorus of harlots though, of course, shady characters do
play such parts, since no good man could do it with a clean
conscience. What, then, are we to think of the 'sacredness* of
sacred rites which employ such ministers as are too depraved
to be admitted to the indecencies on the stage.
324 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 8
All such stories are to be interpreted, so we are told, in
terms of physical or natural phenomena. That is beside the
point. We are here discussing the nature of God or theology,
not the nature of the world or physics. It is true that the true
God is by nature God and not merely God in virtue of human
opinion, but it does not follow that every nature is divine. Cer-
tainly, every man and beast, every tree and stone has a nature,
but not one of them is divine. If, when there is question of the
mysteries of the Mother of the gods, the sum and substance of
this 'natural' interpretation is that the earth is the 'mother
of the gods/ then what is the point of pursuing the matter;
why push the enquiry further?
This is the very best argument in favor of those who hold
that all of the gods are men. They are children of the earth,
in the sense that the earth is their mother. But, in genuine
theology, the earth is the work of God, not the mother of
God. In any case, however they interpret the mysteries in
terms of the phenomena of nature, it is certainly not according
to nature, but clean against it, for men to play the sexual role
of women. This crime, dishonor, and disease, which even
vicious men are ashamed to confess even under torture, is
openly admitted in the mysteries.
Let us suppose that the mysteries, which everyone admits
are more indecent than the dirtiest shows, can be explained
away by the excuse that they are mere symbols of natural
phenomena. What, then, is to prevent the myths of the poets
from being justified in the same way? The fact is that many
myths have been so explained. Take the most horrible and
unmentionable of all the myths, that of Saturn devouring his
children. Many interpret this to mean that Time which is
but another name for Saturn devours all that it brings forth;
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 325
or, as Varro puts it, the same Saturn is linked with seeds, 1
which go back to the earth from which they come. And so
on; and so with other myths.
This so-called mythical theology, along with all the inter-
pretations, is reprehended, rejected, and attacked both by
the natural theology of the philosophers and by the political
theology with which we are dealing and which is said to be
the theology of people in the cities. Mythical theology is
accused of inventing unbecoming stories about the gods and is
judged worthy of rejection. But, there is here a trick of the
sharp-witted scholars who launched the attack. Their idea
was that both the poetical and political systems were open to
attack; they had the courage to attack the one, but not the
other. So, they openly attacked the system of the poets, while
they merely exposed the political theology in a way to bring
out its similarity to the other. Not that they wanted the politi-
cal to be accepted in preference to the other, but rather that
both should be rejected together. They wanted the best minds
to despise the other systems and accept what they called
natural theology, without imposing any risk on those who were
afraid to attack the political theology openly. In reality, both
the political and the poetical systems are equally mythical and
equally political. Anyone who takes the trouble to study their
inanities and obscenities will find them equally fanciful; and
anyone who will notice that the comic scenes in use in the
festivals of the state gods and in the public worship of the
cities are borrowed from the theology of the poets will realize
that both systems are political.
1 ... quod pertineat Saturnus ad semina. Varro's own words (De lingua
latina 5.64) are: ab satu est dictus Saturnus. Saturn, the Sower, was
linked with the Greek God Kronos and so identified with Time (Greek,
chronos) .
326 SAINT AUGUSTINE
How, then, can the power of giving eternal life be attributed
to any of the gods whose images and mysteries are enough to
show that they are all one with the mythical gods which are
openly wicked. From all such indications as their shape, age,
sex, apparel, marriage, children, and the worship paid them,
it is clear that they were human beings who had rites and sol-
emnities instituted to honor something in their lives or death
the demons being delighted that. such errors should take
root and grow. Or, at any rate, it was unclean spirits who used
some such occasion to worm their way into the minds of men
in order to deceive them.
Chapter 9
To return, now, to a matter about which I have already
said a good deal, but by no means all the silly and minute
division of labor according to which each of the gods is to be
supplicated only in the field of his particular function. Does
not all this savor rather of the buffoonery of the stage than
of the majesty of God? Just imagine anyone hiring two nurses
for his child, one to do nothing but give it food, the other to
give it only drink just as the two goddesses were employed,
Educa for eating and Potina for drinking! Why, the whole
thing would be taken for a farce or a practical joke.
Bacchus is said to have been called Liber from 'liberation/
on the ground that men have to thank him for the release
that comes with seminal emission. Libera or Venus, as she
is thought to be, is supposed to do the same service for women
since she, too, they assure us, suffers emissions. It is to honor
Bacchus and Venus that male and female members are said
to be placed in the temples; and, as stimulants to lust, women
and wine are associated with Bacchus. Hence, the wild Bac-
chanalian orgies in which, as even Varro confesses, not
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 327
even the Bacchantes could do what they do unless they were
out of their mind.
These orgies were later abolished by the vote of a saner
Senate. It seems as though they learned at last what havoc
can be wrought in the minds of men when evil spirits are mis-
taken for gods. Certainly, nothing of the sort ever occurred
in the theatres, where there may have been inanity but not
insanity. 1 However, it is not far from insanity to have for gods
beings that can enjoy such inanity.
Varro makes a distinction between the religious and the
superstitious man. He says that the gods are feared by the
superstitious man, but by the religious man they are rever-
enced like parents, and not feared like enemies. He also claims
that all of the gods are so benevolent that they would rather
spare a wicked than harm an innocent man. Nevertheless, he
admits that, in order to prevent the god Silvanus coming at
night to molest a woman after her child has been born, three
gods are assigned to guard her, and that, as a symbol of the
divine custodians, three men go around to watch the entrances
of the house by night. They first strike the threshold with an
axe, then with a pestle, and finally sweep it with a brush, the
idea being that with such symbols of country life Silvanus
will be kept out: the axe being necessary in cutting down and
pruning trees, the pestle in the grinding of grain, and the
broom in making heaps of fruit. Three gods take their names
from these articles Intercidona from the cutting of the axe,
Pilumnus from the pestle and Deverra from the broom for
sweeping [verrere] and by these three gods new-born chil-
dren are saved from the power of Silvanus. It appears, there-
fore, as though the guardianship of the gods would not pre-
1 ... ludunt . . . furiunt.
328 SAINT AUGUSTINE
vail against the savagery of one evil god unless they were
three to one and unless they opposed the rough, tough, and
unkempt god of the woods with symbols of cultivation. Does
this appear as though the gods were harmless and peaceful?
If these are the guardian gods of cities, are they not more
ridiculous than the clowning gods on the stage?
When a boy and girl get married, the god Jugatinus God
help us! is at hand. But then the god Domiducus is needed
to lead the lady home, and Domitius to help her into the
house; and to keep her at home with her husband, the goddess
Manturna is thrown in. More could be added, but modesty
forbids. We may leave the rest to flesh and blood, veiled with
secrecy and shame.
Why do they fill the house with a crowd of gods even when
the friends have departed? Not that the thought of their
presence may be any help to modesty, but simply that the
girl, weak, puzzled and shy, may the more easily, with the
help of these gods, have her maidenhood taken from her.
There in the crowd of gods and goddesses are Virginiensis,
and father Subigus, and Mother Prema, and Pertunda, and
Venus, and Priapus. Is that kind of a task, then, really so
hard for a man that he needs to be helped by the gods? And,
if so, wouldn't one god or one goddess be enough? Wouldn't
Venus all by herself be enough? Doesn't Venus get her name
because it takes some violence to un- virgin a wife?
If men and women have any of that shame which, ap-
parently, is lacking in the gods, and if they believe that all
these gods and goddesses are with them and at work with
them, are not husband and wife so mortified that he becomes
less ready and she more reluctant for the union? But, if the
goddess Virginiensis is needed to remove the girdle, and the
god Subigus to place the wife in position, and the goddess
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 329
Prema to keep her from moving, what in the world has the
goddess Pertunda to do? Let her blush and get out; let the
husband have something to do. It would be highly improper
for anyone but him to perform the action suggested by Per-
tunda's name. 2 Well, at any rate, she is a goddess and not a
god. For, if Pertundus were the name and he was thought to
be a man, the husband would have more need to ask help
against him in defense of his wife, than to ask help against
Silvanus when the child was born. And what is to be said
of the presence of Priapus a male, and something more!
It was on his monstrous and unmentionable member that,
according to the very best and most pious tradition of pagan
matrons, every newly married bride was obliged to sit.
But let them go on, with all the subtlety they can, trying
to make distinctions between political and poetical theology,
between cities and theatres, temples and stages, the sancti-
ties of the priests and the songs of the poets, as though they
were distinguishing things decent from indecent, true from
false, important from trivial, serious from silly, desirable from
objectionable. I understand what they are up to. They know
perfectly well that theatrical and mythical theology lean on
that which is political, and that this is revealed in the poets'
songs as in a mirror. Yet, they dare not condemn the political
theology. While they are exposing it, they feel free to condemn
and demolish the image in the mirror, hoping that those who
know what they are up to will have a horror, not only of the
image, but of the face itself.
In the meantime, the gods themselves fall in love with the
picture of themselves which they see in the mirror. Thus, from
the two theologies, it is easy to see who and what they are.
2 Latin, pertundere, to perforate.
330 SAINT AUGUSTINE
They have compelled their worshipers with fearful threats:
first, to offer them the filth of the fabulous theology; second, to
parade them in civic processions; third, to regard them as
divinities. They could not have given a better proof that they
were nothing but unclean spirits. At the same time, they have
so integrated the lowly and reprobate theology of the stage
with the lofty and approved theology of the state that, filthy
and false and full of fictitious gods as this theological synthesis
is, one element is taken from the books of the priests and the
other from the songs of the poets.
Whether there are- other parts, too, is another question.
For the moment, I have sufficiently shown, I think, that both
the so-called political and poetical theologies to use the
distinction of Varro belong to one and the same theology
of the state. Both are equally indecent, absurd, unbecoming,
and false, and it would therefore, be folly for religious per-
sons to hope for eternal life from either the one or the other.
It must also be noted that Varro himself has composed a
catalogue of gods, beginning with Janus (who is linked with
human conception) and continuing with gods who corre-
spond with each stage of life up to decrepitude and death.
The list closes with the goddess Nenia, who is hailed with song
at old men's funerals. After this list, he has a second, showing
the gods who are in charge, not of man himself, but of human
belongings, such as food, clothing, and other necessities of
life. He assigns a function for each and names the favors for
which each should be asked. But, in all his carefully compiled
catalogue, he does not point out and name a single god who
is to be asked for the grace of eternal life which, of course,
is the sole purpose of being a Christian.
Surely, therefore, no one is so stupid as not to understand
Varro's real purpose in giving such a complete and careful
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 331
exposition of political theology and in showing its similarity
to one that is fictitious, unworthy, and immoral, at the same
time, broadly hinting that the latter was a part of the former.
Obviously, he wanted to make an opening in men's mind for
that theology of nature which, as he says, is the construction
of philosophers. His method was subtle. While he openly
attacks the theology of the poets, he does not dare attack that
of the priests. Yet, this exposition is an expos. 8 Thus, both
systems are rejected, and there is nothing left for men who can
think but to choose the theology of the philosophers. With the
help of the true God, I shall deal with this in its proper place.
Chapter 10
The freedom of speech which Varro lacked when he feared
to attack the theology of the state as openly as he attacked the
theology of the stage, though both were alike, was found, not
perfectly, but in part, in Annaeus Seneca. 1 We have some evi-
dence to show that he was at the height of his fame in the
days of the Apostles. However, he was more free with his pen
than in the way he behaved. In a book he wrote, An Attack
on Superstition, 2 he is much more full and forceful in his
criticism of the theology of the city and state than Varro is in
his criticism of that of mythology and the stage.
Thus, speaking of idols, he writes: 'Of the cheapest and
most lifeless matter they make, by a dedication, inviolable and
immortal divinities. They give them the outward appearance
of men, wild beasts, or fish; sometimes, with double sex and
multiple bodies. Monstrous shapes that would frighten us to
S . . . prodendo reprehensibilem ostendat.
1 Cf. Book V, Ch. 8.
2 De superstitions is now lost.
332 SAINT AUGUSTINE
death if we met them alive are called divinities.' A little later,
in his account of natural theology, he summarizes the views of
a number of philosophers and then offers this objection : 'Here,
someone asks: Am I to believe that the heaven and earth
are gods, and that some gods are above the moon and some
below it? Am I to put up with either Plato or the Peripatetic
Strato, 3 either with the view that God has no body or with
the view that God has no soul?' Seneca's answer is as follows:
'In the long run, whose dreams are nearest the truth, those of
Titus Tatius or those of Romulus or those of Tullus Hostilius?
Tatius found a goddess, Cloacina, in the sewers; Romulus,
gods in the rivers Picus and Tiberinus; Hostilius, in the most
disagreeable of men's emotions Pavor in the agitation of a
frightened soul, Pallor in a change of color just short of a
bodily sickness. Why not take these for divinities and find a
place for them in heaven?'
Seneca has something to say of the brutal and beastly rites.
And how he speaks his mind ! 'Here is a worshiper who un-
sexes himself; here is another slashing his arms with a knife.
What room is left for reverence, when love is shown like
this. Gods that want this kind of worship should be given none
at all. So great is the frenzy of mind disturbed and beside
itself that gods are worshiped in a way that not even the most
savage men of the most fabulous cruelty vent their rage. There
have been tyrants who have tortured people, but none who
ordered men to torture themselves. Men have been unsexed
to gratify royal lust, but no one has ever been ordered by any
tyrant to mutilate himself. Yet, in the temples of the gods,
men lacerate their own flesh; they offer up in sacrifice the
blood from their own wounds. Anyone who will take time off
3 Strato Physicus (i.e., the Scientist) became head of the Peripatetic
school of philosophy in 288 B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD ! BOOK VI 333
to see what they do and suffer will find things so contrary to
self-respect, so unbecoming an educated man, so unlike nor-
mal behavior, that he would undoubtedly think these men
mad if mad men were still in the minority; but, today,
with so many insane, we must call them normal.'
