Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 22 part 4/5

In short, if the Church were so certain concerning some as even to know who they were who, although still established in this life, are nevertheless predestined to go into eternal fire with the devil, she would no more pray for them than for the devil himself. But because she is certain concerning none, she prays for all men, at least those who are her enemies established in this body; and yet she is not heard for all. For she is heard for those alone who, even though they oppose the Church, are nevertheless so predestined that the Church is heard for them and they become sons of the Church. But if any shall have an impenitent heart until death, and shall not be converted from enemies into sons, does the Church now pray for them—that is, for the spirits of such departed ones?

Why so, unless because he who, when he was in the body, was not translated to Christ, is already reckoned in the party of the devil? The same cause, therefore, why prayer is not then made for the men to be punished in eternal fire, is the cause why prayer is neither now nor then made for the wicked angels; which likewise is the cause why, although prayer is made for men, yet even now it is not made for the unbelieving and impious dead. For prayer is heard for certain of the dead, whether of the Church itself or of certain of the pious, but for those whose life, when regenerate in Christ, was neither so wickedly spent in the body that they should be judged unworthy of such mercy, nor so well that they should be found not to need such mercy;

just as also, after the resurrection of the dead has taken place, there will not be lacking those to whom, after the penalties which the spirits of the dead suffer, mercy shall be imparted, so that they be not cast into eternal fire. For it would not truly be said of certain persons that it shall not be forgiven them, neither in this world nor in that which is to come, unless there were those to whom, though not in this world, yet it is forgiven in the world to come. But when it shall have been said by the Judge of the living and the dead, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,' and on the contrary to others, 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels,' and these shall have gone into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal:

it is of excessive presumption to say of any of those to whom God said they should go into eternal punishment that their punishment shall not be eternal, and, through the persuasion of this presumption, to bring it to pass that even concerning eternal life itself men either despair or doubt. Let no one, therefore, so understand the psalm that sings, 'Will God forget to be merciful, or will He shut up His compassions in His anger?' as to suppose that the sentence of God is true concerning good men and false concerning the evil, or true concerning good men and evil angels, but false concerning evil men. For this that the psalm says pertains to the vessels of mercy and to the children of promise, of whom the prophet himself also was one, who, when he had said:

'Will God forget to be merciful, or will He shut up His compassions in His anger?' immediately subjoined: 'And I said, Now have I begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High.' He assuredly expounded what he had said: 'Will He shut up His compassions in His anger?' For the anger of God is also this mortal life, wherein man is made like to vanity; his days pass away as a shadow. Yet in this anger God does not forget to be merciful, making His sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and sending rain upon the just and the unjust; and thus He does not shut up His compassions in His anger—and most of all in that which this psalm expressed by saying:

'Now have I begun; this is the change of the right hand of the Most High'—since in this very most wretched life, which is the anger of God, He changes the vessels of mercy for the better, although His anger yet remains in the misery of this corruption, because not even in that anger of His does He shut up His compassions. Since, therefore, in this manner the truth of that divine song is fulfilled, there is no need that it be understood also there, where those not belonging to the City of God shall be punished with everlasting punishment.

But those to whom it is pleasing to stretch this sentence even to the torments of the impious, let them at least so understand it that, while the anger of God remains upon them—that anger which is foretold in the eternal punishment—God does not shut up His compassions in this His anger, and grants that they be tormented not with so great an atrocity of penalties as they deserve; not that they either never undergo those penalties or at some time end them, but that they suffer them milder and lighter than their deserts. For thus both the anger of God will remain, and in this His very anger He will not shut up His compassions. This indeed I do not affirm, for the reason that I do not resist it. As for those who think it was said threateningly rather than truly, 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,' and:

'These shall go into everlasting punishment,' and 'They shall be tormented for ever and ever,' and 'Their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched,' and other sayings of this kind—not so much I, as divine Scripture itself, most plainly and most fully refutes and confutes them. For the Ninevites did in this life perform repentance, and therefore fruitful repentance, sowing as it were in this field, in which God willed that there be sown with tears what should afterward be reaped with joy; and yet who will deny that what the Lord foretold concerning them was fulfilled, unless he too little observes in what manner God overthrows sinners, not only being angry, but also having compassion?

