BOOK FOURTEENTH.[1]

Argument

AUGUSTINE AGAIN TREATS OF THE SIN OF THE FIRST MAN, AND TEACHES THAT
IT IS THE CAUSE OF THE CARNAL LIFE AND VICIOUS AFFECTIONS OF MAN.
ESPECIALLY HE PROVES THAT THE SHAME WHICH ACCOMPANIES LUST IS THE
JUST PUNISHMENT OF THAT DISOBEDIENCE, AND INQUIRES HOW MAN, IF HE
HAD NOT SINNED, WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE WITHOUT LUST TO PROPAGATE
HIS KIND.

1. That the disobedience of the first man would have plunged all men into the
endless misery of the second death, had not the grace of God rescued many.

We have already stated in the preceding books that God,
desiring not only that the human race might be able
by their similarity of nature to associate with one another,
but also that they might be bound together in harmony and
peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all
men from one individual, and created man with such a
nature that the members of the race should not have died,
had not the two first (of whom the one was created out of
nothing, and the other out of him) merited this by their disobedience;
for by them so great a sin was committed, that by
it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted
also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to
death. And the kingdom of death so reigned over men, that
the deserved penalty of sin would have hurled all headlong
even into the second death, of which there is no end, had not
the undeserved grace of God saved some therefrom. And[Pg 2]
thus it has come to pass, that though there are very many
and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs,
speech, arms, and dress, are distinguished by marked differences,
yet there are no more than two kinds of human society,
which we may justly call two cities, according to the language
of our Scriptures. The one consists of those who wish to live
after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the
spirit; and when they severally achieve what they wish, they
live in peace, each after their kind.

2. Of carnal life, which is to be understood not only of living in bodily indulgence,
but also of living in the vices of the inner man.

First, we must see what it is to live after the flesh, and what
to live after the spirit. For any one who either does not
recollect, or does not sufficiently weigh, the language of sacred
Scripture, may, on first hearing what we have said, suppose
that the Epicurean philosophers live after the flesh, because
they place man’s highest good in bodily pleasure; and that
those others do so who have been of opinion that in some
form or other bodily good is man’s supreme good; and that
the mass of men do so who, without dogmatizing or philosophizing
on the subject, are so prone to lust that they cannot
delight in any pleasure save such as they receive from bodily
sensations: and he may suppose that the Stoics, who place
the supreme good of men in the soul, live after the spirit; for
what is man’s soul, if not spirit? But in the sense of the
divine Scripture both are proved to live after the flesh. For
by flesh it means not only the body of a terrestrial and mortal
animal, as when it says, “All flesh is not the same flesh,
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of
beasts, another of fishes, another of birds,”[2] but it uses this
word in many other significations; and among these various
usages, a frequent one is to use flesh for man himself, the
nature of man taking the part for the whole, as in the words,
“By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified;”[3]
for what does he mean here by “no flesh” but “no man?”
And this, indeed, he shortly after says more plainly: “No man
shall be justified by the law;”[4] and in the Epistle to the
Galatians, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the[Pg 3]
works of the law.” And so we understand the words, “And
the Word was made flesh,”[5]—that is, man, which some not
accepting in its right sense, have supposed that Christ had not
a human soul.[6] For as the whole is used for the part in the
words of Mary Magdalene in the Gospel, “They have taken
away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him,”[7]
by which she meant only the flesh of Christ, which she supposed
had been taken from the tomb where it had been
buried, so the part is used for the whole, flesh being named,
while man is referred to, as in the quotations above cited.

Since, then, Scripture uses the word flesh in many ways,
which there is not time to collect and investigate, if we are to
ascertain what it is to live after the flesh (which is certainly
evil, though the nature of flesh is not itself evil), we must
carefully examine that passage of the epistle which the
Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, in which he says, “Now
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time
past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God.”[8] This whole passage of the apostolic
epistle being considered, so far as it bears on the matter in
hand, will be sufficient to answer the question, what it is to
live after the flesh. For among the works of the flesh which
he said were manifest, and which he cited for condemnation,
we find not only those which concern the pleasure of the
flesh, as fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, drunkenness,
revellings, but also those which, though they be remote from
fleshly pleasure, reveal the vices of the soul. For who does
not see that idolatries, witchcrafts, hatreds, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, are vices rather of the
soul than of the flesh? For it is quite possible for a man to
abstain from fleshly pleasures for the sake of idolatry or some
heretical error; and yet, even when he does so, he is proved by
this apostolic authority to be living after the flesh; and in[Pg 4]
abstaining from fleshly pleasure, he is proved to be practising
damnable works of the flesh. Who that has enmity has it
not in his soul? or who would say to his enemy, or to the
man he thinks his enemy, You have a bad flesh towards me,
and not rather, You have a bad spirit towards me? In fine,
if any one heard of what I may call “carnalities,” he would
not fail to attribute them to the carnal part of man; so no
one doubts that “animosities” belong to the soul of man.
Why then does the doctor of the Gentiles in faith and verity
call all these and similar things works of the flesh, unless
because, by that mode of speech whereby the part is used for
the whole, he means us to understand by the word flesh the
man himself?

3. That sin is caused not by the flesh, but by the soul, and that the corruption
contracted from sin is not sin, but sin’s punishment.

But if any one says that the flesh is the cause of all vices
and ill conduct, inasmuch as the soul lives wickedly only
because it is moved by the flesh, it is certain he has not
carefully considered the whole nature of man. For “the
corruptible body, indeed, weigheth down the soul.”[9] Whence,
too, the apostle, speaking of this corruptible body, of which
he had shortly before said, “though our outward man perish,”[10]
says, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan,
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is
from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found
naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up in life.”[11] We
are then burdened with this corruptible body; but knowing
that the cause of this burdensomeness is not the nature and
substance of the body, but its corruption, we do not desire to
be deprived of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality.
For then, also, there will be a body, but it shall no
longer be a burden, being no longer corruptible. At present,
then, “the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the
earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon[Pg 5]
many things,” nevertheless they are in error who suppose that
all the evils of the soul proceed from the body.

Virgil, indeed, seems to express the sentiments of Plato in
the beautiful lines, where he says,—

“A fiery strength inspires their lives,

An essence that from heaven derives,

Though clogged in part by limbs of clay,

And the dull ‘vesture of decay;'”[12]

but though he goes on to mention the four most common
mental emotions,—desire, fear, joy, sorrow,—with the intention
of showing that the body is the origin of all sins and
vices, saying,—

“Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,

And human laughter, human tears,

Immured in dungeon-seeming night,

They look abroad, yet see no light,”[13]

yet we believe quite otherwise. For the corruption of the
body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the
punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible
flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made
the flesh corruptible. And though from this corruption of
the flesh there arise certain incitements to vice, and indeed
vicious desires, yet we must not attribute to the flesh all
the vices of a wicked life, in case we thereby clear the devil
of all these, for he has no flesh. For though we cannot call
the devil a fornicator or drunkard, or ascribe to him any
sensual indulgence (though he is the secret instigator and
prompter of those who sin in these ways), yet he is exceedingly
proud and envious. And this viciousness has so possessed
him, that on account of it he is reserved in chains of
darkness to everlasting punishment.[14] Now these vices, which
have dominion over the devil, the apostle attributes to the
flesh, which certainly the devil has not. For he says
“hatred, variance, emulations, strife, envying” are the works
of the flesh; and of all these evils pride is the origin and
head, and it rules in the devil though he has no flesh. For
who shows more hatred to the saints? who is more at[Pg 6]
variance with them? who more envious, bitter, and jealous?
And since he exhibits all these works, though he has no flesh,
how are they works of the flesh, unless because they are the
works of man, who is, as I said, spoken of under the name of
flesh? For it is not by having flesh, which the devil has not,
but by living according to himself,—that is, according to
man,—that man became like the devil. For the devil too,
wished to live according to himself when he did not abide in
the truth; so that when he lied, this was not of God, but of
himself, who is not only a liar, but the father of lies, he being
the first who lied, and the originator of lying as of sin.

4. What it is to live according to man, and what to live according to God.

When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according
to God, he is like the devil. Because not even an angel
might live according to an angel, but only according to God,
if he was to abide in the truth, and speak God’s truth and
not his own lie. And of man, too, the same apostle says in
another place, “If the truth of God hath more abounded
through my lie;”[15]—”my lie,” he said, and “God’s truth.”
When, then, a man lives according to the truth, he lives not
according to himself, but according to God; for He was
God who said, “I am the truth.”[16] When, therefore, man
lives according to himself,—that is, according to man, not
according to God,—assuredly he lives according to a lie; not
that man himself is a lie, for God is his author and creator,
who is certainly not the author and creator of a lie, but
because man was made upright, that he might not live according
to himself, but according to Him that made him,—in other
words, that he might do His will and not his own; and not to
live as he was made to live, that is a lie. For he certainly
desires to be blessed even by not living so that he may be
blessed. And what is a lie if this desire be not? Wherefore
it is not without meaning said that all sin is a lie. For
no sin is committed save by that desire or will by which we
desire that it be well with us, and shrink from it being ill
with us. That, therefore, is a lie which we do in order that
it may be well with us, but which makes us more miserable[Pg 7]
than we were. And why is this, but because the source of
man’s happiness lies only in God, whom he abandons when
he sins, and not in himself, by living according to whom he
sins?

