BOOK ELEVENTH.

Argument

HERE BEGINS THE SECOND PART[440] OF THIS WORK, WHICH TREATS OF THE ORIGIN,
HISTORY, AND DESTINIES OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE
HEAVENLY. IN THE FIRST PLACE, AUGUSTINE SHOWS IN THIS BOOK HOW
THE TWO CITIES WERE FORMED ORIGINALLY, BY THE SEPARATION OF THE
GOOD AND BAD ANGELS; AND TAKES OCCASION TO TREAT OF THE CREATION
OF THE WORLD, AS IT IS DESCRIBED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE IN THE BEGINNING
OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

1. Of this part of the work, wherein we begin to explain the origin and end
of the two cities.

The city of God we speak of is the same to which testimony
is borne by that Scripture, which excels all the
writings of all nations by its divine authority, and has brought
under its influence all kinds of minds, and this not by a
casual intellectual movement, but obviously by an express
providential arrangement. For there it is written, “Glorious
things are spoken of thee, O city of God.”[441] And in another
psalm we read, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in
the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness, increasing
the joy of the whole earth.”[442] And, a little after, in the
same psalm, “As we have heard, so have we seen in the city
of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God. God has established
it for ever.” And in another, “There is a river the
streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy
place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the
midst of her, she shall not be moved.”[443] From these and
similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we
have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has
inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship.
To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly
city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God[Pg 437]
of gods, not of false, i.e. of impious and proud gods, who,
being deprived of His unchangeable and freely communicated
light, and so reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power,
eagerly grasp at their own private privileges, and seek divine
honours from their deluded subjects; but of the pious and
holy gods, who are better pleased to submit themselves to one,
than to subject many to themselves, and who would rather
worship God than be worshipped as God. But to the enemies
of this city we have replied in the ten preceding books, according
to our ability and the help afforded by our Lord
and King. Now, recognising what is expected of me, and
not unmindful of my promise, and relying, too, on the same
succour, I will endeavour to treat of the origin, and progress,
and deserved destinies of the two cities (the earthly and the
heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are in this present world
commingled, and as it were entangled together. And, first, I
will explain how the foundations of these two cities were
originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.

2. Of the knowledge of God, to which no man can attain save through the
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

It is a great and very rare thing for a man, after he has
contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal,
and has discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by
the continued soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable
substance of God, and, in that height of contemplation, to
learn from God Himself that none but He has made all that
is not of the divine essence. For God speaks with a man
not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so
that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with
him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual
being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams
or similar states; for even in this case He speaks as if to the
ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance of
a body He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of
space,—for visions are exact representations of bodily objects.
Not by these, then, does God speak, but by the truth itself,
if any one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with
the body. For He speaks to that part of man which is better
than all else that is in him, and than which God Himself[Pg 438]
alone is better. For since man is most properly understood
(or, if that cannot be, then, at least, believed) to be made in
God’s image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he
rises above those lower parts he has in common with the
beasts, which brings him nearer to the Supreme. But since
the mind itself, though naturally capable of reason and intelligence,
is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not
merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerating
His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed,
and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in
the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified.
And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently
towards the truth, the truth itself, God, God’s Son, assuming
humanity without destroying His divinity,[444] established and
founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to
man’s God through a God-man. For this is the Mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as
man that He is the Mediator and the Way. Since, if the
way lieth between him who goes, and the place whither he
goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way,
or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither
he should go? Now the only way that is infallibly secured
against all mistakes, is when the very same person is at once
God and man, God our end, man our way.[445]

3. Of the authority of the canonical Scriptures composed by the Divine Spirit.

This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient,
first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by
the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called
canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we
yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be
ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain
the knowledge of present objects by the testimony of our own
senses,[446] whether internal or external, then, regarding objects
remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their[Pg 439]
testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we
credit the persons to whom the objects have been or are
sensibly present. Accordingly, as in the case of visible objects
which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and likewise
with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which
are perceived[447] by the mind and spirit, i.e. which are remote
from our own interior sense, it behoves us to trust those who
have seen them set in that incorporeal light, or abidingly
contemplate them.

4. That the world is neither without beginning, nor yet created by a new decree
of God, by which He afterwards willed what He had not before willed.

Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible,
the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see;
that God is, we believe. That God made the world, we can
believe from no one more safely than from God Himself. But
where have we heard Him? Nowhere more distinctly than in
the Holy Scriptures, where His prophet said, “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth.”[448] Was the prophet
present when God made the heavens and the earth? No;
but the wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was
there,[449] and wisdom insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes
them the friends of God and His prophets, and noiselessly
informs them of His works. They are taught also by the
angels of God, who always behold the face of the Father,[450] and
announce His will to whom it befits. Of these prophets was
he who said and wrote, “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.” And so fit a witness was he of God,
that the same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him,
enabled him also so long before to predict that our faith also
would be forthcoming.

But why did God choose then to create the heavens and
earth which up to that time He had not made?[451] If they
who put this question wish to make out that the world is
eternal and without beginning, and that consequently it has[Pg 440]
not been made by God, they are strangely deceived, and rave
in the incurable madness of impiety. For, though the voices of
the prophets were silent, the world itself, by its well-ordered
changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all
visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has
been created, and also that it could not have been created save
by God, whose greatness and beauty are unutterable and invisible.
As for those[452] who own, indeed, that it was made by
God, and yet ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational
beginning, so that in some scarcely intelligible way the world
should always have existed a created world, they make an
assertion which seems to them to defend God from the charge
of arbitrary hastiness, or of suddenly conceiving the idea of
creating the world as a quite new idea, or of casually changing
His will, though He be unchangeable. But I do not see
how this supposition of theirs can stand in other respects, and
chiefly in respect of the soul; for if they contend that it is
co-eternal with God, they will be quite at a loss to explain
whence there has accrued to it new misery, which through a
previous eternity had not existed. For if they said that its
happiness and misery ceaselessly alternate, they must say,
further, that this alternation will continue for ever; whence
will result this absurdity, that, though the soul is called
blessed, it is not so in this, that it foresees its own misery and
disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and supposes that
it will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but always blessed,
then it is blessed because it is deceived; and a more foolish
statement one cannot make. But if their idea is that the
soul’s misery has alternated with its bliss during the ages of
the past eternity, but that now, when once the soul has been
set free, it will return henceforth no more to misery, they are
nevertheless of opinion that it has never been truly blessed
before, but begins at last to enjoy a new and uncertain happiness;
that is to say, they must acknowledge that some new
thing, and that an important and signal thing, happens to the
soul which never in a whole past eternity happened it before.
And if they deny that God’s eternal purpose included this
new experience of the soul, they deny that He is the Author[Pg 441]
of its blessedness, which is unspeakable impiety. If, on the
other hand, they say that the future blessedness of the soul is
the result of a new decree of God, how will they show that
God is not chargeable with that mutability which displeases
them? Further, if they acknowledge that it was created in
time, but will never perish in time,—that it has, like number,[453]
a beginning but no end,—and that, therefore, having once made
trial of misery, and been delivered from it, it will never again
return thereto, they will certainly admit that this takes place
without any violation of the immutable counsel of God. Let
them, then, in like manner believe regarding the world that it
too could be made in time, and yet that God, in making it,
did not alter His eternal design.

