“The texts here assembled are ‘classics’—not in the sense that they answer all legitimate questions about Christianity, but that, when they were written, they made their readers think hard about the faith, and that they continue to do so today. This is a most worthy collection.”

Mark A. Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History,

University of Notre Dame

“This reader on the classical traditions of Christian apologetics is, to my knowledge, unmatched in basic compendia. It will equip and encourage thoughtful Christians to develop equally compelling defenses of the faith in our post-Enlightenment, postRomantic, post-Postmodern era where global interdependencies plunge many into new varieties of suspicion, contempt, and hostility that demand reasonable and faith-filled encounter, dialogue, and debate.”

Max L. Stackhouse, De Vries Professor of Theology and Public Life Emeritus,

Princeton Theological Seminary

“In an age of historical amnesia such as ours is, nothing could be more helpful than to know how the church, in its long march through time, has addressed the opponents of Christian faith. This collection is superbly done and will bring much needed wisdom to our own times.”

David F. Wells, Distinguished Research Professor,

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“Bill Edgar, one of evangelicalism’s most valued scholars and apologists, has given us in this work with Scott Oliphint a classic destined to be used for generations. I highly recommend it to all who are called to defend the faith.”

Chuck Colson, Founder, Prison Fellowship

“For years I have wanted a book of primary sources in apologetics to use in my classes. Now we have an excellent one in this volume. Editors Edgar and Oliphint have made good choices in the selections used. A number of them are fascinating pieces rarely considered today, but timely, such as Raymond Lull’s critique of Islam.”

John Frame, Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy,

Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando

“Understanding apologetics as explicating, affirming, and vindicating Christianity in the face of uncertainty and skepticism, Edgar and Oliphint have skillfully selected the best pre-Reformation sources to introduce us to this ongoing task. Their volume, the first of two, fills a gap in scholarly resources and highlights the strength, wisdom, and solidity of defenders of the faith in earlier times.”

J. I. Packer, Board of Governors Professor of Theology, Regent College

CHRISTIAN

APOLOGETICS

PAST AND PRESENT

Christian Apologetics Past and Present: A Primary Source Reader (Volume 1, To 1500) Copyright © 2009 by William Edgar and K. Scott Oliphint

Published by Crossway Books

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

John Chrysostom, “A Demonstration against the Pagans that Christ Is God” (in chapter 9) is taken from Saint John Chrysostom: Apologist, by Margaret A. Schatkin, translated by Paul W. Harkins, vol. 73 of The Fathers of the Church. Catholic University of America Press. Copyright © 1985. Used with permission: The Catholic University of America Press. Washington DC.

“The Confessions of St. Augustine” (in chapter 10) is taken from books I, VI, and VIII of The Confessions of St. Augustine, by St. Augustine, Confessions, translated by Rex Warner, copyright © 1963 by Rex Warner, renewed © 1991 by F. C. Warner. Used by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Peter Abelard, “Ethics” and “Dialogue 2: Between the Philosopher and the Christian” (in chapter 12) is taken from Peter Abelard, Ethical Writings, translated by Paul Vincent Spade. Copyright © 1995, Hackett Publishing. Used with permission.

Raymond Lull, “The Book of the Gentile and Three Wise Men” (in chapter 15) is taken from Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader, edited and translated by Anthony Bonner, copyright © 1993, Princeton University Press. Used with permission.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

Cover illustrations: Bridgeman Art Library

Interior design and typesetting: Lakeside Design Plus

First printing 2009

The volume editors’ Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Hardcover ISBN:      978-1-58134-906-1

PDF ISBN:              978-1-4335-1237-7

Mobipocket ISBN:    978-1-4335-1238-4

ePub ISBN:             978-1-4335-1994-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Christian apologetics past and present : a primary source reader / William Edgar and K. Scott Oliphint, eds.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58134-906-1 (hc)

1. Apologetics—History—Sources. I. Edgar, William, 1944– II. Oliphint, K. Scott, 1955– III. Title.

BT1109.C57 2009

239—dc22                                                                2008050655

TS           20    19    18    17    16    15    14    13    12    11    10    09

14    13   12     11    10     9     8        7     6      5     4      3      2     1

To our students

at Westminster Theological Seminary,

who helped make these pages

what they are

Contents

Introduction to the Two-Volume Work

Part 1. The Early Church: The Struggle for Vindication

Part 1 Introduction

1. Biblical Texts

2. Aristides

3. Justin Martyr

4. Athenagoras

5. Irenaeus

6.Tertullian

7. Origen

8. Athanasius

9. John Chrysostom

10. Augustine

Part 2. The Middle Ages: The Church Becomes Established

Part 2 Introduction

11. Boethius

12. Peter Abelard

13. Anselm

14.Thomas Aquinas

15. Raymond Lull

16. Girolamo Savonarola

Introduction

to the Two-Volume Work

In this two-volume work we present an anthology of texts in Christian apologetics from the early church down to the present. Apologetics is a historic discipline, a genre that goes back to the ancient world. In the Christian context the word apologetics means defending and commending the faith. The apostle Peter tells his readers always to be ready to make a defense to anyone who calls them to account for their hope (1 Peter 3:15). Such an account or argument will look different from one age to another, although the gospel message remains the same.

Why is a two-volume collection of texts in apologetics important for our time? Though historical assessment is sometimes done when a certain exhaustion sets in or when the vitality of a movement is gone, that is not the current state of apologetics. And while historical studies can be dry, purely empirical data—little more than a record of a past over and done with—we believe the present work is nothing of the kind.

Indeed, apologetics today is flourishing in many quarters, and we hope these volumes will serve as a guide to this burgeoning field. The twentieth century saw both significant development in apologetics and a measure of decline.

A few examples of renewed interest include the following: France witnessed a revival of interest in apologetics beginning in the nineteenth century. The remarkable Roman Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) developed what he called the “method of immanence,” by which he meant that if we listen to our very best personal insights, the question of God will be there. We may then follow up our inquiry and find that God has made abundant provision to answer our aspirations. A little later were Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) and Étienne Gilson (1884–1978), who contributed much to the revival of Thomistic apologetics.

From Great Britain came a number of unique apologists. G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) argued creatively for the faith, using, among other things, paradox to keep unbelievers off balance. It is because the Christian faith combines optimism and pessimism, crusades and peacemaking, poetry and prose that it is true, unlike atheism, which is mathematical and one-dimensional. C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) is arguably the most influential apologist of the twentieth century. In Miracles, Mere Christianity, and fantasy literature such as the Chronicles of Narnia, his clear, imaginative presentation of the basics of the Christian faith shows it to be not only true, but the only safeguard against The Abolition of Man. His influence continues to be felt today.

The list could go on. In America, we can think of J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937), Presbyterian defender of the faith against liberalism and so-called modernism.

At the same time, strangely enough, one can observe in the twentieth century a decline in the belief that apologetics serves any healthy purpose. The loss of zeal for the defense of the faith has a number of causes. The onslaught of the Enlightenment, followed by Romanticism, presented numerous challenges to the church. While human reason was celebrated by certain branches of the Enlightenment, serious doubts set in about whether humanity is capable of accomplishing anything without faith in something transcendent. Yet neither the newer use of reason nor the newer faith was quite the same as what the church had taught in previous centuries. Reason was now much more assertive than it had been, and faith much less rational.

This shift left the church with less common ground with the surrounding culture than previously, and thus with the conviction that it needed to take another look at the whole enterprise of theology. Many questions arose: How can Christians exercise the newly touted faculty of reason without betraying its dependence on the authority of revelation? How can faith appropriately deal with Enlightenment skepticism—for example, that of Voltaire—without denying the reality of evil, often the basis for disbelief? Is God really so well defined as in our theology books? Is Christianity the only true faith? The answers to these questions seemed elusive to many. Naturally Christian apologetics became much more problematic.

Besides such challenges in the realm of ideas, various social forces had the effect of making arguments for the faith implausible, that is, not so much false as incredible. Pluralization, the multiplication of people and cultures from different horizons in one place, as well as globalization, in which borders are increasingly porous, have made belief in one truth less likely, at least on the surface. In a day of greater awareness of other religions, the exclusivity or superiority of one creed simply sounds arrogant.

Another factor that puts doubts in our minds about the positive contributions faith can bring is the perceived connection between faith and violence. Many critics of religion point out that where there is religious certainty, there is often conflict. To many it would seem safer and more tolerant to leave faith out, or to make it so private as to allow it no palpable social effect.

Not surprisingly, several theological trends began to emerge out of these circumstances, trends that shied away from persuasive arguments for faith. One of these is fideism, the view that inquisitive reason is not needed for verification of belief and may even be counterproductive. Building on the heritage of Immanuel Kant, fideism (literally, “faith-ism”) seeks to spare faith any interaction with proofs or the use of evidences. Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930), famous for the declaration of 1917 supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was also a lay theologian who advocated faith based on authority, not argument. For him instinct, custom, and the like were the way to God, rather than abstract reasoning.

Much of the impetus for the recent decline in apologetics can be credited to Karl Barth (1886–1968), perhaps the most powerful theological voice in the twentieth century. Barth sensed that the liberal outlook of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) had done the faith a disservice by making it far too compatible with science and philosophy in order to appease its “cultured despisers.” Barth retorted that Christian faith is not a religion, wherein humans aspire upward in the search for God, but rather a revelation of the “wholly other” God in Christ. In his Church Dogmatics he states that the only effective apologetics has been the “unintended one,” which he describes as that which “took place when God himself sided with the witness of faith.”[1] We cannot go into all the nuances of Barth’s approach here. Suffice it to say that while his intention was to allow pride of place to divine sovereignty, the effect was to put into doubt any serious attempt to engage with unbelief by means of intellectual persuasion.

Other forces have contributed to the eclipse of apologetics in the twentieth century. Today as we move well into the twenty-first century, we see many signs of a renewed interest in this discipline. Not all of it works off of the same agenda, of course. Indeed, the picture is complex.

1. A number of initiatives in apologetics are connected to evangelism and missions. The recent best seller The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by New York–based pastor Timothy Keller, is a good example of the revival of popular apologetics. Keller not only tackles some of the perennial challenges to the gospel—exclusivity, freedom, evil, and so on—but he stresses the vitality of the Christian faith as a path toward meaning. He presents the cross of Christ as “a reversal of the world’s values.”[2]

2. One subject of concern, often in the Anglo-Saxon world, is the relation of Christian faith to science. John Polkinghorne, Thomas F. Torrance, Alister McGrath, John C. Collins, David Livingstone, Stanley Jaki, and many others have written extensively on the way the authentic findings of science may be compatible with Christian faith. Particularly in North America, critiques of macroevolution and arguments for “intelligent design” (ID) have produced a veritable cottage industry of materials. But other approaches put such arguments into question. There has appeared in our day a significant revival of appeals to natural law. Apologetics both Protestant and Roman Catholic has developed a view pleading for a recognition by the conscience of laws imbedded in nature that supersede positive laws created by society.

3. Philosophical apologetics has returned to a prominent place in many circles as well. Christian philosophers have recently risen to prominence in the academy. In contrast to previous generations in which positivism reigned—that is, the view that only hard facts empirically verified could be believed—today through the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff, Paul Helm, William Alston, Eleanor Stump, and others faith and philosophical reasoning are joined once again.

One of the most prominent philosophers in any circle is Alvin Plantinga (1931–). In his earlier works, such as The Nature of Necessity and God, Freedom, and Evil, he used a variant on Anselm’s ontological proof. More recently he has argued that belief in God is “properly basic,” without needing outside evidence. No analytical philosopher today, of whatever persuasion, can ignore his work.

Other Christian philosophers, coming from quite different points of view, have gained notoriety. For example, William Lane Craig (1949–) has revived the Kalam form of the cosmological proof (from Islamic dialectics). The argument says, (1) everything that has begun to exist must have a cause, (2) the universe began to exist, and (3) therefore the universe must have a cause. Richard Swinburne (1934–), a British Anglican turned Eastern Orthodox, defends the existence of God in a manner not unlike the scientific method. Using what he calls “arguments to a good explanation,” he explains how the facts point to God as a metaphysical necessity.

4. Somewhat different concerns are expressed by an amorphous group that focuses on worldview and presuppositions. In essence, this view holds that if we begin with a truly transcendental Origin, the God of the universe, then every part of life—from the intellect to politics to the arts to the family—holds together in an overarching understanding of the creation, the fall, and redemption. Though not uninterested in philosophical arguments, this group represents a more Continental type of sensibility than Anglo-Saxon. The modern origin of this view owes some debt to Immanuel Kant, although the more Christian appropriation of it was largely in the work of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). A link to apologetics was established by Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987), considered the founder of presuppositionalism as such.

Francis A. Schaeffer (1912–1984) should be credited with popularizing the significance of worldview for commending the gospel to an entire generation. Others have sought to extend worldview thinking to apologetics by engaging in cultural analysis and making use of disciplines beyond theology or philosophy, such as psychology, the sociology of knowledge, intellectual history, and the like. A pioneer of this wider awareness for apologetics is Os Guinness (1941–), whose prolific speaking and writing have challenged the present generation to recognize the way the social dimensions of various trends, such as secularization and postmodernism, all play major roles in belief.

Neither Kuyper nor some of his followers were enthusiastic about applying this worldview thinking to apologetics, at least in their interpretation of the discipline. [3] Today, even philosophers in the analytical approach of the Anglo-Saxon tradition are applying presuppositionalism to their work.

5. One important trend to note, because it has changed the way apologetics has operated, is a shift in opposition to Christian faith: from rationalist or even atheist to a religious opposition. Thus, the rise of Islam and other religious antagonists to Christianity has caught many Christians in the West off guard. While accustomed to debating humanists and rationalists—from the older radical atheists like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and JeanPaul Sartre, to the so-called new atheists, including pundits like Samuel Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens (whose titles include, The God Delusion and God Is Not Great)—now apologetics must address the claims of Muslims or Hindus or even New Age views, which are fairly different from the claims of atheists.

Interestingly, for example, Muslims consider Christianity too loose, whereas the typical atheist will think it too strict and, indeed, conducive to violence. Thus Christian apologists will need to understand how the spiritual commitments of others must be taken seriously without considering all such commitments to be out of the same cloth. In any case, world religions and other forms of “faith,” even the vague mix-and-match varieties of spirituality, are becoming far more prominent on the world stage than classical atheism.

6. For another example, apologetics is now wrestling with various forms of postmodernism. [4] Arguments against the postmodern condition are often thoughtful refutations of the sophisticated forms of relativism set forth by postmodernists. More common are various attempts to correlate postmodern spiritual aspirations with aspects of Christian theology. This latter approach owes considerable amounts to Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and his heirs.

For example, Jean-Luc Marion (1946–), the French Roman Catholic philosopher, has proposed God without Being, a defense of the existence of God, not as a kind of metaphysical necessity, but as a force of love. Reality for him is a veil or a screen. God manifests himself from beyond the screen through signs whereby we sense his presence.

On the Protestant side one could think of the post-secular theology known as Radical Orthodoxy. The movement began in Cambridge, England, and has spread to the United States and beyond. Its best-known advocate is John Milbank, but one must also think of David Bentley Hart, the Eastern Orthodox thinker, and James K. Smith, a Pentecostal theologian. Among the contributions by this group, there is the emphasis on theology as having direct influence on society (“public theology”). Divine beauty should have a strong impact on our times. The idea is to contribute both “Christian counter-history” and “counter-ontology” to the social space we live in, in order that it not be pagan or secular social space.[5]

We believe that in the midst of this revival of apologetics, few things could be more useful than an acquaintance with how Christian faith was defended down through the ages. While the intellectual and social milieus of past authors were different from ours, deep down most of the basic challenges to the faith have been the same. Access to both historical and contemporary texts gives us fresh insight into how our fathers in the faith responded to the questions facing them. We thus can learn from their strengths and weaknesses. Reading them can also better inform us about how to be “in the world but not of it.” The great apologists, in varying degrees and with various postures, found themselves using the language of the day without wanting to succumb to the basic systems behind that language.

We hope in the end that the discovery of so many approaches will nurture and enhance our confidence in commending the faith at a time when so much is in flux on our planet.

While we know of no comparable anthology, several histories of apologetics are available. Easily the finest to date is by Avery Cardinal Dulles, A History of Apologetics, a rich investigation of the foremost people and trends over two millennia. [6] It is a pleasure to read, rendering what could be a laundry list of names and books into lively history. While a strong Roman Catholic believer, he manages to include many, if not most, of the significant Protestant figures, though with some omissions. He chooses not to explore the rich literature interacting with heresies, presumably for lack of space, limiting his works to interaction with unbelief. The survey by L. Russ Bush, Classical Readings in Christian Apologetics, A.D. 100–1800, is helpful but quite limited in scope.[7] It presents the texts of historic figures, which is our approach here, but they are heavily edited. Encyclopedias too can be of use. The best in our opinion is the New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, which has numerous articles on individuals, as well as general surveys of apologetics history.[8]

In twenty-one centuries the church has produced an abundance of authors and texts. Our greatest challenge was to select them. To go about the task, we asked a number of questions. The first is historiographical. What are the major eras? Is there a reasonable periodization? Since generally one can identify commonalities among authors in given time frames, and often those correspond to acceptable groupings, we have chosen the eras according to their overarching characteristics.

The second question regarding the choice of readings is one of priorities, that is, which materials to select, and how extensively. Some choices are obvious. No anthology of apologetics would make sense without excerpts from Augustine’s City of God, Anselm’s Proslogion, Pascal’s Pensées, Schleiermacher’s On Religion, Van Til’s Defense of the Faith, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, and the like. More difficult is deciding which of the lesser-known authors to include. Our approach was to keep several elements in balance. Regarding the major divisions in the Christian church, we have chosen to feature generous representation from Protestantism and somewhat less from the Roman Catholic Church as it emerged after the sixteenth century. We feature considerably less from Orthodoxy, mostly because far less material exists. One reason for this is that Orthodoxy either conquered the countries it was in, or it was under persecution, with little opportunity for free expression.

Readers will notice a few gaps in some of the texts, particularly in cases where numbering is not consecutive. This is usually because of our limited space, although occasionally it reflects the version of the text we are using.

Our presentation is quite simple. We want the texts to speak for themselves. Thus, we provide an introduction to each major historical section. Then each chapter introduces its featured author, highlighting any significant fact bearing on the person and the text. Along with the readings themselves we provide a few footnotes for the sake of clarification when such is needed. We also offer diagnostic questions at the end of each text, to prompt reflection or discussion. These are only suggestive, and instructors may wish to provide their own.

The texts themselves are virtually untouched, including now-unconventional punctuation, though quotation marks have been Americanized, and the ligatures æ and oe are rendered ae and oe to match modern typography. Occasionally we have changed a word or two simply to harmonize spelling conventions. Where texts in the public domain use Elizabethan English, including thees and thous, we have kept the original. Headings in readings are modified in form for greater uniformity, but not in content. Material appearing inside brackets represents earlier editorial additions.

It is our hope that this anthology will provide inspiration for many readers. Whether it serves as a textbook, a reference book, or a guide for personal use, we trust it will encourage everyone in the knowledge that we are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1).

1. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2nd ed., trans. Geoffrey Bromiley and Thomas Torrance (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), 1/1:31.

2.Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2008), 197.

3.Thus, the “Amsterdam School,” which includes Herman Dooyeweerd, D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, and Hendrik G. Stoker, has focused on philosophical critique, historiography, and the like. The Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto has developed this approach in further detail in areas such as ethics, political science, and aesthetics. While there have been sympathies among apologists and philosophers, in general they have not worked closely together.

4. This is not the place to discuss the claims and counterclaims surrounding the question of the origins, the nature, and the propriety of this vast and nearly unmanageable concept. For those interested in exploring the issues in relation to apologetics, a good place to begin is Myron B. Penner, ed., Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: Six Views (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005).

5. John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 321.

6. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005.

7. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983.

8. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

PART ONE

The Early Church

The Struggle for Vindication

Part 1 Introduction

The Christian church emerged out of a Jewish background and from within the Roman Empire. Theologically, it drew much of its thought from the Old Testament, deepened and fulfilled in the New. Mostly, the church emerged as a people defined by the person and work of Jesus Christ. The foundation of the church was the work of his disciples. Jesus recast covenant life as the kingdom of God, the realm of God’s rule and righteousness. He and his followers ordered this kingdom into a truly global people, who would move out into all parts of the world, making disciples and drawing its inhabitants from all sorts and conditions of men into the one universal church (Matt. 28:16–20).

The Exile as Background to the Church and Its Apologetics

The immediate background for the rise of the church was the Jewish exile. The two book sets, Kings and Chronicles, describe the downfall of Israel after the last days of King David (ca. 970 BC) until the Babylonian exile some four centuries later. The northern kingdom, known as Israel, and the southern kingdom, known as Judah, had parallel though different histories. The northern kingdom, whose capital was Samaria, was invaded by the Assyrians, and its population deported in about 722 BC. The southern kingdom was conquered, Jerusalem sacked, and the Jews deported into Babylon around 586 BC. While the two kingdoms were reunited under Hezekiah (715–686), nevertheless living under foreign rule would be a permanent feature of Jewish life.

The Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and to parts of their former land in various episodes. Under Cyrus, the people came back to Judah from 559 to 530 BC. Darius allowed them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem in 516. Ezra was allowed by Artaxerxes I (645–424) to return with more exiles, while many remained in Babylon. Living successively under the Persians, the Greco-Macedonians, and the Romans, the Jews developed a way of dealing with their oppressors that would carry over into New Testament times. And, of course, this meant that apologetics was woven into the fabric of Christian consciousness.

In the Old Testament, apologetics was practiced in various forms. One of them was the prophetic reminder of God’s sovereignty over creation and his power in delivering the people from Egypt. Over and over, the prophets appealed to the exodus experience not only as proof of God’s power, but also as a reminder of their true identity (Isa. 10:26; Amos 2:10; Mic. 6:4, etc.). Much Old Testament apologetics centers on this argument from God’s power. A striking case in point is Jeremiah’s appeal to the Jews to compare God’s work among the nations to the potter’s handling his clay ( Jer. 18:1–11). Just as the potter is free to throw away any bad clay, so God will judge the nations by his sovereign judgment. At the same time, if the nation repents, then God will relent and spare them disaster (v. 8).

A separate Jewish religion developed in contradistinction to the Christian church, and a distinctive apologetic character grew out of this Judaism. While the Old Testament heritage was still present, important changes emerged among Jewish apologists. Hellenistic Jews in particular developed an argument for the superiority of the Mosaic revelation over against paganism and Greek wisdom, but it was more rationally based than the authoritative appeal to the exodus. Jewish apologetics presented three kinds of answers to Greek philosophers. Their answers are somewhat strange to our ears: (1) they argued that Plato actually depended on Moses; (2) they contended that Mosaic revelation was more ancient than the wisdom of the Greeks; and (3) they sometimes maintained that God revealed his wisdom to the Greeks as a special gift.[1] Some of these arguments would make their way into the earliest Christian apologists, as we will see.

Whereas many of the Jews living in the period, known as the Second Temple, were expecting a political messiah to come and overthrow the Roman rulers, what Jesus did was far more radical. He took an exiled people and formed them into the City of God, a community far more powerful and enduring than the Romans or any other rulers could muster. Within a short time, Gentiles became the principal members of this community and took the message worldwide.

The New Testament Writers as Apologists

The New Testament authors present quite a robust apologetics. The heart of the message of the New Testament is the reality of Christ’s coming to establish the kingdom of God. Accordingly, apologetics in the New Testament era functioned to persuade people of the truth and saving power of this kingdom. The four gospels are, each in its own way, filled with apologetic elements.

Matthew, probably written for converts from Judaism, contains critiques of the Jewish response to Jesus as well as affirmations of the right interpretation of the Old Testament. Mark was written to sum up the salient features of Jesus’ life and message in order to persuade his readers of God’s power in the gospel for all audiences. Thus he focuses on Christ’s ministry both in Gentile territory (Galilee) and in Jewish territory ( Judea and Jerusalem). Luke, together with the Acts, famously begins with his stated purpose: to write an orderly account of eyewitness reports about the good news, so that his readers (named here Theophilus) may “have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1–4). And John’s gospel goes even further, written to persuade his readers that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son, and that through him they may have life eternal ( John 20:31).

Similarly, the authors of the New Testament Epistles are driven by apologetic purposes. Paul boldly proclaims to the Romans: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16–17). Paul practiced the art of apologetics everywhere he went. Acts 17:16–34 records an extended speech given to a mixed group in the Athens marketplace. The discourse is both a refutation of idolatry and a commendation of God as Judge through Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews is an apologetic for Jesus Christ as God’s final revelation. The last book of the Bible, known as the Revelation, is a powerful apology for the sovereignty of God through Christ over all of the conflicts in history, and for the assurance of an outcome in which a new heaven and new earth would replace the fallen world as we know it.

The apologetics found in the New Testament served to convince and then to ground people in the faith. Much of it was developed in the face of opposition. Peter’s famous words in 1 Peter 3:15, which give us the directive to practice apologetics, are clearly pronounced in the context of hostility against believers. The book of Hebrews, the Revelation, and many other documents are a call to persevere in the face of persecution.

Some of the apologetics, too, was developed in order to correct variant teachings spread abroad in the church. Colossians was written to oppose certain Gnostic tendencies in the new church. Gnostics believed in an elitist knowledge of God and favored special spiritual disciplines, ones that freed them from the body or from the creation, rather than honoring the creation as good and the gospel as freely offered to all. Indeed, one of the constant themes defended in the New Testament is the goodness of creation. All foods are good because they come from the earth, which is the Lord’s (1 Cor. 10:25–26). Marriage is to be held in honor everywhere (Heb. 13:4). We belong to Jesus Christ, who is the Mediator of all creation, including powers and authorities (Col. 1:15–23). Thus, even governments are appointed by God, and so we must obey them as they carry out God’s will in the polis (Rom. 13:1–7).

Apologetic Challenges beyond the New Testament

When we move beyond the New Testament period, the church continues to encounter challenges within the complex world of the Roman Empire. The church in Palestine eventually dwindled, and with it much of the early Jewish church, so that the center of gravity moved to the Gentile church, which spread beyond Jerusalem into the heartland of the Roman Empire. On the whole, Christians represented every walk of life. They were farmers, soldiers, highborn, working people, slaves, fathers and mothers, children and adults. Three challenges presented themselves, requiring an apologetic response.

Persecution

First, there was persecution. As in the first century, there continued to be opposition from various quarters. Until the time of Emperor Constantine, Christianity was a religio illicita, an unlawful religion, and so always under threat. There were two major periods that included at times hard persecution and at other times extended periods of peace. The first general period spanned from Nero (ca. AD 64) to Decius (ca. AD 250). The second was from Decius until Constantine, who declared Christianity a religio licita in AD 313 in the West, and in 323 in the eastern part of the empire. In 392 under Theodosius I, Christianity was declared the official religion of the empire, and pagan religions were forbidden. Finally, the Roman Empire fell, which provoked a monumental crisis in the ancient world, one that would generally favor the presence of the Christian church.

Later, as we will see, the church gradually developed two great sections that had differing sensibilities and faced somewhat different challenges, one in the West (using the Latin language) and the other in the East (using Greek). A schism occurred in 1054 after a long and complex estrangement between the two.

The causes for persecution varied, but most often revolved around the refusal of Christians to participate fully in a social system centered in the emperor as a demigod. Although they fully honored the government, believers refused to participate in various ceremonies and games that were endemic to the system. For this they were considered not only atheists but treasonable, provoking the gods to wrath. Other accusations against them included cannibalism, since their central sacrament involved symbolically partaking of the body and blood of Christ, and incest because they met at night and greeted one another with a “holy kiss.”

The most important apologists from these early centuries fully engaged with these attacks. Justin Martyr (d. ca. 165) took the emperor to task for failing to pursue the accusations against Christians with the same integrity he was reputed to bring into other contexts. A similar approach was employed by Athenagoras (d. ca. 185), who centered his arguments on the resurrection of the dead, countering typical opponents who accused Christians of atheism, cannibalism, and licentiousness. A more basic accusation came from people seeking a scapegoat.

The fall of the Roman Empire was gradual, punctuated by dramatic moments. Theodosius I died in 395, the last time the Roman Empire would be politically united. In 410, Alaric and his Visigoth hordes sacked the city of Rome. At the time, many people blamed the disfavor of the gods, particularly their refusal to protect a city where Christians lived and worshiped a unique Creator, who refused to participate in the pantheon. Aurelius Augustine (354–430), the greatest theologian in the late Patristic period, answered in his massive City of God (AD 413–426) that pagan religion cannot sustain human welfare.

Heresy

The second occasion for apologetics was the problem of heresy. The world of the first centuries AD was concerned with redemption. State religion was cold. Philosophy was for the elite. Nature religions seemed unable to attract the increasingly civilized peoples. As a result, the more appealing mystery religions emerged. These were secret societies that practiced various pagan rites that offered communion with the gods. One of the most influential of the mystery religions was Mithraism, which the Roman armies especially favored.

In the second century, a powerful religious movement from the East, and with strong resemblance to Greek thinking, joined the mystery religions and became Gnosticism. These sects claimed to have “knowledge” (gnōsis) of the nature and destiny of mankind. It was a secret knowledge about redemption. A rather complicated mixture, Gnosticism had roots in at least three cultures: Jewish (which gave it a semblance of monotheism), Babylonian (from which it derived its preoccupation with astrology), and Iranian (providing in addition a dualistic superstructure to the whole).

Gnosticism was basically a religion claiming that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world. Release may come from knowledge, which brings direct contact with God. Gnosticism is syncretistic, mixing in elements from the gospel with a largely pagan philosophy. The details are often complex. It had many exponents, including the influential Valentinus (100–160). Interestingly, we know more about Gnosticism from Christian champions of the faith than from its original adherents, not only because the apologists’ documents have been preserved, but also because they were careful to describe it fairly. Irenaeus (120–202/3) was doubtless the most articulate and thorough of those who refuted Gnosticism.

Other heresies included Marcionism, which, like Gnosticism, was dualistic, but which attempted to drive a wedge between Paul’s interpretation of the gospel and the Jewish influences from the Old Testament. We will further explicate some of these heresies when we look at the appropriate apologists. Still another major struggle in the Patristic era was with the heresy of Manichaeism. Mani (ca. 210–276) was a scholar from the Persian Empire whose thinking was enormously influential in the third through the sixth centuries. Though complex, its core idea is dualism. There are two powers, good and evil, and although ultimately goodness will triumph, God is good but not all-powerful. The battleground for the conflict is the human being, whose soul tends toward the good, but whose body is evil.

Challenges from heterodoxy were not only significant for apologetics, but often the occasions for formulating the most significant Christian doctrines. For example, the legacy of the fourth century on the doctrine of the Trinity resulted from long discussion culminating in a settlement at Nicaea in 325, along with Constantinople in 381. One factor causing concern was the teachings of Arianism.

Arius (250/256–336) got into a dispute (ca. 318) with Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria, over the nature of Christ. Arius believed that before Jesus was begotten by the Father, he did not exist. Nor was he consubstantial or coeternal with the Father. Instead, he had a human body and a divine soul. In the long and involved series of debates that followed, several apologists distinguished themselves. Thus, the line between mainstream theology and apologetics is not a thick one.

For example, Eusebius of Caesarea (263–ca. 339) and Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 295–373) defended, in an apologetic vein, the full deity of Jesus Christ in the controversies leading up to Nicaea. Then, again, Augustine entered the picture. He wrote on many of the foundational doctrines, including creation, the church, faith and reason, the Trinity, free will, and good works. Himself a former Manichaean, he argued that this worldview did not take sin seriously enough, and it could not really help people in their ethical lives because it did not credit God with the grace and power of the gospel.

Unbelieving Jews

A third issue for early apologetics, one that would manifest itself off and on throughout the first few centuries, was the unbelief of the Jews. The subject is delicate, particularly for us today, on this side of the Holocaust. The charge of anti-Semitism means different things to different people. While there was often forceful pleading with Jews who would not accept the gospel of Christ, some of it expressing frustration, yet there is a world of difference between the early church’s posture toward unbelieving Jews and the systematic and racist kind of anti-Semitism of ideologues inspired in part by the theories of Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882), who, himself not particularly anti-Semitic, nevertheless set forth the influential idea, later taken up by the Nazis, that racial admixture would stymie cultural development. So, for example, many have thought John Chrysostom (ca. 347–407) to be anti-Semitic, particularly because of his series of eight sermons titled Homilies against the Jews. We will look more closely into Chrysostom’s case later in this volume, and we will discover that things are not so simple.

Jewish opposition to Christian faith in the Patristic period was both political and theological. Politically, having won a degree of privilege under Roman rule, the Jews were anxious not to lose their status. Despite a number of conflicts, including the Roman-Jewish wars in Judea (66–73 and 132–135), by the second part of the first century the Jewish presence in the Roman Empire was fairly well established. The number of Jews in the city of Rome exceeded ten thousand. As the Christian religion became more and more prominent and appeared to the outsider to have much in common with Judaism, there was guilt by association. By the fourth century, despite official toleration, the status of the Jews degenerated and would know many ups and downs thereafter.

Theologically, Jews reacted against the claims of Christians for the divinity of Christ. They were also anxious not to abrogate the Mosaic law, particularly the ceremonial law, in the way Christians appeared to be doing. From the second century BC onward, a synthesis had been achieved between Jewish thought and Hellenistic philosophy. Thus, Philo of Alexandria (20 BC–AD 50) used elements from the Stoics and combined them with both Plato and Aristotle, all to the service of defending Judaism. The insights of the Greeks into doctrines such as the sovereignty of God, the power of his revelation through the logos, the divisions of the soul, and the triple dynamic of reason, courage, and desire were taken to be so many indications that Mosaic religion, which had said these things better and earlier, was true and original.

Christian apologetics to the Jews would thus respond to both of these aspects, the political and the theological, and not always separately, but in the same text. Thus Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (ca. 160) recounts his own conversion by reading the Old Testament in the light of the New, and argues that Christ is the true meaning of the Mosaic law. He also accuses the Jews of spreading calumnies against Christians throughout the empire. Christians did argue, some vigorously, and others more generously, as was the case of Augustine, against Jewish unbelief. But they also borrowed from Jewish apologetics in their opposition to pagan religion. Thus, one can find similar arguments against polytheism or idolatry as were set forth by Jewish thinkers, who themselves absorbed elements from Greek philosophy, as we have seen.

On the whole in this first period, the Patristic era, the apologists were clearly moving into new territory. Many of them new converts, they exhibited in their writings a strong degree of enthusiasm and courage. Their strengths include assaults against Gnosticism and pagan religions, their ability to marshal various parts of Greek philosophy for their arguments, and a growing understanding that the Bible centers on the reality of Jesus Christ. Under persecution many apologists defended not only the truth of the Christian faith, but the fidelity of believers to their earthly authorities. Somewhat less use was made of miracles than would be evident in later periods.

During this early period a number of basic approaches to apologetics were developed that became models for later apologists, even up to the present. For example, Justin Martyr’s argument that Christians must be guided by a “rule of faith,” which is something like the Christian story of creation, fall, and redemption, is reflected in many of his successors. His suggestion that the logos of John 1:1 was in some way active in Greek philosophy became a precedent for the integration of Greek thought into Christian apologetics. Another example is Tertullian, whose sharper distinction between Jerusalem and Athens worked its way into subsequent apologists who argued for the contrast between the heavenly and the earthly cities. The culmination point of all of these approaches to apologetics was, again, Augustine. Perhaps more than any other, he argued that the church is the great repository of God’s actions. Famously, he upheld the church as a place where God was truly at work, whether or not every member was exemplary.[2]

Courageous, erudite, and also deeply spiritual, the apologetics of the Fathers continue to inspire their successors down to the present day. As Augustine surmised, the church would go on to make great strides during the ensuing centuries, despite serious flaws and setbacks.

1. See Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), 1:38–63.

2. See, Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, chap. 75.

CHAPTER 1

Biblical Texts

The following New Testament texts represent a sampling of apostolic teaching concerning the defense of Christian faith. Jesus told his disciples that he would prepare them for their ministry after his resurrection (Mark 14:28). He would commission them to take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). When it became abundantly clear that Jesus was risen from the dead, the disciples were transformed from a demoralized group to a band of zealous missionaries who would indeed bring the good news to the whole world.

At first they were constituted in Jerusalem. They became the ecclēsia, the church. On the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured down in “tongues as of fire,” it became clear that a new age was being inaugurated, the age of the Spirit, the final installation of the kingdom of God (Acts 2:33; 1 Cor. 10:11).

From the beginning there were troubles for the church. There was opposition from without. The Sadducee party fiercely opposed the new church. They denied its view of the resurrection (Acts 4:2), and they worried about its gatherings in traditionally Jewish institutions, such as the Portico of Solomon (Acts 3:11; 5:12), and the threat it represented to the Jewish establishment. There was regular opposition to the public speeches of the apostles, at times leading to their arrest (Acts 5:18). Among the Hellenistic Jews was Stephen, a follower of Christ, a member of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, and a strong critic of the corruption of the temple. Indicted by the supreme court, he was charged with blasphemy for proclaiming that Jesus abolished the Mosaic ceremonial laws (Acts 6:14). After an eloquent speech, Stephen was stoned to death, becoming the first Christian martyr (Acts 7). As the church spread beyond the walls of Jerusalem, it would continue to experience opposition. Accordingly, many of the apologetic writings in the New Testament are meant to equip Christians to respond to persecution in a gracious and courageous manner.

There was also conflict within. The churches were constantly tempted by heresies such as Gnosticism, mentioned earlier. They were susceptible to pride, as in the Corinthian church. They were tempted by legalism, often expressed by an unnecessary attachment to the Jewish ceremonial laws, which Christ had abrogated. This was the case in Galatia and Colossae.

Nevertheless the gospel message spread and reached both Jews and Gentiles. In his report to the Jerusalem Council, Peter justifies the true reception of the Gentiles by recounting the coming of the Holy Spirit to those who heard his grace-based message (Acts 15:7–11). The first large-scale conversion of the Gentiles occurred at Antioch under the preaching of certain “men of Cyprus and Cyrene” who had fled from Jerusalem after Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 11:20). Significant also is that it was in Antioch that the name Christians (Christianoi: Christ’s ones) was first used. This is a distinctively Gentile title, one that would eventually prevail throughout the world. Indeed Antioch, the third largest city of the world, would become a hub for sending out missionaries to various corners of the ancient world.

The most systematic outreach to the Gentiles was through Saul of Tarsus, called Paul after his conversion. After persecuting the church, he was met by a heavenly vision of Christ on the road to Damascus and then became one of the ablest defenders of the faith of the entire epoch, and of all times. Much of his writing has an apologetic purpose. The beginning of Romans represents a standard defense of the faith, wherein the point of contact is social depravity, proof of the wrath of God against fallen humanity. Both Jews and Gentiles are accountable, since they have in their different ways “suppress[ed] the truth” (Rom. 1:18). Whereas God is clearly known through his revelation, people refused to acknowledge him, and so they became fools (1:19–23). The Jews, who have had the oracles of God, nevertheless practice the things they condemn in others (2:1–4). Yet there is good news: God has revealed his righteousness and a way to be justified before him through Jesus Christ, his only Son, whose atoning sacrifice opened the way for God’s mercy to be poured out.

Paul’s speech given on Mars Hill in Athens also represents a model for Christian apologetics to a mixed audience (Acts 17:16–34). As mentioned above, Paul took this gospel to the capital of the empire, ending his days in Rome, where “boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31).

Although he never identifies himself by name, Luke clearly is the author of both the Gospel by that name and the book of Acts. Luke was not an eyewitness to the events he recorded, as the preface to his Gospel makes clear, yet he knew them well, having done careful research into the matters. He also accompanied Paul on some of his travels (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–16; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). Colossians 4:14 identifies Luke as a physician. The Gospel of Luke was likely written around AD 63 and was addressed directly to a person called Theophilus, and through him to all subsequent readers. The brief passage quoted below is the introduction to the entire Gospel. Luke is clearly concerned not only for the historical data but for the message of salvation surrounding the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Luke 1:1–4

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

John’s Gospel is also anonymous, but all the evidence points to the author being John the son of Zebedee. He was not only an eyewitness to the events he reports but was also the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” a title signifying a very close friendship with Jesus ( John 13:23). Tradition suggests that John wrote his Gospel toward the end of his life, around AD 85–90. The passage below tells us that John’s purpose was apologetic. At the center is Jesus Christ, who “was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” ( John 1:10). Throughout the Gospel various discourses and various miracles are recorded. It is clear that they are not ends in themselves but are meant to lead to saving faith in the Son of God.

John 20:30–31

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The book of Acts is the second part of what Luke began to write in his Gospel. Although tradition has called it “The Acts of the Apostles,” we might more appropriately call it “The Acts of Christ,” which he continues to perform through the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension. Like the Gospel, it is addressed to Theophilus. Though the time of writing is disputed, the strongest evidence points to around AD 60–64, thus, before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. At the end of Acts Paul is portrayed as awaiting his appearance before Caesar, preaching freely to any who came to visit him.

Chapter 17 covers the mid portion of Paul’s second missionary journey, begun at Antioch in ca. AD 49 and ending in Jerusalem in ca. AD 52. Thessalonica was the provincial capital of Macedonia, now in Greece. Berea is now Verria, on the foothills of the Olympian Mountains. Athens is the ancient city where the Acropolis still stands. Near it was the Areopagus, or “Hill of Acres,” also known as Mars Hill, named for the god of war (whose Greek name was Ares). Although it had served as the seat for the city council, it was now a public forum where speeches were given and heard for many purposes, including simply entertainment.

Acts 17:1–34

“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.2And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’ 4And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. 6And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.’ 8And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. 9And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

10“The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. 13But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. 15Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

16“Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities’—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.’ 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

22“So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, “To the unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28for

“In him we live and move and have our being”;

as even some of your own poets have said,

“For we are indeed his offspring.”

29Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

32“Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33So Paul went out from their midst. 34But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.”

The author of 1 Peter is the apostle by that name (1 Peter 1:1), the one who early manifested a clear understanding of Christ’s identity (Matt. 16:13–20), whose faith wavered at Jesus’ arrest (Matt. 26:69–75), but who was restored and given special prominence to lead in the early church ( John 21:15–19; Acts 2:14). Possibly written in Rome, referred to as “Babylon” in 5:13, Peter’s first letter is an encouragement to endure and to stand up for the faith in the midst of severe persecutions. The selection here, the classic mandate for doing apologetics, tells believers how to defend Christian hope against hostile interlocutors.

1 Peter 3:13–22

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason[1] for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

18“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”

The book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse, was written by John, who wrote the Gospel and the three letters by his name (Rev. 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8). The book is not only a call to perseverance in the light of God’s rule over history, but also a window into the early church. The original readers were the seven churches named in chapters 2 and 3, all of them located in what is now western Turkey. These communities lived in various kinds of conditions, requiring different kinds of encouragement or rebuke. Their strengths and weaknesses were not unlike those of the church throughout the centuries.

Revelation 2:1–3:22

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

2“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

8“And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

9“‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’

12“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.

13“‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

18“And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

19“‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve. 24But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28And I will give him the morning star. 29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

3:1“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

2Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

7“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

8“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. 10Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. 11I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

14“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.

15“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Diagnostic Questions

Luke 1:1–4

1. What is Luke’s primary concern?

2. What is the significance of eyewitness accounts in ancient times and today?

John 20:30–31

1. What is meant by “signs”?

2. Explain each of the main terms in verse 31: “Jesus,” “the Christ,” “the Son of God,” “his name.”

Acts 17:1–34

1. Why did Paul typically evangelize “the Jew first”? (cf. Rom. 1:16)

2. What are the different responses from the Jews?

3. Is persecution to be expected when spreading the gospel?

4. What motivated Paul to give his speech on Mars Hill?

5. How did he build bridges to his audience?

6. What is the significance of “preaching Jesus and the resurrection”?

7. What are the different responses from the people of Athens?

Acts 17:1–34

1. What is the main theme of Peter’s first letter?

2. What passage from Isaiah is Peter adapting to his purposes, and how does he do it?

1 Peter 3:13–22

3. Explain these terms in verses 15–16: “in your hearts,” “regard Christ . . . as holy,” “being prepared,” “make a defense,” “reason for the hope,” “a good conscience.”

4. Explain the images surrounding Christ’s humiliation and resurrection.

Revelation 2:1–3:22

1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these churches in Asia Minor?

2. How should we relate issues in apologetics to the opportunities and needs of these churches?

1. Greek: pros apologian, “to make a defense,” an apology—from the word logos.

CHAPTER 2

Aristides

Apart from his brief Apology, we do not know a great deal about Aristides. He lived a generation after the apostles and was no doubt the most significant apologist before Justin Martyr. He is here included because his is the earliest defense known to us. The exact date of its writing is difficult to establish. Eusebius says that the text was presented to Hadrian at Athens, which would place it at around AD 125. However, the second superscription to the Syriac version says it is addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius somewhere between 138 and 147.[1]

Striking in this apology are the reasons for commending Christian faith, reasons not found in their particular form in the later apologist fathers. They are: the eternity of God the Creator; a careful refutation of paganism, particularly in view of its inability to lead to the virtuous life; noting the better way of the Jews despite their rejection of Christ; and commending Christians for having found the truth in Christ, a religion that leads to an honorable life. All this can be verified in Christian writings.

The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher

(translated from the Syriac)

Here follows the defence which Aristides the philosopher made before Hadrian the King on behalf of reverence for God.

. . . All-powerful Caesar Titus Hadrianus Antoninus, venerable and merciful, from Marcianus Aristides, an Athenian philosopher.

I. I, O King, by the grace of God came into this world; and when I had considered the heaven and the earth and the seas, and had surveyed the sun and the rest of creation, I marvelled at the beauty of the world. And I perceived that the world and all that is therein are moved by the power of another; and I understood that he who moves them is God, who is hidden in them, and veiled by them. And it is manifest that that which causes motion is more powerful than that which is moved. But that I should make search concerning this same mover of all, as to what is his nature (for it seems to me, he is indeed unsearchable in his nature), and that I should argue as to the constancy of his government, so as to grasp it fully,—this is a vain effort for me; for it is not possible that a man should fully comprehend it. I say, however, concerning this mover of the world, that he is God of all, who made all things for the sake of mankind. And it seems to me that this is reasonable, that one should fear God and should not oppress man.

I say, then, that God is not born, not made, an ever-abiding nature without beginning and without end, immortal, perfect, and incomprehensible. Now when I say that he is “perfect,” this means that there is not in him any defect, and he is not in need of anything but all things are in need of him. And when I say that he is “without beginning,” this means that everything which has beginning has also an end, and that which has an end may be brought to an end. He has no name, for everything which has a name is kindred to things created. Form he has none, nor yet any union of members; for whatsoever possesses these is kindred to things fashioned. He is neither male nor female. The heavens do not limit him, but the heavens and all things, visible and invisible, receive their bounds from him. Adversary he has none, for there exists not any stronger than he. Wrath and indignation he possesses not, for there is nothing which is able to stand against him. Ignorance and forgetfulness are not in his nature, for he is altogether wisdom and understanding; and in him stands fast all that exists. He requires not sacrifice and libation, nor even one of things visible; he requires not aught from any, but all living creatures stand in need of him.

II. Since, then, we have addressed you concerning God, so far as our discourse can bear upon him, let us now come to the race of men, that we may know which of them participate in the truth of which we have spoken, and which of them go astray from it.

This is clear to you, O King, that there are four classes of men in this world:— Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians. The Barbarians, indeed, trace the origin of their kind of religion from Kronos and from Rhea and their other gods; the Greeks, however, from Helenos, who is said to be sprung from Zeus. And by Helenos there were born Aiolos and Xuthos; and there were others descended from Inachos and Phoroneus, and lastly from the Egyptian Danaos and from Kadmos and from Dionysos.

The Jews, again, trace the origin of their race from Abraham, who begat Isaac, of whom was born Jacob. And he begat twelve sons who migrated from Syria to Egypt; and there they were called the nation of the Hebrews, by him who made their laws; and at length they were named Jews.

The Christians, then, trace the beginning of their religion from Jesus the Messiah; and he is named the Son of God Most High. And it is said that God came down from heaven, and from a Hebrew virgin assumed and clothed himself with flesh; and the Son of God lived in a daughter of man. This is taught in the gospel, as it is called, which a short time ago was preached among them; and you also if you will read therein, may perceive the power which belongs to it. This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished. But he himself was pierced by the Jews, and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven. Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness. And hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians, and they are become famous.

So then there are, as I said above, four classes of men:—Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians.

Moreover the wind is obedient to God, and fire to the angels; the waters also to the demons and the earth to the sons of men.

III. Let us begin, then, with the Barbarians, and go on to the rest of the nations one after another, that we may see which of them hold the truth as to God and which of them hold error.

The Barbarians, then, as they did not apprehend God, went astray among the elements, and began to worship things created instead of their Creator; and for this end they made images and shut them up in shrines, and lo! they worship them, guarding them the while with much care, lest their gods be stolen by robbers. And the Barbarians did not observe that that which acts as guard is greater than that which is guarded, and that everyone who creates is greater than that which is created. If it be, then, that their gods are too feeble to see to their own safety, how will they take thought for the safety of men? Great then is the error into which the Barbarians wandered in worshipping lifeless images which can do nothing to help them. And I am led to wonder, O King, at their philosophers, how that even they went astray, and gave the name of gods to images which were made in honour of the elements; and that their sages did not perceive that the elements also are dissoluble and perishable. For if a small part of an element is dissolved or destroyed, the whole of it may be dissolved and destroyed. If then the elements themselves are dissolved and destroyed and forced to be subject to another that is more stubborn than they, and if they are not in their nature gods, why, forsooth, do they call the images which are made in their honour, God? Great, then, is the error which the philosophers among them have brought upon their followers.

IV. Let us turn now, O King, to the elements in themselves, that we may make clear in regard to them, that they are not gods, but a created thing, liable to ruin and change, which is of the same nature as man; whereas God is imperishable and unvarying, and invisible, while yet he sees, and overrules, and transforms all things.

Those then who believe concerning the earth that it is a god have hitherto deceived themselves, since it is furrowed and set with plants and trenched; and it takes in the filthy refuse of men and beasts and cattle. And at times it becomes unfruitful, for if it be burnt to ashes it becomes devoid of life, for nothing germinates from an earthen jar. And besides if water be collected upon it, it is dissolved together with its products. And lo! it is trodden under foot of men and beast, and receives the bloodstains of the slain; and it is dug open, and filled with the dead, and becomes a tomb for corpses. But it is impossible that a nature, which is holy and worthy and blessed and immortal, should allow of any one of these things. And hence it appears to us that the earth is not a god but a creation of God.

V. In the same way, again, those erred who believed the waters to be gods. For the waters were created for the use of man, and are put under his rule in many ways. For they suffer change and admit impurity, and are destroyed and lose their nature while they are boiled into many substances. And they take colours which do not belong to them; they are also congealed by frost and are mingled and permeated with the filth of men and beasts, and with the blood of the slain. And being checked by skilled workmen through the restraint of aqueducts, they flow and are diverted against their inclination, and come into gardens and other places in order that they may be collected and issue forth as a means of fertility for man, and that they may cleanse away every impurity and fulfill the service man requires from them. Wherefore it is impossible that the waters should be a god, but they are a work of God and a part of the world.

In like manner also they who believed that fire is a god erred to no slight extent. For it, too, was created for the service of men, and is subject to them in many ways:—in the preparation of meats, and as a means of casting metals, and for other ends whereof your Majesty is aware. At the same time it is quenched and extinguished in many ways.

Again they also erred who believed the motion of the winds to be a god. For it is well known to us that those winds are under the dominion of another, at times their motion increases, and at times it fails and ceases at the command of him who controls them. For they were created by God for the sake of men, in order to supply the necessity of trees and fruits and seeds; and to bring over the sea ships which convey for men necessaries and goods from places where they are found to places where they are not found; and to govern the quarters of the world. And as for itself, at times it increases and again abates; and in one place brings help and in another causes disaster at the bidding of him who rules it. And mankind too are able by known means to confine and keep it in check in order that it may fulfill for them the service they require from it. And of itself it has not any authority at all. And hence it is impossible that the winds should be called gods, but rather a thing made by God.

VI. So also they erred who believed that the sun is a god. For we see that it is moved by the compulsion of another, and revolves and makes its journey, and proceeds from sign to sign, rising and setting every day, so as to give warmth for the growth of plants and trees, and to bring forth into the air wherewith it (sun-light) is mingled every growing thing which is upon the earth. And to it there belongs by comparison a part in common with the rest of the stars in its course; and though it is one in its nature it is associated with many parts for the supply of the needs of men; and that not according to its own will but rather according to the will of him who rules it. And hence it is impossible that the sun should be a god, but the work of God; and in like manner also the moon and the stars.

VII. And those who believed of the men of the past, that some of them were gods, they too were much mistaken. For as you yourself allow, O King, man is constituted of the four elements and of a soul and a spirit (and hence he is called a microcosm), and without any one of these parts he could not consist. He has a beginning and an end, and he is born and dies. But God, as I said, has none of these things in his nature, but is uncreated and imperishable. And hence it is not possible that we should set up man to be of the nature of God:—man, to whom at times when he looks for joy, there comes trouble, and when he looks for laughter, there comes to him weeping,—who is wrathful and covetous and envious, with other defects as well. And he is destroyed in many ways by the elements and also by the animals.

And hence, O King, we are bound to recognize the error of the Barbarians, that thereby, since they did not find traces of the true God, they fell aside from the truth, and went after the desire of their imagination, serving the perishable elements and lifeless images, and through their error not apprehending what the true God is.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Why does Aristides address the King? How does he revere him?

2. In what sense is God hidden or veiled in the world?

3. How does Aristides describe God’s perfections?

4. Are Aristides’ four categories of religions effective?

5. How effective is Aristides’ argument for the Creator-creature distinction?

1. Substantiated by the fact that Marcus Aurelius is not mentioned as co-emperor beginning in 161.

CHAPTER 3

Justin Martyr

(ca. 100–ca. 165)

As we turn our attention to Justin Martyr, who is by all accounts the greatest apologist of the second century, it is helpful to note that the period between Trajan and Commodus is thought by some to be the golden era of the Roman Empire. That era—including Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus—spelled tumultuous times for Christians. They were not favored by and large among the emperors, nor were they embraced by the general populace.

Ad Hominem Arguments by Early Apologists

Part of what apologists of the day were trying to do was to deal with critics of the Christian faith in an ad hominem way. A few words on ad hominem arguments will help us understand their use of this method.

Most discussions of ad hominem arguments consider them to be logical fallacies, and many times they are. A fallacious ad hominem occurs when information about a person is provided in an effort to subvert or dismiss his argument, though that information has no relevance to the argument itself and is calculated simply to demean the person.

There are, however, different kinds of ad hominem arguments. Given the translation of ad hominem, “to the man,” usually when this method is discussed as a logical fallacy, a kind of vicious personal attack is in view. For instance, if someone says, “Personal faith should never enter into an apologetic discussion; that was Kierkegaard’s view!” you can sense the problem with that kind of argument. If the reason that one ought not to hold a particular view is that Kierkegaard held it, then we have what is called in logic a non sequitur: it does not follow. There are at least two common types of ad hominem arguments.