In enunciating this proposition of ours, then, that because
some live according to the flesh and others according to the
spirit there have arisen two diverse and conflicting cities,
we might equally well have said, “because some live according
to man, others according to God.” For Paul says very
plainly to the Corinthians, “For whereas there is among you
envying and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk according to
man?”[17] So that to walk according to man and to be carnal
are the same; for by flesh, that is, by a part of man, man
is meant. For before he said that those same persons were
animal whom afterwards he calls carnal, saying, “For what
man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man
which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no
man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the
spirit of this world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we
might know the things which are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the animal man
perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are
foolishness unto him.”[18] It is to men of this kind, then, that
is, to animal men, he shortly after says, “And I, brethren, could
not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.”[19]
And this is to be interpreted by the same usage, a part being
taken for the whole. For both the soul and the flesh, the
component parts of man, can be used to signify the whole
man; and so the animal man and the carnal man are not two
different things, but one and the same thing, viz. man living
according to man. In the same way it is nothing else than
men that are meant either in the words, “By the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified;”[20] or in the words,
“Seventy-five souls went down into Egypt with Jacob.”[21] In
the one passage, “no flesh” signifies “no man;” and in the[Pg 8]
other, by “seventy-five souls” seventy-five men are meant.
And the expression, “not in words which man’s wisdom
teacheth,” might equally be “not in words which fleshly
wisdom teacheth;” and the expression, “ye walk according to
man,” might be “according to the flesh.” And this is still
more apparent in the words which followed: “For while one
saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not
men?” The same thing which he had before expressed by
“ye are animal,” “ye are carnal,” he now expresses by “ye
are men;” that is, ye live according to man, not according to
God, for if you lived according to Him, you should be gods.

5. That the opinion of the Platonists regarding the nature of body and soul is
not so censurable as that of the Manichæans, but that even it is objectionable,
because it ascribes the origin of vices to the nature of the flesh.

There is no need, therefore, that in our sins and vices we
accuse the nature of the flesh to the injury of the Creator, for
in its own kind and degree the flesh is good; but to desert the
Creator good, and live according to the created good, is not good,
whether a man choose to live according to the flesh, or according
to the soul, or according to the whole human nature, which
is composed of flesh and soul, and which is therefore spoken of
either by the name flesh alone, or by the name soul alone. For
he who extols the nature of the soul as the chief good, and condemns
the nature of the flesh as if it were evil, assuredly is
fleshly both in his love of the soul and hatred of the flesh; for
these his feelings arise from human fancy, not from divine
truth. The Platonists, indeed, are not so foolish as, with the
Manichæans, to detest our present bodies as an evil nature;[22]
for they attribute all the elements of which this visible and
tangible world is compacted, with all their qualities, to God
their Creator. Nevertheless, from the death-infected members
and earthly construction of the body they believe the soul is so
affected, that there are thus originated in it the diseases of
desires, and fears, and joy, and sorrow, under which four perturbations,
as Cicero[23] calls them, or passions, as most prefer
to name them with the Greeks, is included the whole viciousness
of human life. But if this be so, how is it that Æneas
in Virgil, when he had heard from his father in Hades that[Pg 9]
the souls should return to bodies, expresses surprise at this
declaration, and exclaims:

“O father! and can thought conceive

That happy souls this realm would leave,

And seek the upper sky,

With sluggish clay to reunite?

This direful longing for the light,

Whence comes it, say, and why?”[24]

This direful longing, then, does it still exist even in that
boasted purity of the disembodied spirits, and does it still
proceed from the death-infected members and earthly limbs?
Does he not assert that, when they begin to long to return
to the body, they have already been delivered from all these
so-called pestilences of the body? From which we gather
that, were this endlessly alternating purification and defilement
of departing and returning souls as true as it is most certainly
false, yet it could not be averred that all culpable and vicious
motions of the soul originate in the earthly body; for, on their
own showing, “this direful longing,” to use the words of their
noble exponent, is so extraneous to the body, that it moves
the soul that is purged of all bodily taint, and is existing
apart from any body whatever, and moves it, moreover, to be
embodied again. So that even they themselves acknowledge
that the soul is not only moved to desire, fear, joy, sorrow, by
the flesh, but that it can also be agitated with these emotions
at its own instance.

6. Of the character of the human will which makes the affections of the soul
right or wrong.

But the character of the human will is of moment; because,
if it is wrong, these motions of the soul will be wrong, but if
it is right, they will be not merely blameless, but even praiseworthy.
For the will is in them all; yea, none of them is
anything else than will. For what are desire and joy but a
volition of consent to the things we wish? And what are
fear and sadness but a volition of aversion from the things
which we do not wish? But when consent takes the form of
seeking to possess the things we wish, this is called desire;
and when consent takes the form of enjoying the things we[Pg 10]
wish, this is called joy. In like manner, when we turn with
aversion from that which we do not wish to happen, this
volition is termed fear; and when we turn away from that
which has happened against our will, this act of will is called
sorrow. And generally in respect of all that we seek or shun, as
a man’s will is attracted or repelled, so it is changed and turned
into these different affections. Wherefore the man who lives
according to God, and not according to man, ought to be a lover
of good, and therefore a hater of evil. And since no one is
evil by nature, but whoever is evil is evil by vice, he who
lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a
perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because
of his vice, nor love the vice because of the man, but hate
the vice and love the man. For the vice being cursed, all
that ought to be loved, and nothing that ought to be hated,
will remain.

7. That the words love and regard (amor and dilectio) are in Scripture used
indifferently of good and evil affection.

He who resolves to love God, and to love his neighbour as
himself, not according to man but according to God, is on
account of this love said to be of a good will; and this is in
Scripture more commonly called charity, but it is also, even
in the same books, called love. For the apostle says that the
man to be elected as a ruler of the people must be a lover of
good.[25] And when the Lord Himself had asked Peter, “Hast
thou a regard for me (diligis) more than these?” Peter replied,
“Lord, Thou knowest that I love (amo) Thee.” And
again a second time the Lord asked not whether Peter loved
(amaret) Him, but whether he had a regard (diligeret) for Him,
and he again answered, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love (amo)
Thee.” But on the third interrogation the Lord Himself no
longer says, “Hast thou a regard (diligis) for me,” but “Lovest
thou (amas) me?” And then the evangelist adds, “Peter was
grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou
(amas) me?” though the Lord had not said three times but only
once, “Lovest thou (amas) me?” and twice “Diligis me?” from
which we gather that, even when the Lord said “diligis,” He used
an equivalent for “amas.” Peter, too, throughout used one word[Pg 11]
for the one thing, and the third time also replied, “Lord, Thou
knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love (amo) Thee.”[26]

I have judged it right to mention this, because some are
of opinion that charity or regard (dilectio) is one thing, love
(amor) another. They say that dilectio is used of a good affection,
amor of an evil love. But it is very certain that even
secular literature knows no such distinction. However, it is
for the philosophers to determine whether and how they differ,
though their own writings sufficiently testify that they make
great account of love (amor) placed on good objects, and even
on God Himself. But we wished to show that the Scriptures
of our religion, whose authority we prefer to all writings whatsoever,
make no distinction between amor, dilectio, and caritas;
and we have already shown that amor is used in a good connection.
And if any one fancy that amor is no doubt used
both of good and bad loves, but that dilectio is reserved for
the good only, let him remember what the psalm says, “He
that loveth (diligit) iniquity hateth his own soul;”[27] and the
words of the Apostle John, “If any man love (diligere) the
world, the love (dilectio) of the Father is not in him.”[28] Here
you have in one passage dilectio used both in a good and a bad
sense. And if any one demands an instance of amor being
used in a bad sense (for we have already shown its use in a
good sense), let him read the words, “For men shall be lovers
(amantes) of their own selves, lovers (amatores) of money.”[29]

The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the
wrong will is ill-directed love. Love, then, yearning to have
what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy;
fleeing what is opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is
opposed to it, when it has befallen it, it is sadness. Now
these motions are evil if the love is evil; good if the love is
good. What we assert let us prove from Scripture. The
apostle “desires to depart, and to be with Christ.”[30] And,
“My soul desired to long for Thy judgments;”[31] or if it is
more appropriate to say, “My soul longed to desire Thy judgments.”
And, “The desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom.”[Pg 12][32]
Yet there has always obtained the usage of understanding desire
and concupiscence in a bad sense if the object be not defined.
But joy is used in a good sense: “Be glad in the Lord, and
rejoice, ye righteous.”[33] And, “Thou hast put gladness in my
heart.”[34] And, “Thou wilt fill me with joy with Thy countenance.”[35]
Fear is used in a good sense by the apostle when
he says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”[36]
And, “Be not high-minded, but fear.”[37] And, “I fear, lest by
any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is
in Christ.”[38] But with respect to sadness, which Cicero prefers
to call sickness (ægritudo), and Virgil pain (dolor) (as he
says, “Dolent gaudentque“[39]), but which I prefer to call sorrow,
because sickness and pain are more commonly used to express
bodily suffering,—with respect to this emotion, I say, the question
whether it can be used in a good sense is more difficult.

8. Of the three perturbations, which the Stoics admitted in the soul of the wise
man to the exclusion of grief or sadness, which the manly mind ought not
to experience.