5. That we ought not to seek to comprehend the infinite ages of time before
the world, nor the infinite realms of space.

Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who
agree that God is the Creator of the world, but have difficulties
about the time of its creation, and what reply, also, they can
make to difficulties we might raise about the place of its
creation. For, as they demand why the world was created
then and no sooner, we may ask why it was created just here
where it is, and not elsewhere. For if they imagine infinite
spaces of time before the world, during which God could not
have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the
world infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that
the Omnipotent cannot hold His hand from working, will it
not follow that they must adopt Epicurus’ dream of innumerable
worlds? with this difference only, that he asserts that
they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements
of atoms, while they will hold that they are made by God’s
hand, if they maintain that, throughout the boundless immensity
of space, stretching interminably in every direction round the
world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose
Him to make cannot be destroyed. For here the question
is with those who, with ourselves, believe that God is spiritual,
and the Creator of all existences but Himself. As for others,
it is a condescension to dispute with them on a religious
question, for they have acquired a reputation only among men[Pg 442]
who pay divine honours to a number of gods, and have
become conspicuous among the other philosophers for no other
reason than that, though they are still far from the truth,
they are near it in comparison with the rest. While these,
then, neither confine in any place, nor limit, nor distribute the
divine substance, but, as is worthy of God, own it to be wholly
though spiritually present everywhere, will they perchance say
that this substance is absent from such immense spaces outside
the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little
one compared with the infinity beyond,) the one, namely, in
which is the world? I think they will not proceed to this
absurdity. Since they maintain that there is but one world,
of vast material bulk, indeed, yet finite, and in its own determinate
position, and that this was made by the working of
God, let them give the same account of God’s resting in the
infinite times before the world as they give of His resting in
the infinite spaces outside of it. And as it does not follow
that God set the world in the very spot it occupies and no
other by accident rather than by divine reason, although no
human reason can comprehend why it was so set, and though
there was no merit in the spot chosen to give it the precedence
of infinite others, so neither does it follow that we should
suppose that God was guided by chance when He created the
world in that and no earlier time, although previous times
had been running by during an infinite past, and though there
was no difference by which one time could be chosen in preference
to another. But if they say that the thoughts of
men are idle when they conceive infinite places, since there
is no place beside the world, we reply that, by the same
showing, it is vain to conceive of the past times of God’s rest,
since there is no time before the world.

6. That the world and time had both one beginning, and the one did not
anticipate the other.

For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this,
that time does not exist without some movement and transition,
while in eternity there is no change, who does not see that
there could have been no time had not some creature been
made, which by some motion could give birth to change,—the
various parts of which motion and change, as they cannot be[Pg 443]
simultaneous, succeed one another,—and thus, in these shorter
or longer intervals of duration, time would begin? Since
then, God, in whose eternity is no change at all, is the Creator
and Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to
have created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless
it be said that prior to the world there was some creature by
whose movement time could pass. And if the sacred and
infallible Scriptures say that in the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth, in order that it may be understood
that He had made nothing previously,—for if He had made
anything before the rest, this thing would rather be said to
have been made “in the beginning,”—then assuredly the
world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time.
For that which is made in time is made both after and before
some time,—after that which is past, before that which is
future. But none could then be past, for there was no creature
by whose movements its duration could be measured.
But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the
world’s creation change and motion were created, as seems
evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in
these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the
sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and
on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely
signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely
difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how
much more to say!

7. Of the nature of the first days, which are said to have had morning
and evening, before there was a sun.

We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but
by the setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun;
but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since
it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first
of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God,
we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light
Day, and the darkness Night; but what kind of light that was,
and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning,
is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand
how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For either
it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper[Pg 444]
parts of the world, far removed from our sight, or from the
spot where the sun was afterwards kindled; or under the
name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy
angels and blessed spirits, the city of which the apostle says,
“Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven;”[454]
and in another place, “For ye are all the children of the light,
and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of
darkness.”[455] Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak
of a morning and evening of this day also. For the knowledge
of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of the
Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into
morning when the creature is drawn to the praise and love
of the Creator; and night never falls when the Creator is not
forsaken through love of the creature. In fine, Scripture,
when it would recount those days in order, never mentions
the word night. It never says, “Night was,” but “The evening
and the morning were the first day.” So of the second and
the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created things contemplated
by themselves is, so to speak, more colourless than
when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by
which they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable
figure than night; and yet, as I said, morning returns when
the creature returns to the praise and love of the Creator.
When it does so in the knowledge of itself, that is the first
day; when in the knowledge of the firmament, which is the
name given to the sky between the waters above and those
beneath, that is the second day; when in the knowledge of
the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the
earth, that is the third day; when in the knowledge of the
greater and less luminaries, and all the stars, that is the fourth
day; when in the knowledge of all animals that swim in the
waters and that fly in the air, that is the fifth day; when in
the knowledge of all animals that live on the earth, and of
man himself, that is the sixth day.[456]

8. What we are to understand of God’s resting on the seventh day, after
the six days’ work.

When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from
all His works, and hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this[Pg 445]
in a childish fashion, as if work were a toil to God, who “spake
and it was done,”—spake by the spiritual and eternal, not
audible and transitory word. But God’s rest signifies the
rest of those who rest in God, as the joy of a house means
the joy of those in the house who rejoice, though not the
house, but something else, causes the joy. How much more
intelligible is such phraseology, then, if the house itself, by its
own beauty, makes the inhabitants joyful! For in this case
we not only call it joyful by that figure of speech in which
the thing containing is used for the thing contained (as when
we say, “The theatres applaud,” “The meadows low,” meaning
that the men in the one applaud, and the oxen in the other
low), but also by that figure in which the cause is spoken of
as if it were the effect, as when a letter is said to be joyful,
because it makes its readers so. Most appropriately, therefore,
the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning thereby
that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest.
And this the prophetic narrative promises also to the men to
whom it speaks, and for whom it was written, that they themselves,
after those good works which God does in and by
them, if they have managed by faith to get near to God in
this life, shall enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was prefigured
to the ancient people of God by the rest enjoined in
their sabbath law, of which, in its own place, I shall speak
more at large.

9. What the Scriptures teach us to believe concerning the creation of
the angels.

At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin
of the holy city, and first of the holy angels, who constitute
a large part of this city, and indeed the more blessed part,
since they have never been expatriated, I will give myself to
the task of explaining, by God’s help, and as far as seems
suitable, the Scriptures which relate to this point. Where
Scripture speaks of the world’s creation, it is not plainly said
whether or when the angels were created; but if mention of
them is made, it is implicitly under the name of “heaven,”
when it is said, “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth,” or perhaps rather under the name of “light,”
of which presently. But that they were wholly omitted, I[Pg 446]
am unable to believe, because it is written that God on the
seventh day rested from all His works which He made; and
this very book itself begins, “In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth,” so that before heaven and earth
God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He began
with the heavens and the earth,—and the earth itself, as Scripture
adds, was at first invisible and formless, light not being
as yet made, and darkness covering the face of the deep (that
is to say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, for
where light is not, darkness must needs be),—and then when
all things, which are recorded to have been completed in six
days, were created and arranged, how should the angels be
omitted, as if they were not among the works of God, from
which on the seventh day He rested? Yet, though the fact
that the angels are the work of God is not omitted here, it is
indeed not explicitly mentioned; but elsewhere Holy Scripture
asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn of
the Three Children in the Furnace it was said, “O all ye works
of the Lord, bless ye the Lord;”[457] and among these works
mentioned afterwards in detail, the angels are named. And
in the psalm it is said, “Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,
praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels;
praise ye Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon;
praise Him, all ye stars of light. Praise Him, ye heaven of
heavens; and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them
praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they
were created.”[458] Here the angels are most expressly and by
divine authority said to have been made by God, for of them
among the other heavenly things it is said, “He commanded,
and they were created.” Who, then, will be bold enough to
suggest that the angels were made after the six days’ creation?
If any one is so foolish, his folly is disposed of by a scripture
of like authority, where God says, “When the stars were
made, the angels praised me with a loud voice.”[459] The angels
therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made
the fourth day. Shall we then say that they were made the
third day? Far from it; for we know what was made
that day. The earth was separated from the water, and each[Pg 447]
element took its own distinct form, and the earth produced all
that grows on it. On the second day, then? Not even on
this; for on it the firmament was made between the waters
above and beneath, and was called “Heaven,” in which firmament
the stars were made on the fourth day. There is no
question, then, that if the angels are included in the works of
God during these six days, they are that light which was
called “Day,” and whose unity Scripture signalizes by calling
that day not the “first day,” but “one day.”[460] For the second
day, the third, and the rest are not other days; but the same
“one” day is repeated to complete the number six or seven,
so that there should be knowledge both of God’s works and
of His rest. For when God said, “Let there be light, and
there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this
light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were
created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable
Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and
whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they,
being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves
become light and be called “Day,” in participation of
that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God,
by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true
Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,”[461]—this
Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be
light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel
turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called
unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness
in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light
eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good
has received the name “evil.”[462]

10. Of the simple and unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one
God, in whom substance and quality are identical.

