but corresponding to distress or grief, which we, for the sake of avoiding ambiguity, have preferred to call sadness, they denied that there could be anything in the mind of the wise man. For will, they say, seeks the good, which the wise man does: joy is over the good attained, which the wise man everywhere attains; caution shuns evil, which the wise man ought to shun; but sadness, since it is over an evil that has already befallen, and they think that no evil can befall the wise man, they said that there could be nothing in his mind to correspond to it. Thus, therefore, they speak so as to deny that any but the wise man can will, rejoice, and be cautious; but that the foolish man can only desire, be glad, fear, and be saddened;
and that those three are 'constancies,' but these four 'disturbances' according to Cicero, but according to most 'passions.' But in Greek those three are called, as I said, eupatheiai; while these four are called pathe. When I inquired as diligently as I could whether this manner of speech agrees with the holy Scriptures, I found that which the prophet says: 'There is no rejoicing (gaudere) for the wicked, says the Lord'; as though the wicked could be glad rather than rejoice over evils, because rejoicing belongs properly to the good and the pious. Likewise that in the Gospel: 'Whatsoever you will (uultis) that men should do to you, do you also to them'; this seems to be said as though no one can will (uelle) anything evilly or basely, but only desire (cupere) it.
Finally, on account of the custom of speech, some interpreters have added 'good' and so interpreted: 'Whatsoever you will that men should do to you that is good.' For they thought it should be guarded against, lest anyone should will dishonorable things to be done to himself by men, to say nothing of baser matters, certainly riotous feasts, in which, if he himself also should do them to others, he might suppose this precept fulfilled. But in the Greek Gospel, from which it was translated into Latin, it does not read 'good,' but: 'Whatsoever you will that men should do to you, do you also to them'; I believe for this reason, because in that He said 'you will' (uultis), He already willed 'good' to be understood. For He did not say 'you desire' (cupitis).
Yet our speech is not always to be restrained by these proprieties, but sometimes they are to be used; and when we read those whose authority it is unlawful to resist, there they are to be understood, where a right sense cannot find another issue; just as are those passages which, by way of example, we have recalled partly from the prophet, partly from the Gospel. For who does not know that the wicked exult with gladness? and yet: 'There is no rejoicing for the wicked, says the Lord.' Whence is this, except that to rejoice is something else, when this word is set down properly and signally? Likewise, who would deny that it is not rightly enjoined upon men, that whatsoever they desire to be done to themselves by others, these things they should also do to them; lest they delight one another mutually in the baseness of unlawful pleasure?
and yet it is a most wholesome and most true precept: 'Whatsoever you will that men should do to you, the same do you also to them.' And whence is this, except that in this place the will (voluntas) is set down in a certain proper manner, which cannot be taken in an evil sense? But by the more usual mode of speech, which the custom of speech chiefly frequents, it would surely not be said, 'Do not will (noli uelle) to tell any lie,' unless there were also an evil will, from whose perversity that one is distinguished which the angels proclaimed, saying: 'Peace on earth to men of good will.' For 'good' was added superfluously, if it cannot be except good. And what great thing would the apostle have said in the praises of charity, that 'it does not rejoice over iniquity,' unless malignity thus rejoices?
And even among the authors of secular literature, such indifference of these words is found. For Cicero, that most eminent orator, says: 'I desire (cupio), conscript fathers, to be merciful.' Since he set that word in a good sense, who would be so perversely learned as to contend that he ought to have said, not 'I desire,' but rather 'I will' (uolo)? Furthermore, in Terence the lewd youth, burning with mad desire, says: 'I will (nolo) nothing else but Philumena.' That this will was lust, the answer which is there introduced of his more sober servant sufficiently indicates. For he says to his master: 'How much better it is for you to give heed to this, to remove that love from your mind, than to speak that whereby your lust is the more vainly inflamed?'
