Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 22

When, through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead, both cities—of which one is God's, the other the devil's—shall have arrived at their due ends, of what kind the punishment is to be, of the devil and of all who belong to him, must in this book be more diligently discussed by us, so far as by divine aid we shall be able. And I have preferred to keep this order, and afterward to discourse of the felicity of the saints, because both will be with bodies, and it seems more incredible that bodies should endure in eternal torments than that they should remain without any pain in eternal blessedness;

and therefore, when I shall have demonstrated that that punishment ought not to be incredible, it will greatly help me, so that far more easily the immortality of the body, free from all trouble, may be believed to be in the saints in the future. Nor is this order abhorrent to the divine oracles, where sometimes indeed the blessedness of the good is placed first, as is that saying: 'They who have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but they who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment'; but sometimes also later, as is this: 'The Son of Man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offenses, and shall cast them into the burning furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; then shall the righteous shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father'; and that:

'So these shall go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life'; and in the prophets, which it would be long to recount, now this, now that order is found, if anyone should examine them. But for what cause I have chosen this order, I have said. What then shall I show, whereby the unbelievers may be convinced that human bodies, animated and living, can not only never be dissolved by death, but also endure in the torments of eternal fires? For they are unwilling that we should refer this to the power of the Almighty, but demand to be persuaded by some example. If we answer them that there are indeed corruptible animals, because mortal, which nevertheless live in the midst of fires;

that a certain kind of worm, too, is found in the bubbling spring of hot waters, whose heat no one handles with impunity; but that those worms are not only there without any harm to themselves, but cannot exist outside it: either they are unwilling to believe, if we are unable to show it; or, if we shall have been able either to demonstrate the things themselves to their eyes or to instruct them through suitable witnesses, they will contend, with the same unbelief, that this is not enough as an example of the matter in question, because these animals do not always live, and they live in those heats without pains; for they are quickened by elements agreeable to their own nature, not tormented; as though it were not more incredible to be quickened than to be tormented by such things.

For it is marvelous to feel pain in fire and yet to live, but more marvelous to live in fire and not feel pain. If, however, this is believed, why not that also? But there is no body, they say, which can feel pain and cannot die. And whence do we know this? For who is certain concerning the bodies of demons, whether in them they feel pain, when they confess that they are afflicted with great torments? But if it be answered that there is no earthly body—solid, that is, and visible—and, to explain it rather by one name, no flesh, which can feel pain and cannot die: what else is said, but what men have gathered by the sense of the body and by experience? For they know no flesh but the mortal;

and this is their whole reasoning, that they judge what they have not experienced by no means able to exist. For of what reasoning is it to make pain an argument for death, when it is rather an indication of life? For although we ask whether it can always live, yet it is certain that everything which feels pain lives, and that all pain cannot exist except in a living thing. It is necessary, therefore, that the one who feels pain should live; it is not necessary that pain should kill, since not even all pain kills these mortal bodies, which are indeed destined to die, and the reason that some pain can kill is this: that the soul is so joined to this body that it yields to the greatest pains and departs;

since the very framework of the members and vital parts is so weak that it cannot sustain that force which causes great or the greatest pain. But then the soul will be joined to such a body, and in such a way, that as that bond will not be dissolved by any length of time, so it will be broken by no pain. Accordingly, even if there is now no such flesh as can suffer the sensation of pain and cannot die: there will nevertheless then be such flesh as is not now, just as there will also be such a death as is not now. For it will be not no death, but an everlasting death, when the soul will be able neither to live by not having God, nor to be free from the pains of the body by dying. The first death drives the unwilling soul out of the body; the second death holds the unwilling soul in the body;

from both deaths there is this in common, that the soul suffers, against its will, from its own body. But these contradictors observe that there is now no flesh which can suffer pain and cannot die, and they do not observe that there is nevertheless something of such a kind which is greater than the body. For the mind itself, by whose presence the body lives and is governed, can both suffer pain and cannot die. Behold, a thing is found which, though it has the sense of pain, is immortal. This, then, will be in the bodies of the damned also, which we now know to be in the minds of all. But if we consider more diligently, the pain which is called that of the body pertains rather to the soul.

For to feel pain belongs to the soul, not to the body, even when the cause of its pain arises from the body, when it feels pain in that place where the body is injured. As, therefore, we speak of bodies as feeling and bodies as living, although the sense and life come to the body from the soul: so we speak of bodies as feeling pain also, although pain cannot be in the body except from the soul. The soul, then, feels pain together with the body in that place of it where something happens so that it feels pain; and it feels pain alone, although it is in the body, when from some cause even invisible it is itself sad while the body is unharmed; it feels pain even when not established in a body; for that rich man surely felt pain among the dead, when he said: 'I am tormented in this flame.' But a body neither feels pain when lifeless, nor, when animated, feels pain without the soul.

If, therefore, an argument were rightly drawn from pain to death, so that death could befall for the reason that pain also could befall, then to die would rather pertain to the soul, to which to feel pain also more pertains. But since that which can more feel pain cannot die, what weight does it carry that we should believe those bodies also to be destined to die, because they are to be in pains? The Platonists indeed said that from earthly bodies and dying members come to souls both fear and desire and grief and joy; whence Virgil:

'Hence,' he says (that is, from the dying members of the earthly body), 'they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice.' But we refuted them in the twelfth book of this work, showing that, according to their own view, souls even purged from every stain of the body have a dread desire by which they again begin to wish to return into bodies. But where there can be desire, assuredly there can also be pain. For desire frustrated, whether by not attaining that toward which it strove, or by losing that which it had attained, is turned into pain. Wherefore, if the soul, which either alone or most of all feels pain, has nevertheless a certain immortality of its own after its own manner, those bodies will not on that account be able to die, because they will feel pain.

