Chapter 1
Because I see that I must next discuss the proper ends of the two cities—namely, the earthy and the heavenly—I must first explain, insofar as the limits imposed by the plan of this work allow, the arguments by which mortals have struggled to make themselves happy in the misery of this life. This is necessary in order to clarify the difference between their futilities and our hope, which God has given us, and its object, namely true happiness, which God will give us. This will be done not only through divine authority, but also, for the sake of unbelievers, through reason.
Concerning the ends of goods and evils, philosophers have engaged in many and varied disputes among themselves; but the question they have pursued with the greatest effort, turning it over in their minds, is, What makes man happy? our final good is that for the sake of which other things are desired, but which is itself desired for its own sake; and the final evil is that on account of which other things are avoided, but which is avoided on its own account. Hence, we now call the “final good” not that through which good is destroyed, and so ceases to exist, but that through which it is perfected, and so exists fully; and we call the “final evil” not that through which evil ceases to be, but that through which it produces its greatest harm. Thus, these ends are the supreme good and the supreme evil.
As I said, many who have professed the study of wisdom in the futility of this age have worked hard to discover these ends, as well as to obtain the supreme good and to avoid the supreme evil in this life. Although they wandered off in different directions, nevertheless the limit of nature did not permit them to deviate from the path of truth so far that they failed to place the final good and final evil in the soul, in the body, or in both. To this tripartite division of schools Marcus Varro, in his book On Philosophy, directed his attention, diligently and subtly scrutinizing a large number of different teachings. By applying certain distinctions he easily arrived at 288 possible—though not necessarily actual—schools….
Chapter 2
Then there are those three kinds of life: the first is the leisurely—but not slothful—life, devoted to contemplating or seeking the truth; the second is the busy life devoted to conducting human affairs; and the third is the life which mixes both of these kinds. When it is asked which of these three ought to be chosen, the final good is not being disputed. What is considered by that question is which of these three brings difficulty or assistance for seeking or preserving the final good. When anyone attains the final good, he is forthwith made happy. However, the life devoted to learned leisure, to public business, or to performing both alternately does not necessarily make one happy. Certainly, many are able to live in one or another of these three ways, but err with respect to desiring the final good by which man is made happy.
Therefore, it is one thing to ask about the final good and the final evil, and the answer to that question distinguishes every single one of the philosophical schools. It is quite another thing to ask questions about the social life, the hesitation of the Academics, the dress and diet of the Cynics, and the three kinds of life—the leisurely, the active, and the combined. The final good and evil are not disputed in any of these questions.
By using these four distinctions—that is, the distinctions derived from the social life, the new Academics, the Cynics, and the three kinds of life—Marcus Varro reaches 288 schools. If there are other distinctions, they could be added in the same way. By removing all of those four distinctions, because they do not bear upon the question of pursuing the supreme good and thus do not give rise to what can properly be called “schools,” he returns to those twelve in which it is added, What is the good of man, the pursuit of which makes man happy? From these twelve, he shows that one is true and the rest false….
To Varro, it seemed proper that these three schools be treated carefully. He asked, What ought to be chosen? True reason does not permit more than one to be true, whether it is among these three or—as we will see later on—somewhere else. In the meantime, we will examine, as briefly and clearly as we can, how Varro chooses one of these three. Certainly, these three schools arise as follows: either the primary goods of nature are chosen for the sake of virtue, or virtue is chosen for the sake of the primary goods of nature, or both—that is, both virtue and the primary goods of nature—are chosen for their own sakes.
Chapter 4
If, then, we are asked what the city of God would reply to each of these questions, and, most importantly, what it thinks about the final good and final evil, it will reply that eternal life is the supreme good and eternal death the supreme evil, and that in order to attain the one and avoid the other, we must live rightly. That is why it is written, “The just man lives by faith” (Gal 3:11), for we do not at present see our good and thus must seek it through believing, nor does our living rightly derive from ourselves, except insofar as he, who gave the very faith through which we believe ourselves to be in need of help from him, helps us in our believing and praying.
Those, however, who have held that the final good and evil are in this life, whether they place the supreme good in the body, in the soul, or in both—and indeed, to express it more explicitly, whether they place it in pleasure or in virtue or both; whether in rest or virtue or in both; whether in pleasure and rest simultaneously or in virtue or in all these; whether in the primary things of nature or in virtue or in all these—they wanted to be happy here and now and, through an astonishing vanity, they wanted to be made happy by their own actions. The Truth ridiculed them through the prophet, saying, “The Lord knows the thoughts of men” (Ps 94:11), or as the apostle Paul puts this testimony, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Cor 3:20).
Indeed, who is able, however great the flood of his eloquence, to expound the miseries of this life? Cicero lamented them, as well as he was able, in the Consolation on the death of his daughter, but how much was he able to do? In truth, when, where, and in what way can those things called the primary goods of nature be so well possessed in this life that they are not tossed about under the sway of unforeseen accidents? What pain contrary to pleasure, what restlessness contrary to rest, could not befall the body of a wise man? Certainly, the amputation or the debility of a man’s limbs destroys his soundness, deformity his beauty, feebleness his health, exhaustion his strength, numbness or slowness his mobility. Which of these is it that cannot overcome the flesh of a wise person? The postures and movements of the body, when they are fitting and harmonious, are likewise numbered among the primary goods of nature. Yet what if some state of ill health causes the limbs to shake and tremble? What if the spine is so curved that the hands are forced to touch the ground, making the man a sort of quadruped? Is not every type of posture and movement of the body distorted?