Those emotions which the Greeks call εὐπαθείαι, and
which Cicero calls constantiæ, the Stoics would restrict to
three; and, instead of three “perturbations” in the soul of
the wise man, they substituted severally, in place of desire,
will; in place of joy, contentment; and for fear, caution;
and as to sickness or pain, which we, to avoid ambiguity,
preferred to call sorrow, they denied that it could exist in the
mind of a wise man. Will, they say, seeks the good, for this
the wise man does. Contentment has its object in good that
is possessed, and this the wise man continually possesses.
Caution avoids evil, and this the wise man ought to avoid.
But sorrow arises from evil that has already happened; and
as they suppose that no evil can happen to the wise man,
there can be no representative of sorrow in his mind. According
to them, therefore, none but the wise man wills, is
contented, uses caution; and that the fool can do no more
than desire, rejoice, fear, be sad. The former three affections[Pg 13]
Cicero calls constantiæ, the last four perturbationes. Many,
however, call these last passions; and, as I have said, the
Greeks call the former εὐπαθείαι, and the latter πάθη. And
when I made a careful examination of Scripture to find
whether this terminology was sanctioned by it, I came upon
this saying of the prophet: “There is no contentment to the
wicked, saith the Lord;”[40] as if the wicked might more properly
rejoice than be contented regarding evils, for contentment
is the property of the good and godly. I found also
that verse in the Gospel: “Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them;”[41] which seems
to imply that evil or shameful things may be the object of
desire, but not of will. Indeed, some interpreters have added
“good things” to make the expression more in conformity
with customary usage, and have given this meaning, “Whatsoever
good deeds that ye would that men should do unto
you.” For they thought that this would prevent any one
from wishing other men to provide him with unseemly, not to
say shameful, gratifications,—luxurious banquets, for example,—on
the supposition that if he returned the like to them he
would be fulfilling this precept. In the Greek Gospel, however,
from which the Latin is translated, “good” does not
occur, but only, “All things whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” and, as I
believe, because “good” is already included in the word
“would;” for He does not say “desire.”

Yet though we may sometimes avail ourselves of these
precise proprieties of language, we are not to be always
bridled by them; and when we read those writers against
whose authority it is unlawful to reclaim, we must accept
the meanings above mentioned in passages where a right
sense can be educed by no other interpretation, as in those
instances we adduced partly from the prophet, partly from
the Gospel. For who does not know that the wicked exult
with joy? Yet “there is no contentment for the wicked,
saith the Lord.” And how so, unless because contentment,
when the word is used in its proper and distinctive significance,
means something different from joy? In like manner,[Pg 14]
who would deny that it were wrong to enjoin upon men that
whatever they desire others to do to them they should themselves
do to others, lest they should mutually please one
another by shameful and illicit pleasure? And yet the precept,
“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do
ye even so to them,” is very wholesome and just. And how is
this, unless because the will is in this place used strictly, and
signifies that will which cannot have evil for its object? But
ordinary phraseology would not have allowed the saying, “Be
unwilling to make any manner of lie,”[42] had there not been
also an evil will, whose wickedness separates it from that
which the angels celebrated, “Peace on earth, of good will to
men.”[43] For “good” is superfluous if there is no other
kind of will but good will. And why should the apostle have
mentioned it among the praises of charity as a great thing,
that “it rejoices not in iniquity,” unless because wickedness
does so rejoice? For even with secular writers these words
are used indifferently. For Cicero, that most fertile of
orators, says, “I desire, conscript fathers, to be merciful.”[44]
And who would be so pedantic as to say that he should have
said “I will” rather than “I desire,” because the word is used
in a good connection? Again, in Terence, the profligate
youth, burning with wild lust, says, “I will nothing else than
Philumena.”[45] That this “will” was lust is sufficiently indicated
by the answer of his old servant which is there introduced:
“How much better were it to try and banish that love
from your heart, than to speak so as uselessly to inflame your
passion still more!” And that contentment was used by secular
writers in a bad sense, that verse of Virgil testifies, in which
he most succinctly comprehends these four perturbations,—

“Hence they fear and desire, grieve and are content.”[46]

The same author had also used the expression, “the evil
contentments of the mind.”[47] So that good and bad men
alike will, are cautious, and contented; or, to say the same
thing in other words, good and bad men alike desire, fear,
rejoice, but the former in a good, the latter in a bad fashion,
according as the will is right or wrong. Sorrow itself, too,[Pg 15]
which the Stoics would not allow to be represented in the
mind of the wise man, is used in a good sense, and especially
in our writings. For the apostle praises the Corinthians
because they had a godly sorrow. But possibly some one
may say that the apostle congratulated them because they
were penitently sorry, and that such sorrow can exist only in
those who have sinned. For these are his words: “For I
perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though
it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were
made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance; for ye were
made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive
damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the
world worketh death. For, behold, this selfsame thing that
ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in
you!”[48] Consequently the Stoics may defend themselves by
replying,[49] that sorrow is indeed useful for repentance of sin,
but that this can have no place in the mind of the wise man,
inasmuch as no sin attaches to him of which he could
sorrowfully repent, nor any other evil the endurance or experience
of which could make him sorrowful. For they say
that Alcibiades (if my memory does not deceive me), who
believed himself happy, shed tears when Socrates argued with
him, and demonstrated that he was miserable because he was
foolish. In his case, therefore, folly was the cause of this
useful and desirable sorrow, wherewith a man mourns that he
is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics maintain not
that the fool, but that the wise man, cannot be sorrowful.

9. Of the perturbations of the soul which appear as right affections in the
life of the righteous.

But so far as regards this question of mental perturbations,
we have answered these philosophers in the ninth book[50]
of this work, showing that it is rather a verbal than a real
dispute, and that they seek contention rather than truth.
Among ourselves, according to the sacred Scriptures and
sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, who live
according to God in the pilgrimage of this life, both fear and
desire, and grieve and rejoice. And because their love is[Pg 16]
rightly placed, all these affections of theirs are right. They
fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve
because they themselves groan within themselves, waiting for
the adoption, the redemption of their body;[51] they rejoice in
hope, because there “shall be brought to pass the saying that
is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”[52] In like
manner they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they grieve
in sin, they rejoice in good works. They fear to sin, because
they hear that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of
many shall wax cold.”[53] They desire to persevere, because
they hear that it is written, “He that endureth to the end
shall be saved.”[54] They grieve for sin, hearing that “If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.”[55] They rejoice in good works, because they hear
that “the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.”[56] In like manner,
according as they are strong or weak, they fear or desire to
be tempted, grieve or rejoice in temptation. They fear to be
tempted, because they hear the injunction, “If a man be overtaken
in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one
in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also
be tempted.”[57] They desire to be tempted, because they hear
one of the heroes of the city of God saying, “Examine me,
O Lord, and tempt me: try my reins and my heart.”[58] They
grieve in temptations, because they see Peter weeping;[59] they
rejoice in temptations, because they hear James saying, “My
brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.”[60]

And not only on their own account do they experience
these emotions, but also on account of those whose deliverance
they desire and whose perdition they fear, and whose
loss or salvation affects them with grief or with joy. For
if we who have come into the Church from among the Gentiles
may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who
glories in his infirmities, the teacher (doctor) of the nations
in faith and truth, who also laboured more than all his fellow-apostles,
and instructed the tribes of God’s people by his[Pg 17]
epistles, which edified not only those of his own time, but
all those who were to be gathered in,—that hero, I say, and
athlete of Christ, instructed by Him, anointed of His Spirit,
crucified with Him, glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining
a great conflict on the theatre of this world, and being
made a spectacle to angels and men,[61] and pressing onwards
for the prize of his high calling,[62]—very joyfully do we with
the eyes of faith behold him rejoicing with them that rejoice,
and weeping with them that weep;[63] though hampered
by fightings without and fears within;[64] desiring to depart
and to be with Christ;[65] longing to see the Romans, that he
might have some fruit among them as among other Gentiles;[66]
being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing in that
jealousy lest their minds should be corrupted from the chastity
that is in Christ;[67] having great heaviness and continual
sorrow of heart for the Israelites,[68] because they, being ignorant
of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their
own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God;[69] and expressing not only his sorrow,
but bitter lamentation over some who had formally sinned
and had not repented of their uncleanness and fornications.[70]

If these emotions and affections, arising as they do from
the love of what is good and from a holy charity, are to
be called vices, then let us allow these emotions which are
truly vices to pass under the name of virtues. But since
these affections, when they are exercised in a becoming way,
follow the guidance of right reason, who will dare to say
that they are diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore even
the Lord Himself, when He condescended to lead a human
life in the form of a slave, had no sin whatever, and yet
exercised these emotions where He judged they should be
exercised. For as there was in Him a true human body and
a true human soul, so was there also a true human emotion.
When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the hard-heartedness
of the Jews moved Him to sorrowful indignation,[71] that[Pg 18]
He said, “I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye may
believe,”[72] that when about to raise Lazarus He even shed
tears,[73] that He earnestly desired to eat the passover with
His disciples,[74] that as His passion drew near His soul was
sorrowful,[75] these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed
to Him. But as He became man when it pleased Him, so,
in the grace of His definite purpose, when it pleased Him He
experienced those emotions in His human soul.

