Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 13 part 2/4

[X] Let us therefore pass over the conjectures of men who do not know what they are saying about the nature or the founding of the human race. For some, just as they believed concerning the world itself, suppose that men have always existed. Whence Apuleius too says, when he was describing this class of living beings: "Individually mortal, yet as a whole race everlasting." And when it is objected to them that, if the human race has always existed, how can that history of theirs speak truly which relates who existed and who were the discoverers of various things—who were the first founders of the liberal disciplines and of the other arts, or by whom first

this or that region and part of the earth, this or that island began to be inhabited—how can such a history speak truly? They reply that by floods and conflagrations at certain intervals of time, not indeed all lands, but very many of them, are so devastated that men are reduced to a scanty few, from whose offspring the former multitude is again restored; and that thus the same things are again and again discovered and founded as if for the first time, whereas they are rather being restored, having been interrupted and extinguished by those excessive devastations; but that a man cannot come into being at all except from a man. Yet they say what they suppose, not what they know.

[XI] They are deceived also by certain most mendacious writings, which they allege to contain, in the history of the ages, many thousands of years, whereas from the sacred writings we reckon that, from the founding of man, not yet six thousand years have been completed. Wherefore, that I may not dispute at length how the vanity of those writings—in which far more thousands of years are recorded—is refuted, and how no fitting authority for this matter is found in them: that letter of Alexander the Great to his mother Olympias, which he wrote setting forth the narration of a certain Egyptian priest, which he produced from writings held sacred among them, contains also kingdoms which Greek history too knows;

among which, in the same letter of Alexander, the kingdom of the Assyrians exceeds five thousand years; but in Greek history it has nearly one thousand three hundred years from the reign of Belus himself, whom that Egyptian too places, as king, at the beginning of that same kingdom; while the empire of the Persians and Macedonians up to Alexander himself, to whom he was speaking, that man reckons at more than eight thousand years, whereas among the Greeks the Macedonians up to the death of Alexander are found to be four hundred and eighty-five years, and the Persians, until the reign was ended by the victory of Alexander himself, are reckoned at two hundred and thirty-three. These numbers of years, then, are by far smaller than those of the Egyptians, and would not equal them even if they were reckoned three times over.

For the Egyptians are said once to have had years so short that they were completed in four months each; whence a fuller and truer year, such as ours is now and theirs also is, embraced three of their ancient years. But not even so, as I have said, does Greek history agree in the reckoning of times with the Egyptian. And therefore credence is rather to be given to the Greek, because it does not exceed the true number of years which is contained in our writings, which are truly sacred. Furthermore, if this letter of Alexander, which has become most widely known, is so much at variance in its spans of time from what may probably be believed of these matters:

how much less are those writings to be believed, which they have wished to bring forward full of fabulous, as it were, antiquities, against the authority of those most well-known and divine books—which foretold that the whole world would come to believe in them, and in which the whole world, just as was foretold by them, has believed; which show that they narrated true things past by the fact that the things they foretold as future are being fulfilled with such great truth. [XII] But others, who do not consider this world to be everlasting—whether they suppose it to be not the only one but that there are innumerable worlds, or that it is indeed the only one, but that at fixed intervals of ages it innumerably rises and passes away—must necessarily confess that the human race existed formerly without begetting men.

For not as with the inundations and burnings of lands, which those men do not think happen over the whole world at once—and therefore contend that a few men, from whom the former multitude is restored, always remain—not thus can these men suppose that anything of mankind is left in the world when the world perishes; but just as they think the world itself is reborn from its own matter, so in it, from its elements, they think the human race, and then from parents the offspring of mortals, sprouts forth, as with other animals. [XIII] But that which we answered, when the question was raised concerning the origin of the world, to those who are unwilling to believe that it did not always exist, but began to exist, as even Plato most openly confesses—although he is believed by some to have thought otherwise than he says:

this same answer I would also give concerning the first condition of man, on account of those who are similarly troubled as to why man was not created through the innumerable and infinite times back, and was created so late that, according to what is found in the sacred writings, less than six thousand years have passed since he began to be. For if the brevity of the time offends them, because so few years seem to them to have passed since man, as is read in our authorities, was established: let them consider that nothing is long-lasting in which there is anything final, and that all the spans of ages, if they be compared to boundless eternity, are to be esteemed not scanty, but nothing at all.