What about the primary things of the mind itself, which are called goods? Sense and intellect are placed first since on account of them perception and comprehension of the truth are possible. Yet what sort of and how much sensation remains if, to say nothing of other things, a man becomes deaf and blind? Indeed, if reason and intelligence recede from someone rendered insane by some illness, where would those faculties slumber? The mad, when they speak or act, do many absurd things, for the most part unrelated—indeed, even opposed—to their own good intentions and inclinations. When we either reflect on or observe what they say and do, if we consider them properly, we are barely—if at all—able to contain our tears. What shall I say of those who suffer the assault of demons? Where is their own intelligence hidden or buried when an evil spirit uses both their soul and their body according to its own will? Who is confident that this evil cannot befall a wise man in this life? Next, how well and to what extent do we perceive truth in this flesh, when, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, “The corruptible body weighs down the soul and the earthly dwelling oppresses the intelligence as it considers many things” (Wis 9:15)? An “impulse” or “appetite for action,” if in this way Latin rightly names that which the Greeks call hormē, is counted as one of the primary goods of nature. Yet is it not precisely this which also produces those miserable motions and deeds of the insane which horrify us when sense is distorted and reason is put to sleep?
Further, virtue itself, which is not among the primary goods of nature because it is added afterward through education, claims to be the highest of human goods; and yet what does it do except conduct perpetual wars with vices, not external but internal ones, not those of others but our very own? It this not the particular struggle of that virtue which in Greek is named sόphrosyné, in Latin “temperance,” by which the carnal passions are curbed so that they do not drag the mind into consenting to every sort of shameful action? Vice is never absent when, in the words of the apostle, “The flesh desires in opposition to the spirit.” To this vice there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same apostle says: “The spirit desires in opposition to the flesh. For these,” he says, “are at war with each other, so that what you will is not what you do” (Gal 5:17). What, however, do we will to do when we will to be perfected by the supreme good? It can only be that the flesh not desire in opposition to the spirit and that this vice opposed to what the spirit desires not be in us. We are not strong enough to do this in this life, however much we will, but with the help of God, let us at least not surrender the spirit and so yield to the flesh warring against the spirit, and be dragged into sinning by our own consent. Therefore, let us not believe that, as long as we are in this internal war, we have already attained our happiness, which we will to attain by conquering the flesh. And who is so utterly wise as to have no conflict at all with his lusts?
What about the virtue called prudence? Does not its total vigilance consist in distinguishing goods from evils, so that in seeking the former and avoiding the latter no error sneaks in? Yet in this way does not prudence itself give evidence that we are among evils or that evils are within us? Prudence teaches that evil is consenting to the desire to sin and that good is withholding consent to that desire. Nevertheless, that evil, to which prudence teaches us not to consent, and to which temperance enables us not to consent, is not removed from this life by either prudence or temperance.
What about justice, whose function is to render to each his due, thereby establishing in man a certain just order of nature, so that the soul is subordinated to God, and the flesh to the soul, and consequently the flesh and the soul to God? Does it not demonstrate in performing this function that it is still laboring at its task instead of resting in the completion of its goal? Surely, the less the soul keeps God in its own thoughts, the less it is subordinated to him; and the more the flesh desires in opposition to the spirit, the less is it subordinated to the soul. Therefore, as long as there is in us this weakness, this plague, this weariness, how shall we dare to say that we are already made well? If we are not yet made well, how shall we dare to say that we are already happy in the attainment of final happiness?
As for the virtue called courage, no matter how wise one may be, it bears the clearest witness to human evils, which it is forced to endure patiently. I am astonished to see with what boldness the Stoic philosophers contend that such evils are not evils, yet they allow that if evils become so great that a wise man cannot or ought not endure them, he may be driven to bring about his own death and leave this life. So great is the stupid pride of these men that, while holding that the final good is found in this life and that they are made happy by their own efforts, their wise man (that is, the man whom they describe with an amazing inanity) is one who—even if he is made blind, deaf, dumb, and lame, even if he is tormented by pain and assailed by any other such evils that could be spoken or thought, so that he is driven to bring about his own death—is still not ashamed to call this life so composed of evils “happy”!
O happy life, which seeks the help of death in order to be ended! If it is happy, he should remain in it. In what way are those things not evils? They conquer the good of courage and not only compel the same courage to yield to themselves, but also to rave, so that it both calls the same life happy and persuades one to flee it! Who is so blind that he does not see that if it is happy, one ought not flee it? In saying that such a life must be fled, they openly admit the weakness of their position. The neck of their pride having been broken, why they do not also admit that such a life is miserable? I ask, did Cato kill himself because of endurance or lack of endurance? He would not have done it, except that he could not bear to endure the victory of Caesar.1 Where is the courage here? Truly, it yielded; truly, it surrendered; truly, it was so completely overcome that it abandoned, deserted, and fled the happy life. Or was it not then happy? Clearly, it was miserable. In what sense, then, were there no evils which made life miserable and something necessary to flee?…
If virtues are true—and true virtues cannot exist except in those who possess true piety—they do not profess to be able to protect the men who have them from suffering miseries. True virtues are not such liars as to profess this. They do, however, profess that human life, which is compelled by the great number and magnitude of evils in this world to be miserable, is happy through hope in a future world, and in the same way made well. Indeed, how can it be happy until it is made well? And thus the apostle Paul, speaking not of imprudent, impatient, intemperate, and unjust men, but of men living according to true piety and thereby having true virtues, says: “By hope we are made well. However, hope that is seen is not hope, for how can one hope for what one sees? However, if we hope for what we do not see, we look forward to it with patience” (Rom 8:24–25).
