BOOK XV.
                                
                            ARGUMENT.
                                
     HAVING TREATED IN THE FOUR PRECEDING BOOKS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE
TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY, AUGUSTINE EXPLAINS THEIR
GROWTH AND PROGRESS IN THE FOUR BOOKS WHICH FOLLOW; AND, IN ORDER
TO DO SO, HE EXPLAINS THE CHIEF PASSAGES OF THE SACRED HISTORY WHICH
BEAR UPON THIS SUBJECT. IN THIS FIFTEENTH BOOK HE OPENS THIS PART OF
HIS WORK BY EXPLAINING THE EVENTS RECORDED IN GENESIS FROM THE TIME
OF CAIN AND ABEL TO THE DELUGE.

     CHAP. 1.--OF THE TWO LINES OF THE HUMAN RACE WHICH FROM FIRST TO
LAST DIVIDE IT.

    OF the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life of our first parents there, and of their
sin and punishment, many have thought much, spoken much, written much. We ourselves, too,
have spoken of these things in the foregoing books, and have written either what we read in the
Holy Scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from them. And were we to enter into a
more detailed investigation of these matters, an endless number of endless questions would arise,
which would involve us in a larger work than the present occasion admits. We cannot be expected
to find room for replying to every question that may be started by unoccupied and captious men,
who are ever more ready to ask questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I trust
we have already done justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the
world, or of the soul, or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed into two parts, the
one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God.
And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one
is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the
devil. This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have
said enough about their origin, whether among the angels, whose numbers we know not, or in the
two first human beings, it seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the time
when our two first parents began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease. For
this whole time or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who are born succeed, is
the career of these two cities concerning which we treat.
    Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first-born, and he belonged to
the city of men; after him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For as in the individual
the truth of the apostle's statement is discerned, "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which
is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,"(1) whence it comes to pass that each man, being
derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal, and becomes good
and spiritual only afterwards, when he is grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the
human race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths and
births, the citizen of this world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this world, the
citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and
by grace a citizen above. By grace,--for so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass,
all of  which is condemned in its origin: but God,

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like a potter (for this comparison is introduced by the apostle judiciously, and not without
thought), of the same lump made one vessel to honor, another to dishonor.(1) But first the vessel
to dishonor was made, and after it another to honor. For in each individual, as I have already said,
there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from which we must begin, but in which we need
not necessarily remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved, to which we may by advancing
attain, and in which, when we have reached it we may abide. Not, indeed, that every wicked man
shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not first of all wicked
but the sooner any one becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and
abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city,(2) but
Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the saints is above, although here below it
begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together
all in the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which
they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.

CHAP. 2.--OF THE CHILDREN OF THE FLESH AND THE CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE.

    There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a symbol and foreshadowing image of this
city, which served the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be rather than of making
it present; and this image was itself called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though not
itself the reality. Of this city which served as an image, and of that free city it typified, Paul writes
to the Galatians in these terms: "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the
law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free
woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman
was by promise. Which things are an allegory:(3) for these are the two covenants; the one from
the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in
Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou
barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not for the desolate hath many
more children than she  which hath an husband. Now we, brethren,  as Isaac was, are the children
of promise.  But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the
Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bond woman and
her son: for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And we,
brethren, are not children of the bond woman, but of the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free."(4) This interpretation of the passage, handed down to us with apostolic authority,
shows how we ought to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants--the old and the new.
One portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly city, not having a significance of
its own, but signifying another city, and therefore serving, or" being in bondage." For it was
founded not for its own sake, but to prefigure another city; and this shadow of a city was also
itself foreshadowed by another preceding figure. For Sarah's handmaid Agar, and her son, were an
image of this image. And as the shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah, the
free woman, who prefigured the free city (which again was also prefigured in another way by that
shadow of a city Jerusalem), therefore said, "Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of
the bond woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac," or, as the apostle says, "with the son of the
free woman." In the earthly city, then, we find two things--its own obvious presence, and its
symbolic presentation of the heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature
vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are
called "vessels of wrath," the latter "vessels of mercy."(5) And this was typified in the two sons of
Abraham,--Ishmael, the son of Agar the handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac
was born of the free woman Sarah, according to the promise. Both, indeed, were of Abraham's
seed; but the one was begotten by natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the
one birth, human action is revealed; in the other, a divine kindness comes to light.

CHAP, 3.--THAT SARAH'S BARRENNESS  WAS
   MADE PRODUCTIVE BY GOD'S GRACE.

    Sarah, in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and being resolved that she would have
at least through her handmaid that blessing she saw she could not in her own person

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procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband, to whom she herself had been unable to bear
children. From him she required this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another's womb.
And thus Ishmael was born according to the common law of human generation, by sexual
intercourse. Therefore it is said that he was born "according to the flesh,"--not because such births
are not the gifts of God, nor His handiwork, whose creative wisdom" reaches," as it is written,
"from one end to another mightily, and sweetly cloth she order all things,"(1) but because, in a
case in which the gift of God, which was not due to men and was the gratuitous largess of grace,
was to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given in a way which no effort of nature
could compass. Nature denies children to persons of the age which Abraham and Sarah had now
reached; besides that, in Sarah's case, she was barren even in her prime. This nature, so
constituted that offspring could not be looked for, symbolized the nature of the human race
vitiated by sin and by just consequence condemned. which deserves no future felicity. Fitly,
therefore, does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children of grace, the citizens of the free
city, who dwell together in everlasting peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a
ministering love that rejoices in the common joy
all, of many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect concord.

              CHAP. 4.--OF THE CONFLICT AND PEACE OF THE
                             EARTHLY CITY.

    But the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it will no longer be a city when it has
been committed to the extreme penalty), has its good in this world, and rejoices in it with such joy
as such things can afford. But as this is not a good which can discharge its devotees of all
distresses, this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and such victories
as are either life-destroying or short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another part of it
seeks to triumph over the nations through itself in bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is
inflated with pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts upon the common
casualties of our mortal condition, and is rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it
than elated with the successes already achieved, this victory, though of a higher kind, is still only
shot-lived; for it cannot abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated. But the
things which this city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better
than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and
it makes war in order to attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there remains no one
to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not while there were opposing parties who contested for
the enjoyment of those things which were too small to satisfy both. This peace is purchased by
toilsome wars; it is obtained by what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains
with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor, and style  it a
desirable peace?  These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God. But if
they neglect the better things of the heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace
never-ending, and so inordinately covet these present good things that they believe them to be the
only desirable things, or love them better than those things which are believed to be better,--if this
be so, then it is necessary that misery follow and ever increase.

     CHAP. 5.--OF THE FRATRICIDAL ACT OF THE FOUNDER OF THE EARTHLY
CITY, AND THE CORRESPONDING CRIME OF THE FOUNDER OF ROME.

    Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide. Overcome with envy, he slew his own
brother, a citizen of the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot be surprised that
this first specimen, or, as the Greeks say, archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a
corresponding crime at the foundation of that city which was destined to reign over so many
nations, and be the head of this earthly city of which we speak. For of that city also, as one of
their poets has mentioned, "the first walls were stained with a brother's blood,"(2) or, as Roman
history records, Remus was slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference between
the foundation of this city and of the earthly city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both
citizens of the earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding the Roman republic, but
both could not have as much glory as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have the glory
of ruling would certainly rule less if his power were shared by a living consort. In order, therefore,
that the whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed; and by this crime the
empire was made larger indeed,

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but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but better. Now these brothers, Cain and
Abel, were not both animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer envy the other
because he feared that, by both ruling, his own dominion would be curtailed,--for Abel was not
solicitous to rule in that city which his brother built,--he was moved by that diabolical, envious
hatred with which the evil regard the good, for no other reason than because they are good while
themselves are evil. For the possession of goodness is by no means diminished by being shared
with a partner either permanent or temporarily assumed; on the contrary, the possession of
goodness is increased in proportion to the concord and charity of each of those who share it. In
short, he who is unwilling to share this possession cannot have it; and he who is most willing to
admit others to a share of it will have the greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel, then,
between Romulus and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided against itself; that which fell
out between Cain and Abel illustrated the hatred that subsists between the two cities, that of God
and that of men. The wicked war with the wicked; the good also war with the wicked. But with
the good, good men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war; though, while only going on
towards perfection, they war to this extent, that every good man resists others in those points in
which he resists himself. And in each individual "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh."(1) This spiritual lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal lust of another
man; or carnal lust may be at war with the spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good
and wicked men are at war; or, still more certainly, the carnal lusts of two men, good but not yet
perfect, contend together, just as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health of those
who are under the treatment of grace attains final victory.

     CHAP. 6.--OF THE WEAKNESSES WHICH EVEN THE CITIZENS OF THE CITY
OF GOD SUFFER DURING THIS EARTHLY PILGRIMAGE IN PUNISHMENT OF SIN,
AND OF WHICH THEY ARE HEALED BY GOD'S CARE.

    This sickliness--that is to say, that disobedience of which we spoke in the fourteenth book--is
the punishment of the first disobedience. It is therefore not nature, but vice; and therefore it is said
to the good who are growing in grace, and living in this pilgrimage by faith, "Bear ye one
another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."(2) In like manner it is said elsewhere, "Warn
them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sup port the weak, be patient toward all men.
See  that none render evil for evil unto any man."(3)  And in another place, "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."(4) And elsewhere, "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."(5)
And in the Gospel, "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between
thee and him alone."(6) So too of sins which may create scandal the apostle says, "Them that sin
rebuke before all, that others also may fear."(7) For this purpose, and that we may keep that
peace without which no man can see the Lord,(8) many precepts are given which carefully
inculcate  mutual forgiveness; among which we may  number that terrible word in which the
servant is ordered to pay his formerly remitted debt of ten thousand talents, because he did not
remit to his fellow-servant his debt of two hundred pence. To which parable the Lord Jesus added
the words, "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive
not every one his brother."(9) It is thus the citizens of the city of God are healed while still they
sojourn in this earth and sigh for the peace of their heavenly country. The Holy Spirit, too, works
within, that the medicine externally applied may have some good result. Otherwise, even though
God Himself make use of the creatures that are subject to Him, and in some human form address
our human senses, whether we receive those impressions in sleep or in some external appearance,
still, if He does not by His own inward grace sway and act upon the mind, no preaching of the
truth is of any avail. But this God does, distinguishing between the vessels of wrath and the
vessels of mercy, by His own very secret but very just providence. When He Himself aids the soul
in His own hidden and wonderful ways, and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the
apostle teaches,  rather the punishment of sin, does not reign  in our mortal body to obey the lusts
of it, and when we no longer yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness,(10) then the
soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires, and, God possessing it, it possesses itself in
peace even in this life, and afterwards, with perfected health and endowed with im-

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mortality, will reign without sin in peace everlasting.

CHAP. 7.--OF THE CAUSE OF CAIN'S CRIME
     HIS OBSTINACY, WHICH NOT EVEN THE WORD OF GOD COULD SUBDUE.

    But though God made use of this very mode of address which we have been endeavoring to
explain, and spoke to Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate Himself to our
first parents and converse with them as a companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he
not fulfill his wicked intention of killing his brother even after he was warned by God's voice? For
when God had made a distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain's, regarding Abel's,
which was doubtless intimated by some visible sign to that effect; and when God had done so
because the works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain was very wroth, and
his countenance fell. For thus it is written: "And the Lord said unto Cain, Why are thou wroth,
and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast
thou not sinned? Fret not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him."
In this admonition administered by God to Cain, that clause indeed, "If thou offerest rightly, but
dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?" is obscure, inasmuch as it is not apparent for
what reason or purpose it was spoken, and many meanings have been put upon it, as each one
who discusses it attempts to interpret it according to the rule of faith. The truth is, that a sacrifice
is "rightly offered" when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone we must sacrifice. And it is
"not rightly distinguished" when we do not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials of
the offering, or the person offering, or the person to whom it is presented, or those to whom it is
distributed for food after the oblation. Distinguishing(2) is here used for discriminating,--whether
when an offering is made in a place where it ought not or of a material which ought to be offered
not there but elsewhere; or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or of a material suitable not
then but at some other time; or when that is offered which in no place nor any time ought to be
offered; or when a man keeps to himself choicer specimens of the same kind than he offers to
God; or when he or any other who may not lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation. In
which of these particulars Cain displeased God, it is difficult to determine. But the Apostle John,
speaking of these brothers, says, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.
And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous."(3)
He thus gives us to understand that God did not respect his offering because it was not rightly
"distinguished" in this, that he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself. For
this all do who follow not God's will but their own, who live not with an upright but a crooked
heart, and yet offer to God such gifts as they suppose will procure from Him that He aid them not
by healing but by gratifying their evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly city,
that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously and peacefully on earth not
through love of doing good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that they may enjoy
God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would fain use God,--those of
them, at least, who have attained to the belief that He is and takes an interest in human affairs. For
they who have not yet attained even to this belief are still at a much lower level. Cain, then, when
he saw that God had respect to his brother's sacrifice, but not to his own, should have humbly
chosen his good brother as his example, and not proudly counted him his rival. But he was wroth,
and his countenance fell. This angry regret for another person's goodness, even his brother's, was
charged upon him by God as a great sin. And He accused him of it in the interrogation, "Why are
thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen?" For God saw that he envied his brother, and of
this He accused him. For to men, from whom the heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful
and quite uncertain whether that sadness bewailed his own wickedness by which, as he had
learned, he had displeased God, or his brother's goodness, which had pleased God, and won His
favorable regard to his sacrifice. But God, in giving the reason why He refused to accept Cain's
offering and why Cain should rather have been displeased at himself than at his brother, shows
him that though he was unjust in "not rightly distinguishing," that is, not rightly living and being
unworthy to have his offering received, he was more unjust by far in hating his just brother
without a cause.
    Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. "Fret not
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thyself," He says, "for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shall rule over him." Over his
brother, does He mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then, but sin? For He had said, "Thou hast
sinned," and then He added, "Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and thou shall rule
over it."(1)  And the "turning" of sin to the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt
of sin can be laid at no other man's door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of
penitence, and the fit plea for pardon; so that, when it is said, "To thee its turning," we must not
supply "shall be," but we must read, "To thee let its turning be," understanding it as a command,
not as a prediction. For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does not prefer it to himself and
defend it, but subjects it by repentance; otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely
become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that carnal concupiscence of which the
apostle says, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit,"(3) among the fruits of which lust he names
envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited to destroy his brother, then we may properly
supply the words "shall be," and read, "To thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it."
For when the carnal part which the apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, "It is not I who
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,"(3) that part which the philosophers also call vicious, and which
ought not to lead the mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit
motions,--when, then, this part has been moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and
if it obey the word of the apostle, "Yield not your members instruments of unrighteousness unto
sin,"(4) it is turned towards the mind and subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it
as a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against
his brother, so that he sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set as an example.
"Fret not thyself," or compose thyself, He says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in
your mortal body to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, nor yield your members instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin. "For to thee shall be its turning," so long as you do not encourage it by
giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire. "And thou shall rule over it;" for when it is not
allowed any external actings, it yields itself to the rule of the governing mind and righteous will,
and ceases from even internal motions. There is something similar said in the same divine book of
the woman, when God questioned and judged them after their sin, and pronounced sentence on
them all,--the devil in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in their own persons.
For when He had said to her, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
shall thou bring forth children," then He added, "and thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee."(5) What is said to Cain about his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence of
his flesh, is here said of the woman who had sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is
to rule his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the apostle, "He that loveth his
wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh."(6) This flesh, then, is to be healed,
because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned to destruction as if it were alien to our
nature. But Cain received that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did not wish to amend. In
fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him; and, having entrapped his brother, he slew him. Such
was the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure of the Jews who slew Christ the
Shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured by Abel the shepherd of sheep: but as this is an
allegorical and prophetical matter, I forbear to explain it now; besides, I remember that I have
made some remarks upon it in writing against Faustus the Manichaean.(7)

     CHAP. 8.--WHAT CAIN'S REASON WAS FOR BUILDING A CITY SO EARLY IN
THE HlSTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

    At present it is the history which I aim at defending, that Scripture may not be reckoned
incredible when it relates that one man built a city at a time in which there seem to have been but
four men upon earth, or rather indeed but three, after one brother slew the other,--to wit, the first
man the father of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch, by whose name the city was itself
called. But they who are moved by this consideration forget to take into account that the writer of
the sacred history does not necessarily mention all the men who might be alive at that time, but
those only whom the scope of his work required him to name. The design of that writer (who in
this matter was the instrument of the Holy Ghost) was to descend to Abraham

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through the successions of ascertained generations propagated from one man, and then to pass
from Abraham's seed to the people of God, in whom, separated as they were from other nations,
was prefigured and predicted all that relates to the city whose reign is eternal, and to its king and
founder Christ, which things were foreseen in the Spirit as destined to come; yet neither is this
object so effected as that nothing is said of the other society of men which we call the earthly city,
but mention is made of it so far as seemed needful to enhance the glory of the heavenly city by
contrast to its opposite. Accordingly, when the divine Scripture, in mentioning the number of
years which those men lived, concludes its account of each man of whom it speaks, with the
words, "And he begat sons and daughters, and all his days were so and so, and he died," are we to
understand that, because it does not name those sons and daughters, therefore, during that long
term of years over which one lifetime extended in those early days, there might not have been
born very many men, by whose united numbers not one but several cities might have been built?
But it suited the purpose of God, by whose inspiration these histories were composed, to arrange
and distinguish from the first these two societies in their several generations,--that on the one side
the generations of men, that is to say, of those who live according to man, and on the other side
the generations of the sons of God, that is to say, of men living according to God, might be traced
down together and yet apart from one another as far as the deluge, at which point their
dissociation and association are exhibited: their dissociation, inasmuch as the generations of both
lines are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending from the fratricide Cain, the other
from Seth, who had been born to Adam instead of him whom his brother slew; their association,
inasmuch as the good so deteriorated that the whole race became of such a character that it was
swept away by the deluge, with the exception of one just man, whose name was Noah, and his
wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law, which eight persons were alone deemed worthy to
escape from that desolating visitation which destroyed all men.
    Therefore, although it is written, "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch,
and he builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch,"(1) it does
not follow that we are to believe this to have been his first-born; for we cannot suppose that this is
proved by the expression "he knew his wife," as if then for the first time he had had intercourse
with her. For in the case of Adam, the father of all, this expression is used not only when Cain,
who seems to have been his first-born, was conceived, but also afterwards the same Scripture
says, "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Seth."(2)
Whence it is obvious that Scripture employs this expression neither always when a birth is
recorded nor then only when the birth of a first-born is mentioned. Neither is it necessary to
suppose that Enoch was Cain's first-born because he named his city after him, For it is quite
possible that though he had other sons, yet tot some reason the father loved him more than the
rest. Judah was not the first-born, though he gives his name to Judaea and the Jews. But even
though Enoch was the first-born of the city's founder, that is no reason for supposing that the
father named the city after him as soon as he was born; for at that time he, being but a solitary
man, could not have founded a civic community, which is nothing else than a multitude of men
bound together by some associating tie. But when his family increased to such numbers that he
had quite a population, then it became possible to him both to build a city, and give it, when
founded, the name of his son. For so long was the life of those antediluvians, that he who lived the
shortest time of those whose years are mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of 753 years.(3)
And though no one attained the age of a thousand years, several exceeded the age of nine
hundred. Who then can doubt that during the lifetime of one man the human race might be so
multiplied that there would be a population to build and occupy not one but several cities? And
this might very readily be conjectured from the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much
more than four hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew race so increased, that in the exodus of
that people from Egypt there are recorded to have been six hundred thousand men capable of
bearing arms,(4) and this over and above the Idumaeans, who, though not numbered with Israel's
descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also a grandson of Abraham; and over and above
the other nations which were of the same stock of Abraham, though not through Sarah,--that is,
his descendants by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc.

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     CHAP. 9.--OF THE LONG LIFE AND GREATER STATURE OF THE
ANTEDILUVIANS.

    Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city,
and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps
some sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the
antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men's
bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the
same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong
man of those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--

"Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
    That weight could on their necks uphold."(1)

thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent
times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the
primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either
through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of
incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the
shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we
have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some
giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all
in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances
of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains
that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men.(2) And he mentions that
Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical
figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as
I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the
ancients,(3) and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an
antediluvian's life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on
this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we are
the more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future.
And even that same Pliny(4) tells us that there is still a nation in which men live 200 years. If,
then, in places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond
our own experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are
we to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other
times there has been anything but what is now?

     CHAP. 10.--OF THE DIFFERENT COMPUTATION OF THE AGES OF THE
ANTEDILUVIANS, GIVEN BY THE HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS AND BY OUR OWN.(5)

    Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account between our
manuscripts and the Hebrew, in the very number of years assigned to the antediluvians, yet the
discrepancy is not so great that they do not agree about their longevity. For the very first man,
Adam, before he begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived 230 years, but in
the Hebrew mss. 130. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the
Hebrew give 800. And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the sum agrees. And so
throughout the succeeding generations, the period before the father begets a son is always made
shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew, but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years
in the Hebrew than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together, the result is the same
in both. And in the sixth generation there is no discrepancy at all. In the seventh, however, of
which Enoch is the representative, who is recorded to have been translated without death because
he pleased God, there is the same discrepancy as in the first five generations, 100 years more
being ascribed to him by our mss. before he begat a son. But still the result agrees; for according
to both documents he lived before he was translated 365 years. In the eighth generation the
discrepancy is less than in the others, and of a different kind. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begat,
lived, before he begat his successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according to the
Hebrew reading; and in our

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MSS. again these years are added to the period after he begat his son; so that in this case also the
sum-total is the same. And it is only in the ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech,
Methuselah's son and Noah's father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum total; and even in this
case it is slight. For the Hebrew MSS. represent him as living twenty-four years more than ours
assign to him. For before he begat his son, who was called Noah, six years fewer are given to him
by the Hebrew MSS. than by ours; but after he begat this son, they give him thirty years more
than ours; so that, deducting the former six, there remains, as we said, a surplus of twenty-four.

     CHAP. 11.--OF METHUSELAH'S AGE, WHICH SEEMS TO EXTEND FOURTEEN
YEARS BEYOND THE DELUGE.

    From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our own arises the well-known question
as to the age of Methuselah;(1) for it is computed that he lived for fourteen years after the deluge,
though Scripture relates that of all who were then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark
escaped destruction by the flood, and of these Methuselah was not one. For, according to our
books, Methuselah, before he begat the son whom he called Lamech, lived 167 years; then
Lamech himself, before his son Noah was born, lived 188 years, which together make 355 years.
Add to these the age of Noah at the date of the deluge, 600 years, and this gives a total of 955
from the birth of Methuselah to the year of the flood. Now all the years of the life of Methuselah
are computed to be 969; for when he had lived 167 years, and had begotten his son Lamech, he
then lived after this 802 years, which makes a total, as we said, of 969 years. From this, if we
deduct 955 years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood, there remains fourteen years, which
he is supposed to have lived after the flood. And therefore some suppose that, though he was not
on earth (in which it is agreed that every living thing which could not naturally live in water
perished), he was for a time with his father, who had been translated, and that he lived there till
the flood had passed away. This hypothesis they adopt, that they may not cast a slight on the
trustworthiness of versions which the Church has received into a position of high authority,(2)
and because they believe that the Jewish MSS. rather than our own are in error. For they do not
admit that this is a mistake of the translators, but maintain that there is a falsified statement in the
original, from which, through the Greek, the Scripture has been translated into our own tongue.
They say that it is not credible that the seventy translators, who simultaneously and unanimously
produced one rendering, could have erred, or, in a case in which no interest of theirs was
involved, could have falsified their translation; but that the Jews, envying us our translation of
their Law and Prophets, have made alterations in their texts so as to undermine the authority of
ours. This opinion or suspicion let each man adopt according to his own judgment. Certain it is
that Methuselah did not survive the flood, but died in the very year it occurred, if the numbers
given in the Hebrew MSS. are true. My own opinion regarding the seventy translators I will, with
God's help, state more carefully in its own place, when I have come down (following the order
which this work requires) to that period in which their translation was executed.(3) For the
present question, it is enough that, according to our versions, the men of that age had lives so
long as to make it quite possible that, during the lifetime of the first-born of the two sole parents
then on earth, the human race multiplied sufficiently to form a community.

     CHAP. 12.--OF THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IN
THESE PRIMITIVE, TIMES MEN LIVED SO LONG AS IS STATED.

    For they are by no means to be listened to who suppose that in those times years were
differently reckoned, and were so short that one of our years may be supposed to be equal to ten
of theirs. So that they say, when we read or hear that some man lived 900 years, we should
understand ninety, ten of those years making but one of ours, and ten of ours equalling 100 of
theirs. Consequently, as they suppose, Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth,
and Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when his son Enos was born, though the
Scripture calls these months 205 years. For, on the hypothesis of those whose opinion we are
explaining, it was customary to divide one such year as we have into ten parts, and to call each
part a year. And each of these parts was composed of six days squared; because God finished His
works in six days, that He might rest the seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability in the
eleventh book.(4) Now six squared, or six times six, gives thirty-six days; and this multiplied by
ten amounts to

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360 days, or twelve. lunar months. As for the five remaining days which are needed to complete
the solar year, and for the fourth part of a day, which requires that into every fourth or leap-year a
day be added, the ancients added such days as the Romans used to call "intercalary," in order to
complete the number of the years. So that Enos, Seth's son, was nineteen years old when his son
Cainan was born, though Scripture calls these years 190. And so through all the generations in
which the ages of the antediluvians are given, we find in our versions that almost no one begat a
son at the age of 100 or under/or even at the age of 120 or thereabouts; but the youngest fathers
are recorded to have been 160 years old and upwards. And the reason of this, they say, is that no
one can beget children when he is ten years old, the age spoken of by those men as 100, but that
sixteen is the age of puberty, and competent now to propagate offspring; and this is the age called
by them 160. And that it may not be thought incredible that in these days the year was differently
computed from our own, they adduce what is recorded by several writers of history, that the
Egyptians had a year of four months, the Acarnanians of six, and the Lavinians of thirteen
months.(1) The younger Pliny, after mentioning that some writers reported that one man had lived
152 years, another ten more, others 200, others 300, that some had even reached 500 and 600,
and a few 800 years of age, gave it as his opinion that all this must be ascribed to mistaken
computation. For some, he says, make summer and winter each a year; others make each season a
year, like the Arcadians, whose years, he says, were of three months. He added, too, that the
Egyptians, of whose little years of four months we have spoken already, sometimes terminated
their year at the wane of each moon; so that with them there are produced lifetimes of 1000 years.
    By these plausible arguments certain persons, with no desire to weaken the credit of this sacred
history, but rather to facilitate belief in it by removing the difficulty of such incredible longevity,
have been themselves persuaded, and think they act wisely in persuading others, that in these days
the year was so brief that ten of their years equal but one of ours, while ten of ours equal 100 of
theirs. But there is the plainest evidence to show that this is quite false. Before producing this
evidence, however, it seems right to mention a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the
Hebrew manuscripts we could at once refute this confident statement; for in them Adam is found
to have lived not 230 but 130 years before he begat his third son. If, then, this mean thirteen years
by our ordinary computation, then he must have begotten his first son when he was only twelve or
thereabouts. Who can at this age beget children according to the ordinary and familiar course of
nature? But not to mention him, since it is possible he may have been able to beget his like as soon
as he was created,--for tt is not credible that he was created so little as our infants are,--not to
mention him, his son was not 205 years old when he begot Enos, as our versions have it, but 105,
and consequently, according to this idea, was not eleven years old. But what shall I say of his son
Cainan, who, though by our version 170 years old, was by the Hebrew text seventy when he beget
Mahalaleel? If seventy years in those times meant only seven of our years, what man of seven
years old begets children?

     CHAP. 13.--WHETHER, IN COMPUTING YEARS, WE OUGHT TO FOLLOW THE
HEBREW OR THE SEPTUAGINT.

    But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one of the Jews' lies. This, however, we
have disposed of above, showing that it cannot be that men of so just a reputation as the seventy
translators should have falsified their version. However, if I ask them which of the two is more
credible, that the Jewish nation, scattered far and wide, could have unanimously conspired to
forge this lie, and so, through envying others the authority of their Scriptures, have deprived
themselves of their verity; or that seventy men, who were also themselves Jews, shut up in one
place (for Ptolemy king of Egypt had got them together for this work), should have envied
foreign nations that same truth, and by common consent inserted these errors: who does not see
which can be more naturally and readily believed? But far be it from any prudent man to believe
either that the Jews, however malicious and wrong-headed, could have tampered with so many
and so widely-dispersed manuscripts; or that those renowned seventy individuals had any common
purpose to grudge the truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly maintain, that when
first their labors began to be transcribed from the copy in Ptolemy's library, some such
misstatement might find its way into the first copy made, and from it might be disseminated far
and wide; and that this might arise from no fraud, but from a mere copyist's error. This

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is a sufficiently plausible account of the difficulty regarding Methuselah's life, and of that other
case in which there is a difference in the total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in which
there is a methodical resemblance in the falsification, so that uniformly the one version allots to
the period before a son and successor is born 100 years more than the other, and to the period
subsequent 100 years less, and vice versa, so that the totals may agree,--and this holds true of the
first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generations,--in these cases error seems to have, if
we may say so, a certain kind of constancy, and savors not of accident, but of design.
    Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew from the Greek and
Latin copies of Scripture, and which consists of a uniform addition and deduction of 100 years in
each lifetime for several consecutive generations, is to be attributed neither to the malice of the
Jews nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy translators, but to the error of the copyist
who was first allowed to transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned king.
For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the easier comprehension or more
satisfactory knowledge of anything, they are both carelessly transcribed, and still more carelessly
emended. For who will trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several tribes of
Israel contained? He sees no resulting benefit of such knowledge. Or how many men are there
who are aware of the vast advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in which
during so many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript where they are not
reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the son and successor, the years which were
wanting are added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to
insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive number of years only because each year was
excessively brief, and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age
of puberty at which they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous might stumble at
the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that Too of their years equalled but ten of ours;
and this insinuation he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160 years
or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the period after the son's birth, that tim total
might harmonize. By this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age,
without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very
fact that in the sixth generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to
believe that when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he made them;
seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration. For in the same
generation he found in the Hebrew MS., that Jared lived before he begat Enoch 162 years, which,
according to the short year computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an
age capable of procreation; and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years, and so
make the age twenty-six years of the usual length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct,
after the son's birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus it comes to pass that in this
instance there is no variation between the two manuscripts.
    This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth generation, while the Hebrew
books assign 182(1) years to Methuselah before Lamech's birth, ours assign to him twenty less,
though usually 100 years are added to this period; then, after Lamech's birth, the twenty years are
restored, so as to equalize the total in the two books. For if his design was that these 170 years be
understood as seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was no need for him adding
anything, so there was none for his subtracting anything; for in this case he found an age fit for the
generation of children, for the sake. of which he was in the habit of adding those 100 years m
cases where he did not find the age already sufficient. This difference of twenty years we might,
indeed, have supposed had happened accidentally, had he not taken care to restore them
afterwards as he had deducted them from the period before, so that there might be no deficiency
in the total. Or are we perhaps to suppose that there was the still more astute design of concealing
the deliberate and uniform addition of 100 years to the first period and their deduction from the
subsequent period--did he design to conceal this by doing something similar, that is to say, adding
and deducting, not indeed a century, but some years, even in a case in which there was no need
for his doing so? But whatever may be thought of this, whether it be believed that he did so or
not, whether, in fine, it be so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any diversity is
found in the books, since both cannot be true to fact, we do well
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to believe in preference that language out of which the translation was made into another by
translators. For there are three Greek Mss., one Latin, and one Syriac, which agree with one
another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to have died six years before the deluge.

     CHAP. 14.--THAT THE YEARS IN THOSE ANCIENT TIMES WERE OF THE
SAME LENGTH AS OUR OWN.

    Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the enormously protracted lives of those
men the years were not so short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours, but were of
as great length as our own, which are measured by the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that
Scripture states that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah's life. But why in the
same place is it also written, "The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six hundredth
year of Noah's life, in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month,"(1) if that very
brief year (of which it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant a
year, if the ancient usage dignified it with the name of year, either has not months, or this month
must be three days, so that it may have twelve of them. How then was it here said, "In the six
hundredth year, the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month," unless the months then
were of the same length as the months now? For how else could it be said that the flood began on
the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards, at the end of the flood, it is thus
written: "And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the
mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the eleventh month: on the first
day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen."(2) But if the months were such as we
have, then so were the years. And certainly months of three days each could not have a
twenty-seventh day. Or if every measure of time was diminished in proportion, and a thirtieth part
of three days was then called a day, then that great deluge, which is recorded to have lasted forty
clays and forty nights, was really over in less than four of our days. Who can away with such
foolishness and absurdity? Far be this error from us,--an error which seeks to build up our fifth in
the divine Scriptures on false conjecture only to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that
the day then was what it now is, a space of four-and-twenty hours, determined by the lapse of day
and night; the month then equal to the month now, which is defined by the rise and completion of
one moon; the year then equal to the year now, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with
the addition of five days and a fourth to adjust it with the course of the sun. It was a year of this
length which was reckoned the six hundredth of Noah's life, and in the second month, the
twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began,--a flood which, as is recorded, was caused by
heavy rains continuing for forty days, which days had not only two hours and a little more, but
four, and-twenty hours, completing a night and a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived
more than 900 years, which were years as long as those which afterwards Abraham lived 175 of,
and after him his son Isaac 180, and his son Jacob nearly 150, and some time after, Moses 120,
and men now seventy or eighty, or not much longer, of which years it is said, "their strength is
labor and sorrow."(3)
    But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist between our own and the Hebrew text
does not touch the longevity of the ancients; and if there is any diversity so great that both
versions cannot be true, we must take our ideas of the real facts from that text out of which our
own version has been translated. However, though any one who pleases has it in his power to
correct this version, yet it is not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed to emend the
Septuagint from the Hebrew text in the many places where they seem to disagree. For this
difference has not been reckoned a falsification; and for my own part I am persuaded it ought not
to be reckoned so. But where the difference is not a mere copyist's error, and where the sense is
agreeable to truth and illustrative of truth, we must believe that the divine Spirit prompted them to
give a varying version, not in their function of translators, but in the liberty of prophesying. And
therefore we find that the apostles justly sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the
Hebrew when they adduce proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have promised to treat this subject
more carefully, if God help me, in a more fitting place, I will now go on with the matter in hand.
For there can be no doubt that, the lives of men being so long, the first-born of the first man could
have built a city,--a city, however, which was earthly, and not that which is called the city of God,
to describe which we have taken in hand this great work.

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     CHAP. 15.--WHETHER IT IS CREDIBLE THAT THE MEN OF THE PRIMITIVE
AGE ABSTAINED FROM SEXUAL INTERCOURSE UNTIL THAT DATE AT WHICH IT
]S RECORDED THAT THEY BEGAT CHILDREN.

    Some one, then, will say, Is it to be believe that a man who intended to beget children, and had
no intention of continence, abstained from sexual intercourse a hundred years and more, or even,
according to the Hebrew version, only a little less, say eighty, seventy, or sixty years; or, if he did
not abstain, was unable to beget offspring? This question admits of two solutions. For either
puberty was so much later as the whole life was longer, or, which seems to me more likely, it is
not the first-born sons that are here mentioned, but those whose names were required to fill up the
series until Noah was reached, from whom again we see that the succession is continued to
Abraham, and after him down to that point of time until which it was needful to mark by pedigree
the course of the most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this world, and seeks the
heavenly country. That which is undeniable is that Cain was the first who was born of man and
woman. For had he not been the first who was added by birth to the two unborn persons, Adam
could not have said what he is recorded to have said, "I have gotten a man by the Lord."(1) He
was followed by Abel, whom the eider brother slew, and who was the first to show by a kind of
foreshadowing of the sojourning city of God, what iniquitous persecutions that city would suffer
at the hands of wicked and, as it were, earth-born men, who love their earthly origin, and delight
in the earthly happiness of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he begat these sons does
not appear. After this the generations diverge, the one branch deriving from Cain, the other from
him whom Adam begot in the room of Abel slain by his brother, and whom he called Seth, saying,
as it is written, "For God hath raised me up another seed for Abel whom Cain slew."(2) These
two series of generations accordingly, the one of Cain, the other of Seth, represent the two cities
in their distinctive ranks, the one the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, the other the earthly,
which gapes after earthly joys, and grovels in them as if they were the only joys. But though eight
generations, including Adam, are registered before the flood, no man of Cain's line has his age
recorded at which the son who succeeded him was begotten. For the Spirit of God refused to
mark the times before the flood in the generations of the earthly city, but preferred to do so in the
heavenly line, as if it were more worthy of being remembered. Further, when Seth was born, the
age of his father is mentioned; but already he had begotten other sons, and who will presume to
say that Cain and Abel were the only ones previously begotten? For it does not follow that they
alone had been begotten of Adam, because they alone were named in order to continue the series
of generations which it was desirable to mention. For though the names of all the rest are buried
in silence, yet it is said that Adam begot sons and daughters; and who that cares to be free from
the charge of temerity will dare to say how many his offspring numbered? It was possible enough
that Adam was divinely prompted to say, after Seth was born, "For God hath raised up to me
another seed for Abel," because that son was to be capable of representing Abel's holiness, not
because he was born first after him in point of time. Then because it is written, "And Seth lived
205 years," or, according to the Hebrew reading, "105 years, and begat Enos,"(3) who but a rash
man could affirm that this was his first-born? Will any man do so to excite our wonder, and cause
us to inquire how for so many years he remained free from sexual intercourse, though without any
purpose of continuing so, or how, if he did not abstain, he yet had no children? Will any man do
so when it is written of him, "And he begat sons and daughters, and all the days of Seth were 912
years, and he died?"(4) And similarly regarding those whose years are afterwards mentioned, it is
not disguised that they begat sons and daughters.
    Consequently it does not at all appear whether he who is named as the son was himself the first
begotten. Nay, since it is incredible that those fathers were either so long in attaining puberty, or
could not get wives, or could not impregnate them, it is also incredible that those sons were their
first-born. But as the writer of the sacred history designed to descend by well-marked intervals
through a series of generations to the birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, he
mentioned not those sons who were first begotten, but those by whom the succession was handed
down.
    Let me make this clearer by here inserting an example, in regard to which no one can have any
doubt that what I am asserting is true. The evangelist Matthew, where he designs to commit to
our memories the generation of the Lord's flesh by a series of parents,

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beginning from Abraham and intending to reach David, says, "Abraham begat Isaac;"(1) why did
he not say Ishmael, whom he first begat? Then "Isaac begat Jacob;" why did he not say Esau, who
was the first-born? Simply because these sons would not have helped him to reach David. Then
follows, "And Jacob begat Judah and his brethren:" was Judah the first begotten? "Judah," he
says, "begat Pharez and Zara;" yet neither were these twins the first-born of Judah, but before
them he had begotten three other sons. And so in the order of the generations he retained those by
whom he might reach David, so as to proceed onwards to the end he had in view. And from this
we may understand that the antediluvians who are mentioned were not the first-born, but those
through whom the order of the succeeding generations might be carried on to the patriarch Noah.
We need not, therefore, weary ourselves with discussing the needless and obscure question as to
their lateness of reaching puberty.

     CHAP. 16.--OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN BLOOD-RELATIONS, IN REGARD TO
WHICH THE PRESENT LAW COULD NOT BIND THE MEN OF THE EARLIEST AGES.

    As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first marriage of the man who was made of
dust, and his wife who was made out of his side, required the union of males and females in order
that it might multiply, and as there were no human beings except those who had been born of
these two, men took their sisters for wives,--an act which was as certainly dictated by necessity in
these ancient days as afterwards it was condemned by the prohibitions of religion. For it is very
reasonable and just that men, among whom concord is honorable and useful, should be bound
together by various relationships; and one man should not himself sustain many relationships, but
that the various relationships should be distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind
together the greatest number in the same social interests. "Father" and "father-in-law" are the
names of two relationships. When, therefore, a man has one person for his father, another for his
father-in-law, friendship extends itself to a larger number. But Adam in his single person was
obliged to hold both relations to his sons and daughters, for brothers and sisters were united in
marriage. So too Eve his wife was both mother and mother-in-law to her children of both sexes;
while, had there been two women, one the mother, the other the mother-in-law, the family
affection would have had a wider field. Then the sister herself by becoming a wife sustained in her
single person two relationships, which, had they been distributed among individuals, one being
sister, and another being wife, the family tie would have embraced a greater number of persons.
But there was then no material for effecting this, since there were no human beings but the
brothers and sisters born of those two first parents. Therefore, when an abundant population made
it possible, men ought to choose for wives women who were not already their sisters; for not only
would there then be no necessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done; it would be most
abominable. For if the grandchildren of the first pair, being now able to choose their cousins for
wives, married their sisters, then it would no longer be only two but three relationships that were
held by one man, while each of these relationships ought to have been held by a separate
individual, so as to bind together by family affection a larger number. For one man would in that
case be both father, and father-in-law, and uncle(2) to his own children (brother and sister now
man and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and mother-in-law to them; and they
themselves would be not only brother and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also, being the
children of brother and sister. Now, all these relationships, which combined three men into one,
would have embraced nine persons had each relationship been held by one individual, so that a
man had one person for his sister, another his wife, another his cousin, another his father, another
his uncle, another his father-in-law, another his mother, another his aunt, another his
mother-in-law; and thus the social bond would not have been tightened to bind a few, but
loosened to embrace a larger number of relations.
    And we see that, since the human race has increased and multiplied, this is so strictly observed
even among the profane worshippers of many and false gods, that though their laws perversely
allow a brother to marry his sister,(3) yet custom, with a finer morality, prefers to forego this
license; and though it was quite allowable in the earliest ages of the human race to marry one's
sister, it is now abhorred as a thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom has very
great power either to attract or to shock human feeling. And in this matter, while it restrains
concupiscence

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within due bounds, the man who neglects and disobeys it is justly branded as abominable. For if it
is iniquitous to plough beyond our own boundaries through the greed of gain, is it not much more
iniquitous to transgress the recognized boundaries of morals through sexual lust? And with regard
to marriage in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage between cousins, we have observed that
in our own time the customary morality has prevented this from being frequent, though the law
allows it. It was not prohibited by divine law, nor as yet had human law prohibited it;
nevertheless, though legitimate, people shrank from it, because it lay so close to what was
illegitimate, and in marrying a cousin seemed almost to marry a sister,--for cousins are so closely
related that they are called brothers and sisters,' and are almost really so. But the ancient fathers,
fearing that near relationship might gradually in the course of generations diverge, and become
distant relationship, or cease to be relationship at all, religiously endeavored to limit it by the bond
of marriage before it became distant, and thus, as it were, to call it back when it was escaping
them. And on this account, even when the world was full of people, though they did not choose
wives from among their sisters or half-sisters, yet they preferred them to be of the same stock as
themselves. But who doubts that the modern prohibition of the marriage even of cousins is the
more seemly regulation--not merely on account of the reason we have been urging, the
multiplying of relationships, so that one person might not absorb two, which might be distributed
to two persons, and so increase the number of people bound together as a family, but also because
there is in human nature I know not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which
restrains us from desiring that connection which, though for propagation, is yet lustful and which
even conjugal modesty blushes over, with any one to whom consanguinity bids us render respect?
    The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the case of mortals a kind of seed-bed of
the city; but while the earthly city needs for its population only generation, the heavenly needs
also regeneration to rid it of the taint of generation. Whether before the deluge there was any
bodily or visible sign of regeneration, such as was afterwards enjoined upon Abraham when he
was circumcised, or what kind of sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But it does
inform us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed to God, as appeared also in the case of the
two first brothers; Noah, too, is said to have offered sacrifices to God when he had come forth
from the ark after the deluge. And concerning this subject we have already said in the foregoing
books that the devils arrogate to themselves divinity, and require sacrifice that they may be
esteemed gods, and delight in these honors on no other account than this, because they know that
true sacrifice is due to the true God.

CHAP. 17.--OF THE TWO FATHERS AND LEADERS WHO SPRANG FROM ONE
PROGENITOR.

    Since, then, Adam was the father of both lines,--the father, that is to say, both of the line which
belonged to the earthly, and of that which belonged to the heavenly city,--when Abel was slain,
and by his death exhibited a marvellous mystery, there were henceforth two lines proceeding from
two fathers, Cain and Seth, and in those sons of theirs, whom it behoved to register, the tokens of
these two cities began to appear more distinctly. For Cain begat Enoch, in whose name he built a
city, an earthly one, which was not from home in this world, but rested satisfied with its temporal
peace and happiness. Cain, too, means "possession;" wherefore at his birth either his father or
mother said," I have gotten a man through God." Then Enoch means "dedication;" for the earthly
city is dedicated in this world in which it is built, for in this world it finds the end towards which it
aims and aspires. Further, Seth signifies" resurrection," and Enos his son signifies "man," not as
Adam, which also signifies man, but is used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman, as it is
written, "Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam,"(2)
leaving no room to doubt that though the woman was distinctively called Eve, yet the name
Adam, meaning man, was common to both. But Enos means man in so restricted a sense, that
Hebrew linguists tell us it cannot be applied to woman: it is the equivalent of the "child of the
resurrection," when they, neither marry nor are given in marriage.(3) For there shall be no
generation in that place to which regeneration shall have brought us. Wherefore I think it not
immaterial to observe that in those generations which are propagated from him who is called Seth,
although daughters as well as sons are said to have been begotten, no woman is expressly
registered by name; but in those which sprang from Cain at the very termination to which the line
runs, the last person named as begotten is a woman.

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For we read, "Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the
one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of the
shepherds that dwell in tents. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as
handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in
brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah."(1) Here terminate all the generations of
Cain, being eight in number, including Adam,--to wit, seven from Adam to Lamech, who married
two wives, and whose children, among whom a woman also is named, form the eighth generation.
Whereby it is elegantly signified that the earthly city shall to its termination have carnal
generations proceeding from the intercourse of males and females. And therefore tile wives
themselves of the man who is the last named father of Cain's line, are registered in their own
names,--a practice nowhere followed before the deluge save in Eve's case. Now as Cain,
signifying possession, the founder of the earthly city, and his son Enoch, meaning dedication, in
whose name it was founded, indicate that this city is earthly both in its beginning and in its end,--a
city in which nothing more is hoped for than can be seen in this world,--so Seth, meaning
resurrection, and being the father of generations registered apart from the others, we must
consider what this sacred history says of his son.

     CHAP. 18.--THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ABEL, SETH, AND ENOS TO CHRIST AND
HIS BODY THE CHURCH.

    "And to Seth," it is said, "there was born a son, and he called his name Enos: he hoped to call
on the name of the Lord God."(2) Here we have a loud testimony to the truth. Man, then, the son
of the resurrection, lives in hope: he lives in hope as long as the city of God, which is begotten by
faith in the resurrection, sojourns in this world. For in these two men, Abel, signifying "grief," and
his brother Seth, signifying "resurrection," the death of Christ and His life from the dead are
prefigured. And by faith in these is begotten in this world the city of God, that is to say, the man
who has hoped to call on the name of the Lord. "For by hope," says the apostle, "we are saved:
but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."(3) Who can avoid referring this to a
profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God when his
sacrifice is mentioned in Scripture as having been accepted by God? Did not Seth himself hope to
call on the name of the Lord God, of whom it was said, "For God hath appointed me another seed
instead of Abel?" Why then is this which is found to be common to all the godly specially
attributed to Enos, unless because it was fit that in him, who is mentioned as the first-born of the
father of those generations which were separated to the better part of the heavenly city, there
should be a type of the man, or society of men, who live not according to man in contentment
with earthly felicity, but according to God in hope of everlasting, felicity? And it, was not said,
"He hoped in the Lord God," nor He called on the name of the Lord God," but" He hoped to call
on the name of the Lord God." And what does this "hoped to call" mean, unless it is a prophecy
that a people should arise who, according to the election of grace, would call on the name of the
Lord God? It is this which has been said by another prophet, and which the apostle interprets of
the people who belong to the grace of God: "And it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved."(4) For these two expressions, "And he called his name Enos,
which means man," and "He hoped to call on the name of the Lord God," are sufficient proof that
man ought not to rest his hopes in himself; as it is elsewhere written, "Cursed is the man that
trusteth in man."(5) Consequently no one ought to trust in himself that he shall become a citizen
of that other city which is not dedicated in the name of Cain's son in this present time, that is to
say, in the fleeting course of this mortal world, but in the immortality of perpetual blessedness.

             CHAP. 19.--THE SIGNIFICANCE OP ENOCH'S
                          TRANSLATION.

    For that line also of which Seth is the father has the name "Dedication" in the seventh
generation from Adam, counting Adam. For the seventh from him is Enoch, that is, Dedication.
But this is that man who was translated because he pleased God, and who held in the order of the
generations a remarkable place, being the seventh from Adam, a number signalized by the
consecration of the Sabbath. But, counting from the diverging point of the two lines, or from
Seth, he was the sixth Now it was on the sixth day God made man, and consummated His works.
But the translation of Enoch prefigured our

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deferred dedication; for though it is indeed already accomplished in Christ our Head, who so rose
again that He shall die no more, and who was Himself also translated, yet there remains another
dedication of the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the foundation, and this dedication is
deferred till the end, when all shall rise again to die no more. And whether it is the house of God,
or the temple of God, or the city of God, that is said to be dedicated, it is all the same, and equally
in accordance With the usage of the Latin language. For Virgil himself calls the city of widest
empire "the house of Assaracus,"(1) meaning the Romans, who were descended through the
Trojans from Assaracus. He also calls them the house of AEneas, because Rome was built by
those Trojans who had come to Italy under AEneas.(2) For that poet imitated the sacred writings,
in which the Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called the house of Jacob.

     CHAP. 20.--HOW IT IS THAT CAIN'S LINE TERMINATES IN THE EIGHTH
GENERATION, WHILE NOAH, THOUGH DESCENDED FROM THE SAME FATHER,
ADAM, IS FOUND TO BE THE TENTH FROM HIM.

    Some one will say, If the writer of this history intended, in enumerating the generations from
Adam through his son Seth, to descend through them to Noah, in whose time the deluge
occurred, and from him again to trace the connected generations down to Abraham, with whom
Matthew begins the pedigree of Christ the eternal King of the city of God, what did he intend by
enumerating the generations from Cain, and to what terminus did he mean to trace them? We
reply, To the deluge, by which the whole stock of the earthly city was destroyed, but repaired by
the sons of Noah. For the earthly city and community of men who live after the flesh will never
fail until the end of this world, of which our Lord says, "The children of this world generate, and
are generated."(3) But the city of God, which sojourns in this world, is conducted by regeneration
to the world to come, of which the children neither generate nor are generated. In this world
generation is common to both cities; though even now the city of God has many thousand citizens
who abstain from the act of generation; yet the other city also has some citizens who imitate
these, though erroneously. For to that city belong also those who have erred from the faith, and
introduced divers heresies; for they live according to man, not according to God. And the Indian
gymnosophists, who are said to philosophize in the solitudes of India in a state of nudity, are its
citizens; and they abstain from marriage. For continence is not a good thing, except when it is
practised in the faith of the highest good, that is, God. Yet no one is found to have practised it
before the deluge; for indeed even Enoch himself, the seventh from Adam, who is said to have
been translated without dying, begat sons and daughters before he was translated, and among
these was Methuselah, by whom the succession of the recorded generations is maintained.
    Why, then, is so small a number of Cain's generations registered, if it was proper to trace them
to the deluge, and if there was no such delay of the date of puberty as to preclude the hope of
offspring for a hundred or more years? For if the author of this book had not in view some one to
whom he might rigidly trace the series of generations, as he designed in those which sprang from
Seth's seed to descend to Noah, and thence to start again by a rigid order, what need was there of
omitting the first-born sons for the sake of descending to Lamech, in whose sons that line
terminates,--that is to say, in the eighth generation from Adam, or the seventh from Cain,--as if
from this point he had wished to pass on to another series, by which he might reach either the
Israelitish people, among whom the earthly Jerusalem presented a prophetic figure of the heavenly
city, or to Jesus Christ, "according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever,"(4) the
Maker and Ruler of the heavenly city? What, I say, was the need of this, seeing that the whole of
Cain's posterity were destroyed in the deluge? From this it is manifest that they are the first-born
sons who are registered in this genealogy. Why, then, are there so few of them? Their numbers in
the period before the deluge must have been greater, if the date of puberty bore no proportion to
their longevity, and they had children before they were a hundred years old. For supposing they
were on an average thirty years old when they began to beget children, then, as there are eight
generations, including Adam and Lamech's children, 8 times 30 gives 240 years; did they then
produce no more children in all the rest of the time before the deluge? With what intention, then,
did he who wrote this record make no mention of subsequent generations? For from Adam to the
deluge there are reckoned, according to our copies of Scripture, 2262 years,(5) and according to
the He-
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brew text, 1656 years. Supposing, then, the smaller number to be the true one, and subtracting
from 1656 years 240, is it credible that during the remaining 1400 and odd years until the deluge
the posterity of Cain begat no children?
    But let any one who is moved by this call to mind that when I discussed the question, how it is
credible that those primitive men could abstain for so many years from begetting children, two
modes of solution were found,--either a puberty late in proportion to their longevity, or that the
sons registered in the genealogies were not the first-born, but those through whom the author of
the book intended to reach the point aimed at, as he intended to reach Noah by the generations of
Seth. So that, if in the generations of Cain there occurs no one whom the writer could make it his
object to reach by omitting the first-born and inserting those who would serve such a purpose,
then we must have recourse to the supposition of late puberty, and say that only at some age
beyond a hundred years they became capable of besetting children, so that the order of the
generations ran through the first-born, and filled up even the whole period before the deluge, long
though it was. It is, however, possible that, for some more secret reason which escapes me, this
city, which we say is earthly, is exhibited in all its generations down to Lamech and his sons, and
that then the writer withholds from recording the rest which may have existed before the deluge.
And without supposing so late a puberty in these men, there might be another reason for tracing
the generations by sons who were not first-born, viz., that the same city which Cain built, and
named after his son Enoch, may have had a widely extended dominion and many kings, not
reigning simultaneously, but successively, the reigning king besetting always his successor. Cain
himself would be the first of these kings; his son Enoch, in whose name the city in which he
reigned was built, would be the second; the third Irad, whom Enoch begat; the fourth Mehujael,
whom Irad begat; the fifth Methusael, whom Mehujael begat; the sixth Lamech, whom Methusael
begat, and who is the seventh from Adam through Cain. But it was not necessary that the
first-born should succeed their fathers in the kingdom, but those would succeed who were
recommended by the possession of some virtue useful to the earthly city, or who were chosen by
lot, or the son who was best liked by his father would succeed by a kind of hereditary right to the
throne. And the deluge may have happened during the lifetime and reign of Lamech, and may
have destroyed him along with all other men, save those who were in the ark. For we cannot be
surprised that, during so long a period from Adam to the deluge, and with the ages of individuals
varying as they did, there should not be an equal number of generations in both lines, but seven in
Cain's, and ten in Seth's; for as I have already said, Lamech is the seventh from Adam, Noah the
tenth; and in Lamech's case not one son only is registered, as in the former instances, but more,
because it was uncertain which of them would have succeeded when he died, if there had
intervened any time to reign between his death and the deluge.
    But in whatever manner the generations of Cain's line are traced downwards, whether it be by
first-born sons or by the heirs to the throne, it seems to me that I must by no means omit to notice
that, when Lamech had been set down as the seventh from Adam, there were named, in addition,
as many of his children as made up this number to eleven, which is the number signifying sin; for
three sons and one daughter are added. The wives of Lamech have another signification, different
from that which I am now pressing. For at present I am speaking of the children, and not of those
by whom the children were begotten. Since, then, the law is symbolized by the number
ten,--whence that memorable Decalogue,--there is no doubt that the number eleven, which goes
beyond(1) ten, symbolizes the transgression of the law, and consequently sin. For this reason,
eleven veils of goat's skin were ordered to be hung in the tabernacle of the testimony, which
served in the wanderings of God's people as an ambulatory temple. And in that haircloth there was
a reminder of sins, because the goats were to be set on the left hand of the Judge; and therefore,
when we confess our sins, we prostrate ourselves in haircloth, as if we were saying what is written
in the psalm, "My sin is ever before me."(2) The progeny of Adam, then, by Cain the murderer, is
completed in the number eleven, which symbolizes sin; and this number itself is made up by a
woman, as it was by the same sex that beginning was made of sin by which we all die. And it was
committed that the pleasure of the flesh, which resists the spirit, might follow; and so Naamah, the
daughter of Lamech, means "pleasure." But from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth, there are ten
generations. And to Noah three sons are added, of whom,

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while one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father; so that, if you deduct the reprobate and
add the gracious sons to the number, you get twelve,--a number signalized in the case of the
patriarchs and of the apostles, and made up of the parts of the number seven multiplied into one
another,--for three times four, or four times three, give twelve. These things being so, I see that I
must consider and mention how these two lines, which by their separate genealogies depict the
two cities one of earth-born, the other of regenerated persons, became afterwards so mixed and
confused, that the whole human race, with the exception of eight persons, deserved to perish in
the deluge.

     CHAP. 21.--WHY IT IS THAT, AS SOON AS CAIN'S SON ENOCH HAS BEEN
NAMED, THE GENEALOGY IS FORTHWITH CONTINUED AS FAR AS THE DELUGE,
WHILE AFTER THE MENTION OF ENOS, SETH'S SON, THE NARRATIVE RETURNS
AGAIN TO THE CREATION OF MAN.

    We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain's posterity, after Enoch, in whose name the
city was built, has been first of all mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated down to that
terminus of which I have spoken, and at which that race and the whole line was destroyed in the
deluge; while, after Enos the son of Seth, has been mentioned, the rest are not at once named
down to the deluge, but a clause is inserted to the following effect: "This is the book of the
generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male
and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they
were created."(1) This seems to me to be inserted for this purpose, that here again the reckoning
of the times may start from Adam himself--a purpose which the writer had not in view in speaking
of the earthly city, as if God mentioned it, but did not take account of its duration. But why does
he return to this recapitulation after mentioning the son of Seth, the man who hoped to call on the
name of the Lord God, unless because it was fit thus to present these two cities, the one beginning
with a murderer and ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges to his two wives that
he had committed murder), the other built up by him who hoped to call upon the name of the
Lord God? For the highest and complete terrestrial duty of the city of God, which is a stranger in
this world, is that which was exemplified in the individual who was begotten by him who typified
the resurrection of the murdered Abel. That one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city, not
yet indeed complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure foreshows. The son of Cain,
therefore, that is, the son of possession (and of what but an earthly possession?), may have a name
in the earthly city which was built in his name. It is of such the Psalmist says, "They call their
lands after their own names."(2)  Wherefore they incur what is written in another psalm: "Thou, O
Lord, in Thy city wilt despise their image."(3)  But as for the son of Seth, the son of the
resurrection, let him hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For he prefigures that society of
men which says, "But I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy
of God."(4)  But let him not seek the empty honors of a famous name upon earth, for "Blessed is
the man that maketh the name of the Lord his trust, and respecteth not vanities nor lying
follies."(5)  After having presented the two cities, the one founded in the material good of this
world, the other in hope in God, but both starting from a common gate opened in Adam into this
mortal state, and both running on and running out to their proper and merited ends, Scripture
begins to reckon the times, and in this reckoning includes other generations, making a
recapitulation from Adam, out of whose condemned seed, as out of one mass handed over to
merited damnation, God made some vessels of wrath to dishonor and others vessels of mercy to
honor; in punishment rendering to the former what is due, in grace giving to the latter what is not
due: in order that by the very comparison of itself with the vessels of wrath, the heavenly city,
which sojourns on earth, may learn not to put confidence in the liberty of its own will, but may
hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For will, being a nature which was made good by the
good God, but mutable by the immutable, because it was made out of nothing, can both decline
from good to do evil, which takes place when it freely chooses, and can also escape the evil and
do good, which takes place only by divine assistance.

     CHAP. 22.--OF THE FALL OF THE SONS OF GOD WHO WERE CAPTIVATED BY
THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN, WHEREBY ALL, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF EIGHT
PERSONS, DESERVEDLY PERISHED IN THE DELUGE.

    When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced, there
arose a mixture and confusion of the

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two cities by their participation in a common iniquity. And this calamity, as well as the first, was
occasioned by woman, though not in the same way; for these women were not themselves
betrayed, neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly city and
society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the first, and were loved for their
bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns in this world.
Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God
dispenses it even to the wicked. And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good
was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good,
but common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated by the daughters of men,
they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways
they had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork,
but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not filly loved in preference to God, the
eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through
no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it
may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved
ordinately; evilly, when inordinately, It is this which some one has briefly said in these verses in
praise of the Creator:(1)  "These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst
create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless the sin we coimmit when we forget the order
of things, and instead of Thee love that which Thou hast made."
    But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another thing in His
stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to
love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it
is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love; and on this account, in the
Canticles, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, "Order love within me."(2)  It was the order
of this love, then, this charity or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook
God, and were enamored of the daughters of men.(3) And by these two names (sons of God and
daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently distinguished. For though the former were by
nature children of men, they had come into possession of another name by grace. For in the same
Scripture in which the sons of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also
called angels of God; whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.

     CHAP. 23.--WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT ANGELS, WHO ARE OF A
SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE, FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN, AND
SOUGHT THEM IN MARRIAGE, AND THAT FROM THIS CONNECTION GIANTS WERE
BORN.

    In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not
decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women.
For it is written, "Who maketh His angels spirits,"(4) that is, He makes those who are by nature
spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word
<greek>aUUels</greek>, which in Latin appears as "angelus," means a messenger. But whether
the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, "and His ministers a flaming fire," or means that
God's ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same
trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only
be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their
own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others
corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called "incubi," had often made wicked
assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by
the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it
were impudent to deny it.(5) From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be
some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is
sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but
certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor
can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned,
but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into 

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chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."(1) I think he rather speaks of these who first
apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under
the form of a serpent But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even
godly man have been called angels; for of John it is written: "Behold, I send my messenger (angel)
before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way."(2) And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace
specially communicated to him, was called an angel.(3)
    But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between
those who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed,
but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of
much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the
destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her
father and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all
quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of
her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even
before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the
daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth
formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture
itself in the book in which we read of this; its words are: "And it came to pass, when men began
to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they
chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:
yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days;
and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare
children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown."(4) These words of the divine book
sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of
God took wives of the children of men, when they loved them because they were good, that is,
fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance "good."
But after this connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words are: "There
were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men." Therefore there were giants both before, "in those days," and "also after that."
And the words, "they bare children to them," show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell
in this fashion they begat children to God, not to themselves,--that is to say, not moved by the lust
of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family
to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels
would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth,
the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they
and their offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God
is the Father.
    But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as some suppose,
Scripture itself decides, which unambiguously declares that they were men. For when it had first
been stated that "the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took
them wives of all which they chose," it was immediately added, "And the Lord God said, My
Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh." For by the Spirit of God
they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards lower things, they are
called men, a name of nature, not of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and
by their desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of God and
sons of God, though all the copies do not show this, some having only the name" sons of God."
And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters,(5) has translated neither angels of
God nor sons of God, but sons of gods. But both are correct. For they were both sons of God,
and thus brothers of their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and they were sons of
gods, because begotten by gods, together with whom they themselves also were gods, according
to that expression of the psalm:

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"I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High."(1)  For the Septuagint
translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy; so that, if they made any
alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a strict translation, we could not doubt that
this was divinely dictated. However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to be
susceptible of either translation, "sons of God," or "sons of gods." 
   Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because their
obscure origin was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has
been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though there is
some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements, that they have
no canonical authority. We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine
writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle. But it is not without
reason that these writings have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the
temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought
them under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings,
and they were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully
preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission. So that the writings which are
produced under his name, and which contain these fables about the giants, saying that their fathers
were not men; are properly judged by prudent men to be not genuine; just as many writings are
produced by heretics under the names both of other prophets, and more recently, under the names
of the apostles, all of which, after careful examination, have been set apart from canonical
authority under the title of Apocrypha. There is therefore no doubt that, according to the Hebrew
and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were many giants before the deluge, and that these were
citizens of the earthly society of men, and that the sons of God, who were according to the flesh
the sons of Seth, sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness, Nor need we
wonder that giants should be born even from these. For all of their children were not giants; but
there were more then than in the remaining periods since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to
produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength,
are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings,
in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good,
and are not shared by good and bad alike. It is this which another prophet confirms when he says,
"These were the giants, famous from the beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert in
war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge unto them; but they
were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness."(2) 

     CHAP. 24.--HOW WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THIS WHICH THE LORD SAID TO
THOSE WHO WERE TO PERISH IN THE FLOOD: "THEIR DAYS SHALL BE 120
YEARS."

    But that which God said, "Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years," is not to be
understood as a prediction that henceforth men should not live longer than 120 years,--for even
after the deluge we find that they lived more than 500 years,--but we are to understand that God
said this when Noah had nearly completed his fifth century, that is, had lived 480 years, which
Scripture, as it frequently uses the name of the whole of the largest part, calls 500 years. Now the
deluge came in the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month; and thus 120 years were
predicted as being the remaining span of those who were doomed, which years being spent, they
should be destroyed by the deluge, And it is not unreasonably believed that the deluge came as it
did, because already there were not found upon earth any who were not worthy of sharing a death
so manifestly judicial,--not that a good man, who must die some time, would be a jot the worse of
such a death after it was past. Nevertheless there died in the deluge none of those mentioned in
the sacred Scripture as descended from Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the
deluge: "The Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented(3)  the Lord
that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will
destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the
creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for I am angry that I have made them."(4) 

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     CHAP. 25.--OF THE ANGER OF GOD, WHICH DOES NOT INFLAME HIS MIND,
NOR DISTURB HIS UNCHANGEABLE TRANQUILLITY.

    The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a judgment by which punishment
is inflicted upon sin. His thought and reconsideration also are the unchangeable reason which
changes things; for He does not, like man, repent of anything He has done, because in all matters
His decision is as inflexible as His prescience is certain. But if Scripture were not to use such
expressions as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all classes of
men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it may alarm the proud, arouse the careless,
exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent; and this it could not do, did it not first stoop,
and in a manner descend, to them where they lie. But its denouncing death on all the animals of
earth and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was approaching: not that it
threatens destruction to the irrational animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.

CHAP. 26.--THAT THE ARK WHICH NOAH WAS
 ORDERED TO MAKE FIGURES IN   EVERY RESPECT CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

    Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the truthful Scripture says,
a man perfect in his generation,--not indeed with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God
in that immortal condition in which they equal the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in
their sojourn in this world,--inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he
might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family, i.e., his wife, sons, and
daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who, in obedience to God's command, came to him
into the ark: this is certainly a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say, of
the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the Mediator of God and men, the man
Christ Jesus.(1) For even its very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent the human
body in which He came, as it had been foretold. For the length of the human body, from the
crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times
its depth or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you measure a man as he lies
on his back or on his face, he is six times as long from head to foot as he is broad from side to
side, and ten tittles as long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark was made 300
cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height. And its having a door made in the side of it
certainly signified the wound which was made when the side of the Crucified was pierced with the
spear; for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence flowed the sacraments by which those
who believe are initiated. And the fact that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies
the immoveable steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you turn a cube, it still stands.
And the other peculiarities of the ark's construction are signs of features of the church.
    But we have not now time to pursue this subject; and, indeed, we have already dwelt upon it in
the work we wrote against Faustus the Manichean, who denies that there is anything prophesied
of Christ in the Hebrew books. It may be that one man's exposition excels another's, and that ours
is not the best; but all that is said must be referred to this city of God we speak of, which sojourns
in this wicked world as in a deluge, at least if the expositor would not widely miss the meaning of
the author. For example, the interpretation I have given in the work against Faustus, of the words,
"with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it," is, that because the church is gathered
out of all nations, it is said to have two stories, to represent the two kinds of men,--the
circumcision, to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise calls them, Jews and
Gentiles; and to have three stories, because all the nations were replenished from the three sons of
Noah. Now any one may object to this interpretation, and may give another which harmonizes
with the rule of faith. For as the ark was to have rooms not only on the lower, but also on the
upper stories, which were called "third stories," that there might be a habitable space on the third
floor from the basement, some one may interpret these to mean the three graces commended by
the apostle.--faith, hope, and charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed to represent
those three harvests in the gospel, thirty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold,--chaste marriage
dwelling in the ground floor, chaste widowhood in the upper, and chaste virginity in the top story.
Or any better interpretation may be given, so long as the reference to this city is maintained. And
the same statement I would make of all the remaining particulars in this passage which require
exposition, viz., that although different explanations
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are given, yet they must all agree with the one harmonious catholic faith.

     CHAP. 27.--OF THE ARK AND THE DELUGE, AND THAT WE CANNOT AGREE
WITH THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE BARE HISTORY, BUT REJECT THE ALLEGORICAL
INTERPRETATION, NOR WITH THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THE FIGURATIVE AND NOT
THE HISTORICAL MEANING.

    Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were written for no purpose, or that we
should study only the historical truth, apart from any allegorical meanings; or, on the contrary,
that they are only allegories, and that there were no such facts at all, or that, whether it be so or
no, there is here no prophecy of the church.  For what right-minded man will contend that books
so religiously preserved during thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly a succession,
were written without an object, or that only the bare historical facts are to be considered when we
read them? For, not to mention other instances, if the number of the animals entailed the
construction of an ark of great size, where was the necessity of sending into it two unclean and
seven clean animals of each species, when both could have been preserved in equal numbers? Or
could not God, who ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race, restore them in
the same way He had created them?
    But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only figures setting forth other
things, in the first place suppose that there could not be a flood so great that the water should rise
fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top
of Mount Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere in
which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect that the densest element of
all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then,
do these measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth can be raised to those aerial
altitudes, and that water cannot, while they admit that water is lighter, and liker to ascend than
earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower element, has for so many
ages scaled to the tranquil ether, while water, the lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not
suffered to do the same even for a brief space of time?
    They say, too, that the area of that ark could not contain so many kinds of animals of both
sexes, two of the unclean and seven of the clean. But they seem to me to reckon only one area of
300 cubits long and 50 broad, and not to remember that there was another similar in the story
above, and yet another as large in the story above that again; and that there was consequently an
area of 900 cubits by 150. And if we accept what Origen(1) has with some appropriateness
suggested, that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, "learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians,"(2) who delighted in geometry, may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say
that one is equal to six of our cubits, then who does not see what a capacity these dimensions give
to the ark? For as to their objection that an ark of such size could not be built, it is a very silly
calumny; for they are aware that huge cities have been built, and they should remember that the
ark was an hundred years in building. Or, perhaps, though stone can adhere to stone when
cemented with nothing but lime, so that a wall of several miles may be constructed, yet plank
cannot be riveted to plank by mortices, bolts, nails, and pitch-glue, so as to construct an ark which
was not made with curved ribs but straight timbers, which was not to be launched by its builders,
but to be lifted by the natural pressure of the water when it reached it, and which was to be
preserved from shipwreck as it floated about rather by divine oversight than by human skill.
    As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very minute creatures, not only
such as mice and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there were not
in the ark a larger number of them than was determined by God in His command, those persons
who are moved by this difficulty are to be reminded that the words "every creeping thing of the
earth" only indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can live in the
water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the sea-birds that swim on its surface. Then,
when it is said "male and female," no doubt reference is made to the repairing of the races, and
consequently there was no need for those creatures being in the ark which are born without the
union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from their corruption; or if they were in the ark, they
might be there as they commonly are in houses, not in any determinate numbers; or if it was
necessary that there should be a definite number of all those animals that cannot naturally live in
the water, that so the most sacred mystery which was being enacted

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might be bodied forth and perfectly figured in actual realities, still this was not the care of Noah or
his sons, but of God. For Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the ark, but gave them
entrance as they came seeking it. For this is the force of the words, "They shall come unto
thee,"(1)--not, that is to say, by man's effort, but by God's will. But certainly we are not required
to believe that those which have no sex also came; for it is expressly and definitely said, "They
shall be male and female."' For there are some animals which are born out of corruption, but yet
afterwards they themselves copulate and produce offspring, as flies; but others, which have no
sex, like bees. Then, as to those animals which have sex, but without ability to propagate their
kind, like mules and shemules, it is probable that they were not in the ark, but that it was counted
sufficient to preserve their parents, to wit, the horse and the ass; and this applies to all hybrids.
Yet, if it was necessary for the completeness of the mystery, they were there; for even this species
has "male and female."
    Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the carnivorous animals,--whether,
without transgressing the command which fixed the number to be preserved, there were
necessarily others included in the ark for their sustenance; or, as is more probable, there might be
some food which was not flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many animals whose
food is flesh eat also vegetable products and fruits. especially figs and chestnuts. What wonder is
it, therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed by God what would suit each, so that
without flesh he prepared and stored provision fit for every species? And what is there which
hunger would not make animals eat? Or what could not be made sweet and wholesome by God,
who, with a divine facility, might have enabled them to do without food at all, had it not been
requisite to the completeness of so great a mystery that they should be fed? But none but a
contentious man can suppose that there was no prefiguring of the church in so manifold and
circumstantial a detail. For  the nations have already so filled the church, and are comprehended in
the framework of its unity, the clean and unclean together, until the appointed end, that this one
very manifest fulfillment leaves no doubt how we should interpret even those others which are
somewhat more obscure, and which cannot so readily be discerned. And since this is so, if not
even the most audacious will presume to assert that these things were written without a purpose,
or that though the events really happened they mean nothing, or that they did not really happen,
but are only allegory, or that at all events they are far from having any figurative reference to the
church; if it has been made out that, on the other hand, we must rather believe that there was a
wise purpose in their being committed to memory and to writing, and that they did happen, and
have a significance, and that this significance has a prophetic reference to the church, then this
book, having served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on to trace in the history
subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two cities,--the earthly, that lives according to men,
and the heavenly, that lives according to God.

                           BOOK XVI.

                            ARGUMENT.

     IN THE FORMER PART OF THIS BOOK, FROM THE FIRST TO THE TWELFTH
CHAPTER, THE PROGRESS OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE
HEAVENLY, FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM, IS EXHIBITED FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
IN THE LATTER PART, THE PROGRESS OF THE HEAVENLY ALONE, FROM
ABRAHAM TO THE KINGS OF ISRAEL, IS THE SUBJECT.

     CHAP. I.--WHETHER, AFTER THE DELUGE, FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM, ANY
FAMILIES CAN BE FOUND WHO LIVED ACCORDING TO GOD.

    IT is difficult to discover from Scripture, whether, after the deluge, traces of the holy city are
continuous, or are so interrupted by intervening seasons of godlessness, that not a single
worshipper of the one true God was found among men; because from Noah, who, with his wife,
three sons, and as many daughters-in-law, achieved deliverance in the ark from the destruction of
the deluge, down to Abraham, we do not find in the canonical books that the piety of any one is
celebrated by express divine testimony, unless it be in the case of Noah, who commends with a
prophetic benediction his two sons Shem and Japheth, while he beheld and foresaw what was long
afterwards to happen. It was also by this prophetic spirit that, when his middle son--that is, the
son who was younger than the first and older than the last born--had sinned against him, he cursed
him not in his own person, but in his son's (his own grandson's), in the words, "Cursed be the lad
Canaan; a servant shall he be unto his brethren."(2) Now Canaan was born of Ham, who, so far
from covering his sleeping father's nakedness, had divulged it. For the same reason also he
subjoins the blessing on his two other sons, the oldest and youngest, saying, "Blessed be the Lord
God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall gladden Japheth, and he shall dwell in
the houses of Shem."(2) And so, too, the planting of the vine by Noah, and his intoxication by its
fruit, and his nakedness while he slept, and the other things done at that time, and recorded, are all
of them pregnant with prophetic meanings, and veiled in mysteries.(3)

CHAP.     2.--WHAT WAS PROPHETICALLY PREFIGURED IN THE SONS OF NOAH.

    The things which then were hidden are now sufficiently revealed by the actual events which
have followed. For who can carefully and intelligently consider these things without recognizing
them accomplished in Christ? Shem, of whom Christ was born in the flesh,  means "named." And
what is of greater name than Christ, the fragrance of whose i name is now everywhere perceived,
so that even prophecy sings of it beforehand, comparing it in the Song of Songs,(4) to ointment
poured forth? Is it not also in the houses of Christ, that is, in the churches, that the "enlargement"
of the nations dwells? For Japheth means "enlargement." And Ham (i.e., hot), who was the middle
son of Noah, and, as it were, separated himself from both, and remained between them, neither
belonging to the first-fruits of Israel nor to the fullness of the Gentiles, what does he signify but
the tribe of heretics, hot with the spirit, not of patience, but of impatience, with which the breasts
of heretics are wont to blaze, and with which they disturb the peace of the saints? But even the
heretics yield an advantage to those that make proficiency, according to the apostle's saying,

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"There must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."(1)
Whence, too, it is elsewhere said, "The son that receives instruction will be wise, and he uses the
foolish as his servant."(2) For while the hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many
articles of the catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to investigate them
more accurately, to understand them more clearly, and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the
question mooted by an adversary becomes the occasion of instruction. However, not only those
who are openly separated from the church, but also all who glory in the Christian name, and at the
same time lead abandoned lives, may without absurdity seem to be figured by Noah's middle son:
for the passion of Christ, which was signified by that man's nakedness, is at once proclaimed by
their profession, and dishonored by their wicked conduct. Of such, therefore, it has been said, "By
their fruits ye shall know them."(3) And therefore was Ham cursed in his son, he being, as it were,
his fruit. So, too, this son of his, Canaan, is fitly interpreted "their movement," which is nothing
else than their work. But Shem and Japheth, that is to say, the circumcision and uncircumcision,
or, as the apostle otherwise calls them, the Jews and Greeks, but called and justified, having
somehow discovered the nakedness of their father (which signifies the Saviour's passion), took a
garment and laid it upon their backs, and entered backwards and covered their father's nakedness,
without their seeing what their reverence hid. For we both honor the passion of Christ as
accomplished for us, and we hate the crime of the Jews who crucified Him. The garment signifies
the sacrament, their backs the memory of things past: for the church celebrates the passion of
Christ as already accomplished, and no longer to be looked forward to, now that Japheth already
dwells in the habitations of Shem, and their wicked brother between them.
    But the wicked brother is, in the person of his son (i.e., his work), the boy, or slave, of his
good brothers, when good men make a skillful use of bad men, either for the exercise of their
patience or for their advancement in wisdom. For the apostle testifies that there are some who
preach Christ from no pure motives; "but," says be, "whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is
preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."(4) For it is Christ Himself who planted
the vine of which the prophet says, "The vine of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel;"(5) and
He drinks of its wine, whether we thus understand that cup of which He says, "Can ye drink of the
cup that I shall drink of?"(6) and, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,"(7) by which
He obviously means His passion. Or, as wine is the fruit of the vine, we may prefer to understand
that from this vine, that is to say, from the race of Israel, He has assumed flesh and blood that He
might suffer; "and he was drunken," that is, He suffered; "and was naked," that is, His weakness
appeared in His suffering, as the apostle says, "though He was crucified through weakness."(8)
Wherefore the same apostle says, "The weakness of God is stronger than men; and the foolishness
of God is wiser than men."(9) And when to the expression "he was naked" Scripture adds "in his
house," it elegantly intimates that Jesus was to suffer the cross and death at the hands of His own
household, His own kith and kin, the Jews. This passion of Christ is only externally and verbally
professed by the reprobate, for what they profess. they do not understand. But the elect hold in
the inner man this so great mystery, and honor inwardly in the heart this weakness and foolishness
of God. And of this there is a figure in Ham going out to proclaim his father's nakedness; while
Shem and Japheth, to cover or honor it, went in, that is to say, did it inwardly.
    These secrets of divine Scripture we investigate as well as we can. All will not accept our
interpretation with equal confidence, but all hold it certain that these things were neither done nor
recorded without some foreshadowing of future events, and that they are to be referred only to
Christ and His church, which is the city of God, proclaimed from the very beginning of human
history by figures which we now see everywhere accomplished. From the blessing of the two sons
of Noah, and the cursing of the middle son, down to Abraham, or for more than a thousand years,
there is, as I have said, no mention of any righteous persons who worshipped God. I do not
therefore conclude that there were none; but it had been tedious to mention every one, and would
have displayed historical accuracy rather than prophetic foresight. The object of the writer of
these sacred books, or rather of the Spirit of God in him, is not only to record the past, but to
depict the future, so far as it regards the city of God; for whatever is said of those who are not its
citizens, is given either for her instruction, or as a foil to enhance her glory.

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Yet we are not to suppose that all that is recorded has some signification; but those things which
have no signification of their own are interwoven for the sake of the things which are significant.
It is only the ploughshare that cleaves the soil; but to effect this, other parts of the plough are
requisite. It is only the strings in harps and other musical instruments which produce melodious
sounds; but that they may do so, there are other parts of the instrument which are not indeed
struck by those who sing, but are connected with the strings which are struck, and produce
musical notes. So in this prophetic history some things are narrated which have no significance,
but are, as it were, the framework to which the significant things are attached.

              CHAP. 3.--OF THE GENERATIONS OF THE THREE
                            SONS OF NOAH.

    We must therefore introduce into this work an explanation of the generations of the three sons
of Noah, in so far as that may illustrate the progress in time of the two cities. Scripture first
mentions that of the youngest son, who is called Japheth: he had eight sons,(1) and by two of
these sons seven grandchildren, three by one son, four by the other; in all, fifteen descendants.
Ham, Noah's middle son, had four sons, and by one of them five grandsons, and by one of these
two great-grandsons; in all, eleven. After enumerating these, Scripture returns to the first of the
sons, and says, "Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a giant on the earth. He was a giant hunter
against the Lord God: wherefore they say, As Nimrod the giant hunter against the Lord. And the
beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of
that land went forth Assur, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen
between Nineveh and Calah: this was a great city." Now this Cush, father of the giant Nimrod, is
the first-named among the sons of Ham, to whom five sons and two grandsons are ascribed. But
he either begat this giant after his grandsons were born, or, which is more credible, Scripture
speaks of him separately on account of his eminence; for mention is also made of his kingdom,
which began with that magnificent city Babylon, and the other places, whether cities or districts,
mentioned along with it. But what is recorded of the land of Shinar which belonged to Nimrod's
kingdom, to wit, that Assur went forth from it and built Nineveh and the other cities mentioned
with it, happened long after; but he takes occasion to speak of it here on account of the grandeur
of the Assyrian kingdom, which was wonderfully extended by Ninus son of Belus, and founder of
the great city Nineveh, which was named after him, Nineveh, from Ninus. But Assur, father of the
Assyrian, was not one of the sons of Ham, Noah's son, but is found among the sons of Shem, his
eldest son. Whence it appears that among Shem's offspring there arose men who afterwards took
possession of that giant's kingdom, and advancing from it, founded other cities, the first of which
was called Nineveh, from Ninus. From him Scripture returns to Ham's other son, Mizraim; and his
sons are enumerated, not as seven individuals, but as seven nations. Arid from the sixth, as if from
the sixth son, the race called the Philistines are said to have sprung; so that there are in all eight.
Then it returns again to Canaan, in whose person Ham was cursed; and his eleven sons are named.
Then the territories they occupied, and some of the cities, are named. And thus, if we count sons
and grandsons, there are thirty-one of Ham's descendants registered.
    It remains to mention the sons of Shem, Noah's eldest son; for to him this genealogical
narrative gradually ascends from the youngest. But in the commencement of the record of Shem's
sons there is an obscurity which calls for explanation, since it is closely connected with the object
of our investigation. For we read, "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Heber, the
brother of Japheth the elder, were children born."(2) This is the order of the words: And to Shem
was born Heber, even to himself, that is, to Shem himself was born Heber, and Shem is the father
of all his children. We are intended to understand that Shem is the patriarch of all his posterity
who were to be mentioned, whether sons, grandsons, great-grand-sons, or descendants at any
remove. For Shem did not beget Heber, who was indeed in the fifth generation from him. For
Shem begat, among other sons, Arphaxad; Arphaxad begat Cainan, Cainan begat Salah, Salah
begat Heber. And it was with good reason that he was named first among Shem's offspring, taking
precedence even of his sons, though only a grandchild of the fifth generation; for from him, as
tradition says, the Hebrews derived their name, though the other etymology which derives the
name from Abraham (as if Abrahews) may possibly be correct.

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But there can be little doubt that the former is the right etymology, and that they were  called after
Heber, Heberews, and then, dropping a letter, Hebrews; and so was their language called Hebrew,
which was spoken by none but the people of Israel among whom was the city of God,
mysteriously prefigured in all the people, and truly present in the saints. Six of Shem's sons then
are first named, then four grandsons born to one of these sons; then it mentions another son of
Shem, who begat a grandson; and his son, again, or Shem's great-grandson, was Heber. And
Heber begat two sons, and called the one Peleg, which means "dividing;" and Scripture subjoins
the reason of this name, saying, "for in his days was the earth divided." What this means will
afterwards appear. Heber's other son begat twelve sons; consequently all Shem's descendants are
twenty-seven. The total number of the progeny of the three sons of Noah is seventy-three, fifteen
by Japheth, thirty-one by Ham, twenty-seven by Shem. Then Scripture adds, "These are the sons
of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations." And so of the
whole number "These are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations, in their nations;
and by these were the isles of the nations dispersed through the earth after the flood." From which
we gather that the seventy-three (or rather, as I shall presently show, seventy-two) were not
individuals, but nations. For in a former passage, when the sons of Japheth were enumerated, it is
said in conclusion, "By these were the isles of the nations divided in their lauds, every one after his
language, in their tribes, and in their nations."
    But nations are expressly mentioned among the sons of Ham, as I showed above. "Mizraim
begat those who are called Ludim;(15) and so also of the other seven nations. And after
'enumerating all of them, it concludes, "These are the sons of Ham, in their families, according to
their languages, in their territories, and in their nations." The reason, then, why the children of
several of them are not mentioned, is that they belonged by birth to other nations, and did not
themselves become nations. Why else is it, that though eight sons are reckoned to Japheth, the
sons of only two of these are mentioned; and though four are reckoned to Ham, only three are
spoken of as having sons; and though six are reckoned to Shem, the descendants of only two of
these are traced? Did the rest remain childless? We cannot suppose so; but they did not produce
nations so great as  to warrant their being mentioned, but were absorbed in the nations to which
they belonged by birth.

CHAP. 4.--OF THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES, AND OF THE FOUNDING OF
BABYLON.

    But though these nations are said to have been dispersed according to their languages, yet the
narrator recurs to that time when all had but one language, and explains how it came to pass that
a diversity of languages was introduced. "The whole earth," he says, "was of one lip, and all had
one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the
land of Shinar, and dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, and let us make bricks, and
burn them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone, and slime for mortar. And they said, Come,
and let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top shall reach the sky; and let us make us
a name, before we be scattered abroad on the face of all the earth. And the Lord came down to
see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord God said, Behold, the
people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be
restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Come, and let us go down, and confound
there their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. And God scattered them
thence on the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city and the tower. Therefore the
name of it is called Confusion; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth:
and the Lord God scattered them thence on the face of all the earth."(1) This city, which was
called Confusion, is the same as Babylon, whose wonderful construction Gentile history also
notices. For Babylon means Confusion. Whence we conclude that the giant Nimrod was its
founder, as had been hinted a little before, where Scripture, in speaking of him, says that the
beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, that is, Babylon had a supremacy over the other cities as
the metropolis and royal residence; although it did not rise to the grand dimensions designed by its
proud and impious founder. The plan was to make it so high that it should reach the sky, whether
this was meant of one tower which they intended to build higher than the others, or of all the
towers, which might be signified by the singular number, as we speak of "the soldier," meaning
the army, and of the frog or the locust, when we refer to the whole multitude
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of frogs and locusts in the plagues with which Moses smote the Egyptians.1 But what did these
vain and presumptuous men intend? How did they expect to raise this lofty mass against God,
when they had built it above all the mountains and the clouds of the earth's atmosphere? What
injury could any spiritual or material elevation do to God? The safe and true way to heaven is
made by humility, which lifts up the heart to the Lord, not against Him; as this giant is said to
have been a" hunter against the Lord." This has been misunderstood by some through the
ambiguity of the Greek word, and they have translated it, not "against the Lord," but "before the
Lord;" for <greek>e?anti?on</greek> means both "before" and "against." In the Psalm this word
is rendered, " Let us weep before the Lord our Maker."2  The same word occurs in the book of
Job, where it is written, "Thou hast broken into fury against the Lord."3 And so this giant is to be
recognized as a "hunter against the Lord." And what is meant by the term "hunter" but deceiver,
oppressor, and destroyer of the animals of the earth? He and his people therefore, erected this
tower against the Lord, and so gave expression to their impious pride; and justly was their wicked
intention punished by God, even though it was unsuccessful. But what was the nature of the
punishment? As the tongue is the instrument of domination, in it pride was punished; so that man,
who would not understand God when He issued His commands, should be misunderstood when
he himself gave orders. Thus was that conspiracy disbanded, for each man retired from those he
could not understand, and associated with those whose speech was intelligible; and the nations
were divided according to their languages, and scattered over the earth as seemed good to God,
who accomplished this in ways hidden from and incomprehensible to us.

     CHAP. 5.--OF GOD'S COMING DOWN TO CONFOUND THE LANGUAGES OF
THE BUILDERS OF THE CITY.

    We read, "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men built:" it
was not the sons of God, but that society which lived in a merely human way, and which we call
the earthly city. God, who is always wholly everywhere, does not move locally; but He is said to
descend when He does anything in the earth out of the usual course, which, as it were, makes His
presence felt. And in the same way, He does not by "seeing" learn some new thing, for He cannot
ever be ignorant of anything; but He is said to see and recognize, in time, that which He causes
others to see and recognize. And therefore that city was not previously being seen as God made it
be seen when He showed how offensive it was to Him. We might, indeed, interpret God's
descending to the city of the descent of His angels in whom He dwells; so that the following
words, "And the Lord God said, Behold, they are all one race and of one language," and also
what follows, "Come, and let us go down and confound their speech," are a recapitulation,
explaining how the previously intimated "descent of the Lord" was accomplished. For if He had
already gone down, why does He say, "Come, and let us go down and confound?"--words which
seem to be addressed to the angels, and to intimate that He who was in the angels descended in
their descent. And the words most appropriately are, not, "Go ye down and confound," but, "Let
us confound their speech;" showing that He so works by His servants, that they are themselves
also fellow-laborers with God, as the apostle says, "For we are fellow-laborers with God."4

     CHAP.     6.--WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY GOD'S SPEAKING TO
THE ANGELS.

    We might have supposed that the words uttered at the creation of man, "Let us," and not Let
me, "make man," were addressed to the angels, had He not added "in our image;" but as we
cannot believe that man was made in the image of angels, or that the image of God is the same as
that of angels, it is proper to refer this expression to the plurality of the Trinity. And yet this
Trinity, being one God, even after saying "Let us make," goes on to say, "And God made man in
His image,"5  and not "Gods made," or "in their image." And were there any difficulty in applying
to the angels the words, "Come, and let us go down and confound their speech," we might refer
the plural to the Trinity, as if the Father were addressing the Son and the Holy Spirit; but it rather
belongs to the angels to approach God by holy movements, that is, by pious thoughts, and thereby
to avail themselves of the unchangeable truth which rules in the court of heaven as their eternal
law. For they are not themselves the truth; but partaking in the creative truth, they are moved
towards it as the fountain of life, that what they have not in themselves they may obtain

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in it. And this movement of theirs is steady, for they never go back from what they have reached.
And to these angels God does not speak, as we speak to one another, or to God, or to angels, or
as the angels speak to us, or as God speaks to us through them: He speaks to them in an ineffable
manner of His own, and that which He says is conveyed to us in a manner suited to our capacity.
For the speaking of God antecedent and superior to all His works, is the immutable reason of His
work: it has no noisy and passing sound, but an energy eternally abiding and producing results in
time. Thus He speaks to the holy angels; but to us, who are far off, He speaks otherwise. When,
however, we hear with the inner ear some part of the speech of God, we approximate to the
angels. But in this work I need not labor to give an account of the ways in which God speaks. For
either the unchangeable Truth speaks directly to the mind of the rational creature in some
indescribable way, or speaks through the changeable creature, either presenting spiritual images to
our spirit, or bodily voices to our bodily sense.

    The words, "Nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do,"1 are
assuredly not meant as an affirmation, but as an interrogation, such as is used by persons
threatening, as e.g., when Dido exclaims,

                "They will not take arms and pursue?"2
                                   
We are to understand the words as if it had been said, Shall nothing be restrained from them
which they have imagined to do?3  From these three men, therefore, the three sons of Noah we
mean, 73, or rather, as the catalogue will show, 72 nations and as many languages were dispersed
over the earth, and as they increased filled even the islands. But the nations multiplied much more
than the languages. For even in Africa we know several barbarous nations which have but one
language; and who can doubt that, as the human race increased, men contrived to pass to the
islands in ships?

     CHAP. 7.--WHETHER EVEN THE REMOTEST ISLANDS RECEIVED THEIR
FAUNA FROM THE ANIMALS WHICH WERE PRESERVED, THROUGH THE DELUGE,
IN THE ARK.

    There is a question raised about all those kinds of beasts which are not domesticated, nor are
produced like frogs from the earth, but are propagated by male and female parents, such as
wolves and animals of that kind; and it is asked how they could be found in the islands after the
deluge, in which all the animals not in the ark perished, unless the breed was restored from those
which were preserved in pairs in the ark. It might, indeed, be said that they crossed to the islands
by swimming, but this could only be true of those very near the mainland; whereas there are some
so distant, that we fancy no animal could swim to them. But if men caught them and took them
across with themselves, and thus propagated these breeds in their new abodes, this would not
imply an incredible fondness for the chase. At the same time, it cannot be denied that by the
intervention of angels they might be transferred by God's order or permission. If, however, they
were produced out of the earth as at their first creation, when God said, "Let the earth bring forth
the living creature,"4 this makes it more evident that all kinds of animals were preserved in the
ark, not so much for the sake of renewing the stock, as of prefiguring the various nations which
were to be saved in the church; this, I say, is more evident, if the earth brought forth many animals
in islands to which they could not cross over.

     CHAP. 8.--WHETHER CERTAIN    MONSTROUS RACES OF MEN ARE DERIVED
FROM THE STOCK OF ADAM OR NOAH'S SONS.

    It is also asked whether we are to believe that certain monstrous races of men, spoken of in
secular history,5 have sprung from Noah's sons, or rather, I should say, from that one man from
whom they themselves were descended. For it is reported that some have one eye in the middle of
the forehead; some, feet turned backwards from the heel; some, a double sex, the right breast like
a man, the left like a woman, and that they alternately beget and bring forth: others are said to
have no mouth, and to breathe only through the nostrils; others are but a cubit high, and are
therefore called by the Greeks "Pigmies: "6 they say that in some places the women conceive in
their fifth year, and do not live beyond their eighth. So, too, they tell of a race who have two feet
but only one leg, and are of marvellous swiftness, though they do not bend the knee: they are
called Skiopodes, because in the hot weather they lie down on their backs and shade themselves
with their feet. Others are said to have no head, and their eyes in their shoulders; and other

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human or quasi-human races are depicted in mosaic in the harbor esplanade of Carthage, on the
faith of histories of rarities. What shall I say of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like head and barking
proclaim them beasts rather than men? But we are not bound to believe all we hear of these
monstrosities. But whoever is anywhere born a man, that is, a rational, mortal animal, no matter
what unusual appearance he presents in color, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some
power, part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he springs from that one
protoplast. We can distinguish the common human nature from that which is peculiar, and
therefore wonderful.

    The same account which is given of monstrous births in individual cases can be given of
monstrous races. For God, the Creator of all, knows where and when each thing ought to be, or
to have been created, because He sees the similarities and diversities which can contribute to the
beauty of the whole. But He who cannot see the whole is offended by the deformity of the part,
because he is blind to that which balances it, and to which it belongs. We know that men are born
with more than four fingers on their bands or toes on their feet: this is a smaller matter; but far
from us be the folly of supposing that the Creator mistook the number of a man's fingers, though
we cannot account for the difference. And so in cases where the divergence from the rule is
greater. He whose works no man justly finds fault with, knows what He has done. At
Hippo-Diarrhytus there is a man whose hands are crescent-shaped, and have only two fingers
each, and his feet similarly formed. If there were a race like him, it would be added to the history
of the curious and wonderful.  Shall we therefore deny that this man is descended from that one
man who was first created? As for the Androgyni, or Hermaphrodites, as they are called, though
they are rare, yet from time to time there appears persons of sex so doubtful, that it remains
uncertain from which sex they take their name; though it is customary to give them a masculine
name, as the more worthy. For no one ever called them Hermaphroditesses. Some years ago,
quite within my own memory, a man was born in
     the East, double in his upper, but single in his lower half--having two heads, two chests,
four hands, but one body and two feet like an ordinary man; and he lived so long that many had an
opportunity of seeing him. But who could enumerate all the human births that have differed
widely from their ascertained parents? As, therefore, no one will deny that these are all descended
from that one man, so all the races which are reported to have diverged in bodily appearance from
the usual course which nature generally or almost universally preserves, if they are embraced in
that definition of man as rational and mortal animals, unquestionably trace their pedigree to that
one first father of all. We are supposing these stories about various races who differ from one
another and from us to be true; but possibly they are not: for if we were not aware that apes, and
monkeys, and sphinxes are not men, but beasts, those historians would possibly describe them as
races of men, and flaunt with impunity their false and vainglorious discoveries. But supposing they
are men of whom these marvels are recorded, what if God has seen fit to create some races in this
way, that we might not suppose that the monstrous births which appear among ourselves are the
failures of that wisdom whereby He fashions the human nature, as we speak of the failure of a less
perfect workman? Accordingly, it ought not to seem absurd to us, that as in individual races there
are monstrous births, so in the whole race there are monstrous races. Wherefore, to conclude this
question cautiously and guardedly, either these things which have been told of some races have no
existence at all; or if they do exist, they are not human races; or if they are human, they are
descended from Adam.

