Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series • VOLUME 2
Augustine — City of God & Christian Doctrine
SECTION 161
Chapter 22.--Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There is Some Natural Evil.
Chapter 22.--Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There is Some Natural Evil. This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of God,--this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all …
707 wordsSECTION 162Chapter 23.--Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.
Chapter 23.--Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved. But it is much more surprising that some even of those who, with ourselves, believe that there is one only source of all things, and that no nature which is not divine can exist unless originated by that Creator, have yet refused to accept with a good and si…
866 wordsSECTION 163Chapter 24.--Of the Divine Trinity, and the Indications of Its Presence Scattered Everywhere Among Its Works.
Chapter 24.--Of the Divine Trinity, and the Indications of Its Presence Scattered Everywhere Among Its Works. We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the Father begat the Word, that is, Wisdom, by which all things were made, the only-begotten Son, one as the Father is one, eternal as the Father is eternal, and, equa…
1,194 wordsSECTION 164Chapter 26.--Of the Image of the Supreme Trinity, Which We Find in Some Sort in Human Nature Even in Its Present State.
Chapter 26.--Of the Image of the Supreme Trinity, Which We Find in Some Sort in Human Nature Even in Its Present State. And we indeed recognize in ourselves the image of God, that is, of the supreme Trinity, an image which, though it be not equal to God, or rather, though it be very far removed from Him,--being neither co-etern…
1,303 wordsSECTION 165Chapter 28.--Whether We Ought to Love the Love Itself with Which We Love Our Existence and Our Knowledge of It, that So We May More Nearly Resemble the Image of the Divine Trinity.
Chapter 28.--Whether We Ought to Love the Love Itself with Which We Love Our Existence and Our Knowledge of It, that So We May More Nearly Resemble the Image of the Divine Trinity. We have said as much as the scope of this work demands regarding these two things, to wit, our existence, and our knowledge of it, and how much they…
1,227 wordsSECTION 166Chapter 30.--Of the Perfection of the Number Six, Which is the First of the Numbers Which is Composed of Its Aliquot Parts.
Chapter 30.--Of the Perfection of the Number Six, Which is the First of the Numbers Which is Composed of Its Aliquot Parts. These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same day being six times repeated), because six is a perfect number,--not because God required a protracted time, as if He could not at once…
969 wordsSECTION 167Chapter 32.--Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World.
Chapter 32.--Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World. But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels are not referred to when it is said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" if he suppose or teach that some material light, then first created, was meant, and that the angels were crea…
1,280 wordsSECTION 168Chapter 34.--Of the Idea that the Angels Were Meant Where the Separation of the Waters by the Firmament is Spoken Of, and of that Other Idea that the Waters Were Not Created.
Chapter 34.--Of the Idea that the Angels Were Meant Where the Separation of the Waters by the Firmament is Spoken Of, and of that Other Idea that the Waters Were Not Created. Some, [521] however, have supposed that the angelic hosts are somehow referred to under the name of waters, and that this is what is meant by "Let there b…
1,548 wordsSECTION 169Chapter 2.--That There is No Entity [526] Contrary to the Divine, Because Nonentity Seems to Be that Which is Wholly Opposite to Him Who Supremely and Always is.
Chapter 2.--That There is No Entity [526] Contrary to the Divine, Because Nonentity Seems to Be that Which is Wholly Opposite to Him Who Supremely and Always is. This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak of the apostate angels, that they could have another nature, derived, as it were, from some differe…
813 wordsSECTION 170Chapter 4.--Of the Nature of Irrational and Lifeless Creatures, Which in Their Own Kind and Order Do Not Mar the Beauty of the Universe.
Chapter 4.--Of the Nature of Irrational and Lifeless Creatures, Which in Their Own Kind and Order Do Not Mar the Beauty of the Universe. But it is ridiculous to condemn the faults of beasts and trees, and other such mortal and mutable things as are void of intelligence, sensation, or life, even though these faults should destro…
814 wordsSECTION 171Chapter 6.--What the Cause of the Blessedness of the Good Angels Is, and What the Cause of the Misery of the Wicked.
Chapter 6.--What the Cause of the Blessedness of the Good Angels Is, and What the Cause of the Misery of the Wicked. Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, th…
1,309 wordsSECTION 172Chapter 7.--That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.
Chapter 7.--That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will. Let no one, therefore, look for an efficient cause of the evil will; for it is not efficient, but deficient, as the will itself is not an effecting of something, but a defect. For defection from that which supremely is, to that which has less …
1,656 wordsSECTION 173Chapter 10.--Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past.
Chapter 10.--Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World's Past. Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. For some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they ha…
1,033 wordsSECTION 174Chapter 12.--How These Persons are to Be Answered, Who Find Fault with the Creation of Man on the Score of Its Recent Date.