There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and
therefore alone unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good[Pg 448]
have all others been created, but not simple, and therefore not
unchangeable. “Created,” I say,—that is, made, not begotten.
For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple as
itself, and the same as itself. These two we call the Father
and the Son; and both together with the Holy Spirit are one
God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy is in Scripture, as it
were, appropriated. And He is another than the Father and
the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son. I say
“another,” not “another thing,” because He is equally with
them the simple Good, unchangeable and co-eternal. And
this Trinity is one God; and none the less simple because a
Trinity. For we do not say that the nature of the good is
simple, because the Father alone possesses it, or the Son alone,
or the Holy Ghost alone; nor do we say, with the Sabellian
heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity, and has no real
distinction of persons; but we say it is simple, because it is
what it has, with the exception of the relation of the persons
to one another. For, in regard to this relation, it is true that
the Father has a Son, and yet is not Himself the Son; and
the Son has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But,
as regards Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each
is what He has; thus, He is in Himself living, for He has
life, and is Himself the Life which He has.

It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is
called simple, because it has not anything which it can lose,
and because it is not one thing and its contents another, as a
cup and the liquor, or a body and its colour, or the air and
the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom. For none
of these is what it has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body
colour, nor the air light and heat, nor the mind wisdom. And
hence they can be deprived of what they have, and can be
turned or changed into other qualities and states, so that the
cup may be emptied of the liquid of which it is full, the body
be discoloured, the air darken, the mind grow silly. The incorruptible
body which is promised to the saints in the resurrection
cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but
the bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not
the same thing. For the quality of incorruption resides
entire in each several part, not greater in one and less in[Pg 449]
another; for no part is more incorruptible than another. The
body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part; and one
part of it is larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger more
incorruptible than the smaller. The body, then, which is not
in each of its parts a whole body, is one thing; incorruptibility,
which is throughout complete, is another thing;—for
every part of the incorruptible body, however unequal to the
rest otherwise, is equally incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is
not more incorrupt than the finger because it is larger than
the finger; so, though finger and hand are unequal, their incorruptibility
is equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is
inseparable from an incorruptible body, yet the substance of
the body is one thing, the quality of incorruption another.
And therefore the body is not what it has. The soul itself,
too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it
is redeemed), will be so by participating in the unchangeable
wisdom, which it is not; for though the air be never robbed
of the light that is shed abroad in it, it is not on that account
the same thing as the light. I do not mean that the soul is
air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive a
spiritual nature;[463] but, with much dissimilarity, the two things
have a kind of likeness, which makes it suitable to say that
the immaterial soul is illumined with the immaterial light of
the simple wisdom of God, as the material air is irradiated
with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of
this light, grows dark, (for material darkness is nothing else
than air wanting light,[464]) so the soul, deprived of the light of
wisdom, grows dark.

According to this, then, those things which are essentially
and truly divine are called simple, because in them quality
and substance are identical, and because they are divine, or
wise, or blessed in themselves, and without extraneous supplement.
In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom is[Pg 450]
called “manifold”[465] because it contains many things in it; but
what it contains it also is, and it being one is all these things.
For neither are there many wisdoms, but one, in which are
untold and infinite treasures of things intellectual, wherein
are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things visible
and changeable which were created by it.[466] For God made
nothing unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said
to do so. But if He knew all that He made, He made only
those things which He had known. Whence flows a very
striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be
known to us unless it existed, but could not have existed
unless it had been known to God.

11. Whether the angels that fell partook of the blessedness which the holy
angels have always enjoyed from the time of their creation.

And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call
angels were never at any time or in any way darkness, but, as
soon as they were made, were made light; yet they were not
so created in order that they might exist and live in any way
whatever, but were enlightened that they might live wisely
and blessedly. Some of them, having turned away from this
light, have not won this wise and blessed life, which is certainly
eternal, and accompanied with the sure confidence of its
eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though darkened
with folly, and this they cannot lose, even if they would.
But who can determine to what extent they were partakers
of that wisdom before they fell? And how shall we say that
they participated in it equally with those who through it are
truly and fully blessed, resting in a true certainty of eternal
felicity? For if they had equally participated in this true
knowledge, then the evil angels would have remained eternally
blessed equally with the good, because they were equally expectant
of it. For, though a life be never so long, it cannot
be truly called eternal if it is destined to have an end; for
it is called life inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal because it
has no end. Wherefore, although everything eternal is not
therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if no life can be[Pg 451]
truly and perfectly blessed except it be eternal, the life of
these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and
therefore not eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the
one case fear, in the other ignorance, prevented them from
being blessed. And even if their ignorance was not so great
as to breed in them a wholly false expectation, but left them
wavering in uncertainty whether their good would be eternal
or would some time terminate, this very doubt concerning so
grand a destiny was incompatible with the plenitude of
blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For
we do not so narrow and restrict the application of the term
“blessedness” as to apply it to God only,[467] though doubtless
He is so truly blessed that greater blessedness cannot be; and,
in comparison of His blessedness, what is that of the angels,
though, according to their capacity, they be perfectly blessed?

12. A comparison of the blessedness of the righteous, who have not yet received the
divine reward, with that of our first parents in paradise.

And the angels are not the only members of the rational
and intellectual creation whom we call blessed. For who
will take upon him to deny that those first men in Paradise
were blessed previously to sin, although they were uncertain
how long their blessedness was to last, and whether it would
be eternal (and eternal it would have been had they not
sinned),—who, I say, will do so, seeing that even now we not
unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see leading a
righteous and holy life in hope of immortality, who have no
harrowing remorse of conscience, but obtain readily divine remission
of the sins of their present infirmity? These, though
they are certain that they shall be rewarded if they persevere,
are not certain that they will persevere. For what man can
know that he will persevere to the end in the exercise and
increase of grace, unless he has been certified by some revelation
from Him who, in His just and secret judgment, while
He deceives none, informs few regarding this matter? Accordingly,[Pg 452]
so far as present comfort goes, the first man in
Paradise was more blessed than any just man in this insecure
state; but as regards the hope of future good, every man who
not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he shall eternally
enjoy the most high God in the company of angels,
and beyond the reach of ill,—this man, no matter what bodily
torments afflict him, is more blessed than was he who, even
in that great felicity of Paradise, was uncertain of his fate.[468]

13. Whether all the angels were so created in one common state of felicity, that
those who fell were not aware that they would fall, and that those who
stood received assurance of their own perseverance after the ruin of the
fallen.

