City of God 10.32

Chapter 32. On the universal way of the soul's liberation, which Porphyry, seeking it wrongly, did not find, and which Christian grace alone has opened.

This is the religion that contains the universal way of the soul's liberation, since by no way but this can any soul be liberated. For this is in a manner the royal way, which alone leads to the kingdom, not tottering with temporal eminence but secure in the firmness of eternity. When Porphyry says, near the end of the first book On the Return of the Soul, that there has not yet been received into any one school a teaching that contains the universal way of the soul's liberation, either from some most true philosophy or from the customs and discipline of the Indians, or from the initiation of the Chaldeans, or by any other way, and that this same way has not yet been brought to his knowledge by historical inquiry, he certainly confesses that there is such a way, but that it has not yet come to his knowledge. So whatever he had most zealously learned about the liberation of the soul, and seemed to himself, or rather to others, to know and hold, did not satisfy him. For he felt that he still lacked some most excellent authority which ought to be followed on so great a matter. And when he says that not even from some most true philosophy has a school come to his knowledge that contains the universal way of the soul's liberation, he shows clearly enough, as I think, either that the philosophy in which he himself philosophized is not the truest, or that such a way is not contained in it. And how can it now be the truest, if this way is not contained in it? For what other universal way of the soul's liberation is there, except that by which all souls are liberated, and without which, therefore, no soul is liberated? And when he adds and says, “or from the customs and discipline of the Indians, or from the initiation of the Chaldeans, or by any other way,” he testifies in the plainest words that this universal way of the soul's liberation is contained neither in what he had learned from the Indians nor in what he had learned from the Chaldeans; and certainly he could not keep silent that he had taken from the Chaldeans the divine oracles which he mentions constantly. What universal way of the soul's liberation, then, does he wish to be understood as not yet received, either from some most true philosophy or from the teachings of those nations which were held great in divine matters because among them curiosity about knowing and worshipping angels of all kinds prevailed more, and not yet brought to his knowledge by historical inquiry? What is this universal way, except that which has been imparted by God, not as proper to each nation, but as common to all nations? This man, endowed with no mean ability, does not doubt that it exists. For he does not believe that divine providence could have left the human race without this universal way of the soul's liberation. For he does not say that it does not exist, but that this great good and this great help has not yet been received, has not yet been brought to his knowledge; and no wonder. For Porphyry lived in the world at the time when this universal way of the soul's liberation, which is none other than the Christian religion, was permitted to be attacked by the worshippers of idols and demons and by earthly kings, for the sake of establishing and consecrating the number of the martyrs, that is, the witnesses to the truth, by whom it might be shown that all bodily evils are to be endured for the faith of piety and the commendation of the truth. Porphyry saw these things and thought that through persecutions of this kind this way would soon perish, and therefore that it was not the universal way of the soul's liberation; not understanding that what moved him, and what he feared to suffer in choosing it, served rather to confirm it and commend it more strongly. This, then, is the universal way of the soul's liberation, that is, granted by divine mercy to all nations; and to whomever the knowledge of it has already come, and to whomever it will come, it neither ought to be nor will need to be said, “Why now?” and “Why so late?”, since the counsel of him who sends it cannot be penetrated by human wit. This he too perceived when he said that this gift of God had not yet been received and had not yet been brought to his knowledge. For he did not judge it untrue because it had not yet been received into his belief or had not yet come to his knowledge. This, I say, is the universal way for the liberation of believers, concerning which faithful Abraham received the divine oracle: “In your seed all nations shall be blessed.” He was indeed a Chaldean by race; but that he might receive such promises, and that from him might be propagated the seed “ordained through angels in the hand of a Mediator,” in whom this universal way of the soul's liberation would be, that is, given to all nations, he was commanded to depart from his land and from his kindred and from his father's house. Then he, first freed from the superstitions of the Chaldeans, followed and worshipped the one true God, and believed him faithfully when he promised these things. This is the universal way of which it is said in holy prophecy: “May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us, that we may know your way on earth, your salvation among all nations.” Hence, so long afterward, having taken flesh from the seed of Abraham, the Savior himself says of himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” This is the universal way of which it was foretold so long before: “In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be manifest, established on the tops of the mountains, and it shall be lifted above the hills, and all nations shall come to it, and many peoples shall go and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will announce to us his way, and we will walk in it.