Finally, if bodies cause souls to feel pain, why is it that they can inflict pain upon them but cannot inflict death, unless it be that it does not follow that whatever causes pain should also cause death? Why, then, is it incredible that fires should be able to inflict pain upon those bodies, but not death, just as bodies themselves cause souls to feel pain, and yet do not on that account compel them to die? Pain, therefore, is no necessary proof of coming death.

[IV] Wherefore, if — as those who have more curiously investigated the natures of animals have written — the salamander lives in fire, and certain well-known mountains of Sicily, which through so long a stretch and antiquity of time have to this very day and shall hereafter continued to blaze with flames yet remain whole, are sufficiently fitting witnesses that not everything which burns is consumed; and if the soul shows that not everything which can feel pain is also able to die: why then are examples of things still demanded of us, whereby we might teach that it is not incredible that the bodies of men punished with everlasting torment should both not lose their soul in the fire, and should burn without being consumed, and should feel pain without perishing?

For then the substance of the flesh shall have that quality bestowed upon it by Him who bestowed so many wonderful and varied qualities upon all those things which we see, so that, because they are many, we do not marvel at them. For who but God the Creator of all things gave to the flesh of the dead peacock the property of not decaying? When this seemed incredible to hear, it came about that at Carthage this bird was set before us cooked; and we ordered that a portion plucked from the breast of its flesh, as much as seemed good, be kept. After such a span of days as would have made any other cooked flesh whatsoever decay, it was brought out and set before us, and offended our sense of smell in nothing.

Likewise, after being stored more than thirty days, it was found to be the same as it had been; and the same after a year, except that it had become somewhat drier and more shrunken in body. Who gave to chaff a power at once so cold that it preserves snow buried in it, and so warm that it ripens unripe fruit? Of fire itself, who could unfold its marvels — fire by which all things scorched turn black, though it is itself luminous, and which discolours almost everything it surrounds and licks, though most beautiful in colour, and from a glowing ember produces the foulest coal? Nor is this laid down as a fixed rule; for on the contrary, stones baked through by white-hot fire themselves become white, and though the fire is more red, they are white; yet what is white agrees with light, as what is black agrees with darkness.

Since, therefore, fire burns in wood so as to bake stones, it produces contrary effects upon things which are not contrary. For although stones and wood are diverse, yet they are not contrary, as white and black are — one of which it produces in stones, the other in wood, giving brightness to the stones by making them bright and darkening the wood, since it would fail in the stones unless it lived in the wood.

And what of coals? Is not their weakness a thing to marvel at — so great that they are broken by the lightest blow and crushed by the easiest pressure — together with a firmness so great that no moisture corrupts them and no age overcomes them, so much so that men who fix boundaries are wont to lay them underneath the boundary-stones, to convict a litigant, whoever after however long a time may arise and contend that the fixed stone is no boundary? Who brought it about that these coals, buried in moist earth where wood would rot, could last incorruptibly so long — save that corrupter of things, fire? Let us also consider the marvel of lime.

Apart from that of which we have already said enough — that it grows white from the fire by which other things are made foul — it also most secretly conceives fire from fire, and now, as a lump cold to the touch, keeps it so hidden that it appears to none of our senses at all, yet, having been ascertained by experiment, is known to lie within, dormant even while it does not appear. On this account we call it living lime, as though the hidden fire itself were the invisible soul of a visible body. And now, how marvellous it is that, when it is quenched, then it is kindled! For, that it may be deprived of its hidden fire, it is plunged into water or drenched with water; and though before it was cold, from that it grows hot, from the very source by which all hot things grow cold.

As though, then, that lump were breathing out its life, the fire which lay hidden departs and appears; and thereafter it is cold as if in death, so that if water be added it will not burn, and what we called living lime we now call quenched. What could seem capable of being added to this marvel? And yet something is added. For if you apply not water, but oil, which is rather the fuel of fire, it grows hot by no sprinkling or drenching of it. If we read or heard of this marvel concerning some Indian stone, and it could not come within our own experience, surely we should either think it a lie or certainly marvel greatly.

But those things whose daily demonstrations are before our eyes — no less marvellous in kind, but cheapened by their very constancy — so that even from that India itself, which is a part of the world remote from us, we have ceased to marvel at not a few things which could be brought to us as objects of wonder. The diamond stone many among us possess, and especially goldsmiths and setters of gems, which stone is said to be conquered neither by iron, nor by fire, nor by any other force, save the blood of a he-goat. But do those who possess and are acquainted with it marvel at it as those do to whom its power is first shown? Those to whom it is not shown perhaps do not even believe it; or if they believe, they marvel at what they have not tried.

And if it should happen that they try it, at first indeed they marvel at the unfamiliar thing, but constancy of experience gradually withdraws the incitement of wonder. We know the magnet stone to be a marvellous snatcher of iron; and when I first saw this, I shuddered violently. For I perceived an iron ring snatched up and held suspended by the stone; then, as though it had imparted its own power to the iron it had snatched and made it common to both, that same ring was brought near to another and held it suspended; and as the first ring clung to the stone, so the second ring clung to the first. A third was added in the same way, a fourth was added; and now, by rings linked to one another in mutual circles, not intertwined within but adhering from without, there hung as it were a chain of rings.

Who would not be astounded at that power of the stone, which not only dwelt within it, but also passed through so many suspended rings and bound them with invisible bonds? But far more marvellous is what I learned about this stone from my brother and fellow-bishop Severus of Milevis. For he related that he himself had seen how Bathanarius, once count of Africa, when the bishop was dining with him, brought out that same stone and held it beneath a silver plate, and placed iron above the silver; then, as he moved his hand beneath, with which he held the stone, so the iron above was moved; and with the silver between and suffering nothing, the stone below was moved by the man in a most rapid course and recourse, while above, the iron was snatched to and fro by the stone.

