City of God 19.7–19.14

Chapter 7. On the diversity of languages, by which the society of men is divided, and on the misery of wars, even those called just.

After the city or town comes the world, in which they place the third level of human society, beginning with the household and proceeding from there to the city and then to the world; which, like a gathering of waters, the greater it is, the fuller it is of dangers. In it, first, the diversity of languages estranges man from man. For if two men meet each other and are compelled by some necessity not to pass by but to stay together, neither of whom knows the other's language, dumb animals, even of different kinds, associate with each other more easily than they, though both are men. For when they cannot communicate to each other what they feel, merely because of the diversity of language, so great a likeness of nature is of no use for bringing men into fellowship; so that a man would more gladly be with his dog than with a foreign man. But, it is said, pains have been taken that the imperial city should impose on the subdued nations, through the peace of society, not only its yoke but also its language, so that there should be no lack, indeed an abundance, of interpreters. True; but by how many and how great wars, by what slaughter of men, by what shedding of human blood has this been obtained? And when these were over, the misery of those same evils has not ended. For though there have not been lacking, nor are lacking, foreign nations as enemies, against whom wars have always been waged and are waged, yet the very breadth of the empire has given birth to wars of a worse kind, namely social and civil wars, by which the human race is shaken more wretchedly, whether when war is waged so that they may at some time cease, or when it is feared that they may rise again. If I wished to speak as is fitting of the many and manifold disasters, the hard and dire necessities of these evils, though I could by no means do so as the matter requires, what limit would there be to a long discussion?

But the wise man, they say, will wage just wars. As if, if he remembers that he is a man, he will not rather grieve much more that the necessity of just wars has arisen for him; because unless they were just, he would not have to wage them, and so for the wise man there would be no wars. For it is the injustice of the opposing side that imposes just wars on the wise man to be waged; and this injustice is certainly to be grieved over by a man, because it is men's, even if no necessity of making war arose from it. Whoever, then, considers with grief these evils so great, so horrible, so savage, let him confess misery; but whoever either suffers or thinks of them without grief of mind thinks himself happy much more wretchedly, because he has lost even human feeling.

Chapter 8. That the friendship of good men cannot be free from care, since we must tremble at the dangers that are in this life.

But if there does not befall us a certain ignorance like madness, which nevertheless often befalls us in the wretched condition of this life, so that one is believed to be a friend who is an enemy, or an enemy who is a friend, what consoles us in this human society, so full of errors and hardships, except the unfeigned faith and mutual love of true and good friends? The more of these we have, and in the more places, the farther and more widely we fear lest some evil befall them out of the vast heaps of the evils of this world. For we are anxious not only lest they be afflicted by famine, by wars, by diseases, by captivity, lest in that same slavery they suffer such things as we cannot even imagine; but also, where the fear is much more bitter, lest they be changed into faithlessness, malice, and wickedness. And when these things happen (the more of them, of course, the more friends there are) and are brought to our knowledge, who, except one who feels such things, can perceive with what scourges our heart is burned? We would rather hear that they were dead, though we cannot hear even this without grief. For how can it be that the death of those whose life delighted us with the comforts of friendship should bring us no sadness? Let him who forbids this forbid, if he can, friendly conversation; let him prohibit or cut off friendly affection; let him break with the unfeeling numbness of his mind the bonds of all human ties, or think that they should be so used that no sweetness from them flows over the mind. But if this can in no way be done, how is it to come about that the death of one whose life is sweet should not be bitter to us? Hence comes mourning, a kind of wound or sore of a heart that is not inhuman, for the healing of which dutiful consolations are applied. For it is not that there is nothing to be healed because, the better the mind is, the more quickly and easily it is healed in it. Since, then, the life of mortals is afflicted, now more gently, now more harshly, even by the deaths of those dearest to us, especially those whose services are necessary to human society, yet we would rather hear or see that those whom we love were dead than that they had fallen from faith or good morals, that is, were dead in the soul itself. With this vast material of evils the earth is full; on account of which it is written: “Is not human life on earth a temptation?” and on account of which the Lord himself says: “Woe to the world because of offences,” and again: “Because iniquity has abounded, the love of many will grow cold.” From this it comes about that we rejoice when good friends die, and, though their death saddens us, it consoles us more surely, since they have escaped the evils by which in this life even good men are either crushed or corrupted or endangered in both ways.