From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the
blessedness which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate
object results from a combination of these two things,
namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good,
which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and
know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment.
That it is so with the angels of light we piously
believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default
lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they
sinned, reason bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any
duration before they fell, we must allow them a blessedness
of some kind, though not that which is accompanied with
foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels
were created, some were created in ignorance either of their
perseverance or their fall, while others were most certainly
assured of the eternity of their felicity,—if it is hard to believe
that they were not all from the beginning on an equal footing,
until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away
from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to
believe that the holy angels are now uncertain of their eternal
blessedness, and do not know regarding themselves as much
as we have been able to gather regarding them from the Holy
Scriptures. For what catholic Christian does not know that
no new devil will ever arise among the good angels, as he
knows that this present devil will never again return into the[Pg 453]
fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel promises
to the saints and the faithful that they will be equal to
the angels of God; and it is also promised them that they
will “go away into life eternal.”[469] But if we are certain that
we shall never lapse from eternal felicity, while they are not
certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors.
But as the truth never deceives, and as we shall be their
equals, they must be certain of their blessedness. And because
the evil angels could not be certain of that, since their
blessedness was destined to come to an end, it follows either
that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels
were assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the
perdition of the others; unless, possibly, some one may say
that the words of the Lord about the devil, “He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,”[470]
are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer from
the beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could
kill by his deceit, was made, but also that he did not abide
in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was
accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but refused
to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a
private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and deceiving.
For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded;
and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they
are, proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state of things
that does not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John
says thus becomes intelligible: “The devil sinneth from the
beginning,”[471]—that is, from the time he was created he refused
righteousness which none but a will piously subject to God
can enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at least disagrees
with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other pestilential
sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from
some adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself.
These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they
acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the gospels,
they do not notice that the Lord did not say, “The devil was
naturally a stranger to the truth,” but “The devil abode not
in the truth,” by which He meant us to understand that he[Pg 454]
had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had abode, he would
have become a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness
along with the holy angels.[472]

14. An explanation of what is said of the devil, that he did not abide in the
truth, because the truth was not in him.

Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did
not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying,
“because the truth is not in him.” Now, it would be in him
had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For,
as the words stand, “He abode not in the truth, because the
truth is not in him,” it seems as if the truth’s not being in
him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his not
abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in
him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm: “I
have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God,”[473]
where we should expect it to be said, Thou hast heard me,
O God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said,
“I have called,” then, as if some one were seeking proof of
this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer
by the effect of God’s hearing it; as if he had said, The proof
that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.

15. How we are to understand the words, “The devil sinneth from the
beginning.”

As for what John says about the devil, “The devil sinneth
from the beginning,”[474] they[475] who suppose it is meant hereby
that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand
it; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do
they answer the prophetic proofs,—either what Isaiah says
when he represents the devil under the person of the king of
Babylon, “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”[476]
or what Ezekiel says, “Thou hast been in Eden, the
garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,”[477]
where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for
a little after it is still more explicitly said, “Thou wast
perfect in thy ways?” And if these passages cannot well be
otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also,
“He abode not in the truth,” that he was once in the truth,[Pg 455]
but did not remain in it. And from this passage, “The devil
sinneth from the beginning,” it is not to be supposed that he
sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from
the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once
commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of
Job, of which the devil is the subject: “This is the beginning
of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His
angels,”[478] which agrees with the psalm, where it is said,
“There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport
therein.”[479] But these passages are not to lead us to suppose
that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the
angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his
sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there
is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the
beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded
all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing
can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this
angelic nature, which surpasses in dignity all else that He has
made, the handiwork of the Most High!

16. Of the ranks and differences of the creatures, estimated by their utility, or
according to the natural gradations of being.

For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of
God the Creator’s essence, those which have life are ranked
above those which have none; those that have the power of
generation, or even of desiring, above those which want this
faculty. And, among things that have life, the sentient are
higher than those which have no sensation, as animals are
ranked above trees. And, among the sentient, the intelligent
are above those that have not intelligence,—men, e.g., above
cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal, such as the
angels, above the mortal, such as men. These are the gradations
according to the order of nature; but according to the
utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards
of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things
that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong
is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish
the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the
place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing[Pg 456]
them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather
have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But
there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when
valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the
highest dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a
slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one
contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from
those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of
the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing
in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers
how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light
will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly
titillates the bodily sense. But of such consequence in
rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love,
that though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet,
by the scale of justice, good men are of greater value than
bad angels.

17. That the flaw of wickedness is not nature, but contrary to nature, and has
its origin, not in the Creator, but in the will.

It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the
wickedness of the devil, that we are to understand these
words, “This is the beginning of God’s handiwork;”[480] for,
without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice[481] only where
the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary
to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore
departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature
whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the
wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature.
But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good
natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Ruler; so that,
while they make an ill use of good natures, He makes a good
use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good
by God’s creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down
from his high position, and to become the mockery of His
angels,—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those
whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when[Pg 457]
He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future
malignity, and foresaw the good which He Himself would
bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This leviathan
whom Thou hast made to be a sport therein,”[482] that we may see
that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He
yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make
use of him when he became wicked.

18. Of the beauty of the universe, which becomes, by God’s ordinance, more
brilliant by the opposition of contraries.

For God would never have created any, I do not say angel,
but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless
He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good
He could turn him, thus embellishing the course of the
ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses.
For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant
of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in Latin
“oppositions,” or, to speak more accurately, “contrapositions;”
but this word is not in common use among us,[483] though the
Latin, and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves
of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle
to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use
of antithesis, in that place where he says, “By the armour of
righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour
and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers,
and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying,
and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful,
yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”[484] As, then,
these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the language,
so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the
opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence
not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly stated in
the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: “Good is set against
evil, and life against death: so is the sinner against the godly.
So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are
two and two, one against another.”[485]

[Pg 458]

19. What, seemingly, we are to understand by the words, “God divided the
light from the darkness.”

Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly
this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the
truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh
meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure
passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious
facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts.
This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at
last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations,
or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are
brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does
not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we understand
that the angels were created when that first light was
made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the
unclean angels, when, as is said, “God divided the light from
the darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness
He called Night.” For He alone could make this discrimination,
who was able also, before they fell, to foreknow that they
would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they
would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards
the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded
those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our
senses to divide between the light and the darkness. “Let
there be,” He says, “lights in the firmament of the heaven, to
divide the day from the night;” and shortly after He says,
“And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule
the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give
light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness.”[486] But
between that light, which is the holy company of the angels
spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and
that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the
spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from
the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from
whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet
it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.

[Pg 459]

20. Of the words which follow the separation of light and darkness, “And God
saw the light that it was good.”

Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture
without noticing that when God said, “Let there be light,
and there was light,” it was immediately added, “And God
saw the light that it was good.” No such expression followed
the statement that He separated the light from the darkness,
and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal
of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as
well as on the light. For when the darkness was not subject
of disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly
bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement
that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but
after the division is recorded. “And God set them,” so runs
the passage, “in the firmament of the heaven, to give light
upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that
it was good.” For He approved of both, because both were
sinless. But where God said, “Let there be light, and there
was light; and God saw the light that it was good;” and
the narrative goes on, “and God divided the light from the
darkness: and God called the light Day, and the darkness He
called Night,” there was not in this place subjoined the statement,
“And God saw that it was good,” lest both should be
designated good, while one of them was evil, not by nature,
but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light
alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic
darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.

21. Of God’s eternal and unchangeable knowledge and will, whereby all He has
made pleased Him in the eternal design as well as in the actual result.