                CHAP. 9.--WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE IN
                            THE ANTIPODES.
                                   
    But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the
earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is
on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical
knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the
concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they
say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it
be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it
does not follow that the  other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does
it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical
statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too
absurd to say, that some men might have

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taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the
other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first
man. Wherefore let us seek if we can find the city of God that sojourns on earth among those
human races who are catalogued as having been divided into seventy-two nations and as many
languages. For it continued down to the deluge and the ark, and is proved to have existed still
among the sons of Noah by their blessings, and chiefly in the eldest son Shem; for Japheth
received this blessing, that he should dwell in the tents of Shem.

     CHAP. 10.----OF THE GENEALOGY OF SHEM, IN WHOSE LINE THE CITY OF
GOD IS PRESERVED TILL THE TIME OF ABRAHAM.

    It is necessary, therefore, to preserve the series of generations descending from Shem, for the
sake of exhibiting the city of God after the flood; as before the flood it was exhibited in the series
of generations descending from Seth. And therefore does divine Scripture, after exhibiting the
earthly city as Babylon or "Confusion," revert to the patriarch Shem. and recapitulate the
generations from him to Abraham, specifying besides, the year in which each father begat the son
that belonged to this line, and how long he lived. And unquestionably it is this which fulfills the
promise I made, that it should appear why it is said of the sons of Heber, "The name of the one
was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided."1 For what can we understand by the division of
the earth, if not the diversity of languages? And, therefore, omitting the other sons of Shem, who
are not concerned in this matter, Scripture gives the genealogy of those by whom the line runs on
to Abraham, as before the flood those are given who carried on the line to Noah from Seth.
Accordingly this series of generations begins thus: "These are the generations of Shem: Shem was
an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood. And Shem lived after he
begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters." In like manner it registers the
rest, naming the

year of his life in which each begat the son who belonged to that line which extends to Abraham.
It specifies, too, how many years he lived thereafter, begetting sons and daughters, that we may
not childishly suppose that the men named were the only men, but may understand how the
population increased, and how regions and kingdoms so vast could be populated by the
descendants of Shem; especially the kingdom of Assyria, from which Ninus subdued the
surrounding nations, reigning with brilliant prosperity, and bequeathing to his descendants a vast
but thoroughly consolidated empire, which held together for many centuries.

    But to avoid needless prolixity, we shall mention not the number of years each member of this
series lived, but only the year of his life in which he begat his heir, that we may thus reckon the
number of years from the flood to Abraham, and may at the same time leave room to touch briefly
and cursorily upon some other matters necessary to our argument. In the second year, then, after
the flood, Shem when he was a hundred years old begat Arphaxad; Arphaxad when he was 135
years old begat Cainan; Cainan when he

was 130 years begat Salah. Salah himself, too, was the same age when he begat Eber. Eber lived
134 years, and begat Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided. Peleg himself lived 130 years,
and begat Reu; and Reu lived 132 years, and begat Serug; Serug 130, and begat Nahor; and
Nahor 79, and begat Terah; and Terah 70, and begat Abram, whose name God afterwards
changed into Abraham. There are thus from the flood to Abraham 1072 years, according to the
Vulgate or Septuagint versions. In the Hebrew copies far fewer years are given; and for this either
no reason or a not very credible one is given.

    When, therefore, we look for the city of God in these seventy-two nations, we cannot affirm
that while they had but one lip, that is, one language, the human race had departed from the
worship of the true God, and that genuine godliness had survived only in those generations which
descend from Shem through Arphaxad and reach to Abraham; but from the time when they
proudly built a tower to heaven, a symbol of godless exaltation, the city or society of the wicked
becomes apparent. Whether it was only disguised before, or non-existent; whether both cities
remained after the flood,--the godly in the two sons of Noah who were blessed, and in their
posterity, and the ungodly in the cursed son and his descendants, from whom sprang that mighty
hunter against the Lord,--is not easily determined. For possibly--and certainly this is more
credible--there were despisers of God among the descendants of the two sons, even before
Babylon was founded, and worshippers of God among the descendants of Ham. Certainly neither
race was ever obliterated from earth. For in both the Psalms in which it is said, "They are all gone
aside,

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they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one," we read further,
"Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call
not upon the Lord."1 There was then a people of God even at that time. And therefore the words,
"There is none that doeth good, no, not one," were said of the sons of men, not of the sons of
God. For it had been previously said, "God looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to
see if any understood and sought after God;" and then follow the words which demonstrate that
all the sons of men, that is, all who belong to the city which lives according to man, not according
to God, are reprobate.

     CHAP. II.--THAT THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE IN USE AMONG MEN WAS THAT
WHICH WAS AFTERWARDS CALLED HEBREW, FROM HEBER, IN WHOSE FAMILY IT
WAS PRESERVED WHEN THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES OCCURRED.

    Wherefore, as the fact of all using one language did not secure the absence of sin-infected men
from the race,--for even before the deluge there was one language, and yet all but the single
family of just Noah were found worthy of destruction by the flood, --so when the nations, by a
prouder godlessness, earned the punishment of the dispersion and the confusion of tongues, and
the city of the godless was called Confusion or Babylon, there was still the house of Heber in
which

the primitive language of the race survived. And therefore, as I have already mentioned, when an
enumeration is made of the sons of Shem, who each founded a nation, Heber is first mentioned,
although he was of the fifth generation from Shem. And because, when the other races were
divided by their own peculiar languages, his family preserved that language which is not
unreasonably believed to have been the common language of the race, it was on this account
thenceforth named Hebrew. For it then became necessary to distinguish this language from the
rest by a proper name; though, while there was only one, it had no other name than the language
of man, or human speech, it alone being spoken by the whole human race. Some one will say: If
the earth was divided by languages in the days of Peleg, Heber's son, that language, which was
formerly common to all, should rather have been called after Peleg. But we are to understand that
Heber himself gave to his son this name Peleg, which means Division; because he was born when
the earth was divided, that is, at the very time of the division, and that this is the meaning of the
words, "In his days the earth was divided."2  For unless Heber had been still alive when the
languages were multiplied, the language which was preserved in his house would not have been
called after him. We are induced to believe that this was the primitive and common language,
because the multiplication and change of languages was introduced as a punishment, and it is fit to
ascribe to the people of God an immunity

from this punishment. Nor is it without significance that this is the language which Abraham
retained, and that he could not transmit it to all his descendants, but only to those of Jacob's line,
who distinctively and eminently constituted God's people, and received His covenants, and were
Christ's progenitors according to the flesh. In the same way, Heber himself did not transmit that
language to all his posterity, but only to the line from which Abraham sprang. And thus, although
it is not expressly stated, that when the wicked were building Babylon there was a godly seed
remaining, this indistinctness is intended to stimulate research rather than to elude it. For when we
see that originally there was one

common language, and that Heber is mentioned before all Shem's sons, though he belonged to the
fifth generation from him, and that the language which the patriarchs and prophets used, not only
in their conversation, but in the authoritative language of Scripture, is called Hebrew, when we
are asked where that primitive and common language was preserved after the confusion of
tongues, certainly, as there can be no doubt that those among whom it was preserved were
exempt from the punishment it embodied. what other

     ? 
suggestion can we make, than that it survived
in the family of him whose name it took, and that this is no small proof of the righteousness of this
family, that the punishment with which the other families were visited did not fall upon it?

    But yet another question is mooted: How did Heber and his son Peleg each found a nation, if
they had but one language? For no doubt the Hebrew nation propagated from Heber through
Abraham, and becoming through him a great people, is one nation. How, then, are all the sons of
the three branches of Noah's family enumerated as founding a nation each, if Heber and Peleg did
not so? It is very probable that the giant Nimrod founded also his nation, and that

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Scripture has named him separately on account of the extraordinary dimensions of his empire and
of his body, so that the number of seventy-two nations remains. But Peleg was mentioned, not
because he rounded a nation (for his race and language are Hebrew), but on account of the critical
time at which he was born, all the earth being then divided. Nor ought we to be surprised that the
giant Nimrod lived to the time in which Babylon was rounded and the confusion of tongues
occurred, and the consequent division of the earth. For though Heber was in the sixth generation
from Noah, and Nimrod in the fourth, it does not follow that they could not be alive at the same
time. For when the generations are few, they live longer and are born later; but when they are
many, they live a shorter time, and come into the world earlier. We are to understand that, when
the earth was divided, the descendants of Noah who are registered as founders of nations were
not only already born, but were of an age to have immense families, worthy to be called tribes or
nations. And therefore we must by no means suppose that they were born in the order in which
they were set down; otherwise, how could the twelve sons of Joktan, another son of Heber's, and
brother of Peleg,

have already founded nations, if Joktan was born, as he is registered, after his brother Peleg, since
the earth was divided at Peleg's birth? We are therefore to understand that, though Peleg is named
first, he was born long after Joktan, whose twelve sons had already families so large as to admit of
their being divided by different languages. There is nothing extraordinary in the last born being
first named: of the sons of Noah, the descendants of Japheth are first named; then the sons of
Ham, who was the second son; and last the sons of Shem, who was the first and oldest. Of these
nations the names have partly survived, so that at this day we can see from whom they have
sprung, as the Assyrians from Assur, the Hebrews from Heber, but partly have been altered in the
lapse of time, so that the most learned men, by profound research in ancient records, have
scarcely been able to discover the origin, I do not say of all, but of some of these nations. There
is, for example, nothing in the name Egyptians to show that they are descended from Misraim,
Ham's son, nor in the name Ethiopians to show a connection with Gush, though such is said to be
the origin of these nations. And if we take a general survey of the names, we shall find that more
have been changed than have remained the same.

     CHAP. 12.--OF THE ERA IN ABRAHAM'S LIFE FROM WHICH A NEW PERIOD IN
THE HOLY SUCCESSION BEGINS.

    Let us now survey the progress of the city of God from the era of the patriarch Abraham, from
whose time it begins to be more conspicuous, and the divine promises which are now fulfilled in
Christ are more fully revealed. We learn, then, from the intimations of holy Scripture, that
Abraham was born in the country of the Chaldeans, a land belonging to the Assyrian empire.
Now, even at that time impious superstitions were rife with the Chaldeans, as with other nations.
The family of Terah, to which Abraham belonged, was the only one in which the worship

of the true God survived, and the only one, we may suppose, in which the Hebrew language was
preserved; although Joshua the son of Nun tells us that even this family served other gods in
Mesopotamia.1 The other descendants of Heber gradually became absorbed in other races and
other languages. And thus, as the single family of Noah was preserved through the deluge of
water to renew the human race, so, in the deluge of superstition that flooded the whole world,
there remained but the one family of Terah in which the seed of God's city was preserved. And as,
when Scripture has enumerated the generations prior to Noah, with their ages, and explained the
cause of the flood before God began to speak to Noah about the building of the ark, it is said,
"These are the generations of Noah;" so also now, after enumerating the generations from Shem,
Noah's son, down to Abraham, it then signalizes an era by saying, "These are the generations of
Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his
father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took them
wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, the daughter of
Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah."2 This Iscah is supposed to be the same as
Sarah, Abraham's wife.

     CHAP. 13.--WHY, IN THE ACCOUNT OF TERAH'S EMIGRATION, ON HIS
FORSAKING THE CHALDEANS AND PASSING OVER INTO MESOPOTAMIA, NO
MENTION IS MADE OF HIS SON NAHOR.

    Next it is related how Terah with his family left the region of the Chaldeans and came into
Mesopotamia, and dwelt in Haran. But
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nothing is said about one of his sons called Nahor, as if he had not taken him along with him. For
the narrative runs thus: "And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son,
and Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and led them forth out of the region of the
Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; and he came into Haran, and dwelt there." (1) Nahor
and Milcah his wife are nowhere named here. But afterwards, when Abraham sent his servant to
take a wife for his son Isaac, we find it thus written: "And the servant took ten camels of the
camels of his lord, and of all the goods of his lord, with him; and arose, and went into
Mesopotamia, into the city of Nahor." (2) This and other testimonies of this sacred history show
that Nahor, Abraham's brother, had also left the region of the Chaldeans, and fixed his abode in
Mesopotamia, where Abraham dwelt with his father. Why, then, did the Scripture not mention
him, when Terah with his family went forth out of the Chaldean nation and dwelt in Haran, since
it mentions that he took with him not only Abraham his son, but also Sarah his daughter-in-law,
and Lot his grandson? The only reason we can think of is, that perhaps he had lapsed from the
piety of his father and brother, and adhered to the superstition of the Chaldeans, and had
afterwards emigrated thence, either through penitence, or because he was persecuted as a
suspected person. For in the book called Judith, when Holofernes, the enemy of the Israelites,
inquired what kind of nation that might be, and whether war should be made against them,
Achior, the leader of the Ammonites, answered him thus: "Let our lord now hear a word from the
mouth of thy servant, and I will declare unto thee the truth concerning the people which dwelleth
near thee in this hill country, and there shall no lie come out of the mouth of thy servant. For this
people is descended from the Chaldeans, and they dwelt heretofore in Mesopotamia, because they
would not follow the gods of their fathers, which were glorious in the land of the Chaldeans, but
went out of the way of their ancestors, and adored the God of heaven, whom they knew; and they
cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia, and dwelt there many
days. And their God said to them, that they should depart from their habitation, and go into the
land of Canaan; and they dwelt,'' (3) etc., as Achior the Ammonite narrates. Whence it is manifest
that the house of Terah had suffered persecution from the Chaldeans for the true piety with which
they worshipped the one and true God.

  CHAP. 14--OF THE YEARS OF TERAH, WHO COMPLETED HIS LIFETIME IN HARAN.
                                    
    On Terah's death in Mesopotamia, where he is said to have lived 205 years, the promises of
God made to Abraham now begin to be pointed out; for thus it is written: "And the days of Terah
in Haran were two hundred and five years, and he died in Haran.'' (4) This is not to be taken as if
he had spent all his days there, but that he there completed the days of his life, which were two
hundred and five years: otherwise it would not be known how many years Terah lived, since it is
not said in what year of his life he came into Haran; and it is absurd to suppose that, in this series
of generations, where it is carefully recorded how many years each one lived, his age was the only
one not put on record. For although some whom the same Scripture mentions have not their age
recorded, they are not in this series, in which the reckoning of time is continuously indicated by
the death of the parents and the succession of the children. For this series, which is given in order
from Adam to Noah, and from him down to Abraham, contains no one without the number of the
years of his life.

     CHAP. 15.--OF THE TIME OF THE MIGRATION OF ABRAHAM, WHEN,
ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD, HE WENT OUT FROM HARAN.

    When, after the record of the death of Terah, the father of Abraham, we next read, "And the
Lord said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's
house," (5) etc., it is not to be supposed, because this follows in the order of the narrative, that it
also followed in the chronological order of events. For if it were  so, there would be an insoluble
difficulty. For after these words of God which were spoken  to Abraham, the Scripture says: "And
Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him. Now Abraham was
seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran." (6) How can this be true if he departed
from Haran after his father's death? For when Terah was seventy years old, as is intimated above,
he begat Abraham; and if to this number we add the seventy-five years which Abraham reckoned
when he went out of Haran, we get 145 years. Therefore that

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was the number of the years of Terah, when Abraham departed out of that city of Mesopotamia;
for he had reached the seventy-fifth year of his life, and thus his father, who begat him in the
seventieth year of his life, had reached, as was said, his 145th. Therefore he did not depart thence
after his father's death, that is, after the 205 years his father lived; but the year of his departure
from that place, seeing it was his seventy-fifth, is inferred beyond a doubt to have been the 145th
of his father, who begat him in his seventieth year. And thus it is to be understood that the
Scripture, according to its custom, has gone back to the time which had already been passed by
the narrative; just as above, when it had mentioned the grandsons of Noah, it said that they were
in their nations and tongues; and yet afterwards, as if this also had followed in order of time, it
says, "And the whole earth was of one lip, and one speech for all." (1) How, then, could they be
said to be in their own nations and according to their own tongues, if there was one for all; except
because the narrative goes back to gather up what it had passed over? Here, too, in the same way,
after saying, "And the days of Terah in Haran were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran," the
Scripture, going back to what had been passed over in order to complete what had been begun
about Terah, says, "And the Lord said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country," (2) etc. After
which words of God it is added, "And Abram departed, as the Lord spake unto him; and Lot went
with him. But Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran." Therefore it
was done when his father was in the 145th year of his age; for it was then the seventy-fifth of his
own. But this question is also solved in another way, that the seventy-five years of Abraham when
he departed out of Haran are reckoned from the year in which he was delivered from the fire of
the Chaldeans, not from that of his birth, as if he was rather to be held as having been born then.
    Now the blessed Stephen, in narrating these things in the Acts of the Apostles, says: "The God
of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in
Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
father's house, and come into the land which I will show thee." (3) According to these words of
Stephen, God spoke to Abraham, not after the death of his father, who certainly died in Haran,
where his son also dwelt with him, but before he dwelt in that city, although he was already in
Mesopotamia. Therefore he had already departed from the Chaldeans. So that when Stephen
adds, "Then Abraham went out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran," (4) this does
not point out what took place after God spoke to him (for it was not after these words of God
that he went out of the land of the Chaldeans, since he says that God spoke to him in
Mesopotamia), but the word "then" which he uses refers to that whole period from his going out
of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelling in Haran. Likewise in what follows, "And thenceforth,
when his father was dead, he settled him in this land, wherein ye now dwell, and your fathers," he
does not say, after his father was dead he went out from Haran; but thenceforth he settled him
here, after his father was dead. It is to be understood, therefore, that God had spoken to Abraham
when he was
in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran; but that he came to Haran with his father,
keeping in mind the precept of God, and that he went out thence in his own seventy-fifth year,
which was his father's 145th. But he says that his settlement in the land of Canaan, not his going
forth from Haran, took place after his father's death; because his father was already dead when he
purchased the land, and personally entered on possession of it. But when, on his having already
settled in Mesopotamia, that is, already gone out of the land of the Chaldeans, God says, "Get
thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house," (5) this means, not
that he should cast out his body from thence, for he had already done that, but that he should tear
away his soul. For he had not gone out from thence in mind, if he was held by the hope and desire
of returning, --a hope and desire which was to be cut off by God's command and help, and by his
own obedience. It would indeed be no incredible supposition that afterwards, when Nahor
followed his father, Abraham then fulfilled the precept of the Lord, that he should depart out of
Haran with Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son.

     CHAP. 16.--OF THE ORDER AND NATURE OF THE PROMISES OF GOD WHICH
WERE MADE TO ABRAHAM,

    God's promises made to Abraham are now to be considered; for in these the oracles of ]our
God, (6) that is, of the true God, began to appear more openly concerning the godly

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people, whom prophetic authority foretold. The first of these reads thus: "And the Lord said unto
Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, and go
into a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and
magnify thy name; and thou shall be blessed: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them
that curse thee: and in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blessed." (1) Now it is to be observed
that two things are promised to Abraham, the one, that his seed should possess the land of
Canaan, which is intimated when it is said, "Go into a land that I will show thee, and I will make
of thee a great nation;" but the other far more excellent, not about the carnal but the spiritual
seed, through which he is the father, not of the one Israelite nation, but of all nations who follow
the footprints of his faith, which was first promised in these words, "And in thee shall all tribes of
the earth be blessed." Eusebius thought this promise was made in Abraham's seventy-fifth year, as
if soon after it was made Abraham had departed out of Haran because the Scripture cannot be
contradicted in which we read, "Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of
Haran." But if this promise was made in that year, then of course Abraham was staying in Haran
with his father; for he could not depart thence unless he had first dwelt there. Does this, then,
contradict what Stephen says, "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was
in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran?" (2) But it is to be understood that the whole took
place in the same year,--both the promise of God before Abraham dwelt in Haran, and his
dwelling in Haran, and his departure thence, --not only because Eusebius in the Chronicles
reckons from the year of this promise, and shows that after 430 years the exodus from Egypt took
place, when the law was given, but because the Apostle Paul also mentions it.

     CHAP. 17.--OF THE THREE MOST FAMOUS KINGDOMS OF THE NATIONS, OF
WHICH ONE, THAT IS THE ASSYRIAN, WAS ALREADY VERY EMINENT WHEN
ABRAHAM WAS BORN.

    During the same period there were three famous kingdoms of the nations, in which the city of
the earth-born, that is, the society of men living according to man under the domination of the
fallen angels, chiefly flourished, namely, the three kingdoms of Sicyon, Egypt, and Assyria. Of
these, Assyria was much the most powerful and sublime; for that king Ninus, son of Belus, had
subdued the people of all Asia except India. By Asia I now mean not that part which is one
province of this greater Asia, but what is called Universal Asia, which some set down as the half,
but most as the third part of the whole world,--the three being Asia, Europe, and Africa, thereby
making an unequal division. For the part called Asia stretches from the south through the east
even to the north; Europe from the north even to the west; and Africa from the west even to the
south. Thus we see that two, Europe and Africa, contain one half of the world, and Asia alone the
other half. And these two parts are made by the circumstance, that there enters
tween them from the ocean all the Mediterranean water, which makes this great sea of ours. So
that, if you divide the world into two parts, the east and the west, Asia will be in the one, and
Europe and Africa in the other So that of the three kingdoms then famous, one, namely Sicyon,
was not under the Assyrians, because it was in Europe; but as for Egypt, how could it fail to be
subject to the empire which ruled all Asia with the single exception of India? In Assyria, therefore,
the dominion of the impious city had the pre-eminence. Its head was Babylon,-an earth-born city,
most fitly named, for it means confusion. There Ninus reigned after the death of his father Belus,
who first had reigned there sixty-five years. His son Ninus, who, on his father's death, succeeded
to the kingdom, reigned fifty-two years, and had been king forty-three years when Abraham was
born, which was about the 1200th year before Rome was founded, as it were another Babylon in
the west.

     CHAP. 18.--OF THE REPEATED ADDRESS OF GOD TO ABRAHAM, IN WHICH
HE PROMISED THE LAND OF CANAAN TO HIM AND TO HIS SEED.

    Abraham, then, having departed out of Haran in the seventy-fifth year of his own age, and in
the hundred and forty-fifth of his father's, went with Lot, his brother's son, and Sarah his wife,
into the land of Canaan, and came even to Sichem, where again he received the divine oracle, of
which it is thus written: "And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, Unto thy seed
will I give this land." (3) Nothing is promised here about that seed in which he is made the

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father of all nations, but only about that by which he is the father of the one Israelite nation; for by
this seed that land was possessed.

     CHAP. 19.--OF THE DIVINE PRESERVATION OF SARAH'S CHASTITY IN
EGYPT, WHEN ABRAHAM HAD CALLED HER NOT HIS WIFE BUT HIS SISTER.

    Having built an altar there, and called upon God, Abraham proceeded thence and dwelt in the
desert, and was compelled by pressure of famine to go on into Egypt. There he called his wife his
sister, and told no lie. For she was this also, because she was near of blood; just as Lot, on
account of the same nearness, being his brother's son, is called his brother. Now he did not deny
that she was his wife, but held his peace about it, committing to God the defence of his wife's
chastity, and providing as a man against human wiles; because if he had not provided against the
danger as much as he could, he would have been tempting God rather than trusting in Him. We
have said enough about this matter against the calumnies of Faustus the Manichaean. At last what
Abraham had expected the Lord to do took place. For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who had taken her
to him as his wife, restored her to her husband on being severely plagued. And far be it from us to
believe that she was defiled by lying with another; because it is much more credible that, by these
great afflictions, Pharaoh was not permitted to do this.

     CHAP. 20.--OF THE PARTING OF LOT AND ABRAHAM, WHICH THEY AGREED
TO WITHOUT BREACH OF CHARITY.

    On Abraham's return out of Egypt to the place he had left, Lot, his brother's son, departed from
him into the land of Sodom, without breach of charity. For they had grown rich, and began to
have many herdmen of cattle, and when these strove together, they avoided in this way the
pugnacious discord of, their families. Indeed, as human affairs go, this cause might even have
given rise to some strife between themselves. Consequently these are the words of Abraham to
Lot, when taking precaution against this evil, "Let there be no strife between me and thee, and
between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Behold, is not the whole ? land before
thee? Separate thyself from me: if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will go to the right; or if thou
wilt go to the right hand, I will go to the left." (1) From this, perhaps, has arisen a pacific custom
among men, that when there is any partition of earthly things, the greater should make the
division, the less the choice.

     CHAP. 21--OF THE THIRD PROMISE OF GOD, BY WHICH HE ASSURED THE
LAND OF CANAAN TO ABRAHAM AND HIS SEED IN PERPETUITY.

    Now, when Abraham and Lot had separated, and dwelt apart, owing to the necessity of
supporting their families, and not to vile discord, and Abraham was in the land of Canaan, but Lot
in Sodom, the Lord said to Abraham in a third oracle, "Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place
where thou now art, to the north, and to Africa, and to the east, and to the sea; for all the land
which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the
dust of the earth: if any one can number the dust of the earth, thy seed shall also be numbered.
Arise, and walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it; for unto thee will I
give it.'' (2) It does not clearly appear whether in this promise that also is  contained by which he
is made the father of all nations. For the clause, "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the
earth," may seem to refer to this, being spoken by that figure the Greeks call hyperbole, which
indeed is figurative, not literal. But no person of understanding can doubt in what manner the
Scripture uses this and other figures. For that figure (that is, way of speaking) is used when what
is said is far larger than what is meant by it; for who does not see how incomparably larger the
number of the dust must be than that of all men can be from Adam himself down to the end of the
world? How much greater, then, must it be than the seed of Abraham,--not only that pertaining to
the nation of Israel, but also that which is and shall be according to the imitation of faith in all
nations of the whole wide world ! For that seed is indeed very small in comparison with the
multitude of the wicked, although even those few of themselves make an innumerable multitude,
which by a hyperbole is compared to the dust of the earth. Truly that multitude which was
promised to Abraham is not innumerable to God, although to man; but to God not even the dust
of the earth is so. Further, the promise here made may be understood not only of the nation of
Israel, but of the whole seed of Abraham, which may be fitly compared to the dust for

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multitude, because regarding it also there is the promise (1) of many children, not according to the
flesh, but according to the spirit. But we have therefore said that this does not clearly appear,
because the multitude even of that one nation, which was born according to the flesh of Abraham
through his grandson Jacob, has increased so much as to fill almost all parts of the world.
Consequently, even it might by hyperbole be compared to the dust  for multitude, because even it
alone is innumerable by man. Certainly no one questions that only that land is meant which is
called Canaan. But that saying, "To thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever," may move some,
if by "for ever" they understand "to eternity." But if in this passage they take "for ever" thus, as
we firmly hold it means that the beginning of the world to come is to be ordered from the end of
the present, there is still no difficulty, because, although the Israelites are expelled from Jerusalem,
they still remain in other cities in the land of Canaan, and shall remain even to the end; and when
that whole land is inhabited by Christians, they also are the very seed of Abraham.

     CHAP. 22.--OF ABRAHAM'S OVERCOMING THE ENEMIES OF SODOM, WHEN
HE DELIVERED LOT FROM CAPTIVITY AND WAS BLESSED BY MELCHIZEDEK THE
PRIEST.

    Having received this oracle of promise, Abraham migrated, and remained in another place of
the same land, that is, beside the oak of Mature, which was Hebron. Then on the invasion of
Sodom, when five kings carried on war against four, and Lot was taken captive with the
conquered Sodomites, Abraham delivered him from the enemy, leading with him to battle three
hundred and eighteen of his home-born servants, and won the victory for the kings of Sodom, but
would take nothing of the spoils when offered by the king for whom he had won them. He was
then openly blessed by Melchizedek, who was priest of God Most High, about whom many and
great things are written in the epistle which is inscribed to the Hebrews, which most say is by the
Apostle Paul, though some deny this. For then first appeared the sacrifice which is now offered to
God by Christians in the whole wide world, and that is fulfilled which long after the event was
said by the prophet to Christ, who was yet to come in the fresh, "Thou art a priest for ever after
the order of Melchizedek," (2)--that is to say, not after the order of Aaron, for that order was to
be taken away when the things shone forth which were intimated beforehand by these shadows.

     CHAP. 23. --OF THE WORD OF THE LORD TO ABRAHAM, BY WHICH IT WAS
PROMISED TO HIM THAT HIS POSTERITY SHOULD BE MULTIPLIED ACCORDING
TO THE MULTITUDE OF THE STARS; ON BELIEVING WHICH HE WAS DECLARED
JUSTIFIED WHILE YET IN UNCIRCUMCISION.

    The word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision also. For when God promised him
protection and exceeding great reward, he, being solicitous about posterity, said that a certain
Eliezer of Damascus, born in his house, would be his heir. Immediately he was promised an heir,
not that house-born servant, but one who was to come forth of Abraham himself; and again a seed
innumerable, not as the dust of the earth, but as the stars of heaven,--which rather seems to me a
promise of a posterity exalted in celestial felicity. For, so far as multitude is concerned, what are
the stars of heaven to the dust of the earth, unless one should say the comparison is like inasmuch
as the stars also cannot be numbered? For it is not to be believed that all of them can be seen. For
the more keenly one observes them, the more does he see. So that it is to be supposed some
remain concealed from the keenest observers, to say nothing of those stars which are said to rise
and set in another part of the world most remote from us. Finally, the authority of this book
condemns those like Aratus or Eudoxus, or any others who boast that they have found out and
written down the complete number of the stars. Here, indeed, is set down that sentence which the
apostle quotes in order to commend the grace of God, "Abraham believed God, and it was
counted to him for righteousness;" (3) lest the circumcision should glory, and be unwilling to
receive the uncircumcised nations to the faith of Christ. For at the time when he believed, and his
faith was counted to him for righteousness, Abraham had not yet been circumcised.

     CHAP. 24.--OF THE MEANING OF THE SACRIFICE ABRAHAM WAS
COMMANDED TO OFFER WHEN HE SUPPLICATED TO BE TAUGHT ABOUT THOSE
THINGS HE HAD BELIEVED.

    In the same vision, God in speaking to him also says, "I am God that brought thee out

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of the region of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it." (1) And when Abram asked
whereby he might know that he should inherit it, God said to him, "Take me an heifer of three
years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle-dove, and a
pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one
against another; but the birds divided he not. And the fowls came down," as it is written, "on the
carcasses, and Abram sat down by them. But about the going down of the sun, great fear fell
upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And He said unto Abram, Know
of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs, and they shall reduce them to
servitude and shall afflict them four hundred years: but the nation whom they shall serve will I
judge; and afterward shall they come out hither with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy
fathers in peace; kept in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again:
for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And when the sun was setting, there was a flame,
and a smoking furnace, and lamps of fire, that passed through between those pieces. In that day
the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land, from the river
of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and
the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the
Hivites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." (2)
    All these things were said and done in a vision from God; but it would take long, and would
exceed the scope of this work, to treat of them exactly in detail. It is enough that we should know
that, after it was said Abram believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, he did
not fail in faith in saying, "Lord God, whereby shall I know that  I shall inherit it?" (5) for the
inheritance of that land was promised to him. Now he does not say, How shall I know, as if he did
not yet believe; but he says, "Whereby shall I know," meaning that some sign might be given by
which he might know the manner of those things which he had believed, just as it is not for lack of
faith the Virgin Mary says, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ?" (3) for she inquired as
to the way in which that should take place which she was certain would come to pass. And when
she

asked this, she was told, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee." (4) Here also, in fine, a symbol was given, consisting of three animals, a
heifer, a she-goat, and a ram and two birds, a turtle-dove and pigeon, that he might know that the
things which he had not doubted should come to pass were to happen in accordance with this
symbol. Whether, therefore, the heifer was a sign that the people should be put under the law, the
she-goat that the same people was to become sinful, the ram that they should reign (and these
animals are said to be of three years old for this reason, that there are three remarkable divisions
of time, from Adam to Noah, and from him to Abraham, and from him to David, who, on the
rejection of Saul, was first established by the will of the Lord in the kingdom of the Israelite
nation: in this third division, which extends from Abraham to David, that people grew up as if
passing through the third age of life), or whether they had some other more suitable meaning, still
I have no doubt whatever that spiritual things were prefigured by them as well as by the
turtle-dove and pigeon. And it is said, "But the birds divided he not," because carnal men are
divided among themselves, but the spiritual not at all, whether they seclude themselves from the
busy conversation of men, like the turtle-dove, or dwell among them, like the pigeon; for both
birds are simple and harmless, signifying that even in the Israelite people, to which that land was
to be given, there would be individuals who were children of the promise, and heirs of the
kingdom that is (5) to remain in eternal felicity. But the fowls coming down on the divided
carcasses represent nothing good, but the spirits of this air, seeking some food for themselves in
the division of carnal men. But that Abraham sat down with them, signifies that even amid these
divisions of the carnal, true believers shall persevere to the end. And that about the going down of
the sun great fear fell upon Abraham and a horror of great darkness, signifies that about the end
of this world believers shall be in great perturbation and tribulation, of which the Lord said in the
gospel, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning." (6)
    But what is said to Abraham, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not
theirs, and they shall reduce them to servitude, and shall afflict them 400 years," is most clearly a
prophecy about the people
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of Israel which was to be in servitude in Egypt. Not that this people was to be in that servitude
under the oppressive Egyptians for 400 years, but it is foretold that this should take place in the
course of those 400 years. For as it is written of Terah the father of Abraham, "And the days of
Terah in Haran were 205 years,"(1) not because they were all spent there, but because they were
completed there, so it is said here also, "And they shall reduce them to servitude, and shall afflict
them 400 years," for this reason, because that number was completed, not because it was all spent
in that affliction. The years are said to be 400 in round numbers, although they were a little
more,--whether you reckon from this time, when these things were promised to Abraham, or from
the birth of Isaac, as the seed of Abraham, of which these things are predicted. For, as we have
already said above, from the seventy-fifth year of Abraham, when the first promise was made to
him, down to the exodus of Israel from Egypt, there are reckoned 430 years, which the apostle
thus mentions: "And this I say, that the covenant confirmed by God, the law, which was made 430
years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect."(2) So then these 430
years might be called 400, because they are not much more, especially since part even of that
number had already gone by when these things were shown and said to Abraham in vision, or
when Isaac was born in his father's 100th year, twenty-five years after the first promise, when of
these 430 years there now remained 405, which God was pleased to call 400. No one will doubt
that the other things which follow in the prophetic words of God pertain to the people of Israel.

    When it is added, "And when the sun was now setting there was a flame, and lo, a smoking
furnace, and lamps of fire, which passed through between those pieces," this signifies that at the
end of the world the carnal shall be judged by fire. For just as the affliction of the city of God,
such as never was before, which is expected to take place under Antichrist, was signified by
Abraham's horror of great darkness about the going down of the sun, that is, when the end of the
world draws nigh,--so at the going down of the sun, that is, at the very end of the world, there is
signified by that fire the day of judgment, which separates the carnal who are to be saved by fire
from those who are to be condemned in the fire. And then the covenant made with Abraham
particularly sets forth the land of

Canaan, and names eleven tribes in it from the river of Egypt even to the great river Euphrates. It
is not then from the great river of Egypt, that is, the Nile, but from a small one which separates
Egypt from Palestine, where the city of Rhinocorura is.

     CHAP. 25.--OF SARAH'S HANDMAID, HAGAR, WHOM SHE HERSELF WISHED
TO BE ABRAHAM'S CONCUBINE.

    And here follow the times of Abraham's sons, the one by Hagar the bond maid, the other by
Sarah the free woman, about whom we have already spoken in the previous book. As regards this
transaction, Abraham is in no way to be branded as guilty concerning this concubine, for he used
her for the begetting of progeny, not for the gratification of lust; and not to insult, but rather to
obey his wife, who supposed it would be solace of her barrenness if she could make use of the
fruitful womb of her handmaid to supply the defect of her own nature, and by that law of which
the apostle says, "Likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,"(3)
could, as a wife, make use of him for childbearing by another, when she could not do so in her
own person. Here there is no wanton lust, no filthy lewdness. The handmaid is delivered to the
husband by the wife for the sake of progeny, and is received by the husband for the sake of
progeny, each seeking, not guilty excess, but natural fruit. And when the pregnant bond woman
despised her barren mistress, and Sarah, with womanly jealousy, rather laid the blame of this on
her husband, even then Abraham showed that he was not a slavish lover, but a free begetter of
children, and that in using Hagar he had guarded the chastity of Sarah his wife, and had gratified
her will and not his own,--had received her without seeking, had gone in to her without being
attached, had impregnated without loving her,--for he says, "Behold thy maid is in thy hands: do
to her as it pleaseth thee;"(4)  a man able to use women as a man should,--his wife temperately,
his handmaid compliantly, neither intemperately!

     CHAP. 26.--OF GOD'S ATTESTATION TO ABRAHAM, BY WHICH HE ASSURES
HIM, WHEN NOW OLD, OF A SON BY THE BARREN SARAH, AND APPOINTS HIM
THE FATHER OF THE NATIONS, AND SEALS HIS FAITH IN THE PROMISE BY THE
SACRAMENT OF CIRCUMCISION.

    After these things Ishmael was born of Hagar; and Abraham might think that in him

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was fulfilled what God had promised him, saying, when he wished to adopt his home-born
servant, "This shall not be thine heir: but he that shall come forth of thee, he shall be thine
heir."(2) Therefore, lest he should think that what was promised was fulfilled in the handmaid's
son, "when Abram was ninety years old and nine, God appeared to him, and said unto him, I am
God; be well-pleasing in my sight, and be without complaint, and I will make my covenant
between me and thee, and will fill thee exceedingly."(2) 
    Here there are more distinct promises about the calling of the nations in Isaac, that is, in the son
of the promise, by which grace is signified, and not nature; for the son is promised from an old
man and a barren old woman. For although God effects even the natural course of procreation,
yet where the agency of God is manifest, through the decay or failure of nature, grace is more
plainly discerned. And because this was to be brought about, not by generation, but by
regeneration, circumcision was enjoined now, when a son was promised of Sarah. And by
ordering all, not only sons, but also home-born and

purchased servants to be circumcised, he testifies that this grace pertains to all. For what else does
circumcision signify than a nature renewed on the putting off of the old? And what else does the
eighth day mean than Christ, who rose again when the week was completed, that is, after the
Sabbath? The very names of the parents are changed: all things proclaim newness, and the new
covenant is shadowed forth in the old. For what does the term old covenant imply but the
concealing of the new? And what does the term new covenant imply but the revealing of the old?
The laughter of Abraham is the exultation of one who rejoices, not the scornful laughter of one
who mistrusts. And those words of his in his heart, "Shall a son be born to me that am an hundred
years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?" are not the words of doubt, but of
wonder. And when it is said, "And I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land in which
thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession," if it troubles any one
whether this is to be held as fulfilled, or whether its fulfilment may still be looked for, since no
kind of earthly possession can be everlasting for any nation whatever, let him know that the word
translated everlasting, by our writers is what the Greeks term <greek>ai?w?nion</greek>, which
is derived from <greek>ai?w?n</greek>, the Greek for soeculum, an age. But the Latins have not
ventured to translate this by secular, test they should change the meaning into something widely
different. For many things are called secular which so happen in this world as to pass away even in
a short time; but what is termed <greek>ai?wnion</greek> either has no end, or lasts to the very
end of this world.

     CHAP. 27.--OF THE MALE, WHO WAS TO LOSE HIS SOUL IF HE WAS NOT
CIRCUMCISED ON THE EIGHTH DAY, BECAUSE HE HAD BROKEN GOD'S
COVENANT.

    When it is said, "The male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be
cut off from his people, because he hath broken my covenant,"[3] some may be troubled how that
ought to be understood, since it can be no fault of the infant whose life it is said must perish; nor
has the covenant of God been broken by him, but by his parents, who have not taken care to
circumcise him. But even the infants, not personally in their own life, but according to the

common origin of the human race, have all broken God's covenant in that one in whom all have
sinned.[4] Now there are many things called God' s covenants besides those two great ones, the
old and the new, which any one who pleases may read and know. For the first covenant, which
was made with the first man, is just this: "In the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die."[5]
Whence it is written in the book called Ecclesiasticus, "All flesh waxeth old as doth a garment.
For the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shall die the death."[6] Now, as the law was more
plainly given afterward, and the apostle says, "Where no law is, there is no prevarication,"[7]  on
what supposition is what is said in the psalm true,"[1] accounted all the sinners of the earth
prevaricators,"[8]  except that all who are held liable for any sin are accused of dealing deceitfully
(prevaricating) with some law? If on this account, then, even the infants are, according to the true
belief, born in sin, not actual but original, so that we confess they have need of grace for the
remission of sins, certainly it must be acknowledged that in the same sense in which they are
sinners they are also prevaricators of that law which was given in Paradise, according to the truth
of both scriptures, "I accounted all the sinners of the earth prevaricators," and "Where no law is,
there is no prevarication." And thus, be-

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cause circumcision was the sign of regeneration, and the infant, on account of the original sin by
which God's covenant was first broken, was not undeservedly to lose his generation unless
delivered by regeneration, these divine words are to be understood as if it had been said, Whoever
is not born again, that soul shall perish from his people, because he hath broken my covenant,
since he also has sinned in Adam with all others. For had He said, Because he hath broken this my
covenant, He would have compelled us to understand by it only this of circumcision; but since He
has not expressly said what covenant the infant has broken, we are free to understand Him as
speaking of that covenant of which the breach can be ascribed to an infant. Yet if any one
contends that it is said of nothing else than circumcision, that in it the infant has broken the
covenant of God because, he is not circumcised, he must seek some method of explanation by
which it may be understood without absurdity (such as this) that he has broken the covenant,
because it has been broken in him although not by him. Yet in this case also it is to be observed
that the soul of the infant, being guilty of no sin of neglect against itself, would perish unjustly,
unless original sin rendered it obnoxious to punishment.

     CHAP. 28.--OF THE CHANGE OF NAME IN ABRAHAM AND SARAH, WHO
RECEIVED THE GIFT OF FECUNDITY WHEN THEY WERE INCAPABLE OF
REGENERATION OWING TO THE BARRENNESS OF ONE, AND THE OLD AGE OF
BOTH.

    Now when a promise so great and clear was made to Abraham, in which it was so plainly said
to him, "I have made thee a father of many nations, and I will increase thee exceedingly, and I will
make nations of thee, and kings shall go forth of thee. And I will give thee a son of Sarah; and I
will bless him, and he shall become nations, and kings of nations shall be of him,"(1) --a promise
which we now see fulfilled in Christ,--from that time forward this couple are not called in
Scripture, as formerly, Abram and Sarai, but Abraham and Sarah, as we have called them from the
first, for every one does so now. The reason why the name of Abraham was changed is given:
"For," He says, "I have made thee a father of many nations." This, then, is to be understood to be
the meaning of Abraham; but Abram, as he was formerly called, means "exalted father." The
reason of the change of Sarah's name is not given; but as those say who have written
interpretations of the Hebrew names contained in these books, Sarah means "my princess," and
Sarai "strength." Whence it is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Through faith also Sarah
herself received strength to conceive seed."[2]  For both were old, as the Scripture testifies; but
she was also barren, and had ceased to menstruate, so that she could no longer bear children even
if she had not been barren. Further, if a woman is advanced in years, yet still retains the custom of
women, she can bear children to a young man, but not to an old man, although that same old man
can beget, but only of a young woman; as after Sarah's death Abraham could of Keturah, because
he met with her in her lively age. This, then, is what the apostle mentions as wonderful, saying,
besides, that Abraham's body was now dead;[3] because at that age he was no longer able to
beget children of any woman who retained now only a small part of her natural vigor. Of course
we must understand that his body was dead only to some purposes, not to all; for if it was so to
all, it would no longer be the aged body of a living man, but the corpse of a dead one. Although
that question, how Abraham begot children of Keturah, is usually solved in this way, that the gift
of begetting which he received from the Lord, remained even after the death of his wife, yet I
think that solution of the question which I have followed is preferable, because, although in our
days an old man of a hundred years can beget children of no woman, it was not so then, when
men still lived so long that a hundred years did not yet bring on them the decrepitude of old age.

     CHAP. 29.--OF THE THREE MEN OR ANGELS, IN WHOM THE LORD IS
RELATED TO HAVE APPEARED TO ABRAHAM AT THE OAK OF MAMRE.

    God appeared again to Abraham at the oak of Mature in three men, who it is not to be doubted
were angels, although some think that one of them was Christ, and assert that He was visible
before He put on flesh. Now it belongs to the divine power, and invisible, incorporeal, and
incommutable nature, without changing itself at all, to appear even to mortal men, not by what it
is, but by what is subject to it. And what is not subject to it? Yet if they try to establish that one of
these three was Christ by the fact that, although he saw three, he addressed the Lord in the
singular, as it is written, "And, lo, three men stood by him: and, when he saw them, he ran

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to meet them from the tent-door, and worshipped toward the ground, and said, Lord, if I have
found favor before thee,"(1) etc.; why do they not advert to this also, that when two of them
came to destroy the Sodomites, while Abraham still spoke to one, calling him Lord, and
interceding that he would not destroy the righteous along with the wicked in Sodom, Lot received
these two in such a way that he too in his conversation with them addressed the Lord in the
singular? For after saying to them in the plural, "Behold, my lords, turn aside into your servant's
house,"(2) etc., yet it is afterwards said, "And the angels laid hold upon his hand, and the hand of
his wife, and the hands of his two daughters, because the Lord was merciful unto him. And it
came to pass, .whenever they had led him forth abroad, that they said, Save thy life; look not
behind thee, neither stay thou in all this region: save thyself in the mountain, lest thou be caught.
And Lot said unto them, I pray thee, Lord, since thy servant hath found grace in thy sight,"(3) etc.
And then after these words the Lord also answered him in the singular, although He was in two
angels, saying, "See, I have accepted thy face,"(4) etc. This makes it much more credible that both
Abraham in the three men and Lot in the two recognized the Lord, addressing Him in the singular
number, even when they were addressing men; for they received them as they did for no other
reason than that they might minister human refection to them as men who needed it. Yet there
was about them something so excellent, that those who showed them hospitality as men could not
doubt that God was in them as He was wont to be in the prophets, and therefore sometimes
addressed them in the plural, and sometimes God in them in the singular. But that they were
angels the Scripture testifies, not only in this book of Genesis, in which these transactions are
related, but also in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where in praising hospitality it is said, "For thereby
some have entertained angels unawares." 5 By these three men, then, when a son Isaac was again
promised to Abraham by Sarah, such a divine oracle was also given that it was said, "Abraham
shall become a great and numerous nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in
him."(6)  And here these two things, are promised with the utmost brevity and fullness,--the
nation of Israel according to the
flesh, and all nations according to faith.

     CHAP. 30.--OF LOT'S DELIVERANCE FROM SODOM, AND ITS CONSUMPTION
BY FIRE FROM HEAVEN; AND OF ABIMELECH, WHOSE LUST COULD NOT HARM
SARAH'S CHASTITY.

    After this promise Lot was delivered out of Sodom, and a fiery rain from heaven turned into
ashes that whole region of the impious city, where custom had made sodomy as prevalent as laws
have elsewhere made other kinds of wickedness. But this punishment of theirs was a specimen of
the divine judgment to come. For what is meant by the angels for-bidding those who were
delivered to look back, but that we are not to look back in heart to the old life which, being
regenerated through grace, we have put off, if we think to escape the last judgment? Lot's wife,
indeed, when she looked back, remained, and, being turned into salt, furnished to believing men a
condiment by which to savor somewhat the warning to be drawn from that example. Then
Abraham did again at Gerar, with Abimelech the king of that city, what he had done in Egypt
about his wife, and received her back untouched in the same way. On this occasion, when the king
rebuked Abraham for not saying she was his wife, and calling her his sister, he explained what he
had been afraid of, and added this further, "And yet indeed she is my sister by the father's site, but
not by the mother's;(7)  for she was Abraham's sister by his own father, and so near of kin. But
her beauty was so great, that even at that advanced age she could be fallen in love with.

     CHAP. 31.--OF ISAAC, WHO WAS BORN ACCORDING TO THE PROMISE,
WHOSE NAME WAS GIVEN ON ACCOUNT OF THE LAUGHTER OF BOTH PARENTS.

    After these things a son was born to Abraham, according to God's promise, of Sarah, and was
called Isaac:, which means laughter. For his father had laughed when he was promised to him, in
wondering delight, and his mother, when he was again promised by those three men, had laughed,
doubting for joy; yet she was blamed by the angel because that laughter, although it was for joy,
yet was not full of faith. Afterwards she was confirmed in faith by the same angel. From this, then,
the boy got his name. For when Isaac was born and called by that name, Sarah showed that her
laughter was not that of scornful reproach, but that of joyful praise; for she said, "God hath made
me to laugh, so that every one who hears will laugh with

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me."(1) Then in a little while the bond maid was cast out of the house with her son; and,
according to the apostle, these two women signify the old and new covenants,---Sarah
representing that of the Jerusalem which is above, that is, the city of God.(2)

     CHAP. 32.--OF ABRAHAM'S OBEDIENCE AND FAITH, WHICH WERE PROVED
BY THE OFFERING UP, OF HIS SON IN SACRIFICE, AND OF SARAH'S DEATH.

    Among other things, of which it would take too long time to mention the whole, Abraham was
tempted about the offering up of his well-beloved son Isaac, to prove his pious obedience, and so
make it known to the world, not to God. Now every temptation is not blame-worthy; it may even
be praise-worthy, because it furnishes probation. And, for the most part, the human mind cannot
attain to self-knowledge otherwise than by making trial of its powers through temptation, by some
kind of experimental and not merely verbal self-interrogation; when, if it has acknowledged the
gift of God, it is pious, and is consolidated by steadfast grace and not puffed up by vain boasting.
Of course Abraham could never believe that God delighted in human sacrifices; yet when the
divine commandment thundered, it was to be obeyed, not disputed. Yet Abraham is worthy of
praise, because he all along believed that his son, on being offered up, would rise again; for God
had said to him, when he was unwilling to fulfill his wife's pleasure by casting out the bond maid
and her son, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." No doubt He then goes on to say, "And as for the
son of this bond woman, I will make him a great nation, because he is thy seed."[3] How then is it
said "In Isaac shall thy seed be called," when God calls Ishmael also his seed? The apostle, in
explaining this, says, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called, that is, they which are the children of the
flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the
seed."[4] In order, then, that the children of the promise may be the seed of Abraham, they are
called in Isaac, that is, are gathered together in Christ by the call of grace. Therefore the father,
holding fast from the first the promise which behoved to be fulfilled through this son whom God
had ordered him to slay, did not doubt that he whom he once thought it hopeless he should ever
receive would be restored to him when he had offered him up. It is in this way the passage in the
Epistle to the Hebrews is also to be understood and explained. "By faith," he says, "Abraham
overcame, when tempted about Isaac: and he who had received the promise offered up his only
son, to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: thinking that God was able to raise him
up, even from the dead;" therefore he has added, "from whence also he received him in a
similitude."[5] In whose similitude but His of whom the apostle says, "He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all?"(6) And on this account Isaac also himself carried to the
place of sacrifice the wood on which he was to be offered up, just as the Lord Himself carried His
own cross. Finally, since Isaac was not to be slain, after his father was forbidden to smite him,
who was that ram by the offering of which that sacrifice was completed with typical blood? For
when Abraham saw him, he was caught by the horns in a thicket. What, then, did he represent but
Jesus, who, before He was offered up, was crowned with thorns by the Jews? 

    But let us rather hear the divine words spoken through the angel. For the Scripture says, "And
Abraham stretched forth his hand to take the knife, that he might slay his son. And the Angel of
the Lord called unto him from heaven, and said, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. And he said,
Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou
fearest God, and hast not spared thy beloved son for my sake."(7) It is said, "Now I know," that
is, Now I have made to be known; for God was not previously ignorant of this. Then, having
offered up that ram instead of Isaac his son, "Abraham," as we read, "called the name of that place
The Lord seeth: as they say this day, In the mount the Lord hath appeared."(8) As it is said, "Now
I know," for Now I have made to be known, so here, "The Lord sees," for The Lord hath
appeared, that is, made Himself to be seen. "And the Angel of the Lord called unto Abraham from
heaven the second time, saying, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; because thou hast done
this thing, and hast not spared thy beloved son for my sake; that in blessing I will bless thee, and
in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the
seashore; and thy seed shall possess by inheritance the cities of the adversaries: and in thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou

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hast obeyed my voice."(1) In this manner is that promise concerning the calling of the nations in
the seed of Abraham confirmed even by the oath of God, after that burnt-offering which typified
Christ. For He had often promised, but never sworn. And what is the oath of God, the true and
faithful, but a confirmation of the promise, and a certain reproof to the unbelieving?
    After these things Sarah died, in the 127th year of her life, and the 137th of her husband for he
was ten years older than she, as he himself says, when a son is promised to him by her: "Shall a
son be born to me that am an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old,
bear?"(2) Then Abraham bought a field, in which he buried his wife. And then, according to
Stephen's account, he was settled in that land, entering then on actual possession of it,--that is,
after the death of his father, who is inferred to have died two years before.

     CHAP. 33.--OF REBECCA, THE GRAND-DAUGHTER OF NAHOR, WHOM ISAAC
TOOK TO WIFE.

    Isaac married Rebecca, the grand-daughter of Nahor, his father's brother, when he was forty
years old, that is, in the 140th year of his father's life, three years after his mother's death. Now
when a servant was sent to Mesopotamia by his father to fetch her, and when Abraham said to
that servant, "Put thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of
heaven, and the Lord of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son Isaac of the
daughters of the Canaanites,"(3) what else was pointed out by this, but that the Lord, the God of
heaven, and the Lord of the earth, was to come in the flesh which was to be derived from that
thigh? Are these small tokens of the foretold truth which we see fulfilled in Christ?

CHAP. 34.--WHAT IS MEANT BY ABRAHAM'S
                 MARRYING KETURAH AFTER SARAH'S DEATH.
                                   
    What did Abraham mean by marrying Keturah after Sarah's death? Far be it from us to suspect
him of incontinence, especially when he had reached such an age and such sanctity of faith. Or
was he still seeking to beget children, though he held fast, with most approved faith, the promise
of God that his children should be multiplied out of Isaac as the stars of heaven and the dust of
the earth? And yet, if Hagar and Ishmael, as the apostle teaches us, signified the carnal people of
the old covenant, why may not Keturah and her sons also signify the carnal people who think they
belong to the new covenant? For both are called both the wives and the concubines of Abraham;
but Sarah is never called a concubine (but only a wife). For when Hagar is given to Abraham, it is
written. "And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abraham had
dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife."(4) And
of Keturah, whom he took after Sarah's departure, we read, "Then again Abraham took a wife,
whose name was Keturah."(5) Lo! both are called wives, yet both are found to have been
concubines; for the Scripture afterward says, "And Abraham gave his whole estate unto Isaac his
son. But unto the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from his son
Isaac, (while he yet lived,) eastward, unto the east country."(6) Therefore the sons of the
concubines, that is, the heretics and the carnal Jews, have some gifts, but do not attain the
promised kingdom; "For they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of
God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed, of whom it was said, In Isaac shall
thy seed be called."(7)  For I do not see why Keturah, who was married after the wife's death,
should be called a concubine, except on account of this mystery. But if any one is unwilling to put
such meanings on these things, he need not calumniate Abraham. For what if even this was
provided against the heretics who were to be the opponents of second marriages, so that it might
be shown that it was no sin in the case of the father of many nations himself, when, after his wife's
death, he married again? And Abraham died when he was 175 years old, so that he left his son
Isaac seventy-five years old, having begotten him when 100 years old.

     CHAP. 35.--WHAT WAS INDICATED BY THE DIVINE ANSWER ABOUT THE
TWINS STILL SHUT UP IN THE WOMB OF REBECCA THEIR MOTHER.

    Let us now see how the times of the city of God run on from this point among Abraham's
descendants. In the time from the first year of Isaac's life to the seventieth, when his sons were
born, the only memorable thing is, that when he prayed God that his wife, who was barren, might
bear, and the Lord granted what he sought, and she conceived, the twins leapt while still enclosed
in her womb. And when she was troubled by this struggle, and
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inquired of the Lord, she received this answer: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of
people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall overcome the other people,
and the elder shall serve the younger." (1) The Apostle Paul would have us understand this as a
great instance of grace; (2) for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or
evil, the younger is chosen without any good desert and the elder is rejected, when beyond doubt,
as regards original sin, both were alike, and as regards actual sin, neither had any. But the plan of
the work on hand does not permit me to speak more fully of this matter now, and I have said
much about it in other works. Only that saying, "The elder shall serve the younger," is understood
by our writers, almost without exception, to mean that the elder people, the Jews, shall serve the
younger people, the Christians. And truly, although this might seem to be fulfilled in the Idumean
nation, which was born of the elder (who had two names, being called both Esau and Edom.
whence the name Idumeans), because it was afterwards to be overcome by the people which
sprang from the younger, that is, by the Israelites, and was to become subject to them; yet it is
more suitable to believe that, when it was said, "The one people shall overcome the other people,
and the elder shall serve the younger," that prophecy meant some greater thing; and what is that
except what is evidently fulfilled in the Jews and Christians?

     CHAP. 36. -- OF THE ORACLE AND BLESSING WHICH ISAAC RECEIVED, JUST
AS HIS FATHER DID, BEING BELOVED FOR HIS SAKE.

    Isaac also received such an oracle as his father had often received. Of this oracle it is thus
written: "And there was a famine aver the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of
Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar, And the Lord
appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; but dwell in the land which I shall tell thee
of. And abide in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee: unto thee and unto thy seed
I will give all this land; and I will establish mine oath, which I sware unto Abraham thy father: and
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all this land: and in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because that Abraham thy father obeyed my
voice, and kept my precepts, my commandments, my righteousness, and my laws." (3) This
patriarch neither had another wife, nor any concubine, but was content with the twin-children
begotten by one act of generation. He also was afraid, when he lived among strangers, of being
brought into danger owing to the beauty of his wife, and did like his father in calling her his sister,
and not telling that she was his wife; for she was his near blood-relation by the father's and
mother's side. She also remained untouched by the strangers, when it was known she was his wife.
Yet we ought not to prefer him to his father because he knew no woman besides his one wife. For
beyond doubt the merits of his father's faith and obedience were greater, inasmuch as God says it
is for his sake He does Isaac good: "In thy seed," He says, "shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed, because that Abraham thy father obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts, my
commandments, my statutes, and my laws." And again in another oracle He says, "I am the God
of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for
my servant Abraham's sake." (4) So that we must understand how chastely Abraham acted,
because imprudent men, who seek some support for their own wickedness in the Holy Scriptures,
think he acted through lust. We may also learn this, not to compare men by single good things,
but to consider everything in each; for it may happen that one man has something in his life and
character in which he excels another, and it may be far more excellent than that in which the other
excels him. And thus, according to sound and true judgment, while continence is preferable to
marriage, yet a believing married man is better than a continent unbeliever; for the unbeliever is
not only less praiseworthy, but is even highly detestable. We must conclude, then, that both are
good; yet so as to hold that the married man who is most faithful and most obedient is certainly
better than the continent man whose faith and obedience are less. But if equal in other things, who
would hesitate to. prefer the continent man to the married?

   CHAP. 37.--OF THE THINGS MYSTICALLY PREFIGURED IN ESAU AND JACOB.
                                   
    Isaac's two sons, Esau and Jacob, grew up together. The primacy of the elder was transferred
to the younger by a bargain and agreement between them, when the elder immoderately lusted
after the lentiles the younger had prepared for food, and for that price sold his birthright to him,
confirming it

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with an oath. We learn from this that a person is to be blamed, not for the kind of food he eats,
but for immoderate greed. Isaac grew old, and old age deprived him of his eyesight. He wished to
bless the elder son, and instead of the elder, who was hairy, unwittingly blessed the younger, who
put himself under his father's hands, having covered himself with kid-skins, as if bearing the sins of
others. Lest we should think this guile of Jacob's was fraudulent guile, instead of seeking in it the
mystery of a great thing, the Scripture has predicted in the words just before, "Esau was a cunning
hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a simple man, dwelling at home." (1) Some of our
writers have interpreted this, "without guile. But whether the Greek <greek>a?plastos</greek>
means without guile," or "simple," or rather "without reigning," in the receiving of that blessing
what is the guile of the man without guile? What is the guile of the simple, what the fiction of the
man who does not lie, but a profound mystery of the truth? But what is the blessing itself ? "See,"
he says, "the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord hath blessed: therefore
God give thee of the dew of heaven, and of the fruitfulness of the earth, and plenty of corn and
wine: let nations serve thee, and princes adore thee: and be lord of thy brethren, and let thy
father's sons adore thee: cursed be he that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee." (2)
The blessing of Jacob is therefore a proclamation of Christ to all nations. It is this which has come
to pass, and is now being fulfilled. Isaac is the law and the prophecy: even by the mouth of the
Jews Christ is blessed by prophecy as by one who knows not, because it is itself not understood.
The world like a field is filled with the odor of Christ's name: His is the blessing of the dew of
heaven, that is, of the showers of divine words; and of the fruitfulness of the earth, that is, of the
gathering together of the peoples: His is the plenty of corn and wine, that is, the multitude that
gathers bread and wine in the sacrament of His body and blood. Him the nations serve, Him
princes adore. He is the Lord of His brethren, because His people rules over the Jews. Him His
Father's sons adore, that is, the sons of Abraham according to faith; for He Himself is the son of
Abraham according to the flesh. He is cursed that curseth Him, and he that blesseth Him is
blessed. Christ, I say, who is ours is blessed, that is, truly spoken of out of the mouths of the
Jews, when, although erring, they yet sing the law and the prophets, and think they are blessing
another for whom they erringly hope. So, when the elder son claims the promised blessing, Isaac
is greatly afraid, and wonders when he knows that he has blessed one instead of the other, and
demands who he is; yet he does not complain that he has been deceived, yea, when the great
mystery is revealed to him, in his secret heart he at once eschews anger, and confirms the blessing.
"Who then," he says, "hath hunted me venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before
thou camest, and have blessed him, and he shall be blessed?" (3) Who would not rather have
expected the curse of an angry man here, if these things had been done in an earthly manner, and
not by inspiration from above? O things done, yet done prophetically; on the earth, yet celestially;
by men, yet divinely!  If everything that is fertile of so great mysteries should be examined
carefully, many volumes would be filled; but the moderate compass fixed for this work compels us
to hasten to other things.

     CHAP. 38.--OF JACOB'S MISSION TO MESOPOTAMIA TO GET A WIFE, AND OF
THE VISION WHICH HE SAW IN A DREAM BY THE WAY, AND OF HIS GETTING
FOUR WOMEN WHEN HE SOUGHT ONE WIFE.

    Jacob was sent by his parents to Mesopotamia that he might take a wife there. These were his
father's words on sending him: "Thou shall not take a wife of the daughters of the Canaanites.
Arise, fly to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father, and take thee a wife from
thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother. And my God bless thee, and increase thee,
and multiply thee; and thou shall be an assembly of peoples; and give to thee the blessing of
Abraham thy father, and to thy seed after thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou
dwellest, which God gave unto Abraham." (4) Now we understand here that the seed of Jacob is
separated from Isaac's other seed which came through Esau. For when it is said, "In Isaac shall
thy seed be called," (5) by this seed is meant solely the city of God; so that from it is separated
Abraham's other seed, which was in the son  of the bond woman, and which was to be in the sons
of Keturah. But until now it had been uncertain regarding Isaac's twin-sons whether that blessing
belonged to both or only  to one of them; and if to one, which of them it was. This is now
declared when Jacob is

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prophetically blessed by his father, and it is said to him, "And thou shalt be an assembly of
peoples, and God give to thee the blessing of Abraham thy father."
    When Jacob was going to Mesopotamia, he received in a dream an oracle, of which it is thus
written: "And Jacob went out from the well of the oath, (1) and went to Haran. And he came to a
place, and slept there, for the sun was set; and he took of the stones of the place, and put them at
his head, and slept in that place, and dreamed. And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the
top of it reached to heaven; and the angels of God ascended and descended by it. And the Lord
stood above it, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac fear not: the
land whereon thou sleepest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust
of the earth; and it shall be spread abroad to the sea, and to Africa, and to the north, and to the
east: and all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in thee and in thy seed. And, behold, I am with
thee, to keep thee in all thy way wherever thou goest, and I will bring thee back into this land; for
I will not leave thee, until I have, done all which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awoke out
of his sleep, and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and
said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven. And Jacob arose, and took the stone that he had put under his head there, and set it up
for a memorial, and poured oil upon the top of it. And Jacob called the name of that place the
house of God." (2) This is prophetic. For Jacob did not pour oil on the stone in an idolatrous way,
as if making it a god; neither did he adore that stone, or sacrifice to it. But since the name of
Christ comes from the chrism or anointing, something pertaining to the great mystery was
certainly represented in this. And the Saviour Himself is understood to bring this latter to
remembrance in the gospel, when He says of Nathanael, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is
no guile!" (3) because Israel who saw this vision is no other than Jacob. And in the same place He
says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of man."
    Jacob went on to Mesopotamia to take a wife from thence. And the divine Scripture points out
how, without unlawfully desiring any of them, he came to have four women, of whom he begat
twelve sons and one daughter; for he had come to take only one. But when one was falsely given
him in place of the other, he did not send her away after unwittingly using her in the night, lest he
should seem to have put her to shame; but as at that time, in order to multiply posterity, no law
forbade a plurality of wives, he took her also to whom alone he had promised marriage. As she
was barren, she gave her handmaid to her husband that she might have children by her; and her
elder sister did the same thing in imitation of her, although she had borne, because she desired to
multiply progeny. We do not read that Jacob sought any but one, or that he used many, except for
the purpose of begetting offspring, saving conjugal rights; and he would not have done this, had
not his wives, who had legitimate power over their own husband's body, urged him to do it. So he
begat twelve sons and one daughter by four women. Then he entered into Egypt by his son
Joseph, who was sold by his brethren for envy, and carried there, and who was there exalted.

CHAP. 39.--THE REASON WHY JACOB WAS ALSO
                            CALLED ISRAEL.
                                   
As I said a little ago, Jacob was also called Israel, the name which was most prevalent among the
people descended from him. Now this name was given him by the angel who wrestled with him on
the way back from Mesopotamia, and who was most evidently a type of Christ. For when Jacob
overcame him, doubtless with his own consent, that the mystery might be represented, it signified
Christ's passion, in which the Jews are seen overcoming Him. And yet he besought a blessing
from the very angel he had overcome; and so the imposition of this name was the blessing. For
Israel means seeing God, (4) which will at last be the reward of alI the saints. The angel also
touched him on the breadth of the thigh when he was overcoming him, and in that way made him
lame. So that Jacob was at one and the same time blessed and lame: blessed in those among that
people who believed in Christ, and lame in the unbelieving. For the breadth of the thigh is the
multitude of the family. For there are many of that race of whom it was prophetically said
beforehand, "And they have halted in their paths." (5)

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     CHAP. 40.--HOW IT IS SAID THAT JACOB WENT INTO EGYPT WITH
SEVENTY-FIVE SOULS, WHEN MOST OF THOSE WHO ARE MENTIONED WERE
BORN AT A LATER PERIOD.

    Seventy-five men are reported to have entered Egypt along with Jacob, counting him with his
children. In this number only two women are mentioned, one a daughter, the other a
grand-daughter. But when the thing is carefully considered, it does not appear that Jacob's
offspring was so numerous on the day or year when he entered Egypt. There are also included
among them the great-grandchildren of Joseph, who could not possibly be born already. For Jacob
was then 130 years old, and his son Joseph thirty-nine and as it is plain that he took a wife when
he was thirty or more, how could he in nine years have great-grandchildren by the children whom
he had by that wife? Now since, Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, could not even have
children, for Jacob found them boys under nine years old when he entered Egypt, in what way are
not only their sons but their grandsons reckoned among those seventy-five who then entered
Egypt with Jacob? For there is reckoned there Machir the son of Manasseh, grandson of Joseph,
and Machir's son, that is, Gilead grandson of Manasseh, great-grandson of Joseph; there, too, is
he whom Ephraim, Joseph's other son, begot, that is, Shuthelah grandson of Joseph, and
Shuthelah's son Ezer, grandson of Ephraim, and great-grand-son of Joseph, who could not
possibly be in existence when Jacob came into Egypt, and there found his grandsons, the sons of
Joseph, their grandsires, still boys under nine years of age.' But doubtless, when the Scripture
mentions Jacob's entrance into Egypt with seventy-five souls, it does not mean one day, or one
year, but that whole time as long as Joseph lived, who was the cause of his entrance. For the same
Scripture speaks thus of Joseph: "And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he  and his brethren, and all his
father's house: and Joseph lived 110 years, and saw Ephraim's children of the third generation."
(2) That is, his great-grandson, the third from Ephraim; for the third generation means son,
grandson, great-grandson. Then it is added," The children also of Machir, the son of Manasseh,
were born upon Joseph's knees." (3) And this is that grandson of Manasseh, and great-grandson
of Joseph. But the plural number is employed according to scriptural usage; for the one daughter
of Jacob is spoken of as daughters, just as in the usage of the Latin tongue liberi is used in the
plural for children even when there is only one. Now, when Joseph's own happiness is proclaimed,
because he could see his great-grandchildren, it is by no means to be thought they already existed
in the thirty-ninth year of their great-grand-sire Joseph, when his father Jacob came to him in
Egypt. But those who diligently look into these things will the less easily be mistaken, because it
is written, "These are the names of the sons of Israel who entered into Egypt along with Jacob
their father." (4) For this means that the seventy-five are reckoned along with him, not that they
were all with him when he entered Egypt; for, as I have said, the whole period during which
Joseph, who occasioned his entrance, lived, is held to be the time of that entrance.

                CHAP. 41.--OF THE BLESSING WHICH JACOB
                      PROMISED IN JUDAH HIS SON.
                                   
    If, on account of the Christian people in whom the city of God sojourns in the earth, we look
for the flesh of Christ in the seed of Abraham, setting aside the sons of the concubines, we have
Isaac; if in the seed of Isaac, setting aside Esau, who is also Edom, we have Jacob, who also is
Israel; if in the seed of Israel himself, setting aside the rest, we have Judah, because Christ sprang
of the tribe of Judah. Let us hear, then, how Israel, when dying in Egypt, in blessing his sons,
prophetically blessed Judah. He says: "Judah, thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hands shall be on
the back of thine enemies; thy father's children shall adore thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the
sprouting, my son, thou art gone up: lying down, thou hast slept as a lion, and as a lion's whelp;
who shall awake him? A prince shall not be lacking out of Judah, and a leader from his thighs,
until the things come that are laid up for him; and He shall be the expectation of the nations.
Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's foal to the choice vine; he shall wash his robe in wine,
and his clothes in the blood of the grape: his eyes are red with wine, and his teeth are whiter than
milk." (5) I have expounded these words in disputing against Faustus the Manichaean; and I think
it is enough to make the truth of this prophecy shine, to remark that the death of Christ is
predicted by the word about his lying down, and not the necessity, but the voluntary character of
His death, in the title of lion. That power He Himself proclaims in the gospel,

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saying, "I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again. No man
taketh it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and take it again." (1) So the lion roared, so He
fulfilled what He said. For to this power what is added about the resurrection refers, "Who shall
awake him?" This means that no man but Himself has raised Him, who also said of His own body,
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (2) And the very nature of His death,
that is, the height of the cross, is understood by the single words "Thou are gone up." The
evangelist explains what is added, "Lying down, thou hast slept," when he says, "He bowed His
head, and gave up the ghost." (3) Or at least His burial is to be understood, in which He lay down
sleeping, and whence no man raised Him, as the prophets did some, and as He Himself did others;
but He Himself rose up as if from sleep. As for His robe which He washes in wine, that is,
cleanses from sin in His own blood, of which blood those who are baptized know the mystery, so
that he adds, "And his clothes in the blood of the grape," what is it but the Church? "And his eyes
are red with wine," [these are] His spiritual people drunken with His cup, of which the psalm
sings, "And thy cup that makes drunken, how excellent it is!" "And his teeth are whiter than milk,"
(4)--that is, the nutritive words which, according to the apostle, the babes drink, being as yet unfit
for solid food. (5) And it is He in whom the promises of Judah were laid up, so that until they
come, princes, that is, the kings of Israel, shall never be lacking out of Judah. "And He is the
expectation of the nations." This is too plain to need exposition.

     CHAP. 42.--OF THE SONS OF JOSEPH, WHOM JACOB BLESSED,
PROPHETICALLY CHANGING HIS HANDS.

    Now, as Isaac's two sons, Esau and Jacob, furnished a type of the two people, the Jews and the
Christians (although as pertains to carnal descent it was not the Jews but the Idumeans who came
of the seed of Esau, nor the Christian nations but rather the Jews who came of Jacob's; for the
type holds only as regards the saying, "The elder shall serve the younger" (6)), so the same thing
happened in Joseph's two sons; for the elder was a type of the Jews, and the younger of the
Christians. For when Jacob was blessing them, and laid his fight hand on the younger, who was at
his left, and his left hand on the elder, who was at his right, this seemed wrong to their father, and
he admonished his father by trying to correct his mistake and show him which was the elder. But
he would not change his hands, but said, "I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people,
and he also shall be exalted; but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall
become a multitude of nations." (7) And these two promises show the same thing. For that one is
to become "a people;" this one "a multitude of nations." And what can be more evident than that
these two promises comprehend the people of Israel, and the whole world of Abraham's seed, the
one according to the flesh, the other according to faith?

     CHAP. 43.--OF THE TIMES OF MOSES AND JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN, OF THE
JUDGES, AND THEREAFTER OF THE KINGS, OF WHOM SAUL WAS THE FIRST, BUT
DAVID IS TO BE REGARDED AS THE CHIEF, BOTH BY THE OATH AND BY MERIT.

    Jacob being dead, and Joseph also, during the remaining 144 years until they went out of the
land of Egypt, that nation increased to an incredible degree, even although wasted by so great
persecutions, that at one time the male children were murdered at their birth, because the
wondering Egyptians were terrified at the too great increase of that people. Then Moses, being
stealthily kept from the murderers of the infants, was brought to the royal house, God preparing
to do great things by him, and was nursed and adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh (that was the
name of all the kings of Egypt), and became so great a man that he--yea, rather God, who had
promised this to Abraham, by him--drew that nation, so wonderfully multiplied, out of the yoke of
hardest and most grievous servitude it had borne there. At first, indeed, he fled thence (we are
told he fled into the land of Midian), because, in defending an Israelite, he had slain an Egyptian,
and was afraid. Afterward, being divinely commissioned in the power of the Spirit of God, he
overcame the magi of Pharaoh who resisted him. Then, when the Egyptians would not let God's
people go, ten memorable plagues were brought by Him upon them,--the water turned into blood, 
the frogs and lice, the flies, the death of the cattle, the boils, the hail, the locusts. the darkness, the
death of the first-born. At last the Egyptians were destroyed in the Red Sea while pursuing the
Israelites, whom they had

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let go when at length they were broken by so many great plagues. The divided sea made a way for
the Israelites who were departing, but, returning on itself, it overwhelmed their pursuers with its
waves. Then for forty years the people of God went through the desert, under the leadership of
Moses, when the tabernacle of testimony was dedicated, in which God was worshipped by
sacrifices prophetic of things to come, and that was after the law had been very terribly given in
the mount, for its divinity was most plainly attested by wonderful signs and voices. This took
place soon after the exodus from Egypt, when the people had entered the desert, on the fiftieth
day after the passover was celebrated by the offering up of a lamb, which is so completely a type
of Christ, foretelling that through His sacrificial passion He should go from this world to the
Father (for pascha in, the Hebrew tongue means transit), that when the new covenant was
revealed, after Christ our passover was offered up, the Holy Spirit came from heaven on the
fiftieth day; and He is called in the gospel the Finger of God, because He recalls to our
remembrance the things done before by way of types, and because the tables of that law are said
to have been written by the finger of God.
    On the death of Moses, Joshua the son of Nun ruled the people, and led them into the land of
promise, and divided it among them. By these two wonderful leaders wars were also carried on
most prosperously and wonderfully, God calling to witness that they had got these victories not
so much on account of the merit of the Hebrew people as on account of the sins of the nations
they subdued. After these leaders there were judges, when the people were settled in the land of
promise, so that, in the meantime, the first promise made to  Abraham began to be fulfilled about
the one nation, that is, the Hebrew, and about the land of Canaan; but not as yet the promise
about all nations, and the whole wide world, for that was to be fulfilled, not by the observances of
the old law, but by the advent of Christ in the flesh, and by the faith of the gospel. And it was to
prefigure this that it was not Moses, who received the law for the people on Mount Sinai, that led
the people into the land of promise, but Joshua, whose name also was changed at God's
command,  so that he was called Jesus. But in the times of the judges prosperity alternated with
adversity in war, according as the sins of the  people and the mercy of God were displayed. We
come next to the times of the kings. The first who reigned was Saul; and when he was rejected
and laid low in battle, and his offspring rejected so that no kings should arise out of it, David
succeeded to the kingdom, whose son Christ is chiefly called. He was made a kind of
starting-point and beginning of the advanced youth of God's people, who had passed a kind of age
of puberty from Abraham to this David. And it is not in vain that the evangelist Matthew records
the generations in such a way as to sum up this first period from Abraham to David in fourteen
generations. For from the age of puberty man begins to be capable of generation; therefore he
starts the list of generations from Abraham, who also was made the father of many nations when
he got his name changed. So that previously this family of God's people was in its childhood, from
Noah to Abraham; and for that reason the first language was then learned, that is, the Hebrew.
For man begins to speak in childhood, the age succeeding infancy, which is so termed because
then he cannot speak. (1) And that first age is quite drowned in oblivion, just as the first age of
the human race was blotted out by the flood; for who is there that can remember his infancy?
Wherefore in this progress of the city of God, as the previous book contained that first age, so
this one ought to contain the. second and third ages, in which third age, as was shown by the
heifer of three years old, the she-goat of three years  old, and the ram of three years old, the yoke
of the law was imposed, and there appeared abundance of sins, and the beginning of the earthly
kingdom arose, in which there were not lacking spiritual men, of whom the turtledove and pigeon
represented the mystery.


                             BOOK XVII.
                                  
                              ARGUMENT.
                                  
     THIS BOOK THE HISTORY OF THE CITY OF GOD IS TRACED DURING THE
PERIOD OF THE KINGS AND PROPHETS FROM SAMUEL TO DAVID, EVEN TO
CHRIST; AND THE PROPHECIES WHICH ARE RECORDED IN THE BOOKS OF KINGS,
PSALMS, AND THOSE OF SOLOMON, ARE INTERPRETED OF CHRIST AND THE
CHURCH.

                    CHAP. I .--OF THE PROPHETIC AGE.
                                    
    By the favor of God we have treated distinctly of His promises made to Abraham, that both the
nation of Israel according to the flesh, and all nations according to faith, should be his seed, and
the City of God, proceeding according to the order of time, will point (1) out how they were
fulfilled. Having therefore in the previous book come down to the reign of David, we shall now
treat of what remains, so far as may seem sufficient for the object of this work, beginning at the
same reign. Now, from the time when holy Samuel began to prophesy, and ever onward until the
people of Israel was led captive into Babylonia, and until, according to the prophecy of holy
Jeremiah, on Israel's return thence after seventy years, the house of God was built anew. this
whole period is the prophetic age. For although both the patriarch Noah himself, in whose days
the whole earth was destroyed by the flood, and others before and after him down to this time
when there began to be kings over the people of God, may not underservedly be styled prophets,
on account  of certain things pertaining to the city of God and the kingdom of heaven, which they
either predicted or in any way signified should come to pass, and especially since we read that
some of them, as Abraham and Moses, were expressly so styled, yet those are most and chiefly
called the days of the prophets from the time when Samuel began to prophesy, who at God's
command first anointed Saul to be king, and, on his rejection, David himself, whom others of his
issue should succeed as long as it was fitting they should do so. If,

therefore, I wished to rehearse all that the  prophets have predicted concerning Christ, while the
city of God, with its members dying and being born in constant succession, ran its course through
those times, this work would extend beyond all bounds. First, because the Scripture itself, even
when, in treating in order of the kings and of their deeds and the events of their reigns, it seems to
be occupied in narrating as with historical diligence the affairs transacted, will be found, if the
things handled by it are considered with the aid of the Spirit of God, either more, or certainly not
less, intent on foretelling things to come than on relating things past. And who that thinks even a
little about it does not know how laborious and prolix a work it would be, and how many volumes
it would require to search this out by thorough investigation and demonstrate it by argument?
And then, because of that which without dispute pertains to prophecy, there are so many things
concerning Christ and the kingdom of heaven, which is the city of God, that to explain these a
larger discussion would be necessary than the due proportion of this work admits of. Therefore I
shall, if I can, so limit myself, that in carrying through this work, I may, with God's help, neither
say what is superfluous nor omit what is necessary.

     CHAP. 2 .--AT WHAT TIME THE PROMISE OF GOD WAS FULFILLED
CONCERNING THE LAND OF CANAAN, WHICH EVEN CARNAL ISRAEL GOT IN
POSSESSION.

    In the preceding book we said, that in the promise of God to Abraham two things were
promised from the beginning, the one, name-

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ly, that his seed should possess the land of Canaan, which was intimated when it was said, "Go
into a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation;" (1) but the other far more
excellent, concerning not the carnal but the spiritual seed, by which he is the father, not of the one
nation of Israel, but of all nations who follow the footsteps of his faith, which began to be
promised in these words, "And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (2) And thereafter
we showed by yet many other proofs that these two things were promised. Therefore the seed of
Abraham, that is, the people of Israel according to the flesh, already was in the land of promise;
and there, not only by holding and possessing the cities of the enemies, but also by having kings,
had already begun to reign, the promises of God concerning that people being already in great
part fulfilled: not only those that were made to those three fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and whatever others were made in their times, but those also that were made through Moses
himself, by whom the same people was set free from servitude in Egypt, and by whom all bygone
things were revealed in his times, when he led the people through the wilderness. But neither by
the illustrious leader Jesus the son of Nun, who led that people into the land of promise, and, after
driving out the nations, divided it among the twelve tribes according to God's command, and died;
nor after him, in the whole time of the judges, was the promise of God concerning the land of
Canaan fulfilled, that it should extend from some river of Egypt even to the great river Euphrates;
nor yet was it still prophesied as to come, but its fulfillment was expected. And it was; fulfilled
through David, and Solomon his son, whose kingdom was extended over the whole promised
space; for they subdued all those nations, and made them tributary. And thus, under those kings,
the seed of Abraham was established in the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the
land of Canaan, so that nothing yet remained to the complete fulfillment of that earthly promise of
God, except that, so far as pertains to temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should remain in
the same land by the succession of posterity in an unshaken state even to the end of this mortal
age, if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God. But since God knew it would not do this, He used
His temporal punishments also for training His few faithful ones in it, and for giving needful
warning to those who should afterwards be in all nations, in whom the other promise, revealed in
the New Testament, was about to be fulfilled through the incarnation  of Christ.

     CHAP. 3.--OF THE THREE-FOLD MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES, WHICH ARE
TO BE REFERRED NOW TO THE EARTHLY, NOW TO THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM,
AND NOW AGAIN TO BOTH.

    Wherefore just as that divine oracle to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the other prophetic
signs or sayings which are given in the earlier sacred writings, so also the other prophecies from
this time of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, and partly to that seed of his
in which all nations are blessed as fellow-heirs of Christ by the New Testament, to the possessing
of eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore they pertain partly to the bond maid who
gendereth to bondage, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but
partly to the free city of God, that is, the true Jerusalem eternal in the heavens, whose children are
all those that live according to God in the earth: but there are some things among them which are
understood to pertain to both,--to the bond maid properly, to the free woman figuratively. (3)
    Therefore prophetic utterances of three kinds are to be found; forasmuch as there are some
relating to the earthly Jerusalem, some to the heavenly, and some to both. I think it proper to
prove what I say by examples. The prophet Nathan was sent to convict king David of heinous sin,
and predict to him what future evils should be consequent on it. Who can question that this and
the like pertain to the terrestrial city, whether publicly, that is, for the safety or help of the people,
or privately, when there are given forth for each one's private good divine utterances whereby 
something of the future may be known for the use of temporal life? But where we read, "Behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah,
a new testament: not according to the testament that I settled for their fathers in the day when I
laid hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my
testament, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the testament that I will make for
the house of Israel: after those days, saith the Lord, I will give my laws in their mind, and will
write them upon their hearts, and I will see to them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be
to me a people;" (4)--without doubt this is prophesied

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to the Jerusalem above, whose reward is God Himself, and whose chief and entire good it is to
have Him, and to be His. But this pertains to both, that the city of God is called Jerusalem, and
that it is prophesied the house of God shall be in it; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when
king Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both happened in the earthly
Jerusalem, as history shows, and were types of the heavenly Jerusalem. And this kind of prophecy,
as it were compacted and commingled of both the others in the ancient canonical books,
containing historical narratives, is of very great significance, and has exercised and exercises 
greatly the wits of those who search holy writ. For example, what we read of historically as
predicted and fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to, the flesh, we must also inquire the
allegorical meaning of, as it is to be fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to faith. And so
much is this the case, that some have thought there is nothing in these books either foretold and
effected, or effected although not foretold, that does not insinuate something else which is to be
referred by figurative signification to the city of God on high, and to her children who are pilgrims
in this life. But if this be so, then the utterances of the prophets, or rather the whole of those
Scriptures that are reckoned under the title of the Old Testament, will be not of three, but of two
different kinds. For there will be nothing there which pertains to the terrestrial Jerusalem only, if
whatever is there said and fulfilled of or concerning her signifies something which also refers by
allegorical prefiguration to the celestial Jerusalem; but there will be only two kinds one that
pertains to the free Jerusalem, the other to both. But just as, I think, they err greatly who are of
opinion that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings mean anything more than that
they so happened, so I think those very daring who contend that the whole gist of their contents
lies in allegorical significations. Therefore I have said they are threefold, not two-fold. Yet, in
holding this opinion, I do not blame those who may be able to draw out of everything there a
spiritual meaning, only saving, first of all, the historical truth. For the rest, what believer can
doubt that those things are spoken vainly which are such that, whether said to have been done or
to be yet to come, they do not be-seem either human or divine affairs? Who would not recall these
to spiritual understanding if he could, or confess that they should be recalled by him who is able?

     CHAP. 4.--ABOUT THE PREFIGURED CHANGE OF THE ISRAELITIC KINGDOM
AND PRIESTHOOD, AND ABOUT THE THINGS HANNAH THE MOTHER OF SAMUEL
PROPHESIED, PERSONATING THE CHURCH.

Therefore the advance of the city of God, where it reached the times of the kings, yielded a figure,
when, on the rejection of Saul, David first obtained the kingdom on such a footing that
thenceforth his descendants should reign in the earthly Jerusalem in continual succession; for the
course of affairs signified and foretold, what is not to be passed by in silence, concerning the
change of things to come, what belongs to both Testaments, the Old and the New,--where the
priesthood and kingdom are changed by one who is a priest, and at the same time a king, new and
everlasting, even Christ Jesus. For both the substitution in the ministry of God, on Eli's rejection
as priest, of Samuel, who executed at once the office of priest and judge, and the establishment of
David in the kingdom, when  Saul was rejected, typified this of which I speak. And Hannah
herself, the mother of Samuel, who formerly was barren, and afterwards was gladdened with
fertility, does not seem to prophesy anything else, when she exultingly pours forth her
thanksgiving to the Lord, on yielding up to God the same boy she had born and weaned with the
same piety with which she had vowed him. For she says, "My heart is made strong in the Lord,
and my horn is exalted in my God; my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; I am made glad in
Thy salvation. Because there is none holy as the Lord; and none is righteous as our God: there is
none holy save Thee. Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty things, neither let vaunting
talk come out of your mouth; for a God of knowledge is the Lord, and a God preparing His
curious designs. The bow of the mighty hath He made weak, and the weak are girded with
strength. They that were full of bread are diminished; and the hungry have passed beyond the
earth: for the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord
killeth and maketh alive: He bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up again. The Lord maketh poor
and maketh rich: He bringeth low and lifteth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth
up the beggar from the dunghill, that He may set him among the mighty of [His] people, and
maketh them inherit the throne of glory; giving the vow to him that voweth, and He hath blessed
the years of the just: for man is not mighty in strength. The Lord shall

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make His adversary weak: the Lord is holy. Let not the prudent glory in his prudence and let not
the mighty glory in his might; and let not the rich glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory
in this, to understand and know the Lord, and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth.
The Lord hath ascended into the heavens, and hath thundered: He shall judge the ends of the
earth, for He is righteous: and He giveth strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His
Christ." (3)
    Do you say that these are the words of a single weak woman giving thanks for the birth of a
son? Can the mind of men be so much averse to the light of truth as not to perceive that the
sayings this woman pours forth exceed her measure? Moreover, he who is suitably interested in
these things which have already begun to be fulfilled even in this earthly pilgrimage also, does he
not apply his: mind, and perceive, and acknowledge, that through this woman--whose very name,
which is Hannah, means "His grace"--the very Christian religion, the very city of God, whose king
and founder is Christ, in fine, the very grace of God, hath thus spoken by the prophetic Spirit,
whereby the proud are cut off so that they fall, and the humble are filled so that they rise, which
that hymn chiefly celebrates? Unless perchance any one will say that this woman prophesied
nothing, but only lauded God with exulting praise on account of the son whom she had obtained
in answer to prayer. What then does she mean when she says, "The bow of the mighty hath He
made weak, and the weak are girded with strength; they that were full of bread are diminished,
and the hungry have gone beyond the earth; for the barren hath born seven, and she that hath
many children is waxed feeble?" Had she herself born seven, although she had been barren? She
had only one when she said that; neither did she bear seven afterwards, nor six, with whom
Samuel himself might be the seventh, but three males and two females. And then, when as yet no
one was king over that people, whence, if she did not prophesy, did she say what she puts at the
end, "He giveth strength to our kings, and shall exalt the horn of His Christ?"
    Therefore let the Church of Christ, the city of the great King, (2) full of grace, prolific of
offspring, let her say what the prophecy uttered about her so long before by the mouth of this
pious mother confesses, "My heart is made strong in the Lord, and my horn is exalted in my
God." Her heart is truly made

strong, and her horn is truly exalted, because not in herself, but in the Lord her God. "My mouth
is enlarged over mine enemies;" because even in pressing straits the word of God is not bound,
not even in preachers who  are bound. (3) "I am made glad," she says, "in Thy salvation." This is
Christ Jesus Himself, whom old Simeon, as we read in the Gospel, embracing as a little one, yet
recognizing as great, said," Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen Thy salvation." (4) Therefore may the Church say, "I am made glad in Thy salvation.
For there is none holy as the Lord, and none is righteous as our God;" as holy and sanctifying, just
and justifying. (5) "There is none holy beside Thee;" because no one becomes so except by reason
of Thee. And then it follows, "Do not glory so proudly, and do not speak lofty things, neither let
vaunting talk come out of your mouth. For a God of knowledge is the Lord." He knows you even
when no one knows; for "he who thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing deceiveth
himself." (6) These things are said to the adversaries of the city of God who belong to Babylon,
who presume in their own strength, and glory in themselves, not in the Lord; of whom are also the
carnal Israelites, the earth-born inhabitants of the earthly Jerusalem, who, as saith the apostle,
"being ignorant of the righteousness of God," (7) that is, which God, who alone is just, and the
justifier, gives to man, "and wishing to establish their own," that is, which is as it were procured
by their own selves, not bestowed by Him, "are not subject to the righteousness of God," just
because they are proud, and think they are able to please God with their own, not with that which
is of God, who is the God of knowledge, and therefore also takes the oversight of consciences,
there beholding the thoughts of men that they are vain, (8) if they are of men, and are not from
Him. "And preparing," she says, "His curious designs." What curious designs do we think these
are, save that the proud must  fall, and the humble rise? These curious designs she recounts,
saying, "The bow of the mighty is made weak, and the weak are girded with strength." The bow is
made weak, that is, the intention of those who think themselves so powerful, that without the gift
and help of God they are able by human sufficiency to fulfill the divine commandments; and those
are girded with strength whose in-

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ward cry is, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak." (1)
    "They that were full of bread," she says, "are diminished, and the hungry have gone beyond the
earth." Who are to be understood as full of bread except those same who were as if mighty, that
is, the Israelites, to whom were committed the oracles of God? (2) But among that people the
children of the bond maid were diminished,--by which word minus, although it is Latin, the idea is
well expressed that from being greater they were made less,--because, even in the very bread, that
is, the divine oracles, which the Israelites alone of all nations have received, they savor earthly
things. But the nations to whom that law was not given, after they have come through the New
Testament to these oracles, by thirsting much have gone beyond the earth, because in them they
have savored not earthly, but heavenly things. And the reason why this is done is as it were
sought; "for the barren," she says, "hath born seven, and she that hath many children is waxed
feeble." Here all that had been prophesied hath shone forth to those who understood the number
seven, which signifies the perfection of the universal Church, For which reason also the Apostle
John writes to the seven churches, (3) showing in that way that he writes to the totality of the one
Church; and in the Proverbs of Solomon it is said aforetime, prefiguring this, "Wisdom hath
builded her house, she hath strengthened her seven pillars." (4) For the city of God was barren in
all nations before that child arose whom we see. (5) We also see that the temporal Jerusalem, who
had many children, is now waxed feeble. Because, whoever in her were sons of the free woman
were her strength; but now, forasmuch as the letter is there, and not the spirit, having lost her
strength, she is waxed feeble.
    "The Lord killeth and maketh alive:" He has killed her who had many children, and made this
barren one alive, so that she has born seven. Although it may be more suitably understood that He
has made those same alive whom He has killed. For she, as it were, repeats that by adding, "He
bringeth down to hell, and bringeth up." To whom truly the apostle says, "If ye be dead with
Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (6)
Therefore they are killed by the Lord in a salutary way, so that he adds, " Savor things which are
above, not things

on the earth;" so that these are they who, hungering, have passed beyond the earth. "For ye are
dead," he says: behold how God savingly kills! Then there follows, "And your life is hid with
Christ in God:" behold  how God makes the same alive! But does He bring them down to hell and
bring them  up again? It is without controversy among believers that we best see both parts of this
work fulfilled in Him, to wit our Head, with whom the apostle has said our life is hid in God. "For
when He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," (7) in that way, certainly, He
has killed Him. And forasmuch as He raised Him up again from the dead, He has made Him alive
again. And since His voice is acknowledged in the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell," (3) He has brought Him down to hell and brought Him up again. By this poverty of His we
are made rich; (9) for "the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich." But that we may know what this
is, let us hear what follows: "He bringeth low and lifteth up;" and truly He humbles the proud and
exalts the humble. Which we also read elsewhere, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to
the humble." (10) This is the burden of the entire song of this woman whose name is interpreted
"His grace."
    Farther, what is added, "He raiseth up the poor from the earth," I understand of none better
than of Him who, as was said a little ago, "was made poor for us, when He was rich, that by His
poverty we might be made rich." For He raised Him from the earth so quickly that His flesh did
not see corruption. Nor shall I divert from Him what is added, "And raiseth up the poor from the
dunghill." For indeed he who is the poor man is also the beggar.(11) But by the dunghill from
which he is lifted up we are with the greatest reason to understand the persecuting Jews, of whom
the apostle says, when telling that when he belonged to them he persecuted the Church, "What
things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; and I have counted them not only loss, but
even dung, that I might win Christ." (12) Therefore that poor one is raised up from the earth
above all the rich, and that beggar is lifted up from that dunghill above all the wealthy, "that he
may sit among the mighty of the people," to whom He says, "Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones,"
(13) "and to make them inherit the throne of glory." For these mighty ones

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had said, "Lo, we have forsaken all and followed Thee." They had most mightily vowed this vow.
    But whence do they receive this, except from Him of whom it is here immediately said, "Giving
the vow to him that voweth?" Otherwise they would be of those mighty ones whose bow is
weakened. "Giving," she saith, "the vow to him that voweth." For no one could vow anything
acceptable to God, unless he received from Him that which he might vow, There follows, "And
He hath blessed the years of the just," to wit, that he may live for ever with Him to whom it is
said, "And Thy years shall have no end." For there the years abide; but here they pass away, yea,
they perish: for before they come they are not, and when they shall have come they shall not be,
because they bring their own end with them. Now of these two, that is, "giving the vow to him
that voweth," and "He hath blessed the years of the just," the one is what we do, the other what
we receive. But this other is not received from God, the liberal giver, until He, the helper, Himself
has enabled us for the former; "for man is not mighty in strength." "The Lord shall make his
adversary weak," to wit, him who envies the man that vows, and resists him, lest he should fulfill
what he has vowed. Owing to the ambiguity of the Greek, it may also be understood "his own
adversary." For when God has begun to possess us, immediately he who had been our adversary
becomes His, and is conquered by us; but not by our own strength, "for man is not mighty in
strength." Therefore "the Lord shall make His own adversary weak, the Lord is holy," that he may
be conquered by the saints, whom the Lord, the Holy of holies, hath made saints. For this reason,
"let not the prudent glory in his prudence, and let not the mighty glory in his might, and let not the
rich glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this,--to understand and know the Lord,
and to do judgment and justice in the midst of the earth," He in no small measure understands and
knows the  Lord who understands and knows that even this, that he can understand and know the
Lord, is given to him by the Lord. "For what hast thou," saith the apostle, "that thou  hast not
received? But if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" (1)
That is, as if thou hadst of thine own self whereof thou mightest glory. Now, he does judgment
and justice who lives aright. But he lives aright who yields obedience to God when He commands.
"The end of the commandment," that is, to which the commandment has reference, "is charity out
of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." Moreover, this "charity," as the
Apostle John testifies, "is of God," (2) Therefore to do justice and judgment is of God. But what
is "in the midst of the earth?" For ought those who dwell in the ends of the earth not to do
judgment and justice? Who would say so? Why, then, is it added, "In the midst of the earth?" For
if this had not been added, and it had only been said, "To do judgment and justice," this
commandment would rather have pertained to both kinds of men,--both those dwelling inland and
those on the sea-coast. But lest any one should think that, after the end of the life led in this body,
there remains. a time for doing judgment and justice which he has not done while he was in the
flesh, and that the divine judgment can thus be escaped, "in the midst of the earth" appears to me
to be said of the time when every one lives in the body; for in this life every one carries about his
own earth, which, on a man's dying, the common earth takes back, to be surely returned to him on
his rising again. Therefore "in the midst of the earth," that is, while our soul is shut up in this
earthly body, judgment and justice are to be done, which shall be profitable for us hereafter, when
"every one shall receive according to that he hath done in the body, whether good or bad." (3) For
when the apostle there says "in the body," he means in the time he has lived in the body. Yet if any
one blaspheme with malicious mind and impious thought, without any member of his body being
employed in it, he shall not therefore be guiltless because he has not done it with bodily motion,
for he will have done it in that time which he has spent in the body. In the same way we may
suitably understand what we read in the psalm, "But God, our King before the worlds, hath
wrought salvation in the midst of the earth;" (4) so that the Lord Jesus may be understood to be
our God who is before the worlds, because by Him the worlds were made, working our salvation
in the midst of the earth, for the Word was made flesh and dwelt in an earthly body.
    Then after Hannah has prophesied in these words, that he who glorieth ought to glory not in
himself at all, but in the Lord, she i says, on account of the retribution which is to come on the day
of judgment, "The Lord  hath ascended into the heavens, and hath
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thundered: He shall judge the ends of the earth, for He is righteous." Throughout she holds to the
order of the creed of Christians: For the Lord Christ has ascended into heaven, and is to come
thence to judge the quick and dead.(1) For, as saith the apostle, "Who hath ascended but He who
hath also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that
ascended up above all heavens, that He might fill all things."(2) Therefore He hath thundered
through His clouds, which He hath filled with His Holy Spirit when He ascended up. Concerning
which the bond maid Jerusalem--that is, the unfruitful vineyard--is threatened in Isaiah the prophet
that they shall rain no showers upon her. But "He shall judge the ends of the earth" is spoken as if
it had been said, "even the extremes of the earth." For it does not mean that He shall not judge the
other parts of the earth, who, without doubt, shall judge all men. But it is better to understand by
the extremes of the earth the extremes of man, since those things shall not be judged which, in the
middle time, are changed for the better or the worse, but the ending in which he shall be found
who is judged. For which reason it is said, "He that shall persevere even unto the end, the same
shall be saved."(3) He, therefore, who perseveringly does judgment and justice in the midst of the
earth shall not be condemned when the extremes of the earth shall be judged. "And giveth," she
saith, "strength to our kings," that He may not condemn them in judging. He giveth them strength
whereby as kings they rule the flesh, and conquer the world in Him who hath poured out His
blood for them. "And shall exalt the horn of His Christ." How shall Christ exalt the horn of His
Christ? For He of whom it was said above, "The Lord hath ascended into the heavens," meaning
the Lord Christ, Himself, as it is said here, "shall exalt the horn of His Christ." Who, therefore, is
the Christ of His Christ? Does it mean that He shall exalt the horn of each one of His believing
people, as she says in the beginning of this hymn, "Mine horn is exalted in my God?" For we can
rightly call all those christs who are anointed with His chrism, forasmuch as the whole body with
its head is one Christ.(4) These things hath Hannah, the mother of Samuel, the holy and
much-praised man, prophesied, in which, indeed, the change of the ancient priesthood was then
figured and is now fulfilled, since she that had many children is waxed feeble, that the barren who
hath born seven might have the new priesthood in Christ.