Chapter 9. On the friendship of the holy angels, which cannot be manifest to man in this world because of the deceit of the demons, into whose hands those fell who thought that many gods should be worshipped.

In the society of the holy angels, which those philosophers who would have the gods to be our friends placed in the fourth place, coming, as it were, from the world of lands to the universe, so as in a way to embrace heaven too, we have indeed no fear at all that such friends will sadden us by their death or corruption. But because they do not mingle with us with the familiarity that men do (which itself too belongs to the hardships of this life), and Satan sometimes, as we read, transforms himself as it were into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is needful to instruct in this way or just to deceive, great mercy of God is necessary, lest anyone, when he thinks he has good angels as friends, should have evil demons as feigned friends, and suffer them as enemies, the more harmful the more cunning and deceitful they are. And to whom is this great mercy of God necessary except to great human misery, which is pressed by so great an ignorance that it is easily deceived by their pretence? And it is most certain that those philosophers in the ungodly city who said that the gods were their friends fell into the hands of malignant demons, to whom that whole city is subject, and with whom it will have eternal punishment. For by their rites, or rather sacrileges, by which they thought they should be worshipped, and by the most unclean games in which their crimes are celebrated, by which they thought they should be appeased, those very beings being the authors and exactors of such great disgraces, it is made plain enough by them who they are that are worshipped.

Chapter 10. What fruit is produced for the saints by overcoming the temptation of this life.

But neither are the saints and faithful worshippers of the one true and supreme God secure from their deceits and many-formed temptation. For in this place of weakness and in these evil days even this anxiety is not useless, so that that security, where peace is most full and most certain, may be sought with more fervent desire. For there the gifts of nature, that is, those given to our nature by the creator of all natures, will be not only good but also everlasting, not only in the soul, which is healed through wisdom, but also in the body, which will be renewed by resurrection; there the virtues will not be fighting against any vices or evils whatever, but will have as the prize of victory eternal peace, which no adversary will disturb. For this is the final happiness, this the end of perfection, which has no consuming end. Here, indeed, we are called happy when we have peace, however little of it can be had here in a good life; but this happiness, compared with that which we call final, is found to be altogether misery. When, then, we mortal men, amid mortal things, have this peace, such as it can be here, if we live rightly, virtue uses its goods rightly; and when we do not have it, virtue uses well even the evils that man suffers. But virtue is true virtue when it refers all the goods it uses well, and whatever it does in the good use of goods and evils, and itself too, to that end where we shall have a peace so great and of such a kind that there can be none better or greater.

Chapter 11. On the happiness of eternal peace, in which the saints have their end, that is, true perfection.

Therefore we could say that the ends of our goods are peace, as we have said eternal life, especially since to the very city of God, of which this most laborious discussion of ours treats, it is said in a holy psalm: “Praise the Lord, Jerusalem; praise your God, Zion; for he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your sons within you, who has made your borders peace.” For when the bars of its gates have been strengthened, no one will enter it any more nor anyone go out from it. And so by its borders we ought to understand here that peace which we wish to show to be final. For the mystical name of that city too, that is, Jerusalem, as we have said before, is interpreted “vision of peace.” But since the name of peace is also often used in these mortal things, where certainly there is no eternal life, we have for that reason preferred to name the end of this city, where its supreme good will be, as eternal life rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says: “But now, set free from sin and made servants of God, you have your fruit in sanctification, and the end eternal life.” But again, because eternal life can be taken by those who have no familiarity with the holy Scriptures as also the life of the wicked, either, according to some philosophers, because of the immortality of the soul, or, according to our faith too, because of the endless punishments of the ungodly, who certainly will not be able to be tormented for ever unless they also live for ever: surely the end of this city, in which it will have its supreme good, should be called either peace in eternal life or eternal life in peace, so that it may be more easily understood by all. For so great is the good of peace that even in earthly and mortal things nothing is usually heard with more pleasure, nothing desired with more longing, nothing, finally, can be found better. If we wish to speak of it somewhat longer, we shall not, I think, be burdensome to readers, both because of the end of this city of which we are speaking and because of the very sweetness of peace, which is dear to all.

Chapter 12. That even the fierceness of those who wage war and all the disquiets of men desire to reach the end of peace, without the desire of which no nature exists.

