Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 13 part 1/4

[I] Before I speak of the creation of man, in which the origin of the two cities will appear so far as pertains to the race of rational mortals—just as in the previous book it has already been seen to appear in the angels—I see that certain things must first be said by me concerning those very angels, by which it may be demonstrated, as far as we are able, how it is not unfitting nor incongruous to say that there is a fellowship between men and angels; so that not four cities (namely two of angels and as many of men), but rather two cities—that is, societies—are with reason said to exist: one constituted among the good, the other among the evil, not only of angels, but also of men.

That the mutually contrary appetites of the good and evil angels arose not from diverse natures and principles—since God, the good author and founder of all substances, created both—but from wills and desires, it is not lawful to doubt: while some steadfastly persist in that good common to all, which is God Himself to them, and in His eternity, truth, and love; the others, delighting rather in their own power, as though they were their own good to themselves, fell away from the higher good common and beatific to all, to their own private goods; and having the pomp of elation instead of the most exalted eternity, the cunning of vanity instead of the most certain truth, the zeal of partisanship instead of undivided love, they became proud, deceitful, and envious.

The cause, therefore, of the blessedness of the former is to adhere to God; wherefore the cause of the misery of the latter is to be understood from the contrary, namely, not to adhere to God. Wherefore, if when it is asked why the former are blessed, it is rightly answered, 'Because they adhere to God,' and when it is asked why the latter are miserable, it is rightly answered, 'Because they do not adhere to God'—then there is no good of the rational or intellectual creature by which it may be blessed, save God. Thus, although not every creature can be blessed (for beasts, wood, stones, and whatever is of this kind, do not attain or receive this gift), yet that which can be, cannot be so of itself, since it was created out of nothing, but from Him by whom it was created. For having obtained Him it is blessed; having lost Him it is miserable.

But He who is blessed not by another good, but by Himself as good, cannot be miserable, because He cannot lose Himself. We say, therefore, that there is no immutable good save the one true and blessed God; and that the things which He made are indeed good, because from Him, yet mutable, because they were made not out of Him, but out of nothing. Although, therefore, they are not the supreme good—for God is a greater good than they—yet those mutable goods are great which can adhere, in order that they may be blessed, to the immutable good, which is so far their good that without it they must necessarily be miserable. Nor for that reason are the other things in this universe of creation better because they cannot be miserable;

for neither is it to be said that the other members of our body are better than the eyes because they cannot be blind. But just as a sentient nature, even when it feels pain, is better than a stone which can in no way feel pain, so a rational nature is more excellent even when miserable than that which is devoid of reason or sense, and into which therefore misery does not fall. And since this is so, to this nature, which was created in such excellence that, although it is itself mutable, yet by adhering to the immutable good—that is, to the supreme God—it attains blessedness, and does not fill up its indigence unless it be blessed, and for the filling up of this indigence nothing suffices save God—assuredly not to adhere to Him is a vice.

But every vice harms nature, and thereby is contrary to nature. That nature, therefore, which adheres to God differs from this one not in nature, but in vice; yet by this very vice the nature itself is shown to be very great and much to be praised. For where a vice is rightly blamed, without doubt the nature is praised. For the right blaming of a vice is that a praiseworthy nature is dishonored by it. Just as, then, when the vice of the eyes is called blindness, that is shown which pertains to the nature of the eyes, namely sight; and when the vice of the ears is called deafness, hearing is demonstrated to pertain to their nature: so, when the vice of the angelic creature is named, whereby it does not adhere to God, it is hence most plainly declared that it befits its nature to adhere to God.

Moreover, how great a praise it is to adhere to God, that one may live to Him, be wise thereby, rejoice in Him, and enjoy so great a good without death, without error, without trouble—who could worthily conceive or utter it? Wherefore even by the vice of the evil angels, whereby they do not adhere to God—since every vice harms nature—it is sufficiently made manifest that God created their nature so good that it is hurtful to it not to be with God. [II] Let these things be said, lest anyone, when we speak of the apostate angels, should suppose that they could have had another nature as though from another principle, and that God is not the author of their nature.

