The City of God, Volume I

Micah vi. 6-8.

382

Heb. xiii. 16.

383

Hos. vi. 6.

384

Matt. xxii. 40.

385

On the service rendered to the Church by this definition, see Waterland's Works, v. 124.

386

Literally, a sacred action.

387

Ecclus. xxx. 24.

388

Rom. vi. 13.

389

Rom. xii. 1.

390

Rom. xii. 2.

391

Ps. lxxiii. 28.

392

Rom. xii. 3-6.

393

Ps. lxxxvii. 3.

394

Ex. xxii. 20.

395

Gen. xviii. 18.

396

Gen. xv. 17. In his Retractations, ii. 43, Augustine says that he should not have spoken of this as miraculous, because it was an appearance seen in sleep.

397

Gen. xviii.

398

Goetia.

399

2 Cor. xi. 14.

400

Virgil, Georg. iv. 411.

401

Ex. xxxiii. 13.

402

Plotin. Ennead. III. ii. 13.

403

Matt. vi. 28-30.

404

Acts vii. 53.

405

Ennead. I. vi. 7.

406

Meaning, officious meddlers.

407

Pharsal. vi. 503.

408

Ps. lxxiii. 28.

409

Æneid, vii. 310.

410

Æneid, iii. 438, 439.

411

Teletis.

412

The Platonists of the Alexandrian and Athenian schools, from Plotinus to Proclus, are at one in recognising in God three principles or hypostases: 1st, the One or the Good, which is the Father; 2d, the Intelligence or Word, which is the Son; 3d, the Soul, which is the universal principle of life. But as to the nature and order of these hypostases, the Alexandrians are no longer at one with the school of Athens. On the very subtle differences between the Trinity of Plotinus and that of Porphyry, consult M. Jules Simon, ii. 110, and M. Vacherot, ii. 37. – Saisset.

413

See below, c. 28.

414

Ennead. v. 1.

415

John i. 14.

416

John vi. 60-64.

417

John viii. 25; or "the beginning," following a different reading from ours.

418

Ps. lxxiii. 28.

419

Ps. lxxxiv. 2.

420

Matt. xxiii. 26.

421

Rom. viii. 24, 25.

422

See above, c. 9.

423

Virgil, Eclog. iv. 13, 14.

424

Isa. xxix. 14.

425

1 Cor. i. 19-25.

426

According to another reading, "You might have seen it to be," etc.

427

John i. 1-5.

428

John i. 14.

429

Comp. Euseb. Præp. Evan. xiii. 16.

430

Ennead. iii. 4. 2.

431

Æneid, vi. 750, 751.

432

Inductio.

433

Namely, under Diocletian and Maximian.

434

Gen. xxii. 18.

435

Gal. iii. 19.

436

Ps. lxvii. 1, 2.

437

John xiv. 6.

438

Isa. ii. 2, 3.

439

Luke xxiv. 44-47.

440

Written in the year 416 or 417.

441

Ps. lxxxvii. 3.

442

Ps. xlviii. 1.

443

Ps. xlvi. 4.

444

Homine assumto, non Deo consumto.

445

Quo itur Deus, qua itur homo.

446

A clause is here inserted to give the etymology of præsentia from præ vensibus.

447

Another derivation, sententia from sensus, the inward perception of the mind.

448

Gen. i. 1.

449

Prov. viii. 27.

450

Matt. xviii. 10.

451

A common question among the Epicureans; urged by Velleius in Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 9; adopted by the Manichæans and spoken to by Augustine in the Conf. xi. 10, 12, also in De Gen. contra Man. i. 3.

452

The Neo-Platonists.

453

Number begins at one, but runs on infinitely.

454

Gal. iv. 26.

455

1 Thess. v. 5.

456

Comp. de Gen. ad lit. i. and iv.

457

Ver. 35.

458

Ps. cxlviii. 1-5.

459

Job xxxviii. 7.