     CHAP. 5.--OF THOSE THINGS WHICH A MAN OF GOD SPAKE BY THE SPIRIT
TO ELI THE PRIEST, SIGNIFYING THAT THE PRIESTHOOD WHICH HAD BEEN
APPOINTED ACCORDING TO AARON WAS TO BE TAKEN AWAY.

    But this is said more plainly by a man of God sent to Eli the priest himself, whose name indeed
is not mentioned, but whose office and ministry show him to have been indubitably a prophet. For
it is thus written: "And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I plainly
revealed myself unto thy father's house, when they were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's
house; and I chose thy father's house out of all the sceptres of Israel to fill the office of priest for
me, to go up to my altar, to burn incense and wear the ephod; and I gave thy father's house for
food all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel. Wherefore then hast thou looked at
mine incense and at mine offerings with an impudent eye, and hast glorified thy sons above me, to
bless the first-fruits of every sacrifice in Israel before me? Therefore thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, I said thy house and thy father's house should walk before me for ever: but now the Lord
saith, Be it far from me; for them that honor me will I honor, and he that despiseth me shall be
despised. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thy seed, and the seed of thy father's house,
and thou shalt never have an old man in my house. And I will cut off the man of thine from mine
altar, so that his eyes shall be consumed, and his heart shall melt away; and every one of thy house
that is left shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign unto thee that shall come upon
these thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both of them. And I will raise
me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to all that is in mine heart and in my soul; and I will
build him a sure house, and he shall walk before my Christ for ever. And it shall come to pass that
he who is left in thine house shall come to worship him with a piece of money, saying, Put me into
one part of thy priesthood, that I may eat bread."(5)
    We cannot say that this prophecy, in which the change of the ancient priesthood is foretold
with so great plainness, was fulfilled in Samuel; for although Samuel was not of another tribe than
that which had been appointed by God to serve at the altar, yet he was not of the sons of Aaron,
whose offspring

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was set apart that the priests might be taken out of it. And thus by that transaction also the same
change which should come to pass through Christ Jesus is shadowed forth, and the prophecy itself
in deed, not in word, belonged to the Old Testament properly, but figuratively to the New,
signifying by the fact just what was said by the word to Eli the priest through the prophet. For
there were afterwards priests of Aaron's race, such as Zadok and Abiathar during David's reign,
and others in succession, before the time came when those things which were predicted so long
before about the changing of the priesthood behoved to be fulfilled by Christ. But who that now
views these things with a believing eye does not see that they are fulfilled? Since, indeed, no
tabernacle, no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, and therefore no priest either, has remained to the
Jews, to whom it was commanded in the law of God that he should be ordained of the seed of
Aaron; which is also mentioned here by the prophet, when he says, "Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, I said thy house and thy father's house shall walk before me for ever: but now the Lord
saith, That be far from me; for them that honor me will I honor, and he that despiseth me shall be
despised." For that in naming his father's house he does not mean that of his immediate father, but
that of Aaron, who first was appointed priest, to be succeeded by others descended from him, is
shown by the preceding words, when he says, "I was revealed unto thy father's house, when they
were in the land of Egypt slaves in Pharaoh's house; and I chose thy father's house out of all the
sceptres of Israel to fill the office of priest for me." Which of the fathers in that Egyptian slavery,
but Aaron, was his father, who, when they were set free, was chosen to the priesthood? It was of
his lineage, therefore, he has said in this passage it should come to pass that they should no longer
be priests; which already we see fulfilled. If faith be watchful, the things are before us: they are
discerned, they are grasped, and are forced on the eyes of the unwilling, so that they are seen:
"Behold the days come," he says, "that I will cut off thy seed, and the seed of thy father's house,
and thou shall never have an old man in mine house. And I will cut off the man of thine from mine
altar, so that his eyes shall be consumed and his heart shall melt away." Behold the days which
were foretold have already come. There is no priest after the order of Aaron; and whoever is a
man of his lineage, when he sees the sacrifice of the Christians prevailing over the whole world,
but that great honor taken away from himself, his eyes fail and his soul melts away consumed with
grief.
    But what follows belongs properly to the house of Eli, to whom these things were said: "And
every one of thine house that is left shall fall by the sword of men. And this shall be a sign unto
thee that shall come upon these thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas; in one day they shall die both
of them." This, therefore, is made a sign of the change of the priesthood from this man's house, by
which it is signified that the priesthood of Aaron's house is to be changed. For the death of this
man's sons signified the death not of the men, but of the priesthood itself of the sons of Aaron.
But what follows pertains to that Priest whom Samuel typified by succeeding this one. Therefore
the things which follow are said of Christ Jesus, the true Priest of the New Testament: "And I will
raise me up a faithful Priest that shall do according to all that is in mine heart and in my soul; and I
will build Him a sure house." The same is the eternal Jerusalem above. "And He shall walk," saith
He, "before my Christ always." "He shall walk" means "he shall be conversant with," just as He
had said before of Aaron's house, "I said that thine house and thy father's house shall walk before
me for ever." But what He says, "He shall walk before my Christ," is to be understood entirely of
the house itself, not of the priest, who is Christ Himself, the Mediator and Saviour. His house,
therefore, shall walk before Him. "Shall walk" may also be understood to mean from death to life,
all the time this mortality passes through, even to the end of this world. But where God says,
"Who will do all that is in mine heart and in my soul," we mast not think that God has a soul, for
He is the Author of souls; but this is said of God tropically, not properly, just as He is said to have
hands and feet, and other corporal members. And, lest it should be supposed from such language
that man in the form of this flesh is made in the image of God, wings also are ascribed to Him,
which man has not at all; and it is said to God, "Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings,"(1) that
men may understand that such things are said of that ineffable nature not in proper but in
figurative words.
    But what is added, "And it shall come to pass that he who is left in thine house shall come to
worship him," is not said properly of the house of this Eli, but of that Aaron, the men of which
remained even to the advent of

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Jesus Christ, of which race there are not wanting men even to this present. For of that house of
Eli it had already been said above, "And every one of thine house that is left shall fall by the sword
of men." How, therefore, could it be truly said here, "And it shall come to pass that every one that
is left shall come to worship him," if that is true, that no one shall escape the avenging sword,
unless he would have it understood of those who belong to the race of that whole priesthood after
the order of Aaron? Therefore, if it is of these the predestinated remnant, about whom another
prophet has said, "The remnant shall be saved;"(1) whence the apostle also says, "Even so then at
this time also the remnant according to the election of grace is saved;"(2)  since it is easily
understood to be of such a remnant that it is said, "He that is left in thine house," assuredly he
believes in Christ; just as in the time of the apostle very many of that nation believed; nor are there
now wanting those, although very few, who yet believe, and in them is fulfilled what this man of
God has here immediately added, "He shall come to worship him with a piece of money;" to
worship whom, if not that Chief Priest, who is also God? For in that priesthood after the order of
Aaron men did not come to the temple or altar of God for the purpose of worshipping the priest.
But what is that he says, "With a piece of money," if not the short word of faith, about which the
apostle quotes the saying, "A consummating and shortening word will the Lord make upon the
earth?"(3) But that money is put for the word the psalm is a witness, where it is sung, "The words
of the Lord are pure words, money tried with the fire."(4)
    What then does he say who comes to worship the priest of God, even the Priest who is God?
"Put me into one part of Thy priesthood, to eat bread." I do not wish to be set in the honor of my
fathers, which is none; put me in a part of Thy priesthood. For "I have chosen to be mean in Thine
house;"(5) I desire to be a member, no matter what, or how small, of Thy priesthood. By the
priesthood he here means the people itself, of which He is the Priest who is the Mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus.(6) This people the Apostle Peter calls "a holy people, a royal
priesthood."(7) But some have translated, "Of Thy sacrifice," not "Of Thy priesthood," which no
less signifies the same Christian people. Whence the Apostle Paul says, "We being many are one
bread, one body."(8) [And again he says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice."(9)] What,
therefore, he has added, to "eat bread," also elegantly expresses the very kind of sacrifice of which
the Priest Himself says, "The bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." The
same is the sacrifice not after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchisedec:(11) let him
that readeth understand.(12) Therefore this short and salutarily humble confession, in which it is
said, "Put me in a part of Thy priesthood, to eat bread," is itself the piece of money, for it is both
brief, and it is the Word of God who dwells in the heart of one who believes. For because He had
said above, that He had given for food to Aaron's house the sacrificial victims of the Old
Testament, where He says, "I have given thy father's house for food all things which are offered
by fire of the children of Israel," which indeed were the sacrifices of the Jews; therefore here He
has said, "To eat bread," which is in the New Testament the sacrifice of the Christians.

     CHAP. 6.--OF THE JEWISH PRIESTHOOD AND KINGDOM, WHICH, ALTHOUGH
PROMISED TO BE ESTABLISHED FOR EVER, DID NOT CONTINUE; SO THAT OTHER
THINGS ARE TO BE UNDERSTOOD TO WHICH ETERNITY IS ASSURED.

    While, therefore, these things now shine forth as clearly as they were loftily foretold, still some
one may not vainly be moved to ask, How can we be confident that all things are to come to pass
which are predicted in these books as about to come, if this very thing which is there divinely
spoken, "Thine house and thy father's house shall walk before me for ever," could not have effect?
For we see that priesthood has been changed; and there can be no hope that what was promised
to that house may some time be fulfilled, because that which succeeds on its being rejected and
changed is rather predicted as eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not
recollect, that this very priesthood after the order of Aaron was appointed as the shadow of a
future eternal priesthood; and therefore, when eternity is promised to it, it is not promised to the
mere shadow and figure, but to what is shadowed forth and prefigured by it. But lest it should be
thought the shadow itself was to remain, therefore its mutation also behoved to be foretold.

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    In this way, too, the kingdom of Saul himself, who certainly was reprobated and rejected, was
the shadow of a kingdom yet to come which should remain to eternity. For, indeed, the oil with
which he was anointed, and from that chrism he is called Christ, is to be taken in a mystical sense,
and is to be understood as a great mystery; which David himself venerated so much in him, that he
trembled with smitten heart when, being hid in a dark cave, which Saul also entered when pressed
by the necessity of nature, he had come secretly behind him and cut off a small piece of his robe,
that he might be able to prove how he had spared him when he could have killed him, and might
thus remove from his mind the suspicion through which he had vehemently persecuted the holy
David, thinking him his enemy. Therefore he was much afraid test he should be accused of
violating so great a mystery in Saul, because he had thus meddled even his clothes. For thus it is
written: "And David's heart smote him because he had taken away the skirt of his cloak."(1) But
to the men with him, who advised him to destroy Saul thus delivered up into his hands, he saith,
"The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's christ, to lay my hand upon
him, because he is the Lord's christ." Therefore he showed so great reverence to this shadow of
what was to come, not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it prefigured. Whence also that
which Samuel says to Saul, "Since thou hast not kept my commandment which the Lord
commanded thee, whereas now the Lord would have prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever,
yet now thy kingdom shall not continue for thee; and the Lord will seek Him a man after His own
heart, and the Lord will command him to be prince over His people, because thou hast not kept
that which the Lord commanded thee,"(2) is not to be taken as if God had settled that Saul
himself should reign for ever, and afterwards, on his sinning, would not keep this promise; nor
was He ignorant that he would sin, but He had established his kingdom that it might be a figure of
the eternal kingdom. Therefore he added, "Yet now thy kingdom shall not continue for thee."
Therefore what it signified has stood and shall stand; but it shall not stand for this man, because he
himself was not to reign for ever, nor his offspring; so that at least that word "for ever" might
seem to be fulfilled through his posterity one to another. "And the Lord," he saith, "will seek Him
a man," meaning either David or the Mediator of the New Testament,(3) who was figured in the
chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed. But it is not as if He knew not
where he was that God thus seeks Him a man, but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man,
and in this sense seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but also to His Only-begotten, who
came to seek what was lost,(4) we had been known already even so far as to be chosen in Him
before the foundation of the world.(5) "He will seek Him" therefore means, He will have His own
(just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be His own He will show to others to be
His friend). Whence in Latin this word (quaerit) receives a preposition and becomes acquirit
(acquires), the meaning of which is plain enough; although even Without the addition of the
preposition quaerete is understood as acquirere, whence gains are called quaestus.

     CHAP. 7.-- OF THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL, BY WHICH
THE PERPETUAL DIVISION OF THE SPIRITUAL FROM THE CARNAL ISRAEL WAS
PREFIGURED.

    Again Saul sinned through disobedience, and again Samuel says to him in the word of the Lord,
"Because thou hast despised the word of the Lord, the Lord hath despised thee, that thou mayest
not be king over Israel."(6) And again for the same sin, when Saul confessed it, and prayed for
pardon, and besought Samuel to return with him to appease the Lord, he said, "I will not return
with thee: for thou hast despised the word of the Lord, and the Lord will despise thee that thou
mayest not be king over Israel. And Samuel turned his face to go away, and Saul Laid hold upon
the skirt of his mantle, and rent it. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom
from Israel out of thine hand this day, and will give it to thy neighbor, who is good above thee,
and will divide Israel in twain. And He will not be changed, neither will He repent: for He is not as
a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not persist."(7)  He to whom it is said,
"The Lord will despise thee that thou mayest not be king over Israel," and "The Lord hath rent the
kingdom from Israel out of thine hand this day," reigned forty years over Israel,--that is, just as
long a time as David himself,--yet heard this in the first period of his reign, that we may
understand it was said because none of hid race was to reign, and that we may look to the

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race of David, whence also is sprung, according to the flesh,(1) the Mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus.(2)
    But the Scripture has not what is read in most Latin copies, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom
of Israel out of thine hand this day," but just as we have set it down it is found in the Greek
copies, "The Lord hath rent the kingdom from Israel out of thine hand;" that the words "out of
thine hand" may be understood to mean "from Israel." Therefore this man figuratively represented
the people of Israel, which was to lose the kingdom, Christ Jesus our Lord being about to reign,
not carnally, but Spiritually. And when it is said of Him, "And will give it to thy neighbor," that is
to be referred to the fleshly kinship, for Christ, according to the flesh, was of Israel, whence also
Saul sprang. But what is added, "Good above thee," may indeed be understood, "Better than
thee," and indeed some have thus translated it; but it is better taken thus, "Good above thee," as
meaning that because He is good, therefore He must be above thee, according to that other
prophetic saying, "Till I put all Thine enemies under Thy feet."(3) And among them is Israel, from
whom, as His persecutor, Christ took away the kingdom; although the Israel in whom there was
no guile may have been there too, a sort of grain, as it were, of that chaff. For certainly thence
came the apostles, thence so many martyrs, of whom Stephen is the first, thence so many
churches, which the Apostle Paul names, magnifying God in their conversion.
    Of which thing I do not doubt what follows is to be understood, "And will divide Israel in
twain," to wit, into Israel pertaining to the bond woman, and Israel pertaining to the free. For
these two kinds were at first together, as Abraham still clave to the bond woman, until the barren,
made fruitful by the grace of God, cried, "Cast out the bond woman and her son."(4) We know,
indeed, that on account of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam, Israel was
divided in two, and continued so, the separate parts having their own kings, until that whole
nation was overthrown with a great destruction, and carried away by the Chaldeans. But what
was this to Saul, when, if any such thing was threatened, it would be threatened against David
himself, whose son Solomon was? Finally, the Hebrew nation is not now divided internally, but is
dispersed through the earth indiscriminately, in the fellowship of the same error. But that division
with which God threatened the kingdom and people in the person of Saul, who represented them,
is shown to be eternal and unchangeable by this which is added, "And He will not be changed,
neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not
persist,"--that is, a man threatens and does not persist, but not God, who does not repent like
man. For when we read that FIe repents, a change of circumstance is meant, flowing from the
divine immutable foreknowledge. Therefore, when God is said not to repent, it is to be
understood that He does not change.
    We see that this sentence concerning this division of the people of Israel, divinely uttered in
these words, has been altogether irremediable and quite perpetual. For whoever have turned, or
are turning, or shall turn thence to Christ, it has been according to the foreknowledge of God, not
according to the one and the same nature of the human race. Certainly none of the Israelites, who,
cleaving to Christ, have continued in Him, shall ever be among those Israelites who persist in
being His enemies even to the end of this life, but shall for ever remain in the separation which is
here foretold. For the Old Testament, from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,(5)
profiteth nothing, unless because it bears witness to the New Testament. Otherwise, however long
Moses is read, the veil is put over their heart; but when any one shall turn thence to Christ, the
veil shall be taken away.(6) For the very desire of those who turn is changed from the old to the
new, so that each no longer desires to obtain carnal but spiritual felicity. Wherefore that great,
prophet Samuel himself, before he had anointed Saul, when he had cried to the Lord for Israel,
and He had heard him, and when he had offered a whole burnt-offering, as the aliens were coming
to battle against the people of God, and the Lord thundered above them and they were confused,
and fell before Israel and were overcome; [then] he took one stone and set it up between the old
and new Massephat [Mizpeh], and called its name Ebenezer, which means "the stone of the
helper," and said, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."(7) Massephat is interpreted "desire." That
stone of the helper is the mediation of the Saviour, by which we go from the old Massephat to the
new,--that is, from the desire with which carnal happiness was expected in the carnal kingdom to
the desire with which the truest spiritual happiness is expected in the kingdom of heaven; and
since

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nothing is better than that, the Lord helpeth us hitherto.

     CHAP. 8.--OF THE PROMISES MADE TO DAVID IN HIS SON, WHICH ARE IN
NO WISE FULFILLED IN SOLOMON, BUT MOST FULLY IN CHRIST.

    And now I see I must show what, pertaining to the matter I treat of, God promised to David
himself, who succeeded Saul in the kingdom, whose change prefigured that final change on
account of which all things were divinely spoken, all things were committed to writing. When
many things had gone prosperously with king David, he thought to make a house for God, even
that temple of most excellent renown which was afterwards built by king Solomon his son. While
he was thinking of this, the word of the Lord came to Nathan the prophet, which he brought to
the king, in which, after God had said that a house should not be built unto Him by David himself,
and that in all that long time He had never commanded any of His people to build Him a house of
cedar, he says, "And now thus shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith God Almighty, I
took thee from the sheepcote that thou mightest be for a ruler over my people in Israel: and I was
with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thy face, and
have made thee a name, according to the name of the great ones who are over the earth. And I
will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell apart, and shall be
troubled no more; and the son of wickedness shall not humble him any more, as from the
beginning, from the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give thee rest
from all thine enemies, and the Lord will tell [hath told] thee, because thou shall build an house
for Him. And it shall come to pass when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shall sleep with thy fathers,
that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will prepare
his kingdom. He shall build me an house for my name;and I will order his throne even to eternity.
I will be his Father, and he shall be my son. And if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the
rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men: but my mercy I will not take away from him,
as I took it away from those whom I put away from before my face. And his house shall be
faithful, and his kingdom even for evermore before me, and his throne shall be set up even for
evermore."
    He who thinks this grand promise was fulfilled in Solomon greatly errs; for he attends to the
saying, "He shall build me an house," but he does not attend to the saying, "His house shall be
faithful, and his kingdom for evermore before me." Let him therefore attend and behold the house
of Solomon full of strange women worshipping false gods, and the king himself, aforetime wise,
seduced by them, and cast down into the same idolatry: and let him not dare to think that God
either promised this falsely, or was unable to fore-know that Solomon and his house would
become what they did. But we ought not to be in doubt here, or to see the fulfillment of these
things save in Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,(2) lest
we should vainly and uselessly look for some other here, like the carnal Jews. For even they
understand this much, that the son whom they read of in that place as promised to David was not
Solomon; so that, with wonderful blindness to Him who was promised and is now declared with
so great manifestation, they say they hope for another. Indeed, even in Solomon there appeared
some image of the future event, in that he built the temple, and had peace according to his name
(for Solomon means "pacific"), and in the beginning of his reign was wonderfully praiseworthy;
but while, as a shadow of Him that should come, he foreshowed Christ our Lord, he did not also
in his own person resemble Him. Whence some things concerning him are so written as if they
were prophesied of himself, while the Holy Scripture, prophesying even by events, somehow
delineates in him the figure of things to come. For, besides the books of divine history, in which
his reign is narrated, the 72d Psalm also is inscribed in the title with his name, in which so many
things are said which cannot at all apply to him, but which apply to the Lord Christ with such
evident fitness as makes it quite apparent that in the one the figure is in some way shadowed
forth, but in the other the truth itself is presented. For it is known within what bounds the
kingdom of Solomon was enclosed; and yet in that psalm, not to speak of other things, we read,
"He shall have dominion from sea even to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth,"(3)
which we see fulfilled in Christ. Truly he took the beginning of His reigning from the river where
John baptized; for, when pointed out by him, He began to be acknowledged by the disciples, who
called Him not only Master, but also Lord.
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    Nor was it for any other reason that, while his father David was still living, Solomon began to
reign, which happened to none other of their kings, except that from this also it might be clearly
apparent that it was not himself this prophecy spoken to his father signified beforehand, saying,
"And it shall come to pass when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shall sleep with thy fathers, that I
will raise up thy seed which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will prepare His kingdom."
How, therefore, shall it be thought on account of what follows, "He shall build me an house," that
this Solomon is prophesied, and not rather be understood on account of what precedes, "When
thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee," that
another pacific One is promised, who is foretold as about to be raised up, not before David's
death, as he was, but after it? For however long the interval of time might be before Jesus Christ
came, beyond doubt it was after the death of king David, to whom He was so promised, that He
behoved to come, who should build an house of God, not of wood and stone, but of men, such as
we rejoice He does build. For to this house, that is, to believers, the apostle saith, "The temple of
God is holy, which temple ye are."(1)

     CHAP. 9.--HOW LIKE THE PROPHECY ABOUT CHRIST IN THE 89TH PSALM IS
TO THE THINGS PROMISED IN NATHAN'S PROPHECY IN THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL.

    Wherefore also in the 89th Psalm, of which the title is, "An instruction for himself by Ethan the
Israelite," mention is made of the promises God made to king David, and some things are there
added similar to those found in the Book of Samuel, such as this, "I have sworn to David my
servant that I will prepare his seed for ever."(2)  And again, "Then thou spakest in vision to thy
sons, and saidst, I have laid help upon the mighty One, and have exalted the chosen One out of
my people. I have found David my servant, and with my holy oil I have anointed him. For mine
hand shall help him, and mine arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against him,
and the son of iniquity shall harm him no more. And I will beat down his foes from before his
face, and those that hate him will I put to flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him,
and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in
the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the undertaker of my salvation.
Also I will make him my first-born, high among the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for
him for evermore, and my covenant shall be faithful (sure) with him. His seed also will I set for
ever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven."(3) Which words, when rightly understood,
are all understood to be about the Lord Jesus Christ, under the name of David, on account of the
form of a servant, which the same Mediator assumed(4) from the virgin of the seed of David.(5)
For immediately something is said about the sins of his children, such as is set down in the Book
of Samuel, and is more readily taken as if of Solomon. For there, that is, in the Book of Samuel,
he says, "And if he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of
the sons of men; but my mercy will I not take away from him,"(6) meaning by stripes the strokes
of correction. Hence that saying, "Touch ye not my christs."(7) For what else is that than, Do not
harm them? But in the psalm, when speaking as if of David, He says something of the same kind
there too. "If his children," saith He, "forsake my law, and walk
not in my judgments; if they profane my righteousnesses, and keep not my commandments; I will
visit their iniquities with the rod, and their faults with stripes: but my mercy I will not make void
from him."(8) a He did not say "from them," although He spoke of his children, not of himself; but
he said "from him," which means the same thing if rightly understood. For of Christ Himself, who
is the head of the Church, there could not be found any sins which required to be divinely
restrained by human correction, mercy being still continued; but they are found in His body and
members, which is His people. Therefore in the Book of Samuel it is said, "iniquity of Him," but
in the psalm, "of His children," that we may understand that what is said of His body is in some
way said of Himself. Wherefore also, when Saul persecuted His body, that is, His believing
people, He Himself saith from heaven, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"(9) Then in the
following words of the psalm He says, "Neither will I hurt in my truth, nor profane my covenant,
and the things that proceed from my lips I will not disallow. Once have I sworn by my holiness, if
I lie unto David,"(10)--that is, I will in no wise lie unto

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David; for Scripture is wont to speak thus. But what that is in which He will not lie, He adds,
saying, "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me, and as the moon
perfected for ever, and a faithful witness in heaven."(1)

     CHAP. 1O.--HOW DIFFERENT THE ACTS IN THE KINGDOM OF THE EARTHLY
JERUSALEM ARE FROM THOSE WHICH GOD HAD PROMISED, SO THAT THE TRUTH
OF THE PROMISE SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD TO PERTAIN TO THE GLORY OF THE
OTHER KING AND KINGDOM.

    That it might not be supposed that a promise so strongly expressed and confirmed was fulfilled
in Solomon, as if he hoped for, yet did not find it, he says, "But Thou hast cast off, and hast
brought to nothing, O Lord."(2) This truly was done concerning the kingdom of Solomon among
his posterity, even to the overthrow of the earthly Jerusalem itself, which was the seat of the
kingdom, and especially the destruction of the very temple which had been built by Solomon. But
lest on this account God should be thought to have done contrary to His promise, immediately he
adds, "Thou hast delayed Thy Christ."(3)  Therefore he is not Solomon, nor yet David himself, if
the Christ of the Lord is delayed. For while all the kings are called His christs, who were
consecrated with that mystical chrism, not only from king David downwards, but even from that
Saul who first was anointed king of that same people, David himself indeed calling him the Lord's
christ, yet there was one true Christ, whose figure they bore by the prophetic unction, who,
according to the opinion of men, who thought he was to be understood as come in David or in
Solomon, was long delayed, but who, according as God had disposed, was to come in His own
time. The following part of this psalm goes on to say what in the meantime, while He was
delayed, was to become of the kingdom of the earthly Jerusalem, where it was hoped He would
certainly reign: "Thou hast overthrown the covenant of Thy servant; Thou hast profaned in the
earth his sanctuary. Thou hast broken down all his walls; Thou hast put his strong-holds in fear.
All that pass by the way spoil him; he is made a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast set up the
right hand of his enemies; Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast turned aside the
help of his sword, and hast not helped him in war. Thou hast destroyed him from cleansing; Thou
hast dashed down his seat to the ground. Thou hast shortened the days of his seat; Thou hast
poured confusion over him."(4) All these things came upon Jerusalem the bond woman, in which
some also reigned who were children of the free woman, holding that kingdom in temporary
stewardship, but holding the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose children they were, in
true faith, and hoping in the true Christ. But how these things came upon that kingdom, the
history of its affairs points out if it is read.

     CHAP. 11.--OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD, WHICH THROUGH
HIS ASSUMPTION OF FLESH IS IN CHRIST, WHO ALONE HAD POWER TO DELIVER
HIS OWN SOUL FROM HELL.

    But after having prophesied these things, the prophet betakes him to praying to God; yet even
the very prayer is prophecy: "How long, Lord, dost Thou turn away in the end?"(5) "Thy face" is
understood, as it is elsewhere said, "How long dost Thou turn away Thy face from me?"(6) For
therefore some copies have here not "dost," but "wilt Thou turn away;" although it could be
understood, "Thou turnest away Thy mercy, which Thou didst promise to David." But when he
says, "in the end," what does it mean, except even to the end? By which end is to be understood
the last time, when even that nation is to believe in Christ Jesus, before which end what He has
just sorrowfully bewailed must come to pass. On account of which it is also added here, "Thy
wrath shall burn like fire. Remember what is my substance."(7) This cannot be better understood
than of Jesus Himself, the substance of His people, of whose nature His flesh is. "For not in vain,"
he says, "hast Thou made all the sons of men."(8) For unless the one Son of man had been the
substance of Israel, through which Son of man many sons of men should be set free, all the sons
of men would have been made wholly in vain. But now, indeed, all mankind through the fall of the
first man has fallen from the truth into vanity; for which reason another psalm says, "Man is like to
vanity: his days pass away as a shadow;"(9) yet God has not made all the sons of men in vain,
because He frees many from vanity through the Mediator Jesus, and those whom He did not
foreknow as to be delivered, He made not wholly in vain in the most beautiful and most just
ordination of the whole rational creation, for the use of those who were to be

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delivered, and for the comparison of the two cities by mutual contrast. Thereafter it follows,
"Who is the man that shall live, and shall not see death? shall he snatch his soul from the hand of
hell?"(1) Who is this but that substance of Israel out of the seed of David, Christ Jesus, of whom
the apostle says, that "rising from the dead He now dieth not, and death shall no more have
dominion over Him?"(2) For He shall so live and not see death, that yet He shall have been dead;
but shall have delivered His soul from the hand of hell, whither He had descended in order to
loose some from the chains of hell; but He hath delivered it by that power of which He says in the
Gospel, "I have the power of laying down my life, and I have the power of taking it again."

     CHAP. 12.--TO WHOSE PERSON THE ENTREATY FOR THE PROMISES IS TO BE
UNDERSTOOD TO BELONG, WHEN HE SAYS IN THE PSALM, "WHERE ARE THINE
ANCIENT COMPASSIONS, LORD?" ETC.

    But the rest of this psalm runs thus: "Where are Thine ancient compassions, Lord, which Thou
swarest unto David in Thy truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants, which I have
borne in my bosom of many nations; wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord,
wherewith they have reproached the change of Thy Christ."(4) Now it may with very good reason
be asked whether this is spoken in the person of those Israelites who desired that the promise
made to David might be fulfilled to them; or rather of the Christians, who are Israelites not after
the flesh but after the Spirit.(5) This certainly was spoken or written in the time of Ethan, from
whose name this psalm gets its title, and that was the same as the time of David's reign; and
therefore it would not have been said, "Where are Thine ancient compassions, Lord, which Thou
hast sworn unto David in Thy truth?" unless the prophet had assumed the person of those who
should come long afterwards, to whom that time when these things were promised to David was
ancient. But it may be understood thus, that many nations, when they persecuted the Christians,
reproached them with the passion of Christ, which Scripture calls His change, because by dying
He is made immortal. The change of Christ, according to this passage, may also be understood to
be reproached by the Israelites, because, when they hoped He would be theirs, He was made the
Saviour of the nations; and many nations who have believed in Him by the New Testament now
reproach them who remain in the old with this: so that it is said, "Remember, Lord, the reproach
of Thy servants;" because through the Lord's not forgetting, but rather pitying them, even they
after this reproach are to believe. But what I have put first seems to me the most suitable
meaning. For to the enemies of Christ who are reproached with this, that Christ hath left them,
turning to the Gentiles,(6) this speech is incongruously assigned, "Remember, Lord, the reproach
of Thy servants," for such Jews are not to be styled the servants of God; but these words fit those
who, if they suffered great humiliations through persecution for the name of Christ, could call to
mind that an exalted kingdom had been promised to the seed of David, and in desire of it, could
say not despairingly, but as asking, seeking, knocking,(7) "Where are Thine ancient compassions,
Lord, which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy
servants, that I have borne in my bosom of many nations;" that is, have patiently endured in my
inward parts. "That Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord, wherewith they have reproached the
change of Thy Christ," not thinking it a change, but a consumption.(8) But what does
"Remember, Lord," mean, but that Thou wouldst have compassion, and wouldst for my patiently
borne humiliation reward me with the excellency which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth?
But if we assign these words to the Jews, those servants of God who, on the conquest of the
earthly Jerusalem, before Jesus Christ was born after the manner of men, were led into captivity,
could say such things, understanding the change of Christ, because indeed through Him was to be
surely expected, not an earthly and carnal felicity, such as appeared during the few years of king
Solomon, but a heavenly and spiritual felicity; and when the nations, then ignorant of this through
unbelief, exulted over and insulted the people of God for being captives, what else was this than
ignorantly to reproach with the change of Christ those who understand the change of Christ? And
therefore what follows when this psalm is concluded, "Let the blessing of the Lord be for
evermore, amen, amen," is suitable enough for the whole people of God belonging to the heavenly
Jerusalem, whether for those things that lay hid in the Old Testament before the New

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was revealed, or for those that, being now revealed in the New Testament, are manifestly
discerned to belong to Christ. For the blessing of the Lord in the seed of David does not belong to
any particular time, such as appeared in the days of Solomon, but is for evermore to be hoped for,
in which most certain hope it is said, "Amen, amen;" for this repetition of the word is the
confirmation of that hope. Therefore David understanding this, says in the second Book of Kings,
in the passage from which we digressed to this psalm,(1) "Thou hast spoken also for Thy servant's
house for a great while to come."(2) Therefore also a little after he says, "Now begin, and bless
the house of Thy servant for evermore," etc., because the son was then about to be born from
whom his posterity should be continued to Christ, through whom his house should be eternal, and
should also be the house of God. For it is called the house of David on account of David's race;
but the selfsame is called the house of God on account of the temple of God, made of men, not of
stones, where shall dwell for evermore the people with and in their God, and God with and in His
people, so that God may fill His people, and the people be filled with their God, while God shall
be all in all, Himself their reward in peace who is their strength in war. Therefore, when it is said
in the words of Nathan, "And the Lord will tell thee what an house thou shalt build for Him,"(3) 
it is afterwards said in the words of David, "For Thou, Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hast opened
the ear of Thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house."(4) For this house is built both by us
through living well, and by God through helping us to live well; for "except the Lord build the
house, they labor in vain that build it."(5) And when the final dedication of this house shall take
place, then what God here says by Nathan shall be fulfilled, "And I will appoint a place for my
people Israel, and will plant him, and he shall dwell apart, and shall be troubled no more; and the
son of iniquity shall not humble him any more, as from the beginning, from the days when I
appointed judges over my people Israel."(6)

     CHAP. 13.--WHETHER THE TRUTH OF THIS PROMISED PEACE CAN BE
ASCRIBED TO THOSE TIMES PASSED AWAY UNDER SOLOMON.

    Whoever hopes for this so great good in this world, and in this earth, his wisdom is but folly.
Can any one think it was fulfilled in the peace of Solomon's reign? Scripture certainly commends
that peace with excellent praise as a shadow of that which is to come. But this opinion is to be
vigilantly opposed, since after it is said, "And the son of iniquity shall not humble him any more,"
it is immediately added, "as from the beginning, from the days in which I appointed judges over
my people Israel."(7) For the judges were appointed over that people from the time when they
received the land of promise, before kings had begun to be there. And certainly the son of iniquity,
that is, the foreign enemy, humbled him through periods of time in which we read that peace
alternated with wars; and in that period longer times of peace are found than Solomon had, who
reigned forty years. For under that judge who is called Ehud there were eighty years of peace.(8)
Be it far from us, therefore, that we should believe the times of Solomon are predicted in this
promise, much less indeed those of any other king whatever. For none other of them reigned in
such great peace as he; nor did that nation ever at all hold that kingdom so as to have no anxiety
lest it should be subdued by enemies: for in the very great mutability of human affairs such great
security is never given to any people, that it should not dread invasions hostile to this life.
Therefore the place of this promised peaceful and secure habitation is eternal, and of right belongs
eternally to Jerusalem the free mother, where the genuine people of Israel shall be: for this name is
interpreted "Seeing God;" in the desire of which reward a pious life is to be led through faith in
this miserable pilgrimage.(9)

   CHAP. 14.--OF DAVID'S CONCERN IN THE WRITING OF THE PSALMS.

    In the progress of the city of God through the ages, therefore, David first reigned in the earthly
Jerusalem as a shadow of that which was to come. Now David was a man skilled in songs, who
dearly loved musical harmony, not with a vulgar delight, but with a believing disposition, and by it
served his God, who is the true God, by the mystical representation of a great thing. For the
rational and well-ordered concord of diverse sounds in harmonious variety suggests the compact
unity of the well-ordered city. Then almost all his prophecy is in psalms, of which a hundred and
fifty are contained in what we call the Book of Psalms, of which some will have it those only were
made by David which are in-

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scribed with his name. But there are also some who think none of them were made by him except
those which are marked "Of David;" but those which have in the title "For David" have been made
by others who assumed his person. Which opinion is refuted by the voice of the Saviour Himself
in the Gospel, when He says that David himself by the Spirit said Christ was his Lord; for the
110th Psalm begins thus, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make
Thine enemies Thy footstool."(1)  And truly that very psalm, like many more, has in the title, not
"of David," but "for David." But those seem to me to hold the more credible opinion, who ascribe
to him the authorship of all these hundred and fifty psalms, and think that he prefixed to some of
them the names even of other men, who prefigured something pertinent to the matter, but chose
to have no man's name in the titles of the rest, just as God inspired him in the management of this
variety, which, although dark, is not meaningless. Neither ought it to move one not to believe this
that the names of some prophets who lived long after the times of king David are read in the
inscriptions of certain psalms in that book, and that the things said there seem to be spoken as it
were by them. Nor was the prophetic Spirit unable to reveal to king David, when he prophesied,
even these names of future prophets, so that he might prophetically sing something which should
suit their persons; just as it was revealed to a certain prophet that king Josiah should arise and
reign after more than three hundred years, who predicted his future deeds also along with his
name.(2)

     CHAP. 15.--WHETHER ALL THE THINGS PROPHESIED IN THE PSALMS
CONCERNING CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH SHOULD BE TAKEN UP IN THE TEXT OF
THIS WORK.

    And now I see it may be expected of me that I shall open up in this part of this book what
David may have prophesied in the Psalms concerning the Lord Jesus Christ or His Church. But
although I have already done so in one instance, I am prevented from doing as that expectation
seems to demand, rather by the abundance than the scarcity of matter. For the necessity of
shunning prolixity forbids my setting down all things; yet I fear lest if I select some I shall appear
to many, who know these things, to have passed by the more necessary. Besides, the proof that is
adduced ought to be supported by the context of the whole psalm, so that at least there may be
nothing against it if everything does not support it; lest we should seem, after the fashion of the
centos, to gather for the thing we wish, as it were, verses out of a grand poem, what shall be
found to have been written not about it, but about some other and widely different thing. But ere
this could be pointed out in each psalm, the whole of it must be expounded; and how great a work
that would be, the volumes of others, as well as our own, in which we have done it, show well
enough. Let him then who will, or can, read these volumes, and he will find out how many and
great things David, at once king and prophet, has prophesied concerning Christ and His Church,
to wit, concerning the King and the city which He has built.

     CHAP. 16.--OF THE THINGS PERTAINING TO CHRIST AND THE CHURCH,
SAID EITHER OPENLY OR TROPICALLY IN THE 45TH PSALM.

    For whatever direct and manifest prophetic utterances there may be about anything, it is
necessary that those which are tropical should be mingled with them; which, chiefly on account of
those of slower understanding, thrust upon the more learned the laborious task of clearing up and
expounding them. Some of them, indeed, on the very first blush, as soon as they are spoken,
exhibit Christ and the Church, although some things in them that are less intelligible remain to be
expounded at leisure. We have an example of this in that same Book of Psalms: "My heart
bubbled up a good matter: I utter my words to the king. My tongue is the pen of a scribe, writing
swiftly. Thy form is beautiful beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out in Thy lips: therefore
God hath blessed Thee for evermore. Gird Thy sword about Thy thigh, O Most Mighty. With Thy
goodliness and Thy beauty go forward, proceed prosperously, and reign, because of Thy truth,
and meekness, and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall lead Thee forth wonderfully. Thy sharp
arrows are most powerful: in the heart of the king's enemies. The people shall fall under Time.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a rod of direction is the rod of Thy kingdom. Thou hast
loved righteousness, and hast hated iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with
the oil of exultation above Thy fellows. Myrrh and drops, and cassia from Thy vestments, from
the houses of ivory: out of which the daughters of kings have delighted Thee in Thine honor."(3) 
Who is there, no matter how slow,

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but must here recognize Christ whom we preach, and in whom we believe, if he hears that He is
God, whose throne is for ever and ever, and that He is anointed by God, as God indeed anoints,
not with a visible, but with a spiritual and intelligible chrism? For who is so untaught in this
religion, or so deaf to its far and wide spread fame, as not to know that Christ is named from this
chrism, that is, from this anointing? But when it is acknowledged that this King is Christ, let each
one who is already subject to Him who reigns because of truth, meekness, and righteousness,
inquire at his leisure into these other things that are here said tropically: how His form is beautiful
beyond the sons of men, with a certain beauty that is the more to be loved and admired the less it
is corporeal; and what His sword, arrows, and other things of that kind may be, which are set
down, not properly, but tropically.
    Then let him look upon His Church, joined to her so great Husband in spiritual marriage and
divine love, of which it is said in these words which follow, "The queen stood upon Thy right
hand in gold-embroidered vestments, girded about with variety. Hearken, O daughter, and look,
and incline thine ear; forget also thy people, and thy father's house. Because the King hath greatly
desired thy beauty; for He is the Lord thy God. And the daughters of Tyre shall worship Him with
gifts; the rich among the people shall entreat Thy face. The daughter of the King has all her glory
within, in golden fringes, girded about with variety. The virgins shall be brought after her to the
King: her neighbors shall be brought to Thee. They shall be brought with gladness and exultation:
they shall be led into the temple of the King. Instead of thy fathers, sons shall be born to thee:
thou shalt establish them as princes over all the earth. They shall be mindful of thy name in every
generation and descent. Therefore shall the people acknowledge thee for evermore, even for ever
and ever."(1) I do not think any one is so stupid as to believe that some poor woman is here
praised and described, as the spouse, to wit, of Him to whom it is said, "Thy throne, O God, is for
ever and ever: a rod of direction is the rod of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and
hated iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of exultation above Thy
fellows;"(2) that is, plainly, Christ above Christians. For these are His fellows, out of the unity and
concord of whom in all nations that queen is formed, as it is said of her in another psalm, "The
city of the great King."(3) The same is Sion spiritually, which name in Latin is interpreted
speculatio (discovery); for she descries the great good of the world to come, because her attention
is directed thither. In the same way she is also Jerusalem spiritually, of which we have already said
many things. Her enemy is the city of the devil, Babylon, which is interpreted "confusion." Yet out
of this Babylon this queen is in all nations set free by regeneration, and passes from the worst to
the best King,--that is, from the devil to Christ. Wherefore it is said to her, "Forget thy people and
thy father's house." Of this impious city those also are a portion who are Israelites only in the flesh
and not by faith, enemies also of this great King Himself, and of His queen. For Christ, having
come to them, and been slain by them, has the more become the King of others, whom He did not
see in the flesh. Whence our King Himself says through the prophecy of a certain psalm, "Thou
wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people; Thou wilt make me head of the nations. A
people whom I have not known hath served me: in the hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me."(4)
Therefore this people of the nations, which Christ did not know in His bodily presence, yet has
believed in that Christ as announced to it; so that it might be said of it with good reason, "In the
hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me," for "faith is by hearing."(5)  This people, I say, added to
those who are the true Israelites both by the flesh and by faith, is the city of God, which has
brought forth Christ Himself according to the flesh, since He was in these Israelites only. For
thence came the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ assumed flesh that He might be man. Of which city
another psalm says, "Mother Sion, shall a man say, and the man is made in her, and the Highest
Himself hath founded her."(6)  Who is this Highest, save God? And thus Christ, who is God,
before He became man through Mary in that city, Himself rounded it by the patriarchs and
prophets. As therefore was said by prophecy so long before to this queen, the city of God, what
we already can see fulfilled, "Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee; thou shall make them
princes over all the earth;"(7) so out of her sons truly are set up even her fathers [princes] through
all the earth, when the people, coming together to her, confess to her with the confession of
eternal praise for ever and ever. Beyond doubt, whatever
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interpretation is put on what is here expressed somewhat darkly in figurative language, ought to
be in agreement with these most manifest things.

     CHAP. 17.--OF THOSE THINGS IN THE 110TH PSALM WHICH RELATE TO THE
PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST, AND IN THE 22D TO HIS PASSION.

    Just as in that psalm also where Christ is most openly proclaimed as Priest, even as He is here
as King, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool."(1) That Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father is believed, not seen; that His
enemies also are put under His feet doth not yet appear; it is being done, [therefore] it will appear
at last: yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen. But what follows, "The Lord will send
forth the rod of Thy strength out of Sion, and rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies,"(2) is so
clear, that to deny it would imply not merely unbelief and mistake, but downright impudence. And
even enemies must certainly confess that out of Sion has been sent the law of Christ which we call
the gospel, and acknowledge as the rod of His strength. But that He rules in the midst of His
enemies, these same enemies among whom He rules themselves bear witness, gnashing their teeth
and consuming away, and having power to do nothing against Him. Then what he says a little
after, "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent,"(3) by which words He intimates that what He
adds is immutable, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,"(4) who is
permitted to doubt of whom these things are said, seeing that now there is nowhere a priesthood
and sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and everywhere men offer under Christ as the Priest, which
Melchizedek showed when he blessed Abraham? Therefore to these manifest things are to be
referred, when rightly understood, those things in the same psalm that are set down a little more
obscurely, and we have already made known in our popular sermons how these things are to be
rightly understood. So also in that where Christ utters through prophecy the humiliation of His
passion, saying, "They pierced my hands and feet; they counted all my bones. Yea, they looked
and stared at me."(5) By which words he certainly meant His body stretched out on the cross,
with the hands and feet pierced and perforated by the striking through of the nails, and that He
had in that way made Himself a spectacle to those who looked and stared. And he adds, "They
parted my garments among them, and over nay vesture they cast lots."(6) How this prophecy has
been fulfilled the Gospel history narrates. Then, indeed, the other things also which are said there
less openly are rightly understood when they agree with those which shine with so great clearness;
especially because those things also which we do not believe as past, but survey as present, are
beheld by the whole world, being now exhibited just as they are read of in this very psalm as
predicted so long before. For it is there said a little after, "All the ends of the earth shall
remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him;
for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations."

     CHAP. 18.--OF THE 3D, 41ST, 15TH, AND 68TH PSALMS, IN WHICH THE
DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE LORD ARE PROPHESIED.

    About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it
that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, "I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for
the Lord shall sustain me?"(7) Is there perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet
chose to point it out to us as something great that He had i slept and risen up, unless that sleep
had been death, and that awaking the resurrection,  which behoved to be thus prophesied
concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person
of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to
come, since these things which were yet to come were in the predestination and foreknowledge of
God as if they were done, because they were certain. He says, "Mine enemies speak evil of me;
When shall he die, and his name perish? And if he came in to see me, his heart spake vain things:
he gathered iniquity to himself. He went out of doors, and uttered it all at once. Against me all
mine enemies whisper together: against me do they devise evil They have planned an unjust thing
against me. Shall not he that sleeps also rise again?"(8) These words are certainly so set down
here that he may be understood to say nothing else than if he said, Shall not He that died recover
life again? The previous words clearly show that His enemies have mediated and planned His
death, and that this was executed by him who came

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in to see, and went out to betray. But to whom does not Judas here occur, who, from being His
disciple, became His betrayer? Therefore because they were about to do what they had
plotted,--that is, were about to kill Him,--he, to show them that with useless malice they were
about to kill Him who should rise again, so adds this verse, as if he, said, What vain thing are you
doing? What will be your crime will be my sleep. "Shall not He that sleeps also rise again ?" And
yet he indicates in the following verses that they should not commit so great an impiety with
impunity, saying," Yea, the man of my peace m whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath enlarged
the heel over me;"(1) that is, hath trampled me under foot. "But Thou," he saith, "O Lord, he
merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them."(2) Who can now deny this who sees
the Jews, after the passion and resurrection of Christ, utterly rooted up from their abodes by
warlike slaughter and destruction? For, being slain by them, He has risen again, and has requited
them meanwhile by temporary discipline, save that for those who are not corrected He keeps it in
store for the time when He shall judge the quick and the dead.(3) For the Lord Jesus Himself, in
pointing out that very man to the apostles as His betrayer, quoted this very verse of this psalm,
and said it was fulfilled in Himself: "He that ate my bread enlarged the heel over me." But what he
says, "In whom I trusted," does not suit the head but the body. For the Saviour Himself was not
ignorant of him concerning whom He had already said before, "One of you is a devil."(4) But He
is wont to assume the person of His members, and to ascribe to Himself what should be said of
them, because the head and the body is one Christ;(5) whence that saying in the Gospel, "I was an
hungered, and ye gave me to eat."(6) Expounding which, He says, "Since ye did it to one of the
least of mine, ye did it to me."(7) Therefore He said that He had trusted, because his disciples
then had trusted concerning Judas; for he was numbered with the apostles.(8)
    But the Jews do not expect that the Christ whom they expect will die; therefore they do not
think ours to be Him whom the law and the prophets announced, but feign to themselves I know
not whom of their own, exempt from the suffering of death. Therefore, with wonderful emptiness
and blindness, they contend that the words we have set down signify, not death and reSUrrection,
but sleep and awaking again. But the 16th Psalm also cries to them, "Therefore my heart is
jocund, and my tongue hath exulted; moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope: for Thou wilt not
leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou give Thine Holy One to see corruption."(9) Who but He
that rose again the third day could say his flesh had rested in this hope; that His soul, not being
left in hell, but speedily returning to it, should revive it, that it should not be corrupted as corpses
are wont to be, which they can in no wise say of David the prophet and king? The 68th Psalm also
cries out, "Our God is the God of Salvation: even of the Lord the exit was by death."(10) What
could be more openly said? For the God of salvation is the Lord Jesus, which is interpreted
Saviour, or Healing One. For this reason this name was given, when it was said before He was
born of the virgin: "Thou shall bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save
His people from their sins."(11) Because His blood was shed for the remission of their sins, it
behoved Him to have no other exit from this life than death. Therefore, when it had been said,
"Our God is the God of salvation," immediately it was added, "Even of the Lord the exit was by
death," in order to show that we were to be saved by His dying. But that saying is marvellous,
"Even of the Lord," as if it was said, Such is that life of mortals, that not even the Lord Himself
could go out of it otherwise save through death.

     CHAP. 19.--OF THE 69TH PSALM, IN WHICH THE OBSTINATE UNBELIEF OF
THE JEWS IS DECLARED.

    But when the Jews will not in the least yield to the testimonies of this prophecy, which are so
manifest, and are also brought by events to so clear and certain a completion, certainly that is
fulfilled in them which is written in that psalm which here follows. For when the things which
pertain to His passion are prophetically spoken there also in the person of Christ, that is
mentioned which is unfolded in the Gospel: "They gave me gall for my meat; and in my thirst they
gave me vinegar for drink."(12) And as it were after such a feast and dainties in this way given to
Himself, presently He brings in [these words]: "Let their table become a trap before them, and a
retribution, and an offence: let their eyes be dimmed that they see not, and their back be always
bowed down,"(13) etc. Which things are

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not spoken as wished for, but are predicted under the prophetic form of wishing. What wonder,
then, if those whose eyes are dimmed that they see not do not see these manifest things? What
wonder if those do not look up at heavenly things whose back is always bowed down that they
may grovel among earthly things? For these words transferred from the body signify mental faults.
Let, these things which have been said about the Psalms, that is, about king David's prophecy,
suffice, that we may keep within some bound. But let those readers excuse us who knew them all
before; and let them not complain about those perhaps stronger proofs which they know or think I
have passed by.

     CHAP. 20.--OF DAVID'S REIGN AND MERIT; AND OF HIS SON SOLOMON, AND
THAT PROPHECY RELATING TO CHRIST WHICH IS FOUND EITHER IN THOSE
BOOKS WHICH ARE JOINED TO THOSE WRITTEN BY HIM, OR IN THOSE WHICH
ARE INDUBITABLY HIS.

    David therefore reigned in the earthly Jerusalem, a son of the heavenly Jerusalem, much praised
by the divine testimony; for even his faults are overcome by great piety, through the most salutary
humility of his repentance, that he is altogether one of those of whom he himself says, "Blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered."(1) After him Solomon his son
reigned over the same whole people, who, as was said before, began to reign while his father was
still alive. This man, after good beginnings, made a bad end. For indeed "prosperity, which wears
out the minds of the wise,"(2) hurt him more than that wisdom profiled him, which even yet is and
shall hereafter be renowned, and was then praised far and wide. He also is found to have
prophesied in his hooks, of which three are received as of canonical authority, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. But it has been customary to ascribe to Solomon other two,
of which one is called Wisdom, the other Ecclesiasticus, on account of some resemblance of
style,--but the more learned have no doubt that they are not his; yet of old the Church, especially
the Western, received them into authority,--in the one of which, called the Wisdom of Solomon,
the passion of Christ is most openly prophesied. For indeed His impious murderers are quoted as
saying, "Let us lie in wait for the righteous, for he is unpleasant to us, and contrary to our works;
and he upbraideth us with our transgressions of the law, and objecteth to our disgrace the
transgressions of our education. He professeth to have the knowledge of God, and he calleth
himself the Son of God. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous for as even to
behold; for his life is unlike other men's and his ways are different. We are esteemed of him as
counterfeits; and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness. He extols the latter end of the
righteous; and glorieth that he hath God for his Father. Let us see, therefore, if his words be true;
and let us try what shall happen to him, and we shall know what shall be the end of him. For if the
righteous be the Son of God, He will undertake for him, and deliver him out of the hand of those
that are against him. Let us put him to the question with contumely and torture, that we may
know his reverence, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him to the most shameful death; for
by His own sayings He shall be respected. These things did they imagine, and were mistaken; for
their own malice hath quite blinded them."(3) But in Ecclesiasticus the future faith of the nations
is predicted in this manner: "Have mercy Upon us, O God, Ruler of all, and send Thy fear upon all
the nations: lift up Thine hand over the strange nations, and let them see Thy power. As Thou
wast sanctified in us before them, so be Thou sanctified in them before us, and let them
acknowledge Thee, according as we also have acknowledged Thee; for there is not a God beside
Thee, O Lord."(4) We see this prophecy in the form of a wish and prayer fulfilled through Jesus
Christ.  But the things which are not written in the canon of the Jews cannot be quoted against
their contradictions with so great validity.
    But as regards those three books which it is evident are Solomon's and held canonical by the
Jews, to show what of this kind may be found in them pertaining to Christ and the Church
demands a laborious discussion, which, if now entered on, would lengthen this work unduly. Yet
what we read in the Proverbs of impious men saying, "Let us unrighteously hide in the earth the
righteous man; yea, let us swallow him up alive as hell, and let us take away his memory from the
earth: let us seize his precious possession,"(5) is not so obscure that it may not be understood,
without laborious exposition, of Christ and His possession the Church. Indeed, the gospel parable
about the wicked husbandmen shows that our Lord Jesus Himself said something like it: "This is
the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours."(6)

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In like manner also that passage in this same book, on which we have already touched when we
were speaking of the barren woman who hath born seven, must soon after it was tittered have
come to be understood of only Christ and the Church by those who knew that Christ was the
Wisdom of God. "Wisdom hath builded her an house, and hath set up seven pillars; she hath
sacrificed her victims, she hath mingled her wine in the bowl; she hath also furnished her table.
She hath sent her servants summoning to the bowl with excellent proclamation, saying, Who is
simple, let him turn aside to me. And to the void of sense she hath said, Come, eat of my bread,
and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you."(2) Here certainly we perceive that the
Wisdom of God, that is, the Word co-eternal with the Father, hath builded Him an house, even a
human body in the virgin womb, and hath subjoined the Church to it as members to a head, hath
slain the martyrs as victims, hath furnished a table with wine and bread, where appears also the
priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, and hath called the simple and the void of sense,
because, as saith the apostle, "He hath chosen the weak things of this world that He might
confound the things which are mighty."(3) Yet to these weak ones she saith what follows,
"Forsake simplicity, that ye may live; and seek prudence, that ye may have life."(4) But to be
made partakers of this table is itself to begin to have life. For when he says in.another book, which
is called Ecclesiastes, "There is no good for a man, except that he should eat and drink,"(5) what
can he be more  credibly understood to say, than what belongs to the participation of this table
which the Mediator of the New Testament Himself, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek,
furnishes with His own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the
Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of that which was to come; wherefore also we
recognize the voice in the 40th Psalm as that of the same Mediator speaking through prophesy,"
Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; but a body hast Thou perfected for me."(6) Because,
instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, His body is offered, and is served up to the partakers
of it. For that this Ecclesiastes, in this sentence about eating and drinking, which he often repeats,
and very much commends, does not savor the dainties of carnal pleasures, is made plain enough
when he says, "It is better to go into the house of mourning than to go into the house of
feasting."(7) And a little after He says, "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the
heart of the simple in the house of feasting."(8) But I think that more worthy of quotation from
this book which relates to both cities, the one of the devil, the other of Christ, and to their kings,
the devil and Christ: "Woe to thee, O land," he says, "when thy king is a youth, and thy princes
eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes
eat in season, in fortitude, and not in confusion!"(9) He has called the devil a youth, because of
the folly and pride, and rashness and unruliness, and other vices which are wont to abound at that
age; but Christ is the Son of nobles, that is, of the holy patriarchs, of those belonging to the free
city, of whom He was begotten in the flesh. The princes of that and other cities are eaters in the
morning, that is, before the suitable hour, because they do not expect the seasonable felicity,
which is the true, in tile world to come, desiring to be speedily made happy with the renown of
this world; but the princes of the city of Christ patiently wait for the time of a blessedness that is
not fallacious. This is expressed by the words, "in fortitude, and not in confusion," because hope
does not deceive them; of which the apostle says, "But hope maketh not ashamed."(10) A psalm
also saith, "For they that hope in Thee shall not be put to shame."(11) But now the Song of Songs
is a certain spiritual pleasure of holy minds, in the marriage of that King and Queen-city, that is,
Christ and the Church. But this pleasure is wrapped up in allegorical veils, that the Bridegroom
may be more ardently desired, and more joyfully unveiled, and may appear; to whom it is said in
this same song, "Equity hath delighted Thee;(12) and the bride who there hears, "Charity is in thy
delights."(13) We pass over many things in silence, in our desire to finish this work.

                CHAP. 21.--OF THE KINGS AFTER SOLOMON,
                       BOTH IN JUDAH AND ISRAEL.
                                   
    The other kings of the Hebrews after Solomon are scarcely found to have prophesied, "through
certain enigmatic words or actions of theirs, what may pertain to Christ and the Church, either in
Judah or Israel; for so were the parts of that people styled, when, on account of Solomon's
offence, from the time of

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Rehoboam his son, who succeeded him in the kingdom, it was divided by God as a punishment.
The ten tribes, indeed, which Jeroboam the servant of Solomon received, being appointed the king
in Samaria, were distinctively called Israel, although this had been the name of that whole people;
but the two tribes, namely, of Judah and Benjamin, which for David's sake, lest the kingdom
should be wholly wrenched from his race, remained subject to the city of Jerusalem, were called
Judah, because that was the tribe whence David sprang. But Benjamin, the other tribe which, as
was said, belonged to the same kingdom, was that whence Saul sprang before David. But these
two tribes together, as was said, were called Judah, and were distinguished by this name from
Israel
which was the distinctive title of the ten tribes under their own king. For the tribe of Levi, because
it was the priestly one, bound to the servitude of God, not of the kings, was reckoned the
thirteenth. For Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel, did not, like the others, form one tribe,
but two, Ephraim and Manasseh. Yet the tribe of Levi also belonged more to the kingdom of
Jerusalem, where was the temple of God whom it served. On the division of the people, therefore,
Rehoboam, son of Solomon, reigned in Jerusalem as the first king of Judah, and Jeroboam,
servant of Solomon, in Samaria as king of Israel. And when Rehoboam wished as a tyrant to
pursue that separated part with war, the people were prohibited from fighting with their brethren
by God, who told them through a prophet that He had done this; whence it appeared that in this
matter there had been no sin either of the king or people of Israel, but the accomplished will of
God the avenger. When this was known, both parts settled down peaceably, for the division made
was not religious but political.

     CHAP. 22.--OF JEROBOAM, WHO PROFANED THE PEOPLE PUT UNDER HIM
BY THE IMPIETY OF IDOLATRY, AMID WHICH, HOWEVER, GOD DID NOT CEASE
TO INSPIRE THE PROPHETS, AND TO GUARD MANY FROM THE CRIME OF
IDOLATRY.

    But Jeroboam king of Israel, with perverse mind, not believing in God, whom he had proved
true in promising and giving him the kingdom, was afraid lest, by coming to the temple of God
which was in Jerusalem, where, according to the divine law, that whole nation was to come in
order to sacrifice, the people should be seduced from him, and return to David's line as the seed
royal; and set up idolatry in his kingdom, and with horrible impiety beguiled the people, ensnaring
them to the worship of idols with himself. Yet God did not altogether cease to reprove by the
prophets, not only that king, but also his successors and imitators in his impiety, and the people
too. For there the great and illustrious prophet Elijah and Elisha his disciple arose, who also did
many wonderful works. Even there, when Elijah said, "O Lord, they have slain Thy prophets, they
have digged down Thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life," it was answered that
seven thousand men were there who had not bowed the knee to Baal.(1)

     CHAP. 23.--OF THE VARYING CONDITION OF BOTH THE HEBREW
KINGDOMS, UNTIL THE PEOPLE OF BOTH WERE AT DIFFERENT TIMES LED INTO
CAPTIVITY, JUDAH BEING AFTERWARDS RECALLED INTO HIS KINGDOM, WHICH
FINALLY PASSED INTO THE POWER OF THE ROMANS.

    So also in the kingdom of Judah pertaining to Jerusalem prophets were not lacking even in the
times of succeeding kings, just as it pleased God to send them, either for the prediction of what
was needful, or for correction of sin and instruction in righteousness;(2) for there, too, although
far less than in Israel, kings arose who grievously offended God by their impieties, and, along with
their people, who were like them, were smitten with moderate scourges. The no small merits of
the pious kings there are praised indeed. But we read that in Israel the kings were, some more,
others less, yet all wicked. Each part, therefore, as the divine providence either ordered or
permitted, was both lifted up by prosperity and weighed down by adversity of various kinds; and
it was afflicted not Only by foreign, but also by civil wars with each other, in order that by certain
existing causes the mercy or anger of God might be manifested; until, by His growing indignation,
that whole nation was by the conquering Chaldeans not only overthrown in its abode, but also for
the most part transported to the lands of the Assyrians,--first, that part of the thirteen tribes called
Israel, but afterwards Judah also, when Jerusalem and that most noble temple was cast down,--in
which lands it rested seventy years in captivity. Being after that time sent forth thence, they rebuilt
the overthrown temple. And although very many stayed in the lands of the strangers, yet the
kingdom no longer had two separate parts, with different kings over each, but in Jerusalem there
was

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one prince over them; and at certain times, from every direction wherever they were, and from
whatever place they could, they all came to the temple of God which was there. Yet not even then
were they without foreign enemies and conquerors; yea, Christ found them tributaries of the
Romans.

     CHAP. 24.--OF THE PROPHETS, WHO EITHER WERE THE LAST AMONG THE
JEWS, OR WHOM THE GOSPEL HISTORY REPORTS ABOUT THE TIME OF CHRIST'S
NATIVITY.

    But in that whole time after they returned from Babylon, after Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah,
who then prophesied, and Ezra, they had no prophets down to the time of the Saviour's advent
except another Zechariah, the father of John, and Elisabeth his wife, when the nativity of Christ
was already close at hand; and when He was already born, Simeon the aged, and Anna a widow,
and now very old; and, last of all, John himself, who, being a young man, did not predict that
Christ, now a young man, was to come, but by prophetic knowledge pointed Him out
though unknown; for which reason the Lord Himself says, "The law and the prophets were until
John."(1) But the prophesying of these five is made known to us in the gospel, where the virgin
mother of our Lord herself is also found to have prophesied before John. But this prophecy of
theirs the wicked Jews do not receive; but those innumerable persons received it who from them
believed the gospel. For then truly Israel was divided in two, by that division which was foretold
by Samuel the prophet to king Saul as immutable. But even the reprobate Jews hold Malachi,
Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra as the last received into canonical authority. For there are also
writings of these, as of others, who being but a very few in the great multitude of prophets, have
written those books which have obtained canonical authority, of whose predictions it seems good
to me to put in this work some which pertain to Christ and His Church; and this, by the Lord's
help, shall be done more conveniently in the following book, that we may not further burden this
one, which is already too long.
                             BOOK XVIII.
                                  
                              ARGUMENT.
                                  
     AUGUSTINE TRACES THE PARALLEL COURSES OF THE EARTHLY AND
HEAVENLY CITIES FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE END OF THE WORLD;
AND ALLUDES TO THE ORACLES REGARDING CHRIST, BOTH THOSE UTTERED BY
THE SIBYLS, AND THOSE OF THE SACRED PROPHETS WHO WROTE AFTER THE
FOUNDATION OF ROME, HOSEA, AMOS, ISAIAH, MICAH, AND THEIR SUCCESSORS.

     CHAP. 1.--OF THOSE THINGS DOWN TO THE TIMES OF THE SAVIOUR WHICH
HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN THE SEVENTEEN BOOKS.

    I PROMISED to write of the rise, progress, and appointed end of the two cities, one of which
is God's, the other this world's, in which, so far as mankind is concerned, the former is now a
stranger. But first of all I undertook, so far as His grace should enable me, to refute the enemies
of the city of God, who prefer their gods to Christ its founder, and fiercely hate Christians with
the most deadly malice. And this I have done in the first ten books. Then, as regards my threefold
promise which I have just mentioned, I have treated distinctly, in the four books which follow the
tenth, of the rise of both cities. After that, I have proceeded from the first man down to the flood
in one book, which is the fifteenth of this work; and from that again down to Abraham our work
has followed both in chronological order. From the patriarch Abraham down to the time of the
Israelite kings, at which we close our sixteenth book, and thence down to the advent of Christ
Himself in the flesh, to which period the seventeenth book reaches. the city of God appears from
my way of writing to have run its course alone; whereas it did not run its course alone in this age,
for both cities, in their course amid mankind, certainly experienced chequered times together just
as from the beginning. But I did this in order that, first of all, from the time when the promises of
God began to be more clear, down to the virgin birth of Him in whom those things promised from
the first were to be fulfilled, the course of that city which is God's might be made more distinctly
apparent, without interpolation of foreign matter from the history of the other city, although down
to the revelation of the new covenant it ran its course, not in light, but in shadow. Now, therefore,
I think fit to do what I passed by, and show, so far as seems necessary, how that other city ran its
course from the times of Abraham, so that attentive readers may compare the two.

     CHAP. 2.--OF THE KINGS AND TIMES OF THE EARTHLY CITY WHICH WERE
SYNCHRONOUS WITH THE TIMES OF THE SAINTS, RECKONING FROM THE RISE OF
ABRAHAM.

    The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and in the most diverse
places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most
part divided against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own
interests and lusts, while what is longed for either suffices  for none, or not for all, because it is
not the very thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any sort of peace and
safety to freedom itself; so that they who chose to die rather than be slaves have been greatly
wondered at. For in almost all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those
who happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to

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their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destruction. This does not take place
without the providence of God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued
in war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings. Now, among the
very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly interest or lust, society is divided (which
we call by the general name of the city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct
from each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the rest, first that of the
Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First came the one, then the other. The former arose in the
east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west. I may speak of other kingdoms and other
kings as appendages of these.
    Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of Assyria, was already the second
king of that kingdom when Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldees. There was also at that
time a very small kingdom of Sicyon, with which, as from an ancient date, that most universally
learned man Marcus Varro begins, in writing of the Roman race. For from these kings of Sicyon
he passes to the Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from these to the Romans. Yet very little
is related about these kingdoms, before the foundation of Rome, in comparison with that of
Assyria. For although even Sallust, the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were very
famous in Greece, yet he thinks they were greater in fame than in fact. For in speaking of them he
says, "The deeds of the Athenians, as I think, were very great and magnificent, but yet somewhat
less than reported by fame. But because writers of great genius arose among them, the deeds of
the Athenians were celebrated throughout the world as very great. Thus the virtue of those who
did them was held to be as great as men of transcendent genius could represent it to be by the
power of laudatory words."(1) This city also derived no small glory from literature and
philosophy, the study of which chiefly flourished there. But as regards empire, none in the earliest
times was greater than the Assyrian, or so widely extended. For when Ninus the son of Belus was
king, he is reported to have subdued the whole of Asia, even to the boundaries of Libya, which as
to number is called the third part, but as to size is found to be the half of the whole world. The
Indians in the eastern regions were the only people over whom he did not reign; but after his
death Semiramis his wife made war on them. Thus it came to pass that all the people and kings in
those countries were subject to the kingdom and authority of the Assyrians, and did whatever they
were commanded. Now Abraham was born in that kingdom among the Chaldees, in the time of
Ninus. But since Grecian affairs are much better known to us than Assyrian, and those who have
diligently investigated the antiquity of the Roman nation's origin have followed the order of time
through the Greeks to the Latins, and from them to the Romans, who themselves are Latins, we
ought on this account, where it is needful, to mention the Assyrian kings, that it may appear how
Babylon, like a first Rome, ran its course along with the city of God, which is a stranger in this
world. But the things proper for insertion in this work in comparing the two cities, that is, the
earthly and heavenly, ought to be taken mostly from the Greek and Latin kingdoms, where Rome
herself is like a second Babylon.
    At Abraham's birth, then, the second kings of Assyria and Sicyon respectively were Ninus and
Europs, the first having been Belus and AEgialeus. But when God promised Abraham, on his
departure from Babylonia, that he should become a great nation, and that in his seed all nations of
the earth should be blessed, the Assyrians had their seventh king, the Sicyons their fifth; for the
son of Ninus reigned among them after his mother Semiramis, who is said to have been put to
death by him for attempting to defile him by incestuously lying with him. Some think that she
founded Babylon, and indeed she may have founded it anew. But we have told, in the sixteenth
book, when or by whom it was founded. Now the son of Ninus and Semiramis, who succeeded
his mother in the kingdom, is also called Ninus by some, but by others Ninias, a patronymic word.
Telexion then held the kingdom of the Sicyons. In his reign times were quiet and joyful to such a
degree, that after his death they worshipped him as a god by offering sacrifices and by celebrating
games, which are said to have been first instituted on this occasion.

     CHAP. 3.--WHAT KINGS REIGNED IN ASSYRIA AND SICYON WHEN,
ACCORDING TO THE PROMISE, ISAAC WAS BORN TO ABRAHAM IN HIS
HUNDREDTH YEAR, AND WHEN THE TWINS ESAU AND JACOB WERE BORN OF
REBECCA TO ISAAC IN HIS SIXTIETH YEAR.

    In his times also, by the promise of God, Isaac, the son of Abraham, was born to his

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father when he was a hundred years old, of Sarah his wife, who, being barren and old, had already
lost hope of issue. Aralius was then the fifth king of the Assyrians. To Isaac himself, in his sixtieth
year, were born twin-sons, Esau and Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather
Abraham, who died on completing a hundred and seventy years, being still alive, and reckoning
his hundred and sixtieth year.(1) At that time there reigned as the seventh kings,--among the
Assyrians, that more ancient Xerxes, who was also called Balaeus; and among the Sicyons,
Thuriachus, or, as some write his name, Thurimachus. The kingdom of Argos, in which Inachus
reigned first, arose in the time of Abraham's grandchildren. And I must not omit what Varro
relates, that the Sicyons were also wont to sacrifice at the tomb of their seventh king Thuriachus.
In the reign of Armamitres in Assyria and Leucippus in Sicyon as the eighth kings, and of Inachus
as the first in Argos, God spoke to Isaac, and promised the same two things to him as to his
father,--namely, the land of Canaan to his seed, and the blessing of all nations in his seed. These
same things were promised to his son, Abraham's grandson, who was at first called Jacob,
afterwards Israel, when Belocus was the ninth king of Assyria, and Phoroneus, the son of Inachus,
reigned as the second king of Argos, Leucippus still continuing king of Sicyon. In those times,
under the Argive king Phoroneus, Greece was made more famous by the institution of certain
laws and judges. On the death of Phoroneus, his younger brother Phegous built a temple at his
tomb, in which he was worshipped as God, and oxen were sacrificed to him. I believe they
thought him worthy of so great honor, because in his part of the kingdom (for their father had
divided his territories between them, in which they reigned daring his life) he had founded chapels
for the worship of the gods, and had taught them to measure time, by months and years, and to
that extent to keep count and reckoning of events. Men still uncultivated, admiring him for these
novelties, either fancied he was, or resolved that he should be made, a god after his death.  Lo
also is said to have been the daughter of Inachus, who was afterwards called Isis, when she was
worshipped in Egypt as a great goddess; although others write that she came as a queen out of
Ethiopia, and because she ruled extensively and justly, and instituted for her subjects letters and
many useful things, such divine honor was given her there after she died, that it any one said she
had been human, he was charged with a capital crime.

                 CHAP. 4.--OF THE TIMES OF JACOB AND HIS
                               SON JOSEPH.

    In the reign of Balaeus, the ninth king of Assyria, and Mesappus, the eighth of Sicyon, who is
said by some to have been also called Cephisos (if indeed the same man had both names, and
those who put the other name in their writings have not rather confounded him with another
man), while Apis was third king of Argos, Isaac died, a hundred and eighty years old, and left his
twin-sons a hundred and twenty years old. Jacob, the younger of these, belonged to the city of
God about which we write (the elder being wholly rejected), and had twelve sons, one of whom,
called Joseph, was sold by his brothers to merchants going down to Egypt, while his grandfather
Isaac was still alive. But when he was thirty years of age, Joseph stood before Pharaoh, being
exalted out of the humiliation he endured, because, in divinely interpreting the king's dreams, he
foretold that there would be seven years of plenty, the very rich abundance of which would be
consumed by seven other years of famine that should follow. On this account the king made him
ruler over Egypt, liberating him from prison, into which he had been thrown for keeping his
chastity intact; for he bravely preserved it from his mistress, who wickedly loved him, and told lies
to his weakly credulous master, and did not consent to commit adultery with her, but fled from
her, leaving his garment in her hands when she laid hold of him. In the second of the seven years
of famine Jacob came down into Egypt to his son with all he had, being a hundred and thirty years
old, as he himself said in answer to the king's question. Joseph was then thirty-nine, if we add
seven years of plenty and two of famine to the thirty he reckoned when honored by the king.

     CHAP. 5 --OF APIS KING OF ARGOS, WHOM THE EGYPTIANS CALLED
SERAPIS,    AND WORSHIPPED WITH DIVINE HONORS.

    In these times Apis king of Argos crossed over into Egypt in ships, and, on dying there, was
made Serapis, the chief god of all the Egyptians. Now Varro gives this very ready reason why,
after his death, he was called, not Apis, but Serapis. The ark in which he was placed when dead,
which every one now calls a sarcophagus, was then called in Greek <greek>soros</greek>, and
they began to worship him when buried in it before his temple was built; and

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from Soros and Apis he was called first [Sorosapis, or] Sorapis, and then Serapis, by changing a
letter, as easily happens. It was decreed regarding him also, that whoever should say he had been
a man should be capitally punished. And since in every temple where Isis and Serapis were
worshipped there was also an image which, with finger pressed on the lips, seemed to warn men
to keep silence, Varro thinks this signifies that it should be kept secret that they had been human.
But that bull which, with wonderful folly, deluded Egypt nourished with abundant delicacies in
honor of him, was not called Serapis, but Apis, because they worshipped him alive without a
sarcophagus. On the death of that bull, when they sought and found a calf of the same color,--that
is, similarly marked with certain white spots,--they believed it was something miraculous, and
divinely provided for them. Yet it was no great thing for the demons, in order to deceive them, to
show to a cow when she was conceiving and pregnant the image of such a bull, which she alone
could see, and by it attract the breeding passion of the mother, so that it might appear in a bodily
shape in her young, just as Jacob so managed with the spotted rods that the sheep and goats were
born spotted. For what men can do with real colors and substances, the demons can very easily do
by showing unreal forms to breeding animals.

CHAP. 6.--WHO WERE KINGS OF ARGOS, AND OF ASSYRIA, WHEN JACOB DIED IN
EGYPT.

    Apis, then, who died in Egypt, was not the king of Egypt, but of Argos. He was succeeded by
his son Argus, from whose name the land was called Argos and the people ArRives, for under the
earlier kings neither the place nor the nation as yet had this name. While he then reigned over
Argos, and Eratus over Sicyon, and Balaeus still remained king, of Assyria, Jacob died in Egypt a
hundred and forty-seven years old, after he had, when dying, blessed his sons and his grandsons
by Joseph, and prophesied most plainly of Christ, saying in the blessing of Judah, "A prince shall
not fail out of Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until those things come which are laid up for
him; and He is the expectation of the nations."(1) In the reign of Argus, Greece began to use
fruits, and to have crops of corn in cultivated fields, the seed having been brought from other
countries. Argus also began to be accounted a god after his death, and was honored with a temple
and sacrifices. This honor was conferred in his reign,  before being given to him, on a private
individual for being the first to yoke oxen in the plough. This was one Homogyrus, who was
struck by lightning.

CHAP. 7.--WHO WERE KINGSWHEN JOSEPH DIED IN EGYPT.

    In the reign of Mamitus, the twelfth king of Assyria, and Plemnaeus, the eleventh of Sicyon,
while Argus still reigned over the Argives, Joseph died in Egypt a hundred and ten years old.
After his death, the people of God, increasing wonderfully, remained in Egypt a hundred and
forty-five years, in tranquillity at first, until those who knew Joseph were dead. Afterward,
through envy of their increase, and the suspicion that they would at length gain their freedom,
they were oppressed with persecutions and the labors of intolerable servitude, amid which,
however, they still grew, being multiplied with God-given fertility. During this period the same
kingdoms continued in Assyria and Greece.

     CHAP. 8.--WHO WERE KINGS WHEN MOSES WAS BORN, AND WHAT GODS
BEGAN TO BE WORSHIPPED THEN.

    When Saphrus reigned as the fourteenth king of Assyria, and Orthopolis as the twelfth of
Sicyon, and Criasus as the fifth of Argos, Moses was born in Eygpt, by whom the people of God
were liberated from the Egyptian slavery, in which they behoved to be thus tried that they might
desire the help of their Creator. Some have thought that Prometheus lived during the reign of the
kings now named. He is reported to have formed men out of clay, because he was esteemed the
best teacher of wisdom; yet it does not appear what wise men there were in his days. His brother
Atlas is said to have been a great astrologer; and this gave occasion for the fable that he held up
the sky, although the vulgar opinion about his holding up the sky appears rather to have been
suggested by a high mountain named after him. Indeed, from those times many other fabulous
things began to be invented in Greece; yet, down to Cecrops king of Athens, in whose reign that
city received its name, and in whose reign God brought His people out of Egypt by Moses, only a
few dead heroes are reported to have been deified according to the vain superstition of the
Greeks. Among these were Melantomice, the wife of king Criasus, and Phorbas their son, who
succeeded his father as sixth king of the Argives, and Iasus, son of Trio-pas, their seventh king,
and their ninth king,

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Sthenelas, or Stheneleus, or Sthenelus,--for his name is given differently by different authors. In
those times also, Mercury, the grandson of Atlas by his daughter Main, is said to have lived,
according to the common report in books. He was famous for his skill in many arts, and taught
them to men, for which they resolved to make him, and even believed that he deserved to be, a
god after death. Hercules is said to have been later, yet belonging to the same period; although
some, whom I think mistaken, assign him an earlier date than Mercury. But at whatever time they
were born, it is agreed among grave historians, who have committed these ancient things to
writing, that both were men, and that they merited divine honors from mortals because they
conferred on them many benefits to make this life more pleasant to them. Minerva was far more
ancient than these; for she is reported to have appeared in virgin age in the times of Ogyges at the
lake called Triton, from which she is also styled Tritonia, the inventress truly of many works, and
the more readily believed to be a goddess because her origin was so little known. For what is
sung about her having sprung from the head of Jupiter belongs to the region of poetry and fable,
and not to that of history and real fact.  And historical writers are not agreed when Ogyges
flourished, in whose time also a great flood occurred,--not that greatest one from which no man
escaped except those who could  get into the ark, for neither Greek nor Latin history knew of it,
yet a greater flood than that which happened afterward in Deucalion's time. For Varro begins the
book I have already mentioned at this date, and does not propose to himself, as the starting-point
from which he may arrive at Roman affairs, anything more ancient than the flood of Ogyges, that
is, which happened in the time of Ogyges. Now our writers of chronicles--first Eusebius, and
afterwards Jerome, who entirely follow some earlier historians in this opinion--relate that the
flood of Ogyges happened more than three hundred years after, during the reign of Phoroneus, the
second king of Argos. But whenever he may have lived, Minerva was already worshipped as a
goddess when Cecrops reigned in Athens, in whose reign the city itself is reported to have been
rebuilt or founded.

     CHAP. 9.--WHEN THE CITY OF ATHENS WAS FOUNDED, AND WHAT REASON
VARRO ASSIGNS FOR ITS NAME.

    Athens certainly derived its name from Minerva, who in Greek is called
'A<greek>qhnh</greek>, and Varro points out the following reason why it was so called. When
an olive-tree suddenly appeared there, and water burst forth in another place, these prodigies
moved the king to send to the Delphic Apollo to inquire what they meant and what he should do.
He answered that the olive signified Minerva, the water Neptune, and that the citizens had it in
their power to name their city as they chose, after either of these two gods whose signs these
were. On receiving this oracle, Cecrops convoked all the citizens of either sex to give their vote,
for it was then the custom in those parts for the women also to take part in public deliberations.
When the multitude was consulted, the men gave their votes for Neptune, the women for
Minerva; and as the women had a majority of one, Minerva conquered. Then Neptune, being
enraged, laid waste the lands of the Athenians, by casting up the waves of the sea; for the demons
have no difficulty in scattering any waters more widely. The same authority said, that to appease
his wrath the women should be visited by the Athenians with the three-fold punishment--that they
should no longer have any vote; that none of their children should be named after their mothers;
and that no one should call them Athenians. Thus that city, the mother and nurse of liberal
doctrines, and of so many and so great philosophers, than whom Greece had noticing more
famous and noble, by the mockery of demons about the strife of their gods, a male and female,
and from the victory of the female one through the women, received the name of Athens; and, on
being damaged by the vanquished god, was compelled to punish the very victory of the victress,
fearing the waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva. For in the women who were thus
punished, Minerva, who had conquered, was conquered too, and could not even help her voters
so far that, although the right of voting was henceforth lost, and the mothers could not give their
names to the children, they might at least be allowed to be called Athenians, and to merit the name
of that goddess whom they had made victorious over a male god by giving her their votes. What
and how much could be said about this, if we had not to hasten to other things in our discourse, is
obvious.

     CHAP. 10.--WHAT VARRO REPORTS ABOUT THE TERM AREOPAGUS, AND
ABOUT DEUCALION'S FLOOD.

   Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against the gods, lest he should find
something dishonoring to their

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majesty; and therefore he will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where the Apostle Paul
disputed with the Athenians, got this name because Mars, who in Greek is called
'A<greek>rhs</greek>, when he was charged with the crime of homicide, and was judged by
twelve gods in that field, was acquitted by the sentence of six; because it was the custom, when
the votes were equal, to acquit rather than condemn. Against this opinion, which is much  most
widely published, he tries, from the notices of obscure books, to support another reason for this
name, lest the Athenians should be thought to have called it Areopagus from the words" Mars"
and" field,"(1) as if it were the field of Mars, to the dishonor of the gods, forsooth, from whom he
thinks lawsuits and judgments far removed. And he asserts that this which is said about Mars is
not less false than what is said about the three goddesses, to wit, Juno, Minerva, and Venus,
whose contest for the palm of beauty, before Paris as judge, in order to obtain the golden apple, is
not only related, but is celebrated in songs and dances amid the applause of the theatres, in plays
meant to please the gods who take pleasure in these crimes of their own, whether real or fabled.
Varro does not believe these things, because they are incompatible with the nature of the gods and
of morality; and yet, in giving not a fabulous but a historic reason for the name of Athens, he
inserts in his books the strife between Neptune and Minerva as to whose name should be given to
that city, which was so great that, when they contended by the display of prodigies, even Apollo
dared not judge between them when consulted; but, in order to end the strife of the gods, just as
Jupiter sent the three goddesses we have named to Paris, so he sent them to men, when Minerva
won by the vote, and yet was defeated by the punishment of her own voters, for she was unable to
confer the title of Athenians on the women who were her friends, although she could impose it on
the men who were her opponents. In these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the
successor of Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our Eusebius and Jerome, while Cecrops
himself still remained, the flood occurred which is called Deucalion's, because it occurred chiefly
in those parts of the earth in which he reigned. But this flood did not at all reach Egypt or its
vicinity.

     CHAP. II.--WHEN MOSES LED THE PEOPLE OUT OF EGYPT; AND WHO WERE
KINGS WHEN HIS SUCCESSOR JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN DIED.

   Moses led the people out of Egypt in the last time of Cecrops king of Athens, when Ascatades
reigned in Assyria, Marathus in Sicyon, Triopas in Argos; and having led forth the people, he gave
them at Mount Sinai the law he received from God, which is called the Old Testament, because it
has earthly promises, and because, through Jesus Christ, there was to be a New Testament, in
which the kingdom of heaven should be promised. For the same order behoved to be observed in
this as is observed in each man who prospers in God, according to the saying of the apostle, "That
is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural," since, as he says, and that truly, "The first
man of the earth, is earthly; the second man, from heaven, is heavenly."(2) Now Moses ruled the
people for forty years in the wilderness, and died a hundred and twenty years old, after he had
prophesied of Christ by the types of carnal observances in the tabernacle, priesthood, and
sacrifices, and many other mystic ordinances. Joshua the son of Nun succeeded Moses, and
settled in the land of promise the people he had brought in, having by divine authority conquered
the people by whom it was formerly possessed. He also died, after ruling the people twenty-seven
years after the death of Moses, when Amyntas reigned in Assyria as the eighteenth king, Coracos
as the sixteenth in Sicyon, Danaos as the tenth in Argos, Ericthonius as the fourth in Athens.

     CHAP. 12.--OF THE RITUALS OF FALSE GODS INSTITUTED BY THE KINGS OF
GREECE IN THE PERIOD FROM ISRAEL'S EXODUS FROM EGYPT DOWN TO THE
DEATH OF JOSHUA THE SON OF NUN.

    During this period, that is, from Israel's exodus from Egypt down to the death of Joshua the
son of Nun, through whom that people received the land of promise, rituals were instituted to the
false gods by the kings of Greece, which, by stated celebration, recalled the memory of the flood,
and of men's deliverance from it, and of that troublous life they then led in migrating to and fro
between the heights and the plains. For even the Luperci,(3) when they ascend and descend the
sacred path, are said to represent the men who sought the mountain summits because of the
inundation of water, and returned to the lowlands on its subsidence. In those times, Dionysus,
who was also called Father Liber, and was esteemed a god after death, is said to have shown the
vine to his host in Attica. Then the musical games were instituted for tile Delphic Apollo, to
appease his anger,
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through which they thought the regions of Greece were afflicted with barrenness, because they
had not defended his temple which Danaos burnt when he invaded those lands; for they were
warned by his oracle to institute these games. But king Ericthonius first instituted games to him in
Attica, and not to him only, but also to Minerva, in which games the olive was given as the prize
to the victors, because they relate that Minerva was the discoverer of that fruit, as Liber was of
the grape. In those years Europa is alleged to have been carried off by Xanthus king of Crete (to
whom we find some give another name), and to have borne him Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and
Minos, who are more commonly reported to have been the sons of Jupiter by the same woman.
Now those who worship such gods regard what we have said about Xanthus king of Crete as true
history; but this about Jupiter, which the poets sing, the theatres applaud, and the people
celebrate, as empty fable got up as a reason for games to appease the deities, even with the false
ascription of crimes to them. In those times Hercules was held in honor in Tyre, but that was not
the same one as he whom we spoke of above. In the more secret history there are said to have
been several who were called Father Liber and Hercules. This Hercules, whose great deeds are
reckoned as twelve (not including the slaughter of Antaeus the African, because that affair
pertains to another Hercules), is declared in their books to have burned himself on Mount (Eta,
because he was not able, by that strength with which he had subdued monsters, to endure the
disease under which he languished. At that time the king, or rather tyrant Busiris, who is alleged
to have been the son of Neptune by Libya the daughter of Epaphus, is said to have offered up his
guests in sacrifice to the gods. Now it must not be believed that Neptune committed this adultery,
lest the gods should be criminated; yet such things must be ascribed to them by the poets and in
the theatres, that they may be pleased with them. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the
parents of Ericthonius king of Athens, in whose last years Joshua the son of Nun is found to have
died. But since they will have it that Minerva is a virgin, they say that Vulcan, being disturbed in
the struggle between them, poured out his seed into the earth, and on that account the man born
of it received that name; for in the Greek language <greek>eris</greek> is "strife," and
<greek>kqpn</greek> "earth," of which two words Ericthonius is a compound. Yet it must be
admitted that the more learned disprove and disown such things concerning their gods, and
declare that this fabulous belief originated in the fact that in the temple at Athens, which Vulcan
and Minerva had in common, a boy who had been exposed was found wrapped up in the coils of a
dragon, which signified that he would become great, and, as his parents were unknown, he was
called the son of Vulcan and Minerva, because they had the temple in common. Yet that fable
accounts for the origin of his name better than this history. But what does it matter to us? Let the
one in books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure
demons. Yet these religious men worship them as gods. Still, while they deny these things
concerning them they cannot clear them of all crime, because at their demand they exhibit plays in
which the very things they wisely deny are basely done, and the gods are appeased by these false
and base things. Now, even although the play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to
delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a real one.

     CHAP. 13.--WHAT FABLES WERE INVENTED AT THE TIME WHEN JUDGES
BEGAN TO RULE THE HEBREWS.

    After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had judges, in whose times they
were alternately humbled by afflictions on account of their sins, and consoled by prosperity
through the compassion of God. In those times were invented the fables about Triptolemus, who,
at the command of Ceres, borne by winged snakes, bestowed corn on the needy lands in flying
over them; about that beast the Minotaur, which was shut up in the Labyrinth, from which men
who entered its inextricable mazes could find no exit; about the Centaurs, whose form was a
compound of horse and man; about Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell; about Phryxus and his
sister Hellas, who fled, borne by a winged ram; about the Gorgon, whose hair was composed of
serpents, and who turned those who looked on her into stone; about Bellerophon, who was
carried by a winged horse called Pegasus; about Amphion, who charmed and attracted the stones
by the sweetness of his harp; about the artificer Daedalus and his son Icarus, who flew on wings
they had fitted on; about OEdipus, who compelled a certain four-footed monster with a human
face, called a sphynx, to destroy herself by casting herself headlong, having solved the riddle she
was wont to propose as insoluble; about Antaeus, who was the son of the earth, for which reason,
on falling on the

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earth, he was wont to rise up stronger, whom Hercules slew; and perhaps there are others which I
have forgotten. These fables, easily found in histories containing a true account of events, bring us
down to the Trojan war, at which Marcus Varro has closed his second book about the race of the
Roman people; and they are so skillfully invented by men as to involve no scandal to the gods.
But whoever have pretended as to Jupiter's rape of Ganymede, a very beautiful boy, that king
Tantalus committed the crime, and the fable ascribed it to Jupiter; or as to his impregnating
Dan?as a golden shower, that it means that the woman's virtue was corrupted by gold: whether
these things were really done or only fabled in those days, or were really done by others and
falsely ascribed to Jupiter, it is impossible to tell how much wickedness must have been taken for
granted in men's hearts that they should be thought able to listen to such lies with patience. And
yet they willingly accepted them, when, indeed, the more devotedly they worshipped Jupiter, they
ought the more severely to have punished those who durst say such things of him. But they not
only were not angry at those who invented these things, but were afraid that the gods would be
angry at them if they did not act such fictions even in the theatres. In those times Latona bore
Apollo, not him of whose oracle we have spoken above as so often consulted, but him who is
said, along with Hercules, to have fed the flocks of king Admetus; yet he was so believed to be a
god, that very many, indeed almost all, have believed him to be the selfsame Apollo. Then also
Father Liber made war in India, and led in his army many women called Bacchae, who were
notable not so much for valor as for fury. Some, indeed, write that this Liber was both conquered
and bound and some that he was slain in Persia, even telling where he was buried; and yet in his
name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have instituted the sacred, or rather the sacrilegious,
Bacchanalia, of the outrageous vileness of which the senate, after many years, became so much
ashamed as to prohibit them in the city of Rome. Men believed that in those times Perseus and his
wife Andromeda were raised into heaven after their death, so that they were not ashamed or
afraid to mark out their images by constellations, and call them by their names.

                 CHAP. 14.--OF THE THEOLOGICAL POETS.

    During the same period of time arose the poets, who were also called theologues, because they
made hymns about the gods; yet about such gods as, although great men, were yet but men, or the
elements of this world which the true God made, or creatures who were ordained as principalities
and powers according to the will of the Creator and their own merit. And if, among much that
was vain and false, they sang anything of the one true God, yet, by worshipping Him along with
others who are not gods, and showing them the service that is due to Him alone, they did not
serve Him at all rightly; and even such poets as Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, were unable to
abstain from dishonoring their gods by fables. But yet these theologues worshipped the gods, and
were not worshipped as gods, although the city of the ungodly is wont, I know not how, to set
Orpheus over the sacred, or rather sacrilegious, rites of hell. The wife of king Athamas, who was
called Ino, and her son Melicertes, perished by throwing themselves into the sea, and were,
according to popular belief, reckoned among the gods, like other men of the same times, [among
whom were] Castor and Pollux. The Greeks, indeed, called her who was the mother of
Melicertes, Leucothea, the Latins, Matuta; but both thought her a goddess.

CHAP. 15.--OF THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF ARGOS, WHEN PICUS THE SON OF
SATURN FIRSTRECEIVEDHIS FATHER'S KINGDOM OF LAURENTUM.