I have told what I myself beheld; I have told what I heard from him, whom I believed as though I had seen it myself. Let me also tell what I have read about this magnet. When a diamond is placed near it, it does not snatch iron; and if it had already snatched it, as soon as the diamond approaches, it at once releases it. India sends these stones; but if we, now that we know them, cease to marvel at them, how much more do those from whom they come, if they have them so readily to hand — as perhaps they do — just as we do not marvel at lime, which grows hot in water (by which fire is wont to be quenched) in a marvellous manner, and does not grow hot in oil (by which fire is wont to be kindled), because it is at hand for us.

[V] Yet nevertheless, unbelieving men, who, when we proclaim the divine miracles whether past or future which we are unable to show them for their own experience, demand from us the reason for these things — which, since we cannot render it (for they exceed the powers of the human mind), they suppose that what we say is false — these same men ought themselves to render a reason for so many marvellous things which we can either see or do see. And if they perceive clearly that this cannot be done by man, they must confess that a thing is not thereby proved not to have been, or not to be about to be, merely because a reason for it cannot be rendered, seeing that these things exist for which likewise it cannot.

I will not, then, go through the many things which are committed to writing, not as deeds done and past, but as abiding in various places; whither, if anyone should wish and be able to go, he shall find out whether they are true; but I mention a few. They say that the salt of Agrigentum in Sicily, when it is brought near fire, flows as if in water; but when brought to water itself, crackles as if in fire. Among the Garamantes there is a certain spring so cold by day that it cannot be drunk, so hot by night that it cannot be touched. In Epirus there is another spring, in which torches already kindled are extinguished, as in others; but, unlike others, extinguished ones are kindled. The Arcadian stone asbestos is so called because, once kindled, it can no longer be extinguished.

The wood of a certain Egyptian fig-tree does not, like other woods, float in water, but sinks; and — what is more marvellous — when it has been at the bottom for some while, from thence it rises again to the water's surface, at the very time when, being soaked, it ought to have been weighed down by the burden of moisture. Apples grow indeed in the land of Sodom and come to the appearance of ripeness; but when tested by biting or pressing, with the rind cracking they vanish into smoke and ashes. The Persian pyrites stone burns the hand of him who holds it, if it be pressed rather firmly, and on that account received its name from fire. In the same Persia there is also produced the stone selenite, whose inner brightness waxes and wanes with the moon. In Cappadocia, moreover, mares conceive by the wind, and those same offspring live no more than three years.

The island Tylos in India is preferred to all other lands in this, that every tree which grows in it is never stripped of its covering of leaves. Concerning these and countless other marvels, which history holds not of deeds done and past, but of abiding places — for me, being engaged upon another matter, to pursue them would be too long — let these unbelievers, who refuse to believe the divine writings, render a reason, if they can. For what else do they do than think those writings not divine, on the ground that they contain incredible things, such as this is of which we now treat? For no reason, they say, admits that flesh should burn and not be consumed, should feel pain and not die — great reasoners, forsooth, who could render a reason concerning all things which are agreed to be marvellous!

Let them, then, render a reason concerning these few things which we have set down; for if they did not know these to exist, and we said that they would come to be, they would believe it far less than what they now refuse to believe us when we say it shall one day come to pass. For who among them would believe us, if, in the same way as we say that the living bodies of men are to be, which shall always burn and always feel pain, yet never at any time die, so we said that in the world to come there shall be a salt which fire would make flow as if in water, and which water would make crackle as if in fire; or that there shall be a spring whose water in the coolness of night burns so that it cannot be touched, but in the heats of day is so cold that it cannot be drunk;

or that there shall be a stone, either one which by its own heat would burn the hand of him who grasps it, or one which, once kindled from any source, could not be extinguished at all — and the rest which, passing over countless others, I have thought worthy meanwhile to record? If, then, we said that these things were to be in that world which is to come, and the unbelievers answered us: 'If you wish us to believe these things, render a reason for each,' we should confess that we cannot, on the ground that by these and similar marvellous works of God the feeble reasoning of mortals is overcome; yet that this reason is fixed with us, that the Almighty does not without reason do that for which the feeble human mind cannot render a reason;

and that in many things indeed it is uncertain to us what He wills, but this at least is most certain, that nothing whatsoever He shall have willed is impossible to Him; and that we believe Him who foretells it, whom we cannot believe to be either powerless or lying. What, then, do these censurers of faith and exactors of reason answer to those things concerning which a reason cannot be rendered by man, and yet they exist, and seem to be contrary to the very reason of nature? If we said that these were to come to be, in like manner a reason would be demanded of us by the unbelievers, just as of those things which we say are to come.

And on this account, since in such works of God the reason of the human heart and speech fails, then, just as these things are not therefore non-existent, so likewise those things shall not therefore fail to be, seeing that a reason concerning both cannot be rendered by man. [VI] Here perhaps they may answer: 'These things assuredly neither exist, nor do we believe them; false things have been said, false things written of them'; and let them add, reasoning and saying:

'If such things are to be believed, believe also, you yourselves, what has been recorded in those same writings — that there was or is a certain temple of Venus, and in it a candelabrum, and upon it a lamp burning under the open sky in such a way that no storm, no rain could quench it; whence, just as that stone, so this lamp was named asbestos, that is, an inextinguishable lamp.' This they will be able to say for this purpose, to force upon us the straits of answering; because, if we say it is not to be believed, we shall weaken those writings of miracles; but if we grant that it is to be believed, we shall confirm the deities of the pagans.