460

Vives here notes that the Greek theologians and Jerome held, with Plato, that spiritual creatures were made first, and used by God in the creation of things material. The Latin theologians and Basil held that God made all things at once.

461

John i. 9.

462

Mali enim nulla natura est: sed amissio boni, mali nomen accepit.

463

Plutarch (De Plac. Phil. i. 3, and iv. 3) tells us that this opinion was held by Anaximenes of Miletus, the followers of Anaxagoras, and many of the Stoics. Diogenes the Cynic, as well as Diogenes of Apollonia, seems to have adopted the same opinion. See Zeller's Stoics, pp. 121 and 199.

464

"Ubi lux non est, tenebræ sunt, non quia aliquid sunt tenebræ, sed ipsa lucis absentia tenebræ dicuntur." – Aug. De Gen. contra Man. 7.

465

Wisdom vii. 22.

466

The strongly Platonic tinge of this language is perhaps best preserved in a bare literal translation.

467

Vives remarks that the ancients defined blessedness as an absolutely perfect state in all good, peculiar to God. Perhaps Augustine had a reminiscence of the remarkable discussion in the Tusc. Disp. lib. v., and the definition "Neque ulla alia huic verbo, quum beatum dicimus, subjecta notio est, nisi, secretis malis omnibus, cumulata bonorum complexio."

468

With this chapter compare the books De Dono Persever. and De Correp. et Gratia.

469

Matt. xxv. 46.

470

John viii. 44.

471

1 John iii. 8.

472

Cf. Gen. ad Lit. xi. 27 et seqq.

473

Ps. xvii. 6.

474

1 John iii. 8.

475

The Manichæans.

476

Isa. xiv. 12.

477

Ezek. xxviii. 13.

478

Job xl. 14 (LXX.).

479

Ps. civ. 26.

480

Job. xl. 14 (LXX.).

481

It must be kept in view that "vice" has, in this passage, the meaning of sinful blemish.

482

Ps. civ. 26.

483

Quintilian uses it commonly in the sense of antithesis.

484

2 Cor. vi. 7-10.

485

Ecclus. xxxiii. 15.

486

Gen. i. 14-18.

487

The reference is to the Timæus, p. 37 C., where he says, "When the parent Creator perceived this created image of the eternal gods in life and motion, He was delighted, and in His joy considered how He might make it still liker its model."

488

Jas. i. 17.

489

The passage referred to is in the Timæus, p. 29 D.: "Let us say what was the cause of the Creator's forming this universe. He was good; and in the good no envy is ever generated about anything whatever. Therefore, being free from envy, He desired that all things should, as much as possible, resemble Himself."

490

The Manichæans, to wit.

491

Gen. i. 31.

492

Proprietas.

493

This is one of the passages cited by Sir William Hamilton, along with the "Cogito, ergo sum" of Descartes, in confirmation of his proof, that in so far as we are conscious of certain modes of existence, in so far we possess an absolute certainty that we exist. See note A in Hamilton's Reid, p. 744.

494

Compare the Confessions, xiii. 9.

495

Ch. 7.

496

Or aliquot parts.

497

Comp. Aug. Gen. ad Lit. iv. 2, and De Trinitate, iv. 7.

498

For passages illustrating early opinions regarding numbers, see Smith's Dict. Art. number.

499

Wisd. xi. 20.

500

Prov. xxiv. 16.

501

Ps. cxix. 164.

502

Ps. xxxiv. 1.

503

John xvi. 13.

504

In Isa. xi. 2, as he shows in his eighth sermon, where this subject is further pursued; otherwise, one might have supposed he referred to Rev. iii. 1.

505

1 Cor. xiii. 10.

506

Augustine refers to John viii. 25; see p. 415. He might rather have referred to Rev. iii. 14.

507

Ps. civ. 24.

508

Matt. xxii. 30.

509

Matt. xviii. 10.

510

2 Peter ii. 4.

511

Eph. v. 8.