And therefore, if not five or six, but even sixty thousand years, or six hundred, or sixty times or six hundred times or six hundred thousand times as many years were spoken of, since God made man; or if this same sum were multiplied over and over so many times that we should no longer have any name for the number—likewise it could be asked why he did not make him before. For God's cessation from the creation of man, stretching backward, is so eternal and without beginning that, if there be compared to it however great and unspeakable a multitude of times—which nonetheless, enclosed by an end, is bounded by a fixed span—it ought not even to seem so much as if we were to compare the very briefest drop of moisture to the whole sea, even to as much as the ocean flows around;

since of these two, the one indeed is exceedingly tiny, the other incomparably great, yet both are finite; but that span of time which proceeds from some beginning and is confined by some end, however great a magnitude it be stretched to, when compared to that which has no beginning, I know not whether it is to be reckoned as the least, or rather as nothing. For hence, if from its end there be taken away even the very briefest moments one by one, though with the number decreasing—vast as it is, so that it finds no name—by going back in reverse (as if you should subtract a man's days from that in which he now lives back to that in which he was born), at some time that subtraction will be brought to the beginning.

But if there be subtracted, going backward in a span that began from no beginning, not, I say, the minute moments one by one, nor even the quantities of hours or days or months or years, but such great spans as that sum of years comprehends which can no longer be uttered by any reckoners—which nonetheless is consumed by the moment-by-moment subtraction of moments—and if these so great spans be subtracted not once and again and more often, but always: what happens, what is being done, when one never arrives at a beginning, which is utterly none at all?

Wherefore that which we now inquire, after five thousand and more years, our posterity too could inquire with the same curiosity after six hundred thousand years, if this mortality of men, by arising and dying, and this unlearned infirmity, should so long persevere. Even those who were before us could have raised this question in the very recent times of the created man. Indeed, the first man himself, on the very next day, or on the same day after he was made, could have inquired why he was not made before; and whenever he might have been made before, this controversy about the beginning of temporal things would not find one set of forces then and other forces now or even later.

[XIV] But the philosophers of this world thought that they could and ought to resolve this in no other way than by introducing cycles of times, in which they asserted that the same things had always been renewed and repeated in the nature of things, and that thus henceforth the revolutions of ages coming and passing would be without cessation; whether these cycles took place with the world remaining permanent, or whether the world, rising and passing away at fixed intervals, ever displayed the same things as though new, which had already gone by and were to come. And from this mockery they cannot free the immortal soul, even when it has attained wisdom, going without cessation to a false blessedness and returning without cessation to true misery.

For how is that a true blessedness, of whose eternity there is never any confidence, while the soul either most ignorantly, in the truth, does not know its coming misery, or most unhappily, in its blessedness, dreads it? But if, never to return thereafter to miseries, it goes from these to blessedness: then something new happens in time, which has no end of time. Why not then also the world? why not also man, made in the world? So that those—I know not what—false cycles, devised by false and deceitful sages, may be avoided in sound doctrine, on the path of the straight way. For some also wish that which is read in the book of Solomon, which is called Ecclesiastes: What is that which has been? The same which shall be. And what is that which has been done? The same which shall be done;

and there is nothing wholly new under the sun. Who shall speak and say: Behold, this is new: it has already been in the ages which were before us—they wish this to be understood as spoken on account of these cycles returning into the same things and recalling all things into the same. But he said this either concerning those things of which he was speaking above, that is, concerning generations, some going, others coming, concerning the circlings of the sun, concerning the fallings of torrents; or certainly concerning the kinds of all things which rise and set. For there were men before us, there are men with us, there will be men after us; and so likewise all living creatures or shrubs.