But that they have set 'joy' (gaudium) also in an evil sense, that very Virgilian verse is witness, where he has comprehended these four disturbances with the utmost brevity: 'Hence they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice (gaudent).' The same author also said: 'The evil joys of the mind.' Accordingly, both the good and the evil will, are cautious, rejoice; and, that we may declare the same in other words, both the good and the evil desire, fear, are glad; but the former well, the latter ill, according as the will of men is right or perverse. Sadness itself also, for which the Stoics thought nothing could be found in the mind of the wise man, is found in a good sense, and especially among our own people. For the apostle praises the Corinthians, because they had been made sorrowful according to God.
But perhaps someone will say that the apostle congratulated them because they had been made sorrowful in repenting, which kind of sadness can belong to none but those who have sinned. For thus he says: 'I see that that epistle, though it were but for a season, made you sorrowful; now I rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful unto repentance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, that you might suffer loss by us in nothing. For the sadness that is according to God works repentance unto salvation not to be repented of; but the sadness of the world works death. For behold this very thing, that you were made sorrowful according to God, what diligence it has wrought in you.'
And by this the Stoics can answer for their own part, that sadness seems to be useful for this, that one may repent of having sinned; but that it cannot be in the mind of the wise man, because neither does sin befall him, over whose repentance he might be saddened, nor any other evil, by suffering and feeling which he might be sad. For they relate of Alcibiades also (if my memory does not deceive me about the man's name), that when he seemed to himself happy, as Socrates argued and demonstrated to him how wretched he was because he was a fool, he wept. To him, therefore, folly was the cause even of this useful and desirable sadness, by which a man grieves that he is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics say that not the fool, but the wise man, cannot be sad. CHAPTER 9.
On the disturbances of the mind, whose right affections the life of the righteous possesses. But to these philosophers, so far as pertains to this question concerning the disturbances of the mind, we have already replied in the ninth book of this work, showing that they are more eager for contention about words than about things, more for contention than for truth. But among us, according to the holy Scriptures and sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, living according to God in the pilgrimage of this life, fear and desire, grieve and rejoice; and because their love is right, they have all these affections right. They fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve in the present, because they themselves still groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body;
they rejoice in hope, because the word that is written shall be fulfilled: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' Likewise they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they grieve in sins, they rejoice in good works. For that they may fear to sin, they hear: 'Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold'; that they may desire to persevere, they hear what is written: 'He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved'; that they may grieve in sins, they hear: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us'; that they may rejoice in good works, they hear: 'God loves a cheerful giver.' Likewise, according as their weakness or firmness disposes them, they fear to be tempted, they desire to be tempted; they grieve in temptations, they rejoice in temptations.
For that they may fear to be tempted, they hear: 'If a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted'; but that they may desire to be tempted, they hear a certain strong man of the city of God saying: 'Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart'; that they may grieve in temptations, they see Peter weeping; that they may rejoice in temptations, they hear James saying: 'Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into divers temptations.' And not only on their own account are they moved by these affections, but also on account of those whom they desire to be set free, and fear lest they perish, and grieve if they perish, and rejoice if they are set free.
For that best and bravest man, who glories in his infirmities—that we may most fittingly recall him, who, of those that have come into the church of Christ from among the Gentiles, was the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, who both labored more than all his fellow-apostles, and by many epistles instructed the peoples of God, not only those who in his presence were seen by him, but also those who were foreseen as yet to come;
that man, I say, the athlete of Christ, taught by Him, anointed by Him, crucified with Him, glorious in Him, contending lawfully in the theater of this world (to which he was made a spectacle both to angels and to men) a great contest, and pressing on toward the things before him for the palm of the heavenly calling—they most gladly behold with the eyes of faith rejoicing with them that rejoice, weeping with them that weep, having fightings without, fears within, desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, longing to see the Romans, that he might have some fruit among them also as among the rest of the Gentiles, jealous over the Corinthians and by that very jealousy fearing lest their minds be seduced from the chastity which is in Christ, having great sadness and continual sorrow of heart over the Israelites, because, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they were not subject to the righteousness of God;
and not only declaring his sorrow, but even his mourning over certain ones who had sinned before and had not done penance for their uncleanness and fornications. If these motions, these affections, coming from love of the good and from holy charity, are to be called vices, then let us allow that those things which are truly vices be called virtues. But since these affections follow right reason, when they are applied where they ought to be, who would then dare to call them diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore even the Lord Himself, deigning to lead a human life in the form of a servant, but having no sin whatever, applied them where He judged they ought to be applied.