For sinners are overthrown in two ways: either as the Sodomites, so that the men themselves are punished for their sins, or as the Ninevites, so that men's very sins are destroyed by repentance. It came to pass, therefore, what God foretold: Nineveh which was evil was overthrown, and a good one which was not was built up. For while the walls and houses stood, the city was overthrown in its lost morals. And thus, although the prophet was grieved because that did not come to pass which those men, at his prophesying, feared would come, yet that came to pass which had been foretold by God's foreknowledge, since He who foretold it knew in what manner it was to be fulfilled for the better. But that these perversely merciful ones may know to what that which is written pertains:

'How great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee,' let them read what follows: 'But Thou hast perfected it for them that hope in Thee.' What is 'Thou hast hidden it for them that fear,' 'Thou hast perfected it for them that hope,' except that to those who through fear of punishments wish to establish their own righteousness which is in the law, the righteousness of God is not sweet, because they know it not? For they have not tasted it. For they hope in themselves, not in Him, and therefore the multitude of God's sweetness is hidden from them; because they indeed fear God, but with that servile fear which is not in charity, for perfect charity casteth out fear.

Therefore for those who hope in Him He perfects His sweetness, by inspiring in them His charity, so that with a chaste fear—not such as charity casteth out, but such as endures for ever and ever—when they glory, they may glory in the Lord. For the righteousness of God is Christ, who was made unto us, as the apostle says, wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, as it is written, he that glorieth may glory in the Lord. This righteousness of God, which grace bestows without merits, they know not who wish to establish their own righteousness, and therefore they are not subject to the righteousness of God, which is Christ. In which righteousness is the great multitude of God's sweetness, on account of which it is said in the psalm:

'Taste and see how sweet is the Lord.' And this indeed, tasting it in this pilgrimage, not receiving it unto satiety, we rather hunger and thirst for it, that afterward we may be filled with it, when we shall see Him as He is, and that shall be fulfilled which is written: 'I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear.' Thus does Christ perfect the great multitude of His sweetness for those who hope in Him. But, furthermore, if God hides that sweetness of His which they imagine—the sweetness whereby He is not going to condemn the impious—from those that fear Him, so that, not knowing this and fearing to be condemned, they may live rightly, and thus there may be those who pray for those not living rightly:

in what way does He perfect it for those who hope in Him, since indeed, as they dream, through this sweetness He is not going to condemn those who do not hope in Him? Let that sweetness of His, therefore, be sought, which He perfects for those who hope in Him, not that which is supposed to profit those who despise and blaspheme Him. In vain, then, does a man seek after this body what he neglected to procure for himself in this body. That apostolic saying also—'For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all'—was not said for this reason, that He is going to condemn no one; but it appears above whence it was said. For when the apostle was speaking to the Gentiles concerning the Jews who should afterward believe—to which Gentiles, being now believers, he was assuredly already writing his epistles:

For, he says, just as you at one time did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy through their unbelief, so these too have now not believed in the mercy shown to you, that they also may obtain mercy. Then he added the reason on which these men flatter themselves in their error, saying: For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy upon all. Which all, if not those of whom he was speaking, as though saying: Both you and them? Therefore God shut up in unbelief both the Gentiles and the Jews, whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son—shutting up all, so that, confounded by repenting of the bitterness of their unbelief and converted by believing to the sweetness of God's mercy, they might cry out that word in the psalm:

How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you, and have perfected for those who hope—not in themselves, but in you! And so he has mercy on all the vessels of mercy. What is this 'all'? Namely both those whom out of the Gentiles, and those whom out of the Jews, he predestined, called, justified, and glorified—not all men, but all of these, of whom he will condemn none.