For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain,
“And God saw that it was good,” than the approval of the
work in its design, which is the wisdom of God? For certainly
God did not in the actual achievement of the work
first learn that it was good, but, on the contrary, nothing
would have been made had it not been first known by Him.
While, therefore, He sees that that is good which, had He not
seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it is
plain that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good.[Pg 460]
Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe
was completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy.[487] And
Plato was not so foolish as to mean by this that God was
rendered more blessed by the novelty of His creation; but he
wished thus to indicate that the work now completed met with
its Maker’s approval, as it had while yet in design. It is not
as if the knowledge of God were of various kinds, knowing
in different ways things which as yet are not, things which
are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion
does He look forward to what is future, nor at what is present,
nor back upon what is past; but in a manner quite different
and far and profoundly remote from our way of thinking. For
He does not pass from this to that by transition of thought,
but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness; so
that of those things which emerge in time, the future, indeed,
are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no longer
are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable
and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by
the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of
mind and body; nor does His present knowledge differ from
that which it ever was or shall be, for those variations of time,
past, present, and future, though they alter our knowledge, do
not affect His, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning.”[488] Neither is there any growth from thought to
thought in the conceptions of Him whose spiritual vision
all things which He knows are at once embraced. For as
without any movement that time can measure, He Himself
moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a
knowledge that time cannot measure. And therefore He
saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it
was good to make it. And when He saw it made, He had
not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge
of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made
what He saw. For certainly He would not be the perfect[Pg 461]
worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to
receive no addition from His finished works. Wherefore, if
the only object had been to inform us who made the light, it
had been enough to say, “God made the light;” and if further
information regarding the means by which it was made had
been intended, it would have sufficed to say, “And God said,
Let there be light, and there was light,” that we might know
not only that God had made the world, but also that He had
made it by the word. But because it was right that three
leading truths regarding the creature be intimated to us, viz.,
who made it, by what means, and why, it is written, “God
said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw
the light that it was good.” If, then, we ask who made it,
it was “God.” If, by what means, He said “Let it be,” and
it was. If we ask, why He made it, “it was good.” Neither
is there any author more excellent than God, nor any skill
more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause better
than that good might be created by the good God. This also
Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation
of the world, that good works might be made by a good God;[489]
whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of
these things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted
genius, penetrated to things spiritual and invisible
through the things that are created, or was instructed regarding
them by those who had discerned them.

22. Of those who do not approve of certain things which are a part of this good
creation of a good Creator, and who think that there is some natural evil.

This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness
of God,—this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when
piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies
of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been
recognised by some heretics,[490] because there are, forsooth, many
things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do
not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our[Pg 462]
flesh, which is at present under just punishment. They do
not consider how admirable these things are in their own
places, how excellent in their own natures, how beautifully
adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much grace they
contribute to the universe by their own contributions as to a
commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to ourselves,
if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,—so
that even poisons, which are destructive when used
injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used
in conformity with their qualities and design; just as, on the
other hand, those things which give us pleasure, such as food,
drink, and the light of the sun, are found to be hurtful when
immoderately or unseasonably used. And thus divine providence
admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to
investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental
capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a
utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were
other things which we all but failed to discover. For this
concealment of the use of things is itself either an exercise of
our humility or a levelling of our pride; for no nature at all
is evil, and this is a name for nothing but the want of good.
But from things earthly to things heavenly, from the visible
to the invisible, there are some things better than others; and
for this purpose are they unequal, in order that they might
all exist. Now God is in such sort a great worker in great
things, that He is not less in little things,—for these little
things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which
does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in
the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off,
how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much
from the beauty!—for that is not constituted by bulk, but by
the proportion and arrangement of the members. But we
do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some
evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of
opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause
of the creation was this, that the good God produced a good
creation. For they believe that He was driven to this enterprise
of creation by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil
that warred against Him, and that He mixed His good nature[Pg 463]
with the evil for the sake of restraining and conquering it;
and that this nature of His, being thus shamefully polluted,
and most cruelly oppressed and held captive, He labours to
cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains does not wholly
succeed; but such part of it as could not be cleansed from
that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the conquered
and incarcerated enemy. The Manichæans would not
drivel, or rather, rave in such a style as this, if they believed
the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely
incorruptible, and subject to no injury; and if, moreover, they
held in Christian sobriety, that the soul which has shown
itself capable of being altered for the worse by its own will,
and of being corrupted by sin, and so, of being deprived of the
light of eternal truth,—that this soul, I say, is not a part of
God, nor of the same nature as God, but is created by Him,
and is far different from its Creator.

23. Of the error in which the doctrine of Origen is involved.

But it is much more surprising that some even of those
who, with ourselves, believe that there is one only source of
all things, and that no nature which is not divine can exist
unless originated by that Creator, have yet refused to accept
with a good and simple faith this so good and simple a reason
of the world’s creation, that a good God made it good; and
that the things created, being different from God, were inferior
to Him, and yet were good, being created by none other than
He. But they say that souls, though not, indeed, parts of God,
but created by Him, sinned by abandoning God; that, in proportion
to their various sins, they merited different degrees of
debasement from heaven to earth, and diverse bodies as prison-houses;
and that this is the world, and this the cause of its
creation, not the production of good things, but the restraining
of evil. Origen is justly blamed for holding this opinion. For
in the books which he entitles περὶ ἀρχῶν, that is, Of origins,
this is his sentiment, this his utterance. And I cannot sufficiently
express my astonishment, that a man so erudite and
well versed in ecclesiastical literature, should not have observed,
in the first place, how opposed this is to the meaning of this
authoritative Scripture, which, in recounting all the works of[Pg 464]
God, regularly adds, “And God saw that it was good;” and,
when all were completed, inserts the words, “And God saw
everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”[491]
Was it not obviously meant to be understood that there was
no other cause of the world’s creation than that good creatures
should be made by a good God? In this creation, had no one
sinned, the world would have been filled and beautified with
natures good without exception; and though there is sin, all
things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of
the heavenly inhabitants preserve their nature’s integrity.
And the sinful will, though it violated the order of its own
nature, did not on that account escape the laws of God, who
justly orders all things for good. For as the beauty of a
picture is increased by well-managed shadows, so, to the eye
that has skill to discern it, the universe is beautified even by
sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is
a sad blemish.

In the second place, Origen, and all who think with him,
ought to have seen that if it were the true opinion that the
world was created in order that souls might, for their sins, be
accommodated with bodies in which they should be shut up
as in houses of correction, the more venial sinners receiving
lighter and more ethereal bodies, while the grosser and graver
sinners received bodies more crass and grovelling, then it
would follow that the devils, who are deepest in wickedness,
ought, rather than even wicked men, to have earthly bodies, since
these are the grossest and least ethereal of all. But in point
of fact, that we might see that the deserts of souls are not to
be estimated by the qualities of bodies, the wickedest devil
possesses an ethereal body, while man, wicked, it is true, but
with a wickedness small and venial in comparison with his,
received even before his sin a body of clay. And what more
foolish assertion can be advanced than that God, by this sun of
ours, did not design to benefit the material creation, or lend
lustre to its loveliness, and therefore created one single sun
for this single world, but that it so happened that one soul
only had so sinned as to deserve to be enclosed in such a
body as it is? On this principle, if it had chanced that not[Pg 465]
one, but two, yea, or ten, or a hundred had sinned similarly,
and with a like degree of guilt, then this world would have
one hundred suns. And that such is not the case, is due not
to the considerate foresight of the Creator, contriving the
safety and beauty of things material, but rather to the fact
that so fine a quality of sinning was hit upon by only one
soul, so that it alone has merited such a body. Manifestly
persons holding such opinions should aim at confining, not
souls of which they know not what they say, but themselves,
lest they fall, and deservedly, far indeed from the truth. And
as to these three answers which I formerly recommended when
in the case of any creature the questions are put, Who made
it? By what means? Why? that it should be replied, God, By
the Word, Because it was good,—as to these three answers, it
is very questionable whether the Trinity itself is thus mystically
indicated, that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, or whether there is some good reason for this acceptation
in this passage of Scripture,—this, I say, is questionable,
and one can’t be expected to explain everything in one volume.