The first is called a tu quoque argument, which, again, is most often regarded as fallacious. It claims that a conclusion is unwarranted because the arguer’s behavior is condemned by that conclusion. It may be true that a person’s behavior conflicts with the position he advocates, but that does not strictly invalidate his argument.

The second kind of ad hominem is called the straw-man fallacy. This fallacy occurs when someone attacks a caricature of another’s position rather than addressing the actual position. It is a “straw-man” fallacy because something artificial and flimsy (a straw man) is erected and subsequently knocked down with ease.

Yet there are uses of ad hominem arguments that are not fallacious, but perfectly appropriate and instrumental in apologetics. Generally speaking, an ad hominem is fallacious only when it is irrelevant to the conclusion. Some ad hominem arguments are perfectly appropriate because they are indeed relevant to the conclusion. It is legitimate, for example, to call someone’s credentials into question in certain circumstances. A scientist who is rigorously committed to the empirical method yet who definitively renounces, a priori, any notion of creation has opened himself up to a legitimate ad hominem rebuttal. There are legitimate issues of trustworthiness and credibility that can be raised.

A legitimate use of a tu quoque argument occurs, generally, when we note that a consistent application of a conclusion or argument would require that the arguer give up his own position. Though making that judgment can be subjective—what is relevant and acceptable is not universally agreed upon—for the most part, arguments of this kind can be used with great rhetorical effect, and we will notice some of our apologists using them in this way. This kind of ad hominem, calling for consistency of someone’s argument and its applications, may even be objectively persuasive, and persuasion is one thing we need a good bit of in apologetics. Be careful not to miss the ad hominem effect as you read through Justin and other early apologists.

An ad Hominem Use in Transcendental Apologetics

One method of apologetics that employs a type of ad hominem is sometimes described as a transcendental approach. That is, given any fact, any experience, we ask, what are the presuppositions behind that fact that make it possible? Now, in asking that question we are not pretending to be neutral. We do not come to that analysis assuming that any position is possible to maintain both intellectually and practically. We come assuming the impossibility of the contrary. That is, any position that is contrary (to Christianity) is impossible to maintain intellectually and practically. Note what Cornelius Van Til says with respect to a transcendental approach, the impossibility of the contrary, and its ad hominem character:

We must . . . give our opponents better treatment than they give us. We must point out to them that univocal reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well. It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we must meet our enemy on their own ground.

It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions. It is this too that we should mean when we say that we are arguing ad hominem. We do not really argue ad hominem unless we show that someone’s position involves self-contradiction, and there is no self-contradiction unless one’s reasoning is shown to be directly contradictory of or to lead to conclusions which are contradictory of one’s own assumptions.[1]

An ad hominem appeal puts the apologist on the ground of the opponent in order to argue on the basis of what the opponent holds to be true or dear or significant or meaningful.

Though the arguments we encounter in Justin and others will not have the luxury of almost two thousand years of Christian history behind them, we should be keenly aware of the power and the effect of the ad hominem arguments that he and his successors used. In the second century and beyond, we see the apologists going over to the ground of their accusers. They were not, generally speaking, trying to give a systematic exposition of the Christian faith. They were addressing their accusers’ assumptions and the contradictions that result.

Charges against Early Christians

By the second century, a number of unusual charges were being leveled against Christians. Three were prominent.

1. The Christians were accused of atheism. Think of Paul at Athens, for example. What moved or “provoked” him (Acts 17:16) as he was walking around the city? “He saw that the city was full of idols.” The religion of the Greeks was very much a visual religion. Into this environment came Christians who took seriously the second commandment and who understood what Jesus said to the woman at the well, that God is spirit. It seemed, from the perspective of the Greek culture, that Christians had no gods at all. They did not believe in the customary gods of the surrounding culture. Anytime something went wrong, it was thought to be the judgment of the gods on the people. This was the rationale for the Neronic persecutions; Nero burned down the city and then blamed the Christians. That blame was plausible, given the cultural deviance of the Christian religion.

2. The Christians were accused of immorality, specifically, cannibalism and incest. Why? As we noted earlier, Christians symbolically partook of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and they greeted each other with a “holy kiss.” They were also accused of hatred of the world and insubordination. The government was so tied to the religion of the day that failure to support the religion was failure to support the Caesar as well. This charge of disloyalty was one of the primary causes of trouble, often death, for Christians.

3. Finally, they were accused of novelty. It was thought that they completely abandoned tradition and invented something totally new. The doctrine of the Trinity began to emerge in this era as believers attempted to place Christ within the Godhead while defending monotheism. The apologists also had to defend Christian behavior, a primary goal for many of them. Their concerns and focus were, in this early period, primarily pastoral and evangelistic, rather than philosophical or theological.

Nevertheless, there is much that we can glean from the early apologists for an effective apologetic some two thousand years later.

Enter Justin Martyr

The development of a “Christianity is philosophy” motif is left to the first great apologist, Justin Martyr, who wrote two apologies—the first to Antoninus Pius and the second a supplement to the first—as well as The Dialogue with Trypho, an answer to the Jewish community. His First Apology was most likely occasioned by the martyrdom of Polycarp under the reign of Antoninus Pius.

Justin was born in Samaria. He was most likely converted in Ephesus. In his intellectual pilgrimage, he attempted to find truth through numerous different philosophical avenues. While it is impossible to ascertain how much each of these philosophies influenced his conversion and later his Christian beliefs, there are some factors we should notice.

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin explains how he studied one philosophical system after another—Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Pythagoreanism, Platonism—before coming to Christianity. One day as he stood near the Aegean Sea, near Ephesus, an old man approached him. “Does philosophy produce happiness?” the old man asked. “Absolutely,” Justin replied, “and it alone.” The old man then suggested that there were many questions that Plato could not answer, but there is a true philosophy with an explanation for all questions. That philosophy is Christianity. The man then began to explain to Justin that long ago there lived men who were prophets and who spoke only as the Holy Spirit spoke to them. He told Justin that these men were reliable witnesses of the truth, and he beseeched Justin to understand these things. Justin describes his response:

When he had spoken these and many other things, which there is no time for mentioning at present, he went away, bidding me attend to them; and I have not seen him since. But straightway a flame was kindled in my soul; and a love of the prophets, and of those men who are friends of Christ, possessed me; and whilst revolving his words in my mind, I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, and for this reason, I am a philosopher. Moreover, I would wish that all, making a resolution similar to my own, do not keep themselves away from the words of the Saviour. For they possess a terrible power in themselves, and are sufficient to inspire those who turn aside from the path of rectitude with awe; while the sweetest rest is afforded those who make a diligent practice of them.

Justin’s era witnessed a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. That battle was, at least in part, a battle of philosophies. So much of what vied for allegiance during Justin’s time appealed to the intellect as cogent and coherent. Among the influences that tempted Justin were the following:

Stoicism

Zeno of Cyprus (334–262 BC), to whom stoicism is first attributed, used to stand on the stoa, a roofed portico or colonnade, and expound his views. Thus his philosophy has been dubbed Stoicism, in effect, “porchism.” Stoicism’s most famous adherents were Seneca (AD 4–65), Epictetus (late first century), and the one living during Justin’s time, Marcus Aurelius (AD 121–180).

There are formal similarities between Stoicism and Christianity, in the same way that today we see some formal similarities between Christianity and what, for example, the cults teach. Stoicism attempted to be content with things as they are, and there was a strong emphasis on virtue as necessary for true knowledge, among other similarities. Stoics saw a close relationship between what one believes and the way one lives. This is significant in light of the tendency in Greek philosophy to emphasize knowledge for knowledge’s sake, as in Aristotle, for example.

One of the most significant aspects of Stoic philosophy, for our purposes, was their belief that the universe is, at bottom, a living fire. In this regard the Stoics were like Heraclitus (525–475 BC), much earlier. He attempted to explain motion by positing fire as the original and unifying element of the universe. He asserted that the basis of motion is antagonistic forces; the struggle between hot and cold makes the seasons, for example. But this fire was not thought to be simply inanimate. It animated the rest of the world and thus had life within itself.

Closely related to this in Heraclitus’s philosophy was his notion that all things change (“all things flow and nothing remains”). But he also acknowledged that there is a “law,” a logos, that does not change. So there was in his view a close correlation between the logos and the universal, animating fire.

By the time we come to the Stoics, there is an identity between the original, animating, universal fire and the logos. The logos was thought by the Stoics to be a wisdom or a reason or an intelligence that guides and steers the events of this life. It was the logos that was the rationale for Stoic “providence,” what some have called “fate.” This Stoic influence, via Heraclitus, bore some significance in Justin’s Apology.

It may have been the skepticism inherent in Stoicism that drove Justin to Pythagoreanism. He says in The Dialogue with Trypho, chapter II, “I surrendered myself to a certain Stoic; and having spent a considerable time with him, when I had not acquired any further knowledge of God (for he did not know himself, and said such instruction was unnecessary), I left him.” Because Stoic doctrine was insistent that perfection came through perfect wisdom, the question arose as to whether anyone could attain to such, or whether such wisdom was reserved only for God. Perhaps Justin noticed the skepticism underlying this view, and so he moved on to the school of Aristotle.

Aristotelianism

Justin apparently had little influence from the Peripatetic school. When an Aristotelian philosopher asked him for a fee for the philosopher’s services, Justin left him, considering that he was no philosopher after all. (Tatian, a pupil of Justin’s, a writer, and a theologian, said that the Peripatetics would not even grow a beard unless they could charge for it.)

Pythagoreanism

Justin then moved on to the Pythagoreans. Unlike the Aristotelian, the Pythagorean was an intellectually demanding philosopher. The chief dogma of Pythagorean philosophy was that salvation comes by way of knowledge. Though the Pythagoreans had been in existence for quite some time (Pythagoras’s dates are ca. 572–ca. 500 BC), their influence was still substantial in Justin’s day. They held that the basis of reality is number so that a correct description of reality could come only by way of mathematical formulae. (We see something of Descartes foreshadowed in this.) Pythagoreans are credited with discovering the ratio of concord between music and number, and with anticipating most of what Euclid would later do in geometry. Pythagoras developed what he thought to be a mathematical harmony throughout the entire universe, what came to be called “The Music of the Spheres.”

Justin relates his experience to us:

I came to a Pythagorean, . . . a man who thought much of his own wisdom. And then, when I had an interview with him, willing to become his hearer and disciple, he said, “What then? Are you acquainted with music, astronomy, and geometry? Do you expect to perceive any of those things which conduce to a happy life, if you have not been first informed on those points which wean the soul from sensible objects, and render it fitted for objects which appertain to the mind . . . ?”

We can readily see why the Pythagorean would ask about geometry, music, and astronomy. They were among Pythagoras’s most obvious contributions and were primary concerns in their philosophy by this time. Justin confessed his ignorance on these matters and was dismissed by the Pythagorean philosopher. If salvation comes by knowledge—particularly knowledge of geometry, music, and astronomy—Justin’s confessed ignorance would, by definition, prove him not one of them, outside their mathematical “circle.”

Platonism

So Justin moved on to Platonism. As is evident from his “conversion dialogue,” this was where we find Justin when he spoke with the old man at the sea (note, e.g., chaps. IV and V). His transition from Pythagoras to Plato was only natural. Plato’s philosophy is said to have developed “under the spell of Pythagoras.” As the Pythagoreans taught the transmigration of the soul, so Plato used a discussion in the Meno wherein a slave boy, through a series of questions, comes up with the Pythagorean theorem to demonstrate his doctrine of reminiscence. (Notice in the dialogue V, that Justin, in his conversion experience, rejects this doctrine of the immortality or eternity of the soul.) So also, the Pythagoreans, in asserting a dichotomy between the sense world and intelligible essences, posited a kind of numeric form/matter scheme wherein odd and even numbers represent the distinction between form and matter. We can see Justin’s transition to Platonism as something of an alternative to the Pythagoreans, who, though appealing to him, rejected him.

Justin and the Logos Idea

In a number of passages Justin employs the logos idea. The most controversial example is in his Second Apology. He says in chapter IX:

But these things our Christ did through His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was and is the Word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to come to pass both through the prophets and in His own person when He was made of like passions, and taught these things), not only philosophers and scholars believed, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising both glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable Father, not the mere instrument of human reason.

The question is whether there is a convincing argument for Justin’s use of the logos. In what way, we could ask, did Socrates know Christ (given that Socrates lived in the fifth century BC)? Is Justin here affirming some notion of general revelation, or did he fall prey to Greek speculation?

To whatever extent Justin remained influenced by Greek philosophy, what changed him at heart was the study of the Hebrew prophets. “I found this philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.” Justin argues that Christianity fulfills the highest goals of all pagan philosophers and that it should be seen as the most worthy of all philosophies to be believed.

The First Apology of Justin

Chapter I. Address

To the Emperor Titus Aelius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar,[2] and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Caesar, and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans, I, Justin, the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, natives of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine, present this address and petition in behalf of those of all nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused, myself being one of them.[3]

Chapter II. Justice Demanded

Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical[4] to honour and love only what is true, declining to follow traditional opinions, if these be worthless. For not only does sound reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those who did or taught anything wrong, but it is incumbent on the lover of truth, by all means, and if death be threatened, even before his own life, to choose to do and say what is right. Do you, then, since ye are called pious and philosophers, guardians of justice and lovers of learning, give good heed, and hearken to my address; and if ye are indeed such, it will be manifested. For we have come, not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to beg that you pass judgment, after an accurate and searching investigation, not flattered by prejudice or by a desire of pleasing superstitious men, nor induced by irrational impulse or evil rumours which have long been prevalent, to give a decision which will prove to be against yourselves. For as for us, we reckon that no evil can be done us, unless we be convicted as evil-doers or be proved to be wicked men; and you, you can kill, but not hurt us.

Chapter III. Claim of Judicial Investigation

But lest any one think that this is an unreasonable and reckless utterance, we demand that the charges against the Christians be investigated, and that, if these be substantiated, they be punished as they deserve; [or rather, indeed, we ourselves will punish them]. But if no one can convict us of anything, true reason forbids you, for the sake of a wicked rumour, to wrong blameless men, and indeed rather yourselves, who think fit to direct affairs, not by judgment, but by passion. And every sober-minded person will declare this to be the only fair and equitable adjustment, namely, that the subjects render an unexceptional account of their own life and doctrine; and that, on the other hand, the rulers should give their decision in obedience, not to violence and tyranny, but to piety and philosophy.[5] For thus would both rulers and ruled reap benefit. For even one of the ancients somewhere said, “Unless both rulers and ruled philosophize, it is impossible to make states blessed.” It is our task, therefore, to afford to all an opportunity of inspecting our life and teachings, lest, on account of those who are accustomed to be ignorant of our affairs, we should incur the penalty due to them for mental blindness; and it is your business, when you hear us, to be found, as reason demands, good judges. For if, when ye have learned the truth, you do not what is just, you will be before God without excuse.

Chapter IV. Christians Unjustly Condemned for Their Mere Name

By the mere application of a name, nothing is decided, either good or evil, apart from the actions implied in the name;[6] and indeed, so far at least as one may judge from the name we are accused of, we are most excellent people. But as we do not think it just to beg to be acquitted on account of the name, if we be convicted as evildoers, so, on the other hand, if we be found to have committed no offence, either in the matter of thus naming ourselves, or of our conduct as citizens, it is your part very earnestly to guard against incurring just punishment, by unjustly punishing those who are not convicted. For from a name neither praise nor punishment could reasonably spring, unless something excellent or base in action be proved. And those among yourselves who are accused you do not punish before they are convicted; but in our case you receive the name as proof against us, and this although, so far as the name goes, you ought rather to punish our accusers. For we are accused of being Christians, and to hate what is excellent (Chrestian) is unjust. Again, if any of the accused deny the name, and say that he is not a Christian, you acquit him, as having no evidence against him as a wrong-doer; but if any one acknowledge that he is a Christian, you punish him on account of this acknowledgment. Justice requires that you inquire into the life both of him who confesses and of him who denies, that by his deeds it may be apparent what kind of man each is. For as some who have been taught by the Master, Christ, not to deny Him, give encouragement to others when they are put to the question, so in all probability do those who lead wicked lives give occasion to those who, without consideration, take upon them to accuse all the Christians of impiety and wickedness. And this also is not right. For of philosophy, too, some assume the name and the garb who do nothing worthy of their profession; and you are well aware, that those of the ancients whose opinions and teachings were quite diverse, are yet all called by the one name of philosophers. And of these some taught atheism; and the poets who have flourished among you raise a laugh out of the uncleanness of Jupiter with his own children. And those who now adopt such instruction are not restrained by you; but, on the contrary, you bestow prizes and honours upon those who euphoniously insult the gods.

Chapter V. Christians Charged with Atheism

Why, then, should this be? In our case, who pledge ourselves to do no wickedness, nor to hold these atheistic opinions,[7] you do not examine the charges made against us; but, yielding to unreasoning passion, and to the instigation of evil demons, you punish us without consideration or judgment. For the truth shall be spoken; since of old these evil demons, effecting apparitions of themselves, both defiled women and corrupted boys, and showed such fearful sights to men, that those who did not use their reason in judging of the actions that were done, were struck with terror; and being carried away by fear, and not knowing that these were demons, they called them gods, and gave to each the name which each of the demons chose for himself. And when Socrates endeavoured, by true reason and examination, to bring these things to light, and deliver men from the demons, then the demons themselves, by means of men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the charge that “he was introducing new divinities”; and in our case they display a similar activity. For not only among the Greeks did reason (Logos) prevail to condemn these things through Socrates, but also among the Barbarians were they condemned by Reason (or the Word, the Logos) Himself, who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus Christ; and in obedience to Him, we not only deny that they who did such things as these are gods, but assert that they are wicked and impious demons, whose actions will not bear comparison with those even of men desirous of virtue.

Chapter VI. Charge of Atheism Refuted

Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.[8]

Chapter VII. Each Christian Must Be Tried by His Own Life

But some one will say, Some have ere now been arrested and convicted as evil-doers. For you condemn many, many a time, after inquiring into the life of each of the accused severally, but not on account of those of whom we have been speaking. And this we acknowledge, that as among the Greeks those who teach such theories as please themselves are all called by the one name “Philosopher,” though their doctrines be diverse, so also among the Barbarians this name on which accusations are accumulated is the common property of those who are and those who seem wise. For all are called Christians. Wherefore we demand that the deeds of all those who are accused to you be judged, in order that each one who is convicted may be punished as an evil-doer, and not as a Christian; and if it is clear that any one is blameless, that he may be acquitted, since by the mere fact of his being a Christian he does no wrong. For we will not require that you punish our accusers; they being sufficiently punished by their present wickedness and ignorance of what is right.

Chapter VIII. Christians Confess Their Faith in God

And reckon ye that it is for your sakes we have been saying these things; for it is in our power, when we are examined, to deny that we are Christians; but we would not live by telling a lie. For, impelled by the desire of the eternal and pure life, we seek the abode that is with God, the Father and Creator of all, and hasten to confess our faith, persuaded and convinced as we are that they who have proved to God by their works that they followed Him, and loved to abide with Him where there is no sin to cause disturbance, can obtain these things. This, then, to speak shortly, is what we expect and have learned from Christ, and teach. And Plato, in like manner, used to say that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ, and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again to their spirits which are now to undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years. And if any one say that this is incredible or impossible, this error of ours is one which concerns ourselves only, and no other person, so long as you cannot convict us of doing any harm.

Chapter IX. Folly of Idol Worship

And neither do we honour with many sacrifices and garlands of flowers such deities as men have formed and set in shrines and called gods; since we see that these are soulless and dead, and have not the form of God (for we do not consider that God has such a form as some say that they imitate to His honour), but have the names and forms of those wicked demons which have appeared. For why need we tell you who already know, into what forms the craftsmen, carving and cutting, casting and hammering, fashion the materials? And often out of vessels of dishonour, by merely changing the form, and making an image of the requisite shape, they make what they call a god; which we consider not only senseless, but to be even insulting to God, who, having ineffable glory and form, thus gets His name attached to things that are corruptible, and require constant service. And that the artificers of these are both intemperate, and, not to enter into particulars, are practised in every vice, you very well know; even their own girls who work along with them they corrupt. What infatuation! that dissolute men should be said to fashion and make gods for your worship, and that you should appoint such men the guardians of the temples where they are enshrined; not recognising that it is unlawful even to think or say that men are the guardians of gods.

Chapter X. How God Is to Be Served

But we have received by tradition that God does not need the material offerings which men can give, seeing, indeed, that He Himself is the provider of all things. And we have been taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name. And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed matter; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received—of reigning in company with Him, being delivered from corruption and suffering. For as in the beginning He created us when we were not, so do we consider that, in like manner, those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him. For the coming into being at first was not in our own power; and in order that we may follow those things which please Him, choosing them by means of the rational faculties He has Himself endowed us with, He both persuades us and leads us to faith. And we think it for the advantage of all men that they are not restrained from learning these things, but are even urged thereto. For the restraint which human laws could not effect, the Word, inasmuch as He is divine, would have effected, had not the wicked demons, taking as their ally the lust of wickedness which is in every man, and which draws variously to all manner of vice, scattered many false and profane accusations, none of which attach to us.

Chapter XI. What Kingdom Christians Look For

And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom;[9] whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid.

Chapter XII. Christians Live as under God’s Eye

And more than all other men are we your helpers and allies in promoting peace, seeing that we hold this view, that it is alike impossible for the wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, and for the virtuous, to escape the notice of God, and that each man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation according to the value of his actions. For if all men knew this, no one would choose wickedness even for a little, knowing that he goes to the everlasting punishment of fire; but would by all means restrain himself, and adorn himself with virtue, that he might obtain the good gifts of God, and escape the punishments. For those who, on account of the laws and punishments you impose, endeavour to escape detection when they offend (and they offend, too, under the impression that it is quite possible to escape your detection, since you are but men), those persons, if they learned and were convinced that nothing, whether actually done or only intended, can escape the knowledge of God, would by all means live decently on account of the penalties threatened, as even you yourselves will admit. But you seem to fear lest all men become righteous, and you no longer have any to punish. Such would be the concern of public executioners, but not of good princes. But, as we before said, we are persuaded that these things are prompted by evil spirits, who demand sacrifices and service even from those who live unreasonably; but as for you, we presume that you who aim at [a reputation for] piety and philosophy will do nothing unreasonable. But if you also, like the foolish, prefer custom to truth, do what you have power to do. But just so much power have rulers who esteem opinion more than truth, as robbers have in a desert. And that you will not succeed is declared by the Word, than whom, after God who begat Him, we know there is no ruler more kingly and just. For as all shrink from succeeding to the poverty or sufferings or obscurity of their fathers, so whatever the Word forbids us to choose, the sensible man will not choose. That all these things should come to pass, I say, our Teacher foretold, He who is both Son and Apostle of God the Father of all and the Ruler, Jesus Christ; from whom also we have the name of Christians. Whence we become more assured of all the things He taught us, since whatever He beforehand foretold should come to pass, is seen in fact coming to pass; and this is the work of God, to tell of a thing before it happens, and as it was foretold so to show it happening. It were possible to pause here and add no more, reckoning that we demand what is just and true; but because we are well aware that it is not easy suddenly to change a mind possessed by ignorance, we intend to add a few things, for the sake of persuading those who love the truth, knowing that it is not impossible to put ignorance to flight by presenting the truth.

Chapter XIII. Christians Serve God Rationally

What sober-minded man, then, will not acknowledge that we are not atheists, worshipping as we do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we are supplied, as we have been taught that the only honour that is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has brought into being for our sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need, and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our creation, and for all the means of health, and for the various qualities of the different kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons; and to present before Him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith in Him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in the times of Tiberius Caesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed.

Chapter XIV. The Demons Misrepresent Christian Doctrine

For we forewarn you to be on your guard, lest those demons whom we have been accusing should deceive you, and quite divert you from reading and understanding what we say. For they strive to hold you their slaves and servants; and sometimes by appearances in dreams, and sometimes by magical impositions, they subdue all who make no strong opposing effort for their own salvation. And thus do we also, since our persuasion by the Word, stand aloof from them (i.e., the demons), and follow the only unbegotten God through His Son—we who formerly delighted in fornication, but now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavour to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live comformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all. But lest we should seem to be reasoning sophistically, we consider it right, before giving you the promised explanation, to cite a few precepts given by Christ Himself. And be it yours, as powerful rulers, to inquire whether we have been taught and do teach these things truly. Brief and concise utterances fell from Him, for He was no sophist, but His word was the power of God.

Chapter XV. What Christ Himself Taught

Concerning chastity, He uttered such sentiments as these: “Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart before God.” And, “If thy right eye offend thee, cut it out; for it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of heaven with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into everlasting fire.” And, “Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced from another husband, committeth adultery.” And, “There are some who have been made eunuchs of men, and some who were born eunuchs, and some who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake; but all cannot receive this saying.” So that all who, by human law, are twice married, are in the eye of our Master sinners, and those who look upon a woman to lust after her. For not only he who in act commits adultery is rejected by Him, but also he who desires to commit adultery: since not only our works, but also our thoughts, are open before God. And many, both men and women, who have been Christ’s disciples from childhood, remain pure at the age of sixty or seventy years; and I boast that I could produce such from every race of men. For what shall I say, too, of the countless multitude of those who have reformed intemperate habits, and learned these things? For Christ called not the just nor the chaste to repentance, but the ungodly, and the licentious, and the unjust; His words being, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” For the heavenly Father desires rather the repentance than the punishment of the sinner. And of our love to all, He taught thus: “If ye love them that love you, what new thing do ye? for even fornicators do this. But I say unto you, Pray for your enemies, and love them that hate you, and bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” And that we should communicate to the needy, and do nothing for glory, He said, “Give to him that asketh, and from him that would borrow turn not away; for if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what new thing do ye? even the publicans do this. Lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where robbers break through; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for it? Lay up treasure, therefore, in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.” And, “Be ye kind and merciful, as your Father also is kind and merciful, and maketh His sun to rise on sinners, and the righteous, and the wicked. Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall put on: are ye not better than the birds and the beasts? And God feedeth them. Take no thought, therefore, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall put on; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you. For where his treasure is, there also is the mind of a man.” And, “Do not these things to be seen of men; otherwise ye have no reward from your Father which is in heaven.” . . .

Chapter XVIII. Proof of Immortality and the Resurrection

For reflect upon the end of each of the preceding kings, how they died the death common to all, which, if it issued in insensibility, would be a godsend to all the wicked. But since sensation remains to all who have ever lived, and eternal punishment is laid up (i.e., for the wicked), see that ye neglect not to be convinced, and to hold as your belief, that these things are true. For let even necromancy, and the divinations you practise by immaculate children, and the evoking of departed human souls, and those who are called among the magi, Dream-senders and Assistant-spirits (Familiars), and all that is done by those who are skilled in such matters—let these persuade you that even after death souls are in a state of sensation; and those who are seized and cast about by the spirits of the dead, whom all call daemoniacs or madmen; and what you repute as oracles, both of Amphilochus, Dodana, Pytho, and as many other such as exist; and the opinions of your authors, Empedocles and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, and the pit of Homer, and the descent of Ulysses to inspect these things, and all that has been uttered of a like kind.[10] Such favour as you grant to these, grant also to us, who not less but more firmly than they believe in God; since we expect to receive again our own bodies, though they be dead and cast into the earth, for we maintain that with God nothing is impossible.

Chapter XIX. The Resurrection Possible

And to any thoughtful person would anything appear more incredible, than, if we were not in the body, and some one were to say that it was possible that from a small drop of human seed bones and sinews and flesh be formed into a shape such as we see? For let this now be said hypothetically: if you yourselves were not such as you now are, and born of such parents [and causes], and one were to show you human seed and a picture of a man, and were to say with confidence that from such a substance such a being could be produced, would you believe before you saw the actual production? No one will dare to deny [that such a statement would surpass belief]. In the same way, then, you are now incredulous because you have never seen a dead man rise again. But as at first you would not have believed it possible that such persons could be produced from the small drop, and yet now you see them thus produced, so also judge ye that it is not impossible that the bodies of men, after they have been dissolved, and like seeds resolved into earth, should in God’s appointed time rise again and put on incorruption. For what power worthy of God those imagine who say, that each thing returns to that from which it was produced, and that beyond this not even God Himself can do anything, we are unable to conceive; but this we see clearly, that they would not have believed it possible that they could have become such and produced from such materials, as they now see both themselves and the whole world to be. And that it is better to believe even what is impossible to our own nature and to men, than to be unbelieving like the rest of the world, we have learned; for we know that our Master Jesus Christ said, that “what is impossible with men is possible with God,” and, “Fear not them that kill you, and after that can do no more; but fear Him who after death is able to cast both soul and body into hell.” And hell is a place where those are to be punished who have lived wickedly, and who do not believe that those things which God has taught us by Christ will come to pass.

Chapter XX. Heathen Analogies to Christian Doctrine

And the Sibyl and Hystaspes said that there should be a dissolution by God of things corruptible. And the philosophers called Stoics teach that even God Himself shall be resolved into fire, and they say that the world is to be formed anew by this revolution; but we understand that God, the Creator of all things, is superior to the things that are to be changed. If, therefore, on some points we teach the same things as the poets and philosophers whom you honour, and on other points are fuller and more divine in our teaching, and if we alone afford proof of what we assert, why are we unjustly hated more than all others? For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics: and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Menander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.

Chapter XXI. Analogies to the History of Christ

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; Aesculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.

Chapter XXII. Analogies to the Sonship of Christ

Moreover, the Son of God called Jesus, even if only a man by ordinary generation, yet, on account of His wisdom, is worthy to be called the Son of God; for all writers call God the Father of men and gods. And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated. For their sufferings at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse; so that not even by the peculiarity of His sufferings does He seem to be inferior to them; but, on the contrary, as we promised in the preceding part of this discourse, we will now prove Him superior—or rather have already proved Him to be so—for the superior is revealed by His actions. And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Ferseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius.

Chapter XXIII. The Argument

And that this may now become evident to you—(firstly) that whatever we assert in conformity with what has been taught us by Christ, and by the prophets who preceded Him, are alone true, and are older than all the writers who have existed; that we claim to be acknowledged, not because we say the same things as these writers said, but because we say true things: and (secondly) that Jesus Christ is the only proper Son who has been begotten by God, being His Word and first-begotten, and power; and, becoming man according to His will, He taught us these things for the conversion and restoration of the human race: and (thirdly) that before He became a man among men, some, influenced by the demons before mentioned, related beforehand, through the instrumentality of the poets, those circumstances as having really happened, which, having fictitiously devised, they narrated, in the same manner as they have caused to be fabricated the scandalous reports against us of infamous and impious actions, of which there is neither witness nor proof—we shall bring forward the following proof.

Chapter XXIV. Varieties of Heathen Worship

In the first place [we furnish proof], because, though we say things similar to what the Greeks say, we only are hated on account of the name of Christ, and though we do no wrong, are put to death as sinners; other men in other places worshipping trees and rivers, and mice and cats and crocodiles, and many irrational animals. Nor are the same animals esteemed by all; but in one place one is worshipped, and another in another, so that all are profane in the judgment of one another, on account of their not worshipping the same objects. And this is the sole accusation you bring against us, that we do not reverence the same gods as you do, nor offer to the dead libations and the savour of fat, and crowns for their statues, and sacrifices. For you very well know that the same animals are with some esteemed gods, with others wild beasts, and with others sacrificial victims.

Chapter XXV. False Gods Abandoned by Christians

And, secondly, because we—who, out of every race of men, used to worship Bacchus the son of Semele, and Apollo the son of Latona (who in their loves with men did such things as it is shameful even to mention), and Proserpine and Venus (who were maddened with love of Adonis, and whose mysteries also you celebrate), or Aesculapius, or some one or other of those who are called gods—have now, through Jesus Christ, learned to despise these, though we be threatened with death for it, and have dedicated ourselves to the unbegotten and impossible God; of whom we are persuaded that never was he goaded by lust of Antiope, or such other women, or of Ganymede, nor was rescued by that hundred-handed giant whose aid was obtained through Thetis, nor was anxious on this account that her son Achilles should destroy many of the Greeks because of his concubine Briseis. Those who believe these things we pity, and those who invented them we know to be devils. . . .

Chapter XXVIII. God’s Care for Men

For among us the prince of the wicked spirits is called the serpent, and Satan, and the devil, as you can learn by looking into our writings. And that he would be sent into the fire with his host, and the men who follow him, and would be punished for an endless duration, Christ foretold. For the reason why God has delayed to do this, is His regard for the human race. For He foreknows that some are to be saved by repentance, some even that are perhaps not yet born. In the beginning He made the human race with the power of thought and of choosing the truth and doing right, so that all men are without excuse before God; for they have been born rational and contemplative. And if any one disbelieves that God cares for these things, he will thereby either insinuate that God does not exist, or he will assert that though He exists He delights in vice, or exists like a stone, and that neither virtue nor vice are anything, but only in the opinion of men these things are reckoned good or evil. And this is the greatest profanity and wickedness.

Chapter XXIX. Continence of Christians

And again [we fear to expose children], lest some of them be not picked up, but die, and we become murderers. But whether we marry, it is only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we live continently. And that you may understand that promiscuous intercourse is not one of our mysteries, one of our number a short time ago presented to Felix the governor in Alexandria a petition, craving that permission might be given to a surgeon to make him an eunuch. For the surgeons there said that they were forbidden to do this without the permission of the governor. And when Felix absolutely refused to sign such a permission, the youth remained single, and was satisfied with his own approving conscience, and the approval of those who thought as he did. And it is not out of place, we think, to mention here Antinous, who was alive but lately, and whom all were prompt, through fear, to worship as a god, though they knew both who he was and what was his origin.

Chapter XXX. Was Christ Not a Magician?

But lest any one should meet us with the question, What should prevent that He whom we call Christ, being a man born of men, performed what we call His mighty works by magical art, and by this appeared to be the Son of God? we will now offer proof, not trusting mere assertions, but being of necessity persuaded by those who prophesied [of Him] before these things came to pass, for with our own eyes we behold things that have happened and are happening just as they were predicted; and this will, we think appear even to you the strongest and truest evidence.

Chapter XXXI. Of the Hebrew Prophets[11]

There were, then, among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that were to come to pass, ere ever they happened. And their prophecies, as they were spoken and when they were uttered, the kings who happened to be reigning among the Jews at the several times carefully preserved in their possession, when they had been arranged in books by the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew language. And when Ptolemy king of Egypt formed a library, and endeavoured to collect the writings of all men, he heard also of these prophets, and sent to Herod, who was at that time king of the Jews, requesting that the books of the prophets be sent to him. And Herod the king did indeed send them, written, as they were, in the foresaid Hebrew language. And when their contents were found to be unintelligible to the Egyptians, he again sent and requested that men be commissioned to translate them into the Greek language. And when this was done, the books remained with the Egyptians, where they are until now. They are also in the possession of all Jews throughout the world; but they, though they read, do not understand what is said, but count us foes and enemies; and, like yourselves, they kill and punish us whenever they have the power, as you can well believe. For in the Jewish war which lately raged, Barchochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, gave orders that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishments, unless they would deny Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy. In these books, then, of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin, growing up to man’s estate, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated, and unrecognised, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being, and being called, the Son of God. We find it also predicted that certain persons should be sent by Him into every nation to publish these things, and that rather among the Gentiles [than among the Jews] men should believe on Him. And He was predicted before He appeared, first 5000 years before, and again 3000, then 2000, then 1000, and yet again 800; for in the succession of generations prophets after prophets arose.

Chapter XXXII. Christ Predicted by Moses

Moses then, who was the first of the prophets, spoke in these very words: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the nations, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape.” It is yours to make accurate inquiry, and ascertain up to whose time the Jews had a lawgiver and king of their own. Up to the time of Jesus Christ, who taught us, and interpreted the prophecies which were not yet understood, [they had a lawgiver] as was foretold by the holy and divine Spirit of prophecy through Moses, “that a ruler would not fail the Jews until He should come for whom the kingdom was reserved” (for Judah was the forefather of the Jews, from whom also they have their name of Jews); and after He (i.e., Christ) appeared, you began to rule the Jews, and gained possession of all their territory. And the prophecy, “He shall be the expectation of the nations,” signified that there would be some of all nations who should look for Him to come again. And this indeed you can see for yourselves, and be convinced of by fact. For of all races of men there are some who look for Him who was crucified in Judaea, and after whose crucifixion the land was straightway surrendered to you as spoil of war. And the prophecy, “binding His foal to the vine, and washing His robe in the blood of the grape,” was a significant symbol of the things that were to happen to Christ, and of what He was to do. For the foal of an ass stood bound to a vine at the entrance of a village, and He ordered His acquaintances to bring it to Him then; and when it was brought, He mounted and sat upon it, and entered Jerusalem, where was the vast temple of the Jews which was afterwards destroyed by you. And after this He was crucified, that the rest of the prophecy might be fulfilled. For this “washing His robe in the blood of the grape” was predictive of the passion He was to endure, cleansing by His blood those who believe on Him. For what is called by the Divine Spirit through the prophet “His robe,” are those men who believe in Him in whom abideth the seed of God, the Word. And what is spoken of as “the blood of the grape,” signifies that He who should appear would have blood, though not of the seed of man, but of the power of God. And the first power after God the Father and Lord of all is the Word, who is also the Son; and of Him we will, in what follows, relate how He took flesh and became man. For as man did not make the blood of the vine, but God, so it was hereby intimated that the blood should not be of human seed, but of divine power, as we have said above. And Isaiah, another prophet, foretelling the same things in other words, spoke thus: “A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a flower shall spring from the root of Jesse; and His arm shall the nations trust.” And a star of light has arisen, and a flower has sprung from the root of Jesse—this Christ. For by the power of God He was conceived by a virgin of the seed of Jacob, who was the father of Judah, who, as we have shown, was the father of the Jews; and Jesse was His forefather according to the oracle, and He was the son of Jacob and Judah according to lineal descent.

Chapter XXXIII. Manner of Christ’s Birth Predicted

And hear again how Isaiah in express words foretold that He should be born of a virgin; for he spoke thus: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and they shall say for His name, ‘God with us.’” For things which were incredible and seemed impossible with men, these God predicted by the Spirit of prophecy as about to come to pass, in order that, when they came to pass, there might be no unbelief, but faith, because of their prediction. But lest some, not understanding the prophecy now cited, should charge us with the very things we have been laying to the charge of the poets who say that Jupiter went in to women through lust, let us try to explain the words. This, then, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive,” signifies that a virgin should conceive without intercourse. For if she had had intercourse with any one whatever, she was no longer a virgin; but the power of God having come upon the virgin, overshadowed her, and caused her while yet a virgin to conceive. And the angel of God who was sent to the same virgin at that time brought her good news, saying, “Behold, thou shalt conceive of the Holy Ghost, and shalt bear a Son, and He shall be called the Son of the Highest, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins,”—as they who have recorded all that concerns our Saviour Jesus Christ have taught, whom we believed, since by Isaiah also, whom we have now adduced, the Spirit of prophecy declared that He should be born as we intimated before. It is wrong, therefore, to understand the Spirit and the power of God as anything else than the Word, who is also the first-born of God, as the foresaid prophet Moses declared; and it was this which, when it came upon the virgin and overshadowed her, caused her to conceive, not by intercourse, but by power. And the name Jesus in the Hebrew language means Swthvr (Saviour) in the Greek tongue. Wherefore, too, the angel said to the virgin, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” And that the prophets are inspired by no other than the Divine Word, even you, as I fancy, will grant.

Chapter XXXIV. Place of Christ’s Birth Foretold

And hear what part of earth He was to be born in, as another prophet, Micah, foretold. He spoke thus: “And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, who shall feed My people.” Now there is a village in the land of the Jews, thirty-five stadia from Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ was born, as you can ascertain also from the registers of the taxing made under Cyrenius, your first procurator in Judaea. . . .

Chapter XXXVII. Utterances of the Father

And that this too may be clear to you, there were spoken from the person of the Father through Isaiah the prophet, the following words: “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, and My people hath not understood. Woe, sinful nation, a people full of sins, a wicked seed, children that are transgressors, ye have forsaken the Lord.” And again elsewhere, when the same prophet speaks in like manner from the person of the Father, “What is the house that ye will build for Me? saith the Lord. The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.” And again, in another place, “Your new moons and your sabbaths My soul hateth; and the great day of the fast and of ceasing from labour I cannot away with; nor, if ye come to be seen of Me, will I hear you: your hands are full of blood; and if ye bring fine flour, incense, it is abomination unto Me: the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls I do not desire. For who hath required this at your hands? But loose every bond of wickedness, tear asunder the tight knots of violent contracts, cover the houseless and naked, deal thy bread to the hungry.” What kind of things are taught through the prophets from [the person of] God, you can now perceive.

Chapter XXXVIII. Utterances of the Son

And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks from the person of Christ, the utterances are of this sort: “I have spread out My hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who walk in a way that is not good.” And again: “I gave My back to the scourges, and My cheeks to the buffetings; I turned not away My face from the shame of spittings; and the Lord was My helper: therefore was I not confounded: but I set My face as a firm rock; and I knew that I should not be ashamed, for He is near that justifieth Me.” And again, when He says, “They cast lots upon My vesture, and pierced My hands and My feet. And I lay down and slept, and rose again, because the Lord sustained Me.” And again, when He says, “They spake with their lips, they wagged the head, saying, Let Him deliver Himself.” And that all these things happened to Christ at the hands of the Jews, you can ascertain. For when He was crucified, they did shoot out the lip, and wagged their heads, saying, “Let Him who raised the dead save Himself.”

Chapter XXXIX. Direct Predictions by the Spirit

And when the Spirit of prophecy speaks as predicting things that are to come to pass, He speaks in this way: “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” And that it did so come to pass, we can convince you. For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ. For that saying, “The tongue has sworn but the mind is unsworn,” might be imitated by us in this matter. But if the soldiers enrolled by you, and who have taken the military oath, prefer their allegiance to their own life, and parents, and country, and all kindred, though you can offer them nothing incorruptible, it were verily ridiculous if we, who earnestly long for incorruption, should not endure all things, in order to obtain what we desire from Him who is able to grant it. . . .

Chapter XLVI. The Word in the World before Christ

But lest some should, without reason, and for the perversion of what we teach, maintain that we say that Christ was born one hundred and fifty years ago under Cyrenius, and subsequently, in the time of Pontius Pilate, taught what we say He taught; and should cry out against us as though all men who were born before Him were irresponsible—let us anticipate and solve the difficulty. We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably. But who, through the power of the Word, according to the will of God the Father and Lord of all, He was born of a virgin as a man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, an intelligent man will be able to comprehend from what has been already so largely said. And we, since the proof of this subject is less needful now, will pass for the present to the proof of those things which are urgent. . . .

Chapter LIII. Summary of the Prophecies

Though we could bring forward many other prophecies, we forbear, judging these sufficient for the persuasion of those who have ears to hear and understand; and considering also that those persons are able to see that we do not make mere assertions without being able to produce proof, like those fables that are told of the so-called sons of Jupiter. For with what reason should we believe of a crucified man that He is the first-born of the unbegotten God, and Himself will pass judgment on the whole human race, unless we had found testimonies concerning Him published before He came and was born as man, and unless we saw that things had happened accordingly—the devastation of the land of the Jews, and men of every race persuaded by His teaching through the apostles, and rejecting their old habits, in which, being deceived, they had their conversation; yea, seeing ourselves too, and knowing that the Christians from among the Gentiles are both more numerous and more true than those from among the Jews and Samaritans? For all the other human races are called Gentiles by the Spirit of prophecy; but the Jewish and Samaritan races are called the tribe of Israel, and the house of Jacob. And the prophecy in which it was predicted that there should be more believers from the Gentiles than from the Jews and Samaritans, we will produce: it ran thus: “Rejoice, O barren, thou that dost not bear; break forth and shout, thou that dost not travail, because many more are the children of the desolate than of her that hath an husband.” For all the Gentiles were “desolate” of the true God, serving the works of their hands; but the Jews and Samaritans, having the word of God delivered to them by the prophets, and always expecting the Christ, did not recognise Him when He came, except some few, of whom the Spirit of prophecy by Isaiah had predicted that they should be saved. He spoke as from their person: “Except the Lord had left us a seed, we should have been as Sodom and Gomorrah.” For Sodom and Gomorrah are related by Moses to have been cities of ungodly men, which God burned with fire and brimstone, and overthrew, no one of their inhabitants being saved except a certain stranger, a Chaldaean by birth, whose name was Lot; with whom also his daughters were rescued. And those who care may yet see their whole country desolate and burned, and remaining barren. And to show how those from among the Gentiles were foretold as more true and more believing, we will cite what was said by Isaiah the prophet; for he spoke as follows “Israel is uncircumcised in heart, but the Gentiles are uncircumcised in the flesh.” So many things therefore, as these, when they are seen with the eye, are enough to produce conviction and belief in those who embrace the truth, and are not bigoted in their opinions, nor are governed by their passions.

Chapter LIV. Origin of Heathen Mythology

But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where they [the demons] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, then, was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: “There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape.” The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. And because in the prophecy of Moses it had not been expressly intimated whether He who was to come was the Son of God, and whether He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth or ascend into heaven, and because the name of “foal” could mean either the foal of an ass or the foal of a horse, they, not knowing whether He who was foretold would bring the foal of an ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor whether He was the Son of God, as we said above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, “Strong as a giant to run his course,” they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth. And when, again, they learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius. . . .

Chapter LIX. Plato’s Obligation to Moses

And that you may learn that it was from our teachers—we mean the account given through the prophets—that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spake thus: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so.” So that both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned, and you also can be convinced, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses. And that which the poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses.

Chapter LX. Plato’s Doctrine of the Cross

And the physiological discussion concerning the Son of God in the Timoeus of Plato, where he says, “He placed him crosswise in the universe,” he borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, “If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby.” And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death. Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, “that the Spirit of God moved over the waters.” For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, “And the third around the third.” And hear how the Spirit of prophecy signified through Moses that there should be a conflagration. He spoke thus: “Everlasting fire shall descend, and shall devour to the pit beneath.” It is not, then, that we hold the same opinions as others, but that all speak in imitation of ours. Among us these things can be heard and learned from persons who do not even know the forms of the letters, who are uneducated and barbarous in speech, though wise and believing in mind; some, indeed, even maimed and deprived of eyesight; so that you may understand that these things are not the effect of human wisdom, but are uttered by the power of God. . . .

Chapter LXVIII. Conclusion

And if these things seem to you to be reasonable and true, honour them; but if they seem nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not decree death against those who have done no wrong, as you would against enemies. For we forewarn you, that you shall not escape the coming judgment of God, if you continue in your injustice; and we ourselves will invite you to do that which is pleasing to God. And though from the letter of the greatest and most illustrious Emperor Adrian, your father, we could demand that you order judgment to be given as we have desired, yet we have made this appeal and explanation, not on the ground of Adrian’s decision, but because we know that what we ask is just. And we have subjoined the copy of Adrian’s epistle, that you may know that we are speaking truly about this.

Diagnostic Questions

1. If you were going to define Justin’s apologetic method, how would you characterize it?

2. Can you find elements of persuasion in Justin’s apologetic?

3. Is there a legitimate use of cultural and intellectual ideas in Justin’s approach? What are they?

4. What role does Scripture play in Justin’s defense?

5. What are the primary theological ideas that Justin uses in his defense of Christianity?

6. What role does the relationship of Christianity to the state play in Justin’s apology?

1. Cornelius Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology (n.p., 1969,) 205, his emphasis.

2. Roman emperor from 138 to 161. He was born September 18, (AD) 86, and died March 7, 161.

3. Note that apologetics in these early days was a life-or-death matter. Here Justin has to face the emperor and plead for his life.

4. This is an important point of persuasion. Justin appeals, not first to his own principles, but to theirs. In doing so he is calling them to be true to what they claim to be (note the apology is addressed to “Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher”).

5. Again, it is important not to miss the persuasive element here. Justin is simply calling them to be true to who they say they are. This is a legitimate use of what is called an ad hominem argument, arguing “to the man” in the sense that the appeal is to something resident in the position of the person himself.

6. It is possible that this statement is double-edged. Justin will apply it to the name Christian, but it also strengthens his point that the emperor is not pious, nor his son a philosopher, just because they name themselves as such. Their character is proved in and by their actions.

7. The phrase “atheistic opinions” refers to the fact that Christians would not countenance the gods of the Greeks, but would worship only the true God.

8. Justin makes reference here to the three persons of the Trinity. Certainly, his understanding of the three in one did not enjoy the benefits of later creeds and debates. Nevertheless, he is clear that Christians “worship and adore” these three. This could not have been affirmed in any orthodox context without the implicit affirmation that God is one. Justin is not affirming polytheism here. It is possible that he refers to the three, in part because those to whom he speaks are quite comfortable with polytheism. Whatever the case, Justin’s statement about the three is remarkable given the time in which he writes.

9. This has reference to the charge that Christians were not good citizens because they wanted to overturn the governing structures.

10. Note here that Justin appeals to the beliefs of the pagans in order to show the belief of Christian resurrection to be plausible. He is not here attempting to argue for the meaning of the resurrection. He is simply trying to show that just because one believes in such a thing does not make one liable to criminal action, since even the authorities of pagans espouse the same.

11. Notice that Justin appeals to the truth of Scripture for evidence. He is aware that the emperor does not believe such things. But he also knows that in Scripture is “the power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16). To appeal to any other source is to appeal to a lesser authority.

CHAPTER 4

Athenagoras

(d. ca. 185)

Not much is known specifically about the life of Athenagoras. Before the tenth century, there is only one obscure church father, Methodius (fourth century), who alludes to him. Much that is reported about Athenagoras is questionable. Some say he was the first head of the school of Alexandria and that Clement was a student of his. Whatever the case, most agree that Athenagoras was one of the most eloquent apologists of the second century. He had an obvious familiarity with Plato and Platonic philosophy, though his acquaintance with the literature and mythology of the day was more profound than was his knowledge of philosophy.

The “Plea”

“A Plea for the Christians” is typically dated somewhere between AD 176 and 180. It is addressed to both Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The co-rulership of these two men began in 176, and Marcus Aurelius died in 180. The “Plea” may coincide with a second wave of persecutions during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. If so, the date is most likely AD 177.

The title, “A Plea . . . ,” has provoked questions as well. The word presbeia in the Greek, or legatio in Latin, can mean either “plea” or “embassy.” If this work is an “embassy,” then it would have been addressed to the emperors face to face. There is some indication that Athenagoras did address this to the emperors face to face, in chapter 11: “Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes.” If we are to take those words at face value, as many do, then the proper name of this address should be “Embassy” and not “Plea.”

Proofs for God’s Existence?

There are three particular places (chaps. 4, 5, and 16) where some have found in Athenagoras a proof for God’s existence from the harmony of the cosmos. There may certainly be hints of such, but to look for a full-blown proof at this point in history is anachronistic.

In chapter 4, Athenagoras refers to Diagoras, a fifth-century (BC) Greek who later became the paradigm atheist in Greek lore. Athenagoras says that it was right for the Athenians to charge Diagoras with atheism. He adds, “If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras, while we have such incentives to piety—in the established order, the universal harmony, the magnitude, the colour, the form, the arrangement of the world—with reason might our reputation for impiety, as well as the cause of our being thus harassed, be charged on ourselves.” There is a somewhat cryptic reference here to the order of the cosmos pointing to the existence of God, and thus to Christian piety.

In chapter 5, Athenagoras refers to Euripides in saying:

He neither saw any real existences, to which a name is usually assigned, underlying them (“Zeus,” for instance: “who Zeus is I know not, but by report”), nor that any names were given to realities which actually do exist (for of what use are names to those who have no real existences underlying them?); but Him he did see by means of His works, considering with an eye to things unseen the things which are manifest in air, in ether, on earth. Him therefore, from whom proceed all created things, and by whose Spirit they are governed, he concluded to be God.

Again, there is a reference to the works of God pointing to his existence.

In chapter 16, Athenagoras says: “Beautiful without doubt is the world, excelling, as well in its magnitude as in the arrangement of its parts, both those in the oblique circle and those about the north, and also in its spherical form. Yet it is not this, but its Artificer, that we must worship.”

And then again:

Whether, then, as Plato says, the world be a product of divine art, I admire its beauty, and adore the Artificer; or whether it be His essence and body, as the Peripatetics affirm, we do not neglect to adore God, who is the cause of the motion of the body, and descend “to the poor and weak elements,” adoring in the impassible air (as they term it), passible matter; or, if any one apprehends the several parts of the world to be powers of God, we do not approach and do homage to the powers, but their Maker and Lord.

While none of these citations would constitute a specific “proof ” for God’s existence, there can be no question that Athenagoras is pointing his listeners to the order of creation in order to persuade them of the necessity of a Creator.

Athenagoras’s Use of ad Hominem

As we saw in Justin, so also in Athenagoras. Because he, like Justin, is addressing the emperors, he is pressing them for consistency according to what they already affirm. In this, we see further examples of a legitimate ad hominem approach. Much of it is bound up with his defense (primarily) against the three charges brought against Christians, but we get examples of it before that as well. Notice, for example, what he says in chapter 2:

But no name in and by itself is reckoned either good or bad; names appear bad or good according as the actions underlying them are bad or good. You, however, have yourselves a dear knowledge of this, since you are well instructed in philosophy and all learning. For this reason, too, those who are brought before you for trial, though they may be arraigned on the gravest charges, have no fear, because they know that you will inquire respecting their previous life, and not be influenced by names if they mean nothing, nor by the charges contained in the indictments if they should be false: they accept with equal satisfaction, as regards its fairness, the sentence whether of condemnation or acquittal.[1]

Now, in this paragraph, he begins by noting that “no name in and by itself is reckoned either good or bad; names appear bad or good according as the actions underlying them are bad or good.” Here he is saying that the emperors are not judged simply according to their designation as philosophers, but according to the “wisdom” of their actions. This sounds remarkably like Justin. Could he have been influenced by Justin, or is this likely the way Christians were taught to defend themselves?

We could mention a couple other general ad hominem arguments (chap. 32):

But it behoved them, if they meant to condemn shameless and promiscuous intercourse, to hate either Zeus, who begat children of his mother Rhea and his daughter Kore, and took his own sister to wife, or Orpheus, the inventor of these tales, which made Zeus more unholy and detestable than Thyestes himself; for the latter defiled his daughter in pursuance of an oracle, and when he wanted to obtain the kingdom and avenge himself. But we are so far from practising promiscuous intercourse, that it is not lawful among us to indulge even a lustful look. “For,” saith He, “he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.[2]

There are some inconsistencies in Athenagoras’s thought as well. Note the Greek view of matter[3] in chapter 33:

Therefore, having the hope of eternal life, we despise the things of this life, even to the pleasures of the soul, each of us reckoning her his wife whom he has married according to the laws laid down by us, and that only for the purpose of having children. For as the husbandman throwing the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing more upon it, so to us the procreation of children is the measure of our indulgence in appetite.