Therefore, as we are made well by hope, so we are made happy by hope; and as we do not presently possess well-being, but look forward to it in the future “with patience,” so it is with happiness. This is because we are now among evils, which we must endure patiently, until we arrive at those goods in which we will find only indescribable delight and none of the things which we must now endure. Such well-being, which we will find in the future world, will itself be final happiness. Because they do not see this happiness, the philosophers refuse to believe in it, but struggle to fabricate for themselves in this life an utterly false happiness through a virtue as dishonest as it is proud.
Chapter 6
What about the legal judgments of men concerning other men? No matter how much peace abides in cities, they cannot be eliminated. How wretched, how sad we think they are! Those judging are unable to discern the consciences of those whom they judge. Consequently, they are frequently compelled to investigate the truth by torturing innocent witnesses concerning a case that is not even their own. What about when someone whose own case is at stake is tortured? He is asked whether he is guilty while he is being tortured. Even an innocent person, then, pays a most certain penalty for an uncertain crime, and not because it is discovered that he committed it, but because it is not known that he did not commit it. Thus, the ignorance of the judge is frequently the calamity of the innocent.
What is much more intolerable, what must be lamented and washed, if it were possible, by fountains of tears, is this: a judge, on account of ignorance, tortures an accused in order not to execute an innocent person mistakenly, yet it happens that the judge does execute, through wretched ignorance, one who is both innocent and tortured, one whom the judge had tortured in order that he might not execute an innocent person. If, following the “wise,” the accused has chosen to flee this life rather than endure the tortures any longer, he says he has committed what he did not commit. Though he is condemned and executed, the judge still does not know whether the person he tortured in order that he might not mistakenly execute an innocent person was innocent or not. Thus, he both tortures an innocent man in order to know and kills him though he does not know.
In this darkness of the social life, will a judge who is “wise” sit in judgment or not? Certainly he will, for human society, which he considers it a crime to desert, binds him and drags him to this duty. These things he does not consider to be crimes: that innocent witnesses are tortured in the cases of others; that the innocent who are accused are frequently overcome by the power of pain when they are tortured, and are then punished on account of falsely confessing; that, although not punished by death, they frequently die while being tortured or as a result of being tortured; or that sometimes the accusers, perhaps desiring to be beneficial to human society by seeing to it that no crimes go unpunished, are unable to prove the charges even though they are true, since the witnesses lie and the defendant himself fiercely endures the torture without confession, and are themselves mistakenly condemned by a judge. This great number and magnitude of evils he does not consider to be sins, for a wise judge does not do them because of a will to harm, but because of the necessity imposed by not knowing, and also because of the necessity of judging imposed by human society.
Accordingly, even if they are not the malice of the wise, these evils are certainly what we call the misery of man. If indeed it is through the necessity of not knowing and of judging that he tortures and punishes the guiltless, is it not enough for him that we do not hold him to be guilty? Must we call him "happy" besides? How much more thoughtful and appropriate it is for man to recognize misery in this necessity, and to hate himself because of it, and if he is wise in the manner of the pious, to cry out to God, "Deliver me from my necessities!" (Ps 25:17).
Chapter 7
After the city or municipality comes the world, which they regard as the third level of human society. Beginning with the household, they progress to the city and then to the world. Like converging waters, as the world is larger, so is it more dangerous. In the first place, the diversity of languages in the world alienates one man from another. Imagine that two people meet and are compelled by some necessity not to pass by but to remain together. If neither knows the language of the other, although they are both human beings, speechless animals—even if they are of different species—will associate with each other more easily. When human beings realize that they cannot communicate between themselves solely because of the difference of language, nothing promotes their association despite their similarity of nature. A man would rather be with his own dog than a foreigner.
Yet it might be said that, by taming peoples through the peace of society, the imperial city attempts to impose not only its yoke but also its language, so that there is no lack of interpreters, but indeed a great abundance. This is true. Yet how does it compensate for the numerous and immense wars, the great slaughter of men, the tremendous effusion of human blood? Even though those evils are now settled, the misery of them is not yet finished. Although bordering, hostile nations have never been and are not presently lacking, and although wars always have been and continue to be waged against them, nevertheless the very size of the empire has given rise to wars of a worse kind; namely, social and civil wars. The human race is shaken by these more miserable wars, either when they are waged so that there might eventually be calm, or when a fresh outbreak of them is feared. If I wanted to speak appropriately of these evils, great and immense destructions, and hard and dire necessities, even though I could by no means do so as the subject demands, where would this lengthy discussion end?
They say, however, that the wise man will wage only just wars—as if, mindful that he is human, he would not much rather lament that he is subject to the necessity of waging just wars. If they were not just, he would not be required to wage them, and thus he would be free of the necessity of war. It is the iniquity on the part of the adversary that forces a just war upon the wise man. Even if it did not give rise to the necessity of war, such iniquity must certainly be lamented by a human being since it belongs to human beings. Therefore, let anyone who reflects with sorrow upon these evils so great, so horrid, and so savage, confess that he is miserable. Anyone, however, who either permits or considers these things without sorrow in mind is certainly much more miserable, since he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling.