He gives an account of what takes place in the very Capi-
tol and with the utmost frankness condemns it. No one could
believe these things are done by anyone except in mockery
or madness. He makes great fun of the fact that in the Egyp-
tian mysteries there is much moaning when Osiris is lost and
great rejoicing when he is found, because, although the losing
and finding are purely imaginary, the grief and joy of the
people who have lost nothing and found nothing is perfectly
genuine. Then, he continues: 'It must be admitted that there
is a time fixed for this folly. Perhaps it is tolerable to go mad
once in the year. Just go as far as the Capitol. You will be
ashamed of the public exhibition of insanity and the fact that
it calls itself worship. One person is reading off names to a
god ; a second is telling Jupiter the time of the day. Here is a
man behaving like a policeman, and there a fellow who thinks
he is a trainer and is giving a rub-down to an athlete who
is not there.
'There are women who imagine they are hairdressers,
combing the hair of Juno and Minerva though they are
nowhere near the temple, let alone their statues. Near them
are others holding a mirror. Here is a group asking the gods
to stand bail for them; there, some lawyers offering their
briefs and showing them how to conduct their case. There
was once a star comedian, well-trained, but now old and
decrepit, who used to go through one of his parts every day
in the temple as though the gods would enjoy what men had
long been tired of. Every sort of craftsman is there lazily
334 SAINT AUGUSTINE
doing a job for the immortal gods.' A little later, he adds: 'It
can at least be said of them that, useless as their service may
be, what they are offering to the god is neither indecent nor
unbecoming. Certain old hags sit in the Capitol thinking that
Jove is in love with them, but they have nothing to fear from
the angry jealousy of Juno of which the poets have told us
so much.'
Varro had none of this outspokenness. At most, he was
bold enough to criticize the theology of the poets, but never
the state worship of which Seneca makes such mincemeat. Yet,
if the truth must be told, temples where these things are done
are worse than theatres where they are merely put on as shows.
Seneca took the stand, in regard to the mysteries of the state
religion, that it was the part of a wise man to go through with
them like an actor, but to give them no allegiance of the
heart. His words are: 'A wise man will observe all these
things, as being commanded by the law, not as being pleasing
to the gods.' He adds, a little later: 'Little good can be said
of the marriages of the gods, least of all when we make the
unnatural unions of brothers as sisters Bellona and Mars,
Vulcan and Venus, Neptune and Salacia. We leave a few of
them unmarried, as though no one had proposed to them
which does not surprise me when I think especially of such
widows as Populonia and Fulgora and the goddess Rumina.
This whole ignoble mass of divinities has been heaped to-
gether over a long period by unending superstition. We shall
worship them, but we shall never forget that the cult is a mere
convention, not a conviction.' 4 His idea was that neither the
laws nor custom had put anything into the state religion which
was either pleasing to the gods or based on truth.
4 ... magis ad morem quam ad rem pertinere.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VI 335
Nevertheless, the man whom philosophers thought to be
so outspoken behaved like the illustrious Senator of the people
of Rome that he was. He worshiped what he reprehended;
he did what he derided; he adored what he deplored. Phil-
osophy, I suppose, had taught him one great truth: that he
must never believe from a motive of superstition, although, to
obey the laws of the state and observe the conventions of
men, he might play the role of an actor never, indeed, in a
theatre but, at least, in a temple. The worst of it is that the lie
he acted was acted so well that the people believed that he
was not acting at all. For, a true actor would, at least, prefer
to amuse us by playing a part than bemuse us by playing a lie.
Chapter 11
Seneca included among the other reprehensible supersti-
tions of political theology the sacred institutions of the He-
brews, especially their Sabbaths, The Jews, he said, served
no good purpose by resting every seventh day, since they lost
nearly a seventh part of their whole lives and must neglect
many matters calling for immediate attention. His attitude
toward the Christians was neutral, although they were then
much hated by the Jews. He did not dare to praise them coun-
ter to the established tradition of his country, or, so it would
seem, to condemn them counter to his conscience.
He writes as follows in regard to the Hebrews: The ways
of those dreadful people have taken deeper and deeper root
and are spreading throughout the whole world. They have
imposed their customs on their conquerors.' There is a note
of wonder in these words, and, little as he knew it, a' movement
of grace inspired him to add, in plain words, what he
thought of the true character of those institutions. He says:
The Jewish people know the reason for all their rites, but
336 SAINT AUGUSTINE
most of our people merely go through the motions, without
knowing why.'
In regard to the tradition of the Jews, I must discuss, in a
later part of this work certain points which I have touched on
elsewhere, particularly in my debates with the Manichaeans:
Why and how far these rites were instituted by divine author-
ity, and, later, after the people of God had been given the
revelation of the mystery of eternal life, at the proper time
and by the same authority, why they were abrogated.
Chapter 12
We have now seen that there are three kinds of theology,
called by the Greeks mythical, physical, and political, and
which may be called in Latin fabulous, natural, and civil.
And we have seeh that there is no hope of eternal life to be
derived either from the fabulous system, which even the wor-
shipers of the many false gods openly criticize, or from the
civil, which includes the fabulous as one of its parts and which
is like, or even worse than, the part. If any reader feels that
enough has not been said on these points in the present Book,
let him read what has been written above, particularly in
Book IV on God as the Giver of happiness.
For, to whom if not to Felicity alone should men who
want eternal life dedicate themselves, if, indeed, Felicity were
divine. But, since happiness is not a goddess, but a gift of
God, to what God save the Giver of happiness should we
consecrate ourselves? For, we love with religious charity that
eternal life' where there is a true and complete beatitude. I
think, from what I have said so far, that no one can imagine
that the Giver of happiness is any of those gods who are wor-
shiped with such indecent rites, and are more indecently angry
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VI 337
when they are not so worshiped, and who thus show them-
selves to be nothing but unclean spirits.
Further, how could anyone give us eternal life who can-
not even make us happy? And, by eternal life I mean a life
where there is happiness without end. For, if a soul lives in
eternal pains, in which those unclean spirits are to be pun-
ished, that is eternal death rather than eternal life. There can
be no greater or worse death than where death itself never
dies. Since it is the nature of the soul that it cannot be with-
out some sort of life, having been created immortal, it is the
depth of death for it to be alienated from the life of God in
an eternity of pain. Of eternal life, that is to say, of life that is
happy without end, only He is the Giver who gives genuine
beatitude. This is something which, as has been shown, those
gods who are worshiped in accordance with the theology of
the state cannot give. And, therefore, it is useless to worship
them with a view to temporal and terrestrial benefits (as I
have shown in the previous five Books) and still more useless
to worship them with a view to eternal life which begins after
death (as I have shown in this Book with supporting argu-
ments from the others). However, old habits have deep roots,
and there may be some who feel I have said too little to con-
vince them to disavow and give up this way of worship. I must
commend to their attention a subsequent Book which, with
the help of God, I hope to join to this one.
BOOK VII
Preface
HAVE BEEN TRYING to the best of my power to root
out and get rid of those depraved and inveterate
opinions which, by a long-lasting error of mankind,
have taken such deep and tenacious roots in unenlightened
minds, and which are so opposed to religious truth. Only the
true God can effect such a purpose; I have been trying to
cooperate, in however small a degree, with Him and with His
grace. I know that many whose minds are keener will feel
that what I have written is more than enough for the purpose,
but I must ask them to bear with me a little longer and, for
the sake of others,- not to think superfluous what they do not
need themselves.
The issue at stake is very great. What I want to bring out
is that, although we depend on the true and truly holy Divinity
for such things as are needed to support our weakness in this
present life, nevertheless, we should not seek and worship God
for the sake of the passing cloud of this mortal life, but for
the sake of that happy life which cannot be other than ever-
lasting.
Chapter 1
I have tried to show that divinity is not to be found in the
theology which is called political and which is expounded in
339
340 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the sixteen volumes of Marcus Varro. I might have used the
word 'deity' instead of divinity, since the purists are no longer
disturbed by a word which seems a better translation of the
Greek thedtes. In any case, my point has been that it is im-
possible to reach the blessedness of eternal life by the worship
of such gods as have been offered to our worship by the insti-
tution of a state. If Book VI has failed to bring conviction in
this matter, I hope that, when the reader has finished the
present Book, he will feel that no objection has been left
unanswered.
A first objection. Perhaps it is possible for someone to
believe that, at least, the 'select and principal gods,' of which
I have said so little, but to which Varro devotes his entire
last volume, should be worshiped with a view to that happy
life which by its nature is eternal. I might be tempted to
answer this, perhaps more wittily than wisely, in the words
of Tertullian : 'If gods are selected like onions, some of them
must be bad.' 1 I prefer not to say this. I can see that, even
after a selection has been made, some are picked out from
those selected for functions of greater moment. For example,
in the army, after the recruits have been selected, some are
chosen for some special feat of arms. So, too, in the Church,
when there is an election, some are put in charge without
any reflection on the others, since all the faithful are properly
spoken of as 'elect.'
So, too, in building, we select corner stones without think-
ing any worse of the rest of the stones which are used in
other parts of the building. We select grapes for eating without
rejecting the others we set aside for making wine. There is
no need of illustrating further what is obvious. There is no
1 Quoting from memory a phrase in Tertullian's Ad nationes 2.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 341
reason, therefore, to blame either the writer or the worshipers
or the gods themselves just because out of many gods some
have been selected. But, the question to be asked is: Who are
the select gods, and for what purpose have they been selected?
Chapter 2
The following are the names of the select gods which
Varro describes within the compass of a single book: Janus,
Jupiter, Saturn, Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan,
Neptune, Sol, Orcus, Father Bacchus, Tellus, Ceres, Juno,
Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus, Vesta. Of these twenty, twelve
are males and eight are females.
The first question is whether these divinities have been
called 'select' because of their great functions in the universe,
or because they are better known to the people and, therefore,
given wider worship. If, as a fact, they have higher functions
in the running of the cosmos, we should not have to look for
them among that plebeian multitude of minor gods who are
deputed for tasks of no significance.
Yet, to begin with, just take Janus. At the moment of con-
ception, he is given the task of opening the door of the womb
for the seed to enter; and that is only the first of a long list
of tiny tasks assigned to minor divinities. So, too, Saturn is
on the scene, since Saturn has something to do with seed.
Bacchus (Liber) takes care of the sense of release [liberal]
after semination, and Libera (which is but another name for
Venus) does for the wife the same service that Liber does for
the husband. Yet, all of these are among the gods which are
called 'select.' Surely, Mena, the goddess in charge of men-
struation, can hardly be called noble in spite of being the
daughter of Jupiter. Juno, herself, who is the Queen of the
342 SAINT AUGUSTINE
select gods, is assigned by Varro (in his book on the select
gods) to this same field of the menstrual flux. Under the name
of Juno Lucina, she is set over this same task along with her
stepdaughter Mena.
In this generative process there are two highly obscure
divinities, Vitumnus and Sentinus. The one is assigned to give
life to the fetus; the other gives the first capacity for sensa-
tion. But, lowly as these gods are, their functions are surely
much more significant than those of many of the well-known,
select divinities. For, without life and feeling, in what sense
is that whole mass in the womb any better than the nastiest
kind of slime and dirt?
Chapter 3
How, then, can we explain that so many of the select gods
have been set to these insignificant functions in which they
are outclassed by the munificence of those two gods, unknown
to fame, 1 whose names are Vitumnus and Sentinus? The
select god Janus provides nothing but an entrance, a doorway
[janua], so to speak, for the seed; the select god Saturn pro-
vides the seed; the select god Liber provides the male emission
and Libera (or Ceres or Venus) the female ovulation; the
select Juno and not by herself but along with Mena, the
daughter of Jupiter provides the menstrual flow to help
the growth of the fetus. But, it is the unknown and lowly
Vitumnus who provides life, and the unknown and lowly
Sentinus who provides the power to feel the two endow-
ments which are as much higher than all those others as they
are lower than intelligence and reason.
Just as beings that can think and reason are higher than
1 St. Augustine uses the Virgilian phrase, quos fama obscura recondit
(Aeneid 5.320) .
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 343
those which, like beasts, merely live and feel without thinking
and reasoning, so beings endowed with life and sensation are
rightly ranked higher than those which are neither alive nor
have power to feel. They ought, therefore, to have ranked
the life-giving Vitumnus and the sense-conferring Sentinus
higher among the select gods than Janus the receiver or
Saturn the giver or sower [sator] of seed, and higher than
Liber and Libera, the movers or emitters of seed. The fact is
that no one would give a fig for such seed unless it were
meant to be given life and sensation. Yet these really 'select'
endowments are not conferred by select gods, but by gods
who are hardly known and who, considering the dignity of
their duties, are disregarded.
It is no answer to say that it is because Janus has power
over all beginnings whatsoever that even the beginning of
conception must be attributed to him; or that, because Saturn
has power over all seed, even human semination may not be
dissociated from his operations; or that Bacchus and Venus
are linked with human reproduction because they have power
over the sending forth of all seed; or that it is only because
Juno presides over all purifications and germinations that she
must play a part in menstrual flux and birth.
Those who give such an answer should be consistent. They
should admit that Vitumnus and Sentinus have power over
all beings whatsoever that have life and feeling! And, if
they make this admission, they must reflect on how lofty is the
place they are assigning to Vitumnus and Sentinus. For, to be
born of seed is of the earth, earthy; but to live and feel links
one with the gods in the stars. And, if anyone objects that
the only life and sensation ascribed to Vitumnus and Sentinus
are such as we find in flesh, it may be asked, in reply, why the
giving of life and feeling to flesh should not be attributed to
344 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the god who makes all things live and feel and who, as a part
of his universal task, linked this gift with birth? In that case,
why do we need Vitumnus and Sentinus at all?