The Three Charges Athenagoras Addresses

Athenagoras chooses to deal with three main charges of which Christians were accused during his time. Some of these will be familiar, in light of Justin’s Apology.

The first was the charge of atheism; the second involved the so-called Thyestean banquets, or cannibalism; the third was Oedipean intercourse, or incest. Most of Athenagoras’s time is spent with the first charge. Chapters 4–30 deal with atheism and monotheism. Chapters 31–37 answer the other two charges and then conclude.

In dealing with atheism, Christians had to explain their refusal to worship the gods of the “cities” and to participate in the traditional rites. One of the key elements in Athenagoras’s defense of theism against the charge of atheism was his defense of monotheism against the polytheism of the day.

Notice what he says in 7:

Since, therefore, the unity of the Deity is confessed by almost all, even against their will, when they come to treat of the first principles of the universe, and we in our turn likewise assert that He who arranged this universe is God,—why is it that they can say and write with impunity what they please concerning the Deity, but that against us a law lies in force, though we are able to demonstrate what we apprehend and justly believe, namely that there is one God, with proofs and reason accordant with truth?

Note also the strong argument in 8:

As regards, then, the doctrine that there was from the beginning one God, the Maker of this universe, consider it in this wise, that you may be acquainted with the argumentative grounds also of our faith. If there were from the beginning two or more gods, they were either in one and the same place, or each of them separately in his own. In one and the same place they could not be. For, if they are gods, they are not alike; but because they are uncreated they are unlike:—for created things are like their patterns; but the uncreated are unlike, being neither produced from any one, nor formed after the pattern of any one. Hand and eye and foot are parts of one body, making up together one man: is God in this sense one? And indeed Socrates was compounded and divided into parts, just because he was created and perishable; but God is uncreated, and, impassible, and indivisible—does not, therefore, consist of parts.

But if, on the contrary, each of them exists separately, since He that made the world is above the things created, and about the things He has made and set in order, where can the other or the rest be? For if the world, being made spherical, is confined within the circles of heaven, and the Creator of the world is above the things created, managing that by His providential care of these, what place is there for the second god, or for the other gods? For he is not in the world, because it belongs to the other; nor about the world, for God the Maker of the world is above it. But if he is neither in the world nor about the world (for all that surrounds it is occupied by this one), where is he? Is he above the world and [the first] God? In another world, or about another? But if he is in another or about another, then he is not about us, for he does not govern the world; nor is his power great, for he exists in a circumscribed space. But if he is neither in another world (for all things are filled by the other), nor about another (for all things are occupied by the other), he clearly does not exist at all, for there is no place in which he can be. Or what does he do, seeing there is another to whom the world belongs, and he is above the Maker of the world, and yet is neither in the world nor about the world?

Is there, then, some other place where he can stand? But God, and what belongs to God, are above him. And what, too, shall be the place, seeing that the other fills the regions which are above the world? Perhaps he exerts a providential care? [By no means.] And yet, unless he does so, he has done nothing. If, then, he neither does anything nor exercises providential care, and if there is not another place in which he is, then this Being of whom we speak is the one God from the beginning, and the sole Maker of the world.

It is hard to know how to categorize this argument for monotheism. Is it an argument against dualism? Not exactly, because what is argued is not two ultimate, opposing principles or persons, but two compatible principles or persons. Is it an argument from limited space? Athenagoras seems to want somehow to say that there is not enough “room” for two gods. Perhaps it can best be understood as an argument from a preconceived notion of God.

The argument against “parts” in God has intuitive appeal, but has been questioned, like everything else about God, throughout the history of philosophy. The intuitive appeal is that if God did have parts, the serious question would have to be posed as to the relationship of those parts to God. Are they created, uncreated, eternal? Theology, therefore, has affirmed the unitas simplicitas (simplicity) of God; stressing not only that God is one (unitas singularitatis), but that he is indivisible.

In some ways, this argument carries with it numerous problems, philosophically and logically. In other ways, it can be seen as a kind of transcendental argument, that is, an argument from the impossibility of the contrary. It may be that Athenagoras is saying that since the Christian God exists, it is impossible for any other god to exist. That is a thoroughly biblical argument. “I am God, and there is no other,” says the Lord (Isa. 45:22).

We would be remiss in this entire discussion if we skipped over Athenagoras’s pleas to the emperor concerning the behavior of the Christians. Chapter 11 contains, according to many, the most eloquent section of this most eloquent apology.

Note the emphasis on Christian love:

For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear up ambiguities, and explain etymologies, or of those who teach homonyms and synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and what the predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and such like instructions to make them happy: who of them have so purged their souls as, instead of hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their lives? On the contrary, they never cease with evil intent to search out skilfully the secrets of their art, and are ever bent on working some ill, making the art of words and not the exhibition of deeds their business and profession. But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their neighbours as themselves.

Here Athenagoras is attempting to undermine philosophy by noting that Christianity is applicable to all people, not just certain classes.

Finally, in chapter 31, he begins his answer to the charge of godless banquets and sexual unions. His initial answer is that it has always been the case that evil has opposed good. He uses the examples of Pythagoras, who, with three hundred companions, was burned to death; Heraclitus and Democritus, who were driven out, the one from the city of Ephesus and the other, accused of being mad, from the city of Abdera; and the Athenians, who condemned Socrates to death.

A Plea for the Christians

Athenagoras the Athenian: Philosopher and Christian

To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and more than all, philosophers.

Chapter 1. Injustice Shown towards the Christians

In your empire, greatest of sovereigns, different nations have different customs and laws; and no one is hindered by law or fear of punishment from following his ancestral usages, however ridiculous these may be. A citizen of Ilium calls Hector a god, and pays divine honors to Helen, taking her for Adrasteia. The Lacedaemonian venerates Agamemnon as Zeus, and Phylonoë the daughter of Tyndarus; and the man of Tenedos worships Tennes. The Athenian sacrifices to Erechtheus as Poseidon. The Athenians also perform religious rites and celebrate mysteries in honor of Agraulus and Pandrosus, women who were deemed guilty of impiety for opening the box. In short, among every nation and people, men offer whatever sacrifices and celebrate whatever mysteries they please. The Egyptians reckon among their gods even cats, and crocodiles, and serpents, and asps, and dogs. And to all these both you and the laws give permission so to act, deeming, on the one hand, that to believe in no god at all is impious and wicked, and on the other, that it is necessary for each man to worship the gods he prefers, in order that through fear of the deity, men may be kept from wrong-doing. But why—for do not, like the multitude, be led astray by hearsay—why is a mere name odious to you? Names are not deserving of hatred: it is the unjust act that calls for penalty and punishment. And accordingly, with admiration of your mildness and gentleness, and your peaceful and benevolent disposition towards every man, individuals live in the possession of equal rights; and the cities, according to their rank, share in equal honor; and the whole empire, under your intelligent sway, enjoys profound peace. But for us who are called Christians you have not in like manner cared; but although we commit no wrong—nay, as will appear in the sequel of this discourse, are of all men most piously and righteously disposed towards the Deity and towards your government—you allow us to be harassed, plundered, and persecuted, the multitude making war upon us for our name alone. We venture, therefore, to lay a statement of our case before you—and you will learn from this discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and reason—and we beseech you to bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. For the fine imposed by our persecutors does not aim merely at our property, nor their insults at our reputation, nor the damage they do us at any other of our greater interests. These we hold in contempt, though to the generality they appear matters of great importance; for we have learned, not only not to return blow for blow, nor to go to law with those who plunder and rob us, but to those who smite us on one side of the face to offer the other side also, and to those who take away our coat to give likewise our cloak. But, when we have surrendered our property, they plot against our very bodies and souls, pouring upon us wholesale charges of crimes of which we are guiltless even in thought, but which belong to these idle praters themselves, and to the whole tribe of those who are like them.

Chapter 2. Claim to Be Treated as Others Are When Accused

If, indeed, any one can convict us of a crime, be it small or great, we do not ask to be excused from punishment, but are prepared to undergo the sharpest and most merciless inflictions. But if the accusation relates merely to our name—and it is undeniable, that up to the present time the stories told about us rest on nothing better than the common undiscriminating popular talk, nor has any Christian been convicted of crime—it will devolve on you, illustrious and benevolent and most learned sovereigns, to remove by law this despiteful treatment, so that, as throughout the world both individuals and cities partake of your beneficence, we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we are no longer the victims of false accusation. For it does not comport with your justice, that others when charged with crimes should not be punished till they are convicted, but that in our case the name we bear should have more force than the evidence adduced on the trial, when the judges, instead of inquiring whether the person arraigned have committed any crime, vent their insults on the name, as if that were itself a crime. But no name in and by itself is reckoned either good or bad; names appear bad or good according as the actions underlying them are bad or good. You, however, have yourselves a clear knowledge of this, since you are well instructed in philosophy and all learning. For this reason, too, those who are brought before you for trial, though they may be arraigned on the gravest charges, have no fear, because they know that you will inquire respecting their previous life, and not be influenced by names if they mean nothing, nor by the charges contained in the indictments if they should be false: they accept with equal satisfaction, as regards its fairness, the sentence whether of condemnation or acquittal. What, therefore, is conceded as the common right of all, we claim for ourselves, that we shall not be hated and punished because we are called Christians (for what has the name to do with our being bad men?), but be tried on any charges which may be brought against us, and either be released on our disproving them, or punished if convicted of crime—not for the name (for no Christian is a bad man unless he falsely profess our doctrines), but for the wrong which has been done. It is thus that we see the philosophers judged. None of them before trial is deemed by the judge either good or bad on account of his science or art, but if found guilty of wickedness he is punished, without thereby affixing any stigma on philosophy (for he is a bad man for not cultivating philosophy in a lawful manner, but science is blameless), while if he refutes the false charges he is acquitted. Let this equal justice, then, be done to us. Let the life of the accused persons be investigated, but let the name stand free from all imputation. I must at the outset of my defense entreat you, illustrious emperors, to listen to me impartially: not to be carried away by the common irrational talk and prejudge the case, but to apply your desire of knowledge and love of truth to the examination of our doctrine also. Thus, while you on your part will not err through ignorance, we also, by disproving the charges arising out of the undiscerning rumor of the multitude, shall cease to be assailed.[4]

Chapter 3. Charges Brought against the Christians

Three things are alleged against us: atheism, Thyestean feasts, Oedipodean intercourse. But if these charges are true, spare no class: proceed at once against our crimes; destroy us root and branch, with our wives and children, if any Christian is found to live like the brutes. And yet even the brutes do not touch the flesh of their own kind; and they pair by a law of nature, and only at the regular season, not from simple wantonness; they also recognize those from whom they receive benefits. If anyone, therefore, is more savage than the brutes, what punishment that he can endure shall be deemed adequate to such offenses? But, if these things are only idle tales and empty slanders, originating in the fact that virtue is opposed by its very nature to vice, and that contraries war against one another by a divine law (and you are yourselves witnesses that no such iniquities are committed by us, for you forbid informations to be laid against us), it remains for you to make inquiry concerning our life, our opinions, our loyalty and obedience to you and your house and government, and thus at length to grant to us the same rights (we ask nothing more) as to those who persecute us. For we shall then conquer them, unhesitatingly surrendering, as we now do, our very lives for the truth’s sake.

Chapter 4. The Christians Are Not Atheists, but Acknowledge One Only God

As regards, first of all, the allegation that we are atheists—for I will meet the charges one by one, that we may not be ridiculed for having no answer to give to those who make them—with reason did the Athenians adjudge Diagoras guilty of atheism, in that he not only divulged the Orphic doctrine, and published the mysteries of Eleusis and of the Cabiri, and chopped up the wooden statue of Hercules to boil his turnips, but openly declared that there was no God at all. But to us, who distinguish God from matter, and teach that matter is one thing and God another, and that they are separated by a wide interval (for that the Deity is uncreated and eternal, to be beheld by the understanding and reason alone,[5] while matter is created and perishable), is it not absurd to apply the name of atheism? If our sentiments were like those of Diagoras, while we have such incentives to piety—in the established order, the universal harmony, the magnitude, the color, the form, the arrangement of the world—with reason might our reputation for impiety, as well as the cause of our being thus harassed, be charged on ourselves. But, since our doctrine acknowledges one God, the Maker of this universe, who is Himself uncreated (for that which is does not come to be, but that which is not) but has made all things by the Logos which is from Him, we are treated unreasonably in both respects, in that we are both defamed and persecuted. . . .

Chapter 7. Superiority of the Christian Doctrine respecting God

Since, therefore, the unity of the Deity is confessed by almost all, even against their will, when they come to treat of the first principles of the universe, and we in our turn likewise assert that He who arranged this universe is God,—why is it that they can say and write with impunity what they please concerning the Deity, but that against us a law lies in force, though we are able to demonstrate what we apprehend and justly believe, namely that there is one God, with proofs and reason accordant with truth? For poets and philosophers, as to other subjects so also to this, have applied themselves in the way of conjecture, moved, by reason of their affinity with the afflatus from God, each one by his own soul, to try whether he could find out and apprehend the truth; but they have not been found competent fully to apprehend it, because they thought fit to learn, not from God concerning God, but each one from himself;[6] hence they came each to his own conclusion respecting God, and matter, and forms, and the world. But we have for witnesses of the things we apprehend and believe, prophets, men who have pronounced concerning God and the things of God, guided by the Spirit of God. And you too will admit, excelling all others as you do in intelligence and in piety towards the true God, that it would be irrational for us to cease to believe in the Spirit from God, who moved the mouths of the prophets like musical instruments, and to give heed to mere human opinions.

Chapter 8. Absurdities of Polytheism

As regards, then, the doctrine that there was from the beginning one God, the Maker of this universe, consider it in this wise, that you may be acquainted with the argumentative grounds also of our faith. If there were from the beginning two or more gods, they were either in one and the same place, or each of them separately in his own. In one and the same place they could not be. For, if they are gods, they are not alike; but because they are uncreated they are unlike: for created things are like their patterns; but the uncreated are unlike, being neither produced from any one, nor formed after the pattern of any one. Hand and eye and foot are parts of one body, making up together one man: is God in this sense one? And indeed Socrates was compounded and divided into parts, just because he was created and perishable; but God is uncreated, and, impassible, and indivisible—does not, therefore, consist of parts. But if, on the contrary, each of them exists separately, since He that made the world is above the things created, and about the things He has made and set in order, where can the other or the rest be? For if the world, being made spherical, is confined within the circles of heaven, and the Creator of the world is above the things created, managing that by His providential care of these, what place is there for the second god, or for the other gods? For he is not in the world, because it belongs to the other; nor about the world, for God the Maker of the world is above it. But if he is neither in the world nor about the world (for all that surrounds it is occupied by this one), where is he? Is he above the world and [the first] God? In another world, or about another? But if he is in another or about another, then he is not about us, for he does not govern the world; nor is his power great, for he exists in a circumscribed space. But if he is neither in another world (for all things are filled by the other), nor about another (for all things are occupied by the other), he clearly does not exist at all, for there is no place in which he can be. Or what does he do, seeing there is another to whom the world belongs, and he is above the Maker of the world, and yet is neither in the world nor about the world? Is there, then, some other place where he can stand? But God, and what belongs to God, are above him. And what, too, shall be the place, seeing that the other fills the regions which are above the world? Perhaps he exerts a providential care? [By no means.] And yet, unless he does so, he has done nothing. If, then, he neither does anything nor exercises providential care, and if there is not another place in which he is, then this Being of whom we speak is the one God from the beginning, and the sole Maker of the world.

Chapter 9. The Testimony of the Prophets

If we satisfied ourselves with advancing such considerations as these, our doctrines might by some be looked upon as human. But, since the voices of the prophets confirm our arguments—for I think that you also, with your great zeal for knowledge, and your great attainments in learning, cannot be ignorant of the writings either of Moses or of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the other prophets, who, lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations of their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit, uttered the things with which they were inspired, the Spirit making use of them as a flute-player breathes into a flute;—what, then, do these men say? The Lord is our God; no other can be compared with Him. And again: I am God, the first and the last, and besides Me there is no God (Isa. 44:6). In like manner: Before Me there was no other God, and after Me there shall be none; I am God, and there is none besides Me (Isa. 43:10–11). And as to His greatness: Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet: what house will you build for Me, or what is the place of My rest? (Isa. 66:1). But I leave it to you, when you meet with the books themselves, to examine carefully the prophecies contained in them, that you may on fitting grounds defend us from the abuse cast upon us.[7]

Chapter 10. The Christians Worship the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

That we are not atheists, therefore, seeing that we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended by the understanding only and the reason,[8] who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is kept in being—I have sufficiently demonstrated. [I say His Logos], for we acknowledge also a Son of God.[9] Nor let anyone think it ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though the poets, in their fictions, represent the gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the same as theirs, concerning either God the Father or the Son. But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind , had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos ); but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic Spirit also agrees with our statements. The Lord, it says, made me, the beginning of His ways to His works (Prov. 8:22). The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what relates to the divine nature confined to these points; but we recognize also a multitude of angels and ministers, whom God the Maker and Framer of the world distributed and appointed to their several posts by His Logos,[10]to occupy themselves about the elements, and the heavens, and the world, and the things in it, and the goodly ordering of them all.

Chapter 11. The Moral Teaching of the Christians Repels the Charge Brought against Them

If I go minutely into the particulars of our doctrine, let it not surprise you. It is that you may not be carried away by the popular and irrational opinion, but may have the truth clearly before you. For presenting the opinions themselves to which we adhere, as being not human but uttered and taught by God, we shall be able to persuade you not to think of us as atheists. What, then, are those teachings in which we are brought up? I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that persecute you; that you may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Luke 6:27–28; Matt. 5:44–45). Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes. For who of those that reduce syllogisms, and clear up ambiguities, and explain etymologies, or of those who teach homonyms and synonyms, and predicaments and axioms, and what is the subject and what the predicate, and who promise their disciples by these and such like instructions to make them happy: who of them have so purged their souls as, instead of hating their enemies, to love them; and, instead of speaking ill of those who have reviled them (to abstain from which is of itself an evidence of no mean forbearance), to bless them; and to pray for those who plot against their lives?[11] On the contrary, they never cease with evil intent to search out skillfully the secrets of their art, and are ever bent on working some ill, making the art of words and not the exhibition of deeds their business and profession. But among us you will find uneducated persons, and artisans, and old women, who, if they are unable in words to prove the benefit of our doctrine, yet by their deeds exhibit the benefit arising from their persuasion of its truth: they do not rehearse speeches, but exhibit good works; when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and love their neighbors as themselves.

Chapter 12. Consequent Absurdity of the Charge of Atheism

Should we, then, unless we believed that a God presides over the human race, thus purge ourselves from evil? Most certainly not. But, because we are persuaded that we shall give an account of everything in the present life to God, who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate and benevolent and generally despised method of life, believing that we shall suffer no such great evil here, even should our lives be taken from us, compared with what we shall there receive for our meek and benevolent and moderate life from the great Judge. Plato indeed has said that Minos and Rhadamanthus will judge and punish the wicked; but we say that, even if a man be Minos or Rhadamanthus himself, or their father, even he will not escape the judgment of God. Are, then, those who consider life to be comprised in this, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, and who regard death as a deep sleep and forgetfulness (sleep and death, twin brothers), to be accounted pious; while men who reckon the present life of very small worth indeed, and who are conducted to the future life by this one thing alone, that they know God and His Logos, what is the oneness of the Son with the Father, what the communion of the Father with the Son, what is the Spirit, what is the unity of these three, the Spirit, the Son, the Father, and their distinction in unity;[12] and who know that the life for which we look is far better than can be described in words, provided we arrive at it pure from all wrong-doing; who, moreover, carry our benevolence to such an extent, that we not only love our friends (for if you love them, He says, that love you, and lend to them that lend to you, what reward will you have?),—shall we, I say, when such is our character, and when we live such a life as this, that we may escape condemnation at last, not be accounted pious? These, however, are only small matters taken from great, and a few things from many, that we may not further trespass on your patience; for those who test honey and whey, judge by a small quantity whether the whole is good. . . .

Chapter 15. The Christians Distinguish God from Matter

But grant that they acknowledge the same. What then? Because the multitude, who cannot distinguish between matter and God, or see how great is the interval which lies between them, pray to idols made of matter, are we therefore, who do distinguish and separate the uncreated and the created, that which is and that which is not, that which is apprehended by the understanding and that which is perceived by the senses, and who give the fitting name to each of them,—are we to come and worship images? If, indeed, matter and God are the same, two names for one thing, then certainly, in not regarding stocks and stones, gold and silver, as gods, we are guilty of impiety. But if they are at the greatest possible remove from one another—as far asunder as the artist and the materials of his art—why are we called to account? For as is the potter and the clay (matter being the clay, and the artist the potter), so is God, the Framer of the world, and matter, which is subservient to Him for the purposes of His art. But as the clay cannot become vessels of itself without art, so neither did matter, which is capable of taking all forms, receive, apart from God the Framer, distinction and shape and order. And as we do not hold the pottery of more worth than him who made it, nor the vessels of glass and gold than him who wrought them; but if there is anything about them elegant in art we praise the artificer, and it is he who reaps the glory of the vessels: even so with matter and God—the glory and honor of the orderly arrangement of the world belongs of right not to matter, but to God, the Framer of matter. So that, if we were to regard the various forms of matter as gods, we should seem to be without any sense of the true God, because we should be putting the things which are dissoluble and perishable on a level with that which is eternal.[13] . . .

Chapter 18. The Gods Themselves Have Been Created, as the Poets Confess

But, since it is affirmed by some that, although these are only images, yet there exist gods in honor of whom they are made; and that the supplications and sacrifices presented to the images are to be referred to the gods, and are in fact made to the gods; and that there is not any other way of coming to them, for

’Tis hard for man

To meet in presence visible a God;

and whereas, in proof that such is the fact, they adduce the energies possessed by certain images, let us examine into the power attached to their names. And I would beseech you, greatest of emperors, before I enter on this discussion, to be indulgent to me while I bring forward true considerations; for it is not my design to show the fallacy of idols, but, by disproving the calumnies vented against us, to offer a reason for the course of life we follow. May you, by considering yourselves, be able to discover the heavenly kingdom also! For as all things are subservient to you, father and son, who have received the kingdom from above (for the king’s soul is in the hand of God [Prov. 21:1], says the prophetic Spirit), so to the one God and the Logos proceeding from Him, the Son, apprehended by us as inseparable from Him, all things are in like manner subjected. This then especially I beg you carefully to consider. The gods, as they affirm, were not from the beginning, but every one of them has come into existence just like ourselves. And in this opinion they all agree. Homer speaks of

Old Oceanus,

The sire of gods, and Tethys;

and Orpheus (who, moreover, was the first to invent their names, and recounted their births, and narrated the exploits of each, and is believed by them to treat with greater truth than others of divine things, whom Homer himself follows in most matters, especially in reference to the gods)—he, too, has fixed their first origin to be from water:—

Oceanus, the origin of all.

For, according to him, water was the beginning of all things, and from water mud was formed, and from both was produced an animal, a dragon with the head of a lion growing to it, and between the two heads there was the face of a god, named Heracles and Kronos. This Heracles generated an egg of enormous size, which, on becoming full, was, by the powerful friction of its generator, burst into two, the part at the top receiving the form of heaven , and the lower part that of earth . The goddess Gê moreover, came forth with a body; and Ouranos, by his union with Gê, begat females, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; and males, the hundred-handed Cottys, Gyges, Briareus, and the Cyclopes Brontes, and Steropes, and Argos, whom also he bound and hurled down to Tartarus, having learned that he was to be ejected from his government by his children; whereupon Gê, being enraged, brought forth the Titans.

The godlike Gaia bore to Ouranos

Sons who are by the name of Titans known,

Because they vengeance took on Ouranos,

Majestic, glitt’ring with his starry crown.

Chapter 19. The Philosophers Agree with the Poets respecting the Gods

Such was the beginning of the existence both of their gods and of the universe. Now what are we to make of this? For each of those things to which divinity is ascribed is conceived of as having existed from the first. For, if they have come into being, having previously had no existence, as those say who treat of the gods, they do not exist. For, a thing is either uncreated and eternal, or created and perishable. Nor do I think one thing and the philosophers another. What is that which always is, and has no origin; or what is that which has been originated, yet never is? Discoursing of the intelligible and the sensible, Plato teaches that that which always is, the intelligible, is unoriginated, but that which is not, the sensible, is originated, beginning to be and ceasing to exist. In like manner, the Stoics also say that all things will be burnt up and will again exist, the world receiving another beginning. But if, although there is, according to them, a twofold cause, one active and governing, namely providence, the other passive and changeable, namely matter, it is nevertheless impossible for the world, even though under the care of Providence, to remain in the same state, because it is created—how can the constitution of these gods remain, who are not self-existent, but have been originated? And in what are the gods superior to matter, since they derive their constitution from water? But not even water, according to them, is the beginning of all things. From simple and homogeneous elements what could be constituted? Moreover, matter requires an artificer, and the artificer requires matter. For how could figures be made without matter or an artificer? Neither, again, is it reasonable that matter should be older than God; for the efficient cause must of necessity exist before the things that are made. . . .

Chapter 31. Confutation of the Other Charges Brought against the Christians

But they have further also made up stories against us of impious feasts and forbidden intercourse between the sexes, both that they may appear to themselves to have rational grounds of hatred, and because they think either by fear to lead us away from our way of life, or to render the rulers harsh and inexorable by the magnitude of the charges they bring. But they lose their labour with those who know that from of old it has been the custom, and not in our time only, for vice to make war on virtue. Thus Pythagoras, with three hundred others, was burnt to death; Heraclitus and Democritus were banished, the one from the city of the Ephesians, the other from Abdera, because he was charged with being mad; and the Athenians condemned Socrates to death. But as they were none the worse in respect of virtue because of the opinion of the multitude, so neither does the undiscriminating calumny of some persons cast any shade upon us as regards rectitude of life, for with God we stand in good repute. Nevertheless, I will meet these charges also, although I am well assured that by what has been already said I have cleared myself to you. For as you excel all men in intelligence, you know that those whose life is directed towards God as its rule, so that each one among us may be blameless and irreproachable before Him, will not entertain even the thought of the slightest sin. For if we believed that we should live only the present life, then we might be suspected of sinning, through being enslaved to flesh and blood, or overmastered by gain or carnal desire; but since we know that God is witness to what we think and what we say both by night and by day, and that He, being Himself light, sees all things in our heart, we are persuaded that when we are removed from the present life we shall live another life, better than the present one, and heavenly, not earthly (since we shall abide near God, and with God, free from all change or suffering in the soul, not as flesh, even though we shall have flesh, but as heavenly spirit), or, falling with the rest, a worse one and in fire; for God has not made us as sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, and that we should perish and be annihilated. On these grounds it is not likely that we should wish to do evil, or deliver ourselves over to the great Judge to be punished. . . .

Chapter 37. Entreaty to Be Fairly Judged

And now do you, who are entirely in everything, by nature and by education, upright, and moderate, and benevolent, and worthy of your rule, now that I have disposed of the several accusations, and proved that we are pious, and gentle, and temperate in spirit, bend your royal head in approval. For who are more deserving to obtain the things they ask, than those who, like us, pray for your government, that you may, as is most equitable, receive the kingdom, son from father, and that your empire may receive increase and addition, all men becoming subject to your sway? And this is also for our advantage, that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life, and may ourselves readily perform all that is commanded us.

Diagnostic Questions

1. What are some of the primary biblical principles that Athenagoras employs in his “Plea”?

2. On what basis does Athenagoras appeal to the emperor for justice?

3. Why does Athenagoras appeal to pagan religious practices to support some of his arguments?

4. Why would Athenagoras think an appeal to the prophets would make any difference to the emperor?

5. Can you summarize Athenagoras’s understanding of God as Three in One from his defense?

6. Why does Athenagoras argue that Christians distinguish God from matter? Is there a similar argument that would be useful for Christians today?

1. Remember how he opens “The Embassy”: “To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and more than all, philosophers” (to de megiston philosophois could even be translated “and the greatest of philosophers”).

2. Note also chap. 35.

3. Generally speaking, a Greek view of matter was that it is evil, as material, and that therefore the immaterial, like the soul, is good and is better when “released from the prison-house of the body,” as Plato would say.

4. It is worth noting that Athenagoras appeals to the emperors on the basis of laws and practices already in place. He is not asking that Christians receive special treatment, nor is he pleading for the emperors themselves to accept Christianity. At this point his concern is that justice be administered fairly among all the religions of their reign.

5. By saying that God is “beheld by the understanding and reason alone,” Athenagoras is not appealing to autonomous reason. Rather, he is making the point that God is immaterial and thus cannot be sensed in the way that matter can.

6. This is a clear statement of the antithetical ways in which God can be understood. Either one attempts to understand him “not from God concerning God, but each one from himself,” or one attempts to “apprehend and believe, prophets, men who have pronounced concerning God and the things of God, guided by the Spirit of God.”

7. Note that Athenagoras’s approach is to challenge the emperors to evaluate the Christian’s authority, and thereby to make a judgment on their beliefs as to whether or not they comport with Scripture.

8. In other words, he cannot be seen or sensed.

9. It cannot be overstated to what extent the appearing of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, radically altered the church’s understanding of God. In this apology, Athenagoras rightly attempts to explain Jesus’ ontological deity. There was little question in the ancient church as to the identity of the Word made flesh. He was the Son of God and identical to God.

10. There is, in the ancient church, generally speaking, an understanding of the Logos such that, as the Son of God, he is the one through whom God acts in and on the world. Whether this is a Platonic influence, in that the Logos is seen as a “Christianized” Demiurge, can only be determined in the context of the particular writer.

11. This is a clear example of why Athenagoras is deemed one of the most eloquent of apologists. He juxtaposes the philosophers with the Christians in these statements and shows that, even with their erudition, the philosophers have yet to devise a moral code that is as magnanimous and generous as is the Christian view.

12. This, at this early date in church history, is a clear and accurate testimony to what later became the accepted view of the Trinity—the unity of the three, and their distinction in unity.

13. This argument, while not particularly compelling today, struck at the heart of much of Greek philosophy and polytheism. It is in some ways analogous to Paul’s address at the Aereopagus in Acts 17:16ff.

CHAPTER 5

Irenaeus

(120–202/3)

As his name implies, Irenaeus was a man who sought after peace. He was Greek, born in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey), and was probably mentored by Polycarp (ca. 69–ca. 155), himself possibly a disciple of John the Evangelist. Raised in a Christian family, Irenaeus became a priest, working in the city of Lyon, in Gaul (modern France). The Rhône Valley had become evangelized probably by the middle of the second century, if not earlier. The apostle Paul stated his intentions to visit “Spain,” which likely meant the entire region around the Pyrenees, including Marseille. While we have no proof that he succeeded, we do have early witnesses to the spread of the gospel from Asia Minor to these outposts in the West, culminating in the two great churches of Lyon and Vienne.[1]

From what we gather, Irenaeus was a pastor, an evangelist, and quite a good preacher (though none of his sermons survive). He was able to see Lyon become a Christian city. He also witnessed terrible waves of persecution in Lyon and in Vienne. Under Marcus Aurelius (161–180), the Roman Empire, following an era of relative stability, began to degenerate. Polycarp himself was martyred in Smyrna at the age of eighty-six. In Gaul the Aurelian persecutions spread, coming to Lyon and Vienne in 177. In that year both Pothinus and the remarkable Blandine (whose strength was said to match that of many men) died in the arena. Another, shorter-lived wave of persecution came to the area in 197 under the aegis of Lucius Septimus Severus. Some, following Jerome, argue that Irenaeus died in the massacre of 202, connected to Emperor Severus’s reprisals. Others suggest that he lived until Commodus, thus dying naturally in 203.

During the Aurelian persecutions Irenaeus’s colleagues sent him away to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleuterus on the subject of Montanism (ca. 177). While an expostulation against heresies, the letter also was a plea for peace and unity in the church. (Later, Irenaeus would also plead for more toleration of certain variants of the Christian faith, particularly in North Africa.) To his surprise Irenaeus found in Rome an old friend from the school of Polycarp who espoused Valentinian Gnosticism. He also discovered that the pope was favorably disposed toward Montanism. Eventually, the church, including both Irenaeus and Eleuterus, would denounce the movement. It might be remembered, as well, that the bishop’s seat in Rome had not yet become the center for the Western church, and so Irenaeus, representing Lyon, was free to weigh in against heresies, be they shared by the pope himself.

After the cessation of the persecutions, Irenaeus moved back to Lyon, this time becoming its bishop, succeeding the martyred Pothinus. There he divided his time between the work of a pastor and the need to write on theology, particularly in apologetics.

Two Forms of Gnosticism

We have already mentioned the apologists’ response to heresy. Irenaeus is best known for his response to Gnosticism. Two basic types of Gnosticism can be identified. First, there was the Iranian version, which stressed horizontal dualism and joined to Manichaeism, already mentioned. Manichaeism’s originator, Mani (ca. 210–276), was a Persian brought up in a Jewish-Christian group, which he left after receiving “revelations” that he was Christ’s apostle. He taught that there are two independent powers, light and darkness. History is divided into three eras. In the first, the two powers are divided; in the second, they are intermingled; and in the third, they are separated again. Jesus and other leaders help release the soul from their bodily prison so they can join the light. Though heavily persecuted, Manichaeism spread and had an enormous impact on the ancient world. Its appeal was to the common notion that there is a struggle between good and evil in the world in which the two often appear equally matched.[2]

The other kind of Gnosticism was the Syrian. It was more complex, involving high drama in the heavenly beings. This second type is represented by the Valentinians. Valentinus (d. ca. 160) was the most influential of the Gnostics. He was an Alexandrian, living in Rome, a member of the church who considered himself a true Christian. According to Valentinus, there is a good god, called “ultimate depth.” He originally existed alone and was the “unknown father,” or the abyss, also the unbegotten. Somehow he had a female consort, called silence. Not wishing to be alone, they produced a series of paired deities or Aeons. There were thirty such couples, ranging from the stronger to the weaker, and they had names such as Mind and Truth, World-life and Man-church, and so on. The last one, the weakest, was Wisdom. Together, they were thought to constitute the Pleroma, or heavenly realm.[3]

Syrian Gnosticism portrayed two levels of events. The first was within the Pleroma. Wisdom, or Sophia, wanted to know the unknown father, which was impossible (it was considered lust). She was sorry, but was forced to produce an unnatural offspring, without her male partner. Her progeny was called Achamoth (“uncertain”), who had to leave the Pleroma. She further grieved, and the other Aeons joined in her grief and asked Mind and Truth to help out. They did so by producing two other Aeons, namely, Christ and Holy Spirit. The mission of Christ and Holy Spirit was specifically to rescue Sophia from her distress, which they did. This restored order in the Pleroma, and out of gratitude all thirty Aeons together produced yet one more, namely, Jesus.

The second level was outside the Pleroma. Here creation occurred, and evil and redemption came to the world. Achamoth was the mother of matter, which, because of her lust, is evil. She produced Demiurge (the Greek word means “workman” or “maker”), who shaped and formed matter, as well as human beings. So Demiurge was a sort of “creator,” though without any of the sovereignty of the biblical Creator. In fact, through Achamoth, Demiurge was controlled by Sophia, who made sure there was some good in human souls. Sophia caused Aeon Jesus to be born of a virgin and to live among humans, revealing the truth to them. When he was condemned to the cross, his heavenly Aeon left, and only his earthly body died.

In this view, knowledge of the truth is attained only by the elect, who at death are also freed from evil matter, including the body. At the end, all matter will be destroyed, and the Pleroma will be all in all. The basic structure of this complicated scheme can be summarized as follows: God is unknown; the creation, an accident, is a mixture of good (related to Wisdom in the Pleroma) and evil (matter being produced by a lustful mother, Achamoth); redemption is through Jesus, who is neither God nor human; salvation is for those who can rise above the material into the spiritual. There is no consideration of a resurrection or a restored world.

Why was this view, which appears so complicated to us, in fact most attractive to the ancient world? Presumably because it honored the spiritual world, making it accessible without holding people to exclusive doctrines. It incorporated both Christian and Greek notions as it sought to explain the origin of the world, the observable mixture of good and evil, and the great diversity of religions in the world.

Marcionism

We have also mentioned a prevalent heresy known as Marcionism. In Gnosticism, believers were to live ascetically. Matter was deemed evil, and so discipline was necessary to purge undesirable patterns from life. Besides the Valentinian form, quite a different type, not altogether typically Gnostic, was represented by Marcion (ca. 110–160). He was excommunicated by the church at Rome in 144. The Marcionites then formed their own congregations, with a full complement of clergy and liturgical life. Their doctrines spread far and wide, provoking vivid criticism from the apologists, especially Tertullian and Irenaeus. For Marcion, Christ was the true Savior, sent by God, and Paul was his authentic apostle. He rejected Judaism, and could not accept any of the Hebrew Bible as genuine. He believed that the God of the Hebrew Bible was simply a lesser demiurge and that Christ’s teachings are in disaccord with the Old Testament. For example, the “eye for an eye” teaching of the law was only natural justice, whereas Christ’s teaching on love is divine.

Marcion believed that Paul’s teachings on God’s anger and the gospel’s rescue is the heart of the Christian message, but that the Epistles otherwise tended to obscure this message with their concerns for reconciling the New Testament with the Old. In Marcion’s system we have so many deviations from basic Christian faith that we could wonder about its attraction. Yet its impact lasted at least until the seventh century, and some of its basic notions (such as the exaggerated contrast between law and gospel) remain with us today.

Against Heresies

Irenaeus’s most significant work is Refutation and Overthrow of Gnosis, Falsely So Called, usually abbreviated, Against Heresies. We rely chiefly on a Latin version of the originally Greek text. In the first two books of this treatise we learn extensively about the nature and composition of the heresy discussed above, namely Gnosticism, particularly in the expression of the Valentinians. The other three books set forth the true doctrines of the Christian faith. Throughout, there are comments on Marcionism. The work is thorough, although suffering from an awkward style. Still, this treatise is valued as the first systematic exposition of the faith of the Catholic church and the first to use the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, for its arguments.

As we read through Against Heresies, we will notice several themes developed. First, the Christian faith has been preached clearly and openly from apostolic times, as it continues to be down to the present. Second, the plan of salvation is covenantal, that is, there is an arrangement whereby God promises to save his people, and they pledge to respond in faith and obedience. The covenant is renewed several times, from Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, and finally, to Christ himself, the fulfillment of all the covenant promises. This is in opposition to Marcionism, which claimed a complete discontinuity between the law and the gospel. Third, Irenaeus teaches that there is a “rule of faith” (regula fidei), which is received at baptism and contains all of the basic doctrines of the Christian religion. One could say that Irenaeus’s goal as a theologian was to spread the rule of faith and show how the church has rightly set forth principles as they are revealed in Scripture. Finally, at the heart of salvation is the “divine economy” (oeconomia), whereby humanity, fallen in Adam, can be brought back to life in Christ. This is God’s plan from the beginning.

While concepts such as the atonement or justification, asserted more clearly as the centuries progressed, are all but absent in Irenaeus, he teaches the uniqueness of the God of the Bible, the authority of the apostles and the reliability of their teaching, the centrality of the incarnation, and eschatology. Although, as we mentioned, he draws from the entire Bible, he leans most heavily on the gospel of John and Paul’s Epistles.

Against Heresies

(182–188)

Book I

Preface

1. Inasmuch as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says, “minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith,” and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, [I have felt constrained, my dear friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and counteract their machinations.] These men falsify the oracles of God, and prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretence of [superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe; as if, forsooth, they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than that God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein. By means of specious and plausible words, they cunningly allure the simple-minded to inquire into their system; but they nevertheless clumsily destroy them, while they initiate them into their blasphemous and impious opinions respecting the Demiurge; and these simple ones are unable, even in such a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth.

2. Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself. One far superior to me has well said, in reference to this point, “A clever imitation in glass casts contempt, as it were, on that precious jewel the emerald (which is most highly esteemed by some), unless it come under the eye of one able to test and expose the counterfeit. Or, again, what inexperienced person can with ease detect the presence of brass when it has been mixed up with silver?” Lest, therefore, through my neglect, some should be carried off, even as sheep are by wolves, while they perceive not the true character of these men,—because they outwardly are covered with sheep’s clothing (against whom the Lord has enjoined us to be on our guard), and because their language resembles ours, while their sentiments are very different,—I have deemed it my duty (after reading some of the Commentaries, as they call them, of the disciples of Valentinus, and after Book I making myself acquainted with their tenets through personal intercourse with some of them) to unfold to thee, my friend, these portentous and profound mysteries, which do not fall within the range of every intellect, because all have not sufficiently purged their brains. I do this, in order that thou, obtaining an acquaintance with these things, mayest in turn explain them to all those with whom thou art connected, and exhort them to avoid such an abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ. I intend, then, to the best of my ability, with brevity and clearness to set forth the opinions of those who are now promulgating heresy. I refer especially to the disciples of Ptolemaeus, whose school may be described as a bud from that of Valentinus. I shall also endeavour, according to my moderate ability, to furnish the means of overthrowing them, by showing how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements. Not that I am practised either in composition or eloquence; but my feeling of affection prompts me to make known to thee and all thy companions those doctrines which have been kept in concealment until now, but which are at last, through the goodness of God, brought to light. “For there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be made known.”

3. Thou wilt not expect from me, who am resident among the Keltae, and am accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect, any display of rhetoric, which I have never learned, or any excellence of composition, which I have never practised, or any beauty and persuasiveness of style, to which I make no pretensions. But thou wilt accept in a kindly spirit what I in a like spirit write to thee simply, truthfully, and in my own homely way; whilst thou thyself (as being more capable than I am) wilt expand those ideas of which I send thee, as it were, only the seminal principles; and in the comprehensiveness of thy understanding, wilt develop to their full extent the points on which I briefly touch, so as to set with power before thy companions those things which I have uttered in weakness. In fine, as I (to gratify thy long-cherished desire for information regarding the tenets of these persons) have spared no pains, not only to make these doctrines known to thee, but also to furnish the means of showing their falsity; so shalt thou, according to the grace given to thee by the Lord, prove an earnest and efficient minister to others, that men may no longer be drawn away by the plausible system of these heretics, which I now proceed to describe.

Chapter I. Absurd ideas of the disciples of Valentinus as to the origin, name, order, and conjugal productions of their fancied Aeons, with the passages of Scripture which they adapt to their opinions

1. They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent Aeon, whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennoea, whom they also call Charis and Sige. At last this Bythus determined to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of comprehending his father’s greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate the root of all things. For there are first Bythus and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. And Monogenes, perceiving for what purpose he had been produced, also himself sent forth Logos and Zoe, being the father of all those who were to come after him, and the beginning and fashioning of the entire Pleroma. By the conjunction of Logos and Zoe were brought forth Anthropos and Ecclesia; and thus was formed the first-begotten Ogdoad, the root and substance of all things, called among them by four names, viz., Bythus, and Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos. For each of these is masculo-feminine, as follows: Propator was united by a conjunction with his Ennoea; then Monogenes, that is Nous, with Aletheia; Logos with Zoe, and Anthropos with Ecclesia.

2. These Aeons having been produced for the glory of the Father, and wishing, by their own efforts, to effect this object, sent forth emanations by means of conjunction. Logos and Zoe, after producing Anthropos and Ecclesia, sent forth other ten Aeons, whose names are the following: Bythius and Mixis, Ageratos and Henosis, Autophyes and Hedone, Acinetos and Syncrasis, Monogenes and Macaria. These are the ten Aeons whom they declare to have been produced by Logos and Zoe. They then add that Anthropos himself, along with Ecclesia, produced twelve Aeons, to whom they give the following names: Paracletus and Pistis, Patricos and Elpis, Metricos and Agape, Ainos and Synesis, Ecclesiasticus and Macariotes, Theletos and Sophia.

3. Such are the thirty Aeons in the erroneous system of these men; and they are described as being wrapped up, so to speak, in silence, and known to none [except these professing teachers]. Moreover, they declare that this invisible and spiritual Pleroma of theirs is tripartite, being divided into an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Duodecad. And for this reason they affirm it was that the “Saviour”—for they do not please to call Him “Lord”—did no work in public during the space of thirty years, thus setting forth the mystery of these Aeons. They maintain also, that these thirty Aeons are most plainly indicated in the parable of the labourers sent into the vineyard. For some are sent about the first hour, others about the third hour, others about the sixth hour, others about the ninth hour, and others about the eleventh hour. Now, if we add up the numbers of the hours here mentioned, the sum total will be thirty: for one, three, six, nine, and eleven, when added together, form thirty. And by the hours, they hold that the Aeons were pointed out; while they maintain that these are great, and wonderful, and hitherto unspeakable mysteries which it is their special function to develop; and so they proceed when they find anything in the multitude of things contained in the Scriptures which they can adopt and accommodate to their baseless speculations.

Chapter II. The Propator was known to Monogenes alone. Ambition, disturbance, and danger into which Sophia fell; her shapeless offspring: she is restored by Horos. The production of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, in order to the completion of the Aeons. Manner of the production of Jesus

1. They proceed to tell us that the Propator of their scheme was known only to Monogenes, who sprang from him; in other words, only to Nous, while to all the others he was invisible and incomprehensible. And, according to them, Nous alone took pleasure in contemplating the Father, and exulting in considering his immeasurable greatness; while he also meditated how he might communicate to the rest of the Aeons the greatness of the Father, revealing to them how vast and mighty he was, and how he was without beginning,—beyond comprehension, and altogether incapable of being seen. But, in accordance with the will of the Father, Sige restrained him, because it was his design to lead them all to an acquaintance with the aforesaid Propator, and to create within them a desire of investigating his nature. In like manner, the rest of the Aeons also, in a kind of quiet way, had a wish to behold the Author of their being, and to contemplate that First Cause which had no beginning.

2. But there rushed forth in advance of the rest that Aeon who was much the latest of them, and was the youngest of the Duodecad which sprang from Anthropos and Ecclesia, namely Sophia, and suffered passion apart from the embrace of her consort Theletos. This passion, indeed, first arose among those who were connected with Nous and Aletheia, but passed as by contagion to this degenerate Aeon, who acted under a pretence of love, but was in reality influenced by temerity, because she had not, like Nous, enjoyed communion with the perfect Father. This passion, they say, consisted in a desire to search into the nature of the Father; for she wished, according to them, to comprehend his greatness. When she could not attain her end, inasmuch as she aimed at an impossibility, and thus became involved in an extreme agony of mind, while both on account of the vast profundity as well as the unsearchable nature of the Father, and on account of the love she bore him, she was ever stretching herself forward, there was danger lest she should at last have been absorbed by his sweetness, and resolved into his absolute essence, unless she had met with that Power which supports all things, and preserves them outside of the unspeakable greatness. This power they term Horos; by whom, they say, she was restrained and supported; and that then, having with difficulty been brought back to herself, she was convinced that the Father is incomprehensible, and so laid aside her original design, along with that passion which had arisen within her from the overwhelming influence of her admiration.

3. But others of them fabulously describe the passion and restoration of Sophia as follows: They say that she, having engaged in an impossible and impracticable attempt, brought forth an amorphous substance, such as her female nature enabled her to produce. When she looked upon it, her first feeling was one of grief, on account of the imperfection of its generation, and then of fear lest this should end her own existence. Next she lost, as it were, all command of herself, and was in the greatest perplexity while endeavouring to discover the cause of all this, and in what way she might conceal what had happened. Being greatly harassed by these passions, she at last changed her mind, and endeavoured to return anew to the Father. When, however, she in some measure made the attempt, strength failed her, and she became a suppliant of the Father. The other Aeons, Nous in particular, presented their supplications along with her. And hence they declare material substance had its beginning from ignorance and grief, and fear and bewilderment.

4. The Father afterwards produces, in his own image, by means of Monogenes, the above-mentioned Horos, without conjunction, masculo-feminine. For they maintain that sometimes the Father acts in conjunction with Sige, but that at other times he shows himself independent both of male and female. They term this Horos both Stauros and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and Metagoges. And by this Horos they declare that Sophia was purified and established, while she was also restored to her proper conjunction. For her enthymesis (or inborn idea) having been taken away from her, along with its supervening passion, she herself certainly remained within the Pleroma; but her enthymesis, with its passion, was separated from her by Horos, fenced off, and expelled from that circle. This enthymesis was, no doubt, a spiritual substance, possessing some of the natural tendencies of an Aeon, but at the same time shapeless and without form, because it had received nothing. And on this account they say that it was an imbecile and feminine production.

5. After this substance had been placed outside of the Pleroma of the Aeons, and its mother restored to her proper conjunction, they tell us that Monogenes, acting in accordance with the prudent forethought of the Father, gave origin to another conjugal pair, namely Christ and the Holy Spirit (lest any of the Aeons should fall into a calamity similar to that of Sophia), for the purpose of fortifying and strengthening the Pleroma, and who at the same time completed the number of the Aeons. Christ then instructed them as to the nature of their conjunction, and taught them that those who possessed a comprehension of the Unbegotten were sufficient for themselves. He also announced among them what related to the knowledge of the Father,—namely, that he cannot be understood or com prehended, nor so much as seen or heard, except in so far as he is known by Monogenes only. And the reason why the rest of the Aeons possess perpetual existence is found in that part of the Father’s nature which is incomprehensible; but the reason of their origin and formation was situated in that which may be comprehended regarding him, that is, in the Son. Christ, then, who had just been produced, effected these things among them.

6. But the Holy Spirit taught them to give thanks on being all rendered equal among themselves, and led them to a state of true repose. Thus, then, they tell us that the Aeons were constituted equal to each other in form and sentiment, so that all became as Nous, and Logos, and Anthropos, and Christus. The female Aeons, too, became all as Aletheia, and Zoe, and Spiritus, and Ecclesia. Everything, then, being thus established, and brought into a state of perfect rest, they next tell us that these beings sang praises with great joy to the Propator, who himself shared in the abounding exaltation. Then, out of gratitude for the great benefit which had been conferred on them, the whole Pleroma of the Aeons, with one design and desire, and with the concurrence of Christ and the Holy Spirit, their Father also setting the seal of His approval on their conduct, brought together whatever each one had in himself of the greatest beauty and preciousness; and uniting all these contributions so as skilfully to blend the whole, they produced, to the honour and glory of Bythus, a being of most perfect beauty, the very star of the Pleroma, and the perfect fruit [of it], namely Jesus. Him they also speak of under the name of Saviour, and Christ, and patronymically, Logos, and Everything, because He was formed from the contributions of all. And then we are told that, by way of honour, angels of the same nature as Himself were simultaneously produced, to act as His body-guard.

Chapter III. Texts of Holy Scripture used by these heretics to support their opinions

1. Such, then, is the account they give of what took place within the Pleroma; such the calamities that flowed from the passion which seized upon the Aeon who has been named, and who was within a little of perishing by being absorbed in the universal substance, through her inquisitive searching after the Father; such the consolidation [of that Aeon] from her condition of agony by Horos, and Stauros, and Lytrotes, and Carpistes, and Horothetes, and Metagoges. Such also is the account of the generation of the later Aeons, namely of the first Christ and of the Holy Spirit, both of whom were produced by the Father after the repentance [of Sophia], and of the second Christ (whom they also style Saviour), who owed his being to the joint contributions [of the Aeons]. They tell us, however, that this knowledge has not been openly divulged, because all are not capable of receiving it, but has been mystically revealed by the Saviour through means of parables to those qualified for understanding it. This has been done as follows. The thirty Aeons are indicated (as we have already remarked) by the thirty years during which they say the Saviour performed no public act, and by the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. Paul also, they affirm, very clearly and frequently names these Aeons, and even goes so far as to preserve their order, when he says, “To all the generations of the Aeons of the Aeon.” Nay, we ourselves, when at the giving of thanks we pronounce the words, “To Aeons of Aeons” (for ever and ever), do set forth these Aeons. And, in fine, wherever the words Aeon or Aeons occur, they at once refer them to these beings.

2. The production, again, of the Duodecad of the Aeons, is indicated by the fact that the Lord was twelve years of age when He disputed with the teachers of the law, and by the election of the apostles, for of these there were twelve. The other eighteen Aeons are made manifest in this way: that the Lord, [according to them,] conversed with His disciples for eighteen months after His resurrection from the dead. They also affirm that these eighteen Aeons are strikingly indicated by the first two letters of His name , namely Iota and Eta. And, in like manner, they assert that the ten Aeons are pointed out by the letter Iota, which begins His name; while, for the same reason, they tell us the Saviour said, “One Iota, or one tittle, shall by no means pass away until all be fulfilled.”

3. They further maintain that the passion which took place in the case of the twelfth Aeon is pointed at by the apostasy of Judas, who was the twelfth apostle, and also by the fact that Christ suffered in the twelfth month. For their opinion is, that He continued to preach for one year only after His baptism. The same thing is also most clearly indicated by the case of the woman who suffered from an issue of blood. For after she had been thus afflicted during twelve years, she was healed by the advent of the Saviour, when she had touched the border of His garment; and on this account the Saviour said, “Who touched me?”—teaching his disciples the mystery which had occurred among the Aeons, and the healing of that Aeon who had been involved in suffering. For she who had been afflicted twelve years represented that power whose essence, as they narrate, was stretching itself forth, and flowing into immensity; and unless she had touched the garment of the Son, that is, Aletheia of the first Tetrad, who is denoted by the hem spoken of, she would have been dissolved into the general essence [of which she participated]. She stopped short, however, and ceased any longer to suffer. For the power that went forth from the Son (and this power they term Horos) healed her, and separated the passion from her.

4. They moreover affirm that the Saviour is shown to be derived from all the Aeons, and to be in Himself everything by the following passage: “Every male that openeth the womb.” For He, being everything, opened the womb of the enthymesis of the suffering Aeon, when it had been expelled from the Pleroma. This they also style the second Ogdoad, of which we shall speak presently. And they state that it was clearly on this account that Paul said, “And He Himself is all things”; and again, “All things are to Him, and of Him are all things”; and further, “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead”; and yet again, “All things are gathered together by God in Christ.” Thus do they interpret these and any like passages to be found in Scripture.

5. They show, further, that that Horos of theirs, whom they call by a variety of names, has two faculties,—the one of supporting, and the other of separating; and in so far as he supports and sustains, he is Stauros, while in so far as he divides and separates, he is Horos. They then represent the Saviour as having indicated this twofold faculty: first, the sustaining power, when He said, “Whosoever doth not bear his cross (Stauros), and follow after me, cannot be my disciple”; and again, “Taking up the cross, follow me”; but the separating power when He said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” They also maintain that John indicated the same thing when he said, “The fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable.” By this declaration He set forth the faculty of Horos. For that fan they explain to be the cross (Stauros), which consumes, no doubt, all material objects, as fire does chaff, but it purifies all them that are saved, as a fan does wheat. Moreover, they affirm that the Apostle Paul himself made mention of this cross in the following words: “The doctrine of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God.” And again: “God forbid that I should glory in anything save in the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.”