But we, as I have already said in the eighteenth book of this work, are under no necessity to believe all that the history of the nations contains, since even the historians themselves, as Varro says, disagree among themselves on many points, as though by deliberate design and industry; but we believe, if we wish, those things which are not opposed to the books which we do not doubt we ought to believe. Concerning these places of miracles, however, for the purpose of persuading unbelievers of the things to come, let those suffice which we too are able to experience, and witnesses of which it is not difficult to find. But concerning this temple of Venus and the inextinguishable lamp, we are not only cramped into no straits, but even a broad field is opened up to us.

For to that inextinguishable lamp we add the many miracles both of human and of magical arts — that is, arts demonic through human agency — and of the demons themselves acting through their own power; which, if we should wish to deny, we shall be opposing the very truth of the sacred writings which we believe. Either, therefore, in that lamp human art wrought something mechanical out of the stone asbestos, or it was made by magic art, so that men might marvel at it in that temple, or some demon under the name of Venus presented himself with such efficacy that this prodigy both appeared to men there and remained a long while.

Now demons are enticed to dwell in creatures — which not they themselves, but God created — by delights varying according to their several diversities, not as animals by foods, but as spirits by signs, which suit each one's delight, through various kinds of stones, herbs, woods, animals, chants, and rites. But that they may be enticed by men, they first seduce these very men by most cunning craft, either by breathing a hidden poison into their hearts, or even by appearing in deceitful friendships, and make a few of them their disciples and the teachers of very many. For it could not have been learned, save by their first teaching, what each of them desires, what he abhors, by what name he is invited, by what he is compelled;

whence magic arts and their practitioners arose. But most of all they possess the hearts of mortals, and in this possession above all they glory, when they transform themselves into angels of light. There are, then, very many deeds of theirs, which the more marvellous we confess them to be, the more cautiously ought we to shun them; but for the purpose of that which we now treat, even these things profit us. For if unclean demons can do these things, how much more powerful are the holy angels — how much more powerful than all these is God, who made the very angels the effectors of such great miracles!

Wherefore, if so many and such great marvels — which they call mechanemata (contrivances) — are wrought out of God's creation by men using human arts, so that those who do not know them suppose them to be divine (whence it came about that in a certain temple, with magnet stones set in the floor and in the vault in proportion to their size, an iron image, in the midst of that air between both stones, hung as though by the power of a deity, to those ignorant of what was above and below; something of which kind we have already said could have been wrought by a craftsman in that lamp of Venus out of the stone asbestos);

if the works of magicians, whom our Scripture calls sorcerers and enchanters, could exalt demons to such a degree that a noble poet thought it agreed with the senses of men, saying of a certain woman who was mighty in such art: 'She promises by her charms to loose the minds she wills, but on others to send hard cares; to stay the water in the rivers and turn the stars backward; and she rouses the nocturnal shades: you will see the earth bellow beneath your feet, and the mountain-ashes come down from the mountains' — how much more is God able to do the things which are incredible to unbelievers, but easy to His power;

seeing that He Himself created the power of stones and of other things, and the ingenuities of men, who use them in marvellous ways, and the angelic natures more powerful than all earthly living things — surpassing all marvels by a marvellous power, and by the wisdom of working, commanding, and permitting, using all things as marvellously as He created them. [VII] Why, then, should God be unable to bring it to pass that the bodies of the dead should rise again, and the bodies of the damned be tormented in eternal fire — He who made the world, full of innumerable miracles in heaven and earth, in air and waters, since without doubt the world itself is a greater and more excellent miracle than all those with which it is full?

But those with whom, or against whom, we contend — who both believe that there is a God by whom the world was made, and that there are gods made by Him, through whom the world is administered by Him, and who either do not deny, or even besides proclaim, worldly powers as effectors of miracles, whether spontaneous, or obtained by any worship and rite, or even magical — when we set before them the marvellous power of other things, which are neither rational animals nor spirits endowed with any reason, such as those are of which we have mentioned a few, are wont to answer:

'That is a force of nature, the nature of these things is thus disposed, these are the efficacies proper to their natures.' The whole reason, therefore, why the flame makes the salt of Agrigentum flow, and the water makes it crackle, is that this is its nature. But this rather seems to be against nature, which gave salt to be dissolved not by fire but by water, and to be parched by fire, not by water. But this, they say, is the natural force of this salt, that it should suffer things contrary to these. This reason, then, is rendered also concerning that Garamantic spring, where one vein is cold by day and hot by night, troublesome to those who touch it by either force;

this too concerning that other spring, which, though cold to those who handle it, and though it extinguishes a kindled torch as other springs do, yet, unlike them and marvellously, itself kindles an extinguished one; this too concerning the stone asbestos, which, though it has no fire of its own, yet, having received fire from another, burns so that it cannot be extinguished; this concerning the rest, which it is wearisome to recount, in which, though an unusual force seems to be present contrary to nature, yet no other reason is rendered of them, save that it be said that this is their nature. A brief reason indeed, I confess, and a sufficient answer.

But since God is the author of all natures, why are they unwilling that we should render a stronger reason, when they refuse to believe something as though impossible, and to them, demanding the rendering of a reason, we answer that this is the will of Almighty God? — who is certainly not called Almighty for any other cause than that He can do whatever He wills, who was able to create so many things which, unless they were shown, or said by trustworthy witnesses to exist even today, would assuredly be thought impossible — not only those which are most unknown among us, but even those most well-known which I have set down.

