Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 20 part 1/5

[I] Since I see that I must next discourse upon the due ends of both cities, the earthly namely and the heavenly, there must first be set forth — as far as the plan of completing this work allows — the arguments of mortal men, by which they have striven to make happiness for themselves in the wretchedness of this life, so that it may become clear how our hope, which God has given us, differs from their vain devices, and how the thing itself, that is, the true happiness which He will give, differs — this being made clear not by divine authority alone, but by reason also brought to bear, such as we can bring to bear for the sake of unbelievers. For concerning the ends of good things and of evil, the philosophers have disputed among themselves much and in manifold ways;

and treating this question with the utmost intentness, they sought to discover what it is that makes a man happy. For that is the end of our good, for the sake of which other things are to be sought, while itself is to be sought for its own sake; and that is the end of evil, for the sake of avoiding which other things are to be shunned, while itself is to be shunned for its own sake. By the end of good, then, we now mean not that by which it is consumed so as to cease to be, but that by which it is brought to completion so as to be full; and by the end of evil, not that by which it ceases to exist, but that to which it leads in its work of harming. These ends, therefore, are the highest good and the highest evil. Concerning the finding of these, and the attaining of the highest good in this life, and the avoiding of the highest evil, those have laboured much, as I have said, who have professed the pursuit of wisdom amid the vanity of this world;

and yet the limit of nature did not permit them, however diversely they erred, to stray so far from the path of truth as not to place the ends of good and evil, some in the soul, some in the body, some in both. From this threefold distribution, as it were, of the general schools, Marcus Varro, in his book On Philosophy, having diligently and subtly scrutinized so great a variety of doctrines, observed that, by applying certain differentiae, he could most easily arrive at two hundred and eighty-eight schools — not such as already existed, but such as could exist.

That I may show this briefly, I must begin from that which he himself observed and set down in the aforesaid book: that there are four things which men, without a teacher, without any aid of instruction, without any diligence or art of living (which is called virtue and is beyond doubt learned), desire as it were naturally — either pleasure, by which the sense of the body is delightfully moved; or repose, by which it comes about that a man suffers no bodily annoyance; or both together, which nevertheless Epicurus calls by the one name of pleasure; or the primary things of nature taken universally, in which are both these and others, whether in the body, such as the soundness and health and integrity of its members, or in the soul, such as those endowments, whether small or great, that are found in the natural gifts of men.

These four, then — that is, pleasure, repose, both together, and the primary things of nature — are so present in us that either virtue, which instruction afterwards implants, is to be sought for their sake, or they for the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and by this there arise from here twelve schools. For by this reasoning each is tripled; and when I have demonstrated this in one, it will not be difficult to find it in the rest. When, therefore, bodily pleasure is either subordinated to the virtue of the soul, or preferred to it, or joined with it, it is varied by a threefold diversity of schools. It is subordinated to virtue when it is taken up for the use of virtue.

For it belongs to the office of virtue both to live for one's country and for the sake of one's country to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily pleasure; for without it neither is food and drink taken that one may live, nor is intercourse had that offspring may be propagated. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is sought for its own sake, while virtue is believed to be taken up for its sake — that is, so that virtue does nothing except to attain or preserve bodily pleasure; and this life is indeed base, since there virtue is a slave to its mistress pleasure (though this ought in no wise to be called virtue); yet even this horrible turpitude has had certain philosophers as its patrons and defenders.

Pleasure, further, is joined with virtue when neither of them is sought for the sake of the other, but both for their own sake. Wherefore, just as pleasure, whether subordinated or preferred or joined to virtue, makes three schools, so repose, so both together, so the primary things of nature are found to make three each. For according to the variety of human opinions they are sometimes subordinated to virtue, sometimes preferred to it, sometimes joined with it, and thus one arrives at the number of twelve schools. But this number too is doubled by the application of one differentia, namely that of the social life; for whoever follows any one of these twelve schools assuredly does so either for himself alone, or also for the sake of a companion, to whom he owes it to wish that which he wishes for himself.