For He in whom there was a true body of man and a true soul of man did not have a false human affection. When therefore these things are related of Him in the Gospel—that He was saddened with anger over the hardness of the Jews' heart, that He said, 'I am glad for your sakes, that you may believe,' that being about to raise Lazarus He even shed tears, that He desired to eat the passover with His disciples, that as His passion drew near His soul was sorrowful—they are surely not falsely related. But He took up these motions, by the grace of a certain dispensation, in His human soul, when He willed, just as He became man when He willed.
Accordingly, as must be confessed, even when we have these affections rightly and according to God, they belong to this life, not to that which we hope shall be in the future; and often we yield to them even against our will. And so sometimes, though we are moved not by a blameworthy desire but by a praiseworthy charity, we weep even while we are unwilling. We have them therefore from the infirmity of the human condition; but not so the Lord Jesus, whose very infirmity was from power. But while we bear the infirmity of this life, if we should have none of these affections at all, then rather do we not live rightly. For the apostle blamed and detested certain ones, whom he even said to be without affection (sine adfectione). The sacred psalm also blamed those of whom it says:
'I looked for one that would be sorrowful together with me, and there was none.' For not to grieve at all, while we are in this place of misery, certainly, as even a certain one among the learned men of this age perceived and said, does not come about without a great price of inhumanity in the mind and of stupor in the body. Wherefore that which is called in Greek apatheia (which, if it could be rendered in Latin, would be called impassibility), if it is to be understood (for it is taken in the mind, not in the body) as a state of living without those affections which happen contrary to reason and disturb the mind, is plainly good and most to be desired, but neither is it of this life. For it is not the voice of men of any sort whatever, but most of all of the pious and very righteous and holy:
'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.' Then, therefore, will that apatheia be, when there shall be no sin in man. But now it is well enough that one live without crime; but he who thinks that he lives without sin does not bring it about that he has no sin, but rather that he receives no pardon. Moreover, if that is to be called apatheia, when the mind can be touched by no affection whatever, who would not judge this stupor to be worse than all vices? It can therefore be said, not absurdly, that perfect blessedness will be without the goad of fear and without any sadness; but who would say that there shall not be love and joy there, unless he were utterly shut off from the truth?
But if that apatheia is one where no fear terrifies and no grief torments, it is to be shunned in this life, if we wish to live rightly, that is, according to God; but in that blessed life, which is promised as everlasting, it is plainly to be hoped for. For that fear of which the apostle John speaks: 'There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment; and he that fears is not made perfect in love'—is not of that kind, of which was the fear by which the apostle Paul feared lest the Corinthians be seduced by the serpent's subtlety; for charity has this fear, nay, none has it but charity; but it is of that kind, the fear which is not in love, of which the apostle Paul himself says:
'For you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear.' But that chaste fear, enduring forever and ever, if it shall be also in the world to come (for in what other way can it be understood to endure forever and ever?), is not a fear terrifying away from an evil that can befall, but a fear holding fast in a good that cannot be lost. For where the love of the good attained is unchangeable, surely, if it may be so said, the fear of the evil to be avoided is secure. For by the name of chaste fear is signified that will by which it will be necessary for us to be unwilling to sin, and to beware of sin, not with the anxiety of weakness lest perchance we sin, but with the tranquillity of charity.
Or if no kind of fear at all can exist in that most assured security of perpetual and blessed joys, then it was said, 'The fear of the Lord, chaste, enduring forever and ever,' in the same manner as it was said, 'The patience of the poor shall not perish forever.' For that patience itself will not be eternal, which is necessary only where evils are to be endured; but that will be eternal whereto one attains through patience. So perhaps chaste fear is said to endure forever and ever, because that will endure whereto fear itself leads. And since these things are so, since a right life is to be led, by which we may attain to the blessed life, the right life has all these affections right, the perverse life perverse.