But we must further make the admission, that even when
these affections are well regulated, and according to God’s
will, they are peculiar to this life, not to that future life we
look for, and that often we yield to them against our will.
And thus sometimes we weep in spite of ourselves, being
carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable desire, but
by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore, these affections
arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the Lord
Jesus, for even His infirmity was the consequence of His
power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we
are rather worse men than better if we have none of these
emotions at all. For the apostle vituperated and abominated
some who, as he said, were “without natural affection.”[76]
The sacred Psalmist also found fault with those of whom he
said, “I looked for some to lament with me, and there was
none.”[77] For to be quite free from pain while we are in this
place of misery is only purchased, as one of this world’s
literati perceived and remarked,[78] at the price of blunted sensibilities
both of mind and body. And therefore that which
the Greeks call ἀπάθεια, and what the Latins would call, if
their language would allow them, “impassibilitas,” if it be
taken to mean an impassibility of spirit and not of body, or,
in other words, a freedom from those emotions which are contrary
to reason and disturb the mind, then it is obviously a
good and most desirable quality, but it is not one which is
attainable in this life. For the words of the apostle are the
confession, not of the common herd, but of the eminently
pious, just, and holy men: “If we say we have no sin, we[Pg 19]
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”[79] When there
shall be no sin in a man, then there shall be this ἀπάθεια.
At present it is enough if we live without crime; and he
who thinks he lives without sin puts aside not sin, but
pardon. And if that is to be called apathy, where the mind
is the subject of no emotion, then who would not consider
this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It may, indeed,
reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness we
hope for shall be free from all sting of fear or sadness; but
who that is not quite lost to truth would say that neither
love nor joy shall be experienced there? But if by apathy a
condition be meant in which no fear terrifies nor any pain
annoys, we must in this life renounce such a state if we
would live according to God’s will, but may hope to enjoy
it in that blessedness which is promised as our eternal condition.

For that fear of which the Apostle John says, “There is
no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because
fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in
love,”[80]—that fear is not of the same kind as the Apostle
Paul felt lest the Corinthians should be seduced by the
subtlety of the serpent; for love is susceptible of this fear,
yea, love alone is capable of it. But the fear which is not in
love is of that kind of which Paul himself says, “For ye
have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear.”[81] But
as for that “clean fear which endureth for ever,”[82] if it is to
exist in the world to come (and how else can it be said to
endure for ever?), it is not a fear deterring us from evil
which may happen, but preserving us in the good which
cannot be lost. For where the love of acquired good is
unchangeable, there certainly the fear that avoids evil is, if
I may say so, free from anxiety. For under the name of
“clean fear” David signifies that will by which we shall
necessarily shrink from sin, and guard against it, not with the
anxiety of weakness, which fears that we may strongly sin,
but with the tranquillity of perfect love. Or if no kind of
fear at all shall exist in that most imperturbable security of
perpetual and blissful delights, then the expression, “The fear[Pg 20]
of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever,” must be taken in the
same sense as that other, “The patience of the poor shall not
perish for ever.”[83] For patience, which is necessary only
where ills are to be borne, shall not be eternal, but that which
patience leads us to will be eternal. So perhaps this “clean
fear” is said to endure for ever, because that to which fear
leads shall endure.

And since this is so,—since we must live a good life in
order to attain to a blessed life,—a good life has all these
affections right, a bad life has them wrong. But in the
blessed life eternal there will be love and joy, not only right,
but also assured; but fear and grief there will be none.
Whence it already appears in some sort what manner of persons
the citizens of the city of God must be in this their
pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh,—that
is to say, according to God, not according to man,—and what
manner of persons they shall be also in that immortality
whither they are journeying. And the city or society of the
wicked, who live not according to God, but according to man,
and who accept the doctrines of men or devils in the worship
of a false and contempt of the true divinity, is shaken with
those wicked emotions as by diseases and disturbances. And
if there be some of its citizens who seem to restrain and, as
it were, temper those passions, they are so elated with ungodly
pride, that their disease is as much greater as their
pain is less. And if some, with a vanity monstrous in proportion
to its rarity, have become enamoured of themselves
because they can be stimulated and excited by no emotion,
moved or bent by no affection, such persons rather lose all
humanity than obtain true tranquillity. For a thing is not
necessarily right because it is inflexible, nor healthy because
it is insensible.

10. Whether it is to be believed that our first parents in Paradise, before they
sinned, were free from all perturbation.

But it is a fair question, whether our first parent or first
parents (for there was a marriage of two), before they sinned,
experienced in their animal body such emotions as we shall
not experience in the spiritual body when sin has been[Pg 21]
purged and finally abolished. For if they did, then how
were they blessed in that boasted place of bliss, Paradise?
For who that is affected by fear or grief can be called absolutely
blessed? And what could those persons fear or suffer
in such affluence of blessings, where neither death nor ill-health
was feared, and where nothing was wanting which a
good will could desire, and nothing present which could
interrupt man’s mental or bodily enjoyment? Their love to
God was unclouded, and their mutual affection was that of
faithful and sincere marriage; and from this love flowed a
wonderful delight, because they always enjoyed what was
loved. Their avoidance of sin was tranquil; and, so long as
it was maintained, no other ill at all could invade them and
bring sorrow. Or did they perhaps desire to touch and eat
the forbidden fruit, yet feared to die; and thus both fear and
desire already, even in that blissful place, preyed upon those
first of mankind? Away with the thought that such could
be the case where there was no sin! And, indeed, this is
already sin, to desire those things which the law of God
forbids, and to abstain from them through fear of punishment,
not through love of righteousness. Away, I say, with
the thought, that before there was any sin, there should
already have been committed regarding that fruit the very
sin which our Lord warns us against regarding a woman:
“Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.”[84] As happy,
then, as were these our first parents, who were agitated by no
mental perturbations, and annoyed by no bodily discomforts,
so happy should the whole human race have been, had they
not introduced that evil which they have transmitted to their
posterity, and had none of their descendants committed
iniquity worthy of damnation; but this original blessedness
continuing until, in virtue of that benediction which said,
“Increase and multiply,”[85] the number of the predestined
saints should have been completed, there would then have
been bestowed that higher felicity which is enjoyed by the
most blessed angels,—a blessedness in which there should
have been a secure assurance that no one would sin, and no[Pg 22]
one die; and so should the saints have lived, after no taste of
labour, pain, or death, as now they shall live in the resurrection,
after they have endured all these things.

11. Of the fall of the first man, in whom nature was created good, and can be
restored only by its Author.

But because God foresaw all things, and was therefore not
ignorant that man also would fall, we ought to consider this
holy city in connection with what God foresaw and ordained,
and not according to our own ideas, which do not embrace
God’s ordination. For man, by his sin, could not disturb the
divine counsel, nor compel God to change what He had
decreed; for God’s foreknowledge had anticipated both,—that
is to say, both how evil the man whom He had created good
should become, and what good He Himself should even thus
derive from him. For though God is said to change His
determinations (so that in a tropical sense the Holy Scripture
says even that God repented[86]), this is said with reference to
man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not
with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown
that He would do. Accordingly God, as it is written, made
man upright,[87] and consequently with a good will. For if
he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright.
The good will, then, is the work of God; for God created
him with it. But the first evil will, which preceded all man’s
evil acts, was rather a kind of falling away from the work of
God to its own works than any positive work. And therefore
the acts resulting were evil, not having God, but the will
itself for their end; so that the will or the man himself, so
far as his will is bad, was as it were the evil tree bringing
forth evil fruit. Moreover, the bad will, though it be not in
harmony with, but opposed to nature, inasmuch as it is a vice
or blemish, yet it is true of it as of all vice, that it cannot
exist except in a nature, and only in a nature created out of
nothing, and not in that which the Creator has begotten of
Himself, as He begot the Word, by whom all things were
made. For though God formed man of the dust of the earth,
yet the earth itself, and every earthly material, is absolutely
created out of nothing; and man’s soul, too, God created out[Pg 23]
of nothing, and joined to the body, when He made man. But
evils are so thoroughly overcome by good, that though they
are permitted to exist, for the sake of demonstrating how the
most righteous foresight of God can make a good use even of
them, yet good can exist without evil, as in the true and
supreme God Himself, and as in every invisible and visible
celestial creature that exists above this murky atmosphere;
but evil cannot exist without good, because the natures in
which evil exists, in so far as they are natures, are good.
And evil is removed, not by removing any nature, or part of
a nature, which had been introduced by the evil, but by
healing and correcting that which had been vitiated and
depraved. The will, therefore, is then truly free, when it is
not the slave of vices and sins. Such was it given us by
God; and this being lost by its own fault, can only be restored
by Him who was able at first to give it. And therefore the
truth says, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed;”[88] which is equivalent to saying, If the Son shall save
you, ye shall be saved indeed. For He is our Liberator,
inasmuch as He is our Saviour.