Therefore there are twelve of those who think each school is to be held for their own sake only, and another twelve of those who determine that one must philosophize in this way or that not only for themselves but also for the sake of others, whose good they desire as their own. But these twenty-four schools are again doubled by adding the differentia drawn from the New Academics, and become forty-eight. For each one of those twenty-four schools any man can so hold and defend as certain — in the way the Stoics defended that man's good, whereby he is happy, consists in the virtue of the soul alone; or another man can hold it as uncertain, as the New Academics defended, for to them it seemed, though not certain, yet like the truth.

Twenty-four, therefore, arise through those who hold them as it were certain on account of truth, and another twenty-four through those who think the same schools, though uncertain, are to be followed on account of their likeness to truth. Again, since any man can follow each one of these forty-eight schools in the manner of the other philosophers, and likewise another can follow it in the manner of the Cynics, by this differentia also they are doubled and become ninety-six.

Then, since men can uphold and follow each single one of them in such a way as either to love the leisured life — like those who wished, and were able, to devote themselves only to the pursuits of learning — or the busy life — like those who, while philosophizing, were nonetheless most fully occupied with the administration of the commonwealth and the governance of human affairs — or a life tempered from both kinds — like those who apportioned the seasons of their life partly to learned leisure, partly to necessary business: on account of these differentiae this number of schools can also be tripled and brought to two hundred and eighty-eight. These things from Varro's book I have set forth as briefly and clearly as I could, unfolding his opinions in my own words.

But by what manner, having refuted the rest, he chooses the one which he wishes to be that of the Old Academics (whom, from Plato's founding down to Polemon — who was the fourth after him to hold his school, which was called the Academy — he would have it seem to have held certain fixed doctrines, and on this account he distinguishes them from the New Academics, to whom all things are uncertain, which kind of philosophy began with Arcesilaus, the successor of Polemon), and how he judges that school — that is, of the Old Academics — to be as free of all error as of doubt: this it would be long to demonstrate in every point; nor yet is the matter to be wholly passed over. First, then, he removes all those differentiae which multiplied the number of schools, which he thinks are to be removed because in them there is no end of good.

For he does not think that any school of philosophy is to be so called which does not differ from the rest in this, that it holds different ends of good and evil. Since indeed there is for man no cause of philosophizing except that he may be happy; and that which makes him happy is itself the end of good; there is therefore no cause of philosophizing except the end of good: wherefore that which follows no end of good is to be called no school of philosophy. When, then, it is asked concerning the social life whether it is to be held by the wise man — so that he should wish and care for the highest good, whereby a man becomes happy, for his friend as much as for himself, or whether he does whatever he does only for the sake of his own happiness:

the question is not about the highest good itself, but about taking up or not taking up a companion to share in this good — not for its own sake, but for the sake of that same companion, that one may so rejoice in his good as one rejoices in one's own. Likewise, when the question is asked concerning the New Academics, to whom all things are uncertain, whether the matters in which one must philosophize are to be held as such, or whether, as it pleased other philosophers, we ought to hold them as certain: the question is not what is to be followed as the end of good, but concerns the very truth of that good which seems to be worth following — whether it is to be doubted of or not;

that is, to speak it more plainly, whether it is to be followed in such a way that he who follows it says it is true, or in such a way that he who follows it says it seems true to him — even though it should perchance be false — yet both follow one and the same good. In that differentia too which is drawn from the habit and custom of the Cynics, the question is not what is the end of good, but whether one must live in that habit and custom who follows the true good, whatever seems to him to be true and worth following. In short, there have been men who, though they pursued different final goods — some virtue, some pleasure — nevertheless held the same habit and custom, from which they were called Cynics.

Thus whatever that is by which the Cynic philosophers are distinguished from the rest, it availed nothing at all towards choosing and holding the good whereby they might become happy. For if it made any difference to this, assuredly the same habit would compel the pursuit of the same end, and a different habit would not allow the pursuit of the same end. [II] In those three kinds of life also — the one, not slothfully but leisured in the contemplation or inquiry of truth; the second, busied in the conduct of human affairs; the third, tempered from both kinds — when it is asked which of these is rather to be chosen, the end of good is not in controversy;

but what these three bring by way of difficulty or ease towards attaining or retaining the end of good, that is what is at issue in this question. For the end of good, when anyone has reached it, forthwith makes him happy; whereas in lettered leisure, or in public business, or when both are engaged in by turns, a man is not straightway happy. For many indeed can live in any one of these three, and yet err in seeking the end of good, whereby a man becomes happy.

