ing this King in that earthly kingdom of the people of Israel, King David stood forth pre- eminent,5 of whose seed according to the flesh that truest King was to come, to wit, our Lord Jesus Christ, ' who is over all, God blessed for ever.'6 In that land of promise many things were done, which held good as figures of the Christ who was to come, and of the Church, with which you will have it in your power to acquaint yourself by degrees in the Holy Books.
CHAP. 21. OF THE BABYLONISH CAPTIVITY, AND THE THINGS SIGNIFIED THEREBY.
37. "Howbeit, after the lapse of some gen- erations, another type was presented, which bears very emphatically on the matter in hand. For that city 7 was brought into cap- tivity, and a large section of the people were carried off into Babylonia. Now, as Jerusa- lem signifies the city and fellowship of the saints, so Babylonia signifies the city and fel- lowship of the wicked, seeing that by inter- pretation it denotes confusion. On the sub- 3 Cf. Gal. iv. 26. 6 Rom. ix. 5.
4 Hominem. 5 1 Kings xi.
7 Or= community, civitas, d 06 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. XXI.
ject of these two cities, which have been running their courses, mingling the one with the other, through all the changes of time from the beginning of the human race, and which shall so move on together until the end of the world, when they are destined to be sep- arated at the last judgment, we have spoken already a little ago. r That captivity, then, of the city of Jerusalem, and the people thus carried into Babylonia in bondage, were or- dained so to proceed by the Lord, by the voice of Jeremiah, a prophet of that time.2 And there appeared kings 3 of Babylon, un- der whom they were in slavery, who on occa- sion of the captivity of this people were so wrought upon by certain miracles that they came to know the one true God who founded universal creation, and worshipped Him, and commanded that He should be worshipped. Moreover the people were ordered both to pray for those by whom they were detained in captivity, and in their peace to hope for peace, to the effect that they should beget children, and build houses, and plant gardens and vineyards.4 But at the end of seventy years, release from their captivity was prom- ised to them.5 All this, furthermore, signi- fied in a figure that the Church of Christ in all His saints, who are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, would have to do service under the kings of this world. For the doctrine of the apostles speaks also in this wise, that 'ever)'- soul should be subject to the higher powers,' and that there 'should be rendered all things to all men, tribute to whom tribute (is due), custom to whom custom,'6 and all other things in like manner which, without detriment to the worship of our God, we ren- der to the rulers in the constitution of human society: for the Lord Himself also, in order to set before us an example of this sound doctrine, did not deem it unworthy of Him to pay tribute7 on account of that human individuality8 wherewith He was invested. Again, Christian servants and good believers are also commanded to serve their temporal masters in equanimity and faithfulness;9 whom they will hereafter judge, if even on to the end they find them wicked, or with whom they will hereafter reign in equality, if they too shall have been converted to the true God. Still all are enjoined to be subject to the powers that are of man and of earth, even until, at the end of the predetermined time which the seventy years signify, the Church 1 See Chapter xix. 2 Jer. xxv. 18, xxix. 1.
3 Dan. ii. 47, iii. 29, vi. 26; 1 Esdr. ii. 7; Bel, 41.
4 Jer. xxix. 4-7. 5 Jer. xxv. 12.
8 Pro capite kominis, literally = on account of that head of man, etc. 9 Eph. vi. 5.
shall be delivered from the confusion of this world, like as Jerusalem was to be set free from the captivity in Babylonia. By occa- sion of that captivity, however, the kings of earth too have themselves been led to forsake the idols on account of which they were wont to persecute the Christians, and have come to know, and now worship, the one true God and Christ the Lord; and it is on their behalf that the Apostle Paul enjoins prayer to be made, even although they should persecute the Church. For he speaks in these terms: ' I entreat, therefore, that first of all supplica- tions, adorations, I0 intercessions, and givings of thanks be made for kings, for all men, and all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, with all godliness and charity.'11 Accordingly peace has been given to the Church by these same persons, although it be but of a temporal sort, — a tem- poral quiet for the work of building houses after a spiritual fashion, and planting gar- dens and vineyards. For witness your own case, too, — at this very time we are engaged, by means of this discourse, in building you up and planting you. And the like process is going on throughout the whole circle of lands, in virtue of the peace allowed by Christian kings, even as the same apostle thus expresses himself: ' Ye are God's hus- bandry; ye are God's building.'12 38. " And, indeed, after the lapse of the seventy years of which Jeremiah had mysti- cally prophesied, to the intent of prefiguring the end of times, with a view still to the per- fecting of that same figure, no settled peace and liberty were conceded again to the Jews. Thus it was that they were conquered subse- quently by the Romans and made tributary. From that period, in truth, at which they re- ceived the land of promise and began to have kings, in order to preclude the supposition that the promise of the Christ who was to be their Liberator had met its complete fulfill- ment in the person of any one of their kings, Christ was prophesied of with greater clear- ness in a number of prophecies; not only by David himself in the book of Psalms, but also by the rest of the great and holy prophets, even on to the time of their conveyance into captivity in Babylonia; and in that same captivity there were also prophets whose mis- sion was to prophesy of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Liberator of all. And after the restoration of the temple, when the seventy years had passed, the Jews sus- 10 Instead of orationes; the better authenticated reading is adorationcs.