6. Such, then, is the account which they all give of their Pleroma, and of the formation of the universe, striving, as they do, to adapt the good words of revelation to their own wicked inventions. And it is not only from the writings of the evangelists and the apostles that they endeavour to derive proofs for their opinions by means of perverse interpretations and deceitful expositions: they deal in the same way with the law and the prophets, which contain many parables and allegories that can frequently be drawn into various senses, according to the kind of exegesis to which they are subjected. And others of them, with great craftiness, adapted such parts of Scripture to their own figments, lead away captive from the truth those who do not retain a stedfast faith in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Chapter IV. Account given by the heretics of the formation of Achamoth; origin of the visible world from her disturbances

1. The following are the transactions which they narrate as having occurred outside of the Pleroma: The enthymesis of that Sophia who dwells above, which they also term Achamoth, being removed from the Pleroma, together with her passion, they relate to have, as a matter of course, become violently excited in those places of darkness and vacuity [to which she had been banished]. For she was excluded from light and the Pleroma, and was without form or figure, like an untimely birth, because she had received nothing [from a male parent]. But the Christ dwelling on high took pity upon her; and having extended himself through and beyond Stauros, he imparted a figure to her, but merely as respected substance, and not so as to convey intelligence. Having effected this, he withdrew his influence, and returned, leaving Achamoth to herself, in order that she, becoming sensible of her suffering as being severed from the Pleroma, might be influenced by the desire of better things, while she possessed in the meantime a kind of odour of immortality left in her by Christ and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore also she is called by two names—Sophia after her father (for Sophia is spoken of as being her father), and Holy Spirit from that Spirit who is along with Christ. Having then obtained a form, along with intelligence, and being immediately deserted by that Logos who had been invisibly present with her—that is, by Christ—she strained herself to discover that light which had forsaken her, but could not effect her purpose, inasmuch as she was prevented by Horos. And as Horos thus obstructed her further progress, he exclaimed, Iao, whence, they say, this name Iao derived its origin. And when she could not pass by Horos on account of that passion in which she had been involved, and because she alone had been left without, she then resigned herself to every sort of that manifold and varied state of passion to which she was subject; and thus she suffered grief on the one hand because she had not obtained the object of her desire, and fear on the other hand, lest life itself should fail her, as light had already done, while, in addition, she was in the greatest perplexity. All these feelings were associated with ignorance. And this ignorance of hers was not like that of her mother, the first Sophia, an Aeon, due to degeneracy by means of passion, but to an [innate] opposition [of nature to knowledge]. Moreover, another kind of passion fell upon her (Achamoth), namely, that of desiring to return to him who gave her life.

2. This collection [of passions] they declare was the substance of the matter from which this world was formed. For from [her desire of] returning [to him who gave her life], every soul belonging to this world, and that of the Demiurge himself, derived its origin. All other things owed their beginning to her terror and sorrow. For from her tears all that is of a liquid nature was formed; from her smile all that is lucent; and from her grief and perplexity all the corporeal elements of the world. For at one time, as they affirm, she would weep and lament on account of being left alone in the midst of darkness and vacuity; while, at another time, reflecting on the light which had forsaken her, she would be filled with joy, and laugh; then, again, she would be struck with terror; or, at other times, would sink into consternation and bewilderment.

3. Now what follows from all this? No light tragedy comes out of it, as the fancy of every man among them pompously explains, one in one way, and another in another, from what kind of passion and from what element being derived its origin. They have good reason, as seems to me, why they should not feel inclined to teach these things to all in public, but only to such as are able to pay a high price for an acquaintance with such profound mysteries. For these doctrines are not at all similar to those of which our Lord said, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” They are, on the contrary, abstruse, and portentous, and profound mysteries, to be got at only with great labour by such as are in love with falsehood. For who would not expend all that he possessed, if only he might learn in return, that from the tears of the enthymesis of the Aeon involved in passion, seas, and fountains, and rivers, and every liquid substance derived its origin; that light burst forth from her smile; and that from her perplexity and consternation the corporeal elements of the world had their formation?

4. I feel somewhat inclined myself to contribute a few hints towards the development of their system. For when I perceive that waters are in part fresh, such as fountains, rivers, showers, and so on, and in part salt; such as those in the sea, I reflect with myself that all such waters cannot be derived from her tears, inasmuch as these are of a saline quality only. It is clear, therefore, that the waters which are salt are alone those which are derived from her tears. But it is probable that she, in her intense agony and perplexity, was covered with perspiration. And hence, following out their notion, we may conceive that fountains and rivers, and all the fresh water in the world, are due to this source. For it is difficult, since we know that all tears are of the same quality, to believe that waters both salt and fresh proceeded from them. The more plausible supposition is, that some are from her tears, and some from her perspiration. And since there are also in the world certain waters which are hot and acrid in their nature, thou must be left to guess their origin, how and whence. Such are some of the results of their hypothesis.

5. They go on to state that, when the mother Achamoth had passed through all sorts of passion, and had with difficulty escaped from them, she turned herself to supplicate the light which had forsaken her, that is, Christ. He, however, having returned to the Pleroma, and being probably unwilling again to descend from it, sent forth to her the Paraclete, that is, the Saviour. This being was endowed with all power by the Father, who placed everything under his authority, the Aeons doing so likewise, so that “by him were all things, visible and invisible, created, thrones, divinities, dominions.” He then was sent to her along with his contemporary angels. And they related that Achamoth, filled with reverence, at first veiled herself through modesty, but that by and by, when she had looked upon him with all his endowments, and had acquired strength from his appearance, she ran forward to meet him. He then imparted to her form as respected intelligence, and brought healing to her passions, separating them from her, but not so as to drive them out of thought altogether. For it was not possible that they should be annihilated as in the former case, because they had already taken root and acquired strength [so as to possess an indestructible existence]. All that he could do was to separate them and set them apart, and then commingle and condense them, so as to transmute them from incorporeal passion into unorganized matter. He then by this process conferred upon them a fitness and a nature to become concretions and corporeal structures, in order that two substances should be formed,—the one evil, resulting from the passions, and the other subject indeed to suffering, but originating from her conversion. And on this account (i.e., on account of this hypostatizing of ideal matter) they say that the Saviour virtually created the world. But when Achamoth was freed from her passion, she gazed with rapture on the dazzling vision of the angels that were with him; and in her ecstasy, conceiving by them, they tell us that she brought forth new beings, partly after her own image, and partly a spiritual progeny after the image of the Saviour’s attendants.

Chapter V. Formation of the Demiurge; description of him. He is the creator of everything outside of the Pleroma

1. These three kinds of existence, then, having, according to them, been now formed,—one from the passion, which was matter; a second from the conversion, which was animal; and the third, that which she (Achamoth) herself brought forth, which was spiritual,—she next addressed herself to the task of giving these form. But she could not succeed in doing this as respected the spiritual existence, because it was of the same nature with herself. She therefore applied herself to give form to the animal substance which had proceeded from her own conversion, and to bring forth to light the instructions of the Saviour. And they say she first formed out of animal substance him who is Father and King of all things, both of these which are of the same nature with himself, that is, animal substances, which they also call right-handed, and those which sprang from the passion, and from matter, which they call left-handed. For they affirm that he formed all the things which came into existence after him, being secretly impelled thereto by his mother. From this circumstance they style him Metropator, Apator, Demiurge, and Father, saying that he is Father of the substances on the right hand, that is, of the animal, but Demiurge of those on the left, that is, of the material, while he is at the same time the king of all. For they say that this Enthymesis, desirous of making all things to the honour of the Aeons, formed images of them, or rather that the Saviour did so through her instrumentality. And she, in the image of the invisible Father, kept herself concealed from the Demiurge. But he was in the image of the only-begotten Son, and the angels and archangels created by him were in the image of the rest of the Aeons.

2. They affirm, therefore, that he was constituted the Father and God of everything outside of the Pleroma, being the creator of all animal and material substances. For he it was that discriminated these two kinds of existence hitherto confused, and made corporeal from incorporeal substances, fashioned things heavenly and earthly, and became the Framer (Demiurge) of things material and animal, of those on the right and those on the left, of the light and of the heavy, and of those tending upwards as well as of those tending downwards. He created also seven heavens, above which they say that he, the Demiurge, exists. And on this account they term him Hebdomas, and his mother Achamoth Ogdoads, preserving the number of the first-begotten and primary Ogdoad as the Pleroma. They affirm, moreover, that these seven heavens are intelligent, and speak of them as being angels, while they refer to the Demiurge himself as being an angel bearing a likeness to God; and in the same strain, they declare that Paradise, situated above the third heaven, is a fourth angel possessed of power, from whom Adam derived certain qualities while he conversed with him.

3. They go on to say that the Demiurge imagined that he created all these things of himself, while he in reality made them in conjunction with the productive power of Achamoth. He formed the heavens, yet was ignorant of the heavens; he fashioned man, yet knew not man; he brought to light the earth, yet had no acquaintance with the earth; and, in like manner, they declare that he was ignorant of the forms of all that he made, and knew not even of the existence of his own mother, but imagined that he himself was all things. They further affirm that his mother originated this opinion in his mind, because she desired to bring him forth possessed of such a character that he should be the head and source of his own essence, and the absolute ruler over every kind of operation [that was afterwards attempted]. This mother they also call Ogdoad, Sophia, Terra, Jerusalem, Holy Spirit, and, with a masculine reference, Lord. Her place of habitation is an intermediate one, above the Demiurge indeed, but below and outside of the Pleroma, even to the end.

4. As, then, they represent all material substance to be formed from three passions, viz., fear, grief, and perplexity, the account they give is as follows: Animal substances originated from fear and from conversion; the Demiurge they also describe as owing his origin to conversion; but the existence of all the other animal substances they ascribe to fear, such as the souls of irrational animals, and of wild beasts, and men. And on this account, he (the Demiurge), being incapable of recognising any spiritual essences, imagined himself to be God alone, and declared through the prophets, “I am God, and besides me there is none else.” They further teach that the spirits of wickedness derived their origin from grief. Hence the devil, whom they also call Cosmocrator (the ruler of the world), and the demons, and the angels, and every wicked spiritual being that exists, found the source of their existence. They represent the Demiurge as being the son of that mother of theirs (Achamoth), and Cosmocrator as the creature of the Demiurge. Cosmocrator has knowledge of what is above himself, because he is a spirit of wickedness; but the Demiurge is ignorant of such things, inasmuch as he is merely animal. Their mother dwells in that place which is above the heavens, that is, in the intermediate abode; the Demiurge in the heavenly place, that is, in the hebdomad; but the Cosmocrator in this our world. The corporeal elements of the world, again, sprang, as we before remarked, from bewilderment and perplexity, as from a more ignoble source. Thus the earth arose from her state of stupor; water from the agitation caused by her fear; air from the consolidation of her grief; while fire, producing death and corruption, was inherent in all these elements, even as they teach that ignorance also lay concealed in these three passions.

5. Having thus formed the world, he (the Demiurge) also created the earthy [part of] man, not taking him from this dry earth, but from an invisible substance consisting of fusible and fluid matter, and then afterwards, as they define the process, breathed into him the animal part of his nature. It was this latter which was created after his image and likeness. The material part, indeed, was very near to God, so far as the image went, but not of the same substance with him. The animal, on the other hand, was so in respect to likeness; and hence his substance was called the spirit of life, because it took its rise from a spiritual outflowing. After all this, he was, they say, enveloped all round with a covering of skin; and by this they mean the outward sensitive flesh.

6. But they further affirm that the Demiurge himself was ignorant of that offspring of his mother Achamoth, which she brought forth as a consequence of her contemplation of those angels who waited on the Saviour, and which was, like herself, of a spiritual nature. She took advantage of this ignorance to deposit it (her production) in him without his knowledge, in order that, being by his instrumentality infused into that animal soul proceeding from himself, and being thus carried as in a womb in this material body, while it gradually increased in strength, might in course of time become fitted for the reception of perfect rationality. Thus it came to pass, then, according to them, that, without any knowledge on the part of the Demiurge, the man formed by his inspiration was at the same time, through an unspeakable providence, rendered a spiritual man by the simultaneous inspiration received from Sophia. For, as he was ignorant of his mother, so neither did he recognise her offspring. This [offspring] they also declare to be the Ecclesia, an emblem of the Ecclesia which is above. This, then, is the kind of man whom they conceive of: he has his animal soul from the Demiurge, his body from the earth, his fleshy part from matter, and his spiritual man from the mother Achamoth.

Chapter VI. The threefold kind of man feigned by these heretics: good works needless for them, though necessary to others: their abandoned morals

1. There being thus three kinds of substances, they declare of all that is material (which they also describe as being “on the left hand”) that it must of necessity perish, inasmuch as it is incapable of receiving any afflatus of incorruption. As to every animal existence (which they also denominate “on the right hand”), they hold that, inasmuch as it is a mean between the spiritual and the material, it passes to the side to which inclination draws it. Spiritual substance, again, they describe as having been sent forth for this end, that, being here united with that which is animal, it might assume shape, the two elements being simultaneously subjected to the same discipline. And this they declare to be “the salt” and “the light of the world.” For the animal substance had need of training by means of the outward senses; and on this account they affirm that the world was created, as well as that the Saviour came to the animal substance (which was possessed of free-will), that He might secure for it salvation. For they affirm that He received the first-fruits of those whom He was to save [as follows], from Achamoth that which was spiritual, while He was invested by the Demiurge with the animal Christ, but was begirt by a [special] dispensation with a body endowed with an animal nature, yet constructed with unspeakable skill, so that it might be visible and tangible, and capable of enduring suffering. At the same time, they deny that He assumed anything material [into His nature], since indeed matter is incapable of salvation. They further hold that the consummation of all things will take place when all that is spiritual has been formed and perfected by Gnosis (knowledge); and by this they mean spiritual men who have attained to the perfect knowledge of God, and been initiated into these mysteries by Achamoth. And they represent themselves to be these persons.

2. Animal men, again, are instructed in animal things; such men, namely, as are established by their works, and by a mere faith, while they have not perfect knowledge. We of the Church, they say, are these persons. Wherefore also they maintain that good works are necessary to us, for that otherwise it is impossible we should be saved. But as to themselves, they hold that they shall be entirely and undoubtedly saved, not by means of conduct, but because they are spiritual by nature. For, just as it is impossible that material substance should partake of salvation (since, indeed, they maintain that it is incapable of receiving it), so again it is impossible that spiritual substance (by which they mean themselves) should ever come under the power of corruption, whatever the sort of actions in which they indulged. For even as gold, when submersed in filth, loses not on that account its beauty, but retains its own native qualities, the filth having no power to injure the gold, so they affirm that they cannot in any measure suffer hurt, or lose their spiritual substance, whatever the material actions in which they may be involved.

3. Wherefore also it comes to pass, that the “most perfect” among them addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the Scriptures assure us that “they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” For instance, they make no scruple about eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, imagining that they can in this way contract no defilement. Then, again, at every heathen festival celebrated in honour of the idols, these men are the first to assemble; and to such a pitch do they go, that some of them do not even keep away from that bloody spectacle hateful both to God and men, in which gladiators either fight with wild beasts, or singly encounter one another. Others of them yield themselves up to the lusts of the flesh with the utmost greediness, maintaining that carnal things should be allowed to the carnal nature, while spiritual things are provided for the spiritual. Some of them, moreover, are in the habit of defiling those women to whom they have taught the above doctrine, as has frequently been confessed by those women who have been led astray by certain of them, on their returning to the Church of God, and acknowledging this along with the rest of their errors. Others of them, too, openly and without a blush, having become passionately attached to certain women, seduce them away from their husbands, and contract marriages of their own with them. Others of them, again, who pretend at first to live in all modesty with them as with sisters, have in course of time been revealed in their true colours, when the sister has been found with child by her [pretended] brother.

4. And committing many other abominations and impieties, they run us down (who from the fear of God guard against sinning even in thought or word) as utterly contemptible and ignorant persons, while they highly exalt themselves, and claim to be perfect, and the elect seed. For they declare that we simply receive grace for use, wherefore also it will again be taken away from us; but that they themselves have grace as their own special possession, which has descended from above by means of an unspeakable and indescribable conjunction; and on this account more will be given them. They maintain, therefore, that in every way it is always necessary for them to practise the mystery of conjunction. And that they may persuade the thoughtless to believe this, they are in the habit of using these very words, “Whosoever being in this world does not so love a woman as to obtain possession of her, is not of the truth, nor shall attain to the truth. But whosoever being of this world has intercourse with woman, shall not attain to the truth, because he has so acted under the power of concupiscence.” On this account, they tell us that it is necessary for us whom they call animal men, and describe as being of the world, to practise continence and good works, that by this means we may attain at length to the intermediate habitation, but that to them who are called “the spiritual and perfect” such a course of conduct is not at all necessary. For it is not conduct of any kind which leads into the Pleroma, but the seed sent forth thence in a feeble, immature state, and here brought to perfection. . . .

Chapter X. Unity of the faith of the Church throughout the whole world

1. The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father “to gather all things in one,” and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess” to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send “spiritual wickednesses,” and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

2. As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same. For the Churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world. But as the sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere, and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth. Nor will any one of the rulers in the Churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these (for no one is greater than the Master); nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition. For the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it, make any addition to it, nor does one, who can say but little diminish it.

3. It does not follow because men are endowed with greater and less degrees of intelligence, that they should therefore change the subject-matter [of the faith] itself, and should conceive of some other God besides Him who is the Framer, Maker, and Preserver of this universe, (as if He were not sufficient for them), or of another Christ, or another Only-begotten. But the fact referred to simply implies this, that one may [more accurately than another] bring out the meaning of those things which have been spoken in parables, and accommodate them to the general scheme of the faith; and explain [with special clearness] the operation and dispensation of God connected with human salvation; and show that God manifested longsuffering in regard to the apostasy of the angels who transgressed, as also with respect to the disobedience of men; and set forth why it is that one and the same God has made some things temporal and some eternal, some heavenly and others earthly; and understand for what reason God, though invisible, manifested Himself to the prophets not under one form, but differently to different individuals; and show why it was that more covenants than one were given to mankind; and teach what was the special character of each of these covenants; and search out for what reason “God hath concluded every man in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all”; and gratefully describe on what account the Word of God became flesh and suffered; and relate why the advent of the Son of God took place in these last times, that is, in the end, rather than in the beginning [of the world]; and unfold what is contained in the Scriptures concerning the end [itself], and things to come; and not be silent as to how it is that God has made the Gentiles, whose salvation was despaired of, fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers with the saints; and discourse how it is that “this mortal body shall put on immortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption”; and proclaim in what sense [God] says, “That is a people who was not a people; and she is beloved who was not beloved”; and in what sense He says that “more are the children of her that was desolate, than of her who possessed a husband.” For in reference to these points, and others of a like nature, the apostle exclaims: “Oh! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” But [the superior skill spoken of] is not found in this, that any one should, beyond the Creator and Framer [of the world], conceive of the enthymesis of an erring Aeon, their mother and his, and should thus proceed to such a pitch of blasphemy; nor does it consist in this, that he should again falsely imagine, as being above this [fancied being], a Pleroma at one time supposed to contain thirty, and at another time an innumerable tribe of Aeons, as these teachers who are destitute of truly divine wisdom maintain; while the Catholic Church possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said. . . .

Chapter XII. The doctrines of the followers of Ptolemy and Colorbasus

1. But the followers of Ptolemy say that he [Bythus] has two consorts, which they also name Diatheses (affections), viz., Ennoea and Thelesis. For, as they affirm, he first conceived the thought of producing something, and then willed to that effect. Wherefore, again, these two affections, or powers, Ennoea and Thelesis, having intercourse, as it were, between themselves, the production of Monogenes and Aletheia took place according to conjunction. These two came forth as types and images of the two affections of the Father,—visible representations of those that were invisible,—Nous (i.e., Monogenes) of Thelesis, and Aletheia of Ennoea, and accordingly the image resulting from Thelesis was masculine, while that from Ennoea was feminine. Thus Thelesis (will) became, as it were, a faculty of Ennoea (thought). For Ennoea continually yearned after offspring; but she could not of herself bring forth that which she desired. But when the power of Thelesis (the faculty of will) came upon her, then she brought forth that on which she had brooded.

2. These fancied beings (like the Jove of Homer, who is represented as passing an anxious sleepless night in devising plans for honouring Achilles and destroying numbers of the Greeks) will not appear to you, my dear friend, to be possessed of greater knowledge than He who is the God of the universe. He, as soon as He thinks, also performs what He has willed; and as soon as He wills, also thinks that which He has willed; then thinking when He wills, and then willing when He thinks, since He is all thought, [all will, all mind, all light,] all eye, all ear, the one entire fountain of all good things.

3. Those of them, however, who are deemed more skilful than the persons who have just been mentioned, say that the first Ogdoad was not produced gradually, so that one Aeon was sent forth by another, but that all the Aeons were brought into existence at once by Propator and his Ennoea. He (Colorbasus) affirms this as confidently as if he had assisted at their birth. Accordingly, he and his followers maintain that Anthropos and Ecclesia were not produced, as others hold, from Logos and Zoe; but, on the contrary, Logos and Zoe from Anthropos and Ecclesia. But they express this in another form, as follows: When the Propator conceived the thought of producing something, he received the name of Father. But because what he did produce was true, it was named Aletheia. Again, when he wished to reveal himself, this was termed Anthropos. Finally, when he produced those whom he had previously thought of, these were named Ecclesia. Anthropos, by speaking, formed Logos: this is the first-born son. But Zoe followed upon Logos; and thus the first Ogdoad was completed.

4. They have much contention also among themselves respecting the Saviour. For some maintain that he was formed out of all; wherefore also he was called Eudocetos, because the whole Pleroma was well pleased through him to glorify the Father. But others assert that he was produced from those ten Aeons alone who sprung from Logos and Zoe, and that on this account he was called Logos and Zoe, thus preserving the ancestral names. Others, again, affirm that he had his being from those twelve Aeons who were the offspring of Anthropos and Ecclesia; and on this account he acknowledges himself the Son of man, as being a descendant of Anthropos. Others still, assert that he was produced by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were brought forth for the security of the Pleroma; and that on this account he was called Christ, thus preserving the appellation of the Father, by whom he was produced. And there are yet others among them who declare that the Propator of the whole, Proarche, and Proanennoetos is called Anthropos; and that this is the great and abstruse mystery, namely, that the Power which is above all others, and contains all in his embrace, is termed Anthropos; hence does the Saviour style himself the “Son of man.”

Chapter XIII. The deceitful arts and nefarious practices of Marcus

1. But there is another among these heretics, Marcus by name, who boasts himself as having improved upon his master. He is a perfect adept in magical impostures, and by this means drawing away a great number of men, and not a few women, he has induced them to join themselves to him, as to one who is possessed of the greatest knowledge and perfection, and who has received the highest power from the invisible and ineffable regions above. Thus it appears as if he really were the precursor of Antichrist. For, joining the buffooneries of Anaxilaus to the craftiness of the magi, as they are called, he is regarded by his senseless and cracked-brain followers as working miracles by these means.

2. Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine, and protracting to great length the word of invocation, he contrives to give them a purple and reddish colour, so that Charis, who is one of those that are superior to all things, should be thought to drop her own blood into that cup through means of his invocation, and that thus those who are present should be led to rejoice to taste of that cup, in order that, by so doing, the Charis, who is set forth by this magician, may also flow into them. Again, handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated, and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words: “May that Charis who is before all things, and who transcends all knowledge and speech, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee her own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in thee as in good soil.” Repeating certain other like words, and thus goading on the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one, so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing several other similar things, he has completely deceived many, and drawn them away after him.

3. It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him, by addressing them in such seductive words as these: “I am eager to make thee a partaker of my Charis, since the Father of all doth continually behold thy angel before His face. Now the place of thy angel is among us: it behoves us to become one. Receive first from me and by me [the gift of] Charis. Adorn thyself as a bride who is expecting her bridegroom, that thou mayest be what I am, and I what thou art. Establish the germ of light in thy nuptial chamber. Receive from me a spouse, and become receptive of him, while thou art received by him. Behold Charis has descended upon thee; open thy mouth and prophesy.” On the woman replying, “I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy”; then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her, “Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.” She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit. (Referring to this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.) Henceforth she reckons herself a prophetess, and expresses her thanks to Marcus for having imparted to her of his own Charis. She then makes the effort to reward him, not only by the gift of her possessions (in which way he has collected a very large fortune), but also by yielding up to him her person, desiring in every way to be united to him, that she may become altogether one with him.

4. But already some of the most faithful women, possessed of the fear of God, and not being deceived (whom, nevertheless, he did his best to seduce like the rest by bidding them prophesy), abhorring and execrating him, have withdrawn from such a vile company of revellers. This they have done, as being well aware that the gift of prophecy is not conferred on men by Marcus, the magician, but that only those to whom God sends His grace from above possess the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying; and then they speak where and when God pleases, and not when Marcus orders them to do so. For that which commands is greater and of higher authority than that which is commanded, inasmuch as the former rules, while the latter is in a state of subjection. If, then, Marcus, or anyone else, does command,—as these are accustomed continually at their feasts to play at drawing lots, and [in accordance with the lot] to command one another to prophesy, giving forth as oracles what is in harmony with their own desires,—it will follow that he who commands is greater and of higher authority than the prophetic spirit, though he is but a man, which is impossible. But such spirits as are commanded by these men, and speak when they desire it, are earthly and weak, audacious and impudent, sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdition of those who do not hold fast that well-compacted faith which they received at first through the Church.

5. Moreover, that this Marcus compounds philters and love-potions, in order to insult the persons of some of these women, if not of all, those of them who have returned to the Church of God—a thing which frequently occurs—have acknowledged, confessing, too, that they have been defiled by him, and that they were filled with a burning passion towards him. A sad example of this occurred in the case of a certain Asiatic, one of our deacons, who had received him (Marcus) into his house. His wife, a woman of remarkable beauty, fell a victim both in mind and body to this magician, and, for a long time, travelled about with him. At last, when, with no small difficulty, the brethren had converted her, she spent her whole time in the exercise of public confession, weeping over and lamenting the defilement which she had received from this magician.

6. Some of his disciples, too, addicting themselves to the same practices, have deceived many silly women, and defiled them. They proclaim themselves as being “perfect,” so that no one can be compared to them with respect to the immensity of their knowledge, nor even were you to mention Paul or Peter, or any other of the apostles. They assert that they themselves know more than all others, and that they alone have imbibed the greatness of the knowledge of that power which is unspeakable. They also maintain that they have attained to a height above all power, and that therefore they are free in every respect to act as they please, having no one to fear in anything. For they affirm, that because of the “Redemption” it has come to pass that they can neither be apprehended, nor even seen by the judge. But even if he should happen to lay hold upon them, then they might simply repeat these words, while standing in his presence along with the “Redemption”: “O thou, who sittest beside God, and the mystical, eternal Sige, thou through whom the angels (mightiness), who continually behold the face of the Father, having thee as their guide and introducer, do derive their forms from above, which she in the greatness of her daring inspiring with mind on account of the goodness of the Propator, produced us as their images, having her mind then intent upon the things above, as in a dream,—behold, the judge is at hand, and the crier orders me to make my defence. But do thou, as being acquainted with the affairs of both, present the cause of both of us to the judge, inasmuch as it is in reality but one cause.” Now, as soon as the Mother hears these words, she puts the Homeric helmet of Pluto upon them, so that they may invisibly escape the judge. And then she immediately catches them up, conducts them into the bridal chamber, and hands them over to their consorts.

7. Such are the words and deeds by which, in our own district of the Rhone, they have deluded many women, who have their consciences seared as with a hot iron. Some of them, indeed, make a public confession of their sins; but others of them are ashamed to do this, and in a tacit kind of way, despairing of [attaining to] the life of God, have, some of them, apostatized altogether; while others hesitate between the two courses, and incur that which is implied in the proverb, “neither without nor within”; possessing this as the fruit from the seed of the children of knowledge.

Book II

Preface

1. In the first book, which immediately precedes this, exposing “knowledge falsely so called,” I showed thee, my very dear friend, that the whole system devised, in many and opposite ways, by those who are of the school of Valentinus, was false and baseless. I also set forth the tenets of their predecessors, proving that they not only differed among themselves, but had long previously swerved from the truth itself. I further explained, with all diligence, the doctrine as well as practice of Marcus the magician, since he, too, belongs to these persons; and I carefully noticed the passages which they garble from the Scriptures, with the view of adapting them to their own fictions. Moreover, I minutely narrated the manner in which, by means of numbers, and by the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, they boldly endeavour to establish [what they regard as] truth. I have also related how they think and teach that creation at large was formed after the image of their invisible Pleroma, and what they hold respecting the Demiurge, declaring at the same time the doctrine of Simon Magus of Samaria, their progenitor, and of all those who succeeded him. I mentioned, too, the multitude of those Gnostics who are sprung from him, and noticed the points of difference between them, their several doctrines, and the order of their succession, while I set forth all those heresies which have been originated by them. I showed, moreover, that all these heretics, taking their rise from Simon, have introduced impious and irreligious doctrines into this life; and I explained the nature of their “redemption,” and their method of initiating those who are rendered “perfect,” along with their invocations and their mysteries. I proved also that there is one God, the Creator, and that He is not the fruit of any defect, nor is there anything either above Him, or after Him.

2. In the present book, I shall establish those points which fit in with my design, so far as time permits, and overthrow, by means of lengthened treatment under distinct heads, their whole system; for which reason, since it is an exposure and subversion of their opinions, I have so entitled the composition of this work. For it is fitting, by a plain revelation and overthrow of their conjunctions, to put an end to these hidden alliances, and to Bythus himself, and thus to obtain a demonstration that he never existed at any previous time, nor now has any existence.

Chapter I. There is but one God: the impossibility of its being otherwise

1. It is proper, then, that I should begin with the first and most important head, that is, God the Creator, who made the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein (whom these men blasphemously style the fruit of a defect), and to demonstrate that there is nothing either above Him or after Him; nor that, influenced by any one, but of His own free will, He created all things, since He is the only God, the only Lord, the only Creator, the only Father, alone containing all things, and Himself commanding all things into existence.

2. For how can there be any other Fulness, or Principle, or Power, or God, above Him, since it is matter of necessity that God, the Pleroma (Fulness) of all these, should contain all things in His immensity, and should be contained by no one? But if there is anything beyond Him, He is not then the Pleroma of all, nor does He contain all. For that which they declare to be beyond Him will be wanting to the Pleroma, or, [in other words,] to that God who is above all things. But that which is wanting, and falls in any way short, is not the Pleroma of all things. In such a case, He would have both beginning, middle, and end, with respect to those who are beyond Him. And if He has an end in regard to those things which are below, He has also a beginning with respect to those things which are above. In like manner, there is an absolute necessity that He should experience the very same thing at all other points, and should be held in, bounded, and enclosed by those existences that are outside of Him. For that being who is the end downwards, necessarily circumscribes and surrounds him who finds his end in it. And thus, according to them, the Father of all (that is, He whom they call Proön and Proarche), with their Pleroma, and the good God of Marcion, is established and enclosed in some other, and is surrounded from without by another mighty Being, who must of necessity be greater, inasmuch as that which contains is greater than that which is contained. But then that which is greater is also stronger, and in a greater degree Lord; and that which is greater, and stronger, and in a greater degree Lord—must be God.

3. Now, since there exists, according to them, also something else which they declare to be outside of the Pleroma, into which they further hold there descended that higher power who went astray, it is in every way necessary that the Pleroma either contains that which is beyond, yet is contained (for otherwise, it will not be beyond the Pleroma; for if there is anything beyond the Pleroma, there will be a Pleroma within this very Pleroma which they declare to be outside of the Pleroma, and the Pleroma will be contained by that which is beyond: and with the Pleroma is understood also the first God); or, again, they must be an infinite distance separated from each other —the Pleroma [I mean], and that which is beyond it. But if they maintain this, there will then be a third kind of existence, which separates by immensity the Pleroma and that which is beyond it. This third kind of existence will therefore bound and contain both the others, and will be greater both than the Pleroma, and than that which is beyond it, inasmuch as it contains both in its bosom. In this way, talk might go on forever concerning those things which are contained, and those which contain. For if this third existence has its beginning above, and its end beneath, there is an absolute necessity that it be also bounded on the sides, either beginning or ceasing at certain other points, [where new existences begin]. These, again, and others which are above and below, will have their beginnings at certain other points, and so on ad infinitum; so that their thoughts would never rest in one God, but, in consequence of seeking after more than exists, would wander away to that which has no existence, and depart from the true God.

4. These remarks are, in like manner, applicable against the followers of Marcion. For his two gods will also be contained and circumscribed by an immense interval which separates them from one another. But then there is a necessity to suppose a multitude of gods separated by an immense distance from each other on every side, beginning with one another, and ending in one another. Thus, by that very process of reasoning on which they depend for teaching that there is a certain Pleroma or God above the Creator of heaven and earth, anyone who chooses to employ it may maintain that there is another Pleroma above the Pleroma, above that again another, and above Bythus another ocean of Deity, while in like manner the same successions hold with respect to the sides; and thus, their doctrine flowing out into immensity, there will always be a necessity to conceive of other Pleroma, and other Bythi, so as never at any time to stop, but always to continue seeking for others besides those already mentioned. Moreover, it will be uncertain whether these which we conceive of are below, or are, in fact, themselves the things which are above; and, in like manner, [it will be doubtful] respecting those things which are said by them to be above, whether they are really above or below; and thus our opinions will have no fixed conclusion or certainty, but will of necessity wander forth after worlds without limits, and gods that cannot be numbered.

5. These things, then, being so, each deity will be contented with his own possessions, and will not be moved with any curiosity respecting the affairs of others; otherwise he would be unjust, and rapacious, and would cease to be what God is. Each creation, too, will glorify its own maker, and will be contented with him, not knowing any other; otherwise it would most justly be deemed an apostate by all the others, and would receive a richly-deserved punishment. For it must be either that there is one Being who contains all things, and formed in His own territory all those things which have been created, according to His own will; or, again, that there are numerous unlimited creators and gods, who begin from each other, and end in each other on every side; and it will then be necessary to allow that all the rest are contained from without by some one who is greater, and that they are each of them shut up within their own territory, and remain in it. No one of them all, therefore, is God. For there will be [much] wanting to every one of them, possessing [as he will do] only a very small part when compared with all the rest. The name of the Omnipotent will thus be brought to an end, and such an opinion will of necessity fall to impiety.

Chapter II. The world was not formed by angels, or by any other being, contrary to the will of the most high God, but was made by the Father through the Word

1. Those, moreover, who say that the world was formed by angels, or by any other maker of it, contrary to the will of Him who is the Supreme Father, err first of all in this very point, that they maintain that angels formed such and so mighty a creation, contrary to the will of the Most High God. This would imply that angels were more powerful than God; or if not so, that He was either careless, or inferior, or paid no regard to those things which took place among His own possessions, whether they turned out ill or well, so that He might drive away and prevent the one, while He praised and rejoiced over the other. But if one would not ascribe such conduct even to a man of any ability, how much less to God.

2. Next let them tell us whether these things have been formed within the limits which are contained by Him, and in His proper territory, or in regions belonging to others, and lying beyond Him. But if they say [that these things were done] beyond Him, then all the absurdities already mentioned will face them, and the Supreme God will be enclosed by that which is beyond Him, in which also it will be necessary that He should find His end. If, on the other hand, [these things were done] within His own proper territory, it will be very idle to say that the world was thus formed within His proper territory against His will by angels who are themselves under His power, or by any other being, as if either He Himself did not behold all things which take place among His own possessions, or was not aware of the things to be done by angels.

3. If, however, [the things referred to were done] not against His will, but with His concurrence and knowledge, as some [of these men] think, the angels, or the Former of the world [whoever that may have been], will no longer be the causes of that formation, but the will of God. For if He is the Former of the world, He too made the angels, or at least was the cause of their creation; and He will be regarded as having made the world who prepared the causes of its formation. Although they maintain that the angels were made by a long succession downwards, or that the Former of the world [sprang] from the Supreme Father, as Basilides asserts; nevertheless that which is the cause of those things which have been made will still be traced to Him who was the Author of such a succession. [The case stands] just as regards success in war, which is ascribed to the king who prepared those things which are the cause of victory; and, in like manner, the creation of any state, or of any work, is referred to him who prepared materials for the accomplishment of those results which were afterwards brought about. Wherefore, we do not say that it was the axe which cut the wood, or the saw which divided it; but one would very properly say that the man cut and divided it who formed the axe and the saw for this purpose, and [who also formed] at a much earlier date all the tools by which the axe and the saw themselves were formed. With justice, therefore, according to an analogous process of reasoning, the Father of all will be declared the Former of this world, and not the angels, nor any other [so-called] former of the world, other than He who was its Author, and had formerly been the cause of the preparation for a creation of this kind.

4. This manner of speech may perhaps be plausible or persuasive to those who know not God, and who liken Him to needy human beings, and to those who cannot immediately and without assistance form anything, but require many instrumentalities to produce what they intend. But it will not be regarded as at all probable by those who know that God stands in need of nothing, and that He created and made all things by His Word, while He neither required angels to assist Him in the production of those things which are made, nor of any power greatly inferior to Himself, and ignorant of the Father, nor of any defect or ignorance, in order that he who should know Him might become man. But He Himself in Himself, after a fashion which we can neither describe nor conceive, predestinating all things, formed them as He pleased, bestowing harmony on all things, and assigning them their own place, and the beginning of their creation. In this way He conferred on spiritual things a spiritual and invisible nature, on super-celestial things a celestial, on angels an angelical, on animals an animal, on beings that swim a nature suited to the water, and on those that live on the land one fitted for the land—on all, in short, a nature suitable to the character of the life assigned them—while He formed all things that were made by His Word that never wearies.

5. For this is a peculiarity of the pre-eminence of God, not to stand in need of other instruments for the creation of those things which are summoned into existence. His own Word is both suitable and sufficient for the formation of all things, even as John, the disciple of the Lord, declares regarding Him: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” Now, among the “all things” our world must be embraced. It too, therefore, was made by His Word, as Scripture tells us in the book of Genesis that He made all things connected with our world by His Word. David also expresses the same truth [when he says] “For He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created.” Whom, therefore, shall we believe as to the creation of the world—these heretics who have been mentioned that prate so foolishly and inconsistently on the subject, or the disciples of the Lord, and Moses, who was both a faithful servant of God and a prophet? He at first narrated the formation of the world in these words: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and all other things in succession; but neither gods nor angels [had any share in the work].

Now, that this God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul the apostle also has declared, [saying,] “There is one God, the Father, who is above all, and through all things, and in us all.” I have indeed proved already that there is only one God; but I shall further demonstrate this from the apostles themselves, and from the discourses of the Lord. For what sort of conduct would it be, were we to forsake the utterances of the prophets, of the Lord, and of the apostles, that we might give heed to these persons, who speak not a word of sense?

Diagnostic Questions

1. What does Irenaeus mean by, “Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity” (bk. 1, pref., par. 2)?

2. Why does he insist he has no gift for rhetoric?

3. Can you describe the intricacies of the Gnostic system in your own words?

4. How does Gnosticism use the truth of Christian faith to its own ends?

5. How does Irenaeus use the success of the Christian church in his arguments?

6. How does he defend the sovereignty of God over all creation?

7. What is his critique of Marcion? How does Marcionism with other names continue to challenge the Christian church?

1. See John W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints: Imaginations and Studies in Early Church History and Tradition (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2006), 126.

2. In this regard, Manichaeism is a fairly simple concept. At a different level, there were rather complex aspects to it that few understood. For example, during the second era, there is a struggle between deities, whereby light is partly captured, but its particles retaliate by birthing sub-deities, which fight pseudo sub-deities entombed in the created world. The object is to win humans with light particles and thus release them.

3. A curious detail is that these thirty were seen by some as having a New Testament background—the number of laborers in the parable of the laborers who came until the eleventh hour (Matt. 20:1–16)!

CHAPTER 6

Tertullian

(ca. 160–225)

Besides Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, the church began to have its chief seat in Carthage (in modern Tunis). North Africa would become a principal center for the production of theology. And our attention moves from a predominantly Greek to a more Latin-speaking world. Christian faith came abundantly to this Roman outpost.

Among the most notable converts were often authors trained as lawyers. For example, the extraordinary Marcus Minucius Felix (d. ca. 250), a convert to Christian faith, wrote a dialogue, called The Octavius.[1] The text is an imaginary trialogue between Caecilius, a pagan, Octavius, a Christian, and Minucius Felix himself, who acts as the moderator. Caecilius argues that human speculation can never decide whether there are gods. Octavius answers that looking at nature and reading the great philosophers do guide us toward the sure existence of God, whereas the popular imagination has led us astray from these lofty revelations. The style is elegant and erudite, though the presentation of the gospel is rather embryonic.

When we move into the third century, the church is no longer primarily on the defensive, but becomes more confident, even aggressive. The foremost thinker from Carthage was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, which we anglicize as Tertullian. The son of a Roman centurion, he was raised as a pagan. Of Berber descent, he grew up in the context of a high respect for scholarship and oratory. He studied jurisprudence, and, according to Eusebius, was among the most respected of lawyers in the region.

He converted to the Christian faith sometime around 197. We do not know much about the circumstances, although from a few references in his own writings his conversion appeared to be sudden and resolute. He famously said, “Men are made, not born, Christians” (Apology, chap. 18), and much of his writing draws a sharp contrast between the gospel and pagan philosophy. He became an ordained presbyter in the church of Carthage.

An interesting aside: Tertullian was undoubtedly married, as is attested by several sources, including his two books written to his wife. We mention this only to point out that there was no requirement of celibacy for the ministry at this time, even though many clerics chose not to marry. Another fact, attested by those who knew him, is that he had a “sharp and vehement temper,” something that might explain his rather aggressive prose.[2]

Somewhere in midlife Tertullian was drawn to Montanism, and he broke with the orthodox church (ca. 213). He would become Montanism’s most brilliant exponent. Eventually finding its mainstream followers to lack in rigor, he founded his own group, known as the “Tertullianists.” The group reverted to the orthodox church in Augustine’s time. Augustine wrote that Tertullian returned to the mother church at the end of his life, but there is little evidence to support this.[3]

Evaluating Tertullian’s legacy is not easy. For some, his move to Montanism rendered his Christian testimony ineffective. For others, even his defense of the faith lacks depth, preferring the intensity of the courtroom to the quiet of the scholar’s desk. While there is some truth to these judgments, it is well to remember that Tertullian left his imprint on significant theologians, such as Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (249–258), and author of On the Vanity of Idols (247), in which arguments already present in Minucius Felix and Tertullian are reemployed. Indeed, it is said that Cyprian never spent a day without reading his mentor’s work.

Montanism

Not universally identified as a heresy, Montanism was attractive to several of the church fathers. Named for Montanus, a second-century Phrygian, Montanism taught that the Holy Spirit had brought direct revelations to its founder and that the special gifts of the Spirit continued to other believers well after the close of the apostolic age. Montanus claimed he was the incarnation of the paraclete, the name given to the Spirit in John’s Gospel (14:16, etc.). Two women who accompanied Montanus, Prisca and Maximilia, also believed themselves to be embodiments of the Spirit. “The Three,” as they were known, experienced visions and spoke words of prophecy. This more radical approach to Christianity spread during the early centuries of the church and persisted in various parts of the West through the eighth century. For a good while the church was divided over the authenticity of this view, but eventually it was ruled a heresy. Its most notable convert was Tertullian.

The Apology

The Apology must count as Tertullian’s finest piece. The date of its composition is not absolutely certain. In any case, the book shows a first-rate ability in Roman juridical philosophy. Directed to the “Rulers of the Roman Empire,” the work is an elaborate plea for fairness. Tertullian asks them simply to look closely into the matter of charges brought against Christians, so that the rulers can determine how false the charges are. The book refutes the common charges made against Christians, such as infanticide, sexual looseness, and atheism. The bulk of the book is a critique of paganism. He assails the public policies of the empire, which allow pluralism for everyone except Christians: Egyptians may deify birds and animals, while Christians are forced to worship the Roman gods.

A major part of Tertullian’s argument centers on the loyalty and good behavior of Christians. Indeed, they more than any others pray for the emperor, even though he is only a man. They love one another unconditionally, regardless of class or origins. Along the way he defends the infinitude of God, the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, and other fundamental doctrines. Toward the end Tertullian reflects upon the subject of martyrdom. With irony, he tells the rulers that they should be grateful because Christians give them the opportunity for persecution, something these believers accept as good soldiers accept the risk of death in battle.

In The Apology we are treated to some of the memorable language that makes the author stand out as an apologist. “We are of your stock and nature: men are made, not born, Christians” (chap. 18). “For we cannot be held to do harm to that which has no existence” (chap. 27). “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow: the blood of the Christians is seed” (chap. 50; Eleucidations 12).

Unlike Justin, Tertullian makes no attempt to find a capacity for true religion among pagans. While he acknowledges general revelation, he is sharply critical of those outside the church, even the greatest philosophers. The best known of his statements places a deep chasm between the enterprise of philosophy and the Christian religion:

What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic? Our principles come from the Porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord is to be sought in simplicity of heart. I have no use for a Stoic or a Platonic or a dialectical Christianity. After Jesus Christ we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research.[4]

At the same time, it must not be thought that Tertullian parted with his great learning when engaged in apologetics. He was simply more radically opposed to philosophy as a project than most early apologists.

The Apology

Chapter I

Rulers of the Roman Empire, if, seated for the administration of justice on your lofty tribunal, under the gaze of every eye, and occupying there all but the highest position in the state, you may not openly inquire into and sift before the world the real truth in regard to the charges made against the Christians; if in this case alone you are afraid or ashamed to exercise your authority in making public inquiry with the carefulness which becomes justice; if, finally, the extreme severities inflicted on our people in recently private judgments, stand in the way of our being permitted to defend ourselves before you, you cannot surely forbid the Truth to reach your ears by the secret pathway of a noiseless book. She has no appeals to make to you in regard of her condition, for that does not excite her wonder. She knows that she is but a sojourner on the earth, and that among strangers she naturally finds foes; and more than this, that her origin, her dwelling-place, her hope, her recompense, her honours, are above. One thing, meanwhile, she anxiously desires of earthly rulers—not to be condemned unknown. What harm can it do to the laws, supreme in their domain, to give her a hearing? Nay, for that part of it, will not their absolute supremacy be more conspicuous in their condemning her, even after she has made her plea? But if, unheard, sentence is pronounced against her, besides the odium of an unjust deed, you will incur the merited suspicion of doing it with some idea that it is unjust, as not wishing to hear what you may not be able to hear and condemn. We lay this before you as the first ground on which we urge that your hatred to the name of Christian is unjust. And the very reason which seems to excuse this injustice (I mean ignorance) at once aggravates and convicts it. For what is there more unfair than to hate a thing of which you know nothing, even though it deserve to be hated? Hatred is only merited when it is known to be merited. But without that knowledge, whence is its justice to be vindicated? for that is to be proved, not from the mere fact that an aversion exists, but from acquaintance with the subject. When men, then, give way to a dislike simply because they are entirely ignorant of the nature of the thing disliked, why may it not be precisely the very sort of thing they should not dislike? So we maintain that they are both ignorant while they hate us, and hate us unrighteously while they continue in ignorance, the one thing being the result of the other either way of it. The proof of their ignorance, at once condemning and excusing their injustice, is this, that those who once hated Christianity because they knew nothing about it, no sooner come to know it than they all lay down at once their enmity. From being its haters they become its disciples. By simply getting acquainted with it, they begin now to hate what they had formerly been, and to profess what they had formerly hated; and their numbers are as great as are laid to our charge. The outcry is that the State is filled with Christians—that they are in the fields, in the citadels, in the islands: they make lamentation, as for some calamity, that both sexes, every age and condition, even high rank, are passing over to the profession of the Christian faith; and yet for all, their minds are not awakened to the thought of some good they have failed to notice in it. They must not allow any truer suspicions to cross their minds; they have no desire to make closer trial. Here alone the curiosity of human nature slumbers. They like to be ignorant, though to others the knowledge has been bliss. Anacharsis reproved the rude venturing to criticise the cultured; how much more this judging of those who know, by men who are entirely ignorant, might he have denounced! Because they already dislike, they want to know no more. Thus they prejudge that of which they are ignorant to be such, that, if they came to know it, it could no longer be the object of their aversion; since, if inquiry finds nothing worthy of dislike, it is certainly proper to cease from an unjust dislike, while if its bad character comes plainly out, instead of the detestation entertained for it being thus diminished, a stronger reason for perseverance in that detestation is obtained, even under the authority of justice itself. But, says one, a thing is not good merely because multitudes go over to it; for how many have the bent of their nature towards whatever is bad! how many go astray into ways of error! It is undoubted. Yet a thing that is thoroughly evil, not even those whom it carries away venture to defend as good. Nature throws a veil either of fear or shame over all evil. For instance, you find that criminals are eager to conceal themselves, avoid appearing in public, are in trepidation when they are caught, deny their guilt, when they are accused; even when they are put to the rack, they do not easily or always confess; when there is no doubt about their condemnation, they grieve for what they have done. In their self-communings they admit their being impelled by sinful dispositions, but they lay the blame either on fate or on the stars. They are unwilling to acknowledge that the thing is theirs, because they own that it is wicked. But what is there like this in the Christian’s case? The only shame or regret he feels, is at not having been a Christian earlier. If he is pointed out, he glories in it; if he is accused, he offers no defence; interrogated, he makes voluntary confession; condemned he renders thanks. What sort of evil thing is this, which wants all the ordinary peculiarities of evil—fear, shame, subterfuge, penitence, lamenting? What! is that a crime in which the criminal rejoices? to be accused of which is his ardent wish, to be punished for which is his felicity? You cannot call it madness, you who stand convicted of knowing nothing of the matter.

Chapter II

If, again, it is certain that we are the most wicked of men, why do you treat us so differently from our fellows, that is, from other criminals, it being only fair that the same crime should get the same treatment? When the charges made against us are made against others, they are permitted to make use both of their own lips and of hired pleaders to show their innocence. They have full opportunity of answer and debate; in fact, it is against the law to condemn anybody undefended and unheard. Christians alone are forbidden to say anything in exculpation of themselves, in defence of the truth, to help the judge to a righteous decision; all that is cared about is having what the public hatred demands—the confession of the name, not examination of the charge: while in your ordinary judicial investigations, on a man’s confession of the crime of murder, or sacrilege, or incest, or treason, to take the points of which we are accused, you are not content to proceed at once to sentence,—you do not take that step till you thoroughly examine the circumstances of the confession—what is the real character of the deed, how often, where, in what way, when he has done it, who were privy to it, and who actually took part with him in it. Nothing like this is done in our case, though the falsehoods disseminated about us ought to have the same sifting, that it might be found how many murdered children each of us had tasted; how many incests each of us had shrouded in darkness; what cooks, what dogs had been witness of our deeds. Oh, how great the glory of the ruler who should bring to light some Christian who had devoured a hundred infants! But, instead of that, we find that even inquiry in regard to our case is forbidden. For the younger Pliny, when he was ruler of a province, having condemned some Christians to death, and driven some from their stedfastness, being still annoyed by their great numbers, at last sought the advice of Trajan, the reigning emperor, as to what he was to do with the rest, explaining to his master that, except an obstinate disinclination to offer sacrifices, he found in the religious services nothing but meetings at early morning for singing hymns to Christ and God, and sealing home their way of life by a united pledge to be faithful to their religion, forbidding murder, adultery, dishonesty, and other crimes. Upon this Trajan wrote back that Christians were by no means to be sought after; but if they were brought before him, they should be punished. O miserable deliverance,—under the necessities of the case, a self-contradiction! It forbids them to be sought after as innocent, and it commands them to be punished as guilty. It is at once merciful and cruel; it passes by, and it punishes. Why dost thou play a game of evasion upon thyself, O Judgment? If thou condemnest, why dost thou not also inquire. If thou does not inquire, why dost thou not also absolve? Military stations are distributed through all the provinces for tracking robbers. Against traitors and public foes every man is a soldier; search is made even for their confederates and accessories. The Christian alone must not be sought, though he may be brought and accused before the judge; as if a search had any other end than that in view! And so you condemn the man for whom nobody wished a search to be made when he is presented to you, and who even now does not deserve punishment, I suppose, because of his guilt, but because, though forbidden to be sought, he was found. And then, too, you do not in that case deal with us in the ordinary way of judicial proceedings against offenders; for, in the case of others denying, you apply the torture to make them confess—Christians alone you torture, to make them deny; whereas, if we were guilty of any crime, we should be sure to deny it, and you with your tortures would force us to confession. Nor indeed should you hold that our crimes require no such investigation merely on the ground that you are convinced by our confession of the name that the deeds were done,—you who are daily wont, though you know well enough what murder is, none the less to extract from the confessed murderer a full account of how the crime was perpetrated. So that with all the greater perversity you act, when, holding our crimes proved by our confession of the name of Christ, you drive us by torture to fall from our confession, that, repudiating the name, we may in like manner repudiate also the crimes with which, from that same confession, you had assumed that we were chargeable. I suppose, though you believe us to be the worst of mankind, you do not wish us to perish. For thus, no doubt, you are in the habit of bidding the murderer deny, and of ordering the man guilty of sacrilege to the rack if he persevere in his acknowledgment! Is that the way of it? But if thus you do not deal with us as criminals, you declare us thereby innocent, when as innocent you are anxious that we do not persevere in a confession which you know will bring on us a condemnation of necessity, not of justice, at your hands. “I am a Christian,” the man cries out. He tells you what he is; you wish to hear from him what he is not. Occupying your place of authority to extort the truth, you do your utmost to get lies from us. “I am,” he says, “that which you ask me if I am. Why do you torture me to sin? I confess, and you put me to the rack. What would you do if I denied? Certainly you give no ready credence to others when they deny. When we deny, you believe at once. Let this perversity of yours lead you to suspect that there is some hidden power in the case under whose influence you act against the forms, against the nature of public justice, even against the very laws themselves. For, unless I am greatly mistaken, the laws enjoin offenders to be searched out, and not to be hidden away. They lay it down that persons who own a crime are to be condemned, not acquitted. The decrees of the senate, the commands of your chiefs, lay this clearly down. The power of which you are servants is a civil, not a tyrannical domination. Among tyrants, indeed, torments used to be inflicted even as punishments: with you they are mitigated to a means of questioning alone. Keep to your law in these as necessary till confession is obtained; and if the torture is anticipated by confession, there will be no occasion for it: sentence should be passed; the criminal should be given over to the penalty which is his due, not released. Accordingly, no one is eager for the acquittal of the guilty; it is not right to desire that, and so no one is ever compelled to deny. Well, you think the Christian a man of every crime, an enemy of the gods, of the emperor, of the laws, of good morals, of all nature; yet you compel him to deny, that you may acquit him, which without him denial you could not do. You play fast and loose with the laws. You wish him to deny his guilt, that you may, even against his will, bring him out blameless and free from all guilt in reference to the past! Whence is this strange perversity on your part? How is it you do not reflect that a spontaneous confession is greatly more worthy of credit than a compelled denial; or consider whether, when compelled to deny, a man’s denial may not be in good faith, and whether acquitted, he may not, then and there, as soon as the trial is over, laugh at your hostility, a Christian as much as ever? Seeing, then, that in everything you deal differently with us than with other criminals, bent upon the one object of taking from us our name (indeed, it is ours no more if we do what Christians never do), it is made perfectly clear that there is no crime of any kind in the case, but merely a name which a certain system, ever working against the truth, pursues with its enmity, doing this chiefly with the object of securing that men may have no desire to know for certain what they know for certain they are entirely ignorant of. Hence, too, it is that they believe about us things of which they have no proof, and they are disinclined to have them looked into, lest the charges, they would rather take on trust, are all proved to have no foundation, that the name so hostile to that rival power—its crimes presumed, not proved—may be condemned simply on its own confession. So we are put to the torture if we confess, and we are punished if we persevere, and if we deny we are acquitted, because all the contention is about a name. Finally, why do you read out of your tablet-lists that such a man is a Christian? Why not also that he is a murderer? And if a Christian is a murderer, why not guilty, too, of incest, or any other vile thing you believe of us? In our case alone you are either ashamed or unwilling to mention the very names of our crimes—If to be called a “Christian” does not imply any crime, the name is surely very hateful, when that of itself is made a crime.

