St. Augustine of HippoTHE CITY OF GOD |
BOOK I |
CHAPTER 4. OF THE ASYLUM OF JUNO IN TROY, WHICH SAVED NO ONE FROM THE GREEKS; AND OF THE CHURCHES OF THE APOSTLES, WHICH PROTECTED FROM THE BARBARIANS ALL WHO FLED TO THEM. |
[1] the queen of all the gods, with the churches built in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils rescued from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods, not that they might be restored to the vanquished, but divided among the victors; while into these was carried back, with the most religious observance anti respect, everything which belonged to them, even though found elsewhere There liberty was lost; here preserved. There bondage was strict; here strictly excluded Into that tem |
CHAPTER 26. THAT IN CERTAIN PECULIAR CASES THE EXAMPLES OF THE SAINTS ARE NOT TO BE FOLLOWED. |
[2] honoring their memory: it may be that it is so. It may be they were not deceived by human judgment, but prompted by divine wisdom, to their act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates by plain evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call obedience criminal? Who will accuse so religious a submission? But then every man is not justified in sacrificing his son to God, because Abraham was com |
BOOK III |
CHAPTER 25. OF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD, WHICH WAS ERECTED BY A DECREE OF THE SENATE ON THE SCENE OF THESE SEDITIONS AND MASSACRES. |
[3] A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by which the temple of Concord was built on the spot where that disastrous rising had taken place, and where so many citizens of every rank had fallen. I suppose it was that the monument of the Gracchi's punishment might strike the eye and affect the memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to deride the gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she been in the city, would not have suffered herself to be torn by such dissensions? Or was it that Concord was chargeable with that bloodshed because she had deserted the minds of the citizens, and was therefore incarcerated in that temple? For if they had any regard to consistency, why did they not rather erect on that site a temple o |
BOOK IV |
CHAPTER 1. OF THE THINGS WHICH HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN THE FIRST BOOK. |
[4] , which it has been their will to have celebrated in honor of them at their own festivals; so that human infirmity cannot be called back from the perpetration of damnable deeds, so long as authority is furnished for imitating them that seems even divine. These things we have proved, not from our own conjectures, but partly from recent memory, because we ourselves have seen such things celebrated, and to such deities, partly from the writings of those who have left these things on record to posterity, not as if in reproach but as in honor of their own gods. Thus Varro, a most learned man among them, and of the weightiest authority, when he made separate books concerning things human and things divine, distributing some among the human, others among the divine, according to the |
BOOK V |
CHAPTER 11. -CONCERNING THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN THE LAWS OF WHICH ALL THINGS ARE COMPREHENDED. |
[5] to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of its parts; who also to the irrational soul has given memory, sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these, has given intelligence and will; who has not left, not to speak of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without an harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts;, that God can never be believed to have left the |
CHAPTER 12. BY WHAT VIRTUES THE ANCIENT ROMANS MERITED THAT THE TRUE GOD, ALTHOUGH THEY DID NOT WORSHIP HIM, SHOULD ENLARGE THEIR EMPIRE. |
[6] , but that within his memory there had been these two men of eminent virtue, and very different pursuits. Now, among the praises which he pronounces on Caesar he put this, that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer of men of heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations to war, and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge, so tha |
CHAPTER 23. CONCERNING THE WAR IN WHICH RADAGAISUS, KING OF THE GOTHS, A WORSHIPPER OF DEMONS, WAS CONQUERED IN ONE DAY, WITH ALL HIS MIGHTY FORCES. |
[7] Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what God has very recently, and within our own memory, wonderfully and mercifully done, but as far as in them lies they attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal oblivion. But should we be silent about these things, we should be in like manner ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths, having taken up his position very near to the city, with a vast and savage army, was already close upon the Romans, he was in one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, whilst not even one Rom |
BOOK VI |