    During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being transferred to Mycene, from
which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of Laurentum arose, of which Picus son of Saturn was
the first king, when the woman Deborah judged the Hebrews; bill it was the Spirit of God who
used her as His agent, for she was also a prophetess, although her prophecy is so obscure that we
could not demonstrate, without a long discussion, that it was uttered concerning Christ. Now the
Laurentes already reigned in Italy, from whom the origin of the Roman people is quite evidently
derived after the Greeks; yet the kingdom of Assyria still lasted, in which Lampares was the
twenty-third king when Picus first began to reign at Laurentum. The worshippers of such gods
may see what they are to think of Saturn the father of Picus, who deny that he was a man; of
whom some also have written that he himself reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and Virgil in
his well-known book says,

            "That race indocile, and through mountains high
     Dispersed, he settled, and endowed with laws, And named their country Latium, because

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     Latent within their coasts he dwelt secure. Tradition says the golden ages pure Began
when he was king."(1)

But they regard these as poetic fancies, and assert that the father of Picus was Sterces rather, and
relate that, being a most skillful husbandman, he discovered that the fields could be fertilized by
the dung of animals, which is called stercus from his name. Some say he was called Stercutius.
But for whatever reason they chose to call him Saturn, it is yet certain they made this Sterces or
Stercutius a god for his merit in agriculture; and they likewise received into the number of these
gods Picus his son, whom they affirm to have been a famous augur and warrior. Picus begot
Faunus, the second king of Laurentum; and he too is, or was, a god with them. These divine
honors they gave to dead men before the Trojan war.

     CHAP. 16.--OF DIOMEDE, WHO AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY WAS
PLACED AMONG THE GODS, WHILE HIS COMPANIONS ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN
CHANGED INTO BIRDS

    Troy was overthrown, and its destruction was everywhere sung and made well known even to
boys; for it was signally published and spread abroad, both by its own greatness and by writers of
excellent style. And this was done in the reign of Latinus the son of Faunus, from whom the
kingdom began to be called Latium instead of Laurentum. The victorious Greeks, on leaving Troy
destroyed and returning to their own countries, were torn and crushed by divers and horrible
calamities. Yet even from among them they increased the number of their gods for they made
Diomede a god. They allege that his return home was prevented by a divinely imposed
punishment, and they prove, not by fabulous and poetic falsehood, but by historic attestation, that
his companions were turned into birds. Yet they think that, even although he was made a god, he
could neither restore them to the human form by his own power, nor yet obtain it from Jupiter his
king, as a favor granted to a new inhabitant of heaven. They also say that his temple is in the
island of Diomedaea, not far from Mount Garganus in Apulia, and that these birds fly round about
this temple, and worship in it with such wonderful obedience, that they fill their beaks with water
and sprinkle it; and if Greeks, or those born of the Greek race, come there, they are not only still,
but fly to meet them; but if they are foreigners, they fly up at their heads, and wound them with
such severe strokes as even to kill them. For they are said to be well enough armed for these
combats with their hard and large beaks.

     CHAP. 17.--WHAT VARRO SAYS OF THE INCREDIBLE TRANSFORMATIONS
OF MEN.

    In support of this story, Varro relates others no less incredible about that most famous
sorceress Circe, who changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts, and about the Arcadians,
who, by lot, swam across a certain pool, and were turned into wolves there, and lived in the
deserts of that region with wild beasts like themselves. But if they never fed on human flesh for
nine years, they were restored to the human form on swimming back again through the same pool.
Finally, he expressly names one Demaenetus, who, on tasting a boy offered up in sacrifice by the
Arcadians to their god Lycaeus according to their custom, was changed into a wolf, and, being
restored to his proper form in the tenth year, trained himself as a pugilist, and was victorious at
the Olympic games. And the same historian thinks that the epithet Lycaeus was applied in Arcadia
to Pan and Jupiter for no other reason than this metamorphosis of men into wolves, because it
was thought it could not be wrought except by a divine power. For a wolf is called in Greek
<greek>lukos</greek>, from which the name Lycaeus appears to be formed. He says also that the
Roman Luperci were as it were sprung of the seed of these mysteries.

     CHAP. 18.--WHAT WE SHOULD BELIEVE CONCERNING THE
TRANSFORMATIONS WHICH SEEM TO HAPPEN TO MEN THROUGH THE ART OF
DEMONS.

    Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great delusion wrought by the
demons; and what shall we say but that men must fly out of the midst of Babylon?(2) For this
prophetic precept is to be understood spiritually in this sense, that by going forward in the living
God, by the steps of faith, which worketh by love, we must flee out of the city of this world,
which is altogether a society of ungodly angels and men. Yea, the greater we see the power of the
demons to be in these depths, so much the more tenaciously must we cleave to the Mediator
through whom we ascend from these lowest to the highest places. For if we should say these
things are not to be credited, there are not wanting even now some who would affirm that they
had either heard on the best authority, or even themselves experienced, something of that kind.
Indeed we ourselves, when in Italy, heard

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such things about a certain region there where landladies of inns, imbued with these wicked arts,
were said to be in the habit of giving to such travellers as they chose, or could manage, something
in a piece of cheese by which they were changed on the spot into beasts of burden, and carried
whatever was necessary, and were restored to their own form when the work was done. Yet their
mind did not become bestial, but remained rational and human, just as Apuleius, in the books he
wrote with the title of The Golden Ass, has told, or feigned, that it happened to his own self that,
on taking poison, he became an ass, while retaining his human mind.
    These things are either false, or so extraordinary as to be with good reason disbelieved. But it is
to be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing
or favoring, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power (for their created
being is itself angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except what He may permit,
whose judgments are often hidden, but never un-righteous. And indeed the demons, if they really
do such things as these on which this discussion turns, do not create real substances, but only
change the appearance of things created by the true God so as to make them seem to be what they
are not. I cannot therefore believe that even the body, much less the mind, can really be changed
into bestial forms and lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons; but the phantasm of
a man which even in thought or dreams goes through innumerable changes may, when the man's
senses are laid asleep or overpowered, be presented to the senses of others in a corporeal form, in
some indescribable way unknown to me, so that men's bodies themselves may lie somewhere,
alive, indeed, yet with their senses locked up much more heavily and firmly than by sleep, while
that phantasm, as it were embodied in the shape of some animal, may appear to the senses of
others, and may even seem to the man himself to be changed, just as he may seem to himself in
sleep to be so changed, and to bear burdens; and these burdens, if they are real substances, are
borne by the demons, that men may be deceived by beholding at the same time the real substance
of the burdens and the simulated bodies of the beasts of burden. For a certain man called
Praestantius used to tell that it had happened to his father in his own house, that he took that
poison in a piece of cheese, and lay in his bed as if sleeping, yet could by no means be aroused.
But he said that after a few days he as it were woke up and related the things he had suffered as if
they had been dreams, namely, that he had been made a sumpter horse, and, along with other
beasts of burden, had carried provisions for the soldiers of what is called the Rhoetian Legion,
because it was sent to Rhoetia. And all this was found to have taken place just as he told, yet it
had seemed to him to be his own dream. And another man declared that in his own house at night,
before he slept, he saw a certain philosopher, whom he knew very well, come to him and explain
to him some things in the Platonic philosophy which he had previously declined to explain when
asked. And when he had asked this philosopher why he did in his house what he had refused to do
at home, he said, "I did not do it, but I dreamed I had done it." And thus what the one saw when
sleeping was shown to the other when awake by a phantasmal image.
    These things have not come to us from persons we might deem unworthy of credit, but from
informants we could not suppose to be deceiving us. Therefore what men say and have committed
to writing about the Arcadians being often changed into wolves by the Arcadian gods, or demons
rather, and what is told in song about Circe transforming the companions of Ulysses,(1) if they
were really done, may, in my opinion, have been done in the way I have said. As for Diomede's
birds, since their race is alleged to have been perpetuated by constant propagation, I believe they
were not made through the metamorphosis of men, but were slyly substituted for them on their
removal, just as the hind was for Iphigenia, the daughter of king Agamemnon. For juggleries of
this kind could not be difficult for the demons if permitted by the judgment of God; and since that
virgin was afterwards, found alive it is easy to see that a hind had been slyly substituted for her.
But because the companions of Diomede were of a sudden nowhere to be seen, and afterwards
could nowhere be found, being destroyed by bad avenging angels, they were believed to have
been changed into those birds, which were secretly brought there from other places where such
birds were, and suddenly substituted for them by fraud. But that they bring water in their beaks
and sprinkle it on the temple of Diomede, and that they fawn on men of Greek race and persecute
aliens, is no wonderful thing to be done by the inward influence of the demons, whose interest it is
to persuade men that Diomede was made a god, and thus to beguile

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them into worshipping many false gods, to the great dishonor of the true God; and to serve dead
men, who even in their lifetime did not truly live, with temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests, all
which, when of the right kind, are due only to the one living and true God.

     CHAP. 19.--THAT AENEAS CAME INTO ITALY WHEN ABDON THE JUDGE
RULED OVER THE HEBREWS.

    After the capture and destruction of Troy, AEneas, with twenty ships laden with the Trojan
relics, came into Italy, when Latinus reigned there, Menestheus in Athens, Polyphidos in Sicyon,
and Tautanos in Assyria, and Abdon was judge of the Hebrews. On the death of Latinus, AEneas
reigned three years, the same kings continuing in the above-named places, except that Pelasgus
was now king in Sicyon, and Samson was judge of the Hebrews, who is thought to be Hercules,
because of his wonderful strength. Now the Latins made AEneas one of their gods, because at his
death he was nowhere to be found. The Sabines also placed among the gods their first king,
Sancus, [Sangus], or Sanctus, as some call him. At that time Codrus king of Athens exposed
himself incognito to be slain by the Peloponnesian foes of that city, and so was slain. In this way,
they say, he delivered his country. For the Peloponnesians had received a response from the
oracle, that they should overcome the Athenians only on condition that they did not slay their
king. Therefore he deceived them by appearing in a poor man's dress, and provoking them, by
quarrelling, to murder him. Whence Virgil says, "Or the quarrels of Codrus."(1) And the
Athenians worshipped this man as a god with sacrificial honors. The fourth king of the Latins was
Silvius the son of AEneas, not by Creusa, of whom Ascanius the third king was born, but by
Lavinia the daughter of Latinus, and he is said to have been his posthumous child. Oneus was the
twenty-ninth king of Assyria, Melanthus the sixteenth of the Athenians, and Eli the priest was
judge of the Hebrews; and the kingdom of Sicyon then came to an end, after lasting, it is said, for
nine hundred and fifty-nine years.

     CHAP. 20.--OF THE SUCCESSION OF THE LINE OF KINGS AMONG THE
ISRAELITES AFTER THE TIMES OF THE JUDGES.

    While these kings reigned in the places mentioned, the period of the judges being ended, the
kingdom of Israel next began with king Saul, when Samuel the prophet lived. At that date those
Latin kings began who were surnamed Silvii, having that surname, in addition to their proper
name, from their predecessor, that son of AEneas who was called Silvius; just as, long afterward,
the successors of Caesar Augustus were surnamed Caesars. Saul being rejected, so that none of
his issue should reign, on his death David succeeded him in the kingdom, after he had reigned
forty years. Then the Athenians ceased to have kings after the death of Codrus, and began to have
a magistracy to rule the republic. After David, who also reigned forty years, his son Solomon was
king of Israel, who built that most noble temple of God at Jerusalem. In his time Alba was built
among the Latins, from which thereafter the kings began to be styled kings not of the Latins, but
of the Albans, although in the same Latium. Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam, under
whom that people was divided into two kingdoms, and its separate parts began to have separate
kings.

     CHAP. 21.--OF THE KINGS OF LATIUM, THE FIRST AND TWELFTH OF WHOM,
AENEAS AND AVENTINUS, WERE MADE GODS.

    After AEneas, whom they deified, Latium had eleven kings, none of whom was deified. But
Aventinus, who was the twelfth after AEneas, having been laid low in war, and buried in that hill
still called by his name, was added to the number of such gods as they made for themselves.
Some, indeed, were unwilling to write that he was slain in battle, but said he was nowhere to be
found, and that it was not from his name, but from the alighting of birds, that hill was called
Aventinus.(2) After this no god was made in Latium except Romulus the founder of Rome. But
two kings are found between these two, the first of whom I shall describe in the Virgilian verse:

"Next came that Procas, glory of the Trojan race."(3)

    That greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, had its long duration brought to a close in his time,
the time of Rome's birth drawing nigh. For the Assyrian empire was transferred to the Medes after
nearly thirteen hundred and five years, if we include the reign of Belus, who begot Ninus, and,
content with a small kingdom,was the first king there. Now Procas reigned before Amulius. And
Amulius had made his brother Numitor's daughter, Rhea by name, who was also called Ilia, a
vestal virgin, who conceived twin sons by Mars, as they

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will have it, in that way honoring or excusing her adultery, adding as a proof that a she-wolf
nursed the infants when exposed. For they think this kind of beast belongs to Mars so that the
she-wolf is believed to have given her teats to the infants, because she knew they were the sons of
Mars her lord; although there are not wanting persons who say that when the crying babes lay
exposed, they were first of all picked up by I know not what harlot, and sucked her breasts first
(now harlots were called lupae, she-wolves, from which their vile abodes are even yet called
lupanaria), and that afterwards they came into the hands of the shepherd Faustulus, and were
nursed by Acca his wife. Yet what wonder is it, if, to rebuke the king who had cruelly ordered
them to be thrown into the water, God was pleased, after divinely delivering them from the water,
to succor, by means of a wild beast giving milk, these infants by whom so great a city was to be
rounded? Amulius was succeeded in the Latian kingdom by his brother Numitor, the grandfather
of Romulus; and Rome was rounded in the first year of this Numitor, who from that time reigned
along with his grandson Romulus.

     CHAP. 22.--THAT ROME WAS FOUNDED WHEN THE ASSYRIAN KINGDOM
PERISHED, AT WHICH TIME HEZEKIAH REIGNED IN JUDAH.

    To be brief, the city of Rome was rounded, like another Babylon, and as it were the daughter of
the former Babylon, by which God was pleased to conquer the whole world, and subdue it far and
wide by bringing it into one fellowship of government and laws. For there were already powerful
and brave peoples and nations trained to arms, who did not easily yield, and whose subjugation
necessarily involved great danger and destruction as well as great and horrible labor. For when the
Assyrian kingdom subdued almost all Asia, although this was done by fighting, yet the wars could
not be very fierce or difficult, because the nations were as yet untrained to resist, and neither so
many nor so great as afterward; forasmuch as, after that greatest and indeed universal flood, when
only eight men escaped in Noah's ark, not much more than a thousand years had passed when
Ninus subdued all Asia with the exception of India. But Rome did not with the same quickness
and facility wholly subdue all those nations of the east and west which we see brought under the
Roman empire, because, in its gradual increase, in whatever direction it was extended, it found
them strong and warlike. At the time when Rome was rounded, then, the people of Israel had
been in the land of promise seven hundred and eighteen years. Of these years twenty-seven belong
to Joshua the son of Nun, and after that three hundred and twenty-nine to the period of the
judges. But from the time when the kings began to reign there, three hundred and sixty-two years
had passed. And at that time there was a king in Judah called Ahaz, or, as others compute,
Hezekiah his successor, the best and most pious king, who it is admitted reigned in the times of
Romulus. And in that part of the Hebrew nation called Israel, Hoshea had begun to reign.

CHAP.  23.--OF THE ERYTHRAEAN  SIBYL, WHO IS KNOWN TO HAVE SUNG MANY
THINGS ABOUT CHRIST MORE PLAINLY THAN THE OTHER SIBYLS.(1)

    Some say the Erythraean sibyl prophesied at this time. Now Varro declares there were many
sibyls, and not merely one. This sibyl of Erythrae certainly wrote some things concerning Christ
which are quite manifest, and we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and
unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some interpreter unknown
to me. For Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready
eloquence and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a Greek
manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythraean sibyl, in which he pointed out a
certain passage which had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that these words could be read
in them: 'I<greek>hsous</greek> X<greek>ristos</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek>
<greek>uios</greek> <greek>spthr</greek>, which means, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the
Saviour." And these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as
translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm:

          I  Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat
     of its standard, H  Ever enduring, behold the King shall come
     through the ages, <greek>S</greek>  Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at the last
     of the world.
     <greek>o</greek>  O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold Thee
     <greek>U</greek>  Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are
     ended. <greek>S</greek>  Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His
     judgment.
     
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    <greek>c</greek>  Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the
     earth. P  Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden
treasures; E  Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searcheth the
     ocean and heaven;  I  Issuing forth, it destroyeth the terrible portals of
     hell. <greek>S</greek>  Saints in their body and soul freedom and light
     shall inherit: T  Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone for ever.
<greek>o</greek>  Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish
     his secrets; <greek>S</greek>  Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in
     the light.
     
       <greek>Q</greek>  Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and
     gnashing of teeth; E  Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their
     chorus. <greek>o</greek>  Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight,
     melted the heaven, <greek>g</greek>  Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and east down
     the mountains.
     
    <greek>o</greek>  Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty
     and lowly. I  Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans
are mingled. <greek>o</greek>  Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in
pieces shall perish; <greek>S</greek>  Swelling together at once shall the waters and
     flames flow in rivers.
     
    <greek>S</greek>  Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down
from heaven, <greek>W</greek>  Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their
manifold sorrows. T  Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing
chaos and hell. H  Every king before God shall stand in that day to
be judged. P  Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the
heavens.

    In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given, although not in the exact
order of the lines as connected with the initial letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth,
and nineteenth, where the Greek letter <greek>g</greek> occurs, Latin words could not be found
beginning with the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning. So that, if we note down
together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin translation except those three in which we
retain the letter T in the proper place, they will express in five Greek words this meaning, "Jesus
Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three.
For three times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to
the cube, comes to twenty-seven. But if you join the initial letters of these five Greek words,
'I<greek>hsous</greek> <greek>cristos</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek> <greek>uios</greek>
<greek>swthr</greek>, which mean, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour," they will make
the word <greek>ikdus</greek>, that is, "fish," in which word Christ is mystically understood,
because He was able to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the
depth of waters."(1)
    But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythraean, or, as some rather believe, the Cumaean, in her
whole poem, of which this is a very small portion, not only has nothing that can relate to the
worship of the false or reigned gods, but rather speaks against them and their worshippers in such
a way that we might even think she ought to be reckoned among those who belong to the city of
God. Lactantius also inserted in his work the prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl, he does
not say which. But I have thought fit to combine in a single extract, which may seem long, what
he has set down in many short quotations. She says; "Afterward He shall come into the injurious
hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God buffets with profane hands, and with impure
mouth will spit out envenomed spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes.
And He will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out what word, or
whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned with a crown of thorns. And they
gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for His thirst: they will spread this table of inhospitality. For
thou thyself, being foolish, hast not understood thy God, deluding the minds of mortals, but hast
both crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall. But the veil of the temple shall be
rent; and at midday it shall be darker than night for three hours. And He shall die the death, taking
sleep for three days; and then returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of
the resurrection being shown to the recalled." Lactantius made use of these sibylline testimonies,
introducing them bit by bit in the course of his discussion as the things he intended to prove
seemed to require, and we have set them down in one connected series, uninterrupted by
comment, only taking care to mark them by capitals, if only the transcribers do not neglect to
preserve them hereafter. Some writers, indeed, say that the Erythraean sibyl was not in the time of
Romulus, but of the Trojan war.

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     CHAP. 24.--THAT THE SEVEN SAGES FLOURISHED IN THE REIGN OF
ROMULUS, WHEN THE TEN TRIBES WHICH WERE CALLED ISRAEL WERE LED
INTO CAPTIVITY BY THE CHALDEANS, AND ROMULUS, WHEN DEAD, HAD DIVINE
HONORS CONFERRED ON HIM.

    While Romulus reigned, Thales the Milesian is said to have lived, being one of the seven sages,
who succeeded the theological poets, of whom Orpheus was the most renowned, and were called
<greek>Sofoi</greek>, that is, sages. During that time the ten tribes, which on the division of the
people were called Israel, were conquered by the Chaldeans and led captive into their lands, while
the two tribes which were called Judah, and had the seat of their kingdom in Jerusalem, remained
in the land of Judea. As Romulus, when dead, could nowhere be found, the Romans, as is
everywhere notorious, placed him among the gods,--a thing which by that time had already ceased
to be done, and which was not done afterwards till the time of the Caesars, and then not through
error, but in flattery; so that Cicero ascribes great praises to Romulus, because he merited such
honors not in rude and unlearned times, when men were easily deceived, but in times already
polished and learned, although the subtle and acute loquacity of the philosophers had not yet
culminated. But although the later times did not deify dead men, still they did not cease to hold
and worship as gods those deified of old; nay, by images, which the ancients never had, they even
increased the allurements of vain and impious superstition, the unclean demons effecting this in
their heart, and also deceiving them by lying oracles, so that even the fabulous crimes of the gods,
which were not once imagined by a more polite age, were yet basely acted in the plays in honor of
these same false deities. Numa reigned after Romulus; and although he had thought that Rome
would be better defended the more gods there were, yet on his death he himself was not counted
worthy of a place among them, as if it were supposed that he had so crowded heaven that a place
could not be found for him there. They report that the Samian sibyl lived while he reigned at
Rome, and when Manasseh began to reign over the Hebrews,--an impious king, by whom the
prophet Isaiah is said to have been slain.

     CHAP. 25.--WHAT PHILOSOPHERS WERE FAMOUS WHEN TARQUINIUS
PRISCUS REIGNED OVER THE ROMANS, AND ZEDEKIAH OVER THE HEBREWS,
WHEN JERUSALEM WAS TAKEN AND THE TEMPLE OVERTHROWN.

             When Zedekiah reigned over the Hebrews,
                                
and Tarquinius Priscus, the successor of Ancus Martius, over the Romans, the Jewish people was
led captive into Babylon, Jerusalem and the temple built by Solomon being overthrown. For the
prophets, in chiding them for their iniquity and impiety, predicted that these things should come to
pass, especially Jeremiah, who even stated the number of years. Pittacus of Mitylene, another of
the sages, is reported to have lived at that time. And Eusebius writes that, while the people of
God were held captive in Babylon, the five other sages lived, who must be added to Thales, whom
we mentioned above, and Pittacus, in order to make up the seven. These are Solon of Athens,
Chilo of Lacedaemon, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, and Bias of Priene. These
flourished after the theological poets, and were called sages, because they excelled other men in a
certain laudable line of life, and summed up some moral precepts in epigrammatic sayings. But
they left posterity no literary monuments, except that Solon is alleged to have given certain laws
to the Athenians, and Thales was a natural philosopher, and left books of his doctrine in short
proverbs. In that time of the Jewish captivity, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophanes, the
natural philosophers, flourished. Pythagoras also lived then, and at this time the name philosopher
was first used.

     CHAP. 26.--THAT AT THE TIME WHEN THE CAPTIVITY OF THE JEWS WAS
BROUGHT TO AN END, ON THE COMPLETION OF SEVENTY YEARS, THE ROMANS
ALSO WERE FREED FROM KINGLY RULE.

    At this time, Cyrus king of Persia, who also ruled the Chaldeans and Assyrians, having
somewhat relaxed the captivity of the Jews, made fifty thousand of them return in order to rebuild
the temple. They only began the first foundations and built the altar; but, owing to hostile
invasions, they were unable to go on, and the work was put off to the time of Darius. During the
same time also those things were done which are written in the book of Judith, which, indeed, the
Jews are said not to have received into the canon of the Scriptures. Under Darius king of Persia,
then, on the completion of the seventy years predicted by Jeremiah the prophet, the captivity of
the Jews was brought to an end, and they were restored to liberty. Tarquin then reigned as the
seventh king of the Romans. On his expulsion, they also began to be free from the rule of their
kings. Down to this time the people of Israel had prophets; but, although they were numerous, the
canonical

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writings of only a few of them have been preserved among the Jews and among us. In closing the
previous book, I promised to set down something in this one about them, and I shall now do so.

     CHAP. 27.--OF THE TIMES OF THE PROPHETS WHOSE ORACLES ARE
CONTAINED IN BOOKS AND WHO SANG MANY THINGS ABOUT THE CALL OF THE
GENTILES AT THE TIME WHEN THE ROMAN KINGDOM BEGAN AND THE
ASSYRIAN CAME TO AN END.

    In order that we may be able to consider these times, let us go back a little to earlier times. At
the beginning of the book of the prophet Hosea, who is placed first of twelve, it is written, "The
word of the Lord which came to Hoses in the days of Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings
of Judah."(1) Amos also writes that he prophesied in the days of Uzziah, and adds the name of
Jeroboam king of Israel, who lived at the same time.(2) Isaiah the son of Amos--either the
above-named prophet, or, as is rather affirmed, another who was not a prophet, but was called by
the same name--also puts at the head of his book these four kings named by Hosea, saying by way
of preface that he prophesied in their days.(3) Micah also names the same times as those of his
prophecy, after the days of Uzziah;(4) for he names the same three kings as Hosea
named,--Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. We find from their own writings that these men prophesied
contemporaneously. To these are added Jonah in the reign of Uzziah, and Joel in that of Jotham,
who succeeded Uzziah. But we can find the date of these two prophets in the chronicles,(5) Dot
in their own writings, for they say nothing about it themselves. Now these days extend from
Procas king of the Latins. or his predecessor Aventinus, down to Romulus king of the Romans, or
even to the beginning of the reign of his successor Numa Pompilius. Hezekiah king of Judah
certainly reigned till then. So that thus these fountains of prophecy, as I may call them, burst forth
at once during those times when the Assyrian kingdom failed and the Roman began; so that, just
as in the first period of the Assyrian kingdom Abraham arose, to whom the most distinct promises
were made that all nations should be blessed in his seed, so at the beginning of the western
Babylon, in the time of whose government Christ was to come in whom these promises were to
be fulfilled, the oracles of the prophets were given not only in spoken but in written words, for a
testimony that so great a thing should come to pass. For although the people of Israel hardly ever
lacked prophets from the time when they began to have kings, these were only for their own use,
not for that of the nations. But when the more manifestly prophetic Scripture began to be formed,
which was to benefit the nations too, it was fitting that it should begin when this city was founded
which was to rule the nations.

     CHAP. 28.--OF THE THINGS PERTAINING TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST WHICH
HOSEA AND AMOS PROHESIED.

    The prophet Hosea speaks so very profoundly that it is laborious work to penetrate his
meaning. But, according to promise, we must insert something from his book. He says, "And it
shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there they
shall be called the sons of the living God."(6) Even the apostles understood this as a prophetic
testimony of the calling of the nations who did not formerly belong to God; and because this same
people of the Gentiles is itself spiritually among the children of Abraham, and for that reason is
rightly called Israel, therefore he goes on to say, "And the children of Judah and the children of
Israel shall be gathered together in one, and shall appoint themselves one headship, and shall
ascend from the earth."(7)  We should but weaken the savor of this prophetic oracle if we set
ourselves to expound it. Let the reader but call to mind that cornerstone and those two walls of
partition, the one of the Jews, the other of the Gentiles,(8) and he will recognize them, the one
under the term sons of Judah, the other as sons of Israel, supporting themselves by one and the
same headship, and ascending from the earth. But that those carnal Israelites who are sow
unwilling to believe in Christ shall afterward believe, that is, their children shall (for they
themselves, of course, shall go to their own place by dying), this same prophet testifies, saying,
"For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, without a prince, without a
sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, without manifestations."(9) Who does not see
that the Jews are now thus? But let us hear what he adds: "And afterward shall the children of
Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall be amazed at the Lord
and at His goodness in the latter days."(10)

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Nothing is clearer than this prophecy, in which by David, as distinguished by the title of king,
Christ is to be understood, "who is made," as the apostle says, "of the seed of David according to
the flesh."(1) This prophet has also foretold the resurrection of Christ on the third day, as it
behoved to be foretold, with prophetic loftiness, when he says, "He will heal us after two days,
and in the third day we shall rise again."(2)  In agreement with this the apostle says to us, "If ye be
risen with Christ, seek those things which are above."(3) Amos also prophesies thus concerning
such things: "Prepare thee, that thou mayst invoke thy God, O Israel; for lo, I am binding the
thunder, and creating the spirit, and announcing to men their Christ."(4) And in another place he
says, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and build up the breaches
thereof: and I will raise up his ruins, and will build them up again as in the days of old: that the
residue of men may inquire for me, and all the nations upon whom my name is invoked, saith the
Lord that doeth this."(5)

     CHAP. 29.--WHAT THINGS ARE PREDICTED BY ISAIAH CONCERNING CHRIST
AND THE CHURCH.

    The prophecy of Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who are called the minor
from the brevity of their writings, as compared with those who are called the greater prophets
because they published larger volumes. Isaiah belongs to the latter, yet I connect him with the two
above named, because he prophesied at the same time. Isaiah, then, together with his rebukes of
wickedness, precepts of righteousness, and predictions of evil, also prophesied much more than
the rest about Christ and the Church, that is, about the King and that city which he founded; so
that some say he should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet. But, in order to finish this
work, I quote only one out of many in this place. Speaking in the person of the Father, he says,
"Behold, my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted and glorified very much. As many shall
be astonished at Thee."(6) This is about Christ.
    But let us now hear what follows about the Church. He says, "Rejoice, O barren, thou that
barest not; break forth and cry, thou that didst not travail with child: for many more are the
children of the desolate than of her that has an husband."(7) But these must suffice; and some
things in them ought to be expounded; yet I think those parts sufficient which are so plain that
even enemies must be compelled against their will to understand them.

     CHAP. 30--WHAT MICAH, JONAH, AND JOEL PROPHESIED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT.

    The prophet Micah, representing Christ under the figure of a great mountain, speaks thus: "It
shall come to pass in the last days, that the manifested mountain of the Lord shall be prepared on
the tops of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall hasten unto it.
Many nations shall go, and shall say, Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord, and into
the house of the God of Jacob; and He will show us His way, and we will go in His paths: for out
of Zion shall proceed the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. And He shall judge
among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off."(8) This prophet predicts the very place
in which Christ was born, saying, "And thou, Bethlehem, of the house of Ephratah, art the least
that can be reckoned among the thousands of Judah; out of thee shall come forth unto me a
leader, to be the prince in Israel; and His going forth is from the beginning, even from the days of
eternity. Therefore will He give them [up] even until the time when she that travaileth shall bring
forth; and the remnant of His brethren shall be converted to the sons of Israel. And He shall stand,
and see, and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, and in the dignity of the name of the Lord
His God: for now shall He be magnified even to the utmost of the earth."(9)
    The prophet Jonah, not so much by speech as by his own painful experience, prophesied
Christ's death and resurrection much more clearly than if he had proclaimed them with his voice.
For why was he taken into the whale's belly and restored on the third day, but that he might be a
sign that Christ should return from the depths of hell on the third day?
    I should be obliged to use many words in explaining all that Joel prophesies in order to make
clear those that pertain to Christ and the Church. But there is one passage I must not pass by,
which the apostles also quoted when the Holy Spirit came down from above on the assembled
believers according to

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Christ's promise. He says, "And it shall come to pass after these things, that I will pour out my
Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall
dream, and your young men shall see visions: and even on my servants and mine handmaids in
those days will I pour out my Spirit."(1)

     CHAP. 31.--OF THE PREDICTIONS CONCERNING THE SALVATION OF THE
WORLD IN CHRIST, IN OBADIAH, NAHUM, AND HABAKKUK.

    The date of three of the minor prophets, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, is neither mentioned
by themselves nor given in the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome. For although they put Obadiah
with Micah, yet when Micah prophesied does not appear from that part of their writings in which
the dates are noted. And this, I think, has happened through their error in negligently copying the
works of others. But we could not find the two others now mentioned in the copies of the
chronicles which we have; yet because they are contained in the canon, we ought not to pass them
by.
    Obadiah, so far as his writings are concerned, the briefest of all the prophets, speaks against
Idumea, that is, the nation of Esau that reprobate eider of the twin sons of Isaac and grandsons of
Abraham. Now if, by that form of speech in which a part is put for the whole, we take Idumea as
put for the nations, we may understand of Christ what he says among other things, "But upon
Mount Sion shall be safety, and there shall be a Holy One."(2) And a little after, at the end of the
same prophecy, he says, "And those who are saved again shall come up out of Mount Sion, that
they may defend Mount Esau, and it shall be a kingdom to the Lord."(3) It is quite evident this
was fulfilled when those saved again out of Mount Sion--that is, the believers in Christ from
Judea, of whom the apostles are chiefly to be acknowledged--went up to defend Mount Esau.
How could they defend it except by making safe, through the preaching of the gospel, those who
believed that they might be "delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom
of God?"(4) This he expressed as an inference, adding, "And it shall be to the Lord a kingdom."
For Mount Sion signifies Jades, where it is predicted there shall be safety, and a Holy One, that is,
Christ Jesus. But Mount Esau is Idumea, which signifies the Church of the Gentiles, which, as I
have expounded, those saved again out of Sion have defended that it should be a kingdom to the
Lord. This was obscure before it took place; but what believer does not find it out now that it is
done?
    As for the prophet Nahum, through him God says, "I will exterminate the graven and the
molten things: I will make thy burial. For lo, the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings and
announceth peace are swift upon the mountains! O Judah, celebrate thy festival days, and perform
thy vows; for now they shall not go on any more so as to become antiquated. It is completed, it is
consumed, it is taken away. He ascendeth who breathes in thy face, delivering thee out of
tribulation."(5) Let him that remembers the gospel call to mind who hath ascended from hell and
breathed the Holy Spirit in the face of Judah, that is, of the Jewish disciples; for they belong to the
New Testament, whose festival days are so spiritually renewed that they cannot become
antiquated. Moreover, we already see the graven and molten things, that is, the idols of the false
gods, exterminated through the gospel, and given up to oblivion as of the grave, and we know
that this prophecy is fulfilled in this very thing.
    Of what else than the advent of Christ, who was to come, is Habakkuk understood to say,
"And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision openly on a tablet of boxwood, that he
that readeth these things may understand. For the vision is yet for a time appointed, and it will
arise in the end, and will not become void: if it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, and
will not be delayed?"(6)

     CHAP. 32.--OF THE PROPHECY THAT IS CONTAINED IN THE PRAYER AND
SONG OF HABAKKUK.

    In his prayer, with a song, to whom but the Lord Christ does he say, "O Lord, I have heard Thy
hearing, and was afraid: O Lord, I have considered Thy works, and was greatly afraid?"(7) What
is this but the inexpressible admiration of the foreknown, new, and sudden salvation of men? "In
the midst of two living creatures thou shalt be recognized." What is this but either between the
two testaments, or between the two thieves, or between Moses and Elias talking with Him on the
mount? "While the years draw nigh, Thou wilt be recognized; at the coming of the time Thou wilt
be shown," does not even need exposition. "While my soul shall be

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troubled at Him, in wrath Thou wilt be mindful of mercy." What is this but that He puts Himself
for the Jews, of whose nation He was, who were troubled with great anger and crucified Christ,
when He, mindful of mercy, said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?(1)"God
shall come from Teman, and the Holy One from the shady and close mountain."(2) What is said
here, "He shall come from Teman," some interpret "from the south," or "from the southwest," by
which is signified the noonday, that is, the fervor of charity and the splendor of truth. "The shady
and close mountain" might be understood in many ways, yet I prefer to take it as meaning the
depth of the divine Scriptures, in which Christ is prophesied: for in the Scriptures there are many
things shady and close which exercise the mind of the reader; and Christ comes thence when he
who has understanding finds Him there. "His power covereth up the heavens, and the earth is full
of His praise." What is this but what is also said in the psalm, "Be Thou exalted, O God, above
the heavens; and Thy glory above all the earth?"(3) "His splendor shall be as the light." What is it
but that the fame of Him shall illuminate believers? "Horns are in His hands." What is this but the
trophy of the cross? "And He hath placed the firm charity of His strength"(4) needs no exposition.
"Before His face shall go the word, and it shall go forth into the field after His feet." What is this
but that He should both be announced before His coming hither and after His return hence? "He
stood, and the earth was moved." What is this but that "He stood" for succor, "and the earth was
moved" to believe? "He regarded, and the nations melted;" that is, He had compassion, and made
the people penitent. "The mountains are broken with violence;" that is, through the power of
those who work miracles the pride of the haughty is broken "The everlasting hills flowed down;"
that is, they are humbled in time that they may be lifted up for eternity. "I saw His goings [made]
eternal for his labors;" that is, I beheld His labor of love not left without the reward of eternity.
"The tents of Ethiopia shall be greatly afraid, and the tents of the land of Midian" that is, even
those nations which are not under the Roman authority, being suddenly terrified by the news of
Thy wonderful works, shall become a Christian people. "Wert Thou angry at the rivers, O Lord?
or was Thy fury against the rivers? or was Thy rage against the sea? This is said because He does
not now come to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.(5) "For
Thou shall mount upon Thy horses, and Thy riding shall be salvation;" that is, Thine evangelists
shall carry Thee, for they are guided by Thee, and Thy gospel is salvation to them that believe in
Thee. "Bending, Thou wilt bend Thy bow against the sceptres, saith the Lord;" that is, Thou wilt
threaten even the kings of the earth with Thy judgment. "The earth shall be cleft with rivers;" that
is, by the sermons of those who preach Thee flowing in upon them, men's hearts shall be opened
to make confession, to whom it is said, "Rend your hearts and not your garments."(6) What does
"The people shall see Thee and grieve" mean, but that in mourning they shall be blessed?(7) What
is "Scattering the waters in marching," but that by walking in those who everywhere proclaim
Thee, Thou wilt scatter hither and thither the streams of Thy doctrine? What is "The abyss uttered
its voice?" Is it not that the depth of the human heart expressed what it perceived? The words,
"The depth of its phantasy," are an explanation of the previous verse, for the depth is the abyss;
and "Uttered its voice" is to be understood before them, that is, as we have said, it expressed what
it perceived. Now the phantasy is the vision, which it did not hold or conceal, but poured forth in
confession. "The sun was raised up, and the moon stood still in her course;" that is, Christ
ascended into heaven, and the Church was established under her King. "Thy darts shall go in the
light;" that is, Thy words shall not be sent in secret, but openly. For He had said to His own
disciples, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light."(8) "By threatening thou shall
diminish the earth;" that is, by that threatening Thou shall humble men. "And in fury Thou shall
cast down the nations;" for in punishing those who exalt themselves Thou dashest them one
against another. "Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people, that Thou mightest save Thy
Christ; Thou hast sent death on the heads of the wicked." None of these words require exposition.
"Thou hast lifted up the bonds, even to the neck." This may be understood even of the good
bonds of wisdom, that the feet may be put into its fetters, and the neck into its collar. "Thou hast
struck off in amazement of mind the bonds" must be understood for, He
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lifts up the good and strikes off the bad, about. which it is said to Him, "Thou hast broken asunder
my bonds,"(1) and that "in amazement of mind," that is, wonderfully. "The heads of the mighty
shall be moved in it;" to wit, in that wonder. "They shall open their teeth like a poor man eating
secretly." For some of the mighty among the Jews shall come to the Lord, admiring His works
and words, and shall greedily eat the bread of His doctrine in secret for fear of the Jews, just as
the Gospel has shown they did. "And Thou hast sent into the sea Thy horses, troubling many
waters," which are nothing else than many people; for unless all were troubled, some would not
be converted with fear, others pursued with fury. "I gave heed, and my belly trembled at the voice
of the prayer of my lips; and trembling entered into my bones, and my habit of body was troubled
under me." He gave heed to those things which he said, and was himself terrified at his own
prayer, which he had poured forth prophetically, and in which he discerned things to come. For
when many people are troubled, he saw the threatening tribulation of the Church, and at once
acknowledged himself a member of it, and said, "I shall rest in the day of tribulation," as being one
of those Who are rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.(2) "That I may ascend," he says,
"among the people of my pilgrimage," departing quite from the wicked people of his carnal
kinship, who are not pilgrims in this earth, and do not seek the country above.(3) "Although the
fig-tree," he says, "shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines the labor of the olive shall
lie, and the fields shall yield no meat; the sheep shall be cut off from the meat, and there shall be
no oxen in the stalls." He sees that nation which was to slay Christ about to lose the abundance of
spiritual supplies, which, in prophetic fashion, he has set forth by the figure of earthly plenty. And
because that nation was to suffer such wrath of God, because, being ignorant of the righteousness
of God, it wished to establish its own,(4) he immediately says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I
will joy in God my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will set my feet in completion;
He will place me above the heights, that I may conquer in His song," to wit, in that song of which
something similar is said in the psalm, "He set my feet upon a rock, and directed my goings, and
put in my mouth a new song, a hymn to our God."(5)  He therefore conquers in the song of the
Lord, who takes pleasure in His praise, not in his own; that "He that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord."(6) But some copies have, "I will joy in God my Jesus," which seems to me better than the
version of those who, wishing to put it in Latin, have not set down that very name which for us it
is dearer and sweeter to name.

     CHAP. 33.--WHAT JEREMIAH AND ZEPHANIAH HAVE, BY THE PROPHETIC
SPIRIT, SPOKEN BEFORE CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CALLING OF THE
NATIONS.

    Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the greater prophets, not of the minor, like the others from
whose writings I have just given extracts. He prophesied when Josiah reigned in Jerusalem, and
Ancus Martius at Rome, when the captivity of the Jews was already at hand; and he continued to
prophesy down to the fifth month of the captivity, as we find from his writings. Zephaniah, one of
the minor prophets, is put along with him, because he himself says that he prophesied in the days
of Josiah; but he does not say till when. Jeremiah thus prophesied not only in the times of Ancus
Martius, but also in those of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had for their fifth king. For he
had already begun to reign when that captivity took place. Jeremiah, in prophesying of Christ,
says, "The breath of our mouth, the Lord Christ, was taken in our sins,"(7) thus briefly showing
both that Christ is our Lord and that He suffered for us. Also in another place he says, "This is my
God, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of Him; who hath found out all the
way of prudence, and hath given it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved: afterwards He
was seen on the earth, and conversed with men."(8) Some attribute this testimony not to
Jeremiah, but to his secretary, who was called Baruch; but it is more commonly ascribed to
Jeremiah. Again the same prophet says concerning Him, "Behold the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will raise up unto David a righteous shoot, and a King shall reign and shall be wise, and
shall do judgment and justice in the earth. In those days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall
dwell confidently: and this is the name which they shall call Him, Our righteous Lord."(9) And of
the calling of the nations which was to come to pass, and which we now see fulfilled, he thus
spoke: "O Lord my God, and my refuge in the day of evils. to Thee shall the nations come from

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the utmost end of the earth, saying, Truly our fathers have worshipped lying images, wherein
there is no profit." But that the Jews, by whom He behoved even to be slain, were not going to
acknowledge Him, this prophet thus intimates: "Heavy is the heart through all; and He is a man,
and who shall know Him?"(2) That passage also is his which I have quoted in the seventeenth
book concerning the new testament, of which Christ is the Mediator. For Jeremiah himself says,
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will complete over the house of Jacob a new
testament," and the rest, which may be read there.(3)
    For the present I shall put down those predictions about Christ by the prophet Zephaniah, who
prophesied with Jeremiah. "Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, in the day of my resurrection, in the
future; because it is my determination to assemble the nations, and gather together the
kingdoms."(4) And again he says, "The Lord will be terrible upon them, and will exterminate all
the gods of the earth; and they shall worship Him every man from his place, even all the isles of
the nations."(5) And a little after he says, "Then will I turn to the people a tongue, and to His
offspring, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him under one yoke. From the
borders of the rivers of Ethiopia: shall they bring sacrifices unto me. In that day thou shall not be
confounded for all thy curious inventions, which thou hast done impiously against me: for then I
will take away from thee the Haughtiness of thy trespass; and thou shalt no more magnify thyself
above thy holy mountain. And I will leave in thee a meek and humble people, and they who shall
be left of Israel shall fear the name of the Lord."(6) These are the remnant of whom the apostle
quotes that which is elsewhere prophesied: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the
sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved."(7) These are the remnant of that nation who have
believed in Christ.

     CHAP. 34.--OF THE PROPHECY OF DANIEL AND EZEKIEL, OTHER TWO OF
THE GREATER PROPHETS.

    Daniel and Ezekiel, other two of the greater prophets, also first prophesied in the very captivity
of Babylon. Daniel even defined the time when Christ was to come and suffer by the exact date. It
would take too long to show this by computation, and it has been done often by others before us.
But of His power and glory he has thus spoken: "I saw in a night vision, and, behold, one like the
Son of man was coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of days, and
He was brought into His presence. And to Him there was given dominion, and honor, and a
kingdom: and all people, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him. His power is an everlasting power,
which shall not pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed."(8) 
    Ezekiel also, speaking prophetically in the person of God the Father, thus foretells Christ,
speaking of Him in the prophetic manner as David, because He assumed flesh of the seed of
David, and on account of that form of a servant in which He was made man, He who is the Son of
God is also called the servant of God. He says, "And I will set up over my sheep one Shepherd,
who will feed them, even my servant David; and He shall feed them, and He shall be their
shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince in the midst of them. I
the Lord have spoken."(9) And in another place he says, "And one King shall be over them all:
and they shall no more be two nations, neither shall they be divided any more into two kingdoms:
neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, and their abominations, and all their
iniquities. And I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will
cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And my servant David shall be
king over them, and there shall be one Shepherd for them all."10

     CHAP. 35.--OF THE PROPHECY OF THE THREE PROPHETS, HAGGAI,
ZECHARIAH, AND MALACHI.

    There remain three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who prophesied at the
close of the captivity. Of these Haggai more openly prophesies of Christ and the Church thus
briefly: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet one little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the
earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will move all nations, and the desired of all nations shall
come."(11)  The fulfillment of this prophecy is in part already seen, and in part hoped for in the
end. For He moved the heaven by the testimony of the angels and the stars, when Christ became
incarnate. He moved the earth by the great miracle of His birth of the virgin. He moved the sea
and the dry land, when Christ was

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proclaimed both in the isles and in the whole world. So we see all nations moved to the faith; and
the fulfillment of what follows, "And the desired of all nations shall come," is looked for at His
last coming. For ere men can desire and and wait for Him, they must believe and love Him.
    Zechariah says of Christ and the Church, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout joyfully,
O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King shall come unto thee, just and the Saviour; Himself
poor, and mounting an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass: and His dominion shall be from Sea to
sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth."(1) How this was done, when the Lord
Christ on His journey used a beast of burden of this kind, we read in the Gospel, where, also, as
much of this prophecy is quoted as appears sufficient for the context. In another place, speaking
in the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the remission of sins through His blood, he says,
"Thou also, by the blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners from the lake wherein is
no water."(2) Different opinions may be held, consistently with right belief, as to what he meant
by this lake. Yet it seems to me that no meaning suits better than that of the depth of human
misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are no streams of righteousness, but only
the mire of iniquity. For it is said of it in the Psalms, "And He led me forth out of the lake of
misery, and from the miry clay."3
    Malachi, foretelling the Church which we now behold propagated through Christ, says most
openly to the Jews, in the person of God, "I have no pleasure in you, and I will not accept a gift at
your hand. For from the rising even to the going down of the sun, my name is great among the
nations; and in every place sacrifice shall be made, and a pure oblation shall be offered unto my
name: for my name shall be great among the nations, saith the Lord."(4)  Since we can already see
this sacrifice offered to God in every place, from the rising of the sun to his going down, through
Christ's priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, while the Jews, to whom it was said, "I have
no pleasure in you, neither will I accept a gift at your hand," cannot deny that their sacrifice has
ceased, why do they still look for another Christ, when they read this in the prophecy, and see it
fulfilled, which could not be fulfilled except through Him? And a little after he says of Him, in the
person of God, "My covenant was with Him of life and peace: and I gave to Him that He might
fear me with fear, and be afraid before my name. The law of truth was in His mouth: directing in
peace He hath walked with me, and hath turned many away from iniquity. For the Priest's lips
shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at His mouth: for He is the Angel of the Lord
Almighty."(5)  Nor is it to be wondered at that Christ Jesus is called the Angel of the Almighty
God. For just as He is called a servant on account of the form of a servant in which He came to
men, so He is called an angel on account of the evangel which He proclaimed to men. For if we
interpret these Greek words, evangel  is "good news," and angel is "messenger." Again he says of
Him, "Behold I will send mine angel, and He will look out the way before my face: and the Lord,
whom ye seek, shall suddenly come into His temple, even the Angel of the testament, whom ye
desire. Behold, He cometh, saith the Lord Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or
who shall stand at His appearing?"(6) In this place he has foretold both the first and second
advent of Christ: the first, to wit, of which he says, "And He shall come suddenly into His
temple;" that is, into His flesh, of which He said in the Gospel, "Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up again."(7) And of the second advent he says, "Behold, He cometh, saith the
Lord Almighty, and who shall abide the day of His entry, or who shall stand at His appearing?"
But what he says, "The Lord whom ye seek, and the Angel of the testament whom ye desire," just
means that even the Jews, according to the Scriptures which they read, shall seek and desire
Christ. But many of them did not acknowledge that He whom they sought and desired had come,
being blinded in their hearts, which were preoccupied with their own merits. Now what he here
calls the testament, either above, where he says, "My testament had been with Him," or here,
where he has called Him the Angel of the testament, we ought, beyond a doubt, to take to be the
new testament, in which the things promised are eternal, and not the old, in which they are only
temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they see the wicked abound in such
temporal things, because they value them greatly, and serve the true God to be rewarded with
them. On this account, to distinguish the eternal blessedness of the new testament, which shall be
given only to the good, from the earthly felicity of the old, which for the most part is given to the
bad as well, the same prophet

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says, "Ye have made your words burdensome to me: yet ye have said, In what have we spoken ill
of Thee? Ye have said, Foolish is every one who serves God; and what profit is it that we have
kept His observances, and that we have walked as suppliants before the face of the Lord
Almighty? And now we call the aliens blessed; yea, all that do wicked things are built up again;
yea, they are opposed to God and are saved. They that feared the Lord uttered these reproaches
every one to his neighbor: and the Lord hearkened and heard; and He wrote a book of
remembrance before Him, for them that fear the Lord and that revere His name."(1) By that book
is meant the New Testament. Finally, let us hear what follows: "And they shall be an acquisition
for me, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day which I make; and I will choose them as a man
chooseth his son that serveth him. And ye shall return, and shall discern between the just and the
unjust, and between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not. For, behold, the day
cometh burning as an oven, and it shall burn them up; and all the aliens and all that do wickedly
shall be stubble: and the day that shall come will set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and
shall leave neither root nor branch. And unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of
Righteousness arise, and health shall be in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and exult as calves let
loose from bonds. And ye shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet, in
the day in which I shall do [this], saith the Lord Almighty."(2) This day is the day of judgment, of
which, if God will, we shall speak more fully in its own place.

              CHAP. 36.--ABOUT ESDRAS AND THE BOOKS OF
                           THE MACCABEES.

    After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the same period of the
liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude Esdras also wrote, who is historical rather
than prophetical, as is also the book called Esther, which is found to relate, for the praise of God,
events not far from those times; unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be understood as prophesying of
Christ in that passage where, on a question having arisen among certain young men as to what is
the strongest thing, when one had said kings, another wine, the third women, who for the most
part rule kings, yet that same third youth demonstrated that the truth is victorious over all.(3) For
by consulting the Gospel we learn that Christ is the Truth. From this time, when the temple was
rebuilt, down to the time of Aristobulus, the Jews had not kings but princes; and the reckoning of
their dates is found, not in the Holy Scriptures which are called canonical, but in others, among
which are also the books of the Maccabees. These are held as canonical, not by the Jews, but by
the Church, on account of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs, who, before
Christ had come in the flesh, contended for the law of God even unto death, and endured most
grievous and horrible evils.

     CHAP. 37.--THAT PROPHETIC RECORDS ARE FOUND WHICH ARE MORE
ANCIENT THAN ANY FOUNTAIN OF THE GENTILE PHILOSOPHY.

    In the time of our prophets, then, whose writings had already come to the knowledge of almost
all nations. the philosophers of the nations had not yet arisen,--at least, not those who were called
by that name, which originated with Pythagoras the Samian, who was becoming famous at the
time when the Jewish captivity ended. Much more, then, are the other philosophers found to be
later than the prophets. For even Socrates the Athenian, the master of all who were then most
famous, holding the pre-eminence in that department that is called the moral or active, is found
after Esdras in the chronicles. Plato also was born not much later, who far outwent the other
disciples of Socrates. If, besides these, we take their predecessors, who had not yet been styled
philosophers, to wit, the seven sages, and then the physicists, who succeeded Thales, and imitated
his studious search into the nature of things, namely, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras,
and some others, before Pythagoras first professed himself a philosopher, even these did not
precede the whole of our prophets in antiquity of time, since Thales, whom the others succeeded,
is said to have flourished in the reign of Romulus, when the stream of prophecy burst forth from
the fountains of Israel in those writings which spread over the whole world. So that only those
theological poets, Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus, and, it may be, some others among the Greeks,
are found earlier in date than the Hebrew prophets whose writings we hold as authoritative. But
not even these preceded in time our true divine, Moses, who authentically preached the one true
God, and whose writings are first in the authoritative canon; and therefore the Greeks, in whose

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tongue the literature of this age chiefly appears, have no ground for boasting of their wisdom, in
which our religion, wherein is true wisdom, is not evidently more ancient at least, if not superior.
Yet it must be confessed that before Moses there had already been, not indeed among the Greeks,
but among barbarous nations, as in Egypt, some doctrine which might be called their wisdom, else
it would not have been written in the holy books that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians,(1) as he was, when, being born there, and adopted and nursed by Pharaoh's daughter,
he was also liberally educated. Yet not even the wisdom of the Egyptians could be antecedent in
time to the wisdom of our prophets, because even Abraham was a prophet. And what wisdom
could there be in Egypt before Isis had given them letters, whom they thought fit to worship as a
goddess after her death? Now Isis is declared to have been the daughter of Inachus, who first
began to reign in Argos when the grandsons of Abraham are known to have been already born.

     CHAP.38.--THAT THE ECCLESIASTICAL CANON HAS NOT ADMITTED
CERTAIN WRITINGS ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR TOO GREAT ANTIQUITY, LEST
THROUGH THEM FALSE THINGS SHOULD BE INSERTED INSTEAD OF TRUE.

    If I may recall far more ancient times, our patriarch Noah was certainly even before that great
deluge, and I might not undeservedly call him a prophet, forasmuch as the ark he made, in which
he escaped with his family, was itself a prophecy of our times.(2) What of Enoch, the seventh
from Adam? Does not the canonical epistle of the Apostle Jude declare that he prophesied?(3)
But the writings of these men could not be held as authoritative either among the Jews or us, on
account of their too great antiquity, which made it seem needful to regard them with suspicion,
lest false things should be set forth instead roof true. For some writings which are said be theirs
are quoted by those who, according to their own humor, loosely believe what they please. But the
purity of the canon has not admitted these writings, not because the authority of these men who
pleased God is rejected, but because they are not believed to be theirs. Nor ought it to appear
strange if writings for which so great antiquity is claimed are held in suspicion, seeing that in the
very history of the kings of Judah and Israel containing their acts, which we believe to belong to
the canonical Scripture, very many things are mentioned which are not explained there, but are
said to be found in other books which the prophets wrote, the very names of these prophets being
sometimes given, and yet they are not found in the canon which the people of God received. Now
I confess the reason of this is hidden from me; only I think that even those men, to whom certainly
the Holy Spirit revealed those things which ought to be held as of religious authority, might write
some things as men by historical diligence, and others as prophets by divine inspiration; and these
things were so distinct, that it was judged that the former should be ascribed to themselves, but
the latter to God speaking through them: and so the one pertained to the abundance of
knowledge, the other to the authority of religion. In that authority the canon is guarded. So that,
if any writings outside of it are now brought forward under the name of the ancient prophets, they
cannot serve even as an aid to knowledge, because it is uncertain whether they are genuine; and
on this account they are not trusted, especially those of them in which some things are found that
are even contrary to the truth of the canonical books, so that it is quite apparent they do not
belong to them.

     CHAP. 39.--ABOUT THE HEBREW WRITTEN CHARACTERS WHICH THAT
LANGUAGE ALWAYS POSSESSED.

    Now we must not believe that Heber, from whose name the word Hebrew is derived, preserved
and transmitted the Hebrew language to Abraham only as a spoken language, and that the Hebrew
letters began with the giving of the law through Moses; but rather that this language, along with
its letters, was preserved by that succession of fathers. Moses, indeed, appointed some among the
people of God to teach letters, before they could know any letters of the divine law. The Scripture
calls these men <greek>UrammateisaUpUeis</greek>, who may be called in Latin inductores or
introductores of letters, because they, as it were, introduce them into the hearts of the learners, or
rather lead those whom they teach into them. Therefore no nation could vaunt itself over our
patriarchs and prophets by any wicked vanity for the antiquity of its wisdom; since not even
Egypt, which is wont falsely and vainly to glory in the antiquity of her doctrines, is found to have
preceded in time the wisdom of our patriarchs in her own wisdom, such as it is. Neither will any
one dare to say that they were most skillful in wonderful sciences

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before they knew letters, that is, before Isis came and taught them there. Besides, what, for the
most part, was that memorable doctrine of theirs which was called wisdom but astronomy, and it
may be some other sciences of that kind, which usually have more power to exercise men's wit
than to enlighten their minds with true wisdom? As regards philosophy, which professes to teach
men something which shall make them happy, studies of that kind flourished in those lands about
the times of Mercury, whom they called Trismegistus, long before the sages and philosophers of
Greece, but yet after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and even after Moses himself. At that
time, indeed, when Moses was born, Atlas is found to have lived, that great astronomer, the
brother of Prometheus, and maternal grandson of the eider Mercury, of whom that Mercury
Trismegistus was the grandson.

     CHAP. 40.--ABOUT THE MOST MENDACIOUS VANITY OF THE EGYPTIANS, IN
WHICH THEY ASCRIBE TO THEIR. SCIENCE AN ANTIQUITY OF A HUNDRED
THOUSAND YEARS.

    In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that Egypt has understood
the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred thousand years. For in what books have they
collected that number who learned letters from Isis their mistress, not much more than two
thousand years ago? Varro, who has declared this, is no small authority in history, and it does not
disagree with the truth of the divine books. For as it is not yet six thousand years since the first
man, who is called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed rather than refuted who try to persuade us
of anything regarding a space of time so different from, and contrary to, the ascertained truth? For
what historian of the past should we credit more than him who has also predicted things to come
which we now see fulfilled? And the very disagreement of the historians among themselves
furnishes a good reason why we ought rather to believe him who does not contradict the divine
history which we hold. But, on the other hand, the citizens of the impious city, scattered
everywhere through the earth, when they read the most learned writers, none of whom seems to
be of contemptible authority, and find them disagreeing among themselves about affairs most
remote from the memory of our age, cannot find out whom they ought to trust. But we, being
sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion, have no doubt that whatever is
opposed to it is most false, whatever may. be the case regarding other things in secular books,
which, whether true or false, yield nothing of moment to our living rightly and happily.

     CHAP. 41.--ABOUT THE DISCORD OF PHILOSOPHIC OPINION, AND THE
CONCORD OF THE SCRIPTURES THAT ARE HELD AS CANONICAL BY THE
CHURCH.

    But let us omit further examination of history, and return to the philosophers from whom we
digressed to these things. They seem to have labored in their studies for no other end than to find
out how to live in a way proper for laying hold of blessedness. Why, then, have the disciples
dissented from their masters, and the fellow-disciples from one another, except because as men
they have sought after these things by human sense and human reasonings? Now, although there
might be among them a desire of glory, so that each wished to be thought wiser and more acute
than another, and in no way addicted to the judgment of others, but the inventor of his own
dogma and opinion, yet I may grant that there were some, or even very many of them, whose love
of truth severed them from their teachers or fellow-disciples, that they might strive for what they
thought was the truth, whether it was so or not. But what can human misery do, or how or where
can it reach forth, so as to attain blessedness, if divine authority does not lead it? Finally, let our
authors, among whom the canon of the sacred books is fixed and bounded, be far from
disagreeing in any respect. It is not without good reason, then, that not merely a few people
prating in the schools and gymnasia in captious disputations, but so many and great people, both
learned and unlearned, in countries and cities, have believed that God spoke to them or by them,
i.e. the canonical writers, when they wrote these books. There ought, indeed, to be but few of
them, lest on account of their multitude what ought to be religiously esteemed should grow cheap;
and yet not so few that their agreement should not be wonderful. For among the multitude of
philosophers, who in their works have left behind them the monuments of their dogmas, no one
will easily find any who agree in all their opinions. But to show this is too long a task for this
work.
    But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping city, that the rest who
have differed from or opposed him in opinion have been disapproved? The Epicureans asserted
that human affairs were not under the providence of the gods; and the Stoics, holding the opposite
opinion, agreed that they were ruled and defended by favora-
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ble and tutelary gods. Yet were not both sects famous among the Athenians? I wonder, then, why
Anaxagoras was accused of a crime for saying that the sun was a burning stone, and denying that
it was a god at all; while in the same city Epicurus flourished gloriously and lived securely,
although he not only did not believe that the sun or any star was a god, but contended that neither
Jupiter nor any of the gods dwelt in the world at all, so that the prayers and supplications of men
might reach them!  Were not both Aristippus and Antisthenes there, two noble philosophers and
both Socratic? yet they placed the chief end of life within bounds so diverse and contradictory,
that the first made the delight of the body the chief good, while the other asserted that man was
made happy mainly by the virtue of the mind. The one also said that the wise man should flee from
the republic; the other, that he should administer its affairs. Yet did not each gather disciples to
follow his own sect? Indeed, in the conspicuous and well-known porch, in gymnasia, in gardens,
in places public and private, they openly strove in bands each for his own opinion, some asserting
there was one world, others innumerable worlds; some that this world had a beginning, others that
it had not; some that it would perish, others that it would exist always; some that it was governed
by the divine mind, others by chance and accident; some that souls are immortal, others that they
are mortal,--and of those who asserted their immortality, some said they transmigrated through
beasts, others that it was by no means so; while of those who asserted their mortality, some said
they perished  immediately after the body, others that they survived either a little while or a longer
time, but not always; some fixing supreme good in the body, some in the mind, some in both;
others adding to the mind and body external good things; some thinking that the bodily senses
ought to be trusted always, some not always, others never. Now what people, senate, power, or
public dignity of the impious city has ever taken care to judge between all these and oilier
well-nigh innumerable dissensions of the philosophers, approving and accepting some, and
disapproving and rejecting others? Has it not held in its bosom at random, without any judgment,
and confusedly, so many controversies of men at variance, not about fields, houses, or anything of
a pecuniary nature, but about those things which make life either miserable or happy? Even if
some true things were said in it, yet falsehoods were uttered with the same licence; so that such a
city has not amiss received the title of the mystic Babylon. For Babylon means confusion, as we
remember we have already explained. Nor does it matter to the devil, its king, how they wrangle
among themselves in contradictory errors, since all alike deservedly belong to him on account of
their great and varied impiety.
    But that nation, that people, that city, that republic, these Israelites, to whom the oracles of
God were entrusted, by no means confounded with similar licence false prophets with the true
prophets; but, agreeing together, and differing in nothing, acknowledged and upheld the authentic
authors of their sacred books. These were their philosophers, these were their sages, divines,
prophets, and teachers of probity and piety. Whoever was wise and lived according to them was
wise and lived not according to men, but according to God who hath spoken by them. If sacrilege
is forbidden there, God hath forbidden it. If it is said, "Honor thy father and thy mother,"(1) God
hath commanded it. If it is said, "Thou shall not commit adultery, Thou shall not kill, Thou shall
not steal,"(2) and other similar commandments, not human lips but the divine oracles have
enounced them. Whatever truth certain philosophers, amid their false opinions, were able to see,
and strove by laborious discussions to persuade men of,--such as that God had made this world,
and Himself most providently governs it, or of the nobility of the virtues, of the love of country,
of fidelity in friendship, of good works and everything pertaining to virtuous manners, although
they knew not to what end and what rule all these things were to be referred,--all these, by words
prophetic, that is, divine, although spoken by men, were commended to the people in that city,
and not inculcated by contention in arguments, so that he who should know them might be afraid
of contemning, not the wit of men, but the oracle of God.

     CHAP. 42.--BY WHAT DISPENSATION OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE THE SACRED
SCRIPTURES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WERE, TRANSLATED OUT OF HEBREW
INTO GREEK, THAT THEY MIGHT BEMADE KNOWN TO ALL THE NATIONS.

    One of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, desired to know and have these sacred books. For after
Alexander of Macedon, who is also styled the Great, had by his most wonderful, but by no means
enduring power, subdued the whole of Asia, yea, almost the whole world, partly by force of arms,
partly by

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terror, and, among other kingdoms of the East, had entered and obtained Judea also on his death
his generals did not peaceably divide that most ample kingdom among them for a possession, but
rather dissipated it, wasting all things by wars. Then Egypt began to have the Ptolemies as her
kings. The first of them, the son of Lagus, carried many captive out of Judea into Egypt. But
another Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, who succeeded him, permitted all whom he had brought
under the yoke to return free; and more than that, sent kingly gifts to the temple of God, and
begged Eleazar, who was the high priest, to give him the Scriptures, which he had heard by report
were truly divine, and therefore greatly desired to have in that most noble library he had made.
When the high priest had sent them to him in Hebrew, he afterwards demanded interpreters of
him, and there were given him seventy-two, out of each of the twelve tribes six men, most learned
in both languages, to wit, the Hebrew and Greek and their translation is now by custom called the
Septuagint. It is reported, indeed, that there was an agreement in their words so wonderful,
stupendous, and plainly divine, that when they had sat at this work, each one apart (for so it
pleased Ptolemy to test their fidelity), they differed from each other in no word which had the
same meaning and force, or, in the order of the words; but, as if the translators had been one, so
what all had translated was one, because in very deed the one Spirit had been in them all. And
they received so wonderful a gift of God, in order that the authority of these Scriptures might be
commended not as human but divine, as indeed it was, for the benefit of the nations who should at
some time believe, as we now see them doing.

     CHAP. 43.--OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION,
WHICH, SAVING THE HONOR OF THE HEBREW ORIGINAL, IS TO BE PREFERRED TO
ALL TRANSLATIONS.

    For while there were other interpreters who translated these sacred oracles out of the Hebrew
tongue into Greek, as Aquila, Symmathus, and Theodotion, and also that translation which, as the
name of the author is unknown, is quoted as the fifth edition, yet the ChUrch has received this
Septuagint translation just as if it were the only one; and it has been used by the Greek Christian
people, most of whom are not aware that there is any other. From this translation there has also
been made a translation in the Latin tongue, which the Latin churches use. Our times, however,
have enjoyed the advantage of the presbyter Jerome, a man most learned, and skilled in all three
languages, who translated these same Scriptures into the Latin speech, not from the Greek, but
from the Hebrew.(1) But although the Jews acknowledge this very learned labor of his to be
faithful, while they contend that the Septuagint translators have erred in many places, still the
churches of Christ judge that no one should be preferred  to the authority of so many men, chosen
for this very great work by Eleazar, who was then high priest; for even if there had not appeared
in them one spirit, without doubt divine, and the seventy learned men had, after the manner of
men, compared together the words of their translation, that what pleased them all might stand, no
single translator ought to be preferred to them; but since so great a sign of divinity has appeared
in them, certainly, if any other translator, of their Scriptures from the Hebrew into any other
tongue is faithful, in that case he agrees with these seventy translators, and if he is not found to
agree with them, then we ought to believe that the prophetic gift is with them. For the same Spirit
who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men when they
translated them, so that assuredly they could also say something else, just as if the prophet himself
had said both, because it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same thing
differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet the same meaning should shine
forth to those of good understanding; and could omit or add something, so that even by this it
might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which the translator owed to the
words, but rather divine power, which filled and ruled the mind of the translator. Some, however,
have thought that the Greek copies of the Septuagint version should be emended from the
Hebrew copies; yet they did not dare to take away what the Hebrew lacked and the Septuagint
had, but only added what was found in the Hebrew copies and was lacking in the Septuagint, and
noted them by placing at the beginning of the verses certain marks in the form of stars which they
call asterisks. And those things which the Hebrew copies have not, but the Septuagint have, they
have in like manner marked at the beginning of the verses by horizontal spit-shaped marks like
those by which we denote ounces; and many copies having these marks

387

are circulated even in Latin.(1) But we cannot, without inspecting both kinds of copies, find out
those things which are neither omitted nor added, but expressed differently, whether they yield
another meaning not in itself unsuitable, or can be shown to explain the same meaning in another
way. If, then, as it behoves us, we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than what the Spirit of
God has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and is not in the version of the
Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say it through them, but only through the prophets.
But whatever is in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the same Spirit chose rather to
say through the latter, thus showing that both were prophets. For in that manner He spoke as He
chose, some things through Isaiah, some through Jeremiah, some through several prophets, or
else the same thing through this prophet and through that. Further, whatever is found in both
editions, that one and the same Spirit willed to say through both, but so as that the former
preceded in prophesying, and the latter followed: in prophetically interpreting them; because, as
the one Spirit of peace was in the former when they spoke true and concordant words, so the
selfsame one Spirit hath appeared in the latter, when, without mutual conference they yet
interpreted all things as if with one mouth.

     CHAP. 44.--HOW THE THREAT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE NINEVITES IS
TO BE UNDERSTOOD WHICH IN THE HEBREW EXTENDS TO FORTY DAYS, WHILE
IN THE SEPTUAGINT IT IS CONTRACTED TO THREE.

    But some one may say, "How shall I know whether the prophet Jonah said to the Ninevites,
`Yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,' or forty days?"(2) For who does not see that
the prophet could not say both, when he was sent to terrify the city by the threat of imminent
ruin? For if its destruction was to take place on the third day, it certainly could not be on the
fortieth; but if on the fortieth, then certainly not on the third. If, then, I am asked which of these
Jonah may have said, I rather think what is read in the Hebrew, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall
be overthrown." Yet the Seventy, interpreting long afterward, could say what was different and
yet pertinent to the matter, and agree in the self-same meaning,although under a different
signification. And this may admonish the reader not to despise the authority of either, but to raise
himself above the history, and search for those things which the history itself was written to set
forth. These things, indeed, took place in the city of Nineveh, but they also signified something
else too great to apply to that city; just as, when it happened that the prophet himself was three
days in the whale's belly, it signified besides, that He who is Lord of all the prophets should be
three days in the depths of hell. Wherefore, if that city is rightly held as prophetically representing
the Church of the Gentiles, to wit, as brought down by penitence, so as no longer to be what it
had been, since this was done by Christ in the Church of the Gentiles, which Nineveh represented,
Christ Himself was signified both by the forty and by the three days: by the forty, because He
spent that number of days with His disciples after the resurrection, and then ascended into heaven,
but by the three days, because He rose on the third day. So that, if the reader desires nothing else
than to adhere to the history of events, he may be aroused from his sleep by the Septuagint
interpreters, as well as the prophets, to search into the depth of the prophecy, as if they had said,
In the forty days seek Him in whom thou mayest also find the three days,--the one thou wilt find
in His ascension, the other in His resurrection. Because that which could be most suitably signified
by both numbers, of which one is used by Jonah the prophet, the other by the prophecy of the
Septuagint version, the one and self-same Spirit hath spoken. I dread prolixity, so that I must not
demonstrate this by many instances in which the seventy interpreters may be thought to differ
from the Hebrew, and yet, when well understood, are found to agree. For which reason I also,
according to my capacity, following the footsteps of the apostles, who themselves have quoted
prophetic testimonies from both, that is, from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, have thought that
both should be used as authoritative, since both are one, and divine. But let us now follow out as
we can what remains.

     CHAP. 45.--THAT THE JEWS CEASED TO HAVE PROPHETS AFTER THE
REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE, AND FROM THAT TIME UNTIL THE BIRTH OF
CHRIST WERE AFFLICTED WITH CONTINUAL ADVERSITY, TO PROVE THAT THE
BUILDING OF ANOTHER TEMPLE HAD BEEN PROMISED BY PROPHETIC VOICES.

    The Jewish nation no doubt became worse after it ceased to have prophets, just at the very time
when, on the rebuilding of the temple after the captivity in Babylon, it hoped to become better.
For so, indeed, did that car-

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nal people understand what was foretold by Haggai the prophet, saying, "The glory of this latter
house shall be greater than that of the former."(1) Now, that this is said of the new testament, he
showed a little above,where he says, evidently promising Christ, "And I will move all nations, and
the desired One shall come to all nations."(2) In this passage the Septuagint translators giving
another sense more suitable to the body than the Head, that is, to the Church than to Christ, have
said by prophetic authority, "The things shall come that are chosen of the Lord from all nations,"
that is, men, of whom Jesus saith in the Gospel, "Many are called, but few are chosen."(3) For by
such chosen ones of the nations there is built, through the new testament, with living stones, a
house of God far more glorious than that temple was which was constructed by king Solomon,
and rebuilt after the captivity. For this reason, then, that nation had no prophets from that time,
but was afflicted with many plagues by kings of alien race, and by the Romans themselves, lest
they should fancy that this prophecy of Haggai was fulfilled by that rebuilding of the temple.
    For not long after, on the arrival of Alexander, it was subdued, when, although there was no
pillaging, because they dared not resist him, and thus, being very easily subdued, received him
peaceably, yet the glory of that house was not so great as it was when under the free power of
their own kings. Alexander, indeed, offered up sacrifices in the temple of God, not as a convert to
His worship in true piety, but thinking, with impious folly, that He was to be worshipped along
with false gods. Then Ptolemy son of Lagus, whom I have already mentioned, after Alexander's
death carried them captive into Egypt. His successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, most benevolently
dismissed them; and by him it was brought about, as I have narrated a little before, that we should
have the Septuagint version of the Scriptures. Then they were crushed by the wars which are
explained in the books of the Maccabees. Afterward they were taken captive by Ptolemy king of
Alexandria, who was called Epiphanes. Then Antiochus king of Syria compelled them by many
and most grievous evils to worship idols, and filled the temple itself with the sacrilegious
superstitions of the Gentiles. Yet their most vigorous leader Judas, who is also called
Maccabaeus, after beating the generals of Antiochus, cleansed it from all that defilement  of
idolatry.                                
    But not long after, one Alcimus, although an alien from the sacerdotal tribe, was, through
ambition, made pontiff, which was an impious thing. After almost fifty years, during which they
never had peace, although they prospered in some affairs, Aristobulus first assumed the diadem
among them, and was made both king and pontiff. Before that, indeed, from the time of their
return from the Babylonish captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, they had not kings, but
generals or principes. Although a king himself may be called a prince, from his principality in
governing, and a leader, because he leads the army, but it does not follow that all who are princes
and leaders may also be called kings, as that Aristobulus was. He was succeeded by Alexander,
also both king and pontiff, who is reported to have reigned over them cruelly. After him his wife
Alexandra was queen of the Jews, and from her time downwards more grievous evils pursued
them; for this Alexandra's sons, Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, when contending with each other for
the kingdom, called in the Roman forces against the nation of Israel. For Hyrcanus asked
assistance from them against his brother. At that time Rome had already subdued Africa and
Greece, and ruled extensively in other parts of the world also, and yet, as if unable to bear her
own weight, had, in a manner, broken herself by her own size. For indeed she had come to grave
domestic seditions, and from that to social wars, and by and by to civil wars, and had enfeebled
and worn herself out so much, that the changed state of the republic, in which she should be
governed by kings, was now imminent. Pompey then, a most illustrious prince of the Roman
people, having entered Judea with an army, took the city, threw open the temple, not with the
devotion of a suppliant, but with the authority of a conqueror, and went, not reverently, but
profanely, into the holy of holies, where it was lawful for none but the pontiff to enter. Having
established Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and set Antipater over the subjugated nation as guardian
or procurator, as they were then called, he led Aristobulus with him bound. From that time the
Jews also began to be Roman tributaries. Afterward Cassius plundered the very temple. Then
after a few years it was their desert to have Herod, a king of foreign birth, in whose reign Christ
was born. For the time had now come signified by the prophetic Spirit through the mouth of the
patriarch Jacob, when he says, "There shall not be lacking a prince out of Judah, nor a teacher
from his loins, until He shall come for whom it is reserved; and He is the

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expectation of the nations."(1) There lacked not therefore a Jewish prince of the Jews until that
Herod, who was the first king of a foreign race received by them. THerefore it was now the time
when He should come for whom that was reserved which is promised in the New Testament, that
He should be the expectation of the nations. But it was not possible that the nations should expect
He would come, as we see they did, to do judgment in the splendor of power, unless they should
first believe in Him when He came to suffer judgment in the humility of patience.

     CHAP. 46.--OF THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR, WHEREBY THE WORD WAS
MADE FLESH; AND OF THE DISPERSION OF THE JEWS AMONG ALL NATIONS, AS
HAD BEEN PROPHESIED.

    While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Caesar Augustus was emperor at Rome, the state
of the republic being already changed, and the world being set at peace by him, Christ was born in
Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father. For
so had the prophet foretold: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bring forth a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us."(2) He did many
miracles that He might commend God in Himself, some of which, even as many as seemed
sufficient to proclaim Him, are contained in the evangelic Scripture. The first of these is, that He
was so wonderfully born, and the last, that with His body raised up again from the dead He
ascended into heaven. But the Jews who slew Him, and would not believe in Him, because it
behoved Him to die and rise again, were yet more miserably wasted by the Romans, and utterly
rooted out from their kingdom, where aliens had already ruled over them, and were dispersed
through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they are not), and are thus by their own
Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ. And very many
of them, considering this, even before His passion, but chiefly after  His resurrection, believed on
Him, of whom it was predicted, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the
sea, the remnant shall be saved."(3) But the rest are blinded, of whom it was predicted, "Let their
table be made before them a trap, and a retribution, and a stumbling-block. Let their eyes be
darkened lest they see, and bow down their back alway."(4) Therefore, when they do not believe
our Scriptures, their own, which they blindly read, are fulfilled in them, lest perchance any one
should say that the Christians have forged these prophecies about Christ which are quoted under
the name of the sibyl, or of others, if such there be, who do not belong to the Jewish people. For
us, indeed, those suffice which are quoted from the books of our enemies, to whom we make our
acknowledgment, on account of this testimony which, in spite of themselves, they contribute by
their possession of these books, while they themselves are dispersed among all nations, wherever
the Church of Christ is spread abroad. For a prophecy about this thing was sent before in the
Psalms, which they also read, where it is written, "My God, His mercy shall prevent me. My God
hath shown me concerning mine enemies, that Thou shalt not slay them, lest they should at last
forget Thy law: disperse them in Thy might."(5) Therefore God has shown the Church in her
enemies the Jews the grace of His compassion, since, as saith the apostle, "their offence is the
salvation of the Gentiles."(6) And therefore He has not slain them, that is, He has not let the
knowledge that they are Jews be lost in them, although they have been conquered by the Romans,
lest they should forget the law of God, and their testimony should be of no avail in this matter of
which we treat. But it was not enough that he should say, "Slay them not, lest they should at last
forget Thy law," unless he had also added, "Disperse them;" because if they had only been in their
own land with that testimony of the Scriptures, and not every where, certainly the Church which
is everywhere could not have had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies which
were sent before concerning Christ.

     CHAP. 47.--WHETHER BEFORE CHRISTIAN TIMES THERE WERE ANY
OUTSIDE OF THE ISRAELITE RACE WHO BELONGED TO THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE
HEAVENLY CITY.

    Wherefore if we read of any foreigner--that is, one neither born of Israel nor received by that
people into the canon of the sacred books--having prophesied something about Christ, if it has
come or shall come to our knowledge, we can refer to it over and above; not that this is
necessary, even if wanting, but because it is not incongruous to believe that even in other nations
there may have been

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men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were also impelled to proclaim it, whether they
were partakers of the same grace or had no experience of it, but were taught by bad angels, who,
as we know, even confessed the present Christ, whom the Jews did not acknowledge. Nor do I
think the Jews themselves dare contend that no one has belonged to God except the Israelites,
since the increase of Israel began on the rejection of his elder brother. For in very deed there was
no other people who were specially called the people of God; but they cannot deny that there
have been certain men even of other nations who belonged, not by earthly but heavenly
fellowship, to the true Israelites, the citizens of the country that is above. Because, if they deny
this, they can be most easily confuted by the case of the holy and wonderful man Job, who was
neither a native nor a proselyte, that is, a stranger joining the people of Israel, but, being bred of
the Idumean race, arose there and died there too, and who is so praised by the divine oracle, that
no man of his times is put on a level with him as regards justice and piety. And although we do
not find his date in the chronicles, yet from his book, which for its merit the Israelites have
received as of canonical authority, we gather that he was in the third generation after Israel. And I
doubt not it was divinely provided, that from this one case we might know that among other
nations also there might be men pertaining to the spiritual Jerusalem who have lived according to
God and have pleased Him. And it is not to be supposed that this was granted to any one, unless
the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,(1) was divinely revealed to him;
who was pre-announced to the saints of old as yet to come in the flesh, even as He is announced
to us as having come, that the self-same faith through Him may lead all to God who are
predestinated to be the city of God, the house of God, and the temple of God. But whatever
prophecies concerning the grace of God through Christ Jesus are quoted, they may be thought to
have been forged by the Christians. So that there is nothing of more weight for confuting all sorts
of aliens, if they contend about this matter, and for supporting our friends, if they are truly wise,
than to quote those divine predictions about Christ which are written in the books of the Jews,
who have been torn from their native abode and dispersed over the whole world in order to bear
this testimony, so that the Church of Christ has everywhere increased.

     CHAP. 48.--THAT HAGGAI'S PROPHECY, IN WHICH HE SAID THAT THE
GLORY OF THE HOUSE OF GOD WOULD BE GREATER THAN THAT OF THE FIRST
HAD BEEN,(2) WAS REALLY FULFILLED, NOT IN THE REBUILDING OF THE
TEMPLE, BUT IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.

    This house of God is more glorious than that first one which was constructed of wood and
stone, metals and other precious things. Therefore the prophecy of Haggai was not fulfilled in the
rebuilding of that temple. For it can never be shown to have had so much glory after it was rebuilt
as it had in the time of Solomon; yea, rather, the glory of that house is shown to have been
diminished, first by the ceasing of prophecy, and then by the nation itself suffering so great
calamities, even to the final destruction made by the Romans, as the things above-mentioned
prove. But this house which pertains to the new testament is just as much more glorious as the
living stones, even believing, renewed men, of which it is constructed are better. But it was
typified by the rebuilding of that temple for this reason, because the very renovation of that edifice
typifies in the prophetic oracle another testament which is called the new. When, therefore, God
said by the prophet just named, "And I will give peace in this place,"(3) He is to be understood
who is typified by that typical place; for since by that rebuilt place is typified the Church which
was to be built by Christ, nothing else can be accepted as the meaning of the saying, "I will give
peace in this place," except I will give peace in the place which that place signifies. For all typical
things seem in some way to personate those whom they typify, as it is said by the apostle, "That
Rock was Christ."(4) Therefore the glory of this new testament house is greater than the glory of
the old testament house; and it will show itself as greater when it shall be dedicated. For then
"shall come the desired of all nations,"(5) as we read in the Hebrew. For before His advent He had
not yet been desired by all nations. For they knew not Him whom they ought to desire, in whom
they had not believed. Then, also, according to the Septuagint interpretation (for it also is a
prophetic meaning), "shall come those who are elected of the Lord out of all nations." For then
indeed there shall come only those who are elected, whereof the apostle saith, "According as He
hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world."(6) For the Master Builder who said,
"Many are
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called, but few are chosen,"(1) did not say this of those who, on being called, came in such a way
as to be cast out from the feast, but would point out the house built up of the elect, which
henceforth shall dread no ruin. Yet because the churches are also full of those who shall be
separated by the winnowing as in the threshing-floor, the glory of this house is not so apparent
now as it shall be when every one who is there shall be there always.

     CHAP. 49.--OF THE INDISCRIMINATE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH, WHEREIN
MANY REPROBATE ARE IN THIS WORLD MIXED WITH THE ELECT

    In this wicked world, in these evil days, when the Church measures her future loftiness by her
present humility, and is exercised by goading fears, tormenting sorrows, disquieting labors, and
dangerous temptations, when she soberly rejoices, rejoicing only in hope, there are many
reprobate mingled with the good, and both are gathered together by the gospel as in a drag net;(2)
and in this world, as in a sea, both swim enclosed without distinction in the net, until it is brought
ashore, when the wicked must be separated from the good, that in the good, as in His temple,
God may be all in all. We acknowledge, indeed, that His word is now fulfilled who spake in the
psalm, and said, "I have announced and spoken; they are multiplied above number."(3) This takes
place now, since He has spoken, first by the mouth of his forerunner John, and afterward by His
own mouth, saying, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."(4) He chose disciples, whom
He also called apostles,(5) of lowly birth, unhonored, and illiterate, so that whatever great thing
they might be or do, He might be and do it in them. He had one among them whose wickedness
He could use well in order to accomplish His appointed passion, and furnish His Church an
example of bearing with the wicked. Having sown the holy gospel as much as that behoved to be
done by His bodily presence, He suffered, died, and rose again, showing by His passion what we
ought to suffer for the truth, and by His resurrection what we ought to hope for in adversity;
saving-always the mystery of the sacrament, by which His blood was shed for the remission of
sins. He held converse on the earth forty days with His disciples, and in their sight ascended into
heaven, and after ten days sent the promised Holy Spirit. It was given as the chief and most
necessary sign of His coming on those who had believed, that every one of them spoke in the
tongues of all nations; thus signifying that the unity of the catholic Church would embrace all
nations, and would in like manner speak in all tongues.

     CHAP. 50.--OF THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL, WHICH IS MADE MORE
FAMOUS AND POWERFUL BY THE SUFFERINGS OF ITS PREACHERS.

    Then was fulfilled that prophecy, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord
out of Jerusalem;"(6) and the prediction of the Lord Christ Himself, when, after the resurrection,
"He opened the understanding" of His amazed disciples "that they might understand the
Scriptures, and said unto them, that thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to
rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in
His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."(7) And again, when, in reply to their
questioning about the day of His last coming, He said, "It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons which the Father hath put in His own power; but ye shall receive the power of the Holy
Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,
and Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth."(8) First of all, the Church spread herself
abroad from Jerusalem; and when very many in Judea and Samaria had believed, she also went
into other nations by those who announced the gospel, whom, as lights, He Himself had both
prepared by His word and kindled by His Holy Spirit. For He had said to them, "Fear ye not them
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul."(9) And that they might not be frozen with
fear, they burned with the fire of charity. Finally, the gospel of Christ was preached in the whole
world, not only by those who had seen and heard Him both before His passion and after His
resurrection, but also after their death by their successors, amid the horrible persecutions, diverse
torments and deaths of the martyrs, God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders,
and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost,(10) that the people of the nations, believing in
Him who was crucified for their redemption, might venerate with Christian love the blood of the
martyrs which they had poured forth with devilish fury, and the very kings by whose laws the
Church had been laid waste might become profitably subject to that name they had cruelly striven
to take away from the earth, and might begin to

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persecute the false gods for whose sake the worshippers of the true God had formerly been
persecuted.

     CHAP. 51.--THAT THE CATHOLIC FAITH MAY BE CONFIRMED EVEN BY THE
DISSENSIONS OF THE HERETICS.

    But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human race running to the
name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics under the Christian name to resist the
Christian doctrine, as if they could be kept in the city of God indifferently without any correction,
just as the city of confusion indifferently held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse
opinions. Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who savor anything morbid and depraved, and,
on being corrected that they may savor what is wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and
will not amend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them, become
heretics, and, going without, are to be reckoned as enemies who serve for her discipline. For even
thus they profit by their wickedness those true catholic members of Christ, since God makes a
good use even of the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that love Him.(1) For
all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds or malice depraves them, exercise her
patience if they receive the power to afflict her corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked
thought, they exercise her wisdom: but at the same time, if these enemies are loved, they exercise
her benevolence, or even her beneficence, whether she deals with them by persuasive doctrine or
by terrible discipline. And thus the devil, the prince of the impious city, when he stirs up his own
vessels against the city of God that sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For
without doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation through prosperity, that
she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through adversity, that she may not be corrupted by
prosperity; and thus each is tempered by the other, as we recognize in the Psalms that voice which
arises from no other cause, "According to the multitude of my griefs in my heart, Thy
consolations have delighted my soul."(2) Hence also is that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in
hope, patient in tribulation."(3)
    For it is not to be thought that what the same teacher says can at any time fail, "Whoever will
live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution."(4) Because even when those who are without do
not rage, and thus there seems to be, and really is, tranquillity, which brings very much
consolation, especially to the weak, yet there are not wanting, yea, there are many within who by
their abandoned manners torment the hearts of those who live piously, since by them the Christian
and catholic name is blasphemed; and the dearer that name is to those who will live piously in
Christ, the more do they grieve that through the wicked, who have a place within, it comes to be
less loved than pious minds desire. The heretics themselves also, since they are thought to have
the Christian name and sacraments, Scriptures, and profession, cause great grief in the hearts of
the pious, both because many who wish to be Christians are compelled by their dissensions to
hesitate, and many evil-speakers also find in them matter for blaspheming the Christian name,
because they too are at any rate called Christians. By these and similar depraved manners and
errors of men, those who will live piously in Christ suffer persecution, even when no one molests
or vexes their body; for they suffer this persecution, not in their bodies, but in their hearts.
Whence is that word, "According to the multitude of my griefs in my heart;" for he does not say,
in my body. Yet, on the other hand, none of them can perish, because the immutable divine
promises are thought of. And because the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth them that are His;(5)
for whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated [to be] conformed to the image of His Son,"(6)
none of them can perish; therefore it follows in that psalm, "Thy consolations have delighted my
soul."(7) But that grief which arises in the hearts of the pious, who are persecuted by the manners
of bad or false Christians, is profitable to the sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity in
which they do not wish them either to perish or to hinder the salvation of others. Finally, great
consolations grow out of their chastisement, which imbue the souls of the pious with a fecundity
as great as the pains with which they were troubled concerning their own perdition. Thus in this
world, in these evil days, not only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles,
but even from that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was righteous,(8) and
thenceforth even to the end of this world, the Church has gone forward on pilgrimage amid the
persecutions of the world and the consolations of God.

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     CHAP. 52.--WHETHER WE SHOULD BELIEVE WHAT SOME THINK, THAT, AS
THE TEN PERSECUTIONS WHICH ARE PAST HAVE BEEN FULFILLED, THERE
REMAINS NO OTHER BEYOND THE ELEVENTH, WHICH MUST HAPPEN IN THE
VERY TIME OF ANTICHRIST.

    I do not think, indeed, that what some have thought or may think is rashly said or believed, that
until the time of Antichrist the Church of Christ is not to suffer any persecutions besides those she
has already suffered,--that is, ten,--and that the eleventh and last shall be inflicted by Antichrist.
They reckon as the first that made by Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trajan, the
fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximin, the seventh by Decius, the eighth
by Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian the tenth by Diocletian and Maximian. For as there were ten
plagues in Egypt before the people of God could begin to go out, they think this is to be referred
to as showing that the last persecution by Antichrist must be like the eleventh plague, in which the
Egyptians, while following the Hebrews with hostility, perished in the Red Sea when the people of
God passed through on dry land. Yet I do not think persecutions were prophetically signified by
what was done in Egypt, however nicely and ingeniously those who think so may seem to have
compared the two in detail, not by the prophetic Spirit, but by the conjecture of the human mind,
which sometimes hits the truth, and sometimes is deceived. But what can those who think this say
of the persecution in which the Lord Himself was crucified? In which number will they put it? And
if they think the reckoning is to be made exclusive of this one, as if those must be counted which
pertain to the body, and not that in which the Head Himself was set upon and slain, what can they
make of that one which, after Christ ascended into heaven, took place in Jerusalem, when the
blessed Stephen was stoned; when James the brother of John was slaughtered with the sword;
when the Apostle Peter was imprisoned to be killed, and was set free by the angel; when the
brethren were driven away and scattered from Jerusalem; when Saul, who afterward became the
Apostle Paul, wasted the Church; and when he himself, publishing the glad tidings of the faith he
had persecuted, suffered such things as he had inflicted, either from the Jews or from other
nations, where he most fervently preached Christ everywhere? Why, then, do they think fit to start
with Nero, when the Church in her growth had reached the times of Nero amid the most cruel
persecutions; about which it would be too long to say anything? But if they think that only the
persecutions made by kings ought to be reckoned, it was king Herod who also made a most
grievous one after the ascension of the Lord. And what account do they give of Julian, whom they
do not number in the ten? Did not he persecute the Church, who forbade the Christians to teach
or learn liberal letters? Under him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor after him,
stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was dismissed from his command in the
army. I shall say nothing of what he did at Antioch, except to mention his being struck with
wonder at the freedom and cheerfulness of one most faithful and steadfast young man, who, when
many were seized to be tortured, was tortured during a whole day, and sang under the instrument
of torture, until the emperor feared lest he should succumb under the continued cruelties and put
him to shame at last, which made him dread and fear that he would be yet more dishonorably put
to the blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own recollection, did not Valens the Arian, brother of
the foresaid Valentinian, waste the catholic Church by great persecution throughout the East? But
how unreasonable it is not to consider that the Church, which bears fruit and grows through the
whole world, may suffer persecution from kings in some nations even when she does not suffer it
in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a persecution when the king of the Goths,
in Gothia itself, persecuted the Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but
catholics there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from
certain brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and unhesitatingly called to mind that
they had seen these things? And what took place in Persia of late? Was not persecution so hot
against the Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that some of the fugitives from it came even to
Roman towns? When I think of these and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number
of persecutions with which the Church is to be tried can be definitely stated. But, on the other
hand, it is no less rash to affirm that there will be some persecutions by kings besides that last one,
about which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave this undecided, supporting or refuting
neither side of this question, but only restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming
either of them.

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              CHAP. 53.--OF THE HIDDEN TIME OF THE FINAL
                             PERSECUTION.

    Truly Jesus Himself shall extinguish by His presence that last persecution which is to be made
by Antichrist. For so it is written, that "He shall slay him with the breath of His mouth, and empty
him with the brightness of His presence."(1) It is customary to ask, When shall that be? But this is
quite unreasonable. For had it been profitable for us to know this, by whom could it better have
been told than by God Himself, the Master, when the disciples questioned Him? For they were not
silent when with Him, but inquired of Him, saying, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time present the
kingdom to Israel, or when?"(2) But He said, "It is not for you to know the times, which the
Father hath put in His own power." When they got that answer, they had not at all questioned
Him about the hour, or day, or year, but about the time. In vain, then, do we attempt to compute
definitely the years that may remain to this world, when we may hear from the mouth of the Truth
that it is not for us to know this. Yet some have said that four hundred, some five hundred, others
a thousand years, may be completed from the ascension of the Lord up to His final coming. But to
point out how each of them supports his own opinion would take too long, and is not necessary;
for indeed they use human conjectures, and bring forward nothing certain from the authority of
the canonical Scriptures. But on this subject He puts aside the figures of the calculators, and
orders silence, who says, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in His
own power."
    But because this sentence is in the Gospel, it is no wonder that the worshippers of the many
and false gods have been none the less restrained from feigning that by the responses of the
demons, whom they worship as gods, it has been fixed how long the Christian religion is to last.
For when they saw that it could not be consumed by so many and great persecutions, but rather
drew from them wonderful enlargements, they invented I know not what Greek verses, as if
poured forth by a divine oracle to some one consulting it, in which, indeed, they make Christ
innocent of this, as it were, sacrilegious crime, but add that Peter by enchantments brought it
about that the name of Christ should be worshipped for three hundred and sixty-five years, and,
after the completion of that number of years, should at once take end. Oh the hearts of learned
men! Oh, learned wits, meet to believe such things about Christ as you are not willing to believe in
Christ, that His disciple Peter did not learn magic arts from Him, yet that, although He was
innocent, His disciple was an enchanter, and chose that His name rather than his own should be
worshipped through his magic arts, his great labors and perils, and at last even the shedding of his
blood! If Peter the enchanter made the world so love Christ, what did Christ the innocent do to
make Peter so love Him? Let them answer themselves then, and, if they can, let them understand
that the world, for the sake of eternal life, was made to love Christ by that same supernal grace
which made Peter also love Christ for the sake of the eternal life to be received from Him, and
that even to the extent of suffering temporal death for Him. And then, what kind of gods are these
who are able to predict such things, yet are not able to avert them, succumbing in such a way to a
single enchanter and wicked magician (who, as they say, having slain a yearling boy and torn him
to pieces, buried him with nefarious rites), that they permitted the sect hostile to themselves to
gain strength for so great a time, and to surmount the horrid cruelties of so many great
persecutions, not by resisting but by suffering, and to procure the overthrow of their own images,
temples, rituals, and oracles? Finally, what god was it--not ours, certainly, but one of their
own--who was either enticed or compelled by so great wickedness to perform these things? For
those verses say that Peter bound, not any demon, but a god to do these things. Such a god have
they who have not Christ.

     CHAP. 54.--OF THE VERY FOOLISH LIE OF THE PAGANS, IN FEIGNING THAT
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION WAS NOT TO LAST BEYOND THREE HUNDRED AND
SIXTY-FIVE YEARS.