Chapter III

What are we to think of it, that most people so blindly knock their heads against the hatred of the Christian name; that when they bear favourable testimony to any one, they mingle with it abuse of the name he bears? “A good man,” says one, “is Gaius Seius, only that he is a Christian.” So another, “I am astonished that a wise man like Lucius should have suddenly become a Christian.” Nobody thinks it needful to consider whether Gaius is not good and Lucius wise, on this very account that he is a Christian; or a Christian, for the reason that he is wise and good. They praise what they know, they abuse what they are ignorant of, and they inspire their knowledge with their ignorance; though in fairness you should rather judge of what is unknown from what is known, than what is known from what is unknown. Others, in the case of persons whom, before they took the name of Christian, they had known as loose, and vile, and wicked, put on them a brand from the very thing which they praise. In the blindness of their hatred, they fall foul of their own approving judgment! “What a woman she was! how wanton! how gay! What a youth he was! how profligate! how libidinous!—they have become Christians!” So the hated name is given to a reformation of character. Some even barter away their comforts for that hatred, content to bear injury, if they are kept free at home from the object of their bitter enmity. The wife, now chaste, the husband, now no longer jealous, casts out of his house; the son, now obedient, the father, who used to be so patient, disinherits; the servant, now faithful, the master, once so mild, commands away from his presence; it is a high offence for anyone to be reformed by the detested name. Goodness is of less value than hatred of Christians. Well now, if there is this dislike of the name, what blame can you attach to names? What accusation can you bring against mere designations, save that something in the word sounds either barbarous, or unlucky, or scurrilous, or unchaste? But Christian, so far as the meaning of the word is concerned, is derived from anointing. Yes, and even when it is wrongly pronounced by you “Chrestianus” (for you do not even know accurately the name you hate), it comes from sweetness and benignity. You hate, therefore, in the guiltless, even a guiltless name. But the special ground of dislike to the sect is, that it bears the name of its Founder. Is there anything new in a religious sect getting for its followers a designation from its master? Are not the philosophers called from the founders of their systems—Platonists, Epicureans, Pythagoreans? Are not the Stoics and Academics so called also from the places in which they assembled and stationed themselves? and are not physicians named from Erasistratus, grammarians from Aristarchus, cooks even from Apicius? And yet the bearing of the name, transmitted from the original institutor with whatever he has instituted, offends no one. No doubt, if it is proved that the sect is a bad one, and so its founder bad as well, that will prove that the name is bad and deserves our aversion, in respect of the character both of the sect and its author. Before, therefore, taking up a dislike to the name, it behoved you to consider the sect in the author, or the author in the sect. But now, without any sifting and knowledge of either, the mere name is made matter of accusation, the mere name is assailed, and a sound alone brings condemnation on a sect and its author both, while of both you are ignorant, because they have such and such a designation, not because they are convicted of anything wrong.

Chapter IV

And so, having made these remarks as it were by way of preface, that I might show in its true colours the injustice of the public hatred against us, I shall now take my stand on the plea of our blamelessness; and I shall not only refute the things which are objected to us, but I shall also retort them on the objectors, that in this way all may know that Christians are free from the very crimes they are so well aware prevail among themselves, that they may at the same time be put to the blush for their accusations against us,—accusations I shall not say of the worst of men against the best, but now, as they will have it, against those who are only their fellows in sin. We shall reply to the accusation of all the various crimes we are said to be guilty of in secret, such as we find them committing in the light of day, and as being guilty of which we are held to be wicked, senseless, worthy of punishment, deserving of ridicule. But since, when our truth meets you successfully at all points, the authority of the laws as a last resort is set up against it, so that it is either said that their determinations are absolutely conclusive, or the necessity of obedience is, however unwillingly, preferred to the truth, I shall first, in this matter of the laws grapple with you as with their chosen protectors. Now first, when you sternly lay it down in your sentences, “It is not lawful for you to exist,” and with unhesitating rigour you enjoin this to be carried out, you exhibit the violence and unjust domination of mere tyranny, if you deny the thing to be lawful, simply on the ground that you wish it to be unlawful, not because it ought to be. But if you would have it unlawful because it ought not to be lawful, without doubt that should have no permission of law which does harm; and on this ground, in fact, it is already determined that whatever is beneficial is legitimate. Well, if I have found what your law prohibits to be good, as one who has arrived at such a previous opinion, has it not lost its power to debar me from it, though that very thing, if it were evil, it would justly forbid to me? If your law has gone wrong, it is of human origin, I think; it has not fallen from heaven. Is it wonderful that man should err in making a law, or come to his senses in rejecting it? Did not the Lacedaemonians amend the laws of Lycurgus himself, thereby inflicting such pain on their author that he shut himself up, and doomed himself to death by starvation? Are you not yourselves every day, in your efforts to illumine the darkness of antiquity, cutting and hewing with the new axes of imperial rescripts and edicts, that whole ancient and rugged forest of your laws? Has not Severus, that most resolute of rulers, but yesterday repealed the ridiculous Papian laws which compelled people to have children before the Julian laws allow matrimony to be contracted, and that though they have the authority of age upon their side? There were laws, too, in old times, that parties against whom a decision had been given might be cut in pieces by their creditors; however, by common consent that cruelty was afterwards erased from the statutes, and the capital penalty turned into a brand of shame. By adopting the plan of confiscating a debtor’s goods, it was sought rather to pour the blood in blushes over his face than to pour it out. How many laws lie hidden out of sight which still require to be reformed! For it is neither the number of their years nor the dignity of their maker that commends them, but simply that they are just; and therefore, when their injustice is recognized, they are deservedly condemned, even though they condemn. Why speak we of them as unjust? nay, if they punish mere names, we may well call them irrational. But if they punish acts, why in our case do they punish acts solely on the ground of a name, while in others they must have them proved not from the name, but from the wrong done? I am a practiser of incest (so they say); why do they not inquire into it? I am an infant-killer; why do they not apply the torture to get from me the truth? I am guilty of crimes against the gods, against the Caesars; why am I, who am able to clear myself, not allowed to be heard on my own behalf? No law forbids the sifting of the crimes which it prohibits, for a judge never inflicts a righteous vengeance if he is not well assured that a crime has been committed; nor does a citizen render a true subjection to the law, if he does not know the nature of the thing on which the punishment is inflicted. It is not enough that a law is just, nor that the judge should be convinced of its justice; those from whom obedience is expected should have that conviction too. Nay, a law lies under strong suspicions which does not care to have itself tried and approved: it is a positively wicked law, if, unproved, it tyrannizes over men.

Chapter V

To say a word about the origin of laws of the kind to which we now refer, there was an old decree that no god should be consecrated by the emperor till first approved by the senate. Marcus Aemilius had experience of this in reference to his god Alburnus. And this, too, makes for our case, that among you divinity is allotted at the judgment of human beings. Unless gods give satisfaction to men, there will be no deification for them: the god will have to propitiate the man. Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ’s divinity, brought the matter before the senate, with his own decision in favour of Christ. The senate, because it had not given the approval itself, rejected his proposal. Caesar held to his opinion, threatening wrath against all accusers of the Christians. Consult your histories; you will there find that Nero was the first who assailed with the imperial sword the Christian sect, making progress then especially at Rome. But we glory in having our condemnation hallowed by the hostility of such a wretch. For anyone who knows him, can understand that not except as being of singular excellence did anything bring on it Nero’s condemnation. Domitian, too, a man of Nero’s type in cruelty, tried his hand at persecution; but as he had something of the human in him, he soon put an end to what he had begun, even restoring again those whom he had banished. Such as these have always been our persecutors,—men unjust, impious, base, of whom even you yourselves have no good to say, the sufferers under whose sentences you have been wont to restore. But among so many princes from that time to the present day, with anything of divine and human wisdom in them, point out a single persecutor of the Christian name. So far from that, we, on the contrary, bring before you one who was their protector, as you will see by examining the letters of Marcus Aurelius, that most grave of emperors, in which he bears his testimony that that Germanic drought was removed by the rains obtained through the prayers of the Christians who chanced to be fighting under him. And as he did not by public law remove from Christians their legal disabilities, yet in another way he put them openly aside, even adding a sentence of condemnation, and that of greater severity, against their accusers. What sort of laws are these which the impious alone execute against us—and the unjust, the vile, the bloody, the senseless, the insane? which Trajan to some extent made naught by forbidding Christians to be sought after; which neither a Hadrian, though fond of searching into all things strange and new, nor a Vespasian, though the subjugator of the Jews, nor a Pius, nor a Verus, ever enforced? It should surely be judged more natural for bad men to be eradicated by good princes as being their natural enemies, than by those of a spirit kindred with their own.

Chapter VI

I would now have these most religious protectors and vindicators of the laws and institutions of their fathers, tell me, in regard to their own fidelity and the honour, and submission they themselves show to ancestral institutions, if they have departed from nothing—if they have in nothing gone out of the old paths—if they have not put aside whatsoever is most useful and necessary as rules of a virtuous life. What has become of the laws repressing expensive and ostentatious ways of living? which forbade more than a hundred asses to be expended on a supper, and more than one fowl to be set on the table at a time, and that not a fatted one; which expelled a patrician from the senate on the serious ground, as it was counted, of aspiring to be too great, because he had acquired ten pounds of silver; which put down the theatres as quickly as they arose to debauch the manners of the people; which did not permit the insignia of official dignities or of noble birth to be rashly or with impunity usurped? For I see the Centenarian suppers must now bear the name, not from the hundred asses, but from the hundred sestertia expended on them; and that mines of silver are made into dishes (it were little if this applied only to senators, and not to freedmen or even mere whip-spoilers). I see, too, that neither is a single theatre enough, nor are theatres unsheltered: no doubt it was that immodest pleasure might not be torpid in the wintertime, the Lacedaemonians invented their woollen cloaks for the plays. I see now no difference between the dress of matrons and prostitutes. In regard to women, indeed, those laws of your fathers, which used to be such an encouragement to modesty and sobriety, have also fallen into desuetude, when a woman had yet known no gold upon her save on the finger, which, with the bridal ring, her husband had sacredly pledged to himself; when the abstinence of women from wine was carried so far, that a matron, for opening the compartments of a wine cellar, was starved to death by her friends,—while in the times of Romulus, for merely tasting wine, Mecenius killed his wife, and suffered nothing for the deed. With reference to this also, it was the custom of women to kiss their relatives, that they might be detected by their breath. Where is that happiness of married life, ever so desirable, which distinguished our earlier manners, and as the result of which for about 600 years there was not among us a single divorce? Now, women have every member of the body heavy laden with gold; wine-bibbing is so common among them, that the kiss is never offered with their will; and as for divorce, they long for it as though it were the natural consequence of marriage. The laws, too, your fathers in their wisdom had enacted concerning the very gods themselves, you their most loyal children have rescinded. The consuls, by the authority of the senate, banished Father Bacchus and his mysteries not merely from the city, but from the whole of Italy. The consuls Piso and Gabinius, no Christians surely, forbade Serapis, and Isis, and Arpocrates, with their dogheaded friend, admission into the Capitol—in the act casting them out from the assembly of the gods—overthrew their altars, and expelled them from the country, being anxious to prevent the vices of their base and lascivious religion from spreading. These, you have restored, and conferred highest honours on them. What has come to your religion—of the veneration due by you to your ancestors? In your dress, in your food, in your style of life, in your opinions, and last of all in your very speech, you have renounced your progenitors. You are always praising antiquity, and yet every day you have novelties in your way of living. From your having failed to maintain what you should, you make it clear, that, while you abandon the good ways of your fathers, you retain and guard the things you ought not. Yet the very tradition of your fathers, which you still seem so faithfully to defend, and in which you find your principal matter of accusation against the Christians—I mean zeal in the worship of the gods, the point in which antiquity has mainly erred—although you have rebuilt the altars of Serapis, now a Roman deity, and to Bacchus, now become a god of Italy, you offer up your orgies,—I shall in its proper place show that you despise, neglect, and overthrow, casting entirely aside the authority of the men of old. I go on meantime to reply to that infamous charge of secret crimes, clearing my way to things of open day.

Chapter VII

Monsters of wickedness, we are accused of observing a holy rite in which we kill a little child and then eat it; in which, after the feast, we practise incest, the dogs—our pimps, forsooth, overturning the lights and getting us the shamelessness of darkness for our impious lusts. This is what is constantly laid to our charge, and yet you take no pains to elicit the truth of what we have been so long accused. Either bring, then, the matter to the light of day if you believe it, or give it no credit as having never inquired into it. On the ground of your double dealing, we are entitled to lay it down to you that there is no reality in the thing which you dare not expiscate. You impose on the executioner, in the case of Christians, a duty the very opposite of expiscation: he is not to make them confess what they do, but to make them deny what they are. We date the origin of our religion, as we have mentioned before, from the reign of Tiberius. Truth and the hatred of truth come into our world together. As soon as truth appears, it is regarded as an enemy. It has as many foes as there are strangers to it: the Jews, as was to be looked for, from a spirit of rivalry; the soldiers, out of a desire to extort money; our very domestics, by their nature. We are daily beset by foes, we are daily betrayed; we are oftentimes surprised in our meetings and congregations. Whoever happened withal upon an infant wailing, according to the common story? Whoever kept for the judge, just as he had found them, the gory mouths of Cyclops and Sirens? Whoever found any traces of uncleanness in their wives? Where is the man who, when he had discovered such atrocities, concealed them; or, in the act of dragging the culprits before the judge, was bribed into silence? If we always keep our secrets, when were our proceedings made known to the world? Nay, by whom could they be made known? Not, surely, by the guilty parties themselves; even from the very idea of the thing, the fealty of silence being ever due to mysteries. The Samothracian and Eleusinian make no disclosures—how much more will silence be kept in regard to such as are sure, in their unveiling, to call forth punishment from man at once, while wrath divine is kept in store for the future? If, then, Christians are not themselves the publishers of their crime, it follows of course it must be strangers. And whence have they their knowledge, when it is also a universal custom in religious initiations to keep the profane aloof, and to beware of witnesses, unless it be that those who are so wicked have less fear than their neighbors? Everyone knows what sort of thing rumour is. It is one of your own sayings, that “among all evils, none flies so fast as rumour.” Why is rumour such an evil thing? Is it because it is fleet? Is it because it carries information? Or is it because it is in the highest degree mendacious?—a thing, not even when it brings some truth to us, without a taint of falsehood, either detracting, or adding, or changing from the simple fact? Nay more, it is the very law of its being to continue only while it lies, and to live but so long as there is no proof; for when the proof is given, it ceases to exist; and, as having done its work of merely spreading a report, it delivers up a fact, and is henceforth held to be a fact, and called a fact. And then no one says, for instance, “They say that it took place at Rome,” or, “There is a rumour that he has obtained a province,” but, “He has got a province,” and, “It took place at Rome.” Rumour, the very designation of uncertainty, has no place when a thing is certain. Does any but a fool put his trust in it? For a wise man never believes the dubious. Everybody knows, however zealously it is spread abroad, on whatever strength of asseveration it rests, that some time or other from some one fountain it has its origin. Thence it must creep into propagating tongues and ears; and a small seminal blemish so darkens all the rest of the story, that no one can determine whether the lips, from which it first came forth, planted the seed of falsehood, as often happens, from a spirit of opposition, or from a suspicious judgment, or from a confirmed, nay, in the case of some, an inborn, delight in lying. It is well that time brings all to light, as your proverbs and sayings testify, by a provision of Nature, which has so appointed things that nothing long is hidden, even though rumour has not disseminated it. It is just then as it should be, that fame for so long a period has been alone aware of the crimes of Christians. This is the witness you bring against us—one that has never been able to prove the accusation it sometime or other sent abroad, and at last by mere continuance made into a settled opinion in the world; so that I confidently appeal to Nature herself, ever true, against those who groundlessly hold that such things are to be credited.

Chapter VIII

See now, we set before you the reward of these enormities. They give promise of eternal life. Hold it meanwhile as your own belief. I ask you, then, whether, so believing, you think it worth attaining with a conscience such as you will have. Come, plunge your knife into the babe, enemy of none, accused of none, child of all; or if that is another’s work, simply take your place beside a human being dying before he has really lived, await the departure of the lately given soul, receive the fresh young blood, saturate your bread with it, freely partake. The while as you recline at table, take note of the places which your mother and your sister occupy; mark them well, so that when the dog-made darkness has fallen on you, you may make no mistake, for you will be guilty of a crime—unless you perpetrate a deed of incest. Initiated and sealed into things like these, you have life everlasting. Tell me, I pray you, is eternity worth it? If it is not, then these things are not to be credited. Even although you had the belief, I deny the will; and even if you had the will, I deny the possibility. Why then can others do it, if you cannot? why cannot you, if others can? I suppose we are of a different nature—are we Cynopae or Sciapodes? You are a man yourself as well as the Christian: if you cannot do it, you ought not to believe it of others, for a Christian is a man as well as you. But the ignorant, forsooth, are deceived and imposed on. They were quite unaware of anything of the kind being imputed to Christians, or they would certainly have looked into it for themselves, and searched the matter out. Instead of that, it is the custom for persons wishing initiation into sacred rites, I think, to go first of all to the master of them, that he may explain what preparations are to be made. Then, in this case, no doubt he would say, “You must have a child still of tender age, that knows not what it is to die, and can smile under thy knife; bread, too, to collect the gushing blood; in addition to these, candlesticks, and lamps, and dogs—with tid-bits to draw them on to the extinguishing of the lights: above all things, you will require to bring your mother and your sister with you.” But what if mother and sister are unwilling? or if there be neither the one nor the other? What if there are Christians with no Christian relatives? He will not be counted, I suppose, a true follower of Christ, who has not a brother or a son. And what now, if these things are all in store for them without their knowledge? At least afterwards they come to know them; and they bear with them, and pardon them. They fear, it may be said, lest they have to pay for it if they let the secret out: nay, but they will rather in that case have every claim to protection; they will even prefer, one might think, dying by their own hand, to living under the burden of such a dreadful knowledge. Admit that they have this fear; yet why do they still persevere? For it is plain enough that you will have no desire to continue what you would never have been, if you had had previous knowledge of it.

Chapter IX

That I may refute more thoroughly these charges, I will show that in part openly, in part secretly, practices prevail among you which have led you perhaps to credit similar things about us. Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple—so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul. And even now that sacred crime still continues to be done in secret. It is not only Christians, you see, who despise you; for all that you do there is neither any crime thoroughly and abidingly eradicated, nor does any of your gods reform his ways. When Saturn did not spare his own children, he was not likely to spare the children of others; whom indeed the very parents themselves were in the habit of offering, gladly responding to the call which was made on them, and keeping the little ones pleased on the occasion, that they might not die in tears. At the same time, there is a vast difference between homicide and parricide. A more advanced age was sacrificed to Mercury in Gaul. I hand over the Tauric fables to their own theatres. Why, even in that most religious city of the pious descendants of Aeneas, there is a certain Jupiter whom in their games they lave with human blood. It is the blood of a beast-fighter, you say. Is it less, because of that, the blood of a man? Or is it viler blood because it is from the veins of a wicked man? At any rate it is shed in murder. O Jove, thyself a Christian, and in truth only son of thy father in his cruelty! But in regard to child murder, as it does not matter whether it is committed for a sacred object, or merely at one’s own self-impulse—although there is a great difference, as we have said, between parricide and homicide—I shall turn to the people generally. How many, think you, of those crowding around and gaping for Christian blood,—how many even of your rulers, notable for their justice to you and for their severe measures against us, may I charge in their own consciences with the sin of putting their offspring to death? As to any difference in the kind of murder, it is certainly the more cruel way to kill by drowning, or by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs. A maturer age has always preferred death by the sword. In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed. As to meals of blood and such tragic dishes, read—I am not sure where it is told (it is in Herodotus, I think)—how blood taken from the arms, and tasted by both parties, has been the treaty bond among some nations. I am not sure what it was that was tasted in the time of Catiline. They say, too, that among some Scythian tribes the dead are eaten by their friends. But I am going far from home. At this day, among ourselves, blood consecrated to Bellona, blood drawn from a punctured thigh and then partaken of, seals initiation into the rites of that goddess. Those, too, who at the gladiator shows, for the cure of epilepsy, quaff with greedy thirst the blood of criminals slain in the arena, as it flows fresh from the wound, and then rush off—to whom do they belong? those, also, who make meals on the flesh of wild beasts at the place of combat—who have keen appetites for bear and stag? That bear in the struggle was bedewed with the blood of the man whom it lacerated: that stag rolled itself in the gladiator’s gore. The entrails of the very bears, loaded with as yet undigested human viscera, are in great request. And you have men rifting up man-fed flesh? If you partake of food like this, how do your repasts differ from those you accuse us Christians of? And do those, who, with savage lust, seize on human bodies, do less because they devour the living? Have they less the pollution of human blood on them because they only lick up what is to turn into blood? They make meals, it is plain, not so much of infants, as of grown-up men. Blush for your vile ways before the Christians, who have not even the blood of animals at their meals of simple and natural food; who abstain from things strangled and that die a natural death, for no other reason than that they may not contract pollution, so much as from blood secreted in the viscera. To clench the matter with a single example, you tempt Christians with sausages of blood, just because you are perfectly aware that the thing by which you thus try to get them to transgress they hold unlawful. And how unreasonable it is to believe that those, of whom you are convinced that they regard with horror the idea of tasting the blood of oxen, are eager after blood of men; unless, mayhap, you have tried it, and found it sweeter to the taste! Nay, in fact, there is here a test you should apply to discover Christians, as well as the fire-pan and the censer. They should be proved by their appetite for human blood, as well as by their refusal to offer sacrifice; just as otherwise they should be affirmed to be free of Christianity by their refusal to taste of blood, as by their sacrificing; and there would be no want of blood of men, amply supplied as that would be in the trial and condemnation of prisoners. Then who are more given to the crime of incest than those who have enjoyed the instruction of Jupiter himself? Ctesias tells us that the Persians have illicit intercourse with their mothers. The Macedonians, too, are suspected on this point; for on first hearing the tragedy of Oedipus they made mirth of the incest-doer’s grief, exclaiming, . Even now reflect what opportunity there is for mistakes leading to incestuous comminglings—your promiscuous looseness supplying the materials. You first of all expose your children, that they may be taken up by any compassionate passer-by, to whom they are quite unknown; or you give them away, to be adopted by those who will do better to them the part of parents. Well, some time or other, all memory of the alienated progeny must be lost; and when once a mistake has been made, the transmission of incest thence will still go on—the race and the crime creeping on together. Then, further, wherever you are—at home, abroad, over the seas—your lust is an attendant, whose general indulgence, or even its indulgence in the most limited scale, may easily and unwittingly anywhere beget children, so that in this way a progeny scattered about in the commerce of life may have intercourse with those who are their own kin, and have no notion that there is any incest in the case. A persevering and stedfast chastity has protected us from anything like this: keeping as we do from adulteries and all post-matrimonial unfaithfulness, we are not exposed to incestuous mishaps. Some of us, making matters still more secure, beat away from them entirely the power of sensual sin, by a virgin continence, still boys in this respect when they are old. If you would but take notice that such sins as I have mentioned prevail among you, that would lead you to see that they have no existence among Christians. The same eyes would tell you of both facts. But the two blindnesses are apt to go together; so that those who do not see what is, think they see what is not. I shall show it to be so in everything. But now let me speak of matters which are more clear.

Chapter X

“You do not worship the gods,” you say; “and you do not offer sacrifices for the emperors.” Well, we do not offer sacrifice for others, for the same reason that we do not for ourselves,—namely, that your gods are not at all the objects of our worship. So we are accused of sacrilege and treason. This is the chief ground of charge against us—nay, it is the sum-total of our offending; and it is worthy then of being inquired into, if neither prejudice nor injustice be the judge, the one of which has no idea of discovering the truth, and the other simply and at once rejects it. We do not worship your gods, because we know that there are no such beings. This, therefore, is what you should do: you should call on us to demonstrate their non-existence, and thereby prove that they have no claim to adoration; for only if your gods were truly so, would there be any obligation to render divine homage to them. And punishment even were due to Christians, if it were made plain that those to whom they refused all worship were indeed divine. But you say, They are gods. We protest and appeal from yourselves to your knowledge; let that judge us; let that condemn us, if it can deny that all these gods of yours were but men. If even it venture to deny that, it will be confuted by its own books of antiquities, from which it has got its information about them, bearing witness to this day, as they plainly do, both of the cities in which they were born, and the countries in which they have left traces of their exploits, as well as where also they are proved to have been buried. Shall I now, therefore, go over them one by one, so numerous and so various, new and old, barbarian, Grecian, Roman, foreign, captive and adopted, private and common, male and female, rural and urban, naval and military? It were useless even to hunt out all their names: so I may content myself with a compend; and this not for your information, but that you may have what you know brought to your recollection, for undoubtedly you act as if you had forgotten all about them. No one of your gods is earlier than Saturn: from him you trace all your deities, even those of higher rank and better known. What, then, can be proved of the first, will apply to those that follow. So far, then, as books give us information, neither the Greek Diodorus or Thallus, neither Cassius Severus or Cornelius Nepos, nor any writer upon sacred antiquities, have ventured to say that Saturn was any but a man: so far as the question depends on facts, I find none more trustworthy than those—that in Italy itself we have the country in which, after many expeditions, and after having partaken of Attic hospitalities, Saturn settled, obtaining cordial welcome from Janus, or, as the Salii will have it, Janis. The mountain on which he dwelt was called Saturnius; the city he founded is called Saturnia to this day; last of all, the whole of Italy, after having borne the name of Oenotria, was called Saturnia from him. He first gave you the art of writing, and a stamped coinage, and thence it is he presides over the public treasury. But if Saturn were a man, he had undoubtedly a human origin; and having a human origin, he was not the offspring of heaven and earth. As his parents were unknown, it was not unnatural that he should be spoken of as the son of those elements from which we might all seem to spring. For who does not speak of heaven and earth as father and mother, in a sort of way of veneration and honour? or from the custom which prevails among us of saying that persons of whom we have no knowledge, or who make a sudden appearance, have fallen from the skies? In this way it came about that Saturn, everywhere a sudden and unlooked-for guest, got everywhere the name of the Heaven-born. For even the common folk call persons whose stock is unknown, sons of earth. I say nothing of how men in these rude times were wont to act, when they were impressed by the look of any stranger happening to appear among them, as though it were divine, since even at this day men of culture make gods of those whom, a day or two before, they acknowledged to be dead men by their public mourning for them. Let these notices of Saturn, brief as they are, suffice. It will thus also be proved that Jupiter is as certainly a man, as from a man he sprung; and that one after another the whole swarm is mortal like the primal stock.

Chapter XI

And since, as you dare not deny that these deities of yours once were men, you have taken it on you to assert that they were made gods after their decease, let us consider what necessity there was for this. In the first place, you must concede the existence of one higher God—a certain wholesale dealer in divinity, who has made gods of men. For they could neither have assumed a divinity which was not theirs, nor could any but one himself possessing it have conferred it on them. If there was no one to make gods, it is vain to dream of gods being made when thus you have no god-maker. Most certainly, if they could have deified themselves, with a higher state at their command, they never would have been men. If, then, there be one who is able to make gods, I turn back to an examination of any reason there may be for making gods at all; and I find no other reason than this, that the great God has need of their ministrations and aids in performing the offices of Deity. But first it is an unworthy idea that He should need the help of a man, and in fact a dead man, when, if He was to be in want of this assistance from the dead, He might more fittingly have created some one a god at the beginning. Nor do I see any place for his action. For this entire world-mass—whether self-existent and uncreated, as Pythagoras maintains, or brought into being by a creator’s hands, as Plato holds—was manifestly, once for all in its original construction, disposed, and furnished, and ordered, and supplied with a government of perfect wisdom. That cannot be imperfect which has made all perfect. There was nothing waiting on for Saturn and his race to do. Men will make fools of themselves if they refuse to believe that from the very first rain poured down from the sky, and stars gleamed, and light shone, and thunders roared, and Jove himself dreaded the lightnings you put in his hands; that in like manner before Bacchus, and Ceres, and Minerva, nay before the first man, whoever that was, every kind of fruit burst forth plentifully from the bosom of the earth, for nothing provided for the support and sustenance of man could be introduced after his entrance on the stage of being. Accordingly, these necessaries of life are said to have been discovered, not created. But the thing you discover existed before; and that which had a pre-existence must be regarded as belonging not to him who discovered it, but to him who made it, for of course it had a being before it could be found. But if, on account of his being the discoverer of the vine, Bacchus is raised to godship, Lucullus, who first introduced the cherry from Pontus into Italy, has not been fairly dealt with; for as the discoverer of a new fruit, he has not, as though he were its creator, been awarded divine honours. Wherefore, if the universe existed from the beginning, thoroughly furnished with its system working under certain laws for the performance of its functions, there is, in this respect, an entire absence of all reason for electing humanity to divinity; for the positions and powers which you have assigned to your deities have been from the beginning precisely what they would have been, although you had never deified them. But you turn to another reason, telling us that the conferring of deity was a way of rewarding worth. And hence you grant, I conclude, that the god-making God is of transcendent righteousness,—one who will neither rashly, improperly, nor needlessly bestow a reward so great. I would have you then consider whether the merits of your deities are of a kind to have raised them to the heavens, and not rather to have sunk them down into lowest depths of Tartarus,—the place which you regard, with many, as the prison-house of infernal punishments. For into this dread place are wont to be cast all who offend against filial piety, and such as are guilty of incest with sisters, and seducers of wives, and ravishers of virgins, and boy-polluters, and men of furious tempers, and murderers, and thieves, and deceivers; all, in short, who tread in the footsteps of your gods, not one of whom you can prove free from crime or vice, save by denying that they had ever a human existence. But as you cannot deny that, you have those foul blots also as an added reason for not believing that they were made gods afterwards. For if you rule for the very purpose of punishing such deeds; if every virtuous man among you rejects all correspondence, converse, and intimacy with the wicked and base, while, on the other hand, the high God has taken up their mates to a share of His majesty, on what ground is it that you thus condemn those whose fellow-actors you adore? Your goodness is an affront in the heavens. Deify your vilest criminals, if you would please your gods. You honour them by giving divine honours to their fellows. But to say no more about a way of acting so unworthy, there have been men virtuous, and pure, and good. Yet how many of these nobler men you have left in the regions of doom! as Socrates, so renowned for his wisdom, Aristides for his justice, Themistocles for his warlike genius, Alexander for his sublimity of soul, Polycrates for his good fortune, Croesus for his wealth, Demosthenes for his eloquence. Which of these gods of yours is more remarkable for gravity and wisdom than Cato, more just and warlike than Scipio? which of them more magnanimous than Pompey, more prosperous than Sylla, of greater wealth than Crassus, more eloquent than Tullius? How much better it would have been for the God Supreme to have waited that He might have taken such men as these to be His heavenly associates, prescient as He must have surely been of their worthier character! He was in a hurry, I suppose, and straightway shut heaven’s gates; and now He must surely feel ashamed at these worthies murmuring over their lot in the regions below.

Chapter XII

But I pass from these remarks, for I know and I am going to show what your gods are not, by showing what they are. In reference, then, to these, I see only names of dead men of ancient times; I hear fabulous stories; I recognize sacred rites founded on mere myths. As to the actual images, I regard them as simply pieces of matter akin to the vessels and utensils in common use among us, or even undergoing in their consecration a hapless change from these useful articles at the hands of reckless art, which in the transforming process treats them with utter contempt, nay, in the very act commits sacrilege; so that it might be no slight solace to us in all our punishments, suffering as we do because of these same gods, that in their making they suffer as we do themselves. You put Christians on crosses and stakes: what image is not formed from the clay in the first instance, set on cross and stake? The body of your god is first consecrated on the gibbet. You tear the sides of Christians with your claws; but in the case of your own gods, axes, and planes, and rasps are put to work more vigorously on every member of the body. We lay our heads upon the block; before the lead, and the glue, and the nails are put in requisition, your deities are headless. We are cast to the wild beasts, while you attach them to Bacchus, and Cybele, and Caelestis. We are burned in the flames; so, too, are they in their original lump. We are condemned to the mines; from these your gods originate. We are banished to islands; in islands it is a common thing for your gods to have their birth or die. If it is in this way a deity is made, it will follow that as many as are punished are deified, and tortures will have to be declared divinities. But plain it is these objects of your worship have no sense of the injuries and disgraces of their consecrating, as they are equally unconscious of the honours paid to them. O impious words! O blasphemous reproaches! Gnash your teeth upon us—foam with maddened rage against us—ye are the persons, no doubt, who censured a certain Seneca speaking of your superstition at much greater length and far more sharply! In a word, if we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty, that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those who we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist, is in its nonexistence secure from suffering.

Chapter XIII

“But they are gods to us,” you say. And how is it, then, that in utter inconsistency with this, you are convicted of impious, sacrilegious, and irreligious conduct to them, neglecting those you imagine to exist, destroying those who are the objects of your fear, making mock of those whose honour you avenge? See now if I go beyond the truth. First, indeed, seeing you worship, some one god, and some another, of course you give offence to those you do not worship. You cannot continue to give preference to one without slighting another, for selection implies rejection. You despise, therefore, those whom you thus reject; for in your rejection of them, it is plain you have no dread of giving them offence. For, as we have already shown, every god depended on the decision of the senate for his godhead. No god was he whom man in his own counsels did not wish to be so, and thereby condemned. The family deities you call Lares, you exercise a domestic authority over, pledging them, selling them, changing them—making sometimes a cooking-pot of a Saturn, a firepan of a Minerva, as one or other happens to be worn down, or broken in its long sacred use, or as the family head feels the pressure of some more sacred home necessity. In like manner, by public law you disgrace your state gods, putting them in the auction-catalogue, and making them a source of revenue. Men seek to get the Capitol, as they seek to get the herb market, under the voice of the crier, under the auction spear, under the registration of the quaestor. Deity is struck off and farmed out to the highest bidder. But indeed lands burdened with tribute are of less value; men under the assessment of a poll-tax are less noble; for these things are the marks of servitude. In the case of the gods, on the other hand, the sacredness is great in proportion to the tribute which they yield; nay, the more sacred is a god, the larger is the tax he pays. Majesty is made a source of gain. Religion goes about the taverns begging. You demand a price for the privilege of standing on temple ground, for access to the sacred services; there is no gratuitous knowledge of your divinities permitted—you must buy their favours with a price. What honours in any way do you render to them that you do not render to the dead? You have temples in the one case just as in the other; you have altars in the one case as in the other. Their statues have the same dress, the same insignia. As the dead man had his age, his art, his occupation, so it is with the deity. In what respect does the funeral feast differ from the feast of Jupiter? or the bowl of the gods from the ladle of the manes? or the undertaker from the soothsayer, as in fact this latter personage also attends upon the dead? With perfect propriety you give divine honours to your departed emperors, as you worship them in life. The gods will count themselves indebted to you; nay, it will be matter of high rejoicing among them that their masters are made their equals. But when you adore Larentina, a public prostitute—I could have wished that it might at least have been Lais or Phryne—among your Junos, and Cereses, and Dianas; when you instal in your Pantheon Simon Magus, giving him a statue and the title of Holy God; when you make an infamous court page a god of the sacred synod, although your ancient deities are in reality no better, they will still think themselves affronted by you, that the privilege antiquity conferred on them alone, has been allowed to others.

Chapter XIV

I wish now to review your sacred rites; and I pass no censure on your sacrificing, when you offer the worn-out, the scabbed, the corrupting; when you cut off from the fat and the sound the useless parts, such as the head and the hoofs, which in your house you would have assigned to the slaves or the dogs; when of the tithe of Hercules you do not lay a third upon his altar (I am disposed rather to praise your wisdom in rescuing something from being lost); but turning to your books, from which you get your training in wisdom and the nobler duties of life, what utterly ridiculous things I find!—that for Trojans and Greeks the gods fought among themselves like pairs of gladiators; that Venus was wounded by a man, because she would rescue her son Aeneas when he was in peril of his life from the same Diomede; that Mars was almost wasted away by a thirteen months’ imprisonment; that Jupiter was saved by a monster’s aid from suffering the same violence at the hands of the other gods; that he now laments the fate of Sarpedon, now foully makes love to his own sister, recounting (to her) former mistresses, now for a long time past not so dear as she. After this, what poet is not found copying the example of his chief, to be a disgracer of the gods? One gives Apollo to king Admetus to tend his sheep; another hires out the building labours of Neptune to Laomedon. A well-known lyric poet, too—Pindar, I mean—sings of Aesculapius deservedly stricken with lightning for his greed in practising wrongfully his art. A wicked deed it was of Jupiter—if he hurled the bolt—unnatural to his grandson, and exhibiting envious feeling to the Physician. Things like these should not be made public if they are true; and if false, they should not be fabricated among people professing a great respect for religion. Nor indeed do either tragic or comic writers shrink from setting forth the gods as the origin of all family calamities and sins. I do not dwell on the philosophers, contenting myself with a reference to Socrates, who, in contempt of the gods, was in the habit of swearing by an oak, and a goat, and a dog. In fact, for this very thing Socrates was condemned to death, that he overthrew the worship of the gods. Plainly, at one time as well as another, that is, always truth is disliked. However, when rueing their judgment, the Athenians inflicted punishment on his accusers, and set up a golden image of him in a temple, the condemnation was in the very act rescinded, and his witness was restored to its former value. Diogenes, too, makes utter mock of Hercules and the Roman cynic Varro brings forward three hundred Joves, or Jupiters they should be called, all headless.

Chapter XV

Others of your writers, in their wantonness, even minister to your pleasures by vilifying the gods. Examine those charming farces of your Lentuli and Hos-tilii, whether in the jokes and tricks it is the buffoons or the deities which afford you merriment; such farces I mean as Anubis the Adulterer, and Luna of the masculine gender, and Diana under the lash, and the reading the will of Jupiter deceased, and the three famishing Herculeses held up to ridicule. Your dramatic literature, too, depicts all the vileness of your gods. The Sun mourns his offspring cast down from heaven, and you are full of glee; Cybele sighs after the scornful swain, and you do not blush; you brook the stage recital of Jupiter’s misdeeds, and the shepherd judging Juno, Venus, and Minerva. Then, again, when the likeness of a god is put on the head of an ignominious and infamous wretch, when one impure and trained up for the art in all effeminacy, represents a Minerva or a Hercules, is not the majesty of your gods insulted, and their deity dishonored? Yet you not merely look on, but applaud. You are, I suppose, more devout in the arena, where after the same fashion your deities dance on human blood, on the pollutions caused by inflicted punishments, as they act their themes and stories, doing their turn for the wretched criminals, except that these, too, often put on divinity and actually play the very gods. We have seen in our day a representation of the mutilation of Attis, that famous god of Pessinus, and a man burnt alive as Hercules. We have made merry amid the ludicrous cruelties of the noonday exhibition, at Mercury examining the bodies of the dead with his hot iron; we have witnessed Jove’s brother, mallet in hand, dragging out the corpses of the gladiators. But who can go into everything of this sort? If by such things as these the honour of deity is assailed, if they go to blot out every trace of its majesty, we must explain them by the contempt in which the gods are held, alike by those who actually do them, and by those for whose enjoyment they are done. This it will be said, however, is all in sport. But if I add—it is what all know and will admit as readily to be the fact—that in the temples adulteries are arranged, that at the altars pimping is practised, that often in the houses of the temple-keepers and priests, under the sacrificial fillets, and the sacred hats, and the purple robes, amid the fumes of incense, deeds of licentiousness are done, I am not sure but your gods have more reason to complain of you than of Christians. It is certainly among the votaries of your religion that the perpetrators of sacrilege are always found, for Christians do not enter your temples even in the day-time. Perhaps they too would be spoilers of them, if they worshipped in them. What then do they worship, since their objects of worship are different from yours? Already indeed it is implied, as the corollary from their rejection of the lie, that they render homage to the truth; nor continue longer in an error which they have given up in the very fact of recognizing it to be an error. Take this in first of all, and when we have offered a preliminary refutation of some false opinions, go on to derive from it our entire religious system.

Chapter XVI

For, like some others, you are under the delusion that our god is an ass’s head. Cornelius Tacitus first put this notion into people’s minds. In the fifth book of his histories, beginning the (narrative of the) Jewish war with an account of the origin of the nation; and theorizing at his pleasure about the origin, as well as the name and the religion of the Jews, he states that having been delivered, or rather, in his opinion, expelled from Egypt, in crossing the vast plains of Arabia, where water is so scanty, they were in extremity from thirst; but taking the guidance of the wild asses, which it was thought might be seeking water after feeding, they discovered a fountain, and thereupon in their gratitude they consecrated a head of this species of animal. And as Christianity is nearly allied to Judaism, from this, I suppose, it was taken for granted that we too are devoted to the worship of the same image. But the said Cornelius Tacitus (the very opposite of tacit in telling lies) informs us in the work already mentioned, that when Cneius Pompeius captured Jerusalem, he entered the temple to see the arcana of the Jewish religion, but found no image there. Yet surely if worship was rendered to any visible object, the very place for its exhibition would be the shrine; and that all the more that the worship, however unreasonable, had no need there to fear outside beholders. For entrance to the holy place was permitted to the priests alone, while all vision was forbidden to others by an outspread curtain. You will not, however, deny that all beasts of burden, and not parts of them, but the animals entire, are with their goddess Epona objects of worship with you. It is this, perhaps, which displeases you in us, that while your worship here is universal, we do homage only to the ass. Then, if any of you think we render superstitious adoration to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us. If you offer homage to a piece of wood at all, it matters little what it is like when the substance is the same: it is of no consequence the form, if you have the very body of the god. And yet how far does the Athenian Pallas differ from the stock of the cross, or the Pharian Ceres as she is put up uncarved to sale, a mere rough stake and piece of shapeless wood? Every stake fixed in an upright position is a portion of the cross; we render our adoration, if you will have it so, to a god entire and complete. We have shown before that your deities are derived from shapes modelled from the cross. But you also worship victories, for in your trophies the cross is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the Romans is all through a worship of the standards, a setting the standards above all gods. Well, as those images decking out the standards are ornaments of crosses. All those hangings of your standards and banners are robes of crosses. I praise your zeal: you would not consecrate crosses unclothed and unadorned. Others, again, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is our god. We shall be counted Persians perhaps, though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also under pretence sometimes of worshipping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sun-day to rejoicing, from a far different reason than Sun-worship, we have some resemblance to those of you who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they too go far away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant. But lately a new edition of our god has been given to the world in that great city: it originated with a certain vile man who was wont to hire himself out to cheat the wild beasts, and who exhibited a picture with this inscription: The God of the Christians, born of an ass. He had the ears of an ass, was hoofed in one foot, carried a book, and wore a toga. Both the name and the figure gave us amusement. But our opponents ought straightway to have done homage to this biformed divinity, for they have acknowledged gods dog-headed and lion-headed, with horn of buck and ram, with goat-like loins, with serpent legs, with wings sprouting from back or foot. These things we have discussed ex abundanti, that we might not seem willingly to pass by any rumor against us unrefuted. Having thoroughly cleared ourselves, we turn now to an exhibition of what our religion really is.

Chapter XVII

The object of our worship is the One God, He who by His commanding word, His arranging wisdom, His mighty power, brought forth from nothing this entire mass of our world, with all its array of elements, bodies, spirits, for the glory of His majesty; whence also the Greeks have bestowed on it the name of KovsmoV. The eye cannot see Him, though He is (spiritually) visible. He is incomprehensible, though in grace He is manifested. He is beyond our utmost thought, though our human faculties conceive of Him. He is therefore equally real and great. But that which, in the ordinary sense, can be seen and handled and conceived, is inferior to the eyes by which it is taken in, and the hands by which it is tainted, and the faculties by which it is discovered; but that which is infinite is known only to itself. This it is which gives some notion of God, while yet beyond all our conceptions—our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is. He is presented to our minds in His transcendent greatness, as at once known and unknown. And this is the crowning guilt of men, that they will not recognize One, of whom they cannot possibly be ignorant. Would you have the proof from the works of His hands, so numerous and so great, which both contain you and sustain you, which minister at once to your enjoyment, and strike you with awe; or would you rather have it from the testimony of the soul itself? Though under the oppressive bondage of the body, though led astray by depraving customs, though enervated by lusts and passions, though in slavery to false gods; yet, whenever the soul comes to itself, as out of a surfeit, or a sleep, or a sickness, and attains something of its natural soundness, it speaks of God; using no other word, because this is the peculiar name of the true God. “God is great and good”—“Which may God give,” are the words on every lip. It bears witness, too, that God is judge, exclaiming, “God sees,” and, “I commend myself to God,” and, “God will repay me.” O noble testimony of the soul by nature Christian! Then, too, in using such words as these, it looks not to the Capitol, but to the heavens. It knows that there is the throne of the living God, as from Him and from thence itself came down.

Chapter XVIII

But, that we might attain an ampler and more authoritative knowledge at once of Himself, and of His counsels and will, God has added a written revelation for the behoof of every one whose heart is set on seeking Him, that seeking he may find, and finding believe, and believing obey. For from the first He sent messengers into the world,—men whose stainless righteousness made them worthy to know the Most High, and to reveal Him,—men abundantly endowed with the Holy Spirit, that they might proclaim that there is one God only who made all things, who formed man from the dust of the ground (for He is the true Prometheus who gave order to the world by arranging the seasons and their course),—these have further set before us the proofs He has given of His majesty in His judgments by floods and fires, the rules appointed by Him for securing His favour, as well as the retribution in store for the ignoring, forsaking and keeping them, as being about at the end of all to adjudge His worshippers to everlasting life, and the wicked to the doom of fire at once without ending and without break, raising up again all the dead from the beginning, reforming and renewing them with the object of awarding either recompense. Once these things were with us, too, the theme of ridicule. We are of your stock and nature: men are made, not born, Christians. The preachers of whom we have spoken are called prophets, from the office which belongs to them of predicting the future. Their words, as well as the miracles which they performed, that men might have faith in their divine authority, we have still in the literary treasures they have left, and which are open to all. Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, the most learned of his race, a man of vast acquaintance with all literature, emulating, I imagine, the book enthusiasm of Pisistratus, among other remains of the past which either their antiquity or something of peculiar interest made famous, at the suggestion of Demetrius Phalereus, who was renowned above all grammarians of his time, and to whom he had committed the management of these things, applied to the Jews for their writings—I mean the writings peculiar to them and in their tongue, which they alone possessed, for from themselves, as a people dear to God for their fathers’ sake, their prophets had ever sprung, and to them they had ever spoken. Now in ancient times the people we call Jews bare the name of Hebrews, and so both their writings and their speech were Hebrew. But that the understanding of their books might not be wanting, this also the Jews supplied to Ptolemy; for they gave him seventy-two interpreters—men whom the philosopher Menedemus, the well-known asserter of a Providence, regarded with respect as sharing in his views. The same account is given by Aristaeus. So the king left these works unlocked to all, in the Greek language. To this day, at the temple of Serapis, the libraries of Ptolemy are to be seen, with the identical Hebrew originals in them. The Jews, too, read them publicly. Under a tribute-liberty, they are in the habit of going to hear them every Sabbath. Whoever gives ear will find God in them; whoever takes pains to understand, will be compelled to believe.

Chapter XIX

Their high antiquity, first of all, claims authority for these writings. With you, too, it is a kind of religion to demand belief on this very ground. Well, all the substances, all the materials, the origins, classes, contents of your most ancient writings, even most nations and cities illustrious in the records of the past and noted for their antiquity in books of annals,—the very forms of your letters, those revealers and custodiers of events, nay (I think I speak still within the mark), your very gods themselves, your very temples and oracles, and sacred rites, are less ancient than the work of a single prophet, in whom you have the thesaurus of the entire Jewish religion, and therefore too of ours. If you happen to have heard of a certain Moses, I speak first of him: he is as far back as the Argive Inachus; by nearly four hundred years—only seven less—he precedes Danaus, your most ancient name; while he antedates by a millennium the death of Priam. I might affirm, too, that he is five hundred years earlier than Homer, and have supporters of that view. The other prophets also, though of later date, are, even the most recent of them, as far back as the first of your philosophers, and legislators, and historians. It is not so much the difficulty of the subject, as its vastness, that stands in the way of a statement of the grounds on which these statements rest; the matter is not so arduous as it would be tedious. It would require the anxious study of many books, and the fingers busy reckoning. The histories of the most ancient nations, such as the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, would need to be ransacked; the men of these various nations who have information to give, would have to be called in as witnesses. Manetho the Egyptian, and Berosus the Chaldean, and Hieromus the Phoenician king of Tyre; their successors too, Ptolemy the Mendesian, and Demetrius Phalereus, and King Juba, and Apion, and Thallus, and their critic the Jew Josephus, the native vindicator of the ancient history of his people, who either authenticates or refutes the others. Also the Greek censors’ lists must be compared, and the dates of events ascertained, that the chronological connections may be opened up, and thus the reckonings of the various annals be made to give forth light. We must go abroad into the histories and literature of all nations. And, in fact, we have already brought the proof in part before you, in giving those hints as to how it is to be effected. But it seems better to delay the full discussion of this, lest in our haste we do not sufficiently carry it out, or lest in its thorough handling we make too lengthened a digression.

Chapter XX

To make up for our delay in this, we bring under your notice something of even greater importance; we point to the majesty of our Scriptures, if not to their antiquity. If you doubt that they are as ancient as we say, we offer proof that they are divine. And you may convince yourselves of this at once, and without going very far. Your instructors, the world, and the age, and the event, are all before you. All that is taking place around you was fore-announced; all that you now see with your eye was previously heard by the ear. The swallowing up of cities by the earth; the theft of islands by the sea; wars, bringing external and internal convulsions; the collision of kingdoms with kingdoms; famines and pestilences, and local massacres, and widespread desolating mortalities; the exaltation of the lowly, and the humbling of the proud; the decay of righteousness, the growth of sin, the slackening interest in all good ways; the very seasons and elements going out of their ordinary course, monsters and portents taking the place of nature’s forms—it was all foreseen and predicted before it came to pass. While we suffer the calamities, we read of them in the Scriptures; as we examine, they are proved. Well, the truth of a prophecy, I think, is the demonstration of its being from above. Hence there is among us an assured faith in regard to coming events as things already proved to us, for they were predicted along with what we have day by day fulfilled. They are uttered by the same voices, they are written in the same books—the same Spirit inspires them. All time is one to prophecy foretelling the future. Among men, it may be, a distinction of times is made while the fulfilment is going on: from being future we think of it as present, and then from being present we count it as belonging to the past. How are we to blame, I pray you, that we believe in things to come as though they already were, with the grounds we have for our faith in these two steps?