But the blessed and likewise eternal life will have love and joy not only right, but also certain; and no fear nor grief at all. Whence it now appears in some measure what manner of persons the citizens of the city of God ought to be in this pilgrimage, living according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, that is, according to God, not according to man, and what manner of persons they shall be in that immortality toward which they tend. But the city, that is, the society, of the impious, living not according to God but according to man, and following the doctrines of men or of demons in the very worship of false and contempt of true divinity, is shaken by these depraved affections as by diseases and disturbances.
And if it has any citizens who seem to moderate such motions and as it were to temper them, they are so proud and puffed up in impiety that, by this very thing, the swellings in them are the greater the smaller their griefs. And if some, with a vanity the more monstrous as it is the rarer, have so fallen in love with this in themselves, that they are roused and stirred by no impulse at all, bent and inclined by no affection: they rather lose their whole humanity than attain to true tranquillity. For a thing is not therefore right because it is hard, nor sound because it is stupid. CHAPTER 10. Whether it is to be believed that the first men, set in paradise, were affected by any disturbances before they sinned.
But it is not without reason that we ask whether the first man, or the first human beings (for there was indeed a wedlock of two), had these emotions in their animal body before sin—emotions such as we shall not have in the spiritual body when sin has been wholly purged away and brought to an end. For if they had them, how were they blessed in that memorable place of blessedness, that is, in paradise? Who, after all, can be called absolutely blessed if he is afflicted by fear or by grief? And what could those human beings fear or grieve over amid so great an abundance of so many goods, where neither was death feared nor any ill health of body, where nothing was lacking that a good will might attain, and nothing was present that could offend the flesh or the mind of a person living in felicity?
There was love undisturbed toward God, and between the spouses living together in a faithful and sincere fellowship; and from this love came great joy, since what was loved was never lacking for their enjoyment. There was a tranquil avoidance of sin, and so long as this remained, no evil whatever rushed in from any quarter to bring sorrow. Or did they perhaps desire to touch the forbidden tree for eating, yet feared to die—and so by this both desire and fear disturbed those human beings even there, in that place? Far be it from us to suppose that this was so, where there was no sin at all. For it is no small sin to covet what the law of God forbids, and to abstain from it through fear of punishment rather than love of righteousness.
Far be it, I say, that before any sin there should already have been there such a sin as would lead them to admit from the tree what the Lord says concerning a woman: 'If anyone has looked upon a woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' How happy, then, were they, and how undisturbed by any agitations of mind, how unharmed by any ills of body! And so happy would the whole human society have been, if neither they had committed the evil that they also passed on to their descendants, nor anyone of their stock had committed by iniquity anything to incur damnation; and while this felicity endured, until through that blessing in which it was said:
'Increase and multiply,' the number of the predestined saints might be filled up, and another, greater felicity be given—the one given to the most blessed angels—where there would now be sure security that no one would sin and no one would die, and the life of the saints would be such, after no experience of toil, of pain, or of death, as it will be after all these things, in the incorruption of bodies restored by the resurrection of the dead. CHAPTER XI. On the fall of the first man, in whom a nature well created was corrupted, and which cannot be repaired except by its own Author. But since God foreknew all things, and therefore could not be ignorant that man too would sin:
we ought to set forth the holy city according to that which He foreknew and ordained, not according to that which could not come within our knowledge, because it was not in God's ordinance. For man could not by his sin disturb the divine counsel, as if he had compelled God to change what He had determined; since God by His foreknowledge anticipated both, that is, both how evil the man would be whom He created good, and what good He would Himself nevertheless make even of him so fallen.
For although God is said to change His decrees (whence by a figurative manner of speech it is even read in the Scriptures that God repented), this is said with reference to what man had hoped, or what the order of natural causes was bringing about, not with reference to what the Almighty had foreknown He would do. So then God made man, as it is written, upright, and therefore of good will. For he would not be upright if he did not have a good will. A good will, therefore, is a work of God; for with it man was made by Him. But the first evil will, since it preceded all evil works in man, was rather a certain defection from the work of God to its own works than any work; and therefore its works were evil because they were according to itself, not according to God;
so that the will itself was, as it were, the evil tree of those works as of evil fruits, or the man himself in so far as he was of evil will. Moreover, although an evil will is not according to nature but contrary to nature, since it is a defect, yet it belongs to that nature of which it is a defect, for it cannot exist except in a nature—but in that nature which He created out of nothing, not in that which the Creator begot of Himself, as He begot the Word, through whom all things were made; for although God formed man from the dust of the earth, that same earth and all earthly matter is altogether from nothing, and He gave to the body a soul made out of nothing, when man was made.
