Therefore those innumerable and impious fables, of which the songs of vain poets are full, in no way accord with our liberty; nor do the inflated and polished lies of orators; nor, finally, the garrulous subtleties of the philosophers themselves, who either did not at all know God, or, when they had known God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened; and saying that they were wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and of fourfooted beasts and of serpents; or who, not given over, or not too much given over, to these idols, nevertheless worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.
Far be it altogether that the vanities and lying insanities of such men, their windy trifles and proud error, should rightly be named liberal letters—of men, that is, unhappy, who did not know the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, by which alone we are freed from the body of this death, not even in those very things which they perceived truly. History indeed, whose writers profess that they owe fidelity above all to their narrations, perhaps has something worthy of knowledge for the free, since, whether good or evil, at least true things of men are narrated. Although in knowing these things, how those who were not aided by the Holy Spirit, and who were compelled by the very condition of human infirmity to gather up rumors, should not be deceived in very many matters, I altogether do not see.
Yet there is in them some nearness to liberty, if they do not have the will to lie, and do not deceive men, except when they themselves are deceived by men through human infirmity.
But since, in all the motions of things, what numbers avail is more easily considered in sounds, and that consideration strives, by certain as it were graduated pathways, toward the highest inmost parts of truth—in which ways wisdom shows herself cheerfully and in all providence meets those who love her—at the beginning of my leisure, when my mind was free from greater and more necessary cares, I wished to make a prelude through these writings which you desired of me, when I composed six books on rhythm alone and was arranging, perhaps, to write six others on melody—I confess—when I hoped there would be leisure for me in the future.
But after the burden of ecclesiastical cares was laid upon me, all those delights fled from my hands, so that scarcely now do I find the very codex itself, since I cannot despise your will—nay, not your petition but your command. Yet if I shall be able to send this little work, you will repent, not indeed that I have complied with you, but that you demanded this from me with so great effort.
For the five books in it are understood with the greatest difficulty, if there is not present someone who can not only distinguish the persons of the disputants but also, in pronouncing, so sound the little pauses of the syllables that by them the kinds of numbers may be expressed and may strike the sense of the ears—especially because in certain places even measured intervals of silences are mixed in, which can by no means be perceived unless the pronouncer informs the hearer. The sixth book indeed, which I found emended, where is all the fruit of the rest, I did not delay to send to your charity; perhaps it may not much shrink from your gravity. For the earlier five will scarcely seem worthy of reading or acquaintance even to our son and fellow-deacon Julian, since he too now serves as a fellow-soldier with us.
Him indeed I do not dare say I love more than you, because I do not truly say it; yet I do dare say I long for him more than for you. It may seem strange, how I should long more for one whom I love equally; but this the greater hope of seeing him makes for me; for I think that, if he comes to us at your command or sending, he will both do what befits a young man—especially because he is not yet detained by greater cares—and will bring your very self to me more readily. By what numbers David's verses consist, I have not written, because I do not know. For neither could the translator, out of the Hebrew tongue, which I do not know, express also the numbers, lest by the necessity of meter he be compelled to depart from the truth of translating further than the reason of the sentences allowed.
Yet I believe that they consist of certain numbers, in the judgment of those who thoroughly know that tongue. For that holy man loved godly music, and he kindled us in those studies more than any other author. May you all dwell forever in the help of the Most High, you who dwell of one mind in the house—father and mother, brothers of the sons, and all, sons of one father, mindful of us. CII. TO THE MOST SINCERE BROTHER AND FELLOW-PRESBYTER DEOGRATIAS, AUGUSTINE: GREETING IN THE LORD. You preferred to delegate to me the questions proposed to you, not, as I suppose, out of laziness, but because those very things which you know, you more gladly hear through us, since you love us too much.
But I preferred that these matters be laid open by you, for this reason: that very friend who put them forward — so far as one may conjecture from the fact that he has not written back to me regarding certain letters — seems, as it were, to be ashamed to follow us; let him look to the reason why. Yet this I do suspect, and my suspicion is neither malicious nor absurd, since you know very well how greatly I love him and what grief it is to me that he is not yet a Christian; and I judge it not at all inconsistent that a man whom I see has been unwilling to write back to me wished that nothing be written to him by me.