But, it may be objected, we ought to suppose that these
fleshy tasks, being last and lowest in dignity, were committed
by the divinity who presides over all life and feeling to these
lesser gods, as to servants. In reply, I should ask: Are, then,
the select gods so lacking in servants that they, in turn,
could find no one to whom to commit these commissions?
Were they compelled, with all the dignity that got them
selected, to collaborate with lesser gods? Take Juno. She is
not only a select divinity, but a queen and the 'sister and
spouse 52 of Jupiter. Yet, she is just Iterduca to young people
and she does her work along with two very minor goddesses,
Abeona and Adeona.
Speaking of the gods of the young, there is the goddess
Mens, who is supposed to give children a good head. Is there
any greater human endowment than to have a good head?
Yet, Mens is not among the select divinities, whereas Juno is
select because Juno is Iterduca and Domiduca as though
either taking a trip [tier] or getting home [domus] is worth
the trouble if one does not have a good head. The selectors
of the select divinities never thought of selecting the goddess
of good heads. Mens was certainly a better choice than Mi-
nerva, who, in the divine division of tiny tasks, was given
charge of children's memory. Surely, having a good head is
better than having even a prodigious memory. A good head
and bad morals never go together, whereas a fair number of
villains have had marvelous memories, and they have been all
the worse for being unable to forget their wicked intentions.
2 Virgil's expression, et soror et coniunx (Aeneid 1.47) .
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VII 345
Yet, Minerva is among the select gods, while the goddess Mens
is hidden away under a heap of minor divinities. The same is
true of the goddess Virtue and the goddess Felicity. I have said
a word about both of these in Book IV. They had been reck-
oned as divine, but have been given no place among the
select gods, where place was found for Mars and Orcus, the
one a sower, the other a reaper, of death.
Thus, it is obvious that, in these minute functions which
have been distributed so meticulously to a multitude of gods,
even the select gods work somewhat like a Senate collab-
orating with ordinary citizens. We find, in fact, that many
gods who were never thought of for selection have the admin-
istration of a number of functions which are higher than
those assigned to the select gods. The conclusion would seem
to be that the select and major gods are given this name, not
because their functions in the world are more important, but
because they happened to become better known to the
people. This explains the remarks of Varro himself, that many
gods who were mothers and fathers, like parents on earth,
rank below their offspring in nobility.
Hence, a plausible reason why Felicity has no right to be
ranked as a select divinity is that such gods reached this
distinction by fortune and not by merit. What, then, of the
goddess Fortune? She should surely rank with, or even out-
rank, the others, for they say she is the goddess who distributes
her favors, not in virtue of any rational plan, but by pure and
simple accident. She should have the highest place among
the select gods, who are the best illustrations of her power,
since they were selected, not because of any virtue of their
own or any rational right to happiness, but purely by the
power of Fortune a power which her own worshipers reckon
as irrational.
346 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Even the brilliant writer Sallust had an eye on the gods
when he said: There is nothing that escapes the rule of
Fortune a force that brings by whim and not by worth
celebrity or obscurity.' 3 Certainly, there is no reason why Venus
should be kept in the light while Virtue is left in the shade.
The divinity of both Venus and Virtue has been admitted, yet
there is no comparison between their respective worth.
It cannot be argued that fame is the reward of popular
appeal and that Venus is more in demand than Virtus. If this
were so, why is Minerva famous and Pecunia, the goddess of
gold, left without a temple. Certainly, among men, more are
drawn by the greed for gold than by love of wisdom. Even
among the great craftsmen, very few fail to set a price on
what they produce, and, of course, the end is always worth
more than the means. If, then, the selection of the gods were
made by the thoughtless masses, why was not the goddess
of gold put above Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, since gold
was the end and craftsmanship only the means? On the other
hand, if the reckoning of rank is the work of the few wise
men, why is not Virtue preferred to Venus? Certainly, she
is much preferred by reason.
At any rate, as I have said already, Fortune should have
had a high place among the select gods. Those who esteem
her most think that luck plays an important part in every-
thing, and that Fortune confers fame or obscurity by her
whim rather than by obvious worth. This seems true even
for the gods. She made them famous or obscure as she liked,
which is to say, by luck. Her power was never more in evi-
dence than in the selection of the select gods. Perhaps, then,
to explain why Fortune herself was not selected, we must
3 Catilina 8.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VII 347
suppose that the only kind of luck that Fortune ever had was
bad luck ! In that case, she was her own worst enemy, making
others famous and missing fame herself.
Chapter 4
If only the select gods had been elected to honor and not to
infamy, they would have been congratulated and called blest
by all who appreciate fame and distinction. Actually, it was
the mass of lesser gods who escaped opprobrium, sheltered as
they were by their obscurity. We may laugh at them when
we think of them portioned out, by the figments of men's fan-
cies, into a multitude of minor functions, like the sub-sub-
farmers of taxes or the specialists in Silversmith Lane, where
a cup that could be made by a single worker passes through
the hands of a dozen. (This human division of labor was
devised for the sake of the workers. It was easier and quicker
for each to learn a single operation in the craft, whereas it
would be a slow and difficult task if each worker had to be-
come perfect in the whole work. ) I said we may laugh at the
'unselected' gods; on the other hand, there is hardly one of
them who has brought on himself a reputation of being dis-
reputable, while there is hardly a single one of the select gods
who has not been branded with the mark of public repro-
bation. While the lofty gods had to descend to the lowly
tasks of the lesser gods, the lowly gods never climbed to the
lofty infamy of the elect.
For the moment, I do not recall any particular shame at-
taching to the name of Janus. For all I know, he may have
lived in innocence, far removed from public crime and pri-
vate sin. He kindly offered hospitality to Saturn and shared
his kingdom with his exiled guest, each of them building a
city for himself, namely Janiculum and Saturnia. Unfortu-
348 SAINT AUGUSTINE
nately, those who insist on ugliness in the worship of the gods,
finding no turpitude in the life of Janus, put it into his statues.
They sometimes make him into a monstrosity with two faces,
sometimes with four faces. He is made to look like a pair of
twins. I sometimes wonder whether their idea was that, just
as the select gods made up in shamelessness what they lacked
in shamefacedness [frontem], so Janus should make up in
'sham-facedness' [frontosior] what he lacked in shameless-
ness.' 1
Chapter 5
We must now turn to those naturalist interpretations by
which the pagans seek to hide the disgrace of their low error
under the appearance of a high doctrine. Varro's first intima-
tion of these interpretations is when he says that the ancients
made images, insignia, and ornaments of the gods so that those
who looked at them in the light of a doctrine for initiates 1
could see with their mind and contemplate the soul of the
world and all its parts, that is to say, the true gods. When
pagans made images of the gods that looked like men their
idea was that the spirit of mortals which is in the human body
is very like the spirit which is immortal. It is much the same
as when vessels are set out to symbolize gods and when a
wine jug is placed in the temple of Bacchus to signify wine.
The container symbolizes what it contained. So, too, by means
of an image with a human form, the rational soul can be
symbolized, since by nature it is contained in a body as in a
1 ... quoniam plurimi di selecti erubescenda perpetrando amiserant
frontem, quanta tste innocenttor esset, tanto frontosior appareret. Frons
means both a forehead (and so, face) and shamefacedness.
1 Doctrinae mystcria.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VII 349
vessel, and they imply that god (or the gods) is of the same
nature as a rational soul. Such are the mysteries (or the doc-
trines of the initiates) which our learned Varro penetrated
and which he brings out into the light for the rest of men.
But, surely, we must appeal from the intelligence of Varro,
intoxicated by esotericism, to the sober prudence of his ordi-
nary insight, 2 as when he admits, first, that those who first
set up images of the gods for the people 'took away their fear
but added to their error,' 8 and, second, that the ancient
Romans had a purer reverence for the gods when they had no
images. These were his authorities for daring to speak against
the later Romans. For, likely enough, if the early Romans had
worshiped images, Varro would have been too afraid to men-
tion the feeling against setting up images true as that fact
was and his account of the dangerous and empty figments
of this esoteric doctrine would have been more lengthy and
lofty than ever.
Poor man ! His spirit so acute and cultivated failed to pierce
through the esoteric doctrines to the true God, by whom, and
not with whom, that spirit was made, and of whom it was a
creature, not a part. That God is not the soul of all things
but the maker of all souls; by His light alone the soul can be
happy, if it is not ungrateful for His grace.
The following pages reveal what those esoteric doctrines
are and what they are worth. In the meantime, this great
scholar professes to believe that the soul and the elements
of the universe are the true gods. Thus, it is clear that within
the scope of his theology, that is to say, the natural theology
to which he gives the palm, a place could be found for the
2 Scd, o homo acutissime, num in istis doctrinae mysteriis illam pruden-
tiam perdidisti, qua tibi sobrie visum est . . .
3 Cf. Book IV, Ch. 31.
350 SAINT AUGUSTINE
nature of the rational soul. Actually, he says very little about
natural theology in his last book dealing with the select gods;
but from it we shall be able to see whether it is possible, by
means of naturalist interpretations, to bring the state religion
into accord with natural theology. For, if that should be
possible, all theology will be natural. In that case, why all the
need to distinguish with such care political theology from
natural theology? If, however, the distinction is valid, not
even the natural theology, which he likes so much, is true,
for the reason that it reaches only as far as the soul, but not
as far as the true God, who made the soul. And, if natural
theology is not true, then the political is of still less value and
even falser, since it deals more with merely corpbreal natures.
This is clear from the interpretations which were so beauti-
fully and clearly elaborated. Some of these I must deal with
now.
Chapter 6
In his preface on natural theology, Varro says that he holds
that God is the soul of the universe or cosmos (to use the
Greek word) and that the cosmos itself is God. Yet, just as we
call a wise man wise in virtue of his soul, although he is com-
posed of both body and soul, so Varro calls the universe di-
vine in virtue of its soul, although the cosmos is made up of
a body and soul.
Here, Varro seems, in some way, to admit that there is one
God, but, in order to bring in many gods, he adds that the cos-
mos is divided into two parts the heavens and the earth and
that the heavens, in turn, are divided into two parts the
ether and the air. So, too, the earth is divided into two parts
water and land. The highest of all these parts is the ether;
the next is the air; the third is water; the lowest is the earth.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 351
All these four parts are permeated with souls, which are im-
mortal souls in the ether and the air, and are mortal souls
in water and land.
From the highest circle of the heavens down to the circle
of the moon, the planets, and stars are ethereal souls. These
celestial gods are objects, not merely of thought, but of our
eyes. Between the circle of the moon and that of the highest
cloud and the winds, the soul is aerial, and it can be seen
with the mind only, not with the eyes. These souls are called
heroes, lares, genii. This is a brief summary of his preface on
natural theology. It satisfied many other philosophers besides
Varro. All this I must discuss at some length as soon as, with
God's help, I shall have finished dealing with the select gods
which still are a part of political theology.
Chapter 7
Varro begins with Janus. Who is Janus? Janus is the cos-
mos. No one can complain of the brevity and clarity of that
answer. But, why are all beginnings said to belong to Janus
and all endings to another god whose name is Terminus? It
was to these two gods that the months of January and Febru-
ary were dedicated, when they were added to the original, ten,
beginning in March and ending in December. Hence, they
say, the festival Terminalia 1 is celebrated in February, which
gets its name from Februm, the sacred purification.
Are we to say, then, that the beginnings of things belong
to the universe or to Janus and that the endings do not belong
to him, so that a second god has to be put in charge of these?
Why, then, do we admit that all the things that are said to
begin in the cosmos end there also? And, if only half the work
1 Celebrated on February 23.
352 SAINT AUGUSTINE
is done by Janus, what is the use of giving him two faces on
his statues? Surely, they would have a neater interpretation
of the two-faced god if they called him both Janus and
Terminus and linked one of the faces with beginnings and
the other with endings. Anyone who has a work to do must
keep these both in view. Wherever there is motion, one must
look to the beginnings of the action if one is to foresee the end.
That is why an intention looking to the future must be con-
nected with a memory looking to the past. For, no one can
finish what he has forgotten that he began.
It is possible that they gave to Janus only the power
over beginnings because they held that the happy life began
in this world but could only be perfected beyond it. But, in
that case, they would have put Terminus before Janus and
would not have excluded him from the select gods. In any
case, even as things are, with the beginnings and endings of
purely temporal things being represented by these two gods,
more honor was due to Terminus. There is more joy whenever
a thing is finished ; whereas beginnings are fraught with worry
until the end is reached. When we make a beginning, it is the
ending which we seek, intend, expect, and long for. There is
never joy until a thing begun is ended.
Chapter 8
Varro offers us an interpretation of the double-faced image
of Janus. The reason, they say, for the two faces, one in front
and one behind, is that the shape of the mouth when fully
opened is round like the world. Curiously enough, the Greek
word for heaven (ourands) also means the roof of the mouth;
and a few of the Latin poets, Varro tells us, spoke of the ceiling
of the heavens as a 'palate'; and from the globe of the mouth
there is one way to the outside by way of the teeth and
another way to the inside by way of the throat. To such straits
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 353
has our universe been brought because of a Greek and
poetical meaning of 'palate !'
What has all that to do with the soul or with life ever-
lasting? Here is a god to be cherished because of our spittle,
for which, under the heaven of our palate, he has provided
a double door, one for spitting and one for swallowing
saliva! Could anything be more absurd? First of all, there
are not two doors opposite each other in the universe for
taking in and getting rid of anything. Further the universe is
not really like our mouth and throat. Yet, because of our
palate, Janus is a symbol of the universe! Then the pagans
call Janus double-faced and give him four faces, and interpret
these as the four quarters of the universe as though the cos-
mos looked out on something outside of it as Janus looks out
from his four faces !
Now, if Janus is the universe and this has four parts, then
the image of Janus with two faces is a falsification. They
answer that the image is all right because the whole world
is included when one says East and West. But we also cover
the whole world when we say North and South. Is anyone,
therefore, likely to call the world two-faced because they call
the four-faced Janus double-faced? They may have found
something in the mouth of a man to justify the interpretation
of the double-faced Janus as a symbol of the universe. But,
there is surely nothing in the world corresponding to four
doors (januae) for things to go in and go out unless, of
course, Neptune should turn up and hand us a fish which has
a couple of fins, one on the right and one on the left, in addi-
tion to the front and the back of the mouth !