For whoever looks in any way at human affairs and our common nature recognizes with me that, as there is no one who does not wish to rejoice, so there is no one who does not wish to have peace. Since even those who want wars want nothing else than to conquer; by warring, then, they desire to reach a glorious peace. For what else is victory but the subjection of those who resist? When this has been done, there will be peace. Wars too, then, are waged with the intention of peace, even by those who are eager to exercise military valour by commanding and fighting. Hence it is clear that peace is the desired end of war. For every man seeks peace even by making war; but no one seeks war by making peace. For even those who wish the peace in which they are to be disturbed do not hate peace, but desire it to be changed at their will. They do not, then, want there to be no peace, but that there should be the peace they want. Finally, even if they have separated themselves from others by sedition, they do not achieve what they intend unless they keep some appearance of peace with their very fellow conspirators or sworn confederates. Accordingly robbers themselves, so that they may be more violently and safely hostile to the peace of others, wish to have peace with their companions. But even if one man is so outstanding in strength, and so wary of accomplices, that he entrusts himself to no companion, and, lying in wait alone and prevailing, drives off plunder, having overpowered and killed those he could, he certainly keeps some shadow of peace with those whom he cannot kill and from whom he wishes to hide what he does. In his own home, with his wife and children and any others he has there, he surely strives to be at peace; he is without doubt delighted when they obey at his nod. For if this does not happen, he is indignant, rebukes, punishes, and establishes the peace of his house, if necessary even by cruelty; for he feels that it cannot exist unless the other members of that domestic society are subject to a certain head, which he himself is in his own house. And so, if the service of more people were offered him, of a city or a nation, so that they would serve him as he wished to be served in his own house, he would no longer hide himself as a robber in hiding places, but would raise himself up as a conspicuous king, though the same greed and malice remained in him. All, then, desire to have peace with their own, whom they wish to live according to their will. For even those with whom they wage war they wish to make their own, if they can, and to impose on them, when subjected, the laws of their own peace.

But let us suppose someone such as poetic and fabulous narrative sings of, whom perhaps, because of his unsociable savagery itself, they preferred to call half-man rather than man. Though his kingdom was the solitude of a dreadful cave, and his malice so singular that his name was found from it (for in Greek “bad” is kakos, which he was called); though no wife exchanged caressing words with him, he neither played with little children nor ruled over older ones, enjoyed the conversation of no friend, not even of his father Vulcan, than whom he was at least in this not a little happier, that he himself begot no such monster; though he gave nothing to anyone, but took what he wished from whom he could, and when he could, and as he wished; yet in that solitary cave of his, whose floor, as it is described, was always warm with fresh slaughter, he wanted nothing else than peace, in which no one should molest him nor the violence or terror of anyone disturb his quiet. Finally, he desired to have peace with his own body, and the more he had, the better it was for him. For he commanded obedient members; and in order to pacify with all possible haste his mortality, which rebelled against him through want and stirred up the sedition of hunger to sever and drive the soul out of the body, he seized, killed, devoured; and though monstrous and savage, he yet provided monstrously and savagely for the peace of his own life and safety. And so, if he had been willing to have with others too the peace he was so busy to have in his cave and in himself, he would be called neither bad, nor a monster, nor a half-man. Or if the form of his body and his vomiting of black fires frightened the society of men away from him, perhaps he raged not from a desire to harm but from the necessity of living. But let him not have existed, or, as is more to be believed, not have been such as he is described by poetic vanity; for unless Cacus were accused too much, Hercules would be praised too little. Such a man, then, or half-man, is better believed, as I said, not to have existed, like many fictions of the poets. For the most savage wild beasts themselves, from which he had a share of savagery (for he was also called half-beast), guard their own kind by a certain peace, by mating, begetting, bearing, cherishing and rearing their young, though most of them are unsociable and solitary; not, that is, like deer, doves, starlings, bees, but like lions, foxes, eagles, owls. For what tigress does not purr gently over her cubs and caress them, her ferocity calmed? What kite, however solitary as it circles for prey, does not take a mate, build a nest, hatch eggs, rear its young, and preserve with its mate, the mother of the family as it were, a domestic society with as much peace as it can? How much more is man drawn in a way by the laws of his nature to enter into society and to obtain peace with all men, as far as lies in him, since even the wicked make war for the peace of their own and wish, if they can, to make all men their own, so that all men and all things may serve one; and how, unless they agree to his peace either by loving or by fearing?

