Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 27 part 1/3

Mankind is wont to esteem highly the knowledge of things earthly and heavenly. In which those are surely the better who set above this knowledge the knowing of themselves, and more praiseworthy is the mind to which its own weakness is known, than the mind which, without regard to that, searches out the courses of the stars—even though it is about to know them—or which already holds them known, while itself ignorant by what way it may enter to its own salvation and stability.

But he who has now awakened unto God, roused by the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and in the love of Him has become vile in his own sight, and wishing to enter unto Him yet not being able, and by His light shining upon him has attended to himself and found himself and his own sickness unable to be attuned to that purity, has come to know this; he finds it sweet to weep, and to entreat Him that He would again and again have mercy until He strip off the whole misery, and to pray with confidence, having now received the free pledge of salvation through his sole Saviour and Enlightener of man—this man, thus needy and grieving, knowledge does not puff up, because charity edifies. For he has preferred knowledge to knowledge;

he has preferred to know his own weakness rather than to know the ramparts of the world, the foundations of the earth and the summits of the heavens; and by adding this knowledge he has added sorrow—the sorrow of his pilgrimage, arising from the longing for his fatherland and for its founder, his blessed God. In this kind of men, in the family of Thy Christ, O Lord my God, if among Thy poor I groan, give me from Thy bread to answer men who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness, but are sated and abound. But it is their own phantasm that has sated them, not Thy truth, which in repelling they recoil, and fall into their own vanity. I at least perceive how many figments the human heart brings forth. And what is my heart but a human heart?

But this I pray to the God of my heart: that I may belch forth into these writings nothing of those figments as if it were solid truth, but that there may come into them whatever could come through me from that source whence to me—though cast forth from before His eyes, and striving to return from afar by the way which He has paved by the humanity of the divinity of His only-begotten—the breeze of His truth is sprinkled; which, mutable though I am, I so far drink in as I see in it nothing mutable: neither in places and times, as bodies are, nor in times only and, as it were, places, as are the thoughts of our spirits, nor in times only and with no image of places, as are certain reasonings of our minds.

For altogether the essence of God, by which He is, has nothing mutable, neither in eternity, nor in truth, nor in will; because there truth is eternal, charity is eternal; and there charity is true, eternity is true; and there eternity is dear, truth is dear. But since we have been exiled from that immutable joy, yet have not been so cut off and torn away from it as not to seek even in these mutable and temporal things eternity, truth, and blessedness (for we wish neither to die, nor to be deceived, nor to be troubled), there have been sent to us divinely appearances suited to our pilgrimage, whereby we might be admonished that what we seek is not here, but that we must return thither from these things—whence, unless we were dependent on it here, we would not seek these things.

And first it was needful that we be persuaded how greatly God loved us, lest through despair we should not dare to be lifted up unto Him. But it was fitting to show what manner of men He loved, lest, as though priding ourselves on our own merits, we should rather recoil from Him and fail the more in our own strength; and so He dealt with us that we might rather profit by His strength, and thus in the infirmity of humility the virtue of charity might be perfected. This is signified in the psalm where it says: 'Setting apart a voluntary rain, O God, for Thine inheritance; and it was weakened, but Thou hast perfected it.' For by 'voluntary rain' He wishes nothing to be understood but grace, not rendered for merits but freely given, whence also it is named grace;

for He gave it not because we were worthy, but because He willed. Knowing this, we shall not be trusting in ourselves; and this is to be weakened. But He Himself perfects us, who also said to the Apostle Paul: 'My grace is sufficient for thee; for virtue is perfected in weakness.' It was needful therefore that man be persuaded how greatly God loved us, and what manner of men He loved: how greatly, lest we despair; what manner of men, lest we grow proud. This passage the Apostle very necessarily explains thus: 'God commendeth His charity toward us,' he says, 'in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: much more then, being now justified in His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him.'