The fact is that, for all these doors, no soul can escape
inanity of this sort unless it listens to the Truth which says:
'I am the door 51 [janua].
I John 10.9.
354 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 9
Now let us hear what the pagans understand by Jove or
Jupiter, as he is called. He is the god, they tell us, who has
power over the causes by which all things happen in the cos-
mos. A significant task, indeed, as Virgil implies in his famous
line, 'Happy the one who can know the causes of things.' 1
Why, then, is Janus put above Jove? The answer of the
brilliant and learned Varro is: 'Because Janus is in charge
of first things, while Jove has only the highest; therefore, Jove
is rightly called the king of all. First things are lower than the
highest, because although they come first in time, the highest
come first in dignity.'
This would be a good enough answer if we were distin-
guishing the beginnings and consummations of actions. Thus,
to start on a journey is the beginning of an action and to arrive
is the consummation. So, too, learning is the beginning of an
action and knowledge is the consummation. So in all things
the beginnings come first, but the ends are the highest. But,
this difference between' Janus and Jove has already been dis-
cussed. 2
However, the causes attributed to Jupiter are not actions,
but agents; it is impossible that the actions or the beginnings
of actions should come before their causes in time. What
makes is always before what is made. If, then, to Janus belong
the beginnings of actions or facts, these effects cannot be
prior to the efficient causes which are attributed to Jupiter.
The fact is that nothing happens or begins to happen which
is not preceded by an efficient cause. But, what are we to say
when we recall that this god, in whose power are all the causes
1 Georgics 2.490.
2 In Book III, Ch. 7.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 355
of created natures and of natural things, is called Jove by
the people, and is worshiped by them with plays filled with
contumely and criminal scandals? Surely, these people are
guilty of a worse sacrilege than if they denied that he was
a god at all. It would be far better if they had taken any other
being, however worthy of their indecent and criminal honors,
and substituted this figment to be blasphemed (much as Sat-
urn is supposed to have been fooled by having a stone substi-
tuted for Jove when he was about to be devoured by his
father). This would have been better than to have one and
the same god called thunderer and adulterer, world-ruler and
rake, controller of the causes of all natures and natural things
and yet lacking in self control.
Another question. If Janus is the cosmos, where among the
gods do they place Jupiter? Varro defines the true god as the
spirit of the cosmos and its parts; therefore, whatever is other
than this is not, in their mind, a true god. Perhaps, then, they
will say that Jupiter is the soul and Janus the body of the
universe, that is to say, the world that we can see. But, if they
put it this way, they will not be able to call Janus a god, since
god, even according to themselves, is the spirit of the cosmos
and its parts rather than its body. Varro tries to find a way out
by asserting that god is the world-spirit and, at the same time,
the world itself but only in the sense that, as a man who is
made up of body and soul is called wise in virtue of his soul,
so the cosmos is made up of spirit and matter but is called
god on account of the spirit. Hence, the body of the universe
by itself is not god, but either its soul or the body and soul
taken together so long as it is called god because of the soul
and not because of the body.
But, if we say that Janus is the cosmos and Janus is god,
must we not say that Jupiter must be a part of Janus if he
356 SAINT AUGUSTINE
is to be divine? Yet, the pagans prefer to attribute the uni-
verse to Jupiter, as we see in the Virgilian phrase, 'all things
are filled with Jove.' 8 Hence, for Jove to be a god, and still
more, King of the gods, they have to reckon him as the whole
universe, reigning over the other gods who are parts of the
universe. It is in reference to this conception that Varro, in
a treatise On the Worship of the Gods which is not included
in the Antiquities, discusses the following lines of Valerius
Soranus :
Jupiter, Lord over kings, over things, over gods,
Father and Mother of gods, he is one, he is all. 4
'Soranus was right,' says Varro, 'in speaking of Jupiter as
father and mother,' since Jupiter is the world and therefore
both puts forth and takes back all things that grow just as a
father emits seed and a mother receives them. Varro goes on
to comment: 'Soranus is also right in saying that one and
all were the same, since the world is one and all things are
contained in it.'
Chapter 10
Thus, Janus is the world; and Jupiter is the world; and
there is only one world. How, then, can Janus and Jupiter
be two distinct gods? Why do they have different temples,
altars, shrines, and images? Is it enough that the force of
3 Eclogues 3.60.
4 Juppiter omnipotent regum rerumque deumque
Progenitor genetrixque deum, deus unus et omnes.
Q. Valerius Soranus was a contemporary of Cicero, in the first century
B.C.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 357
beginnings is different from the force of causes, and that the
name of the former is Janus, and Jupiter the name of the
latter? Suppose one man has two faculties or two professions
in different fields, and that the work of each is different. Do
we, therefore, have two judges or two craftsmen?
The truth is that one and the same God has control over
both beginnings and causes, but we do not have to think Him
as two, merely because beginnings and causes are distinct
realities. If the pagans were right in their thinking, they should
say that Jupiter is as many different gods as he has names
given to him because of his many powers. What is true, of
course, is that the things from which the names are taken are
many and different, and I shall deal with some of them.
Chapter 11
The pagans have given Jupiter the surnames Victor, Un-
conquered, Helper, Driver, Establisher, Hundred-Footed
Wrestler, Sustainer, Fosterer, Nourisher, 1 and others too
numerous to mention. These names were given to one god for
a variety of causes and powers. They did not necessarily
imply that he was many gods because he had many titles,
for example, that he could conquer all and be conquered by
none, bringing help to the needy, impelling, establishing,
making secure, flooring opponents, holding up the world like
a beam, fostering, and breast-feeding all living things.
Of these functions some are significant, others not so, yet
the same god is said to perform them all. Of course, as com-
pared with the difference between sustaining the universe and
feeding animals at the breast, beginnings and causes are
1 Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor, Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis,
Tigillus, Almus, Ruminus.
358 SAINT AUGUSTINE
relatively alike, and it was because of these latter that the
pagans wanted one world to make two gods, Jupiter and
Janus. The former are altogether different in power and dig-
nity, yet the differences did not make two gods, since one and
the same Jupiter is called Tigillus as world-sustainer, and
Ruminus as breast-feeder.
I might be impertinent in suggesting that offering the breast
to suckling animals would better become Juno than Jove,
since it was a goddess, Rumina, who was supposed to help
Jupiter in this work. In any case, I suppose they could answer
that Juno herself is not, in reality, distinct from Jupiter, and
their proof would be the lines of Valerius Soranus already
cited:
Jupiter, Lord over kings, over things, over gods,
Father and Mother of gods . . .
But, why did he have to be called Ruminus, since, likely
enough, a careful investigation would show that he and the
goddess Rumina are one? It was rightly reckoned unworthy of
the divine majesty that, in one ear of corn, one god should
have care of the core and another of the husk. It is still more
unworthy that so lowly a function as feeding animals at the
breast should be entrusted to the care of two different divini-
ties, one being Jupiter, King of the cosmos, and the other
being not even his wife the completely unknown Rumina.
The only conclusion possible is that Jupiter is himself Rumina
or perhaps, Ruminus when he is suckling males and
Rumina when he is suckling females !
Normally, I should suppose that the pagans were opposed
to giving feminine names to Jupiter, but, then, there is the
expression in the line of verse, Tathcr and Mother of gods.'
Besides, I think I have read somewhere that, along with his
other surnames, he was called Pecunia [Money]. Now,
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK.VH 359
Pecunia is one of the minor divine functionaries about whom
I spoke in Book IV. So, it is up to the pagans to explain why
Jupiter should not be called both Pecunia and Pecunius
since both men and women have money just as he should
be called both Rumina and Ruminus.
Chapter 12
Now, just listen to the lovely account which the pagans
give of the name Pecunia ! Jupiter is called Pecunia, they tell
us, because all things belong to him. What an explanation
of a divine name ! The fact is that Pecunia would be not only
a vulgar but a slanderous name for anyone who possessed
everything. Compared to all the other things contained in
heaven and earth, what is money all of it, all that men
possess under the name of money? The fact is that nothing
but men's greed gave this name to Jupiter. Those who love
money wanted to think of themselves as loving, not just any
god, but the very King of the gods.
It would be a different matter if Jupiter had been called
Riches rather than Money. Riches and money are two differ-
ent things. Even wise and just and good men are said to be
'rich,' though they have little or no money at all. Such men
are rich in virtues; even when they are in need of material
necessities, their virtues make them feel they have sufficient.
On the other hand, greedy men are poor, always grasping for
more and always in need. They can never be other than indi-
gent in their abundance, however much money they own.
Even God can rightly be called 'rich' not, of course, in
money, but in omnipotence.
Men of money, it is true, are popularly called rich, but they
are inwardly as poor as they are greedy. So, too, men without
money are called poor, but inwardly they are as rich as they
360 SAINT AUGUSTINE
arc wise. For a wise man, then, what kind of theology is that
in which the 'King of the gods' gets one of his names from
that thing 'which no wise man covets.' It would be even
easier for them not to covet money, if only such wise men,
for the good of their souls, knew something of the doctrine
dealing with eternal life, namely, that the Ruler of the world
takes His name not from money but from wisdom, for the
love of wisdom takes away the stains of avarice and the love
of money.
Chapter 13
If I pursue this discussion of Jupiter, it is only because it
would seem that all the other gods are to be referred back to
him, and thus there is an end to the inanity of polytheism.
All these gods are one in him, sometimes being thought of as
his parts or powers and sometimes as giving their many names
to him, since the power of his spirit is diffused throughout
the cosmos and since there are many parts making up the
sum of our visible universe and the administrative tasks are
manifold. What, for example, is Saturn? Varro answers: 'One
of the principal gods, in whose hands is the power over all
sowing' [satio].
Now, recall his exposition of the verses of Valerius Soranus,
according to which Jupiter is the world, sending forth and
taking back all seeds. From this, it follows that the power over
all sowing is in the hands of Jupiter.
And what is Genius? 'The god,' says Varro, 'who is in
charge of and has power over all things that are born.' But,
that power, they believe, belongs to that world which was ad-
dressed in the words, 'Jupiter, Father and Mother of gods,'
In another place, Varro says that each one's genius is his
rational soul, and, as each person has his own genius, so is
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 361
the god the soul of the world. This comes to saying that the
world spirit is the genius of the universe. This is the genius
whose name is Jupiter. Not every genius is divine, for, if so,
every man's soul would be a god, since every soul is a genius.
Even the pagans refuse to admit so absurd a conclusion. All
that is left for them is to call that Genius, par excellence, god
who is the spirit of the universe and, therefore, Jupiter.
Chapter 14
The pagans found no way of referring Mercury and Mars
to any parts of the universe, or to any of the divine activities
which manifest themselves in the [four] elements. For this
reason, they put them in charge at least of human activities,
namely, speech and war. Because, if Mercury, for example,
had power over the speech of the gods, he would have power
over the King of the gods, whether Jupiter speaks at his
dictation or, at least, with his permission. The conclusion is
clearly absurd.
We must suppose, then, that Mercury has power only in
regard to the activity of human speech. In that case, it is hard
to believe that Jupiter, under his name of Ruminus, is willing
to descend to the lowly function of suckling not merely babies
but beasts, yet refuses the care of human speech for here is
our superiority to the animals. The conclusion is that Jupiter
and Mercury are one and the same.
It may be objected that Mercury is merely another name
for speech itself, as is proved from the meaning of the word.
Mercury, they argue, means medius currens, 'running be-
tween* and speech 'runs between' men. So, too, in Greek,
he is called Hermes, because hermeneia means speech or in-
terpretation (which is an aspect of speech). And Mercury is
in charge of merchandise on the premise that speech 'runs
362 SAINT AUGUSTINE
between' buyers and sellers. He has wings on his feet and head
to signify that speech flies like a bird through the air. Mer-
cury is called a messenger, because speech is the messenger
of thought. But, the conclusion here is that Mercury is not a
god at all, since, on their own confession, he is nothing but
speech. However, when the pagans make gods for themselves
out of things which are not even demons, when they pray to
unclean spirits, they are possessed by beings which are less
than gods, for they are demons.
So, too, in regard to Mars, the pagans could find no element
or part of the cosmos in which he could exercise any activity
of nature. So, they called him the god of war, which is a work
though an unwanted one of man. Thus, if only Felicity
would provide us with perpetual peace, Mars would have
nothing to do! Of course, Mars may be war itself as Mercury
is speech. Well, I do not have to prove that war is not a god;
but, would to God it were as easy to prove that the thing,
which, even falsely, is called a god were not a war.
Chapter 15
It may be that certain of the pagan gods are nothing but
the stars which bear their names. For example, there is one
star called Mercury and another called Mars. There is another
star, though, which they call Jupiter; yet, for them, Jupiter
is the whole universe. There is one they call Saturn; yet to
their god Saturn they attribute the not inconsiderable sub-
stance of all things that can grow. Then, there is the brightest
of all stars, which they call Venus; yet, for some of them,
Venus is also the moon. As to the bright star, Juno and Venus
have rival claims as they had for the golden apple. Some
say Lucifer belongs to Venus; some, to Juno and, as always,
Venus wins. In fact, practically no one can be found to op-
THE carry OF GOD: BOOK vn 363
pose the majority who attribute this star to Venus. But, the
best joke is when they admit that the star of Jupiter, the 'King
of the universe' is far outshone by the star of Venus. Surely,
Jupiter should have been brighter than the rest, in proportion
to his power. Their answer is that it merely seems this way,
because Jupiter, which seems less bright, is higher up and
farther removed from the earth.