For so pride perversely imitates God. For it hates equality with its fellows under him, but wishes to impose its own dominion on its fellows in place of him. It hates, then, the just peace of God and loves its own unjust peace. Yet it cannot in any way not love peace of some kind. For no one's vice is so contrary to nature as to destroy even the last traces of nature. So the man who knows how to prefer the right to the wrong and the ordered to the perverse sees that the peace of the wicked, in comparison with the peace of the just, is not even to be called peace. But even what is perverse must of necessity be at peace in some part, from some part, and with some part of the things in which it exists or of which it consists; otherwise it would not exist at all. For example, if someone hangs head downwards, the position of the body and the order of the members is certainly perverse, because what nature requires to be above is below, and what it wishes to be below has been made above; this perversity has disturbed the peace of the flesh and is therefore painful; but the soul is at peace with its body and busies itself for its safety, and therefore there is one who feels pain; and if it departs, driven out by its pains, as long as the framework of the members remains, what remains is not without a certain peace of the parts, and therefore there is still something that hangs. And that the earthly body strains towards the earth and strains against the bond by which it is suspended shows that it tends towards the order of its own peace, and in a way asks by the voice of its weight for a place where it may rest; and now lifeless and without any sense, it does not depart from the natural peace of its order, whether when it holds it or when it is borne towards it. For if medicines and care are applied which do not allow the form of the corpse to be dissolved and to fall apart, a certain peace still joins parts to parts and applies the whole mass to an earthly and fitting, and therefore peaceful, place. But if no care is applied for embalming it, but it is left to the natural course, it is in a tumult, as it were, with discordant exhalations that are unpleasant to our sense (for that is what is perceived in the stench), until it accords with the elements of the world and departs, little by little and particle by particle, into their peace. Yet nothing in any way is withdrawn from the laws of that supreme creator and orderer by whom the peace of the universe is administered; for even if tiny animals are born from the corpse of a larger animal, by the same law of the creator each little body serves its little soul in the peace of its well-being; and even if the flesh of the dead is devoured by other animals, it finds the same laws spread through all things for the preservation of each kind of mortal thing, pacifying fitting things with fitting, wherever it is dragged, and to whatever things it is joined, and into whatever things it is converted and changed.

Chapter 13. On the universal peace, of which, amid whatever disturbances, nothing can be deprived by the law of nature, since under the just Judge each one comes by ordinance to what he has deserved by his will.

The peace of the body, then, is the ordered proportion of its parts; the peace of the irrational soul, the ordered repose of its appetites; the peace of the rational soul, the ordered agreement of knowledge and action; the peace of body and soul, the ordered life and health of the living being; the peace of mortal man and God, ordered obedience in faith under the eternal law; the peace of men, ordered concord; the peace of a household, the ordered concord of those who live together in commanding and obeying; the peace of a city, the ordered concord of citizens in commanding and obeying; the peace of the heavenly city, the most ordered and most harmonious fellowship of enjoying God and one another in God; the peace of all things, the tranquillity of order. Order is the arrangement of things equal and unequal that assigns to each its own place.

Accordingly the wretched, since, in so far as they are wretched, they are certainly not in peace, lack indeed the tranquillity of order, in which there is no disturbance; yet because they are deservedly and justly wretched, even in their very wretchedness they cannot be outside order; not joined, indeed, to the happy, but separated from them by the law of order. When they are without disturbance, they are fitted to the things in which they are with some measure of harmony; and therefore there is in them some tranquillity of order, and so some peace. But they are wretched because, even if in some security they do not suffer, yet they are not there where they ought to be secure and free from suffering; and more wretched if they have no peace with the very law by which the natural order is administered. But when they suffer, in the part in which they suffer a disturbance of peace has taken place; but in that part there is still peace in which neither does pain burn nor is the framework itself dissolved. As, then, there is a life without pain, but pain cannot exist without some life, so there is a peace without any war, but war cannot exist without some peace; not in so far as it is war, but in so far as it is waged by or in those who are some natures; which would in no way exist if they did not subsist by some peace or other.

