Then, that he might show by some likeness, so far as he could, how far this life—not of ordinary men, but even of those endowed here with pre-eminent holiness—is distant from that which is to come, he says: 'When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away the things that were of a child. We see now through a glass in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.' If, then, in this life, where the prophecy of wondrous men is to be compared with that life as a child to a young man, Elisha nevertheless saw his servant receiving gifts where he himself was not:
is it then the case that, when that which is perfect shall have come, and no longer shall the corruptible body weigh down the soul, but the incorruptible shall hinder nothing, those saints shall need bodily eyes for those things which are to be seen—eyes which Elisha, being absent, did not need to see his servant? For according to the Seventy interpreters, these are the prophet's words to Gehazi: 'Did not my heart go with you, when the man turned from his chariot to meet you, and you received the money?' and the rest; but as the presbyter Jerome translated it from the Hebrew: 'Was not my heart,' he says, 'present, when the man returned from his chariot to meet you?' The prophet therefore said that he had seen this with his own heart, aided indeed marvellously—no one doubting—by divine power.
But how much more abundantly shall all then abound in this gift, when God shall be all in all! Yet even those bodily eyes shall have their function, and shall be in their place, and the spirit shall use them through the spiritual body. For not because that prophet did not need them to see one who was absent did he therefore not use them for seeing things present—which nevertheless he could see with the spirit even if he closed them, as he saw things absent, where he himself was not present with them. Far be it, therefore, that we should say those saints in that life shall not see God with closed eyes, whom they shall always see with the spirit. But whether they shall see him also through the eyes of the body when they have them open—that is the question.
For if they shall be able in the spiritual body only in such manner as these very eyes are, spiritual though they be, as much as those which we now have are able: without doubt God cannot be seen through them. They shall therefore be of a far different power, if through them that incorporeal nature shall be seen, which is not contained by place, but is everywhere whole. For not because we say that God is both in heaven and on earth (for he himself says through the prophet: 'I fill heaven and earth'), are we going to say that he has one part in heaven and another on earth; but he is wholly in heaven, wholly on earth, not at alternating times, but both at once, which no bodily nature can do.
The power of those eyes shall therefore be more excellent, not that they may see more sharply than certain serpents or eagles are said to see (for however great their keenness of vision, those same animals can see nothing else but bodies), but that they may see even incorporeal things. And perhaps this great power of seeing was granted for an hour even in this mortal body to the eyes of the holy man Job, when he said to God: 'I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear before, but now mine eye seeth thee. Therefore I abhor myself, and I have melted away, and I have counted myself dust and ashes'—although nothing here forbids us to understand the eye of the heart, of which eyes the Apostle says: 'That you may have the eyes of your heart enlightened.'
But that God shall be seen by these very eyes, when he shall be seen, no Christian doubts who faithfully receives what that divine Master says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' But whether he shall be seen there also with bodily eyes, this is what we are examining in this question. For that which is written: 'And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,' can be understood without any knot of difficulty, as if it had been said: 'And every man shall see the Christ of God,' who indeed was seen in the body and shall be seen in the body, when he shall judge the living and the dead. And that he himself is the salvation of God, there are many other testimonies of the Scriptures;
but the words of that venerable old man Simeon declare it more evidently, who, when he had taken the infant Christ into his hands, said: 'Now, Lord, thou lettest thy servant depart according to thy word in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' That also which the above-mentioned Job says, as it is found in the copies which are from the Hebrew: 'And in my flesh I shall see God,' without doubt prophesied the resurrection of the flesh, yet he did not say: 'Through my flesh.' Which if he had said, God—that is, Christ—might be understood, who through flesh shall be seen in flesh; but as it is, it can also be taken thus: 'In my flesh I shall see God,' as if he had said: 'I shall be in my flesh, when I shall see God.' And that which the Apostle says:
'Face to face,' does not compel us to believe that we shall see God—whom we shall see without intermission with the spirit—through this bodily face where the bodily eyes are. For unless there were also a face of the inner man, the same Apostle would not say: 'But we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord'; nor do we understand otherwise that which is sung in the Psalm: 'Come unto him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.' For it is by faith that one approaches God, which faith is agreed to be of the heart, not of the body.