Very well, but, if a higher place is the reward of greater
dignity, why is Saturn even higher than Jupiter? Or was it
that the echo of the fable which makes Jupiter king was too
faint to reach the stars? Or, perhaps, Saturn was allowed to
make up in the stars what he lost in Crete and on the Capitol !
Another question. Why did Janus get no star? It is of no
use to say: He is the universe and all stars are in him. Jupiter
is also the universe, yet he has his star. Maybe Janus made
the best of a bad job, making up by a multitude of faces on
earth for the one star he lost in the heavens!
Further, it is merely because of the stars that Mercury and
Mars are parts of the cosmos and so can be reckoned as gods;
for, certainly, speech and war are not parts of the universe,
but only human acts. But, Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Scorpion
and the rest of the signs of the zodiac, which are not merely
single stare but whole constellations, are said to be higher
up in heaven where the steadier motion keeps the stars from
wandering as the planets do. Why, then, do they have no
altars, no sacrifices, no temples in their honor? The pagans
never reckoned them as gods, not even as plebeian gods, so to
speak, let alone as select divinities.
Chapter 16
According to the pagan conception, Apollo was a seer and
a doctor, but, in order to assign him a part of the universe,
364 SAINT AUGUSTINE
they called him the Sun, as they called his sister Diana th<
Moon. Diana was likewise given charge of roads 1 and henc<
was considered a virgin, on the ground that a road [via]
produces nothing. Both Apollo and Diana have arrows tc
symbolize the fact that the rays of both the sun and moor
reach as far as the earth. Vulcan is the fire of the universe aj
Neptune is water. Dispater or Orcus is the earth or lowest part
of the universe. Bacchus and Ceres aje in charge of things that
grow, the former being assigned either to male seed or else
to the fluid element of seeds, the latter to the female or dry
element. Of course, this is all related to the universe or tc
Jupiter, who is called both 'Father and Mother 5 as being re-
sponsible for both the giving forth and getting back of all
seed. However, they also regard Ceres as the Great Mother,
which for them is the same as the earth; the earth, in turn,
is also Juno. Hence, to Juno are assigned secondary causes,
even though Jupiter is addressed as 'Father and Mother ol
the gods' because, in the pagan conception, he is the whole
universe.
Minerva was given charge of human intellectual disciplines,
but, when no star was available for her use, they called her the
ether or, sometimes, the moon. Vesta they also regarded as
one of the greatest of the goddesses in the belief that she,
too, was the earth. Her special charge was the milder kind
of fire which lightens the works of men, though not the violent
kind that belongs to Vulcan.
It would thus appear that the pagans took all of the select
divinities for the cosmos, seeing the whole in some and merely
parts in others. Thus, Jupiter is the whole universe, while
Genus, the Great Mother, Sol (or Apollo) and Luna (or
1 As such, her name was Trivia.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VII 365
Diana) were parts. Sometimes, many things were made into
one god; at other times, many gods made up one reality.
Jupiter is an example of one god being many things for he
is the whole cosmos or the sky alone, and he is considered and
called a single star. In the same way, Juno is the mistress of all
secondary causes, but she is also the air and the earth and
(when she takes away the honor from Venus) a star. So, too,
Minerva is the highest ether and also the moon, which is
reckoned as being in the lowest reaches of the ether.
However, they make several gods of a single thing. Thus,
both Janus and Jupiter are the cosmos; and Juno and the
Great Mother and Ceres are the earth.
Chapter 77
These are but a few specimens. But, all the rest of the
mythology, too, is more confounded than expounded 1 by the
interpretations. Wherever the currents of meandering opinion
carry the interpreters they swing back and forth and hither
and thither. Even Varro himself preferred to doubt about
everything than to affirm anything with certainty. Thus, hav-
ing finished the book about the known gods, which was the
first of his last three, he began the second, dealing with the
unknown gods, by saying: 'I hope I shall not be criticized
for setting forth, in this book, doubtful opinions about the
gods. Any of my readers who think they can, and should, make
definite decisions are at liberty to make them. For myself, I
could be more easily persuaded to cast doubt on what I de-
cided in the first book than to attempt, in the book I am writ-
ing, a consistent synthesis.' Thus, he casts doubt, not only on
1 ... non cxplicant, sed potius implicant.
366 SAINT AUGUSTINE
the book about the unknown gods, but on the book about the
ones that are certain.
In the third of these books which deals with the select gods,
after a preface discussing certain important aspects of natural
theology, he turns to the fanciful inanities and absurdities of
the so-called political theology. Having no certain truth to
guide him and hemmed in by the authority of tradition, he
wrote as follows: 'I am to speak in this book of the official
gods of the Roman people, gods for whom temples have been
dedicated and whose many ornaments have made them fa-
mous, but I shall take my cue from a remark of Xenophanes
of Colophon: 2 I shall set forth what seems, not what I can
prove, to be true. In a field where only God has knowledge,
man must be content with opinions.'
Writing, as he was, about human inventions, all he could
do was to make a hesitating promise to deal with matters
neither fully understood nor firmly believed, and subject to
the fluctuations of doubts and opinions. He could know that
the universe existed and was made up of the heavens and
the earth, that the heavens were bright with stars and the
earth rich in seeds, and so one; and he could believe with firm
conviction that some omnipotent and invisible force ruled
and arranged the immense structure of nature; but neither
science nor faith could assure him that Janus was the cos-
mos, or explain why Saturn should be the father of Jupiter
and yet have become his subject, and other things like that.
Chapter 18
In connection with all this mythology, the most satisfying
hypothesis is that the gods were men whom flattery turned
2 Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570-480 B.C.), founder of the Eleatic
school of philosophy. His elegies and satires reveal hi* skepticism and
pantheism.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 367
into gods by reason of their genius or character, their life or
luck. Soon, sacrifices and solemnities were started and, appeal-
ing as they did to men's minds which are no less avid for folly
than the spirits of demons, they spread far and wide. Finally
came the poets with their ornamental lies, and the devils did
the rest with their wily seduction.
Take the story of Saturn, the father, being dethroned by
Jupiter, his son. Varro interprets this by saying that the cause
(of which Jupiter is the symbol) comes before the seed (which
is associated with Saturn ) . It is much simpler if we suppose
that some wicked young prince, or one who was afraid that
his wicked father would kill him, wanted to be king and drove
his father from the throne. If Varro's story were true, Saturn
would never have preceded, nor would he have been the
father of, Jupiter. For, the cause always comes before the seed,
and could never be born of the seed. The fact is that even the
most acute men get into difficulties when they try to dress up
empty fables or even heroic deeds as symbols of natural phe-
nomena. Such efforts, unfortunately, are as foolish as the
fables.
Chapter 19
'Saturn, 9 says Varro, 'is said to have had the habit of de-
vouring his own offspring. This symbolizes the fact that seeds
return whence they spring. And, when we are told that a sod
was given to Saturn to eat instead of Jupiter, that means that
before the use of the plough was discovered, seed was buried
in the ground by hand.' The conclusion from this is that
Saturn should be called the soil, not the seed, for it is the
soil that may be said to devour what it brings forth when seeds
that spring from the soil return to be received into the ground.
What has covering the seed with soil by human hands got
368 SAINT AUGUSTINE
to do with Saturn getting a sod to devour instead of Jupiter?
Does some seed escape the fate of being devoured like the rest
because it is covered with a sod? From what Varro says, you
would think that the man who turns down the soil took away
the seed (much as they took away Jupiter when they gave
Saturn a sod), but, actually, the man who covered the seed
with soil had the seed all the more thoroughly devoured.
Besides, in this interpretation, Jupiter is the seed, not the
cause of the seed, as in the other account. But, everyone knows
to what lengths a man is driven when he begins to explain
folly and finds that nothing that is wise can be said. 'Saturn/
says Varro, 'has a sickle because of agriculture.' But, the
fact is that, when Saturn was king, there was no agriculture.
It is Varro himself who describes 'the good old days' of Saturn
by saying that the earliest men lived from the fruit that the
earth brought forth of its own accord. It would be a brighter
idea to say that, when Saturn lost the sceptre, they gave him a
sickle so that the idle king of the good old days might take
up active farming when his son succeeded him!
Varro's explanation of why boys are offered in sacrifice to
Saturn among the Carthaginians, as grown up men are among
the Celts, is that a human being is the best of all the things that
grow. But, what is the point of attempting any explanation of
so irrational a cruelty? It is better for us to notice and to keep
in mind that all such interpretations have no relevance what-
ever to the true God, the living, immaterial, immutable Being
from whom alone we can beg for a life that is everlastingly
happy. All such interpretations fall within the limits of what
is material, temporal, mutable, and mortal.
'According to the fable,' Varro tells us, 'Saturn castrated
his father the Sky; which means that Saturn and not Caelus
has power over all seed that is divine.' The reason if there
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VII 369
is any reason for this is that in heaven nothing is born of
seed. But, the real trouble is that, if Saturn is the son of Caelus,
he is the son of Jupiter since any number of the pagans insist
that Caelus is Jupiter. Thus do all such constructions, not
founded on truth, tumble and collapse by themselves. Varro
says that Saturn is called Chronos (which is Greek for a peri-
od of time), since no seed is productive without time.
Thus, everything said about Saturn goes back to seed, and
you would think that, with all his powers, he at least could
handle seed all by himself. Why, then, were those other gods
required for this purpose, especially Bacchus and Libera or
Ceres? Yet, as far as seed is concerned, Varro says so much
about these other gods that you would almost forget that he
said anything about Saturn.
Chapter 20
The best known of the rites of Ceres are the Eleusinian
mysteries, which were very highly regarded by the Athenians.
Of these, Varro offers no interpretation except in connection
with corn, which was a discovery of Ceres, and with Proser-
pina, who was robbed from Ceres by Orcus. Proserpina, he
says, is a symbol of fertility. The fable started from the fact
that, for lack of fertility, the earth remained for some time
sterile and, as it were, in mourning. It began to be told how
Orcus kidnaped the daughter of Ceres who was called Pros-
erpina (or fertility), and kept her in the lower world. The
name Proserpina is derived from the verb proserpere, to sprout
forth. Her loss was celebrated with public mourning; then,
when fertility returned to the earth, there was great public
rejoicing because Proserpina had been restord, and this re-
joicing took the form of a religious rite. Varro goes on to
370 SAINT AUGUSTINE
say that there are many traditions in the mysteries of Ceres
which relate simply to the introduction of crops.
Chapter 21
We now come to the rites of Bacchus. The pagans had put
Bacchus in charge of fluid seeds, including both the juices
of fruits, of which wine is the most important, and also the
seeds of animals. These rites were so disgusting that I should
be ashamed to describe them at the length they call for, were
it not that I might stir the proud but lazy conscience of the
pagans.
Of many things that I must pass over briefly there is the
celebration at the crossroads in Italy. This is so licentious,
Varro tells us, that in honor of Bacchus male pudenda are
openly worshiped with blatant indecency and without regard
for modesty or privacy. During the festival days, the pudenda
are paraded in a cart and with great honor, first at the cross-
roads in the country, and then they are carried into the city.
In the city of Lavinium, one whole month is given over
to the celebration of Bacchus, and until that member has been
finally carried across the forum and put in its repository, the
whole population indulges in the most disgusting language.
One of the most distinguished matrons of the place is made,
in public, to put a crown on the pudendum of Bacchus. Thus,
to make Bacchus propitious in the sowing season and to keep
all enchantment from the crops, a respectable lady is made
to do in public what not even a harlot would be allowed to
do in a theatre if women were present.
This is why Saturn alone was not considered sufficient to
take care of what is sown. The impure soul wants new occa-
sions for multiplying gods. Such a soul, separated from the
one true God by reason of its impurity, is prostituted to many
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VU 371
false gods by its lust for ever increasing impurity. It ends by
calling sacrilege sacred and giving itself over to violation and
pollution by a crowd of filthy demons.
Chapter 22
Neptune already had one wife, Salacia symbol of the
deeper water of the ocean. Why must he be given Venilia
also? There was no need in terms of religion. It is explained
only by the lust of the impure soul, craving for solicitations
from the demons. However, just listen to the interpretation
of the lofty pagan theology as it silences my reproach by its
reply. 'Venilia,' Varro tells us, 'is the wave as it breaks on the
shore; Salacia is the same water returning to the open sea
[salum]. 9 Why then, are there two goddesses, since the water
is the same whether it is coming or going?
Mad lust, foaming after many gods, is not unlike this water
churning on the shore. The tide that flows and ebbs is not
two, but one; the poor mortal soul that flows in life and ebbs
in death grasps at this meaningless occasion of calling in two
more demons to corrupt her further.
I challenge Varro himself, or any of his readers who think
they have learned something significant from the writings
of such learned men, to give me an interpretation of this
stuff in terms even of theory of the soul of the universe and
its parts, which they take to be true gods. I do not ask them
to explain it in terms of that eternal and immutable nature
which alone is the true God.
To have made the part of the world-spirit that permeates
the sea into their god Neptune is bad enough, but it is a mis-
take that is tolerable. But, how does it follow that the wave
breaking on the shore and then retreating into the deep sea
makes two parts of the cosmos or two parts of the world-
372 SAINT AUGUSTINE
spirit? Not even one of the pagans is fool enough to believe it.
What reason, then, was there for making two gods except this,
that the wisdom of the ancient pagans made provision, not
that the people should be ruled by a number of gods, but that
a number of the wicked spirits that rejoice in such inanity
and falsehood should take possession of people's souls. Again,
why, in this interpretation, did Salacia lose the lower reaches
of the ocean where she was subject to her husband? For, by
making her the receding water a moment ago they put her
on the surface. Is it possible that she flew into a rage over
Neptune's affair with Venilia, and drove him from the upper
part of the sea?
Chapter 23
The earth is a single whole, though it is seen to be filled
with innumerable living beings. On the other hand, why do
the pagans want to divinize what is merely a large body that,
among the elements, is the lowest part of the universe? Is the
reason the fertility of the earth? Then, why not rather make
into gods the men who make the earth more fertile by their
cultivation? They cultivate the earth, not by praying, but by
ploughing. The pagan answer is that the part of the world-
spirit that permeates the earth makes it divine.