11 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2.
12 1 Cor. iii. 9; cf. Jer. xxv. 12, xxix. 10.
Chap. XXII.] ON THE CATECHISING OF THE UNINSTRUCTED.
307 tained grievous oppressions and sufferings at the hands of the kings of the Gentiles, fitted to make them understand that the Liberator was not yet come, whom they failed to appre- hend as one who was to effect for them a spiritual deliverance, and whom they fondly longed for on account of a carnal liberation.
CHAP. 22. — OF THE SIX AGES OF THE WORLD.
39. " Five ages of the world, aceordingly, having been now completed (there has entered the sixth). Of these ages the first is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood.1 Then the second extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called 2 the father indeed of all nations 3 which should follow the example of his faith, but who at the same time in the way of natural descent from his own flesh was the father of the destined people of the Jews; which people, previous to the entrance of the Gentiles into the Christian faith, was the one people among all the nations of all lands that worshipped the one true God: from which people also Christ the Saviour was decreed to come ac- cording to the flesh. For these turning- points4 of those two ages occupy an eminent place in the ancient books. On the other hand, those of the other three ages are also declared in the Gospel,5 where the descent of the Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh is likewise mentioned. For the third aa:e ex- tends from Abraham on to David the king; the fourth from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia; and the fifth from that transmi- gration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. With His coming the sixth age has entered on its process; so that now the spir- itual grace, which in previous times was known to a few patriarchs and prophets, may be made manifest to all nations; to the intent that no man should worship God but freely,6 fondly desiring of Him not the visible rewards of His services and the happiness of this present life, but that eternal life alone in which he is to enjoy God Himself: in order that in this sixth age the mind of man may be renewed after the image of God, even as on the sixth day man was made after the image of God.7 For then, too, is the law fulfilled, when all that it has commanded is done, not in the strong desire for things tem- poral, but in the love of Him who has given 1 Tien. vi. 22.
2 Instead of dictus est the mss. give also elect us est = was chosen to be.
7 Gen. i. 27.
6 Gratis.
the commandment. Who is there, moreover, who should not be earnestly disposed to give the return of love to a God of supreme right- eousness and also of supreme mercy, who has first loved men of the greatest unright- eousness and the loftiest pride, and that, too, so deeply as to have sent in their behalf His only Son, by whom He made all things, and who being made man, not by any change of Himself, but by the assumption of human nature, was designed thus to become capable not only of living with them, but also of dy- ing at once for them and by their hands?
40. " Thus, then, showing forth the New Testament of our everlasting inheritance, wherein man was to be renewed by the grace of God and lead a new life, that is, a spiritual life; and with the view of exhibiting the first one as an old dispensation, wherein a carnal people acting out the old man (with the ex- ception of a few patriarchs and prophets, who had understanding, and some hidden saints), and leading a carnal life, desiderated carnal rewards at the hands of the Lord God, and received in that fashion but the figures of spiritual blessings; — with this intent, I say, the Lord Christ, when made man, despised all earthly good things, in order that He might show us how these things ought to be despised; and He endured all earthly ills which He was inculcating as things needful to be endured; so that neither might our hap- piness be sought for in the former class, nor our unhappiness be apprehended in the latter. For being born of a mother who, although she conceived without being touched by man and always remained thus untouched, in vir- ginity conceiving, in virginity bringing forth, in virginity dying, had nevertheless been espoused to a handicraftsman, He extin- guished all the inflated pride of carnal no- bility. Moreover, being born in the city of Bethlehem, which among all the cities of Judaea was so insignificant that even in our own day it is designated a village, He willed not that any one should glory in the exalted position of any city of earth. He, too, whose are all things and by whom all things were created, was made poor, in order that no one, while believing in Him, might venture to boast himself in earthly riches. He refused to be made by men a king, because He displayed the pathway of humility to those unhappy ones whom pride had separated from Him;8 and yet universal creation attests the fact of His everlasting kingdom. An hungered was He who feeds all men; athirst was He by whom is created whatsoever is drunk, and 8 Reading ab eo; for which some editions give ab ea = from that humility.