Chapter 11
Because the name "peace" is also frequently used with respect to things which are subject to death, where there certainly is no eternal life, we prefer to call the end of this city, where its highest good will be, "eternal life" rather than "peace." Of this end the apostle says, “Now, indeed, having been liberated from sin and having become servants of God, you will have your reward in sanctification, your true end in eternal life” (Rom 6:22).
On the other hand, “eternal life” could be taken by those who are not familiar with the Sacred Scriptures to include also the life of the wicked. One might think this either because certain philosophers profess the immortality of the soul, or also because our faith professes the unending punishment of the impious, who certainly could not be eternally tormented unless they also lived eternally.
So that it can be understood more easily by all, it must be said that the end of this city, in which it will have its highest good, is either “peace in eternal life” or “eternal life in peace.” Peace is such a great good that even with respect to earthly and mortal things, nothing is heard with greater pleasure, nothing desired more longingly, and in the end, nothing better can be found. If I wish to speak of it somewhat longer I will not, I think, be burdensome to readers, both because my subject is the end of this city and because of the very sweetness of peace, which is dear to all.
Chapter 12
Anyone who pays any attention to human affairs and our common human nature, recognizes as I do that just as there is no one who does not wish to be joyful, so there is no one who does not wish to have peace. Indeed, even those who want war want nothing other than to achieve victory; by warring, therefore, they desire to attain a glorious peace. What else is victory, unless triumphing over the opposition? When this has happened, there will be peace. Therefore, even those who are eager to exercise the military virtues by commanding or fighting wage war with the intention of peace. Consequently, the desired end of war is peace, for everyone seeks peace, even by waging war, but no one seeks war by making peace.
Even those who want the peace they now have to be disturbed do not hate peace, but they desire to change the peace according to their own wishes. Thus, they are not unwilling that there be peace, but they want it on their own terms. Furthermore, even if they have separated themselves from others through sedition, when they conspire or plot amongst themselves they do not achieve what they intend unless they have some sort of peace. Likewise, robbers themselves want to have peace with their partners, so that they might more violently and safely attack to the peace of others. Perhaps one person is so strong and so wary of conspiring with others that he does not ally himself to any partners. Waiting in ambush and prevailing alone, he gains plunder by crushing and annihilating whom he can. Still, with those whom he cannot kill and from whom he wants to hide what he does, he certainly has some sort of a shadow of peace.
In his home, with his wife and children and anyone else who might be there, he surely strives to be at peace. Their complying with his command is no doubt pleasing. If they do not do so, he is enraged; he rebukes and punishes them. He establishes peace in his own home, if it is necessary, even by brutality. He thinks that peace is not possible unless the rest of the household is subject to a ruler, and in his own home he himself is that ruler. That is why, if the service of a great multitude, or of cities, or peoples is offered to him, so that they would serve him in the same manner as he wanted to be served in his own household, then he would no longer conceal himself like a bandit in a hideout, but raise himself up like a visible king, although the same desire and malice would abide in him. Thus, all desire to have peace with their own associates, whom they want to live according to their own decree. Indeed, they want, if they are able, to make even those against whom they wage war into their own associates, and to impose on them, when conquered, the laws of their own peace.
Let us imagine someone of the sort sung about in poetry and myth, someone whom, perhaps because of his unsociability and savageness, they have preferred to call “semihuman” rather than “human.” His kingdom was the solitude of his horrible cave. So extraordinary was his malice that a name was invented from it, for in the Greek language evil is called kakos, which is what he was named.2 He had no wife with whom to carry on endearing conversation, no little children to play with, no older children to give orders to, no friends with whom to enjoy speaking. He did not even enjoy the society of his father Vulcan, compared to whom he was happier simply because he had not generated such a monster as himself. He gave nothing to anyone, but took from whomever he could whatever and whenever he wanted.
Nevertheless, in the very solitude of his own cave, in which, as is said, “the ground was always reeking with fresh carnage,”3 he wanted nothing other than peace—a peace in which no one would molest him, in which the quiet was not disturbed by the violence of anyone or the fear of it. Further, he desired to be at peace with his body, and to the extent that he was at peace with it, all was well with him. When he commanded, the limbs of his body submitted. Yet, his own mortality rebelled against him out of need and stirred up sedition through hunger, aiming to dissociate and exclude the soul from the body. In order to make peace with that mortality as quickly as possible, he plundered, he killed, and he devoured. Though monstrous and savage, he was nevertheless monstrously and savagely providing for the peace of his own life and well-being. Moreover, if he had been willing to make peace with others while he was striving to make peace in his cave and in himself, he would not have been called evil or a monster or semihuman. Also, if the appearance of his body and his breathing horrible fire frightened human society, possibly he was not so much savage because of a desire for harming but because of the necessity of his staying alive.
He might not, however, have even existed, or, what is more believable, he might not have been the same as the description given by the vanity of poetry, for if Cacus were not blamed too much, Hercules would be praised too little.4 Therefore, it is better, as I have said, to believe that a human or semihuman of that sort never existed, as is the case with many of the imaginings of the poets.