512

Ps. cxlviii. 2.

513

Matt. iv. 9.

514

Jas. iv. 6.

515

1 Thess. v. 5

516

Augustine himself published this idea in his Conf. xiii. 32, but afterwards retracted it, as "said without sufficient consideration" (Retract. II. vi. 2). Epiphanius and Jerome ascribe it to Origen.

517

Gen. i. 6.

518

Namely, the Audians and Sampsæans, insignificant heretical sects mentioned by Theodoret and Epiphanius.

519

Ps. xcv. 5.

520

Vitium: perhaps "fault" most nearly embraces all the uses of this word.

521

Essentia.

522

Ex. iii. 14.

523

Quintilian calls it dura.

524

With this may be compared the argument of Socrates in the Gorgias, in which it is shown that to escape punishment is worse than to suffer it, and that the greatest of evils is to do wrong and not be chastised.

525

Eccles. x. 13.

526

Specie.

527

Ps. xix. 12.

528

C. 13.

529

Rom. v. 5.

530

Ps. lxxiii. 28.

531

De Deo Socratis.

532

Augustine no doubt refers to the interesting account given by Critias, near the beginning of the Timæus, of the conversation of Solon with the Egyptian priests.

533

Augustine here follows the chronology of Eusebius, who reckons 5611 years from the Creation to the taking of Rome by the Goths; adopting the Septuagint version of the patriarchal ages.

534

See above, viii. 5.

535

It is not apparent to what Augustine refers. The Arcadians, according to Macrobius (Saturn. i. 7), divided their year into three months, and the Egyptians divided theirs into three seasons: each of these seasons having four months, it is possible that Augustine may have referred to this. See Wilkinson's excursus on the Egyptian year, in Rawlinson's Herod. Book ii.

536

The former opinion was held by Democritus and his disciple Epicurus; the latter by Heraclitus, who supposed that "God amused Himself" by thus renewing worlds.

537

The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavoured in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timæus.

538

Antoninus says (ii. 14), "All things from eternity are of like forms, and come round in a circle." Cf. also ix. 28, and the references to more ancient philosophical writers in Gataker's notes on these passages.

539

Eccles. i. 9, 10. So Origen, de Prin. iii. 5, and ii. 3.

540

Rom. vi. 9.

541

1 Thess. iv. 16.

542

Ps. xii. 7.

543

Cf. de Trin. v. 17.

544

Wisdom ix. 13-15.

545

Gen. i. 1.

546

Gen. i. 14.

547

Rom. xii. 3.

548

Titus i. 2, 3. Augustine here follows the version of Jerome, and not the Vulgate. Comp. Contra Priscill. 6, and de Gen. c. Man. iv. 4.

549

2 Cor. x. 12. Here, and in Enar. in Ps. xxxiv., and also in Cont. Faust. xxii. 47, Augustine follows the Greek, and not the Vulgate.

550

i. e. indefinite, or an indefinite succession of things.

551

Again in the Timæus.

552

Wisdom xi. 20.

553

Isa. xl. 26.

554

Matt. x. 30.

555

Ps. cxlvii. 5.

556

De sæculis sæculorum.

557

Ps. cxlviii. 4.

558

Cicero has the same (de Amicitia, 16): "Quonam modo quisquam amicus esse poterit, cui se putabit inimicum esse posse?" He also quotes Scipio to the effect that no sentiment is more unfriendly to friendship than this, that we should love as if some day we were to hate.

559

C. 30.

560

Coquæus remarks that this is levelled against the Pelagians.

561

"Quando leoni

Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam

Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?

Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem

Perpetuam; sævis inter se convenit ursis.

Ast homini," etc.

Juvenal, Sat. xv. 160-5.

– See also the very striking lines which precede these.

562

See this further discussed in Gen. ad Lit. vii. 35, and in Delitzsch's Bibl. Psychology.

563

Jer. xxiii. 24.