But since we do not know how great capacities the spiritual body shall have (for we are speaking of a thing untried), where the authority of the divine Scriptures does not come to hand and aid us in something that cannot be otherwise understood, it is necessary that there should befall us that which is read in the Book of Wisdom: 'The thoughts of mortals are timid, and our foresight uncertain.' For that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they argue that intelligible things are so seen by the gaze of the mind and sensible—that is, corporeal—things by the sense of the body, that neither can the mind behold intelligible things through the body nor corporeal things through itself: if it could be most certain to us, it would surely be certain that God can in no way be seen through the eyes of the body, even the spiritual body.
But both true reason and prophetic authority mock this reasoning. For who is so averse from the truth as to dare to say that God does not know these corporeal things? Does he then have a body, through whose eyes he can learn them? Furthermore, what we said a little before concerning the prophet Elisha—does it not sufficiently indicate that corporeal things can be discerned even by the spirit, not through the body? For when that servant received the gifts, the deed was certainly done corporeally; which nevertheless the prophet saw not through the body, but through the spirit. As, then, it is established that bodies are seen by the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that even spirit shall be seen by the body? For God is spirit.
Furthermore, each one knows his own life, by which he now lives in the body and quickens these earthly members and makes them living, by an inner sense, not through the bodily eyes; but the lives of others, though they are invisible, he sees through the body. For whence do we distinguish living bodies from non-living, unless we see bodies and lives together—which lives we cannot see except through the body? But lives without bodies we do not see with bodily eyes.
Wherefore it can happen—and is greatly credible—that we shall then so see the worldly bodies of the new heaven and the new earth, that we shall see God everywhere present and governing even all corporeal things, through the bodies which we shall wear and which we shall behold, wherever we turn our eyes, with the clearest perspicuity; not as now the invisible things of God are seen, being understood by the things that are made, through a glass in an enigma and in part, where faith by which we believe avails more in us than the appearance of corporeal things which we discern through the corporeal eyes.
But just as men, among whom we live as living and exercising vital motions, as soon as we look at them, we do not believe them to be living, but we see it—although we cannot see their life without bodies, yet in them, through the bodies, we behold it with all ambiguity removed: so, whatever spiritual lights of our bodies we shall carry about, we shall contemplate the incorporeal God ruling all things even through bodies. Either, therefore, God shall be seen through those eyes in such a way that they have in that great excellence something like the mind, whereby even the incorporeal nature may be discerned—which it is either difficult or impossible to show by any examples or testimonies of the divine Scriptures;
or—which is easier to understand—God shall be so known and conspicuous to us, that he shall be seen in the spirit by each of us in each of us, seen by one in another, seen in himself, seen in the new heaven and the new earth and in every creature which shall then exist, seen also through bodies in every body, wherever the eye of the spiritual body shall be directed with its penetrating gaze. Our thoughts too shall lie open to one another. For then shall be fulfilled that which the Apostle, when he had said: 'Judge nothing before the time,' immediately added: 'Until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will manifest the thoughts of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of God.'
How great shall that felicity be, where there shall be no evil, no good shall be hidden, where there shall be leisure for the praises of God, who shall be all in all! For what else is done, where neither is one idle in any sloth nor labours in any want, I know not. I am admonished also by the holy canticle, where I read or hear: 'Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they shall praise thee for ever and ever.' All the members and organs of the incorruptible body, which now we see distributed for the various uses of necessity, since then there shall not be that necessity, but full, certain, secure, everlasting felicity, shall avail for the praises of God.