    I might collect these and many similar arguments, if that year had not already passed by which
lying divination has promised, and deceived vanity has believed. But as a few years ago three
hundred and sixty-five years were completed since the time when the worship of the name of
Christ was established by His presence in the flesh, and by the apostles, what other proof need we
seek to refute that falsehood? For, not to place the beginning of this period at the nativity of
Christ, because as an infant and boy He had no disciples, yet, when He began to have them,
beyond doubt the Christian doctrine and religion then became known through His bodily
presence, that is, after He was baptized in the river Jordan by the ministry of John. For on

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this account that prophecy went before concerning Him: "He shall reign from sea even to sea, and
from the river even to the ends of the earth."(1) But since, before He suffered and rose from the
dead, the faith had not yet been defined to all, but was defined in the resurrection of Christ (for so
the Apostle Paul speaks to the Athenians, saying, "But now He announces to men that all
everywhere should repent, because He hath appointed a day in which to judge the world in equity,
by the Man in whom He hath defined the faith to all men, raising Him from the dead"(2)), it is
better that, in settling this question, we should start from that point, especially because the Holy
Spirit was then given, just as He behoved to be given after the resurrection of Christ in that city
from which the second law, that is, the new testament, ought to begin. For the first, which is
called the old testament was given from Mount Sinai through Moses. But concerning this which
was to be given by Christ it was predicted, "Out of Sion shall go forth the law and the word of the
Lord out of Jerusalem;"(3) whence He Himself said that repentance in His name behoved to be
preached among all nations, but yet beginning at Jerusalem.(4) There, therefore, the worship of
this name took its rise, that Jesus should be believed in, who died and rose again. There this faith
blazed up with such noble beginnings, that several thousand men, being converted to the name of
Christ with wonderful alacrity, sold their goods for distribution among the needy, thus, by a holy
resolution and most ardent charity, coming to voluntary poverty, and prepared themselves, amid
the Jews who raged and thirsted for their blood, to contend for the truth even to death, not with
armed power, but with more powerful patience. If this was accomplished by no magic arts, why
do they hesitate to believe that the other could be done throughout the whole world by the same
divine power by which this was done ? But supposing Peter wrought that enchantment so that so
great a multitude of men at Jerusalem was thus kindled to worship the name of Christ, who had
either seized and fastened Him to the cross, or reviled Him when fastened there, we must still
inquire when the three hundred and sixty-five years must be completed, counting from that year.
Now Christ died when the Gemini were consuls, on the eighth day before the kalends of April. He
rose the third day, as the apostles have proved by the evidence of their own senses. Then forty
days after, He ascended into heaven. Ten days after, that is, on the fiftieth after his resurrection,
He sent the Holy Spirit; then three thousand men believed when the apostles preached Him. Then,
therefore, arose the worship of that name, as we believe, and according to the real truth, by the
efficacy of the Holy Spirit, but, as impious vanity has reigned or thought, by the magic arts of
Peter. A little afterward, too, on a wonderful sign being wrought, when at Peter's own word a
certain beggar, so lame from his mother's womb that he was carried by others and laid down at
the gate of the temple, where he begged alms, was made whole in the name of Jesus Christ, and
leaped up, five thousand men believed, and thenceforth the Church grew by sundry accessions of
believers. Thus we gather the very day with which that year began, namely, that on which the
Holy Spirit was sent, that is, during the ides of May. And, on counting the consuls, the three
hundred and sixty-five years are found completed on the same ides in the consulate of Honorius
and Eutychianus. Now, in the following year, in the consulate of Mallius Theodorus, when,
according to that oracle of the demons or figment of men, there ought already to have been no
Christian religion, it was not necessary to inquire, what perchance was done in other parts of the
earth. But, as we know, in the most noted and eminent city, Carthage, in Africa, Gaudentius and
Jovius, officers of the Emperor Honorius, on the fourteenth day before the kalends of April,
overthrew the temples and broke the images of the false gods. And from that time to the present,
during almost thirty years, who does not see how much the worship of the name of Christ has
increased, especially after many of those became Christians who had been kept back from the faith
by thinking that divination true, but saw when that same number of years was completed that it
was empty and ridiculous? We, therefore, who are called and are Christians, do not believe in
Peter, but in Him whom Peter believed,--being edified by Peter's sermons about Christ, not
poisoned by his incantations; and not deceived by his enchantments, but aided by his good deeds.
Christ Himself, who was Peter's Master in the doctrine which leads to eternal life, is our Master
too.
    But let us now at last finish this book, after thus far treating of, and showing as far as seemed
sufficient, what is the mortal course of the two cities, the heavenly and the earthly, which are
mingled together from the beginning down to the end. Of these, the earthly one has made to
herself of whom she would,

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either from any other quarter, or even from among men, false gods whom she might serve by
sacrifice; but she which is heavenly and is a pilgrim on the earth does not make false gods, but is
herself made by the true God of, whom she herself must be the true sacrifice. Yet both alike either
enjoy temporal good things, or are afflicted with temporal evils, but with diverse faith, diverse
hope, and diverse love, until they must be separated by the last judgment, and each must receive
her own end, of which there is no end. About these ends of both we must next treat.
                               BOOK XIX.
                                   
                               ARGUMENT.
                                   
     IN THIS BOOK THE END OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE
HEAVENLY, IS DISCUSSED. AUGUSTINE REVIEWS THE OPINIONS OF THE
PHILOSOPHERS REGARDING THE SUPREME GOOD, AND THEIR VAIN EFFORTS TO
MAKE FOR THEMSELVES A HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE; AND, WHILE HE REFUTES
THESE, HE TAKES OCCASION TO SHOW WHAT THE PEACE AND HAPPINESS
BELONGING TO THE HEAVENLY CITY, OR THE PEOPLE OF CHRIST, ARE BOTH
NOW AND HEREAFTER.

     CHAP. 1.--THAT VARRO HAS MADE OUT THAT TWO HUNDRED AND
EIGHTY-EIGHT DIFFERENT SECTS OF PHILOSOPHY MIGHT BE FORMED BY THE
VARIOUS OPINIONS REGARDING THE SUPREME GOOD.

    As I see that I have still to discuss the fit destinies of the two cities, the earthly and the
heavenly, I must first explain, so far as the limits of this work allow me, the reasonings by which
men have attempted to make for themselves a happiness in this unhappy life, in order that it may
be evident, not only from divine authority, but also from such reasons as can be adduced to
unbelievers, how the empty dreams of the philosophers differ from the hope which God gives to
us, and from the substantial fulfillment of it which He will give us as our blessedness. Philosophers
have expressed a great variety of, diverse opinions regarding the ends of goods and of evils, and
this question they have eagerly canvassed, that they might, if possible, discover what makes a man
happy. For the end of our good is that for the sake of which other things are to be desired, while it
is to be desired for its own sake; and the end of evil is that on account of which other things are to
be shunned, while it is avoided on its own account. Thus, by the end of good, we at present mean,
not that by which good is destroyed, so that it no longer exists, but that by which it is finished, so
that it becomes complete; and by the end of evil we mean, not that which abolishes it, but that
which completes its development.
   These two ends, therefore, are the supreme good and the supreme evil; and, as I have said,
those who have in this vain life professed the study of wisdom have been at great pains to
discover these ends, and to obtain the supreme good and avoid the supreme evil in this life. And
although they erred in a variety of ways, yet natural insight has prevented them from wandering
from the truth so far that they have not placed the supreme good and evil, some in the soul, some
in the body, and some in both. From this tripartite distribution of the sects of philosophy, Marcus
Varro, in his book De Philosophia,(1) has drawn so large a variety of opinions, that, by a subtle
and minute analysis of distinctions, he numbers without difficulty as many as 288 sects,--not that
these have actually existed, but sects which are possible.
    To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own introductory statement in the
above-mentioned book, that there are four things which men desire, as it were by nature without a
master, without the help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is called
virtue, and which is certainly learned:(2) either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the
bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus
calls by the one name, pleasure; or the primary objects

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of nature,(1) which comprehend the things already named and other things, either bodily, such as
health, and safety, and integrity of the members, or spiritual, such as the greater and less mental
gifts that are found in men. Now these four things--pleasure, repose, the two combined, and the
primary objects of nature--exist in us in such sort that we must either desire virtue on their
account, or them for the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and consequently there arise
from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this consideration tripled. I will illustrate this in
one instance, and, having done so, it will not be difficult to understand the others. According,
then, as bodily pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to Virtue, there are three sects. It is
subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to virtue. Thus it is a duty of virtue to live for
one's country, and for its sake to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily
pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure also in sexual intercourse. But
when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for its own sake, and virtue is chosen only for its sake,
and to effect nothing else than the attainment or preservation of bodily pleasure. And this, indeed,
is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure it no longer deserves the name of
virtue. Yet even this disgraceful distortion has found some philosophers to patronize and defend
it. Then virtue is united to pleasure when neither is desired for the other's sake, but both for their
own. And therefore, as pleasure, according as it is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, makes
three sects, so also do repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the prime natural blessings,
make their three sects each. For as men's opinions vary, and these four things are sometimes
subjected, sometimes preferred, and sometimes united to virtue, there are produced twelve sects.
But this number again is doubled by the addition of one difference, viz., the social life; for
whoever attaches himself to any of these sects does so either for his own sake alone, or for the
sake of a companion, for whom he ought to wish what he desires for himself. And thus there will
be twelve of those who think some one of these opinions should be held for their own sakes, and
other twelve who decide that they ought to follow this or that philosophy not for their own sakes
only, but also for the sake of others whose good they desire as their own. These twenty-four sects
again are doubled, and become forty-eight by adding a difference taken from the New Academy.
For each of these four and twenty sects can hold and defend their opinion as certain, as the Stoics
defended the position that the supreme good of man consisted solely in virtue; or they can be held
as probable, but not certain, as the New Academics did. There are, therefore, twenty-four who
hold their philosophy as certainly true, other twenty-four who hold their opinions as probable, but
not certain. Again, as each person who attaches himself to any of these sects may adopt the mode
of life either of the Cynics or of the other philosophers, this distinction will double the number,
and so make ninety-six sects. Then, lastly, as each of these sects may be adhered to either by men
who love a life of ease, as those who have through choice or necessity addicted themselves to
study, or by men who love a busy life, as those who, while philosophizing, have been much
occupied with state affairs and public business, or by men who choose a mixed life, in imitation of
those who have apportioned their time partly to erudite leisure, partly to necessary business: by
these differences the number of the sects is tripled, and becomes 288.
    I have thus, as briefly and lucidly as I could, given in my own words the opinions which Varro
expresses in his book. But how he refutes all the rest of these sects, and chooses one, the Old
Academy, instituted by Plato, and continuing to Polemo, the fourth teacher of that school of
philosophy which held that their system was certain; and how on this ground he distinguishes it
from the New Academy,(2) which began with Polemo's successor Arcesilaus, and held that all
things are uncertain; and how he seeks to establish that the Old Academy was as free from error
as from doubt,--all this, I say, were too long to enter upon in detail, and yet I must not altogether
pass it by in silence. Varro then rejects, as a first step, all those differences which have multiplied
the number of sects; and the ground on which he does so is that they are not differences about the
supreme good. He maintains that in philosophy a sect is created only by its having an opinion of
its own different from other schools on the point of the ends-in-chief. For man has no other
reason for philosophizing than that he may be happy; but that which makes him happy is itself the
supreme good. In other words, the supreme good is the reason of philosophizing; and therefore
that cannot be called a sect of philosophy which pursues no way of its own towards the supreme
good. Thus, when it is

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asked whether a wise man will adopt the social life, and desire and be interested in the supreme
good of his friend as in his own, or will, on the contrary, do all that he does merely for his own
sake, there is no question here about the supreme good, but only about the propriety of
associating or not associating a friend in its participation: whether the wise man will do this not
for his own sake, but for the sake of his friend in whose good he delights as in his own. So, too,
when it is asked whether all things about which philosophy is concerned are to be considered
uncertain, as by the New Academy, or certain, as the other philosophers maintain, the question
here is not what end should be pursued, but whether or not we are to believe in the substantial
existence of that end; or, to put it more plainly, whether he who pursues the supreme good must
maintain that it is a true good, or only that it appears to him to be true, though possibly it may be
delusive,--both pursuing one and the same good. The distinction, too, which is founded on the
dress and manners of the Cynics, does not touch the question of the chief good, but only the
question whether he who pursues that good which seems to himself true should live as do the
Cynics. There were, in fact, men who, though they pursued different things as the supreme good,
some choosing pleasure, others virtue, yet adopted that mode of life which  gave the Cynics their
name. Thus, whatever it is which distinguishes the Cynics from other philosophers, this has no
bearing on the choice and pursuit of that good which constitutes happiness. For if it had any such
bearing, then the same habits of life would necessitate the pursuit of the same chief good, and
all-verse habits would necessitate the pursuit of different ends.

     CHAP. 2.--HOW VARRO, BY REMOVING ALL THE DIFFERENCES WHICH DO
NOT FORM SECTS, BUT ARE MERELY SECONDARY QUESTIONS, REACHES THREE
DEFINITIONS OF THE CHIEF GOOD, OF WHICH WE MUST CHOOSE ONE.

    The same may be said of those three kinds of life, the life of studious leisure and search after
truth, the life of easy engagement in affairs, and the life in which both these are mingled. When it
is asked, which of these should be adopted, this involves no controversy about the end of good,
but inquires which of these three puts a man in the best position for finding and retaining the
supreme good. For this good, as soon as a man finds it, makes him happy; but lettered leisure, or
public business, or the alternation of these, do not necessarily constitute happiness. Many, in fact,
find it possible do adopt one or other of these modes of life, and yet to miss what makes a man
happy. The question, therefore, regarding the supreme good and the supreme evil, and which
distinguishes sects of philosophy, is one; and these questions concerning the social life, the doubt
of the Academy, the dress and food of the Cynics, the three modes of life--the active, the
contemplative, and the mixed--these are different questions, into none of which the question of
the chief good enters. And therefore, as Marcus Varro multiplied the sects to the number of 288
(or whatever larger number he chose) by introducing these four differences derived from the
social life, the New Academy, the Cynics, and the threefold form of life, so, by removing these
differences as having no bearing on the supreme good, and as therefore not constituting what can
properly be called sects, he returns to those twelve schools which concern themselves with
inquiring what that good is which makes man happy, and he shows that one of these is true, the
rest false. In other words, he dismisses the distinction rounded on the threefold mode of life, and
so decreases the whole number by two-thirds, reducing the sects to ninety-six. Then, putting aside
the Cynic peculiarities, the number decreases by a half, to forty-eight. Taking away next the
distinction occasioned by the hesitancy of the New Academy, the number is again halved, and
reduced to twenty-four. Treating in a similar way the diversity introduced by the consideration of
the social life, there are left but twelve, which this difference had doubled to twenty-four.
Regarding these twelve, no reason can be assigned why they should not be called sects. For in
them the sole inquiry is regarding the supreme good and the ultimate evil,--that is to say,
regarding the supreme good, for this being found, the opposite evil is thereby found. Now, to
make these twelve sects, he multiplies by three these four things--pleasure, repose, pleasure and
repose combined, and the primary objects of nature which Varro calls primigenia. For as these
four things are sometimes subordinated to virtue, so that they seem to be desired not for their
own sake, but for virtue's sake; sometimes preferred to it, so that virtue seems to be necessary not
on its own account, but in order to attain these things; sometimes joined with it, so that both they
and virtue are desired for their own sakes,--we must multiply the four by three, and thus we get
twelve sects. But from those four things Varro eliminates three--pleasure, repose,

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pleasure and repose combined--not because he thinks these are not worthy of the place assigned
them, but because they are included in the primary objects of nature. And what need is there, at
any rate, to make a threefold division out of these two ends, pleasure and repose, taking them first
severally and then conjunctly, since both they, and many other things besides, are comprehended
in the primary objects of nature? Which of the three remaining sects must be chosen? This is the
question that Varro dwells upon. For whether one of these three or some other be chosen, reason
forbids that more than one be true. This we shall afterwards see; but meanwhile let us explain as
briefly and distinctly as we can how Varro makes his selection from these three, that is, from the
sects which severally hold that the primary objects of nature are to be desired for virtue's sake,
that virtue is to be desired for their sake, and that virtue and these objects are to be desired each
for their own sake.

     CHAP. 3.--WHICH OF THE THREE LEADING OPINIONS REGARDING THE
CHIEF GOOD SHOULD BE PREFERRED, ACCORDING TO VARRO, WHO FOLLOWS
ANTIOCHUS AND THE OLD ACADEMY.

    Which of these three is true and to be adopted he attempts to show in the following manner. As
it is the supreme good, not of a tree, or of a beast, or of a god, but of man that philosophy is in
quest of, he thinks that, first of all, we must define man. He is of opinion that there are two parts
in human nature, body and soul, and makes no doubt that of these two the soul is the better and
by far the more worthy part. But whether the soul alone is the man, so that the body holds the
same relation to it as a horse to the horseman, this he thinks has to be ascertained. The horseman
is not a horse and a man, but only a man, yet he is called a horseman, because he is in some
relation to the horse. Again, is the body alone the man, having a relation to the soul such as the
cup has to the drink? For it is not the cup and the drink it contains which are called the cup, but
the cup alone; yet it is so called because it is made to hold the drink. Or, lastly, is it neither the
soul alone nor the body alone, but both together, which are man, the body and the soul being each
a part, but the whole man being both together, as we call two horses yoked together a pair, of
which pair the near and the off horse is each a part, but we do not call either of them, no matter
how connected with the other, a pair, but only both together? Of these three alternatives, then,
Varro chooses the third, that man is neither the body alone, nor the soul alone, but both together.
And therefore the highest good, in which lies the happiness of man, is composed of goods of both
kinds, both bodily and spiritual. And consequently he thinks that the primary objects of nature are
to be sought for their own sake, and that virtue, which is the art of living, and can be
communicated by instruction, is the most excellent of spiritual goods. This virtue, then, or art of
regulating life, when it has received these primary objects of nature which existed independently
of it, and prior to any instruction, seeks them all, and itself also, for its own sake; and it uses them,
as it also uses itself, that from them all it may derive profit and enjoyment, greater or less,
according as they are themselves greater or less; and while it takes pleasure in all of them, it
despises the less that it may obtain or retain the greater when occasion demands. Now, of all
goods, spiritual or bodily, there is none at all to compare with virtue. For virtue makes a good use
both of itself and of all other goods in which lies man's happiness; and where it is absent, no
matter how many good things a man has, they are not for his good, and consequently should not
be called good things while they belong to one who makes them useless by using them badly. The
life of man, then, is called happy when it enjoys virtue and these other spiritual and bodily good
things without which virtue is impossible. It is called happier if it enjoys some or many other good
things which are not essential to virtue; and happiest of all, if it lacks not one of the good things
which pertain to the body and the soul. For life is not the same thing as virtue, since not every life,
but a wisely regulated life, is virtue; and yet, while there can be life of some kind without virtue,
there cannot be virtue without life. This I might apply to memory and reason, and such mental
faculties; for these exist prior to instruction, and without them there cannot be any instruction,
and consequently no virtue, since virtue is learned. But bodily advantages, such as swiftness of
foot, beauty, or strength, are not essential to virtue, neither is virtue essential to them, and yet
they are good things; and, according to our philosophers, even these advantages are desired by
virtue for its own sake, and are used and enjoyed by it in a becoming manner.
    They say that this happy life is also social, and loves the advantages of its friends as its own,
and for their sake wishes for them what it desires for itself, whether these friends live in the same
family, as a wife, children,

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domestics; or in the locality where one's home is, as the citizens of the same town; or in the world
at large, as the nations bound in common human brotherhood; or in the universe itself,
comprehended in the heavens and the earth, as those whom they call gods, and provide as friends
for the wise man, and whom we more familiarly call angels. Moreover, they say that, regarding
the supreme good and evil, there is no room for doubt, and that they therefore differ from the
New Academy in this respect, and they are not concerned whether a philosopher pursues those
ends which they think true in the Cynic dress and manner of life or in some other. And, lastly, in
regard to the three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the composite, they declare in
favor of the third. That these were the opinions and doctrines of the Old Academy, Varro asserts
on the authority of Antiochus, Cicero's master and his own, though Cicero makes him out to have
been more frequently in accordance with the Stoics than with the Old Academy. But of what
importance is this to us, who ought to judge the matter on its own merits, rather than to
understand accurately what different men have thought about it?

     CHAP. 4.--WHAT THE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE REGARDING THE SUPREME
GOOD AND EVIL, IN OPPOSITION TO THE PHILOSOPHERS, WHO HAVE
MAINTAINED THAT THE SUPREME GOOD IS IN THEMSELVES.

    If, then, we be asked what the city of God has to say upon these points, and, in the first place,
what its opinion regarding the supreme good and evil is, it will reply that life eternal  is the
supreme good, death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we
must live rightly. And thus it is written, "The just lives by faith,"(1) for we do not as yet see our
good, and must therefore live by faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can
do so only if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we believe and
pray. As for those who have supposed that the sovereign good and evil are to be found in this life,
and have placed it either in the soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in
pleasure or in virtue, or in both; in repose or in virtue, or in both; in pleasure and repose, or in
virtue, or in all combined; in the primary objects of nature, or in virtue, or in both,--all these have,
with a marvelous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in themselves.
Contempt has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying by the prophet, "The Lord
knoweth the thoughts of men" (or, as the Apostle Paul cites the passage, "The Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise") "that they are vain."(2) 
    For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? Cicero, in the
Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how
inadequate was even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects
of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of
the wise man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may
banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity,
deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its
activity,--and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting
attitudes and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if
some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from curvature of the spine to
such an extent that his hands reach the ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does
not this destroy all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall I say of
the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the
perception, and the other for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains
when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man
delirious? We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions
and words of such frantic persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their
own sober judgment and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of
those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried
while the malignant spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite
sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth,
what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom,
"The corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presseth down the mind
that museth upon many things?"(3) And eagerness, or

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desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put upon the Greek <greek>ormh</greek>, is also
reckoned among the primary advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those
pitiable movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when sense is
deceived and reason deranged?
    In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of nature, but succeeds to them as
the result of learning, though it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its
occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices,--not those that are outside of us, but within;
not other men's, but our own,--a war which is waged especially by that virtue which the Greeks
call <greek>swfrsnh</greek>, and we temperance,(1) and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents
them from winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is
no vice in us, when, as the apostle says, "The flesh lusteth against the spirit;"(2) for to this vice
there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, "The spirit lusteth against the flesh." "For
these two," he says, "are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you
would." But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme good, unless that the
flesh should cease to lust against the spirit, and that there be no vice in us against which the spirit
may lust? And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it, let us
by God's help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the
flesh that lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us,
then, to fancy that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the
happiness which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he has no conflict at
all to maintain against his vices?
    What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all its vigilance spent in the
discernment of good from evil things, so that no mistake may be admitted about what we should
desire and what avoid? And thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst of evils, or that evils
are in us; for it teaches us that it is an evil to consent to sin, and a good to refuse this consent.
And yet this evil, to which prudence teaches and temperance enables us not to consent, is
removed from this life neither by prudence nor by temperance. And justice, whose office it is to
render to every man his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of nature, so that
the soul is subjected to God, and the flesh to the soul, and consequently both soul and flesh to
God,--does not this virtue demonstrate that it is as yet rather laboring towards its end than resting
in its finished work? For the soul is so much the less subjected to God as it is less occupied with
the thought of God; and the flesh is so much the less subjected to the spirit as it lusts more
vehemently against the spirit. So  long, therefore, as we are beset by this weakness, this plague,
this disease, how shall we dare to say that we are safe? and if not safe, then how can we be
already enjoying our final beatitude? Then that virtue which goes by the name of fortitude is the
plainest proof of the ills of life, for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And this
holds good, no matter though the ripest wisdom co-exists with it. And I am at a loss to
understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say that these are no ills, though at the
same time they allow the wise man to commit suicide and pass out of this life if they become so
grievous that he cannot or ought not to endure them. But such is the stupid pride of these men
who fancy that the supreme good can be found in this life, and that they can become happy by
their own resources, that their wise man, or at least the man whom they fancifully depict as such,
is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer
any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself; and they are not
ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils happy. 0 happy life, which seeks the aid of
death to end it? If it is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in
what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these are not evils which conquer the virtue of
fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but so to rave that it in one breath calls life happy and
recommends it to be given up? For who is so blind as not to see that if it were happy it would not
be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on account of the infirmities that beset it, why
then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask,
fortitude or weakness which prompted Cato to kill himself? for he would not have done so had he
not been too weak to endure Caesar's victory. Where, then, is his fortitude? It has yielded, it has
succumbed, it has been so thoroughly overcome as to abandon, forsake, flee this happy life. Or
was it no longer happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were these not evils which made life
miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?
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    And therefore those who admit that these are evils, as the Peripatetics do, and the Old
Academy, the sect which Varro advocates, express a more intelligible doctrine; but theirs also is a
surprising mistake, for they contend that this is a happy life which is beset by these evils, even
though they be so great that he who endures them should commit suicide to escape them. "Pains
and anguish of body," says Varro, "are evils, and so much the worse in proportion to their
severity; and to escape them you must quit this life." What life, I pray? This life, he says, which is
oppressed by such evils. Then it is happy in the midst of these very evils on account of which you
say we must quit it? Or do you call it happy because you are at liberty to escape these evils by
death? What, then, if by some secret judgment of God you were held fast and not permitted to
die, nor suffered to live without these evils?  In that case, at least, you would say that such a life
was miserable. It is soon relinquished, no doubt but this does not make it not miserable; for were
it eternal, you yourself would pronounce it miserable. Its brevity, therefore, does not clear it of
misery; neither ought it to be called happiness because it is a brief misery. Certainly there is a
mighty force in these evils which compel a man--according to them even a wise man--to cease to
be a man that he may escape them, though they say, and say truly, that it is as it were the first and
strongest demand of nature that a man cherish himself, and naturally therefore avoid death, and
should so stand his own friend as to wish and vehemently aim at continuing to exist as a living
creature, and subsisting in this union of soul and body. There is a mighty force in these evils to
overcome this natural instinct by which death is by every means and with all a man's efforts
avoided, and to overcome it so completely that what was avoided is desired, sought after, and if it
cannot in any other way be obtained, is inflicted by the man on himself. There is a mighty force in
these evils which make fortitude a homicide,--if, indeed, that is to be called fortitude which is so
thoroughly overcome by these evils, that it not only cannot preserve by patience the man whom it
undertook to govern and defend, but is itself obliged to kill him. The wise man, I admit, ought to
bear death with patience, but when it is inflicted by another. If, then, as these men maintain, he is
obliged to inflict it on himself, certainly it must be owned that the ills which compel him to this are
not only evils, but intolerable evils. The life, then, which is either subject to accidents, or
environed with evils so considerable and grievous, could never have been called happy, if the men
who give it this name had condescended to yield to the truth, and to be conquered by valid
arguments, when they inquired after the happy life, as they yield to unhappiness, and are
overcome by overwhelming evils, when they put themselves to death, and if they had not fancied
that the supreme good was to be found in this mortal life; for the very virtues of this life, which
are certainly its best and most useful possessions, are all the more telling proofs of its miseries in
proportion as they are helpful against the violence of its dangers, toils, and woes. For if these are
true virtues,--and such cannot exist save in those who have true piety,--they do not profess to be
able to deliver the men who possess them from all miseries; for true virtues tell no such lies, but
they profess that by the hope of the future world this life, which is miserably involved in the many
and great evils of this world, is happy as it is also safe. For if not yet safe, how could it be happy?
And therefore the Apostle Paul, speaking not of men without prudence, temperance, fortitude,
and justice, but of those whose lives were regulated by true piety, and whose virtues were
therefore true, says, "For we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with
patience wait for it."(1) As, therefore, we are saved, so we are made happy by hope. And as we
do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness, and this
"with patience;" for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought patiently to endure, until we
come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall be no longer anything to endure.
Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. And this
happiness these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not see it, and attempt to
fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is as deceitful as it is
proud.

     CHAP. 5.--OF THE SOCIAL LIFE, WHICH, THOUGH MOST DESIRABLE, IS
FREQUENTLY DISTURBED BY MANY DISTRESSES.

    We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be
social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the
nineteenth book of this work)

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either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were
not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society
abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic
writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this matter: "I am
married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares."(1) What shall I say
of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts--"slights, suspicions, quarrels, war to-day,
peace to-morrow?"(2) Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in
honorable friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of
which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not
know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of what
it might be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in the
same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has
often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the
most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of
every one, and provoke a sigh: "There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under
the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily
baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but
overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it."(3) It is also to this that allusion is made
by the divine saying, "A man's foes are those of his own household,"(4)--words which one cannot
hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and
sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he
cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have
always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious
disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we
say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal,
and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody
insurrections and civil wars?

 CHAP. 6.--OF THE ERROR OF HUMAN JUDGMENTS WHEN THE TRUTH IS HIDDEN.
                                  
    What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and which are necessary in
communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they
are, since the judges are men who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are
therefore frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture to ascertain the truth
regarding the crimes of other men. What shall I say of torture applied to the accused himself? He
is tortured to discover whether he is guilty, so that, though innocent, he suffers most undoubted
punishment for crime that is still doubtful, not because it is proved that he committed it, but
because it is not ascertained that he did not commit it. Thus the ignorance of the judge frequently
involves an innocent person in suffering. And what is still more unendurable--a thing, indeed, to
be bewailed, and, if that were possible, watered with fountains of tears--is this, that when the
judge puts the accused to the question, that he may not unwittingly put an innocent man to death,
the result of this lamentable ignorance is that this very person, whom he tortured that he might not
condemn him if innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent. For if he has chosen,
in obedience to the philosophical instructions to the wise man, to quit this life rather than endure
any longer such tortures, he declares that he has committed the crime which in fact he has not
committed. And when he has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in ignorance
whether he has put to death an innocent or a guilty person, though he put the accused to the
torture for the very purpose of saving himself from condemning the innocent; and consequently he
has both tortured an innocent man to discover his innoence, and has put him to death without
discovering it. If such darkness shrouds social life, will a wise judge take his seat on the bench or
no? Beyond question he will. For human society, which he thinks it a wickedness to abandon,
constrains him and compels him to this duty. And he thinks it no wickedness that innocent
witnesses are tortured regarding the crimes of which other men are accused; or that the accused
are put to the torture, so that they are often overcome with anguish, and, though innocent, make
false confessions regarding themselves, and are punished; or that, though they be not condemned
to die, they often die during, or in consequence of, the torture; or that sometimes the accusers,
who perhaps have been prompted

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by a desire to benefit society by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves condemned through
the ignorance of the judge, because they are unable to prove the truth of their accusations though
they are true, and because the witnesses lie, and the accused endures the torture without being
moved to confession. These numerous and important evils he does not consider sins; for the wise
judge does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels
him, and because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore acquit the judge
of malice, we must none the less condemn human life as miserable. And if he is compelled to
torture and punish the innocent because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is he a happy
as well as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more profound considerateness and finer feeling
were he to recognize the misery of these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in that
misery; and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God "From my necessities deliver Thou
me."(1)

     CHAP. 7.--OF THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES, BY WHICH THE
INTERCOURSE OF MEN IS PREVENTED; AND OF THE MISERY OF WARS, EVEN OF
THOSE CALLED JUST.

    After the state or city comes the world, the third circle of human society,--the first being the
house, and the second the city. And the world, as it is larger, so it is fuller of dangers, as the
greater sea is the more dangerous. And here, in the first place, man is separated from man by the
difference of languages. For if two men, each ignorant of the other's language, meet, and are not
compelled to pass, but, on the contrary, to remain in company, dumb animals, though of different
species, would more easily hold intercourse than they, human beings though they be. For their
common nature is no help to friendliness when they are prevented by diversity of language from
conveying their sentiments to one another; so that a man would more readily hold intercourse
with his dog than with a foreigner. But the imperial city has endeavored to impose on subject
nations not only her yoke, but her language, as a bond of peace, so that interpreters, far from
being scarce, are numberless. This is true; but how many great wars, how much slaughter and
bloodshed, have provided this unity! And though these are past, the end of these miseries has not
yet come. For though there  have never been wanting, nor are yet wanting, hostile nations beyond
the empire, against whom wars have been and are waged, yet, supposing there were no such
nations, the very extent of the empire itself has produced wars of a more obnoxious
description--social and civil wars--and with these the whore race has been agitated, either by the
actual conflict or the fear of a renewed outbreak. If I attempted to give an adequate description of
these manifold disasters, these stern and lasting necessities, though I am quite unequal to the task,
what limit could I set? But, say they, the wise man will wage just wars. As if he would not all the
rather lament the necessity of just wars, if he remembers that he is a man; for if they were not just
he would not wage them, and would therefore be delivered from all wars. For it is the
wrongdoing of the opposing party which compels the wise man to wage just wars; and this
wrong-doing, even though it gave rise to no war, would still be matter of grief to man because it
is man's wrong-doing. Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so
horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if any one either endures or thinks of
them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because
he has lost human feeling.

     CHAP. 8.--THAT THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOOD MEN CANNOT BE SECURELY
RESTED IN, SO LONG AS THE DANGERS OF THIS LIFE FORCE US TO BE ANXIOUS.

    In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for an enemy, and an enemy
for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness, is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual
love of true and good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with
misunderstandings and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they
are scattered, the more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast masses of the
disasters of life may light upon them. For we are not only anxious lest they suffer from famine,
war, disease, captivity, or the inconceivable horrors of slavery, but we are also affected with the
much more painful dread that their friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and injustice.
And when these contingencies actually occur,--as they do the more frequently the more friends we
have, and the more widely they are scattered,--and when they come to our knowledge, who but
the man who has experienced it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We would, in fact,
prefer to hear that they

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were dead, although we could not without anguish hear of even this. For if their life has solaced
us with the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with no sadness? He
who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse. Let him
interdict or extinguish friendly affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every
human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that no sweetness shall distil into his spirit.
But if this is utterly impossible, how shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those
whose life has been sweet to us? Hence arises that grief which affects the tender heart like a
wound or a bruise, and which is healed by the application of kindly consolation. For though the
cure is affected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on
this account suppose that there is nothing at all to heal. Although, then, our present life is
afflicted, sometimes in a milder, sometimes in a more painful degree, by the death of those very
dear to us, and especially of useful public men, yet we would prefer to hear that such men were
dead rather than to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue,--in other
words, that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the earth is full, and
therefore it is written, "Is not human life upon earth a trial?"(1) And with the same reference the
Lord says. "Woe to the world because of offenses!"(2) and again, "Because iniquity abounded,
the love of many shall wax cold."(3) And hence we enjoy some gratification when our good
friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that
they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of men are broken down or corrupted,
or are in danger of both results.

     CHAP. 9--OF THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE HOLY ANGELS, WHICH MEN CANNOT
BE SURE OF IN THIS LIFE, OWING TO THE DECEIT OF THE DEMONS WHO HOLD IN
BONDAGE THE WORSHIPPERS OF A PLURALITY OF GODS.

    The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy
angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to
the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the
angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as
familiarly as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we
read,(4) sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary
to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God's mercy to preserve us from making
friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the
astuteness and deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And is this not
a great misery of human life, that we are involved in such ignorance as, but for God's mercy,
makes us a prey to these demons? And it is very certain that the philosophers of the godless city,
who have main-rained that the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the malignant demons
who rule that city, and whose eternal punishment is to be shared by it. For the nature of these
beings is sufficiently evinced by the sacred or rather sacrilegious observances which form their
worship, and by the filthy games in which their crimes are celebrated, and which they themselves
originated and exacted from their worshippers as a fit propitiation.

     CHAP. 10.--THE REWARD PREPARED FOR THE SAINTS AFTER THEY HAVE
ENDURED THE TRIAL OF THIS LIFE.

    But not even the saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and most high God are safe
from the manifold temptations and deceits of the demons. For in this abode of  weakness, and in
these wicked days, this state of anxiety has also its use, stimulating us to seek with keener longing
for that security where peace is complete and unassailable. There we shall enjoy the gifts of
nature, that is to say, all that God the Creator of all natures has bestowed upon ours,--gifts not
only good, but eternal,--not only of the spirit, healed now by wisdom, but also of the body
renewed by the resurrection. There the virtues shall no longer be struggling against any vice or
evil, but shall enjoy the reward of victory, the eternal peace which no adversary shall disturb. This
is the final blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end. Here, indeed, we are
said to be blessed when we have such peace as can be enjoyed in a good life; but such
blessedness. is mere misery compared to that final felicity. When we mortals possess such peace
as this mortal life can afford, virtue, if we are living rightly, makes a right use of the advantages of
this peaceful condition; and when we have it not, virtue makes a good use even of the evils a man
suffers. But this is true virtue,

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when it refers all the advantages it makes a good use of, and all that it does in making good use of
good and evil things, and itself also, to that end in which we shall enjoy the best and greatest
peace possible.

     CHAP. 11.--OF THE HAPPINESS OF THE ETERNAL PEACE, WHICH
CONSTITUTES THE END OR TRUE PERFECTION OF THE SAINTS.

    And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that it is the end of our good;
and the rather because the Psalmist says of the city of God, the subject of this laborious work,
"Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion: for He hath strengthened the bars of thy
gates; He hath blessed thy children within thee; who hath made thy borders peace."(1) For when
the bars of her gates shall be strengthened, none shall go in or come out from her; consequently
we ought to understand the peace of her borders as that final peace we are wishing to declare. For
even the mystical name of the city itself, that is, Jerusalem, means, as I have already said, "Vision
of Peace." But as the word peace is employed in connection with things in this world in which
certainly life eternal has no place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city
life eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, "But now, being freed from sin, and
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life eternal."(2) But, on the
other hand, as those who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose that the life of the wicked is
eternal life, either because of the immortality of the soul, which some of the philosophers even
have recognized, or because of the endless punishment of the wicked, which forms a part of our
faith, and which seems impossible unless the wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable, in
order that every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that the end or supreme good
of this city is either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that
even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire
with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying. So that if we dwell for a little longer on
this subject, we shall not, in my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will attend both for
the sake of understanding what is the end of this city of which we speak, and for the sake of the
sweetness of peace which is dear to all.

     CHAP. 12.--THAT EVEN THE FIERCENESS OF WAR AND ALL THE
DISQUIETUDE OF MEN MAKE TOWARDS THIS ONE END OF PEACE, WHICH EVERY
NATURE DESIRES.

    Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to our common nature, will
recognize that if there is no man who does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who
does not wish to have peace. For even they who make war desire nothing but victory,--desire,
that is to say, to attain to peace with glory. For what else is victory than the conquest of those
who resist us? and when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire for peace that
wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command
and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks
peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace. For even they who intentionally
interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into
a peace that suits them better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no peace, but only one more
to their mind. And in the case of sedition, when men have separated themselves from the
community, they yet do not effect what they wish, unless they maintain some kind of peace with
their fellow-conspirators. And therefore even robbers take care to maintain peace with their
comrades, that they may with greater effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And
if an individual happen to be of such unrivalled strength, and to be so jealous of partnership, that
he trusts himself with no comrades, but makes his own plots, and commits depredations and
murders on his own account, yet he maintains some shadow of peace with such persons as he is
unable to kill, and from whom he wishes to conceal his deeds. In his own home, too, he makes it
his aim to be at peace with his wife and children, and any other members of his household; for
unquestionably their prompt obedience to his every look is a source of pleasure to him. And if this
be not rendered, he is angry, he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he secures the calm
peace of his own home, as occasion demands. For he sees that peace cannot be maintained unless
all the members of the same domestic circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his
own house. And therefore if a city or nation offered to submit itself to him, to serve him in the
same style as he had made his household serve him, he would no longer lurk in a brigand's
hiding-places, but lift his head in open day as a king, though the same coveteousness and wicked-

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ness should remain in him. And thus all men desire to have peace with their own circle whom they
wish to govern as suits themselves. For even those whom they make war against they wish to
make their own, and impose on them the laws of their own peace.
    But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of,--a man so insociable and
savage as to be called rather a semi-man than a man.(1) Although, then, his kingdom was the
solitude of a dreary cave, and he himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named
<greek>kakos</greek>, which is the Greek word for bad; though he had no wife to soothe him
with endearing talk, no children to play with, no sons to do his bidding, no friend to enliven him
with intercourse, not even his father Vulcan (though in one respect he was happier than his father,
not having begotten a monster like himself); although he gave to no man, but took as he wished
whatever he could, from whomsoever he could, when he could yet in that solitary den, the floor
of which, as Virgil(2) says, was always reeking with recent slaughter, there was nothing else than
peace sought, a peace in which no one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or
alarm. With his own body he desired to be at peace, and he was satisfied only in proportion as he
had this peace. For he ruled his members, and they obeyed him; and for the sake of pacifying his
mortal nature, which rebelled when it needed anything, and of allaying the sedition of hunger
which threatened to banish the soul from the body, he made forays, slew, and devoured, but used
the ferocity and savageness he displayed in these actions only for the preservation of his own life's
peace. So that, had he been willing to make with other men the same peace which he made with
himself in his own cave, he would neither have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man.
Or if the appearance of his body and his vomiting smoky fires frightened men from having any
dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways arose not from a desire to do mischief, but from the
necessity of finding a living. But he may have had no existence, or, at least, he was not such as the
poets fancifully describe him, for they had to exalt Hercules, and did so at the expense of Cacus. It
is better, then, to believe that such a man or semi-man never existed, and that this, in common
with many other fancies of the poets, is mere fiction. For the most savage animals (and he is said
to have been almost a wild beast) encompass their own species with a ring of protecting peace.
They cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring up their young, though very many of them are not
gregarious, but solitary,--not like sheep, deer, pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes,
eagles, bats. For what tigress does not gently purr over her cubs, and lay aside her ferocity to
fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when circling over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a
nest, hatch the eggs, bring up the young birds, and maintain with the mother of his family as
peaceful a domestic alliance as he can? How much more powerfully do the laws of man's nature
move him to hold fellowship and maintain peace with all men so far as in him lies, since even
wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men
belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through
love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that pride in its perversity apes God. It
abhors equality with other men under Him; but, instead of His rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its
own upon its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust
peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one kind or other. For there is no vice so clean contrary
to nature that it obliterates even the faintest traces of nature.
    He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-ordered to what is
perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with
the peace of the just. And yet even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony with, and in
dependence on, and in some part of the order of things, for otherwise it would have no existence
at all. Suppose a man hangs with his head downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of
body and arrangement of its members; for that which nature requires to be above is beneath, and
vice versa. This perversity disturbs the peace of the body, and is therefore painful. Nevertheless
the spirit is at peace with its body, and labors for its preservation, and hence the suffering; but if it
is banished from the body by its pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds together, there
is in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and hence the body remains suspended. And
inasmuch as the earthly body tends towards the earth, and rests on the bond by which it is
suspended, it tends thus to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place for
it to rest; and though now lifeless and without feeling, it does not fall from the peace that is
natural to its place in creation, whether it already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply
embalming preparations to
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prevent the bodily frame from mouldering and dissolving, a kind of peace still unites part to part,
and keeps the whole body in a suitable place on the earth,--in other words, in a place that is at
peace with the body. If, on the other hand, the body receive no such care, but be left to the natural
course, it is disturbed by exhalations that do not harmonize with one another, and that offend our
senses; for it is this which is perceived in putrefaction until it is assimilated to the elements of the
world, and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet throughout this process the laws
of the most high Creator and Governor are strictly observed, for it is by Him the peace of the
universe is administered. For although minute animals are produced from the carcass of a larger
animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the same Creator, serve the animals they belong to in
peace. And although the flesh of dead animals be eaten by others, no matter where it be carried,
nor what it be brought into contact with, nor what it be converted and changed into, it still is
ruled by the same laws which pervade all things for the conservation of every mortal race, and
which bring things that fit one another into harmony.

     CHAP. 13.--OF THE UNIVERSAL PEACE WHICH THE LAW OF NATURE
PRESERVES THROUGH ALL DISTURBANCES, AND BY WHICH EVERY ONE
REACHES HIS DESERT IN A WAY REGULATED BY THE JUST JUDGE.

    The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The
petite of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul
the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and
harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered
obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic
peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil
peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly
ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is
the tranquillity of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its
own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such, do certainly not enjoy
peace, but are severed from that tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance,
nevertheless, inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly, miserable, they are by their very misery
connected with order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the blessed, but they are disjoined
from them by the law of order. And though they are disquieted, their circumstances are
notwithstanding adjusted to them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of order, and
therefore some peace. But they are wretched because, although not wholly miserable, they are not
in that place where any mixture of misery is impossible. They would, however, be more wretched
if they had not that peace which arises from being in harmony with the natural order of things.
When they suffer, their peace is in so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as they do
not suffer, and in so far as their nature continues to exist. As, then, there may be life without pain,
while there cannot be pain without some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but
there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the existence of some
natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one kind or other.
    And therefore there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot exist; but there cannot be
a nature in which there is no good. Hence not even the nature of the devil himself is evil, in so far
as it is nature, but it was made evil by being perverted. Thus he did not abide in the truth,(1) but
could not escape the judgment of the Truth; he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, but did
not therefore escape the power of the Ordainer. The good imparted by God to his nature did not
screen him from the justice of God by which order was preserved in his punishment; neither did
God punish the good which He had created, but the evil which the devil had committed. God did
not take back all He had imparted to his nature, but something He took and something He left,
that there might remain enough to be sensible of the loss of what was taken. And this very
sensibility to pain is evidence of the good which has been taken away and the good which has
been left. For, were nothing good left, there could be no pain on account of the good which had
been lost. For he who sins is still worse if he rejoices in his loss of righteousness. But he who is in
pain, if he derives no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health. And as righteousness and
health are both good things, and as the loss of any good thing is matter of grief, not of joy,--if, at
least, there is no compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss of bodily
health,--certainly it is more suitable for

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a wicked man to grieve in punishment than to rejoice in his fault. As, then, the joy of a sinner who
has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will, so his grief for the good he has lost when
he is punished is evidence of a good nature. For he who laments the peace his nature has lost is
stirred to do so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly to itself. And it is very just
that in the final punishment the wicked and godless should in anguish bewail the loss of the natural
advantages they enjoyed, and should perceive that they were most justly taken from them by that
God whose benign liberality they had despised. God, then, the most wise Creator and most just
Ordainer of all natures, who placed the human race upon earth as its greatest ornament, imparted
to men some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace, such as we can enjoy in this
life from health and safety and human fellowship, and all things needful for the preservation and
recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are accommodated to our outward senses, light,
night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and everything the body requires to sustain, shelter, heal,
or beautify it: and all under this most equitable condition. that every man who made a good use of
these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should receive ampler and better
blessings, namely, the peace of immortality, accompanied by glory and honor in an endless life
made fit for the enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used the present
blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive the others.

     CHAP. 14.--OF THE ORDER AND LAW WHICH OBTAIN IN HEAVEN AND
EARTH, WHEREBY IT COMES TO PASS THAT HUMANSOCIETY ISSERVED BY
THOSE WHO RULE IT.

    The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this result of earthly peace in the
earthly community, while in the city of God it is connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if
we were irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper arrangement of the parts
of the body and the satisfaction of the appetites,--nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and
abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the peace of the soul. For
if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot
obtain the gratification of its appetites. And these two together help out the mutual peace of soul
and body, the peace of harmonious life and health. For as animals, by shunning pain, show that
they love bodily peace, and, by pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love
peace of soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of their intense love of that
peace which binds soul and body in close alliance. But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates
all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect
may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered
harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational
soul. And for this purpose he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by desire,
nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful knowledge by which he may regulate
his life and manners. But, owing to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very
pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey
without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to preserve his own
freedom. And because, so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by
faith, not by sight; and he therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace
which mortal man has with the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience of
faith to eternal law. But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts,--the love of God and the
love of our neighbor,--and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love,--God,
himself, and his neighbor,--and that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he
must endeavor to get his neighbor to love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbor as himself.
He ought to make this endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his
reach, even as he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he needed it; and
consequently he will be at peace, or in well-ordered concord, with all men, as far as in him lies.
And this is the order of this concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the
second, do good to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household are his care,
for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of
serving them. And hence the apostle says, "Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially for
those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."(1) This is the origin
of domestic peace,

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or the well-ordered concord of those in the family who rule and those who obey. For they who
care for the rest rule,--the husband the wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and
they who are cared for obey,--the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants
their masters. But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying
on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they
rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others--not because they
are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.

     CHAP. 15.--OF THE LIBERTY PROPER TO MAN'S NATURE, AND THE
SERVITUDE INTRODUCED BY SIN,--A SERVITUDE IN WHICH THE MAN WHOSE
WILL IS WICKED IS THE SLAVE OF HIS OWN LUST, THOUGH HE IS FREE SO FAR AS
REGARDS OTHER MEN.

    This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has created man. For "let them,"
He says, "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every
creeping thing which creepeth on the earth."(1) He did not intend that His rational creature, who
was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation,--not man
over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made
shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative
position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the
condition of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the word "slave" in any
part of Scripture until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name,
therefore, introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for slave is supposed
to be found in the circumstance that those who by the law of war were liable to be killed were
sometimes preserved by their victors, and were hence called servants.(2) And these circumstances
could never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war, our adversaries
must be sinning; and every victory, even though gained by wicked men, is a result of the first
judgment of God, who humbles the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing
their sins. Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity, confessed to God his
own sins and the sins of his people, and declares with pious grief that these were the cause of the
captivity.(3) The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his
fellow,--that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no
unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offence. But
our Master in heaven says, "Every one who doeth sin is the servant of sin."(4) And thus there are
many wicked masters who have religious men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in
bondage; "for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."(5) And beyond
question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of
ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men's hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover,
when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good
to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master. But by nature, as God first created
us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin. This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed
by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if
nothing had been done in violation of that law, there would have been nothing to restrain by penal
servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve
them heartily and with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they may
themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love,
until all unrighteousness pass away, and all principality and every human power be brought to
nothing, and God be all in all.

                      CHAP. 16.--OF EQUITABLE RULE.

    And therefore, although our righteous fathers(6) had slaves, and administered their domestic
affairs so as to distinguish between the condition of slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the
blessings of this life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in whom we hope for eternal blessings,
they took an equally loving oversight of all the members of their household. And this is so much
in accordance with the natural order, that the head of the household was called paterfamilias; and
this name has been so generally accepted, that even those whose rule is unrighteous are glad to
apply it to themselves.

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But those who are true fathers of their households desire and endeavor that all the members of
their household, equally with their own children, should worship and win God, and should come
to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer necessary, because the duty of
caring for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but, until they reach that home, masters
ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants their service. And if any
member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected either by
word or blow, or some kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits, that he
may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which he had
dislocated himself. For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater
benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at the risk of his falling into graver
sin. To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish
his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be
warned by his example. Since, then, the house ought to be the beginning or element of the city,
and every beginning bears reference to some end of its own kind, and every element to the
integrity of the whole of which it is an element, it follows plainly enough that domestic peace has
a relation to civic peace,--in other words, that the well-ordered concord of domestic obedience
and domestic rule has a relation to the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and civic rule.
And therefore it follows, further, that the father of the family ought to frame his domestic rule in
accordance with the law of the city, so that the household may be in harmony with the civic order.

     CHAP. 17.--WHAT PRODUCES PEACE, AND WHAT DISCORD, BETWEEN THE
HEAVENLY AND EARTHLY CITIES.

    But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this life;
while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use
as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them from God,
but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of
the corruptible body which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are
used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely different
aim in using them. The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the
end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of
men's wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part
of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until
this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so long as it lives like a
captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the promise of
redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it, it makes no scruple to obey the laws of
the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are
administered; and thus, as this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them
in regard to what belongs to it. But, as the earthly city has had some philosophers whose doctrine
is condemned by the divine teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures or
by demons, supposed that many gods must be invited to take an interest in human affairs, and
assigned to each a separate function and a separate department,--to one the body, to another the
soul; and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and each of the other members
to one of the gods; and in like manner, in the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned,
to another education, to another anger, to another lust; and so the various affairs of life were
assigned,--cattle to one, corn to another, wine to another, oil to another, the woods to another,
money to another, navigation to another, wars and victories to another, marriages to another,
births and fecundity to another, and other things to other gods: and as the celestial city, on the
other hand, knew that one God only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that
service which the Greeks call <greek>latreia</greek>, and which can be given only to a god, it
has come to pass that the two cities could not have common laws of religion, and that the
heavenly city has been compelled in this matter to dissent, and to become obnoxious to those who
think differently, and to stand the brunt of their anger and hatred and persecutions, except in so
far as the minds of their enemies have been alarmed by the multitude of the Christians and quelled
by the manifest protection of God accorded to them. This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on
earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages,
not scrupling about diversities in

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the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but
recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly
peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves
and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is
thus introduced. Even the heavenly city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of
the peace of earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and godliness, desires and maintains
a common agreement among men regarding the acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes
this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and esteemed
the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and
harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God. When we shall have reached that
peace, this mortal life shall give place to one that is eternal, and our body shall be no more this
animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but a spiritual body feeling no want,
and in all its members subjected to the will. In its pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this
peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace
every good action towards God and man; for the life of the city is a social life.

     CHAP. 18.--HOW DIFFERENT THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE NEW ACADEMY IS
FROM THE CERTAINTY OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

    As regards the uncertainty about everything which Varro alleges to be the differentiating
characteristic of the New Academy, the city of God thoroughly detests such doubt as madness.
Regarding matters which it apprehends by the mind and reason it has most absolute certainty,
although its knowledge is limited because of the corruptible body pressing down the mind, for, as
the apostle says, "We know in part."(1) It believes also the evidence of the senses which the mind
uses by aid of the body; for [if one who trusts his senses is sometimes deceived], he is more
wretchedly deceived who fancies he should never trust them. It believes also the Holy Scriptures,
old and new, which we call canonical, and which are the source of the faith by which the just
lives(2) and by which we walk without doubting whilst we are absent from the Lord.(3) So long
as this faith remains inviolate and firm, we may without blame entertain doubts regarding some
things which we have neither perceived by sense nor by reason, and which have not been revealed
to us by the canonical Scriptures, nor come to our knowledge through witnesses whom it is
absurd to disbelieve.

CHAP. 19.--OF THE DRESS AND HABITS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE.

    It is a matter of no moment in the city of God whether he who adopts the faith that brings men
to God adopts it in one dress and manner of life or another, so long only as he lives in conformity
with the commandments of God. And hence, when philosophers themselves become Christians,
they are compelled, indeed, to abandon their erroneous doctrines, but not their dress and mode of
living, which are no obstacle to religion. So that we make no account of that distinction of sects
which Varro adduced in connection with the Cynic school, provided always nothing indecent or
self-indulgent is retained. As to these three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the
composite, although, so long as a man's faith is preserved, he may choose any of them without
detriment to his eternal interests, yet he must never overlook the claims of truth and duty. No man
has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his
neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation
of God. The charm of leisure must not be indolent vacancy of mind, but the investigation or
discovery of truth, that thus every man may make solid attainments without grudging that others
do the same. And, in active life, it is not the honors or power of this life we should covet, since all
things under the sun are vanity, but we should aim at using our position and influence, if these
have been honorably attained, for the welfare of those who are under as, in the way we have
already explained.(4) It is to this the apostle refers when he says, "He that desireth the episcopate
desireth a good work."(5) He wished to show that the episcopate is the title of a work, not of an
honor. It is a Greek word, and signifies that he who governs superintends or takes care of those
whom be governs: for <greek>epi</greek> means over, and <greek>skopein</greek>, to see;
therefore <greek>episkopein</greek> means "to oversee."(6) So that he who loves to govern
rather than to do good is no bishop. Accordingly no one is prohibited from the search

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after truth, for in this leisure may most laudably be spent; but it is unseemly to covet the high
position requisite for governing the people, even though that position be held and that
government be administered in a seemly manner. And therefore holy leisure is longed for by the
love of truth; but it is the necessity of love to undertake requisite business. If no one imposes this
burden upon us, we are free to sift and contemplate truth; but if it be laid upon us, we are
necessitated for love's sake to undertake it. And yet not even in this case are we obliged wholly to
relinquish the sweets of contemplation; for were these to be withdrawn, the burden might prove
more than we could bear.

CHAP. 20.--THAT THE SAINTS ARE IN THIS LIFE BLESSED IN HOPE.

    Since, then, the supreme good of the city of God is perfect and eternal peace, not such as
mortals pass into and out of by birth and death, but the peace of freedom from all evil, in which
the immortals ever abide; who can deny that that future life is most blessed, or that, in comparison
with it, this life which now we live is most wretched, be it filled with all blessings of body and soul
and external things? And yet, if any man uses this life with a reference to that other which he
ardently loves and confidently hopes for, he may well be called even now blessed, though not in
reality so much as in hope. But the actual possession of the happiness of this life, without the hope
of what is beyond, is but a false happiness and profound misery. For the true blessings of the soul
are not now enjoyed; for that is no true wisdom which does not direct all its prudent observations,
manly actions, virtuous self-restraint, and just arrangements, to that end in which God shall be all
and all in a secure eternity and perfect peace

     CHAP. 21.--WHETHER THERE EVER WAS A ROMAN REPUBLIC ANSWERING
TO THE DEFINITIONS OF SCIPIO IN CICERO'S DIALOGUE.

    This, then, is the place where I should fulfill the promise gave in the second book of this
work,(1) and explain, as briefly and clearly as possible, that if we are to accept the definitions laid
down by Scipio in Cicero's De Republica, there never was a Roman republic; for he briefly defines
a republic as the weal of the people. And if this definition be true, there never was a Roman
republic, for the people's weal was never attained among the Romans. For the people, according
to his definition, is an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right and by a
community of interests. And what he means by a common acknowledgment of right he explains at
large, showing that a republic cannot be administered without justice. Where, therefore, there is
no true justice there can be no right. For that which is done by right is justly done, and what is
unjustly done cannot be done by right. For the unjust inventions of men are neither to be
considered nor spoken of as rights; for even they themselves say that right is that which flows
from the fountain of justice, and deny the definition which is commonly given by those who
misconceive the matter, that right is that which is useful to the stronger party. Thus, where there
is not true justice there can be no assemblage of men associated by a common acknowledgment of
right, and therefore there can be no people, as defined by Scipio or Cicero; and if no people, then
no weal of the people, but only of some promiscuous multitude unworthy of the name of people.
Consequently, if the republic is the weal of the people, and there is no people if it be not
associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and if there is no right where there is no
justice, then most certainly it follows that there is no republic where there is no justice. Further,
justice is that virtue which gives every one his due. Where, then, is the justice of man, when he
deserts the true God and yields himself to impure demons? Is this to give every one his due? Or is
he who keeps back a piece of ground from the purchaser, and gives it to a man who has no right
to it, unjust, while he who keeps back himself from the God who made him, and serves wicked
spirits, is just?
    This same book, De Republica, advocates the cause of justice against injustice with great force
and keenness. The pleading for injustice against justice was first heard, and it was asserted that
without injustice a republic could neither increase nor even subsist, for it was laid down as an
absolutely unassailable position that it is unjust for some men to rule and some to serve; and yet
the imperial city to which the republic belongs cannot rule her provinces without having recourse
to this injustice. It was replied in behalf of justice, that this ruling of the provinces is just, because
servitude may be advantageous to the provincials, and is so when rightly administered,--that is to
say, when lawless men are prevented from doing harm. And further, as they became worse and
worse so long as they were free, they will
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improve by subjection. To confirm this reasoning, there is added an eminent example drawn from
nature: for "why," it is asked, "does God rule man, the soul the body, the reason the passions and
other vicious parts of the soul?" This example leaves no doubt that, to some, servitude is useful;
and, indeed, to serve God is useful to all. And it is when the soul serves God that it exercises a
right control over the body; and in the soul itself the reason must be subject to God if it is to
govern as it ought the passions and other vices. Hence, when a man does not serve God, what
justice can we ascribe to him, since in this case his soul cannot exercise a just control over the
body, nor his reason over his vices? And if there is no justice in such an individual, certainly there
can be none in a community composed of such persons. Here, therefore, there is not that common
acknowledgment of right which makes an assemblage of men a people whose affairs we call a
republic. And why need I speak of the advantageousness, the common participation in which,
according to the definition, makes a people? For although, if you choose to regard the matter
attentively, you will see that there is nothing advantageous to those who live godlessly, as every
one lives who does not serve God but demons, whose wickedness you may measure by their
desire to receive the worship of men though they are most impure spirits, yet what I have said of
the common acknowledgment of right is enough to demonstrate that, according to the above
definition, there can be no people, and therefore no republic, where there is no justice. For if they
assert that in their republic the Romans did not serve unclean spirits, but good and holy gods,
must we therefore again reply to this evasion, though already we have said enough, and more than
enough, to expose it? He must be an uncommonly stupid, or a shamelessly contentious person,
who has read through the foregoing books to this point, and can yet question whether the Romans
served wicked and impure demons. But, not to speak of their character, it is written in the law of
the true God, "He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord only, be shall be utterly
destroyed."(1)  He, therefore, who uttered so menacing a commandment decreed that no worship
should be given either to good or bad gods.

     CHAP. 22.--WHETHER THE GOD WHOM THE CHRISTIANS SERVE IS THE
TRUE GOD TO WHOM ALONE SACRIFICE OUGHT TO BE PAID.

    But it may be replied, Who is this God, or what proof is there that He alone is worthy to
receive sacrifice from the Romans? One must be very blind to be still asking who this God is. He
is the God whose prophets predicted the things we see accomplished. He is the God from whom
Abraham received the assurance, "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed."(2)  That this was
fulfilled in Christ, who according to the flesh sprang from that seed, is recognized, whether they
will or no, even by those who have continued to be the enemies of this name. He is the God
whose divine Spirit spake by the men whose predictions I cited in the preceding books, and which
are fulfilled in the Church which has extended over all the world. This is the God whom Varro,
the most learned of the Romans, supposed to be Jupiter, though he knows not what he says; yet I
think it right to note the circumstance that a man of such learning was unable to suppose that this
God had no existence or was contemptible, but believed Him to be the same as the supreme God.
In fine, He is the God whom Porphyry, the most learned of the philosophers, though the bitterest
enemy of the Christians, confesses to be a great God, even according to the oracles of those
whom he esteems gods.

     CHAP. 23.--PORPHYRY'S ACCOUNT OF THE RESPONSES GIVEN BY THE
ORACLES OF THE GODS CONCERNING CHRIST.

    For in his book called <greek>ek</greek> <greek>logiwn</greek> <greek>filosofias</greek>,
in which he collects and comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the
gods concerning divine things, he says--I give his own words as they have been translated from
the Greek: "To one who inquired what god he should propitiate in order to recall his wife from
Christianity, Apollo replied in the following verses." Then the following words are given as those
of Apollo: "You will probably find it easier to write lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly
like a bird through the air, than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted
herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead
God, who was condemned by right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent
death." Then after these verses of Apollo (which we have given in a Latin version that does not
preserve the metrical form), he goes on to say: "In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable
corruption of the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians, recognized God."
See how he misrepresents

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Christ, giving the Jews the preference to the Christians in the recognition of God. This was his
explanation of Apollo's verses, in which he says that Christ was put to death by right-minded or
just judges,--in other words, that He deserved to die. I leave the responsibility of this oracle
regarding Christ on the lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it or
possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with Porphyry's opinions or with other oracles, we
shall in a little have something to say. In this passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the
interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing Christ to be worthy of the most shameful death.
He should have listened, then, to this God of the Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that
God says, "He that sacrificeth to any other god save to the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed."
But let us come to still plainer expressions, and hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of
the Jews is. Apollo, he says, when asked whether word, i.e., reason, or law is the better thing,
replied in the following verses. Then he gives the verses of Apollo, from which I select the
following as sufficient: "God, the Generator, and the King prior to all things, before whom heaven
and earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell tremble, and the deities themselves are afraid,
for their law is the Father whom the holy Hebrews honor." In this oracle of his god Apollo,
Porphyry avowed that the God of the Hebrews is so great that the deities themselves are afraid
before Him. I am surprised, therefore, that when God said, He that sacrificeth to other gods shall
be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he should be destroyed for sacrificing to
other gods.
    This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ, oblivious, as it were, of that
contumely of his of which we have just been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only
while asleep, and recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they
awoke. For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing belief, he says, "What
we are going to say will certainly take some by surprise. For the gods have declared that Christ
was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish his memory: that the Christians,
however, are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error. And many other such things," he says,
"do the gods say against the Christians." Then he gives specimens of the accusations made, as he
says, by the gods against them, and then goes on: "But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ
were a God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and that if it
has been severed from wisdom it always errs. The soul you refer to is that of a man foremost in
piety: they worship it because they mistake the truth." To this so-called oracular response he adds
the following words of his own: "Of this very pious man, then, Hecate said that the soul, like the
souls of other good men, was after death dowered with immortality, and that the Christians
through ignorance worship it. And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the oracle of
the goddess replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to torments, but the souls of the pious
abide in heaven. And the soul you inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls
which were not fated to receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the knowledge of immortal
Jove. Such souls are therefore hated by the gods; for they who were fated not to receive the gifts
of the gods, and not to know God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you speak
of. He himself, however, was good, and heaven has been opened to him as to other good men.
You are not, then, to speak evil of him, but to pity the folly of men: and through him men's danger
is imminent."
    Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed by a clever man with a
strong animus against the Christians, or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a
similar design,--that is to say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their
vituperation of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close the way of eternal salvation,
which is identical with Christianity? For they believe that they are by no means counterworking
their own hurtful craft by promoting belief in Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is
also accepted; for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of Christ declines to
become a Christian, and is therefore not delivered from their own rule by the Christ he praises.
Besides, their praise of Christ is so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus represented
will not be a true Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity, and not also
the divinity of Christ, and will thus be precluded from salvation and from deliverance out of the
meshes of these devilish lies. For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate's praises of Christ
than with Apollo's calumniation of Him. Apollo says that Christ was put to death by right-minded
judges, implying that

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He was unrighteous. Hecate says that He was a most pious man, but no more. The intention of
both is the same, to prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this be secured, men shall
never be rescued from their power. But it is incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on those
who believe in these pretended oracles against the Christians, first of all, if they can, to bring
Apollo and Hecate to the same mind regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both
praise Him. And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would notwithstanding repudiate
the testimony of demons, whether favorable or adverse to Christ. But when our adversaries find a
god and goddess of their own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other vituperating
Him, they can certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men who blaspheme
the Christians.
    When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself to the Christians as a
fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error.
But before I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the
Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His will? If willingly, how is
He righteous? If against His will, how is He blessed? However, let us hear the causes of this error.
"There are," he says," in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil
demons. The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from the
oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very wicked demons and minor
spirits, and taught them rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the
Father. This," he said, "the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the soul
to turn to God, and command it to worship Him. But the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not
destined to receive favors from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the
gods and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to hate, but
have venerated the prohibited demons. Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things
by which alone God is worshipped. For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing;
but for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to
make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature. For inquiry," says he,
"purifies and imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him." He is right in so far as he
proclaims God the Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him. Of such precepts
the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the life of the saints. But
in speaking of the Christians he is in error, and caluminates them as much as is desired by the
demons whom he takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and
shameful actions which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods, and to
compare with these things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the true God, and
from this comparison to conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined. But who but a
diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the Christians
reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited? But that God,
whom the Hebrew sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of
heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most
blessed fellow-citizens. For in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this
menace, as in a voice of thunder: "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he
shall be utterly destroyed."(1) And that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends only to
the very wicked demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and
inferior,--for even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as
the Septuagint translators have shown in the psalm where it is said, "For all the gods of the
nations are demons,"(2)--that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to these demons was
prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or some of the celestials, it was immediately
added, "save unto the Lord alone."(3) The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned
philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew people a law, composed in the
Hebrew language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this
law it is written, "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord alone, he shall be utterly
destroyed." What need is there to seek further proofs in the law or the prophets of this same
thing? Seek, we need not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but what need
to collect and apply to my argument the

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proofs which are thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may
be paid to none but the supreme and true God? Here is one brief but decided, even menacing, and
certainly true utterance of that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol. Let this
be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient soul cut off. "He that sacrifices,"
He says, not because He needs anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession. Hence
the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, "I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou
needest not my good."(1)  For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and
worthy sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to the
faithful, as we have explained in the preceding books. For through the prophets the oracles of
God declared that the sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be
would cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one
sacrifice. From these oracles, which we now see accomplished, we have made such selections as
seemed suitable to our purpose in this work. And therefore, where there is not this righteousness
whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices
to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of this obedient city, the soul consequently rules
the body and reason the vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so also the
community and people of the just, live by faith, which works by love, that love whereby man loves
God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbor as himself,--there, I say, there is not an assemblage
associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests. But if there is
not this, there is not a people, if our definition be true, and therefore there is no republic; for
where there is no people there can be no republic.

     CHAP. 24.--THE DEFINITION WHICH MUST BE GIVEN OF A PEOPLE AND A
REPUBLIC, IN ORDER TO VINDICATE THE ASSUMPTION OF THESE TITLES BY THE
ROMANS AND BY OTHER KINGDOMS.

    But if we discard this definition of a people, and, assuming another, say that a people is an
assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their
love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they
love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and
is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love. it is reasonably called a people; and it
will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in
proportion as it is bound together by lower. According to this definition of ours, the Roman
people is a people, and its weal is without doubt a commonwealth or republic. But what its tastes
were in its early and subsequent days, and how it declined into sanguinary seditions and then to
social and civil wars, and so burst asunder or rotted off the bond of concord in which the health of
a people consists, history shows, and in the preceding books I have related at large. And yet I
would not on this account say either that it was not a people, or that its administration was not a
republic, so long as there remains an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a
common agreement as to the objects of love. But what I say of this people and of this republic I
must be understood to think and say of the Athenians or any Greek state, of the Egyptians, of the
early Assyrian Babylon, and of every other nation, great or small, which had a public government.
For, in general, the city of the ungodly, which did not obey the command of God that it should
offer no sacrifice save to Him alone, and which, therefore, could not give to the soul its proper
command over the body, nor to the reason its just authority over the vices, is void of true justice.

CHAP. 25.--THAT WHERE THERE IS NO TRUE RELIGION THERE ARE NO TRUE
VIRTUES.
                                   
    For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the reason the vices, if the soul
and reason do not themselves obey God, as God has commanded them to serve Him, they have no
proper authority over the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body and the vices
can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and which, instead of being subject to His
authority, is prostituted to the corrupting influences of the most vicious demons? It is for this
reason that the virtues which it seems to itself to possess, and by which it restrains the body and
the vices that it may obtain and keep what it desires, are rather vices than virtues so long as there
is no reference to God in the matter. For although some suppose that virtues which have a
reference only to themselves, and are desired only on their own account, are yet true and genuine
virtues, the fact is that even then they are inflated with

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pride, and are therefore to be reckoned vices rather than virtues. For as that which gives life to the
flesh is not derived from flesh, but is above it, so that which gives blessed life to man is not
derived from man, but is something above him; and what I say of man is true of every celestial
power and virtue what, soever.

     CHAP. 26.--OF THE PEACE WHICH IS ENJOYED BY THE PEOPLE THAT ARE
ALIENATED FROM GOD, AND THE USE MADE OF IT BY THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN
THE TIME OF ITS PILGRIMAGE.

    Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the
sacred writings of the Hebrews say, "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord."(1) Miserable,
therefore, is the people which is alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of its own
which is not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall not in the end enjoy it, because it
makes no good use of it before the end. But it is our interest that it enjoy this peace meanwhile in
this life; for as long as the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy the peace of Babylon. For
from Babylon the people of God is so freed that it meanwhile sojourns in its company. And
therefore the apostle also admonished the Church to pray for kings and those in authority,
assigning as the reason, "that we may live a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and love."(2) 
And the prophet Jeremiah, when predicting the captivity that was to befall the ancient people of
God, and giving them the divine command to go obediently to Babylonia, and thus serve their
God, counselled them also to pray for Babylonia, saying, "In the peace thereof shall ye have
peace,"(3)--the temporal peace which the good and the wicked together enjoy.

     CHAP. 27.--THAT THE PEACE OF THOSE WHO SERVE GOD CANNOT IN THIS
MORTAL LIFE BE APPREHENDED IN ITS PERFECTION.

    But the peace which is peculiar to ourselves we enjoy now with God by faith, and shall
hereafter enjoy eternally with Him by sight. But the peace which we enjoy in this life, whether
common to all or peculiar to ourselves, is rather the solace of our misery than the positive
enjoyment of felicity. Our very righteousness, too, though true in so far as it has respect to the
true good, is yet in this life of such a kind that it consists rather in the remission of sins than in the
perfecting of virtues. Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its pilgrim state, for it cries to
God by the mouth of all its members, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."(4)  And
this prayer is efficacious not for those whose faith is "without works and dead,"(5) but for those
whose faith "worketh by love."(6)  For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet "pressed down
by the corruptible body,"(7)  so long as it is in this mortal condition, it has not perfect authority
over vice, and therefore this prayer is needed by the righteous. For though it exercises authority,
the vices do not submit without a struggle. For however well one maintains the conflict, and
however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals in some evil thing, which, if it

do not find ready expression in act, slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought; and
therefore his peace is not full so long as he is at war with his vices. For it is a doubtful conflict he
wages with those that resist, and his victory over those that are defeated is not secure, but full of
anxiety and effort. Amidst these temptations, therefore, of all which it has been summarily said in
the divine oracles, "Is not human life upon earth a temptation?"(8) who but a proud man can
presume that he so lives that he has no need to say to God, "Forgive us our debts?" And such a
man is not great, but swollen and puffed up with vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who
abundantly gives grace to the humble. Whence it is said, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth
grace to the humble."(9)  In this, then, consists the righteousness of a man, that he submit himself
to God, his body to his soul, and his vices, even when they rebel, to his reason, which either
defeats or at least resists them; and also that he beg from God grace to do his duty,(10) and the
pardon of his sins, and that he render to God thanks for all the blessings he receives. But, in that
final peace to which all our righteousness has reference, and for the sake of which it is maintained,
as our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and incorruption, and shall have no more vices, and
as we shall experience no resistance either from ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary
that reason should rule vices which no longer exist, but God shall rule the man, and the soul shall
rule the body, with a sweetness and facility suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with
bondage. And this condition shall there

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be eternal, and we shall be assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this blessedness and the
blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme good.

                   CHAP. 28.--THE END OF THE WICKED.
                                   
    But, on the other hand, they who do not belong to this city of God shall inherit eternal misery,
which is also called the second death, because the soul shall then be separated from God its life,
and therefore cannot be said to live, and the body shall be subjected to eternal pains. And
consequently this second death shall be the more severe, because no death shall terminate it. But
war being contrary to peace, as misery to happiness, and life to death, it is not without reason
asked what kind of war can be found in the end of the wicked answering to the peace which is
declared to be the end of the righteous? The person who puts this question has only to observe
what it is in war that is hurtful and destructive, and he shall see that it is nothing else than the
mutual opposition and conflict of things. And can he conceive a more grievous and bitter war than
that in which the will is so opposed to passion, and passion to the will, that their hostility can
never be terminated by the victory of either, and in which the violence of Fain so conflicts with the
nature of the body, that neither yields to the other? For in this life, when this conflict has arisen,
either pain conquers and death expels the feeling of it, or nature conquers and health expels the
pain. But in the world to come the pain continues that it may torment, and the nature endures that
it may be sensible of it; and neither ceases to exist, test punishment also should cease. Now, as it
is through the last judgment that men pass to these ends, the good to the supreme good, the evil
to the supreme evil, I will treat of this judgment in the following book.
BOOK XX.

ARGUMENT.

CONCERNING THE LAST JUDGMENT, AND THE DECLARATIONS REGARDING IT IN
THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
                                     
     CHAP. I.--THAT ALTHOUGH GOD IS ALWAYS JUDGING, IT IS
NEVERTHELESS REASONABLE TO CONFINE OUR ATTENTION IN THIS BOOK TO
HIS LAST JUDGMENT.

    INTENDING to speak, in dependence on God's grace, of the day of His final judgment, and to
affirm it against the ungodly and incredulous, we must first of all lay, as it were, in the foundation
of the edifice the divine declarations. Those persons who do not believe such declarations do their
best to oppose to them false and illusive sophisms of their own, either contending that what is
adduced from Scripture has another meaning, or altogether denying that it is an utterance of
God's. For I suppose no man who understands what is written, and believes it to be
communicated by the supreme and true God through holy men, refuses to yield and consent to
these declarations, whether he orally confesses his consent, or is from some evil influence
ashamed or afraid to do so; or even, with an opinionativeness closely resembling madness, makes
strenuous efforts to defend what he knows and believes to be false against what he knows and
believes to be true.
    That, therefore, which the whole Church of the true God holds and professes as its creed, that
Christ shall come from heaven to judge quick and dead, this we call the last day, or last time, of
the divine judgment. For we do not know how many days this judgment may occupy; but no one
who reads the Scriptures, however negligently, need be told that in them "day" is customarily
used for "time." And when we speak of the day of God's judgment, we add the word last or final
for this reason, because even now God judges, and has judged from the beginning of human
history, banishing from paradise, and excluding from the tree of life, those first men who
perpetrated so great a sin. Yea, He was certainly exercising judgment also when He did not spare
the angels who sinned, whose prince, overcome by envy, seduced men after being himself
seduced. Neither is it without God's profound and just judgment that the life of demons and men,
the one in the air, the other on earth, is filled with misery, calamities, and mistakes. And even
though no one had sinned, it could only have been by the good and right judgment of God that the
whole rational creation could have been maintained in eternal blessedness by a persevering
adherence to its Lord. He judges, too, not only in the mass, condemning the race of devils and the
race of men to be miserable on account of the original sin of these races, but He also judges the
voluntary and personal acts of individuals. For even the devils pray that they may not be
tormented,(1) which proves that without injustice they might either be spared or tormented
according to their deserts. And men are punished by God for their sins often visibly, always
secretly, either in this life or after death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of
divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission of the divine and most
just judgment. For, as the apostle says, "There is no unrighteousness with God;"(2) and as he
elsewhere says, "His judgments are inscrutable, and His ways past finding out"(3) In this book,
then, I shall

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speak, as God permits, not of those first judgments, nor of these intervening judgments of God,
but of the last judgment, when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For
that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the
ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day
true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery
shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.

     CHAP. 2.--THAT IN THE MINGLED WEB OF HUMAN AFFAIRS GOD'S
JUDGMENT IS PRESENT, THOUGH IT CANNOT BE DISCERNED.

    In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the ills to which even good men are
subject, and to hold cheap the blessings which even the wicked enjoy. And consequently, even in
those conditions of life in which the justice of God is not apparent, His teaching is salutary. For
we do not know by what judgment of God this good man is poor and that bad man rich; why he
who, in our opinion, ought to suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while sorrow
pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose he should be happy; why the innocent
man is dismissed from the bar not only unavenged, but even condemned, being either wronged by
the iniquity of the judge, or overwhelmed by false evidence, while his guilty adversary, on the
other hand, is not only discharged with impunity, but even has his claims admitted; why the
ungodly enjoys good health, while the godly pines in sickness; why ruffians are of the soundest
constitution, while they who could not hurt any one even with a word are from infancy afflicted
with complicated disorders; why he who is useful to society is cut off by premature death, while
those who, as it might seem, ought never to have been so much as born have lives of unusual
length; why he who is full of crimes is crowned with honors, while the blameless man is buried in
the darkness of neglect. But who can collect or enumerate all the contrasts of this kind? But if this
anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which, as the sacred Psalmist says, "Man is
like to vanity, his days as a shadow that passeth away,"(1)--so uniform that none but wicked men
won the transitory prosperity of earth, while only the good suffered its ills,--this could be referred
to the just and even benign judgment of God. We might suppose that they who were not destined
to obtain those everlasting benefits which constitute human blessedness were either deluded by
transitory blessings as the just reward of their wickedness, or were, in God's mercy, consoled
them, and that they who were not destined to suffer eternal torments were afflicted with temporal
chastisement for their sins, or were stimulated to greater attainment in virtue. But now, as it is,
since we not only see good men involved in the ills of life, and bad men enjoying the good of it,
which seems unjust, but also that evil often overtakes evil men, and good surprises the good, the
rather on this account are God's judgments unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.
Although, therefore, we do not know by what judgment these things are done or permitted to be
done by God, with whom is the highest virtue, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, no
infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness, yet it is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such
things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good
things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men. But
when we shall have come to that judgment, the date of which is called peculiarly the day of
judgment, and sometimes the day of the Lord, we shall then recognize the justice of all God's
judgments, not only of such as shall then be pronounced, but, of all which take effect from the
beginning, or may take effect before that time. And in that day we shall also recognize with what
justice so many, or almost all, the just judgments of God in the present life defy the scrutiny of
human sense or insight, though in this matter it is not concealed from pious minds that what is
concealed is just.

     CHAP. 3.--WHAT SOLOMON, IN THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES, SAYS
REGARDING THE THINGS WHICH HAPPEN ALIKE TO GOOD AND WICKED MEN.

    Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, who reigned in Jerusalem, thus commences the book called
Ecclesiastes, which the Jews number among their canonical Scriptures: "Vanity of vanities, said
Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he hath
taken under the sun?"(2) And after going on to enumerate, with this as his text, the calamities and
delusions of this life, and the shifting nature of the present time, in which there is nothing
substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails, among the other vanities that are under the sun, this

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also, that though wisdom excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness, and though the eyes of the
wise man are in his head, while the fool walketh in darkness,(1) yet one event happeneth to them
all, that is to say, in this life under the sun, unquestionably alluding to those evils which we see
befall good and bad men alike. He says, further, that the good suffer the ills of life as if they were
evil doers, and the bad enjoy the good of life as if they were good. "There is a vanity which is
done upon the earth; that there be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the
wicked: again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the
righteous. I said, that this also is vanity."(2)  This wisest man devoted this whole book to a full
exposure of this vanity, evidently with no other object than that we might long for that life in
which there is no vanity under the sun, but verity under Him who made the sun. In this vanity,
then, was it not by the just and righteous judgment of God that man, made like to vanity, was
destined to pass away? But in these days of vanity it makes an important difference whether he
resists or yields to the truth, and whether he is destitute of true piety or a partaker of
it,--important not so far as regards the acquirement of the blessings or the evasion of the
calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in connection with the future judgment which shall
make over to good men good things, and to bad men bad things, in permanent, inalienable
possession. In fine, this wise man concludes this book of his by saying, "Fear God, and keep His
commandments: for this is every man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every
despised person, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."(3) What truer, terser, more salutary
enouncement could be made? "Fear God, he says, and keep His commandments: for this is every
man." For whosoever has real existence, is this, is a keeper of God's commandments; and he who
is not this, is nothing. For so long as he remains in the likeness of vanity, he is not renewed in the
image of the truth. "For God shall bring into judgment every work,"--that is, whatever man does
in this life,--"whether it be good or whether it be evil, with every despised person,"--that is, with
every man who here seems despicable, and is therefore not considered; for God sees even him and
does not despise him nor pass him over in His judgment.

     CHAP. 4.--THAT PROOFS OF THE LAST JUDGMENT WILL BE ADDUCED,
FIRST FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THEN FROM THE OLD.

    The proofs, then, of this last judgment of God which I propose to adduce shall be drawn first
from the New Testament, and then from the Old. For although the Old Testament is prior in point
of time the New has the precedence in intrinsic value; for the Old acts the part of herald to the
New. We shall therefore first cite passages from the New Testament, and confirm them by
quotations from the Old Testament. The Old contains the law and the prophets, the New the
gospel and the apostolic epistles. Now the apostle says "By the law is the knowledge of sin. But
now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets; now the righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ upon all them that believe."(4)
This righteousness of God belongs to the New Testament, and evidence for it exists in the old
books, that is to say, in the law and the prophets. I shall first, then state the case, and then call the
witnesses. This order Jesus Christ Himself directs us to observe, saying, "The scribe instructed in
the kingdom of God is like a good householder, bringing out of his treasure things new and
old."(5) He did not say" old and new," which He certainly would have said had He not wished to
follow the order of merit rather than that of time.

     CHAP. 5.--THE PASSAGES IN WHICH THE SAVIOUR DECLARES THAT THERE
SHALL BE A DIVINE JUDGMENT IN THE END OF THE WORLD.

    The Saviour Himself, while reproving the cities in which He had done great works, but which
had not believed, and while setting them in unfavorable comparison with foreign cities, says, "But
I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for
you."(6) And a little after He says, "Verily, I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land
of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."(7)  Here He most plainly predicts that a day of
judgment is to come. And in another place He says, "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and,
behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the utter-

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most parts of the earth to hear the words of Solomon; and behold, a greater than Solomon is
here."(1) Two things we learn from this passage, that a judgment is to take place, and that it is to
take place at the resurrection of the dead. For when He spoke of the Ninevites and the queen of
the south, He certainly spoke of dead persons, and yet He said that they should rise up in the day
of judgment. He did not say, "They shall condemn," as if they themselves were to be the judges,
but because, in comparison with them, the others shall be justly condemned.
    Again, in another passage, in which He was speaking of the present intermingling and future
separation of the good and bad,--the separation which shall be made in the day of judgment,--He
adduced a comparison drawn from the sown wheat and the tares sown among them, and gave this
explanation of it to His disciples: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man,"(2) etc. Here,
indeed, He did not name the judgment or the day of judgment, but indicated it much more clearly
by describing the circumstances, and foretold that it should take place in the end of the world.
    In like manner He says to His disciples, "Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed
me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."(3) Here we learn that Jesus shall judge
with His disciples. And therefore He said elsewhere to the Jews, "If I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges."(4) Neither
ought we to suppose that only twelve men shall judge along with Him, though He says that they
shall sit upon twelve thrones; for by the number twelve is signified the completeness of the
multitude of those who shall judge. For the two parts of the number seven (which commonly
symbolizes totality), that is to say four and three, multiplied into one another, give twelve. For
four times three, or three times four, are twelve. There are other meanings, too, in this number
twelve. Were not this the right interpretation of the twelve thrones, then since we read that
Matthias was ordained an apostle in the room of Judas the traitor, the Apostle Paul, though he
labored more than them all,(5) should have no throne of judgment; but he unmistakeably
considers himself to be included in the number of the judges when he says, "Know ye not that we
shall judge angels?"(6) The same rule is to be observed in applying the number twelve to those
who are to be judged. For though it was said, "judging the twelve tribes of Israel," the tribe of
Levi, which is the thirteenth, shall not on this account be exempt from judgment, neither shall
judgment be passed only on Israel and not on the other nations. And by the words "in the
regeneration," He certainly meant the resurrection of the dead to be understood; for our flesh shall
be regenerated by incorruption, as our soul is regenerated by faith.
    Many passages I omit, because, though they seem to refer to the last judgment, yet on a closer
examination they are found to be ambiguous, or to allude rather to some other event,--whether to
that coming of the Saviour which continually occurs in His Church, that is, in His members, in
which comes little by little, and piece by piece, since the whole Church is His body, or to the
destruction of the earthly Jerusalem. For when He speaks even of this, He often uses language
which is applicable to the end of the world and that last and great day of judgment, so that these
two events cannot be distinguished unless all the corresponding passages bearing on the subject in
the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are compared with one another,--for some
things are put more obscurely by one evangelist and more plainly by another,--so that it becomes
apparent what things are meant to be referred to one event. It is this which I have been at pains to
do in a letter which I wrote to Hesychius of blessed memory, bishop of Salon, and entitled, "Of
the End of the World."(7) 
    I shall now cite from the Gospel according to Matthew the passage which speaks of the
separation of the good from the wicked by the most efficacious and final judgment of Christ:
"When the Son of man," he says, "shall come in His glory, . . . then shall He say also unto them on
His left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels."(8)  Then He in like manner recounts to the wicked the things they had not done, but
which He had said those on the right hand had done. And when they ask when they had seen Him
in need of these things, He replies that, inasmuch as they had not done it to the least of His
brethren, they had not done it unto Him, and concludes His address in the words, "And these shall
go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into

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life eternal." Moreover, the evangelist John most distinctly states that He had predicted that the
judgment should be at the resurrection of the dead. For after saying, "The Father judgeth no man,
but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor the Son, even as they
honor the Father: he that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent Him;" He
immediately adds, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on Him
that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death to
life."(1)  Here He said that believers on Him should not come into judgment. How, then, shall
they be separated from the wicked by judgment, and be set at His right hand, unless judgment be
in this passage used for condemnation? For into judgment, in this sense, they shall not come who
hear His word, and believe on Him that sent Him.

                 CHAP. 6.--WHAT IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION,
                           AND WHAT THE SECOND.
                                     
    After that He adds the words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the
Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself."(2)  As yet He
does not speak of the second resurrection, that is, the resurrection of the body, which shall be in
the end, but of the first, which now is. It is for the sake of making this distinction that He says,
"The hour is coming, and now is." Now this resurrection regards not the body, but the soul. For
souls, too, have a death of their own in wickedness and sins, whereby they are the dead of whom
the same lips say, "Suffer the dead to bury their dead,"(3)--that is, let those who are dead in soul
bury them that are dead in body. It is of these dead, then--the dead in ungodliness and
wickedness--that He says, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." "They that hear," that is, they who obey, believe,
and persevere to the end. Here no difference is made between the good and the bad. For it is good
for all men to hear His voice and live, by passing to the life of godliness from the death of
ungodliness. Of this death the Apostle Paul says, "Therefore all are dead, and He died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and
rose again."(4) Thus all, without one exception, were dead in sins, whether original or voluntary
sins, sins of ignorance, or sins committed against knowledge; and for all the dead there died the
one only person who lived, that is, who had no sin whatever, in order that they who live by the
remission of their sins should live, not to themselves, but to Him who died for all, for our sins, and
rose again for our justification, that we, believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, and being
justified from ungodliness or quickened from death, may be able to attain to the first resurrection
which now is. For in this first resurrection none have a part save those who shall be eternally
blessed; but in the second, of which He goes on to speak, all, as we shall learn, have a part, both
the blessed and the wretched. The one is the resurrection of mercy, the other of judgment. And
therefore it is written in the psalm, "I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto Thee, O Lord, will
I sing."(5) 
    And of this judgment He went on to say, "And hath given Him authority to execute judgment
also, because He is the Son of man." Here He shows that He will come to judge in that flesh in
which He had come to be judged. For it is to show this He says, "because He is the Son of man."
And then follow the words for our purpose: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the
which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done
good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
judgment."(6)  This judgment He uses here in the same sense as a little before, when He says, "He
that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into judgment, but is passed from death to life;" i.e., by having a part in the first resurrection, by
which a transition from death to life is made in this present time, he shall not come into
damnation, which He mentions by the name of judgment, as also in the place where He says, "but
they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment," i.e., of damnation. He, therefore, who
would not be damned in the second resurrection, let him rise in the first. For "the hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live,"
i.e., shall not come into damnation, which is called the second death; into which death, after the
second or bodily resurrection, they shall be

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hurled who do not rise in the first or spiritual resurrection. For "the hour is coming" (but here He
does not say, "and now is," because it shall come in the end of the world in the last and greatest
judgment of God) "when all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth." He
does not say, as in the first resurrection, "And they that Hear shall live." For all shall not live, at
least with such life as ought alone to be called life because it alone is blessed. For some kind of
life they must have in order to hear, and come forth from the graves m their rising bodies. And
why all shall not live He teaches in the words that follow: "They that have done good, to the
resurrection of life,"--these are they who shall live; "but they that have done evil, to the
resurrection of judgment,"--these are they who shall not live, for they shall die in the second
death. They have done evil because their life has been evil; and their life has been evil because it
has not been renewed in the first or spiritual resurrection which now is, or because they have not
persevered to the end in their renewed life. As, then, there are two regenerations, of which I have
already made mention,--the one according to faith, and which takes place in the present life by
means of baptism; the other according to the flesh, and which shall be accomplished in its
incorruption and immortality by means of the great and final judgment,--so are there also two
resurrections,--the one the first and spiritual resurrection, which has place in this life, and
preserves us from coming into the second death; the other the second, which does not occur now,
but in the end of the world, and which is of the body, not of the soul, and which by the last
judgment shall dismiss some into the second death, others into that life which has no death.

     CHAP. 7.--WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE REVELATION OF JOHN REGARDING
THE TWO RESURRECTIONS, AND THE THOUSAND YEARS, AND WHAT MAY
REASONABLY BE HELD ON THESE POINTS.

    The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections in the book which is called the
Apocalypse, but in such a way that some Christians do not understand the first of the two, and so
construe the passage into ridiculous fancies. For the Apostle John says in the foresaid book, "And
I saw an angel come down from heaven. . . . Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."(1)  Those who, on the strength of this
passage, have suspected that the first resurrection is future and bodily, have been moved, among
other things, specially by the number of a thousand years, as if it were a fit thing that the saints
should thus enjoy a kind of Sabbath-rest during that period, a holy leisure after the labors of the
six thousand years since man was created, and was on account of his great sin dismissed from the
blessedness of paradise into the woes of this mortal life, so that thus, as it is written, "One day is
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,"(2) there should follow on
the completion of six thousand years, as of six days, a kind of seventh-day Sabbath in the
succeeding thousand years; and that it is for this purpose the saints rise, viz., to celebrate this
Sabbath. And. this opinion would not be objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the
saints in that Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I myself, too,
once held this opinion.(3) But, as they assert that those who then rise again shall enjoy the leisure
of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat and drink such as not only to
shock the feeling of the temperate, but even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such
assertions can be believed only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the spiritual
Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name Millenarians.(4) It were a tedious process
to refute these opinions point by point: we prefer proceeding to show how that passage of
Scripture should be understood.(5)
    The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says, "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and Spoil his
goods, except he first bind the strong man"(6)--meaning by the strong man the devil, because he
had power to take captive the human race; and meaning by his goods which he was to take, those
who had been held by the devil in divers sins and iniquities, but were to become believers in
Himself. It was then for the binding of this strong one that the apostle saw in the Apocalypse "an
angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand. And he laid
hold," he says, "on the dragon, that old serpent, which is called the devil and Satan, and bound
him a thousand years,"--that is,
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bridled and restrained his power so that he could not seduce and gain possession of those who
were to be freed. Now the thousand years may be understood in two ways, so far as occurs to me:
either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or sixth millennium (the latter
part of which is now passing), as if during the sixth day, which is to be followed by a Sabbath
which has no evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a part under the name of
the whole, he calls the last part of the millennium--the part, that is, which had yet to expire before
the end of the world--a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an equivalent for the
whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time.
For a thousand is the cube of ten. For ten times ten makes a hundred, that is; the square on a
plane superficies. But to give this superficies height, and make it a cube, the hundred is again
multiplied by ten, which gives a thousand. Besides, if a hundred is sometimes used for totality, as
when the Lord said by way of promise to him that left all and followed Him "He shall receive in
this world an hundredfold;"(1) of which the apostle gives, as it were, an explanation when he says,
"As having nothing, yet possessing all things,"(2)--for even of old it had been said, The whole
world is the wealth of a believer,--with how much greater reason is a thousand put for totality
since it is the cube, while the other is only the square? And for the same reason we cannot better
interpret the words of the psalm, "He hath been mindful of His covenant for ever, the word which
He commanded to a thousand generations,"(3) than by understanding it to mean "to all
generations."
    "And he cast him into the abyss,"--i.e., cast the devil into the abyss. By the abyss is meant the
countless multitude of the wicked whose hearts are unfathomably deep in malignity against the
Church of God; not that the devil was not there before, but he is said to be cast in thither,
because, when prevented from harming believers, he takes more complete possession of the
ungodly. For that man is more abundantly possessed by the devil who is not only alienated from
God, but also gratuitously hates those who serve God. "And shut him up, and set a seal upon him,
that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled." "Shut him
up,"--i.e., prohibited him from  going out, from doing what was forbidden. And the addition of
"set a seal upon him" seems to me to mean that it was designed to keep it a secret who belonged
to the devil's party and who did not. For in this world this is a secret, for we cannot tell whether
even the man who seems to stand shall fall, or whether he who seems to lie shall rise again. But by
the chain and prison-house of this interdict the devil is prohibited and restrained from seducing
those nations which belong to Christ, but which he formerly seduced or held in subjection. For
before the foundation of the world God chose to rescue these from the power of darkness, and to
translate them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, as the apostle says.(4) For what Christian
is not aware that he seduces nations even now, and draws them with himself to eternal
punishment, but not those predestined to eternal life? And let no one be dismayed by the
circumstance that the devil often seduces even those who have been regenerated in Christ, and
begun to walk in God's way. For "the Lord knoweth them that are His,"(5) and of these the devil
seduces none to eternal damnation. For it is as God, from whom nothing is hid even of things
future, that the Lord knows them; not as a man, who sees a man at the present time (if he can be
said to see one whose heart he does not see), but does not see even himself so far as to be able to
know what kind of person he is to be. The devil, then, is bound and shut up in the abyss that he
may not seduce the nations from which the Church is gathered, and which he formerly seduced
before the Church existed. For it is not said "that he should not seduce any man," but "that he
should not seduce the nations"--meaning, no doubt, those among which the Church exists--"till
the thousand years should be fulfilled,"--i.e., either what remains of the sixth day which consists of
a thousand years, or all the years which are to elapse till the end of the world.
    The words, "that he should not seduce the nations till the thousand years should be fulfilled,"
are not to be understood as indicating that afterwards. he is to seduce only those nations from
which the predestined Church is composed, and from seducing whom he is restrained by that
chain and imprisonment; but they are used in conformity with that usage frequently employed in
Scripture and exemplified in the psalm, "So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have
mercy upon us,"(6)--not as if the eyes of His servants Would no longer wait upon the Lord their
God when He had mercy upon them. Or the order

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of the words is unquestionably this, "And he shut him up and set a seal upon him, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled;" and the interposed clause, "that he should seduce the nations no more,"
is not to be understood in the connection in which it stands, but separately, and as if added
afterwards, so that the whole sentence might be read, "And He shut him up and set a seal upon
him till the thousand years should be fulfilled, that he should seduce the nations no more,"--i.e., he
is shut up till the thousand years be fulfilled, on this account, that he may no more deceive the
nations.

CHAP. 8.--OF THE BINDING AND LOOSING OF THE DEVIL.