Man then lived with God for his rule in a paradise at once
physical and spiritual. For neither was it a paradise only
physical for the advantage of the body, and not also spiritual
for the advantage of the mind; nor was it only spiritual to
afford enjoyment to man by his internal sensations, and not
also physical to afford him enjoyment through his external
senses. But obviously it was both for both ends. But after
that proud and therefore envious angel (of whose fall I have
said as much as I was able in the eleventh and twelfth books
of this work, as well as that of his fellows, who, from being
God’s angels, became his angels), preferring to rule with a
kind of pomp of empire rather than to be another’s subject,
fell from the spiritual Paradise, and essaying to insinuate his
persuasive guile into the mind of man, whose unfallen condition
provoked him to envy now that himself was fallen, he
chose the serpent as his mouthpiece in that bodily Paradise
in which it and all the other earthly animals were living with
those two human beings, the man and his wife, subject to[Pg 24]
them, and harmless; and he chose the serpent because, being
slippery, and moving in tortuous windings, it was suitable for
his purpose. And this animal being subdued to his wicked
ends by the presence and superior force of his angelic nature,
he abused as his instrument, and first tried his deceit upon
the woman, making his assault upon the weaker part of that
human alliance, that he might gradually gain the whole, and
not supposing that the man would readily give ear to him, or
be deceived, but that he might yield to the error of the woman.
For as Aaron was not induced to agree with the people when
they blindly wished him to make an idol, and yet yielded to
constraint; and as it is not credible that Solomon was so blind
as to suppose that idols should be worshipped, but was drawn
over to such sacrilege by the blandishments of women; so we
cannot believe that Adam was deceived, and supposed the
devil’s word to be truth, and therefore transgressed God’s law,
but that he by the drawings of kindred yielded to the woman,
the husband to the wife, the one human being to the only
other human being. For not without significance did the
apostle say, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman
being deceived was in the transgression;”[89] but he speaks
thus, because the woman accepted as true what the serpent
told her, but the man could not bear to be severed from his
only companion, even though this involved a partnership in
sin. He was not on this account less culpable, but sinned
with his eyes open. And so the apostle does not say, “He did
not sin,” but “He was not deceived.” For he shows that he
sinned when he says, “By one man sin entered into the
world,”[90] and immediately after more distinctly, “In the likeness
of Adam’s transgression.” But he meant that those are
deceived who do not judge that which they do to be sin; but
he knew. Otherwise how were it true “Adam was not deceived?”
But having as yet no experience of the divine
severity, he was possibly deceived in so far as he thought his
sin venial. And consequently he was not deceived as the
woman was deceived, but he was deceived as to the judgment
which would be passed on his apology: “The woman
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did[Pg 25]
eat.”[91] What need of saying more? Although they were
not both deceived by credulity, yet both were entangled in
the snares of the devil, and taken by sin.

12. Of the nature of man’s first sin.

If any one finds a difficulty in understanding why other
sins do not alter human nature as it was altered by the transgression
of those first human beings, so that on account of it
this nature is subject to the great corruption we feel and see,
and to death, and is distracted and tossed with so many furious
and contending emotions, and is certainly far different from
what it was before sin, even though it were then lodged in an
animal body,—if, I say, any one is moved by this, he ought
not to think that that sin was a small and light one because
it was committed about food, and that not bad nor noxious,
except because it was forbidden; for in that spot of singular
felicity God could not have created and planted any evil thing.
But by the precept He gave, God commended obedience, which
is, in a sort, the mother and guardian of all the virtues in the
reasonable creature, which was so created that submission is
advantageous to it, while the fulfilment of its own will in
preference to the Creator’s is destruction. And as this commandment
enjoining abstinence from one kind of food in the
midst of great abundance of other kinds was so easy to keep,—so
light a burden to the memory,—and, above all, found no resistance
to its observance in lust, which only afterwards sprung
up as the penal consequence of sin, the iniquity of violating
it was all the greater in proportion to the ease with which it
might have been kept.

13. That in Adam’s sin an evil will preceded the evil act.

Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already
they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never
been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the
origin of our evil will but pride? For “pride is the beginning
of sin.”[92] And what is pride but the craving for undue
exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul
abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and[Pg 26]
becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes
its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls
away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it
more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if
the will had remained stedfast in the love of that higher and
changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence
and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find
satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted;
the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the
truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his
wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was
a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even
in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then,—that is to
say, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit,—was committed
by persons who were already wicked. That “evil
fruit”[93] could be brought forth only by “a corrupt tree.” But
that the tree was evil was not the result of nature; for certainly
it could become so only by the vice of the will, and
vice is contrary to nature. Now, nature could not have been
depraved by vice had it not been made out of nothing. Consequently,
that it is a nature, this is because it is made by
God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is
made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away[94] as to
become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself,
his being became more contracted than it was when he clave
to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself,
that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is
not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate to that.
And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another
name, “self-pleasers.” For it is good to have the heart
lifted up, yet not to one’s self, for this is proud, but to the
Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the
humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which,
strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride
which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory,
that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious
humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and
nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore[Pg 27]
humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride,
being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection
and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition;
and then comes to pass what is written: “Thou castedst
them down when they lifted up themselves.”[95] For he does
not say, “when they had been lifted up,” as if first they were
exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but “when they lifted
up themselves” even then they were cast down,—that is to say,
the very lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is
that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as
it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city
of God, and in the person of Christ its King; while the contrary
vice of pride, according to the testimony of the sacred
writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly
this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities
of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly
men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels
that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned
by love of self, the other by love of God.

The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open
and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man
not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made
him listen with pleasure to the words, “Ye shall be as gods,”[96]
which they would much more readily have accomplished by
obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by
proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not
by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of
the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and
by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who
truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which
prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and
which thus turns him away from that light by which, had he
followed it, he would himself have become light,—this wicked
desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open
sin was but its consequence. For that is true which is
written, “Pride goeth before destruction, and before honour
is humility;”[97] that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin,
while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation[Pg 28]
ruin, though no sooner is the Highest forsaken than a
fall is begun? But who does not recognise it as ruin, when
there occurs an evident and indubitable transgression of the
commandment? And consequently, God’s prohibition had
reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be
defended on any pretence of doing what was righteous.[98] And
I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into
an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves,
as already, by pleasing themselves, they had fallen.
For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was
dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly presumed and
satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred Psalmist
when he says, “Fill their faces with shame, that they may
seek Thy name, O Lord;”[99] that is, that they who have pleased
themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and
satisfied with Thee in seeking Thy glory.

14. Of the pride in the sin, which was worse than the sin itself.

But it is a worse and more damnable pride which casts
about for the shelter of an excuse even in manifest sins, as
these our first parents did, of whom the woman said, “The
serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;” and the man said, “The
woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the
tree, and I did eat.”[100] Here there is no word of begging
pardon, no word of entreaty for healing. For though they
do not, like Cain, deny that they have perpetrated the deed,
yet their pride seeks to refer its wickedness to another,—the
woman’s pride to the serpent, the man’s to the woman. But
where there is a plain transgression of a divine commandment,
this is rather to accuse than to excuse oneself. For
the fact that the woman sinned on the serpent’s persuasion,
and the man at the woman’s offer, did not make the transgression
less, as if there were any one whom we ought rather
to believe or yield to than God.

15. Of the justice of the punishment with which our first parents were visited for
their disobedience.

Therefore, because the sin was a despising of the authority[Pg 29]
of God,—who had created man; who had made him in His own
image; who had set him above the other animals; who had
placed him in Paradise; who had enriched him with abundance
of every kind and of safety; who had laid upon him neither
many, nor great, nor difficult commandments, but, in order to
make a wholesome obedience easy to him, had given him a
single very brief and very light precept by which He reminded
that creature whose service was to be free that He was Lord,—it
was just that condemnation followed, and condemnation
such that man, who by keeping the commandments should
have been spiritual even in his flesh, became fleshly even in
his spirit; and as in his pride he had sought to be his own
satisfaction, God in His justice abandoned him to himself,
not to live in the absolute independence he affected, but
instead of the liberty he desired, to live dissatisfied with himself
in a hard and miserable bondage to him to whom by
sinning he had yielded himself, doomed in spite of himself
to die in body as he had willingly become dead in spirit,
condemned even to eternal death (had not the grace of God
delivered him) because he had forsaken eternal life. Whoever
thinks such punishment either excessive or unjust shows
his inability to measure the great iniquity of sinning where
sin might so easily have been avoided. For as Abraham’s
obedience is with justice pronounced to be great, because the
thing commanded, to kill his son, was very difficult, so in
Paradise the disobedience was the greater, because the difficulty
of that which was commanded was imperceptible.
And as the obedience of the second Man was the more
laudable because He became obedient even “unto death,”[101] so
the disobedience of the first man was the more detestable
because he became disobedient even unto death. For where
the penalty annexed to disobedience is great, and the thing
commanded by the Creator is easy, who can sufficiently estimate
how great a wickedness it is, in a matter so easy, not to
obey the authority of so great a power, even when that power
deters with so terrible a penalty?