For those things which, besides those in whose books we have read of them, have no witness, and were written down by men who were not divinely taught and could perhaps be humanly deceived — anyone may without just blame decline to believe. For neither do I wish all the things I have set down to be believed rashly, since not even by myself are they so believed as though there were no doubt about them in my thought — except those which I have either myself experienced, and which it is easy for anyone to experience: as concerning lime, that it grows hot in water and is cold in oil; concerning the magnet stone, that by some imperceptible absorption it does not move a straw, yet snatches iron; concerning the flesh of the peacock which does not decay, when even that of Plato has decayed;

concerning chaff so cold that it does not allow snow to melt, so warm that it compels apples to ripen; concerning bright fire, that according to its brightness it whitens stones by baking, and contrary to that same brightness of its, by burning it darkens very many things. Such also is the fact that black stains are spread by shining oil, and likewise black lines are imprinted from white silver; and concerning coals also, that with fire kindling them they are so turned into the contrary that from most beautiful woods they become foul, from hard things brittle, from perishable things imperishable. Some of these things I myself know along with many, some along with all; and very many others, which to insert into this book would be too long.

But concerning those things which I have set down not as experienced but as read — except concerning that spring where burning torches are extinguished and extinguished ones kindled, and concerning the apples of the land of Sodom, ripe as it were on the outside, smoky within — I have been unable to find any suitable witnesses from whom I might hear whether they were true. And indeed that spring I did not find any who said they had seen in Epirus, but some who knew of a similar one in Gaul, not far from the city of Grenoble. But concerning the fruits of the Sodomite trees, not only do trustworthy writings indicate it, but also so many say they have experienced it, that I cannot doubt of it. The rest, however, I so hold, that I have determined neither to deny nor to affirm them;

but I have set down these very things for this reason, because I read them among the historians of those against whom we contend, in order to show what and how many things many of theirs believe on the written page of their own men of letters, with no reason rendered — men who do not deign to believe us, and that too with no reason rendered, when we say that Almighty God is going to do that which transcends their experience and sense. For what better and more valid reason is rendered concerning such things than when the Almighty is declared to be able to do them, and is said to be going to do those things which He is there read to have foretold, where He foretold many other things which He is shown to have done?

For He Himself will do it, because He foretold that He would do it — namely those things which are thought impossible — He who promised and brought it about that incredible things should be believed by unbelieving nations. [VIII] But if they answer that they do not believe the things we say concerning human bodies which shall always burn and never die, for this reason: because we know the nature of human bodies to have been established far otherwise, so that not even that reason can here be rendered which was rendered concerning those marvellous natures, such that it might be said 'This force is natural, this is the nature of this thing' — since we know that this is not the nature of human flesh:

we have indeed something to answer from the sacred writings, namely that this very human flesh was established otherwise before sin — that is, so that it could never suffer death — but otherwise after sin, such as it has become known in the misery of this mortality, so that it cannot hold perpetual life; thus, then, it shall be established otherwise than it is known to us, in the resurrection of the dead. But since they do not believe these writings, where it is read what manner of man lived in paradise and how far he was estranged from the necessity of death (which, if indeed they believed, we should not deal more laboriously with them concerning the punishment of the damned which is to come):

something must be brought forth from the writings of those who were most learned among them, whereby it may appear that it can come to pass that each thing should be disposed otherwise than it had before become known in the determination of its own nature. There is in the books of Marcus Varro, whose title is 'On the Race of the Roman People,' something which I shall here set down in the very words in which it is read there: 'In the heaven,' he says, 'a marvellous portent appeared; for in the star of Venus, the most noble, which Plautus calls Vesperugo, Homer Hesperos, calling it most beautiful, Castor writes that so great a portent appeared, that it changed its colour, magnitude, figure, and course; which thing so happened neither before nor afterward.

This event happened in the reign of King Ogygus, said the famous mathematicians Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples.' Certainly Varro, so great an authority, would not have called this a portent, unless it had seemed to be against nature. For we say that all portents are against nature; but they are not. For how is that against nature which comes to pass by the will of God, since the will of so great a Creator is surely the nature of each created thing? A portent, therefore, comes to pass not against nature, but against nature as it is known. But who numbers the multitude of portents which the history of the nations contains? But now let us attend to this one thing, which pertains to the matter of which we treat.

What was ordained by the Author of heaven and earth more precisely than the most orderly course of the stars? What is fixed and established by laws more determined? And yet, when He willed it, who governs by supreme sovereignty and power what He has made, a star more famous than the rest for its size and splendour changed its colour, its magnitude, its figure, and (what is more wonderful still) the very order and law of its course. Assuredly it then threw into confusion, if any such existed at that time, the canons of the astrologers, which they hold to be composed by an unerring computation concerning the past and future movements of the stars; and by following these canons they dared to say that this which happened to Lucifer (the morning star) had never happened either before or afterward.

But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself both stood still, when the holy man Joshua the son of Nun asked this of the Lord God, until the battle he had begun should be ended in victory; and that it went backward, so that to King Hezekiah fifteen years added to his life might also be signified by this prodigy joined to the promise of God. But these miracles too, which were granted to the merits of the saints, these men, when they believe they were done, attribute to magical arts. Hence comes that which I mentioned above as having been said by Virgil: to stay the water in the rivers and turn the stars backward.