CHAPTER 1. OF THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THAT THEY WORSHIP THE GODS NOT FOR THE SAKE OF TEMPORAL BUT ETERNAL ADVANTAGES. |
[8] mics knowing what they are doing, is deservedly laughed at in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons, who do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world. Wherefore, as concerns those gods which the states have established, it has been cleverly invented and handed down to memory by learned men, what god or goddess is to be supplicated in relation to every particular thing, what, for instance, is to be sought from Liber, what from the Lymphs, what from Vulcan, and so of all the rest, some of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from Ceres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the Lymphs, how much greater absurdity ought it |
CHAPTER 2. WHAT WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT VARRO THOUGHT CONCERNING THE GODS OF THE NATIONS, WHOSE VARIOUS KINDS AND SACRED RITES HE HAS SHOWN TO BE SUCH THAT HE WOULD HAVE ACTED MORE REVERENTLY TOWARDS THEM HAD HE BEEN ALTOGETHER SILENT CONCERNING THEM. |
[9] gods, and so vindicated their worship, as to say, in that same literary work of his, that he was afraid lest they should perish, not by an assault by enemies, but by the negligence of the citizens, and that from this ignominy they are being delivered by him, and are being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by means of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that through which Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred things of Vesta from the flames, and Æneas to have rescued the Penates from the burning of Troy; and when he nevertheless. gives forth such things to be read by succeeding ages as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit to be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion; what ough |
BOOK VII |
CHAPTER 3. HOW THERE IS NO REASON WHICH CAN BE SHOWN FOR THE SELECTION OF CERTAIN GODS, WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION OF MORE EXALTED OFFICES IS ASSIGNED TO MANY INFERIOR GODS. |
[10] any advantage for one to make a journey, and to be conducted home again, if his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows that gift has not been placed by the selectors among the select gods, though she ought indeed to have been preferred even to Minerva, to whom, in this minute distribution of work, they have allotted the memory of boys. For who will doubt that it is a far better thing to have a good mind, than ever so great a[11] memory? For no one is bad who has a good mind; but some who are very bad are possessed of an admirable[12] memory, and are so much the worse, the less they are able to forget the bad things which they think. And yet Minerva is among the select gods, whilst the goddess Mena is hidden by a worthless crowd. What shall I say concerning Virtus? What concerning Felicitas?, concerning whom I have already spoken much in the fourth book; to whom, though they held them to be goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place among the select gods, among who |
CHAPTER 7. WHETHER IT IS REASONABLE TO SEPARATE JANUS AND TERMINUS AS TWO DISTINCT DEITIES. |
[13] k on the beginning, does not look forward to the end. Wherefore it is necessary that prospective intention be connected with retrospective memory. For how shall one find how to finish anything, if he has forgotten what it was which he had begun? But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this world, and perfected beyond the world, and for that reason attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power of beginnings, they should certainly have preferred Terminus to him, and should not have shut him out from the number of the select gods. Yet even now, when the begin |
CHAPTER 25. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE MUTILATION OF ATYS WHICH THE DOCTRINE OF THE GREEK SAGES SET FORTH. |
[14] Varro has not spoken of that Atys, nor sought out any interpretation for him, in memory of whose being loved by Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned and wise Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation so holy and so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Porphyry has said that Atys signifies the flowers of spring, which is the most beautiful season, and therefore was mutilated because the flower falls before the fruit appears. They have not, then, compared the man himself, or rather that semblance o |
BOOK VIII |
CHAPTER 27. CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE HONOR WHICH THE CHRISTIANS PAY TO THEIR MARTYRS. |