Therefore I beseech you: just as I, in the midst of my most pressing occupations, obeyed you and feared to offend your holy will, so very dear to me, so as to do what you asked, so may you also do what I ask. And this is it: that briefly — in the manner in which, as you told me, he demanded it of you — you not find it burdensome to reply to him on all points, which indeed you could have done even before. For you will see, when you have read it, that scarcely anything has been said by me which you did not already know, or which, had I kept silent, you could not have come to know. But I ask that you keep this work of mine along with the others which you know it befits to be studied with care.
But let that work of yours, which I urgently demand, be had by the very man to whom it most fittingly belongs, and by the others whom such things delight not a little — I mean, in what manner they can be expressed by you — among whom I too am counted. May you ever live in Christ, mindful of us. SIX QUESTIONS AGAINST THE PAGANS, SET FORTH. I. ON THE RESURRECTION. Certain persons are troubled and inquire concerning the two resurrections which of them befits the promised resurrection — that of Christ or that of Lazarus. ‘If it be Christ’s,’ they say, ‘how can this befit the resurrection of those born of his seed, seeing that he was born under no condition of seed?’
‘But if it be asserted that Lazarus’ resurrection is fitting, not even this seems to correspond, since Lazarus’ resurrection was accomplished from a body not yet decaying, from that very body by which Lazarus was named; whereas our body will be raised up after many ages from a state of dissolution. Then, if after the resurrection a blessed condition is to be, with no injury to the body, no necessity of hunger, what does it mean that Christ was fed and displayed his wounds? But if he did so for the sake of the unbeliever, he feigned; and if he showed what was true, then in the resurrection wounds once received will remain.’
To these it is answered that not Lazarus’ resurrection but rather Christ’s befits the promised resurrection, because Lazarus rose again in such a way that he would die again, whereas Christ, as it is written of him, rising from the dead now dies no more, and death shall no longer have dominion over him. This too is promised to those who shall rise at the end of the age and reign with him forever. Now the difference between Christ’s nativity and ours does not pertain to the resurrection — namely, that he was without a man’s seed while we were created from man and woman — just as it does not pertain to the difference of death itself.
For his death was no less real because he was born without a man’s seed, just as the flesh of the first man, which arose otherwise than ours — since he was created from the earth without parents, while we come from parents — brought no difference to death, such that he should die in one way and we in another. And as diverse nativity has no bearing on the difference of death, so neither does it on the difference of resurrection.
But lest the unbelievers should likewise refuse to believe this very thing which is written concerning the first man, let them seek out or observe — if they can do even this — how many kinds of animals are begotten from the earth without parents, which nevertheless by mating bring forth offspring like themselves, and how, on account of the diversity of nativity, there is no difference at all with respect to the nature of those which were begotten from the earth and of those which were born from the mating of the former. For they live alike and die alike, although they were born in unlike fashion. Thus it is not absurd that bodies should rise alike which arose in unlike ways.
But men of this sort, unable to discern in what matter some difference makes a difference and in what it does not, whenever they notice some distinction in origins, contend that all consequent things must also differ. Such persons might suppose that oil from fats ought not to float upon water like that which comes from the olive, since the origin of the two is far unlike, seeing that the one flows from wood and the other from flesh. But as to that difference — that Christ’s body, not dissolved by decay and putrefaction, rose on the third day, whereas ours will be restored after a long time from a certain state of confusion into which, once dissolved, they departed — for human
capacity both are impossible, but to the divine power both are most easy. For just as the ray of our eye does not reach nearer things more quickly and farther things more slowly, but touches both intervals with equal swiftness, so, when in the twinkling of an eye, as the Apostle says, the resurrection of the dead takes place, it is as easy for the omnipotence of God and his ineffable will to raise up bodies recently fallen as those decayed over a long time. These things are incredible to some because they are untried, whereas all the nature of things is so full of wonders that, not by any easy investigation of reason but by the habit of seeing them, wonders cease to be wonders, and on this account seem worthy of neither consideration nor inquiry.
For I, and with me whoever strives to understand the invisible things of God through the things that are made, marvel no less — indeed more — that in one so tiny grain of seed all the things which we praise in the tree lay hidden, as though threaded within, than that this world’s so vast bosom, which consumes what belongs to human bodies while they dissolve, will render it back whole and entire to the future resurrection. But how is it contrary both that Christ was fed after the resurrection and that in the resurrection which is promised there will be no need of food, since we read that even the angels partook of foods of the same kind and in the same manner, not by any feigned phantasm but in most manifest truth, yet not from necessity but from power?