24. Of the divine Trinity, and the indications of its presence scattered everywhere
among its works.

We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the
Father begat the Word, that is, Wisdom, by which all things
were made, the only-begotten Son, one as the Father is one,
eternal as the Father is eternal, and, equally with the Father,
supremely good; and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit alike
of Father and of Son, and is Himself consubstantial and co-eternal
with both; and that this whole is a Trinity by reason
of the individuality[492] of the persons, and one God by reason
of the indivisible divine substance, as also one Almighty by
reason of the indivisible omnipotence; yet so that, when we
inquire regarding each singly, it is said that each is God
and Almighty; and, when we speak of all together, it is said
that there are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but one
God Almighty; so great is the indivisible unity of these
Three, which requires that it be so stated. But, whether
the Holy Spirit of the Father, and of the Son, who are both
good, can be with propriety called the goodness of both, because[Pg 466]
He is common to both, I do not presume to determine
hastily. Nevertheless, I would have less hesitation in saying
that He is the holiness of both, not as if He were a divine
attribute merely, but Himself also the divine substance, and
the third person in the Trinity. I am the rather emboldened
to make this statement, because, though the Father is a spirit,
and the Son a spirit, and the Father holy, and the Son holy,
yet the third person is distinctively called the Holy Spirit,
as if He were the substantial holiness consubstantial with the
other two. But if the divine goodness is nothing else than
the divine holiness, then certainly it is a reasonable studiousness,
and not presumptuous intrusion, to inquire whether the
same Trinity be not hinted at in an enigmatical mode of
speech, by which our inquiry is stimulated, when it is written
who made each creature, and by what means, and why. For
it is the Father of the Word who said, Let there be. And
that which was made when He spoke was certainly made by
means of the Word. And by the words, “God saw that it
was good,” it is sufficiently intimated that God made what
was made not from any necessity, nor for the sake of supplying
any want, but solely from His own goodness, i.e., because
it was good. And this is stated after the creation had taken
place, that there might be no doubt that the thing made satisfied
the goodness on account of which it was made. And if
we are right in understanding that this goodness is the Holy
Spirit, then the whole Trinity is revealed to us in the creation.
In this, too, is the origin, the enlightenment, the blessedness
of the holy city which is above among the holy angels.
For if we inquire whence it is, God created it; or whence its
wisdom, God illumined it; or whence its blessedness, God is
its bliss. It has its form by subsisting in Him; its enlightenment
by contemplating Him; its joy by abiding in Him. It
is; it sees; it loves. In God’s eternity is its life; in God’s
truth its light; in God’s goodness its joy.

25. Of the division of philosophy into three parts.

As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that
philosophers have aimed at a threefold division of science,
or rather, were enabled to see that there was a threefold division[Pg 467]
(for they did not invent, but only discovered it), of which
one part is called physical, another logical, the third ethical.
The Latin equivalents of these names are now naturalized in
the writings of many authors, so that these divisions are called
natural, rational, and moral, on which I have touched slightly
in the eighth book. Not that I would conclude that these
philosophers, in this threefold division, had any thought of a
trinity in God, although Plato is said to have been the first
to discover and promulgate this distribution, and he saw that
God alone could be the author of nature, the bestower of intelligence,
and the kindler of love by which life becomes good
and blessed. But certain it is that, though philosophers disagree
both regarding the nature of things, and the mode of
investigating truth, and of the good to which all our actions
ought to tend, yet in these three great general questions all
their intellectual energy is spent. And though there be a
confusing diversity of opinion, every man striving to establish
his own opinion in regard to each of these questions, yet no
one of them all doubts that nature has some cause, science
some method, life some end and aim. Then, again, there are
three things which every artificer must possess if he is to effect
anything,—nature, education, practice. Nature is to be judged
by capacity, education by knowledge, practice by its fruit. I
am aware that, properly speaking, fruit is what one enjoys, use
[practice] what one uses. And this seems to be the difference
between them, that we are said to enjoy that which in itself,
and irrespective of other ends, delights us; to use that which
we seek for the sake of some end beyond. For which reason
the things of time are to be used rather than enjoyed, that we
may deserve to enjoy things eternal; and not as those perverse
creatures who would fain enjoy money and use God,—not
spending money for God’s sake, but worshipping God for
money’s sake. However, in common parlance, we both use
fruits and enjoy uses. For we correctly speak of the “fruits
of the field,” which certainly we all use in the present life.
And it was in accordance with this usage that I said that
there were three things to be observed in a man, nature,
education, practice. From these the philosophers have elaborated,
as I said, the threefold division of that science by[Pg 468]
which a blessed life is attained: the natural having respect to
nature, the rational to education, the moral to practice. If,
then, we were ourselves the authors of our nature, we should
have generated knowledge in ourselves, and should not require
to reach it by education, i.e., by learning it from others. Our
love, too, proceeding from ourselves and returning to us, would
suffice to make our life blessed, and would stand in need of no
extraneous enjoyment. But now, since our nature has God as
its requisite author, it is certain that we must have Him for
our teacher that we may be wise; Him, too, to dispense to us
spiritual sweetness that we may be blessed.

26. Of the image of the supreme Trinity, which we find in some sort in human
nature even in its present state.

And we indeed recognise in ourselves the image of God,
that is, of the supreme Trinity, an image which, though it be
not equal to God, or rather, though it be very far removed from
Him,—being neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, consubstantial
with Him,—is yet nearer to Him in nature than
any other of His works, and is destined to be yet restored,
that it may bear a still closer resemblance. For we both are,
and know that we are, and delight in our being, and our
knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming
illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact
with these by some bodily sense, as we perceive the things
outside of us,—colours, e.g., by seeing, sounds by hearing,
smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by
touching,—of all which sensible objects it is the images
resembling them, but not themselves which we perceive 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.[493] For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am[Pg 469]
deceived, by this same token I am. And since I am if I am
deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? for it is
certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the
person deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly
I am not deceived in this knowledge that I am. And, consequently,
neither am I deceived in knowing that I know.
For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know.
And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain
third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. For
neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those
things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these
were false, it would still be true that I loved false things.
For how could I justly be blamed and prohibited from loving
false things, if it were false that I loved them? But, since
they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved,
the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is
no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one
who does not wish to be. For how can he be happy, if he
is nothing?

27. Of existence, and knowledge of it, and the love of both.

And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell
so pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason,
unwilling to perish; and, when they feel that they are
wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but
that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their
own esteem, and in point of fact, are utterly wretched, and
who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on account of
their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and
who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute,—if
any one should give these men an immortality, in
which their misery should be deathless, and should offer the
alternative, that if they shrank from existing eternally in the
same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere
at all, nor in any condition, on the instant they would joyfully,
nay exultantly, make election to exist always, even in
such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The well-known
feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we
see that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune
than end it by death, is it not obvious enough how[Pg 470]
nature shrinks from annihilation? And, accordingly, when
they know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon,
that this mercy be shown them, that they may a little longer
live in the same misery, and delay to end it by death. And
so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they would
accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless
destruction. What! do not even all irrational animals, to
whom such calculations are unknown, from the huge dragons
down to the least worms, all testify that they wish to exist,
and therefore shun death by every movement in their power?
Nay, the very plants and shrubs, which have no such life as
enables them to shun destruction by movements we can see,
do not they all seek, in their own fashion, to conserve their
existence, by rooting themselves more and more deeply in the
earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out
healthy branches towards the sky? In fine, even the lifeless
bodies, which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet
either seek the upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an
intermediate position, so that they may protect their existence
in that situation where they can exist in most accordance
with their nature.