Chapter XXI

But having asserted that our religion is supported by the writings of the Jews, the oldest which exist, though it is generally known, and we fully admit that it dates from a comparatively recent period—no further back indeed than the reign of Tiberius—a question may perhaps be raised on this ground about its standing, as if it were hiding something of its presumption under shadow of an illustrious religion, one which has at any rate undoubted allowance of the law, or because, apart from the question of age, we neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities in regard to food, nor in their sacred days, nor even in their well-known bodily sign, nor in the possession of a common name, which surely behoved to be the case if we did homage to the same God as they. Then, too, the common people have now some knowledge of Christ, and think of Him as but a man, one indeed such as the Jews condemned, so that some may naturally enough have taken up the idea that we are worshippers of a mere human being. But we are neither ashamed of Christ—for we rejoice to be counted His disciples, and in His name to suffer—nor do we differ from the Jews concerning God. We must make, therefore, a remark or two as to Christ’s divinity. In former times the Jews enjoyed much of God’s favour, when the fathers of their race were noted for their righteousness and faith. So it was that as a people they flourished greatly, and their kingdom attained to a lofty eminence; and so highly blessed were they, that for their instruction God spake to them in special revelations, pointing out to them beforehand how they should merit His favor and avoid His displeasure. But how deeply they have sinned, puffed up to their fall with a false trust in their noble ancestors, turning from God’s way into a way of sheer impiety, though they themselves should refuse to admit it, their present national ruin would afford sufficient proof. Scattered abroad, a race of wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam over the whole world without either a human or a heavenly king, not possessing even the stranger’s right to set so much as a simple footstep in their native country. The sacred writers withal, in giving previous warning of these things, all with equal clearness ever declared that, in the last days of the world, God would, out of every nation, and people, and country, choose for Himself more faithful worshippers, upon whom He would bestow His grace, and that indeed in ampler measure, in keeping with the enlarged capacities of a nobler dispensation. Accordingly, He appeared among us, whose coming to renovate and illuminate man’s nature was pre-announced by God—I mean Christ, that Son of God. And so the supreme Head and Master of this grace and discipline, the Enlightener and Trainer of the human race, God’s own Son, was announced among us, born—but not so born as to make Him ashamed of the name of Son or of His paternal origin. It was not His lot to have as His father, by incest with a sister, or by violation of a daughter or another’s wife, a god in the shape of serpent, or ox, or bird, or lover, for his vile ends transmuting himself into the gold of Danaus. They are your divinities upon whom these base deeds of Jupiter were done. But the Son of God has no mother in any sense which involves impurity; she, whom men suppose to be His mother in the ordinary way, had never entered into the marriage bond. But, first, I shall discuss His essential nature, and so the nature of His birth will be understood. We have already asserted that God made the world, and all which it contains, by His Word, and Reason, and Power. It is abundantly plain that your philosophers, too, regard the Logos—that is, the Word and Reason—as the Creator of the universe. For Zeno lays it down that he is the creator, having made all things according to a determinate plan; that his name is Fate, and God, and the soul of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. Cleanthes ascribes all this to spirit, which he maintains pervades the universe. And we, in like manner, hold that the Word, and Reason, and Power, by which we have said God made all, have spirit as their proper and essential substratum, in which the Word has in being to give forth utterances, and reason abides to dispose and arrange, and power is over all to execute. We have been taught that He proceeds forth from God, and in that procession He is generated; so that He is the Son of God, and is called God from unity of substance with God. For God, too, is a Spirit. Even when the ray is shot from the sun, it is still part of the parent mass; the sun will still be in the ray, because it is a ray of the sun—there is no division of substance, but merely an extension. Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled. The material matrix remains entire and unimpaired, though you derive from it any number of shoots possessed of its qualities; so, too, that which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united. The flesh formed by the Spirit is nourished, grows up to manhood, speaks, teaches, works, and is the Christ. Receive meanwhile this fable, if you choose to call it so—it is like some of your own—while we go on to show how Christ’s claims are proved, and who the parties are with you by whom such fables have been set a going to overthrow the truth, which they resemble. The Jews, too, were well aware that Christ was coming, as those to whom the prophets spake. Nay, even now His advent is expected by them; nor is there any other contention between them and us, than that they believe the advent has not yet occurred. For two comings of Christ having been revealed to us: a first, which has been fulfilled in the lowliness of a human lot; a second, which impends over the world, now near its close, in all the majesty of Deity unveiled; and, by misunderstanding the first, they have concluded that the second—which, as matter of more manifest prediction, they set their hopes on—is the only one. It was the merited punishment of their sin not to understand the Lord’s first advent: for if they had, they would have believed; and if they had believed, they would have obtained salvation. They themselves read how it is written of them that they are deprived of wisdom and understanding—of the use of eyes and ears. As, then, under the force of their pre-judgment, they had convinced themselves from His lowly guise that Christ was no more than man, it followed from that, as a necessary consequence, that they should hold Him a magician from the powers which He displayed,—expelling devils from men by a word, restoring vision to the blind, cleansing the leprous, reinvigorating the paralytic, summoning the dead to life again, making the very elements of nature obey Him, stilling the storms and walking on the sea; proving that He was the Logos of God, that primordial first-begotten Word, accompanied by power and reason, and based on Spirit,—that He who was now doing all things by His word, and He who had done that of old, were one and the same. But the Jews were so exasperated by His teaching, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified. He Himself had predicted this; which, however, would have signified little had not the prophets of old done it as well. And yet, nailed upon the cross, He exhibited many notable signs, by which His death was distinguished from all others. At His own free-will, He with a word dismissed from Him His spirit, anticipating the executioner’s work. In the same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very time was in his meridian blaze. Those who were not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it an eclipse. You yourselves have the account of the world-portent still in your archives. Then, when His body was taken down from the cross and placed in a sepulchre, the Jews in their eager watchfulness surrounded it with a large military guard, lest, as He had predicted His resurrection from the dead on the third day, His disciples might remove by stealth His body, and deceive even the incredulous. But, lo, on the third day there a was a sudden shock of earthquake, and the stone which sealed the sepulchre was rolled away, and the guard fled off in terror: without a single disciple near, the grave was found empty of all but the clothes of the buried One. But nevertheless, the leaders of the Jews, whom it nearly concerned both to spread abroad a lie, and keep back a people tributary and submissive to them from the faith, gave it out that the body of Christ had been stolen by His followers. For the Lord, you see, did not go forth into the public gaze, lest the wicked should be delivered from their error; that faith also, destined to a great reward, might hold its ground in difficulty. But He spent forty days with some of His disciples down in Galilee, a region of Judea, instructing them in the doctrines they were to teach to others. Thereafter, having given them commission to preach the gospel through the world, He was encompassed with a cloud and taken up to heaven,—a fact more certain far than the assertions of your Proculi concerning Romulus. All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who was at the time Tiberius. Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars. His disciples also, spreading over the world, did as their Divine Master bade them; and after suffering greatly themselves from the persecutions of the Jews, and with no unwilling heart, as having faith undoubting in the truth, at last by Nero’s cruel sword sowed the seed of Christian blood at Rome. Yes, and we shall prove that even your own gods are effective witnesses for Christ. It is a great matter if, to give you faith in Christians, I can bring forward the authority of the very beings on account of whom you refuse them credit. Thus far we have carried out the plan we laid down. We have set forth this origin of our sect and name, with this account of the Founder of Christianity. Let no one henceforth charge us with infamous wickedness; let no one think that it is otherwise than we have represented, for none may give a false account of his religion. For in the very fact that he says he worships another god than he really does, he is guilty of denying the object of his worship, and transferring his worship and homage to another; and, in the transference, he ceases to worship the god he has repudiated. We say, and before all men we say, and torn and bleeding under your tortures, we cry out, “We worship God through Christ.” Count Christ a man, if you please; by Him and in Him God would be known and be adored. If the Jews object, we answer that Moses, who was but a man, taught them their religion; against the Greeks we urge that Orpheus at Pieria, Musaeus at Athens, Melampus at Argos, Trophonius in Boeotia, imposed religious rites; turning to yourselves, who exercise sway over the nations, it was the man Numa Pompilius who laid on the Romans a heavy load of costly superstitions. Surely Christ, then, had a right to reveal Deity, which was in fact His own essential possession, not with the object of bringing boors and savages by the dread of multitudinous gods, whose favour must be won into some civilization, as was the case with Numa; but as one who aimed to enlighten men already civilized, and under illusions from their very culture, that they might come to the knowledge of the truth. Search, then, and see if that divinity of Christ be true. If it be of such a nature that the acceptance of it transforms a man, and makes him truly good, there is implied in that the duty of renouncing what is opposed to it as false; especially and on every ground that which, hiding itself under the names and images of the dead, labours to convince men of its divinity by certain signs, and miracles, and oracles.

Chapter XXII

And we affirm indeed the existence of certain spiritual essences; nor is their name unfamiliar. The philosophers acknowledge there are demons; Socrates himself waiting on a demon’s will. Why not? since it is said an evil spirit attached itself specially to him even from his childhood—turning his mind no doubt from what was good. The poets are all acquainted with demons too; even the ignorant common people make frequent use of them in cursing. In fact, they call upon Satan, the demon-chief, in their execrations, as though from some instinctive soul-knowledge of him. Plato also admits the existence of angels. The dealers in magic, no less, come forward as witnesses to the existence of both kinds of spirits. We are instructed, moreover, by our sacred books how from certain angels, who fell of their own free-will, there sprang a more wicked demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of their race, and that chief we have referred to. It will for the present be enough, however, that some account is given of their work. Their great business is the ruin of mankind. So, from the very first, spiritual wickedness sought our destruction. They inflict, accordingly, upon our bodies diseases and other grievous calamities, while by violent assaults they hurry the soul into sudden and extraordinary excesses. Their marvellous subtleness and tenuity give them access to both parts of our nature. As spiritual, they can do no harm; for, invisible and intangible, we are not cognizant of their action save by its effects, as when some inexplicable, unseen poison in the breeze blights the apples and the grain while in the flower, or kills them in the bud, or destroys them when they have reached maturity; as though by the tainted atmosphere in some unknown way spreading abroad its pestilential exhalations. So, too, by an influence equally obscure, demons and angels breathe into the soul, and rouse up its corruptions with furious passions and vile excesses; or with cruel lusts accompanied by various errors, of which the worst is that by which these deities are commended to the favour of deceived and deluded human beings, that they may get their proper food of flesh-fumes and blood when that is offered up to idol-images. What is daintier food to the spirit of evil, than turning men’s minds away from the true God by the illusions of a false divination? And here I explain how these illusions are managed. Every spirit is possessed of wings. This is a common property of both angels and demons. So they are everywhere in a single moment; the whole world is as one place to them; all that is done over the whole extent of it, it is as easy for them to know as to report. Their swiftness of motion is taken for divinity, because their nature is unknown. Thus they would have themselves thought sometimes the authors of the things which they announce; and sometimes, no doubt, the bad things are their doing, never the good. The purposes of God, too, they took up of old from the lips of the prophets, even as they spoke them; and they gather them still from their works, when they hear them read aloud. Thus getting, too, from this source some intimations of the future, they set themselves up as rivals of the true God, while they steal His divinations. But the skill with which their responses are shaped to meet events, your Croesi and Pyrrhi know too well. On the other hand, it was in that way we have explained, the Pythian was able to declare that they were cooking a tortoise with the flesh of a lamb; in a moment he had been to Lydia. From dwelling in the air, and their nearness to the stars, and their commerce with the clouds, they have means of knowing the preparatory processes going on in these upper regions, and thus can give promise of the rains which they already feel. Very kind too, no doubt, they are in regard to the healing of diseases. For, first of all, they make you ill; then, to get a miracle out of it, they command the application of remedies either altogether new, or contrary to those in use, and straightway withdrawing hurtful influence, they are supposed to have wrought a cure. What need, then, to speak of their other artifices, or yet further of the deceptive power which they have as spirits: of these Castor apparitions, of water carried by a sieve, and a ship drawn along by a girdle, and a beard reddened by a touch, all done with the one object of showing that men should believe in the deity of stones, and not seek after the only true God?

Chapter XXIII

Moreover, if sorcerers call forth ghosts, and even make what seem the souls of the dead to appear; if they put boys to death, in order to get a response from the oracle; if, with their juggling illusions, they make a pretence of doing various miracles; if they put dreams into people’s minds by the power of the angels and demons whose aid they have invited, by whose influence, too, goats and tables are made to divine,—how much more likely is this power of evil to be zealous in doing with all its might, of its own inclination, and for its own objects, what it does to serve the ends of others! Or if both angels and demons do just what your gods do, where in that case is the pre-eminence of deity, which we must surely think to be above all in might? Will it not then be more reasonable to hold that these spirits make themselves gods, giving as they do the very proofs which raise your gods to godhead, than that the gods are the equals of angels and demons? You make a distinction of places, I suppose, regarding as gods in their temple those whose divinity you do not recognize elsewhere; counting the madness which leads one man to leap from the sacred houses, to be something different from that which leads another to leap from an adjoining house; looking on one who cuts his arms and secret parts as under a different furor from another who cuts his throat. The result of the frenzy is the same, and the manner of instigation is one. But thus far we have been dealing only in words: we now proceed to a proof of facts, in which we shall show that under different names you have real identity. Let a person be brought before your tribunals, who is plainly under demoniacal possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon, as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god. Or, if you will, let there be produced one of the god-possessed, as they are supposed, who, inhaling at the altar, conceive divinity from the fumes, who are delivered of it by retching, who vent it forth in agonies of gasping. Let that same Virgin Caelestis herself the rain-promiser, let Aesculapius discoverer of medicines, ready to prolong the life of Socordius, and Tenatius, and Asclepiodotus, now in the last extremity, if they would not confess, in their fear of lying to a Christian, that they were demons, then and there shed the blood of that most impudent follower of Christ. What clearer than a work like that? what more trustworthy than such a proof? The simplicity of truth is thus set forth; its own worth sustains it; no ground remains for the least suspicion. Do you say that it is done by magic, or some trick of that sort? You will not say anything of the sort, if you have been allowed the use of your ears and eyes. For what argument can you bring against a thing that is exhibited to the eye in its naked reality? If, on the one hand, they are really gods, why do they pretend to be demons? Is it from fear of us? In that case your divinity is put in subjection to Christians; and you surely can never ascribe deity to that which is under authority of man, nay (if it adds aught to the disgrace) of its very enemies. If, on the other hand, they are demons or angels, why, inconsistently with this, do they presume to set themselves forth as acting the part of gods? For as beings who put themselves out as gods would never willingly call themselves demons, if they were gods indeed, that they might not thereby in fact abdicate their dignity; so those whom you know to be no more than demons, would not dare to act as gods, if those whose names they take and use were really divine. For they would not dare to treat with disrespect the higher majesty of beings, whose displeasure they would feel was to be dreaded. So this divinity of yours is no divinity; for if it were, it would not be pretended to by demons, and it would not be denied by gods. But since on both sides there is a concurrent acknowledgment that they are not gods, gather from this that there is but a single race—I mean the race of demons, the real race in both cases. Let your search, then, now be after gods; for those whom you had imagined to be so you find to be spirits of evil. The truth is, as we have thus not only shown from our own gods that neither themselves nor any others have claims to deity, you may see at once who is really God, and whether that is He and He alone whom we Christians own; as also whether you are to believe in Him, and worship Him, after the manner of our Christian faith and discipline. But at once they will say, Who is this Christ with his fables? is he an ordinary man? is he a sorcerer? was his body stolen by his disciples from its tomb? is he now in the realms below? or is he not rather up in the heavens, thence about to come again, making the whole world shake, filling the earth with dread alarms, making all but Christians wail—as the Power of God, and the Spirit of God, as the Word, the Reason, the Wisdom, and the Son of God? Mock as you like, but get the demons if you can to join you in your mocking; let them deny that Christ is coming to judge every human soul which has existed from the world’s beginning, clothing it again with the body it laid aside at death; let them declare it, say, before your tribunal, that this work has been allotted to Minos and Rhadamanthus, as Plato and the poets agree; let them put away from them at least the mark of ignominy and condemnation. They disclaim being unclean spirits, which yet we must hold as indubitably proved by their relish for the blood and fumes and foetid carcasses of sacrificial animals, and even by the vile language of their ministers. Let them deny that, for their wickedness condemned already, they are kept for that very judgment-day, with all their worshippers and their works. Why, all the authority and power we have over them is from our naming the name of Christ, and recalling to their memory the woes with which God threatens them at the hands of Christ as Judge, and which they expect one day to overtake them. Fearing Christ in God, and God in Christ, they become subject to the servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and breathing, overwhelmed by the thought and realization of those judgment fires, they leave at our command the bodies they have entered, unwilling, and distressed, and before your very eyes put to an open shame. You believe them when they lie; give credit to them, then, when they speak the truth about themselves. No one plays the liar to bring disgrace upon his own head, but for the sake of honour rather. You give a readier confidence to people making confessions against themselves, than denials in their own behalf. It has not been an unusual thing, accordingly, for those testimonies of your deities to convert men to Christianity; for in giving full belief to them, we are led to believe in Christ. Yes, your very gods kindle up faith in our Scriptures, they build up the confidence of our hope. You do homage, as I know, to them also with the blood of Christians. On no account, then, would they lose those who are so useful and dutiful to them, anxious even to hold you fast, lest some day or other as Christians you might put them to the rout,—if under the power of a follower of Christ, who desires to prove to you the Truth, it were at all possible for them to lie.

Chapter XXIV

This whole confession of these beings, in which they declare that they are not gods, and in which they tell you that there is no God but one, the God whom we adore, is quite sufficient to clear us from the crime of treason, chiefly against the Roman religion. For if it is certain the gods have no existence, there is no religion in the case. If there is no religion, because there are no gods, we are assuredly not guilty of any offence against religion. Instead of that, the charge recoils on your own head: worshipping a lie, you are really guilty of the crime you charge on us, not merely by refusing the true religion of the true God, but by going the further length of persecuting it. But now, granting that these objects of your worship are really gods, is it not generally held that there is one higher and more potent, as it were the world’s chief ruler, endowed with absolute power and majesty? For the common way is to apportion deity, giving an imperial and supreme domination to one, while its offices are put into the hands of many, as Plato describes great Jupiter in the heavens, surrounded by an array at once of deities and demons. It behooves us, therefore, to show equal respect to the procurators, prefects, and governors of the divine empire. And yet how great a crime does he commit, who, with the object of gaining higher favour with the Caesar, transfers his endeavours and his hopes to another, and does not confess that the appellation of God as of Emperor belongs only to the Supreme Head, when it is held a capital offence among us to call, or hear called, by the highest title any other than Caesar himself! Let one man worship God, another Jupiter; let one lift suppliant hands to the heavens, another to the altar of Fides; let one—if you choose to take this view of it—count in prayer the clouds, and another the ceiling panels; let one consecrate his own life to his God, and another that of a goat. For see that you do not give a further ground for the charge of irreligion, by taking away religious liberty, and forbidding free choice of deity, so that I may no longer worship according to my inclination, but am compelled to worship against it. Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered him; and so the very Egyptians have been permitted the legal use of their ridiculous superstition, liberty to make gods of birds and beasts, nay, to condemn to death anyone who kills a god of their sort. Every province even, and every city, has its god. Syria has Astarte, Arabia has Dusares, the Norici have Belenus, Africa has its Caelestis, Mauritania has its own princes. I have spoken, I think, of Roman provinces, and yet I have not said their gods are Roman; for they are not worshipped at Rome any more than others who are ranked as deities over Italy itself by municipal consecration, such as Delventinus of Casinum, Visidianus of Narnia, Ancharia of Asculum, Nortia of Volsinii, Valentia of Ocriculum, Hostia of Satrium, Father Curis of Falisci, in honour of whom, too, Juno got her surname. In, fact, we alone are prevented having a religion of our own. We give offence to the Romans, we are excluded from the rights and privileges of Romans, because we do not worship the gods of Rome. It is well that there is a God of all, whose we all are, whether we will or no. But with you liberty is given to worship any god but the true God, as though He were not rather the God all should worship, to whom all belong.

Chapter XXV

I think I have offered sufficient proof upon the question of false and true divinity, having shown that the proof rests not merely on debate and argument, but on the witness of the very beings whom you believe are gods, so that the point needs no further handling. However, having been led thus naturally to speak of the Romans, I shall not avoid the controversy which is invited by the groundless assertion of those who maintain that, as a reward of their singular homage to religion, the Romans have been raised to such heights of power as to have become masters of the world; and that so certainly divine are the beings they worship, that those prosper beyond all others, who beyond all others honour them. This, forsooth, is the wages the gods have paid the Romans for their devotion. The progress of the empire is to be ascribed to Sterculus, the Mutunus, and Larentina! For I can hardly think that foreign gods would have been disposed to show more favour to an alien race than to their own, and given their own fatherland, in which they had their birth, grew up to manhood, became illustrious, and at last were buried, over to invaders from another shore! As for Cybele, if she set her affections on the city of Rome as sprung of the Trojan stock saved from the arms of Greece, she herself forsooth being of the same race,—if she foresaw her transference to the avenging people by whom Greece the conqueror of Phrygia was to be subdued, let her look to it (in regard of her native country’s conquest by Greece). Why, too, even in these days the Mater Magna has given a notable proof of her greatness which she has conferred as a boon upon the city; when, after the loss to the State of Marcus Aurelius at Sirmium, on the sixteenth before the Kalends of April, that most sacred high priest of hers was offering, a week after, impure libations of blood drawn from his own arms, and issuing his commands that the ordinary prayers should be made for the safety of the emperor already dead. O tardy messengers! O sleepy despatches! through whose fault Cybele had not an earlier knowledge of the imperial decease, that the Christians might have no occasion to ridicule a goddess so unworthy. Jupiter, again, would surely never have permitted his own Crete to fall at once before the Roman Fasces, forgetful of that Idean cave and the Corybantian cymbals, and the sweet odour of her who nursed him there. Would he not have exalted his own tomb above the entire Capitol, that the land which covered the ashes of Jove might rather be the mistress of the world? Would Juno have desired the destruction of the Punic city, beloved even to the neglect of Samos, and that by a nation of Aeneadae? As to that I know, “Here were her arms, here was her chariot, this kingdom, if the Fates permit, the goddess tends and cherishes to be mistress of the nations.” Jove’s hapless wife and sister had no power to prevail against the Fates! “Jupiter himself is sustained by fate.” And yet the Romans have never done such homage to the Fates, which gave them Carthage against the purpose and the will of Juno, as to the abandoned harlot Larentina. It is undoubted that not a few of your gods have reigned on earth as kings. If, then, they now possess the power of bestowing empire, when they were kings themselves, from whence had they received their kingly honours? Whom did Jupiter and Saturn worship? A Sterculus, I suppose. But did the Romans, along with the native-born inhabitants, afterwards adore also some who were never kings? In that case, however, they were under the reign of others, who did not yet bow down to them, as not yet raised to godhead. It belongs to others, then, to make gift of kingdoms, since there were kings before these gods had their names on the roll of divinities. But how utterly foolish it is to attribute the greatness of the Roman name to religious merits, since it was after Rome became an empire, or call it still a kingdom, that the religion she professes made its chief progress! Is it the case now? Has its religion been the source of the prosperity of Rome? Though Numa set agoing an eagerness after superstitious observances, yet religion among the Romans was not yet a matter of images or temples. It was frugal in its ways, its rites were simple, and there were no capitols struggling to the heavens; but the altars were offhand ones of turf, and the sacred vessels were yet of Samian earthen-ware, and from these the odours rose, and no likeness of God was to be seen. For at that time the skill of the Greeks and Tuscans in image-making had not yet overrun the city with the products of their art. The Romans, therefore, were not distinguished for their devotion to the gods before they attained to greatness; and so their greatness was not the result of their religion. Indeed, how could religion make a people great who have owed their greatness to their irreligion? For, if I am not mistaken, kingdoms and empires are acquired by wars, and are extended by victories. More than that, you cannot have wars and victories without the taking, and often the destruction, of cities. That is a thing in which the gods have their share of calamity. Houses and temples suffer alike; there is indiscriminate slaughter of priests and citizens; the hand of rapine is laid equally upon sacred and on common treasure. Thus the sacrileges of the Romans are as numerous as their trophies. They boast as many triumphs over the gods as over the nations; as many spoils of battle they have still, as there remain images of captive deities. And the poor gods submit to be adored by their enemies, and they ordain illimitable empire to those whose injuries rather than their simulated homage should have had retribution at their hands. But divinities unconscious are with impunity dishonoured, just as in vain they are adored. You certainly never can believe that devotion to religion has evidently advanced to greatness a people who, as we have put it, have either grown by injuring religion, or have injured religion by their growth. Those, too, whose kingdoms have become part of the one great whole of the Roman empire, were not without religion when their kingdoms were taken from them.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Describe Tertullian’s tone and his writing style. Does he use ad hominem?

2. What is his attitude toward the authorities? Compare it to Justin Martyr’s.

How does he turn Roman law against itself?

3. Describe some of the false charges against which he argues.

4. What is Tertullian’s attitude toward persecution?

4. What is Tertullian’s attitude toward 5. How does he defend human life?

6. How does he defend the Scriptures? Jesus Christ?

7. Is there anything in these texts that makes you uncomfortable?

1. For a translation, see Marcus Minucius Felix, The Octavius, trans. G. W. Clarke, vol. 39 of Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Paulist, 1974).

2. From St. Jerome on Illustrious Men (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999), 46.

3. Augustine, De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeus, chap. 86.

4.Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004), 36.

CHAPTER 7

Origen

(ca. 184–ca. 254)

Origen, born in Alexandria, distinguished himself in church history as one of the most prolific of the Eastern fathers. Eusebius of Caesarea, the so-called “Father of Church History,” collected many of Origen’s writings and wrote an “Apology” in his defense.

The need for a defense of Origen was due to the doctrinal troubles that seemed to plague him throughout his life. This may owe in part to the fact that Origen was forced to begin teaching at an early age. When he was seventeen, a persecution of the church arose in Alexandria, and Origen’s father, Leonides, was imprisoned and eventually martyred. In order to provide for his mother and six younger brothers, Origen became a teacher and began to write and sell his manuscripts. He soon realized his need for more formal education and so devoted himself to the study of philosophy and Hebrew.

In Origen’s travels through Egypt, his gifts were quickly recognized. He was asked to preach, even prior to being ordained for such a task. This request was not uniformly met with good will. Some, who were apparently jealous of Origen, eventually opposed him, and he was banished from Alexandria.

From there Origen moved to Caesarea in Palestine and became a prolific writer and teacher. Part of the massive work that we will feature in this chapter, Contra Celsius, was written by Origen when he was in his sixties. It was one of his last works. Likely as a result of his imprisonment and torture during the Decian persecution (AD 249–251), Origen died around 254.

So extensive was Origen’s knowledge of Hebrew that he was able to do what had yet to be done in the church. Origen committed himself to comparing and contrasting the accepted form of the Old Testament in the early church—the Greek Septuagint—with the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, as well as other versions that were circulating during his time. No other church father had entered into this kind of critical study of the Old Testament. Because Origen compared these texts in six separate columns, his work is called the Hexapla. Virtually nothing of this work survives (though fragments of it have been found in the last two centuries).

As significant as was the Hexapla for linguistic studies, Origen’s On First Principles (De principiis) was a systematic theology for the church. Notable at this stage in church history is that the first three chapters of this work deal with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, respectively. Though it seems obvious that there remained aspects of subordinationism in Origen’s doctrine of the Trinity, there can be no question that he saw the three persons of the Godhead as singularly unique in their inner-relationships. Also worth noting in this work is that Origen begins immediately to combat the idea that God is a material being. Because of the pervasive influence of Greek philosophy, anything that was tied to the material was, by definition, deficient. In this way, On First Principles begins to address the cultural and philosophical motifs that were opposed to Christian theology.

In light of these massive works and others, so prolific was Origen during his lifetime that reports of his contributions became greatly exaggerated. Some reported Origen’s works to be over six thousand. The best estimates, however, place the number at somewhere over two thousand. In addition to his dogmatic work On First Principles and his apologetic work, which we will discuss briefly below, Origen also wrote a number of practical works, including On Prayer, wherein he exposits the Lord’s Prayer, and Exhortation to Martyrdom.

The work by Origen that we will introduce in the following pages is much too long to include in its entirety (one English translation amounts to almost 240,000 words). The primary reason for its length is that Origen set out, somewhat reluctantly, to refute the philosopher Celsus point by point. He did so at the request of his friend Ambrosius. So, he begins in his preface:

When false witnesses testified against our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He remained silent; and when unfounded charges were brought against Him, He returned no answer, believing that His whole life and conduct among the Jews were a better refutation than any answer to the false testimony, or than any formal defence against the accusations. And I know not, my pious Ambrosius, why you wished me to write a reply to the false charges brought by Celsus against the Christians, and to his accusations directed against the faith of the Churches in his treatise; as if the facts themselves did not furnish a manifest refutation, and the doctrine a better answer than any writing, seeing it both disposes of the false statements, and does not leave to the accusations any credibility or validity.

Nevertheless, given Ambrosius’s request, Origen commits himself to the task:

I venture, then, to say that this apology which you require me to compose will somewhat weaken that defence (of Christianity) which rests on facts, and that power of Jesus which is manifest to those who are not altogether devoid of perception. Notwithstanding, that we may not have the appearance of being reluctant to undertake the task which you have enjoined, we have endeavoured, to the best of our ability, to suggest, by way of answer to each of the statements advanced by Celsus, what seemed to us adapted to refute them, although his arguments have no power to shake the faith of any (true) believer. And forbid, indeed, that any one should be found who, after having been a partaker in such a love of God as was (displayed) in Christ Jesus, could be shaken in his purpose by the arguments of Celsus, or of any such as he.

Though perhaps overly pedantic in this work, Origen set for himself the goal of leaving no room for Celsus’s opinions. Because those opinions were aimed at Judaism and Christianity specifically, Origen felt constrained to answer every objection.

As to its apologetic intent, Origen states:

After proceeding with this work as far as the place where Celsus introduces the Jew disputing with Jesus, I resolved to prefix this preface to the beginning (of the treatise), in order that the reader of our reply to Celsus might fall in with it first, and see that this book has been composed not for those who are thorough believers, but for such as are either wholly unacquainted with the Christian faith, or for those who, as the apostle terms them, are weak in the faith; regarding whom he says, Receive him that is weak in the faith.

This work, then, is meant for those who are unfamiliar with the Christian faith, or whose faith is weak. It is not meant (as was On First Principles) to be a theological treatise, in the first place.

In his apology, Origen seems to move from the more general objections of Celsus to the more particular. He does this in that he is following Celsus’s own order of objections in A True Discourse. So, for example, at the beginning of the second book, Origen says, “The first book of our answer to the treatise of Celsus, entitled A True Discourse, which concluded with the representation of the Jew addressing Jesus, having now extended to a sufficient length, we intend the present part as a reply to the charges brought by him against those who have been converted from Judaism to Christianity.” And then, as he begins the third book, he notes:

In the first book of our answer to the work of Celsus, . . . A True Discourse, we have gone through, as you enjoined, my faithful Ambrosius, to the best of our ability, his preface, and the parts immediately following it, testing each one of his assertions as we went along . . . . And in the second book we met, as we best could, all the charges . . . levelled at us who are believers in God through Christ; and now we enter upon this third division of our discourse, in which our object is to refute the allegations which he makes in his own person.

The selections we have chosen from this extensive work are only a small sample of the work as a whole. They show us, primarily, the concerns of Origen as he seeks to answer the objections of a philosopher. They also show us, at least in some places, the influences of philosophy on Origen. Because of these influences, many of Origen’s doctrinal formulations have been rightly suspect in church history, and some are later condemned by the church. Origen is not, therefore, a model of orthodoxy in the early church.

By virtue of his vast amount of publishing, the martyrdom and persecution that was a part of his family, and the influence that his work gained in the early church, Origen is a significant figure for the church, and his apologetic is worth careful scrutiny.

Contra Celsus

Book III

Chapter 1

In the first book of our answer to the work of Celsus, who had boastfully entitled the treatise which he had composed against us A True Discourse, we have gone through, as you enjoined, my faithful Ambrosius, to the best of our ability, his preface, and the parts immediately following it, testing each one of his assertions as we went along, until we finished with the tirade of this Jew of his, feigned to have been delivered against Jesus. And in the second book we met, as we best could, all the charges contained in the invective of the said Jew, which were leveled at us who are believers in God through Christ; and now we enter upon this third division of our discourse, in which our object is to refute the allegations which he makes in his own person.

He gives it as his opinion, that “the controversy between Jews and Christians is a most foolish one,” and asserts that “the discussions which we have with each other regarding Christ differ in no respect from what is called in the proverb, ‘a fight about the shadow of an ass’”;[1]and thinks that “there is nothing of importance in the investigations of the Jews and Christians: for both believe that it was predicted by the Divine Spirit that one was to come as a Saviour to the human race, but do not yet agree on the point whether the person predicted has actually come or not.” For we Christians, indeed, have believed in Jesus, as He who came according to the predictions of the prophets. But the majority of the Jews are so far from believing in Him, that those of them who lived at the time of His coming conspired against Him; and those of the present day, approving of what the Jews of former times dared to do against Him, speak evil of Him, asserting that it was by means of sorcery that he passed himself off for Him who was predicted by the prophets as the One who was to come, and who was called, agreeably to the traditions of the Jews, the Christ.

Chapter 2

But let Celsus, and those who assent to his charges, tell us whether it is at all like “an ass’s shadow,” that the Jewish prophets should have predicted the birthplace of Him who was to be the ruler of those who had lived righteous lives, and who are called the “heritage” of God; and that Emmanuel should be conceived by a virgin; and that such signs and wonders should be performed by Him who was the subject of prophecy; and that His word should have such speedy course, that the voice of His apostles should go forth into all the earth; and that He should undergo certain sufferings after His condemnation by the Jews; and that He should rise again from the dead. For was it by chance that the prophets made these announcements, with no persuasion of the truth in their minds, moving them not only to speak, but to deem their announcements worthy of being committed to writing? And did so great a nation as that of the Jews, who had long ago received a country of their own wherein to dwell, recognize certain men as prophets, and reject others as utterers of false predictions, without any conviction of the soundness of the distinction? And was there no motive which induced them to class with the books of Moses, which were held as sacred, the words of those persons who were afterwards deemed to be prophets? And can those who charge the Jews and Christians with folly, show us how the Jewish nation could have continued to subsist, had there existed among them no promise of the knowledge of future events? and how, while each of the surrounding nations believed, agreeably to their ancient institutions, that they received oracles and predictions from those whom they accounted gods, this people alone, who were taught to view with contempt all those who were considered gods by the heathen, as not being gods, but demons, according to the declaration of the prophets, “For all the gods of the nations are demons,”[2] had among them no one who professed to be a prophet, and who could restrain such as, from a desire to know the future, were ready to desert to the demons of other nations? Judge, then, whether it were not a necessity, that as the whole nation had been taught to despise the deities of other lands, they should have had an abundance of prophets, who made known events which were of far greater importance in themselves, and which surpassed the oracles of all other countries.

Chapter 3

In the next place, miracles were performed in all countries, or at least in many of them, as Celsus himself admits, instancing the case of Aesculapius, who conferred benefits on many, and who foretold future events to entire cities, which were dedicated to him, such as Tricca, and Epidaurus, and Cos, and Pergamus; and along with Aesculapius he mentions Aristeas of Proconnesus, and a certain Clazomenian, and Cleomedes of Astypalaea. But among the Jews alone, who say they are dedicated to the God of all things, there was wrought no miracle or sign which might help to confirm their faith in the Creator of all things, and strengthen their hope of another and better life! But how can they imagine such a state of things? For they would immediately have gone over to the worship of those demons which gave oracles and performed cures, and deserted the God who was believed, as far as words went, to assist them, but who never manifested to them His visible presence. But if this result has not taken place, and if, on the contrary, they have suffered countless calamities rather than renounce Judaism and their law, and have been cruelly treated, at one time in Assyria, at another in Persia, and at another under Antiochus, is it not in keeping with the probabilities of the case for those to suppose who do not yield their belief to their miraculous histories and prophecies, that the events in question could not be inventions, but that a certain divine Spirit being in the holy souls of the prophets, as of men who underwent any labour for the cause of virtue, did move them to prophesy some things relating to their contemporaries, and others to their posterity, but chiefly regarding a certain personage who was to come as a Saviour to the human race?

Chapter 4

And if the above be the state of the case, how do Jews and Christians search after “the shadow of an ass,” in seeking to ascertain from those prophecies which they believe in common, whether He who was foretold has come, or has not yet arrived, and is still an object of expectation? But even suppose it be granted to Celsus that it was not Jesus who was announced by the prophets, then, even on such a hypothesis, the investigation of the sense of the prophetic writings is no search after “the shadow of an ass,” if He who was spoken of can be clearly pointed out, and it can be shown both what sort of person He was predicted to be, and what He was to do, and, if possible, when He was to arrive. But in the preceding pages we have already spoken on the point of Jesus being the individual who was foretold to be the Christ, quoting a few prophecies out of a larger number. Neither Jews nor Christians, then, are wrong in assuming that the prophets spoke under divine influence; but they are in error who form erroneous opinions respecting Him who was expected by the prophets to come, and whose person and character were made known in their “true discourses.”

Chapter 5

Immediately after these points, Celsus, imagining that the Jews are Egyptians by descent, and had abandoned Egypt, after revolting against the Egyptian state, and despising the customs of that people in matters of worship, says that “they suffered from the adherents of Jesus, who believed in Him as the Christ, the same treatment which they had inflicted upon the Egyptians; and that the cause which led to the new state of things in either instance was rebellion against the state.” Now let us observe what Celsus has here done. The ancient Egyptians, after inflicting many cruelties upon the Hebrew race, who had settled in Egypt owing to a famine which had broken out in Judea, suffered, in consequence of their injustice to strangers and suppliants, that punishment which divine Providence had decreed was to fall on the whole nation for having combined against an entire people, who had been their guests, and who had done them no harm; and after being smitten by plagues from God, they allowed them, with difficulty, and after a brief period, to go wherever they liked, as being unjustly detained in slavery. Because, then, they were a selfish people, who honored those who were in any degree related to them far more than they did strangers of better lives, there is not an accusation which they have omitted to bring against Moses and the Hebrews,—not altogether denying, indeed, the miracles and wonders done by him, but alleging that they were wrought by sorcery, and not by divine power.

Moses, however, not as a magician, but as a devout man, and one devoted to the God of all things, and a partaker in the divine Spirit, both enacted laws for the Hebrews, according to the suggestions of the Divinity, and recorded events as they happened with perfect fidelity.

Chapter 6

Celsus, therefore, not investigating in a spirit of impartiality the facts, which are related by the Egyptians in one way, and by the Hebrews in another, but being bewitched, as it were, in favor of the former, accepted as true the statements of those who had oppressed the strangers, and declared that the Hebrews, who had been unjustly treated, had departed from Egypt after revolting against the Egyptians,—not observing how impossible it was for so great a multitude of rebellious Egyptians to become a nation, which, dating its origin from the said revolt, should change its language at the time of its rebellion, so that those who up to that time made use of the Egyptian tongue, should completely adopt, all at once, the language of the Hebrews! Let it be granted, however, according to his supposition, that on abandoning Egypt they did conceive a hatred also of their mother tongue, how did it happen that after so doing they did not rather adopt the Syrian or Phoenician language, instead of preferring the Hebrew, which is different from both? But reason seems to me to demonstrate that the statement is false, which makes those who were Egyptians by race to have revolted against Egyptians, and to have left the country, and to have proceeded to Palestine, and occupied the land now called Judea. For Hebrew was the language of their fathers before their descent into Egypt; and the Hebrew letters, employed by Moses in writing those five books which are deemed sacred by the Jews, were different from those of the Egyptians.

Chapter 7

In like manner, as the statement is false “that the Hebrews, being (originally) Egyptians, dated the commencement (of their political existence) from the time of their rebellion,” so also is this, “that in the days of Jesus others who were Jews rebelled against the Jewish state, and became His followers”; for neither Celsus nor they who think with him are able to point out any act on the part of Christians which savors of rebellion. And yet, if a revolt had led to the formation of the Christian commonwealth, so that it derived its existence in this way from that of the Jews, who were permitted to take up arms in defense of the members of their families, and to slay their enemies, the Christian Lawgiver would not have altogether forbidden the putting of men to death; and yet He nowhere teaches that it is right for His own disciples to offer violence to any one, however wicked. For He did not deem it in keeping with such laws as His, which were derived from a divine source, to allow the killing of any individual whatever. Nor would the Christians, had they owed their origin to a rebellion, have adopted laws of so exceedingly mild a character as not to allow them, when it was their fate to be slain as sheep, on any occasion to resist their persecutors. And truly, if we look a little deeper into things, we may say regarding the exodus from Egypt, that it is a miracle if a whole nation at once adopted the language called Hebrew, as if it had been a gift from heaven, when one of their own prophets said, “As they went forth from Egypt, they heard a language which they did not understand.”[3]

Chapter 8

In the following way, also, we may conclude that they who came out of Egypt with Moses were not Egyptians; for if they had been Egyptians, their names also would be Egyptian, because in every language the designations (of persons and things) are kindred to the language. But if it is certain, from the names being Hebrew, that the people were not Egyptians,—and the Scriptures are full of Hebrew names, and these bestowed, too, upon their children while they were in Egypt,—it is clear that the Egyptian account is false, which asserts that they were Egyptians, and went forth from Egypt with Moses. Now it is absolutely certain that, being descended, as the Mosaic history records, from Hebrew ancestors, they employed a language from which they also took the names which they conferred upon their children. But with regard to the Christians, because they were taught not to avenge themselves upon their enemies (and have thus observed laws of a mild and philanthropic character); and because they would not, although able, have made war even if they had received authority to do so,—they have obtained this reward from God, that He has always warred in their behalf, and on certain occasions has restrained those who rose up against them and desired to destroy them. For in order to remind others, that by seeing a few engaged in a struggle for their religion, they also might be better fitted to despise death, some, on special occasions, and these individuals who can be easily numbered, have endured death for the sake of Christianity,—God not permitting the whole nation to be exterminated, but desiring that it should continue, and that the whole world should be filled with this salutary and religious doctrine. And again, on the other hand, that those who were of weaker minds might recover their courage and rise superior to the thought of death, God interposed His providence on behalf of believers, dispersing by an act of His will alone all the conspiracies formed against them; so that neither kings, nor rulers, nor the populace, might be able to rage against them beyond a certain point. Such, then, is our answer to the assertions of Celsus, “that a revolt was the original commencement of the ancient Jewish state, and subsequently of Christianity.”

Chapter 9

But since he is manifestly guilty of falsehood in the statements which follow, let us examine his assertion when he says, “If all men wished to become Christians, the latter would not desire such a result.” Now that the above statement is false is clear from this, that Christians do not neglect, as far as in them lies, to take measures to disseminate their doctrine throughout the whole world. Some of them, accordingly, have made it their business to itinerate not only through cities, but even villages and country houses, that they might make converts to God. And no one would maintain that they did this for the sake of gain, when sometimes they would not accept even necessary sustenance; or if at any time they were pressed by a necessity of this sort, were contented with the mere supply of their wants, although many were willing to share (their abundance) with them, and to bestow help upon them far above their need. At the present day, indeed, when, owing to the multitude of Christian believers, not only rich men, but persons of rank, and delicate and high-born ladies, receive the teachers of Christianity, some perhaps will dare to say that it is for the sake of a little glory that certain individuals assume the office of Christian instructors. It is impossible, however, rationally to entertain such a suspicion with respect to Christianity in its beginnings, when the danger incurred, especially by its teachers, was great; while at the present day the discredit attaching to it among the rest of mankind is greater than any supposed honor enjoyed among those who hold the same belief, especially when such honor is not shared by all. It is false, then, from the very nature of the case, to say that “if all men wished to become Christians, the latter would not desire such a result.”

Book VI [4]

Chapter 5[5]

But that a light is suddenly kindled in the soul, as by a fire leaping forth, is a fact known long ago to our Scriptures; as when the prophet said, “Light for yourselves the light of knowledge.”[6] John also, who lived after him, said, “That which was in the Logos was life, and the life was the light of men;[7] which true light lightens every man that comes into the world” (i.e., the true world, which is perceived by the understanding), and makes him a light of the world: “For this light shone in our hearts, to give the light of the glorious Gospel of God in the face of Christ Jesus.”[8] And therefore that very ancient prophet, who prophesied many generations before the reign of Cyrus (for he was older than he by more than fourteen generations), expressed himself in these words: “The Lord is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear?”[9] and, “Your law is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path”;[10] and again, “The light of Your countenance, O Lord, was manifested towards us”;[11] and, “In Your light we shall see light.”[12] And the Logos,[13] exhorting us to come to this light, says, in the prophecies of Isaiah: “Enlighten yourself, enlighten yourself, O Jerusalem; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”[14] The same prophet also, when predicting the advent of Jesus, who was to turn away men from the worship of idols, and of images, and of demons, says, “To those that sat in the land and shadow of death, upon them has the light arisen”; and again, “The people that sat in darkness saw a great light.”[15]Observe now the difference between the fine phrases of Plato respecting “the chief good,”[16] and the declarations of our prophets regarding the “light” of the blessed; and notice that the truth as it is contained in Plato concerning this subject did not at all help his readers to attain to a pure worship of God, nor even himself, who could philosophize so grandly about the “chief good,” whereas the simple language of the holy Scriptures has led to their honest readers being filled with a divine spirit; and this light is nourished within them by the oil, which in a certain parable is said to have preserved the light of the torches of the five wise virgins.

Chapter 6

Seeing, however, that Celsus quotes from an epistle of Plato another statement to the following effect, viz.: If it appeared to me that these matters could be adequately explained to the multitude in writing and in oral address, what nobler pursuit in life could have been followed by me, than to commit to writing what was to prove of such advantage to human beings, and to lead the nature of all men onwards to the light?—let us then consider this point briefly, viz., whether or not Plato were acquainted with any doctrines more profound than are contained in his writings, or more divine than those which he has left behind him, leaving it to each one to investigate the subject according to his ability, while we demonstrate that our prophets did know of greater things than any in the Scriptures, but which they did not commit to writing. Ezekiel, e.g., received a roll, written within and without, in which were contained “lamentations,” and “songs,” and “denunciations”;[17] but at the command of the Logos he swallowed the book, in order that its contents might not be written, and so made known to unworthy persons. John also is recorded to have seen and done a similar thing.[18] Nay, Paul even heard “unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”[19] And it is related of Jesus, who was greater than all these, that He conversed with His disciples in private, and especially in their sacred retreats, concerning the Gospel of God; but the words which He uttered have not been preserved, because it appeared to the evangelists that they could not be adequately conveyed to the multitude in writing or in speech. And if it were not tiresome to repeat the truth regarding these illustrious individuals, I would say that they saw better than Plato (by means of the intelligence which they received by the grace of God), what things were to be committed to writing, and how this was to be done, and what was by no means to be written to the multitude, and what was to be expressed in words, and what was not to be so conveyed. And once more, John, in teaching us the difference between what ought to be committed to writing and what not, declares that he heard seven thunders instructing him on certain matters, and forbidding him to commit their words to writing.[20]

Chapter 7

There might also be found in the writings of Moses and of the prophets, who are older not only than Plato, but even than Homer and the invention of letters among the Greeks,[21] passages worthy of the grace of God bestowed upon them, and filled with great thoughts, to which they gave utterance, but not because they understood Plato imperfectly, as Celsus imagines. For how was it possible that they should have heard one who was not yet born? And if any one should apply the words of Celsus to the apostles of Jesus, who were younger than Plato, say whether it is not on the very face of it an incredible assertion, that Paul the tentmaker, and Peter the fisherman, and John who left his father’s nets, should, through misunderstanding the language of Plato in his Epistles, have expressed themselves as they have done regarding God? But as Celsus now, after having often required of us immediate assent (to his views), as if he were babbling forth something new in addition to what he has already advanced, only repeats himself, what we have said in reply may suffice. Seeing, however, he produces another quotation from Plato, in which he asserts that the employment of the method of question and answer sheds light on the thoughts of those who philosophize like him,[22] let us show from the holy Scriptures that the word of God also encourages us to the practice of dialectics: Solomon, e.g., declaring in one passage, that “instruction unquestioned goes astray”;[23] and Jesus the son of Sirach, who has left us the treatise called “Wisdom,” declaring in another, that “the knowledge of the unwise is as words that will not stand investigation.”[24] Our methods of discussion, however, are rather of a gentle kind; for we have learned that he who presides over the preaching of the word ought to be able to confute gainsayers. But if some continue indolent, and do not train themselves so as to attend to the reading of the word, and to search the Scriptures, and, agreeably to the command of Jesus, to investigate the meaning of the sacred writings, and to ask of God concerning them, and to keep knocking at what may be closed within them, the Scripture is not on that account to be regarded as devoid of wisdom.

Chapter 8

In the next place, after other Platonic declarations, which demonstrate that the good can be known by few, he adds: Since the multitude, being puffed up with a contempt for others, which is far from right, and being filled with vain and lofty hopes, assert that, because they have come to the knowledge of some venerable doctrines, certain things are true. Yet although Plato predicted these things, he nevertheless does not talk marvels, nor shut the mouth of those who wish to ask him for information on the subject of his promises; nor does he command them to come at once and believe that a God of a particular kind exists, and that he has a son of a particular nature, who descended (to earth) and conversed with me. Now, in answer to this we have to say, that with regard to Plato, it is Aristander, I think, who has related that he was not the son of Ariston, but of a phantom, which approached Amphictione in the guise of Apollo. And there are several other of the followers of Plato who, in their lives of their master, have made the same statement. What are we to say, moreover, about Pythagoras, who relates the greatest possible amount of wonders, and who, in a general assembly of the Greeks, showed his ivory thigh, and asserted that he recognized the shield which he wore when he was Euphorbus, and who is said to have appeared on one day in two different cities! He, moreover, who will declare that what is related of Plato and Socrates belongs to the marvelous, will quote the story of the swan which was recommended to Socrates while he was asleep, and of the master saying when he met the young man, This, then, was the swan! Nay, the third eye which Plato saw that he himself possessed, he will refer to the category of prodigies. But occasion for slanderous accusations will never be wanting to those who are ill-disposed, and who wish to speak evil of what has happened to such as are raised above the multitude. Such persons will deride as a fiction even the demon of Socrates. We do not, then, relate marvels when we narrate the history of Jesus, nor have His genuine disciples recorded any such stories of Him; whereas this Celsus, who professes universal knowledge, and who quotes many of the sayings of Plato, is, I think, intentionally silent on the discourse concerning the Son of God which is related in Plato’s Epistle to Hermeas and Coriscus. Plato’s words are as follows: And calling to witness the God of all things—the ruler both of things present and things to come, father and lord both of the ruler and cause—whom, if we are philosophers indeed, we shall all clearly know, so far as it is possible for happy human beings to attain such knowledge.

Chapter 9

Celsus quotes another saying of Plato to the following effect: It has occurred to me to speak once more upon these subjects at greater length, as perhaps I might express myself about them more clearly than I have already done for there is a certain “real” cause, which proves a hindrance in the way of him who has ventured, even to a slight extent, to write on such topics; and as this has been frequently mentioned by me on former occasions, it appears to me that it ought to be stated now. In each of existing things, which are necessarily employed in the acquisition of knowledge, there are three elements; knowledge itself is the fourth; and that ought to be laid down as the fifth which is both capable of being known and is true. Of these, one is “name”; the second is “word”; the third, “image”; the fourth, “knowledge.” Now, according to this division, John is introduced before Jesus as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, so as to correspond with the name of Plato; and the second after John, who is pointed out by him, is Jesus, with whom agrees the statement, The Word became flesh; and that corresponds to the word of Plato. Plato terms the third image; but we, who apply the expression image to something different, would say with greater precision, that the mark of the wounds which is made in the soul by the word is the Christ which is in each one of us and this mark is impressed by Christ the Word. And whether Christ, the wisdom which is in those of us who are perfect, correspond to the fourth element—knowledge—will become known to him who has the capacity to ascertain it.

Chapter 10

He next continues: You see how Plato, although maintaining that (the chief good) cannot be described in words, yet, to avoid the appearance of retreating to an irrefutable position, subjoins a reason in explanation of this difficulty, as even “nothing” might perhaps be explained in words. But as Celsus adduces this to prove that we ought not to yield a simple assent, but to furnish a reason for our belief, we shall quote also the words of Paul, where he says, in censuring the hasty believer, “unless you have believed inconsiderately.”[25] Now, through his practice of repeating himself, Celsus, so far as he can, forces us to be guilty of tautology,[26] reiterating, after the boastful language which has been quoted, that Plato is not guilty of boasting and falsehood, giving out that he has made some new discovery, or that he has come down from heaven to announce it, but acknowledges whence these statements are derived. Now, if one wished to reply to Celsus, one might say in answer to such assertions, that even Plato is guilty of boasting, when in the Timaeus he puts the following language in the mouth of Zeus: Gods of gods, whose creator and father I am, and so on. And if any one will defend such language on account of the meaning which is conveyed under the name of Zeus, thus speaking in the dialogue of Plato, why should not he who investigates the meaning of the words of the Son of God, or those of the Creator in the prophets, express a profounder meaning than any conveyed by the words of Zeus in the Timaeus? For the characteristic of divinity is the announcement of future events, predicted not by human power, but shown by the result to be due to a divine spirit in him who made the announcement. Accordingly, we do not say to each of our hearers, Believe, first of all, that He whom I introduce to you is the Son of God; but we put the Gospel before each one, as his character and disposition may fit him to receive it, inasmuch as we have learned to know “how we ought to answer every man.”27 And there are some who are capable of receiving nothing more than an exhortation to believe, and to these we address that alone; while we approach others, again, as far as possible, in the way of demonstration, by means of question and answer. Nor do we at all say, as Celsus scoffingly alleges, Believe that he whom I introduce to you is the Son of God, although he was shamefully bound, and disgracefully punished, and very recently was most contumeliously treated before the eyes of all men; neither do we add, “Believe it even the more (on that account).” For it is our endeavor to state, on each individual point, arguments more numerous even than we have brought forward in the preceding pages.

Diagnostic Questions

1. According to Origen, what do Jews and Christians have in common?

2. In what ways does Origen show Celsus to be biased against Christianity in his True Discourse?

3. What difference does it make to Origen that Christianity is a “public”

religion?

4. How does Origen use Scripture to refute Celsus?

5. According to Origen, what is the relationship of Christianity to the ideas of Plato?

6. Are there theological tenets in Origen’s defense that hurt his argument?

27. Col. 4:6.

1. This statement comes from a second-century teacher of rhetoric, Zenobius, who compiled a list of proverbs. The meaning is obviously that such things are nonsubstantial and without meaning.

2. Ps. 96:5.

3. Ps. 81:5.

4. At the beginning of this sixth book, Origen states its purpose as follows: “In beginning this our sixth book, we desire, my reverend Ambrosius, to answer in it those accusations which Celsus brings against the Christians, not, as might be supposed, those objections which he has adduced from writers on philosophy. For he has quoted a considerable number of passages, chiefly from Plato, and has placed alongside of these such declarations of holy Scripture as are fitted to impress even the intelligent mind; subjoining the assertion that these things are stated much better among the Greeks (than in the Scriptures), and in a manner which is free from all exaggerations and promises on the part of God, or the Son of God.”

5. In the following chapters we have an example of Origen defending the faith against the strong philosophical tide that was present during this time. Specifically, he addresses Celsus’s use of Plato. Referring to Plato, in this context, was one way to pit a well-known and trusted authority against the authority of the Scriptures.

6. Hos. 10:12 LXX.

7. John 1:3–4.

8. 2 Cor. 4:6.

9. Ps. 27:1.

10. Ps. 119:105.

11. Ps. 4:6.

12. Ps. 36:9.

13. The reason that Origen attributes this speaking to the Logos is that it was thought that the second person of the Godhead was the immanent principle by which God made himself known.

14. Isa. 60:1.

15. Isa. 9:2.

16. Plato, in the Timaeus, from which Celsus quotes and to which Origen refers, argues that the “chief good”(Latin: summum bonum) is the ultimate, transcendental ideal.

17. Ezek. 2:9–10.

18. Rev. 10:9.

19. 2 Cor. 12:4.

20. Rev. 10:4.

21. This, again, is an important point in that Christianity was seen as something novel.

22. In other words, since philosophers employ the Socratic method of question and answer in order to gain wisdom, any who do not employ that method will be devoid of wisdom. Origen responds by showing that Scripture does, in fact, encourage the right kind of questioning.

23. Prov. 10:17 LXX.

24. Ecclus. 21:18.

25. 1 Cor. 15:2.

26. A tautology is a proposition that is true by definition, e.g., “It is raining or it is not raining.”

CHAPTER 8

Athanasius

(ca. 295–373)

Athanasius, sometimes known as St. Athanasius the Great, was a recognized leader in the fourth century. He became bishop of Alexandria in 328. He was the first to have been recognized as doctor of the church by the Roman Catholic communion. He was one of the four great doctors of the church for the Orthodox communion.

Athanasius did not lead an easy life. He grew up during the last and greatest of the persecutions against Christians, which ended in Egypt in 311. He wrote two youthful volumes, Treatise against the Pagans, and The Incarnation of the Word of God, composed during the short honeymoon period after the Edict of Milan and before the onslaught of Arianism. Indeed, he would spend much of his career battling against the Arians, whose theology of the Godhead included refusal to call the Son fully God or fully coexistent with the Father. In 325 the great Council of Nicaea was gathered, where Athanasius argued for what is now the orthodox position. Although Arianism was condemned by the council, Athanasius was later accused of mistreating the Arians. He was deposed from his bishopric in 335. At one point, the Emperor Constantine banished him to Trier, in the Rhineland.