For the thirsty earth absorbs water in one way, the burning ray of the sun in another: the former from need, the latter from power. Therefore the body of the future resurrection will be of imperfect felicity if it cannot take food; of imperfect felicity if it should have need of food. I could here discourse more broadly on the changes of bodily qualities and on the overpowering strength of higher bodies upon lower ones; but my purpose is to reply briefly, and this is written for such minds as it will suffice merely to admonish.
Let him indeed know, who put forward these questions, that Christ after the resurrection showed scars, not wounds, to the doubters, on whose account he also willed to take food and drink not once but often, lest they should suppose that it was not a body but a spirit and that he appeared to them not solidly but only in semblance. Now those scars would have been false, if no wounds had preceded them; and yet they would not have existed at all, had he not willed them to exist. But he willed it, by the grace of a sure dispensation, so that to those whom he was building up in unfeigned faith he might show that not something else in place of the true, but that very thing which they had seen crucified, had risen again. What then is the meaning of what is said: ‘If he did it for the sake of the unbeliever, he feigned’?
As if, forsooth, some brave man fighting for his fatherland were to receive many wounds head-on, and to a most skilled physician, who could cure these in such a way that no scars would appear, this man himself should say that he preferred to be healed in such a way that the traces of the wounds should rather remain on his body like titles of glory — would that physician therefore be said to have feigned scars, because, though he could by his art have brought it about that they did not exist, he brought it about by his art, for a definite existing cause, that they rather did exist? And these, as I said above, could be convicted of being false in one way only: if no wounds had been healed. II. ON THE TIME OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Likewise they have put forward other objections, which they said were culled from Porphyry against the Christians as if the stronger ones:
‘If Christ,’ they say, ‘declares himself the way of salvation, grace, and truth, and places in himself alone the return for souls that believe in him, what did the men of so many ages before Christ accomplish? To pass over,’ he says, ‘the times before Latium was ruled, let us take from Latium itself, as it were, the beginning of the human name. In Latium itself, before Alba, the gods were worshipped. In Alba likewise the religions and rites of the temples flourished. For not fewer ages Rome itself, through a long span of ages, was without the Christian law. What,’ he says, ‘became of so innumerable souls, which are altogether in no fault, if indeed he in whom faith could be placed had not yet vouchsafed his coming to men? The whole world too, together with Rome itself, was warm in the rites of the temples.’
‘Why,’ he says, ‘did he who is called the Savior withdraw himself for so many ages? But let them not say,’ he says, ‘that the human race was cared for by the old Jewish law: the law of the Jews appeared and flourished a long time afterward, in the narrow region of Syria, and only later crept even into the borders of Italy — but after Caesar Gaius, or certainly under his reign. What then became of the Roman or Latin souls, which were bereaved of the grace of the not-yet-come Christ right down to the times of the Caesars?’ To this proposition it is answered that first they themselves should say whether the rites of their gods, which are agreed to have been instituted at fixed times, benefited men. And if they deny that these profited anything toward the salvation of souls, they destroy these things along with us and confess them to be empty.
We indeed show them to be even pernicious; but it is no small thing that they themselves should meanwhile first confess them to be empty. But if they defend them and assert that these were wisely and usefully instituted, I ask what became of those who died before these things were instituted; for they were surely defrauded of this very salvation and benefit. But if they could be purified in some other way, why did not that same way persist among later generations? What need was there to institute novel consecrations which had not existed in antiquity?
Here, if they say that the gods themselves always existed and equally everywhere had power to liberate their worshippers, but that, according to the variety of temporal and earthly circumstances which they knew to be suited to certain times and places, they willed to be served in these ways and those, here and there, in this manner and that — why do they bring this question against the Christian religion, in which, on behalf of their gods, they can either not answer us, or, if they can, in that very answer let them answer on behalf of our religion as well: that it makes no difference, according to the diverse suitability of times and places, by what diverse sacred rites that which is worshipped be worshipped, provided that what is worshipped is holy — just as it makes no difference, according to the diverse suitability of languages and hearers, by what diverse sounds a thing be spoken, provided that
what is said is true. Yet this indeed makes a difference: that the sounds of languages, by which men communicate their meanings to one another, men can themselves establish by a certain compact of society; but by what sacred rites they might be suited to the Divinity, they who rightly understood followed the will of God. And that will was never at all lacking to the salvation of the justice and piety of mortals; and if in some peoples and others, joined together in one and the same religion, these are variously celebrated, it matters very much in what measure it be done, whereby human weakness may be exhorted or borne with, and divine authority not opposed.