;oS THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. XXIII.
who in a spiritual manner is the bread of the hungry and the fountain of the thirsty; in journeying on earth, wearied was He who has made Himself the way for us into heaven; as like one dumb and deaf in the presence of His revilers was He by whom the dumb spoke and the deaf heard; bound was He who freed us from the bonds of infirmities; scourged was He who expelled from the bodies of man the scourges of all distresses; crucified was He who put an end to our crucial pains; x dead did He become who raised the dead. But He also rose again, no more to die, so that no one should from Him learn so to contemn death as if he were never to live ao-ain.
CHAP. 23. — OF THE MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST FIFTY DAYS AFTER CHRIST'S RESUR- RECTION.
41. " Thereafter, having confirmed the dis- ciples, and having sojourned with them forty days, He ascended up into heaven, as these same persons were beholding Him. And on the completion of fifty days from His resur- rection He sent to them the Holy Spirit (for so He had promised), by whose agency they were to have love shed abroad in their hearts,2 to the end that they might be able to fulfill the law, not only without the sense of its being burdensome, but even with a joyful mind. This law was given to the Jews in the ten commandments, which they call the Decalogue. And these commandments, again, are reduced to two, namely that we should love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind; and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.3 For that on these two precepts hang all the law and the prophets, the Lord Himself has at once de- clared in the Gospel and shown in His own example. For thus it was likewise in the in- stance of the people of Israel, that from the day on which they first celebrated the pass- over in a form,4 slaying and eating the sheep, with whose blood their door-posts were marked for the securing of their safety,5 — from this day, I repeat, the fiftieth day' in succession was completed, and then they received the law written by the finger of God,6 under which phrase we have already stated that the Holy Spirit is signified.7 And in the same manner, after the passion and resurrection of the Lord, who is the true passover, the Holy Ghost was sent personally to the disciples on the fiftieth day: not now, however, by tables of stone significant of the hardness of their 1 There is a play in the words here: crucifixus est qui cruci- atus nostros Jini'vit.
2 Cf. Rom. v. 5. 3 Matt. xxii. 37-40. 4 In imagine. 5 Ex. xii.
7 Ex. xxxiv. 28. 7 Luke xi. 20.
hearts; but, when they were gathered together in one place at Jerusalem itself, suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as if a vio- lent blast were being borne onwards, and there appeared to them tongues cloven like fire, and they began to speak with tongues, in such a manner that all those who had come to them recognized each his own language8 (for in that city the Jews were in the habit of as- sembling from every country wheresoever they had been scattered abroad, and haa learned the diverse tongues of diverse nations); and thereafter, preaching Christ with all boldness, they wrought, many signs in His name, — so much so, that as Peter was passing by, his shadow touched a certain dead person, and the man rose in life again.9 42. ' But when the Jews perceived so great signs to be wrought in the name of Him, whom, partly through ill-will and partly in ignorance, they crucified, some of them were provoked to persecute the apostles, who were His preachers; while others, on the contrary, marvelling the more at this very circumstance, that so great miracles were being performed in the name of Him whom they had derided as one overborne and con- quered by themselves, repented, and were converted, so that thousands of Jews believed on Him. For these parties were not bent now on craving at the hand of God temporal benefits and an earthly kingdom, neither did they look any more for Christ, the promised king, in a carnal spirit; but they continued in immortal fashion to apprehend and love Him, who in mortal fashion endured on their behalf at their own hands sufferings so heavy, and imparted to them the gift of forgiveness for all their sins, even down to the iniquity of His own blood, and by the example of His own resurrection unfolded immortality as the object which they should hope for and long for at His hands. Accordingly, now mortifying the earthly cravings of the old man, and inflamed with the new experience of the spiritual life, as the Lord had enjoined in the Gospel, they sold all that they had, and laid the price of their possessions at the feet of the apostles, in order that these might distribute to every man according as each had need; and living in Christian love har- moniously with each other, they did not affirm anything to be their own, but they had all things in common, and were one in soul and heart toward God.10 Afterwards these same persons also themselves suffered persecution 8 Acts ii.
9 The reference evidently is to Acts v. 15, where, however, it is only the people's intention that is noticed, and that only in the instance of the sick, and not of any individual actually dead.
10 Acts ii. 44, iv, 34.
Chap. XXIV.] ON THE CATECHISING OF THE UNINSTRUCTED.
309 in their flesh at the hands of the Jews, their carnal fellow-countrymen, and were dispersed abroad, to the end that, in consequence of their dispersion, Christ should be preached more extensively, and that they themselves at the same time should be followers of the patience of their Lord..For He who in meekness had endured them,1 enjoined them in meekness to endure for His sake.