Even the most savage wild animals, from whom Cacus got part of his wildness (for he was even said to be half-wild), care for their own species by means of a certain peace. They do this by associating, begetting, bearing, cherishing, and nourishing the offspring, even though they are for the most part insociable and solitary. I do not mean those animals such as sheep, deer, doves, starlings, and bees, but those such as lions, wolves, foxes, eagles, and owls. Indeed, what tigress, pacifying her wildness, does not gently purr and caress her young? What kite, however much it circles its prey alone, does not unite with a mate, put together a nest, warm the eggs, nourish the young birds, and, as if with the mother of his family, keep peace in his domestic society as much as he can? How much more is man brought by the laws of his nature, as it were, to enter into society and keep peace with all men to the extent that he is able?
After all, even the evil wage war for the sake of the peace of their own associates, and they would want to make everyone their own, if they could, so that everyone and everything would be enslaved to one individual. How would that happen if they did not consent to his peace, either through love or fear? In this manner, pride imitates God in a distorted way. It hates equality with partners under God, but wants to impose its own domination upon its partners in place of God. Consequently, it hates the just peace of God and loves its own iniquitous peace. Nevertheless, it is not able not to love some sort of peace. Truly, there is no defect so contrary to nature that it wipes away even the last vestiges of nature. Accordingly, he who knows to prefer the upright to the deformed, and the ordered to the distorted, sees that the peace of the iniquitous, in comparison to the peace of the just, should not be called “peace” at all. However, it is necessary that even what is distorted be at peace in some way with a part of the things in which it exists or from which it is established. Otherwise, it would not exist at all.
This is just like if someone were to hang with his head downward. The position of the body and the order of the limbs would certainly be distorted, because what nature demands to be above is below, and what it wants to be below is above. This distortion disturbs the peace of the flesh and for that reason is painful. It is nevertheless true that the soul is at peace with the body and is busy struggling for its well-being, and thus there is someone suffering. If the soul departs, having been driven out by the pain, as long as the structure of the limbs remains, so does a certain amount of peace, and thus there is still something hanging there. Because the earthly body tends toward the earth and is resisted by the chain by which it is suspended, it tends to the order of its own peace and requests in a weighty voice, as it were, a place where it might rest. Now lifeless and without any sense, nevertheless it does not depart from the peace of its own natural order, either when it has it or when it reaches toward it.
If embalming potions and treatments are applied, which do not allow the form of the cadaver to break up and dissolve, a sort of peace still unites certain parts to other parts and connects the whole mass in its suitable and therefore peaceful place in the earth. If no one applies the treatment for burying, however, then the cadaver disintegrates in the course of nature. It is in a state of disturbance due to dissenting vapors which are disagreeable to our senses (for this is what is smelled in putrefication), until it is assimilated to the elements of the world and gradually, little by little, separates into their peace. Nevertheless, in no way is anything withdrawn from the laws of the supreme creator and governor by whom the peace of the universe is administered, for even if tiny animals are born from the cadaver of a greater animal, by the same law of the creator each little body serves its own little soul in the well-being of peace. Even if the flesh of the dead is devoured by other animals, wherever it is carried, whatever the things to which it is joined, whatever the things into which it is changed and altered, it finds those same laws diffused throughout all things for the well-being of every mortal species, making peace by harmonizing suitable elements.
Chapter 13
Thus, the peace of the body is the ordered proportion of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the ordered repose of the appetites. The peace of the rational soul is the ordered agreement of knowledge and action. The peace of the body and the soul is the ordered life and well-being of a living thing. The peace between a mortal man and God is an ordered obedience, in faith, under the eternal law.
The peace among human beings is ordered concord. The peace of the household is an ordered concord concerning commanding and obeying among those who dwell together. The peace of the city is an ordered concord concerning commanding and obeying among the citizens. The peace of the heavenly city is a fellowship perfectly ordered and harmonious, enjoying God and each other in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order.
Order is the arrangement of things equal and unequal, alloting to each its own position. Hence, the miserable indeed lack the tranquility of order in which there is no disturbance, since insofar as they are miserable, they certainly are not at peace. Nevertheless, since they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are not, in their very own misery, able to be outside that order. They are surely not united to the happy, but, by the law of order, are separated from them. When they are free from disturbance, they are adjusted to the circumstances in which they find themselves by a harmony of some degree. Thus, some tranquility of order belongs to them, and so some peace. Therefore, the reason they are miserable is because, even if they have some freedom from concern and are not suffering, they are still not in a position where they ought to be exempt from concern and suffering. They are more miserable, however, if they are not at peace with the very law by which the order of nature is administered.
Moreover, when they suffer, they suffer in that part in which a disturbance of peace occurs, but there is still peace in that part not disturbed by suffering and in the structure itself, which is not dissolved. As, therefore, there is a kind of life without suffering, but suffering cannot exist without some life, so there is a kind of peace without any war, but war cannot exist without some peace. This does not follow because of what war itself is, but because it is waged by those or in those who are natural beings in some way. They would not exist at all, unless they remained in a peace of some sort.
Accordingly, there is a nature in which there is no evil, or even in which there can be no evil, but there cannot be a nature in which there is no good. Thus, not even the nature of the devil himself, insofar as it is a nature, is evil. Rather, it is the distortion of that nature that makes it evil. Hence, he did not stand firm in the truth, but he did not escape the judgment of the truth. He did not remain in the tranquility of order, but he nevertheless did not avoid the power of the one who orders. The goodness of God, which is in the devil’s nature, does not remove him from the justice of God, which orders by punishing him. God did not then reproach the good that he created, but the evil that the devil has committed. Neither does God take away all that he gave to the devil’s nature, but some he takes and some he leaves, so that there might be something to suffer the loss of what was taken away. That very suffering is a witness to the good taken away and the good left behind, for unless good were left behind, the devil could not suffer because of the good lost….