Surely, there is in man a spirit whose existence is so evident
as never to be doubted. Yet, men are not reckoned as gods,
and, what is worse, they are led by a marvelous but miser-
able mistake to worship and adore beings who are not merely
not gods but are not as good as the men themselves. Curiously
enough, it is Varro himself who in this very book on the select
gods admits that there are three grades of animation to be
found throughout nature. The first kind of soul is in every
living part of the body, giving it power to live, but not to
perceive. In the human body, this grade of soul, Varro says,
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VU 373
penetrates into the bones, the nails, the hair. In much the
same way, trees in nature are fed, and grow and, in their own
way, live without sensation. The second kind of soul is that
in which there is sensation. Its force reaches to the eyes, cars,
nose, mouth, and the sense of touch. The third and highest
kind of soul is called spirit. Intelligence is its supreme endow-
ment. Among mortal creatures, only men possess it.
This part of men's spirit, Varro says, is called genius; this
part of the world-spirit is called god, and his bones and nails,
as it were, are the visible stones and soil which have no power
to feel. In this view, the sun and moon and stars which we
see and by which god perceives are his senses. God's spirit is
the ether and its force permeates the stars and makes them
gods and, through them, reaches the earth and makes it the
goddess Tellus. From the earth, in turn, it permeates the sea
and ocean and so makes the god Neptune.
Obviously, it would be better for Varro to get back to
political theology and away from this stuff he calls natural
theology. He left political theology for a rest. He was tired
of all its turning and twisting paths. All the same, I want him
to get back. I want to keep him in political theology while
I discuss it for a moment. I may discuss later whether the
earth and rocks which correspond to our bones and nails
are areas lacking in intelligence as they are in sensation. So,
too, I may raise the issue with philosophers of the fallacy of
arguing that, because bones and nails are in a man who has
intelligence, the bones and nails therefore have intelligence.
The point is that it is no more foolish for a man to argue that
the men are gods because men are in the cosmos than it is
foolish for a man to argue that bones and nails are men be-
cause they are in us who are men. But I want to get back to
Varro as a political theologian.
374 SAINT AUGUSTINE
It seems to me just possible that, although Varro gives the
impression of strutting about for the moment in the freedom
of natural theology, even in writing this book where he
thought he was concerned with natural theology and his
own reputation he nevertheless was still thinking in terms of
the state religion, and his main concern was to defend the
ancient Romans and other political communities from the
charge of worshiping Tellus and Neptune in vain.
My present objection is this. Since the earth is a single
whole, why does the part of the world-spirit inhabiting the
earth make it the one goddess whom Varro calls Tellus? For,
if it did so, what would happen to Orcus (or Dispater, as they
call him), the brother of Jupiter and Neptune? And where
would his wife Proserpina come in? And, by the way, ac-
cording to a variant opinion in the same book, she is not the
fertility, but the lower regions, of the earth.
Of course, they may answer that a part of the world-spirit,
in so far as it permeates the upper regions of the earth, makes
Dispater a god, and, in so far as it inhabits the lower regions,
also makes Proserpina a goddess. Very well, but in that case
what becomes of Tellus? The whole that she was supposed to
be is so divided into those two parts and gods that no one could
know where a third part could be found or who it would be.
The only way out is to say, I suppose, that the two of them
taken together, Orcus and Proserpina, make up the one god-
dess Tellus and that there are ,pot three, but either one or
two. All the same, there are three names and they are reckoned
three divinities and are worshiped as three with their respec-
tive altars, shrines, sacrifices, statues, and priests and, by
these means, their demons seduce and sully the protituted soul.
Another question I should like to have answered is this:
What part of the earth must a part of the world-spirit inhabit
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 375
in order to make a god of Tellumo? 'No special part/ answers
Varro, 'since one and the same earth has a double life: one
masculine and seed-producing; the other feminine, receptive
and nourishing. From the feminine force, the earth is called
Tellus; from the masculine, Tellumo.'
The only trouble is, as Varro himself points out, that the
priests offer sacrifice to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and Rusor,
the last two gods being thrown in to make four. About Tellus
and Tellumo, something has already been said. But why sacri-
fice to Altor? Varro's answer is: Because from the earth all
things that are born are nourished [aluntur]. And why to
Rusor? Because all things go back [rursus] from where they
came.
Chapter 24
Granted that the earth was entitled to four epithets because
of its fourfold power, it should not have been called four gods.
After all, there is only one Jupiter and one Juno, in spite of
their many surnames. In all such attributes there is implied a
single manifold force which is admitted to belong either to
one god or to one goddess. Plurality of epithets does not con-
stitute plurality of divinities. The fact is that, just as poor
victims of lust first seek a multitude of lovers and then tire
of them and repent, so the poor soul, cheapened and prosti-
tuted to unclean spirits, at first craves for a crowd of gods and
further corruption, but, at last, like a victim of lust, tires of
her lovers. At any rate, the soul of Varro seems to grow
ashamed of so many gods and is content to think of Tellus
as a single divinity. 'It is all one and the same Great Mother/
he admits, 'whether with her tambourine she symbolizes
the globe of the earth, or with the towers on her head she
stands for towns, or whether, when she is seated, she signi-
376 SAINT AUGUSTINE
fics that all else moves around the earth that is still. And when
the goddess is served by eunuchs, that means that those who
need seed must go to the earth, for in the earth all things are
found. The frantic gesticulations before her are meant to
teach the tillers of the soil that they must never rest, for there
is always work for them to do. The clatter of cymbals and the
clapping of hands and the tinkling of tools and so on signify
the rattling and rumbling of agricultural life. The cymbals
are bronze because bronze tools used to be employed in the
fields before iron was invented. The goddess is given a lion,
unchained and tame, to show that there is no bit of land so
remote and wild that cannot be cleared and cultivated.'
He goes on to add, by giving Mother Earth many names
and epithets, they took her for many gods. 'They think of
Tellus,' he says, 'as Ops, because soil is improved by toil
[opus]; as Mater, because she is the mother of many things;
as Magna, because her great product is food; as Proserpina,
because crops sprout out [proserpant] from the earth; as
Vesta, because the grass is her vesture. And so with other
goddesses; they are not unreasonably identified with the Great
Mother.' But, if she is one goddess and, in truth, she is not
even that why, nevertheless, all this going off into many
goddesses? There is no objection to one thing having all these
names, but there is no reason to make as many goddesses as
there are names.
However, Varro becomes weighed down by the authority
of tradition and he grows afraid of his own admission. So,
he goes on to add : There is no contradiction between what I
have said and the view of the ancients that these were dis-
tinct divinities.' No contradiction ! Surely, for one goddess to
have many names is altogether different from one goddess
being many goddesses! 'But,' replies Varro, 'it is possible for
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 377
a thing both to be one and to contain within itself many reali-
ties.' Of course ; I agree that in one man there are many reali-
ties. Docs it follow, therefore, that there are many men? So,
too, in one goddess there may be many realities. Does it follow
that there are many goddesses? But, why argue with people
who add or subtract, multiply or divide their gods by whim.
Such ways end in a maze. 1
Such, at any rate, are the boasted mysteries of Tellus and
the Magna Mater. They are supposed to add up to an account
of procreation and agriculture. But, the question is: Do the
symbols of this purpose, the drum and towers, the eunuchs
and gesticulations, the beating of cymbals and the taming of
lions offer to anyone the promise of eternal life? Is the real
reason for the eunuchs serving this Great Mother that they
may symbolize the fact that those in need of seed should serve
the earth? The simple fact is that it is their very service which
created their need of seed. Did they, by serving this goddess,
get the seed they needed, or did they, by serving her, lose the
seed they had? There is no place for interpretation here, only
for execration. 2
The point the interpretations miss is the way the malignant
spirits win. They asked this ruthless price, and they dared not
promise anything in return for this sacrifice. If the earth were
not a goddess, they might set their hands to work on it and
see that it would germinate; they would not set savage hands
upon themselves so that they could no longer seminate. If the
earth were not a goddess, it would become so fertile by others'
1 Verum, sicut volunt, dividant, conflent, multiplicent, replicent, impli*
cent. Cf. the non explicant, sed potius implicant in Chapter 17. Follow-
ing a suggestion of Welldon, it is possible to suggest St. Augustine is
assonance by the words Multiplication, duplication, and complication.
2 Hoc interpretari est an destestarfi
378 SAINT AUGUSTINE
hands that it would not force a man to become sterile by his
own.
And, what are we to say of the mysteries of Bacchus and
the respectable lady crowning the god's pudendum, with a
crowd looking on, including, perhaps, her blushing and per-
spiring husband if any shame is left in the world. And, what
of the marriage ceremony where the young bride is bidden to
sit on the monstrous member of Priapus? All one can say is
that such things are insignificant and negligible compared
with the brutal shamelessness and shameless brutality of the
demoniacal rites which make a mockery of both the sexes
without mortally wounding either. In the cult of Bacchus,
men are afraid of hexing a field, but, here, there is no fear
of unsexing a man. 3 It is bad enough to sully a maiden's
modesty, leaving her virginity and fecundity intact. It is quite
another thing so to unsex a man that he neither becomes a
woman nor remains a man.
Chapter 25
Varro makes no mention of Attis, and you will look in vain
for any interpretation of the man in memory of whose love
the eunuch is mutilated. However, the scholars and philoso-
phers of Greece have not been silent about so high and holy
a matter. The well-known philosopher Porphyry 1 says that
Attis is the symbol of flowers, because he is beautiful as the
face of the earth is beautiful in spring, and that he lost his
virility because the blossoms fall before the fruit is ripe. Thus,
it was not the man or the half-man called Attis, but merely
5 More assonance. Ibi fascinatio timetur agrorum, hie membrorum
amputatio non timetur.
I Porphyry (233-c. 904) , the Neoplatonic philosopher, whose work on
the allegorical theology of the Greeks and Egyptians is now lost.
THE carry or GOD: BOOK vn 379
his virility that was compared with flowers. The theory was
that his virilia fell like blossoms in the flower of his youth; the
fact is that they did not fall, nor were they merely plucked;
they were mangled. What is more, it was sterility and not fruit
that followed the losing of this flower. But, what does the man
himself and what was left of him mean? What does he sym-
bolize? What phenomenon of nature do the interpreters
mention? After all such futile efforts and the failure to find
any interpretation, the most that anyone can believe is that a
rumor became started about a purely human being who was
emasculated and that the rumor became written up. Our good
Varro turns his back on the whole thing, but, though he has
nothing to say, he knew the story.
Chapter 26
There is another matter which Varro omits and which I
have nowhere found in books. I mean the eunuchs consecrated
to the Great Mother in contempt of every man and woman
who has a sense of shame. Only yesterday, they could be
seen in the streets and squares of Carthage, with their oily
hair and powdered faces, foppish and feminine in their way
of walking, begging from the shopkeepers enough to prolong
their disgusting lives.
What can rhetoric, philosophy, and theology do but hush
and blush and rush away? 1 Not only in name, but in shame, is
the Great Mother greater than all the gods that she begot.
Compared with this monster, the monstrosity of Janus is
nothing. His only ugliness was in his statues; hers was in the
savagery of worehip. In his statues there was a face too many;
in her servants, a member too few. Not even Jupiter and all
his adulteries are a match for her immorality. He corrupted
1 Defecit inttrpretatio, erubuit ratio, conticuit oratio.
380 SAINT AUGUSTINE
many women, but in heaven his one unnatural sin was with
Ganymede. But she, with her innumerable professed and pub-
lic effeminates, stained the earth and slandered heaven.
Perhaps her only peer unless we rank him higher in this
more than bestial brutality is Saturn, who is said to have
mutilated his own father. But, at least, in the sacrifices to
Saturn men are killed by others' hands, not mutilated by their
own. The worst that can be said of Saturn, even in the poets'
fancies, is that he devoured his own children. In plain history,
he killed them whatever the elaborations of the theological
interpreters may be. Even then, the Romans never accepted
the Carthaginian practice of immolating children. However,
into the Roman temples the Great Mother of the gods led
her eunuchs and kept alive the tradition of her savagery
and the idea that effeminacy could invigorate the manhood of
Rome! Compared with this, the thievery of Mercury, the
lechery of Venus, and the indecencies and adulteries of all
the rest of the gods are mere bagatelles. They are all in the
books and I could give chapter and verse, if they were not
sung and danced every day on the stage. In any case, they
are trifles compared with the great evil peculiar to the Great
Mother.
The worst of it is that they blame the poets for all their
fancies as though it were a fancy, and not a fact, that the
filth not only pleases but placates the gods. It is well enough
to blame the poets for the suggestive songs and the risqu
writings, but, that this stuff should be made a part of divine
worship and praise that is the responsibility of the gods who,
by commanding and demanding, got it done. It was one more
proof that the gods are demons and deceivers of men. One
thing the poets never fancied and never sung the unspeak-
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 381
able horror of the Mother of the gods consecrating castration
and calling it worship.
Does any man really believe that he should worship such
select gods with a view to happiness after death, when the
very worship is bound to make him immoral during life? What
is that worship but the service of filthy superstition and slavery
to unclean demons?
But, says Varro, in the light of natural interpretations, all
these things are wholly innocent. Could he possibly mean,
holy in no sense? 2 In any case, how can something already in
nature have a natural interpretation?
What we Christians look for is a soul that trusts in true
religion and disdains to adore the world as God, a soul that is
ready to praise the world as a work of God, for the sake of
God, a soul wholly cleansed from worldly stains and holy
enough to meet the whole world's Maker. 3
Chapter 27
The conclusion seems to be that the select gods became
more famous and renowned than the rest of the gods, not
that their virtues might be held up to view, but that their vices
might not be hidden. It is, therefore, easier to believe that they
were nothing but men as both poets and historians have
said. Take, for example, the Virgilian lines:
2 ... rcferuntur ad mundum. Vidcat ne potius ad inmundum. The pun
here consists in the fact that mundus means 'nature' and mmundus
means 'unclean/ Welldon suggests translating by 'nature as a whole
and 'nature which is unholy/ Apart from the puri, perhaps we might
translate: 'In all this stuff, what is Varro trying to do but turn sins
against nature into symbols of nature?'