For we read in the sacred writings that a river both stood still and flowed backward in its upper part while its lower part flowed on, when the people of God were making their way under the aforesaid leader Joshua the son of Nun; and that this was done when the prophet Elijah crossed over, and afterward when his disciple Elisha did so; and we have just now recalled that a very great star turned backward in the reign of Hezekiah. But as for what Varro wrote concerning Lucifer, it is not there said that this was granted to any man who asked for it. Let not the unbelieving, therefore, make darkness for themselves out of their knowledge of natures, as though it were impossible that in some matter something else could be done by divine power than what they have come to know in the nature of that thing through their own human experience;

although even those very things which are known to all in the nature of things are no less wonderful, and would be astonishing to all who consider them, if men were wont to marvel at wonders that were not rare. For who, if he reflects with reason, does not see that among the innumerable multitude of men, and amid so great a likeness of nature, individuals so remarkably have their several faces, that unless they were like one another, their species could not be distinguished from the other animals; and again, unless they were unlike one another, individuals could not be distinguished from other men? Those, therefore, whom we acknowledge to be alike, the very same we find to be unlike. But the consideration of the unlikeness is the more wonderful, since it seems that a common nature more justly demands likeness.

And yet, since it is the things that are rare which are wonderful, we marvel far more when we find two so alike that in distinguishing them we err either always or frequently. But this which I said Varro wrote, although he is a historian of these matters and also most learned, perhaps they do not believe was truly done; or because the other course of that same star did not last long, but a return was made to the usual one, they are the less moved by this example. They have, therefore, another thing which even now can be shown to them, and which I think ought to suffice to admonish them: that when they have observed something in some established order of nature and have made it most familiar to themselves, they ought not on that account to prescribe to God, as though He could not turn and change it into something far other than what has been known to them.

The land of Sodom was certainly not as it now is, but lay with a face like the rest and abounded in a fertility equal to, or even richer than, others; for in the divine oracles it is compared to the paradise of God. After it was smitten from heaven, as their own history also attests, and as it is now beheld by those who come to those places, it is horrible with a prodigious sooty smoke, and its fruits enclose an inner ash beneath a lying surface of ripeness. Behold, it was not such, and such it is. Behold, its nature was, by the Founder of natures, by a wonderful change turned into this most foul difference; and what happened after so long a time, endures for so long a time.

As therefore it was not impossible for God to establish such natures as He willed, so it is not impossible for Him to change into whatever He wills the natures He has established. Hence too there springs up a whole forest of those miracles which are called monstra (portents), ostenta (signs), portenta, prodigia; which, if I wished to review and recall, what end would there be to this work? They say that monstra are so called from monstrare (to show), because they demonstrate something by signifying; and ostenta from ostendere (to display); and portenta from portendere, that is, from foreshowing; and prodigia, because they say forth (porro dicant), that is, they foretell things to come.

But let their diviners see to it, how, whether they are deceived by these things, or by the instigation of those spirits whose care it is to entangle in the nets of harmful curiosity the souls of men who deserve such a penalty, they even foretell true things, or by saying much they sometimes chance upon something of the truth.

To us, however, these things which are done as it were against nature, and are said to be done against nature (in which manner of human speech the Apostle too spoke when he said that against nature the wild olive was grafted into the olive and made partaker of the richness of the olive), and which are named monstra, ostenta, portenta, prodigia—these ought to show us this, to display or foreshow us this, to foretell us this: what God is going to do, which He has foretold that He will do concerning the bodies of men, with no difficulty hindering Him, no law of nature prescribing to Him. But in what manner He has foretold it, I think I have sufficiently taught in the preceding book, by gathering from the holy Scriptures, both new and old, not indeed all things pertaining to this, but such as I judged sufficient for this work.

[IX] That which, therefore, God said through His prophet concerning the everlasting punishment of the damned, shall come to pass, shall assuredly come to pass: Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched. For to commend this more forcibly, the Lord Jesus also, when He was putting the members which cause a man to stumble in place of those men whom one loves as his own right-hand members, and was bidding them be cut off, said: It is good for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be quenched, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Likewise concerning the foot:

It is good for thee, He says, to enter halt into life eternal, rather than having two feet to be cast into the Gehenna of unquenchable fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. Not otherwise does He speak also of the eye: It is good for thee to enter one-eyed into the kingdom of God, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. It did not weary Him to say the same words thrice in one passage. Whom would this repetition not terrify, and this commendation of that punishment, so vehement, from the divine mouth?

Both of these, namely the fire and the worm, those who wish them to pertain to the punishments of the soul and not of the body, say that those who have been separated from the kingdom of God are also burned with the grief of a mind repenting too late and fruitlessly, and therefore contend that fire could not unfittingly be put for this burning grief; whence comes that saying of the Apostle: Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn? They think the same worm also is to be so understood. For it is written, they say: As the moth the garment, and the worm the wood, so grief tormenteth the heart of a man. But those who do not doubt that there will be punishments both of soul and of body in that torment affirm that the body will be burned with fire, while the soul will be gnawed in a certain manner by the worm of grief.

Although this is said more credibly—since it is certainly absurd that there should be lacking there a pain either of body or of soul—yet for my part it is easier for me to say that both pertain to the body than that neither does; and that therefore the pain of the soul is left unspoken in those words of divine Scripture, because it is understood to follow even if it be not stated, so that, as the body thus suffers pain, the soul too is tormented with barren repentance. For indeed it is read also in the old Scriptures: The vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worm. It could have been said more briefly: The vengeance on the ungodly. Why then was it said: on the flesh of the ungodly, unless because both, that is both fire and worm, will be the punishment of the flesh?

Or if He wished to say vengeance on the flesh for this reason, because that will be punished in man which he lived according to the flesh (for on this account he will come into the second death, which the Apostle signified when he said: For if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die), let each choose what pleases him: either to assign the fire to the body and the worm to the soul, the one properly, the other figuratively; or both properly to the body. For I have already sufficiently argued above that living creatures can live even in fire, in burning without consumption, in pain without death, through a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator; and whoever denies that this is possible for Him, is ignorant from whom comes whatever he marvels at in all natures.