Another question, therefore, is that concerning the ends of good and evil, which constitutes each school of philosophers; and other questions are those concerning the social life, concerning the hesitancy of the Academics, concerning the dress and diet of the Cynics, concerning the three kinds of life — the leisured, the active, and that moderated from both; of which there is none in which the ends of good and evil are disputed. Accordingly, since Marcus Varro, by applying these four differentiae — that is, from the social life, from the New Academics, from the Cynics, and from that threefold kind of life — arrived at two hundred and eighty-eight schools, and if any others can be similarly added:

all these being removed — since they introduce no question about following the highest good and therefore are not, and are not to be called, schools — he returns to those twelve in which it is asked what is the good of man, upon attaining which he becomes happy, that from them he may show one to be true and the rest false. For when that threefold kind of life is removed, two parts of this number are taken away, and ninety-six schools remain. And when the differentia added from the Cynics is removed, they are reduced to half and become forty-eight. Let us take away also what was applied from the New Academics: again half the part remains, that is, twenty-four. Let what had been added from the social life likewise be taken away:

twelve remain, which that differentia had doubled, that they might become twenty-four. Concerning these twelve, then, nothing can be said why they should not be reckoned as schools. For nothing else is sought in them than the end of goods and evils. And once the ends of goods are found, assuredly by contrast are found those of evils. But that these may become twelve schools, those four are tripled — pleasure, repose, both together, and the primary things of nature, which Varro calls the primigenia.

For these four, while singly they are sometimes subordinated to virtue, so as to seem to be sought not for their own sake but for the office of virtue; sometimes preferred, so that virtue is deemed necessary not for its own sake but for the attaining or preserving of these; sometimes joined, so that both virtue and these are believed to be sought for their own sake — they render the number four threefold and arrive at twelve schools. But from those four things Varro removes three — namely pleasure, repose, and both together — not because he disapproves of them, but because those primary things of nature contain in themselves both pleasure and repose.

What need, then, is there to make three things out of these two — namely two, when pleasure or repose is sought singly, and a third when both together — seeing that the primary things of nature contain both these themselves and, besides these, many others? Concerning three schools, then, it pleases him that there must be careful treatment as to which is rather to be chosen. For true reason permits no more than one to be true, whether it be among these three or somewhere else, which we shall see afterwards. Meanwhile, let us discuss, as briefly and clearly as we can, in what manner Varro chooses one of these three.

These three schools, indeed, arise thus: when either the primary things of nature are to be sought for the sake of virtue, or virtue for the sake of the primary things of nature, or both — that is, both virtue and the primary things of nature — for their own sake. [III] Which, then, of these three is true and to be followed, he tries to persuade us in this manner. First, since the highest good in philosophy is sought not of a tree, nor of a beast, nor of God, but of man, he thinks it must be asked what man himself is. He perceives, indeed, that in his nature there are two things, body and soul; and of these two he does not at all doubt that the soul is the better and by far the more excellent; but whether the soul alone is the man, so that the body is to him as a horse to a horseman (for the horseman is not man and horse, but man alone;

yet he is called a horseman because he stands in a certain relation to the horse), or whether the body alone is the man, standing in a certain relation to the soul, as a cup to the drink (for the cup and the drink which the cup contains are not together called a goblet, but the cup alone; yet it is so called because it is fitted for containing the drink), or whether in truth neither the soul alone nor the body alone, but both together are the man, of which the one part is either soul or body, while he himself, the whole, consists of both, so as to be man (just as we call two horses yoked together a pair, of which either the right or the left is a part of the pair, but one of them, in whatever relation it stands to the other, we do not call a pair, but both together) — this he weighs.

Of these three he chose this third, and judges that man is neither the soul alone nor the body alone, but the soul and body together. Accordingly he says that the highest good of man, whereby he becomes happy, consists of the goods of both things, namely of both soul and body. And by this he considers that those primary things of nature are to be sought for their own sake, and virtue itself likewise — virtue which instruction implants as it were the art of living, and which among the goods of the soul is the most excellent good.