    "After that," says John, "he must be loosed a little season." If the binding and shutting up of the
devil means his being made unable to seduce the Church, must his loosing be the recovery of this
ability? By no means. For the Church predestined and elected before the foundation of the world,
the Church of which it is said, "The Lord knoweth them that are His," shall never be seduced by
him. And yet there shall be a Church in this world even when the devil shall be loosed, as there
has been since the beginning, and shall be always, the places of the dying being filled by new
believers. For a little after John says that the devil, being loosed, shall draw the nations whom he
has seduced in the whole world to make war against the Church, and that the number of these
enemies shall be as the sand of the sea. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and
compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out
of heaven and devoured them. And the devil who seduced them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for
ever and ever."(1) This relates to the last judgment, but I have thought fit to mention it now, lest
any one might suppose that in that short time during which the devil shall be loose there shall be
no Church upon earth, whether because the devil finds no Church, or destroys it by manifold
persecutions. The devil, then, is not bound during the whole time which this  book
embraces,--that is, from the first coming of Christ to the end of the world, when He shall come
the second time,--not bound in this sense, that during this interval, which goes by the name of a
thousand years, he shall not seduce the Church, for not even when loosed shall he seduce it. For
certainly if his being bound means that he is not able or not permitted to seduce the Church, what
can the loosing of him mean but his being able or permitted to do so?  But God forbid that such
should be the case! But the binding of the devil is his being prevented from the exercise of his
whole power to seduce men, either by violently forcing or fraudulently deceiving them into taking
part with him. If he were during so long a period permitted to assail the weakness of men, very
many persons, such as God would not wish to expose to such temptation, would have their faith
overthrown, or would be prevented from believing; and that this might not happen, he is bound.
    But when the short time comes he shall be loosed. For he shall rage with the whole force of
himself and his angels for three years and six months; and those with whom he makes war shall
have power to withstand all his violence and stratagems. And if he were never loosed, his
malicious power would be less patent, and less proof would be given of the steadfast fortitude of
the holy city: it would, in short, be less manifest what good use the Almighty makes of his great
evil. For the Almighty does not absolutely seclude the saints from his temptation, but shelters only
their inner man, where faith resides, that by outward temptation they may grow in grace. And He
binds him that he may not, in the free and eager exercise of his malice, hinder or destroy the faith
of those countless weak persons, already believing or yet to believe, from whom the Church must
be increased and completed; and he will in the end loose him, that the city of God may see how
mighty an adversary it has conquered, to the great glory of its Redeemer, Helper, Deliverer. And
what are we in comparison with those believers and saints who shall then exist, seeing that they
shall be tested by the loosing of an enemy with whom we make war at the greatest peril even
when he is bound? Although it is also certain that even in this intervening period there have been
and are some soldiers of Christ so wise and strong, that if they were to be alive in this mortal
condition at the time of his loosing, they would both most wisely guard against, and most
patiently endure, all his snares and assaults.
    Now the devil was thus bound not only when the Church began to be more and more widely
extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound till the end of the world,
when he is to be loosed. Because even now men are, and doubtless to

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the end of the world shall be, converted to the faith from the unbelief in which he held them. And
this strong one is bound in each instance in which he is spoiled of one of his goods; and the abyss
in which he is shut up is not at an end when those die who were alive when first he was shut up in
it, but these have been succeeded, and shall to the end of the world be succeeded, by others born
after them with a like hate of the Christians, and in the depth of whose blind hearts he is
continually shut up as in an abyss. But it is a question whether, during these three years and six
months when he shall be loose, and raging with all his force, any one who has not previously
believed shall attach himself to the faith. For how in that case would the words hold good, "Who
entereth into the house of a strong one to spoil his goods, unless first he shall have bound the
strong one?" Consequently this verse seems to compel us to believe that during that time, short as
it is, no one will be added to the Christian community, but that the devil will make war with those
who have previously become Christians, and that, though some of these may be conquered and
desert to the devil, these do not belong to the predestinated number of the sons of God. For it is
not without reason that John, the same apostle as wrote this Apocalypse, says in his epistle
regarding certain persons, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been
of us, they would no doubt have remained with us."(1) But what shall become of the little ones?
For it is beyond all belief that in these days there shall not be found some Christian children born,
but not yet baptized, and that there shall not also be some born during that very period; and if
there be such, we cannot believe that their parents shall not find some way of bringing them to the
laver of regeneration. But if this shall be the case, how shall these goods be snatched from the
devil when he is loose, since into his house no man enters to spoil his goods unless he has first
bound him? On the contrary, we are rather to believe that in these days there shall be no lack
either of those who fall away from, or of those who attach themselves to the Church; but there
shall be such resoluteness, both in parents to seek baptism for their little ones, and in those who
shall then first believe, that they shall conquer that strong one, even though unbound,--that is,
shall both vigilantly comprehend, and patiently bear up against him, though employing such wiles
and putting forth such force as he never before used; and thus they shall be snatched from him
even though unbound. And yet the verse of the Gospel will not be untrue, "Who entereth into the
house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the strong one?" For in
accordance with this true saying that order is observed--the strong one first bound, and then his
goods spoiled; for the Church is so increased by the weak and strong from all nations far and near,
that by its most robust faith in things divinely predicted and accomplished, it shall be able to spoil
the goods of even the unbound devil. For as we must own that, "when iniquity abounds, the love
of many waxes cold,"(2) and that those who have not been written in the book of life shall in large
numbers yield to the severe and unprecedented persecutions and stratagems of the devil now
loosed, so we cannot but think that not only those whom that time shall find sound in the faith,
but also some who till then shall be without, shall become firm in the faith they have hitherto
rejected and mighty to conquer the devil even though unbound, God's grace aiding them to
understand the Scriptures, in which, among other things, there is foretold that very end which they
themselves see to be arriving. And if this shall be so, his binding is to be spoken of as preceding,
that there might follow a spoiling of him both bound and loosed; for it is of this it is said, "Who
shall enter into the house of the strong one to spoil his goods, unless he shall first have bound the
strong one?"

     CHAP. 9.--WHAT THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS WITH CHRIST FOR A
THOUSAND YEARS IS, AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM THE ETERNAL KINGDOM.

    But while the devil is bound, the saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years,
understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming.(3) For, leaving out of account
that kingdom concerning which He shall say in the end, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, take
possession of the kingdom prepared for you,"(4) the Church could not now be called His kingdom
or the kingdom of heaven unless His saints were even now reigning with Him, though in another
and far different way; for to His saints He says, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the
world."(5) Certainly it is in this present time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God,
and of whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his

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treasure things new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which
He suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He explains in the words "The harvest is
the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered together
and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels,
and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offenses."(1) Can He mean out of that kingdom in
which are no offenses? Then it must be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are
gathered. So He says, "He that breaketh one of the least of these commandments, and teacheth
men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth and teacheth thus shall be
called great in the kingdom of heaven."(2) He speaks of both as being in the kingdom of heaven,
both the man who does not perform the commandments which He teaches,--for "to break" means
not to keep, not to perform,--and the man who does and teaches as He did; but the one He calls
least, the other great. And He immediately adds, "For I say unto you, that except your
righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees,"--that is, the righteousness of those who
break what they teach; for of the scribes and Pharisees He elsewhere says, "For they say and do
not;"(3)--unless therefore, your righteousness exceed theirs that is, so that you do not break but
rather do what you teach, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."(4) We must understand in
one sense the kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who breaks what he teaches and
he who does it, the one being least, the other great, and in another sense the kingdom of heaven
into which only he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently, where both classes exist,
it is the Church as it now is, but where only the one shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to
be when no wicked person shall be in her. Therefore the Church even now is the kingdom of
Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly, even now His saints reign with Him, though
otherwise than as they shall reign hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the Church along
with the wheat, they do not reign with Him. For they reign with Him who do what the apostle
says, "If ye be risen with Christ, mind the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right
hand of God. Seek those things which are above, not the things which are on the earth."(5) Of
such persons he also says that their conversation is in heaven.(6) In fine, they reign with Him who
are so in His kingdom that they themselves are His kingdom. But in what sense are those the
kingdom of Christ who, to say no more, though they are in it until all offenses are gathered out of
it at the end of the world, yet seek their own things in it, and not the things that are Christ's?(7)
    It is then of this kingdom militant, in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and war
carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that
most peaceful kingdom in which we shall reign without an enemy, and it is of this first
resurrection in the present life, that the Apocalypse speaks in the words just quoted. For, after
saying that the devil is bound a thousand years and is afterwards loosed for a short season, it goes
on to give a sketch of what the Church does or of what is done in the Church in those days, in the
words, "And I saw seats and them that sat upon them, and judgment was given." It is not to be
supposed that this refers to the last judgment, but to the seats of the rulers and to the rulers
themselves by whom the Church is now governed. And no better interpretation of judgment being
given can be produced than that which we have in the words, "What ye bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven; and what ye loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."(8) Whence the apostle
says, "What have I to do with judging them that are without? do not ye judge them that are
within?"(9) "And the souls," says John, "of those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and
for the word of God,"--understanding what he afterwards says, "reigned with Christ a thousand
years,"(10)--that is, the souls of the martyrs not yet restored to their bodies. For the souls of the
pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ;
otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar of God in the partaking of
the body of Christ, nor would it do any good in danger to run to His baptism, that we might not
pass from this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad conscience any one
may be severed from His body. For why are these things practised, if not because the faithful,
even though dead, are His members? Therefore, while these thousand years run on, their souls
reign with Him, though not as yet in conjunction with

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their bodies. And therefore in another part of this same book we read, "Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord from henceforth and now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for
their works do follow them."(1) The Church, then, begins its reign with Christ now in the living
and in the dead. For, as the apostle says, "Christ died that He might be Lord both of the living and
of the dead."(2) But he mentioned the souls of the martyrs only, because they who have
contended even to death for the truth, themselves principally reign after death; but, taking the part
for the whole, we understand the words of all others who belong to the Church, which is the
kingdom of Christ.
    As to the words following, "And if any have not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor have
received his inscription on their forehead, or on their hand," we must take them of both the living
and the dead. And what this beast is, though it requires a more careful investigation, yet it is not
inconsistent with the true faith to understand it of the ungodly city itself, and the community of
unbelievers set in opposition to the faithful people and the city of God. "His image" seems to me
to mean his simulation, to wit, in those men who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For
they pretend to be what they are not, and are called Christians, not from a true likeness but from a
deceitful image. For to this beast belong not only the avowed enemies of the name of Christ and
His most glorious city, but also the tares which are to be gathered out of His kingdom, the
Church, in the end of the world. And who are they who do not worship the beast and his image, if
not those who do what the apostle says, "Be not yoked with unbelievers?"(3) For such do not
worship, i.e., do not consent, are not subjected; neither do they receive the inscription, the brand
of crime, on their forehead by their profession, on their hand by their practice. They, then, who
are free from these pollutions, whether they still live in this mortal flesh, or are dead, reign with
Christ even now, through this whole interval which is indicated by the thousand years, in a fashion
suited to this time.
    "The rest of them," he says, "did not live." For now is the hour when the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live; and the rest of them shall not live. The
words added, "until the thousand years are finished," mean that they did not live in the time in
which they ought to have lived by passing from death to life. And therefore, when the day of the
bodily resurrection arrives, they shall come out of their graves, not to life, but to judgment,
namely, to damnation, which is called the second death. For whosoever has not lived until the
thousand years be finished, i.e., during this whole time in which the first resurrection is going
on,--whosoever has not heard the voice of the Son of God, and passed from death to life,--that
man shall certainly in the second resurrection, the resurrection of the flesh, pass with his flesh into
the second death. For he goes to say "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that
hath part in the first resurrection," or who experiences it. Now he experiences it who not only
revives from the death of sin, but continues in this renewed life. "In these the second death hath
no power." Therefore it has power in the rest, of whom he said above, "The rest of them did not
live until the thousand years were finished;" for in this whole intervening time called a thousand
years, however lustily they lived in the body, they were not quickened to life out of that death in
which their wickedness held them, so that by this revived life they should become partakers of the
first resurrection, and so the second death should have no power over them.

CHAP. 10.--WHAT IS TO BE REPLIED TO THOSE WHO THINK THAT RESURRECTION
PERTAINS ONLY TO BODIES AND NOT TO SOULS.

    There are some who suppose that resurrection can be predicated only of the body, and
therefore they contend that this first resurrection (of the Apocalypse) is a bodily resurrection. For,
say they, "to rise again" can only be said of things that fall. Now, bodies fall in death.(4) There
cannot, therefore, be a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. But what do they say to the apostle
who speaks of a resurrection of souls? For certainly it was in the inner and not the outer man that
those had risen again to whom he says, "If ye have risen with Christ, mind the things that are
above."(5) The same sense he elsewhere conveyed in other words, saying, "That as Christ has
risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life."(6) So,
too, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.(7)" As to
what they say about nothing being able to rise again but what falls, whence they conclude that
resurrection pertains to bodies only, and not to souls, because bodies fall, why do they make
nothing

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of the words, "Ye that fear the Lord, wait for His mercy; and go not aside lest ye fall;"(1) and" To
his own Master he stands or falls;"(2) and "He that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he
fall?"(3) For I fancy this fall that we are to take heed against is a fall of the soul, not of the body.
If, then, rising again belongs to things that fall, and souls fall, it must be owned that souls also rise
again. To the words, "In them the second death hath no power," are added the words, "but they
shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years;" and this refers not
to the bishops alone, and presbyters, who are now specially called priests in the Church; but as we
call all believers Christians on account of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests because they
are members of the one Priest. Of them the Apostle Peter says, "A holy people, a royal
priesthood."(4) Certainly he implied, though in a passing and incidental way, that Christ is God,
saying priests of God and Christ, that is, of the Father and the Son, though it was in His
servant-form and as Son of man that Christ was made a Priest for ever after the order of
Melchisedec. But this we have already explained more than once.

     CHAP. 11.--OF GOG AND MAGOG, WHO ARE TO BE ROUSED BY THE DEVIL
TO PERSECUTE THE CHURCH, WHEN HE IS LOOSED IN THE END OF THE WORLD.

    "And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go
out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall
draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea." This then, is his purpose in seducing
them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he was wont to use as many and various
seductions as he could continue. And the words "he shall go out" mean, he shall burst forth from
lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is
imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the
whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these
nations which he names Cog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in
some part of the world, whether the Getae and Massagetae, as some conclude from the initial
letters, or some other foreign nations not under the Roman government. For John marks that they
are spread over the whole earth, when he says, "The nations which are in the four corners of the
earth," and he added that these are Gog and Magog. The meaning of these names we find to be,
Cog, "a roof," Magog, "from a roof,"--a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house.
They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil was shut up as in an abyss, and the
devil himself coming out from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof.
Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the devil, then they are both
the roof, because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they
shall be from the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred. The words, "And
they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved
city," do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints
and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of
Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be,--and it
shall be in all nations, as is signified by "the breadth of the earth,"--there also shall be the camp of
the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all
its enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all nations,--that is, it shall be straitened, and
hard pressed, and shut up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military duty, which is
signified by the word "camp."

     CHAP. 12.--WHETHER THE FIRE THAT CAME DOWN OUT OF HEAVEN AND
DEVOURED THEM REFERS TO THE LAST PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED.

    The words, "And fire came down out of heaven and devoured them," are not to be understood
of the final punishment which shall be inflicted when it is said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire;"(5) for then they shall be cast into the fire, not fire come down out of heaven
upon them. In this place "fire out of heaven" is well understood of the firmness of the saints,
wherewith they refuse to yield obedience to those who rage against them. For the firmament is
"heaven," by whose firmness these assailants shall be pained with blazing zeal, for they shall be
impotent to draw away the saints to the party of Antichrist. This is the fire which shall devour
them, and this is "from God;" for it
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is by God's grace the saints become unconquerable, and so torment their enemies. For as in a
good sense it is said, "The zeal of Thine house hath consumed me,"(1) so in a bad sense it is said,
"Zeal hath possessed the uninstructed people, and now fire shall consume the enemies."(2) "And
now," that is to say, not the fire of the last judgment. Or if by this fire coming down out of heaven
and consuming them, John meant that blow wherewith Christ in His coming is to strike those
persecutors of the Church whom He shall then find alive upon earth, when He shall kill Antichrist
with the breath of His mouth,(3) then even this is not the last judgment of the wicked; but the last
judgment is that which they shall suffer when the bodily resurrection has taken place.

     CHAP. 13.--WHETHER THE TIME OF THE PERSECUTION or ANTICHRIST
SHOULD BE RECKONED IN THE THOUSAND YEARS.

    This last persecution by Antichrist shall last for three years and six months, as we have already
said, and as is affirmed both in the book of Revelation and by Daniel the prophet. Though this
time is brief, yet not without reason is it questioned whether it is comprehended in the thousand
years in which the devil is bound and the saints reign with Christ, or whether this little season
should be added over and above to these years. For if we say that they are included in the
thousand years, then the saints reign with Christ during a more protracted period than the devil is
bound. For they shall reign with their King and Conqueror mightily even in that crowning
persecution when the devil shall now be unbound and shall rage against them with all his might.
How then does Scripture define both the binding of the devil and the reign of the saints by the
same thousand years, if the binding of the devil ceases three years and six months before this reign
of the saints with Christ? On the other hand, if we say that the brief space of this persecution is
not to be reckoned as a part of the thousand years, but rather as an additional period, we shall
indeed be able to interpret the words, "The priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a
thousand years; and when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his
prison;" for thus they signify that the reign of the saints and the bondage of the devil shall cease
simultaneously, so that the time of the persecution we speak of should be contemporaneous
neither with the reign of the saints nor with the imprisonment of Satan, but should be reckoned
over and above as a superadded portion of time. But then in this case we are forced to admit that
the saints shall not reign with Christ during that persecution. But who can dare to say that His
members shall not reign with Him at that very juncture when they shall most of all, and with the
greatest fortitude, cleave to Him, and when the glory of resistlance and the crown of martyrdom
shall be more conspicuous in proportion to the hotness of the battle? Or if it is suggested that they
may be said not to reign, because of the tribulations which they shall suffer, it will follow that all
the saints who have formerly, during the thousand years, suffered tribulation, shall not be said to
have reigned with Christ during the period of their tribulation, and consequently even those whose
souls the author of this book says that he saw, and who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and
the word of God, did not reign with Christ when they were suffering persecution, and they were
not themselves the kingdom of Christ, though Christ was then pre-eminently possessing them.
This is indeed perfectly absurd, and to be scouted. But assuredly the victorious souls of the
glorious martyrs having overcome and finished all griefs and toils, and having laid down their
mortal members, have reigned and do reign with Christ till the thousand years are finished, that
they may afterwards reign with Him when they have received their immortal bodies. And
therefore during these three years and a half the souls of those who were slain for His testimony,
both those which formerly passed from the body and those which shall pass in that last
persecution, shall reign with Him till the mortal world come to an end, and pass into that kingdom
in which there shall be no death. And thus the reign of the saints with Christ shall last longer than
the bonds and imprisonment of the devil, because they shall reign with their King the Son of God
for these three years and a half during which the devil is no longer bound. It remains, therefore,
that when we read that "the priests of God and of Christ shall reign with Him a thousand years;
and when the thousand years are finished, the devil shall be loosed from his imprisonment," that
we understand either that the thousand years of the reign of the saints does not terminate, though
the imprisonment of the devil does,--so that both parties have their thousand years, that is, their
complete time, yet each with a different actual duration approriate to itself, the kingdom of the
saints being longer, the imprisonment of the devil shorter,

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--or at least that, as three years and six months is a very short time, it is not reckoned as either
deducted from the whole time of Satan's imprisonment, or as added to the whole duration of the
reign of the saints, as we have shown above in the sixteenth book(1) regarding the round number
of four hundred years, which were specified as four hundred, though actually somewhat more;
and similar expressions are often found in the sacred writings, if one will mark them.

     CHAP. 14.--OF THE DAMNATION OF THE DEVIL AND HIS ADHERENTS; AND
A SKETCH OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF ALL THE DEAD, AND OF THE FINAL
RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENT.

    After this mention of the closing persecution, he summarily indicates all that the devil, and the
city of which he is the prince, shall suffer in the last judgment. For he says, "And the devil who
seduced them is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, in which are the beast and the false
prophet, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." We have already said that
by the beast is well understood the wicked city. His false prophet is either Antichrist or that image
or figment of which we have spoken in the same place. After this he gives a brief narrative of the
last judgment itself, which shall take place at the second or bodily resurrection of the dead, as it
had been revealed to him: "I saw a throne great and white, and One sitting on it from whose face
the heaven and the earth fled away, and their place was not found." He does not say, "I saw a
throne great and white, and One sitting on it, and from His face the heaven and the earth fled
away," for it had not happened then, i.e., before the living and the dead were judged; but he says
that he saw Him sitting on the throne from whose face heaven and earth fled away, but
afterwards. For when the judgment is finished, this heaven and earth shall cease to be, and there
will be a new heaven and a new earth. For this world shall pass away by transmutation, not by
absolute destruction. And therefore the apostle says, "For the figure of this world passeth away. I
would have you be without anxiety."(2) The figure, therefore, passes away, not the nature. After
John had said that he had seen One sitting on the throne from whose face heaven and earth fled,
though not till afterwards, he said, "And I saw the dead, great and small: and the books were
opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of the life of each man: and the dead
were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their deeds." He
said that the books were opened, and a book; but he left us at a loss as to the nature of this book,
"which is," he says, "the book of the life of each man." By those books, then, which he first
mentioned, we are to understand the sacred books old and new, that out of them it might be
shown what commandments God had enjoined; and that book of the life of each man is to show
what commandments each man has done or omitted to do. If this book be materially considered,
who can reckon its size or length, or the time it would take to read a book in which the whole life
of every man is recorded? Shall there be present as many angels as men, and shall each man hear
his life recited by the angel assigned to him? In that case there will be not one book containing all
the lives, but a separate book for every life. But our passage requires us to think of one only.
"And another book was opened," it says. We must therefore understand it of a certain divine
power, by which it shall be brought about that every one shall recall to memory all his own works,
whether good or evil, and shall mentally survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that this
knowledge will either accuse or excuse conscience, and thus all and each shall be simultaneously
judged. And this divine power is called a book, because in it we shall as it were read all that it
causes us to remember. That he may show who the dead, small and great, are who are to be
judged, he recurs to this which he had omitted or rather deferred, and says, "And the sea
presented the dead which were in it; and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them."
This of course took place before the dead were judged, yet it is mentioned after. And so, I say, he
returns again to what he had omitted. But now he preserves the order of events, and for the sake
of exhibiting it repeats in its own proper place what he had already said regarding the dead who
were judged. For after he had said, "And the sea presented the dead which were in it, and death
and hell gave up the dead which were in them," he immediately subjoined what he had already
said, "and they were judged every man according to their works." For this is just what he had said
before, "And the dead were judged according to their works."

     CHAP. 15.--WHO THE DEAD ARE WHO ARE GIVEN UP TO JUDGMENT BY THE
SEA, AND BY DEATH AND HELL.

     But who are the dead which were in the
                                   
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sea, and which the sea presented? For we cannot suppose that those who die in the sea are not in
hell, nor that their bodies are preserved in the sea; nor yet, which is still more absurd, that the sea
retained the good, while hell received the bad. Who could believe this? But some very sensibly
suppose that in this place the sea is put for this world. When John then wished to signify that
those whom Christ should find still alive in the body were to be judged along with those who
should rise again, he called them dead, both the good to whom it is said, "For ye are dead, and
your life is hid with Christ in God,"(1) and the wicked of whom it is said, "Let the dead bury their
dead."(2) They may also be called dead, because they wear mortal bodies, as the apostle says,
"The body indeed is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness;"(3)
proving that in a living man in the body there is both a body which is dead, and a spirit which is
life. Yet he did not say that the body was mortal, but dead, although immediately after he speaks
in the more usual way of mortal bodies. These, then, are the dead which were in the sea, and
which the sea presented, to wit, the men who were in this world, because they had not yet died,
and whom the world presented for judgment. "And death and hell," he says, "gave up the dead
which were in them." The sea presented them because they had merely to be found in the place
where they were; but death and hell gave them up or restored them, because they called them
back to life, which they had already quitted. And perhaps it was not without reason that neither
death nor hell were judged sufficient alone, and both were mentioned,--death to indicate the good,
who have suffered only death and not hell; hell to indicate the wicked, who suffer also the
punishment of hell. For if it does not seem absurd to believe that the ancient saints who believed
in Christ and His then future coming, were kept in places far removed indeed from the torments of
the wicked, but yet in hell,(4) until Christ's blood and His descent into these places delivered
them, certainly good Christians, redeemed by that precious price already paid, are quite
unacquainted with hell while they wait for their restoration to the body, and the reception of their
reward. After saying, "They were judged every man according to their works," he briefly added
what the judgment was: "Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire;" by these names
designating the devil and the whole company of his angels, for he is the author of death and the
pains of hell. For this is what he had already, by anticipation, said in clearer language: "The devil
who seduced them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone." The obscure addition he had made
in the words, "in which were also the beast and the false prophet," he here explains, "They who
were not found written in the book of life were cast into the lake of fire." This book is not for
reminding God, as if things might escape Him by forgetfulness, but it symbolizes His
predestination of those to whom eternal life shall be given. For it is not that God is ignorant, and
reads in the book to inform Himself, but rather His infallible prescience is the book of life in which
they are written, that is to say, known beforehand

CHAP. 16.--OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH.

    Having finished the prophecy of judgment, so far as the wicked are concerned, it remains that
he speak also of the good. Having briefly explained the Lord's words, "These will go away into
everlasting punishment," it remains that he explain the connected words, "but the righteous into
life eternal."(5) "And I saw," he says, "a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth have passed away; and there is no more sea."(6) This will take place in the order which
he has by anticipation declared in the words, "I saw One sitting on the throne, from whose face
heaven and earth fled." For as soon as those who are not written in the book of life have been
judged and cast into eternal fire,--the nature of which fire, or its position in the world or universe,
I suppose is known to no man, unless perhaps the divine Spirit reveal it to some one,--then shall
the figure of this world pass away in a conflagration of universal fire, as once before the world
was flooded with a deluge of universal water. And by this universal conflagration the qualities of
the corruptible elements which suited our corruptible bodies shall utterly perish, and our substance
shall receive such qualities as shall, by a wonderful transmutation, harmonize with our immortal
bodies, so that, as the world itself is renewed to some better thing, it is fitly accommodated to
men, themselves renewed in their flesh to some better thing. As for the statement, "And there shall
be no more sea," I would not lightly say whether it is dried up with that excessive heat, or is itself
also turned into

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some better thing. For we read that there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, but I do not
remember to have anywhere read anything of a new sea, unless what I find in this same book, "As
it were a sea of glass like crystal "(1) But he was not then speaking of this end of the world,
neither does he seem to speak of a literal sea, but "as it were a sea." It is possible that, as
prophetic diction delights in mingling figurative and real language, and thus in some sort veiling
the sense, so the words "And there is no more sea" may be taken in the same sense as the previous
phrase, "And the sea presented the dead which were in it." For then there shall be no more of this
world, no more of the surgings and restlessness of human life, and it is this which is symbolized by
the sea.

                CHAP. 17.--OF THE ENDLESS GLORY OF THE
                                CHURCH.
                                   
    "And I saw," he says, "a great city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His
people, and God Himself shall be with them. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but neither shall there be any more
pain: because the former things have passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold,
I make all things new."(2) This city is said to come down out of heaven, because the grace with
which God formed it is of heaven. Wherefore He says to it by Isaiah, "I am the Lord that formed
thee."(3) It is indeed descended from heaven from its commencement, since its citizens during the
course of this world grow by the grace of God, which cometh down from above through the laver
of regeneration in the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. But by God's final judgment, which
shall be administered by His Son Jesus Christ, there shall by God's grace be manifested a glory so
pervading and so new, that  no vestige of what is old shall remain; for even our bodies shall pass
from their old corruption and mortality to new incorruption and immortality. For to refer this
promise to the present time, in which the saints are reigning with their King a thousand years,
seems to me excessively barefaced, when it is most distinctly said, "God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no
more pain." And who is so absurd, and blinded by contentious opinionativeness, as to be
audacious enough to affirm that in the midst of the calamities of this mortal state, God's people, or
even one single saint, does live, or has ever lived, or shall ever live, without tears or pain, --the
fact being that the holier a man is, and the fuller of holy desire, so much the more abundant is the
tearfulness of his supplication? Are not these the utterances of a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem:
"My tears have been my meat day and night;" (4) and "Every night shall I make my bed to swim;
with my tears shall I water my couch;"(5) and " My groaning is not hid from Thee;"(6) and "My
sorrow was renewed?"(7) Or are not those God's children who groan, being burdened, not that
they wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life?(8) Do
not they even who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves, waiting for the
adoption, the redemption of their body?(9) Was not the Apostle Paul himself a citizen of the
heavenly Jerusalem, and was he not so all the more when he had heaviness and continual sorrow
of heart for his Israelitish brethren?(10) But when shall there be no more death in that city, except
when it shall be said, "O death,where is thy contention?(11) O death, where is thy sting? The sting
of death is sin."(12) Obviously there shall be no sin when it can be said, "Where is "-- But as for
the present it is not some poor weak citizen of this city, but this same Apostle John himself who
says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."(13) No
doubt, though this book is called the Apocalypse, there are in it many obscure passages to
exercise the mind of the reader, and there are few passages so plain as to assist us in the
interpretation of the others, even though we take pains; and this difficulty is increased by the
repetition of the same things, in forms so different, that the things referred to seem to be different,
although in fact they are only differently stated. But in the words, "God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no
more pain," there is so manifest a reference to the future world and the immortality and eternity of
the saints,--for only then and only there shall such a condition be

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realized,--that if we think this obscure, we need not expect to find anything plain in any part of
Scripture.

CHAP. 18.--WHAT THE APOSTLE PETER PREDICTED REGARDING THE LAST
JUDGMENT.

Let us now see what the Apostle Peter predicted concerning this judgment. "There shall come,"
he says, "in the last days scoffers. ...Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."(1) There is nothing said here about the
resurrection of the dead, but enough certainly regarding the destruction of this world. And by his
reference to the deluge he seems as it were to suggest to us how far we should believe the ruin of
the world will extend in the end of the world. For he says that the world which then was perished,
and not only the earth itself, but also the heavens, by which we understand the air, the place and
room of which was occupied by the water. Therefore the whole, or almost the whole, of the gusty
atmosphere (which he calls heaven, or rather the heavens, meaning the earth's atmosphere, and
not the upper air in which sun, moon, and stars are set) was turned into moisture, and in this way
perished together with the earth, whose former appearance had been destroyed by the deluge.
"But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Therefore the heavens and the
earth, or the world which was preserved from the water to stand in place of that world which
perished in the flood, is itself reserved to fire at last in the day of the judgment and perdition of
ungodly men. He does not hesitate to affirm that in this great change men also shall perish: their
nature, however, shall notwithstanding continue, though in eternal punishments. Some one will
perhaps put the question, If after judgment is pronounced the world itself is to burn, where shall
the saints be during the conflagration, and before it is replaced by a new heavens and a new earth,
since somewhere they must be, because they have material bodies? We may reply that they shall
be in the upper regions into which the flame of that conflagration shall not ascend, as neither did
the water of the flood; for they shall have such bodies that they shall be wherever they wish.
Moreover, when they have become immortal and incorruptible, they shall not greatly dread the
blaze of that conflagration, as the corruptible and mortal bodies of the three men were able to live
unhurt in the blazing furnace.

     CHAP. 19.--WHAT THE APOSTLE PAUL WROTE TO THE THESSALONIANS
ABOUT THE MANIFESTATION OF ANTICHRIST WHICH SHALL PRECEDE THE DAY
OF THE LORD.

    I see that I must omit many of the statements of the gospels and epistles about this last
judgment, that this volume may not become unduly long; but I can on no account omit what the
Apostle Paul says, in writing to the Thessalonians, "We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ,"(2) etc.
    No one can doubt that he wrote this of Antichrist and of the day of judgment, which he here
calls the day of the Lord, nor that he declared that this day should not come unless he first came
who is called the apostate --apostate, to wit, from the Lord God. And if this may justly be said of
all the ungodly, how much more of him? But it is uncertain in what temple he shall sit, whether in
that ruin of the temple which was built by Solomon, or in the Church; for the apostle would not
call the temple of any idol or demon the temple of God. And on this account some think that in
this passage Antichrist means not the prince himself alone, but his whole body, that is, the mass of
men who adhere to him, along with him their prince; and they also think that we should render the
Greek more exactly were we to read, not "in the temple of God," but "for" or "as the temple of
God," as if he himself were the temple of God, the Church.(3) Then as for the words, "And now
ye know what withholdeth," i.e., ye know what hindrance or cause of delay there is, "that he
might be revealed in his own time;" they show that he was unwilling to make an explicit
statement, because he said that they knew. And thus we who have not their knowledge wish and
are not able even with pains to understand what the apostle referred to, especially as his meaning
is made still more obscure by what he adds. For what does he mean by "For the mystery of
iniquity doth already work: only he who now holdeth, let him hold until he be taken out of the
way: and then shall the wicked be revealed?" I frankly confess I do not know what he means. I
will nevertheless mention such conjectures as I have heard or read.

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    Some think that the Apostle Paul referred to the Roman empire, and that he was unwilling to
use language more explicit, lest he should incur the calumnious charge of wishing ill to the empire
which it was hoped would be eternal; so that in saying, "For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work," he alluded to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be as the deeds of Antichrist. And
hence some suppose that he shall rise again and be Antichrist. Others, again, suppose that he is
not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that
he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was
believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his
kingdom.(1) But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures. However, it is not
absurd to believe that these words of the apostle, "Only he who now holdeth, let him hold until he
be taken out of the way," refer to the Roman empire, as if it were said, "Only he who now
reigneth, let him reign until he be taken out of the way." "And then shall the wicked be revealed:"
no one doubts that this means Antichrist. But others think that the words, "Ye know what
withholdeth," and "The mystery of iniquity worketh," refer only to the wicked and the hypocrites
who are in the Church, until they reach a number so great as to furnish Antichrist with a great
people, and that this is the mystery of iniquity, because it seems hidden; also that the apostle is
exhorting the faithful tenaciously to hold the faith they hold when he says, "Only he  who now
holdeth, let him hold until he be taken out of the way," that is, until the mystery of iniquity which
now is hidden departs from the Church. For they suppose that it is to this same mystery John
alludes when in his epistle he says, "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that
Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last
time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no
doubt have continued with us."(2) As therefore there went out from the Church many heretics,
whom John calls "many antichrists," at that time prior to the end, and which John calls "the last
time," so in the end they shall go out who do not belong to Christ, but to that last Antichrist,
and then he shall be revealed.
  Thus various, then, are the conjectural explanations of the obscure words of the apostle. That
which there is no doubt he said is this, that Christ will not come to judge quick and dead unless
Antichrist, His adversary, first come to seduce those who are dead in soul; although their
seduction is a result of God's secret judgment already passed. For, as it is said "his presence shall
be after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all seduction
of unrighteousness in them that perish." For then shall Satan be loosed, and by means of that
Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner. It is commonly
questioned whether these works are called "signs and lying wonders" because he is to deceive
men's senses by false appearances, or because the things he does, though they be true prodigies,
shall be a lie to those who shall believe that such things could be done only by God, being
ignorant of the devil's power, and especially of such unexampled power as he shall then for the
first time put forth. For when he fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept away from the holy
Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote
the house and killed his children, these were not deceitful appearances, and yet they were the
works of Satan to whom God had given this power. Why they are called signs and lying wonders,
we shall then be more likely to know when the time itself arrives. But whatever be the reason of
the name, they shall be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall deserve to be
seduced, "because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved." Neither did
the apostle scruple to go on to say, "For this cause God shall send upon them the working of
error that they should believe a lie." For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do
these things, the permission being by His own just judgment, though the doing of them is in
pursuance of the devil's unrighteous and malignant purpose, "that they all might be judged who
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Therefore, being judged, they shall be
seduced, and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged, they shall be seduced by
those secretly just and justly secret judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge
since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced, they shall be judged in that last and
manifest judgment administered by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly judged and shall
most justly judge.
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          CHAP. 20.--WHAT THE SAME APOSTLE TAUGHT IN THE FIRST EPISTLE
TO THE THESSALONIANS REGARDING THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

    But the apostle has said nothing here regarding, the resurrection of the dead; but in his first
Epistle to the Thessalonians he says, "We would not have you to be ignorant brethren, concerning
them which are asleep,"(1) etc. These words of the apostle most distinctly proclaim the future
resurrection of the dead, when the Lord Christ shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
    But it is commonly asked whether those whom our Lord shall find alive upon earth, personated
in this passage by the apostle and those who were alive with him, shall never die at all, or shall
pass with incomprehensible swiftness through death to immortality in the very moment during
which they shall be caught up along with those who rise again to meet the Lord in the air? For we
cannot say that it is impossible that they should both die and revive again while they are carried
aloft through the air. For the words, "And so shall we ever be with the Lord," are not to be
understood as if he meant that we shall always remain in the air with the Lord; for He Himself
shall not remain there, but shall only pass through it as He comes. For we shall go to meet Him as
He comes, not where He remains; but "so shall we be with the Lord," that is, we shall be with
Him possessed of immortal bodies wherever we shall be with Him. We seem compelled to take
the words in this sense, and to suppose that those whom the Lord shall find alive upon earth shall
in that brief space both suffer death and receive immortality: for this same apostle says, "In Christ
shall all be made alive;"(2) while, speaking of the same resurrection of the body, he elsewhere
says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die."(3) How, then, shall those whom
Christ shall find alive upon earth be made alive to immortality in Him if they die not, since on this
very account it is said, "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die?" Or if we cannot
properly speak of human bodies as sown, unless in so far as by dying they do in some sort return
to the earth, as also the sentence pronounced by God against the sinning father of the human race
runs, "Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return,"(4) we must acknowledge that those
whom Christ at His coming shall find still in the body are not included in these words of the
apostle nor in those of Genesis; for, being caught up into the clouds, they are certainly not sown,
neither going nor returning to the earth, whether they experience no death at all or die for a
moment in the air.
    But, on the other hand, there meets us the saying of the same apostle when he was speaking to
the Corinthians about the resurrection of the body, "We shall all rise," or, as other MSS. read,
"We shall all sleep."(5) Since, then, there can be no resurrection unless death has preceded, and
since we can in this passage understand by sleep nothing else than death, how shall all either sleep
or rise again if so many persons whom Christ shall find in the body shall neither sleep nor rise
again? If, then, we believe that the saints who shall be found alive at Christ's coming, and shall be
caught up to meet Him, shall in that same ascent pass from mortal to immortal bodies, we shall
find no difficulty in the words of the apostle, either when he says, "That which thou sowest is not
quickened, except it die," or when he says, "We Shall all rise," or "all sleep," for not even the
saints shall be quickened to immortality unless they first die, however briefly; and consequently
they shall not be exempt from resurrection which is preceded by sleep, however brief. And why
should it seem to us incredible that that multitude of bodies should be, as it were, sown in the air,
and should in the air forthwith revive immortal and incorruptible, when we believe, on the
testimony of the same apostle, that the resurrection shall take place in the twinkling of an eye, and
that the dust of bodies long dead shall return with incomprehensible facility and swiftness to those
members that are now to live endlessly? Neither do we suppose that in the case of these saints the
sentence, "Earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return," is null, though their bodies do not, on
dying, fall to earth, but both die and rise again at once while caught up into the air. For "Thou
shalt return to earth" means, Thou shalt at death return to that which thou weft before life began.
Thou shalt, when examinate, be that which thou weft before thou wast animate. For it was into a
face of earth that God breathed the breath of life when man was made a living soul; as if it were
said, Thou art earth with a soul, which thou wast not; thou shalt be earth without a soul, as thou
wast. And this is what all bodies of the dead are before they rot; and what the bodies of those
saints shall be if they die, no matter where they die, as soon as they shall give up

440

that life which they are immediately to receive back again. In this way, then, they return or go to
earth, inasmuch as from being living men they shall be earth, as that which becomes cinder is said
to go to cinder; that which decays, to go to decay; and so of six hundred other things. But the
manner in which this shall take place we can now only feebly conjecture, and shall understand it
only when it comes to pass. For that there shall be a bodily resurrection of the dead when Christ
comes to judge quick and dead, we must believe if we would be Christians. But if we are unable
perfectly to comprehend the manner in which it shall take place, our faith is not on this account
vain. Now, however, we ought, as we formerly promised, to show, as far as seems necessary,
what the ancient prophetic books predicted concerning this final judgment of God; and I fancy no
great time need be spent in discussing and explaining these predictions, if the reader has been
careful to avail himself of the help we have already furnished.

     CHAP. 21.--UTTERANCES OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH REGARDING THE
RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD AND THE RETRIBUTIVE JUDGMENT.

    The prophet Isaiah says, "The dead shall rise again, and all who were in the graves shall rise
again; and all who are in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew which is from Thee is their health, and
the earth of the wicked shall fall."(1) All the former part of this passage relates to the resurrection
of the blessed; but the words, "the earth of the wicked shall fall," is rightly understood as meaning
that the bodies of the wicked shall fall into the ruin of damnation. And if we would more exactly
and carefully scrutinize the words which refer to the resurrection of the good, we may refer to the
first resurrection the words, "the dead shall rise again," and to the second the following words,
"and all who were in the graves shall rise again." And if we ask what relates to those saints whom
the Lord at His coming shall find alive upon earth, the following clause may suitably be referred to
them; "All who are in the earth shall rejoice: for the dew which is from Thee is their health." By
"health" in this place it is best to understand immortality. For that is the most perfect health which
is not repaired by nourishment as by a daily remedy. In like manner the same prophet, affording
hope to the good and terrifying the wicked regarding the day of judgment, says, "Thus saith the
Lord, Behold, I will flow down upon them as a river of peace, and upon the glory of the Gentiles
as a rushing torrent; their sons shall be carried on the shoulders, and shall be comforted on the
knees. As one whom his mother comforteth,  so shall I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in
Jerusalem. And ye shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall rise up like a herb;
and the hand of the Lord shall be known by His worshippers, and He shall threaten the
contumacious. For, behold, the Lord shall come as a fire, and as a whirlwind His chariots, to
execute vengeance with indignation, and wasting with a flame of fire. For with fire of the Lord
shall all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His sword: many shall be wounded by the Lord."(2)
In His promise to the good he says that He will flow down as a river of peace, that is to say, in the
greatest possible abundance of peace. With this peace we shall in the end be refreshed; but of this
we have spoken abundantly in the preceding book. It is this river in which he says He shall flow
down upon those to whom He promises so great happiness, that we may understand that in the
region of that felicity, which is in heaven, all things are satisfied from this river. But because there
shall thence flow, even upon earthly bodies, the peace of incorruption and immortality, therefore
he says that He shall flow down as this river, that He may as it were pour Himself from things
above to things beneath, and make men the equals of the angels. By "Jerusalem," too, we should
understand not that which serves with her children, but that which, according to the apostle, is our
free mother, eternal in the heavens.(3) In her we shall be comforted as we pass toilworn from
earth's cards and calamities, and be taken up as her children on her knees and shoulders.
Inexperienced and new to such blandishments, we shall be received into unwonted bliss. There we
shall see, and our heart shall rejoice. He does not say what we shall see; but what but God, that
the promise in the Gospel may be fulfilled in us, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God ?"(4) What shall we see but all those things which now we see not, but believe in, and of
which the idea we form, according to our feeble capacity, is incomparably less than the reality?
"And ye shall see," he says, "and your heart shall rejoice." Here ye believe, there ye shall see.
    But because he said, "Your heart shall rejoice," lest we should suppose that the blessings of
that Jerusalem are only spiritual,

441

he adds, "And your bones shall rise up like a herb," alluding to the resurrection of the body, and
as it were supplying an omission he had made. For it will not take place when we have seen; but
we shall see when it has taken place. For he had already spoken of the new heavens and the new
earth, speaking repeatedly, and under many figures, of the things promised to the saints, and
saying,  "There shall be new heavens, and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered
nor come into mind; but they shall find in it gladness and exultation. Behold, I will make
Jerusalem an exultation, and my people a joy. And I will exult in Jerusalem, and joy in my people;
and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her;"(1) and other promises, which some
endeavor to refer to carnal enjoyment during the thousand years. For, in the manner of prophecy,
figurative and literal expressions are mingled, so that a serious mind may, by useful and salutary
effort, reach the spiritual sense; but carnal sluggishness, or the slowness of an uneducated and
undisciplined mind, rests in the superficial letter, and thinks there is nothing beneath to be looked
for. But let this be enough regarding the style of those prophetic expressions just quoted. And
now, to return to their interpretation. When he had said, "And your bones shall rise up like a
herb," in order to show that it was the resurrection of the good, though a bodily resurrection, to
which he alluded, he added, "And the hand of the Lord shall be known by His worshippers." What
is this but the hand of Him who distinguishes those who worship from those who despise Him?
Regarding these the context immediately adds, "And He shall threaten the contumacious," or, as
another translator has it, "the unbelieving." He shall not actually threaten then, but the threats
which are now uttered shall then be fulfilled in effect. "For behold," he says, "the Lord shall come
as a fire, and as a whirlwind His chariots, to execute vengeance with indignation, and wasting
with a flame of fire. For with fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His
sword: many shall be wounded by the Lord." By fire, whirlwind, sword, he means the judicial
punishment of God. For he says that the Lord Himself shall come as a fire, to those, that is to say,
to whom His coming shall be penal. By His chariots (for the word is plural)we suitably understand
the ministration of angels. And when he says that all flesh and all the earth shall be judged with
His fire and sword, we do not understand the spiritual and holy to be included, but the earthly and
carnal, of whom it is said that they "mind earthly things,"(2) and "to be carnally minded is
death,"(3) and whom the Lord calls simply flesh when He says, "My Spirit shall not always remain
in these men, for they are flesh."(4) As to the words, "Many shall be wounded by the Lord," this
wounding shall produce the second death. It is possible, indeed, to understand fire, sword, and
wound in a good sense. For the Lord said that He wished to send fire on the earth.(5) And the
cloven tongues appeared to them as fire when the Holy Spirit came.(6) And our Lord says, "I am
not come to send peace on earth, but a sword."(7) And Scripture says that the word of God is a
doubly sharp sword,(8) on account of the two edges, the two Testaments. And in the Song of
Songs the holy Church says that she is wounded with love,(9)--pierced, as it were, with the arrow
of love. But here, where we read or hear that the Lord shall come to execute vengeance, it is
obvious in what sense we are to understand these expressions.
    After briefly mentioning those who shall be consumed in this judgment, speaking of the wicked
and sinners under the figure of the meats forbidden by the old law, from which they had not
abstained, he summarily recounts the grace of the new testament, from the first coming of the
Saviour to the last judgment, of which we now speak; and herewith he concludes his prophecy.
For he relates that the Lord declares that He is coming to gather all nations, that they may come
and witness His glory.(10) For, as the apostle says, "All have sinned and are in want of the glory
of God."(11) And he says that He will do wonders among them, at which they shall marvel and
believe in Him; and that from them He will send forth those that are saved into various nations,
and distant islands which have not heard His name nor seen His glory, and that they shall declare
His glory among the nations, and shall bring the brethren of those to whom the prophet was
speaking, i.e., shall bring to the faith under God the Father the brethren of the elect Israelites; and
that they shall bring from all nations an offering to the Lord on beasts of burden and waggons
(which are understood to mean the aids furnished by God in the shape of angelic or human
ministry), to the holy city Jerusalem, which at present is scattered over the earth, in the faithful
saints. For where divine aid is given, men

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believe, and where they believe, they come. And the Lord compared them, in a figure, to the
children of Israel offering sacrifice to Him in His house with psalms, which is already everywhere
done by the Church; and He promised that from among them He would choose for Himself priests
and Levites, which also we see already accomplished. For we see that priests and Levites are now
chosen, not from a certain family and blood, as was originally the rule in the priesthood according
to the order of Aaron, but as befits the new testament, under which Christ is the High Priest after
the order of Melchisedec, in consideration of the merit which is bestowed upon each man by
divine grace. And these priests are not to be judged by their mere title, which is often borne by
unworthy men, but by that holiness which is not common to good men and bad.
    After having thus spoken of this mercy of God which is now experienced by the Church, and is
very evident and familiar to us, he foretells also the ends to which men shall come when the last
judgment has separated the good and the bad, saying by the prophet, or the prophet himself
speaking for God, "For as the new heavens and the new earth shall remain before me, said the
Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain, and there shall be to them month after month, and
Sabbath after Sabbath. All flesh shall come to worship before me in Jerusalem, said the Lord. And
they shall go out, and shall see the members of the men who have sinned against me: their worm
shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be for a spectacle to all flesh."(1)
At this point the prophet closed his book, as at this point the world shall come to an end. Some,
indeed, have translated "carcass"(2) instead of "members of the men," meaning by carcases the
manifest punishment of the body, although carcase is commonly used only of dead flesh, while the
bodies here spoken of shall be animated, else they could not be sensible of any pain; but perhaps
they may, without absurdity, be called carcases, as being the bodies of those who are to fall into
the second death. And for the same reason it is said, as I have already quoted, by this same
prophet, "The earth of the wicked shall fall."(3) It is obvious that those translators who use a
different word for men do not mean to include only males, for no one will say that the women
who sinned shall not appear in that judgment; but the male sex, being the more worthy, and that
from which the woman was derived, is intended to include both sexes. But that which is especially
pertinent to our subject is this, that since the words "All flesh shall come," apply to the good, for
the people of God shall be composed of every race of men,--for all men shall not be present, since
the greater part shall be in punishment,--but, as I was saying, since flesh is used of the good, and
members or carcases of the bad, certainly it is thus put beyond a doubt that that judgment in
which the good and the bad shall be allotted to their destinies shall take place after the
resurrection of the body, our faith in which is thoroughly established by the use of these words.

     CHAP. 22.--WHAT IS MEANT BY THE GOOD GOING OUT TO SEE THE
PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED.

    But in what way shall the good go out to see the punishment of the wicked? Are they to leave
their happy abodes by a bodily movement, and proceed to the places of punishment, so as to
witness the torments of the wicked in their bodily presence? Certainly not; but they shall go out by
knowledge. For this expression, go out, signifies that those who shall be punished shall be
without. And thus the Lord also calls these places "the outer darkness,"(4) to which is opposed
that entrance concerning which it is said to the good servant, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord," that
it may not be supposed that the wicked can enter thither and be known, but rather that the good
by their knowledge go out to them, because the good are to know that which is without. For
those who shall be in torment shall not know what is going on within in the joy of the Lord; but
they who shall enter into that joy shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness.
Therefore it is said, "They shall go out," because they shall know what is done by those who are
without. For if the prophets were able to know things that had not yet happened, by means of that
indwelling of God in their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal saints know things
that have already happened, when God shall be all in all?(5) The seed, then, and the name of the
saints shall remain in that blessedness,--the seed, to wit, of which John says, "And his seed
remaineth in him;"(6) and the name, of which it was said through Isaiah himself, "I will give them
an everlasting name."(7) "And there shall be to them month after month, and

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Sabbath after Sabbath," as if it were said, Moon after moon, and rest upon rest, both of which
they shall themselves be when they shall pass from the old shadows of time into the new lights of
eternity. The worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, which constitute the
punishment of the wicked, are differently interpreted by different people. For some refer both to
the body, others refer both to the soul; while others again refer the fire literally to the body, and
the worm figuratively to the soul, which seems the more credible idea. But the present is not the
time to discuss this difference, for we have undertaken to occupy this book with the last
judgment, in which the good and the bad are separated: their rewards and punishments we shall
more carefully discuss elsewhere.

     CHAP. 23.--WHAT DANIEL PREDICTED REGARDING THE PERSECUTION OF
ANTICHRIST, THE JUDGMENT OF GOD, AND THE KINGDOM OF THE SAINTS.

    Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first
come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in prophetic
vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain
king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is
to say, of Christ, he says, "My spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and the
visions of my head troubled me,"(1) etc. Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying
those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to understand the
fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome's book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency
of care and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the
kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last
judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the saints. For it is patent from the context
that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say,
three years and a half.  Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though
the word  times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins
have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the  Hebrews also are said to have. Times,  therefore, is
used for two times. As for the  ten kings, whom, as it seems, Antichrist is to find in the person of
ten individuals when he comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and that he may
come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings living in the Roman world. For what if this
number ten signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his coming, as totality is
frequently symbolized by a thousand, or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not
necessary to recount?
    In another place the same Daniel says, "And there shall be a time of trouble, such as was not
since there was born a nation upon earth until that time: and in that time all Thy people which
shall be found written in the book shall be delivered. And many of them that sleep in the mound of
earth shall arise, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion. And they
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and many of the just as the stars for
ever."(2) This passage is very similar to the one we have quoted from the Gospel,(3) at least so
far as regards the resurrection of dead bodies. For those who are there said to be "in the graves"
are here spoken of as "sleeping in the mound of earth," or, as others translate, "in the dust of
earth," There it is said, "They shall come forth;" so here, "They shall arise." There, "They that
have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of
judgment;" here, "Some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting confusion." Neither
is it to be supposed a difference, though in place of the expression in the Gospel, "All who are in
their graves," the prophet does not say "all," but "many of them that sleep in the mound of earth."
For many is sometimes used in Scripture for all. Thus it was said to Abraham, "I have set thee as
the father of many nations,"  though in another place it was said to him, "In thy seed shall all
nations be blessed."(4) Of such a resurrection it is said a little afterwards to the prophet himself,
"And come thou and rest: for there is yet a day till the completion of the consummation; and thou
shall rest, and rise in thy lot in the end of the days."(5)

CHAP. 24.--PASSAGES FROM THE PSALMS OF DAVID WHICH PREDICT THE END OF
THE WORLD AND THE LAST JUDGMENT.

     There are many allusions to the last judgment in the Psalms, but for the most part only casual
and slight. I cannot, however, omit

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to mention what is said there in express terms of the end of this world: "In the beginning hast
Thou laid the foundations of the earth, O Lord; and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They
shall perish, but Thou shall endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; and as a vesture
Thou shall change them, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall
not fail."(1) Why is it that Porphyry, while he lauds the piety of the Hebrews in worshipping a
God great and true, and terrible to the gods themselves, follows the oracles of these gods in
accusing the Christians of extreme folly because they say that this world shall perish? For here we
find it said in the sacred books of the Hebrews, to that God whom this great philosopher
acknowledges to be terrible even to the gods themselves, "The heavens are the work of Thy
hands; they shall perish." When the heavens, the higher and more secure part of the world, perish,
shall the world itself be preserved? If this idea is not relished by Jupiter, whose oracle is quoted by
this philosopher as an unquestionable authority in rebuke of the credulity of the Christians, why
does he not similarly rebuke the wisdom of the Hebrews as folly, seeing that the prediction is
found in their most holy books? But if this Hebrew wisdom, with which Porphyry is so captivated
that he extols it through the utterances of his own gods, proclaims that the heavens are to perish,
how is he so infatuated as to detest the faith of the Christians partly, if not chiefly, on this
account, that they believe the world is to perish?--though how the heavens are to perish if the
world does not is not easy to see. And, indeed, in the sacred writings which are peculiar to
ourselves, and not common to the Hebrews and us,--I mean the evangelic and apostolic
books,--the following expressions are used: "The figure of this world passeth away;"(2) "The
world passeth away;"(3) "Heaven and earth shall pass away,"(4)--expressions which are, I fancy,
somewhat milder than "They shall perish." In the Epistle of the Apostle Peter, too, where the
world which then was is said to have perished, being overflowed with water, it is sufficiently
obvious What part of the world is signified by the whole, and in what sense the word perished is 
to be taken, and what heavens were kept in  store, reserved unto fire against the day of  judgment
and perdition of ungodly men.(5) And when he says a little afterwards, "The  day of the Lord will
come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great rush, and the elements shall
melt with burning heat, and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burned up and then
adds, "Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to
be?"(6)--these heavens which are to perish may be understood to be the same which he said were
kept in store reserved for fire; and the elements which are to be burned are those which are full of
storm and disturbance in this lowest part of the world in which he said that these heavens were
kept in store; for the higher heavens in whose firmament are set the stars are safe, and remain in
their integrity. For even the expression of Scripture, that "the stars shall fall from heaven,"(7) not
to mention that a different interpretation is much preferable, rather shows that the heavens
themselves shall remain, if the stars are to fall from them. This expression, then, is either
figurative, as is more credible, or this phenomenon will take place in this lowest heaven, like that
mentioned by Virgil,--

     "A meteor with a train of light
      Athwart the sky gleamed dazzling bright,
      Then in Idaean woods was lost."(8)

But the passage I have quoted from the psalm seems to except none of the heavens from the
destiny of destruction; for he says, "The heavens are the works of Thy hands: they shall perish;"
so that, as none of them are excepted from the category of God's works, none of them are
excepted from destruction. For our opponents will not condescend to defend the Hebrew piety,
which has won the approbation of their gods, by the words of the Apostle Peter, whom they
vehemently detest; nor will they argue that, as the apostle in his epistle understands a part when
he speaks of the whole world perishing in the flood, though only the lowest part of it, and the
corresponding heavens were destroyed, so in the psalm the whole is used for a part, and it is said
"They shall perish," though only the lowest heavens are to perish. But since, as I said, they will
not condescend to reason thus, lest they should seem to approve of Peter's meaning, or ascribe as
much importance to the final conflagration as we ascribe to the deluge, whereas they contend that
no waters or flames could destroy the whole human race, it only remains to them to maintain that
their gods lauded the wisdom of the Hebrews because they had not read this psalm.
     It is the last judgment of God which is re-
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ferred to also in the 50th Psalm in the words, "God shall come manifestly, our God, and shall not
keep silence: fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He
shall call the heaven above, and the earth, to judge His people. Gather His saints together to Him;
they who make a covenant with Him over sacrifices."(1) This we understand of our Lord Jesus
Christ, whom we look for from heaven to judge the quick and the dead. For He shall come
manifestly to judge justly the just and the unjust, who before came hiddenly to be unjustly judged
by the unjust. He, I say, shall come manifestly, and shall not keep silence, that is, shall make
Himself known by His voice of judgment, who before, when he came hiddenly, was silent before
His judge when He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and, as a lamb before the shearer, opened
not His mouth as we read that it was prophesied of Him by Isaiah,(2) and as we see it fulfilled in
the Gospel.(3) As for the fire and tempest, we have already said how these are to be interpreted
when we were explaining a similar passage in Isaiah.(4) As to the expression, "He shall call the
heaven above," as the saints and the righteous are rightly called heaven, no doubt this means what
the apostle says, "We shall  be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air."(5) For if we take the bare literal sense, how is it possible to call the heaven above, as if the
heaven could be anywhere else than above? And the following expression, "And the earth to judge
His people," if we supply only the words, "He shall call," that is to say, "He shall call the earth
also," and do not supply "above," seems to give us a meaning in accordance with sonnet doctrine,
the heaven symbolizing those who will judge along with Christ, and the earth those who shall be
judged; and thus the words, "He shall call the heaven above," would not mean, "He shall catch up
into the air," but "He shall lift up to seats of judgment." Possibly, too, "He shall call the heaven,"
may mean, He shall call the angels in the high and lofty places, that He may descend with them to
do judgment; and "He shall call the earth also" would then mean, He shall call the men on the
earth to judgment. But if with the words "and the earth" we understand not only "He shall call,"
but also "above," so as to make the full sense be, He shall call the heaven above, and He shall call
the earth above, then I think it is best understood of the men who shall be caught up to meet
Christ in the air, and that they are called the heaven with reference to their souls, and the earth
with reference to their bodies. Then what is "to judge His people," but to separate by judgment
the good from the bad, as the sheep from the goats? Then he turns to address the angels: "Gather
His saints together unto Him." For certainly a matter so important must be accomplished by the
ministry of angels. And if we ask who the saints are who are gathered unto Him by the angels, we
are told, "They who make a covenant with Him over sacrifices." This is the whole life of the
saints, to make a covenant with God over sacrifices. For "over sacrifices" either refers to works of
mercy, which are preferable to sacrifices in the judgment of God, who says, "I desire mercy more
than sacrifices,"(6) or if "over sacrifices" means in sacrifices, then these very works of mercy are
the sacrifices with which God is pleased, as I remember to have stated in the tenth book of this
work;(7) and in these works the saints make a covenant with God, because they do them for the
sake of the promises which are contained in His new testament or covenant. And hence, when His
saints have been gathered to Him and set at His right hand in the last judgment, Christ shall say,
"Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat,"(8) and so on, mentioning the
good works of the good, and their eternal rewards assigned by the last sentence of the Judge.

     CHAP. 25.--OF MALACHI'S PROPHECY, IN WHICH HE SPEAKS OF THE LAST
JUDGMENT, AND OF A CLEANSING WHICH SOME ARE TO UNDERGO BY
PURIFYING PUNISHMENTS.

    The prophet Malachi or Malachias, who is also called Angel, and is by some (for Jerome(9)
tells us that this is the opinion of the Hebrews) identified with Ezra the priest,(10) others of whose
writings have been received into the canon, predicts the last judgment, saying, "Behold, He
cometh, saith the Lord Almighty; and who shall abide the day of His entrance? ... for I am the
Lord your God, and I change not."(11) From these words it more evidently appears that some
shall in the last judgment suffer some kind of purgatorial punishments; for what else can be
understood by the word, "Who shall abide the day of His entrance, or who shall be able to look

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upon Him? for He enters as a moulder's fire, and as the herb of fullers: and He shall sit fusing and
purifying as if over gold and silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and pour them out like
gold and silver?" Similarly Isaiah says, "The Lord shall wash the filthiness of the sons and
daughters of Zion, and shall cleanse away the blood from their midst, by the spirit of judgment
and by the spirit of burning."(1) Unless perhaps we should say that they are cleansed from
filthiness and in a manner clarified, when the wicked are separated from them by penal judgment,
so that the elimination and damnation of the one party is the purgation of the others, because they
shall henceforth live free from the contamination of such men. But when he says, "And he shall
purify the sons of Levi, and pour them out like gold and silver, and they shall offer to the Lord
sacrifices in righteousness; and the sacrifices of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the
Lord," he declares that those who shall be purified shall then please the Lord with sacrifices of
righteousness, and consequently they themselves shall be purified from their own unrighteousness
which made them displeasing to God. Now they themselves, when they have been purified, shall
be sacrifices of complete and perfect righteousness; for what more acceptable offering can such
persons make to God than themselves? But this question of purgatorial punishments we must
defer to another time, to give it a more adequate treatment. By the sons of Levi and Judah and
Jerusalem we ought to understand the Church herself, gathered not from the Hebrews only, but
from other nations as well; nor such a Church as she now is, when "if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,"(2) but as she shall then be, purged by the last
judgment as a threshing-floor by a winnowing wind, and those of her members who need it being
cleansed by fire, so that there remains absolutely not one who offers sacrifice for his sins. For all
who make such offerings are assuredly in their sins, for the remission of which they make
offerings, that having made to God an acceptable offering, they may then be absolved.

     CHAP. 26.--OF THE SACRIFICES OFFERED TO GOD BY THE SAINTS, WHICH
ARE TO BE PLEASING TO HIM, AS IN THE PRIMITIVE DAYS AND FORMER YEARS.

    And it was with the design of showing that His city shall not then follow this custom, that God
said that the sons of Levi should offer sacrifices in righteousness,--not therefore in sin, and
consequently not for sin. And hence we see how vainly the Jews promise themselves a return of
the old times of sacrificing according to the law of the old testament, grounding on the words
which follow, "And the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasing to the Lord, as in the
primitive days, and as in former years." For in the times of the law they offered sacrifices not in
righteousness but in sins, offering especially and primarily for sins, so much so that even the priest
himself, whom we must suppose to have been their most righteous man, was accustomed to offer,
according to God's commandments, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. And
therefore we must explain how we are to understand the words, "as in the primitive days, and as
in former years;" for perhaps he alludes to the time in which our first parents were in paradise.
Then, indeed, intact and pure from all stain and blemish of sin, they offered themselves to God as
the purest sacrifices. But since they were banished thence on account of their transgression, and
human nature was condemned in them, with the exception of the one Mediator and those who
have been baptized, and are as yet infants, "there is none clean from stain, not even the babe
whose life has been but for a day upon the earth."(3) But if it be replied that those who offer in
faith may be said to offer in righteousness, because the righteous lives by faith,(4)--he deceives
himself, however, if he says that he has no sin, and therefore he does not say so, because he lives
by faith,--will any man say this time of faith can be placed on an equal footing with that
consummation when they who offer sacrifices in righteousness shall be purified by the fire of the
last judgment? And consequently, since it must be believed that after such a cleansing the
righteous shall retain no sin, assuredly that time, so far as regards its freedom from sin, can be
compared to no other period, unless to that during which our first parents lived in paradise in the
most innocent happiness before their transgression. It is this period, then, which is properly
understood when it is said, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years." For in Isaiah, too,
after the new heavens and the new earth have been promised, among other elements in the
blessedness of the saints which are there depicted by allegories and figures, from giving an
adequate explanation of which I am prevented by a desire to avoid prolixity, it is said, "According
to the days of the tree of

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life shall be the days of my people."(1) And who that has looked at Scripture does not know
where God planted the tree of life, from whose fruit He excluded our first parents when their own
iniquity ejected them from paradise, and round which a terrible and fiery fence was set?
    But if any one contends that those days of the tree of life mentioned by the prophet Isaiah are
the present times of the Church of Christ, and that Christ Himself is prophetically called the Tree
of Life, because He is Wisdom, and of wisdom Solomon says, "It is a tree of life to all who
embrace it;"(2) and if they maintain that our first parents did not pass years in paradise, but were
driven from it so soon that none of their children were begotten there, and that therefore that time
cannot be alluded to in words which run, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," I
forbear entering on this question, lest by discussing everything I become prolix, and leave the
whole subject in uncertainty. For I see another meaning, which should keep us from believing that
a restoration of the primitive days and former years of the legal sacrifices could have been
promised to us by the prophet as a great boon. For the animals selected as victims under the old
law were required to be immaculate, and free from all blemish whatever, and symbolized holy men
free from all sin, the only instance of which character was found in Christ. As, therefore, after the
judgment those who are worthy of such purification shall be purified even by fire, and shall be
rendered thoroughly sinless, and shall offer themselves to God in righteousness, and be indeed
victims immaculate and free from all blemish whatever, they shall then certainly be, "as in the
primitive days,  and as in former years," when the purest victims were offered, the shadow of this
future reality. For there shall then be in the body and soul of the saints the purity which was
symbolized in the bodies of these victims.
    Then, with reference to those who are worthy not of cleansing but of damnation, He says, "And
I will draw near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against evildoers and against
adulterers;" and after enumerating other damnable crimes, He adds, "For I am the Lord your God,
and I am not changed." It is as if He said, Though your fault has changed you for the worse, and
my grace has changed you for the better, I am not changed. And he says that He Himself will be a
witness, because in His judgment He needs no witnesses; and that He will be "swift," either
because He is to come suddenly, and the judgment which seemed to lag shall be very swift by His
unexpected arrival, or because He will convince the consciences of men directly and without any
prolix harangue. "For," as it is written, "in the thoughts of the wicked His examination shall be
conducted."(3) And the apostle says, "The thoughts accusing or else excusing, in the day in which
God shall judge the hidden things of men, according to my gospel in Jesus Christ."(4) Thus, then,
shall the Lord be a swift witness, when He shall suddenly bring back into the memory that which
shall convince and punish the conscience.

     CHAP. 27.--OF THE SEPARATION OF THE GOOD AND THE BAD, WHICH
PROCLAIM THE DISCRIMINATING INFLUENCE OF THE LAST JUDGMENT.

    The passage also which I formerly quoted for another purpose from this prophet refers to the
last judgment, in which he says, "They shall be mine, saith the Lord Almighty, in the day in which
I make up my gains,"(5) etc. When this diversity between the rewards and punishments which
distinguish the righteous from the wicked shall appear under that Sun of righteousness in the
brightness of life eternal,--a diversity which is not discerned under this sun which shines on the
vanity of this life,--there shall then be such a judgment as has never before been.

     CHAP. 28.--THAT THE LAW OF MOSES MUST BE SPIRITUALLY UNDERSTOOD
TO PRECLUDE THE DAMNABLE MURMURS OF A CARNAL INTERPRETATION

    In the succeeding words, "Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded to him
in Horeb for all Israel,"(6) the prophet opportunely mentions precepts and statutes, after declaring
the important distinction hereafter to be made between those who observe and those who despise
the law. He intends also that they learn to interpret the  law spiritually, and find Christ in it, by
whose judgment that separation between the good and the bad is to be made. For it is not without
reason that the Lord Himself says to the Jews, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed
me; for he wrote of me."(7) For by receiving the law carnally without perceiving that its earthly
promises were figures of things spiritual, they fell into such murmur-

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ings as audaciously to say, "It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His
ordinance, and that we have walked suppliantly before the face of the Lord Almighty? And now
we call aliens happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up."(1) It was these words of theirs
which in a manner compelled the prophet to announce the last judgment, in which the wicked
shall not even in appearance be happy, but shall manifestly be most miserable; and in which the
good shall be oppressed with not even a transitory wretchedness, but shall enjoy unsullied and
eternal felicity. For he had previously cited some similar expressions of those who said, "Every
one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such are pleasing to Him."(2) It was, I
say, by understanding the law of Moses carnally that they had come to murmur thus against God.
And hence, too, the writer of the 73d Psalm says that his feet were almost gone, his steps had
well-nigh slipped, because he was envious of sinners while he considered their prosperity, so that
he said among other things, How doth God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? and
again, Have I sanctified my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency?(3) He goes on to
say that his efforts to solve this most difficult problem, which arises when the good seem to be
wretched and the wicked happy, were in vain until he went into the sanctuary of God, and
understood the last things.(4) For in the last judgment things shall not be so; but in the manifest
felicity of the righteous and manifest misery of the wicked quite another state of things shall
appear.

     CHAP. 29.--OF THE COMING OF ELIAS BEFORE THE JUDGMENT, THAT THE
JEWS MAY BE CONVERTED TO CHRIST BY HIS PREACHING AND EXPLANATION OF
SCRIPTURE.

    After admonishing them to give heed to the law of Moses, as he foresaw that for a long time to
come they would not understand it spiritually and rightly, he went on to say, "And, behold, I will
send to you Elias the Tishbite before the great and signal day of the Lord come: and he shall turn
the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his next of kin, lest I come and utterly
smite the earth."(5) It is a familiar theme in the conversation and heart of the faithful, that in the
last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ, that is, our Christ, by means
of this great and admirable prophet Elias who shall expound the law to them. For not without
reason do we hope that before the coming of our Judge and Saviour Elias shall come, because we
have good reason to believe that he is now alive; for, as Scripture most distinctly informs us,(6)
he was taken up from this life in a chariot of fire. When, therefore, he is come, he shall give a
spiritual explanation of the law which the Jews at present understand carnally, and shall thus "turn
the heart of the father to the son," that is, the heart of fathers to their children; for the Septuagint
translators have frequently put the singular for the plural number. And the meaning is, that the
sons, that is, the Jews, shall understand the law as the fathers, that is, the prophets, and among
them Moses himself, understood it. For the heart of the fathers shall be turned to their children
when the children understand the law as their fathers did; and the heart of the children shall be
turned to their fathers when they have the same sentiments as the fathers. The Septuagint used the
expression, "and the heart of a man to his next of kin," because fathers and children are eminently
neighbors to one another. Another and a preferable sense can be found in the words of the
Septuagint translators, who have translated Scripture with an eye to prophecy, the sense, viz., that
Elias shall turn the heart of God the Father to the Son, not certainly as if he should bring about
this love of the Father for the Son, but meaning that he should make it known, and that the Jews
also, who had previously hated, should then love the Son who is our Christ. For so far as regards
the Jews, God has His heart turned away from our Christ, this being their conception about God
and Christ. But in their case the heart of God shall be turned to the Son when they themselves
shall turn in heart, and learn the love of the Father towards the Son. The words following, "and
the heart of a man to his next of kin,"--that is, Elias shall also turn the heart of a man to his next of
kin,--how can we understand this better than as the heart of a man to the man Christ? For though
in the form of God He is our God, yet, taking the form of a servant, He condescended to become
also our next of kin. It is this, then, which Elias will do, "lest," he says, "I come and smite the
earth utterly." For they who mind earthly things are the earth. Such are the carnal Jews until this
day; and hence these murmurs of theirs against God, "The wicked are pleasing to Him," and "It is
a vain thing to serve God."(7)

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     CHAP. 30.--THAT IN THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, WHERE IT IS
SAID THAT GOD SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD, THE PERSON OF CHRIST IS NOT
EXPLICITLY INDICATED, BUT IT PLAINLY APPEARS FROM SOME PASSAGES IN
WHICH THE LORD GOD SPEAKS THAT CHRIST IS MEANT.

    There are many other passages of Scripture bearing on the last judgment of God,--so many,
indeed, that to cite them all would swell this book to an unpardonable size. Suffice it to have
proved that both Old and New Testament enounce the judgment. But in the Old it is not so
definitely declared as in the New that the judgment shall be administered by Christ, that is, that
Christ shall descend from heaven as the Judge; for when it is therein stated by the Lord God or
His prophet that the Lord God shall come, we do not necessarily understand this of Christ. For
both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the Lord God. We must not, however, leave
this without proof. And therefore we must first show how Jesus Christ speaks in the prophetical
books under the title of the Lord God, while yet there can be no doubt that it is Jesus Christ who
speaks; so that in other passages where this is not at once apparent, and where nevertheless it is
said that the Lord God will come to that last judgment, we may understand that Jesus Christ is
meant. There is a passage in the prophet Isaiah which illustrates what I mean.  For God says by
the prophet, "Hear me, Jacob and Israel, whom I call. I am the first, and I am for ever: and my
hand has rounded the earth, and my right hand has established the heaven. I will call them, and
they shall stand together, and be gathered, and hear. Who has declared to them these things? In
love of thee I have done thy pleasure upon Babylon, that I might take away the seed of the
Chaldeans. I have spoken, and I have called: I have brought him, and have made his way
prosperous. Come ye near unto me, and hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
when they were made, there was I. And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me."(1) It was
Himself who was speaking as the Lord God; and yet we should not have understood that it was
Jesus Christ had He not added, "And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me." For He said
this with reference to the form of a servant, speaking of a future event as if it were past, as in the
same prophet we read, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,"(2) not "He shall be led;" but the
past tense is used to express the future. And prophecy constantly speaks in this way.
    There is also another passage in Zechariah which plainly declares that the Almighty sent the
Almighty; and of what persons can this be understood but of God the Father and God the Son?
For it is written, "Thus saith the Lord Almighty, After the glory hath He sent me unto the nations
which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye Behold, I will bring
mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the Lord
Almighty hath sent me."(3) Observe, the Lord Almighty saith that the Lord Almighty sent Him.
Who can presume to understand these words of any other than Christ, who is speaking to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel? For He says in the Gospel, "I am not sent save to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel,"(4) which He here compared to the pupil of God's eye, to signify the
profoundest love. And to this class of sheep the apostles themselves belonged. But after the glory,
to wit, of His resurrection,--for before it happened the evangelist said that "Jesus was not yet
glorified,"(5)--He was sent unto the nations in the persons of His apostles; and thus the saying of
the psalm was fulfilled, "Thou wilt deliver me from the contradictions of the people; Thou wilt set
me as the head of the nations,"(6) So that those who had spoiled the Israelites, and whom the
Israelites had served when they were subdued by them, were not themselves to be spoiled in the
same fashion, but were in their own persons to become the spoil of the Israelites. For this had
been promised to the apostles when the Lord said, "I will make you fishers of men."(7) And to
one of them He says, "From henceforth thou shalt catch men."(8) They were then to become a
spoil, but in a good sense, as those who are snatched from that strong one when he is bound by a
stronger.(9)
    In like manner the Lord, speaking by the same prophet, says, "And it shall come to pass in that
day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon
the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and mercy; and they
shall look upon me because they have insulted me, and they shall mourn for Him as for one very
dear, and shall be in bitterness as for an only-begotten."(10) To whom but to God does it belong
to destroy all the nations that are hostile

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to the holy city Jerusalem, which "come against it," that is, are opposed to it, or, as some
translate, "come upon it," as if putting it down under them; or to pour out upon the house of
David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and mercy? This belongs doubtless to
God, and it is to God the prophet ascribes the words; and yet Christ shows that He is the God
who does these so great and divine things, when He goes on to say, "And they shall look upon me
because they have insulted me, and they shall mourn for Him as if for one very dear (or beloved),
and shall be in bitterness for Him as for an only-begotten." For in that day the Jews--those of
them, at least, who shall receive the spirit of grace and mercy--when they see Him coming in His
majesty, and recognize that it is He whom they, in the person of their parents, insulted when He
came before in His humiliation, shall repent of insulting Him in His passion: and their parents
themselves, who were the perpetrators of this huge impiety, shall see Him when they rise; but this
will be only for their punishment, and not for their correction. It is not of them we are to
understand the words, "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and mercy, and they shall look upon me because they have insulted
me;" but we are to understand the words of their descendants, who shall at that time believe
through Elias. But as we say to the Jews, You killed Christ, although it was their parents who did
so, so these persons shall grieve that they in some sort did what their progenitors did. Although,
therefore, those that receive the spirit of mercy and grace, and believe, shall not be condemned
with their impious parents, yet they shall mourn as if they themselves had done what their parents
did. Their grief shall arise not so much from guilt as from pious affection. Certainly the words
which the Septuagint have translated, "They shall look upon me because they insulted me," stand
in the Hebrew,  "They shall look upon me whom they pierced."(1) And by this word the
crucifixion of Christ is certainly more plainly indicated. But the Septuagint translators preferred to
allude to the insult which was involved in His whole passion. For in point of fact they insuited
Him both when He was arrested and when He was bound, when He was judged, when He was
mocked by the robe they put on Him and the homage they did on bended knee, when He was
crowned with thorns and struck with a rod on the head, when He bore His cross, and when at last
He hung upon the tree. And therefore we recognize more fully the Lord's passion when we do not
confine ourselves to one interpretation, but combine both, and read both "insulted" and "pierced."
    When, therefore, we read in the prophetical books that God is to come to do judgment at the
last, from the mere mention of the judgment, and although there is nothing else to determine the
meaning, we must gather that Christ is meant; for though the Father will judge, He will judge by
the coming of the Son. For He Himself, by His own manifested presence, "judges no man, but has
committed all judgment to the Son;"(2) for as the Son was judged as a man, He shall also judge in
human form. For it is none but He of whom God speaks by Isaiah under the name of Jacob and
Israel, of whose seed Christ took a body, as it is written, "Jacob is my servant, I will uphold Him;
Israel is mine elect, my Spirit has assumed Him: I have put my Spirit upon Him; He shall bring
forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor cease, neither shall His voice be heard
without. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench: but in truth
shall He bring forth judgment. He shall shine and shall not be broken, until He sets judgment in
the earth: and the nations shall hope in His name."(3) The Hebrew has not "Jacob" and "Israel;"
but the Septuagint translators, wishing to show the significance of the expression "my servant,"
and that it refers to the form of a servant in which the Most High humbled Himself, inserted the
name of that man from whose stock He took the form of a servant. The Holy Spirit was given to
Him, and was manifested, as the evangelist testifies, in the form of a dove.(4) He brought forth
judgment to the Gentiles, because He predicted what was hidden from them. In His meekness He
did not cry, nor did He cease to proclaim the truth. But His voice was not heard, nor is it heard,
without, because He is not obeyed by those who are outside of His body. And the Jews
themselves, who persecuted Him, He did not break, though as a bruised reed they had lost their
integrity, and as smoking flax their light was quenched; for He spared them, having come to be
judged and not yet to judge. He brought forth judgment in truth, declaring that they should be
punished did they persist in their wickedness. His face shone on the Mount,(5) His fame in the
world. He is not broken nor over come, because neither in Himself nor in His
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Church has persecution prevailed to annihilate Him. And therefore that has not, and shall not, be
brought about which His enemies said or say, "When shall He die, and His name perish?"(1) "until
He set judgment in the earth." Behold, the hidden thing which we were seeking is discovered. For
this is the last judgment, which He will set in the earth when He comes from heaven. And it is in
Him, too, we already see the concluding expression of the prophecy fulfilled: "In His name shall
the nations hope." And by this fulfillment, which no one can deny, men are encouraged to believe
in that which is most impudently denied. For who could have hoped for that which even those
who do not yet believe in Christ now see fulfilled among us, and which is so undeniable that they
can but gnash their teeth and pine away? Who, I say, could have hoped that the nations would
hope in the name of Christ, when He was arrested, bound, scourged, mocked, crucified, when
even the disciples themselves had lost the hope which they had begun to have in Him? The hope
which was then entertained scarcely by the one thief on the cross, is now cherished by nations
everywhere on the earth, who are marked with the sign of the cross on which He died that they
may not die eternally.
    That the last judgment, then, shall be administered by Jesus Christ in the manner predicted in
the sacred writings is denied or doubted by no one, unless by those who, through some incredible
animosity or blindness, decline to believe these writings, though already their truth is
demonstrated to all the world. And at or in connection with that judgment the following events
shall come to pass, as we have learned: Elias the Tishbite shall come; the Jews shall believe;
Antichrist shall persecute; Christ shall judge; the dead shall rise; the good and the wicked shall be
separated; the world shall be burned and renewed. All these things, we believe, shall come to pass;
but how, or in what order, human understanding cannot perfectly teach us, but only the
experience of the events themselves. My opinion, however, is, that they will happen in the order in
which I have related them.
    Two books yet remain to be written by me, in order to complete, by God's help, what I
promised. One of these will explain the punishment of the wicked, the other the happiness of the
righteous; and in them I shall be at special pains to refute, by God's grace, the arguments by which
some unhappy creatures seem to themselves to undermine the divine promises and threatenings,
and to ridicule as empty words statements which are the most salutary nutriment of faith. But they
who are instructed in divine things hold the truth and omnipotence of God to be the strongest
arguments in favor of those things which, however incredible they seem to men, are yet contained
in the Scriptures, whose truth has already in many ways been proved; for they are sure that God
can m no wise lie, and that He can do what is impossible to the unbelieving.

                               BOOK XXI.

                                ARGUMENT.

OF THE END RESERVED FOR THE CITY OF THE DEVIL, NAMELY, THE ETERNAL
PUNISHMENT OF THE DAMNED; AND OF THE ARGUMENTS WHICH UNBELIEF
BRINGS AGAINST IT.

     CHAP. 1.--OF THE ORDER OF THE DISCUSSION, WHICH REQUIRES THAT WE
FIRST SPEAK OF THE ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OF THE LOST IN COMPANY WITH
THE DEVIL, AND THEN OF THE ETERNAL HAPPINESS OF THE SAINTS.

    I PROPOSE, with such ability as God may grant me, to discuss in this book more thoroughly
the nature of the punishment which shall be assigned to the devil and all his retainers, when the
two cities, the one of God, the other of the devil, shall have reached their proper ends through
Jesus Christ our Lord, the Judge of quick and dead. And I have adopted this order, and preferred
to speak, first of the punishment of the devils, and afterwards of the blessedness of the saints,
because the body partakes of either destiny; and it seems to be more incredible that bodies endure
in everlasting torments than that they continue to exist without any pain in everlasting felicity.
Consequently, when I shall have demonstrated that that punishment ought not to be incredible,
this will materially aid me in proving that which is much more credible, viz., the immortality of the
bodies of the saints which are delivered from all pain. Neither is this order out of harmony with
the divine writings, in which sometimes, indeed, the blessedness of the good is placed first, as in
the words, "They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil,
unto the resurrection of judgment;"(1) but sometimes also last, as, "The Son of man shall send
forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things which offend, and shall cast
them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of His Father;"(2) and that, "These shall go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."(3) And though we have not room to cite
instances, any one who examines the prophets will find that they adopt now the one arrangement
and now the other. My own reason for following the latter order I have given.

     CHAP. 2.--WHETHER IT IS POSSIBLE FOR BODIES TO LAST FOR EVER IN
BURNING FIRE.

    What, then, can I adduce to convince those who refuse to believe that human bodies, animated
and living, can not only survive death, but also last in the torments of everlasting fires? They will
not allow us to refer this simply to the power of the Almighty, but demand that we persuade them
by some example. If, then, we reply to them, that there are animals which certainly are
corruptible, because they are mortal, and which yet live in the midst of flames; and likewise, that
in springs of water so hot that no one can put his  hand in it with impunity a species of worm is
found, which not only lives there, but cannot live elsewhere; they either refuse to believe these
facts unless we can show them, or, if we are in circumstances to prove them by ocular
demonstration or by adequate testimony, they contend, with the same scepticism, that these facts
are not examples of what we seek to prove, inasmuch as these animals do not live for ever, and
besides, they live in that

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blaze of heat without pain, the element of fire being congenial to their nature, and causing it to
thrive and not to suffer,--just as if it were not more incredible that it should thrive than that it
should suffer in such circumstances. It is strange that anything should suffer in fire and yet live,
but stranger that it should live in fire and not suffer. If, then, the latter be believed, why not also
the former?

     CHAP 3.--WHETHER BODILY SUFFERING NECESSARILY TERMINATES IN
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FLESH.

    But, say they, there is no body which can suffer and cannot also die. How do we know this?
For who can say with certainty that the devils do not suffer in their bodies, when they own that
they are grievously tormented? And if it is replied that there is no earthly body--that is to say, no
solid and perceptible body, or, in one word, no flesh--which can suffer and cannot die, is not this
to tell us only what men have gathered from experience and their bodily senses? For they indeed
have no acquaintance with any flesh but thai which is mortal; and this is their whole argument,
that what they have had no experience of they judge quite impossible. For we cannot call it
reasoning to make pain a presumption of death, while, in fact, it is rather a sign of life. For though
it be a question whether that which suffers can continue to live for ever, yet it is certain that
everything which suffers pain does live, and that pain can exist only in a living subject. It is
necessary, therefore, that he who is pained be living, not necessary that pain kill him; for every
pain does not kill even those mortal bodies of ours which are destined to die. And that any pain
kills them is caused by the circumstance that the soul is so connected with the body that it
succumbs to great pain and withdraws; for the structure of our members and vital parts is so
infirm that it cannot bear up against that violence which causes great or extreme agony. But in the
life to come this connection of soul and body is of such a kind, that as it is dissolved by no lapse
of time, so neither is it burst asunder by any pain. And so, although it be true that in this world
there is no flesh which can suffer pain and yet cannot die, yet in the world to come there shall be
flesh such as now there is not, as there will also be death such as now there is not. For death will
not be abolished, but will be eternal, since the soul  will neither be able to enjoy God and live,  nor
to die and escape the pains of the body.  The first death drives the soul from the body against her
will: the second death holds the soul in the body against her will. The two have this in common,
that the soul suffers against her will what her own body inflicts.
    Our opponents, too, make much of this, that in this world there is no flesh which can suffer
pain and cannot die; while they make nothing of the fact that there is something which is greater
than the body. For the spirit, whose presence animates and rules the body, can both suffer pain
and cannot die. Here then is something which, though it can feel pain, is immortal. And this
capacity, which we now see in the spirit of all, shall be hereafter in the bodies of the damned.
Moreover, if we attend to the matter a little more closely, we see that what is called bodily pain is
rather to be referred to the soul. For it is the soul not the body, which is pained, even when the
pain originates with the body,--the soul feeling pain at the point where the body is hurt. As then
we speak of bodies feeling and living, though the feeling and life of the body are from the soul, so
also we speak of bodies being pained, though no pain can be suffered by the body apart from the
soul. The soul, then, is pained with the body in that part where something occurs to hurt it; and it
is pained alone, though it be in the body, when some invisible cause distresses it, while the body is
safe and sound. Even when not associated with the body it is pained; for certainly that rich man
was suffering in hell when he Cried, "I am tormented in this flame."(1) But as for the body, it
suffers no pain when it is soulless; and even when animate it can suffer only by the soul's suffering.
If, therefore, we might draw a just presumption from the existence of pain to that of death, and
conclude that where pain can be felt death can occur, death would rather be the property of the
soul, for to it pain more peculiarly belongs. But, seeing that that which suffers most cannot die,
what ground is there for supposing that those bodies, because destined to suffer, are therefore,
destined to die? The Platonists indeed maintained that these earthly bodies and dying members
gave rise to the fears, desires, griefs, and joys of the soul. "Hence," says Virgil (i.e., from these
earthly bodies and dying members),

             "Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, And human laughter, human tears."(2)

    But in the fourteenth book of this work s we have proved that, according to the Platonists' own
theory, souls, even when purged from all pollution of the body, are yet pos-

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sessed by a monstrous desire to return again into their bodies. But where desire can exist,
certainly pain also can exist; for desire frustrated, either by missing what it aims at or losing what
it had attained, is turned into pain. And therefore, if the soul, which is either the only or the chief
sufferer, has yet a kind of immortality of its own, it is inconsequent to say that because the bodies
of the damned shall suffer pain, therefore they shall die. In fine, if the body causes the soul to
suffer, why can the body not cause death as well as suffering, unless because it does not follow
that what causes pain causes death as well? And why then is it incredible that these fires can cause
pain but not death to those bodies we speak of, just as the bodies themselves cause pain, but not
therefore death, to the souls? Pain is therefore no necessary presumption of death.

     CHAP 4.--EXAMPLES FROM NATURE PROVING THAT BODIES MAY REMAIN
UNCONSUMED AND ALIVE IN FIRE.

    If, therefore, the salamander lives in fire, as naturalists(1) have recorded, and if certain famous
mountains of Sicily have been continually on fire from the remotest antiquity until now, and yet
remain entire, these are sufficiently convincing examples that everything which burns is not
consumed. As the soul too, is a proof that not everything which can suffer pain can also die, why
then do they yet demand that we produce real examples to prove that it is not incredible that the
bodies of men condemned to everlasting punishment may retain their soul in the fire, may burn
without being consumed, and may suffer without perishing? For suitable properties will be
communicated to the substance of the flesh by Him who has endowed the things we see with so
marvellous and diverse properties, that their very multitude prevents our wonder. For who but
God the Creator of all things has given to the flesh of the peacock its antiseptic property? This
property, when I first heard of it, seemed to me incredible; but it happened at Carthage that a bird
of this kind was cooked and served up to me, and, taking a suitable slice of flesh from its breast, I
ordered it to be kept, and when it had been kept as many days as make any other flesh stinking, it
was produced and set before me, and emitted no offensive smell. And after it had been laid by for
thirty days and more, it was still in the same state; and a year after, the same still, except that it
was a little more shrivelled, and drier. Who gave to chaff such power to freeze that it preserves
snow buried under it, and such power to warm that it ripens green fruit?
    But who can explain the strange properties of fire itself, which blackens everything it burns,
though itself bright; and which, though of the most beautiful colors, discolors almost all it touches
and feeds upon, and turns blazing fuel into grimy cinders? Still this is not laid down as an
absolutely uniform law; for, on the contrary, stones baked in glowing fire themselves also glow,
and though the fire be rather of a red hue, and they white, yet white is congruous with light, and
black with darkness. Thus, though the fire burns the wood in calcining the stones, these contrary
effects do not result from the contrariety of the materials. For though wood and stone differ, they
are not contraries, like black and white, the one of which colors is produced in the stones, while
the other is produced in the wood by the same action of fire, which imparts its own brightness to
the former, while it begrimes the latter, and which could have no effect on the one were it not fed
by the other. Then what wonderful properties do we find in charcoal, which is so brittle that a
light tap breaks it and a slight pressure pulverizes it, and yet is so strong that no moisture rots it,
nor any time causes it to decay. So enduring is it, that it is customary in laying down landmarks to
put charcoal underneath them, so that if, after the longest interval, any one raises an action, and
pleads that there is no boundary stone, he may be convicted by the charcoal below. What then has
enabled it to last so long without rotting, though buried in the damp earth in which [its original]
wood rots, except this same fire which consumes all things?
    Again, let us consider the wonders of time; for besides growing white in fire, which makes
other things black, and of which I have already said enough, it has also a mysterious property of
conceiving fire within it. Itself cold to the touch, it yet has a hidden store of fire, which is not at
once apparent to our senses, but which experience teaches us, lies as it were slumbering within it
even while unseen. And it is for this reason called "quick lime," as if the fire were the invisible soul
quickening the visible substance or body. But the marvellous thing is, that this fire is kindled when
it is extinguished. For to disengage the hidden fire the lime is moistened or drenched with water,
and then, though it be cold before, it becomes hot by that very application which cools what is
hot. As if the

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fire were departing from the lime and breathing its last, it no longer lies hid, but appears; and then
the lime lying in the coldness of death cannot be requickened, and what we before called "quick,"
we now call "slaked." What can be stranger than this? Yet there is a greater marvel still. For if you
treat the lime, not with water, but with oil, which is as fuel to fire, no amount of oil will heat it.
Now if this marvel had been told us of some Indian mineral which we had no opportunity of
experimenting upon, we should either have forthwith pronounced it a falsehood, or certainly
should have been greatly astonished. But things that daily present themselves to our own
observation we despise, not because they are really less marvellous, but because they are
common; so that even some products of India itself, remote as it is from ourselves, cease to excite
our admiration as soon as we can admire them at our leisure.(1)
    The diamond is a stone possessed by many among ourselves, especially by jewellers and
lapidaries, and the stone is so hard that it can be wrought neither by iron nor fire, nor, they say, by
anything at all except goat's blood. But do you suppose it is as much admired by those who own it
and are familiar with its properties as by those to whom it is shown for the first time? Persons
who have not seen it perhaps do not believe what is said of it, or if they do, they wonder as at a
thing beyond their experience; and if they happen to see it, still they marvel because they are
unused to it, but gradually familiar experience [of it] dulls their admiration. We know that the
loadstone has a wonderful power of attracting iron. When I first saw it I was thunderstruck, for I
saw an iron ring attracted and suspended by the stone; and then, as if it had communicated its own
property to the iron it attracted, and had made it a substance like itself, this ring was put near
another, and lifted it up; and as the first ring clung to the magnet, so did the second ring to the
first. A third and a fourth were similarly added, so that there hung from the stone a kind of chain
of rings, with their hoops connected, not interlinking, but attached together by their outer surface.
Who would not be amazed at this virtue of the stone, subsisting as it does not only in itself, but
transmitted through so many suspended rings, and binding them together by invisible links? Yet
far more astonishing is what I heard about this stone from my brother in the episcopate, Severus
bishop of Milevis. He told me that Bathanarius, once count of Africa, when the bishop was dining
with him, produced a magnet, and held it under a silver plate on which he placed a bit of iron;
then as he moved his hand with the magnet underneath the plate, the iron upon the plate moved
about accordingly. The intervening silver was not affected at all, but precisely as the magnet was
moved backwards and forwards below it, no matter how quickly, so was the iron attracted above.
I have related what I myself have witnessed; I have related what I was told by one whom I trust as
I trust my own eyes. Let me further say what I have read about this magnet. When a diamond is
laid near it, it does not lift iron; or if it has already lifted it, as soon as the diamond approaches, it
drops it. These stones come from India. But if we cease to admire them because they are now
familiar, how much less must they admire them who procure them very easily and send them to
us? Perhaps they are held as cheap as we hold lime, which, because it is common, we think
nothing of, though it has the strange property of burning when water, which is wont to quench
fire, is poured on it, and of remaining cool when mixed with oil, which ordinarily feeds fire.

     CHAP. 5.--THAT THERE ARE MANY THINGS WHICH REASON CANNOT
ACCOUNT FOR, AND WHICH ARE NEVERTHELESS TRUE.

    Nevertheless, when we declare the miracles which God has wrought, or will yet work, and
which we cannot bring under the very eyes of men, sceptics keep demanding that we shall explain
these marvels to reason. And because we cannot do so, inasmuch as they are above human
comprehension, they suppose we are speaking falsely. These persons themselves, therefore, ought
to account for all these marvels which we either can or do see. And if they perceive that this is
impossible for man to do, they should acknowledge that it cannot be concluded that a thing has
not been or shall not be because it cannot be reconciled to reason, since there are things now in
existence of which the same is true. I will not, then, detail the multitude of marvels which are
related in books, and which refer not to things that happened once and passed away, but that are
permanent in certain places, where, if any one has the desire and opportunity, he may ascertain
their truth; but a few only I recount. The following are some of the marvels men tell us:--The salt
of Agrigentum in Sicily, when thrown into the

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fire, becomes fluid as if it were in water, but in the water it crackles as if it were in the fire. The
Garamantae have a fountain so cold by day that no one can drink it, so hot by night no one can
touch it.(1) In Epirus, too, there is a fountain which, like all others, quenches lighted torches, but,
unlike all others, lights quenched torches. There is a stone found in Arcadia, and called asbestos,
because once lit it cannot be put out. The wood of a certain kind of Egyptian fig-tree sinks in
water, and does not float like other wood; and, stranger still, when it has been sunk to the bottom
for some time, it rises again to the surface, though nature requires that when soaked in water it
should be heavier than ever. Then there are the apples of Sodom which grow indeed to an
appearance of ripeness, but, when you touch them with hand or tooth, the peal cracks, and they
crumble into dust and ashes. The Persian stone pyrites burns the hand when it is tightly held in it
and so gets its name from fire. In Persia too, there is found another stone called selenite, because
its interior brilliancy waxes and wanes with the moon. Then in Cappadocia the mares are
impregnated by the wind, and their foals live only three years. Tilon, an Indian island, has this
advantage over all other lands, that no tree which grows in it ever loses its foliage.
    These and numberless other marvels recorded in the history, not of past events, but of
permanent localities, I have no time to enlarge upon and diverge from my main object; but let
those sceptics who refuse to credit the divine writings give me, if they can, a rational account of
them. For their only ground of unbelief in the Scriptures is, that they contain incredible things, just
such as I have been recounting. For, say they, reason cannot admit that flesh burn and remain
unconsumed, suffer without dying. Mighty reasoners, indeed, who are competent to give the
reason of all the marvels that exist! Let them then give us the reason of the few things we have
cited, and which, if they did not know they existed, and were only assured by us they would at
some future time occur, they would believe still less than that which they now refuse to credit on
our word. For which of them would believe us if, instead of saying that the living bodies of men
hereafter will be such as to endure everlasting pain and fire without ever dying, we were to say
that in the world to come there will be salt which becomes liquid in fire as if it were in water, and
crackles in water as if it were in fire; or that there will be a fountain whose water in the chill air of
night is so hot that it cannot be touched, while in the heat of day it is so cold that it cannot be
drunk; or that there will be a stone which by its own heat burns the hand when tightly held, or a
stone which cannot be extinguished if it has been lit in any part; or any of those wonders I have
cited, while omitting numberless others? If we were to say that these things would be found in the
world to come, and our sceptics were to reply, "If you wish us to believe these things, satisfy our
reason about each of them," we should confess that we could not, because the frail
comprehension of man cannot master these and such-like wonders of God's working; and that yet
our reason was thoroughly convinced that the Almighty does nothing without reason, though the
frail mind of man cannot explain the reason; and that while we are in many instances uncertain
what He intends, yet that it is always most certain that nothing which He intends is impossible to
Him; and that when He declares His mind, we believe Him whom we cannot believe to be either
powerless or false. Nevertheless these cavillers at faith and exactors of reason, how do they
dispose of those things of which a reason cannot be given, and which yet exist, though in apparent
contrariety to the nature of things? If we had announced that these things were to be, these
sceptics would have demanded from us the reason of them, as they do in the case of those things
which we are announcing as destined to be. And consequently, as these present marvels are not
non-existent, though human reason and discourse are lost in such works of God, so those things
we speak of are not impossible because inexplicable; for in this particular they are in the same
predicament as the marvels of earth.