[15] ted them with holy angels in celestial honor; and the reason why we pay such honors to their memory is, that by so doing we may both give thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by recalling them afresh to remembrance, may stir ourselves up to imitate them by seeking to obtain like crowns and palms, calling to our help that same God on whom they called. Therefore, whatever honors the religions may pay in the places of the martyrs, they are but honors rendered to their[16] memory, not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as to gods. And even such as bring thither food, which, indeed, is not done by the better Christians, and in most places of the world is not done at all, do so in order that it may be sanctified to them through the merits of the martyrs, in the name of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting the food and offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten, or to be in part bestowe[17] letter of Alexander to his mother Olympias, in which he tells the things which were revealed to him by the priest Leon, and let those who have read it recall to memory what it contains, that they may see what great abominations have been handed down to[18] memory, not by poets, but by the mystic writings of the Egyptians, concerning the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, and the parents of both, all of whom, according to these writings, were royal personages. Isis, when sacrificing to her parents, is said to have discovered a crop of barley, of which she brought some ears to the king her husband, and his councillor Mercurius, and hence they identify her with Ceres. Those who read the letter may there |
BOOK IX |
CHAPTER 10. THAT, ACCORDING TO PLOTINUS, MEN, WHOSE BODY IS MORTAL, ARE LESS WRETCHED THAN DEMONS, WHOSE BODY IS ETERNAL. |
[19] Plotinus, whose memory is quite recent, enjoys the reputation of having understood Plato better than any other of his disciples. In speaking of human souls, he says, "The Father in compassion made their bonds mortal;" that is to say, he considered it due to the Father's mercy that men, having a mortal body, should not be forever confined in the misery of this life. But of this mercy the demons have been judged unworthy, and they have received, in conjunction with |
BOOK X |
CHAPTER 1. THAT THE PLATONISTS THEMSELVES HAVE DETERMINED THAT GOD ALONE CAN CONFER HAPPINESS EITHER ON ANGELS OR MEN, BUT THAT IT YET REMAINS A QUESTION WHETHER THOSE SPIRITS WHOM THEY DIRECT US TO WORSHIP, THAT WE MAY OBTAIN HAPPINESS, WISH SACRIFICE TO BE OFFERED TO THEMSELVES, OR TO THE ONE GOD ONLY. |
[20] eighth book, while making a selection of the philosophers with whom we might discuss the question regarding the future life of happiness, whether we can reach it by paying divine honors to the one true God, the Creator of all gods, or by worshipping many gods, and he will not expect us to repeat here the same argument, especially as, even if he has forgotten it, he may refresh his memory by reperusal. For we made selection of the Platonists, justly esteemed the noblest of the philosophers, because they had the wit to perceive that the human soul, immortal and rational, or intellectual, as it is, cannot be happy except by partaking of the light of that God by whom both itself and the world were made; and also that the happy life which all men desire cannot be reached by any who does not cleave with a pure and holy love to th[21] that servants must be subject to their own masters, is usually designated by another word in Greek, whereas the service which is paid to God alone by worship, is always, or almost always, called latreia in the usage of those who wrote from the divine oracles. This cannot so well be called simply "cultus," for in that case it would not seem to be due exclusively to God; for the same word is applied to the respect we pay either to the memory or the living presence of men. From it, too, we derive the words agriculture, colonist, and others. And the heathen call their gods "coelicolae," not because they worship heaven, but because they dwell in it, and as it were colonize it, not in the sense in which we call those colonists who are attached to their native soil to cultivate it under the rule of the owners, but in the sense in which the great master of the Latin language says, " |
CHAPTER 3. THAT THE PLATONISTS, THOUGH KNOWING SOMETHING OF THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD THE TRUE WORSHIP OF GOD, BY GIVING DIVINE HONOR TO ANGELS, GOOD OR BAD. |
[22] bleeding victims when we contend for His truth even unto blood; to Him we offer the sweetest incense when we come before Him burning with holy and pious love; to Him we devote and surrender ourselves and His gifts in us; to Him, by solemn feasts and on appointed days, we consecrate the memory of His benefits, lest through the lapse of time ungrateful oblivion should steal upon us; to Him we offer on the altar of our heart the sacrifice of humility and praise, kindled by the fire of burning love. It is that we may see Him, so far as He can be seen; it is that we may cleave to Him, that we are cleansed from all stain of sins and evil passions, and are consecrated in His name. For He is the fountain of our happiness, He the end of |
CHAPTER 8. OF THE MIRACLES WHICH GOD HAS CONDESCENDED TO ADHIBIT THROUGH THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS, TO HIS PROMISES FOR THE CONFIRMATION OF THE FAITH OF THE GODLY. |