Therefore, God, who founded all natures most wisely and ordered them most justly, who established the mortal human race as the greatest embellishment of the earth, gave to mankind certain goods suitable for this life. These goods include a temporal peace proportional to the short span of a mortal life, a peace involving health, preservation, and the society of one’s own kind. They also include the things necessary for guarding or recovering this peace (such as what is appropriately and fittingly present to the senses: light, sound, breathable air, drinkable water, and whatever is suitable for feeding, covering, healing, and adorning the body). All this was given through the most equitable stipulation, that he who uses such mortal goods rightly, adapting them to the peace of mortals, would receive more and better goods; namely, the peace of immortality and the glory and honor suitable to it, in an eternal life which is for enjoying God and one’s neighbor in God. He, however, who uses mortal goods wrongly, would lose them and would not receive eternal ones.
Chapter 15
God said, “Let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the winged things of the heavens and all the crawling things which crawl upon the earth” (Gn 1:26). He did not will that the rational being, having been made according to his own image, dominate any except the irrational beings; he did not will that man dominate man, but that man dominate the beasts. Therefore, the first just men were established as shepherds of beasts rather than as kings of men, so that even in this way God might suggest what the order of creatures requires and what the reward of sinners drives away. Surely it is understood that the condition of slavery is rightly imposed on the sinner. Accordingly, nowhere in the scripture do we read the word “slave” before the just Noah punished the sin of his son with this word. Thus, he earned the name through fault, not through nature….
The first cause of slavery, then, is sin, with the result that man is placed under man by the bondage of this condition. This does not happen except through the judgment of God, in whom there is no iniquity, and who knows how to distribute the various punishments according to the merits of the delinquent. Yet, as the Lord above says, “Anyone who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 8:34), and thus indeed many religious people enslaved to iniquitous masters are nevertheless not enslaved to the free: “For by whatever one has been conquered, to that one has also been made a slave” (2 Pt 2:19). And it is certainly a happier condition to be enslaved to a man than to a lust, since the very lust for dominating—not to mention others—ravishes the hearts of mortals by a most savage mastery. In that order of peace by which some are subordinated to others, humility is as beneficial to the enslaved as pride is harmful to the dominating.
Nevertheless, by the nature in which God first established man, no one is a slave of man or of sin. It is also true that penal slavery is ordained by that law which commands the preservation and prohibits the disturbance of the natural order, because if nothing had been done contrary to that law, there would have been nothing requiring the restraint of penal slavery. That is why the apostle also warns slaves to be subject to their masters and to serve with good will and from the heart (Eph 6:5), so that if they are not able to be freed by their masters, they might make their slavery in a certain sense free, by serving not with the cunning of fear, but with the faithfulness of affection, until iniquity is transformed and all human rule and power are made void, and God is all in all (1 Cor 15:24, 28).
Chapter 16
…Those who are true “fathers of their families” are concerned that all in their family—the slaves as well as the children—should worship and be reconciled to God. Such fathers desire and long to come to the heavenly household, where the duty of ruling mortals is not necessary because the duty of being concerned for the welfare of those already happy in that immortality will no longer be necessary. Until that home is reached, fathers ought to endure more because they rule than slaves do because they serve.
If, however, anyone in the household opposes the domestic peace through disobedience, he is disciplined by word or by whip or by any other kind of just and legitimate punishment, to the extent that human society allows. Such discipline is for the profit of the one being disciplined, so that he is readjusted to the peace from which he had departed. After all, just as it is not kindness to help someone when it would cause him to lose a greater good, so it is not innocent to spare punishment and permit someone to fall more grievously into wickedness. Therefore, in order to be innocent, duty demands not only that one not bring evil to anyone, but also that one restrain another from sin or punish his sin, so that either the person who is punished might be set straight by the experience or others frightened by his example.
Hence, because the human household ought to be the beginning or the building block of the city, and because every beginning is directed to some end of its own kind and every part to the integrity of the whole whose part it is, the consequence is clearly that domestic peace is directed to civic peace. That is to say, the ordered concord concerning commanding and obeying of those dwelling together is directed to the ordered concord concerning commanding and obeying of the citizens. Accordingly, the father of the family should obtain the precepts by which he rules his household from the laws of the city, so that his household might be adapted to the peace of the city.
Chapter 17
The household of those who do not live by faith chases an earthly peace consisting of the affairs and advantages of this temporal life. The household of human beings living by faith, on the other hand, looks forward to the future, to those things which are promised as eternal, and makes use of temporal and earthly things like a traveller. Those things do not seize such a person and turn him away from the path to God. They do not increase the burdens of “the corruptible body which weighs down the soul” (Wis 9:15), but sustain him for more easily enduring them. Consequently, both sorts of men and both sorts of households use the things necessary for this mortal life, but the end of such use is unique to each and varies greatly. So also the earthly city, which does not live by faith, desires earthly peace and it secures the concord concerning commanding and obeying of the citizens, so that there might be a certain orderly arrangement of human wills concerning the things pertaining to mortal life. The heavenly city, however, or rather the part of it which journeys in this mortal life and lives by faith, necessarily uses this peace, too, until the very mortality which makes such a peace necessary might pass away.