Monsters too, those very things which are born unusual, although they differ among themselves and some of them are related to have been produced but once, nevertheless, according to that which they are generally—miracles and monsters—assuredly both have been and will be, nor is it recent and new that a monster should be born under the sun. Although some have understood these words as though that wise man wished it to be understood that in the predestination of God all things had already been done, and therefore that nothing is recent under the sun.

But far be it from right faith that we should believe those cycles to be signified by these words of Solomon, by which they think that the same revolutions of times and of temporal things are so repeated that, for example, just as in this age Plato the philosopher taught disciples in the city of Athens and in that school which is called the Academy, so through innumerable ages back, at very long yet fixed intervals, the same Plato and the same city and the same school and the same disciples have been repeated, and are to be repeated through innumerable ages hereafter. Far be it, I say, that we should believe these things. For Christ died once for our sins;

but rising from the dead, he dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over him; and we, after the resurrection, shall be always with the Lord, to whom we now say what the sacred psalm admonishes: Thou, O Lord, shalt preserve us and keep us from this generation and for ever. And I think that what follows accords sufficiently with these men: The wicked walk about in a circle; not because their life, through the cycles which they imagine, will return, but because the way of their error is now such, that is, false doctrine. [XV] But what wonder is it if, wandering in these cycles, they find neither entrance nor exit? For the human race and this our mortality know neither by what beginning it began, nor by what end it is closed;

seeing that they cannot penetrate the depth of God, whereby, though he himself is eternal and without beginning, he nonetheless began times from some beginning, and made man, whom he had never before made, in time—yet not by a new and sudden, but by an immutable and eternal counsel. Who could avail to investigate this unsearchable depth and to scrutinize the inscrutable, according to which God founded man, a temporal being, before whom no man ever was, not by a mutable will, in time, and multiplied the human race from one? Seeing that the psalm itself, when it had first premised and said:

Thou, O Lord, shalt preserve us and keep us from this generation and for ever, and then had rebuffed those in whose foolish and impious doctrine no eternity of the soul's liberation and blessedness is preserved, immediately subjoining: The wicked walk about in a circle: as if it were said to it: "What then dost thou believe, feel, understand? Is it to be supposed that it suddenly pleased God to make man, whom he had never before made through an infinite eternity back, God to whom nothing new can happen, in whom there is nothing mutable?"—it immediately answered, speaking to God himself: According to thy depth thou hast multiplied the sons of men. Let men, it says, feel what they suppose, and let them opine and dispute what pleases them:

According to thy depth, which no man can know, thou hast multiplied the sons of men. For it is very deep both that thou hast always existed, and that thou hast willed to make man for the first time from some point of time, man whom thou hadst never made, and yet hast not changed thy counsel and will. [XVI] I indeed, just as I dare not say that the Lord God at any time was not Lord, so I ought not to doubt that man never before existed and that from some point of time the first man was created. But when I consider of what thing he was always Lord, if a creature did not always exist, I am afraid to affirm anything, because I both look upon myself and recall that it is written: What man is able to know the counsel of God, or who will be able to think what the Lord wills?

For the thoughts of mortals are timid, and our devisings uncertain. For the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that ponders many things. From these many things, then, which I ponder in this earthly habitation—many indeed for this reason, because I cannot find the one thing which, out of these or beyond these, that perhaps I do not ponder, is true—if I should say that a creature always existed, of which he was Lord who is always Lord and never was not Lord, but now this one, now another through various and various spans of times, lest we should say that any creature is coeternal with the Creator, which sound faith and reason condemn:

it must be guarded against, lest it be absurd and alien to the light of truth that a mortal creature indeed always existed through the changes of times, one passing away, another succeeding, but that an immortal creature did not begin to exist except when it came to our age, when the angels too were created—if that light first made rightly signifies them, or rather that heaven of which it was said: In the beginning God made heaven and earth—since nevertheless they did not exist before they came to be, lest, if they are said to have always existed, the immortals be believed to be coeternal with God. But if I should say that the angels were not created in time, but existed before all times, they too whose Lord God was, who was never anything but Lord:

it will be asked of me also whether, if they were made before all times, those who were made could always have existed. Here it might perhaps seem that the answer should be: How not always, since that which exists at all time may not unfittingly be said to exist always? For these existed at all time to such a degree that they were even made before all times—if indeed times began from heaven, and they already were before heaven. But if time was not from heaven, but existed even before heaven; not indeed in hours and days and months and years (for those measurements of temporal spans, which are usually and properly called times, it is manifest began from the motion of the stars; whence God too, when he was instituting these, said:

And let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years), but in some mutable motion, of which one part is prior, another posterior, passing away because they cannot exist at once;—if, therefore, before heaven there was some such thing in angelic motions, and thus time already existed, and the angels, from the time they were made, were moved temporally: then even so they existed at all time, seeing that times were made together with them. But who could say: That did not always exist, which existed at all time? But if I should answer this, it will be said to me: How then are they not coeternal with the Creator, if he always was, and they always were? How also are they to be called created, if they are understood to have always existed? To this what shall be answered?

Or must it be said that they both always existed, since they existed at all time—they who were made with time, or with whom times were made—and yet were created? For neither will we deny that times themselves were created, although no one doubts that time existed at all time. For if time did not exist at all time, then there was a time when there was no time. Who so utterly foolish would say this? For we can rightly say: There was a time when Rome was not; there was a time when Jerusalem was not; there was a time when Abraham was not; there was a time when man was not, and anything of this sort; finally, if the world was made not with the beginning of time, but after some time, we can say: There was a time when the world was not;

but truly: There was a time when there was no time, we say as unfittingly as if anyone should say: There was a man when there was no man, or: This world was, when this world was not. For if it be understood of one thing and another, it can in some way be said, that is: There was another man when this man was not; so then: There was another time when this time was not, we can rightly say; but truly: There was a time when there was no time—who, even the most senseless, would say it? Just as, then, we say that time was created, though it is for this reason said to have always existed, because at all time there was time:

so it does not follow that, if the angels always existed, they were therefore not created, so as to be said to have always existed for this reason, that they existed at all time, and to have existed at all time for this reason, that in no way could times themselves exist without them. For where there is no creature by whose mutable motions times are wrought, times can in no way exist at all; and therefore even if they always existed, they were created, nor, if they always existed, are they therefore coeternal with the Creator. For he always existed in an immutable eternity; but they were made; yet they are said to have always existed for this reason, that they existed at all time, without whom times could in no way exist;

but time, since it runs on by mutability, cannot be coeternal with immutable eternity. And therefore, even though the immortality of the angels does not pass away in time, nor is past as though it now were not, nor future as though it were not yet: nevertheless their motions, by which times are wrought, pass over from the future into the past; and therefore they cannot be coeternal with the Creator, in whose motion it must not be said either that there was what now is not, or that there will be what is not yet. Wherefore, if God was always Lord, he always had a creature serving his dominion; yet a creature not begotten of himself, but made by himself out of nothing and not coeternal with him; for he was before it, although at no time without it;

preceding it not by a passing span of time, but by abiding perpetuity. But if I should give this answer to those who inquire how he was always Creator, always Lord, if a serving creature did not always exist; or how it was created and is not rather coeternal with the Creator, if it always existed: I fear lest I be more easily judged to affirm what I do not know than to teach what I know. I return therefore to that which our Creator willed us to know; but those things which he permitted either the wiser to know in this life, or reserved to be known by the wholly perfected in the other life, I confess to be beyond my powers.