Wherefore this same virtue, that is, the art of conducting life, when it has received the primary things of nature — which existed apart from it, and yet existed even when instruction was still lacking to them — seeks all things for their own sake, and at the same time itself also; and it uses all things at once, and itself too, with this end, that it may be delighted with all and fully enjoy all, more and less as some are among themselves greater and lesser, yet rejoicing in all, and scorning certain lesser things, if necessity demand it, for the sake of greater things to be attained or held. But of all goods, whether of soul or of body, virtue prefers nothing whatever to itself. For it makes good use both of itself and of the other goods that make a man happy.

But where virtue itself is not present, however many goods there may be, they are not goods to him whose they are; and by this they are not to be called even his goods, to whom, since he uses them ill, they cannot be of use. This life of man, therefore, which enjoys virtue and the other goods of soul and body, without which virtue cannot be, is said to be happy; but if it enjoys also other goods, without which virtue can be — whether any or several — it is happier; and if it enjoys absolutely all, so that no good whatever, of soul or of body, is lacking, it is most happy. For life is not the same thing as virtue, since not every life, but the wise life, is virtue; and yet any kind of life whatever can exist without any virtue, whereas virtue cannot exist without any life at all.

This I would say also of memory and reason, and of anything else of the kind that is in man. For these exist even before instruction, and without them no instruction can exist, and thereby neither virtue, which is assuredly learned. But to run well, to be beautiful in body, to excel in mighty strength, and other things of this kind are such that virtue can exist without them, and they without virtue; they are goods nonetheless, and according to these men virtue too loves them for their own sake, and uses and enjoys them as befits virtue. This happy life they declare to be also social, which loves the goods of friends for their own sake as its own, and wishes for them, for their own sake, that which it wishes for itself;

whether they be in the household, such as spouse and children and any domestics; or in the place where his house is, such as a city, as are those who are called citizens; or in the whole world, such as the nations which human society joins to him; or in the universe itself, which is comprised under the name of heaven and earth, such as they say the gods are, whom they will to be friends to the wise man, whom we more familiarly call angels. But concerning the ends of goods and, on the contrary, of evils, they deny that there is any doubt whatever, and they affirm that this is the distinction between themselves and the New Academics; nor does it matter to them at all whether one philosophizes in Cynic or in any other habit and manner of life, within those ends which they hold to be true.

Furthermore, of those three kinds of life — the leisured, the active, and that which is composed of both — they assert that this third pleases them. Varro affirms that the Old Academics thought and taught these things, on the authority of Antiochus, the teacher of Cicero and of himself — whom indeed Cicero would have it seem to have been in many points more a Stoic than an Old Academic. But what is that to us, who ought rather to judge concerning the things themselves than to hold it a great matter to know what each man thought about them? [IV] If, then, it be asked of us what the city of God answers when questioned about these several matters, and first what it holds concerning the ends of goods and evils: it will answer that eternal life is the highest good, and eternal death the highest evil;

and that, in order to attain the one and to shun the other, we must therefore live rightly. For this reason it is written: 'The just man lives by faith'; since we do not yet behold our good, whence it is needful that by believing we should seek it, nor is the very living rightly within our own power, unless He who has given us faith itself helps us as we believe and as we pray—the faith by which we believe that we must be helped by Him.

But those who supposed that the ends of good and evil lie in this present life—placing the supreme good either in the body, or in the soul, or in both; and, to speak more explicitly, either in pleasure or in virtue or in both, either in repose or in virtue or in both, either in pleasure and repose together or in virtue or in both, either in the primary things of nature or in virtue or in both—these, with marvellous vanity, wished to be blessed here and to be made blessed by their own selves. Truth mocked them through the prophet who says: 'The Lord knows the thoughts of men'; or, as the apostle Paul set down this testimony: 'The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.'

For who, with however great a flood of eloquence, is able to set forth the miseries of this life? Cicero lamented them in his Consolation on the death of his daughter, as best he could; but how little was that which he could do? For those things which are called the primary things of nature—when, where, in what manner can they be so well disposed in this life that they do not toss about beneath uncertain chances? For what pain contrary to pleasure, what unrest contrary to repose, cannot fall upon the body of the wise man? Surely the amputation or maiming of limbs assails a man's soundness, deformity his beauty, weakness his health, weariness his strength, torpor or slowness his mobility; and which of these is there that cannot rush upon the flesh of the wise man?