43. "Among those same persecutors of the saints the Apostle Paul had once also ranked; and he raged with eminent violence against the Christians. But, subsequently, he be- came a believer and an apostle, and was sent to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, suffer- ing (in that ministry) things more grievous on behalf of the name of Christ than were those which he had done against the name of Christ. Moreover, in establishing churches throughout all the nations where he was sow- ing the seed of the gospel, he was wont to give earnest injunction that, as these converts (coming as they did from the worship of idols and without experience in the worship of the one God) could not readily serve God in the way of selling and distributing their posses- sions, they should make offerings for the poor brethren among the saints who were in the churches of Judea which had believed in Christ. In this manner the doctrine of the apostle constituted some to be, as it were, soldiers, and others to be, as it were, pro- vincial tributaries, while it set Christ in the centre of them like the corner-stone (in ac- cordance with what had been announced be- foretime by the prophet),2 in whom both parties, like walls advancing from different sides, that is to say, from Jews and from Gentiles, might be joined together in the affec- tion of kinship. But at a later period heavier and more frequent persecutions arose from the unbelieving Gentiles against the Church of Christ, and day by day was fulfilled that prophetic word which the Lord spake when He said, ' Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.'3 CHAP. 24. OF THE CHURCH IN ITS LIKENESS TO A VINE SPROUTING AND SUFFERING PRUN- ING.
44. "But that vine, which was spreading forth its fruitful shoots throughout the circle of lands, according as had been prophesied 1 Adopting the Benedictine version, qui eos mansuetus passus fuerat, and taking it as a parallel to Acts xiii. 18, Heb. xii. 3. There is, however, great variety of reading here. Thus we find qui ante eos, etc. = who had suffered in meekness before them: qui pro eis, etc. = who had suffered in their stead: qui propter eos, etc. = who had suffered on their account: and qui per eos, etc. = who had suffered through them, etc. But the reading in the text appears best authenticated.
with regard to it, and as had been foretold by the Lord Himself, sprouted all the more luxuriantly in proportion as it was watered with richer streams of the blood of martyrs. And as these died in behalf of the truth of the faith in countless numbers throughout all lands, even the persecuting kingdoms them- selves desisted, and were converted to the knowledge and worship of Christ, with the neck of their pride broken. Moreover it be- hoved that this same vine should be pruned in accordance with the Lord's repeated pre- dictions,4 and that the unfruitful twigs should be cut out of it, by which heresies and schisms were occasioned in various localities, under the name of Christ, on the part of men who sought not His glory but their own; whose oppositions, however, also served more and more to discipline the Church, and to test and illustrate both its doctrine and its patience.
45. "All these things, then, we now perceive to be realized precisely as we read of them in predictions uttered so long before the event. And as the first Christians, inasmuch as they did not see these things literally made good in their own day, were moved by miracles to believe them; so as regards ourselves, inas- much as all these things have now been brought to pass exactly as we read of them in those books which were written a long time previous to the fulfillment of the things in question, wherein they were all announced as matters yet future, even as they are now seen to be actually present, we are built up unto faith, so that, enduring and persevering in the Lord, we believe without any hesitation in the destined accomplishment even of those things which still remain to be realized. For, indeed, in the same Scriptures, tribulations yet to come are still read of, as well as the final day of judgment itself, when all the citi- zens of these two states shall receive their bodies again, and rise and give account of their life before the judgment-seat of Christ. For He will come in the glory of His power, who of old condescended to come in the low- liness of humanity; and He will separate all the godly from the ungodly, — not only from those who have utterly refused to believe in Him at all, but also from those who have be- lieved in Him to no purpose and without fruit. To the one class He will give an eternal king- dom together with Himself, while to the other He will award eternal punishment together with the devil. But as no joy yielded by things temporal can be found in any measure comparable to the joy of life eternal which 4 John xv. 2.
IO THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN.
[Chap. XXV.
the saints are destined to attain, so no tor- ment of temporal punishments can be com- pared to the everlasting torments of the un- righteous.
CHAP. 25. OF CONSTANCY IN THE FAITH OF THE RESURRECTION.
46. "Therefore, brother, confirm yourself in the name and help of Him in whom you believe, so as to withstand the tongues of those who mock at our faith, in whose case the devil speaks seductive words, bent above all on making a mockery of the faith in a resurrection. But, judging from your own history,1 believe that, seeing you have been, you will also be hereafter, even as you per- ceive yourself now to be, although previously you were not. For where was this great structure of your body, and where this forma- tion and compacted connection of members a few years ago, before you were born, or even before you were conceived in your mother's womb? Where, I repeat, was then this structure and this stature of your body? Did it not come forth to light from the hidden secrets of this creation, under the invisible formative operations of the Lord God, and did it not rise to its present magnitude and fashion by those fixed measures of increase which come with the successive periods of life?2 Is it then in any way a difficult thing for God, who also in a moment brings together out of secrecy the masses of the clouds and veils the heavens in an instant of time, to make this quantity of your body again what