For He it is who is God, who made all the miracles great and small in this world which we have mentioned, and incomparably more which we have not mentioned, and who has enclosed these very things in this world itself as one and the greatest miracle of all. Let each therefore choose one of the two, whichever pleases him: whether he thinks the worm pertains to the body properly, or to the soul by a term transferred from things corporeal to things incorporeal. But which of these is true, the reality itself will more readily indicate, when there shall be so great a knowledge among the saints that for knowing those punishments experience will not be necessary to them, but that wisdom, which will then be full and perfect, will alone suffice for knowing this too (for now we know in part, until that which is perfect shall come);

provided, however, that we by no means believe those bodies will be such as to be affected by no pains from the fire. [X] Here it occurs to inquire: If the fire will not be incorporeal, like the pain of the soul, but corporeal, harmful to the touch, so that bodies can be tormented by it, how will there be in it also the punishment of the malignant spirits? For it will be the same fire, assigned namely to the punishment of men and of demons, since Christ says: Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Unless it be because there are also certain bodies of their own even to the demons, as it has seemed to learned men, made of this thick and moist air, the impact of which is felt when the wind blows.

And if this kind of element could suffer nothing from fire, it would not burn when heated in the baths. For in order that it may burn, it is first burned itself, and it acts while it suffers. But if anyone asserts that the demons have no bodies at all, this matter is not to be labored over with painstaking inquiry, nor contended about with contentious disputation. For why should we not say that, by wondrous yet true modes, even incorporeal spirits can be afflicted by the punishment of corporeal fire, if the spirits of men, themselves also assuredly incorporeal, both could now be shut up in corporeal members, and then will be able to be indissolubly bound by the chains of their own bodies?

Therefore the spirits of the demons—nay rather, the demon-spirits—if they have no bodies, will cleave, though incorporeal, to corporeal fires to be tormented; not so that those fires themselves, to which they will cleave, may be inspired by their conjunction and become living creatures composed of spirit and body, but, as I have said, by cleaving in wondrous and ineffable modes, receiving punishment from the fires, not giving life to the fires; because that other mode also, by which spirits cleave to bodies and become living creatures, is altogether wondrous and cannot be comprehended by man—and this man himself is. I would indeed say that spirits will thus burn without any body of their own, just as that rich man burned among the dead, when he said:

I am tormented in this flame—did I not perceive that a fitting answer may be made, that such was that flame as were the eyes which he lifted up and saw Lazarus, such as the tongue for which he desired a little moisture to be poured, such as the finger of Lazarus by which he begged this to be done for him; where nevertheless there were souls without bodies. So then that flame with which he burned was incorporeal, and that little drop which he asked for was incorporeal, such as are also the things seen by those who sleep, or by those who in ecstasy perceive incorporeal things, which nevertheless have a likeness of bodies. For man himself, though in such visions he is present with his spirit, not his body, yet then sees himself so like to his own body that he cannot at all distinguish it.

But truly that Gehenna, which is also called a lake of fire and brimstone, will be corporeal fire, and will torment the bodies of the damned—either both of men and of demons, the solid bodies of men, the airy bodies of demons; or only the bodies of men together with their spirits, while the demons are spirits without bodies cleaving to the fire so as to receive punishment, not to impart life to the corporeal fires. For there will be one fire for both, as the Truth has said.

[XI] But if certain of those against whom we defend the City of God think it unjust that anyone should be condemned to eternal punishment for sins however great, committed namely in a short time—as though the justice of any law ever aimed at this, that a man should be punished for as long a stretch of time as that in which he committed the deed for which he is punished—Tullius (Cicero) writes that there are eight kinds of penalties in the laws: fine, bonds, stripes, retaliation, disgrace, exile, death, servitude. Which of these is there that is compressed into a brief time to match the swiftness of each sin, so that it is avenged in only such a moment as the deed is found to have taken, unless perhaps retaliation? For this aims that a man should suffer the same as he did. Whence comes that saying of the law:

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. For it can happen that a man loses his eye in as brief a time by the severity of vengeance as he himself took another's eye by the wickedness of sin. Furthermore, if it is reasonable to avenge a kiss forced upon another man's wife with stripes, does not he who did that in a moment of time get beaten for an incomparable span of hours, and the sweetness of a scant pleasure is punished with lasting pain? What of bonds—is anyone to be judged that he ought to be in them only as long as he took to do the deed by which he deserved to be bound; when most justly a slave pays years-long penalties in fetters, who by a word or blow most swiftly passing either provoked or struck his master?

Now indeed, since fine, disgrace, exile, and servitude are for the most part so inflicted that they are relaxed by no pardon, do they not, in proportion to the measure of this life, seem like to eternal punishments? For the reason they cannot be eternal is that neither is that very life, which is chastised by them, prolonged into eternity; and yet the sins which are avenged by penalties of the longest time are perpetrated in a very short time; nor has anyone ever existed who would judge that the torments of the guilty should be ended as swiftly as the deed was done—whether homicide, or adultery, or sacrilege, or any other crime whatsoever—since it is to be measured not by length of time, but by the greatness of the iniquity and impiety.

But he who for some great crime is punished with death—do the laws reckon his punishment to be the delay in which he is killed, which is very brief, and not rather the fact that they remove him forever from the society of the living? For what it is to remove men from this mortal city by the punishment of the first death, this it is to remove men from that immortal city by the punishment of the second death. For as the laws of this city do not bring it about that anyone slain is recalled into it, so neither do the laws of that city bring it about that one damned by the second death is recalled into life eternal. How then is it true, they say, what your Christ said: With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again, if a temporal sin is punished with eternal punishment?