S . 7 . mundus perveniat ad Dcum qui condidit mundum: keeping up tne
pun on mundus ('clean') and mundus ('the world") .
382 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Saturn descended, first, Olympian heights,
Jove-driven, robbed of all his regal rights. 1
Then, read the context. The whole story, as Euhemerus has
shown, in a work which Ennius translated into Latin, is just
a piece of history. This whole matter of the historical criti-
cism of mythology has, in fact, been fully treated by both
Latin and Greek authors, and I need not, therefore, linger
on the subject.
As for the naturalist interpretations of mythology, whereby
able scholars seek to transform human happenings into a
theology of nature, the highest reality reached, as far as I can
see, is the operation of material natures in time and place.
Even if an invisible force is found, it is a force subject to
change. In no sense do they reach the power of the true God.
The best that can be said for symbolic interpretations when
they are inspired by a religious sentiment is that they neither
involve nor enforce what is ugly and immoral; but, the pity
of it is that men do not pass from symbols and shadows to the
substance of the existence and attributes of the true God. If
it is wicked to worship any body or any spirit in place of the
true God, who alone, by His presence within the soul, can
make the soul happy, it is still more wicked to worship either
bodies or souls in such wise that neither the body nor the soul
of the worshiper grows in either human dignity or divine
grace.
What is wrong, then, when some element of nature or some
created spirit, however far from being evil or unclean, is wor-
shiped with temples, priesthood, and sacrifice which is due
only to the true God, is not that the means of worship are
1 Acncid 8.519-320.
THE CITY OF GOD : BOOK VU 383
evil, but that these are means which should be reserved solely
for Him to whom such worship and service are due. On the
other hand, if anyone really tries to worship the one true
God, the Creator of every body and of every soul, by purely
material or even monstrous statues, by human sacrifices, by
the coronation of male pudenda, by the payment of prosti-
tutes, by mutilation or emasculation, by the consecration of
eunuchs, by impure festivals and obscene plays, then his sin
does not consist in worshiping the wrong object, but in wor-
shiping the right object in the wrong way.
A third kind of worshiper is the one who uses the wrong
means, namely, things which are indecent or evil, and whose
end is not the true God, the Creator of spirit and matter, but
a creature whether good or bad, whether spirit or matter,
or a combination of soul and body. This kind of worshiper
commits a double sin : first, in worshiping what is not God in
place of God; second, in worshiping with such means as are
unfit for the worship either of God or of anything else.
As for the pagans, it is clear that their way of worshiping
was indecent and immoral. It would not have been clear what
or whom they worshiped, did not their own history testify
that, yielding to the threatening demands of their divinities,
they offered rites which they knew to be indecent and disgust-
ing. The conclusion is clear beyond ambiguity. The whole
point of this political theology was to invite wicked demons
and unclean spirits to take up residence in their dumb images,
and, by this means, to take possessions of foolish hearts.
Chapter 28
What, then, is the value of the elaborate attempt of so
acute a scholar as Varro to catalogue all these gods and to
find a place for each of them in heaven or on earth? The effort
384 SAINT AUGUSTINE
was a failure. The gods slip out of his hands and bounce
about; they slide away and disappear. Just take the begin-
ning of his discussion of goddesses. 'Since, as I have pointed
out in my first book, which was concerned with Places, there
are two sources from which gods come, namely, heaven and
earth, and hence two categories, celestial and terrestrial; and
since, in the earlier book I began with heaven and with Janus
(whom some consider heaven, others earth), so now that I am
to speak of goddesses I begin with Tellus (Earth) .'
I can feel the embarassment from which this very able
mind is suffering. His mind is guided by a seemingly sound
principle that heaven is an active principle and the earth
is passive. His first deduction is that a masculine activity and
a feminine receptivity be attributed, respectively, to heaven
and earth. But, what he fails to notice is that the One who
made both the active and the passive principles is the God
who made both heaven and earth.
It was, in fact, in this sense, in an earlier book, he inter-
preted the celebrated mysteries of the Samothracians. He
makes a kind of vow to write out an exposition which he
would send to them, even though it involved points unknown
to his own friends. He tells us that in Samothrace he gathered
many indications from the images that showed that three
realities were symbolized; heaven, earth, and the archetypes
of both, or, as Plato would say, the ideas. Jupiter was a sym-
bol of heaven; Juno of the earth; and Minerva, of the ideas.
Heaven, earth, and the archetype are, respectively, that by
which, that from which, that according to which a thing be-
gins to be. ( In passing, I ought to say that in Plato himself
the ideas have such force that heaven does not make any-
thing, but is itself made according to them. )
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 385
What is more to the point, in the present book about the
select gods; Varro loses sight of the principle of the three
divinities in which, elsewhere, he all but reached an all-
inclusive synthesis. Here he attributes the male gods to heaven,
the female gods to earth, and among them he puts Minerva,
whom he previously had placed above heaven itself. And
then the male god Neptune is in the sea, which is more a part
of the earth than of heaven. Finally, Dispater (or Pluto, as he
is called in Greek) is also a male god, the brother of the other
two, but is called a god of earth and reigns over the upper
reaches of earth, while his wife Proserpina is in the lower
regions,
On what principle, therefore, do the pagans refer the gods
to heaven and the goddesses to earth? There is no solid, fixed,
serious, definite principle running through Varro's entire dis-
cussion. There you have the source of all the goddesses, Tellus,
the Great Mother, who is served by the nasty and noisy crowd
of effeminates and eunuchs, cutting their flesh and wildly
gesticulating. But, what is really meant by saying that Janus
is the head of the gods and Tellus the head of the goddesses?
The fact is that, with Janus, error as usual is many-headed,
and with Tellus frenzy loses its head. 1
In any case, what is the point of their useless effort to make
of the gods symbols of natural phenomena? Even though they
succeeded, no religious soul is going to worship nature in place
of the true God. The obvious truth is that they have not suc-
ceeded. Let them be content to reduce the whole of mythology
to dead men and bad demons, and the argument will come
to an end.
1 Nee ibi facit unum caput error, nee hie sanum furor.
386 SAINT AUGUSTINE
Chapter 29
There is nothing which the philosophical theories of pagan
theology referred to natural phenomena which could not,
without a shadow of sacrilege, have been better referred to
the true God, the Author of nature, the Creator of every soul
and of every body. It could have been done in some such
formula as the following. We worship God. We do not adore
heaven and earth, the two essential parts of the universe; nor
do we adore any world-spirit nor any spirits diffused through-
out any kind of living beings. We adore God who made heav-
en and earth and all that they contain, God who made every
kind of soul, from the lowest that lives without sensation and
intellection through the sentient up to the soul that can think.
Chapter 30
At this point, I must mention various operations of the one
true God. It was because of these that the pagan philosophers,
who were making a serious effort to interpret the indecent
and immoral mysteries, made for themselves so many false
gods. First, then, it is the God we worship who constituted,
for each of the natures He created, an origin and purpose of
its being and powers of action. He holds in His hands the
causes of things, knowing them all and connecting them all.
It is He who is the source of all energy in seeds, and He who
put rational souls, or spirits, into the living beings He selected,
and He who gave us the gifts of speech and language.
The God we worship chose certain spirits and gave them
the power of foresight, and through them He makes prophe-
cies. To others He gave the gift of healing. He controls the
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 387
beginnings, progress, and endings of wars, when they are
needed for the punishment or reformation of mankind. He
rules the universal element of fire, so vehement and violent,
yet so necessary for the equilibrium of nature. He is the Cre-
ator and Ruler of all the water of the universe. He made the
sun, the brightest of all luminous bodies, and He gave it an
appropriate energy and motion.
His sovereignty and power reach to the lowest things. All
things that grow and sustain animal life, both liquids and
solids, He produced and made appropriate for different na-
tures. He gave us the earth, the fertility of soil, and foods for
men and beasts. All causes, primary and secondary, come
within His knowledge and control. He gave to the moon its
phases, and in the air and on the ground He provided ways
for traveling. He endowed the human intelligences which He
created with a knowledge of the arts and sciences which help
both life and nature. He instituted mating and marriage for
the propagation of life, and to communities of men He gave
the boon of fire, to keep them warm and give them light and
make their efforts easier.
Such, at least, are the activities which the acute and learned
Varro sought to distribute among the select gods, by appeal-
ing to those so-called natural interpretations, some of which
are traditional and some of which he made up out of his own
head. The truth is that all these actions and energies belong
to the one true God, who is really a God, who is wholly pres-
ent everywhere, is confined by no frontiers and bound by no
hindrances, is indivisible and immutable, and, though His
nature has no need of either heaven or of earth, He fills them
both with His presence and His power.
Yet, the Creator of every nature has so ordained that each
of His creatures is permitted to have and to exercise powers
388 SAINT AUGUSTINE
of its own. Although without Him they could not exist, their
essence is different from His. He does many things by the
ministry of angels, but their only source of beatitude is God
Himself. And He Himself, and not the angels, is the source
of men's beatitude, even though He sometimes uses angels
as messengers to men. It is from this one true God that we look
for everlasting life.
Chapter 31
I have already said something of the general blessings of
God, which, in the natural course of things, come to the good
and the bad alike. However, beyond this bounty, He has re-
served for the good a special sign of His great love. We can
never sufficiently thank Him for the gifts of nature: that we
exist and are alive, that we can enjoy the sight of earth and
sky, that we have a reasoning mind by which we can seek
Him who has made all these things. Yet, for the greater gifts
of grace there are not hearts enough or tongues enough in all
the world even to try to thank Him. For, when we were bur-
dened and broken by our sins, and our minds were turned
from His light and blinded by the love of the darkness of
iniquity, He did not leave us to ourselves, but sent to us His
Word, who is His only Son, so that, by His birth and passion
in the flesh He assumed for our salvation, we might learn
how highly God esteemed our human nature, and that we
might be cleansed from all our sins by His unique Sacrifice
and, by His Spirit, have Love poured into our hearts, so that,
with all our warring over, we might come to everlasting rest
in the supreme blessedness of gazing on His face.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 389
Chapter 32
This mystery of eternal life, from the beginnings of the hu-
man race, has been announced to all whom it concerned by
messengers of God, using outward signs and sacred symbols
appropriate to particular periods. A little later, as though to
enact this sacred Mystery, the Hebrew people was gathered
into a single community in which all that was to happen from
the coming of Christ until our day and beyond our day was
foretold by men, some of whom had knowledge and some of
whom had not. Still later, this nation was dispersed among
the Gentiles to carry with them the witness of the Scriptures
in which the future Redemption in Christ was foretold.
Thus, all that was fulfilled in Christ is being fulfilled before
our eyes, and all that remains still to be fulfilled was not only
preannounced in spoken prophecies and in the precepts of
moral and religious life as contained in Holy Scripture, but
was likewise symbolized by the Jewish rites, priesthood, taber-
nacle or temple, altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, festivals, and all
the rest that belongs to the service which is due to God and
which in Greek is properly called latreia and all was with a
view to the eternal life of those who believe in Christ.
Chapter 33
It was by means of the true religion alone that it could
be made manifest that the gods of the pagans were nothing
but unclean spirits who used the memory of people departed
or the images of earthly creatures to get themselves reckoned
as gods and who then rejoiced with proud impurity that
divine honors should be paid to such disgusting and indecent
390 SAINT AUGUSTINE
things, all the while hating to see men's souls turn to the true
God. From their horrible and hateful domination a man is de-
livered by faith in Him who showed us the way to rise by
going to a depth of humility as great as the height of pride
from which they fell.
To this category of unclean spirits belong not only the lesser
gods of which I have said so much, and many, many other
gods of the same sort among the various peoples of the world,
but likewise those gods who were selected to form a sort of
Senate of the gods. From what I have just been reporting, they
were obviously chosen more for the notoriety of their wicked-
ness than for the nobility of their virtues. By trying to give
a meaning to their mysteries in terms of the phenomena of
nature, Varro seeks to lend dignity to indecency. But, of
course, the facts of nature do not square with the fictions of
the gods, and Varro fails to make the realities and the rites
agree, for the simple reason that the phenomena of nature
are not, as he thinks or wants to have thought the real
source from which the rites were drawn.
The best that Can be said of Varro's interpretations or of
any interpretations of this sort is that, although they have
nothing to do with the true God and with the eternal life
which is the very purpose of religion, they do help to mitigate
the offense given by the mysteries, by suggesting that some ill-
understood indecency or absurdity becomes clear in the light
of some correlative phenomena in nature. And this is what
Varro did in regard to some of the stage plays and temple
mysteries, though he succeeded rather in damning the temples
for being like the theatres than in absolving the theatres for
copying the temples. However, Varro tried as best he could
to temper the outrage done to men's sense of decency by in-
terpreting disgusting scenes as symbols of causes at work in
nature.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VII 391
Chapter 34
Unfortunately, that very great scholar himself has told the
story of the books of Numa Pompilius and of how the real
sources from which the rites were drawn were so disgusting
that they were unfit to be kept even in a book hidden in the
dark, let alone to be openly read by religious people. In
Book III, I promised to speak of this matter in its proper place,
and, so, a word must now be said.
Here is the story as it is told by Varro himself in the book
he wrote on the worship of the gods. 'Once upon a time, a
man called Terentius owned a farm at the foot of the Jani-
culum hill, and one day his ploughman was making a furrow
near the tomb of Numa Pompilius. The ploughshare turned
up the books of Numa in which were written the reasons
for instituting the rites of the gods. 1 Terentius brought the
books to the city praetor. As soon as the praetor had read the
opening lines, he realized the importance of the discovery and
brought the books to the Senate. When the Senators read in
the book a few of the original reasons why this or that rite
had been instituted, they were moved, as the dead Numa had
been moved, by a sense of religious reverence, and they voted
that the praetor should have the books burned.'