And how much human nature loves the knowledge of its
existence, and how it shrinks from being deceived, will be
sufficiently understood from this fact, that every man prefers
to grieve in a sane mind, rather than to be glad in madness.
And this grand and wonderful instinct belongs to men alone
of all animals; for, though some of them have keener eyesight
than ourselves for this world’s light, they cannot attain to that
spiritual light with which our mind is somehow irradiated,
so that we can form right judgments of all things. For our
power to judge is proportioned to our acceptance of this light.
Nevertheless, the irrational animals, though they have not
knowledge, have certainly something resembling knowledge;
whereas the other material things are said to be sensible, not
because they have senses, but because they are the objects of
our senses. Yet among plants, their nourishment and generation
have some resemblance to sensible life. However, both
these and all material things have their causes hidden in their
nature; but their outward forms, which lend beauty to this[Pg 471]
visible structure of the world, are perceived by our senses, so
that they seem to wish to compensate for their own want of
knowledge by providing us with knowledge. But we perceive
them by our bodily senses in such a way that we do not
judge of them by these senses. For we have another and far
superior sense, belonging to the inner man, by which we perceive
what things are just, and what unjust,—just by means
of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of it. This sense is
aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor by the
orifice of the ear, nor by the air-holes of the nostrils, nor by
the palate’s taste, nor by any bodily touch. By it I am
assured both that I am, and that I know this; and these two
I love, and in the same manner I am assured that I love
them.

28. Whether we ought to love the love itself with which we love our existence and
our knowledge of it, that so we may more nearly resemble the image of
the divine Trinity.

We have said as much as the scope of this work demands
regarding these two things, to wit, our existence, and our
knowledge of it, and how much they are loved by us, and
how there is found even in the lower creatures a kind of likeness
of these things, and yet with a difference. We have yet
to speak of the love wherewith they are loved, to determine
whether this love itself is loved. And doubtless it is; and
this is the proof. Because in men who are justly loved, it is
rather love itself that is loved; for he is not justly called a
good man who knows what is good, but who loves it. Is it
not then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love
wherewith we love whatever good we love? For there is
also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to
love; and this love is hated by him who loves that wherewith
he loves what ought to be loved. For it is quite possible
for both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is
good for a man, to the end that this love which conduces to
our living well may grow, and the other, which leads us to
evil may decrease, until our whole life be perfectly healed
and transmuted into good. For if we were beasts, we should
love the fleshly and sensual life, and this would be our
sufficient good; and when it was well with us in respect of[Pg 472]
it, we should seek nothing beyond. In like manner, if we
were trees, we could not, indeed, in the strict sense of the
word, love anything; nevertheless we should seem, as it were,
to long for that by which we might become more abundantly
and luxuriantly fruitful. If we were stones, or waves, or
wind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we should want,
indeed, both sensation and life, yet should possess a kind of
attraction towards our own proper position and natural order.
For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love,
whether they are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards
by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity,
as the spirit by love, whithersoever it is borne.[494] But we are
men, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity is
true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is eternal and
true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity,
without confusion, without separation; and, therefore, while, as
we run over all the works which He has established, we may
detect, as it were, His footprints, now more and now less
distinct even in those things that are beneath us, since they
could not so much as exist, or be bodied forth in any shape,
or follow and observe any law, had they not been made by
Him who supremely is, and is supremely good and supremely
wise; yet in ourselves beholding His image, let us, like that
younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and
return to Him from whom by our sin we had departed.
There our being will have no death, our knowledge no error,
our love no mishap. But now, though we are assured of our
possession of these three things, not on the testimony of others,
but by our own consciousness of their presence, and because
we see them with our own most truthful interior vision, yet,
as we cannot of ourselves know how long they are to continue,
and whether they shall never cease to be, and what issue their
good or bad use will lead to, we seek for others who can
acquaint us of these things, if we have not already found
them. Of the trustworthiness of these witnesses, there will,
not now, but subsequently, be an opportunity of speaking.
But in this book let us go on as we have begun, with God’s
help, to speak of the city of God, not in its state of pilgrimage[Pg 473]
and mortality, but as it exists ever immortal in the
heavens,—that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain
their allegiance to God, who never were, nor ever shall be,
apostate, between whom and those who forsook light eternal
and became darkness, God, as we have already said, made at
the first a separation.

29. Of the knowledge by which the holy angels know God in His essence, and by
which they see the causes of His works in the art of the worker, before
they see them in the works of the artist.

Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by
audible words, but by the presence to their souls of immutable
truth, i.e., of the only-begotten Word of God; and
they know this Word Himself, and the Father, and their
Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is indivisible, and that
the three persons of it are one substance, and that there
are not three Gods but one God; and this they so know, that
it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves.
Thus, too, they know the creature also, not in itself, but by this
better way, in the wisdom of God, as if in the art by which
it was created; and, consequently, they know themselves
better in God than in themselves, though they have also
this latter knowledge. For they were created, and are
different from their Creator. In Him, therefore, they have,
as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves, a twilight
knowledge, according to our former explanations.[495] For there
is a great difference between knowing a thing in the design
in conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself,—e.g.,
the straightness of lines and correctness of figures is
known in one way when mentally conceived, in another when
described on paper; and justice is known in one way in the
unchangeable truth, in another in the spirit of a just man.
So is it with all other things,—as, the firmament between the
water above and below, which was called the heaven; the
gathering of the waters beneath, and the laying bare of the
dry land, and the production of plants and trees; the creation
of sun, moon, and stars; and of the animals out of the waters,
fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep; and of everything
that walks or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who[Pg 474]
excels all that is on the earth,—all these things are known
in one way by the angels in the Word of God, in which they
see the eternally abiding causes and reasons according to which
they were made, and in another way in themselves: in the
former, with a clearer knowledge; in the latter, with a knowledge
dimmer, and rather of the bare works than of the design.
Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and adoration
of the Creator Himself, it is as if morning dawned in the
minds of those who contemplate them.

30. Of the perfection of the number six, which is the first of the numbers
which is composed of its aliquot parts.

These works are recorded to have been completed in six
days (the same day being six times repeated), because six
is a perfect number,—not because God required a protracted
time, as if He could not at once create all things, which then
should mark the course of time by the movements proper to
them, but because the perfection of the works was signified
by the number six. For the number six is the first which is
made up of its own[496] parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and half,
which are respectively one, two, and three, and which make
a total of six. In this way of looking at a number, those are
said to be its parts which exactly divide it, as a half, a third,
a fourth, or a fraction with any denominator,—e.g., four is a
part of nine, but not therefore an aliquot part; but one is, for
it is the ninth part; and three is, for it is the third. Yet
these two parts, the ninth and the third, or one and three, are
far from making its whole sum of nine. So again, in the
number ten, four is a part, yet does not divide it; but one is
an aliquot part, for it is a tenth; so it has a fifth, which is
two; and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth,
a fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five, added together, do not
make ten, but eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts
added together exceed the whole; for it has a twelfth, that is,
one; a sixth, or two; a fourth, which is three; a third, which
is four; and a half, which is six. But one, two, three, four, and
six make up, not twelve, but more, viz. sixteen. So much I
have thought fit to state for the sake of illustrating the perfection
of the number six, which is, as I said, the first which[Pg 475]
is exactly made up of its own parts added together; and in
this number of days God finished His work.[497] And, therefore,
we must not despise the science of numbers, which, in many
passages of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent service
to the careful interpreter.[498] Neither has it been without
reason numbered among God’s praises, “Thou hast ordered
all things in number, and measure, and weight.”[499]

31. Of the seventh day, in which completeness and repose are celebrated.

But, on the seventh day (i.e., the same day repeated seven
times, which number is also a perfect one, though for another
reason), the rest of God is set forth, and then, too, we first
hear of its being hallowed. So that God did not wish to
hallow this day by His works, but by His rest, which has no
evening, for it is not a creature; so that, being known in one
way in the Word of God, and in another in itself, it should
make a twofold knowledge, daylight and dusk (day and evening).
Much more might be said about the perfection of the
number seven, but this book is already too long, and I fear
lest I should seem to catch at an opportunity of airing my
little smattering of science more childishly than profitably.
I must speak, therefore, in moderation and with dignity, lest,
in too keenly following “number,” I be accused of forgetting
“weight” and “measure.” Suffice it here to say, that three
is the first whole number that is odd, four the first that is
even, and of these two, seven is composed. On this account
it is often put for all numbers together, as, “A just man
falleth seven times, and riseth up again,”[500]—that is, let him
fall never so often, he will not perish (and this was meant
to be understood not of sins, but of afflictions conducing to
lowliness). Again, “Seven times a day will I praise Thee,”[501]
which elsewhere is expressed thus, “I will bless the Lord at
all times.”[502] And many such instances are found in the divine
authorities, in which the number seven is, as I said, commonly
used to express the whole, or the completeness of anything.[Pg 476]
And so the Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord says, “He will
teach you all truth,”[503] is signified by this number.[504] In it is
the rest of God, the rest His people find in Him. For rest is
in the whole, i.e. in perfect completeness, while in the part
there is labour. And thus we labour as long as we know in
part; “but when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away.”[505] It is even with toil
we search into the Scriptures themselves. But the holy angels,
towards whose society and assembly we sigh while in this
our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal
home, so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and
felicity of rest. It is without difficulty that they help us;
for their spiritual movements, pure and free, cost them no
effort.