564

Wisdom viii. 1.

565

1 Cor. iii. 7.

566

1 Cor. xv. 38.

567

Jer. i. 5.

568

Compare de Trin. iii. 13-16.

569

See Book xi. 5.

570

"The Deity, desirous of making the universe in all respects resemble the most beautiful and entirely perfect of intelligible objects, formed it into one visible animal, containing within itself all the other animals with which it is naturally allied." —Timæus, c. xi.

571

Ps. xlvi. 8.

572

Ps. xxv. 10.

573

Matt. x. 28.

574

On this question compare the 24th and 25th epistles of Jerome, de obitu Leæ, and de obitu Blesillæ filiæ. Coquæus.

575

Ps. xlix. 12.

576

On which see further in de Peccat. Mer. i. 67 et seq.

577

De Baptismo Parvulorum is the second half of the title of the book, de Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione.

578

1 Cor. xv. 56.

579

Rom. vii. 12, 13.

580

Literally, unregenerate.

581

John iii. 5.

582

Matt. x. 32.

583

Matt. xvi. 25.

584

Ps. cxvi. 15.

585

Much of this paradoxical statement about death is taken from Seneca. See, among other places, his epistle on the premeditation of future dangers, the passage beginning, "Quotidie morimur, quotidie enim demitur aliqua pars vitæ."

586

Ecclus. xi. 28.

587

Ps. vi. 5.

588

Gen. ii. 17.

589

Gal. v. 17.

590

Gen. ii. 17.

591

Gen. iii. 9.

592

Gen. iii. 19.

593

Wisdom ix. 15.

594

A translation of part of the Timæus, given in a little book of Cicero's, De Universo.

595

Plato, in the Timæus, represents the Demiurgus as constructing the kosmos or universe to be a complete representation of the idea of animal. He planted in its centre a soul, spreading outwards so as to pervade the whole body of the kosmos; and then he introduced into it those various species of animals which were contained in the idea of animal. Among these animals stand first the celestial, the gods embodied in the stars; and of these the oldest is the earth, set in the centre of all, close packed round the great axis which traverses the centre of the kosmos. – See the Timæus and Grote's Plato, iii. 250 et seq.

596

On these numbers see Grote's Plato, iii. 254.

597

Virgil, Æneid, vi. 750, 751.

598

Book x. 30.

599

A catena of passages, showing that this is the catholic Christian faith, will be found in Bull's State of Man before the Fall (Works, vol. ii.).

600

1 Cor. xv. 42.

601

Prov. iii. 18.

602

1 Cor. x. 4.

603

Cant. iv. 13.

604

Ps. xlii. 6.

605

Ps. lix. 9.

606

Those who wish to pursue this subject will find a pretty full collection of opinions in the learned commentary on Genesis by the Jesuit Pererius. Philo was, of course, the leading culprit, but Ambrose and other Church fathers went nearly as far. Augustine condemns the Seleucians for this among other heresies, that they denied a visible Paradise. —De Hæres. 59.

607

Tobit xii. 19.

608

Gen. ii. 17.

609

Rom. viii. 10, 11.

610

Gen. iii. 19.

611

"In uno commune factum est omnibus."

612

Rom. viii. 28, 29.

613

1 Cor. xv. 42-45.

614

Gen. ii. 7.

615

1 Cor. xv. 47-49.

616

Gal. iii. 27.

617

Rom. viii. 24.

618

1 Cor. xv. 21, 22.

619

Gen. ii. 7.

620

John xx. 22.

621

Gen. ii. 6.

622

2 Cor. iv. 16.

623

1 Cor. ii. 11.

624

Eccles. iii. 21.

625

Ps. cxlviii. 8.

626

Matt. xxviii. 19.

627

John iv. 24.

628

"Breath," Eng. ver.

629

Gen. i. 24.

630

Ecclus. xxiv. 3.

631

Rev. iii. 16.

632

1 Cor. xv. 44-49.