In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was
the punishment of disobedience in that sin? For what else[Pg 30]
is man’s misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that
in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could
do, he now wills to do what he cannot? For though he
could not do all things in Paradise before he sinned, yet he
wished to do only what he could do, and therefore he could
do all things he wished. But now, as we recognise in his
offspring, and as divine Scripture testifies, “Man is like to
vanity.”[102] For who can count how many things he wishes
which he cannot do, so long as he is disobedient to himself,
that is, so long as his mind and his flesh do not obey his
will? For in spite of himself his mind is both frequently
disturbed, and his flesh suffers, and grows old, and dies; and
in spite of ourselves we suffer whatever else we suffer, and
which we would not suffer if our nature absolutely and in all
its parts obeyed our will. But is it not the infirmities of the
flesh which hamper it in its service? Yet what does it
matter how its service is hampered, so long as the fact remains,
that by the just retribution of the sovereign God whom we
refused to be subject to and serve, our flesh, which was subjected
to us, now torments us by insubordination, although
our disobedience brought trouble on ourselves, not upon God?
For He is not in need of our service as we of our body’s;
and therefore what we did was no punishment to Him, but
what we receive is so to us. And the pains which are called
bodily are pains of the soul in and from the body. For what
pain or desire can the flesh feel by itself and without the
soul? But when the flesh is said to desire or to suffer, it is
meant, as we have explained, that the man does so, or some
part of the soul which is affected by the sensation of the
flesh, whether a harsh sensation causing pain, or gentle, causing
pleasure. But pain in the flesh is only a discomfort of the
soul arising from the flesh, and a kind of shrinking from its
suffering, as the pain of the soul which is called sadness is a
shrinking from those things which have happened to us in
spite of ourselves. But sadness is frequently preceded by
fear, which is itself in the soul, not in the flesh; while bodily
pain is not preceded by any kind of fear of the flesh, which
can be felt in the flesh before the pain. But pleasure is preceded[Pg 31]
by a certain appetite which is felt in the flesh like a
craving, as hunger and thirst and that generative appetite
which is most commonly identified with the name “lust,”
though this is the generic word for all desires. For anger
itself was defined by the ancients as nothing else than the
lust of revenge;[103] although sometimes a man is angry even at
inanimate objects which cannot feel his vengeance, as when
one breaks a pen, or crushes a quill that writes badly. Yet
even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of
revenge, and is, so to speak, a mysterious kind of shadow of
[the great law of] retribution, that they who do evil should
suffer evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge, which is
called anger; there is a lust of money, which goes by the
name of avarice; there is a lust of conquering, no matter by
what means, which is called opinionativeness; there is a lust
of applause, which is named boasting. There are many and
various lusts, of which some have names of their own, while
others have not. For who could readily give a name to the
lust of ruling, which yet has a powerful influence in the
soul of tyrants, as civil wars bear witness?

16. Of the evil of lust,—a word which, though applicable to many vices, is
specially appropriated to sexual uncleanness.

Although, therefore, lust may have many objects, yet when
no object is specified, the word lust usually suggests to the
mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation.
And this lust not only takes possession of the whole body
and outward members, but also makes itself felt within, and
moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion
is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which
results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing
indeed is this pleasure, that at the moment of time in which
it is consummated, all mental activity is suspended. What
friend of wisdom and holy joys, who, being married, but
knowing, as the apostle says, “how to possess his vessel in
sanctification and honour, not in the disease of desire, as the
Gentiles who know not God,”[104] would not prefer, if this were
possible, to beget children without this lust, so that in this[Pg 32]
function of begetting offspring the members created for this
purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but
should be actuated by his volition, in the same way as his
other members serve him for their respective ends? But
even those who delight in this pleasure are not moved to it
at their own will, whether they confine themselves to lawful
or transgress to unlawful pleasures; but sometimes this lust
importunes them in spite of themselves, and sometimes fails
them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in
the mind, it stirs not in the body. Thus, strangely enough,
this emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to
beget offspring, but also refuses to serve lascivious lust; and
though it often opposes its whole combined energy to the
soul that resists it, sometimes also it is divided against itself,
and while it moves the soul, leaves the body unmoved.

17. Of the nakedness of our first parents, which they saw after their base and
shameful sin.

Justly is shame very specially connected with this lust;
justly, too, these members themselves, being moved and
restrained not at our will, but by a certain independent
autocracy, so to speak, are called “shameful.” Their condition
was different before sin. For as it is written, “They
were naked and were not ashamed,”[105]—not that their nakedness
was unknown to them, but because nakedness was not
yet shameful, because not yet did lust move those members
without the will’s consent; not yet did the flesh by its disobedience
testify against the disobedience of man. For they
were not created blind, as the unenlightened vulgar fancy;[106]
for Adam saw the animals to whom he gave names, and of Eve
we read, “The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and
that it was pleasant to the eyes.”[107] Their eyes, therefore, were
open, but were not open to this, that is to say, were not
observant so as to recognise what was conferred upon them
by the garment of grace, for they had no consciousness of
their members warring against their will. But when they[Pg 33]
were stripped of this grace,[108] that their disobedience might be
punished by fit retribution, there began in the movement of
their bodily members a shameless novelty which made nakedness
indecent: it at once made them observant and made
them ashamed. And therefore, after they violated God’s
command by open transgression, it is written: “And the eyes
of them both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons.”[109] “The eyes of them both were opened,” not
to see, for already they saw, but to discern between the good
they had lost and the evil into which they had fallen. And
therefore also the tree itself which they were forbidden to
touch was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
from this circumstance, that if they ate of it it would impart
to them this knowledge. For the discomfort of sickness
reveals the pleasure of health. “They knew,” therefore,
“that they were naked,”—naked of that grace which prevented
them from being ashamed of bodily nakedness while
the law of sin offered no resistance to their mind. And thus
they obtained a knowledge which they would have lived in
blissful ignorance of, had they, in trustful obedience to God,
declined to commit that offence which involved them in the
experience of the hurtful effects of unfaithfulness and disobedience.
And therefore, being ashamed of the disobedience
of their own flesh, which witnessed to their disobedience
while it punished it, “they sewed fig leaves together, and
made themselves aprons,” that is, cinctures for their privy
parts; for some interpreters have rendered the word by
succinctoria. Campestria is, indeed, a Latin word, but it
is used of the drawers or aprons used for a similar purpose
by the young men who stripped for exercise in the campus;
hence those who were so girt were commonly called campestrati.
Shame modestly covered that which lust disobediently
moved in opposition to the will which was thus punished[Pg 34]
for its own disobedience. Consequently all nations, being
propagated from that one stock, have so strong an instinct to
cover the shameful parts, that some barbarians do not uncover
them even in the bath, but wash with their drawers
on. In the dark solitudes of India also, though some philosophers
go naked, and are therefore called gymnosophists,
yet they make an exception in the case of these members,
and cover them.

18. Of the shame which attends all sexual intercourse.

Lust requires for its consummation darkness and secrecy;
and this not only when unlawful intercourse is desired, but
even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized.
Where there is no fear of punishment, these permitted
pleasures still shrink from the public eye. Even where provision
is made for this lust, secrecy also is provided; and while
lust found it easy to remove the prohibitions of law, shamelessness
found it impossible to lay aside the veil of retirement. For
even shameless men call this shameful; and though they love
the pleasure, dare not display it. What! does not even conjugal
intercourse, sanctioned as it is by law for the propagation
of children, legitimate and honourable though it be, does
it not seek retirement from every eye? Before the bridegroom
fondles his bride, does he not exclude the attendants, and even
the paranymphs, and such friends as the closest ties have
admitted to the bridal chamber? The greatest master of
Roman eloquence says, that all right actions wish to be set in
the light, i.e. desire to be known. This right action, however,
has such a desire to be known, that yet it blushes to be seen.
Who does not know what passes between husband and wife
that children may be born? Is it not for this purpose that
wives are married with such ceremony? And yet, when this
well-understood act is gone about for the procreation of children,
not even the children themselves, who may already have
been born to them, are suffered to be witnesses. This right
action seeks the light, in so far as it seeks to be known, but
yet dreads being seen. And why so, if not because that
which is by nature fitting and decent is so done as to be
accompanied with a shame-begetting penalty of sin?

[Pg 35]

19. That it is now necessary, as it was not before man sinned, to bridle anger
and lust by the restraining influence of wisdom.

Hence it is that even the philosophers who have approximated
to the truth have avowed that anger and lust are vicious
mental emotions, because, even when exercised towards objects
which wisdom does not prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned
and inordinate manner, and consequently need the
regulation of mind and reason. And they assert that this third
part of the mind is posted as it were in a kind of citadel, to give
rule to these other parts, so that, while it rules and they serve,
man’s righteousness is preserved without a breach.[110] These
parts, then, which they acknowledge to be vicious even in a
wise and temperate man, so that the mind, by its composing
and restraining influence, must bridle and recall them from
those objects towards which they are unlawfully moved, and
give them access to those which the law of wisdom sanctions,—that
anger, e.g., may be allowed for the enforcement of a just
authority, and lust for the duty of propagating offspring,—these
parts, I say, were not vicious in Paradise before sin,
for they were never moved in opposition to a holy will towards
any object from which it was necessary that they should be
withheld by the restraining bridle of reason. For though
now they are moved in this way, and are regulated by a
bridling and restraining power, which those who live temperately,
justly, and godly exercise, sometimes with ease, and
sometimes with greater difficulty, this is not the sound health
of nature, but the weakness which results from sin. And how
is it that shame does not hide the acts and words dictated by
anger or other emotions, as it covers the motions of lust,
unless because the members of the body which we employ for
accomplishing them are moved, not by the emotions themselves,
but by the authority of the consenting will? For he
who in his anger rails at or even strikes some one, could not
do so were not his tongue and hand moved by the authority
of the will, as also they are moved when there is no anger.
But the organs of generation are so subjected to the rule of
lust, that they have no motion but what it communicates.
It is this we are ashamed of; it is this which blushingly[Pg 36]
hides from the eyes of onlookers. And rather will a man
endure a crowd of witnesses when he is unjustly venting his
anger on some one, than the eye of one man when he innocently
copulates with his wife.