     CHAP. 6.--THAT ALL MARVELS ARE NOT OF NATURE'S PRODUCTION, BUT
THAT SOME ARE DUE TO HUMAN INGENUITY AND OTHERS TO DIABOLIC
CONTRIVANCE.

    At this point they will perhaps reply, "These things have no existence; we don't believe one of
them; they are travellers' tales and fictitious romances;" and they may add what has the
appearance of argument, and say, "If you believe such things as these, believe what is recorded in
the same books, that there was or is a temple of Venus in which a candelabrum set in the open air
holds a lamp, which burns so strongly that no storm
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or rain extinguishes it, and which is therefore called, like the stone mentioned above, the asbestos
or inextinguishable lamp." They may say this with the intention of putting us into a dilemma: for if
we say this is incredible, then we shall impugn the truth of the other recorded marvels; if, on the
other hand, we admit that this is credible, we shall avouch the pagan deities. But, as I have already
said in the eighteenth book of this work, we do not hold it necessary to believe all that profane
history contains, since, as Varro says, even historians themselves disagree on so many points, that
one would think they intended and were at pains to do so; but we believe, if we are disposed,
those things which are not contradicted by these books, which we do not hesitate to say we are
bound to believe. But as to those permanent miracles of nature, whereby we wish to persuade the
sceptical of the miracles of the world to come, those are quite sufficient for our purpose which we
ourselves can observe or of which it is not difficult to find trustworthy witnesses. Moreover, that
temple of Venus, with its inextinguishable lamp, so far from hemming us into a corner, opens an
advantageous field to our argument. For to this inextinguishable lamp we add a host of marvels
wrought by men, or by magic,--that is, by men under the influence of devils, or by the devils
directly,--for such marvels we cannot deny without impugning the truth of the sacred Scriptures
we believe. That lamp, therefore, was either by some mechanical and human device fitted with
asbestos, or it was arranged by magical art in order that the worshippers might be astonished, or
some devil under the name of Venus so signally manifested himself that this prodigy both began
and became permanent. Now devils are attracted to dwell in certain temples by means of the
creatures (God's creatures, not theirs), who present to them what suits their various tastes. They
are attracted not by food like animals, but, like spirits, by such symbols as suit their taste, various
kinds of stones, woods, plants, animals, songs, rites. And that men may provide these attractions,
the devils first of all cunningly seduce them, either by imbuing their hearts with a secret poison, or
by revealing themselves under a friendly guise, and thus make a few of them their disciples, who
become the instructors of the multitude. For unless they first instructed men, it were impossible to
know what each of them desires, what they shrink from, by what name they should be invoked or
constrained to be present. Hence the origin of magic and magicians. But, above all, they possess
the hearts of men, and are chiefly proud of this possession when they transform themselves into
angels of light. Very many things that occur, therefore, are their doing; and these deeds of theirs
we ought all the more carefully to shun as we acknowledge them to be very surprising. And yet
these very deeds forward my present arguments. For if such marvels are wrought by unclean
devils, how much mightier are the holy angels! and what can not that God do who made the
angels themselves capable of working miracles!
    If, then, very many effects can be contrived by human art, of so surprising a kind that the
uninitiated think them divine, as when, e.g., in a certain temple two magnets have been adjusted,
one in the roof, another in the floor, so that an iron image is suspended in mid-air between them,
one would suppose by the power of the divinity, were he ignorant of the magnets above and
beneath; or, as in the case of that lamp of Venus which we already mentioned as being a skillful
adaptation of asbestos; if, again, by the help of magicians, whom Scripture calls sorcerers and
enchanters, the devils could gain such power that the noble poet Virgil should consider himself
justified in describing a very powerful magician in these lines:

"Her charms can cure what souls she please, Rob other hearts of healthful ease, Turn rivers
backward to their source, And make the stars forget their course,
    And call up ghosts from night: The ground shall bellow 'neath your feet: The mountain-ash
shall quit its seat,
    And travel down the height;"(1)--

if this be so, how much more able is God to do those things which to sceptics are incredible, but
to His power easy, since it is He who has given to stones and all other things their virtue, and to
men their skill to use them in wonderful ways; He who has given to the angels a nature more
mighty than that of all that lives on earth; He whose power surpasses all marvels, and whose
wisdom in working, ordaining, and permitting is no less marvellous in its governance of all things
than in its creation of all!

     CHAP. 7.--THAT THE ULTIMATE REASON FOR BELIEVING MIRACLES IS THE
OMNIPOTENCE OF THE CREATOR.

    Why, then, cannot God effect both that the bodies of the dead shall rise, and that the bodies of
the damned shall be tormented in everlasting fire,--God, who made the world

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full of countless miracles in sky, earth, air and waters, while itself is a miracle unquestionably
greater and more admirable than all the marvels it is filled with? But those with whom or against
whom we are arguing, who believe both that there is a God who made the world, and that there
are gods created by Him who administer the world's laws as His viceregents,--our adversaries, I
say, who, so far from denying emphatically, assert that there are powers in the world which effect
marvellous results (whether of their own accord, or because they are invoked by some rite or
prayer, or in some magical way), when we lay before them the wonderful properties of other
things which are neither rational animals nor rational spirits, but such material objects as those we
have just cited, are in the habit of replying, This is their natural property, their nature; these are
the powers naturally belonging to them. Thus the whole reason why Agrigentine salt dissolves in
fire and crackles in water is that this is its nature Yet this seems rather contrary to nature, which
has given not to fire but to water the power of melting salt, and the power of scorching it not to
water but to fire. But this they say, is the natural property of this salt, to show effects contrary to
these. The same reason, therefore, is assigned to account for that Garamantian fountain, of which
one and the same runlet is chill by day and boiling by night, so that in either extreme it cannot be
touched. So also of that other fountain which, though it is cold to the touch, and though it, like
other fountains, extinguishes a lighted torch, yet, unlike other fountains, and in a surprising
manner, kindles an extinguished torch. So of the asbestos stone, which, though it has no heat of
its own, yet when kindled by fire applied to it, cannot be extinguished. And so of the rest, which I
am weary of reciting, and in which, though there seems to be an extraordinary property contrary
to nature, yet no other reason is given for them than this, that this is their nature,--a brief reason
truly, and, I own, a satisfactory reply. But since God is the author of all natures, how is it that our
adversaries, when they refuse to believe what we affirm, on the ground that it is impossible, are
unwilling to accept from us a better explanation than their own, viz., that this is the will of
Almighty God,--for certainly He is called Almighty only because He is mighty to do all He
will,--He who was able to create so many marvels, not only unknown, but very well ascertained,
as I have been showing, and which, were they not under our own observation, or reported by
recent and credible witnesses, would certainly be pronounced impossible? For as for those
marvels which have no other testimony than the writers in whose books we read them, and who
wrote without being divinely instructed, and are therefore liable to human error, we cannot justly
blame any one who declines to believe them.
    For my own part, I do not wish all the marvels I have cited to be rashly accepted, for I do not
myself believe them implicitly, save those which have either come under my own observation, or
which any one can readily verify, such as the lime which is heated by water and cooled by oil; the
magnet which by its mysterious and insensible suction attracts the iron, but has no affect on a
straw; the peacock's flesh which triumphs over the corruption from which not the flesh of Plato is
exempt; the chaff so chilling that it prevents snow from melting, so heating that it forces apples to
ripen; the glowing fire, which, in accordance with its glowing appearance, whitens the stones it
bakes, while; contrary to its glowing appearance, it begrimes most things it burns (just as dirty
stains are made by oil, however pure it be, and as the lines drawn by white silver are black); the
charcoal, too, which by the action of fire is so completely changed from its original, that a finely
marked piece of wood becomes hideous, the tough becomes brittle, the decaying incorruptible.
Some of these things I know in common with many other persons, some of them in common with
all men; and there are many others which I have not room to insert in this book. But of those
which I have cited, though I have not myself seen, but only read about them, I have been unable
to find trustworthy witnesses from whom I could ascertain whether they are facts, except in the
case of that fountain in which burning torches are extinguished and extinguished torches lit, and of
the apples of Sodom, which are ripe to appearance, but are filled with dust. And indeed I have not
met with any who said they had seen that fountain in Epirus, but with some who knew there was a
similar fountain in Gaul not far from Grenoble. The fruit of the trees of Sodom, however, is not
only spoken of in books worthy of credit, but so many persons say that they have seen it that I
cannot doubt the fact. But the rest of the prodigies I receive without definitely affirming or
denying them; and I have cited them because I read them in the authors of our adversaries, and
that I might prove how many things many among themselves believe, because they are written in
the works of their own literary men, though no rational explanation of them is given, and yet they
scorn to

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believe us when we assert that Almighty God will do what is beyond their experience and
observation; and this they do even though we assign a reason for His work. For what better and
stronger reason for such things can be given than to say that the Almighty is able to bring them to
pass, and will bring them to pass, having predicted them in those books in which many other
marvels which have already come to pass were predicted? Those things which are regarded as
impossible will be accomplished according to the word, and by the power of that God who
predicted and effected that the incredulous nations should believe incredible wonders.

     CHAP. 8.--THAT IT IS NOT CONTRARY TO NATURE THAT, IN AN OBJECT
WHOSE NATURE IS KNOWN, THERE SHOULD BE DISCOVERED AN ALTERATION OF
THE PROPERTIES WHICH HAVE BEEN KNOWN AS ITS NATURAL PROPERTIES.

    But if they reply that their reason for not believing us when we say that human bodies will
always burn and vet never die, is that the nature of human bodies is known to be quite otherwise
constituted; if they say that for this miracle we cannot give the reason which was valid in the case
of those natural miracles, viz., that this is the natural property, the nature of the thing,--for we
know that this is not the nature of human flesh,--we find our answer in the sacred writings, that
even this human flesh was constituted in one fashion before there was sin,--was constituted, in
fact, so that it could not die,--and in another fashion after sin, being made such as we see it in this
miserable state of mortality, unable to retain enduring life. And so in the resurrection of the dead
shall it be constituted differently from its present well-known condition. But as they do not believe
these writings of ours, in which we read what nature man had in paradise, and how remote he was
from the necessity of death,--and indeed, if they did believe them, we should of course have little
trouble in debating with them the future punishment of the damned,--we must produce from the
writings of their own most learned authorities some instances to show that it is possible for a thing
to become different from what it was formerly known characteristically to be.
    From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled, Of the Race of the Roman People, I cite word for
word the following instance: "There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records
that, in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer,
there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never
happened before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said
that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges." So great an author as Varro would certainly not have
called this a portent had it not seemed to he contrary to nature. For we say that all portents are
contrary to nature; but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the
will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A
portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature. But
who can number the multitude of portents recorded in profane histories? Let us then at present fix
our attention on this one only which concerns the matter in hand. What is there so arranged by the
Author of the nature of heaven and earth as the exactly ordered course of the stars? What is there
established by laws so sure and inflexible? And yet, when it pleased Him who with sovereignty
and supreme power regulates all He has created, a star conspicuous among the rest by its size and
splendor changed its color, size, form, and, most wonderful of all, the order and law of its course!
Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers, if there were any then, by
which they tabulate, as by unerring computation, the past and future movements of the stars, so as
to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the morning star (Venus) never happened
before nor since. But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy
man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God until victory should finish the battle he
had begun; and that it even went back, that the promise of fifteen years added to the life of king
Hezekiah might be sealed by this additional prodigy. But these miracles, which were vouchsafed
to the merits of holy men, even when our adversaries believe them, they attribute to magical arts;
so Virgil, in the lines I quoted above, ascribes to magic the power to

     "Turn rivers backward to their source,
   And make the stars forget their course."

For in our sacred books we read that this also happened, that a river "turned backward," was
stayed above while the lower part flowed on, when the people passed over under the
above-mentioned leader, Joshua the son of Nun; and also when Elias the prophet crossed; and
afterwards, when his disciple Elisha passed through it: and we have just

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mentioned how, in the case of king Hezekiah the greatest of the "stars forgot its course." But
what happened to Venus, according to Varro, was not said by him to have happened in answer to
any man's prayer.
    Let not the sceptics then benight themselves in this knowledge of the nature of things, as if
divine power cannot bring to pass in an object anything else than what their own experience has
shown them to be in its nature. Even the very things which are most commonly known as natural
would not be less wonderful nor less effectual to excite surprise in all who beheld them, if men
were not accustomed to admire nothing but what is rare. For who that thoughtfully observes the
countless multitude of men, and their similarity of nature, can fail to remark with surprise and
admiration the individuality of each man's appearance, suggesting to us, as it does, that unless men
were like one another, they would not be distinguished from the rest of the animals; while unless,
on the other hand, they were unlike, they could not be distinguished from one another, so that
those whom we declare to be like, we also find to be unlike? And the unlikeness is the more
wonderful consideration of the two; for a common nature seems rather to require similarity. And
yet, because the very rarity of things is that which makes them wonderful, we are filled with much
greater wonder when we are introduced to two men so like, that we either always or frequently
mistake in endeavoring to distinguish between them.
    But possibly, though Varro is a heathen historian, and a very learned one, they may disbelieve
that what I have cited from him truly occurred; or they may say the example is invalid, because
the star did not for any length of time continue to follow its new course, but returned to its
ordinary orbit. There is, then, another phenomenon at present open to their observation, and
which, m my opinion, ought to be sufficient to convince them that, though they have observed and
ascertained some natural law, they ought not on that account to prescribe to God, as if He could
not change and turn it into something very different from what they have observed. The land of
Sodom was not always as it now is; but once it had the appearance of other lands, and enjoyed
equal if not richer fertility; for, in the divine narrative, it was compared to the paradise of God.
But after it was touched [by fire] from heaven, as even pagan history testifies, and as is now
witnessed by those who visit the spot, it became unnaturally and horribly sooty in appearance; and
its apples, under a deceitful appearance of ripeness, contain ashes within. Here is a thing which
was of one kind, and is of another. You see how its nature was converted by the wonderful
transmutation wrought by the Creator of all natures into so very disgusting a diversity,--an
alteration which after so long a time took place, and after so long a time still continues. As
therefore it was not impossible to God to create such natures as He pleased, so it is not impossible
to Him to change these natures of His own creation into whatever He pleases, and thus spread
abroad a multitude of those marvels which are called monsters, portents, prodigies,
phenomena,(1) and which if I were minded to cite and record, what end would there be to this
work? They say that they are called "monsters," because they demonstrate or signify something;
"portents," because they portend something; and so forth.(2) But let their diviners see how they
are either deceived, or even when they do predict true things, it is because they are inspired by
spirits, who are intent upon entangling the minds of men (worthy, indeed, of such a fate) in the
meshes of a hurtful curiosity, or how they light now and then upon some truth, because they make
so many predictions. Yet, for our part, these things which happen contrary to nature, and are said
to be contrary to nature (as the apostle, speaking after the manner of men, says, that to graft the
wild olive into the good olive, and to partake of its fatness, is contrary to nature), and are called
monsters, phenomena, portents, prodigies, ought to demonstrate, portend, predict that God will
bring to pass what He has foretold regarding the bodies of men, no difficulty preventing Him, no
law of nature prescribing to Him His limit. How He has foretold what He is to do, I think I have
sufficiently shown in the preceding book, culling from the sacred Scriptures, both of the New and
Old Testaments, not, indeed, all the passages that relate to this, but as many as I judged to suffice
for this work.

CHAP. 9.--OF HELL, AND THE NATURE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS.

    So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting punishment of the damned shall
come to pass--shall without fail come to pass,--"their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be
quenched."(3) In order to impress this upon us most forcibly, the Lord Jesus Himself, when
ordering us to cut off

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our members, meaning thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most useful members of
his body, says, "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into
hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched." Similarly of the foot: "It is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet
to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched." So, too, of the eye: "It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God
with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched."(1) He did not shrink from using the same words three times over in one
passage. And who is not terrified by this repetition, and by the threat of that punishment uttered
so vehemently by the lips of the Lord Himself?
    Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm
that the wicked, who are separated from the kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the
anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire is therefore not
inappropriately used to  express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims "Who is
offended, and I burn not?"(2) The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it is
written they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief
consume the heart of a man."(3) But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both
body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as
it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,--for it is absurd to
suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,--yet, for my own part,
I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I
think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not
expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with
a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the
ungodly is fire and worms."(4) It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the
ungodly." Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the
worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, "The
vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live after
the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live
after the flesh, ye shall die"(5), let each one make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the
body and the worm to the soul,--the one figuratively, the other really,--or assigning both really to
the body. For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning
without being consumed, in without dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom
no one can deny that this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is
wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small,
in this world which I have mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has
enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of all. Let each man, then, choose
which he will, whether he thinks that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual
things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul. But which of these is
true will be more readily discovered by the facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such
knowledge as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of these
punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter.
For "now we know in part, until that which is perfect is come;"(6) only, this we believe about
those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be pained by the fire.

     CHAP. 10.--WHETHER THE FIRE OF HELL, IF IT BE MATERIAL FIRE, CAN
BURN THE WICKED SPIRITS, THAT IS TO SAY, DEVILS, WHO ARE IMMATERIAL.

    Here arises the question: If the fire is not to be immaterial, analogous to the pain of the soul,
but material, burning by contact, so that bodies may be tormented in it, how can evil spirits be
punished in it? For it is undoubtedly the same fire which is to serve for the punishment of men and
of devils, according to the words of Christ: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels;"(7) unless, perhaps, as learned men have thought, the devils
have a kind of body made of that dense and humid air which we feel strikes us when the

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wind is blowing. And if this kind of substance could not be affected by fire, it could not burn when
heated in the baths. For in order to burn, it is first burned, and affects other things as itself is
affected. But if any one maintains that the devils have no bodies, this is not a matter either to be
laboriously  investigated, or to be debated with keenness. For why may we not assert that even
immaterial spirits may, in some extraordinary way, yet really be pained by the punishment of
material fire, if the spirits of men, which also are certainly immaterial, are both now contained in
material members of the body, and in the world to come shall be indissolubly united to their own
bodies? Therefore, though the devils have no bodies, yet their spirits, that is, the devils
themselves, shall be brought  into thorough contact with the material fires, to be tormented by
them; not that the fires themselves with which they are brought into contact shall be animated by
their connection with these spirits, and become animals composed of body and spirit, but, as I
said, this junction will be effected in a wonderful and ineffable way, so that they shall receive pain
from the fires, but give no life to them. And, in truth, this other mode of union, by which bodies
and spirits are bound together and become animals, is thoroughly marvellous, and  beyond the
comprehension of man, though this it is which is man.
    I would indeed say that these spirits will burn without any body of their own, as that rich man
was burning in hell when he exclaimed, "I am tormented in this flame,"(1) were I not aware that it
is aptly said in reply, that that flame was of the same nature as the  eyes he raised and fixed on
Lazarus, as the tongue on which he entreated that a little cooling water might be dropped, or as
the finger of Lazarus, with which he asked that this might be done,--all of which took place where
souls exist without bodies. Thus, therefore, both that flame in which he burned and that drop he
begged were immaterial, and resembled the visions of sleepers or persons in an ecstasy, to whom
immaterial objects appear in a bodily form. For the man himself who is in such a state, though it
be in spirit only, not in body, yet sees himself so like to his own body that he cannot discern any
difference whatever. But that hell, which also is called a lake of fire and brimstone,(2) will be
material fire, and will torment the bodies of the damned, whether men or devils,--the solid bodies
of the one, aerial bodies of the others; or if only men have bodies as well as souls, yet the evil
spirits, though without bodies, shall be so connected with the bodily fires as to receive pain
without imparting life. One fire certainly shall be the lot of both, for thus the truth has declared.

     CHAP. 11.--WHETHER IT IS JUST THAT THE PUNISHMENTS OF SINS LAST
LONGER THAN THE SINS THEMSELVES LASTED.

    Some, however, of those against whom we are defending the city of God, think it unjust that
any man be doomed to an eternal punishment for sins which, no matter how great they were, were
perpetrated in a brief space of time; as if any law ever regulated the duration of the punishment by
the duration of the offence punished! Cicero tells us that the laws recognize eight kinds of
penalty,-damages, imprisonment, scourging, reparation,(3) disgrace, exile, death, slavery. Is there
any one of these which may be compressed into a brevity proportioned to the rapid commission of
the offence, so that no longer time may be spent in its punishment than in its perpetration, unless,
perhaps, reparation? For this requires that the offender suffer what he did, as that clause of the
law says, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth."(4) For certainly it is possible for an offender to lose his
eye by the severity of legal retaliation in as brief a time as he deprived another of his eye by the 
cruelty of his own lawlessness. But if scourging be a reasonable penalty for kissing another man's
wife, is not the fault of an instant visited with long hours of atonement, and the momentary delight
punished with lasting pain? What shall we say of imprisonment? Must the criminal be confined
only for so long a time as he spent on the offence for which he is committed? or is not a penalty of
many years' confinement imposed on the slave who
has provoked his master with a word, or has struck him a blow that is quickly over? And as to
damages, disgrace, exile, slavery, which are commonly inflicted so as to admit of no relaxation or
pardon, do not these resemble eternal punishments in so far as this short life allows a
resemblance? For they are not eternal only because the life in which they are endured is not
eternal; and yet the crimes which are punished with these most protracted sufferings are
perpetrated in a very brief space of time. Nor is there any one who would suppose that the pains
of punishment should occupy as short a time as the offense; or that murder, adultery, sacrilege, or
any other crime, should be measured, not by the enor-
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mity of the injury or wickedness, but by the length of time spent in its perpetration. Then as to the
award of death for any great crime, do the laws reckon the punishment to  consist in the brief
moment in which death is inflicted, or in this, that the offender is eternally banished from the
society of the living? And just as the punishment of the first death cuts men off from this present
mortal city, so does the punishment of the second death cut men off from that future immortal
city. For as the laws of this present city do not provide for the executed criminal's return to it, so
neither is he who is condemned to the second dearth recalled again to life everlasting. But if
temporal sin is visited with eternal punishment, how, then, they say, is that true which your Christ
says, "With the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again?"(1) and they
do not observe that "the same measure" refers, not to an equal space of time, but to the
retribution of evil or, in other words, to the law by which he, who has done evil suffers evil.
Besides, these words could be appropriately understood as referring to the matter of which our
Lord was speaking when He used them, viz., judgments and condemnation. Thus, if he who
unjustly judges and condemns is himself justly judged and condemned, he receives "with the same
measure" though not the same thing as he gave. For judgment he gave, and judgment he receives,
though the judgment he gave was unjust, the judgment he receives just.

     CHAP. 12.--OF THE GREATNESS OF THE FIRST TRANSGRESSION, ON
ACCOUNT OF WHICH ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IS DUE TO ALL WHO ARE NOT
WITHIN THE PALE OF THE SAVIOUR'S GRACE.

    But eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human perceptions, because in the weakness
of our mortal condition there is wanting that highest and purest wisdom by which it can be
perceived how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. The more enjoyment
man found in God, the greater was his wickedness in abandoning Him; and he who destroyed in
himself a good which might have been eternal, became worthy of eternal evil. Hence the whole
mass of the human race is condemned; for he who at first gave entrance to sin has been punished
with all his posterity who were in him as in a root, so that no one is exempt from this just and due
punishment, unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the an race is so apportioned
that in some is displayed the efficacy of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution.
For both could not be displayed in all; for if all had remained(2) under the punishment of just
condemnation, there would have been seen in no one the mercy of redeeming grace. And, on the
other hand, if all had been transferred from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would
have been manifested in none. But many more are left under punishment than are delivered from
it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all. And had it been inflicted on all, no one
could justly have found fault with the justice of Him who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the
deliverance of so many from that just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to
the gratuitous bounty of Him who delivers.

     CHAP. 13.--AGAINST THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE
PUNISHMENTS OF THE WICKED AFTER DEATH ARE PURGATORIAL.

    The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are unpunished, suppose that all
punishment is administered for remedial purposes,(3) be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this
life or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished, may yet not amend.
Hence that passage of Virgil, where, when he had said of our earthly bodies and mortal members,
that our souls derive--

    "Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, And human laughter, human tears; Immured in
dungeon-seeming night, They look abroad, yet see no light,"

goes on to say:

          "Nay, when at last the life has fled, And left the body cold and dead, Ee'n then
there passes not away The painful heritage of clay; Full many a long-contracted stain Perforce
must linger deep in grain. So penal sufferings they endure For ancient crime, to make them pure;
Some hang aloft in open view, For winds to pierce them through and through, While others purge
their guilt deep-dyed In burning fire or whelming tide."(4)

They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death to be purgatorial; and as the
elements of air, fire, and water are superior to earth, one or other of these may

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be the instrument of expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of earth. So
Virgil hints at the air in the words, "Some hang aloft for winds to pierce;" at the water in
"whelming tide;" and at fire in the expression "in burning fire." For our part, we recognize that
even in this life some punishments are purgatorial,--not, indeed, to those whose life is none the
better, but rather the worse for them, but to those who are constrained by them to amend their
life. All other punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by
divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life,
or to exercise and reveal a man's graces. They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men
and angels as well as of the good. For even if any one suffers some hurt through another's
wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God,
who by His just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins not. But temporary
punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and
then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary
punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains which are to follow that
judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in
the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment.of the world to come.

     CHAP. 14.--OF THE TEMPORARY PUNISHMENTS OF THIS LIFE TO WHICH
THE HUMAN CONDITION IS SUBJECT.

    Quite exceptional are those who are not punished in this life, but only afterwards. Yet that
there have been some who have reached the decrepitude of age without experiencing even the
slightest sickness, and who have had uninterrupted enjoyment of life, I know both from report and
from my own observation. However, the very life we mortals lead is itself all punishment, for it is
all temptation, as the Scriptures declare, where it is written, "Is not the life of man upon earth a
temptation?"(1) For ignorance is itself no slight punishment, or want of culture, which it is with
justice thought so necessary to escape, that boys are compelled, under pain of severe punishment,
to learn trades or letters; and the learning to which they are driven by punishment is itself so much
of a punishment to them, that they sometimes prefer the pain that drives them to the pain to which
they are driven by it. And who would not shrink from the alternative, and elect to die, if it were
proposed to him either to suffer death or to be again an infant? Our infancy, indeed, introducing
us to this life not with laughter but with tears, seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to
encounter.(2) Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born, and that unnatural omen
portended no good to him. For he is said to have been the inventor of magical arts, though indeed
they were unable to secure to him even the poor felicity of this present life against the assaults of
his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians.
In short, the words of Scripture, "An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that
they go out of their mother's womb till the day that they return to the mother of all
things,"(3)--these words so infallibly find fulfillment, that even the little ones, who by the layer of
regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, yet
suffer many ills, and in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us
not for a moment suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future happiness, even though it
has so increased as to sever soul from body, and to terminate their life in that early age.

     CHAP. 15.--THAT EVERYTHING WHICH THE GRACE OF GOD DOES IN THE
WAY OF RESCUING US FROM THE INVETERATE EVILS IN WHICH WE ARE SUNK,
PERTAINS TO THE FUTURE WORLD, IN WHICH ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW.

    Nevertheless, in the "heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go
out of their mother's womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things," there is found
an admirable though painful monitor teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing us that this
life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous wickedness which was perpetrated in
Paradise, and that all to which the New Testament invites belongs to that future inheritance which
awaits us in the world to come, and is offered for our acceptance, as the earnest that we may, in
its own due time, obtain that of which it is the pledge. Now, therefore, let us walk in hope, and let
us by the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, and so make progress from day to day. For "the
Lord know-

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eth them that are His;"(1) and "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God,"(2)
but by grace, not by nature. For there is but one Son of God by nature, who in His compassion
became Son of man for our sakes, that we, by nature sons of men, might by grace become
through Him sons of God. For He, abiding unchangeable, took upon Him our nature, that thereby
He might take us to Himself; and, holding fast His own divinity, He became partaker of our
infirmity, that we, being changed into some better thing, might, by participating in His
righteousness and immortality, lose our own properties of sin and mortality, and preserve
whatever good quality He had implanted in our nature perfected now by sharing in the goodness
of His nature. For as by the sin of one man we have fallen into a misery so deplorable, so by the
righteousness of one Man, who also is God, shall we come to a blessedness inconceivably exalted.
Nor ought any one to trust that he has passed from the one man to the other until he shall have
reached that place where there is no temptation, and have entered into the peace which he seeks in
the many and various conflicts of this war, in which "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh."(3) Now, such a war as this would have had no existence if human nature
had, in the exercise of free will, continued steadfast in the uprightness in which it was created. But
now in its misery it makes war upon itself, because in its blessedness it would not continue at
peace with God; and this, though it be a miserable calamity, is better than the earlier stages of this
life, which do not recognize that a war is to be maintained. For better is it to contend with vices
than without conflict to be subdued by them. Better, I say, is war with the hope of peace
everlasting than captivity without any thought of deliverance. We long, indeed, for the cessation
of this war, and, kindled by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance on that well-ordered
peace in which whatever is inferior is for ever subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God
forbid) there had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should still have preferred to
endure the hardness of this conflict, rather than, by our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to the
dominion of vice.

     CHAP. 16.--THE LAWS OF GRACE, WHICH EXTEND TO ALL THE EPOCHS OF
THE LIFE OF THE REGENERATE.

     But such is God's mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory, that
even the first age of man, that is, infancy, which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and
the second age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet understanding enough to
undertake this warfare, and therefore yields to almost every vicious pleasure (because though this
age has the power of speech,(4) and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind is still
too weak to comprehend the commandment), yet if either of these ages has received the
sacraments of the Mediator, then, although the present life be immediately brought to an end, the
child, having been translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, shall not only
be saved from eternal punishments, but shall not even suffer purgatorial torments after death. For
spritual regeneration of itself suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death from
the connection with death which carnal generation forms.(5) But when we reach that age which
can now comprehend the commandment, and submit to the dominion of law, we must declare war
upon vices, and wage this war keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices have not
gathered strength, by habitual victory they are more easily overcome and subdued; but if they
have been used to conquer and rule, it is only with difficulty and labor they are mastered. And
indeed this victory cannot be sincerely and truly gained but by delighting in true righteousness,
and it is faith in Christ that gives this. For if the law be present with its command, and the Spirit
be absent with His help, the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin,
and adds the guilt of transgression. Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and
hidden vices, which are reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are
their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they
are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only
through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our
mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity. But few indeed are they who are so
happy as to have passed their youth without committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute or
violent conduct, or by following some godless and unlawful opinions, but have subdued by their
greatness of soul everything in them which could make them the slaves of carnal pleasures. The
greater

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number having first become transgressors of the law that they have received, and having allowed
vice to have the ascendency in them, then flee to grace for help, and so, by a penitence more
bitter, and a struggle more violent than it would otherwise have been, they subdue the soul to
God, and thus give it its lawful authority over the flesh, and become victors. Whoever, therefore,
desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and
so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any
purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment. We must not, however deny that
even the eternal fire will be proportioned to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be
more, and to others less painful, whether this result be accomplished by a variation in the
temperature of the fire itself, graduated according to every one's merit, or whether it be that the
heat remains the same, but that all do not feel it with equal intensity of torment.

 CHAP. 17.--OF THOSE WHO FANCY THAT NO MEN SHALL BE PUNISHED
ETERNALLY.

    I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians
who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce
worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be
delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each
man's sin. In respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the
devil himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins
deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the
Church, not without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for his theory of
the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one
state to the other at fixed periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being
merciful, by allotting to the saints real miseries for the expiation of their sins, and false happiness,
which brought them no true and secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness.
Very different, however, is the error we speak of, which is dictated by the tenderness of these
Christians who suppose that the sufferings of those who are condemned in the judgment will be
temporary, while the blessedness of all who are sooner or later set free will be eternal. Which
opinion, if it is good and true because it is merciful, will be so much the better and truer in
proportion as it becomes more merciful. Let, then, this fountain of mercy be extended, and flow
forth even to the lost angels, and let them also be set free, at least after as many and long ages as
seem fit ! Why does this stream of mercy  flow to all the human race, and dry up as soon as it
reaches the angelic? And yet they dare not extend their pity further, and propose the deliverance
of the devil himself. Or if any one is bold enough to do so, he does indeed put to shame their
charity, but is himself convicted of error that is more unsightly, and a wresting of God's truth that
is more perverse, m proportion as his clemency of sentiment seems to be greater.(1)

     CHAP. 18.--OF THOSE WHO FANCY THAT, ON ACCOUNT OF THE SAINTS'
INTERCESSION, MAN SHALL BE DAMNED IN THE LAST JUDGMENT.

    There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted in conversation, who,
though they seem to reverence the holy Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who
accordingly, in their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion towards men. For
they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the divine word that the wicked and unbelieving are
worthy of punishment, but they assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say
they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers and intercessions of His
saints. For if the saints used to pray for them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how
much more will they do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For we cannot,
they say, believe that the saints shall lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the
most perfect and complete holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their enemies,
should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold from interceding for their suppliants. Or shall
God refuse to listen to so many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their
prayers of all hindrance to His answering them? And the passage of the psalm which is cited by
those who admit that wicked men and infidels shall be punished for a long time, though in the end

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delivered from all sufferings, is claimed also by the persons we are now speaking of as making
much more for them. The verse runs: "Shall God forget to be gracious? Shall He in anger shut up
His tender mercies?" His anger, they say, would condemn all that are unworthy of everlasting
happiness to endless punishment. But if He suffer them to be punished for a long time, or even at
all, must He not shut up His tender mercies, which the Psalmist implies He will not do? For he
does not say, Shall He in anger shut up His tender mercies for a long period? but he implies that
He will not shut them up at all.
    And they deny that thus God's threat of judgment is proved to be false even though He
condemn no man, any more than we can say that His threat to overthrow Nineveh was false,
though the destruction which was absolutely predicted was not accomplished. For He did not say,
"Nineveh shall be overthrown if they do not repent and amend their ways," but without any such
condition He foretold that the city should be overthrown. And this prediction, they maintain, was
true because God predicted the punishment which they deserved, although He was not to inflict it.
For though He spared them on their repentance yet He was certainly aware that they would
repent, and, notwithstanding, absolutely and definitely predicted that the city should be
overthrown. This was true, they say, in the truth of severity, because they were worthy of it; but
in respect of the compassion which checked His anger, so that He spared the suppliants from the
punishment with which He had threatened the rebellious, it was not true. If, then, He spared those
whom His own holy prophet was provoked at His sparing, how much more shall He spare those
more wretched suppliants for whom all His saints shall intercede? And they suppose that this
conjecture of theirs is not hinted at in Scripture, for the sake of stimulating many to reformation
of life through fear of very protracted or eternal sufferings, and of stimulating others to pray for
those who have not reformed. However, they think that the divine oracles are not altogether silent
on this point; for they ask to what purpose is it said, "How great is Thy goodness which Thou
hast hidden for them that fear Thee,"(2) if it be not to teach us that the great and hidden
sweetness of God's mercy is concealed in order that men may fear? To the same purpose they
think the apostle said, "For God hath concluded all men in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon
all,"(3) signifying that no one should be condemned by God. And yet they who hold this opinion
do not extend it to the acquittal or liberation of the devil and his angels. Their human tenderness is
moved only towards men, and they plead chiefly their own cause, holding out false hopes of
impunity to their own depraved lives by means of this quasi compassion of God to the whole race.
Consequently they who promise this impunity even to the prince of the devils and his satellites
make a still fuller exhibition of the mercy of God.

     CHAP. 19.--OF THOSE WHO PROMISE IMPUNITY FROM ALL SINS EVEN TO
HERETICS, THROUGH VIRTUE OF THEIR PARTICIPATION OF THE BODY OF
CHRIST.

    So, too, there are others who promise this deliverance from eternal punishment, not, indeed, to
all men, but only to those who have been washed in Christian baptism, and who become partakers
of the body of Christ, no matter how they have lived, or what heresy or impiety they have fallen
into. They ground this opinion on the saying of Jesus, "This is the bread which cometh down from
heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever."(4) Therefore, say they, it follows that
these persons must be delivered from death eternal, and at one time or other be introduced to
everlasting life.

     CHAP. 20.--OF THOSE WHO PROMISE THIS INDULGENCE NOT TO ALL, BUT
ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED AS CATHOLICS, THOUGH
AFTERWARDS THEY HAVE BROKEN OUT INTO MANY CRIMES AND HERESIES.

    There are others still who make this promise not even to all who have received the sacraments
of the baptism of Christ and of His body, but only to the catholics, however badly they have lived.
For these have eaten the body of Christ, not only sacramentally but really, being incorporated in
His body, as the apostle says, "We, being many, are one bread, one body;"(5) so that, though they
have afterwards lapsed into some heresy, or even into heathenism and idolatry, yet by virtue of
this one thing, that they have received the baptism of Christ, and eaten the body of Christ, in the
body of Christ, that is to say, in the catholic Church, they shall not die eternally, but at one time or
other obtain eternal life; and all that wickedness of theirs shall not avail to make their punishment

468

eternal, but only proportionately long and severe.

     CHAP. 21.--OF THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT ALL CATHOLICS WHO CONTINUE
IN THE FAITH EVEN THOUGH BY THE DEPRAVITY OF THEIR LIVES THEY HAVE
MERITED HELL FIRE, SHALL BE SAVED ON ACCOUNT OF THE "FOUNDATION" OF
THEIR FAITH.

    There are some, too, who found upon the expression of Scripture, "He that endureth to the end
shall be saved,"(1) and who promise salvation only to those who continue in the Church catholic;
and though such persons have lived badly, yet, say they, they shall be saved as by fire through
virtue of the foundation of which the apostle says, "For other foundation hath no man laid than
that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day of the
Lord shall declare it, for it shall be revealed by fire; and each man's work shall be proved of what
sort it is. If any man's work shall endure which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
But if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as
through fire."(2) They say, accordingly, that the catholic Christian, no matter what his life be, has
Christ as his foundation, while this foundation is not possessed by any heresy which is separated
from the unity of His body. And therefore, through virtue of this foundation, even though the
catholic Christian by the inconsistency of his life has been as one building up wood, hay, stubble,
upon it, they believe that he shall be saved by fire, in other words, that he shall be delivered after
tasting the pain of that fire to which the wicked shall be condemned at the last judgment.

     CHAP. 22.--OF THOSE WHO FANCY THAT THE SINS WHICH ARE
INTERMINGLED WITH ALMS-DEEDS SHALL NOT BE CHARGED AT THE DAY OF
JUDGMENT.

    I have also met with some who are of opinion that such only as neglect to cover their sins with
alms-deeds shall be punished in everlasting fire; and they cite the words of the Apostle James, "He
shall have judgment without mercy who hath shown no mercy."(3) Therefore, say they, he who
has not amended his ways, but yet has intermingled his profligate and wicked actions with works
of mercy, shall receive mercy in the judgment, so that he shall either quite escape condemnation,
or shall be liberated from his doom after some time shorter or longer. They suppose that this was
the reason why the Judge Himself of quick and dead declined to mention anything else than works
of mercy done or omitted, when awarding to those on His right hand life eternal, and to those on
His left everlasting punishment.(4) To the same purpose, they say, is the daily petition we make in
the Lord's prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."(5) For, no doubt, whoever
pardons the person who has wronged him does a charitable action. And this has been so highly
commended by the Lord Himself, that He says, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses."(6) And so it is to this kind of alms-deeds that the saying of the
Apostle James refers, "He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shown no mercy." And
our Lord, they say, made no distinction of great and small sins, but "Your Father will forgive your
sins, if ye forgive men theirs." Consequently they conclude that, though a man has led an
abandoned life up to the last day of it, yet whatsoever his sins have been, they are all remitted by
virtue of this daily prayer, if only he has been mindful to attend to this one thing, that when they
who have done him any injury ask his pardon, he forgive them from his heart.
    When, by God's help, I have replied to all these errors, I shall conclude this (twenty-first) book.

     CHAP. 23.--AGAINST THOSE WHO ARE OF OPINION THAT THE PUNISHMENT
NEITHER OF THE DEVIL NOR OF WICKED MEN SHALL BE ETERNAL.

    First of all, it behoves us to inquire and to recognize why the Church has not been able to
tolerate the idea that promises cleansing or indulgence to the devil even after the most severe and
protracted punishment. For so many holy men, imbued with the spirit of the Old and New
Testament, did not grudge to angels of any rank or character that they should enjoy the
blessedness of the heavenly kingdom after being cleansed by suffering, but rather they perceived
that they could not invalidate nor evacuate the divine sentence which the Lord predicted that He
would pronounce in the judgment, saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels."(7) For
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here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also that
declaration in the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and
night for ever."(1) In the former passage "everlasting" is used, in the latter "for ever;" and by
these words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless duration. And therefore no other
reason, no reason more obvious and just, can be found for holding it as the fixed and immovable
belief of the truest piety, that the devil and his angels shall never return to the justice and life of
the saints, than that Scripture, which deceives no man, says that God spared them not, and that
they were condemned beforehand by Him, and cast into prisons of darkness in hell,(2) being
reserved to the judgment of the last day, when eternal fire shall receive them, in which they shall
be tormented world without end. And if this be so, how can it be believed that all men, or even
some, shall be withdrawn from the endurance of punishment after some time has been spent in it?
how can this be believed without enervating our faith in the eternal punishment of the devils? For
if all or some of those to whom it shall be said, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels,"(3) are not to be always in that fire, then what reason is
there for believing that the devil and his angels shall always be there? Or is perhaps the sentence
of God, which is to be pronounced on wicked men and angels alike, to be true in the case of the
angels, false in that of men? Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than
the word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment
ought to abstain from arguing against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the
divine commands. Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long
continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same
passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"(4) If both destinies are "eternal," then we
must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they
are correlative,--on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in
one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is
the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the
eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.

     CHAP. 24.--AGAINST THOSE WHO FANCY THAT IN THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
ALL THE ACCUSED WILL BE SPARED IN VIRTUE OF THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS.

    And this reasoning is equally conclusive against those who, in their own interest, but under the
guise of a greater tenderness of spirit, attempt to invalidate the words of God, and who assert that
these words are true, not because men shall suffer those things which are threatened by God, but
because they deserve to suffer them. For God, they say, will yield them to the prayers of His
saints, who will then the more earnestly pray for their enemies, as they shall be more perfect in
holiness, and whose prayers will be the more efficacious and the more worthy of God's ear,
because now purged from all sin whatsoever. Why, then, if in that perfected holiness their prayers
be so pure and all-availing, will they not use them in behalf of the angels for whom eternal fire is
prepared, that God may mitigate His sentence and alter it, and extricate them from that fire? Or
will there, perhaps, be some one hardy enough to affirm that even the holy angels will make
common cause with holy men (then become the equals of God's angels), and will intercede for the
guilty, both men and angels, that mercy may spare them the punishment which truth has
pronounced them to deserve? But this has been asserted by no one sound in the faith; nor will be.
Otherwise there is no reason why the Church should not even now pray for the devil and his
angels, since God her Master has ordered her to pray for her enemies. The reason, then, which
prevents the Church from now praying for the wicked angels, whom she knows to be her enemies,
is the identical reason which shall prevent her, however perfected in holiness, from praying at the
last judgment for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire. At present she prays for her
enemies among men, because they have yet opportunity for fruitful repentance. For what does she
especially beg for them but that "God would grant them repentance," as the apostle says, "that
they may return to soberness out of the snare of the devil, by whom they are held captive
according to his will?"(5) But if the Church

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were certified who those are, who, though they are still abiding in this life, are yet predestinated to
go with the devil into eternal fire, then for them she could no more pray than for him. But since
she has this certainty regarding no man, she prays for all her enemies who yet live in this world;
and yet she is not heard in behalf of all. But she is heard in the case of those only who, though
they oppose the Church, are yet predestinated to become her sons through her intercession. But if
any retain an impenitent heart until death, and are not converted from enemies into sons, does the
Church continue to pray for them, for the spirits, i.e., of such persons deceased? And why does
she cease to pray for them, unless because the man who was not translated into Christ's kingdom
while he was in the body, is now judged to be of Satan's following?
    It is then, I say, the same reason which prevents the Church at any time from praying for the
wicked angels, which prevents her from praying hereafter for those men who are to be punished in
eternal fire; and this also is the reason why, though she prays even for the wicked so long as they
live, she yet does not even in this world pray for the unbelieving and godless who are dead. For
some of the dead, indeed, the prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for
those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life so wickedly that they can be
judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so well that they can be considered to have no need of
it.x As also, after the resurrection, there will be some of the dead to whom, after they have
endured the pains proper to the spirits of the dead, mercy shall be accorded, and acquittal from
the punishment of the eternal fire. For were there not some whose sins, though not remitted in this
life, shall be remitted in that which is to come, it could not be truly said, "They shall not be
forgiven, neither in this world, neither in that which is to come."(2) But when the Judge of quick
and dead has said, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world," and to those on the other side, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into the
eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels," and "These shall go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life,"(3) it were excessively presumptuous to say that
the punishment of any of those whom God has said shall go away into eternal punishment shall
not be eternal, and so bring either despair or doubt upon the corresponding promise of life eternal.
    Let no man then so understand the words of the Psalmist, "Shall God forget to be gracious?
shall He shut up in His anger His tender mercies"(4) as if the sentence of God were true of good
men, false of bad men, or true of good men and wicked angels, but false of bad men. For the
Psalmist's words refer to the vessels of mercy and the children of the promise, of whom the
prophet himself was one; for when he had said, "Shall God forget to be gracious? shall He shut up
in His anger His tender mercies?" and then immediately subjoins, "And I said, Now I begin: this is
the change wrought by the right hand of the Most High,"(5) he manifestly explained what he
meant by the words, "Shall he shut up in His anger His tender mercies?" For God's anger is this
mortal life, in which man is made like to vanity, and his days pass as a shadow? Yet in this anger
God does not forget to be gracious, causing His sun to shine and His. rain to descend on the just
and the unjust;(7)  and thus He does not in His anger cut short His tender mercies, and especially
in what the Psalmist speaks of in the words, "Now I begin: this change is from the right hand of
the Most High;" for He changes for the better the vessels of mercy, even while they are still in this
most wretched life, which is God's anger, and even while His anger is manifesting itself in this
miserable corruption; for "in His anger He does not shut up His tender mercies." And since the
truth of this divine canticle is quite satisfied by this application of it, there is no need to give it a
reference to that place in which those who do not belong to the city of God are punished in
eternal fire. But if any persist in extending its application to the torments of the wicked, let them
at least understand it so that the anger of God, which has threatened the wicked with eternal
punishment, shall abide, but shall be mixed with mercy to the extent of alleviating the torments
which might justly be inflicted; so that the wicked shall neither w. holly escape, nor only for a time
endure these threatened pains, but that they shall be less severe and more endurable than they
deserve. Thus the anger of God shall continue, and at the same time He will not in this anger shut
up His tender mercies. But even this hypothesis I am not to be supposed to affirm because I do
not positively oppose it.(8)

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    As for those who find an empty threat rather than a truth in such passages as these: "Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire;" and "These shall go away into eternal punishment;"(1)
and "They shall be tormented for ever and ever;"(2) and "Their worm shall not die, and their fire
shall not be quenched,"(3)--such persons, I say, are most emphatically and abundantly refuted, not
by me so much as by the divine Scripture itself. For the men of Nineveh repented in this life, and
therefore their repentance was fruitful, inasmuch as they sowed in that field which the Lord meant
to be sown in tears that it might afterwards be reaped in joy. And yet who will deny that God's
prediction was fulfilled in their case, if at least he observes that God destroys sinners not only in
anger but also in compassion? For sinners are destroyed in two ways,--either, like the Sodomites,
the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like the Ninevites, the men's sins are destroyed
by repentance. God's prediction, therefore, was fulfilled,--the wicked Nineveh was overthrown,
and a good Nineveh built up. For its walls and houses remained standing; the city was overthrown
in its depraved manners. And thus, though the prophet was provoked that the destruction which
the inhabitants dreaded, because of his prediction, did not take place, yet that which God's
foreknowledge had predicted did take place, for He who foretold the destruction knew how it
should be fulfilled in a less calamitous sense.
    But that these perversely compassionate persons may see what is the purport of these words,
"How great is the abundance of Thy sweetness, Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear
Thee."(4)  let them read what follows:" "And Thou hast perfected it for them that hope in Thee."
For what means, "Thou hast hidden it for them that fear Thee, "Thou hast perfected it for them
that hope in Thee," unless this, that to those who through fear of punishment seek to establish
their own righteousness by the law, the righteousness of God is not sweet, because they are
ignorant of it? They have not tasted it. For they hope in themselves, not in Him; and therefore
God's abundant sweetness is hidden from them. They fear God, indeed, but it is with that servile
fear "which is not in love; for perfect love casteth out fear."(5) Therefore to them that hope in
Him He perfecteth His sweetness, inspiring them with His own love, so that with a holy fear,
which love does not cast out, but which endureth for ever, they may, when they glory, glory in the
Lord. For the righteousness of God is Christ, "who is of God made unto us," as the apostle says,
"wisdom, and righteousness, and 'sanctification, and redemption: as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord."(6) This righteousness of God, which is the gift of grace without merits,
is not known by those who go about to establish their own righteousness, and are therefore not
subject to the righteousness of God, which is Christ.(7) But it is in this righteousness that we find
the great abundance of God's sweetness, of which the psalm says, "Taste and see how sweet the
Lord is."(8)  And this we rather taste than partake of to satiety in this our pilgrimage. We hunger
and thirst for it now, that hereafter we may be satisfied with it when we see Him as He is, and that
is fulfilled which is written, "I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall be manifested."(9) It is thus
that Christ perfects the great abundance of His sweetness to them that hope in Him. But if God
conceals His sweetness from them that fear Him in the sense that these our objectors fancy, so
that men's ignorance of His purpose of mercy towards the wicked may lead them to fear Him and
live better, and so that there may be prayer made for those who are not living as they ought, how
then does He perfect His sweetness to them that hope in Him, since, if their dreams be true, it is
this very sweetness which will prevent Him from punishing those who do not hope in Him? Let us
then seek that sweetness of His, which He perfects to them that hope in Him, not that which He is
supposed to perfect to those who despise and blaspheme Him; for in vain, after this life, does a
man seek for what he has neglected to provide while in this life.
    Then, as to that saying of the apostle, "For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may
have mercy upon all,"(10) it does not mean that He will condemn no one; but the foregoing
context shows what is meant. The apostle composed the epistle for the Gentiles who were already
believers; and when he was speaking to them of the Jews who were yet to believe, he says, "For
as ye in times past believed not God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so
have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." Then he
added the words in question with which these persons beguile themselves: "For God concluded all
in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." All whom, if not all those of whom he

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was speaking, just as if he had said, "Both you and them?" God then concluded all those in
unbelief, both Jews and Gentiles, whom He foreknew and predestinated to be comformed to the
image of His Son, in order that they might be confounded by the bitterness of unbelief, and might
repent and believingly turn to the sweetness of God's mercy, and might take up that exclamation
of the psalm, "How great is the abundance of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for
them that fear Thee, but hast perfected to them that hope," not in themselves, but "in Thee." He
has mercy, then, on all the vessels of mercy. And what means "all?" Both those of the Gentiles
and those of the Jews whom He predestinated, called, justified, glorified: none of these will be
condemned by Him; but we cannot say none of all men whatever.

     CHAP. 25.--WHETHER THOSE WHO RECEIVED HERETICAL BAPTISM, AND
HAVE AFTERWARDS FALLEN AWAY TO WICKEDNESS OF LIFE; OR THOSE WHO
HAVE RECEIVED CATHOLIC BAPTISM, BUT HAVE AFTERWARDS PASSED OVER TO
HERESY AND SCHISM; OR THOSE WHO HAVE REMAINED IN THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH IN WHICH THEY WERE BAPTIZED, BUT HAVE CONTINUED TO LIVE
IMMORALLY,--MAY HOPE THROUGH THE VIRTUE OF THE SACRAMENTS FOR THE
REMISSION OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.

    But let us now reply to those who promise deliverance from eternal fire, not to the devil and his
angels (as neither do they of whom we have been speaking), nor even to all men whatever, but
only to those who have been washed by the baptism of Christ, and have become partakers of His
body and blood, no matter how they have lived, no matter what heresy or impiety they have fallen
into. But they are contradicted by the apostle, where he says, "Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variances, emulations, wrath, strife, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and the like: of
the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, for they which do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of God."(1) Certainly this sentence of the apostle is false, if such persons
shall be delivered after any lapse of time, and shall then inherit the kingdom of God. But as it is
not false, they shall certainly never inherit the kingdom of God. And if they shall never enter that
kingdom, then they shall always be retained in eternal punishment; for there is no middle place
where he may live unpunished who has not been admitted into that kingdom.
    And therefore we may reasonably inquire how we are to understand these words of the Lord
Jesus: "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live
for ever."(2) And those, indeed, whom we are now answering, are refuted in their interpretation
of this passage by those whom we are shortly to answer, and who do not promise this deliverance
to all who have received the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's body, but only to the catholics,
however wickedly they live; for these, say they, have eaten the Lord's body not only
sacramentally, but really, being constituted members of His body, of which the apostle says, "We
being many are one bread, one body."(3) He then who is in the unity of Christ's body (that is to
say, in the Christian membership), of which body the faithful have been wont to receive the
sacrament at the altar, that man is truly said to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ. And
consequently heretics and schismatics being separate from the unity of this body, are able to
receive the same sacrament, but with no profit to themselves,--nay, rather to their own hurt, so
that they are rather more severely judged than liberated after some time. For they are not in that
bond of peace which is symbolized by that sacrament.
    But again, even those who sufficiently understand that he who is not in the body of Christ
cannot be said to eat the body of Christ, are in error when they promise liberation from the fire of
eternal punishment to persons who fall away from the unity of that body into heresy, or even into
heathenish superstition. For, in the first place, they ought to consider how intolerable it is, and
how discordant with sound doctrine, to suppose that many, indeed, or almost all, who have
forsaken the Church catholic, and have originated impious heresies and become heresiarchs,
should enjoy a destiny superior to those who never were catholics, but have fallen into the snares
of these others; that is to say, if the fact of their catholic baptism and original reception of the
sacrament of the body of Christ in the true body of Christ is sufficient to deliver these heresiarchs
from eternal punishment. For certainly he who deserts the faith, and from a deserter becomes an
assailant, is worse than he who has not

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deserted the faith he never held. And, in the second place, they are contradicted by the apostle,
who, after enumerating the works of the flesh, says with reference to heresies, "They who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
    And therefore neither ought such persons as lead an abandoned and damnable life to be
confident of salvation, though they persevere to the end in the communion of the Church catholic,
and comfort themselves with the words, "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." By the
iniquity of their life they abandon that very righteousness of life which Christ is to them, whether
it be by fornication, or by perpetrating in their body the other uncleannesses which the apostle
would not so much as mention, or by a dissolute luxury, or by doing any one of those things of
which he says, "They who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Consequently,
they who do such things shall not exist anywhere but in eternal punishment, since they cannot be
in the kingdom of God. For, while they continue in such things to the very end of life, they cannot
be said to abide in Christ to the end; for to abide in Him is to abide in the faith of Christ. And this
faith, according to the apostle's definition of it, "worketh by love."(1) And "love," as he elsewhere
says, "worketh no evil."(2) Neither can these persons be said to eat the body of Christ, for they
cannot even be reckoned among His members. For, not to mention other reasons, they cannot be
at once the members of Christ and the members of a harlot. In fine, He Himself, when He says,
"He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him,"(3) shows what it is
in reality, and not sacramentally, to eat His body and drink His blood; for this is to dwell in Christ,
that He also may dwell in us. So that it is as if He said, He that dwelleth not in me, and in whom I
do not dwell, let him not say or think that he eateth my body or drinketh my blood. Accordingly,
they who are not Christ's members do not dwell in Him. And they who make themselves members
of a harlot, are not members of Christ unless they have penitently abandoned that evil, and have
returned to this good to be reconciled to it.

     CHAP. 26.--WHAT IT IS TO HAVE CHRIST FOR A FOUNDATION, AND WHO
THEY ARE TO WHOM SALVATION AS BY FIRE IS PROMISED.

But, say they, the catholic Christians have Christ for a foundation, and they have not fallen away
from union with Him, no matter how depraved a life they have built on this foundation, as wood,
hay, stubble; and accordingly the well-directed faith by which Christ is their foundation will suffice
to deliver them some time from the continuance of that fire, though it be with loss, since those
things they have built on it shall be burned. Let the Apostle James summarily reply to them: "If
any man say he has faith, and have not works,. can faith save him?"(4) And who then is it, they
ask, of whom the Apostle Paul says, "But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire?"(5) Let us
join them in their inquiry; and one thing is very certain, that it is not he of whom James speaks,
else we should make the two apostles contradict one another, if the one says, "Though a man's
works be evil, his faith will save him as by fire," while the other says, "If he have not good works,
can his faith save him?"
    We shall then ascertain who it Is who can be saved by fire, if we first discover what it is to have
Christ for a foundation. And this we may very readily learn from the image itself. In a building the
foundation is first. Whoever, then, has Christ in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal
things--not even those that are legitimate and allowed--are preferred to Him, has Christ as a
foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ,
yet Christ is not the foundation to that man; and much more if he, in contempt of wholesome
precepts, seek forbidden gratifications, is he clearly convicted of putting Christ not first but last,
since he has despised Him as his ruler, and has preferred to fulfill his own wicked lusts, in
contempt of Christ's commands and allowances. Accordingly, if any Christian man loves a harlot,
and, attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now Christ for a foundation. But if
any one loves his own wife, and loves her as Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that
he has Christ for a foundation? But if he loves her in the world's fashion, carnally, as the disease
of lust prompts him, and as the Gentiles love who know not God, even this the apostle, or rather
Christ by the apostle, allows as a venial fault. And therefore even such a man may have Christ for
a foundation. For so long as he does not prefer such an affection or pleasure to Christ, Christ is
his foundation, though on it he builds wood, hay,

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stubble; and therefore he shall be saved as by fire. For the fire of affliction shall burn such
luxurious pleasures and earthly loves, though they be not damnable, because enjoyed in lawful
wedlock. And of this fire the fuel is bereavement, and all those calamities which consume these
joys. Consequently the superstructure will be loss to him who has built it, for he shall not retain it,
but shall be agonized by the loss of those things in the enjoyment of which he found pleasure. But
by this fire he shall be saved through virtue of the foundation, because even if a persecutor
demanded whether he would retain Christ or these things, he would prefer Christ. Would you
hear, in the apostle's own words, who he is who builds on the foundation gold, silver, precious
stones? "He that is unmarried," he says, "careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he
may please the Lord."(1) Would you hear who he is that buildeth wood, hay, stubble? "But he
that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.(2) "Every
man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,"--the day, no doubt, of
tribulation--"because," says he, "it shall be revealed by fire."(3) He calls tribulation fire, just as it is
elsewhere said, "The furnace proves the vessels of the potter, and the trial of affliction righteous
men."4  And "The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide "--for
a man's care for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord, abides--"which he hath built
thereupon, he shall receive a reward, "--that is, he shall reap the fruit of his care. "But if any man's
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss,"--for what he loved he shall not retain: --" but he
himself shall be saved,"--for no tribulation shall have moved him from that stable foundation,--"
yet so as by fire;"(5)  for that which he possessed with the sweetness of love he does not lose
without the sharp sting of pain. Here, then, as seems to me, we have a fire which destroys neither,
but enriches the one, brings loss to the other, proves both.
    But if this passage [of Corinthians] is to interpret that fire of which the Lord shall say to those
on His left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,"(6)  so that among these we
are to believe there are those who build on the foundation wood, hay, stubble, and that they,
through virtue of the good foundation, shall after a time be liberated from the fire that is the
award of their evil deserts, what then shall we think of those on the right hand, to whom it shall be
said, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,"(7)  unless that they
are those who have built on the foundation. gold, silver, precious stones? But if the fire of which
our Lord speaks is the same as that of which the apostle says, "Yet so as by fire," then both--that
is to say, both those on the right as well as those on the left--are to be cast into it. For that fire is
to try both, since it is said, "For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is."(8) If, therefore, the fire shall try
both, in order that if any man's work abide--i.e., if the superstructure be not consumed by the
fire--he may receive a reward, and that if his work is burned he may suffer loss, certainly that fire
is not the eternal fire itself. For into this latter fire only those on the left hand shall be cast, and
that with final and everlasting doom; but that former fire proves those on the right hand. But some
of them it so proves that it does not burn and consume the structure which is found to have been
built by them on Christ as the foundation; while others of them it proves in another fashion, so as
to burn what they have built up, and thus cause them to suffer loss, while they themselves are
saved because they have retained Christ, who was laid as their sure foundation, and have loved
Him above all. But if they are saved, then certainly they shall stand at the right hand, and shall
with the rest hear the sentence, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you;" and not at the left hand, where those shall be who shall not be saved, and shall therefore
hear the doom, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." For from that fire no man shall
be saved, because they all shall go away into eternal punishment, where their worms shall not die,
nor their fire be quenched, in which they shall be tormented day and night for ever.
    But if it be said that in the interval of time between the death of this body and that last day of
judgment and retribution which shall follow the resurrection, the bodies of the dead shall be
exposed to a fire of such a nature that it shall not affect those who have not in this life indulged in
such pleasures and pursuits as shall be consumed like wood, hay, stubble, but shall affect those
others who have carried with them structures of that kind; if
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it be said that such worldliness, being venial, shall be consumed in the fire of tribulation either
here only, or here and hereafter both, or here that it may not be hereafter,--this I do not
contradict, because possibly it is true. For perhaps even the death of the body is itself a part of this
tribulation, for it results from the first transgression, so that the time which follows death takes its
color in each case from the nature of the man's building. The persecutions, too, which have
crowned the martyrs, and which Christians of all kinds suffer, try both buildings like a fire,
consuming some, along with the builders themselves, if Christ is not found in them as their
foundation, while others they consume without the builders, because Christ is found in them, and
they are saved, though with loss; and other buildings still they do not consume, because such
materials as abide for ever are found in them. In the end of the world there shall be in the time of
Antichrist tribulation such as has never before been. How many edifices there shall then be, of
gold or of hay, built on the best foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove, bringing joy
to some, loss to others, but without destroying either sort, because of this stable foundation! But
whosoever prefers, I do not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure, but any of those
relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom it is right to love,--whosoever prefers
these to Christ, and loves them after a human and carnal fashion, has not Christ as a foundation,
and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at all; for he shall not possibly dwell with the
Saviour, who says very explicitly concerning this very matter, "He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me."(1) But he who loves his relations carnally, and yet so that he does not prefer them to
Christ, but would rather want them than Christ if he were put to the proof, shall be saved by fire,
because it is necessary that by the loss of these relations he suffer pain in proportion to his love.
And he who loves father, mother, sons, daughters, according to Christ, so that he aids them in
obtaining His kingdom and cleaving to Him, or loves them because they are members of Christ,
God forbid that this love should be consumed as wood, hay, stubble, and not rather be reckoned a
structure of gold, silver, precious stones. For how can a man love those more than Christ whom
he loves only for Christ's sake?

     CHAP. 27.--AGAINST THE BELIEF OF THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE SINS
WHICH HAVE BEEN ACCOMPANIED WITH ALMSGIVING WILL DO THEM NO HARM,

    It remains to reply to those who maintain that those only shall burn in eternal fire who neglect
alms-deeds proportioned to their sins, resting this opinion on the words of the Apostle James, "He
shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy."(2) Therefore, they say, he that
hath showed mercy, though he has not reformed his dissolute conduct, but has lived wickedly and
iniquitously even while abounding in alms, shall have a merciful judgment, so that he shall either
be not condemned at all, or shall be delivered from final judgment after a time. And for the same
reason they suppose that Christ will discriminate between those on the right hand and those on the
left, and will send the one party into His kingdom, the other into eternal punishment, on the sole
ground of their attention to or neglect of works of charity. Moreover, they endeavor to use the
prayer which the Lord Himself taught as a proof and bulwark of their opinion, that daily sins
which are never abandoned can be expiated through alms-deeds, no matter how offensive or of
what sort they be. For, say they, as there is no day on which Christians ought not to use this
prayer, so there is no sin of any kind which, though committed every day, is not remitted when we
say, "Forgive us our debts," if we take care to fulfill what follows, "as we forgive our debtors."(3)
For, they go on to say, the Lord does not say, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will forgive you your little daily sins," but "will forgive you your sins." Therefore, be they
of any kind or magnitude whatever, be they perpetrated daily and never abandoned or subdued in
this life, they can be pardoned, they presume, through alms-deeds.
    But they are right to inculcate the giving of aims proportioned to past sins; for if they said that
any kind of alms could obtain the divine pardon of great sins committed daily and with habitual
enormity, if they said that such sins could thus be daily remitted, they would see that their doctrine
was absurd and ridiculous. For they would thus be driven to acknowledge that it were possible for
a very wealthy man to buy absolution from murders, adulteries, and all manner of wickedness, by
paying a daily alms of ten paltry coins. And if it he most absurd and insane to make such an
acknowledgment, and if we still ask what

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are those fitting alms of which even the forerunner of Christ said, "Bring forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance,"(1) undoubtedly it will be found that they are not such as are done by men
who undermine their life by daily enormities even to the very end. For they suppose that by giving
to the poor a small fraction of the wealth they acquire by extortion' and spoliation they can
propitiate Christ, so that they may with impunity commit the most damnable sins, in the
persuasion that they have bought from Him a license to transgress, or rather do buy a daily
indulgence. And if they for one crime have distributed all their goods to Christ's needy members,
that could profit them nothing unless they desisted from all similar actions, and attained charity
which worketh no evil He therefore who does alms-deeds proportioned to his sins must first begin
with himself. For it is not reasonable that a man who exercises charity towards his neighbor
should not do so towards himself, since he hears the Lord saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself," and again, "Have compassion on thy soul, and please God."(3)  He then who has not
compassion on his own soul that he may please God, how can he be said to do alms-deeds
proportioned to his sins? To the same purpose is that written, "He who is bad to himself, to whom
can he be good?"(4) We ought therefore to do alms that we may be heard when we pray that our
past sins may be forgiven, not that while we continue in them we may think to provide ourselves
with a license for wickedness by alms-deeds.
    The reason, therefore, of our predicting that He will impute to those on His right hand the
alms-deeds they have done, and charge those on His left with omitting the same, is that He may
thus show the efficacy of charity for the deletion of past sins, not for impunity in their perpetual
commission. And such persons, indeed, as decline to abandon their evil habits of life for a better
course cannot be said to do charitable deeds. For this is the purport of the saying, "Inasmuch as ye
did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."(5) He shows them that they do not
perform charitable actions even when they think they are doing so. For if they gave bread to a
hungering Christian because he is a Christian, assuredly they would not deny to themselves the
bread of righteousness, that is, Christ Himself; for God considers not the person to whom the gift
is made, but the spirit in which it is made. He therefore who loves Christ in a Christian extends
alms to him in the same spirit in which he draws near to Christ, not in that spirit which would
abandon Christ if it could do so with impunity. For in proportion as a man loves what Christ
disapproves does he himself abandon Christ. For what does it profit a man that he is baptized, if
he is not justified? Did not He who said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he shall
not enter into the kingdom of God,"(6) say also, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven?"(7)
Why do many through fear of the first saying run to baptism, while few through fear of the second
seek to be justified? As therefore it is not to his brother a man says, "Thou fool," if when he says
it he is indignant not at the brotherhood, but at the sin of the offender,--for otherwise he were
guilty of hell fire,--so he who extends charity to a Christian does not extend it to a Christian if he
does not love Christ in him. Now he does not love Christ who refuses to be justified in Him. Or,
again, if a man has been guilty of this sin of calling his brother Fool, unjustly reviling him without
any desire to remove his sin, his alms-deeds go a small way towards expiating this fault, unless he
adds to this the remedy of reconciliation which the same passage enjoins. For it is there said,
"Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught
against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy
brother, and then come and offer thy gift."(8) Just so it is a small matter to do alms-deeds, no
matter how great they be, for any sin, so long as the offender continues in the practice of sin.
     Then as to the daily prayer which the Lord Himself taught, and which is therefore called the
Lord's prayer, it obliterates indeed the sins of the day, when day by day we say, "Forgive us our
debts," and when we not only say but act out that which follows, "as we forgive our debtors;"(9)
but we utter this petition because sins have been committed, and not that they may be. For by it
our Saviour designed to teach us that, however righteously we live in this life of infirmity and
darkness, we still commit sins for the remission of which we ought to pray, while we must pardon
those who sin against us that we ourselves also may be pardoned. The Lord then did not utter the
words, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father will also forgive you your trespasses,"(10)
in order that we might

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contract from this petition such confidence as should enable us to sin securely from day to day,
either putting ourselves above the fear of human laws, or craftily deceiving men concerning our
conduct, but in order that we might thus learn not to suppose that we are without sins, even
though we should be free from crimes; as also God admonished the priests of the old law to this
same effect regarding their sacrifices, which He commanded them to offer first for their own sins,
and then for the sins of the people. For even the very words of so great a Master and Lord are to
be intently considered. For He does not say, If ye forgive men their sins, your Father will also
forgive you your sins, no matter of what sort they be, but He says, your sins; for it was a daily
prayer He was teaching, and it was certainly to disciples already justified He was speaking. What,
then, does He mean by "your sins," but those sins from which not even you who are justified and
sanctified can be free? While, then, those who seek occasion from this petition to indulge m
habitual sin maintain that the Lord meant to include great sins, because He did not say, He will
forgive you your small sins, but "your sins," we, on the other hand, taking into account the
character of the persons He was addressing, cannot see our way to interpret the expression "your
sins" of anything but small sins, because such persons are no longer guilty of great sins.
Nevertheless not even great sins themselves--sins from which we must flee with a total
reformation of life--are forgiven to those who pray, unless they observe the appended precept, "as
ye also forgive your debtors." For if the very small sins which attach even to the life of the
righteous be not remitted without that condition, how much further from obtaining indulgence
shall those be who are involved in many great crimes, if, while they cease from perpetrating such
enormities, they still inexorably refuse to remit any debt incurred to themselves, since the Lord
says, "But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses?"(1) For this is the purport of the saying of the Apostle James also, "He shall have
judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy."(2) For we should remember that servant
whose debt of ten thousand talents his lord cancelled, but afterwards ordered him to pay up,
because the servant himself had no pity for his fellow-servant, who owed him an hundred
pence.(3) The  words which the Apostle James subjoins,  "And mercy rejoiceth against
judgment,"(4) find their application among those who are the children of the promise and vessels
of mercy. For even those righteous men, who have lived with such holiness that they receive into
the eternal habitations others also who have won their friendship with the mammon of
unrighteousness,(5) became such only through the merciful deliverance of Him who justifies the
ungodly, imputing to him a reward according to grace, not according to debt. For among this
number is the apostle, who says, "I obtained mercy to be faithful."(6)
    But it must be admitted, that those who are thus received into the eternal habitations are not of
such a character that their own life would suffice to rescue them without the aid of the saints, and
consequently in their case especially does mercy rejoice against judgment. And yet we are not on
this account to suppose that every abandoned profligate, who has made no amendment of his life,
is to be received into the eternal habitations if only he has assisted the saints with the mammon of
unrighteousness,--that is to say, with money or wealth which has been unjustly acquired, or, if
rightfully acquired, is yet not the true riches, but only what iniquity counts riches, because it
knows not the true riches in which those persons abound, who even receive others also into
eternal habitations. There is then a certain kind of life, which is neither, on the one hand, so bad
that those who adopt it are not helped towards the kingdom of heaven by any bountiful
alms-giving by which they may relieve the wants of the saints, and make friends who could receive
them into eternal habitations, nor, on the other hand, so good that it of itself suffices to win for
them that great blessedness, if they do not obtain mercy through the merits of those whom they
have made their friends. And I frequently wonder that even Virgil should give expression to this
sentence of the Lord, in which He says, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness, that they may receive you into everlasting habitations;"(2) and this very similar
saying, "He that receiveth a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward;
and he that receiveth a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous
man's reward."(8) For when that poet described the Elysian fields, in which they suppose that the
souls of the blessed dwell, he placed there not only those who had been able by their own merit to
reach that abode. but added.--

          "And they who grateful memory won By services to others done;"(9)

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that is, they who had served others, and thereby merited to be remembered by them. Just as if they
used the expression so common in Christian lips, where some humble person commends himself
to one of the saints, and says, Remember me, and secures that he do so by deserving well at his
hand. But what that kind of life we have been speaking of is, and what those sins are which
prevent a man from winning the kingdom of God by himself, but yet permit him to avail himself of
the merits of the saints, it is very difficult to ascertain, very perilous to define. For my own part, in
spite of all investigation, I have been up to the present hour unable to discover this. And posssibly
it is hidden from us, lest we should become careless in avoiding such sins, and so cease to make
progress. For if it were known what these sins are which, though they continue, and be not
abandoned for a higher life, do yet not prevent us from seeking and hoping for the intercession of
the saints, human sloth would presumptuously wrap itself in these sins, and would take no steps to
be disentangled from such wrappings by the deft energy of any virtue, but would only desire to be
rescued by the merits of other people, whose friendship had been won by a bountiful use of the
mammon of unrighteousness. But now that we are left in ignorance of the precise nature of that
iniquity which is venial, even though it be persevered in, certainly we are both more vigilant in our
prayers and efforts for progress, and more careful to secure with the mammon of unrighteousness
friends for ourselves among the saints.
     But this deliverance, which is effected by one's own prayers, or the intercession of holy men,
secures that a man be not cast into eternal fire, but not that, when once he has been cast into it, he
should after a time be rescued from it. For even those who fancy that what is said of the good
ground bringing forth abundant fruit, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold, is to be
referred to the saints, so that in proportion to their merits some of them shall deliver thirty men,
some sixty, some an hundred,--even those who maintain this are yet commonly inclined to
suppose that this deliverance will take place at, and not after the day of judgment. Under this
impression, some one who observed the unseemly folly with which men promise themselves
impunity on the ground that all will be included in this method of deliverance, is reported to have
very happily remarked, that we should rather endeavor to live so well that we shall be all found
among the number of those who are to intercede for the liberation of others, lest these should be
so few in number, that, after they have delivered one thirty, another sixty, another a hundred,
there should still remain many who could not be delivered from punishment by their intercessions,
and among them every one who has vainly and rashly promised himself the fruit of another's labor.
But enough has been said in reply to those who acknowledge the authority of the same sacred
Scriptures as ourselves, but who, by a mistaken interpretation of them, conceive of the future
rather as they themselves wish, than as the Scriptures teach. And having given this reply, I now,
according to promise, close this book.

                             BOOK XXII.

                               ARGUMENT.

THIS BOOK TREATS OF THE END OF THE CITY OF GOD, THAT IS TO SAY, OF THE
ETERNAL HAPPINESS OF THE SAINTS; THE FAITH OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE
BODY IS ESTABLISHED AND EXPLAINED; AND THE WORK CONCLUDES BY
SHOWING HOW THE SAINTS, CLOTHED IN IMMORTAL AND SPIRITUAL BODIES,
SHALL BE EMPLOYED.

      CHAP. 1.--OF THE CREATION OF ANGELS AND MEN.

    As we promised in the immediately preceeding book, this, the last of the whole work, shall
contain a discussion of the eternal blessedness of the city of God. This blessedness is named
eternal, not because it shall endure for many ages, though at last it shall come to an end, but
because, according to the words of the gospel, "of His kingdom there shall be no end."(1) Neither
shall it enjoy the mere appearance of perpetuity which is maintained by the rise of fresh
generations to occupy the place of those that have died out, as in an evergreen the same freshness
seems to continue permanently, and the same appearance of dense foliage is preserved by the
growth of fresh leaves in the room of those that have withered and fallen; but in that city all the
citizens shall be immortal, men now for the first time enjoying what the holy angels have never
lost. And this shall be accomplished by God, the most almighty Founder of the city. For He has
promised it, and cannot lie, and has already performed many of His promises, and has done many
unpromised kindnesses to those whom He now asks to believe that He will do this also.
    For it is He who in the beginning created the world full of all visible and intelligible beings,
among which He created nothing better than those spirits whom He endowed with intelligence,
and made capable of contemplating and enjoying Him, and united in our society, which we call the
holy and heavenly city, and in which the material of their sustenance and blessedness is God
Himself, as it were their common food and nourishment. It is He who gave to this intellectual
nature free-will of such a kind, that if he wished to forsake God, i.e., his blessedness, misery
should forthwith result. It is He who, when He foreknew that certain angels would in their pride
desire to suffice for their own blessedness, and would forsake their great good, did not deprive
them of this power, deeming it to be more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of
evil than to prevent the evil from coming into existence. And indeed evil had never been, had not
the mutable nature--mutable, though good, and created by the most high God and immutable
Good, who created all things good--brought evil upon itself by sin. And this its sin is itself proof
that its nature was originally good. For had it not been very good, though not equal to its Creator,
the desertion of God as its light could not have been an evil to it. For as blindness is a vice of the
eye, and this very fact indicates that the eye was created to see the light, and as, consequently,
vice itself proves that the eye is more excellent than the other members, because it is capable of
light (for on no other supposition would it be a vice of the eye to want light), so the nature which
once enjoyed God teaches, even by its very vice, that it was created the best of all, since it is now
miserable because it does not enjoy God. It is he who with very just punishment doomed the
angels who voluntarily fell to everlasting misery, and rewarded those who continued in their
attachment to the supreme good with the assurance of endless stability as the meed of their
fidelity. It is He who made also man himself

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upright, with the same freedom of will,--an earthly animal, indeed, but fit for heaven if he
remained faithful to his Creator, but destined to the misery appropriate to such a nature if he
forsook Him. It is He who when He foreknew that man would in his turn sin by abandoning God
and breaking His law, did not deprive him of the power of free-will, because He at the same time
foresaw what good He Himself would bring out of the evil, and how from this mortal race,
deservedly and justly condemned, He would by His grace collect, as now He does, a people so
numerous, that He thus fills up and repairs the blank made by the fallen angels, and that thus that
beloved and heavenly city is not defrauded of the full number of its citizens, but perhaps may even
rejoice in a still more overflowing population.

   CHAP. 2.--OF THE ETERNAL AND UNCHANGEABLE WILL OF GOD.

    It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God's will; but so great is His wisdom
and power, that all things which seem adverse to His purpose do still tend towards those just and
good ends and issues which He Himself has foreknown. And consequently, when God is said to
change His will, as when, e.g., He becomes angry with those to whom He was gentle, it is rather
they than He who are changed, and they find Him changed in so far as their experience of
suffering at His hand is new, as the sun is changed to injured eyes, and becomes as it were fierce
from being mild, and hurtful from being delightful, though in itself it remains the same as it was.
That also is called the will of God which He does in the hearts of those who obey His
commandments; and of this the apostle says, "For it is God that worketh in you both to will."(1)
As God's "righteousness" is used not only of the righteousness wherewith He Himself is righteous,
but also of that which He produces in the man whom He justifies, so also that is called His law,
which, though given by God, is rather the law of men. For certainly they were men to whom Jesus
said, "It is written in your law,"(2) though in another place we read, "The law of Iris God is in his
heart."(3) According to this will which God works in men, He is said also to will what He Himself
does not will, but causes His people to will; as He is said to know what He has caused those to
know who were ignorant of it. For when the apostle says, "But now, after that ye have known
God, or rather are known of God,"(4) we cannot suppose that God there for the first time knew
those who were foreknown by Him before the foundation of the world; but He is said to have
known them then, because then He caused them to know. But I remember that I discussed these
modes of expression in the preceding books. According to this will, then, by which we say that
God wills what He causes to be willed by others, from whom the future is hidden, He wills many
things which He does not perform.
    Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which never happen. They pray,
e.g., for certain individuals--they pray in a pious and holy manner--but what they request He does
not perform, though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them this will to pray.
And consequently, when the saints, in conformity with God's mind, will and pray that all men be
saved, we can use this mode of expression: God wills and does not perform,--meaning that He
who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if we speak of that will of His which
is eternal as His foreknowledge, certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth
that He has willed,--not only past and present things, but even things still future. But before the
arrival of that time in which He has willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged
before all time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant not only of the time
in which it is to be, but even whether it shall be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills,--not
because God will then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event, which
from eternity has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall then come to pass.

     CHAP. 3.--OF THE PROMISE OF ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS TO THE SAINTS,
AND EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT TO THE WICKED.

    Wherefore, not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see in Christ the fulfillment
of that which God promised to Abraham when He said, "In thy seed shall all nations be
blessed,"(5) so this also shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said by
the prophet, "They that are in their sepulchres shall rise again,"(6) and also, "There shall be a new
heaven and a new earth: and the former shall not be mentioned, nor come into mind; but they shall
find joy and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy. And I will
rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in
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my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her."(1) And by another prophet
He uttered the same prediction: "At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be
found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust" (or, as some interpret it, "in
the mound") "of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt."(2) And in another place by the same prophet: "The saints of the Most High
shall take the kingdom, and shall possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."(3) And a
little after he says, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom."(4) Other prophecies referring to the
same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book, and others still which I have not advanced
are found written in the same Scriptures; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those also have
been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For it is the same God who promised
both, and predicted that both would come to pass,--the God whom the pagan deities tremble
before, as even Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.

CHAP. 4.--AGAINST THE WISE MEN OF THE WORLD, WHO FANCY THAT THE
EARTHLY BODIES OF MEN CANNOT BE TRANSFERRED TO A HEAVENLY
HABITATION.

    But men who use their learning and intellectual ability to resist the force of that great authority
which, in fulfillment of what was so long before predicted, has converted all races of men to faith
and hope in its promises, seem to themselves to argue acutely against the resurrection of the body
while they cite what Cicero mentions in the third book De Republica. For when he was asserting
the apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus, he says: "Whose bodies were not taken up into heaven;
for nature would not permit a body of earth to exist anywhere except upon earth." This, forsooth,
is the profound reasoning of the wise men, whose thoughts God knows that they are vain. For if
we were only souls, that is, spirits without any body, and if we dwelt in heaven and had no
knowledge of earthly animals, and were told that we should be bound to earthly bodies by some
wonderful bond of union, and should animate them, should we not much more vigorously refuse
to believe this, and maintain that nature would not permit an incorporeal substance to be held by a
corporeal bond? And yet the earth is full of living spirits, to which terrestrial bodies are bound,
and with which they are in a wonderful way implicated. If, then, the same God who has created
such beings wills this also, what is to binder the  earthly body from being raised to a heavenly
body, since a spirit, which is more excellent than all bodies, and consequently than even a
heavenly body, has been tied to an earthly body? If so small an earthly particle has been able to
hold in union with itself something better than a heavenly body, so as to receive sensation and life,
will heaven disdain to receive, or at least to retain, this sentient and living particle, which derives
its life and sensation from a substance more excellent than any heavenly body? If this does not
happen now, it is because the time is not yet come which has been determined by Him who has
already done a much more marvellous thing than that which these men refuse to believe. For why
do we not more intensely wonder that incorporeal souls, which are of higher rank than heavenly
bodies, are bound to earthly bodies, rather than that bodies, although earthly, are exalted to an
abode which, though heavenly, is yet corporeal, except because we have been accustomed to see
this, and indeed are this, while we are not as yet that other marvel, nor have as yet ever seen it?
Certainly, if we consult sober reason, the more wonderful of the two divine works is found to be
to attach somehow corporeal things to incorporeal, and not to connect earthly things with
heavenly, which, though diverse, are yet both of them corporeal.

     CHAP. 5.--OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH, WHICH SOME REFUSE TO
BELIEVE, THOUGH THE WORLD AT LARGE BELIEVES IT.

    But granting that this was once incredible, behold, now, the world has come to the belief that
the earthly body of Christ was received up into heaven. Already both the learned and unlearned
have believed in the resurrection of the flesh and its ascension to the heavenly places, while only a
very few either of the educated or uneducated are still staggered by it. If this is a credible thing
which is believed, then let those who do not believe see how stolid they are; and if it is incredible,
then this also is an incredible thing, that what is incredible should have received such credit. Here
then we have two incredibles,--to wit, the resurrection of our body to eternity, and that the world
should believe so incredible a thing; and both these incredibles the same God predicted should
come to pass before either had as yet occurred. We see that already one of the two has come to
pass,

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for the world has believed what was incredible; why should we despair that the remaining one
shall also come to pass, and that this which the world believed, though it was incredible, shall
itself occur? For already that which was equally incredible has come to pass, in the world's
believing an incredible thing. Both were incredible: the one we see accomplished, the other we
believe shall be; for both were predicted in those same Scriptures by means of which the world
believed. And the very manner in which the world's faith was won is found to be even more
incredible if we consider it. Men uninstructed in any branch of a liberal education, without any of
the refinement of heathen learning, unskilled in grammar, not armed with dialectic, not adorned
with rhetoric, but plain fishermen, and very few in number,--these were the men whom Christ sent
with the nets of faith to the sea of this world, and thus took out of every race so many fishes, and
even the philosophers themselves, wonderful as they are rare. Let us add, if you please, or
because you ought to be pleased, this third incredible thing to the two former. And now we have
three incredibles, all of which have yet come to pass. It is incredible that Jesus Christ should have
risen in the flesh and ascended with flesh into heaven; it is incredible that the world should have
believed so incredible a thing; it is incredible that a very few men, of mean birth and the lowest
rank, and no education, should have been able so effectually to persuade the world, and even its
learned men, of so incredible a thing. Of these three incredibles, the parties with whom we are
debating refuse to believe the first; they cannot refuse to see the second, which they are unable to
account for if they do not believe the third. It is indubitable that the resurrection of Christ, and His
ascension into heaven with the flesh in which He rose, is already preached and believed in the
whole world. If it is not credible, how is it that it has already received credence in the whole
world? If a number of noble, exalted, and learned men had said that they had witnessed it, and had
been at pains to publish what they had witnessed, it were not wonderful that the world should
have believed it, but it were very stubborn to refuse credence; but if, as is true, the world has
believed a few obscure, inconsiderable, uneducated persons, who state and write that they
witnessed it, is it not unreasonable that a handful of wrong-beaded men should oppose themselves
to the creed of the whole world, and refuse their belief? And if the world has put faith in a small
number of men, of mean birth and the lowest rank, and no education, it is because the divinity of
the thing itself appeared all the more manifestly in such contemptible witnesses. The eloquence,
indeed, which lent persuasion to their message, consisted of wonderful works, not words. For
they who had not seen Christ risen in the flesh, nor ascending into heaven with His risen body,
believed those who related how they had seen these things, and who testified not only with words
but wonderful signs. For men whom they knew to be acquainted with only one, or at most two
languages, they marvelled to hear speaking in the tongues of all nations. They saw a man, lame
from his mother's womb, after forty years stand up sound at their word in the name of Christ; that
handkerchiefs taken from their bodies had virtue to heal the sick; that countless persons, sick of
various diseases, were laid in a row in the road where they were to pass, that their shadow might
fall on them as they walked, and that they forthwith received health; that many other stupendous
miracles were wrought by them in the name of Christ; and, finally, that they even raised the dead.
If it be admitted that these things occurred as they are related, then we have a multitude of
incredible things to add to those three incredibles. That the one incredibility of the resurrection
and ascension of Jesus Christ may be believed, we accumulate the testimonies of countless
incredible miracles, but even so we do not bend the frightful obstinacy of these sceptics. But if
they do not believe that these miracles were wrought by Christ's apostles to gain credence to their
preaching of His resurrection and ascension, this one grand miracle suffices for us, that the whole
world has believed without any miracles.

     CHAP. 6.--THAT ROME MADE ITS FOUNDER ROMULUS A GOD BECAUSE IT
LOVED HIM; BUT THE CHURCH LOVED CHRIST BECAUSE IT BELIEVED HIM TO BE
GOD.

    Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his astonishment that the apotheosis of
Romulus should have been credited. I shall insert his words as they stand: "It is most worthy of
remark in Romulus, that other men who are said to have become gods lived in less educated ages,
when there was a greater propensity to the fabulous, and when the uninstructed were easily
persuaded to believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years ago, and
already literature and science bad dispelled the errors that attach to an uncultured age." And a
little after he says of the same Romulus words to this effect:

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"From this we may perceive that Homer had flourished long before Romulus, and that there was
now so much learning in individuals, and so generally diffused an enlightenment, that scarcely any
room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted fables, and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but
this age [of Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to reject whatever had not the air of truth."
Thus one of the most learned men, and certainly the most eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it
is surprising that the divinity of Romulus was believed in, because the times were already so
enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous fiction. But who believed that Romulus was a
god except Rome, which was itself small and in its infancy? Then afterwards it was necessary that
succeeding generations should preserve the tradition of their ancestors; that, drinking in this
superstition with their mother's milk, the state might grow and come to such power that it might
dictate this belief, as from a point of vantage, to all the nations over whom its sway extended. And
these nations, though they might not believe that Romulus was a god, at least said so, that they
might not give offence to their sovereign state by refusing to give its founder that title which was
given him by Rome, which had adopted this belief, not by a love of error, but an error of love. But
though Christ is the founder of the heavenly and eternal city, yet it did not believe Him to be God
because it was founded by Him, but rather it is founded by Him, in virtue of its belief. Rome, after
it had been built and dedicated, worshipped its founder in a temple as a god; but this Jerusalem
laid Christ, its God, as its foundation, that the building and dedication might proceed. The former
city loved its founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed Christ to be God,
and therefore loved Him. There was an antecedent cause for the love of the former city, and for
its believing that even a false dignity attached to the object of its love; so there was an antecedent
cause for the belief of the latter, and for its loving the true dignity which a proper faith, not a rash
surmise, ascribed to its object. For, not to mention the multitude of very striking miracles which
proved that Christ is God, there were also divine prophecies heralding Him, prophecies most
worthy of belief, which being already accomplished, we have not, like the fathers, to wait for their
verification. Of Romulus, on the other hand, and of his building Rome and reigning in it, we read
or hear the narrative of what did take place, not prediction which beforehand said that such things
should be. And so far as his reception among the gods is concerned, history only records that this
was believed, and does not state it as a fact; for no miraculous signs testified to the truth of this.
For as to that wolf which is said to have nursed the twin-brothers, and which is considered a great
marvel, how does this prove him to have been divine? For even supposing that this nurse was a
real wolf and not a mere courtezan, yet she nursed both brothers, and Remus is not reckoned a
god. Besides, what was there to hinder any one from asserting that Romulus or Hercules, or any
such man, was a god? Or who would  rather choose to die than profess belief in his divinity? And
did a single nation worship Romulus among its gods, unless it were forced through fear of the
Roman name? But who can number the multitudes who have chosen death in the most cruel
shapes rather than deny the divinity of Christ? And thus the dread of some slight indignation,
which it was supposed, perhaps groundlessly, might exist in the minds of the Romans, constrained
some states who were subject to Rome to worship Romulus as a god; whereas the dread, not of a
slight mental shock, but of severe and various punishments, and of death itself, the most
formidable of all, could not prevent an immense multitude of martyrs throughout the world from
not merely worshipping but also confessing Christ as God. The city of Christ, which, although as
yet a stranger upon earth, had countless hosts of citizens, did not make war upon its godless
persecutors for the sake of temporal security, but preferred to win eternal salvation by abstaining
from war. They were bound, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, burned, torn in pieces, massacred, and
yet they multiplied. It was not given to them to fight for their eternal salvation except by despising
their temporal salvation for their Saviour's sake.
    I am aware that Cicero, in the third book of his De Republica, if I mistake not, argues that a
first-rate power will not engage in war except either for honor or for safety. What he has to say
about the question of safety, and what he means by safety, he explains in another place, saying,
"Private persons frequently evade, by a speedy death, destitution, exile, bonds, the scourge, and
the other pains which even the most insensible feel. But to states, death, which seems to
emancipate individuals from all punishments, is itself a punishment; for a state should be so
constituted as to be eternal. And thus death is not natural to a republic as to a man, to whom
death is not only necessary, but often even desirable. But when a state is destroyed,

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obliterated, annihilated, it is as if (to compare great things with small) this whole world perished
and collapsed." Cicero said this because he, with the Platonists, believed that the world would not
perish. It is therefore agreed that, according to Cicero, a state should engage in war for the safety
which preserves the state permanently in existence though its citizens change; as the foliage of an
olive or laurel, or any tree of this kind, is perennial, the old leaves being replaced by fresh ones.
For death, as he says, is no punishment to individuals, but rather delivers them from all other
punishments, but it is a punishment to the state. And therefore it is reasonably asked whether the
Saguntines did right when they chose that their whole state should perish rather than that they
should break faith with the Roman republic; for this deed of theirs is applauded by the citizens of
the earthly republic. But I do not see how they could follow the advice of Cicero, who tell us that
no war is to be undertaken save for safety or for honor; neither does he say which of these two is
to be preferred, if a case should occur in which the one could not be preserved without the loss of
the other. For manifestly, if the Saguntines chose safety, they must break faith; if they kept faith,
they must reject safety; as also it fell out. But the safety of the city of God is such that it can be
retained, or rather acquired, by faith and with faith; but if faith be abandoned, no one can attain it.
It is this thought of a most steadfast and patient spirit that has made so many noble martyrs, while
Romulus has not had, and could not have, so much as one to die for his divinity.

     CHAP. 7.--THAT THE WORLD'S BELIEF IN CHRIST IS THE RESULT OF DIVINE
POWER, NOT OF HUMAN PERSUASION.

    But it is thoroughly ridiculous to make mention of the false divinity of Romulus as any way
comparable to that of Christ. Nevertheless, if Romulus lived about six hundred years before
Cicero, in an age which already was so enlightened that it rejected all impossibilities, how much
more, in an age which certainly was more enlightened, being six hundred years later, the age of
Cicero himself, and of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, would the human mind have refused
to listen to or believe in the resurrection of Christ's body and its ascension into heaven, and have
scouted it as an impossibility, had not the divinity of the truth itself, or the truth  of the divinity,
and corroborating miraculous signs, proved that it could happen and had happened? Through
virtue of these testimonies, and notwithstanding the opposition and terror of so many cruel
persecutions, the resurrection and immortality of the flesh, first in Christ, and subsequently in all
in the new world, was believed, was intrepidly proclaimed, and was sown over the whole world,
to be fertilized richly with the blood of the martyrs. For the predictions of the prophets that had
preceded the events were read, they were corroborated by powerful signs, and the truth was seen
to be not contradictory to reason, but only different from customary ideas, so that at length the
world embraced the faith it had furiously persecuted.

     CHAP. 8.--OF MIRACLES WHICH WERE WROUGHT THAT THE WORLD MIGHT
BELIEVE IN CHRIST, AND WHICH HAVE NOT CEASED SINCE THE WORLD
BELIEVED.