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” This way, then, is not of one nation but of all nations; and the law and the word of the Lord did not remain in Zion and Jerusalem, but went out from there to spread through the whole world. So the Mediator himself, after his resurrection, said to his trembling disciples: “All that is written about me in the law and the prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. This, then, is the universal way of the soul's liberation, which the holy angels and the holy prophets, first among a few men who found the grace of God where they could, and above all in the Hebrew nation, whose commonwealth was in a manner consecrated to prophesy and foretell the city of God to be gathered from all nations, signified by the tabernacle and the temple, by the priesthood and the sacrifices, and foretold in certain words, some plain, most mystical; but the Mediator himself, present in the flesh, and his blessed apostles, revealing now the grace of the New Testament, showed more openly what had been signified somewhat more obscurely in earlier times, according to the distribution of the ages of the human race as it pleased the wise God to order it, with signs of wonderful divine works bearing witness, a few of which I have set down above. For not only did angelic visions appear and the words of heavenly ministers alone sound, but also, when men of God acted by the word of simple piety, unclean spirits were driven out of men's bodies and senses, bodily defects and diseases were healed, wild animals of land and water, birds of the sky, trees, elements, stars did the divine commands, the powers of the underworld gave way, the dead came to life again; not to mention the Savior's own singular miracles, above all those of his birth and resurrection, in one of which he showed only the mystery of a mother's virginity, but in the other also an example for those who will rise at the end. This way cleanses the whole man and prepares the mortal for immortality in all the parts of which he consists. For so that one purification should not be sought for the part that Porphyry calls intellectual, another for the part he calls spiritual, and another for the body itself, the most truthful and most powerful Cleanser and Savior took on the whole man. Apart from this way, which has never been lacking to the human race, sometimes when these things are foretold as future, sometimes when they are announced as done, no one has been set free, no one is set free, no one will be set free. As for Porphyry's saying that the universal way of the soul's liberation has not yet been brought to his knowledge by historical inquiry: what history can be found more illustrious than this, which has taken hold of the whole world with such a height of authority, or more trustworthy, in which past things are so narrated that future things are also foretold, many of which we see fulfilled, so that from these we may hope without doubt that the rest will be fulfilled? For Porphyry, or any Platonists, cannot despise in this way, as mere divination and prediction of earthly things belonging to this mortal life, what they rightly despise in other prophecies and divinations of whatever mode or art. For they deny that these are the concern of great men or to be held of great account, and rightly. For they come either from foreseeing lower causes, as by the art of medicine many future states of health are foreseen by certain preceding signs; or unclean demons foretell deeds they have themselves arranged, claiming for themselves a kind of right both over the minds and desires of the wicked, to lead them to fitting deeds, and over the lowest matter of human frailty. Holy men walking in this universal way of the liberation of souls did not care to prophesy such things as though they were great, though these things did not escape them and were often foretold by them to win faith for those things which could not be conveyed to the senses of mortals or brought quickly and easily to the test. But there were other things, truly great and divine, which, knowing the will of God as far as was given them, they announced as future. For Christ to come in the flesh, and the things so gloriously accomplished in him and fulfilled in his name: the repentance of men and the conversion of their wills to God, the forgiveness of sins, the grace of righteousness, the faith of the pious and the multitude of believers in the true divinity throughout the world, the overthrow of the worship of idols and demons and the testing by temptations, the purification of those who make progress and their liberation from all evil, the day of judgment, the resurrection of the dead, the eternal damnation of the fellowship of the impious, and the eternal kingdom of the most glorious city of God, enjoying immortally the sight of him: these were foretold and promised in the Scriptures of this way; and we see so many of them fulfilled that with right piety we trust the rest will come. Whoever does not believe, and therefore does not understand, the straightness of this way, leading to the vision of God and to cleaving to him forever, in the truth of the holy Scriptures by which it is proclaimed and asserted, can attack it but cannot overthrow it. Therefore in these ten books, though less than some expected of us, we have satisfied the zeal of certain people, as far as the true God and Lord has deigned to help, by refuting the objections of the impious who prefer their own gods to the founder of the holy city of which we undertook to treat. Of these ten books, the first five were written against those who think the gods should be worshipped for the goods of this life; the last five against those who think the worship of the gods should be kept for the sake of the life that is to come after death. Next, then, as we promised in the first book, I will set out, as far as I am helped by God, what I think should be said about the origin, progress, and due ends of the two cities, which we have said are in this world entangled and mixed with each other.