Eventually, Pope Julius the First called a synod in Rome, in 341, at which Athanasius was cleared of all charges. In 346 he returned to become the lawful Patriarch of Alexandria. A sort of golden era was introduced, during which Athanasius pulled together several pieces written during his exile, under the title Apology against the Arians. However, in 350, the Emperor Constantius, supporter of the Arians, banished him once again. He took refuge in various monasteries and continued to write against the Arians and against Constantius himself, calling him the Antichrist.

Upon the emperor’s death in 361, he returned once more to Alexandria, where he called together a council that prepared the way for the full statement on the Trinity later accepted by the church. Athanasius may have been banished as many as seven times in his lifetime. He died peacefully in his own home. Through the centuries he has had his detractors as well as his supporters. It is generally recognized, however, that he made an enormous contribution to the early church.

The Incarnation of the Word of God

Considered by many one of the great masterpieces of patristic writing, The Incarnation of the Word of God is an apology for the incarnation. The text is largely positive, and although he attacks the Jews and the Gentiles for their unbelief, the polemics are much milder than one might expect. This is no doubt a reflection on the date of its composition, ca. 328–333, when perhaps Athanasius could not have imagined the imminent troubles he and the church were about to face. He even rejoices that all opposition to faith in Christ is diminishing day by day.

Not unlike Anselm, he discusses in the first part the reasons for the incarnation and concludes that there was no other way God could be merciful while at the same time holding to his own standards of justice. God alone, through Christ, who is his image, could renew humanity in that image. If the figure on a painting becomes obliterated, the painter must ask the model to come in again and sit for him. Similarly when mankind had obliterated its righteousness through sin and idolatry, God himself came in the flesh to seek and to save the lost.

The sections arguing against Jewish and Gentile unbelief are not particularly original, but they are fresh and lively. Against the attitude of the Jews, Athanasius argues from Scripture that Christ’s coming had been foretold. Against the Gentiles, he argues based on general revelation that idolatry is foolish, and the incarnation answers to human aspirations gone wrong. His material on the reality of Christ’s resurrection is luminous.

The Incarnation of the Word of God

Chapter 1. Creation and the Fall

§1. In our former book (The Contra Gentes)[1] we dealt fully enough with a few of the chief points about the heathen worship of idols, and how those false fears originally arose. We also, by God’s grace, briefly indicated that the Word of the Father[2] is Himself divine, that all things that are owe their being to His will and power, and that it is through Him that the Father gives order to creation, by Him that all things are moved, and through Him that they receive their being. Now, Macarius,[3] true lover of Christ, we must take a step further in the faith of our holy religion, and consider also the Word’s becoming Man and His divine Appearing in our midst. That mystery the Jews traduce, the Greeks deride, but we adore; and your own love and devotion to the Word also will be the greater, because in His Manhood He seems so little worth. For it is a fact that the more unbelievers pour scorn on Him, so much the more does He make His Godhead evident. The things which they, as men, rule out as impossible, He plainly shows to be possible; that which they deride as unfitting, His goodness makes most fit; and things which these wiseacres laugh at as “human” He by His inherent might declares divine. Thus by what seems His utter poverty and weakness on the cross He overturns the pomp and parade of idols, and quietly and hiddenly wins over the mockers and unbelievers to recognise Him as God.

Now in dealing with these matters it is necessary first to recall what has already been said. You must understand why it is that the Word of the Father, so great and so high, has been made manifest in bodily form. He has not assumed a body as proper to His own nature, far from it, for as the Word He is without body. He has been manifested in a human body for this reason only, out of the love and goodness of His Father, for the salvation of us men. We will begin, then, with the creation of the world and with God its Maker, for the first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.

§2. In regard to the making of the universe and the creation of all things there have been various opinions, and each person has propounded the theory that suited his own taste. For instance, some say that all things are self-originated and, so to speak, haphazard. The Epicureans are among these; they deny that there is any Mind behind the universe at all. This view is contrary to all the facts of experience, their own existence included. For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of Mind, though they existed, they would all be uniform and without distinction. In the universe everything would be sun or moon or whatever it was, and in the human body the whole would be hand or eye or foot. But in point of fact the sun and the moon and the earth are all different things, and even within the human body there are different members, such as foot and hand and head. This distinctness of things argues not a spontaneous generation but a prevenient Cause; and from that Cause we can apprehend God, the Designer and Maker of all.

Others take the view expressed by Plato, that giant among the Greeks. He said that God had made all things out of pre-existent and uncreated matter, just as the carpenter makes things only out of wood that already exists. But those who hold this view do not realise that to deny that God is Himself the Cause of matter is to impute limitation to Him, just as it is undoubtedly a limitation on the part of the carpenter that he can make nothing unless he has the wood. How could God be called Maker and Artificer if His ability to make depended on some other cause, namely on matter itself? If He only worked up existing matter and did not Himself bring matter into being, He would be not the Creator but only a craftsman.

Then, again, there is the theory of the Gnostics, who have invented for themselves an Artificer of all things other than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. These simply shut their eyes to the obvious meaning of Scripture. For instance, the Lord, having reminded the Jews of the statement in Genesis, “He Who created them in the beginning made them male and female . . . ,” and having shown that for that reason a man should leave his parents and cleave to his wife, goes on to say with reference to the Creator, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matt. 19:4–6). How can they get a creation independent of the Father out of that? And, again, St. John, speaking all inclusively, says, “All things became by Him and without Him came nothing into being” ( John 1: 3). How then could the Artificer be someone different, other than the Father of Christ?

§3. Such are the notions which men put forward. But the impiety of their foolish talk is plainly declared by the divine teaching of the Christian faith. From it we know that, because there is Mind behind the universe, it did not originate itself; because God is infinite, not finite, it was not made from pre-existent matter, but out of nothing and out of non-existence absolute and utter God brought it into being through the Word. He says as much in Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1); and again through that most helpful book The Shepherd, “Believe thou first and foremost that there is One God Who created and arranged all things and brought them out of non-existence into being.” (The Shepherd of Hermas, Book II.) Paul also indicates the same thing when he says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which we see now did not come into being out of things which had previously appeared” (Heb. 11:3). For God is good—or rather, of all goodness He is Fountainhead, and it is impossible for one who is good to be mean or grudging about anything. Grudging existence to none therefore, He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ; and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men. Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption. This is what Holy Scripture tells us, proclaiming the command of God, “Of every tree that is in the garden thou shalt surely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall not eat, but in the day that ye do eat, ye shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16f.). “Ye shall surely die”—not just die only, but remain in the state of death and of corruption.

§4. You may be wondering why we are discussing the origin of men when we set out to talk about the Word’s becoming Man. The former subject is relevant to the latter for this reason: it was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation that in His great love He was both born and manifested in a human body. For God had made man thus (that is, as an embodied spirit), and had willed that he should remain in incorruption. But men, having turned from the contemplation of God to evil of their own devising, had come inevitably under the law of death. Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore, when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So is it affirmed in Wisdom: “The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption” (Wisdom 6:18). And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, “I have said, Ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes” (Psalm 82:6f.).

§5. This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death; for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption, as also Wisdom says “God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world” (Wisdom 2:23f.). When this happened, men began to die, and corruption ran riot among them and held sway over them to an even more than natural degree, because it was the penalty of which God had forewarned them for transgressing the commandment. Indeed, they had in their sinning surpassed all limits; for, having invented wickedness in the beginning and so involved themselves in death and corruption, they had gone on gradually from bad to worse, not stopping at any one kind of evil, but continually, as with insatiable appetite, devising new kinds of sins. Adulteries and thefts were everywhere, murder and rapine filled the earth, law was disregarded in corruption and injustice, all kinds of iniquities were perpetrated by all, both singly and in common. Cities were warring with cities, nations were rising against nations, and the whole earth was rent with factions and battles, while each strove to outdo the other in wickedness. Even crimes contrary to nature were not unknown, but as the martyr-apostle of Christ says: “Their women changed the natural use into that which is against nature; and the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, flamed out in lust towards each other, perpetrating shameless acts with their own sex, and receiving in their own persons the due recompense of their pervertedness” (Rom. 1:26f.).

Chapter 2. The Divine Dilemma and Its Solution in the Incarnation

§6. We saw in the last chapter that, because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in process of destruction. Man, who was created in God’s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing, and the work of God was being undone. The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape. The thing that was happening was in truth both monstrous and unfitting. It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by Him should be brought to nothing through the deceit wrought upon man by the devil; and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear, either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As, then, the creatures whom He had created reasonable, like the Word, were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than, having been created, to be neglected and perish; and, besides that, such indifference to the ruin of His own work before His very eyes would argue not goodness in God but limitation, and that far more than if He had never created men at all. It was impossible, therefore, that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself.

§7. Yet, true though this is, it is not the whole matter. As we have already noted, it was unthinkable that God, the Father of Truth, should go back upon His word regarding death in order to ensure our continued existence. He could not falsify Himself; what, then, was God to do? Was He to demand repentance from men for their transgression? You might say that that was worthy of God, and argue further that, as through the Transgression they became subject to corruption, so through repentance they might return to incorruption again. But repentance would not guard the Divine consistency, for, if death did not hold dominion over men, God would still remain untrue. Nor does repentance recall men from what is according to their nature; all that it does is to make them cease from sinning. Had it been a case of a trespass only, and not of a subsequent corruption, repentance would have been well enough; but when once transgression had begun men came under the power of the corruption proper to their nature and were bereft of the grace which belonged to them as creatures in the Image of God. No, repentance could not meet the case. What—or rather Who was it that was needed for such grace and such recall as we required? Who, save the Word of God Himself, Who also in the beginning had made all things out of nothing? His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father.

§8. For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world. In one sense, indeed, He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are. But now He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us. He saw the reasonable race, the race of men that, like Himself, expressed the Father’s Mind, wasting out of existence, and death reigning over all in corruption. He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He saw, too, how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled. He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. He saw how the surpassing wickedness of men was mounting up against them; He saw also their universal liability to death. All this He saw and, pitying our race, moved with compassion for our limitation, unable to endure that death should have the mastery, rather than that His creatures should perish and the work of His Father for us men come to nought, He took to Himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did He will merely to become embodied or merely to appear; had that been so, He could have revealed His divine majesty in some other and better way. No, He took our body, and not only so, but He took it directly from a spotless, stainless virgin, without the agency of human father—a pure body, untainted by intercourse with man. He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

§9. The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection. It was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for His human brethren by the offering of the equivalent. For naturally, since the Word of God was above all, when He offered His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for the life of all, He fulfilled in death all that was required. Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all. You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honoured, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled, and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.

§10. This great work was, indeed, supremely worthy of the goodness of God. A king who has founded a city, so far from neglecting it when through the carelessness of the inhabitants it is attacked by robbers, avenges it and saves it from destruction, having regard rather to his own honour than to the people’s neglect. Much more, then, the Word of the All-good Father was not unmindful of the human race that He had called to be; but rather, by the offering of His own body He abolished the death which they had incurred, and corrected their neglect by His own teaching. Thus by His own power He restored the whole nature of man. The Saviour’s own inspired disciples assure us of this. We read in one place: “For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that, if One died on behalf of all, then all died, and He died for all that we should no longer live unto ourselves, but unto Him who died and rose again from the dead, even our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 5:14f.). And again another says: “But we behold Him Who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God He should taste of death on behalf of every man.” The same writer goes on to point out why it was necessary for God the Word and none other to become Man: “For it became Him, for Whom are all things and through Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:9ff.). He means that the rescue of mankind from corruption was the proper part only of Him Who made them in the beginning. He points out also that the Word assumed a human body, expressly in order that He might offer it in sacrifice for other like bodies: “Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself assumed the same, in order that through death He might bring to nought him that hath the power of death, that is to say, the Devil, and might rescue those who all their lives were enslaved by the fear of death” (Heb. 2:14f.). For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and He made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection. By man death has gained its power over men; by the Word made Man death has been destroyed and life raised up anew. That is what Paul says, that true servant of Christ: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Just as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21f.), and so forth. Now, therefore, when we die we no longer do so as men condemned to death, but as those who are even now in process of rising we await the general resurrection of all, “which in its own times He shall show” (1 Tim. 6:15), even God Who wrought it and bestowed it on us.

This, then, is the first cause of the Saviour’s becoming Man. There are, however, other things which show how wholly fitting is His blessed presence in our midst; and these we must now go on to consider.

Chapter 3. The Divine Dilemma and Its Solution in the Incarnation (continued)

§11. When God the Almighty was making mankind through His own Word, He perceived that they, owing to the limitation of their nature, could not of themselves have any knowledge of their Artificer, the Incorporeal and Uncreate. He took pity on them, therefore, and did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of Himself, lest their very existence should prove purposeless. For of what use is existence to the creature if it cannot know its Maker? How could men be reasonable beings if they had no knowledge of the Word and Reason of the Father, through Whom they had received their being? They would be no better than the beasts, had they no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him? But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after the same Image and Likeness. Why? Simply in order that through this gift of Godlikeness in themselves they may be able to perceive the Image Absolute, that is the Word Himself, and through Him to apprehend the Father; which knowledge of their Maker is for men the only really happy and blessed life.

But, as we have already seen, men, foolish as they are, thought little of the grace they had received, and turned away from God. They defiled their own soul so completely that they not only lost their apprehension of God, but, invented for themselves other gods of various kinds. They fashioned idols for themselves in place of the truth and reverenced things that are not, rather than God Who is, as St. Paul says, “worshipping the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Moreover, and much worse, they transferred the honour which is due to God to material objects such as wood and stone, and also to man; and further even than that they went, as we said in our former book. Indeed, so impious were they that they worshipped evil spirits as gods in satisfaction of their lusts. They sacrificed brute beasts and immolated men, as the just due of these deities, thereby bringing themselves more and more under their insane control. Magic arts also were taught among them, oracles in sundry places led men astray, and the cause of everything in human life was traced to the stars, as though nothing existed but that which could be seen. In a word, impiety and lawlessness were everywhere, and neither God nor His Word was known. Yet He had not hidden Himself from the sight of men nor given the knowledge of Himself in one way only; but rather He had unfolded it in many forms and by many ways.

§12. God knew the limitation of mankind, you see; and though the grace of being made in His Image was sufficient to give them knowledge of the Word and through Him of the Father, as a safeguard against their neglect of this grace, He provided the works of creation also as means by which the Maker might be known. Nor was this all. Man’s neglect of the indwelling grace tends ever to increase; and against this further frailty also God made provision by giving them a law, and by sending prophets, men whom they knew. Thus, if they were tardy in looking up to heaven, they might still gain knowledge of their Maker from those close at hand; for men can learn directly about higher things from other men. Three ways thus lay open to them, by which they might obtain the knowledge of God. They could look up into the immensity of heaven, and by pondering the harmony of creation come to know its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Whose all-ruling providence makes known the Father to all. Or, if this was beyond them, they could converse with holy men, and through them learn to know God, the Artificer of all things, the Father of Christ, and to recognise the worship of idols as the negation of the truth and full of all impiety. Or else, in the third place, they could cease from lukewarmness and lead a good life merely by knowing the law. For the law was not given only for the Jews, nor was it solely for their sake that God sent the prophets, though it was to the Jews that they were sent and by the Jews that they were persecuted. The law and the prophets were a sacred school of the knowledge of God and the conduct of the spiritual life for the whole world.

So great, indeed, were the goodness and the love of God. Yet men, bowed down by the pleasures of the moment and by the frauds and illusions of the evil spirits, did not lift up their heads towards the truth. So burdened were they with their wickednesses that they seemed rather to be brute beasts than reasonable men, reflecting the very Likeness of the Word.

§13. What was God to do in face of this dehumanising of mankind, this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of evil spirits? Was He to keep silence before so great a wrong and let men go on being thus deceived and kept in ignorance of Himself? If so, what was the use of having made them in His own Image originally? It would surely have been better for them always to have been brutes, rather than to revert to that condition when once they had shared the nature of the Word. Again, things being as they were, what was the use of their ever having had the knowledge of God? Surely it would have been better for God never to have bestowed it, than that men should subsequently be found unworthy to receive it. Similarly, what possible profit could it be to God Himself, Who made men, if when made they did not worship Him, but regarded others as their makers? This would be tantamount to His having made them for others and not for Himself. Even an earthly king, though he is only a man, does not allow lands that he has colonised to pass into other hands or to desert to other rulers, but sends letters and friends and even visits them himself to recall them to their allegiance, rather than allow His work to be undone. How much more, then, will God be patient and painstaking with His creatures, that they be not led astray from Him to the service of those that are not, and that all the more because such error means for them sheer ruin, and because it is not right that those who had once shared His Image should be destroyed.

What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Saviour Jesus Christ? Men could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image.

In order to effect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption. Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need. Here is an illustration to prove it.

§14. You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as He says in the Gospel: “I came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). This also explains His saying to the Jews: “ Except a man be born anew . . .” ( John 3:3). He was not referring to a man’s natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.

Nor was this the only thing which only the Word could do. When the madness of idolatry and irreligion filled the world and the knowledge of God was hidden, whose part was it to teach the world about the Father? Man’s, would you say? But men cannot run everywhere over the world, nor would their words carry sufficient weight if they did, nor would they be, unaided, a match for the evil spirits. Moreover, since even the best of men were confused and blinded by evil, how could they convert the souls and minds of others? You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself. Perhaps you will say, then, that creation was enough to teach men about the Father. But if that had been so, such great evils would never have occurred. Creation was there all the time, but it did not prevent men from wallowing in error. Once more, then, it was the Word of God, Who sees all that is in man and moves all things in creation, Who alone could meet the needs of the situation. It was His part and His alone, Whose ordering of the universe reveals the Father, to renew the same teaching. But how was He to do it? By the same means as before, perhaps you will say, that is, through the works of creation. But this was proven insufficient. Men had neglected to consider the heavens before, and now they were looking in the opposite direction. Wherefore, in all naturalness and fitness, desiring to do good to men, as Man He dwells, taking to Himself a body like the rest; and through His actions done in that body, as it were on their own level, He teaches those who would not learn by other means to know Himself, the Word of God, and through Him the Father.

§15. He deals with them as a good teacher with his pupils, coming down to their level and using simple means. St. Paul says as much: “Because in the wisdom of God the world in its wisdom knew not God, God thought fit through the simplicity of the News proclaimed to save those who believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). Men had turned from the contemplation of God above, and were looking for Him in the opposite direction, down among created things and things of sense. The Saviour of us all, the Word of God, in His great love took to Himself a body and moved as Man among men, meeting their senses, so to speak, half way. He became Himself an object for the senses, so that those who were seeking God in sensible things might apprehend the Father through the works which He, the Word of God, did in the body. Human and human minded as men were, therefore, to whichever side they looked in the sensible world they found themselves taught the truth. Were they awe-stricken by creation? They beheld it confessing Christ as Lord. Did their minds tend to regard men as Gods? The uniqueness of the Saviour’s works marked Him, alone of men, as Son of God. Were they drawn to evil spirits? They saw them driven out by the Lord and learned that the Word of God alone was God and that the evil spirits were not gods at all. Were they inclined to hero-worship and the cult of the dead? Then the fact that the Saviour had risen from the dead showed them how false these other deities were, and that the Word of the Father is the one true Lord, the Lord even of death. For this reason was He both born and manifested as Man, for this He died and rose, in order that, eclipsing by His works all other human deeds, He might recall men from all the paths of error to know the Father. As He says Himself, “I came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

§16. When, then, the minds of men had fallen finally to the level of sensible things, the Word submitted to appear in a body, in order that He, as Man, might centre their senses on Himself, and convince them through His human acts that He Himself is not man only but also God, the Word and Wisdom of the true God. This is what Paul wants to tell us when he says: “That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth, and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge, so that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:27ff.). The Self-revealing of the Word is in every dimension—above, in creation; below, in the Incarnation; in the depth, in Hades; in the breadth, throughout the world. All things have been filled with the knowledge of God.

For this reason He did not offer the sacrifice on behalf of all immediately He came, for if He had surrendered His body to death and then raised it again at once He would have ceased to be an object of our senses. Instead of that, He stayed in His body and let Himself be seen in it, doing acts and giving signs which showed Him to be not only man, but also God the Word. There were thus two things which the Saviour did for us by becoming Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation.

§17. There is a paradox in this last statement which we must now examine. The Word was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. No. The marvellous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself. In creation He is present everywhere, yet is distinct in being from it; ordering, directing, giving life to all, containing all, yet is He Himself the Uncontained, existing solely in His Father. As with the whole, so also is it with the part. Existing in a human body, to which He Himself gives life, He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole; and He is revealed both through the works of His body and through His activity in the world. It is, indeed, the function of soul to behold things that are outside the body, but it cannot energise or move them. A man cannot transport things from one place to another, for instance, merely by thinking about them; nor can you or I move the sun and the stars just by sitting at home and looking at them. With the Word of God in His human nature, however, it was otherwise. His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time—this is the wonder—as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father. Not even His birth from a virgin, therefore, changed Him in any way, nor was He defiled by being in the body. Rather, He sanctified the body by being in it. For His being in everything does not mean that He shares the nature of everything, only that He gives all things their being and sustains them in it. Just as the sun is not defiled by the contact of its rays with earthly objects, but rather enlightens and purifies them, so He Who made the sun is not defiled by being made known in a body, but rather the body is cleansed and quickened by His indwelling, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

§18. You must understand, therefore, that when writers on this sacred theme speak of Him as eating and drinking and being born, they mean that the body, as a body, was born and sustained with the food proper to its nature; while God the Word, Who was united with it, was at the same time ordering the universe and revealing Himself through His bodily acts as not man only but God. Those acts are rightly said to be His acts, because the body which did them did indeed belong to Him and none other; moreover, it was right that they should be thus attributed to Him as Man, in order to show that His body was a real one and not merely an appearance. From such ordinary acts as being born and taking food, He was recognised as being actually present in the body; but by the extraordinary acts which He did through the body He proved Himself to be the Son of God. That is the meaning of His words to the unbelieving Jews: “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not; but if I do, even if ye believe not Me, believe My works, that ye may know that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.”

Invisible in Himself, He is known from the works of creation; so also, when His Godhead is veiled in human nature, His bodily acts still declare Him to be not man only, but the Power and Word of God. To speak authoritatively to evil spirits, for instance, and to drive them out, is not human but divine; and who could see Him curing all the diseases to which mankind is prone, and still deem Him mere man and not also God? He cleansed lepers, He made the lame to walk, He opened the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind, there was no sickness or weakness that He did not drive away. Even the most casual observer can see that these were acts of God. The healing of the man born blind, for instance, who but the Father and Artificer of man, the Controller of his whole being, could thus have restored the faculty denied at birth? He Who did thus must surely be Himself the Lord of birth. This is proved also at the outset of His becoming Man. He formed His own body from the virgin; and that is no small proof of His Godhead, since He Who made that was the Maker of all else. And would not anyone infer from the fact of that body being begotten of a virgin only, without human father, that He Who appeared in it was also the Maker and Lord of all beside?

Again, consider the miracle at Cana. Would not anyone who saw the substance of water transmuted into wine understand that He Who did it was the Lord and Maker of the water that He changed? It was for the same reason that He walked on the sea as on dry land—to prove to the onlookers that He had mastery over all. And the feeding of the multitude, when He made little into much, so that from five loaves five thousand mouths were filled—did not that prove Him none other than the very Lord Whose Mind is over all?

Diagnostic Questions

1. How does Athanasius use the Logos idea to defend the faith?

2. Note his interactions with Plato.

3. How does he reflect on the Incarnation? How strong is the analogy of the painter and his panel?

4. How closely does Athanasius argue from Scripture?

5. Why was Christ’s death on the cross a necessity?

6. Why was his resurrection necessary?

7. What role does sin play in Athanasius’s arguments?

8. Summarize his polemics with the Jews. With the Gentiles.

1.Against the Pagans. See Athanasius, trans. Robert W. Thomson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 2–133.

2. Here and elsewhere the “Word” of the Father translates the Greek term Logos.

3. Macarius is the name of the young convert Athanasius is here instructing.

CHAPTER 9

John Chrysostom

(ca. 347–407)

From his name, meaning “golden mouth,” we know that John was held in esteem for his eloquent preaching. Indeed, we can confirm this from a good number of his sermons that have come down to us. He was born in Antioch. His parents had considerable influence in the city, which allowed him to benefit from a first-rate education. Early on he acquired a love for the Greek language. He developed considerable skills in rhetoric under the pagan master Libanius, who apparently declared on his deathbed that John would have been his successor if the Christians had not taken him! Thus, as he grew older his deepening Christian commitments led him to study theology under Diodore of Tarsus, the founder of the reestablished School of Antioch, which, along with Alexandria, was one of the greatest centers for biblical exegesis and theology.

A highly disciplined man, John spent two years memorizing the Bible, from a standing position, while almost never eating (and as a result did serious damage to his digestion). Ordained a deacon in 381, then a priest in 386, he grew greatly in acclaim, particularly because of his eloquence as a preacher. He delivered numerous homilies on various books of the Bible. He was known as a fierce critic of greed and opulence, and often preached on our responsibility to the poor. His approach to interpreting Scripture was far more direct than that of Origen and the Alexandrian School, with its tendency to allegorize. Despite this, Chrysostom was cordial to Origen even at a time when Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, attempted to ban his teachings.

In 398 Chrysostom reluctantly became Archbishop of Constantinople. His refusal to engage in sumptuous parties infuriated the wealthy of the city, but endeared him to the simpler folks. Similarly, his reforms of the clergy were met with considerable resentment. In 403 he was charged by the Synod of the Oak with collusion with Origen, then deposed and banished. Owing in part to an earthquake, interpreted as divine disapproval, and the agitation of the people, John was quickly reinstated. But then he was deposed again, for criticizing the erection of a statue of Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Arcadius, near his cathedral. Exiled to Armenia, then to Georgia, he died on the journey to the latter. According to legend, his last words were, “Glory be to God for all things.”

A Demonstration against the Pagans that Christ Is God[1]

The text of Chrysostom’s Demonstration is apparently incomplete. The date is uncertain, and we must rely on both internal and external evidence to come to any approximation.[2] As to the form, the original title uses the term apodeixis, and in the first paragraph John refers to the text as a logos, meaning a dissertation or even a speech. But the length of the document makes it unlikely that it was a sermon, even though sermons did tend to be long. As he stresses in the opening paragraphs, in a way reminiscent of Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Chrysostom intends that the simplest folk understand his arguments rather than that the learned be impressed.

Despite the full title of many printed editions, Demonstration against the Jews and Pagans that Christ Is God, it may be that John was primarily addressing the pagans. To be sure, there are passages describing the Jewish rejection of Christ, and for that matter much of the argument is from prophecy, apostolic witness, and the like. We stress this because John has acquired a reputation for anti-Semitism, largely because of his eight sermons often titled Homilies against the Jews. The sermons are better named Homilies against the Judaizers, however, since the principal audience is not Jews but Christians who continue to emulate the Jewish ceremonial law.[3]This is not to deny some very strong language, no doubt meant to awaken his congregation—references to stubborn blindness, diabolical malice, and those who crucified Christ. Though there were possibly extenuating circumstances in the fourth century, including Jewish support of Julian the Apostate, there is here a theological problem, that of not recognizing the equal complicity of Jew and Gentile in the death of Christ and of not fully understanding God’s impartiality when inviting all sinners to repent and believe.

This text represents an important contribution to the apologetics literature of the fourth century for several reasons. It does not attack heretics. Nor does it focus on christological or Trinitarian issues. In arguing against the pagans, Chrysostom begins with the extraordinary spread of the Christian church around the world in a short time. Only a fully divine and powerful Lord, Jesus Christ, could have unleashed such growth. John then cites Old Testament Scriptures that predicted the remarkable power of Christ. The cross portends the new covenant whereby sins are forgiven and the kingdom of God is brought forward.

Chrysostom also argues from Christ’s own predictions. Prophecies about the church and the destruction of the temple are marshaled as evidence. Indeed the church has withstood persecution and heresy in remarkable fashion. Whereas the Jews are unable to rebuild their temple, the church, founded in Christ’s cross, not only survives but greatly flourishes. Rather than argue from miracles, which the pagans would not believe, John centers all on the divinity of Christ and the benefits of that in the life of believers.

A Demonstration against the Pagans that Christ Is God

from the Sayings concerning Him in Many Places in the Prophets

Chapter I. Argument against the Pagans

(1) There are few people who would find it an easy thing to sustain their interest throughout a lengthy argument. Some men are naturally indifferent or have devoted themselves and all their energy to worldly affairs; others lack education and have but little knowledge of letters. This is why I judged that I would have to do away with your hesitation and to cut down on the exertion that a lengthy discourse would demand of you.

(2) In this way I expect to achieve two results. If I keep my remarks brief, I hope to make the lazy and indifferent ones less lazy and indifferent. If I keep my argument simple, I hope to win over those who have a strong distaste for reading and to get them to listen with full attention to the topic I propose to discuss. I shall not present an explanation carefully embellished with words and phrases. I shall speak in such a way that the house servant, the lady’s maid, the widow, the peddler, the sailor, and the farmer will find my arguments simple and easy to understand.

(3) I shall strive in every way to present my instruction in a few words and to keep it as short as I can in an effort to rouse up both kinds of listless listeners to a desire to hear my words. If I can succeed in this, they will grasp easily and without effort the arguments I present. Once they have stored these in their memories, they will reap profit from them.

(4) First, I shall do battle with the pagans. Suppose a pagan should say: “Where is your proof that Christ is God?” I must first lay this proof as a foundation since everything follows from it. But I shall not draw my demonstration from heaven or any such divine source. For if I say that God created heaven, earth and sea, no pagan will stand for this as proof nor will he believe me; if I say that Christ raised the dead, cured the blind, and drove out demons, no pagan will accept that either; if I say that he promised a kingdom and ineffable blessings; if I talk about the resurrection, the pagan will not only reject my arguments but he will laugh at them as well.

(5) How shall I persuade him, especially if he is ignorant and ill-informed? What source of proof can I use other than one on which we both together agree, one which is undeniable and admits no doubt? If I base my argument on the fact that he created heaven and the other things of which I spoke, the pagan would not find it easy to believe me. What is there which even the pagan admits that Christ has done and which not even he would deny?

(6) The pagan must admit that from Christ came the family of Christians. He must admit that Christ founded the Churches everywhere throughout the world. From these facts I shall furnish proof of Christ’s power; I shall show that Christ is God; I shall maintain that it is not the mark of a mere man to bring under his sway so much land and sea in so short a time; I shall make clear that it is not the mark of a mere human to call men to such lofty deeds, especially men who were preoccupied with such strange customs or, rather, men who were caught in the trap of such an evil way of life.

(7) And still Christ had the power to set the human race free from all these evils—not only the Romans, but the Persians, and simply every race of barbarians. And he succeeded in doing this with no force of arms, nor expenditure of money, nor by starting wars of conquest, nor by inflaming men to battle. He had only eleven men to start with, men who were undistinguished, without learning, ill-informed, destitute, poorly clad, without weapons, or sandals, men who had but a single tunic to wear.

(8) Why do I say that he succeeded in doing this? He was able to persuade so many nations of men to pursue the true doctrine, not only in what concerns the present life but also the life hereafter. He succeeded in winning over these men to drag down their ancestral laws, to tear out their ancient customs, long and deeply rooted as they were, and to plant in their place other ways, which led them from the easygoing life to his own program of austerity. And he succeeded in doing this when the whole world was waging war against him, when they jeered at him and forced him to endure the most shameful death of the cross.

(9) The pagans will not deny that the Jews crucified him and subjected him to countless tortures; they will not deny that he still preaches his message every day. And this message flourishes not only here but also among the Persians, who even today are still waging war against him. For among the Persians, at this very hour, there are multitudes of martyrs. Men who were more savage than wolves hear his message, become more gentle than sheep, and accept the true doctrine on immortality, the resurrection, and the ineffable blessings of the mysteries.

Chapter II. It Was Foretold That Christ Would Be Both God and Man

(1) These successes are not confined to the cities. They have spread to the desert, the villages, the fields, the islands, the ship basins, and harbors. Not only simple citizens and petty rulers but even those who wear the imperial crown have shown great faith and served as subjects to him who was crucified. I shall now try to prove that all this did not simply happen but that it had been predicted long beforehand.

(2) I do not wish you to suspect that what I say had not been foretold. Therefore, I must bring forward as evidence the books of the Jews, who crucified him. I must go through the Scriptures, over which the Jews have kept such careful guard, and set before the eyes of those who are still unbelieving the predictions and testimonies about Christ these books contain. Jeremiah was the first to say that God would become man and still stay God. “This is our God; no other will be compared to him. He has discovered the whole way of understanding, and has given it to Jacob, his servant, and to Israel, his well-beloved. Since then he has appeared on earth and moved among men.”

(3) Do you see how, in a few words, the prophet made it altogether clear that Christ, still remaining God, became man, that he moved among men, and that he is, himself, the Law-giver of the Old Testament? For the prophet said: “He has discovered the whole way of understanding and has given it to Jacob, his servant, and to Israel, his well-beloved.” For here the prophet shows that, before his coming in the flesh, he arranged and disposed all things, that he did all things by giving the Law, by exercising his providence, and by granting to men the blessings of his care.

(4) Listen again to another prophet and how he said not only that Christ would become man but also that he would be born of a virgin. “Behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” The name Immanuel is interpreted as meaning “with us is God.” Then to show that this child, on his appearance, would not be a mere phantom of a man but truly a human being, the prophet went on to say: [“He shall eat butter and honey,” because it was usual for children to be fed these foods shortly after their birth. To make it clear the child was no mere human, the prophet then went on to say:] “For before the child learns good or evil, he will not heed the evil so that he may choose the good.”

(5) We learn, too, that Christ is not only a man and born of a virgin, but also that he is of the house of David. Again listen to how Isaiah predicted this long beforehand, even though his prediction was couched in figurative and metaphorical terms: “But a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse and from his root a flower shall arise. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and piety, a spirit of fear of the Lord shall fill him.” For this man Jesse was the father of David. And it is clear from this that David came from Jesse’s tribe.

(6) So Isaiah predicted that he who was to come will come not only from the tribe but even from the house of Jesse when he said: “A rod will come forth from Jesse’s root.” For the prophet was not simply speaking of the rod but of Christ and his kingdom. The words which follow make it clear that Isaiah did not say this about the rod, for when Isaiah had said: “A rod shall come forth,” he went on to add: “And there shall rest upon him a spirit of wisdom and understanding.”

(7) No man, even if he is extremely senseless, will say that the grace of the Spirit came down on a rod of wood. It is quite obvious that the grace of the Spirit came down on that spotless temple of the Spirit. This is why Isaiah did not say: “It will come,” but: “It will come to rest,” because after the Spirit came, he did not depart but remained. This is what John the evangelist made clear when he quoted the words of the Baptist: “I saw the Spirit descend like a dove from the sky and it came to rest on him.”

(8) And the Gospels did not remain silent about the sentiments which the Jews showed after the child had been born. Matthew said: “When Herod heard this, he was troubled, and so was all Jerusalem with him.” Listen to how Isaiah predicted this long beforehand when he said: “They shall be willing to do so if they were burnt in fire. For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us: and his name shall be called Messenger of Great Counsel, Wonderful Counsellor, God the Strong, the Mighty One, the Prince of Peace, Father of the world to come.”

(9) No one could say this of a mere man, as is obvious even to those who are very eager to show how stubborn they can be. No man from the beginning of time has been called God the Mighty nor Father of the world to come nor the Prince of Peace. For Isaiah said: “There is no end of his peace.” And what did happen makes it clear that this peace has spread over the whole earth and sea, over the world where men dwell and where no man lives, over mountains, woodlands, and hills, starting from that day on which he was going to leave his disciples and said to them: “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”

(10) Why did Christ speak in this way? Because the peace which comes from man is easily destroyed and subject to many changes. But Christ’s peace is strong, unshaken, firm, fixed, steadfast, immune to death, and unending. No matter how many wars assail it, no matter how many plots rise against it every passing day, his peace is always the same. And it was his word, which accomplishes all things, that accomplished this along with his other blessings.

Chapter III. The Prophets Foretold the Manner of His Coming

(1) The prophets foretold not only that he would become man but also they predicted the manner of his coming. He was not going to come in the midst of thunder, lightning, earthquake, or tumult from the heavens. He was not going to stir up any consternation. His birth struck no man with fear, for he was born with no one to witness it, without tumult or confusion, in the house of a carpenter, in an ordinary and undistinguished home. And the prophet David did not remain silent on the manner of his birth when he said: “He shall come down like rain upon the fleece.” By this David showed how peaceful and quiet his coming would be.

(2) Not only did David say this, but another prophet revealed how mild and reasonable he would be in his dealings with all men. See how Isaiah spoke of this. Christ was insulted, spat upon, reviled, outraged, scourged, and finally nailed to a cross. Yet he took no vengeance against those who had done these things but he endured courageously and mildly all the dishonors and plots, all the madness and untimely anger, all the assaults of that mob. Isaiah revealed all this when he said: “A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, until he brings judgment to victory, and in him the nations will put their hope.”

(3) It was another prophet, again, who pointed out the place where he would be born. For Micah said: “And you, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, are by no means the least among the princes of Judah. For out of you will come the leader who will shepherd my people, Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” Micah was pointing out both the divinity and the humanity of Christ. When he said: “His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity,” he revealed his existence before all ages. When he said: “There will come the leader who will shepherd my people, Israel,” he revealed Christ’s birth in the flesh.

(4) And notice here that he makes clear another prophecy. Micah not only said where Christ would be born but also that the place would become well known even if it was a little town and little known. For he said: “You are by no means the least among the princes of Judah.” So it is that now the whole world rushes to see Bethlehem, where he was born and laid in a manger. The place became famous, and there is no other reason than this why people go there.

(5) Again, another prophet made clear the time of his coming, when he said: “A chief shall not depart from Judah, nor a ruler from his loins till he come for whom it is reserved. Even he is the expectation of the nations, binding his colt to a vine and the foal of an ass to the young vine. He shall wash his robe in wine and his mantle in the blood of the grape. His eyes bring the exhilaration which comes from wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.”

(6) See how this prophecy fits what happened, too. For Christ came at a time when the Jewish princes had already ceased to rule and were subject to the empire of the Romans. In this way was fulfilled the prophecy which said: “A chief shall not depart from Judah, nor a ruler from his loins till he come for whom it is reserved,” meaning Christ. For the first registration was held just at the same time that he was born, and this was after the Romans had conquered the Jewish nation and had brought them under the yoke of their empire. Something further is meant by the words: “Even he is the expectation of the nations.” For after he had come, he did draw all the nations to himself.

(7) Herod sought him after his birth; he was going to kill all the children in that place. And the prophet revealed this, too, foretelling it long beforehand when he said: “A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation, mourning, and much weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.” The Scriptures also predicted that he would come to Egypt when they said: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

(8) Christ would work miracles and teach as soon as he came to well-known sections of his own country, and this, too, had been foretold. Listen to the words of Isaiah when he said: “The district of Zabulun, the land of Napthali, a people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light; upon those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death a light arose.” In these words Isaiah revealed that Christ came to those places, that he taught in the lands of Zabulun and Napthali, and that he was recognized by the wonders he wrought.

(9) And Isaiah went on to tell of other marvels and showed how Christ cured the lame, how he made the blind to see, and the mute to speak: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, then will the ears of the deaf hear.” And thereafter he spoke of the other marvels: “Then will the lame man leap like a stag, and the tongue of those with impediments of speech will be clear and distinct.” And this did not happen until his coming.

(10) And the Scriptures made mention of these marvels in a special way. Certainly, on one occasion, when he entered the temple, infants still at their mothers’ breasts, whose tongues were not yet ready to speak clearly, sang sacred hymns to him and said: “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” But the prophet had foretold this long before, when he said: “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise to destroy your enemy and avenger.” Do you see how nature struggled to surpass itself by proclaiming its creator? Do you see how innocent infants, who could not yet use their tongues for speech, undertook to spread the message of the apostles? . . .

Chapter XII. Christ’s Power Proved by His Own Predictions

(1) His predictions were of two kinds. Some are to be fulfilled in the present life; others will come true after the consummation of the world. But the first kind confirmed the second and gave abundant proof that the prophecies about the world to come are also true. Let me give you an example and, by that example, I shall try to clear up any obscurity in what I mean. When only twelve disciples followed him, neither the reality nor even the name of a Church occurred to anyone. The synagogue was still flourishing. Why, then, did he speak of the Church and predict it at a time when practically the whole world was in the grip of godlessness? “Upon this rock I shall build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(2) Put this prediction of Christ to whatever test you wish and you will see that its truth shines brightly forth. For it is a marvel not only that he built the Church throughout the world but that he kept it unconquered even though it was harrassed by so many assaults. The words: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” mean the dangers which beget death, the dangers which lead us down to hell.

(3) Do you not see that this prediction came true? Do you not see the strength of its fulfillment? Do you not see the words shining forth as proved in the light of the facts? Do you not see his invincible power which does all things with ease? Because the words are few—“I will build my Church”—do not simply pass over them. Ponder them in your mind. Think how great a thing it is to fill every land under the sun with so many Churches in so short a time. Think what it means to have converted so many nations, to have won over so many peoples, to have destroyed ancestral customs, to have torn out deep-rooted habits, to have driven out, like dust before the wind, the tyrannous rule of pleasure and the power and strength of evil. People have destroyed their old altars, temples, idols, and rites. They have destroyed their accursed festivals and made the unclean savor of victims disappear like smoke.

(4) They have raised up new altars everywhere, not only in the territory of the Romans but in the lands of the Persians, the Scythians, the Mauretanians, and the Indians. They have even raised up altars beyond the world we live in. The British Isles, which lie beyond this sea and are situated in the ocean itself, have felt the power of these words. For even there churches and altars have been built. That word which Christ spoke in his own day has been planted in the souls of all men and is found on the lips of all. It is just as if land that was filled with thorns has been cleansed and become a cleared field. And this field has received the seeds of godliness.

(5) This is a great thing, truly a great thing. Rather, it surpasses greatness and provides a proof of his divine power. Let us suppose that many men were disposed to work together, and no one was inclined to oppose them. Even under such ideal circumstances, it would have been a great thing that a world as large as this could suddenly be set free from the wicked ways which had preoccupied it for so long a time; it would have been miraculous that it could change over to another and far more difficult way of life.

(6) For two tyrannical factors opposed this change: habit and pleasure. For many years their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, their ancestors, their philosophers, and public speakers had given them a certain way of life. Yet people were persuaded to reject this, even though it was a difficult thing to do. They were also persuaded to accept a strange and very hard way of life which was introduced to replace their old ways. And this was a still more difficult thing to do.

(7) The new way drove them from luxurious living and led them to fasting; it drove them from the love of money and led them to poverty; it drove them from wanton ways and led them to temperance; it drove them away from anger and led them to mildness; it drove them away from envy and led them to kindliness; it drove them from the broad way and the wide street and led them onto a way which was narrow, strait, and steep, despite the fact that they were used to the wide road.

(8) For the Church did not take a different kind of human being who lived outside this world and its ways. It took those very men who had grown rotten here and who had become softer than mud; it told them to travel on the strait and narrow, the rough road of austerity. And it won them over to this way of life.

(9) How many did the Church win over? Not two, or ten, or twenty, or a hundred, but almost every man living under the sun. With whose help did it win them over? With the help of eleven men. And these men were unlettered, ignorant, ineloquent, undistinguished, and poor. They could not rely on the fame of their homelands, on any abundance of wealth, or strength of body, or glorious reputation, or illustrious ancestry. They were neither forceful nor clever in speech; they could make no parade of knowledge. They were fishermen and tentmakers, men of a foreign tongue. They did not speak the same language as those whom they won over to the faith. Their speech—I mean Hebrew—was strange and different from all others. But it was with the help of these men that Christ founded this Church which reaches from one end of the world to the other.

Chapter XIII. The Miraculous Spread of the Gospel Message

(1) And this is not the only wonderful thing. It was also marvellous that these few ignorant, poor, undistinguished, unlettered, worthless men of foreign tongue were entrusted with setting straight the whole world. They were commissioned to lead the world to live a far more difficult life and they did not accomplish this mission at a time of peace but while countless wars were being stirred up against them from every side. And this was the case in every nation and every city.

(2) Did I say every nation and every city? In every home a war was fanned to flame against them. For when their teaching entered a home, many a time it split a son from his father, a bride from her mother-in-law, a brother from his brother, a servant from his master, a subject from his ruler, a man from his wife, a woman from her husband, and a father from his children. For everybody did not all at once accept the faith. Their teaching was harrassed by hatred every day that passed; it stirred up one war after the other and brought death to more men than you could count; it had people avoiding one another as if they were common enemies and foes.

(3) For everybody drove the apostles out. Emperors avoided them, as did lesser rulers, common men, free and slave; whole peoples, entire cities shunned them. Not only did they drive out the apostles but, what is worse, they drove out those who were but newly fixed in their faith, those whom the apostles had instructed. It was one and the same war which was waged against the apostles and their disciples, because people saw that their teaching was opposed to the edicts of their emperors and their ancestral ways and customs.

(4) For the apostles exhorted people to keep away from idols, to scorn the altars at which their fathers and all their ancestors had worshipped, to stand aloof from the loathsome dogmas of their forebears, to ridicule their festivals, and to reject their rituals of initiation. And those people used to think these pagan practices worthy of their deepest awe and fear. They would have laid down their lives for them rather than accept what the apostles said and believe in Mary’s son, the Crucified. After all, had he not stood at the governor’s tribunal, was he not covered with spittle, did he not suffer ten thousand torments, did he not endure an accursed death, was he not buried before he rose again?

(5) The strange and unexpected thing is that everybody knew about his sufferings: the scourging, the thorns driven into his temples, the outrage done to his person by those who spat on him, the blows with which they struck his face, the cross, the many men who scoffed at him, the comic drama staged for every eye, the tomb given to him only out of kindness. Everybody saw his sufferings, but this was not the case with the risen Christ. After he rose again, he appeared only to the disciples.

(6) Even though the apostles told so harsh a story, they still won people over to believe. This is how they built up the Church. How did they do it and by what means? They did it through the power of him who had commanded them to do it. He made ready the way; he made all the hard things easy. If it were not the power of God which accomplished this, the Church would not have had a preface, much less a beginning. How could all this be done?

(7) It was God who said: “Let there be heaven,” and showed forth his work; it was God who said: “Let the earth be founded,” and he produced its substance; it was God who said: “Let the sun shine,” and he showed forth the star; it was God who caused all things to be. And it was the same God who planted these Churches. And that word: “I will build my Church” is what produced all this. For this is the power of the words of God. They create works which are wondrous beyond our expectation.

(8) God said: “Let the earth produce the grassy plant,” and suddenly everything was a garden, everything became a meadow; the earth heard his command and plumed itself with plants beyond number. In the same way he later said: “I will build my Church,” and this was done with the greatest ease.

(9) It is true that rulers armed themselves against the Church, soldiers wielded their weapons on it, whole peoples raged against it with a rage more violent than a conflagration. The Church had to face in battle the ranks of long-established customs; the public speakers, the teachers, the rich, the private citizens, the rulers all opposed it. But the word of God went forth more violently than a conflagration to consume the thorns; it cleansed and cleared the fields; it sowed the seed of the gospel message.

(10) It is also true that, from the ranks of those who believed, some were imprisoned, some exiled, some had their possessions confiscated, some were taken away and cut to pieces, some were given over to the flames, some were drowned in the sea. They endured every form of punishment, they were dishonored, they were driven off, they were hunted out on every side, as if they were common enemies.

(11) But it is also the truth that others came forward in greater numbers. And these were just as ready to suffer despite what the others had undergone. In fact, they were all the more eager and even rushed to meet those who were out to capture them; they saw their arrest as a noble thing. So they were not caught in the nets because they were forced or carried off by violence; they ran into the nets and were grateful to those who were hunting them. When they saw the blood gushing in streams from those who had already embraced the faith, they became themselves more courageous and fervent for the faith.

(12) And this was true not only of the apostles and of their disciples. Some were shackled, some were driven into exile, some were scourged, some were subjected to countless other torments. But other disciples came forward in greater numbers and with a deeper fervor. It was Paul who exclaimed: “So that the greater number of the brethren in the Lord, gaining courage from my chains, have dared to speak the word more freely and without fear.”

(13) Again, in another place, Paul said: “For you have become imitators of the churches of God which are in Judaea, in that you also have suffered the same things from your countrymen as they have from the Jews, who both killed the Lord and hinder us from speaking to the gentiles, that they may be saved.” In writing to the Hebrews, he again had this to say: “But call to mind the days gone by, in which, after you had been enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, knowing that you have a better possession in heaven, and a lasting one.”

(14) Do you see the surpassing power of Christ who effected these results? The Hebrews were undergoing great sufferings but they did not lose heart nor were they distressed. They were even rejoicing and jumping for joy. Paul spoke these words to his disciples because they had joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property. In the book of Acts, Luke was speaking about the apostles who taught the Hebrews when he said: “They came away from the presence of the Sanhedrin rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Christ.”

(15) Again, Paul was speaking of himself when he said: “I rejoice now in my sufferings; and what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ I fill up in my flesh.” And why do you wonder that he rejoiced in his sufferings when he not only rejoiced as he was on his way to endure death but even called upon his disciples to share his joy? And this was the mark of an exceedingly joyous soul. For he said: “I am glad and rejoice with all of you. And in the same way do you also be glad and rejoice with me.” And what happened, tell me, to fill him with such great joy? “As for me, I am already being poured out in sacrifice, and the time of my deliverance is at hand.”

Chapter XIV. Christ’s Power Worked through His Disciples

(1) It was in this way that they founded the Church throughout the world. But no man could have built a single wall if he were stopped or driven away while he was trying to put together a structure of stone or stucco. Yet these men founded so many churches all over the world at the same time that they and their disciples were being slain, imprisoned, hunted down, exiled, and plundered of their property. Their persecutors scourged them, cut their throats, burned them, or drowned them in the sea.

(2) And they did a far more difficult thing than build a church from stones. They built all these churches out of souls and principles, and not with stones. They took souls which demons had driven to frenzy for many years. They won those souls over to free themselves of the demons, to stand aloof from that madness, and to come over to a life of great temperance. And this is a far greater thing than putting together a wall from stones.

(3) And they were still able to do this although they went about the whole world poorly clad, without shoes, having only a single garment. For they had as their ally to assist them in the fight the invincible power of him who said: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Count up how many rulers from that time drew up their lines of battle against the Church; count up how many persecutions they started and how severe these persecutions were. Consider the situation of the faith during all that time when it was newly planted and when the minds of men were all too weak.

Chapter XV. All the Emperors Vainly Persecuted the Christians

(1) The emperors were pagans. Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus and all his successors were pagans, down to the time of the blessed Emperor Constantine. All the pagan emperors waged war against the Church. Some were less harsh, others were more severe, but all waged their wars against it.

(2) Some emperors, it seemed, did leave the Church undisturbed. But they were emperors and obviously pagans and ungodly men. These very facts caused a constant threat of war since other men would ingratiate themselves with the emperors and prove their loyalty by a war against the Church. Yes, men did plot against the Church. But all their plots and assaults were torn asunder more easily than a spider’s web, they were dispersed more swiftly than smoke, they passed over with no more strength than a cloud of dust. Still, these plots did produce many martyrs. But they left the Church treasures that will never perish, columns that will always stand, towers that no force can take by storm. In death as in life, these martyrs have become a source of strength and assistance to those of a later age.

(3) Do you see the power of his prediction? “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Let these words give you faith for the future. Believe that no one will ever get the upper hand over the Church. There was a time when it consisted of only a few men, when it seemed to be an innovation and a novelty. There was a time when the seed of its teaching was newly planted, when there were so many wars and such great battles burst into flame from every side. But these conflicts could do nothing nor did they get the upper hand.

(4) This is all the more true now that the Church has spread over the entire world, every place, mountain, glade, and hill. It has made itself master over land and sea and every nation under the sun. Even if ungodliness still holds sway among a few people, the altars, the temples, the idols, and all such pagan things are gone. Gone, too, are the festivals, the rituals of initiation, the smoke, the savor, and the accursed assemblies.

(5) The Church is great and has spread over the world. Since there were so many obstacles to hinder its progress, how did it have such a glorious outcome, an outcome which bears testimony to its truth? Only through the divine and invincible power of him who foretold these things and then brought them to accomplishment. No one would contradict this unless he be crazy, out of his senses, and deprived of the right use of his reason.

(6) These are not his only predictions; there are other things which he also foretold. And all of these things proclaim his invincible power. For he truly foretold things which would come to pass and then he did bring them to accomplishment. It is impossible that any word he spoke should fail to come true. It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for any of his words or predictions to be proved false. He made this very fact clear, even before the events came to their outcome, and he spoke very clearly about his own words when he said: “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.”

(7) And this was very reasonable. For his words are not mere words; they are the words of God, and such words create works. This is the way God made the heavens, this is the way God made the earth, this is the way he made the sea, this is the way he made the sun, this is the way he made the choirs of angels, this is the way he made the other invisible powers. And the prophet made this clear when he said: “He spoke and they were produced; he commanded and they were created.”

(8) And the psalmist was speaking about all creation together. He spoke of the creation above and below, of the creation perceived by the senses and by the mind, of bodily creatures and those without bodies. As I said before, Christ’s prediction about the Church showed forth the greatness, the scope, and the loftiness of his truth, of his providence, of his goodness, and of his solicitude.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Discuss John’s stated purpose and approach.

2. Do you agree with his apologetic strategy, stated in chapter I, (4): “But I shall not draw my demonstration from heaven or any such divine source”?

3. How effective is John’s argument from the success of the church and the spread of the gospel message, particularly in the face of persecution?

4. Is he anti-Semitic?

5. How convincing are his proofs from prophetic predictions?

1. We do possess a few fragments quoted in later writers from around the same time. The most significant of these is by Quadratus, also addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, also dated ca. 125, and quoted in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 4.3.1–2.

2. For a good discussion of the possibilities, see Paul W. Harkins, “Introduction,” in ibid., 181–83.

3. Thus, Chrysostom, Discourses against Judaizing Christians, trans. Paul W. Harkins, vol. 68 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1985). See also Robert L. Wilkin, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004).

CHAPTER 10

Augustine

(354–430)

We come now to one of the defining thinkers of the church, indeed of Western civilization. Aurelius Augustine lived at the end of the Patristic period, at a time when the Roman Empire became vulnerable and would eventually lose its extraordinary power. Whereas the greatest of the Patristic apologists, such as Justin or Irenaeus, were able to respond to specific challenges, often with eloquence, Augustine situated the Christian faith within a larger metaphysical system. He was thus a theologian who used philosophical knowledge to establish the first full-orbed Christian worldview for the early church. The two works we present here have become major classics in literature.

Augustine’s life has great appeal because he had such a dramatic spirituality, one that he described for us in many places. He portrayed himself as a great sinner, but also one who discovered the love and transforming grace of God. Born in Thagaste, which is situated in the valley of the upper Medjerda River, inland from the seaport of Hippo (now in Algeria), Augustine was ethnically from the Berber people and thus likely of darker skin. His father, Patricius, was of modest means, a pagan until just before his death in 370. His mother, Monica, was a Christian and was celebrated by her wayward son for her perseverance and her fervent prayers on his behalf. Though she catechized him, she refused to have him baptized because he did not respond in faith. By 386, he was ready, and his mother lived just long enough to know about it, dying in 387.

