Chapter 18 [XI.]--Piety is Wisdom; That is Called the Righteousness of God, Which He Produces.
Now, this meditation makes a man godly, and this godliness is true wisdom. By godliness I mean that which the Greeks designate theosebeia,--that very virtue which is commended to man in the passage of Job, where it is said to him, "Behold, godliness is wisdom." [779] Now if the word theosebeia be interpreted according to its derivation, it might be called "the worship of God;" [780] and in this worship the essential point is, that the soul be not ungrateful to Him. Whence it is that in the most true and excellent sacrifice we are admonished to "give thanks unto our Lord God." [781] Ungrateful however, our soul would be, were it to attribute to itself that which it received from God, especially the righteousness, with the works of which (the especial property, as it were, of itself, and produced, so to speak, by the soul itself for itself) it is not puffed up in a vulgar pride, as it might be with riches, or beauty of limb, or eloquence, or those other accomplishments, external or internal, bodily or mental, which wicked men too are in the habit of possessing, but, if I may say so, in a wise complacency, as of things which constitute in an especial manner the good works of the good. It is owing to this sin of vulgar pride that even some great men have drifted from the sure anchorage of the divine nature, and have floated down into the shame of idolatry. Whence the apostle again in the same epistle, wherein he so firmly maintains the principle of grace, after saying that he was a debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, and professing himself ready, so far as to him pertained, to preach the gospel even to those who lived in Rome, adds: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." [782] This is the righteousness of God, which was veiled in the Old Testament, and is revealed in the New; and it is called the righteousness of God, because by His bestowal of it He makes us righteous, just as we read that "salvation is the Lord's," [783] because He makes us safe. And this is the faith "from which" and "to which" it is revealed,--from the faith of them who preach it, to the faith of those who obey it. By this faith of Jesus Christ--that is, the faith which Christ has given to us--we believe it is from God that we now have, and shall have more and more, the ability of living righteously; wherefore we give Him thanks with that dutiful worship with which He only is to be worshipped.
[779] Job xxviii. 28.
[780] Cultus Dei is Augustin's Latin expression for the synonym.
[781] One of the suffrages of the Sursum Corda in the Communion Service [preserved also in the English service, which reads as follows: "Priest. Lift up your hearts. Answer. We lift them up to the Lord. Priest. Let us give thanks unto our Lord God. Answer. It is meet and right so to do."--W.]
[782] Rom. i. 14-17.
[783] Ps. iii. 8.
Chapter 19 [XII]--The Knowledge of God Through the Creation.
And then the apostle very properly turns from this point to describe with detestation those men who, light-minded and puffed up by the sin which I have mentioned in the preceding chapter, have been carried away of their own conceit, as it were, through empty space where they could find no resting-place, only to fall shattered to pieces against the vain figments of their idols, as against stones. For, after he had commended the piety of that faith, whereby, being justified, we must needs be pleasing to God, he proceeds to call our attention to what we ought to abominate as the opposite. "For the wrath of God," says he, "is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made, even His eternal power and divinity; so that they are without excuse: because, knowing God, they yet 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, they became fools; and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four footed beasts, and to creeping things." [784] Observe, he does not say that they were ignorant of the truth, but that they held down the truth in unrighteousness. For it occurred to him, that he would inquire whence the knowledge of the truth could be obtained by those to whom God had not given the law; and he was not silent on the source whence they could have obtained it: for he declares that it was through the visible works of creation that they arrived at the knowledge of the invisible attributes of the Creator. And, in very deed, as they continued to possess great faculties for searching, so they were able to find. Wherein then lay their impiety? Because "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks, but became vain in their imaginations." Vanity is a disease especially of those who mislead themselves, and "think themselves to be something, when they are nothing." [785] Such men, indeed, darken themselves in that swelling pride, the foot of which the holy singer prays that it may not come against him, [786] after saying, "In Thy light shall we see light;" [787] from which very light of unchanging truth they turn aside, and "their foolish heart is darkened." [788] For theirs was not a wise heart, even though they knew God; but it was foolish rather, because they did not glorify Him as God, or give Him thanks; for "He said unto man, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." [789] So by this conduct, while "professing themselves to be wise" (which can only be understood to mean that they attributed this to themselves), "they became fools." [790]
[784] Rom. i. 18-23.
[785] Gal. vi. 3.
[786] Ps. xxxvi. 11.
[787] Ps. xxxvi. 9.
[788] Rom. i. 21.
[789] Job xxviii. 28.
[790] Rom. i. 22.