    Why, they say, are those miracles, which you affirm were wrought formerly, wrought no
longer? I might, indeed, reply that miracles were necessary before the world believed, in order
that it might believe. And whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies that he may believe, is
himself a great prodigy, because he does not believe, though the whole world does. But they
make these objections for the sole purpose of insinuating that even those former miracles were
never wrought. How, then, is it that everywhere Christ is celebrated with such firm belief in His
resurrection and ascension? How is it that in enlightened times, in which every impossibility is
rejected, the world has, without any miracles, believed things marvellously incredible? Or will they
say that these things were credible, and therefore were credited? Why then do they themselves not
believe? Our argument, therefore, is a summary one--either incredible things which were not
witnessed have caused the world to believe other incredible things which both occurred and were
witnessed, or this matter was so credible that it needed no miracles in proof of it, and therefore
convicts these unbelievers of unpardonable scepticism. This I might say for the sake of refuting
these most frivolous objectors. But we cannot deny that many miracles were wrought to confirm
that one grand and health-giving miracle of Christ's ascension to heaven with the flesh in which
He rose. For these most trustworthy books of ours contain in one narrative both the miracles that
were wrought and the creed which they were wrought to confirm. The miracles were published
that they might produce faith, and the faith which they produced brought them into

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greater prominence. For they are read in congregations that they may be believed, and yet they
would not be so read unless they were believed. For even now miracles are wrought in the name
of Christ, whether by His sacraments or by the prayers or relics of His saints; but they are not so
brilliant and conspicuous as to cause them to be published with such glory as accompanied the
former miracles. For the canon of the sacred writings, which behoved to be closed,(1) causes
those to be everywhere recited, and to sink into the memory of all the congregations; but these
modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population in the midst of which they are
wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot. For frequently they are known only to a very
few persons, while all the rest are ignorant of them, especially if the state is a large one; and when
they are reported to other persons in other localities, there is no sufficient authority to give them
prompt and unwavering credence, although they are reported to the faithful by the faithful.
    The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there, and by which a blind man was
restored to sight, could come to the knowledge of many; for not only is the city a large one, but
also the emperor was there at the time, and the occurrence was witnessed by an immense
concourse of people that had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius,
which had long lain concealed and unknown, but were now made known to the bishop Ambrose
in a dream, and discovered by him. By virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was
scattered, and he saw the light of day.(2)
    But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which was wrought upon Innocentius,
ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture, a cure wrought at Carthage, in my presence, and under my
own eyes? For when I and my brother Alypius,(3) who were not yet clergymen,(4) though already
servants of God, came from abroad, this man received us, and made us live with him, for he and
all his household were devotedly pious. He was being treated by medical men for fistulae, of
which he had a large number intricately seated in the rectum. He had already undergone an
operation, and the surgeons were using every means at their command for his relief. In that
operation he had suffered long-continued and acute pain; yet, among the many folds of the gut,
one had escaped the operators so entirely, that, though they ought, to have laid it open with the
knife, they never touched it. And thus, though all those that had been opened were cured, this one
remained as it was, and frustrated all their labor. The patient, having his suspicions awakened by
the delay thus occasioned, and fearing greatly a second operation, which another medical
man--one of his own domestics--had told him he must undergo, though this man had not even
been allowed to witness the first operation, and had been banished from the house, and with
difficulty allowed to come back to his enraged master's presence,--the patient, I say, broke out to
the surgeons, saying, "Are you going to cut me again? Are you, after all, to fulfill the prediction of
that man whom you would not allow even to be present?" The surgeons laughed at the unskillful
doctor, and soothed their patient's fears with fair words and promises. So several days passed, and
yet nothing they tried aid him good. Still they persisted in promising that they would cure that
fistula by drugs, without the knife. They called in also another old practitioner of great repute in
that department, Ammonius (for he was still alive at that time); and he, after examining the part,
promised the same result as themselves from their care and skill. On this great authority, the
patient became confident, and, as if already well, vented his good spirits in facetious remarks at
the expense of his domestic physician, who had predicted a second operation. To make a long
story short, after a number of days had thus uselessly elapsed, the surgeons, wearied and
confused, had at last to confess that he could only be cured by the knife. Agitated with excessive
fear, he was terrified, and grew pale with dread; and when he collected himself and was able to
speak, he ordered them to go away and never to return. Worn out with weeping, and driven by
necessity, it occurred to him to call in an Alexandrian, who was at that time esteemed a
wonderfully skillful operator, that he might perform the operation his rage would not suffer them
to do. But when he had come, and examined with a professional eye the traces

486

of their careful work, he acted the part of a good man, and persuaded his patient to allow those
same hands the satisfaction of finishing his cure which had begun it with a skill that excited his
admiration, adding that there was no doubt his only hope of a cure was by an operation, but that it
was thoroughly inconsistent with his nature to win the credit of the cure by doing the little that
remained to be done, and rob of their reward men whose consummate skill, care, and diligence he
could not but admire when be saw the traces of their work. They were therefore again received to
favor; and it was agreed that, in the presence of the Alexandrian, they should operate on the
fistula, which, by the consent of all, could now only be cured by the knife. The operation was
deferred till the following day. But when they had left, there arose in the house such a wailing, in
sympathy with the excessive despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at
a funeral, and we could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily;
Saturninus of blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the
deacons of the church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them
all survives,--a man to be named by us with due reverence,--and with him I have often spoken of
this affair, as we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found that he
distinctly remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that evening
according to their custom, he besought them, with pitiable tears, that they would do him the
honor of being present next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his suffering. For such
was the terror his former pains had produced, that he made no doubt he would die in the hands of
the surgeons. They comforted him, and exhorted him to put his trust in God, and nerve his will
like a man. Then we went to prayer; but while we, in the usual way, were kneeling and bending to
the ground, he cast himself down, as if some one were hurling him violently to the earth, and
began to pray; but in what a manner, with what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood of
tears, with what groans and sobs, that shook his whole body, and almost prevented him speaking,
who can describe! Whether the others prayed, and had not their attention wholly diverted by this
conduct, I do not know. For myself, I could not pray at all. This only I briefly said in my heart: "O
Lord, what prayers of Thy people dost Thou hear if Thou hearest not these?" For it seemed to me
that nothing could be added to this prayer, unless he expired in praying. We rose from our knees,
and, receiving the blessing of the bishop, departed, the patient beseeching his visitors to be present
next morning, they exhorting him to keep up his heart. The dreaded day dawned. The servants of
God were present, as they had promised to be; the surgeons arrived; all that the circumstances
required was ready; the frightful instruments are produced; all look on in wonder and suspense.
While those who have most influence with the patient are cheering his fainting spirit, his limbs are
arranged on the couch so as to suit the hand of the operator; the knots of the bandages are untied;
the part is bared; the surgeon examines it, and, with knife in hand, eagerly looks for the sinus that
is to be cut. He searches for it with his eyes; he feels for it with his finger; he applies every kind of
scrutiny: he finds a perfectly firm cicatrix! No words of mine can describe the joy, and praise, and
thanksgiving to the merciful and almighty God which was poured from the lips of all, with tears of
gladness. Let the scene be imagined rather than described!
    In the same city of Carthage lived Innocentia, a very devout woman of the highest rank in the
state. She had cancer in one of her breasts, a disease which, as physicians say, is incurable.
Ordinarily, therefore, they either amputate, and so separate from the body the member on which
the disease has seized, or, that the patient's life may be prolonged a little, though death is
inevitable even if somewhat delayed, they abandon all remedies, following, as they say, the advice
of Hippocrates. This the lady we speak of had been advised to by a skillful physician, who was
intimate with her family; and she betook herself to God alone by prayer. On the approach of
Easter, she was instructed in a dream to wait for the first woman that came out from the
baptistery(1) after being baptized, and to ask her to make the sign of Christ upon her sore. She
did so, and was immediately cured. The physician who had advised her to apply no remedy if she
wished to live a little longer, when he had examined her after this, and found that she who, on his
former examination, was afflicted with that disease was now perfectly cured, eagerly asked her
what remedy she had used, anxious, as we may well believe, to discover the drug which should
defeat the decision of Hippocrates. But when she told him what had happened, he is said to have
replied, with reli-
487

gious politeness, though with a contemptuous tone, and an expression which made her fear he
would utter some blasphemy against Christ, "I thought you would make some great discovery to
me." She, shuddering at his indifference, quickly replied, "What great thing was it for Christ to
heal a cancer, who raised one who had been four days dead?" When, therefore, I had heard this, I
was extremely indignant that so great a miracle wrought in that well-known city, and on a person
who was certainly not obscure, should not be divulged, and I considered that she should be
spoken to, if not reprimanded on this score. And when she replied to me that she had not kept
silence on the subject, I asked the women with whom she was best acquainted whether they had
ever heard of this before. They told me they knew nothing of it. "See," I said, "what your not
keeping silence amounts to, since not even those who are so familiar with you know of it." And as
I had only briefly heard the story, I made her tell how the whole thing happened, from beginning
to end, while the other women listened in great astonishment, and glorified God.
   A gouty doctor of the same city, when he had given in his name for baptism, and had been
prohibited the day before his baptism from being baptized that year, by black woolly-halted boys
who appeared to him in his dreams, and whom he understood to be devils, and when, though they
trod on his feet, and inflicted the acutest pain he had ever yet experienced, he refused to obey
them, but overcame them, and would not defer being washed in the layer of regeneration, was
relieved in the very act of baptism, not only of the extraordinary pain he was tortured with, but
also of the disease itself, so that, though he lived a long time afterwards, he never suffered from
gout; and yet who knows of this miracle? We, however, do know it, and so, too, do the small
number of brethren who were in the neighborhood, and to whose ears it might come.
    An old comedian of Curubis(1) was cured at baptism not only of paralysis, but also of hernia,
and, being delivered from both afflictions, came up out of the font of regeneration as if he had had
nothing wrong with his body. Who outside of Curubis knows of this, or who but a very few who
might hear it elsewhere? But we, when we heard of it, made the man come to Carthage, by order
of the holy bishop Aurelius, although we had already ascertained the fact on the information of
persons whose word we could not doubt.
    Hesperius, of a tribunitian family, and a neighbor of our own,(2) has a farm called Zubedi in the
Fussalian district;(3) and, finding that his family, his cattle, and his servants were suffering from
the malice of evil spirits, he asked our presbyters, during my absence, that one of them would go
with him and banish the spirits by his prayers. One went, offered there the sacrifice of the body of
Christ, praying with all his might that that vexation might cease. It did cease forthwith, through
God's mercy. Now he had received from a friend of his own some holy earth brought from
Jerusalem, where Christ, having been buried, rose again the third day. This earth he had hung up
in his bedroom to preserve himself from harm. But when his house was purged of that demoniacal
invasion, he began to consider what should be done with the earth; for his reverence for it made
him unwilling to have it any longer in his bedroom. It so happened that I and Maximinus bishop of
Synita, and then my colleague, were in the neighborhood. Hesperius asked us to visit him, and we
did so. When he had related all the circumstances, he begged that the earth might be buried
somewhere, and that  the spot should be made a place of prayer where Christians might assemble
for the worship of God. We made no objection: it was done as he desired. There was in that
neighborhood a young countryman who was paralytic, who, when he heard of this, begged his
parents to take him without delay to that holy place. When he had been brought there, he prayed,
and forthwith went away on his own feet perfectly cured.
    There is a country-seat called Victoriana, less than thirty miles from Hippo-regius. At it there is
a monument to the Milanese martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius. Thither a young man was carried,
who, when he was watering his horse one summer day at noon in a pool of a river, had been taken
possession of by a devil. As he lay at the monument, near death, or even quite like a dead person,
the lady of the manor, with her maids and religious attendants, entered the place for evening
prayer and praise, as her custom was, and they began to sing hymns. At this sound the young
man, as if electrified, was thoroughly aroused, and with frightful screaming seized the altar, and
held it as if he did not dare or were not able to let it go, and as if he were fixed or tied to it; and
the devil in him, with loud lamentation, besought that he might be spared, and confessed where
and when and how he took possession of the youth.

488

At last, declaring that he would go out of him, he named one by one the parts of his body which
he threatened to mutilate as he went out and with these words he departed from the man. But his
eye, falling out on his cheek, hung by a slender vein as by a root, and the whole of the pupil which
had been black became white. When this was witnessed by those present (others too had now
gathered to his cries, and had all joined in prayer for him), although they were delighted that he
had recovered his sanity of mind, yet, on the other hand, they were grieved about his eye, and said
he should seek medical advice. But his sister's husband, who had brought him there, said, "God,
who has banished the devil, is able to restore his eye at the prayers of His saints." Therewith he
replaced the eye that was fallen out and hanging, and bound it in its place with his handkerchief as
well as he could, and advised him not to loose the bandage for seven days. When he did so, he
found it quite healthy. Others also were cured there, but of them it were tedious to speak.
    I know that a young woman of Hippo was immediately dispossessed of a devil, on anointing
herself with oil, mixed with the tears of the prebsyter who had been praying for her. I know also
that a bishop once prayed for a demoniac young man whom he never saw, and that he was cured
on the spot.
    There was a fellow-townsman of ours at Hippo, Florentius, an old man, religious and poor,
who supported himself as a tailor. Having lost his coat, and not having means to buy another, he
prayed to the Twenty Martyrs,(1) who have a very celebrated memorial shrine in our town,
begging in a distinct voice that he might be clothed. Some scoffing young men, who happened to
be present, heard him, and followed him with their sarcasm as he went away, as if he had asked
the martyrs for fifty pence to buy a coat. But he, walking on in silence, saw on the shore a great
fish, gasping as if just cast up, and having secured it with the good-natured assistance of the
youths, he sold it for curing to a cook of the name of Catosus, a good Christian man, telling him
how he had come by it, and receiving for it three hundred pence, which he laid out in wool, that
his wife might exercise her skill upon, and make into a coat for him. But, on  cutting up the fish,
the cook found a gold ring in its belly; and forthwith, moved with compassion, and influenced,
too, by religious fear, gave it up to the man, saying, "See how the Twenty Martyrs have clothed
you."
    When the bishop Projectus was bringing the relics of the most glorious martyr Stephen to the
waters of Tibilis, a great concourse of people came to meet him at the shrine. There a blind
woman entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the relics. He gave her the
flowers he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes, and forthwith saw. Those who
were present were astounded, while she, with every expression of joy, preceded them, pursuing
her way without further need of a guide.
    Lucillus bishop of Sinita, in the neighborhood of the colonial town of Hippo, was carrying in
procession some relics of the same martyr, which had been deposited in the castle of Sinita. A
fistula under which he had long labored, and which his private physician was watching an
opportunity to cut, was suddenly cured by the mere carrying of that sacred fardel,(2)--at least,
afterwards there was no trace of it in his body.
    Eucharius, a Spanish priest, residing at Calama, was for a long time a sufferer from stone. By
the relics of the same martyr, which the bishop Possidius brought him, he was cured. Afterwards
the same priest, sinking under another disease, was lying dead, and already they were binding his
hands. By the succor of the same martyr he was raised to life, the priest's cloak having been
brought from the oratory and laid upon the corpse.
    There was there an old nobleman named Martial, who had a great aversion to the Christian
religion, but whose daughter was a Christian, while her husband had been baptized that same year.
When he was ill, they besought him with tears and prayers to become a Christian, but he
positively refused, and dismissed them from his presence in a storm of indignation. It occurred to
the son-in-law to go to the oratory of St. Stephen, and there pray for him with all earnestness that
God might give him a right mind, so that he should not delay believing in Christ. This he did with
great groaning and tears, and the burning fervor of sincere piety; then, as he left the place, he took
some of the flowers that were lying there, and, as it was already night, laid them by his father's
head, who so slept. And lo ! before dawn, he cries out for some one to run for the bishop; but he
happened at that time to be with me at Hippo. So when he had heard that he was from home, he
asked the presbyters to come. They came. To the joy and amazement of all, he declared that he
believed, and he was baptized. As long as he remained in life, these

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words were ever on his lips: "Christ, receive my spirit," though he was not aware that these were
the last words of the most blessed  Stephen when he was stoned by the Jews. They were his last
words also, for not long after he himself also gave up the ghost.
    There, too, by the same martyr, two men, one a citizen, the other a stranger, were cured of
gout; but while the citizen was absolutely cured, the stranger was only informed what he should
apply when the pain returned; and when he followed this advice, the pain was at once relieved.
    Audurus is the name of an estate, where there is a church that contains a memorial shrine of the
martyr Stephen. It happened that, as a little boy was playing in the court, the oxen drawing a
wagon went out of the track and crushed him with the wheel, so that immediately he seemed at
his last gasp. His mother snatched him up, and laid him at the shrine, and not only did he revive,
but also appeared uninjured.
    A religious female, who lived at Caspalium, a neighboring estate, when she was so ill as to be
despaired of, had her dress brought to this shrine, but before it was brought back she was gone.
However, her parents wrapped her corpse in the dress, and, her breath returning, she became
quite well.
    At Hippo a Syrian called Bassus was praying at the relics of the same martyr for his daughter,
who was dangerously ill. He too had brought her dress with him to the shrine. But as he prayed,
behold, his servants ran from the house to tell him she was dead. His friends, however, intercepted
them, and forbade them to tell him, lest he should bewail her in public. And when he had returned
to his house, which was already ringing with the lamentations of his family, and had thrown on his
daughter's body the dress he was carrying, she was restored to life.
    There, too, the son of a man, Irenaeus, one of our tax-gatherers, took ill and died. And while
his body was lying lifeless, and the last rites were being prepared, amidst the weeping and
mourning of all, one of the friends who were consoling the father suggested that the body should
be anointed with the oil of the same martyr. It was done, and he revived.
    Likewise Eleusinus, a man of tribunitian rank among us, laid his infant son, who had died, on
the shrine of the martyr, which is in the suburb where he lived, and, after prayer, which he poured
out there with many tears, he took up his child alive.
    What am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work, that I cannot record all
the miracles I know; and doubtless several of our adherents, when they read what I have narrated,
will regret that I have omitted so many which they, as well as I, certainly know. Even now I beg
these persons to excuse me, and to consider how long it would take me to relate all those
miracles, which the necessity of finishing the work I have undertaken forces me to omit. For were
I to be silent of all others, and to record exclusively the miracles of healing which were wrought in
the district of Calama and of Hippo by means of this martyr--I mean the most glorious
Stephen--they would fill many volumes; and yet all even of these could not be collected, but only
those of which narratives have been written for public recital. For when I saw, in our own times,
frequent signs of the presence of divine powers similar to those which had been given of old, I
desired that narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of
these things. It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius, and
though many of the miracles which have been wrought by it have not, as I have the most certain
means of knowing, been recorded, those which have been published amount to almost seventy at
the hour at which I write. But at Calama, where these relics have been for a longer time, and
where more of the miracles were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more.
    At Uzali, too, a colony near Utica, many signal miracles were, to my knowledge, wrought by
the same martyr, whose relics had found a place there by direction of the bishop Evodius, long
before we had them at Hippo. But there the custom of publishing narratives does not obtain, or, I
should say, did not obtain, for possibly it may now have been begun. For, when I was there
recently, a woman of rank, Petronia, had been miraculously cured of a serious illness of long
standing, in which all medical appliances had failed, and, with the consent of the abovenamed
bishop of the place, I exhorted her to publish an account of it that might be read to the people.
She most promptly obeyed, and inserted in her narrative a circumstance which I cannot omit to
mention, though I am compelled to hasten on to the subjects which this work requires me to treat.
She said that she had been persuaded by a Jew to wear next her skin, under all her clothes, a hair
girdle, and on this girdle a ring, which, instead of a gem, had a stone which had been found in the
kidneys of an ox. Girt with this charm, she was making her way to the threshold of the holy
martyr. But, after leaving Carthage, and when she had been lodging in her own

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demesne on the river Bagrada, and was now rising to continue her journey, she saw her ring lying
before her feet. In great surprise she examined the hair girdle, and when she found it bound, as it
had been, quite firmly with knots, she conjectured that the ring had been worn through and
dropped off; but when she found that the ring was itself also perfectly whole, she presumed that
by this great miracle she had received somehow a pledge of her cure, whereupon she untied the
girdle, and cast it into the river, and the ring along with it. This is not credited by those who do
not believe either that the Lord Jesus Christ came forth from His mother's womb without
destroying her virginity, and entered among His disciples when the doors were shut; but let them
make strict inquiry into this miracle, and if they find it true, let them believe those others. The lady
is of distinction, nobly born, married to a nobleman. She resides at Carthage. The city is
distinguished, the person is distinguished, so that they who make inquiries cannot fail to find
satisfaction. Certainly the martyr himself, by whose prayers she was healed, believed on the Son
of her who remained a virgin; on Him who came in among the disciples when the doors were shut;
in fine,--and to this tends all that we have been retailing,--on Him who ascended into heaven with
the flesh in which He had risen; and it is because he laid down his life for this faith that such
miracles were done by his means.
    Even now, therefore, many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read of
still performing them, by whom He will and as He will; but they are not as well known, nor are
they beaten into the memory, like gravel, by frequent reading, so that they cannot fall out of mind.
For even where, as is now done among ourselves, care is taken that the pamphlets of those who
receive benefit be read publicly, yet those who are present hear the narrative but once, and many
are absent; and so it comes to pass that even those who are present forget in a few days what they
heard, and scarcely one of them can be found who will tell what he heard to one who he knows
was not present.
    One miracle was wrought among ourselves, which, though no greater than those I have
mentioned, was yet so signal and conspicuous, that I suppose there is no inhabitant of Hippo who
did not either see or hear of it, none who could possibly forget it. There were seven brothers and
three sisters of a noble family of the Cappadocian Caesarea, who were cursed by their mother, a
new-made widow, on account of some wrong they had done her, and which she bitterly resented,
and who were visited with so severe a punishment from Heaven, that all of them were seized with
a hideous shaking in all their limbs. Unable, while presenting this loathsome appearance, to endure
the eyes of their fellow-citizens, they wandered over almost the whole Roman world, each
following his own direction. Two of them came to Hippo, a brother and a sister, Paulus and
Palladia, already known in many other places by the fame of their wretched lot. Now it was about
fifteen days before Easter when they came, and they came daily to church, and specially to the
relics of the most glorious Stephen, praying that God might now be appeased, and restore their
former health. There, and wherever they went, they attracted the attention of every one. Some
who had seen them elsewhere, and knew the cause of their trembling, told others as occasion
offered. Easter arrived, and on the Lord's day, in the morning, when there was now a large crowd
present, and the young man was holding the bars of the holy place where the relics were, and
praying, suddenly he fell down, and lay precisely as if asleep, but not trembling as he was wont to
do even in sleep. All present were astonished. Some were alarmed, some were moved with pity;
and while some were for lifting him up, others prevented them, and said they should rather wait
and see what would result. And behold ! he rose up, and trembled no more, for he was healed,
and stood quite well, scanning those who were scanning him. Who then refrained himself from
praising God? The whole church was filled with the voices of those who were shouting and
congratulating him. Then they came running to me, where I was sitting ready to come into the
church. One after another they throng in, the last comer telling me as news what the first had told
me already; and while I rejoiced and inwardly gave God thanks, the young man himself also
enters, with a number of others, falls at my knees, is raised up to receive my kiss. We go in to the
congregation: the church was full, and ringing with the shouts of joy, "Thanks to God ! Praised be
God !" every one joining and shouting on all sides, "I have healed the people," and then with still
louder voice shouting again. Silence being at last obtained, the customary lessons of the divine
Scriptures were read. And when I came to my sermon, I made a few remarks suitable to the
occasion and the happy and joyful feeling, not desiring them to listen to me, but rather to consider
the eloquence of God in this divine work. The man dined with us, and gave us a careful ac-

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count of his own, his mother's, and his family's calamity. Accordingly, on the following day, after
delivering my sermon, I promised that next day I would read his narrative to the people.(1) And
when I did so, the third day after Easter Sunday, I made the brother and sister both stand on the
steps of the raised place from which I used to speak; and while they stood there their pamphlet
was read.(2) The whole congregation, men and women alike, saw the one standing without any
unnatural movement, the other trembling in all her limbs; so that those who had not before seen
the man himself saw in his sister what the divine compassion had removed from him. In him they
saw matter of congratulation, in her subject for prayer. Meanwhile, their pamphlet being finished,
I instructed them to withdraw from the gaze of the people; and I had begun to discuss the whole
matter somewhat more carefully, when lo ! as I was proceeding, other voices are heard from the
tomb of the martyr, shouting new congratulations. My audience turned round, and began to run to
the tomb. The young woman, when she had come down from the steps where she had been
standing, went to pray at the holy relics, and no sooner had she touched the bars than she, in the
same way as her brother, collapsed, as if falling asleep, and rose up cured. While, then, we were
asking what had happened, and what occasioned this noise of joy, they came into the basilica
where we were, leading her from the martyr's tomb in perfect health. Then, indeed, such a shout
of wonder rose from men and women together, that the exclamations and the tears seemed like
never to come to an end. She was led to the place where she had a little before stood trembling.
They now rejoiced that she was like her brother, as before they had mourned that she remained
unlike him; and as they had not yet uttered their prayers in her behalf, they perceived that their
intention of doing so had been speedily heard. They shouted God's praises without words, but
with such a noise that our ears could scarcely bear it. What was there in the hearts of these
exultant people but the faith of Christ, for which Stephen had shed his blood?

     CHAP. 9.--THAT ALL THE MIRACLES WHICH ARE DONE BY MEANS OF THE
MARTYRS IN THE NAME OF CHRIST TESTIFY TO THAT FAITH WHICH THE
MARTYRS HAD IN CHRIST.

    To what do these miracles witness, but to this faith which preaches Christ risen in the flesh, and
ascended with the same into heaven? For the martyrs themselves were martyrs, that is to say,
witnesses of this faith, drawing upon themselves by their testimony the hatred of the world, and
conquering the world not by resisting it, but by dying. For this faith they died, and can now ask
these benefits from the Lord in whose name they were slain. For this faith their marvellous
constancy was exercised, so that in these miracles great power was manifested as the result. For if
the resurrection of the flesh to eternal life had not taken place in Christ, and were not to be
accomplished in His people, as predicted by Christ, or by the prophets who foretold that Christ
was to come, why do the martyrs who were slain for this faith which proclaims the resurrection
possess such power? For whether God Himself wrought these miracles by that wonderful manner
of working by which, though Himself eternal, He produces effects in time; or whether He
wrought them by servants, and if so, whether He made use of the spirits of martyrs as He uses
men who are still in the body, or effects all these marvels by means of angels, over whom He
exerts an invisible, immutable, incorporeal sway, so that what is said to be done by the martyrs is
done not by their operation, but only by their prayer and request; or whether, finally, some things
are done in one way, others in another, and so that man cannot at all comprehend
them,--nevertheless these miracles attest this faith which preaches the resurrection of the flesh to
eternal life.

     CHAP. 10.--THAT THE MARTYRS WHO OBTAIN MANY MIRACLES IN ORDER
THAT THE TRUE GOD MAY BE WORSHIPPED, ARE WORTHY OF MUCH GREATER
HONOR THAN THE DEMONS, WHO DO SOME MARVELS THAT THEY THEMSELVES
MAY BE SUPPOSED TO BE GOD.

    Here perhaps our adversaries will say that their gods also have done some wonderful things, if
now they begin to compare their gods to our dead men. Or will they also say that they have gods
taken from among dead men, such as Hercules, Romulus, and many others whom they fancy to
have been received into the number of the gods? But our martyrs are not our gods; for we know
that the martyrs and we have both but one God, and that the same. Nor yet are the miracles which
they maintain to have been done by means of their temples at all comparable to those which are
done by the tombs of our martyrs. If they seem similar, their gods have been defeated by our
martyrs as

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Pharaoh's magi were by Moses. In reality, the demons wrought these marvels with the same
impure pride with which they aspired to be the gods of the nations; but the martyrs do these
wonders, or rather God does them while they pray and assist, in order that an impulse may be
given to the faith by which we believe that they are not our gods, but  have, together with
ourselves, one God. In fine, they built temples to these gods of theirs, and set up altars, and
ordained priests, and appointed sacrifices; but to our martyrs we build, not temples as if they were
gods, but monuments as to dead men whose spirits live with God. Neither do we erect altars at
these monuments that we may sacrifice to the martyrs, but to the one God of the martyrs and of
ourselves; and in this sacrifice they are named in their own place and rank as men of God who
conquered the world by confessing Him, but they are not invoked by the sacrificing priest. For it
is to God, not to them, he sacrifices, though he sacrifices at their monument; for he is God's
priest, not theirs. The sacrifice itself, too, is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them,
because they themselves are this body. Which then can more readily be believed to work miracles?
They who wish themselves to be reckoned gods by those on whom they work miracles, or those
whose sole object in working any miracle is to induce faith in God, and in Christ also as God?
They who wished to turn even their crimes into sacred rites, or those who are unwilling that even
their own praises be consecrated, and seek that everything for which they are justly praised be
ascribed to the glory of Him in whom they are praised? For in the Lord their souls are praised. Let
us therefore believe those who both speak the truth and work wonders. For by speaking the truth
they suffered, and so won the power of working wonders. And the leading truth they professed is
that Christ rose from the dead, and first showed in His own flesh the immortality of the
resurrection which He promised should be ours, either in the beginning of the world to come, or
in the end of this world.

     CHAP. 11.--AGAINST THE PLATONISTS, WHO ARGUE FROM THE PHYSICAL
WEIGHT OF THE ELEMENTS THAT AN EARTHLY BODY CANNOT INHABIT
HEAVEN.

    But against this great gift of God, these reasoners, "whose thoughts the Lord knows that they
are vain"(1) bring arguments from the weights of the elements; for they have been taught by their
master Plato that the two greatest elements of the world, and the furthest removed from one
another, are coupled and united by the two intermediate, air and water. And consequently they
say, since the earth is the first of the elements, beginning from the base of the series, the second
the water above the earth, the third the air above the water, the fourth the heaven above the air, it
follows that a body of earth cannot live in the heaven; for each element is poised by its own
weight so as to preserve its own place and rank. Behold with what arguments human infirmity,
possessed with vanity, contradicts the omnipotence of God! What, then, do so many earthly
bodies do in the air, since the air is the third element from the earth? Unless perhaps He who has
granted to the earthly bodies of birds that they be carried through the air by the lightness of
feathers and wings, has not been able to confer upon the bodies of men made immortal the power
to abide in the highest heaven. The earthly animals, too, which cannot fly, among which are men,
ought on these terms to live under the earth, as fishes, which are the animals of the water, live
under the water. Why, then, can an animal of earth not live in the second element, that is, in
water, while it can in the third? Why, though it belongs to the earth, is it forthwith suffocated if it
is forced to live in the second element next above earth, while it lives in the third, and cannot live
out of it? Is there a mistake here in the order of the elements, or is not the mistake rather in their
reasonings, and not in the nature of things? I will not repeat what I said in the thirteenth book,(2)
that many earthly bodies, though heavy like lead, receive from the workman's hand a form which
enables them to swim in water; and yet it is denied that the omnipotent Worker can confer on the
human body a property which shall enable it to pass into heaven and dwell there.
    But against what I have formerly said they can find nothing to say, even though they introduce
and make the most of this order of the elements in which they confide. For if the order be that the
earth is first, the water second, the air third, the heaven fourth, then the soul is above all. For
Aristotle said that the soul was a fifth body, while Plato denied that it was a body at all. If it were
a fifth body, then certainly it would be above the rest; and if it is not a body at all, so much the
more does it rise above all. What, then, does it do in an earthly body? What does this soul, which
is finer than all else, do
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in such a mass of matter as this? What does the lightest of substances do in this ponderosity? this
swiftest substance in such sluggishness? Will not the body be raised to heaven by virtue of so
excellent a nature as this? and if now earthly bodies can retain the souls below, shall not the souls
be one day able to raise the earthly bodies above?
    If we pass now to their miracles which they oppose to our martyrs as wrought by their gods,
shall not even these be found to make for us, and help out our argument? For if any of the
miracles of their gods are great, certainly that is a great one which Varro mentions of a vestal
virgin, who, when she was endangered by a false accusation of unchastity, filled a sieve with
water from the Tiber, and carried it to her judges without any part of it leaking. Who kept the
weight of water in the sieve? Who prevented any drop from falling from it through so many open
holes? They will answer, Some god or some demon. If a god, is he greater than the God who
made the world? If a demon, is he mightier than an angel who serves the God by whom the world
was made? If, then, a lesser god, angel, or demon could so sustain the weight of this liquid
element that the water might seem to have changed its nature, shall not Almighty God, who
Himself created all the elements, be able to eliminate from the earthly body its heaviness, so that
the quickened body shall dwell in whatever element the quickening spirit pleases?
    Then, again, since they give the air a middle place between the fire above and the water
beneath, how is it that we often find it between water and water, and between the water and the
earth? For what do they make of those watery clouds, between which and the seas air is
constantly found intervening? I should like to know by what weight and order of the elements it
comes to pass that very violent and stormy torrents are suspended in the clouds above the earth
before they rush along upon the earth under the air. In fine, why is it that throughout the whole
globe the air is between the highest heaven and the earth, if its place is between the sky and the
water, as the place of the water is between the sky and the earth?
    Finally, if the order of the elements is so disposed that, as Plato thinks, the two extremes, fire
and earth, are united by the two means, air and water, and that the fire occupies the highest part
of the sky, and the earth the lowest part, or as it were the foundation of the world, and that
therefore earth cannot be in the heavens, how is fire in the earth? For, according to this reasoning,
these two elements, earth and fire, ought to be so restricted to their own places, the highest and
the lowest, that neither the lowest can rise to rITe place of the highest, nor the highest sink to that
of the lowest. Thus, as they think that no particle of earth is or shall ever be in the sky so we
ought to see no particle of fire on the earth. But the fact is that it exists to such an extent, not only
on but even under the earth, that the tops of mountains vomit it forth; besides that we see it to
exist on earth for human uses, and even to be produced from the earth, since it is kindled from
wood and stones, which are without doubt earthly bodies. But that [upper] fire, they say, is
tranquil, pure, harmless, eternal; but this [earthly] fire is turbid, smoky, corruptible, and
corrupting. But it does not corrupt the mountains and caverns of the earth in which it rages
continually. But grant that the earthly fire is so unlike the other as to suit its earthly position, why
then do they object to our believing that the nature of earthly bodies shall some day be made
incorruptible and fit for the sky, even as now fire is corruptible and suited to the earth? They
therefore adduce from their weights and order of the elements nothing from which they can prove
that it is impossible for Almighty God to make our bodies such that they can dwell in the skies.

     CHAP. 12.--AGAINST THE CALUMNIES WITH WHICH UNBELIEVERS THROW
RIDICULE UPON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH.

    But their way is to feign a scrupulous anxiety in investigating this question, and to cast ridicule
on our faith in the resurrection of the body, by asking, Whether abortions shall rise? And as the
Lord says, "Verily I  say unto you, not a hair of your head shall perish,"(1) shall all bodies have an
equal stature and strength, or shall there be differences in size? For if there is to be equality, where
shall those abortions, supposing that they rise again, get that bulk which they had not here? Or if
they shall not rise because they were not born but cast out, they raise the same question about
children who have died in childhood, asking us whence they get the stature which we see they had
not here; for we will not say that those who have been not only born, but born again, shall not rise
again. Then, further, they ask of what size these equal bodies shall be. For if all shall be as tall and
large as were the tallest and largest in this world, they ask us how it is that not only children but
many full-grown persons


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shall receive what they here did not possess, if each one is to receive what he had here. And if the
saying of the apostle, that we are all to come to the "measure of the age of the fullness of
Christ,"(1) or that other saying, "Whom He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His
Son,"(2) is to be understood to mean that the stature and size of Christ's body shall be the
measure of the bodies of all those who shall be in His kingdom, then, say they, the size and height
of many must be diminished; and if so much of the bodily frame itself be lost, what becomes of the
saying, "Not a hair of your head shall perish?" Besides, it might be asked regarding the hair itself,
whether all that the barber has cut off shall be restored? And if it is to be restored, who would not
shrink from such deformity? For as the same restoration will be made of what has been pared off
the nails, much will be replaced on the body which a regard for its appearance had cut off. And
where, then, will be its beauty, which assuredly ought to be much greater in that immortal
condition than it could be in this corruptible state? On the other hand, if such things are not
restored to the body, they must perish; how, then, they say, shall not a hair of the head perish? In
like manner they reason about fatness and leanness; for if all are to be equal, then certainly there
shall not be some fat, others lean. Some, therefore, shall gain, others lose something.
Consequently there will not be a simple restoration of what formerly existed, but, on the one
hand, an addition of what had no existence, and, on the other, a loss of what did before exist.
    The difficulties, too, about the corruption and dissolution of dead bodies,--that one is turned
into dust, while another evaporates into the air; that some are devoured by beasts, some by fire,
while some perish by shipwreck or by drowning in one shape or other, so that their bodies decay
into liquid,these difficulties give them immoderate alarm, and they believe that all those dissolved
elements cannot be gathered again and reconstructed into a body. They also make eager use of all
the deformities and blemishes which either accident or birth has produced, and accordingly, with
horror and derision, cite monstrous births, and ask if every deformity will be preserved in the
resurrection. For if we say that no such thing shall be reproduced in the body of a man, they
suppose that they confute us by citing the marks of the wounds which we assert were found in the
risen body of the Lord Christ But of all these, the most difficult question is, into whose body that
flesh shall return which has been eaten and assimilated by another man constrained by hunger to
use it so; for it has been converted into the flesh of the man who used it as his nutriment, and it
filled up those losses of flesh which famine had produced. For the sake, then, of ridiculing the
resurrection, they ask, Shall this return to the man whose flesh it first was, or to him whose flesh
it afterwards became? And thus, too, they seek to give promise to the human soul of alternations
of true misery and false happiness, in accordance with Plato's theory; or, in accordance with
Porphyry's, that, after many transmigrations into different bodies, it ends its miseries. and never
more returns to them, not, however, by obtaining an immortal body, but by escaping from every
kind of body.

CHAP. 13.--WHETHER ABORTIONS, IF THEY ARE NUMBERED AMONG THE DEAD,
SHALL NOT ALSO HAVE A PART IN THE RESURRECTION.

    To these objections, then, of our adversaries which I have thus detailed, I will now reply,
trusting that God will mercifully assist my endeavors. That abortions, which, even supposing they
were alive in the womb, did also die there, shall rise again, I make bold neither to affirm nor to
deny, although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should
not attain to the resurrection of the dead. For either all the dead shall not rise, and there will be to
all eternity some souls without bodies though they once had them,--only in their mother's womb,
indeed; or, if all human souls shall receive again the bodies which they had wherever they lived,
and which they left when they died, then I do not see how I can say that even those who died in
their mother's womb shall have no resurrection. But whichever of these opinions any one may
adopt concerning them, we must at least apply to them, if they rise again, all that we have to say
of infants who have been born.

CHAP. 14.--WHETHER INFANTS SHALL RISE IN THAT BODY WHICH THEY WOULD
HAVE HAD HAD THEY GROWN UP.

    What, then, are we to say of infants, if not that they will not rise in that diminutive body in
which they died, but shall receive by the marvellous and rapid operation of God that body which
time by a slower process would have given them? For in the Lord's words, where He says, "Not a
hair of your head

495

shall perish,"(1) it is asserted that nothing which was possessed shall be wanting; but it is not said
that nothing which was not possessed shall be given. To the dead infant there was wanting the
perfect stature of its body; for even the perfect infant lacks the perfection of bodily size, being
capable of further growth. This perfect stature is, in a sense, so possessed by all that they are
conceived and born with it,--that is, they have it potentially, though not yet in actual bulk; just as
all the members of the body are potentially in the seed, though, even after the  child is born, some
of them, the teeth for exampl?may be wanting. In this seminal principle of every substance, there
seems to be, as it were, the beginning of everything which does not yet exist, or rather does not
appear, but which in process of time will come into being, or rather into sight. In this, therefore,
the child who is to be tall or short is already tall or short. And in the resurrection of the body, we
need, for the same reason, fear no bodily loss; for though all should be of equal size, and reach
gigantic proportions, lest the men who were largest here should lose anything of their bulk and it
should perish, in contradiction to the words of Christ, who said that not a hair of their head
should perish, yet why should there lack the means by which that wonderful Worker should make
such additions, seeing that He is the Creator, who Himself created all things out of nothing?

     CHAP. 15.--WHETHER THE BODIES OF ALL THE DEAD SHALL RISE THE
SAME SIZE AS THE LORD'S BODY.

    It is certain that Christ rose in the same bodily stature in which He died, and that it is wrong to
say that, when the general resurrection shall have arrived, His body shall, for the sake of equalling
the tallest, assume proportions which it had not when He appeared to the disciples in the figure
with which they Were familiar. But if we say that even the bodies of taller men are to be reduced
to the size of the Lord's body, there will be a great loss in many bodies, though He promised that,
not a hair of their head should perish. It remains, therefore, that we conclude that every man shall
receive his own size which he haiti in youth, though he died an old man, or which he would have
had, supposing he died before his prime. As for what the apostle said of the measure of the age of
the fullness of Christ, we must either understand him to refer to something else, viz., to the fact
that the measure of Christ will be completed when all the members among the Christian
communities are added to the Head; or if we are to refer it to the resurrection of the body, the
meaning is that all shall rise neither beyond nor under youth, but in that vigor and age to which we
know that Christ had arrived. For even the world's wisest men have fixed the bloom of youth at
about the age of thirty; and when this period has been passed, the man begins to decline towards
the defective and duller period of old age. And therefore the apostle did not speak of the measure
of the body, nor of the measure of the stature, but of "the measure of the age of the fullness of
Christ."

     CHAP. 16.--WHAT IS MEANT BY THE CONFORMING OF THE SAINTS TO THE
IMAGE OF TIlE SON OF GOD.

    Then, again, these words, "Predestinate to be conformed to the image of the Son of God,"(2)
may be understood of the inner man. So in another place He says to us, "Be not conformed to this
world, but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind."(3) In so far, then, as we are
transformed so as not to be conformed to the world, we are conformed to the Son of God. It may
also be understood thus, that as He was conformed to us by assuming mortality, we shall be
conformed to Him by immortality; and this indeed is connected with the resurrection of the body.
But if we are also taught in these words what form our bodies shall rise in, as the measure we
spoke of before, so also this conformity is to be understood not of size, but of age.Accordingly all
shall rise in the stature they either had attained or would have attained had they lived to their
prime, although it will be no great disadvantage even if the form of the body he infantine or aged,
while no infirmity shall remain in the mind nor in the body itself. So that even if any one contends
that every person will rise again in the same bodily form in which he died, we need not spend
much labor in disputing with him.

     CHAP. 17.--WHETHER THE BODIES OF WOMEN SHALL RETAIN THEIR OWN
SEX IN THE RESURRECTION.

From the words, "Till we all come to a  perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of
Christ,"(4) and from the words, "Conformed to the image of the Son of God,"(5) some conclude
that women shall not rise women, but that all shall be men, because

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God made man only of earth, and woman of the man. For my part, they seem to be wiser who
make no doubt that both sexes shall rise, For there shall be no lust, which is now the cause of
confusion. For before they sinned, the man and the woman were naked, and were not ashamed.
From those bodies, then, vice shall be withdrawn, while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of
woman is not a vice, but nature. It shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and
child-bearing; nevertheless the female members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a
new beauty, which, so far from provoking lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and
clemency of God, who both made what was not and delivered from corruption what He made.
For at the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the
man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church should be
fore-shadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He
hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water,
and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is "built up." For Scripture used this
very word, not saying "He formed" or "framed," but "built her up into a woman;"(1) whence also
the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ,(2) which is the Church. The woman,
therefore, is a creature of God even as the man; but by her creation from man unity is
commended; and the manner of her creation prefigured, as has been said, Christ and the Church.
He, then, who created both sexes will restore both. Jesus Himself also, when asked by the
Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, which of the seven brothers should have to wife the
woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the law enjoined,
says, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God."(3) And though it was a fit
opportunity for His saying, She about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man, and not a
woman, He said nothing of the kind; but "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in
marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven."(4) They shall be equal to the angels in
immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need,
because they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection, not
women, but marriages; and He uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted
would have been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist, if
this had in truth been foreknown by Him. But, indeed, He even affirmed that the sex should exist
by saying, "They shall not be given in marriage," which can only apply to females; "Neither shall
they marry," which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world
accustomed to marry and be given in marriage, only they shall there make no such marriages.

     CHAP. 18.--OF THE PERFECT MAN, THAT IS, CHRIST; AND OF HIS BODY,
THAT IS, THE, CHURCH, WHICH IS HIS FULLNESS.

    To understand what the apostle means when he says that we shall all come to a perfect man, we
must consider the connection of the whole passage, which runs thus: "He that descended is the
same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things. And He gave some,
apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we
all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the
measure of the age of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed and
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby
they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in Him in all things, which
is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,
maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in love."(5) Behold what the perfect man
is--the head and the body, which is made up of all the members, which in their own time shall be
perfected. But new additions are daily being made to this body while, the Church is being built up,
to which it is said, "Ye are the body of Christ and His members;"(6) and again, "For His body's
sake," he says, "which is the Church;"(7) and again, "We being many are one head, one body."(8) 
It is of the edification of this body that it is here, too, said, "For the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edification of the body of Christ;" and then that passage of which
we are now speaking is

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added, "Till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect
man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ," and so on. And he shows of what body
we are to understand this to be the measure, when he says, "That we may grow up into Him in all
things, which is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body filly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure
of every part." As, therefore, there is a measure of every part, so there is a measure of the fullness
of the whole body which is made up of all its parts, and it is of this measure it is said, "To the
measure of the age of the fullness of Christ." This fullness he spoke of also in the place where he
says of Christ, "And gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church,(1) which is His body,
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.'(2) But even if this should be referred to the form in which
each one shall rise, what should hinder us from applying to the woman what is expressly said of
the man, understanding both sexes to be included under the general term "man?" For certainly in
the saying, "Blessed is he who feareth the Lord,"(3) women also who fear the Lord are included.

     CHAP. 19.--THAT ALL BODILY BLEMISHES WHICH MAR HUMAN BEAUTY IN
THIS LIFE SHALL BE REMOVED IN THE RESURRECTION, THE NATURAL
SUBSTANCE OF THE BODY REMAINING, BUT THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF IT
BEING ALTERED SO AS TO PRODUCE BEAUTY.

    What am I to say now about the hair and nails? Once it is understood that no part of the body
shall so perish as to produce deformity in the body, it is at the same time understood trial such
things as would have produced a deformity by their excessive proportions shall be added to the
total bulk of the body, not to parts in which the beauty of the proportion would thus be marred.
Just as if, after making a vessel of clay, one wished to make it over again of the same clay, it
would not be necessary that the same portion of the clay which had formed the handle should
again form the new handle, or that what had formed the bottom should again do so, but only that
the whole clay should go to make up the whole new vessel, and that no part of it should be left
unused. Wherefore, if the hair that has been cropped and the nails that have been cut would cause
a deformity were they to be restored to their places, they shall not be restored; and yet no one will
lose these parts at the resurrection, for they shall be changed into the same flesh, their substance
being so altered as to preserve the proportion of the various parts of the body. However, what
our Lord said, "Not a hair of your head shall perish," might more suitably be interpreted of the
number, and not of the length of the hairs, as He elsewhere says, "The hairs of your head are all
numbered."(4) Nor would I say this because I suppose that any part naturally belonging to the
body can perish, but that whatever deformity was in it, and served to exhibit the penal condition in
which we mortals are, should be restored in such a way that, while the substance is entirely
preserved, the deformity shall perish. For if even a human workman, who has, for some reason,
made a deformed statue, can recast it and make it very beautiful, and this without suffering any
part of tile substance, but only the deformity to be lost,--if he can, for example, remove some
unbecoming or disproportionate part, not by cutting off and separating this part from the whole,
but by so breaking down and mixing up the whole as to get rid of the blemish without diminishing
the quantity of his material,--shall we not think as highly of the almighty Worker? Shall He not be
able to remove and abolish all deformities of the human body, whether common ones or rare and
monstrous, which, though in keeping with this miserable life, are yet not to be thought of in
connection with that future blessedness; and shall He not be able so to remove them that, while
the natural but unseemly blemishes are put an end to, the natural substance shall suffer no
diminution?
    And consequently overgrown and emaciated persons need not fear that they shall be in heaven
of such a figure as they would not be even in this world if they could help it. For all bodily beauty
consists in the proportion of the parts, together with a certain agreeableness of color. Where there
is no proportion, the eye is offended, either because there is something awanting, or too small, or
too large. And thus there shall be no deformity resulting from want of proportion in that state in
which all that is wrong is corrected, and all that is defective supplied from resources the Creator
wots of, and all that is excessive removed without destroying the integrity of the substance. And
as for the pleasant color, how conspicuous shall it be where "the just shall shine forth as the sun in
the kingdom of their Father!"(5) This brightness we must rather

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believe to have been concealed from the eyes of the disciples when Christ rose, than to have been
awanting. For weak human eyesight could not bear it, and it was necessary that they should so
look upon Him as to be able to recognize Him. For this purpose also He allowed them to touch
the marks of His wounds, and also ate and drank,--not because He needed nourishment, but
because He could take it if He wished. Now, when an object, though present, is invisible to
persons who see other things which are present, as we say that that brightness was present but
invisible by those who saw other things, this is called in Greek <greek>aorasia</greek>; and our
Latin translators, for want of a better word, have rendered this caecitas (blindness) in the book of
Genesis. This blindness the men of Sodom suffered when they sought the just Lot's gate and could
not find it. But if it had been blindness, that is to say, if they could see nothing, then they would
not have asked for the gate by which they might enter the house, but for guides who might lead
them away.
    But the love we bear to the blessed martyrs causes us, I know not how, to desire to see in the
heavenly kingdom the marks of the wounds which they received for the name of Christ, and
possibly we shall see them. For this will not be a deformity, but a mark of honor, and will add
lustre to their appearance, and a spiritual, if not a bodily beauty. And yet we need not believe that
they to whom it has been said, "Not a hair of your head shall perish," shall, in the resurrection,
want such of their members as they have been deprived of in their martyrdom. But if it will be
seemly in that new kingdom to have some marks of these wounds still visible in that immortal
flesh, the places where they have been wounded or mutilated shall retain the scars without any of
the members being lost. While, therefore, it is quite true that no blemishes which the body has
sustained shall appear in the resurrection, yet we are not to reckon or name these marks of virtue
blemishes.

     CHAP. 20.--THAT, IN THE RESURRECTION, THE SUBSTANCE OF OUR BODIES,
HOWEVER DISINTEGRATED, SHALL BE ENTIRELY REUNITED.

    Far be it from us to fear that the omnipotence of the Creator cannot, for the resuscitation and
reanimation of our bodies, recall all the portions which have been consumed by beasts or fire, or
have been dissolved into dust or ashes, or have decomposed into water, or evaporated into the air.
Far from us be the thought, that anything which escapes our observation in any most hidden
recess of nature either evades the knowledge or transcends the power of the Creator of all things.
Cicero, the great authority of our adversaries, wishing to define God as accurately as possible,
says, "God is a mind free and independent, without materiality, perceiving and moving all things,
and itself endowed with eternal movement."(1) This he found in the systems of the greatest
philosophers. Let me ask, then, in their own language, how anything can either lie hid from Him
who perceives all things, or irrevocably escape Him who moves all things?
    This leads me to reply to that question which seems the most difficult of all,--To whom, in the
resurrection, will belong the flesh of a dead man which has become the flesh of a living man? For
if some one, famishing for want and pressed with hunger, use human flesh as food,--an extremity
not unknown, as both ancient history and the unhappy experience of our own days have taught
us,--can it be contended, with any show of reason, that all the flesh eaten has been evacuated, and
that none of it has been assimilated to the substance of the eater though the very emaciation which
existed before, and has now disappeared, sufficiently indicates what large deficiencies have been
filled up with this food? But I have already made some remarks which will suffice for the solution
of this difficulty also. For all the flesh which hunger has consumed finds its way into the air by
evaporation, whence, as we have said, God Almighty can recall it. That flesh, therefore, shall be
restored to the man in whom it first became human flesh. For it must be looked upon as borrowed
by the other person, and, like a pecuniary loan, must be returned to the lender. His own flesh,
however, which he lost by famine, shall be restored to him by Him who can recover even what has
evaporated. And though it had been absolutely annihilated, so that no part of its substance
remained in any secret spot of nature, the Almighty could restore it by such means as He saw fit.
For this sentence, uttered by the Truth, "Not a hair of your head shall perish," forbids us to
suppose that, though no hair of a man's head can perish, yet the large portions of his flesh eaten
and consumed by the famishing can perish.
    From all that we have thus considered, and discussed with such poor ability as we can
command, we gather this conclusion, that in
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the resurrection of the flesh the body shall be of that size which it either had attained or should
have attained in the flower of its youth, and shall enjoy the beauty that arises from preserving
symmetry and proportion in all its members. And it is reasonable to suppose that, for the
preservation of this beauty, any part of the body's substance, which, if placed in one spot, would
produce a deformity, shall be distributed through the whole of it, so that neither any part, nor the
symmetry of the whole, may be lost, but only the general stature of the body somewhat increased
by the distribution in all the parts of that which, in one place, would have been unsightly. Or if it is
contended that each will rise with the same stature as that of the body he died in, we shall not
obstinately dispute this, provided only there be no deformity, no infirmity, no languor, no
corruption,--nothing of any kind which would ill become that kingdom in which the children of
the resurrection and of the promise shall be equal to the angels of God, if not in body and age, at
least in happiness.

     CHAP. 21.--OF THE NEW SPIRITUAL BODY INTO WHICH THE FLESH OF THE
SAINTS SHALL BE TRANSFORMED.

    Whatever, therefore, has been taken from the body, either during life or after death shall be
restored to it, and, in conjunction with what has remained in the grave, shall rise again,
transformed from the oldness of the animal body into the newness of the spiritual body, and
clothed in incorruption and immortality. But even though the body has been all quite ground to
powder by some severe accident, or by the ruthlessness of enemies, and though it has been so
diligently scattered to the winds, or into the water, that there is no trace of it left, yet it shall not
be beyond the omnipotence of the Creator,--no, not a hair of its head shall perish. The flesh shall
then be spiritual, and subject to the spirit, but still flesh, not spirit, as the spirit itself, when subject
to the flesh, was fleshly, but still spirit and not flesh. And of this we have experimental proof in
the deformity of our penal condition. For those persons were carnal, not in a fleshly, but in a
spiritual way, to whom the apostle said, "I could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal."(1) And a man is in this life spiritual in such a way, that he is yet carnal with respect to his
body, and sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind; but even in his
body he will be spiritual when the same flesh shall have had that resurrection of which these
words speak, "It is sown an animal body, it shall rise a spiritual body."(2) But what this spiritual
body shall be and how great its grace, I fear it were but rash to pronounce, seeing that we have as
yet no experience of it. Nevertheless, since it is fit that the joyfulness of our hope should utter
itself, and so show forth God's praise, and since it was from the profoundest sentiment of ardent
and holy love that the Psalmist cried, "O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house,"(3) we may,
with God's help, speak of the gifts  He lavishes on men, good and bad alike, in this most wretched
life, and may do our best to conjecture the great glory of that state which we cannot worthily
speak of, because we have not yet experienced it, For I say nothing of the time when God made
man upright; I say nothing of the happy life of "the man and his wife" in the fruitful garden, since
it was so short that none of their children experienced it: I speak only of this life which we know,
and in which we now are, from the temptations of which we cannot escape so long as we are in it,
no matter what progress we make, for it is all temptation, and I ask, Who can describe the tokens
of God's goodness that are extended to the human race even in this life?

     CHAP. 22.--OF THE MISERIES AND ILLS TO WHICH THE HUMAN RACE IS
JUSTLY EXPOSED THROUGH THE FIRST SIN, AND FROM WHICH NONE CAN BE
DELIVERED SAVE BY CHRIST'S GRACE.

    That the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to be
called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the
profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all the errors that enfold the children of Adam,
and from which no man can be delivered without toil, pain, and fear? Is it not proved by his love
of so many vain and hurtful things, which produces gnawing cares, disquiet, griefs, fears, wild
joys, quarrels, lawsuits, wars, treasons, angers, hatreds, deceit, flattery, fraud, theft, robbery,
perfidy, pride, ambition, envy, murders, parricides, cruelty, ferocity, wickedness, luxury,
insolence, impudence, shamelessness, fornications, adulteries, incests, and the numberless
uncleannesses and unnatural acts of both sexes, which it is shameful so much as to mention;
sacrileges, heresies, blasphemies, perjuries, oppression of the innocent, calumnies, plots,
falsehoods, false witnessings, unrighteous judgments, violent deeds, plunderings, and whatever
similar wickedness has found its way

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into the lives of men, though it cannot find its way into the conception of pure minds? These are
indeed the crimes of wicked men, yet they spring from that root of error and misplaced love which
is born with every son of Adam. For who is there that has not observed with what profound
ignorance, manifesting itself even in infancy, and with what superfluity of foolish desires,
beginning to appear in boyhood, man comes into this life, so that, were he left to live as he
pleased, and to do whatever he pleased, he would plunge into all, or certainly into many of those
crimes and iniquities which I mentioned, and could not mention?
    But because God does not wholly desert those whom He condemns, nor shuts up in His anger
His tender mercies, the human race is restrained by law and instruction, which keep guard against
the ignorance that besets us, and oppose the assaults of vice, but are themselves full of labor and
sorrow. For what mean those multifarious threats which are used to restrain the folly of children?
What mean pedagogues, masters, the birch, the strap, the cane, the schooling which Scripture
says must be given a child, "beating him on the sides lest he wax stubborn,"(1) and it be hardly
possible or not possible at all to subdue him? Why all these punishments, save to overcome
ignorance and bridle evil desires--these evils with which we come into the world? For why is it
that we remember with difficulty, and without difficulty forget? learn with difficulty, and without
difficulty remain ignorant? are diligent with difficulty, and without difficulty are indolent? Does
not this show what vitiated nature inclines and tends to by its own weight, and what succor it
needs if it is to be delivered? Inactivity, sloth, laziness, negligence, are vices which shun labor,
since labor, though useful, is itself a punishment.
    But, besides the punishments of childhood, without which there would be no learning of what
the parents wish,--and the parents rarely wish anything useful to be taught,--who can describe,
who can conceive the number and severity of the punishments which afflict the human race,--pains
which are not  only the accompaniment of the wickedness of godless men, but are a part of the
human condition and the common misery,--what fear and what grief are caused by bereavement
and mourning, by losses and condemnations, by fraud and falsehood, by false suspicions, and all
the crimes and wicked deeds of other men? For at their hands we suffer robbery, captivity, chains,
imprisonment, exile, torture, mutilation, loss of sight, the violation of chastity to satisfy the lust of
the oppressor, and many other dreadful evils. What numberless casualties threaten our bodies
from without,--extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail,
earthquakes, houses falling; or from the stumbling, or shying, or vice of horses; from countless
poisons. in fruits, water, air, animals; from the painful or even deadly bites of wild animals; from
the madness which a mad dog communicates, so that even the animal which of all others is most
gentle and friendly to its own master, becomes an object of intenser fear than a lion or dragon,
and the man whom it has by chance infected with this pestilential contagion becomes so rabid, that
his parents, wife, children, dread him more than any wild beast! What disasters are suffered by
those who travel by land or sea! What man can go out of his own house without being exposed on
all hands to unforeseen accidents? Returning home sound in limb, he slips on his own doorstep,
breaks his leg, and never recovers. What can seem safer than a man sitting in his chair? Eli the
priest fell from his, and broke his neck. How many accidents do farmers, or rather all men, fear
that the crops may suffer from the weather, or the soil, or the ravages of destructive animals?
Commonly they feel safe when the crops are gathered and housed. Yet, to my certain knowledge,
sudden floods have driven the laborers away, and swept the barns clean of the finest harvest. Is
innocence a sufficient protection against the various assaults of demons? That no man might think
so, even baptized infants, who are certainly unsurpassed in innocence, are sometimes so
tormented, that God, who permits it, teaches us hereby to bewail the calamities of this life, and to
desire the felicity of the life to come. As to bodily diseases, they are so numerous that they cannot
all be contained even in medical books. And in very many, or almost all of them, the cures and
remedies are themselves tortures, so that men are delivered from a pain that destroys by a cure
that pains. Has not the madness of thirst driven men to drink human urine, and even their own?
Has not hunger driven men to eat human flesh, and that the flesh not of bodies found dead, but of
bodies slain for the purpose? Have not the fierce pangs of famine driven mothers to eat their own
children, incredibly savage as it seems? In fine, sleep itself, which is justly called repose, how little
of repose there sometimes is in it when disturbed with dreams and visions; and with what terror is
the wretched mind

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overwhelmed by the appearances of things which are so presented, and which, as it were so stand
out before the senses, that we can not distinguish them from realities! How wretchedly do false
appearances distract men in certain diseases! With what astonishing variety of appearances are
even healthy men sometimes deceived by evil spirits, who produce these delusions for the sake of
perplexing the senses of their victims, if they cannot succeed in seducing them to their side!
    From this hell upon earth there is no escape, save through the grace of the Saviour Christ, our
God and Lord. The very name Jesus shows this, for it means Saviour; and He saves us especially
from passing out of this life into a more wretched and eternal state, which is rather a death than a
life. For in this life, though holy men and holy pursuits afford us great consolations, yet the
blessings which men crave are not invariably bestowed upon them, lest religion should be
cultivated for the sake of these temporal advantages, while it ought rather to be cultivated for the
sake of that other life from which all evil is excluded. Therefore, also, does grace aid good men in
the midst of present calamities, so that they are enabled to endure them with a constancy
proportioned to their faith. The world's sages affirm that philosophy contributes something to
this,--that philosophy which, according to Cicero, the gods have bestowed in its purity only on a
few men. They have never given, he says, nor can ever give, a greater gift to men. So that even
those against whom we are disputing have been compelled to acknowledge, in some fashion, that
the grace of God is necessary for the acquisition, not, indeed, of any philosophy, but of the true
philosophy. And if the true philosophy--this sole support against the miseries of this life--has been
given by Heaven only to a few, it sufficiently appears from this that the human race has been
condemned to pay this penalty of wretchedness. And as, according to their acknowledgment, no
greater gift has been bestowed by God, so it must be believed that it could be given only by that
God whom they themselves recognize as greater than all the gods they worship.

     CHAP. 23.--OF THE MISERIES OF THIS LIFE WHICH ATTACH PECULIARLY TO
THE TOIL OF GOOD MEN. IRRESPECTIVE OF THOSE WHICH ARE COMMON TO THE
GOOD AND BAD.

    But, irrespective of the miseries which in this life are common to the good and bad, the
righteous undergo labors peculiar to themselves, in so far as they make war upon their vices, and
are involved in the temptations and perils of such a contest. For though sometimes more violent
and at other times slacker, yet without intermission does the flesh lust against the spirit and the
spirit against the flesh, so that we cannot do the things we would,(1) and extirpate all lust, but can
only refuse consent to it, as God gives us ability, and so keep it under, vigilantly keeping watch
lest a semblance of truth deceive us, lest a subtle discourse blind us, test error involve us in
darkness, test we should take good for evil or evil for good, lest fear should hinder us from doing
what we ought, or desire precipitate us into doing what we ought not, lest the sun go down upon
our wrath, lest hatred provoke us to render evil for evil, lest unseemly or immoderate grief
consume us, test an ungrateful disposition make us slow to recognize benefits received, lest
calumnies fret our conscience, lest rash suspicion on our part deceive us regarding a friend, or
false suspicion of us on the part of others give us too much uneasiness, lest sin reign in our mortal
body to obey its desires, lest our members be used as the instruments of unrighteousness, lest the
eye follow lust, test thirst for revenge carry us away, lest sight or thought dwell too long on some
evil thing which gives us pleasure, lest wicked or indecent language be willingly listened to, lest
we do what is pleasant but unlawful, and lest in this warfare, filled so abundantly with toil and
peril, we either hope to secure victory by our own strength, or attribute it when secured to our
own strength, and not to His grace of whom the apostle says, "Thanks be unto God, who giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ;"(2) and in another place he says, "In all these things
we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."(3) But yet we are to know this, that
however valorously we resist our vices, and however successful we are in overcoming them, yet
as long as we are in this body we have always reason to say to God, Forgive us our debts."(4) But
in that kingdom where we shall dwell for ever, clothed in immortal bodies, we shall no longer
have either conflicts or debts,--as indeed we should not have had at any time or in any condition,
had our nature continued upright as it was created. Consequently even this our conflict, in which
we are exposed to peril, and from which we hope to be delivered by a final victory, belongs to the
ills of this life, which is proved by the witness of so many grave evils to be a life under
condemnation.

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     CHAP. 24.--OF THE BLESSINGS WITH WHICH THE CREATOR HAS FILLED
THIS LIFE, OBNOXIOUS THOUGH IT BE TO THE CURSE.

    But we must now contemplate the rich and countless blessings with which the goodness of
God, who cares for all He has created, has filled this very misery of the human race, which reflects
His retributive justice. That first blessing which He pronounced before the fall, when He said,
"Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth,"(1) He did not inhibit after man had sinned, but
the fecundity originally bestowed remained in the condemned stock; and the vice of sin, which has
involved us in the necessity of dying, has yet not deprived us of that wonderful power of seed, or
rather of that still more marvellous power by which seed is produced, and which seems to be as it
were inwrought and inwoven in the human body. But in this river, as I may call it, or torrent of
the human race, both elements are carried along together,--both the evil which is derived from him
who begets, and the good which is bestowed by Him who creates us. In the original evil there are
two things, sin and punishment; in the original good, there are two other things, propagation and
conformation. But of the evils, of which the one, sin, arose from our audacity, and the other,
punishment, from God's judgment, we have already said as much as suits our present purpose. I
mean now to speak of the blessings which God has conferred or still confers upon our nature,
vitiated and condemned as it is. For in condemning it He did not withdraw all that He had given it,
else it had been annihilated; neither did He, in penally subjecting it to the devil, remove it beyond
His own power; for not even the devil himself is outside of God's government, since the devil's
nature subsists only by the supreme Creator who gives being to all that in any form exists.
    Of these two blessings, then, which we have said flow from God's goodness, as from a
fountain, towards our nature, vitiated by sin and condemned to punishment, the one, propagation,
was conferred by God's benediction when He made those first works, from which He rested on
the seventh day. But the other, conformation, is conferred in that work of His wherein "He
worketh hitherto."(2) For were He to withdraw His efficacious power from things, they should
neither be able to go on and complete the periods assigned to their measured movements, nor
should they even continue in possession of that nature they were created in. God, then, so created
man that He gave him what we may call fertility, whereby he might propagate other men, giving
them a congenital capacity to propagate their kind, but not imposing on them any necessity to do
so. This capacity God withdraws at pleasure from individuals, making them barren; but from the
whole race He has not withdrawn the blessing of propagation once conferred. But though not
withdrawn on account of sin, this power of propagation is not what it would have been had there
been no sin. For since "man placed in honor fell, he has become like the beasts,"(3) and generates
as they do, though the little spark of reason, which was the image of God in him, has not been
quite quenched. But if conformation were not added to propagation, there would be no
reproduction of one's kind. For even though there were no such thing as copulation, and God
wished to fill the earth with human inhabitants, He might create all these as He created one
without the help of human generation. And, indeed, even as it is, those who copulate can generate
nothing save by the creative energy of God. As, therefore, in respect of that spiritual growth
whereby a man is formed to piety and righteousness, the apostle says, "Neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase,"(4) so also it must be said
that it is not he that generates that is anything, but God that giveth the essential form; that it is not
the mother who carries and nurses the fruit of her womb that is anything, but God that giveth the
increase. For He alone, by that energy wherewith "He worketh hitherto," causes the seed to
develop, and to evolve from certain secret and invisible folds into the visible forms of beauty
which we see. He alone, coupling and connecting in some wonderful fashion the spiritual and
corporeal natures, the one to command, the other to obey, makes a living being. And this work of
His is so great and wonderful, that not only man, who is a rational animal, and consequently more
excellent than all other animals of the earth, but even the most diminutive insect, cannot be
considered attentively without astonishment and without praising the Creator.
    It is He, then, who has given to the human soul a mind, in which reason and understanding lie
as it were asleep during infancy, and as if they were not, destined, however, to be awakened and
exercised as years increase, so as to become capable of knowledge and of receiving instruction, fit
to understand what is true and to love what is good. It is by this capacity the soul drinks in
wisdom, and

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becomes endowed with those virtues by which, in prudence, fortitude, temperance, and
righteousness, it makes war upon error and the other inborn vices, and conquers them by fixing its
desires upon no other object than the supreme and unchangeable Good. And even though this be
not uniformly the result, yet who can competently utter or even conceive the grandeur of this
work of the Almighty, and the unspeakable boon He has conferred upon our rational nature, by
giving us even the capacity of such attainment? For over and above those arts which are called
virtues, and which teach us how we may spend our life well, and attain to endless happiness,--arts
which are given to the children of the promise and the kingdom by the sole grace of God which is
in Christ,--has not the genius of man invented and applied countless astonishing arts, partly the
result of necessity, partly the result of exuberant invention, so that this vigor of mind, which is so
active in the discovery not merely of superfluous but even of dangerous and destructive things,
betokens an inexhaustible wealth in the nature which can invent, learn, or employ such arts? What
wonderful--one might say stupefying--advances has human industry made in the arts of weaving
and building, of agriculture and navigation! With what endless variety are designs in pottery,
painting, and sculpture produced, and with what skill executed! What wonderful spectacles are
exhibited in the theatres, which those who have not seen them cannot credit! How skillful the
contrivances for catching, killing, or taming wild beasts! And for the injury of men, also, how
many kinds of poisons, weapons, engines of destruction, have been invented, while for the
preservation or restoration of health the appliances and remedies are infinite! To provoke appetite
and please the palate, what a variety of seasonings have been concocted! To express and gain
entrance for thoughts, what a multitude and variety of signs there are, among which speaking and
writing hold the first place! what ornaments has eloquence at command to delight the mind! what
wealth of song is there to captivate the ear! how many musical instruments and strains of harmony
have been devised! What skill has been attained in measures and numbers! with what sagacity
have the movements and connections of the stars been discovered! Who could tell the thought
that has been spent upon nature, even though, despairing of recounting it in detail, he endeavored
only to give a general view of it? In fine, even the defence of errors and misapprehensions, which
has illustrated the genius of heretics and philosophers, cannot be sufficiently declared. For at
present it is the nature of the human mind which adorns this mortal life which we are extolling,
and not the faith and the way of truth which lead to immortality. And since this great nature has
certainly been created by the true and supreme God, who administers all things He has made with
absolute power and justice, it could never have fallen into these miseries, nor have gone out of
them to miseries eternal, --saving only those who are redeemed,--had not an exceeding great sin
been found in the first man from whom the rest have sprung.
    Moreover, even in the body, though it dies like that of the beasts, and is in many ways weaker
than theirs, what goodness of God, what providence of the great Creator, is apparent! The organs
of sense and the rest of the members, are not they so placed, the appearance, and form, and
stature of the body as a whole, is it not so fashioned, as to indicate that it was made for the
service of a reasonable soul? Man has not been created stooping towards the earth, like the
irrational animals; but his bodily form, erect and looking heavenwards, admonishes him to mind
the things that are above. Then the marvellous nimbleness which has been given to the tongue and
the hands, fitting them to speak, and write, and execute so many duties, and practise so many arts,
does it not prove the excellence of the soul for which such an assistant was provided? And even
apart from its adaptation to the work required of it, there is such a  symmetry in its various parts,
and so beautiful a proportion maintained, that one is at a loss to decide whether, in creating the
body, greater regard was paid to utility or to beauty. Assuredly no part of the body has been
created for the sake of utility which does not also contribute something to its beauty. And this
would be all the more apparent, if we knew more precisely how all its parts are connected and
adapted to one another, and were not limited in our observations to what appears on the surface;
for as to what is covered up and hidden from our view, the intricate web of veins and nerves, the
vital parts of all that lies under the skin, no one can discover it. For although, with a cruel zeal for
science, some medical men, who are called anatomists, have dissected the bodies of the dead, and
sometimes even of sick persons who died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the
secrets of the human body to learn the nature of the disease and its exact seat, and how it might
be cured, yet those relations of which I speak, and which form the concord,(1)

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or, as the Greeks call it, "harmony," of the whole body outside and in, as of some instrument, no
one has been able to discover, because no one has been audacious enough to seek for them. But if
these could be known, then even the inward parts, which seem to have no beauty, would so
delight us with their exquisite fitness, as to afford a profounder satisfaction to the mind--and the
eyes are but its ministers--than the obvious beauty which gratifies the eye. There are some things,
too, which have such a place in the body, that they obviously serve no useful purpose, but are
solely for beauty, as e.g. the teats on a man's breast, or the beard on his face; for that this is for
ornament, and not for protection, is proved by the bare faces of women, who ought rather, as the
weaker sex, to enjoy such a defence. If, therefore, of all those members which are exposed to our
view, there is certainly not one in which beauty is sacrificed to utility, while there are some which
serve no purpose but only beauty, I think it can readily be concluded that in the creation of the
human body comeliness was more regarded than necessity. In truth, necessity is a transitory thing;
and the time is coming when we shall enjoy one another's beauty without any lust,--a condition
which will specially redound to the praise of the Creator, who, as it is said in the psalm, has "put
on praise and comeliness,"(1)
    How can I tell of the rest of creation, with all its beauty and utility, which the divine goodness
has given to man to please his eye and serve his purposes, condemned though he is, and hurled
into these labors and miseries? Shall I speak of the manifold and various loveliness of sky, and
earth, and sea; of the plentiful supply and wonderful qualities of the light; of sun, moon, and stars;
of the shade of trees; of the colors and perfume of flowers; of the multitude of birds, all differing
in plumage and in song; of the variety of animals, of which the smallest in size are often the most
wonderful,--the works of ants and bees astonishing us more than the huge bodies of whales? Shall
I speak of the sea, which itself is so grand a spectacle, when it arrays itself as it were in vestures
of various colors, now running through every shade of green, and again becoming purple or blue?
Is it not delightful to look at it in storm, and experience the soothing complacency which it
inspires, by suggesting that we ourselves are not tossed and shipwrecked?(2) What shall I say of
the numberless kinds of food to alleviate hunger, and the variety of seasonings to stimulate
appetite which are scattered everywhere by nature, and for which we are not indebted to the art of
cookery? How many natural appliances are there for preserving and restoring health! How
grateful is the alternation of day and night! how pleasant the breezes that cool the air! how
abundant the supply of clothing furnished us by trees and animals! Who can enumerate all the
blessings we enjoy? If I were to attempt to detail and unfold only these few which I have indicated
in the mass, such an enumeration would fill a volume. And all these are but the solace of the
wretched and condemned, not the rewards of the blessed. What then shall these rewards be, if
such be the blessings of a condemned state? What will He give to those whom He has predestined
to life, who has given such things even to those whom He has predestined to death? What
blessings will He in the blessed life shower upon those for whom, even in this state of misery, He
has been willing that His only-begotten Son should endure such sufferings even to death? Thus
the apostle reasons concerning those who are predestined to that kingdom: "He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also give us all
things?"(3) When this promise is fulfilled, what shall we be? What blessings shall we receive in
that kingdom, since already we have received as the pledge of them Christ's dying? In what
condition shall the spirit of man be, when it has no longer any vice at all; when it neither yields to
any, nor is in bondage to any, nor has to make war against any, but is perfected, and enjoys
undisturbed peace with itself? Shall it not then know all things with certainty, and without any
labor or error, when unhindered and joyfully it drinks the wisdom of God at the fountain-head?
What shall the body be, when it is in every respect subject to the spirit, from which it shall draw a
life so sufficient, as to stand in need of no other nutriment? For it shall no longer be animal, but
spiritual, having indeed the substance of flesh, but without any fleshly corruption.

     CHAP. 25.--OF THE OBSTINACY OF THOSE INDIVIDUALS WHO IMPUGN THE
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, THOUGH, AS WAS PREDICTED, THE WHOLE
WORLD BELIEVES IT.

    The foremost of the philosophers agree with us about the spiritual felicity enjoyed by the
blessed in the life to come; it is only the
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resurrection of the flesh they call in question, and with all their might deny. But the mass of men,
learned and unlearned, the world's wise men and its fools, have believed, and have left in meagre
isolation the unbelievers, and have turned to Christ, who in His own resurrection demonstrated
the reality of that which seems to our adversaries absurd. For the world has believed this which
God predicted, as it was also predicted that the world would believe,--a prediction not due to the
sorceries of Peter,(1) since it was uttered so long before. He who has predicted these things, as I
have already said, and am not ashamed to repeat, is the God before whom all other divinities
tremble, as Porphyry himself owns, and seeks to prove, by testimonies from the oracles of these
gods, and goes so far as to call Him God the Father and King. Far be it from us to interpret these
predictions as they do who have not believed, along with the whole world, in that which it was
predicted the world would believe in. For why should we not rather understand them as the world
does, whose belief was predicted, and leave that handful of unbelievers to their idle talk and
obstinate and solitary infidelity? For if they maintain that they interpret them differently only to
avoid charging Scripture with folly, and so doing an injury to that God to whom they bear so
notable a testimony, is it not a much greater injury they do Him when they say that His predictions
must be understood otherwise than the world believed them, though He Himself praised,
promised, accomplished this belief on the world's part? And why cannot He cause the body to rise
again, and live for ever? or is it not to be believed that He will do this, because it is an undesirable
thing, and unworthy of God? Of His omnipotence, which effects so many great miracles, we have
already said enough. If they wish to know what the Almighty cannot do, I shall tell them He
cannot lie. Let us therefore believe what He can do, by refusing to believe what He cannot do.
Refusing to believe that He can lie, let them believe that He will do what He has promised to do;
and let them believe it as the world has believed it, whose faith He predicted, whose faith He
praised, whose faith He promised, whose faith He now points to. But how do they prove that the
resurrection is an undesirable thing? There shall then be no corruption, which is the only evil thing
about the booty. I have already said enough about the order of the elements, and the other fanciful
objections men raise; and in the thirteenth book I have, in my own judgment, sufficiently
illustrated the facility of movement which the incorruptible body shall enjoy, judging from the ease
and vigor we experience even now, when the body is in good health. Those who have either not
read the former books, or wish to refresh their memory, may read them for themselves.

     CHAP. 26.--THAT THE OPINION OF PORPHYRY, THAT THE SOUL, IN ORDER
TO BE BLESSED, MUST BE SEPARATED FROM EVERY KIND OF BODY, IS
DEMOLISHED BY PLATO, WHO SAYS THAT THE SUPREME GOD PROMISED THE
GODS THAT THEY SHOULD NEVER BE OUSTED FROM THEIR BODIES.

    But, say they, Porphyry tells us that the soul, in order to be blessed, must escape connection
with every kind of body. It does not avail, therefore, to say that the future body shall be
incorruptible, if the soul cannot be blessed till delivered from every kind of body. But in the book
above mentioned I have already sufficiently discussed this. This one thing only will I repeat,--let
Plato, their master, correct his writings, and say that their gods, in order to be blessed, must quit
their bodies, or, in other words, die; for he said that they were shut up in celestial bodies, and that,
nevertheless, the God who made them promised them immortality,--that is to say, an eternal
tenure of these same bodies, such as was not provided for them naturally, but only by the further
intervention of His will, that thus they might be assured of felicity. In this he obviously overturns
their assertion that the resurrection of the body cannot be believed because it is impossible; for,
according to him, when the uncreated God promised immortality to the created gods, He
expressly said that He would do what was impossible. For Plato tells us that He said, "As ye have
had a beginning, so you cannot be immortal and incorruptible; yet ye shall not decay, nor shall any
fate destroy you or prove stronger than my will, which more effectually binds you to immortality
than the bond of your nature keeps you from it." If they who hear these words have, we do not
say understanding, but ears, they cannot doubt that Plato believed that God promised to the gods
He had made that He would effect an impossibility. For He who says, "Ye cannot be immortal,
but by my will ye shall be immortal," what else does He say than this, "I shall make you what ye
cannot be?" The body, therefore, shall be raised incorruptible, immortal, spiritual, by Him who,
according to Plato, has promised to do that which is

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impossible. Why then do they still exclaim that this which God has promised, which the world has
believed on God's promise as was predicted, is an impossibility? For what we say is, that the God
who, even according to Plato, does impossible things, will do this. It is not, then, necessary to the
blessedness of the soul that it be detached from a body of any kind whatever, but that it receive an
incorruptible body. And in what incorruptible body will they more suitably rejoice than in that in
which they groaned when it was corruptible? For thus they shall not feel that dire craving which
Virgil, in imitation of Plato, has ascribed to them when he says that they wish to return again to
their bodies.(1) They shall not, I say, feel this desire to return to their bodies, since they shall have
those bodies to which a return was desired, and shall, indeed, be in such thorough possession of
them, that they shall never lose them even for the briefest moment, nor ever lay them down in
death.

     CHAP. 27.--OF THE APPARENTLY CONFLICTING OPINIONS OF PLATO AND
PORPHYRY, WHICH WOULD HAVE CONDUCTED THEM BOTH TO THE TRUTH IF
THEY COULD HAVE YIELDED TO ONE ANOTHER.

    Statements were made by Plato and Porphyry singly, which if they could have Seen their way
to hold in common, they might possibly have became Christians. Plato said that souls could not
exist eternally without bodies; for it was on this account, he said, that the souls even of wise men
must some time or other return to their bodies. Porphyry, again, said that the purified soul, when
it has returned to the Father, shall never return to the ills of this world. Consequently, if Plato had
communicated to Porphyry that which he saw to be true, that souls, though perfectly purified, and
belonging to the wise and righteous, must return to human bodies; and if Porphyry, again, had
imparted to Plato the truth which he saw, that holy soul, shall never return to the miseries of a
corruptible body, so that they should not have each held only his own opinion, but should both
have hold both truths, I think they would have seen that it follows that the souls return to their
bodies, and also that these bodies shall be such as to afford them a blessed and immortal life. For,
according to Plato, even holy souls shall return to the body; according to Porphyry, holy souls
shall not return to the ills of this world. Let Porphyry then say with Plato, they shall return to the
body; let Plato say with Porphyry, they shall not return to their old misery: and they will agree
that they return to bodies in which they shall suffer no more. And this is nothing else than what
God has promised,--that He will give eternal felicity to souls joined to their own bodies. For this, I
presume, both of them would readily concede, that if the souls of the saints are to be reunited to
bodies, it shall be to their own bodies, in Which they have endured the miseries of this life, and in
which, to escape these miseries, they served God with piety and fidelity.

     CHAP. 28.--WHAT PLATO OR LABEO, OR EVEN VARRO, MIGHT HAVE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE TRUE FAITH OF THE RESURRECTION, IF THEY HAD
ADOPTED ONE ANOTHER'S OPINIONS INTO ONE SCHEME.

    Some Christians, who have a liking for Plato on account of his magnificent style and the truths
which he now and then uttered, say that he even held an opinion similar to our own regarding the
resurrection of the dead. Cicero, however, alluding to this in his Republic, asserts that Plato meant
it rather as a playful fancy than as a reality; for he introduces a man(2) who had come to life again,
and gave a narrative of his experience in corroboration of the doctrines of Plato. Labeo, too, says
that two men died on one day, and met at a cross-road, and that, being afterwards  ordered to
return to their bodies, they agreed  to be friends for life, and were so till they died again. But the
resurrection which these writers instance resembles that of those persons whom we have
ourselves known to rise again, and who came back indeed to this life, but not so as never to die
again. Marcus Varro, however, in his work On the Origin of the Roman People, records
something more remarkable; I think his own words should be given. "Certain astrologers," he
says, "have written that men are destined to a new birth, which the Greeks call palingenesy. This
will take place after four hundred and forty years have elapsed; and then the same soul and the
same body, which were formerly united in the person, shall again be reunited." This Varro,
indeed, or those nameless astrologers,--for he does not give us the names of the men whose
statement he cites,--have affirmed what is indeed not altogether true; for once the souls have
returned to the bodies they wore, they shall never afterwards leave them. Yet what they say
upsets and demolishes much of that idle talk of our adversaries about the impossibility of the
resurrection.

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For those who have been or are of this opinion, have not thought it possible that bodies which
have dissolved into air, or dust, or ashes, or water, or into the bodies of the beasts or even of the
men that fed on them, should be restored again to that which they formerly were. And therefore, if
Plato and Porphyry, or rather, if their disciples now living, agree with us that holy souls shall
return to the body, as Plato says, and that, nevertheless, they shall not return to misery, as
Porphyry maintains, --if they accept the consequence of these two propositions which is taught by
the Christian faith, that they shall receive bodies in which they may live eternally without suffering
any misery,--let them also adopt from Varro the opinion that they shall return to the same bodies
as they were formerly in, and thus the whole question of the eternal resurrection of the body shall
be resolved out of their own mouths.

                  CHAP. 29.--OF THE BEATIFIC VISION.

    And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the saints shall be
employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no
longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand
the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within
the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our
understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that "peace of God which," as the
apostle says, "passeth all understanding,"(1)--that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic
understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it passeth ours there is no doubt; but if it passeth
that of the angels,--and he who says ""all understanding" seems to make no exception in their
favor,then we must understand him to mean thai neither we nor the angels can understand, as God
understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless this passeth all understanding but
His own. But as we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in His
peace, both in ourselves, and with our neighbor, and with God our chief good, in this respect the
angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind
them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he
was who said, "We know in part, and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect is come;"(2)
and "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face."(3) Such also is now the vision of
the holy angels, who are also called our angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of
darkness, and receiving the earnest of the Spirit, are translated into the kingdom of Christ, and
already begin to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful
city of God of which we have now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels,
as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's, because they have not abandoned Him; they are
ours, because we are their fellow-citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, "See that ye despise not one
of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always see the face of my
Father which is in heaven."(4) As, then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus see.
Wherefore the apostle uses the words cited a little ago, "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but
then face to face." This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John
also says, "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."(5) "By
"the face" of God we are to understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to
that which in our bodies we call by that name.
    And so, when I am asked how the saints shall be employed in that spiritual body, I do not say
what I see, but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, "I believed,
therefore have I spoken."(6) I say, then, they shall in the body see God; but whether they shall see
Him by means of the body, as now we see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that
is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints shall then have such bodies that they shall
not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that every one
who shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance,
saw his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master's observation
and accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy,
how much more shall the saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes be
shut, but though they themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be "that which is perfect,"
of which the apostle says," We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is
perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." Then, that he

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may illustrate as well as possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived,
not only by ordinary men, but even by the foremost of the saints, he says, "When I was a child, I
understood as a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put
away childish things. Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."(1) If, then, even in this life, in which the
prophetic power of remarkable men is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future
life  than childhood is to manhood, Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting
gifts, shall we say that when that which is perfect is come, and the corruptible body no longer
oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and offers no impediment to it, the saints shall need bodily
eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint
version, these are the prophet's words: "Did not my heart go with thee, when the man came out of
his chariot to meet thee, and thou tookedst his gifts?"(2) Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it
from the Hebrew, "Was not my heart present when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee?"
The prophet said that he saw this with his heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt.
But how much more abundantly shall the saints enjoy this gift when God shall be all in all?
Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have their office and their place, and shall be used by the
spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forego the use of his eyes for seeing
what was before them, though he did not need them to see his absent servant, and though he
could have seen these present objects in spirit, and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant
in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that in the life to come the
saints shall not see God when their eyes are shut, since they shall always see Him with the spirit.
    But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they shall see Him with the bodily
eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess,
manifestly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look
upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For
though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as He, Himself says by the prophet, "I fill
heaven and earth,"(3) we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on
earth; but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once,
as no bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior power,--the power not of
keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they
can discern nothing but bodily substances,--but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it
was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job
while yet in this mortal body, when he says to God, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and melt away, and count myself
dust and ashes;"(4) although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eve of
the heart, of which the apostle says, "Having the eyes of your heart illuminated."(5) But that God
shall be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and
Master says, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."(6) But whether in the future
life God shall also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question.
The expression of Scripture, "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,"(7) may without
difficulty be understood as if it were said, "And every man shall see the Christ of God." And He
certainly was seen in the body, and shall be seen in the body when He judges quick and dead. And
that Christ is the salvation of God, many other passages of Scripture witness, but especially the
words of the venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant Christ, said,
"Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen
Thy salvation."(8) As for the words of the above-mentioned Job, as they are found in the Hebrew
manuscripts, "And in my flesh I shall see God,"(9) no doubt they were a prophecy of the
resurrection of the flesh; yet he does not say "by the flesh." And indeed, if he had said this, it
would still be possible that Christ was meant by "God;" for Christ shall be seen by the flesh in the
flesh. But even understanding it of God, it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in tile flesh when
I see God. Then the apostle's expression, "face to face,(10) does not oblige us to believe that we
shall see God by the bodily face in which are the eyes of the body, for we shall see Him without
intermission in spirit. And if the apostle had not

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referred to the face of the inner man, he would not have said, "But we, with unveiled face
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to
glory, as by the spirit of the Lord."(1) In the same sense we understand what the Psalmist sings,
"Draw near unto Him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be ashamed."(2) For it is by
faith we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the spirit, not of the body. But as we do not
know what degree of perfection the spiritual body shall attain,--for here we speak of a matter of
which we have no experience, and upon which the authority of Scripture does not definitely
pronounce,--it is necessary that the words of the Book of Wisdom be illustrated in us: "The
thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our fore-castings uncertain."(3)
    For if that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they attempt to make out that intelligible or
mental objects are so seen by the mind, and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body, that the
former cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the mind itself without
the body,--if this reasoning were trustworthy, then it would certainly follow that God could not be
seen by the eye even of a spiritual body. But this reasoning is exploded both by true reason and by
prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the truth as to say that God has no
cognisance of sensible objects? Has He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this
knowledge? Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha, does this not
sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by the spirit without the help of the body?
For when that servant received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material transaction, yet the
prophet saw it not by the body, but by the spirit. As, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by
the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that spirit also is seen by the
body? For God is a spirit. Besides, each man recognizes his own life--that life by which he now
lives in the body, and which vivifies these earthly members and causes them to grow--by an
interior sense, and not by his bodily eye; but the life of other men, though it is invisible, he sees
with the bodily eye. For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by seeing
at once both the body and the life which we cannot see save by the eye? But a life without a body
we cannot see thus. Wherefore it may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible, that we shall in
the future world see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that
we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere present and governing all things, material as
well as spiritual, and shall see Him, not as now we understand the invisible things of God, by the
things which are made,(4) and see Him darkly, as in a mirror, and in part, and rather by faith than
by bodily vision of material appearances, but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we
shall see wherever we turn our eyes. As we do not believe, but see that the living men around us
who are exercising vital functions are alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies,
but see it most distinctly by means of their bodies, so, wherever we shall look with those spiritual
eyes of our future bodies, we shall then, too, by means of bodily substances behold God, though a
spirit, ruling all things. Either, therefore, the eyes shall possess some quality similar to that of the
mind, by which they may be able to discern spiritual things, and among these God,--a supposition
for which it is difficult or even impossible to find any support in Scripture,--or, which is more easy
to comprehend, God will be so known by us, and shall be so much before us, that we shall see
Him by the spirit in ourselves, in one another, in Himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in
every created thing which shall then exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in every body
which the keen vision of the eye of the spiritual body shall reach. Our thoughts also shall be visible
to all, for then shall be fulfilled the words of the apostle, "Judge nothing before the time, until the
Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the
thoughts of the heart, and then shall every one have praise of God."(5)

     CHAP. 30.--OF THE ETERNAL FELICITY OF THE CITY OF GOD, AND OF THE
PERPETUAL SABBATH.

    How great shall be that felicity, which shall be tainted with no evil, which shall lack no good,
and which shall afford leisure for the praises of God, who shall be all in all! For I know not what
other employment there can be where no lassitude shall slacken activity, nor any want stimulate to
labor. I am admonished also by the sacred song, in which I read or hear the words, "Blessed are
they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they will be still praising Thee."(6) All the members

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and organs of the incorruptible body, which now we see to be suited to various necessary uses,
shall contribute to the praises of God; for in that life necessity shall have no place, but full, certain,
secure, everlasting felicity. For all those parts(1) of the bodily harmony, which are distributed
through the whole body, within and without, and of which I have just been saying that they at
present elude our observation, shall then be discerned; and, along with the other great and
marvellous discoveries which shall then kindle rational minds in praise of the great Artificer, there
shall be the enjoyment of a beauty which appeals to, the reason. What power of movement such
bodies shall possess, I have not the audacity  rashly to define, as I have not the ability to conceive.
Nevertheless I will say that in any case, both in motion and at rest, they shall be, as in their
appearance, seemly; for into that state nothing which is unseemly shall be admitted. One thing is
certain, the body shall forthwith be wherever the spirit wills, and the spirit shall will nothing which
is unbecoming either to the spirit or to the body. True honor shall be there, for it shall be denied
to none who is worthy, nor yielded to i any unworthy; neither shall any unworthy person so much
as sue for it, for none but the worthy shall be there. True peace shall be there, where no one shall
suffer opposition either from himself or any other. God Himself, who is the Author of virtue, shall
there be its reward; for, as there is nothing greater or better, He has promised Himself. What else
was meant by His word through the prophet, "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,"(2)
than, I shall be their satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire,--life, and health, and
nourishment, and plenty, and glory, and honor, and peace, and all good things? This, too, is the
right interpretation of the saying of the apostle, "That God may be all in all."(3) He shall be the
end of our desires who shall be seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness.
This outgoing of affection, this employment, shall certainly be, like eternal life itself, common to
all.
    But who can conceive, not to say describe, what degrees of honor and glory shall be awarded
to the various degrees of merit? Yet it cannot be doubted that there shall be degrees. And in that
blessed city there shall be this great blessing, that no inferior shall envy any superior, as now the
archangels are not envied by the angels, because no one will wish to be what he has not received,
though bound in strictest concord with him who has received; as in the body the finger does not
seek to be the eye, though both members are harmoniously included in the complete structure of
the body. And thus, along with his gift, greater or less, each shall receive this further gift of
contentment to desire no more than he has.
    Neither are we to suppose that because sin shall have no power to delight them, free will must
be withdrawn. It will, on the contrary, be all the more truly free, because set free from delight in
sinning to take unfailing delight in not sinning. For the first freedom of will which man received
when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas
this last freedom of will shall be superior, inasmuch. as it shall not be able to sin. This, indeed,
shall not be a natural ability, but the gift of God. For it is one thing to be God, another thing to be
a partaker of God. God by nature cannot sin, but the partaker of God receives this inability from
God. And in this divine gift there was to be observed this gradation, that man should first receive
a free will by which he was able not to sin, and at last a free will by which he was not able to
sin,--the former being adapted to the acquiring of merit, the latter to the enjoying of the
reward.(4) But the nature thus constituted, having sinned when it had the ability to do so, it is by
a more abundant grace that it is delivered so as to reach that freedom in which it cannot sin. For
as the first immortality which Adam lost by sinning consisted in his being able not to die, while the
last shall consist in his not being able to die; so the first free will consisted in his being able not to
sin, the last in his not being able to sin. And thus piety and justice shall be as indefeasible as
happiness. For certainly by sinning we lost both piety and happiness; but when we lost happiness,
we did not lose the love of it. Are we to say that God Himself is not free because He cannot sin?
In that city, then, there shall be free will, one in all the citizens, and indivisible in each, delivered
from all ill, filled with all good, enjoying indefeasibly the delights of eternal joys, oblivious of sins,
oblivious of sufferings, and yet not so oblivious of its deliverance as to be ungrateful to its
Deliverer.
    The soul, then, shall have an intellectual remembrance of its past ills; but, so far as regards
sensible experience, they shall be quite forgotten. For a skillful physician knows, indeed,
professionally almost all diseases; but
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experimentally he is ignorant of a great number which he himself has never suffered from. As,
therefore, there are two ways of knowing evil things,--one by mental insight, the other by sensible
experience, for it is one thing to understand all vices by the wisdom of a cultivated mind, another
to understand them by the foolishness of an abandoned life,--so also there are two ways of
forgetting evils. For a well-instructed and learned man forgets them one way, and he who has
experimentally suffered from them forgets them another,--the former by neglecting what he has
learned, the latter by escaping what he has suffered. And in this latter way the saints shall forget
their past ills, for they shall have so thoroughly escaped them all, that they shall be quite blotted
out of their experience. But their intellectual knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them
acquainted not only with their own past woes, but with the eternal sufferings of the lost. For if
they were not to know that they had been miserable, how could they, as the Psalmist says, for
ever sing the mercies of God? Certainly that city shall have no greater joy than the celebration of
the grace of Christ, who redeemed us by His blood. There shall be accomplished the words of the
psalm, "Be still, and know that I am God."(1) There shall be the great Sabbath which has no
evening, which God celebrated among His first works, as it is written, "And God rested on the
seventh day from all His works which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began to make."(2) For
we shall ourselves be the seventh day, when we shall be filled and replenished with God's blessing
and sanctification. There shall we be still, and know that He is God; that He is that which we
ourselves aspired to be when we fell away from Him, and listened to the voice of the seducer, "Ye
shall be as gods,"(3) and so abandoned God, who would have made us as gods, not by deserting
Him, but by participating in Him. For without Him what have we accomplished, save to perish in
His anger? But when we are restored by Him, and perfected with greater grace, we shall have
eternal leisure to see that He is God, for we shall be full of Him when He shall be all in all. For
even our good works, when they are understood to be rather His than ours, are imputed to us that
we may enjoy this Sabbath rest. For if we attribute them to ourselves, they shall be servile; for it is
said of the Sabbath, "Ye shall do no servile work in it."(4) Wherefore also it is said by Ezekiel the
prophet, "And I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know
that I am the Lord who sanctify them."(5) This knowledge shall be perfected when we shall be
perfectly at rest, and shall perfectly know that He is God.
    This Sabbath shall appear still more clearly if we count the ages as days, in accordance with the
periods of time defined in Scripture, for that period will be found to be the seventh. The first age,
as the first day, extends from Adam to the deluge; the second from the deluge to Abraham,
equalling the first, not in length of time, but in the number of generations, there being ten in each.
From Abraham to the advent of Christ there are, as the evangelist Matthew calculates, three
periods, in each of which are fourteen generations,--one period from Abraham to David, a second
from David to the captivity, a third from the captivity to the birth of Christ in the flesh. There are
thus five ages in all. The sixth is now passing, and cannot be measured by any number of
generations, as it has been said, "It is not for you to know the times, which the Father hath put in
His own power."(6) After this period God shall rest as on the seventh day, when He shall give us
(who shall be the seventh day) rest in Himself.(7) But there is not now space to treat of these
ages; suffice it to say that the seventh shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not
by an evening, but by the Lord's day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection
of Christ, and prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body. There we
shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For
what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no
end?
    I think I have now, by God's help, discharged my obligation in writing this large work. Let
those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let
those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God. Amen.