[23] nd pouring out waters more than enough for all the host? of the deadly serpents' bites, sent in just punishment of sin, but healed by looking at the lifted brazen serpent, so that not only were the tormented people healed, but a symbol of the crucifixion of death set before them in this destruction of death by death? It was this serpent which was preserved in memory of this event, and was afterwards worshipped by the mistaken people as an idol, and was destroyed by the pious and God-fearing king Hezekiah, much to his credit. |
BOOK XI |
CHAPTER 26. OF THE IMAGE OF THE SUPREME TRINITY, WHICH WE FIND IN SOLVE SORT IN HUMAN NATURE EVEN IN ITS PRESENT STATE. |
[24] ceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am deceive |
BOOK XIV |
CHAPTER 8. OF THE THREE PERTURBATIONS, WHICH THE STOICS ADMITTED IN THE SOUL OF THE WISE MAN TO THE EXCLUSION OF GRIEF OR SADNESS, WHICH THE MANLY MIND OUGHT NOT TO EXPERIENCE. |
[25] ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you!" Consequently the Stoics may defend themselves by replying, that sorrow is indeed useful for repentance of sin, but that this can have no place in the mind of the wise man, inasmuch as no sin attaches to him of which he could sorrowfully repent, nor any other evil the endurance or experience of which could make him sorrowful. For they say that Alcibiades (if my memory does not deceive me), who believed himself happy, shed tears when Socrates argued with him, and demonstrated that he was miserable because he was foolish. In his case, therefore, folly was the cause of this useful and desirable sorrow, wherewith a man mourns that he is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics maintain not that the fool, but that the wise man, cannot be sorrowful. |
CHAPTER 12. OF THE NATURE OF MAN'S FIRST SIN. |
[26] ch was so created that submission is advantageous to it, while the fulfillment of its own will in preference to the Creator's is destruction. And as this commandment enjoining abstinence from one kind of food in the midst of great abundance of other kinds was so easy to keep, so light a burden to the memory, and, above all, found no resistance to its observance in lust, which only afterwards sprung up as the penal consequence of sin, the iniquity of violating it was all the greater in proportion to the ease with which it might have been kept. |
CHAPTER 20. OF THE FOOLISH BEASTLINESS OF THE CYNICS. |
[27] ared to put his opinion in practice, under the impression that his sect would be all the more famous if his egregious shamelessness were deeply graven in the memory of mankind, yet this example was not afterwards followed. Shame had more influence with them, to make them blush before men, than error to make them affect a resemblance to dogs. And possibly, even in the case of Diogenes, and those who did imitate him, there was but an appearance and pretence of copulation, and not the reality. Even at this day there are still Cynic philosophers to be seen; for these are Cynics who are not content with b |
BOOK XV |
CHAPTER 27. OF THE ARK AND THE DELUGE, AND THAT WE CANNOT AGREE WITH THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE BARE HISTORY, BUT REJECT THE ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, NOR WITH THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THE FIGURATIVE AND NOT THE HISTORICAL MEANING. |
[28] on the other hand, we must rather believe that there was a wise purpose in their being committed to memory and to writing, and that they did happen, and have a significance, and that this significance has a prophetic reference to the church, then this book, having served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on to trace in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two cities, the earthly, that lives according to men, and the heavenly, that lives according to God. |
BOOK XVI |
CHAPTER 2. WHAT WAS PROPHETICALLY PREFIGURED IN THE SONS OF NOAH. |
[29] ckwards and covered their father's nakedness, without their seeing what their reverence hid. For we both honor the passion of Christ as accomplished for us, and we hate the crime of the Jews who crucified Him. The garment signifies the sacrament, their backs the memory of things past: for the church celebrates the passion of Christ as already accomplished, and no longer to be looked forward to, now that Japheth already dwells in the habitations of Shem, and their wicked brother between them. But the wicked brother is, in the person of his son (i.e., his work), the boy, or slave, of his good brothers, when good men make a skillful use of bad men, either for the exercise of their patience or for their adv |
CHAPTER 8. WHETHER CERTAIN MONSTROUS RACES OF MEN ARE DERIVED FROM THE STOCK OF ADAM OR NOAH'S SONS. |