'For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in His life.' Again in another place: 'What then shall we say to these things?' he says. 'If God be for us, who is against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not with Him also freely given us all things?' But what is announced to us as done, this was also shown as about to be to the ancient just men, that through the same faith they too, humbled, might be made weak, and, being made weak, might be perfected.

Since therefore there is one Word of God, through whom all things were made, which is the immutable Truth, wherein principally and immutably are all things together—not only those which now are in this whole creation, but also those which have been and which are to be; but there they neither have been nor are to be, but only are; and all are life and all are one, and rather it is one and it is one life. For all things were so made through Him that whatever was made in them, in Him is life; and was not made, because in the beginning the Word was not made, but was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made through Him; nor would all things have been made through Him, unless He Himself were before all things and had not been made.

But among those things which were made through Him, even the body, which is not life, would not have been made through Him, unless in Him, before it was made, it were life. For that which was made, in Him was already life, and not any kind of life whatever; for even the soul is the life of the body, but this too was made, since it is mutable, and by what was it made, if not through the immutable Word of God? For all things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing. That therefore which was made was already life in Him, and not any kind of life whatever, but the life was the light of men—the light, that is, of rational minds, by which men differ from beasts and are therefore men.

Not therefore the corporeal light, which is the light of flesh, whether it shine from heaven or be kindled by earthly fires—and not only of human flesh, but even of the beasts', down to the very tiniest worms; for all these see this light. But that life was the light of men, and not placed far from every one of us; for in it we live and move and have our being. But the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Now the darkness is the foolish minds of men, blinded by depraved desire and unbelief. To cure and heal these, the Word, through whom all things were made, was made flesh and dwelt among us. For our enlightenment is a participation in the Word, namely of that life which is the light of men.

But for this participation we were altogether unfit and less suited, on account of the uncleanness of sins; we had therefore to be cleansed. Now the one cleansing of the unjust and proud is the blood of the Just One and the humility of God, so that, to contemplate God—which by nature we are not—we might be cleansed through Him made to be that which by nature we are and which by sin we are not. For by nature we are not God; by nature we are men; by sin we are not just. God therefore, made a just man, interceded with God for sinful man. For a sinner does not accord with the just, but man accords with man. Joining therefore to us the likeness of His humanity, He took away the unlikeness of our iniquity; and made a partaker of our mortality, He made us partakers of His divinity.

Rightly indeed was the death of the sinner, coming from the necessity of condemnation, loosed by the death of the Just One, coming from the will of mercy, while His single accords with our double. For this congruence (whether it be more fitly called agreement, or concord, or consonance)—that which is of one to two—avails very greatly in every framing, or, if it be better said, in every coaptation of the creature. For this coaptation, as it now occurs to me, I have wished to name, which the Greeks call *harmonia*.

Nor is there now place to show how much the consonance of the single to the double avails, which is found chiefly in us and is so implanted in us by nature (by whom indeed, if not by Him who created us?) that not even the unskilled can fail to perceive it, whether themselves singing or hearing others. For through it the higher and the lower voices harmonize, so that whoever should sound discordantly from it offends—not the knowledge, of which very many are destitute, but the very sense of our hearing—vehemently. But to demonstrate this, a long discourse is needed; it can, however, be exhibited to the very ears by one who knows how, on the regular monochord.

But what presses upon us at present must be expounded, as far as God grants, namely, how the single of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ accords with our double and in some manner sounds in concord unto salvation. We certainly, as no Christian doubts, are dead both in soul and in body—in soul on account of sin, in body on account of the penalty of sin, and thereby in body too on account of sin. And each part of us, that is, both soul and body, had need of a medicine and a resurrection, that what had been changed for the worse might be renewed for the better. Now the death of the soul is impiety, and the death of the body is corruptibility, through which comes also the departure of the soul from the body.