They do not observe that the same measure was spoken of, not on account of an equal span of time, but on account of the reciprocity of evil, that is, that he who did evil should suffer evil. Although this can be taken properly in that very matter about which the Lord was speaking when He said this, that is, concerning judgments and condemnations. Accordingly, he who judges and condemns unjustly, if he is judged and condemned justly, receives in the same measure, although not the very thing which he gave. For by judgment he acted, by judgment he suffers; although he did by condemnation what is unjust, he suffers by condemnation what is just.

[XII] But eternal punishment seems harsh and unjust to human perceptions, because in this weakness of dying senses there is lacking that sense of the loftiest and purest wisdom, by which it might be perceived how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. For the more man enjoyed God, the greater the impiety with which he forsook God, and he became worthy of eternal evil, who destroyed in himself that good which could have been eternal. Hence the whole mass of the human race is condemned;

since he who first committed this was punished together with that stock which had been rooted in him, so that no one is freed from this just and due punishment except by merciful and undeserved grace; and thus the human race is so apportioned that in some it may be shown what merciful grace avails, in the rest what just vengeance avails. For neither would both be shown in all; because, if all remained in the punishments of just condemnation, in none would merciful grace appear; and again, if all were transferred from darkness into light, in none would the truth of retribution appear. In which retribution there are on this account far more than in the other, so that thus may be shown what was owed to all.

But if it were repaid to all, no one would justly reprehend the justice of the Avenger; but since so many are thence set free, there is cause for the greatest thanks to be rendered to the gratuitous gift of the Deliverer. [XIII] The Platonists indeed, although they wish no sins to be unpunished, yet think that all punishments are applied for amendment, whether inflicted by human laws or divine, whether in this life or after death, if either one be spared here or so chastised that here he is not corrected. Hence comes that sentence of Maro (Virgil), where, when he had said concerning earthly bodies and dying members, that souls Hence fear and desire, grieve and rejoice, nor do they look up to the air, shut in by darkness and a blind prison, following on he added and said:

Nay more, when with the final light life has left them (that is, when on the last day this life has left them), yet not, he says, does every evil, nor do all corporeal plagues, wholly depart from the wretched, and it is necessary that many things long concreted should deeply grow inveterate in wondrous ways. Therefore they are exercised with penalties and pay the punishments of their old evils; some are spread out, suspended, exposed to the empty winds; for others the ingrained wickedness is washed out beneath a vast whirlpool, or is burned away by fire. Those who hold this opinion wish there to be no punishments after death except purgatorial ones, so that—since the elements higher than the earth are water, air, fire—by some one of these there may be cleansed, through expiatory penalties, whatever has been contracted by earthly contagion. For air is understood in that which he says:

"Suspended to the winds"; water in that which he says: "Beneath a vast whirlpool"; but fire is expressed by its own name, when he said: "Or is burned away by fire." We, however, confess that even in this mortal life there are certain purgatorial penalties—not those by which they are afflicted whose life is either not thereby made better, or rather is thereby made worse; but they are purgatorial to those who, being restrained by them, are corrected. All other penalties, whether temporary or everlasting, according as each is to be dealt with by divine providence, are inflicted either for sins, whether past or those in which he still lives who is being chastised, or for the exercising and displaying of virtues through men and angels, whether good or bad.

For even if anyone suffers some evil through another's wickedness or error, the man indeed sins who through either ignorance or injustice does some evil to anyone; but God does not sin, who by a just, though hidden, judgment permits it to happen. But some suffer temporary penalties in this life only, others after death, others both now and then, yet nevertheless before that most severe and last judgment. Not all, however, who after death endure temporal penalties come into the everlasting penalties which are to be after that judgment. For to some, what is not remitted in this age is remitted in the age to come—that is, so that they may not be punished with the eternal punishment of the age to come, as we have already said above.

[XIV] But most rare are those who pay no penalties in this life, but only after it. Yet that there have been some who down to decrepit old age have not felt even the lightest little fever and have led a quiet life, we ourselves have both known and heard; although the very life of mortals is wholly a penalty, because it is wholly a temptation, as the sacred writings proclaim, where it is written: Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation? For no small penalty is that very foolishness or inexperience, which is deservedly judged so much to be shunned that through penalties full of pains children are compelled to learn some arts or letters;

and the very learning to which they are driven by penalties is so painful to them that sometimes they prefer to bear the very penalties by which they are compelled to learn, rather than to learn. But who would not shudder and choose to die, if it were proposed to him either that death must be undergone, or infancy over again? Infancy indeed, in that it begins this light not with laughter but with weeping, in a manner prophesies, though unknowing, what evils it has entered upon. Only Zoroaster, they say, laughed when he was born, and that monstrous laughter portended him no good. For he is reported to have been the inventor of the magic arts; which indeed could avail him nothing even for the vain felicity of the present life against his enemies;

for by Ninus king of the Assyrians, though he himself was king of the Bactrians, he was overcome in war. Assuredly what is written: A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all—this must needs be so fulfilled that even little children, already loosed by the laver of regeneration from the bond of original sin (by which alone they were held), yet suffering many evils, some at times even suffer the assaults of malignant spirits. But far be it that this suffering should harm them, if they finish this life at that age, even by that very suffering growing heavier and shutting the soul out of the body.

[XV] Nevertheless, in the heavy yoke which is laid upon the sons of Adam from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all, even this wonderful evil is found, that we may be sober and understand that this life has been made penal for us because of that too nefarious sin which was perpetrated in paradise, and that the whole of what is transacted with us through the New Testament pertains to nothing but the new inheritance of the new age, so that here, having received the pledge, we may at its own time attain that of which this is the pledge; but now let us walk in hope, and, advancing from day to day, let us mortify by the spirit the deeds of the flesh. For the Lord knoweth them that are His;