[30] though it is customary to give them a masculine name, as the more worthy. For no one ever called them Hermaphroditesses. Some years ago, quite within my own memory, a man was born in the East, double in his upper, but single in his lower half, having two heads, two chests, four hands, but one body and two feet like an ordinary man; and he lived so long that many had an opportunity of seeing him. But who could enumerate all the human births that have differed widely from their ascertained parents? As, therefore, no one will deny that these are all descended from that one man, so all the races which ar |
BOOK XVII |
CHAPTER 20. OF DAVID'S REIGN AND MERIT; AND OF HIS SON SOLOMON, AND THAT PROPHECY RELATING TO CHRIST WHICH IS FOUND EITHER IN THOSE BOOKS WHICH ARE JOINED TO THOSE WRITTEN BY HIM, OR IN THOSE WHICH ARE INDUBITABLY HIS. |
[31] the earth the righteous man; yea, let us swallow him up alive as hell, and let us take away his memory from the earth: let us seize his precious possession," is not so obscure that it may not be understood, without laborious exposition, of Christ and His possession the Church. Indeed, the gospel parable about the wicked husbandmen shows that our Lord Jesus Himself said something like it: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours." In like manner also that passage in this same book, on which we have alread |
BOOK XVIII |
CHAPTER 12. OF THE RITUALS OF FALSE GODS INSTITUTED BY THE KINGS OF GREECE IN THE PERIOD FROM ISRAEL'S EXODUS FROM EGYPT DOWN TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN. |
[32] During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to the death of Joshua the son of Nun, through whom that people received the land of promise, rituals were instituted to the false gods by the kings of Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood, and of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous life they then led in migrating to and fro between the heights and the plains. For even the Luperci, when they ascend and descend the sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the mountain summits because of the inundation of water, and returned to the lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus, who was also called Father Liber, and was esteemed a go |
CHAPTER 40. ABOUT THE MOST MENDACIOUS VANITY OF THE EGYPTIANS, IN WHICH THEY ASCRIBE TO THEIR. SCIENCE AN ANTIQUITY OF A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS. |
[33] son why we ought rather to believe him who does not contradict the divine history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the citizens of the impious city, scattered everywhere through the earth, when they read the most learned writers, none of whom seems to be of contemptible authority, and find them disagreeing among themselves about affairs most remote from the memory of our age, cannot find out whom they ought to trust. But we, being sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion, have no doubt that whatever is opposed to it is most false, whatever may. be the case regarding other things in secular books, which, whether true or false, yield nothing of moment to our living rightly and happily. |
BOOK XIX |
CHAPTER 3. WHICH OF THE THREE LEADING OPINIONS REGARDING THE CHIEF GOOD SHOULD BE PREFERRED, ACCORDING TO VARRO, WHO FOLLOWS ANTIOCHUS AND THE OLD ACADEMY. |
[34] as virtue, since not every life, but a wisely regulated life, is virtue; and yet, while there can be life of some kind without virtue, there cannot be virtue without life. This I might apply to memory and reason, and such mental faculties; for these exist prior to instruction, and without them there cannot be any instruction, and consequently no virtue, since virtue is learned. But bodily advantages, such as swiftness of foot, beauty, or strength, are not essential to virtue, neither is virtue essential to them, and yet they are good things; and, according to our philosophers, even these advantages are desired by virtue for its own sake |
CHAPTER 23. PORPHYRY'S ACCOUNT OF THE RESPONSES GIVEN BY THE ORACLES OF THE GODS CONCERNING CHRIST. |
[35] d recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing belief, he says, "What we are going to say will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that Christ was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish his memory: that the Christians, however, are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error. And many other such things," he says, "do the gods say against the Christians." Then he gives specimens of the accusations made, as he says, by the gods against them, and then goes on: "But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and that if it has been severed from wisdom it al |
BOOK XX |
CHAPTER 5. THE PASSAGES IN WHICH THE SAVIOUR DECLARES THAT THERE SHALL BE A DIVINE JUDGMENT IN THE END OF THE WORLD. |