Any man is free to believe what he thinks: if anyone can
be found to defend the infamy of those books, he is free to
say whatever an unreasoning contentiousness may suggest.
My own suggestion is that the explanation of the Roman rites
as written out by King Pompilius who instituted them was
never meant to be known either to the people, or the Senate,
or even to the priests themselves. It appears that Numa Pom-
1 According to Livy (40.29), the books buried by Numa Pompilius
(715-673 B.C.) were discovered 573 years later after the founding of
Rome, i.e., in 181 B.C.
392 SAINT AUGUSTINE
pilius, by some illicit curiosity, had learned the secrets of the
demons and then wrote them out in order to have a memo-
randum he could read. Yet, he seems to have been afraid to
teach them to anyone although as king he had nothing to
fear from any of his subjects. At the same time, he was afraid
of destroying them, or of losing them, or even of letting the
pages become worn out. Thus, he was afraid that men might
be taught wickedness which he wanted no one to know, and
he was equally afraid that demons might be angry with him
if he injured the books. So, he buried them in a safe spot,
as he thought, never imagining that a plough would ever come
near his tomb.
As for the Senate, it dared not condemn the religious rites
of antiquity, and, in this sense, had to share the ideas of Numa.
On the other hand, the Senate was so convinced of the dan-
ger of books like that, that they were too afraid merely to bury
them. They knew that, with so many in the secret, human
curiosity would try desperately to find the books. So, they
decided to destroy by fire every trace of such monstrous
wickedness. The rites, they felt, simply had to go on, but it
was better for the people to be wrong in ignorance than for
the state to be wrecked by a knowledge of the original reasons
for the rites.
Chapter 35
After all, Numa had no prophet of God or any holy angel
to tell him what religious rites he ought to ordain and ob-
serve; so, his only recourse was to hydromancy, to the images
of the gods or, rather, illusions of the devils which he thought
he could see in water. This kind of divination, Varro tells
us, was introduced from Persia and was made use of by Numa
and later by Pythagoras the philosopher. When blood is used
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 393
and information is sought from those in the lower regions it
is called by the Qreek word nekuiomanteia; under either
name, hydromancy or necromancy, it is the same thing, an
apparent divination by the dead. By what tricks such things
are done is their affair, not mine thoughl feel obliged to
say that, even before the coming of our Saviour, such magic
was forbidden by state laws under the sanction of very severe
punishment. I hate to mention this; it is perhaps just possible
that in Pompilius* time such tricks were allowed. At any rate,
he used them to learn about the sacred rites. Then, he re-
vealed the rites, but concealed the origin for he himself was
afraid of the reasons for the rites which he had learned. It
was the books which contained these reasons which the Senate
ordered to be burned.
What does it matter, then, whether Varro excogitated all
sorts of natural interpretations of the religious rites. Certainly,
the books would not have been burned if those were the in-
terpretations to be found in the books or, if they were, then
the members of the Senate would have also consigned to the
flames the books which Varro wrote and published and which
he addressed to Caesar as Pontifex Maximus. Another point
that Varro makes in his book is that it was because Numa
Pompilius carried out [egesserit] water for the hydromancy
that he is said to have had the nymph Egeria for his wife.
It is another illustration of the way a sprinkling of falsehoods
can turn history into fables. 1
It was by means, then, of water magic that the overcurious
King of Rome learned both the rites, which were to be kept
in writing in the priestly books, and also the reasons for the
rites, which were meant to be known by no one but himself.
1 Ita enim solent res gestae aspersione mendaciorum in fabulas verti.
394 SAINT AUGUSTINE
These reasons, written down but kept apart, he decided, so to
speak, to let die with himself. He took care, therefore, to have
them buried and withdrawn from the knowledge of men.
Two hypotheses may be suggested. Either what was written
in the books were the lusts of the demons, which were so
sordid and wicked as to make the whole of the state religion
seem disgusting even to the priests whose life it was to perform
such shameful services, or else the whole thing was just stories
about men long dead, who, with the lapse of time, had come
to be reckoned by nearly all the pagan peoples as immortal
gods. Even in the latter case, the demons were delighted with
such rites by which they had themselves worshiped under the
guise of dead men. It was the demons who saw that the dead
men were taken for gods and who managed to produce the
witness of sham miracles.
It was by the hidden providence of the true God that the
demons were permitted to confess what they knew to their
friend Pompilius, after he had won them over by the tricks
of water magic. Yet, they were not permitted to warn the dy-
ing king that he should burn rather than bury the books; nor
did the demons have any power to prevent the plough from
discovering the books, or of the pen of Varro from preserving
a record of what happened when the plough unearthed the
books. The demons have no power but what they are per-
mitted to have; yet, by a just and inscrutable judgment of
God, they are allowed to afflict those souls that have deserved
affliction and even to deceive and dominate others.
As to the books themselves, we can judge how evil they
were and how remote from the worship that is due to genu-
ine divinity from the fact that the Senate preferred to bum
the books which the frightened Pompilius had buried rather
than to share his fears.
THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VH 395
If, then, a person is determined to be irreligious in this tem-
poral life, let him look for eternal life in the pagan rites; but,
if he has no liking for the company of malignant demons, let
him abandon his fear of that evil superstition by which they
are adored and embrace the true religion in whose light the
devils stand discovered and dismayed.
APPENDIX
A Letter of St. Augustine
concerning
The City of God
| MONO the half-dozen or so letters of St. Augustine
which have been discovered since the appearance of
the collection of 270 formed by the Maurists (Paris
1689), the most recently published deserves attention here as
dealing primarily with The City of God. It was edited in 1939
by Dom Cyrille Lambot, O.S.B. (Maredsous), from two
manuscripts. 1 In that of Reims, the older of the two (12th-
13th cent.), the letter is described as a 'preface' to The City
of God and is placed directly before it. In the authoritative
judgment of Dom Lambot there is nothing in either the lan-
guage or style of the letter to raise doubt as to its genuineness.
The Firmus to whom the letter is addressed is to be identi-
fied with an African priest of that name. This Firmus was one
of the intimates of St. Augustine and was often the bearer of
the bishop's letters to various correspondents, among them
St. Jerome. In one instance he was to be charged with deliver-
ing a copy of the first thirteen books of The City of God,
the work being then unfinished. The present letter announces
to Firmus, who is at Carthage, the dispatch to him of the full
twenty-two books of the completed work and advises him how
to divide it into two or five parts if it should be found too
1 C. Lambot, 'Lettre incite de S. Augustin relative au De
Revue Benedictine 51 (1939) 109-121. In .a private
Dom Lambot writes that he has found the letter in _
script: Paris, Bibl. Nat. 2056, of the 12th century (apparently
than the manuscript of Reims) .
397
398 SAINT AUGUSTINE
bulky as a single volume. Firmus is asked to let the manuscript
he is to receive be transcribed by any at Carthage who may
not yet own a copy and to use it both for the instruction of
the faithful and for any help it may give in releasing pagans
from their superstitions.
A striking feature of the text Augustine sent to Firmus was
that it had been read through in person by its author before
dispatch. 2 We should bear in mind that the first three books
of The City of God had been finished twelve years before the
last eight. In reading the early books after completing the
last, it is not likely that the author would have failed to cor-
rect a phrase here and there or add an occasional explan-
ation. 3 If in fact Augustine retouched the work as he read,
the text of The City of God sent to Firmus was in effect a new
edition revised by the author. Modern editors of the work,
confronting manuscripts which sometimes, for one and the
same passage, furnish two divergent but quite acceptable read-
ings, have been led to conjecture that in such cases both read-
ings may have come from the pen of St. Augustine. Their find-
ing gains support from the new letter, since this supplies a
reasonable explanation of how such authentic doublets may
have arisen.
The subjoined translation of the letter is based on Dom
Lambot's edition. In a few cases his discussion of the letter
provides interpretation of passages of doubtful meaning. These
interpretations have been adopted here.
B. M. P.
2 A single word in the first sentence of the letter is the only evidence
for this fact. Both manuscripts show it as 'relictos' ('abandoned').
Lambot corrects to 'relectos' ('reread') . A further ambiguity present
in this opening sentence is discussed by Lambot 115 n. 4.
5 As Lambot shows (116 n. 2), corrections made by St. Augustine in
his On the Trinity offer an interesting parallel to the present case;
cf Aug., Epist. 174 (tr. J. H. Baxter, St. Augustine: Select Letters
[Loeb Classical Library 1930] 303ff.) .
APPENDIX 399
To FiRMus, 4 MY DISTINGUISHED AND DESERVEDLY
HONORED LORD, AND MY CHERISHED SON, AUGUSTINE
SENDS GREETING IN THE LORD
The books on the City of God which you most eagerly
requested I have sent you as I promised, having also reread
them myself. That this, with God's help, should be done has
been urged by my son and your brother, Cyrpian, 5 who has
furnished just that insistence I hoped would be forthcoming.
There are twenty-two sections. 6 To put all these into one
whole would be cumbersome. If you wish that two volumes be
made of them, they should be so apportioned that one volume
contain ten books, the other twelve. 7 For, in those ten, the
empty teachings of the pagans have been refuted, and, in the
remainder, our own religion has been demonstrated and de-
fended though, to be sure, in the former books the latter
subject has been dealt with when it was more suitable to do
so, and in the latter, the former.
If, however, you should prefer that there be more than two
volumes, you should make as many as five. The first of these
4 Lambot (113f.) collects the evidence identifying the African priest,
Firmus. In Eptst. 200, Augustine speaks of his intimate friendship with
him. The closing paragraph of Epist. 82 (= Jerome, Epist. 116) is
one of the texts which reveal Firmus as carrying letters between Augus-
tine and Jerome. A certain Cyprian named there as performing similar
service is probably the Cyprian mentioned early in the present letter;
cf. Lambot 115 n. 3. from Epist. 184A, addressed to the monks Peter
and Abraham, we learn that Firmus was to bring them a copy of tne
first thirteen books of The City of God.
5 See the preceding note. ,: - *t
6 Lat. 'quaterniones.' The word 'quaternio' normally signifies one of
the 16-page quires or signatures commonly used in the physical com-
position of an ancient codex. Here it may well be synonymous with the
7 In C S7foltow^g sentencesthe 'expressions used by Auguitjne to de-
scribe the content of the several sections of The 6* of God are al
but identical with others he uses elsewhere; Retract. 2.43, Be w. Da
1 35f., 6 praef., 6.12, 10.32, 11.1; Epist. 184A. Cf. Lambot 112, U8f.
400 SAINT AUGUSTINE
would contain the first five books, where argument has been
advanced against those who contend that the worship, not
indeed of gods, but of demons, is of profit for happiness in this
present life. The second volume would contain the next five
books, where [a stand has been taken against those] who
think that, for the sake of the life which is to come after
death, worship should be paid, through rites and sacrifices,
whether to these divinities or to any plurality of gods what-
ever. The next three volumes ought to embrace four books
each; for this part of our work has been so divided that four
books set forth the origin of that City, a second four its prog-
ressor, as we might choose to say, its development, 8 the
final four its appointed ends.
If the diligence you have shown for procuring these books
will be matched by diligence in reading them, it is rather
from your testing than from my promises that you will learn
how far they will help you. As for those books belonging to
this work on the City of God which our brothers there in
Carthage do not yet have, I ask that you graciously and will-
ingly acceed to their requests to have copies made. You will
not grant this favor to many, but to one or two at most, and
they themselves will grant it to others. Among your friends,
some, within the body of Christian folk, may desire instruc-
tion; in the case of others, bound by some superstition, it may
appear that this labor of ours can, through God's grace, be
used to liberate them. How you are to share it with them you
must yourself decide.
For my part I shall take care to make frequent inquiry, God
willing, what progress you are making in my writings as you
read them. Surely, you cannot fail to know how much a man
of education is helped toward understanding the written word
8 The Latin words are 'procursus' and 'excursus/
APPENDIX 401
by repeated reading. No difficulty in understanding occurs
(or, if any, very little) where there is facility in reading, and
this gains in scope with successive repetitions. Constant appli-
cation [brings to fruition] what [through inattention] 9 would
have remained immature.
In earlier letters, my distinguished and deservedly honored
lord and my son Firmus, you have shown acquaintance with
the books on the Academics that I composed when my con-
version was yet fresh. 10 Please write in reply how you came to
this knowledge.
The range of subject matter comprised in the twenty-two
books of my composition is shown in the epitome that I send
you. 11
9 Lambot found a lacuna here in the text provided by his two manu-
scripts; the words in brackets translate his suggested restoration.
10 The Contra Academicos, translated, under the title 'Answer to Skeptics/
by D. J. Kavanagh, OJS.A., in the first volume of the Writings of Saint
Augustine as found in this series. In discussing this passage, Lambot
(114) reminds us that Augustine's earliest writings were soon eclipsed
by the greater works of his maturity. As we learn from Augustine's
Retractations (1.2), his own copy of the De beata vita showed gaps
he could not fill. All but one of his treatises on the liberal arts had
vanished from his shelves, though Augustine understood that copies
were owned by others (Retract. 1.6). In the De Trinitate (15.xii.21)
Augustine discusses the utility of his books on the Academics to any-
one 'who wishes to read them and can do so' ('qui potuerit et voluerit
legere') language which suggests that it was hard to find a copy. Read
in the light of this passage of the De Trinitate, Augustine's request
that Firmus write how he came to know the Contra Academicos gains
point and, as Lambot remarks, is a guarantee of the authenticity of
the letter.
11 Lambot (117) inclines to identify this epitome ('breviculus') with a
set of still extant summaries used by Eugippius (first half of the sixth
century) in compiling excerpts from the works of Augustine.
1 34 606
