but the Mediator Himself, present in the flesh, and His blessed apostles, now revealing the grace of the New Testament, indicated more openly those things which in former times were somewhat more obscurely signified, according to the apportionment of the ages of the human race, even as it pleased God in His wisdom to ordain—with signs bearing witness of divine and wondrous works, of which I have already set down a few above.
For not only did angelic visions appear and the words of heavenly ministers alone resound, but moreover, as men acted by the word of God in simplicity of piety, unclean spirits were driven from the bodies and senses of men, the diseases and infirmities of the body were healed, the wild animals of land and water, the birds of the air, trees, elements, and stars performed the divine commands, the regions below yielded, the dead returned to life—apart from the Savior's own singular and peculiar miracles, especially of His nativity and resurrection, in the one of which He displayed only the sacrament of His mother's virginity, but in the other also the pattern of those who are to rise at the end.
This way cleanses the whole man and prepares the mortal for immortality in all the parts of which he consists. For, that no other purgation might be sought for that part which Porphyry calls intellectual, another for that which he calls spiritual, and another for the body itself, therefore the most truthful and most powerful Cleanser and Savior assumed the whole man. Apart from this way, which—partly when these future things are foreannounced, partly when accomplished things are announced—was never lacking to the human race, no one has been liberated, no one is liberated, no one will be liberated. But as for Porphyry's saying that the universal way of the soul's liberation has not yet been brought to his notice by historical acquaintance:
what can be found either more illustrious than this history, which has taken possession of the whole world with so lofty a summit of authority, or more faithful, in which past things are so narrated that things to come are also foretold, of which we see many fulfilled, and from which we without doubt hope that those which remain will be fulfilled? For neither Porphyry nor any of the Platonists can, even in this way, despise the divination and prediction as it were of earthly things and of things pertaining to this mortal life, which they rightly do in the case of other soothsayers and the divinations of whatsoever kinds or arts. For they deny that such things are to be reckoned as belonging to great men or as of great worth—and rightly so.
For they come to pass either through the foreknowledge of inferior causes—just as in the art of medicine, by certain antecedent signs, very many things are foreseen that will befall one's health—or unclean demons foreannounce their own predetermined deeds, whose right they claim for themselves, in a certain manner, both in leading the minds and desires of the wicked toward whatever deeds are agreeable to them, and in the lowest matter of human frailty. Not such things did the holy men, walking in that universal way of the souls to be liberated, take care to prophesy as great, although even these did not escape them and were often foretold by them to produce faith in those things which could not be conveyed to mortal senses nor brought to proof by swift and easy means.
For Christ's coming in the flesh, and those things which in Him were so clearly perfected and fulfilled in His name—the repentance of men and the conversion of their wills to God, the remission of sins, the grace of righteousness, the faith of the pious, and throughout the whole world the multitude of those believing in the true Godhead, the overthrow of the worship of images and demons and the testing by temptations, the purgation of those making progress and the liberation from every evil, the day of judgment, the resurrection of the dead, the eternal damnation of the fellowship of the impious, and the eternal kingdom of the most glorious City of God enjoying His presence immortally—these were foretold and promised in the Scriptures of this way;
and so many of these things we behold fulfilled, that with upright piety we are confident the rest will come to pass. As for the rectitude of this way—reaching even unto the seeing of God and cleaving to Him for eternity—whosoever do not believe it in the truth of the holy Scriptures by which it is proclaimed and asserted, and for that reason do not understand it, they can assail it, but they cannot vanquish it. Wherefore in these ten books, although less than the intent of some concerning us expected, yet in accordance with the zeal of certain persons, so far as the true God and Lord has deigned to help, we have given satisfaction by refuting the contradictions of the impious, who prefer their own gods to the Founder of the holy City concerning which we have set out to dispute.
Of which ten books the first five were written against those who think the gods are to be worshiped for the good things of this life; the latter five against those who suppose the worship of the gods is to be maintained for the sake of the life which is to be after death. Thenceforth, therefore, as I promised in the first book, I will—so far as I shall be divinely helped—set forth what I judge must be said concerning the rise, the course, and the appointed ends of the two cities, which in this age we have said are entangled and mutually intermingled.