But I have thought it best to treat these matters without dogmatic assertion, so that those who read them may see from what perilous questions they ought to hold back, and may not judge themselves competent for all things, but rather understand how salutary it is to obey the Apostle when he commands: 'For I say, through the grace of God which is given to me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety, and according as God hath divided to every one the measure of faith.' For if an infant be nourished according to its strength, it will come to pass that in growing it will take in more; but if it exceed the powers of its capacity, it will fail before it grows. As for what ages passed before the human race was established, I confess that I do not know;

nevertheless I do not doubt that no creature whatever is coeternal with the Creator. The Apostle even speaks of eternal times, and not of times to come, but — what is more to be wondered at — of times past. For thus he says: 'In hope of life everlasting, which God, who lieth not, hath promised before the eternal times; but hath in due times manifested his word.' Behold, he said that there were eternal times in the past, which nevertheless were not coeternal with God; since indeed He not only existed before the eternal times, but even promised eternal life, which He manifested in His own times, that is, in fitting times — what else than His own Word? For this is eternal life.

But how did He promise it, since He certainly promised it to men, who did not yet exist before the eternal times — unless because in His eternity and in His very Word, coeternal with Himself, that was already fixed by predestination which was to come to pass in its own time? This too I do not doubt: that before the first man was created, there never was any man; and that neither he himself was revolved I know not through what cycles I know not how many times, nor any other like him in nature. Nor do the arguments of the philosophers deter me from this faith, of which that is thought the sharpest which says that no infinite things can be comprehended by any knowledge; and therefore, they say, God has with Himself all the finite reckonings of all the finite things He makes;

but His goodness, they say, must not be believed ever to have been idle, lest His operation be temporal, when behind it there would have been an eternal cessation — as though He had repented of His former beginningless idleness, and on that account undertook the beginning of His work; and therefore, they say, it is necessary that the same things be always repeated, and the same things be always destined for repetition to pass by — whether the world remaining changeably (which, though it never was not, was yet made without any beginning of time), or its very rise and setting being always repeated in those cycles and always destined for repetition;

lest, forsooth, if God's works are said at some time to have first begun, His prior beginningless idleness be believed in some way to have been condemned by Him as sluggish, slothful, and therefore displeasing to Himself, and on that account to have been changed; but if, on the other hand, He be reported to have wrought temporal things indeed always, yet ever different ones, and thus at some time to have arrived even at making man, whom He had never made before — then He would seem to have made what He made not by knowledge, by which they think that no infinite things can be comprehended, but as it were for the moment, as it came into His mind, by a certain fortuitous inconstancy.

Furthermore, they say, if those cycles be admitted, by which the same temporal things are repeated — whether while the world remains, or while the world itself inserts into the same cycles its own revolving risings and settings — then neither is idle leisure, especially of so long a beginningless duration, attributed to God, nor is there improvident rashness in His works; since if the same things were not repeated, they could not, varied by an infinite diversity, be comprehended by any knowledge or foreknowledge of His. These arguments, by which the impious try to turn our simple piety from the right way, that we might walk with them in a circle — if reason could not refute them, faith ought to laugh at them.

To this is added that, by the help of the Lord our God, reason plainly shatters these revolving circles which mere opinion fabricates. For this is chiefly why these men err: that they prefer to walk in a false circle rather than on the true and straight path — because they measure the divine mind, which is altogether immutable, capable of any infinity, and numbering all things innumerable without any alternation of thought, by their own human, mutable, and narrow mind; and there befalls them what the Apostle says: 'For measuring themselves by themselves, they understand not.' For because, whenever anything new comes into their mind to be done, they do it by a new counsel (since they bear changeable minds):

assuredly, thinking not of God, whom they cannot conceive, but of themselves in His stead — not Him, but themselves — they compare not Him but themselves, and compare not to Him but to themselves. But for us it is not lawful to believe that God is affected in one way when He is at rest, and in another when He works; for indeed He is not to be said to be affected at all, as though something came to be in His nature which was not there before. For whatever is affected suffers, and everything that suffers anything is mutable. Let there not therefore be imagined in His leisure any sluggishness, sloth, or inertness, just as there is no labor, effort, or toil in His work. He knows how to act while resting, and to rest while acting. He can bring to a new work a counsel not new but everlasting; nor did He begin, by any repenting because He had before ceased, to do what He had not done.