20. Of the foolish beastliness of the Cynics.

It is this which those canine or cynic[111] philosophers have
overlooked, when they have, in violation of the modest instincts
of men, boastfully proclaimed their unclean and shameless
opinion, worthy indeed of dogs, viz., that as the matrimonial
act is legitimate, no one should be ashamed to perform it
openly, in the street or in any public place. Instinctive
shame has overborne this wild fancy. For though it is related[112]
that Diogenes once dared to put his opinion in practice, under
the impression that his sect would be all the more famous if
his egregious shamelessness were deeply graven in the memory
of mankind, yet this example was not afterwards followed.
Shame had more influence with them, to make them blush
before men, than error to make them affect a resemblance to
dogs. And possibly, even in the case of Diogenes, and those
who did imitate him, there was but an appearance and pretence
of copulation, and not the reality. Even at this day
there are still Cynic philosophers to be seen; for these are
Cynics who are not content with being clad in the pallium,
but also carry a club; yet no one of them dares to do this
that we speak of. If they did, they would be spat upon, not
to say stoned, by the mob. Human nature, then, is without
doubt ashamed of this lust; and justly so, for the insubordination
of these members, and their defiance of the will, are the
clear testimony of the punishment of man’s first sin. And it
was fitting that this should appear specially in those parts
by which is generated that nature which has been altered for
the worse by that first and great sin,—that sin from whose evil
connection no one can escape, unless God’s grace expiate in
him individually that which was perpetrated to the destruction
of all in common, when all were in one man, and which
was avenged by God’s justice.

[Pg 37]

21. That man’s transgression did not annul the blessing of fecundity pronounced
upon man before he sinned, but infected it with the disease of lust.

Far be it, then, from us to suppose that our first parents in
Paradise felt that lust which caused them afterwards to blush
and hide their nakedness, or that by its means they should
have fulfilled the benediction of God, “Increase and multiply
and replenish the earth;”[113] for it was after sin that lust
began. It was after sin that our nature, having lost the power
it had over the whole body, but not having lost all shame,
perceived, noticed, blushed at, and covered it. But that
blessing upon marriage, which encouraged them to increase
and multiply and replenish the earth, though, it continued
even after they had sinned, was yet given before they sinned,
in order that the procreation of children might be recognised
as part of the glory of marriage, and not of the punishment of
sin. But now, men being ignorant of the blessedness of Paradise,
suppose that children could not have been begotten there
in any other way than they know them to be begotten now,
i.e. by lust, at which even honourable marriage blushes; some
not simply rejecting, but sceptically deriding the divine Scriptures,
in which we read that our first parents, after they sinned,
were ashamed of their nakedness, and covered it; while others,
though they accept and honour Scripture, yet conceive that
this expression, “Increase and multiply,” refers not to carnal
fecundity, because a similar expression is used of the soul in
the words, “Thou wilt multiply me with strength in my
soul;”[114] and so, too, in the words which follow in Genesis,
“And replenish the earth, and subdue it,” they understand by
the earth the body which the soul fills with its presence, and
which it rules over when it is multiplied in strength. And
they hold that children could no more then than now be
begotten without lust, which, after sin, was kindled, observed,
blushed for, and covered; and even that children would not
have been born in Paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact
it turned out. For it was after they were expelled from it
that they came together to beget children, and begot them.

[Pg 38]

22. Of the conjugal union as it was originally instituted and blessed by God.

But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase
and multiply and replenish the earth in virtue of the
blessing of God, is a gift of marriage as God instituted it
from the beginning before man sinned, when He created them
male and female,—in other words, two sexes manifestly distinct.
And it was this work of God on which His blessing
was pronounced. For no sooner had Scripture said, “Male
and female created He them,”[115] than it immediately continues,
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Increase,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it,” etc.
And though all these things may not unsuitably be interpreted
in a spiritual sense, yet “male and female” cannot be
understood of two things in one man, as if there were in him
one thing which rules, another which is ruled; but it is quite
clear that they were created male and female, with bodies of
different sexes, for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and
so increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the earth; and it
is great folly to oppose so plain a fact. It was not of the
spirit which commands and the body which obeys, nor of the
rational soul which rules and the irrational desire which is
ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme and
the active which is subject, nor of the understanding of the
mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial
union by which the sexes are mutually bound together,
that our Lord, when asked whether it were lawful for any
cause to put away one’s wife (for on account of the hardness
of the hearts of the Israelites Moses permitted a bill of
divorcement to be given), answered and said, “Have ye not
read that He which made them at the beginning made them
male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they
twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain,
but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder.”[116] It is certain, then, that from the
first men were created, as we see and know them to be now,
of two sexes, male and female, and that they are called one,
either on account of the matrimonial union, or on account of[Pg 39]
the origin of the woman, who was created from the side of the
man. And it is by this original example, which God Himself
instituted, that the apostle admonishes all husbands to love
their own wives in particular.[117]

23. Whether generation should have taken place even in Paradise had man not
sinned, or whether there should have been any contention there between
chastity and lust.

But he who says that there should have been neither copulation
nor generation but for sin, virtually says that man’s
sin was necessary to complete the number of the saints. For
if these two by not sinning should have continued to live
alone, because, as is supposed, they could not have begotten
children had they not sinned, then certainly sin was necessary
in order that there might be not only two but many righteous
men. And if this cannot be maintained without absurdity,
we must rather believe that the number of the saints fit to
complete this most blessed city would have been as great
though no one had sinned, as it is now that the grace of God
gathers its citizens out of the multitude of sinners, so long as
the children of this world generate and are generated.[118]

And therefore that marriage, worthy of the happiness of
Paradise, should have had desirable fruit without the shame
of lust, had there been no sin. But how that could be, there
is now no example to teach us. Nevertheless, it ought not to
seem incredible that one member might serve the will without
lust then, since so many serve it now. Do we now move our
feet and hands when we will to do the things we would by
means of these members? do we meet with no resistance in
them, but perceive that they are ready servants of the will,
both in our own case and in that of others, and especially of
artisans employed in mechanical operations, by which the
weakness and clumsiness of nature become, through industrious
exercise, wonderfully dexterous? and shall we not believe
that, like as all those members obediently serve the will, so
also should the members have discharged the function of
generation, though lust, the award of disobedience, had been
awanting? Did not Cicero, in discussing the difference of
governments in his De Republica, adopt a simile from human[Pg 40]
nature, and say that we command our bodily members as
children, they are so obedient; but that the vicious parts of
the soul must be treated as slaves, and be coerced with a more
stringent authority? And no doubt, in the order of nature,
the soul is more excellent than the body; and yet the soul
commands the body more easily than itself. Nevertheless
this lust, of which we at present speak, is the more shameful
on this account, because the soul is therein neither master of
itself, so as not to lust at all, nor of the body, so as to keep
the members under the control of the will; for if they were
thus ruled, there should be no shame. But now the soul is
ashamed that the body, which by nature is inferior and subject
to it, should resist its authority. For in the resistance
experienced by the soul in the other emotions there is less
shame, because the resistance is from itself, and thus, when it
is conquered by itself, itself is the conqueror, although the
conquest is inordinate and vicious, because accomplished by
those parts of the soul which ought to be subject to reason,
yet, being accomplished by its own parts and energies, the
conquest is, as I say, its own. For when the soul conquers
itself to a due subordination, so that its unreasonable motions
are controlled by reason, while it again is subject to God, this
is a conquest virtuous and praiseworthy. Yet there is less
shame when the soul is resisted by its own vicious parts than
when its will and order are resisted by the body, which is
distinct from and inferior to it, and dependent on it for life
itself.

But so long as the will retains under its authority the other
members, without which the members excited by lust to resist
the will cannot accomplish what they seek, chastity is preserved,
and the delight of sin foregone. And certainly, had
not culpable disobedience been visited with penal disobedience,
the marriage of Paradise should have been ignorant of this
struggle and rebellion, this quarrel between will and lust, that
the will may be satisfied and lust restrained, but those members,
like all the rest, should have obeyed the will. The field
of generation[119] should have been sown by the organ created
for this purpose, as the earth is sown by the hand. And[Pg 41]
whereas now, as we essay to investigate this subject more
exactly, modesty hinders us, and compels us to ask pardon of
chaste ears, there would have been no cause to do so, but we
could have discoursed freely, and without fear of seeming
obscene, upon all those points which occur to one who meditates
on the subject. There would not have been even words
which could be called obscene, but all that might be said of
these members would have been as pure as what is said of
the other parts of the body. Whoever, then, comes to the
perusal of these pages with unchaste mind, let him blame his
disposition, not his nature; let him brand the actings of his
own impurity, not the words which necessity forces us to use,
and for which every pure and pious reader or hearer will very
readily pardon me, while I expose the folly of that scepticism
which argues solely on the ground of its own experience, and
has no faith in anything beyond. He who is not scandalized
at the apostle’s censure of the horrible wickedness of the women
who “changed the natural use into that which is against
nature,”[120] will read all this without being shocked, especially
as we are not, like Paul, citing and censuring a damnable uncleanness,
but are explaining, so far as we can, human generation,
while with Paul we avoid all obscenity of language.

24. That if men had remained innocent and obedient in Paradise, the generative
organs should have been in subjection to the will as the other members are.