From the impiety of which error each one will be freed the more expeditiously and easily, the more sharply he shall have been able to understand what God said through the angel, when He sent Moses to the children of Israel: 'I am who I am.' For since God is the supreme essence—that is, supremely is—and is therefore immutable: He gave being to the things which He created out of nothing, but not supreme being, such as He Himself is;

and to some He gave being more amply, to others less, and thus ordered the natures of essences by degrees (for just as 'wisdom' is named from 'to be wise,' so 'essence' (essentia) is named from 'to be' (esse)—by a new word indeed, which the ancient authors of Latin speech did not use, but now in our times has come into use, lest even our language should lack that which the Greeks call ousia; for this word was expressed from word to word, so that essentia might be said). And thereby, to that nature which supremely is, by whose action are whatever things are, there is no contrary nature except that which is not. For to that which is, not-being is contrary.

And therefore to God—that is, to the supreme essence and author of all essences of whatever kind—no essence is contrary. [III] But those are called in the Scriptures the enemies of God who oppose His rule not by nature, but by vices, being able to do Him no harm, but only themselves. For they are enemies by the will of resisting, not by the power of injuring. For God is immutable and in every way incorruptible. Wherefore the vice by which those who are called His enemies resist God is an evil not to God, but to themselves; and this for no other reason than that it corrupts in them the good of nature. Nature, therefore, is not contrary to God, but vice, because it is evil, is contrary to good. But who would deny that God is supremely good?

Vice, therefore, is contrary to God, as evil is to good. But the nature which it vitiates is also good; and hence to this good also it is assuredly contrary; but to God it is contrary only as evil to good, whereas to the nature which it vitiates it is not only evil, but also hurtful. For no evils are hurtful to God, but only to mutable and corruptible natures—which are nevertheless good even by the testimony of the vices themselves. For if they were not good, vices could not harm them. For what do they do by harming, except take away integrity, beauty, health, virtue, and whatever good of a nature is wont to be withdrawn or diminished by vice? But if there be nothing of good at all, it does not harm by taking away any good, and thereby is not even a vice. For it cannot be that there is a vice and yet it does not harm.

Whence it is gathered that, although vice cannot harm the immutable good, yet it cannot harm anything except a good, because it does not exist except where it harms. This can also be said in this way: that a vice can neither be in the supreme good, nor except in some good. Goods alone, therefore, can somewhere exist; evils alone nowhere; since even those natures which have been vitiated from the beginning of an evil will are evil in so far as they are vitiated, but in so far as they are natures, are good. And when a vitiated nature is in punishments, besides the fact that it is a nature, this too is there a good, namely that it is not unpunished. For this is just, and everything just is without doubt a good. For no one pays penalties for natural vices, but for voluntary ones.

For even that vice which, strengthened by habit or by excessive progress, has grown as it were naturally, took its beginning from the will. But we are now speaking of the vices of that nature in which there is a mind capable of the intelligible light by which the just is discerned from the unjust. [IV] Moreover, to think worthy of damnation the vices of cattle, trees, and other mutable and mortal things wholly devoid of intellect, sense, or life, by which their dissoluble nature is corrupted, is ridiculous; since these creatures have received, at the nod of the Creator, such a mode that, by yielding and succeeding, they carry out the lowest beauty of the seasons, congruous in its own kind with the parts of this world.

For earthly things were not to be made equal to heavenly, nor ought these to have been lacking to the universe merely because those are better. When, therefore, in these places where such things were fitting to exist, some things arise as others fail, and lesser things succumb to greater, and the vanquished are turned into the qualities of those that surpass them, this is the order of transient things. The beauty of this order does not delight us, for the reason that, being woven into a part of it according to the condition of our mortality, we cannot perceive the whole, to which the particulars that offend us are fittingly and becomingly suited.

Whence to us, who are less able to contemplate it, the providence of the Creator is most rightly enjoined to be believed, lest in our vanity of human rashness we should dare to blame in any part the work of so great an Artificer. Although even the vices of earthly things, which are neither voluntary nor penal, commend the natures themselves—of which there is none at all whose author and founder is not God—by the same reasoning, if we attend prudently; because in these too it displeases us that by vice there is taken away what in the nature pleases us; unless, indeed, the natures themselves for the most part displease men when they become hurtful to them, men considering not the natures, but their own utility—as those animals by whose abundance the pride of the Egyptians was scourged.