[XXV] But let us now answer also those who promise deliverance from eternal fire not only to the devil and his angels—as neither do these—but not even to all men whatsoever, but only to those who have been washed in the baptism of Christ and made partakers of his body and blood, however they may have lived, in whatever heresy or impiety they may have been. But the apostle contradicts them, saying: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, wantonness, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, jealousies, animosities, dissensions, heresies, envies, drunkenness, revellings, and the like;

these things I forewarn you, as I have forewarned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This apostolic sentence would surely be false if such men, after however long a time, when set free, were to possess the kingdom of God. But since it is not false, assuredly they shall not possess the kingdom of God. And if they shall never be in possession of the kingdom of God, they shall be held in eternal punishment; for there is no middle place where he is not in punishment who has not been set within the kingdom. Wherefore, as to what the Lord Jesus says: This is the bread which came down from heaven, that if any man eat of it he shall not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven;

if anyone eat of this bread, he shall live for ever—in what way this is to be understood is rightly asked. And from these men indeed, to whom we are now replying, this interpretation is taken away by those to whom we must next reply; these are they who promise this deliverance not to all who have the sacrament of baptism and of the body of Christ, but to Catholics alone, even though they live wickedly, because (they say) it is not by the sacrament alone, but in very reality that they have eaten the body of Christ, being set within his very body—concerning which body the apostle says: We being many are one bread, one body.

He therefore who is in the unity of his body, that is, in the framework of the members of Christians—the sacrament of which body the faithful, communicating, are wont to receive from the altar—he indeed is to be said truly to eat the body of Christ and to drink the blood of Christ. And on this account heretics and schismatics, separated from the unity of this body, can receive the same sacrament, but not to their own profit; rather even to their harm, whereby they are judged the more severely, or set free the more tardily. For they are not in that bond of peace which is expressed by that sacrament.

But again, even these men who rightly understand that he is not to be said to eat the body of Christ who is not in the body of Christ, do not rightly promise deliverance at some time from the punishment of eternal fire to those who lapse from the unity of that body either into heresy or even into the superstition of the Gentiles;

first, because they ought to consider how intolerable and how exceedingly deviant from sound doctrine it is, that many—indeed almost all—who founded impious heresies, going out from the Catholic Church and becoming heresiarchs, should have a better case than those who were never Catholics when they fell into their snares; if what sets those heresiarchs free from eternal punishment is that they were baptized in the Catholic Church and first received the sacrament of the body of Christ in the true body of Christ—when surely a deserter of the faith, and one made from a deserter into its assailant, is worse than he who never deserted what he never held;

next, because the apostle meets these men also, uttering the same words, and after enumerating those works of the flesh, foretelling with the same truth: Because those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God. Whence not even those may be secure in their lost and damnable ways who persevere indeed to the end as though in the communion of the Catholic Church, looking to what was said: He who shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved—and who by the iniquity of their life forsake the very righteousness of life, which for them is Christ, whether by fornicating, or by perpetrating in their own body the other uncleannesses of shameful deeds which the apostle would not even name, or by melting away in the vileness of wantonness, or by doing any other of those things concerning which he says:

Because those who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God; and on this account, whoever do such things shall be nowhere but in eternal punishment, since they cannot be in the kingdom of God. For by persevering in these things to the end of this life, they are by no means to be said to have persevered in Christ to the end, because to persevere in Christ is to persevere in his faith; which faith, as the same apostle defines it, works through love; but love, as he himself elsewhere says, works no evil. Neither, therefore, are these to be said to eat the body of Christ, since they are not to be counted among the members of Christ. For, to pass over other things, they cannot be at the same time both members of Christ and members of a harlot. Finally, he himself says:

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. He showed what it is to eat the body of Christ and to drink his blood, not merely after the manner of a sacrament, but in very reality; for this is to abide in Christ, so that Christ also may abide in him. For he spoke thus, as though he were saying: 'He who does not abide in me, and in whom I do not abide, let him not say or think that he eats my body or drinks my blood.' They do not therefore abide in Christ who are not his members. But they are not members of Christ who make themselves members of a harlot, unless they cease from that evil by repentance and return to this good by reconciliation.