For all those numbers of bodily harmony, of which I have already spoken, which now lie hidden, shall not lie hidden, disposed throughout all the parts of the body within and without; and together with the other things which shall there appear great and wonderful, they shall kindle the rational minds, by the delight of rational beauty, to the praise of so great an Artificer. What motions of such bodies shall then be, I do not dare rashly to define, because I am not able to conceive it; nevertheless both the motion and the state, like the appearance itself, shall be seemly, whatever it shall be, where that which is unseemly shall not be. Certainly, wherever the spirit shall will, there straightway shall the body be; nor shall the spirit will anything which could befit neither the spirit nor the body.
There shall be true glory, where no one shall be praised by the error or flattery of him who praises; true honour, which shall be denied to no one worthy, conferred on no one unworthy; nor shall any unworthy one aspire to it, where none shall be permitted to be save the worthy; true peace, where no one shall suffer anything adverse either from himself or from any other. The reward of virtue shall be he himself who gave the virtue, and promised himself to it, than whom nothing better or greater can be. For what else is it that he said through the prophet: 'I will be their God, and they shall be my people,' but: 'I will be that whereby they shall be satisfied, I will be whatever is honourably desired by men—both life and salvation and food and abundance and glory and honour and peace and all good things'?
For thus also is rightly understood that which the Apostle says: 'That God may be all in all.' He shall be the end of our desires, who shall be seen without end, loved without weariness, praised without fatigue. This gift, this affection, this act, shall surely be common to all, like eternal life itself. But who is fit to conceive, much less to tell, what degrees of honours and glories there shall be according to the merits of rewards? Yet that there shall be such degrees is not to be doubted. And this too that blessed City shall see as a great good in itself: that no inferior shall envy any superior, just as now the other angels do not envy the archangels;
and each one shall as little wish to be what he has not received, though he be bound in a most peaceful bond of concord to him who has received it, as in the body the eye does not wish to be a finger, though the peaceful structure of the whole body contains both members. So, then, one shall have a gift less than another, in such a way that he has this gift also, that he does not wish for more. Nor shall they on that account not have free will, because sins shall not be able to delight them. For the will shall be the more free, in that it is freed from the delight of sinning unto the delight of not sinning, which cannot be turned away. For the first free will, which was given to man when he was first created upright, was able not to sin, but was also able to sin;
but this last shall be more powerful, in that it shall not be able to sin—yet this too by the gift of God, not by the possibility of its own nature. For it is one thing to be God, another to be a partaker of God. God by nature cannot sin: but the partaker of God received from him that he cannot sin. And the degrees of the divine gift were to be preserved, that first should be given the free will by which man could not sin, and last that by which he could not sin, and that the former should pertain to acquiring merit, the latter to receiving reward. But because this nature sinned when it could sin, it is freed by a more bountiful grace, that it may be brought to that liberty in which it cannot sin.
For as the first immortality, which Adam lost by sinning, was the ability not to die, so the last shall be the inability to die: thus the first free will was the ability not to sin, the last the inability to sin. For thus shall the will of piety and equity be as inamissible as that of felicity. For surely by sinning we retained neither piety nor felicity, yet the will of felicity we did not lose even when felicity was lost. Certainly, is God himself, because he cannot sin, therefore to be denied to have free will?
There shall therefore be in that City one free will, common to all and inseparable in each, freed from all evil and filled with all good, unfailingly enjoying the delight of eternal joys, forgetful of faults, forgetful of punishments; nor yet on that account forgetful of its own liberation, so that it should be ungrateful to its Liberator. As far, then, as pertains to rational knowledge, it shall be mindful even of its own past evils; but as far as pertains to the sense of experience, it shall be wholly unmindful of them. For even a most skilled physician knows almost all the diseases of the body as they are known by art; but as they are felt in the body, he does not know very many, which he himself has not suffered. As, then, there are two kinds of knowledge of evils;
one, by which they do not escape the power of the mind, the other, by which they cleave to the senses of the one experiencing (for all vices are known in one way through the teaching of wisdom, in another way through the wicked life of the fool): so also there are two kinds of forgetting of evils. For the learned and instructed man forgets them in one way, the one who has experienced and suffered them in another; the former, if he neglect his skill, the latter, if he be free from misery. According to this forgetting, which I have placed in the latter position, the saints shall not be mindful of past evils; for they shall be free from all of them, so that they are utterly blotted out from their senses. Yet by that power of knowledge, which shall be great in them, not only their own past, but also the everlasting misery of the damned shall not lie hidden from them.