But in this manner they can even find fault with the sun, since certain persons sinning, or not paying their debts, are ordered by judges to be placed in the sun. It is not, then, according to our convenience or inconvenience, but a nature considered in itself gives glory to its Artificer. So too is the nature of the eternal fire without any doubt praiseworthy, although it is to be penal to the ungodly who are condemned. For what is more beautiful than fire, flaming, vigorous, and shining? What more useful than that which warms, heals, and cooks?—although nothing is more troublesome than that which burns. The very same thing, therefore, applied in one way is destructive, which, fittingly employed, is found most beneficial. For who could suffice in words to unfold its uses in the whole world?

Nor are those to be heard who praise the light in fire, but blame the heat—according, forsooth, not to the force of nature, but to their own convenience or inconvenience. For they wish to see, but not to burn. But they little attend that this very light, which certainly also pleases them, harms weak eyes by its incongruity, and that in that heat which displeases them, not a few animals live wholesomely through its congruity. [V] All natures, therefore, since they exist and thereby have their own measure, their own species, and a certain peace of their own with themselves, are assuredly good; and when they are there where by the order of nature they ought to be, they preserve their own being, as much as they have received;

and those which have not received the power to be always, for the use and movement of the things to which by the Creator's law they are subject, are changed for the better or the worse, tending by divine providence to that outcome which the plan of governing the universe includes; so that not even so great a corruption, as leads mutable and mortal natures even to destruction, so brings it about that what was should cease to be, without there consequently coming to be from it what ought to be.

Since these things are so, God, who supremely is and thereby by Him was made every essence which does not supremely exist (because that which was made out of nothing neither ought to be equal to Him, nor could exist in any way if it had not been made by Him), is neither to be blamed on account of the offense of any vices, and is to be praised in the consideration of all natures. [VI] Accordingly, the cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be most truly this, that they adhere to Him who supremely is. But when the cause of the misery of the evil angels is sought, it deservedly occurs that, being turned away from Him who supremely is, they were turned to themselves, who do not supremely exist; and what else is this vice to be named than pride? For 'the beginning of all sin is pride.'

They were unwilling, therefore, to keep their strength for Him; and they who would have been more, if they had adhered to Him who supremely is, by preferring themselves to Him, preferred that which is less. This is the first defect, and the first want, and the first vice of that nature which was so created that, although it did not supremely exist, yet, for having blessedness, it could enjoy Him who supremely is; from whom being turned away, it would not indeed be nothing, but would nevertheless be less, and thereby become miserable. Moreover, if the efficient cause of this evil will be sought, nothing is found. For what is it that makes the will evil, since it is the will itself that makes the evil work? And thereby the evil will is the efficient cause of the evil work, but of the evil will there is no efficient cause.

For if there is some thing, it either has or has not some will; if it has, it assuredly has either a good or an evil one; if a good one, who would be so foolish as to say that a good will makes an evil will? For then, if it were so, a good will would be the cause of sin—than which nothing more absurd can be thought. But if that thing, which is thought to make the will evil, itself also has an evil will, I ask consequently of that thing too what made it; and thus, that there may be some limit to the inquiry, I inquire the cause of the first evil will. For that is not the first evil will which an evil will made; but that is the first which none made. For if it was preceded by that from which it came to be, that which made the other is prior.

If it be answered that no thing made it, and therefore it always existed: I ask whether it existed in some nature. For if it existed in none, it existed not at all; but if in some, it vitiated and corrupted that nature, and was hurtful to it, and thereby deprived it of good. And therefore an evil will could not be in an evil nature, but in a good one, though mutable, which this vice could harm. For if it did not harm, it certainly was not a vice, and thereby is not to be called an evil will. But if it harmed, it certainly harmed by taking away or diminishing good. Therefore an eternal evil will could not exist in that thing in which a natural good had preceded, which the evil will could by harming take away. If, then, it was not eternal, I ask who made it.

It remains to be said that some thing, in which there was no will, made the evil will. I ask whether this thing is superior, or inferior, or equal. But the superior is assuredly better; how then could it be the cause of no will, and not rather of a good will? The same is assuredly true of an equal. For two things, as long as they are equally of a good will, one does not make in the other an evil will. It remains, then, that an inferior thing, which has no will, made the evil will of the angelic nature which first sinned. But even that thing itself, whatever it is, being inferior down to the lowest earth, since it is a nature and an essence, is without doubt good, having its own measure and species in its own kind and order.