And evils are so far overcome by goods that, although they are permitted to exist in order to demonstrate how the most provident justice of the Creator can make good use even of them, yet goods can exist without evils—as God Himself, true and supreme, and as every heavenly creature, invisible and visible, above this murky air—but evils cannot exist without goods, since the natures in which they are, in so far as they are natures, are surely good. Moreover, an evil is removed not by any nature that had come in being taken away, or any part of it, but by that which had been vitiated and depraved being healed and corrected. The choice of the will, therefore, is then truly free, when it is not enslaved to vices and sins. Such was the will given by God;
and when it is lost by one's own fault, it cannot be restored except by Him who was able to give it. Hence the Truth says: 'If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be truly free.' And this is just as if He had said: 'If the Son shall save you, then shall you be truly saved.' For He is the deliverer for the same reason that He is the savior. So man was living according to God in a paradise both bodily and spiritual. For there was not a bodily paradise on account of the goods of the body, and not a spiritual one on account of the goods of the mind; nor indeed was it spiritual that man might enjoy it by the inward senses, and not bodily that he might enjoy it by the outward senses. It was plainly both, for the sake of both.
But afterwards, when that proud angel—and through this, envious—by that same pride turned away from God to himself, and choosing as it were with a certain tyrannical haughtiness to rejoice in having subjects rather than to be a subject, fell from the spiritual paradise (concerning whose fall, and that of his companions, who from being angels of God were made his angels, I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I could, in the eleventh and twelfth books of this work)—seeking to creep by malicious cunning into the perception of man, whom assuredly he envied as standing, since he himself had fallen, he chose the serpent in the bodily paradise, where together with those two human beings, male and female, the other earthly animals also dwelt, subject and harmless—a slippery creature, indeed, and able to move in twisting coils, suited to his work—through which he might speak;
and by his angelic presence and superior nature subjecting that creature to himself by spiritual wickedness, and abusing it as it were as an instrument, he spoke deceitfully with the woman—beginning, of course, from the inferior part of that human couple, so that he might gradually arrive at the whole, not supposing the man to be easily credulous, nor able to be deceived by erring, but only in yielding to another's error. For just as Aaron did not consent to the erring people in fashioning the idol when persuaded, but yielded under constraint; nor is it credible that Solomon thought through error that idols ought to be served, but was driven by feminine flatteries to those sacrileges: so it must be believed that the man yielded to his woman, the one to the one,
man to man, spouse to spouse, in transgressing God's law—not believing him to be speaking the truth and so being seduced, but obeying out of social bond. For not in vain did the apostle say: 'Adam was not seduced, but the woman was seduced'—except that she accepted what the serpent spoke to her as though it were true, while he was unwilling to be parted from his sole companion even in the fellowship of sin; nor was he therefore any the less guilty, since he sinned knowingly and deliberately. Whence also the apostle does not say, 'He did not sin,' but, 'He was not seduced'; for he surely shows that man sinned where he says, 'By one man sin entered into the world,' and a little after, more openly: 'In the likeness,' he says, 'of the transgression of Adam.'
But he wished those to be understood as seduced who do not think that what they do is sin; the man, however, knew. Otherwise, how will it be true: 'Adam was not seduced'? But, being inexperienced of the divine severity, he could be deceived in this, that he believed what was committed to be venial. And so, in that respect in which the woman was seduced, he was not seduced, but it deceived him as to how that was to be judged which he was going to say: 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me, and I ate.' Why say more? Even if by believing they were not both deceived, yet by sinning they were both taken captive and entangled in the snares of the devil. CHAPTER XII. On the quality of the sin committed by the first human beings. But if anyone is moved as to why human nature is not so changed by other sins