Chapter 12.--How These Persons are to Be Answered, Who Find Fault with the Creation of Man on the Score of Its Recent Date. As to those who are always asking why man was not created during these countless ages of the infinitely extended past, and came into being so lately that, according to Scripture, less than 6000 years have …
704 wordsSECTION 175Chapter 13.--Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First.
Chapter 13.--Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First. This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should be a consta…
758 wordsSECTION 176Chapter 14.--Of the Creation of the Human Race in Time, and How This Was Effected Without Any New Design or Change of Purpose on God's Part.
Chapter 14.--Of the Creation of the Human Race in Time, and How This Was Effected Without Any New Design or Change of Purpose on God's Part. What wonder is it if, entangled in these circles, they find neither entrance nor egress? For they know not how the human race, and this mortal condition of ours, took its origin, nor how i…
1,864 wordsSECTION 177Chapter 16.--How We are to Understand God's Promise of Life Eternal, Which Was Uttered Before the "Eternal Times."
Chapter 16.--How We are to Understand God's Promise of Life Eternal, Which Was Uttered Before the "Eternal Times." I own that I do not know what ages passed before the human race was created, yet I have no doubt that no created thing is co-eternal with the Creator. But even the apostle speaks of time as eternal, and this with r…
1,199 wordsSECTION 178Chapter 18.--Against Those Who Assert that Things that are Infinite [555] Cannot Be Comprehended by the Knowledge of God.
Chapter 18.--Against Those Who Assert that Things that are Infinite [555] Cannot Be Comprehended by the Knowledge of God. As for their other assertion, that God's knowledge cannot comprehend things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm, in order that they may sound the depths of their impiety, that God does not know all …
2,446 wordsSECTION 179Chapter 21.--That There Was Created at First But One Individual, and that the Human Race Was Created in Him.
And now that we have exploded these cycles which were supposed to bring back the soul at fixed periods to the same miseries, what can seem more in accordance with godly reason than to believe that it is possible for God both to create new things never before created, and in doing so, to preserve His will unaltered? But whether t…
887 wordsSECTION 180Chapter 23.--Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God.
Chapter 23.--Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God. God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the creatures of earth, air, and sea, which were not so gifted. And when He had formed the man out of the dust of the eart…
1,336 wordsSECTION 181Chapter 26.--Of that Opinion of the Platonists, that the Angels Were Themselves Indeed Created by God, But that Afterwards They Created Man's Body.
Chapter 26.--Of that Opinion of the Platonists, that the Angels Were Themselves Indeed Created by God, But that Afterwards They Created Man's Body. It is obvious, that in attributing the creation of the other animals to those inferior gods who were made by the Supreme, he meant it to be understood that the immortal part was tak…
913 wordsSECTION 182Book XIII.
Book XIII. ------------------------ Argument--In this book it is taught that death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin. Chapter 1.--Of the Fall of the First Man, Through Which Mortality Has Been Contracted. Having disposed of the very difficult questions concerning the origin of our world and the beginning of the huma…
731 wordsSECTION 183Chapter 3.--Whether Death, Which by the Sin of Our First Parents Has Passed Upon All Men, is the Punishment of Sin, Even to the Good.
Chapter 3.--Whether Death, Which by the Sin of Our First Parents Has Passed Upon All Men, is the Punishment of Sin, Even to the Good. But a question not to be shirked arises: Whether in very truth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the good? [579] For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a thing should be t…
1,215 wordsSECTION 184Chapter 5.--As the Wicked Make an Ill Use of the Law, Which is Good, So the Good Make a Good Use of Death, Which is an Ill.
Chapter 5.--As the Wicked Make an Ill Use of the Law, Which is Good, So the Good Make a Good Use of Death, Which is an Ill. The apostle, wishing to show how hurtful a thing sin is, when grace does not aid us, has not hesitated to say that the strength of sin is that very law by which sin is prohibited. "The sting of death is si…
1,093 wordsSECTION 185Chapter 8.--That the Saints, by Suffering the First Death for the Truth's Sake, are Freed from the Second.
Chapter 8.--That the Saints, by Suffering the First Death for the Truth's Sake, are Freed from the Second. For if we look at the matter a little more carefully, we shall see that even when a man dies faithfully and laudably for the truth's sake, it is still death he is avoiding. For he submits to some part of death, for the ver…
1,185 wordsSECTION 186Chapter 11.--Whether One Can Both Be Living and Dead at the Same Time.
Chapter 11.--Whether One Can Both Be Living and Dead at the Same Time. But if it is absurd to say that a man is in death before he reaches death (for to what is his course running as he passes through life, if already he is in death?), and if it outrage common usage to speak of a man being at once alive and dead, as much as it …
1,075 wordsSECTION 187Chapter 12.--What Death God Intended, When He Threatened Our First Parents with Death If They Should Disobey His Commandment.