How, then, is a good thing the efficient cause of an evil will? How, I say, is good the cause of evil? For when the will, having forsaken the higher, turns itself to lower things, it becomes evil, not because that to which it turns is evil, but because the turning itself is perverse. Therefore it is not the inferior thing that made the will evil; but the will itself perversely and inordinately desired the inferior thing, because it, the will, was made. For if two persons, equally affected in soul and body, see the beauty of one body, at the sight of which one of them is moved to enjoy it unlawfully, while the other remains steadfast in a chaste will, what do we think is the cause that in the one there arises, and in the other there does not arise, an evil will? What thing made it in him in whom it was made?

For it was not that beauty of the body; for it did not make the evil will in both, since it presented itself no differently to the sight of both. Or is the flesh of the beholder the cause? Why then not also the flesh of the other? Or is it the soul? Why then not the soul of both? For we said beforehand that both were equally affected in soul and body. Or must it be said that one of them was tempted by the hidden suggestion of a malignant spirit—as though he did not, by his own will, consent to that same suggestion and to whatever persuasion? This consent, then, this evil will which he applied to the one persuading him to evil—what thing made it in him, we ask.

For that this impediment too may be removed from this question: if both are tempted by the same temptation, and one of them yields and consents to it, while the other remains the same as he was—what else appears, save that one was unwilling, the other willing, to fall away from chastity? And whence, save by his own will, where in both the same affection of body and of soul had been? By the eyes of both the same beauty was equally seen; upon both the hidden temptation equally pressed. Therefore, to those wishing to know what thing made the evil will proper to one of them, if they look well, nothing occurs. For if we should say that he himself made it, what was he himself before the evil will, save a good nature, of which God, who is the immutable good, is the author?

Whoever, then, says that he who consented to the tempter and persuader—to whom the other did not consent—to make unlawful use of the beautiful body which presented itself to be seen equally by both, when before that seeing and temptation both were alike in soul and body, himself made for himself the evil will (he who assuredly was good before the evil will): let him ask why he made it—whether because he is a nature, or because he was made out of nothing—and he will find that the evil will begins not from that which is nature, but from that which is a nature made out of nothing. For if nature were the cause of the evil will, what else are we compelled to say than that evil comes to be from good, and that good is the cause of evil?—if indeed from a good nature an evil will comes to be.

Whence can it come to pass that a good nature, though mutable, before it has an evil will, should make anything evil—that is, the evil will itself? [VII] Let no one, therefore, seek the efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, since neither is that an effecting, but a defecting. For to fall away from that which supremely is, to that which less is—this is to begin to have an evil will. But to wish to find the causes of these defections—which are not efficient, as I have said, but deficient—is as if someone should wish to see darkness or hear silence; both of which, however, are known to us, the one only through the eyes, the other only through the ears, yet not in their appearance, but in the privation of appearance.

Let no one, then, seek to learn from me what I know that I do not know, unless perhaps to learn how not to know that which must be known to be incapable of being known. For those things which are known not in their form but in the privation of it, if they can be spoken or understood at all, are in a certain manner known by not-knowing, so that by knowing they are not known. For when the gaze even of the bodily eye ranges over bodily forms, it nowhere sees darkness except where it has begun not to see. So too it belongs to no other sense, but to the ears alone, to perceive silence, which nonetheless is in no way perceived except by not-hearing. Thus indeed our mind beholds intelligible forms by understanding; but where they fail, it learns them by not-knowing. For who understands his own faults?

This I know: that the nature of God can never, nowhere, in no part fail, whereas those things which have been made out of nothing can fail. Yet insofar as they exist the more and do good (for then indeed they do something), they have efficient causes; but insofar as they fail and thereby do evil (for what then do they do but vain things?), they have deficient causes. Likewise I know that in whomever an evil will arises, it arises in him in such a way that, had he not willed it, it would not have arisen; and therefore not necessary but voluntary defects are followed by a just penalty. For the falling-away is not toward evil things, but is done evilly; that is, not toward evil natures, but done evilly for this reason: because it is against the order of natures, turning from that which supremely is to that which is less.