For just as the soul dies when God forsakes it, so the body dies when the soul forsakes it: whence the former becomes senseless, the latter lifeless. The soul therefore is raised up again through penitence, and in the body still mortal the renewal of life is begun from the faith by which one believes in Him who justifies the ungodly; and it is increased and strengthened by good morals from day to day, as the inner man is more and more renewed. But the body, as the outer man, the longer this life lasts, is the more and more corrupted, whether by age or by disease or by various afflictions, until it come to that last which by all is called death. But its resurrection is deferred to the end, when our very justification also shall be perfected ineffably.

For then shall we be like Him, since we shall see Him as He is. But now, so long as the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and human life upon earth is wholly a temptation, no living man is justified in His sight in comparison with that righteousness by which we shall be made equal to the angels, and with that glory which shall be revealed in us. But of the death of the soul, to be distinguished from the death of the body, why should I cite more proofs, since the Lord in one evangelical sentence has set both deaths to be easily discerned by anyone, where He says: 'Let the dead bury their dead'? For the dead body was to be buried; but its buriers, through the unbelief of impiety, He wished to be understood as dead in soul—such as are roused when it is said:

'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee.' The Apostle also detests a certain kind of death, saying of a widow: 'She that liveth in pleasures is dead while she liveth.' The soul, therefore, now pious, which had been impious, is said, on account of the righteousness of faith, to have revived from death and to live. But the body, not only about to die on account of the soul's departure that is to come, but also, on account of the great weakness of flesh and blood, in a certain place in the Scriptures is even called dead, the Apostle speaking: 'The body indeed,' he says, 'is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.' This life is made from faith, since the just man liveth by faith. But what follows?

'But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.' To this double death of ours, therefore, the Saviour expended His single, and to effect our double resurrection He set beforehand and set forth His own single, in sacrament and in example. For He was neither a sinner nor impious, that He should need, as though with a dead spirit in the inner man, to be renewed, and as though by coming to His senses to be recalled to the life of righteousness; but clothed in mortal flesh, and dying only in it, rising again only in it, in it alone He sounded in concord unto both for us, since in it was wrought the sacrament of the inner man, the example of the outer.

For unto the sacrament of our inner man was given that utterance pertaining to signifying the death of our soul, not only in the psalm but also on the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' To which utterance the Apostle accords, saying: 'Knowing that our old man was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin.' For the crucifixion of the inner man is understood as the sorrows of penitence and a certain wholesome torment of continence, through which death the death of impiety is slain, in which God does not forsake us. And therefore through such a cross the body of sin is destroyed, that we may no longer present our members as weapons of iniquity unto sin.

Since even the inner man, if indeed he is renewed from day to day, is assuredly old before he is renewed. For within is done that which the same Apostle says: 'Put off the old man and put on the new.' Which he thus consequently expounds: 'Wherefore, putting away lying, speak ye the truth.' But where is lying put away, if not within, that he may dwell in the holy mountain of God who speaketh truth in his heart? But the resurrection of the Lord's body is shown to pertain to the sacrament of our inner resurrection, where, after He rose again, He says to the woman: 'Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my Father.' To which mystery the Apostle accords, saying:

'But if ye be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; savour the things which are above.' For this is not to touch Christ save when He shall have ascended to the Father, that is, not to savour of Christ carnally. But now unto the example of the death of our outer man pertains the death of the Lord's flesh, because by such suffering He chiefly exhorted His servants not to fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. On account of which the Apostle says: 'That I may fill up what is lacking of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh.' And unto the example of the resurrection of our outer man is found to pertain the resurrection of the Lord's body, because He says to the disciples:

'Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not bones and flesh, as ye see me to have.' And one of His disciples, even touching His scars, exclaimed, saying: 'My Lord and my God!' And when the whole integrity of that flesh appeared, there was demonstrated in it what, exhorting His own, He had said: 'A hair of your head shall not perish.' For why first, 'Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my Father,' and why, before He ascends to the Father, is He touched by the disciples, save because there was intimated the sacrament of the inner man, here was offered the example of the outer? Or is anyone perhaps so absurd and averse from the truth as to dare to say that He was touched by men before He ascended, but by women after He had ascended?