Therefore 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. Accordingly not even the nature of the devil himself, in so far as it is a nature, is evil; but perversity makes it evil. So he did not stand in the truth, but did not escape the judgment of the truth; he did not remain in the tranquillity of order, but did not therefore flee from the power of the orderer. The good of God, which is in him in his nature, does not withdraw him from the justice of God by which he is ordered in punishment; nor does God there pursue the good which he created, but the evil which he committed. For he does not take away all that he gave to the nature, but takes away something and leaves something, so that there may be one to feel pain at what he has taken away. And the pain itself is a testimony to the good taken away and to the good left. For unless good were left, it could not feel pain at the good lost. For he who sins is the worse if he rejoices in the loss of equity; but he who is tormented, if he gains no good from it, feels pain at the loss of well-being. And since equity and well-being are both goods, and the loss of a good is to be grieved over rather than rejoiced in (unless there is compensation by something better; and equity of mind is better than health of body), surely it is more fitting for the unjust man to feel pain in punishment than it was for him to rejoice in his offence. As, then, joy at a good abandoned in sin is a witness to an evil will, so pain at a good lost in punishment is a witness to a good nature. For he who feels pain at the lost peace of his nature feels it from some remnants of peace, by which it comes about that his nature is friendly to itself. And this rightly happens in the final punishment, that the wicked and ungodly bewail in their torments the loss of natural goods, feeling that the one who takes them away is the most just God, whom they despised as the most kind giver.

God, then, the most wise founder and most just orderer of all natures, who set the mortal human race as the greatest ornament of earthly things, has given men certain goods suited to this life, that is, temporal peace according to the measure of mortal life, in health and safety and the fellowship of their own kind, and whatever things are necessary either to guard or to recover this peace (such as those things that are aptly and fittingly at hand for the senses, light, sound, breathable air, drinkable water, and whatever is fit for feeding, covering, curing, and adorning the body); on this most equitable condition, that the mortal who uses rightly such goods suited to the peace of mortals shall receive fuller and better goods, namely the very peace of immortality and the glory and honour suited to it in eternal life, for enjoying God and his neighbour in God; but he who uses them wrongly shall neither receive those and shall lose these.

Chapter 14. On the order and law, whether earthly or heavenly, by which even in ruling there is care for human society, which is also served by that care.

All use of temporal things, then, is referred in the earthly city to the enjoyment of earthly peace; but in the heavenly city it is referred to the enjoyment of eternal peace. Therefore, if we were irrational animals, we would seek nothing beyond the ordered proportion of the parts of the body and the repose of the appetites; nothing, then, beyond the quiet of the flesh and an abundance of pleasures, so that the peace of the body might benefit the peace of the soul. For if the peace of the body is lacking, the peace of the irrational soul too is hindered, because it cannot attain the repose of its appetites. And both together benefit that peace which soul and body have with each other, that is, the peace of ordered life and health. For as animals show that they love the peace of the body when they flee pain, and the peace of the soul when they pursue pleasure to satisfy the needs of their appetites, so by fleeing death they indicate clearly enough how much they love the peace by which soul and body are united to each other.

But because man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of the rational soul, so that he may contemplate something with his mind and act in accordance with it, so that there may be in him that ordered agreement of knowledge and action which we called the peace of the rational soul. For this he ought to wish neither to be troubled by pain, nor disturbed by desire, nor dissolved by death, so that he may come to know something useful and order his life and morals according to that knowledge. But lest in the very pursuit of knowledge, because of the weakness of the human mind, he fall into the plague of some error, he needs divine teaching, which he may obey with certainty, and divine help, so that he may obey freely. And since, as long as he is in this mortal body, he is away from the Lord, he walks by faith, not by sight; and so he refers all peace, whether of the body or of the soul or of both together, to that peace which mortal man has with the immortal God, so that there may be in him ordered obedience in faith under the eternal law.

Now since God, the teacher, teaches two chief commandments, that is, love of God and love of neighbour, in which man finds three things to love, God, himself, and his neighbour, and he who loves God does not err in loving himself, it follows that he should also care for his neighbour's loving God, since he is commanded to love him as himself (so for his wife, so for his children, so for his household, so for other men as far as he can), and should wish his neighbour to care for him in this, if perhaps he needs it; and so he will be at peace, as far as lies in him, with every man in the peace of men, that is, ordered concord, whose order is this: first, to harm no one, and next, to help whomever he can. First, then, he has the care of his own; for he has a more fitting and easier access to caring for them, whether by the order of nature or of human society itself. Hence the apostle says: “But whoever does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” From this, then, arises domestic peace too, that is, the ordered concord of those who live together in commanding and obeying. For those command who care for others, as the husband the wife, parents the children, masters the slaves; and those obey who are cared for, as wives their husbands, children their parents, slaves their masters. But in the house of the just man who lives by faith and is still a pilgrim away from that heavenly city, even those who command serve those whom they seem to command. For they command not from the desire to rule but from the duty of caring for others, not from the pride of lordship but from the mercy of providing.