Wherefore, since we call Christ the Word of God, through whom all things were made, and therefore the Son because he is the Word — not a word spoken and passed away, but with the unchangeable Father unchangeable himself and remaining unchangeably, under whose governance every creature, spiritual and corporeal, is administered according to the suitability of times and places, and with whom rests the wisdom and knowledge of what ought to be done concerning it, when and where, for the ordering and governing of it — both before he propagated the Hebrew nation, through which by fitting sacraments he might prefigure the manifestation of his coming, and in the very times of the kingdom of Israel, and then, when in the flesh received from a virgin he showed himself mortally to mortals, and thereafter down to the present, when he fulfills all things which he foretold through the prophets, and from now unto the end of the age, when he shall separate the holy from the impious and render to each his own — this same one is the Son of God, coeternal with the Father, and the unchangeable Wisdom, through whom every nature was created and by participation in whom every rational soul is made blessed.
And so, from the beginning of the human race, whoever believed in him and in whatever measure understood him and lived piously and justly according to his precepts, whenever and wherever they may have lived, were without doubt saved through him. For just as we believe in him both as remaining with the Father and as having already come in the flesh, so the ancients believed in him both as remaining with the Father and as about to come in the flesh. Nor, because according to the variety of the times that is now announced as done which then was foretold as to come, is the faith itself thereby varied or the salvation itself different; nor, because one and the same reality is either prophesied or preached by these sacred rites and sacraments and by those, ought different realities or different salvations to be understood.
But as to what should be done at what time, insofar as it pertains to the one and the same liberation of the faithful and pious, let us ascribe the counsel to God, and keep obedience for ourselves. Accordingly, by certain names and signs then, and by others now, and formerly more hiddenly, afterward more manifestly, and formerly by fewer, later by more — yet one and the same true religion is signified and observed.
Nor do we object against them that Numa Pompilius established for the Romans that the gods be worshipped otherwise than they had previously been worshipped by them or by the Italians, nor that in the Pythagorean times that philosophy was celebrated which before either did not exist at all or perhaps lay hidden among a very few who held the same opinions but did not, however, live by the same rite — but rather whether those gods are true or to be worshipped, and whether that philosophy profits anything toward the salvation of souls. This is what we argue with them, this we call into question, this we overthrow by disputation. Let them cease, therefore, to object against us what can be objected against every sect and every name of religion.
For since they confess that the times are ordered not by chance falling out but by divine providence, what is fitting and opportune for each time surpasses human counsel and is dispensed from that source whence providence itself provides for things. For if they say that the Pythagorean discipline did not always and everywhere exist because Pythagoras was a man and could not have this in his power, can they by any means say this too: that at the very time when he existed, and in the places of the earth where that philosophy flourished, all who were able to hear him also willed to believe and follow him?
And by this all the more, if Pythagoras had been of such great power that he could preach his doctrines wherever he willed and whenever he willed, and if together with that power he also possessed the highest foreknowledge of things, he would nowhere and never have appeared except where and when he foreknew that men would believe him.
Accordingly, since they do not object against Christ that not all follow his doctrine — for they themselves perceive that this can by no means rightly be objected either against the wisdom of the philosophers or even against the divinity of their own gods — what will they answer if, setting aside that height of the wisdom and knowledge of God, where perhaps another far more secret divine counsel lies hidden, and without prejudice even to other causes which perchance can be investigated by the prudent, we say this alone to them, for brevity’s sake, in the disputation of this question: that Christ willed then to appear to men and to have his doctrine preached among them, when he knew and where he knew there would be those who would believe in him?
For in those times and those places in which his Gospel was not preached, he foreknew that all would be, in the face of his preaching, such as — not indeed all, but nevertheless many — were in his bodily presence, who were unwilling to believe in him even when the dead were raised by him; such as even now we see many, when the announcements of the prophets concerning him are fulfilled with so great a manifestation, still unwilling to believe, and preferring to resist by human cunning rather than to yield to a divine authority so clear and evident, so sublime and sublimely proclaimed — so long as the understanding of man is small and weak to yield to the divine truth.