Otherwise, if they shall not know that they had been wretched, how, as the Psalm says, shall they sing the mercies of the Lord for ever? By which canticle, to the glory of the grace of Christ, by whose blood we have been freed, nothing surely shall be more delightful to that City. There shall be fulfilled: 'Be still, and see that I am God'; which shall be truly the greatest Sabbath, having no evening, which the Lord commended in the first works of the world, where it is read: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his works which God had begun to do.'
For the seventh day shall be we ourselves also, when we shall be full and refreshed by his blessing and sanctification. There, being at leisure, we shall see that he himself is God; which we ourselves wished to be, when we fell away from him, listening to the seducer: 'Ye shall be as gods,' and departing from the true God, by whose doing we should be gods by his participation, not by desertion. For what did we do without him, but that in his wrath we failed? Refreshed by whom and perfected by a greater grace, we shall be at leisure for ever, seeing that he himself is God, of whom we shall be full, when he shall be all in all. For even our own good works, when they are understood to be rather his than ours, are then imputed to us for the obtaining of this Sabbath;
for if we ascribe them to ourselves, they shall be servile, since it is said concerning the Sabbath: 'Ye shall do no servile work'; wherefore it is also said through the prophet Ezekiel: 'And I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctify them.' This we shall then know perfectly, when we shall perfectly be at leisure, and perfectly see that he himself is God. This very number of the ages, as of days, if it be computed according to those articles of time which seem expressed in the Scriptures, this Sabbath-rest shall appear more evidently, since it is found to be the seventh; so that the first age, as the first day, is from Adam to the flood, the second thence to Abraham, not by equality of times, but by the number of generations;
for they are found to have ten each. Hence now, as the evangelist Matthew determines, three ages follow up to the coming of Christ, each of which is unfolded in fourteen generations: from Abraham to David one, another thence to the migration into Babylon, the third thence to the carnal nativity of Christ. Thus all become five. The sixth is now being enacted, to be measured by no number of generations, because of that which is said: 'It is not for you to know the times which the Father has put in his own power.' After this, as on the seventh day, God shall rest, when he shall make that same seventh day, which we shall be, to rest in himself, God.
Now to discuss diligently each of these ages would be long; yet this seventh shall be our Sabbath, whose end shall not be an evening, but the Lord's day, as it were an eighth eternal day, which has been consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, prefiguring the eternal rest not only of the spirit but also of the body. There we shall be at leisure and shall see, shall see and shall love, shall love and shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end without end. For what other end is ours, but to come to that kingdom of which there is no end? I seem to myself, with the Lord's help, to have discharged the debt of this vast work. Let those to whom it is too little or too much pardon me; but let those to whom it is enough render thanks, congratulating not me, but God together with me. Amen.
Amen. In this codex are contained the books of Saint Augustine on the City of God against the pagans, twenty-two in number. From the first book to the fifth, a disputation against those who think the gods are to be worshipped for the sake of the good things of this life. From the sixth book to the tenth, a disputation against those who reckon that the worship of the gods is to be maintained for the sake of the life which is to be after death, and at the same time against the most excellent of the philosophers who are renowned among them and who agree with us in many things concerning the immortality of the soul, and that the true God created the world, and concerning his providence by which he governs all things that he created.
From the tenth book to the twenty-second, the impious objections having been refuted, the City of God and true piety and the worship of God are argued and established, in which everlasting blessedness is truly promised.