On account of this example of our future resurrection in the body, which went before in the Lord, the Apostle says: 'Christ the first-fruits, then they that are Christ's.' For in that place it was treated of the resurrection of the body, on account of which he also says: 'He shall transfigure the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of His glory.' One death, therefore, of our Saviour was salvation to our two deaths, and one resurrection of His granted us two resurrections, since His body in each matter—that is, both in death and in resurrection—was administered by a certain medicinal congruence, both to the sacrament of our inner man and to the example of the outer. But this ratio of the single to the double arises indeed from the number three;

for one added to two makes three. But this whole that I have said comes to six; for one and two and three make six. Which number is on that account called perfect, because it is completed by its own parts; for it has three of them: a sixth, a third, a half; nor is any other part found in it which can be said to be some fraction of it. Its sixth therefore is one, its third two, its half three. But one and two and three complete that same six. Whose perfection Holy Scripture commends to us, chiefly in that God perfected His works in six days, and on the sixth day man was made to the image of God. And in the sixth age of the human race the Son of God came and was made the Son of Man, that He might reform us to the image of God.

For that age is now being passed—whether a thousand years be assigned to each several age, or whether in the divine writings we trace out memorable and notable junctures of time as it were joints: so that the first age be found from Adam to Noah, thence the second to Abraham, and thereafter, as the evangelist Matthew distinguished, from Abraham to David, from David to the migration into Babylon, and thence to the virgin's childbearing. Which three ages, joined to those two, make five. Accordingly the sixth was begun by the Lord's nativity, which is now being passed until the hidden end of time.

That this number six bears a certain figure of time we recognize also in that scheme of a threefold division whereby we reckon one time before the Law, another under the Law, a third under grace. In this present time we receive the sacrament of renewal, so that at the end of time, being wholly renewed even by the resurrection of the flesh, we may be healed from every infirmity not only of the soul but also of the body. Whence that woman is understood as a type of the Church, healed and raised up by the Lord, whom infirmity had bent double while Satan bound her; for it is of such hidden enemies that the psalm's voice laments: 'They bowed down my soul.' Now this woman had been eighteen years in her infirmity, which is thrice six.

Now the months of eighteen years are found to be the number of the solid square of six, which is six times six and this six times over. For close at hand, in the same passage of the Gospel, is also that fig tree whose wretched barrenness even a third year convicted. But intercession was made on its behalf that it be let alone for that year: if it should bear fruit, well; but if not, it should be cut down. For the three years too belong to the same threefold division, and the months of three years make the square of six, which is six times six. One year likewise, if we consider the twelve full months which thirty days each complete (for such a month the ancients observed, which the lunar circuit displays), has the force of the number six.

For what six is worth in the first order of numbers, which consists of units up to reaching ten, that sixty is worth in the second order, which consists of tens up to reaching a hundred. Sixty days, therefore, is the sixth part of the year. Accordingly, by the six of the first row the six of the second row is as it were multiplied, and there arise six times sixty, three hundred and sixty days, which are twelve full months. But since, just as the circuit of the moon shows men the month, so the year is observed by the circuit of the sun, there remain over five days and a quarter of a day, that the sun may complete its course and close the year;

for four quarters make one day, which must be intercalated when a period of four years has run out—the year they call bissextile—lest the order of the seasons be disturbed. Even those very five days and a quarter, if we consider them, the number six prevails in them most of all: first, because—as commonly happens that the whole is reckoned from a part—there are now not five days but rather six, since that quarter is taken for a day; then, because in those very five days there is the sixth part of a month, while the quarter itself has six hours; for the whole day, that is with its night, is twenty-four hours, of which the fourth part, which is the quarter of a day, is found to be six hours. Thus in the course of the year the number six prevails most of all.