The man, then, would have sown the seed, and the woman
received it, as need required, the generative organs being
moved by the will, not excited by lust. For we move at
will not only those members which are furnished with joints
of solid bone, as the hands, feet, and fingers, but we move also
at will those which are composed of slack and soft nerves: we
can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or bend and
twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the
muscles of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the
very tenderest of the viscera except the brain, and are therefore
carefully sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all
purposes of inhaling and exhaling the breath, and of uttering
and modulating the voice, are obedient to the will when we
breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing, just as the bellows obey[Pg 42]
the smith or the organist. I will not press the fact that some
animals have a natural power to move a single spot of the
skin with which their whole body is covered, if they have felt
on it anything they wish to drive off,—a power so great, that
by this shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake
off flies that have settled on them, but even spears that have
fixed in their flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power; but
is this any reason for supposing that God could not give it to
such creatures as He wished to possess it? And therefore
man himself also might very well have enjoyed absolute
power over his members had he not forfeited it by his disobedience;
for it was not difficult for God to form him so
that what is now moved in his body only by lust should have
been moved only at will.

We know, too, that some men are differently constituted
from others, and have some rare and remarkable faculty of
doing with their body what other men can by no effort do,
and, indeed, scarcely believe when they hear of others doing.
There are persons who can move their ears, either one at a
time, or both together. There are some who, without moving
the head, can bring the hair down upon the forehead, and
move the whole scalp backwards and forwards at pleasure.
Some, by lightly pressing their stomach, bring up an incredible
quantity and variety of things they have swallowed, and produce
whatever they please, quite whole, as if out of a bag.
Some so accurately mimic the voices of birds and beasts and
other men, that, unless they are seen, the difference cannot be
told. Some have such command of their bowels, that they
can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce
the effect of singing. I myself have known a man who was
accustomed to sweat whenever he wished. It is well known
that some weep when they please, and shed a flood of tears.
But far more incredible is that which some of our brethren
saw quite recently. There was a presbyter called Restitutus,
in the parish of the Calamensian[121] Church, who, as often as he
pleased (and he was asked to do this by those who desired to[Pg 43]
witness so remarkable a phenomenon), on some one imitating
the wailings of mourners, became so insensible, and lay in a
state so like death, that not only had he no feeling when they
pinched and pricked him, but even when fire was applied to
him, and he was burned by it, he had no sense of pain except
afterwards from the wound. And that his body remained
motionless, not by reason of his self-command, but because
he was insensible, was proved by the fact that he breathed
no more than a dead man; and yet he said that, when any one
spoke with more than ordinary distinctness, he heard the voice,
but as if it were a long way off. Seeing, then, that even in
this mortal and miserable life the body serves some men by
many remarkable movements and moods beyond the ordinary
course of nature, what reason is there for doubting that, before
man was involved by his sin in this weak and corruptible
condition, his members might have served his will for the
propagation of offspring without lust? Man has been given
over to himself because he abandoned God, while he sought
to be self-satisfying; and disobeying God, he could not obey
even himself. Hence it is that he is involved in the obvious
misery of being unable to live as he wishes. For if he lived
as he wished, he would think himself blessed; but he could
not be so if he lived wickedly.

25. Of true blessedness, which this present life cannot enjoy.

However, if we look at this a little more closely, we see
that no one lives as he wishes but the blessed, and that no
one is blessed but the righteous. But even the righteous
himself does not live as he wishes, until he has arrived where
he cannot die, be deceived, or injured, and until he is assured
that this shall be his eternal condition. For this nature demands;
and nature is not fully and perfectly blessed till it
attains what it seeks. But what man is at present able to
live as he wishes, when it is not in his power so much as to
live? He wishes to live, he is compelled to die. How, then,
does he live as he wishes who does not live as long as he[Pg 44]
wishes? or if he wishes to die, how can he live as he wishes,
since he does not wish even to live? Or if he wishes to die,
not because he dislikes life, but that after death he may live
better, still he is not yet living as he wishes, but only has the
prospect of so living when, through death, he reaches that
which he wishes. But admit that he lives as he wishes,
because he has done violence to himself, and forced himself
not to wish what he cannot obtain, and to wish only what he
can (as Terence has it, “Since you cannot do what you will,
will what you can”[122]), is he therefore blessed because he is
patiently wretched? For a blessed life is possessed only by
the man who loves it. If it is loved and possessed, it must
necessarily be more ardently loved than all besides; for whatever
else is loved must be loved for the sake of the blessed
life. And if it is loved as it deserves to be,—and the man
is not blessed who does not love the blessed life as it deserves,—then
he who so loves it cannot but wish it to be eternal.
Therefore it shall then only be blessed when it is eternal.

26. That we are to believe that in Paradise our first parents begat offspring
without blushing.

In Paradise, then, man lived as he desired so long as he
desired what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment
of God, and was good by God’s goodness; he lived without any
want, and had it in his power so to live eternally. He had
food that he might not hunger, drink that he might not thirst,
the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was
in his body no corruption, nor seed of corruption, which could
produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward
disease, no outward accident. Soundest health blessed
his body, absolute tranquillity his soul. As in Paradise there
was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt
from the vicissitudes of fear and desire. No sadness of any
kind was there, nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly
flowed from the presence of God, who was loved “out of a
pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.”[123]
The honest love of husband and wife made a sure harmony
between them. Body and spirit worked harmoniously together,
and the commandment was kept without labour. No[Pg 45]
languor made their leisure wearisome; no sleepiness interrupted
their desire to labour.[124] In tanta facilitate rerum et
felicitate hominum, absit ut suspicemur, non potuisse prolem
seri sine libidinis morbo: sed eo voluntatis nutu moverentur
illa membra quo cætera, et sine ardoris illecebroso stimulo
cum tranquillitate animi et corporis nulla corruptione integritatis
infunderetur gremio maritus uxoris. Neque enim quia
experientia probari non potest, ideo credendum non est; quando
illas corporis partes non ageret turbidus calor, sed spontanea
potestas, sicut opus esset, adhiberet; ita tunc potuisse utero
conjugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen immitti,
sicut nunc potest eadem integritate salva ex utero
virginis fluxus menstrui cruoris emitti. Eadem quippe via
posset illud injici, qua hoc potest ejici. Ut enim ad pariendum
non doloris gemitus, sed maturitatis impulsus feminea
viscera relaxaret: sic ad fœtandum et concipiendum non libidinis
appetitus, sed voluntarius usus naturam utramque conjungeret.
We speak of things which are now shameful, and
although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as
they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels
us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by
modesty than to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse
might suggest. For since that which I have been
speaking of was not experienced even by those who might
have experienced it,—I mean our first parents (for sin and its
merited banishment from Paradise anticipated this passionless
generation on their part),—when sexual intercourse is spoken
of now, it suggests to men’s thoughts not such a placid obedience
to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but
such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced.
And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind
conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme
and supremely good Creator of all natures, who aids and rewards
good wills, while He abandons and condemns the bad,
and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which He
might people His city with the fixed number of citizens which
His wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned[Pg 46]
human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since
the whole mass was condemned as if in a vitiated root, but
by grace, and showing, not only in the case of the redeemed,
but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace
He has bestowed upon them. For every one acknowledges
that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by
gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company
of those with whom he might justly have borne a common
punishment, and is allowed to go scathless. Why, then,
should God not have created those whom He foresaw would
sin, since He was able to show in and by them both what their
guilt merited, and what His grace bestowed, and since, under
His creating and disposing hand, even the perverse disorder
of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things?

27. Of the angels and men who sinned, and that their wickedness did not
disturb the order of God’s providence.

The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the
“great works of the Lord which accomplish His will.”[125] For
He who by His providence and omnipotence distributes to
every one his own portion, is able to make good use not only
of the good, but also of the wicked. And thus making a
good use of the wicked angel, who, in punishment of his first
wicked volition, was doomed to an obduracy that prevents
him now from willing any good, why should not God have
permitted him to tempt the first man, who had been created
upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had been
so constituted, that if he looked to God for help, man’s goodness
should defeat the angel’s wickedness; but if by proud
self-pleasing he abandoned God, his Creator and Sustainer,
he should be conquered. If his will remained upright,
through leaning on God’s help, he should be rewarded; if it
became wicked, by forsaking God, he should be punished.
But even this trusting in God’s help could not itself be
accomplished without God’s help, although man had it in his
own power to relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing
himself. For as it is not in our power to live in this
world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our
power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those[Pg 47]
do who kill themselves, so it was not in man’s power, even in
Paradise, to live as he ought without God’s help; but it was
in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut
short his happiness, and incur very just punishment. Since,
then, God was not ignorant that man would fall, why should
He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who
hated and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was
unaware that he should be conquered, but because He foresaw
that by the man’s seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil
himself should be conquered, to the greater glory of the
saints. All was brought about in such a manner, that neither
did any future event escape God’s foreknowledge, nor did His
foreknowledge compel any one to sin, and so as to demonstrate
in the experience of the intelligent creation, human
and angelic, how great a difference there is between the
private presumption of the creature and the Creator’s protection.
For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in
God’s power to prevent both angels and men from sinning?
But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to
show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and
what good by His grace.

28. Of the nature of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly.

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves:
the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God;
the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of
self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in
the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the
greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience.
The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other
says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of
mine head.”[126] In the one, the princes and the nations it
subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the
princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter
obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one
delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its
rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord,
my strength.”[127] And therefore the wise men of the one[Pg 48]
city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their
own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known
God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was
darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying
in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,—”they
became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” For they were
either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images,
“and worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed for ever.”[128] But in the other city
there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers
due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the
society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men,
“that God may be all in all.”[129]

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[Pg 49]