[XXVI] But, they say, Catholic Christians have Christ in the foundation, from whose unity they have not withdrawn, even though upon this foundation they have built a life however wicked, as it were wood, hay, stubble; and so the right faith, through which Christ is the foundation, will nevertheless be able at some time to save them from the perpetuity of that fire, though with loss, since those things which were built upon it shall be burned. Let the apostle James answer them briefly: If anyone say that he has faith, but have not works, can faith save him? And who is he, they say, of whom the apostle Paul says: He himself, however, shall be saved, yet so as by fire? Let us inquire at the same time who this may be;

yet it is most certain that this is not the man in question, lest we set the sentences of two apostles at strife, if the one says: 'Even though a man have evil works, faith will save him through fire'; but the other: If he have not works, can faith save him? We shall find, then, who can be saved through fire, if first we find what it is to have Christ in the foundation. That we may perceive this as quickly as possible from the very similitude: in a building nothing is set before the foundation; whoever, therefore, so has Christ in his heart that he sets before him neither earthly and temporal things, nor even those things that are lawful and permitted, has Christ for his foundation;

but if he sets them before, even though he seem to have the faith of Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation in him, before whom such things are set; how much more, if, despising the saving precepts, he commits unlawful things, is he convicted of having not set Christ before but after him—Christ whom he set behind, when Christ commanded or permitted, while against Christ's commands or permissions he chose to fulfill his lust through shameful deeds! If, therefore, any Christian loves a harlot and, cleaving to her, is made one body with her, he no longer has Christ in the foundation. But if anyone loves his wife, if according to Christ, who would doubt that Christ is in his foundation?

but if according to this world, if carnally, if in the disease of concupiscences, even as the Gentiles who know not God—this too the apostle concedes by way of indulgence, nay rather Christ concedes it through the apostle. This man too, therefore, can have Christ in his foundation. For if he set no such affection or pleasure before Christ, although he build upon it wood, hay, stubble, Christ is the foundation, and on this account he shall be saved through fire. For such delights and earthly loves, not damnable indeed on account of the conjugal bond, the fire of tribulation shall consume; to which fire belong both bereavements and whatever calamities take these things away.

And on this account, to him who has built, this building shall be to his loss, because he shall not have what he built upon it, and shall be tormented by the loss of those things in whose enjoyment he certainly rejoiced; but through this fire he shall be saved by the merit of the foundation, because, even if it were set before him whether he would rather have that or Christ, when proposed by a persecutor, that thing would not be preferred to Christ. See, in the apostle's words, a man building upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones: He who is without a wife, he says, is anxious about the things of God, how he may please God. See another building wood, hay, stubble: But he who is joined in marriage is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. Each one's work shall be made manifest;

for the day (that is, the day of tribulation) shall declare it, since, he says, it shall be revealed in fire. (He calls that same tribulation fire, as is read elsewhere: The furnace tests the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests righteous men.) And the fire shall prove of what sort each one's work is. If anyone's work shall remain (for that remains which each man thinks upon—the things of God, how he may please God), he shall receive a reward for what he built upon it (that is, from that on which he set his thought, this shall he take); but if anyone's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss (since he shall not have what he had loved), yet he himself shall be saved (because no tribulation removed him from the stability of that foundation);

yet so as by fire (for what he did not have without an enticing love, he does not lose without a burning grief). Behold—so far as it seems to me—there has been found a fire which condemns none of them, but enriches one, damages the other, tests both. But if we should take that fire in this place to be the fire of which the Lord will say to those on the left: Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire—so that among them these too may be believed to be, who build upon the foundation wood, hay, stubble, and the merit of the good foundation sets them free from that fire after a time apportioned for their evil deserts—what shall we think of those on the right, to whom it will be said:

Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you—if not those who have built upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? But into that fire of which it is said: Yet so as by fire, if it is to be understood in this manner, both must be sent, namely both those on the right and those on the left. For by that fire both are to be proved, of which it is said: For the day shall declare it, since it shall be revealed in fire, and the fire shall prove of what sort each one's work is. If, then, the fire shall prove both, so that, if anyone's work shall remain—that is, shall not have been consumed by fire—he shall receive a reward for what he built upon it; but if anyone's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: surely that fire is not the eternal one.