For avarice is not a fault of gold, but of the man who perversely loves gold with justice forsaken, which ought incomparably to have been set above gold; nor is luxury a fault of beautiful and pleasant bodies, but of the soul that perversely loves bodily pleasures with temperance neglected, by which we are fitted to things spiritually more beautiful and incorruptibly more sweet; nor is boasting a fault of human praise, but of the soul that perversely loves to be praised by men, with the testimony of conscience despised; nor is pride a fault of him who gives power, or even of power itself, but of the soul that perversely loves its own power, with the more just power of one more mighty held in contempt.

And therefore whoever perversely loves the good of any nature whatsoever, even if he attains it, himself becomes evil in the good and wretched, being deprived of a better thing. Since, then, of an evil will there is no efficient cause that is natural or, if one may so speak, essential (for from the evil will itself arises the evil of mutable spirits, by which the good of nature is diminished and corrupted, and nothing produces such a will except the falling-away by which God is forsaken, of which falling-away the cause too utterly fails): if we should say that there is no efficient cause even of a good will, we must beware lest the good will of the good angels be believed to be uncreated and coeternal with God. Since, then, they themselves were made, how shall that good will be said not to have been made?

Furthermore, since it was made, was it made together with the angels themselves, or did they exist first without it? But if it was made together with them, there is no doubt that it was made by him by whom they too were made; and as soon as they were made, they clung, by the love with which they were made, to him by whom they were made. And these fell apart from the fellowship of those others by this: that those remained in the same good will, while these were changed by falling away from it, namely by an evil will, in the very act by which they fell away from the good will; from which they would not have fallen away had they not been willing. But if the good angels existed first without a good will and made it in themselves without God working: were they then made better by themselves than by him? Far be it! For what were they without a good will but evil?

Or if they were not evil for the reason that no evil will was in them either (for they had not fallen away from that which they had not yet begun to have), then certainly they were not yet such, not yet so good as they became when they began to have a good will. But if they could not make themselves better than he had made them, than whom no one makes anything better: surely they could not have a good will, by which they would be better, except by the working aid of the Creator. And when their good will accomplished this—that they should be turned not to themselves, who were of less being, but to him who supremely is, and by clinging to him should have more being and, by participation in him, should live wisely and blessedly:

what else is shown but that a will, however good, would have been destitute, remaining in mere desire, unless he who had made the good nature capable of receiving himself out of nothing were, out of himself, to make it better by filling it, first making it more eager by arousing it? For this too must be examined: if the good angels themselves made a good will in themselves, whether they made it by some will or by no will. If by no will, then indeed they did not make it at all. If by some will, was it an evil or a good will? If evil, how could an evil will be the maker of a good will? If good, then they already had it. And who had made this good will but he who created them with a good will, that is, with a chaste love by which they might cling to him, at once both founding their nature and bestowing grace upon them?

Whence it must be believed that the holy angels were never without a good will, that is, without the love of God. But those who, though created good, are nevertheless evil (evil by their own will, which the good nature did not make, except when it fell away of its own accord from the good, so that the cause of evil is not the good but the falling-away from the good)—these either received a lesser grace of divine love than those who persevered in that same love, or, if both were created equally good, then, while these fell by an evil will, those were more abundantly helped and attained that fullness of blessedness by which they became most certain that they would never fall; as we have already treated in the book which this one follows.

It must therefore be confessed, with the praise due to the Creator, that it belongs not only to holy men but that it may also be said of the holy angels, that the love of God has been poured out in them through the Holy Spirit who was given to them; and that it is the good not only of men, but first and chiefly of the angels, which is written: But for me it is good to cling to God. To those to whom this good is common, they have, both with him to whom they cling and among themselves, a holy fellowship, and they are one City of God and also his living sacrifice and his living temple.

Of that City a part—the part which, destined to be joined to the immortal angels, is gathered from mortal men and now sojourns changeably upon the earth, or rests in the hidden receptacles and abodes of souls among those who have undergone death—I now see must be spoken of: how, with the same God creating, it arose, just as was said concerning the angels. For from one man, whom God first founded, the human race took its beginning, according to the faith of Holy Scripture, which not undeservedly holds a marvelous authority throughout the world and among all the nations that it foretold, by its true divinity, would come to believe in it, among the other true things which it declared.