What wonder, then, if Christ knew the whole earth in the earlier ages to be so full of unbelievers that he deservedly refused to appear to them or to be preached to those whom he foreknew would believe neither his words nor his miracles? For it is not incredible that all were then such as we marvel that so many have been and are, from his coming down to this present time. And yet from the beginning of the human race — sometimes more hiddenly, sometimes more evidently, as it seemed divinely fitting to the times — he neither ceased to be prophesied, nor were there lacking those who believed in him, from Adam down to Moses, and among the very people of Israel, which by a certain special mystery was a prophetic nation, and among other nations, before he had come in the flesh.
For since some are mentioned in the holy Hebrew books already from the time of Abraham, not of the stock of his flesh nor of the people of Israel nor by any adventitious association within the people of Israel, who nevertheless were partakers of this sacrament, why should we not believe that among the rest of the nations here and there there were others at various times, although we do not read them mentioned in those same authoritative writings? Thus the salvation of this religion — through which alone the one true salvation is truly and truthfully promised — was never lacking to anyone who was worthy, and to whom it was lacking, he was not worthy. And from the beginning of human propagation unto the end it is preached, to some for reward, to some for judgment.
And on account of this, both those to whom it was not announced at all were foreknown as ones who would not believe, and those to whom, though they would not believe, it was nevertheless announced, are exhibited in the example of the former; but those to whom, as ones who would believe, it is announced, these are prepared for the kingdom of heaven and the fellowship of the holy angels. III. ON THE DISTINCTION OF SACRIFICES. Now let us consider the question that follows.
‘They find fault,’ he says, ‘with the rites of sacred things — the victims, the incense, and the rest which the worship of the temples has practiced — although this very worship,’ he says, ‘took its beginning from these gods, or from the god whom they worship, in ancient times, when a god is represented as having had need of first-fruits.’ To this it is answered that, since this question is recognized to have been put forward from that place in our Scriptures where it is written that Cain offered a gift to God from the fruits of the earth, but Abel from the firstlings of the sheep, from this it is rather to be understood how ancient a thing sacrifice is — which the truthful and sacred writings admonish ought to be offered to none but the one true God, not because God has need of it, since in those very writings it is most openly written: I said to the Lord:
‘Thou art my God, since thou hast no need of my goods’ — but because even in accepting or rejecting or receiving these things he consults nothing but the interests of men. For it profits us to worship God, not God himself. When therefore he inspires and teaches how he is to be worshipped, he does so not only from no need of his own but for our very greatest benefit. Now all such sacrifices are significative and are likenesses of certain things, by which we ought to be admonished toward those very things whose likenesses they are, whether these are to be searched out, or known, or recalled.
Concerning which matter, to discuss it as much as is sufficient, no brief discourse must be demanded — whereby it is now our purpose to reply to us — especially since in other little works of ours we have already said much about this matter, and those who before us have treated the utterances of God have spoken copiously about the likenesses of the sacrifices of the Old Testament as shadows and figures of things to come. This indeed must not be passed over even in this brevity: that unless the false gods — that is, the demons, who are prevaricating angels — had known that temple, priest, sacrifice, and whatever else pertains to these are owed to none but the one true God, they would never have sought these things for themselves from their worshippers, whom they deceive.
But when these things are exhibited to God according to his inspiration and teaching, it is true religion; but when to demons according to their impious pride, it is noxious superstition. Wherefore those who know the Christian writings of both Testaments do not fault this in the sacrilegious rites of the pagans — that they construct temples and institute priesthoods and offer sacrifices — but that they exhibit these to idols and demons. And who indeed would doubt that idols lack all sense?
Yet when these are placed in seats with honorable loftiness, so as to be regarded by those who pray and offer sacrifice, by the very likeness of animate limbs and senses they affect weak minds, though themselves senseless and lifeless, so that they seem to live and breathe — especially with the veneration of the multitude coming into play, by which so great a worship is expended upon them. To these diseased and pestilential affections the divine Scripture would apply a remedy, which indeed inculcates a known thing, yet with the wholesome remedy of admonition, saying: They have eyes and see not, they have ears and hear not, and other such things.