Nor without reason, in the building of the Lord's body—in whose figure He said that the temple destroyed by the Jews He would raise up in three days—is that very number six understood as put for a year. For they said: 'Forty-six years was this temple in building'; and forty-six times six make two hundred and seventy-six. This number of days completes nine months and six days, which for childbearing women are reckoned as ten months—not because all reach the sixth day after the ninth month, but because the very perfection of the Lord's body is found to have been brought to birth in just so many days, as the authority of the Church, receiving it as handed down by the elders, keeps. For He is believed to have been conceived on the eighth of the Kalends of April, on which day also He suffered;

thus to the new tomb in which He was buried, where none of the dead had been laid either before or after, corresponds the Virgin's womb in which He was conceived, where no mortal had been begotten. He is handed down to have been born on the eighth of the Kalends of January; from that day therefore to this, when reckoned, two hundred and seventy-six days are found, which contains the number six forty-six times. By which number of years the temple was built, because by that number of sixes the Lord's body was perfected, which, destroyed by the suffering of death, He raised up on the third day. For He was saying this of the temple of His own body, as is declared by the most evident and most weighty testimony of the Gospel, in which He says:

'As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.' Now that the three days themselves were not entire and full, Scripture is witness; but the first day was reckoned whole from its last part, and the third day likewise whole from its first part; while the middle one between them, that is the second day, was absolutely whole with its twenty-four hours, twelve of night and twelve of day. For He was crucified first by the shouts of the Jews at the third hour, when it was the sixth day of the sabbath; then hung upon the cross itself at the sixth hour, and yielded up His spirit at the ninth hour;

but He was buried when it was now late, as the words of the Gospel have it, which is understood at the end of the day. From whatever point therefore you begin—even if another explanation can be given how it is not against John's Gospel that at the third hour He should be understood as hung upon the wood—you do not comprise the whole first day. Therefore it will be reckoned whole from its last part, just as the third from its first part. For the night up to the dawn, at which the Lord's resurrection was made manifest, belongs to the third day; because God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, that through the grace of the New Testament and the participation of Christ's resurrection we might hear:

'For you were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord,' He suggests to us in a certain manner that the day takes its beginning from the night. For just as the first days, on account of man's coming fall, are reckoned from light into night, so these, on account of man's restoration, are reckoned from darkness to light. From the hour of death therefore up to the dawn of resurrection there are forty hours, counting the ninth itself as well; with which number corresponds also His life upon the earth after the resurrection, in forty days. And this number is most frequent in the Scriptures for suggesting the mystery of perfection in the fourfold world; for ten has a certain perfection, and this multiplied four times makes forty.

From the evening of the burial up to the dawn of the resurrection there are thirty-six hours, which is the square of six. And it is referred to that ratio of single to double, in which is the greatest consonance of fitting together. For twelve to twenty-four agree in single to double, and they make thirty-six, a whole night with a whole day and a whole night, and this not without that sacrament which I mentioned above. For not absurdly do we compare the spirit to the day, but the body to the night; for the Lord's body in death and resurrection bore both the figure of our spirit and the example of our body. Thus therefore that ratio of single to double appears also in the thirty-six hours, when twelve are compared to twenty-four.

And as for the reasons why these numbers are set down in the holy Scriptures, another may indeed investigate other reasons, whether such as should be preferred to those I have rendered, or equally probable, or even more probable than these; yet that they are set down in the Scriptures in vain, and that there are no mystical reasons why these numbers are there recorded, no one so foolish and inept would contend. But I, the reasons I have rendered I have gathered either from the authority of the Church handed down by the elders, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the reason of numbers and likenesses. Against reason let no sober man judge, against the Scriptures let no Christian, against the Church let no peace-loving man.

This sacrament, this sacrifice, this priest, this God—before He was sent and came, made from a woman—all the things that were shown sacredly and mystically to our fathers through angelic miracles, or that were done through them, were likenesses of Him, that all creation might in a certain manner by its deeds proclaim the One who was to come, in whom would be the salvation of all who were to be restored from death.