For into that fire only those on the left shall be sent with the last and perpetual damnation, but this fire proves those on the right. Yet it proves some of them in such a way that it does not burn up and consume the building which it shall have found constructed by them upon Christ the foundation; but others in another way, that is, so that what they built shall burn and they shall suffer loss thereby, yet they shall be saved, because they held Christ, stably placed in the foundation, with surpassing charity. But if they shall be saved, assuredly they shall stand also at the right hand and shall hear with the rest: Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you—not at the left, where those shall be who shall not be saved and therefore shall hear: Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire.

For no one shall be saved from that fire, because all those shall go into eternal punishment, where their worm dies not and the fire is not quenched, by which they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. After the death of this body, indeed, until one comes to that day—the last day of damnation and of reward, which is to be after the resurrection of bodies—if during this interval of time the spirits of the departed are said to endure a fire of such a kind as those do not feel who did not have such manners and loves in the life of this body that their wood and hay and stubble should be consumed;

but others feel it, who carried with them buildings of such a kind—whether only there, or both here and there, or here for this reason that they should not there find the fire of a transitory tribulation consuming worldly things, which, though pardonable, are yet worthy of condemnation—I do not disprove it, because perhaps it is true. For to this tribulation may pertain even the very death of the flesh, which was conceived from the perpetration of the first sin, so that, according to each one's building, the time which follows it may be felt by each. Persecutions also, by which the martyrs were crowned and which whatever Christians suffer, prove both buildings like a fire, and consume some together with their builders, if they do not find Christ in them for a foundation;

others without their builders, if it finds Christ, because, although with loss, they themselves shall be saved; but others it does not consume, because it finds such things as remain for ever. There shall also be at the end of the world a tribulation, in the time of Antichrist, such as never was before. How many buildings shall there be then—whether golden or of hay—upon the best foundation, which is Christ Jesus, so that that fire may prove both, and from some bring joy, from others inflict loss, yet destroy neither of those in whom it shall find these, on account of the stable foundation!

But whoever prefers to Christ—I do not say a wife, in whose bodily union he uses the pleasure of the flesh, but the very names of piety themselves, which are alien from delights of that sort—loving them carnally, after the human manner, does not have him in the foundation, and therefore shall not be saved through fire, but shall not be saved at all, because he cannot be with the Saviour, who, speaking most openly of this matter, says: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter above me is not worthy of me.

But he who so loves these relationships carnally that nevertheless he does not prefer them to Christ the Lord, and would rather lack them than Christ, if he should be brought to this crisis of trial, shall be saved through fire, because from their loss grief must needs burn just so much as love had clung. Moreover, he who loves father, mother, sons, daughters according to Christ—so as to counsel them toward obtaining his kingdom and cleaving to him, or to love in them this, that they are members of Christ—far be it that such love should be found among the wood, hay, and stubble to be consumed; but it shall assuredly be reckoned to the golden, silver, jeweled building. And how can he love them more than Christ, whom he loves precisely for Christ's sake?

[XXVII] It remains to answer those who say that in eternal fire only those shall burn who neglect to do worthy almsgivings for their sins, on account of that which the apostle James says: But judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy. He therefore who has shown mercy, they say, although he has not corrected his lost manners, but has lived wickedly and vilely amid his very almsgivings, to him judgment shall be with mercy, so that either he is not condemned at all, or after some time is set free from the last damnation. Nor for any other reason do they suppose that Christ will make the distinction between those on the right and those on the left solely from the choice or the neglect of almsgivings, sending some into the kingdom, others into eternal punishment.