Because of this, so long as it leads the life of a captive, as it were, journeying within the earthly city, already having received a promise of redemption and a spiritual gift as a pledge of it, the heavenly city has no doubts about conforming to the laws of the earthly city which administer the things required for the sustainance of the mortal life. Because mortality itself is common to both of the cities, concord between them is preserved with respect to those things pertaining to the mortal life….
So long as this heavenly city journeys on the earth, it calls forth citizens from all peoples and gathers a society of foreigners speaking all languages. It is not troubled at all about differences in customs, laws, and institutions by which the earthly peace is either sought or maintained. So long as they do not impede the religion which teaches the worship of the one, supreme, and true God, the heavenly city abrogates or destroys none of them, but indeed observes and follows them, for whatever the diversities of different nations, they nevertheless strive toward the one and the same end of earthly peace.
Hence, even the heavenly city uses the earthly peace on its journey, and it is concerned about and desires the orderly arrangement of human wills concerning the things pertaining to mortal human nature, insofar as it is agreeable to sound piety and religion. It directs the earthly peace to the heavenly peace, which is so truly peace that it must be held and said that the only peace, at least of rational creatures, is the most ordered and most harmonious society enjoying God and each other in God. When that peace comes, there will not be mortal life, but a whole and certain life; not the ensouled body weighing down the soul in its corruption (Wis 9:15), but a spiritual body with no wants and with every part subordinated to the will. While it journeys, the heavenly city possesses this peace in faith, and out of this faith it lives justly when it directs to the attainment of that peace whatever good actions it performs toward God, and also those performed toward the neighbor, since the life of this city is certainly social.
Chapter 19
The style of dress or manner of living in which anyone follows the faith that leads to God does not matter to the heavenly city, so long as these are not in contradiction with the divine precepts. Thus, even philosophers, when they become Christians, are not required to change their style of dress or eating customs, which do not impede religion, though they are required to change their false teachings. Accordingly, that city does not care at all about the distinction that Varro made concerning the Cynics, so long as nothing is done basely or intemperately.
With respect to those three kinds of life, the leisurely, the active, and the combination of the two, although every one, through sound faith, can lead his life according to any one of them and attain the everlasting reward, what one holds through the love of truth and what one expends through the duty of charity are nevertheless important. Thus, no one ought to be so leisurely that he does not, in his leisure, consider the advantage of his neighbor; neither should anyone be so active that he does not consider the contemplation of God to be necessary.
In leisure, one ought not delight in slothful idleness, but in either the investigation or discovery of truth, so that everyone advances in it and does not withhold his discoveries from others. In action, no one ought to love honor or power in this life, because all is vanity under the sun (Eccl 1:2–3). Rather, the work itself that is done through the same honor or power should be loved, if it is done rightly and profitably. That is to say, it should be loved if it advances the well-being of the subjects, which is according to God, as we have argued earlier.
Because of this the apostle said, “He who desires the episcopacy desires a good work” (1 Tm 3:1). He wanted to explain that the name “episcopacy” is the name of a work not of an honor. Indeed, the word is Greek, and it comes from the fact that he who is set over others “superintends” them; that is, he exercises care for them. Indeed, the Greek word skopos means intention; therefore, for episkopein we can say, if we want, “superintend.” Consequently, he who desires to be over others rather than to benefit others should understand that he is not a bishop.
Thus, no one is prohibited from zealousness for knowledge of the truth, because the life of learned leisure pertains to what is praiseworthy. On the other hand, to desire high position, without which a people cannot be ruled, is indecent, even if the position is held and administered in a decent manner. Because of this, charity for truth seeks holy leisure, while the requirements of charity accept just activity. If this latter burden is not imposed, one is free to grasp for and to contemplate truth. If, however, the burden is imposed, accepting it is on account of the requirements of charity. Even in this instance, however, delight in the truth is not abandoned completely, otherwise that sweetness might be lost and these requirements crush us.
Chapter 21
It is at this place that I will explain, as briefly and clearly as I can, what in the second book of this work I promised that I would demonstrate; namely, that, according to the definition that Scipio uses in the Republic of Cicero, there never was a Roman republic. He succinctly defines a “republic” as “the affair of a people.” If this definition is true, there never was a Roman republic, because Rome never was the affair of a people, which is Scipio’s definition of a republic.
The reason for this is that he defined “a people” as “a fellowship of a multitude united through a consensus concerning right and a sharing of advantage.” What he calls “a consensus concerning right” he explains in the dialogue by making it clear that it is not possible for a republic to be managed without justice. Therefore, where there is no true justice, there can be no right. What is done by right is indeed done justly; what is done unjustly, however, cannot be done by right. The iniquitous institutions of human beings must not be said or thought to exist by right, because even those institutions say that right flows from the fountain of justice, and that what is customarily said by those who do not understand right correctly—i.e. that right is the advantage of the strongest—is false.
Accordingly, where there is no true justice, there can be no fellowship of men united through a consensus concerning right, and therefore there can be no people according to the definition of Scipio or Cicero. Moreover, if there is no people, neither can there be an affair of a people, but only of some sort of a multitude which is not worthy of the name of “a people.” Consequently, if a republic is “the affair of a people,” and there is no people which is not “united by means of a consensus concerning right,” and there is no right where there is no justice, without doubt it must be concluded that where there is no justice, there is no republic.