32. Of the opinion that the angels were created before the world.

But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the
holy angels are not referred to when it is said, “Let there
be light, and there was light;” if he suppose or teach that
some material light, then first created, was meant, and that
the angels were created, not only before the firmament dividing
the waters and named “the heaven,” but also before the
time signified in the words, “In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth;” if he allege that this phrase, “In
the beginning,” does not mean that nothing was made before
(for the angels were), but that God made all things by His
Wisdom or Word, who is named in Scripture “the Beginning,”
as He Himself, in the gospel, replied to the Jews when they
asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning;[506]—I will
not contest the point, chiefly because it gives me the liveliest
satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated in the very beginning
of the book of Genesis. For, having said, “In the Beginning
God created the heaven and the earth,” meaning that the
Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where
it says, “How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom[Pg 477]
hast Thou made them all”[507]), a little afterwards mention is
fitly made of the Holy Spirit also. For, when it had been
told us what kind of earth God created at first, or what the
mass or matter was which God, under the name of “heaven
and earth,” had provided for the construction of the world, as
is told in the additional words, “And the earth was without
form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep,” then, for the sake of completing the mention of the
Trinity, it is immediately added, “And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters.” Let each one, then,
take it as he pleases; for it is so profound a passage, that it
may well suggest, for the exercise of the reader’s tact, many
opinions, and none of them widely departing from the rule of
faith. At the same time, let none doubt that the holy angels in
their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal with
God, yet secure and certain of eternal and true felicity. To
their company the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and
not only says, “They shall be equal to the angels of God,”[508] but
shows, too, what blessed contemplation the angels themselves
enjoy, saying, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do
always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”[509]

33. Of the two different and dissimilar communities of angels, which are not
inappropriately signified by the names light and darkness.

That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the
lowest parts of this world, where they are, as it were, incarcerated
till their final damnation in the day of judgment, the
Apostle Peter very plainly declares, when he says that “God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell,
and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto
judgment.”[510] Who, then, can doubt that God, either in foreknowledge
or in act, separated between these and the rest?
And who will dispute that the rest are justly called “light?”
For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping only and not
yet enjoying equality with them, are already called “light” by
the apostle: “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are
ye light in the Lord.”[511] But as for these apostate angels, all[Pg 478]
who understand or believe them to be worse than unbelieving
men are well aware that they are called “darkness.”
Wherefore, though light and darkness are to be taken in their
literal signification in these passages of Genesis in which it is
said, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” and
“God divided the light from the darkness,” yet, for our part,
we understand these two societies of angels,—the one enjoying
God, the other swelling with pride; the one to whom it is
said, “Praise ye Him, all His angels,”[512] the other whose prince
says, “All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down
and worship me;”[513] the one blazing with the holy love of God,
the other reeking with the unclean lust of self-advancement.
And since, as it is written, “God resisteth the proud, but
giveth grace unto the humble,”[514] we may say, the one dwelling
in the heaven of heavens, the other cast thence, and raging
through the lower regions of the air; the one tranquil in the
brightness of piety, the other tempest-tossed with beclouding
desires; the one, at God’s pleasure, tenderly succouring, justly
avenging,—the other, set on by its own pride, boiling with the
lust of subduing and hurting; the one the minister of God’s
goodness to the utmost of their good pleasure, the other held
in by God’s power from doing the harm it would; the former
laughing at the latter when it does good unwillingly by its
persecutions, the latter envying the former when it gathers in
its pilgrims. These two angelic communities, then, dissimilar
and contrary to one another, the one both by nature good and
by will upright, the other also good by nature but by will
depraved, as they are exhibited in other and more explicit
passages of holy writ, so I think they are spoken of in this
book of Genesis under the names of light and darkness; and
even if the author perhaps had a different meaning, yet our
discussion of the obscure language has not been wasted time;
for, though we have been unable to discover his meaning, yet
we have adhered to the rule of faith, which is sufficiently ascertained
by the faithful from other passages of equal authority.
For, though it is the material works of God which are here
spoken of, they have certainly a resemblance to the spiritual,
so that Paul can say, “Ye are all the children of light, and[Pg 479]
the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.”[515]
If, on the other hand, the author of Genesis saw in
the words what we see, then our discussion reaches this more
satisfactory conclusion, that the man of God, so eminently and
divinely wise, or rather, that the Spirit of God who by him
recorded God’s works which were finished on the sixth day,
may be supposed not to have omitted all mention of the
angels, whether he included them in the words “in the beginning,”
because He made them first, or, which seems most
likely, because He made them in the only-begotten Word.
And, under these names heaven and earth, the whole creation
is signified, either as divided into spiritual and material, which
seems the more likely, or into the two great parts of the world
in which all created things are contained, so that, first of all,
the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are enumerated
according to the mystic number of the days.

34. Of the idea that the angels were meant where the separation of the waters
by the firmament is spoken of, and of that other idea that the waters were
not created.

Some,[516] however, have supposed that the angelic hosts are
somehow referred to under the name of waters, and that this
is what is meant by, “Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters:”[517] that the waters above should be understood of
the angels, and those below either of the visible waters, or of
the multitude of bad angels, or of the nations of men. If
this be so, then it does not here appear when the angels were
created, but when they were separated. Though there have
not been wanting men foolish and wicked enough[518] to deny
that the waters were made by God, because it is nowhere
written, “God said, Let there be waters.” With equal folly
they might say the same of the earth, for nowhere do we read,
“God said, Let the earth be.” But, say they, it is written,
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”[Pg 480]
Yes, and there the water is meant, for both are included in
one word. For “the sea is His,” as the psalm says, “and
He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.”[519] But
those who would understand the angels by the waters above
the skies have a difficulty about the specific gravity of the
elements, and fear that the waters, owing to their fluidity and
weight, could not be set in the upper parts of the world. So
that, if they were to construct a man upon their own principles,
they would not put in his head any moist humours, or
“phlegm” as the Greeks call it, and which acts the part of
water among the elements of our body. But, in God’s handiwork,
the head is the seat of the phlegm, and surely most
fitly; and yet, according to their supposition, so absurdly
that if we were not aware of the fact, and were informed by
this same record that God had put a moist and cold and
therefore heavy humour in the uppermost part of man’s body,
these world-weighers would refuse belief. And if they were
confronted with the authority of Scripture, they would maintain
that something else must be meant by the words. But,
were we to investigate and discover all the details which are
written in this divine book regarding the creation of the
world, we should have much to say, and should widely digress
from the proposed aim of this work. Since, then, we have
now said what seemed needful regarding these two diverse
and contrary communities of angels, in which the origin of
the two human communities (of which we intend to speak
anon) is also found, let us at once bring this book also to a
conclusion.

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[Pg 481]