Chapter 12.--What Death God Intended, When He Threatened Our First Parents with Death If They Should Disobey His Commandment. When, therefore, it is asked what death it was with which God threatened our first parents if they should transgress the commandment they had received from Him, and should fail to preserve their obedienc…
702 wordsSECTION 188Chapter 15.--That Adam in His Sin Forsook God Ere God Forsook Him, and that His Falling Away From God Was the First Death of the Soul.
Chapter 15.--That Adam in His Sin Forsook God Ere God Forsook Him, and that His Falling Away From God Was the First Death of the Soul. It may perhaps be supposed that because God said, "Ye shall die the death," [595] and not "deaths," we should understand only that death which occurs when the soul is deserted by God, who is its…
1,393 wordsSECTION 189Chapter 17.--Against Those Who Affirm that Earthly Bodies Cannot Be Made Incorruptible and Eternal.
Chapter 17.--Against Those Who Affirm that Earthly Bodies Cannot Be Made Incorruptible and Eternal. These same philosophers further contend that terrestrial bodies cannot be eternal though they make no doubt that the whole earth, which is itself the central member of their god,--not, indeed, of the greatest, but yet of a great …
891 wordsSECTION 190Chapter 18.--Of Earthly Bodies, Which the Philosophers Affirm Cannot Be in Heavenly Places, Because Whatever is of Earth is by Its Natural Weight Attracted to Earth.
Chapter 18.--Of Earthly Bodies, Which the Philosophers Affirm Cannot Be in Heavenly Places, Because Whatever is of Earth is by Its Natural Weight Attracted to Earth. But it is necessary, they say, that the natural weight of earthly bodies either keeps them on earth or draws them to it; and therefore they cannot be in heaven. Ou…
713 wordsSECTION 191Chapter 19.--Against the Opinion of Those Who Do Not Believe that the Primitive Men Would Have Been Immortal If They Had Not Sinned.
Chapter 19.--Against the Opinion of Those Who Do Not Believe that the Primitive Men Would Have Been Immortal If They Had Not Sinned. At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some explanation regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say then, that, except as the just consequence of sin, they would not have been sub…
843 wordsSECTION 192Chapter 20.--That the Flesh Now Resting in Peace Shall Be Raised to a Perfection Not Enjoyed by the Flesh of Our First Parents.
Chapter 20.--That the Flesh Now Resting in Peace Shall Be Raised to a Perfection Not Enjoyed by the Flesh of Our First Parents. Thus the souls of departed saints are not affected by the death which dismisses them from their bodies, because their flesh rests in hope, no matter what indignities it receives after sensation is gone…
1,082 wordsSECTION 193Chapter 22.--That the Bodies of the Saints Shall After the Resurrection Be Spiritual, and Yet Flesh Shall Not Be Changed into Spirit.
Chapter 22.--That the Bodies of the Saints Shall After the Resurrection Be Spiritual, and Yet Flesh Shall Not Be Changed into Spirit. The bodies of the righteous, then, such as they shall be in the resurrection, shall need neither any fruit to preserve them from dying of disease or the wasting decay of old age, nor any other ph…
2,441 wordsSECTION 194They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be called a man; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone, but a being composed of b
They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be called a man; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone, but a being composed of both. This, indeed, is true, that the soul is not the whole man, but the better part of man; the body not the whole, but the inferior part of man; and that then, when both are joined, they re…
2,203 wordsSECTION 195Book XIV. [638]
[635] Ecclus. xxiv. 3. [636] Rev. iii. 16. [637] 1 Cor. xv. 44-49. Book XIV. [638] ------------------------ Argument--Augustin 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 pu…
1,284 wordsSECTION 196Chapter 3.--That the 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.
Chapter 3.--That the 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 care…
795 wordsSECTION 197Chapter 4.--What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God.
Chapter 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 ow…
1,435 wordsSECTION 198Chapter 6.--Of the Character of the Human Will Which Makes the Affections of the Soul Right or Wrong.
Chapter 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,…
1,222 wordsSECTION 199Chapter 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.
Chapter 8.--Of the Three Perturbations, Which the Stoics Admitted in the Soul of the Wise Man to the Exclusion of Grief or Sadness, Which the Manly Mind Ought Not to Experience. Those emotions which the Greeks call eupatheiai, and which Cicero calls constantioe, the Stoics would restrict to three; and, instead of three "perturb…
1,324 wordsSECTION 200Chapter 9.--Of the Perturbations of the Soul Which Appear as Right Affections in the Life of the Righteous.
Chapter 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 [687] of this work, showing that it is rather a verbal than a real dispute, and that they seek contention …
2,154 wordsSource & rights
Historical text source: Christian Classics Ethereal Library. The downloaded text itself records Public Domain.