Furthermore, justice is that virtue which distributes to everyone his due. What sort of justice is it, then, that takes a man away from the true God and subjects him to unclean demons? Is this to distribute to each his due? Or, is he who takes the ground purchased by someone and gives it to another who has no right to it unjust, but he who takes himself away from the dominion of the God who made him and enslaves himself to malicious spirits just?
Certainly, the cause of justice against injustice is argued very energetically and forcefully in that very same book, The Republic. Earlier, the case of injustice against justice was considered and it was said that the republic could not stand firm or be managed except through injustice. It was set down as the most powerful part of the argument that it was unjust for men to serve other men as their masters, but that unless the imperial city to whom the great republic belongs follows such injustice it is not able to rule its provinces. The response from the side of justice was that this rule over the inhabitants of the provinces is just because servitude is advantageous for such men and is done for their benefit when it is done correctly—that is, when the license for wrongdoing is taken away from the wicked. Also, it was argued that they will be in a better condition as a result of having been subdued, because they were in a worse condition before being subdued.
In order to strengthen this reasoning, a famous example was stated as though it was borrowed from nature: “Why, then, does God rule man, the soul rule the body, the reason rule lust and the rest of the corrupt parts of the soul?”5 Plainly, this example teaches well that servitude is advantageous to some and that serving God is indeed advantageous to all. In serving God, the soul correctly rules the body, and the reason in the soul subordinated to the Lord God correctly rules lust and the rest of the corrupt parts of the soul. Thus, when a man does not serve God, what in him can be reckoned to belong to justice? Indeed, when not serving God, the soul can in no way justly rule the body, or human reason the vices. Furthermore, if there is not any justice in such a man, without doubt neither is there any in a fellowship of human beings which consists of such men. Therefore, this is not that “consensus concerning right” which makes a multitude of human beings a “people,” whose affair is called a “republic.”
What shall I say concerning that “advantage,” the sharing of which also unites a fellowship of men so that it is named “a people,” as stipulated by the definition? If you carefully direct your attention, you will see that there is no advantage to any who live impiously, as do all who do not serve God but serve the demons who, the more impious they are, the more they want to receive sacrifice as gods, even though they are the most unclean spirits of all. Yet, what we have said about the consensus concerning right I think is sufficient to make it apparent that, according to this definition, there is no people which might be said to be a republic in which there is no justice.
If our enemies say that the Romans have not served unclean spirits but good and holy gods in their republic, must what we have already said sufficiently, indeed more than sufficiently, be repeated yet again? Who, except the excessively stupid or the shamelessly contentious, having arrived at this point after reading the earlier books of this work, finds it possible to doubt but that the Romans have up to this point served evil and impure demons? Nevertheless, in order to say no more about the sort of gods they are worshipping with sacrifices, I instead cite what is written in the law of the true God: “Anyone sacrificing to the gods, except only to the Lord, will be eradicated” (Ex 22:20). Thus, he who admonishes with such a threat did not want either good gods or evil ones to receive sacrifice.
Chapter 23
…We ourselves—his city—are the best and most radiant sacrifice. We celebrate this mystery through our offerings, which are known to the faithful, as we have argued in the preceding books. Indeed, through the Hebrew prophets the divine oracles thundered that the offering of sacrificial victims by the Jews, a foreshadowing of the future, would cease, and that peoples from the rising of the sun to its setting would offer one sacrifice, as we see happening now. From these oracles we have taken as much as seemed sufficient and have already sprinkled them throughout this work.
Thus, justice exists when the one and supreme God rules his obedient city according to his grace, so that it does not sacrifice to any whatsoever except Him alone. As a result, in everyone belonging to that same city and obeying God, the soul faithfully commands the body, and reason the corrupt parts of the soul, in accord with the lawful order. Consequently, just like a single just man, a fellowship and a people of just men lives by faith, which works through love, by which man loves God as God ought to be loved, and his neighbor as himself. Where that justice does not exist, truly there is no “fellowship of men united through a consensus concerning right and a sharing of advantage.” If this justice does not exist, then a people does not exist, if this is the true definition of a people. Therefore, neither does a republic exist, for there is no affair of a people where there is no people.
Chapter 24
If, however, a people is not defined in that way, but in another—if, for example, it is said that a people is “a fellowship of a multitude of rational beings united through sharing
in an agreement about what it loves”—then truly, in order to see the character of a people, what it loves must be considered. If it is not a fellowship of a multitude of beasts, but
of rational creatures, and is united through sharing in an agreement about what it loves, then, no matter what it loves, it is not unreasonable to call it “a people.” It is a better
people if it agrees in loving better things; a worse one if it agrees in loving worse things. According to this definition, the Roman people is a people, and its affair is without doubt a
republic. However, history gives witness to what that people loved originally and subsequently, and by what morals it arrived at the bloodiest revolutions and then at social and civil wars,
utterly shattering and annihilating concord itself, which is, in a certain sense, the well-being of a people. Of this we have said much in the preceding books….
From Augustine, Political Writings, translated by Douglas Kries and Michael Tkacz, edited by Ernest Fortin and Douglas Kries (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994). Copyright
© 1994. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
1. [Rather than endure what he considered to be the tyranny of Caesar, Cato of Utica killed himself in 46 B.C. The Stoics considered Cato to be a hero for this.—E.F./D.K.]
2. [The story of Cacus is related by Virgil in Aeneid VIII. 184–305.]
3. [Aeneid VIII. 195.]
4. [Cacus was eventually slain by Hercules.]
5. [Republic III. 25.]