[36] l the corresponding passages bearing on the subject in the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are compared with one another, for some things are put more obscurely by one evangelist and more plainly by another, so that it becomes apparent what things are meant to be referred to one event. It is this which I have been at pains to do in a letter which I wrote to Hesychius of blessed memory, bishop of Salon, and entitled, "Of the End of the World." I shall now cite from the Gospel according to Matthew the passage which speaks of the separation of the good from the wicked by the most efficacious and final judgment of Christ: "When the Son of man," he says, "shall come in His glory, . . . then shall He say also unto them on His left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." |
CHAPTER 14. OF THE DAMNATION OF THE DEVIL AND HIS ADHERENTS; AND A SKETCH OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF ALL THE DEAD, AND OF THE FINAL RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENT. |
[37] be not one book containing all the lives, but a separate book for every life. But our passage requires us to think of one only. "And another book was opened," it says. We must therefore understand it of a certain divine power, by which it shall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory all his own works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this knowledge will either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and each shall be simultaneously judged. And this divine power is called a book, because in it we shall as it were read all that it causes us to remember. That he may show who the dead, small and great, are who are to be judged, he recurs to this which he had omitte |
CHAPTER 26. OF THE SACRIFICES OFFERED TO GOD BY THE SAINTS, WHICH ARE TO BE PLEASING TO HIM, AS IN THE PRIMITIVE DAYS AND FORMER YEARS. |
[38] , when He shall suddenly bring back into the memory that which shall convince and punish the conscience. |
BOOK XXI |
CHAPTER 27. AGAINST THE BELIEF OF THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE SINS WHICH HAVE BEEN ACCOMPANIED WITH ALMSGIVING WILL DO THEM NO HARM. |
[39] d they who grateful memory won By services to others done;" that is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be remembered by them. Just as if they used the expression so common in Christian lips, where some humble person commends himself to one of the saints, and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so by deserving well at his hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and what those sins are which prevent a man from winning the ki |
BOOK XXII |
CHAPTER 8. OF MIRACLES WHICH WERE WROUGHT THAT THE WORLD MIGHT BELIEVE IN CHRIST, AND WHICH HAVE NOT CEASED SINCE THE WORLD BELIEVED. |
[40] ink into the memory of all the congregations; but these modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population in the midst of which they are wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot. For frequently they are known only to a very few persons, while all the rest are ignorant of them, especially if the state is a large one; and when they are reported to other persons in other localities, there is no sufficient authority to give them prompt and[41] in the house such a wailing, in sympathy with the excessive despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at a funeral, and we could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily; Saturninus of blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the deacons of the church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them all survives, a man to be named by us with due reverence, and with him I have often spoken of this affair, as we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found that he distinctly remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that evening acc[42] ne, and to this tends all that we have been retailing, on Him who ascended into heaven with the flesh in which He had risen; and it is because he laid down his life for this faith that such miracles were done by his means. Even now, therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will; but they are not as well known, nor are they beaten into the memory, like gravel, by frequent reading, so that they cannot fall out of mind. For even where, as is now done among ourselves, care is taken that the pamphlets of those who receive benefit be read publicly, yet those who are present hear the narrative but once, and many are absent; and so it comes to pass that even those who are present forget in a few days what they heard, and scarcely one of them can be found who will tell what he heard to one |
CHAPTER 25. OF THE OBSTINACY OF THOSE INDIVIDUALS WHO IMPUGN THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, THOUGH, AS WAS PREDICTED, THE WHOLE WORLD BELIEVES IT. |
[43] raise; and in the thirteenth book I have, in my own judgment, sufficiently illustrated the facility of movement which the incorruptible body shall enjoy, judging from the ease and vigor we experience even now, when the body is in good health. Those who have either not read the former books, or wish to refresh their memory, may read them for themselves. |