The bearing and movement of the body also, when they are seemly and fitting, are numbered among the primary things of nature; but what if some grievous sickness shakes the limbs with trembling? what if the spine of the back is so bent that the hands are set upon the ground, and a man is in a manner made four-footed? Will this not pervert every form and grace of standing and moving the body? What of the very primal goods of the mind itself, as they are called—where they set two things first, sense and understanding, for the grasping and perceiving of truth? But of what quality and extent does sense remain if—to say nothing of other things—a man becomes deaf and blind? And whither will reason and intelligence withdraw, where will they be lulled to sleep, if by some disease a man be rendered insane?

When the frenzied say or do many absurd things, for the most part alien to their good purpose and character—nay, contrary to their good purpose and character—if we either think upon or behold these things, and consider them worthily, we can scarcely hold back our tears, or perhaps cannot at all. What shall I say of those who suffer the assaults of demons? Where do they keep their understanding hidden or buried, while the malign spirit uses both their soul and their body according to its own will? And who is confident that this evil cannot befall the wise man in this life?

Then, what and how great is the perception of truth in this flesh, when, as we read in the truthful book of Wisdom, 'the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that muses on many things'? Furthermore, the impulse or appetite for action—if this is the right Latin term for that which the Greeks call horme, since they too reckon it among the primary goods of nature—is it not the very thing by which even the wretched motions and deeds of the insane are set in train, those things at which we shudder, when the senses are perverted and reason lulled to sleep?

Furthermore, virtue itself, which is not among the primary things of nature—since it comes upon them afterward, brought in by instruction—when it claims for itself the summit of human goods, what does it do here but wage perpetual wars with vices, and those not outward but inward, not another's but plainly our own and proper to us? Especially that virtue which in Greek is called sophrosyne, in Latin temperance, by which the desires of the flesh are bridled, lest they drag the consenting mind into all manner of shameful deeds. For there is no small vice, since, as the apostle says, 'the flesh lusts against the spirit'—the vice to which the contrary virtue is that of which the same apostle says, 'the spirit lusts against the flesh.' 'For these,' he says, 'are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you would.'

But what is it that we wish to do, when we wish to be made perfect by the end of the supreme good, save that the flesh should not lust against the spirit, and that there should not be in us this vice against which the spirit lusts? Yet since in this life, however much we may will it, we are unable to accomplish this, we do at least accomplish it by the help of God, that we may not yield, with the spirit succumbing to the flesh lusting against the spirit, and be dragged by our own consent to the committing of sin. Far be it, then, that so long as we are in this inner war, we should believe that we have already attained the blessedness to which we wish to come by conquering. And who is so wise as to have no conflict whatsoever against the lusts?

What of that virtue which is called prudence? Does it not with all its watchfulness discern good things from evil, so that no error may creep in as we seek the former and shun the latter, and by this very fact does it not testify that we are among evils, or that evils are within us? For it teaches that it is evil to consent to sinning, and good not to consent to lust for sinning. Yet that evil, to which prudence teaches us not to consent, temperance restrains—but neither prudence nor temperance takes it away from this life.

What of justice, whose office is to render to each his own—whence there arises in man himself a certain just order of nature, that the soul be subject to God, and the flesh to the soul, and thus both soul and flesh to God? Does it not show that it is still labouring at this task, rather than resting in the completed end of this work? For the soul is subject to God the less, the less it conceives of God in its very thoughts; and the flesh is subject to the soul the less, the more it lusts against the spirit. So long, then, as this infirmity, this plague, this languor is within us, how shall we dare to call ourselves already saved—and if not yet saved, how already blessed with that final blessedness?

Now that virtue whose name is fortitude, in however great a wisdom, is a most evident witness of human evils, which it is compelled to bear with patience. At these evils I marvel with what face the Stoic philosophers contend that they are not evils, seeing that they confess that, if they be so great that the wise man either cannot or ought not to endure them, he is compelled to inflict death upon himself and to depart from this life.

But so great is the stupor of pride in these men, who suppose that they have here the end of good and are made blessed by their own selves, that their wise man—that is, such as they describe him with marvellous vanity—even though he be blinded, deafened, struck dumb, crippled in his limbs, tortured with pains, and though any other of such evils that can be spoken or thought of fall upon him, so that he is compelled to inflict death upon himself: they are not ashamed to call this life, set amid such evils, blessed. O blessed life, that seeks the help of death in order to be ended! If it is blessed, let one abide in it!