A brilliant student, Augustine was sent first to Madaura, nearby, to study grammar and classical literature and then to Carthage for advanced studies in rhetoric. Following that, he taught rhetoric in Thagaste and in Carthage, becoming quite famous for his brilliant pedagogy. Although he visited various churches, he was not a practicing Christian. He lived with a young woman, never given a name, with whom he had a son, Adeodatus.[1]

Carthage, being a lively seaport, was the place of many religions, some of them exotic. In 373 Augustine joined the Manichaean group, which we have described above. Although at its best Manichaeism respected the Christian faith and advocated a high morality, it also carried a number of deficits that Augustine would eventually discover, causing him to abandon the group. Manichaeism placed a high value on reason, which was one of its draws for Augustine. But when he encountered some of the main advocates of this belief, such as the bishop Faustus, he was surprised by his shallowness and began to be disillusioned. He came to realize that evil was not a substance, but a choice of the will.

Augustine moved to Rome in 383, partly to find better students, and partly because it was the very center of the empire. There he became quite ill and was nurtured back to health by a kindly Manichaean. Yet he gave up on this religion and moved to Milan, staying there two years (384–386) and meeting key people who would be instrumental in his conversion to Christian faith. He did very well there and was able to bring his entire family, including his mother, his concubine, his son, and his best friend, Alypius. He came under the influence of Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, and the influential priest Simplicianus.

Milan was a seat for Neoplatonic philosophy, and through acquaintance with this thought Augustine began to realize the metaphysical possibility of nonmaterial beings. Books 5–8 of his Confessions movingly recounts his release from enslavement to physical passions, his attraction to Neoplatonism, and his conversion to the higher call of the love of God. In the summer of 386 he learned of the conversion of Victorinus from Neoplatonism to Christian faith, and then the conversion of two officers of the emperor’s court. He then found himself in the garden of his house and heard children chanting the refrain, “Take it and read, take it and read,” which he took to be a signal from God. He opened his Bible and stumbled on Romans 13:13–14, which urges us to arm ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ instead of giving in to unhealthy appetites. That moment everything changed for him, and he went to tell his friend Alypius and his overjoyed mother of his final conversion.

After his baptism and after the death of Monica, he went back to Africa and stopped in Thagaste, where he established a monastery for lay people. He was ordained a priest, then the bishop of Hippo (now Bône, in Algeria) in 396. From then on his life consisted in pastoral work, preaching, and writing. His fame grew around the entire Christian world. Many of his theological works were written in the first quarter of the fifth century.

One of his earliest works is On the Freedom of the Will. It is the last of the dialogues written after his conversion and was no doubt begun after his move to Rome in the summer of 387, Monica’s last year. During this early period of his faith he also wrote about vocation, certainty, and the blessed life; then the soliloquies and the immortality of the soul; then The Teacher (De Magistro), ca. 389, a dialogue (often published with On the Freedom of the Will) about the liberal arts’ ability to turn the mind toward spiritual things. De libero arbitrio was completed some six or seven years later (by 395). By that time he was ordained and ministering at Hippo. The book contains most of his principal views, which he would continue to develop throughout his life, including those on human nature, knowledge, his ethics, his understanding of God himself, and so forth.

Augustine wrote prolifically. Like his predecessors, he answered various heresies and heterodox views, often writing powerfully against Manichaeism. He led a polemic against the Donatist group, which attempted to set up a “purer” church in North Africa. Named for Donatus Magnus, the group refused to allow the consecration of any priest or bishop whose faith had wavered during the Diocletian persecutions. Augustine polemicized against Pelagius, the British monk who taught that the doctrine of original sin amounted to fatalism. The debate most remembered between the two is over the subject of free will. Pelagius believed that we have “moral ability” not to sin, and that it is an affront to pray, as Augustine did, “Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire.” Pelagius thus believed that we can cooperate with God for salvation, whereas Augustine taught that everything, including our ability to believe, is a gift of God.

Augustine’s book On the Trinity is considered the outstanding Patristic treatment on the subject. In it he attacks Arius and others who could not confess to the full deity of Christ. He also wrote The Literal Commentary on Genesis, his most significant biblical study. From 413 to 426 he composed his masterpiece, The City of God. Finally, a few years before his death, he reviewed a number of his writings, in chronological order, and issued Retractions. These were not necessarily retractions, but correctives and clarifications on his most important works.

Augustine’s life was never easy. He had issues with several of his colleagues. World events were shaking the Roman Empire. It was natural for some to think that the end of the world had come. Augustine assured them (in his Letters 197–99, written in 418–419) that while Christians should be ever vigilant and ready for their own deaths, no human being knows God’s plan for the end of the world. The Vandals came to Africa and besieged Hippo in May of 430. The aged Augustine died in August of that same year. It is fair to say that no other theologian would have his influence throughout the history of the church. We rightly talk of the “Augustinian tradition,” meaning any theology that stresses the sovereignty of God over all things, especially the working of salvation, and the inability of mankind to contribute anything good to this process. Martin Luther was in this line, as were most of the magisterial Reformers. Protestantism has continued to reflect the Augustinian legacy right up to the contemporary period, including Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Alvin Plantinga. Various Roman Catholics have also continued to manifest his influence. We may think of Cornelius Jansen, Blaise Pascal, and contemporaries such as Maurice Blondel and Jacques Maritain.

The Confessions

Written in 397–400, Augustine’s Confessions (its translations often titled The Confessions of St. Augustine) has come down to us as one of the great masterpieces of Christian literature. Although it contains autobiographical material, it is not principally the story of Augustine. Rather, it is a “confession,” that is, a meditation on or, better, a profession of faith. Its form is somewhat unusual. There are three parts. First (bks. 1–9) is a recounting of how the author wandered from God and his ways, but was forgiven and transformed into a person of integrity. In it we meet a number of the key people who were instrumental in Augustine’s spiritual progress. Second (bk. 10) is an examination of conscience at the time of his writing this profession. This extended book, containing an examination of the memory, also wrestles with the temptations of the flesh, including food, music, and things beautiful in themselves. Third (bks. 11–13) is an extended commentary on the opening verse of Genesis. It contains Augustine’s meditations on God’s sovereignty over all things, including time and history.

Readers may be puzzled by this combination of elements. Augustine is describing not so much his own story as the way he understands God’s merciful government of all things, especially human history, of which he is but a small part. It may be that the Confessions represents the way Augustine recommended instructing catechumens. His De catechizandis rudibus was written a few years later. The pattern would be, first, to show how present and merciful God is, second, what the implications of this might be for a life lived in integrity, and then, third, instruction from the Scriptures.

Whatever the arrangement of the parts may represent, the Confessions most certainly represents an apologetic for the majesty and worthiness of God. The opening lines speak for the whole: “Can any praise be worthy of the Lord’s majesty? How magnificent his strength! How inscrutable his wisdom!” (see Pss. 145:3; 147:5). These are followed by one of the most quoted phrases in all Christian literature: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

As the text moves along we realize Augustine will refute Manichaeism or Neoplatonism not so much by philosophical discourse but by showing their incapacity to satisfy the criteria for a fully sovereign God. His friend Alypius, for example, was beset with lust for the gladiatorial games (bk. 6, sec. 7–8). At first he seemed able to resist going by the strength of his resolve. But then he was lured back to them by his friends. Augustine comments, “The weakness of his soul was in relying upon itself instead of trusting in you.” Eventually, though he learned to trust God for strength, and he was rescued from his madness. We have here not simply a lesson in reliance upon grace, but a critique of the ancient Greek morality, which despite certain strengths could not finally give power to overcome sin.

Through many such anecdotes, as well as with direct argument, the overall thrust of the Confessions is a defense of the Christian gospel as embodied in the Catholic Church. In book 8 he recounts how the faith and the wisdom of Catholics such as Simplicianus and Ambrose were attractive models to him. He also praises the virtues of the monks he met who emulated Anthony and, taking vows of poverty and chastity, were able to deal with their lusts and ambitions. Here, then, and more elaborately in The City of God, he notes the progress of the church in its role as a civilizational force. He argues from God’s ability to tame the soul and to bring persons of little standing or learning alongside the greats of the world into a remarkable fellowship of saints.

The Confessions of St. Augustine

Book I

1. Great art thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is thy power, and thy wisdom is infinite. And man wants to praise you, man who is only a small portion of what you have created and who goes about carrying with him his own mortality, the evidence of his own sin and evidence that Thou resistest the proud. Yet still man, this small portion of creation, wants to praise you. You stimulate him to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find peace in you. Grant me, O Lord, to know and understand which should come first, prayer or praise; or, indeed, whether knowledge should precede prayer. For how can one pray to you unless one knows you? If one does not know you, one may pray not to you, but to something else. Or is it rather the case that we should pray to you in order that we may come to know you? But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? And again, they that seek the Lord shall praise Him; for they that seek shall find Him, and they that find Him shall praise Him. Let me seek you, Lord, by praying to you and let me pray believing in you; since to us you have been preached. My faith prays to you, Lord, this faith which you gave me and with which you inspired in me through the Incarnation of your Son and through the ministry of the Preacher.

2. And how shall I pray to my God, my God and to my Lord? When I pray to Him, I call Him into myself. And in me what place or room is there into which my God should come? How should God come into me, God who made heaven and earth? Can it really be so, my Lord God? Can there be in me anything capable of containing you? Can heaven and earth contain you, heaven and earth which you made and in which you made me? Or, since nothing in existence could exist without you, does it therefore follow that everything that exists must contain you? I too exist. Why then do I ask you to enter into me? For unless you were in me, I could not exist. For after all I am not in Hell—and yet you are there too. For if I go down into Hell, Thou art there. I could not exist therefore, my God, were it not for your existence, in me. Or would it be truer to say that I could not exist unless I existed in you, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things? So it is, Lord, so it is. How can I call you when I am already in you? Or where can you come from to enter into me? Can I find a place outside heaven, and earth so that there my God may come to me? My God who has said: I fill the heaven and I fill the earth.

3. You fill the heaven and the earth. Do they therefore contain you? Or after you have filled them, is there still something of you left over, since they are unable to contain you? If so, when heaven and earth are filled with you, into what do you pour that surplus of yourself which remains over? Or is it not rather the case that you have no need to be contained by anything? You yourself contain all things and it is by containing things that you fill them. For those vessels which are full of you do not, as it were, keep you in a fixed condition; since, if they were broken, you would not be dispersed. And when you are poured out over us, it is not you who are brought low but us who are raised up, not you who are scattered but us who are brought together. You who fill everything are wholly present in everything which you fill. Or can we say that, because all things together are unable to contain you wholly, therefore each thing contains only a part of you? Does everything contain the same part? Or are there different parts for different things in accordance with the varying sizes of the things? That would mean that some parts of you could be greater and some smaller than others. Shall we not rather say this: everywhere you are present in your entirety, and no single thing can contain you in your entirety?

4. What, then, is my God? What, I ask, except the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Or who is God save our God? O highest and best, most powerful, most all-powerful, most merciful and most just, most deeply hidden and most nearly present, most beautiful and most strong, constant yet incomprehensible, changeless, yet changing all things, never new, never old, making all things new; bringing the proud to decay and they know it not; always acting and always at rest, still gathering yet never wanting; upholding, filling and protecting, creating, nourishing and bringing to perfection; seeking, although in need of nothing. You love, but with no storm of passion; you are jealous, but with no anxious fear; you repent, but do not grieve; in your anger calm; you change your works, but never change your plan; you take back what you find and yet have never lost; never in need, you are yet glad of gain; never greedy, yet still demanding profit on your loans; to be paid in excess, so that you may be the debtor, and yet who has anything which is not yours? You pay back debts which you never owed and cancel debts without losing anything. And in all this what have I said, my God, my Life, my holy sweetness? What does any man succeed in saying when he attempts to speak of you? Yet woe to those who do not speak of you at all, when those who speak most say nothing.

5. Oh that I might find my rest and peace in you! Oh, that you would come into my heart and so inebriate it that I would forget my own evils and embrace my one and only good, which is you! What are you to me? Have mercy on me that I may speak. What am I to you, that you should demand to be loved by me? That you should be angry with me, if I fail to love you, and should threaten me with the utmost misery? And not to love you, is not this in itself misery enough? Oh, in the name of all your mercies, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me! Say unto my soul; I am thy salvation. Speak so that I can hear. See, Lord, the ears of my heart are in front of you. Open them and say unto my soul: I am thy salvation. At these words I shall run and I shall take hold of you. Do not hide your face from me. Let me die, lest I should die indeed; only let me see your face.

My soul’s house is narrow for you to enter; will you not make it broader? It is in a state of collapse; will you not rebuild it? It contains things which must offend your eyes; this I know and I admit. But who will make it clean? To whom, except you, shall I cry: Lord, cleanse me from my secret faults, and spare Thy servant from the power of the enemy. I believe, and therefore do I speak. Lord, you know this. Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, and Thou, O God, has forgiven the iniquity of my heart? I contend not in judgment with Thee, for you are Truth. And I will not deceive myself: lest my iniquity lie unto itself. Therefore I do not contend in judgment with you; for if Thou should’st mark what is done amiss, O Lord, Lord, who shall abide it?

6. Yet nevertheless allow me to speak in front of your mercy. I am only dust and ashes, but allow me to speak, since, see, it is to your mercy that I am speaking and not to man, my mocker. You too may smile at me, but you will turn and have compassion on me. For what do I want to say, O Lord, except that I do not know where I came from into this mortal life or (should I say?) into this vital death. Then it was the comforts of your mercy which upheld me, as I have heard from the parents of my flesh, from where and in whom you fashioned me in time; for I myself do not remember. I was welcomed then with the comfort of woman’s milk; but neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts with milk; it was you who, through them, gave me the food of my infancy, according to your own ordinance and according to the way in which your riches are spread throughout the length and depth of things. You also granted me not to desire more than you supplied; and on those who suckled me you bestowed a desire to give to me what you gave to them. Their feelings were so ordered that they wanted to give me something of that abundance which they received from you. For the good that I got from them was good for them—not that this good came to me from them, but rather it came to me by means of them. Since in truth all good things, God, come from you, and from my God is all my health. This I came to know later, when you were crying out to me by means of all those senses and faculties, internal and external, which you bestow on us. Then all I knew was how to suck, to be content with bodily pleasure, and to be discontented with bodily pain; that was all.

Afterward I began to smile; first when I was asleep and later when awake. So, at least, I have been told and I can easily believe it, since we see the same thing in other babies. I cannot of course remember what happened in my own case. And now little by little I began to become conscious of where I was, and I wanted to express my desires to those who could satisfy them; but this was impossible, since my desires were inside me and those to whom I wished to express them were outside and could not by any sense perception of their own enter into my spirit. And so I used to jerk my limbs about and make various noises by way of indicating what I wanted, using the limited forms of communication which were within my capacity and which, indeed, were not very like the real thing. And when people did not do what I wanted, either because I could not make myself understood or because what I wanted was bad for me, then I would become angry with my elders for not being subservient to me, and with responsible people for not acting as though they were my slaves; and I would avenge myself on them by bursting into tears. This, I have learned, is what babies are like, so far as I have been able to observe them; and they in their ignorance have shown me that I myself was like this better than my nurses who knew that I was.

And now my infancy has been long dead, while I still live. But you, O Lord, who are always alive and in whom nothing dies—since before the beginning of the worlds, before anything that can be called “before,” you are and are God and Lord of all that you have created; and in you stand the causes of all things that are unstable; in you remain the unchanging sources of all that changes; in you live the eternal reasons of all that is temporal and will not submit to reason—answer my prayer, God, and tell me, pitiable as I am, be pitiful to me and tell me this: did I have another period of life, which died and was succeeded by my infancy? Was this the period which I spent inside my mother’s womb? I have heard something of this too, and of course have seen women who were pregnant. And what about the time even before then, O God, my sweetness? Was I anywhere, or anybody? For I have no one to tell me this. My father and mother could not tell me, nor could the experience of others or my own memory. Or do you smile at me for asking such questions? Is it your will that I should simply praise you and acknowledge you for what I do know? Indeed I acknowledge you, Lord of heaven and earth, and I give praise to you for my first beginnings and for that infancy of mine which I do not remember, for on this subject you have granted man to guess from others about himself and to believe many things about himself merely on the evidence of weak women. So even then I had life and being, and by the end of my infancy I was already trying to find signs by which I could make my feelings intelligible to others. From what source, O Lord, except from you could such a living creature come into existence? Can anyone design his own creation? Or can there be tapped elsewhere any other vein or source from which life and being can stream into us, except from you, Lord, in whom life and being are not two different things, since for you it is one and the same thing fully to be and fully to live? For Thou art most high and art not changed, and this Today does not come to an end in you; and yet it does come to an end in you, since all times are in you; for they would have no way of succeeding each other, if they were not all contained in you. And since Thy years do not fail, your years are Today. And how many of our years and of our fathers’ years have passed through this Today of yours, receiving from it the pattern and form of the existence which they had; and more still will pass through it, also receiving their pattern and degree of existence. But Thou art still the same, and all things of tomorrow and after tomorrow, all things of yesterday and before yesterday, you will accomplish today and you have accomplished today. What does it matter to me if someone finds this incomprehensible? I should like him too to rejoice as he says: “What does this mean?” Yes; this is the way I should like him to rejoice, preferring to find you in his uncertainty rather than in his certainty to miss you.

7. Hear me, God. Alas for man’s sin. So says man and you pity him; for you made him, but you did not make sin in him. Who can recall to me the sin I did in my infancy? For in thy sight no one is clean of sin, not even the infant whose life is but one day upon earth. Who can recall those sins to me? Surely this is done by every little child I see, since in him I can see what I do not remember in myself. What, then, was my sin? Was it that I cried for more as I hung upon the breast? If I were to do this now (not, of course, crying for the breast but for the sort of food which is suitable to me at my age), I should very rightly be laughed at and blamed. Even in my infancy, therefore, I was doing something that deserved blame, but because I could not understand anyone who blamed me, custom and reason did not allow me to be blamed. For as we grow up we root out and get rid of such childish ways, and certainly I have never seen anyone knowingly throw away what is good when he is cleaning his ground. But can we say that, just for the time being, even such things as these were good: to attempt by crying to get what would do one harm if it was given? To get into a bad temper when people who are responsible and who are one’s elders do not do exactly as one wants? To get angry even with one’s own parents? And with many others too who were wiser than oneself, when they failed to give in to one’s least whim? To strike out and do one’s best to hurt when one’s commands which, if they had been obeyed would have done one harm, were not obeyed? It is clear, indeed, that infants are harmless because of physical weakness, not because of any innocence of mind. I myself have seen and known a baby who was envious; it could not yet speak, but it turned pale and looked bitterly at another baby sharing its milk. All this is well known, and mothers and nurses say that they have various ways and means of dealing satisfactorily with these things. But can one really describe as “innocence” the conduct of one who, when there is a fountain of milk flowing richly and abundantly, will not allow another child to have his share of it, even though this other child is in the greatest need and indeed at this stage depends entirely on this nourishment to keep alive? As it is we put up kindly enough with this behavior, not because there is nothing wrong with it or nothing much wrong, but because it will disappear as the child grows older. This can be proved by the fact that these same faults, if found in an older person, are considered quite intolerable.

You, therefore, my Lord God, who gave me when an infant life and a body which, as we see, you have equipped with senses, fitted with limbs, adorned with its due proportion and, for its general good and safety, have implanted in it all the impulses of a living creature—you command me to praise you in these things, to confess to Thee and to sing unto Thy name, O Thou most Highest. For you are God, Almighty and good, even if you had done nothing else but only this, which no one else could do except you, the one alone from whom is every manner of form, you, most beautiful, the creator of beauty in all things, you who by your law lay down for all things the rule.

So then, Lord, as to this period of my life, which I cannot remember having lived, which I take on the word of others, and which, however reliable the evidence may be, is still a matter of conjecture from the behavior of other infants, I am reluctant to count it as part of this present life of mine which I live in the world; for, so far as the darkness of forgetfulness is concerned, it is just the same as the period of life which I spent in my mother’s womb. But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where I beseech you, my God, where Lord, or when was I, your servant, ever innocent? But, see, I will pass over that time; for what have I to do now with it, considering that there is not a trace of it that I can recall?

8. Evidently I grew out of this state of infancy and reached boyhood. Or should I say that boyhood grew in me, replacing infancy? For infancy did not go away. Where could it have gone to? Nevertheless it was no longer my state. For I was no longer an infant, incapable of speech; I was now a speaking boy. This I can remember, and since then I have observed how I learned to speak. It was not that my elders provided me with words by some set method of teaching, as they did later on when it came to learning my lessons. No, I learned to speak myself by the use of that mind which you, God, gave me. By making all sorts of cries and noises, all sorts of movements of my limbs, I desired to express my inner feelings, so that people would do what I wanted; but I was incapable of expressing everything I desired to express and I was incapable of making everyone understand. Then I turned things over in my memory. When other people gave a particular name to some object and, as they spoke, turned toward this object, I saw and grasped the fact that the sound they uttered was the name given by them to the object which they wished to indicate. That they meant this object and no other one was clear from the movements of their bodies, a kind of universal language, expressed by the face, the direction of the eye, gestures of the limbs and tones of the voice, all indicating the state of feeling in the mind as it seeks, enjoys, rejects, or avoids various objects. So, by constantly hearing words placed in their proper order in various sentences, I gradually acquired the knowledge of what they meant. Then, having broken in my mouth to the pronunciation of these signs, I was at last able to use them to say what I wanted to say. So I was able to share with those about me in this language for the communication of our desires; and in this way I launched out further into the stormy intercourse of human life, though still dependent on the authority of my parents and subject to the commands of my elders.

9. O God, My God, what misery did I experience in my boyhood, and how foolish I was made to look! I was told that, at my age, the proper thing to do was to pay due attention to those who taught me how to get on in the world, and to excel in the kind of literary and rhetorical learning which would provide me with a reputation among men and with deceitful riches. I was then sent to school to become learned, though I, poor boy, had no idea of what was the use of learning. Nevertheless if I failed to work hard at my studies, I was beaten. This kind of discipline was considered very good by our ancestors, and many people before us, who had gone through this way of life, had already organized wearisome courses of study along which we were compelled to go; the trouble was multiplied and so was the sorrow upon the sons of Adam.

But we saw, God, how men prayed to you and, with our limited capacities, we formed an impression of you as of someone great, who was able, even when not present to our senses, to hear us and to help us. For when still a boy I began to call upon you, my Help and my Refuge, and in praying to you I broke through the knots of language; I was small, but it was with no small earnestness that I prayed to you that I should not be beaten at school. And when you did not answer my prayer (thus not encouraging my foolishness), the beatings I had, which were then the great misery of my days, became subjects for merriment among my elders and even among my parents who, of course, wished me no evil at all.

When I think, Lord, of how our parents used to laugh at the torments with which we boys were afflicted by our masters, I wonder whether anyone exists with so great a spirit, with so deep and fast an affection for you (for the same result can be produced by a kind of stupidity)—can there be anyone, I say, so devoutly and closely united to you in feeling who can look at the racks and hooks and different forms of torture, in terror of which people pray to you all over the world that they may be spared the anguish, and can consider these things so unimportant that he can just be amused by those who are so keenly terrified of them, as our parents were by us in our schooldays? For we were just as frightened of our torments and prayed just as earnestly that we might escape them. Yet still we sinned by doing less than was demanded of us in writing or reading or studying literature. It was not, Lord, that we were deficient in memory or intelligence: you were pleased to grant us, considering our age, enough of these. But what we liked to do was to play, and for this we were punished by those who were themselves behaving in just the same way. But the amusements of older people are called “business,” and when children indulge in their own amusements, these older people punish them for it. And no one is sorry for the children; no one is sorry for the older people; no one is sorry for both of them. I doubt whether any good judge of things would say that it was a good thing for me, as a boy, to be beaten for playing some ball game simply on the grounds that by playing this game I was impeded in my studies, the point of which was that I should be able to perform, when I grew older, in some game more unbecoming still. For this was the behavior of the teacher who beat me. If he was defeated on some trifling point of argument by another schoolmaster, he was far more bitter and more tortured by envy than I was if I was defeated in a game of ball by one of my playfellows.

10. And yet I sinned, my Lord God, you who are the controller and creator of all things in nature, though of sins only the controller. I sinned in acting contrary to the commands of my parents and of those schoolmasters. For whatever purpose these preceptors of mine may have had in mind when they wanted me to learn, I could still afterward have made good use of this learning. For I was not disobedient because I was making some better choice, but only because I loved playing; I loved feeling proud when I won and I loved having my ears tickled by false stories, so that they might itch all the more. The same or an even greater curiosity sparkled in my eyes, when I looked at the shows and the games of my elders. And those who organize and pay for these games are so very greatly honored and admired for it that nearly all the spectators would wish their own little children to be like them, which does not prevent them being quite pleased to have their children beaten if, by spectacles of this sort, they are kept away from those studies which, so the parents hope, will result in their being able to produce such spectacles themselves someday. Look mercifully, Lord, on these things, and deliver us who now call upon you. Deliver also those who do not yet call upon you, so that they may call upon you and you may deliver them.

11. While I was still a boy, then, I had heard of an eternal life promised us through the humility of our Lord God stooping to our pride. My mother had great hope in you, O God, and as soon as I came out of her womb I was marked with the sign of the Lord’s cross and was salted with His salt. You saw, Lord, how, when I was still a boy, I was suddenly taken ill with a pain in the stomach and seemed likely to die. You saw, my God, since you were already my Keeper, with what deep emotion and with what faith I turned to the goodness of my mother and of your church, the mother of us all, and begged for the baptism of your Christ, my God and Lord. And the mother of my flesh was greatly moved (since, with her heart pure in your faith, she more lovingly still travailed in the birth of my eternal salvation) and she was already hastening on with the preparations for me to be initiated and cleansed in your health-giving sacraments, confessing you, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins; and so I would then have been baptized, if I had not suddenly recovered. As a result of my recovery my cleansing was deferred, the argument being that, if I went on living, I should become still more defiled, because the guilt incurred in the filth of sin would be greater and more perilous after that washing than before. At that time I already believed; so did my mother and our whole household, except for my father. Yet, though he did not yet believe in Christ, he did not break the hold over me of my mother’s goodness and did not stop me believing. For she earnestly endeavored, my God, that you rather than he should be my father, and in this you aided her and helped her to overcome her husband, to whom, though she was the better of the two, she was still obedient because this is your command and in this she was obedient to you.

I ask you, my God (for I would like to know, if you would like to tell me), what was the reason that my baptism was put off at that time? Was it for my own good that I was given, as it were, more free rein to sin? Or was I not given more free rein? How is it that even now one is constantly and everywhere hearing it said of one person or another: “Leave him alone; let him do as he likes; he is not baptized yet”? But when it is a question of physical health, we do not say: “Let him have a few more wounds: he is not well yet.” How much better, therefore, would it have been, if I had been made well at once and then, by my own care and that of my friends, had managed to bring it about that the recovered health of my soul had been preserved in your keeping, who gave it to me! Surely this would have been better. Yet wave after great wave of temptation seemed to be hanging over me after my boyhood. My mother could see them coming and she preferred to expose to them the mere clay out of which I might afterward be reshaped, rather than the express image itself.

12. Less apprehension, then, was felt about me in boyhood than in adolescence. Yet in this period of boyhood I did not enjoy my lessons, and I hated being forced to do them. However I was forced to do them, and this was a good thing for me, though it was not I who did the good for myself; for I would never learn, unless under compulsion; and no one can act well against his will, even if what he does happens to be good. Nor were those who forced me to learn acting well; the good that was done to me was from you, my God. For my teachers had no idea of how I was to use the education which they forced upon me except for satisfying the insatiable desires of that wealth which is poverty and of that glory which is shame. But you, by whom the very hairs of our head are numbered, used for my good the errors of all those who kept forcing me to learn, and as to me, who was so unwilling to learn, you made use of my error in order to punish me, and I richly deserved it, I, so small a boy and so great a sinner. Thus by means of people who were not themselves acting well, you acted well toward me, and for my own sin you punished me as I deserved. For you have commanded it to be so, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own punishment.

13. But I still cannot quite understand why I hated the Greek which I had to study as a boy. For I was very fond of Latin, not the elementary grammar but the literature. As to the rudiments—reading, writing, and arithmetic—I found these just as boring and troublesome as all my Greek studies. And how can this be explained except from the sin and vanity of life, because I was flesh, and a breath that passeth away and cometh not again? For by means of these rudiments I acquired and still retain the power to read what I find written and to write what I want to write myself; they are therefore undoubtedly better, because more reliable, than those other studies in which I was forced to learn all about the wanderings of a man called Aeneas, while quite oblivious of my own wanderings, and to weep for the death of Dido, because she killed herself for love, while all the time I could bear with dry eyes, O God my life, the fact that I myself, poor wretch, was, among these things, dying far away from you.

What indeed can be more pitiful than a wretch with no pity for himself, weeping at the death of Dido, which was caused by love for Aeneas, and not weeping at his own death, caused by lack of love for you, God, light of my heart, bread of the inner mouth of my soul, strength of my mind, and quickness of my thoughts? You I did not love. Against you I committed fornication, and in my fornication I heard all around me the words: “Well done! Well done!” For the love of this world is fornication against Thee and when one hears these words: “Well done! Well done!” they have the effect of making one ashamed not to be that sort of person. But this was not what I wept for; I wept for dead Dido “who by the sword pursued a way extreme,” meanwhile myself following a more extreme way, that of the most extremely low of your creatures, having forsaken you, and being earth going back to earth. And if I were forbidden to read these things, I would be sad at not being allowed to read what would make me sad. And this sort of madness is considered a superior and richer form of learning than learning how to read and write!

But now let my God cry out in my soul; let your truth speak to me and say: “Not so, not so at all. Those first studies were very much better.” For obviously I would rather forget about the wanderings of Aeneas and everything of that sort than how to read and write. True enough that curtains are hung at the doors of Schools of Literature. Why? Rather as a covering for error than as a mark of the distinction of some special knowledge. These professors of literature, of whom I am no longer afraid, need not cry out against me as I confess to you, my God, what my soul wishes to confess and as I find rest in the condemnation of my evil ways in order that I may love those good ways of yours. There is no need for either the buyers or sellers of literary knowledge to cry out against me. For suppose I were to ask them: “Is it really true that, as the poet says, Aeneas came at sometime to Carthage?” the more ignorant ones will reply: “We don’t know,” and the more learned: “No, it is not true.” But if I ask: “What is the correct spelling of the name ‘Aeneas,’” all who have learned it will give me the correct answer, an answer in accordance with the general agreement which men have made among themselves for the use of these signs. And again if I were to ask: “Which would have the worse effect on man’s life, to forget how to read and write, or to forget all these imaginary stories of the poets?” is it not obvious what everyone not quite out of his mind would reply? I sinned, therefore, in my boyhood when I showed greater affection for these empty studies than for the others that were more useful; or, it would be truer to say, I loved the former and I hated the latter. At that time “One and one make two; two and two make four” was a horrible kind of singsong to me. What really delighted me were spectacles of vanity—the Wooden Horse full of armed men, the Burning of Troy, and “there the very shade of dead Creüsa.”

14. But why, then, did I hate Greek literature, which is full of such things? For Homer too is skillful at putting together this sort of story and there is great sweetness in his vanity; yet when I was a boy he was not to my taste. I think that Greek children must feel just the same about Vergil, when they are forced to study him as I was forced to study Homer. No doubt it was a question of difficulty; and this difficulty of mastering a foreign language was like bitter gall sprinkled over all the sweetness of Greek stories and fables. For I simply did not know the words, and strict measures were taken, punishments and cruel threats, to make me learn them. There had been a time too, of course, in my infancy, when I did not know any Latin words either; yet simply by paying attention I learned Latin without any fears or torments; I learned it in the caressing language of my nurses and in the laughter and play and kindness of those about me. In this learning I was under no pressure of punishment, and people did not have to urge me on; my own heart urged me on to give birth to the thoughts which it had conceived, and I could not do this unless I learned some words; these I learned not from instructors but from people who talked to me and in whose hearing I too was able to give birth to what I was feeling. It is clear enough from this that free curiosity is a more powerful aid to the learning of languages than a forced discipline. Yet this discipline restrains the dissipation of that freedom: and this, God, is through your laws, your laws which, from the master’s cane to the martyr’s trials, have the power to make a blend of healthful bitterness, calling us back to you from these deadly pleasures in the enjoyment of which we become separated from you.

15. Lord, hear my prayer: let my soul not faint under your discipline, and let me not faint in confessing to you those acts of mercy of yours by means of which you have drawn me from all those most evil ways of mine, so that you may become to me something sweeter than all these alluring pleasures that I used to follow, and so that I may love you with all my strength and clasp your hand with the fullest affection, and you may still draw me away from every temptation now and to the end. For see, Lord, my King and my God, I would wish everything useful which I learned as a boy to be used in your service—speaking, reading, writing, arithmetic, all. For you granted me your discipline when I was learning useless things, and you have forgiven me my sin in enjoying those things. Certainly in these studies I did learn a number of useful words: but I could have learned them just as well in studies that were not useless; and that is the safe path along which boys should go.

16. But how one must condemn the river of human custom! Who can stand firm against it? When will it ever dry up? How long will it continue to sweep the sons of Eve into that huge and fearful ocean which can scarcely be passed even by those who have the mark of the Cross upon their sails? Was it not here, in this stream of custom, that I read of Jupiter thundering at one moment and committing adultery the next? Undoubtedly he could not do both these things; but the idea was this: that a false notion of thunder should be used as a bawd to give countenance to real adultery. And which of our long-robed professors nowadays would listen seriously to one of his own school (like Cicero) who cried out: “These were Homer’s fictions. He merely gave human qualities to the gods. How I wish he had given divine qualities to men!” Though in fact it is truer to say: “Certainly these were fictions of Homer, but his method was to give something of the divine to wicked men, so that crimes should not be called crimes and that whoever was guilty of such things might appear to be following in the footsteps, not of abandoned men, but of the heavenly gods.”

Nevertheless into this hellish river of custom the sons of men are hurled, and much money is spent on acquiring this learning; a great thing is made of it when it is advertised in the forum and laws are there written down for men to see which fix extra salaries for the teachers in excess of the normal scholar’s fees, and this river of custom dashes against the rocks and roars out: “This is where you can learn words. This is where you can learn that art of eloquence which is so essential for gaining your own ends and for expressing your own opinions.” As though we should never have learned such words as “shower” and “golden” and “lap” and “beguile” and “temples of the sky” and the others which occur in the passage I am thinking of, if it had not been for the fact that Terence had put into one of his plays a worthless young man who regards Jupiter as an example to himself of how to seduce people. He is looking at a painted fresco

which told how Love descended in a golden shower to Danae’s lap and so a woman was beguiled.

And then observe how he excites himself to lust, as though he had an example for it among the gods.

What God? Why, he who shakes the temples of the sky with his own thunder. Am not I, mere man, allowed to do the same? I did; and I enjoyed it too.

Most certainly this disgraceful sentiment does not make the words any easier to learn; it is rather the case that by means of such words disgraceful actions are committed with more confidence. Not that I blame the words themselves; they are like choice and valuable vessels. What I blame is the wine of error which is put into them; and then our drunken teachers raise their glasses to us and, if we do not drink to them too, we get beaten for it, without any chance of appealing to any sober judge. Yet, my God (in whose sight I may now safely recall all this), I myself (poor wretch) took easily to these studies and indeed was delighted with them and for that reason was considered a most promising boy.

17. Allow me, my God, to say something of my intelligence, which was your gift to me, and of how I wasted it on mere stupidities. I remember how I was set some work, which was troublesome enough to my spirit, but it was a matter which would be rewarded either by praise or by disgrace, and indeed one might have to fear a beating too. The work set was that I should declaim a speech supposed to be made by Juno when she was sad and indignant at the fact that she was unable

From Italy to turn the Trojan King.

I had been told that Juno in fact had never uttered these words, but we were forced to go wandering ourselves in the tracks of these poetic fictions, and to turn into prose for declamation what the poet had expressed in verse. And the declaimer who won most applause was the one who, while preserving the dignity of the character he was representing, gave in his performance the best imitation of the passions of anger and grief and found the most appropriate words to express his meaning. What was all this to me, my God and my true life? What did it matter that when I declaimed I won more praise for it than so many others of my own age and class? Is not all this mere smoke and wind? And was there really no other subject on which I could have employed my tongue and exercised my intelligence? Indeed there was. I might have praised you, Lord, and your praises through your Scriptures could have supported the tender shoot of my spirit, so that it would not have draggled shamefully on the ground among these empty trifles, a prey to the birds of the air. For there is more than one way to sacrifice to the fallen angels.

18. However, considering the kind of men who were set up as models for me to imitate, it is no wonder that I was swept away into vanities and that I went out of your presence, my God. These men would be thought little of and would be thoroughly abashed if, while relating some of their own actions which were not at all bad, they made use of some solecism or barbarism of speech; but if they told the story of their lusts in a neat, well-decorated style and with an apt use of words, they would be praised for it by others and would take pride in it themselves. You see these things, Lord, and you remain silent, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and in truth. But will you always be silent? And even now you will draw out of this horrible pit the soul that seeks for you and that thirsts for your pleasures, whose heart saith unto Thee: I have sought Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek. For to be in a darkness of affection is to be far from you. We do not go from you or return to you on foot or by spatial measurement. Nor did that younger son in the Gospel get horses for himself or chariots or ships; he did not fly away on any visible wings or travel by any motion of the limbs in order that in a far country he might waste in riotous living what you gave him at his departure. A loving father you were to him by your gifts, and more loving still when he returned empty-handed. In lust, therefore, that is to say, in the darkness of affection, is the real distance from your face.

Look down, my Lord God, and, as you always do, look down with patience on how the sons of men most carefully observe the agreed rules of letters and syllables which they received from those who spoke before them and yet pay no attention to the eternal covenant of everlasting salvation which they received from you. Indeed it is true that a teacher and learner of these traditional rules of pronunciation would cause more offense if he were to break the grammarians’ laws and say “’uman being,” without the aspirate, than if, being a human being himself, he were to break your laws and hate another human being. As if one could suffer more harm from any enemy than one suffers from the hatred which one feels against him; or as if one could do more harm to an enemy by any kind of persecution than one does to one’s own soul by the mere act of hating. Certainly no kind of literary learning comes so close to one as does this verdict of conscience: “You are doing to someone else what you would not like to have done to you.” How secret you are, dwelling silently in the Highest, God only great, whose never-flagging justice scatters the punishment of blindnesses over unlawful desires! A man who is trying to win a reputation as a good speaker will, in front of a human judge and surrounded by a crowd of human beings, attack his opponent with the utmost fury and hatred, and he will take great care to see that by some slip of the tongue he does not mispronounce the word “human”; but he will not be concerned as to whether his rage and fury may have the effect of utterly destroying a real human being.

19. It was on the verge of this sort of life that I, poor wretch, stayed dotingly in my boyhood; this was my field of exercise and ambition, one where I was more frightened of committing a barbarism than I was careful to avoid, once I had committed one, envying those who had not. I tell you these things, my God, in my confession, and these were the things for which I was praised by people whose good opinion then meant to me the same thing as living a good and proper life. For I could not see the foul abyss into which, far from your eyes, I had been cast out. And in your eyes what could be more disgusting than I was—I who was disapproved of by people like myself, because of the innumerable lies I told to deceive my tutor and my masters and my parents: all for love of play, eagerness to watch worthless shows, and a restless hankering to imitate them?

I also was a thief, stealing things from my parents’ larder or table, either out of sheer gluttony or in order to have something to give to the other boys, who liked being paid to play with me, though they enjoyed the play just as much as I did. In these games too I often used to try to overcome my rivals by cheating, all the time being overcome myself by the empty desire to be thought the best. But if I caught someone else cheating me, I simply could not abide it and would attack him in the most savage language for doing just what I had been doing to others. And if I was caught cheating myself and blamed for it in the same way, I preferred to get into a rage rather than to yield and submit.

Is this what is called “the innocence of boyhood”? Not so, Lord, not so. I beg your leave, my God. For it is just these same sins which, as the years pass by, become related no longer to tutors, schoolmasters, footballs, nuts, and pet sparrows, but to magistrates and kings, gold, estates, and slaves; just as in later years punishments are more severe than the schoolmaster’s cane. It must, therefore, have been the low stature of children, O our King, which you used as a sign of humility and commended in the words: of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

20. Yet, Lord, even if it had been your will for me to have advanced no further than boyhood, my thanks would still be due to you, our God, most excellent and most good, Creator and Governor of the universe. For even then I had a being; I lived and I felt; I took care for my own security (which is a sign of that mysterious Unity from which I had my being); by my inward sense I watched over the integrity of my outer senses; even in these little things and in my thoughts about these little things truth delighted me. I hated to be deceived; I had a vigorous memory; I was educated in speech; and I was made tractable by kindness. I avoided pain, meanness, ignorance. How wonderful and how praiseworthy are all these things in such a little living creature! But all these things are the gifts of my God; it was not I who gave them to myself, and they are good and all of them together am I. Good, therefore, is He who made me, and He is my good, and in Him I rejoice for all those good things which even as a boy I had. For my sin was in this—that I looked for pleasures, exaltations, truths not in God Himself but in His creatures (myself and the rest), and so I fell straight into sorrows, confusions, and mistakes. I thank you, my sweetness and my glory and my confidence, my God, I thank you for your gifts. But I pray you to preserve them for me; so you will preserve me and those things which you gave me will be increased and brought to perfection, and I myself shall be with you; for my very being is your gift.

Book VI

1. Hope of mine from my youth, where were you and where had you gone from me? Was it not you who had created me and distinguished me from the beasts of the field and made me wiser than the birds of the air? Yet I walked through shadows and on slippery ways, and I searched for you outside me and did not find the God of my heart. I had come to the depths of the sea, and I had no confidence or hope of discovering the truth.

By this time my mother had joined me. Her piety had given her strength and she had followed me over land and sea, confident in you throughout all dangers. In the perils of the sea it was she who put fresh heart into the sailors although as a rule it is for the sailors to reassure the passengers who are inexperienced on the high seas. But she promised them that they would get safely to land because you had promised this to her in a vision. She found me in grave danger indeed, my danger being that of despairing of ever discovering the truth. I told her that, though I was not yet a Catholic Christian, I was certainly no longer a Manichaean; but she showed no great signs of sight, as though at some unexpected piece of news, because she already felt at ease regarding that particular aspect of my misery; she bewailed me as one dead, certainly, but as one who would be raised up again by you; she was in her mind laying me before you on the bier so that you might say to the widow’s son: “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise,” and he should revive and begin to speak and you should give him to his mother. So her heart was shaken by no storm of exultation when she heard that what she had daily begged you with her tears should happen had in so large a part taken place—that I was now rescued from falsehood, even though I had not yet attained the truth. She was indeed quite certain that you, who had promised her the whole, would give her the part that remained, and she replied to me very calmly and with a heart full of confidence that she believed in Christ that, before she departed from this life, she would see me a true Catholic. So much she said to me. But to you, fountain of mercies, she poured out her prayers and her tears more copiously than before, begging you to hasten your help and to lighten my darkness, and she would hurry more eagerly than ever to church and hang upon the words of Ambrose, praying for the fountain of that water, which springeth up into life everlasting. For she loved that man as though he were an angel of God, because she knew that it was through him that I had been brought for the time being to this doubtful wavering state of mind, and she was perfectly certain that I would pass through this from sickness to health, though before then I should be exposed to a more serious attack, like that which doctors call “the crisis.”

2. There was an occasion when my mother had brought, as was her custom in Africa, cakes and bread and wine to some of the chapels built in memory of the saints and was forbidden to do this by the doorkeeper. When she found that it was the bishop who had forbidden this practice, she accepted his ban so devoutly and so willingly that I myself was amazed to see how much more readily now she would condemn her own practice of the past than dispute the bishop’s prohibition. For her soul was not a victim to the craving for wine, and no liking for wine stimulated her into a hatred for the truth—a thing which happens to many people of both sexes who are just as disgusted by a hymn of sobriety as real drunkards are if their wine is mixed with water. But when my mother brought her basket with the festive meats, which were first to be tasted by her and then given away, she never took more than one small cup well watered down to suit her sober taste, and this was just for the sake of courtesy. And if there were many memorial chapels which she thought ought to be honored in this way, she still carried this same cup around with her to be used at each place; in the end it would be not only nearly all water, but also lukewarm, and she would share this out in small sips with those around her; for she came then to look for piety, not for pleasure. But when she found that that famous preacher and that great example of piety had forbidden the practice even to those who used it soberly—so that drunkards should not be given an occasion for excess and also because this kind of anniversary funeral feast is very much like the superstitious ceremony of the pagans—she most willingly gave up her old habit. Instead of a basket filled with the fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to the chapels of the Martyrs a breast full of something much purer, her prayers. So she was able to give what she could spare to the poor, and so the communion of the Lord’s body might be celebrated in those places where, in imitation of His passion, the martyrs had lost their lives and won their crowns.

And yet it seems to me, my Lord God—and on this matter my heart lies open in your sight—that in abandoning this old custom of hers my mother might possibly not have given way so easily if the prohibition had come from someone else whom she did not love as she loved Ambrose. For she loved him very greatly on account of my salvation, and he loved her for her religious way of life; for she was always doing good works, was fervent in spirit, and constantly at church. So that when he saw me he often used to burst forth in her praises, congratulating me on having such a mother, though he was unaware of what sort of a son she had in me—one who was in doubt on all these matters and who thought that there was no possibility of finding the way of life.

3. I was not yet groaning in prayer for you to help me. My mind was intent on inquiry and restless in dispute. I considered Ambrose himself, who was honored by people of such importance, a lucky man by worldly standards; only his celibacy seemed to me rather a burden to bear. But I could neither guess nor tell from my own experience what hope he had within him, what were his struggles against the temptations of his exalted position, what solace he found in adversity; nor could I tell of that hidden mouth of his (the mouth of his heart), what joys it tasted in the rumination of your bread. And he on his side did not know of the turmoil in which I was or the deep pit of danger before my feet. I was not able to ask him the questions I wanted to ask in the way I wanted to ask them, because I was prevented from having an intimate conversation with him by the crowds of people, all of whom had some business with him and to whose infirmities he was a servant. And for the very short periods of time when he was not with them, he was either refreshing his body with necessary food or his mind with reading. When he was reading, his eyes went over the pages and his heart looked into the sense, but voice and tongue were resting. Often when we came to him (for no one was forbidden to come in, and it was not customary for visitors even to be announced) we found him reading, always to himself and never otherwise; we would sit in silence for a long time, not venturing to interrupt him in his intense concentration on his task, and then we would go away again. We guessed that in the very small time which he was able to set aside for mental refreshment he wanted to be free from the disturbance of other people’s business and would not like to have his attention distracted; also we thought that he might be taking precautions in case, if he read aloud in the presence of some eager and interested person, he might have to give a lecture on the obscure points in the author whom he was reading, or enter into a discussion on the questions of difficulty, with the result that, after he had spent time on this, he would not be able to read as many books as he wanted to read. Though perhaps a more likely reason for his reading to himself was that he wanted to preserve his voice, which grew tired very easily. But whatever his reason was for acting in this way it would certainly be a good one.

Anyhow, I was given no chance of making the inquiries I wished to make from that holy oracle of yours, his breast. I could only ask things that would not take long in the hearing. But I needed to find him with plenty of time to spare if I was to pour out to him the full flood of agitation boiling up inside me, and I could never find him like this. Yet every Sunday I listened to him rightly preaching to the people the word of truth, and I became more and more sure that all those knots of cunning calumny which, in their attacks on the holy books, my deceivers had tied could be unraveled. In particular I discovered that the phrase “man, created by Thee, after Thine own image” was not understood by your spiritual children, whom you have made to be born again by grace through the Catholic mother, in such a way as to mean that you are bounded by the shape of a human body. And although I had not the faintest or most shadowy notion about what a spiritual substance could be, nevertheless with a kind of pleasant shame I blushed to think of how for all these years I had been barking not against the Catholic faith but against figments of carnal imaginations. And indeed I had been rash and impious; for I had spoken in condemnation of things which I ought to have taken the trouble to find out about. But you, the highest, and the nearest, most hidden and most present, have no limbs or parts greater and smaller; you are everywhere in your entirety, yet limited by no particular space; you are not of any bodily form, yet you made man “after your own image” and, see, man is in space from head to foot.

4. Being ignorant, then, of how this image of yours could subsist, I ought to have knocked at the door and asked in what sense the doctrine was to be believed, instead of insulting and attacking what I assumed to be the accepted doctrine. And so my anxiety as to what I could hold for certain gnawed at my inmost heart all the more keenly as I felt the more ashamed of myself for having been so long deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties and then having, with a quite childish inaccuracy and enthusiasm, gone on and on proclaiming uncertainties as though they were truths. That they were actual falsehoods only became clear to me later. What was certain was that they were uncertain and that I for some time had accepted them as certainties when, in my blind zeal for contention, I was attacking your Catholic Church. I had not yet discovered that this Church was teaching the truth, but at least I now knew that it was not teaching the things which I had so vigorously attacked. So I was both confounded and converted, and I was glad, my God, that your only Church, the body of your only son—that Church in which the name of Christ had been put upon me as an infant—was not flavored with this childish nonsense and did not, in her healthy doctrine, maintain the view that you, the Creator of all things, could be, in the form of a human body, packed into a definite space which, however mighty and large, must still be bounded on all sides.

I was glad too that the old Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets were set before me in such a way that I could now read in a different spirit from that which I had had before, when I used to criticize your holy ones for holding various views which, plainly, they never held at all. And I was happy when I heard Ambrose in his sermons, as I often did, recommend most emphatically to his congregation this text as a rule to go by: The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. So he would draw aside the veil of mystery and explain in a spiritual sense the meanings of things which, if understood literally, appeared to be teaching what was wrong. And I could raise no objections to what he said, even though I was still not sure whether what he said was true or not. I held my heart back from positively accepting anything, since I was afraid of another fall, and in this condition of suspense I was being all the more killed. I wanted to be just as certain about things which I could not see as I was certain that seven and three make ten. For I was not quite mad enough as to think that even this proposition is beyond our comprehension; but I did demand the same degree of certainty with regard to other things, whether they were material things not present to my senses or spiritual things, of which I could form no conception except in material terms. By believing I might have been cured, so that the sight of my mind would be clearer and might be somehow or other directed toward your truth which is the same forever and in no point fails. But it was the same with me as with a man who, having once had a bad doctor, is afraid of trusting himself even to a good one. So it was with the health of my soul, which could not possibly be cured except by believing, but refused to be cured for fear of believing something falser. So I resisted your hands, for it was you who prepared the medicines of faith and applied them to the diseases of the world and gave them such potency.

5. From now on, however, I began to prefer the Catholic faith. In requiring belief in what was not demonstrated (and this includes both things that cannot be proved at all and things which, though capable of being proved, cannot be proved to everyone) I felt that the Catholic faith showed more modesty and more honesty than did the Manichees, who made rash promises of certain knowledge, derided credulity, and then produced a lot of fabulous absurdities in which we were required to believe because they were not susceptible of proof. Finally it was you, Lord, who with your most tender and merciful hand gradually laid hold upon my heart and settled it in calm. I considered what a countless number of things there were which I believed though I had not seen them and had not been present when they had taken place—so many historical events, so many facts about countries and cities which I had never seen, so many things told me by friends, by doctors, by one man or another man—and unless we believed these things, we should get nothing done at all in this life. Then in particular I considered how fixed and unalterable was the belief I held that I was the son of a particular father and mother, a thing which I could not possibly know unless I had believed it on the word of others. And so by these considerations you led me to see that the people to be blamed were not those who believed in those books of yours, which you have established with such authority in nearly every nation of the world, but those who did not believe in them, and that I ought not to pay any attention to anyone who might say to me: “How do you know that those books were bestowed on mankind by the spirit of the one true and most true God?” It was indeed just this point which in particular must be believed. Since however much I might be assaulted by calumnious questionings (and I had read much in the works of philosophers as they contradicted each other), nothing could shake these two beliefs—first, that you exist (though, I did not know what your nature was), and secondly, that the government of human affairs is in your hands. I believed this sometimes more and sometimes less strongly. Nevertheless, I always did believe that you exist and that you have a care for us, even though I did not know what to think about your substance or what way leads, or leads back, to you. So, since we were too weak to discover truth by pure reason and therefore needed the authority of Holy Writ, I now began to believe that you could not possibly have given such supreme authority to these Scriptures all over the world, unless it had been your wish that by means of them men should both believe in you and seek after you.

6. I panted for honors, for money, for marriage, and you were laughing at me. I found bitterness and difficulty in following these desires, and your graciousness to me was shown in the way you would not allow me to find anything sweet which was not you. Look into my heart, Lord; for it was you who willed me to remember all this and to confess it to you. And let my soul cling to you now that you have freed it from that gripping birdlime of death! How unhappy it was then! And you pricked its wound on the quick, so that it might leave everything else and turn to you, who are above all things and without whom all things would be nothing—so that it might turn to you and be cured. I was unhappy indeed, and you made me really see my unhappiness. It was on a day when I was preparing a speech to be delivered in praise of the emperor; there would be a lot of lies in the speech, and they would be applauded by those who knew that they were lies. My heart was all wrought up with the worry of it all and was boiling in a kind of fever of melting thoughts. I was going along one of the streets of Milan when I noticed a poor beggar; he was fairly drunk, I suppose, and was laughing and enjoying himself. It was a sight which depressed me, and I spoke to the friends who were with me about all the sorrows which come to us because of our own madness. I thought of how I was toiling away, spurred on by my desires and dragging after me the load of my unhappiness and making it all the heavier by dragging it, and it seemed to me that the goal of this and all such endeavors was simply to reach a state of happiness that was free from care; the beggar had reached this state before us, and we, perhaps, might never reach it at all. With the few pennies that he had managed to beg he had actually obtained what I, by so many painful turns and such devious ways, was struggling to reach—namely, the joy of a temporary happiness. No doubt the beggar’s joy was not true joy; but it was a great deal truer than the joy which I, with my ambition, was seeking. And undoubtedly he was happy while I was worried; he was carefree while I was full of fears. And if I were asked which I would prefer, to be merry or to be frightened, I should reply “to be merry.” But if I were asked next whether I would prefer to be a man like the beggar or a man like I then was myself, I should choose to be myself, worn out as I was with my cares and my fears. Was not this absurd? Was there any good reason for making such a choice? For I had no right to put myself in front of the beggar on the grounds that I was more learned than he, since I got no joy out of my learning. Instead I used it to give pleasure to men—not to teach them, only to please them. And therefore you were breaking my bones with the rod of your discipline.

So I will not allow my soul to listen to those who say to her: “The difference is in the source of a man’s happiness. That beggar found his joy in being drunk, you were looking for your joy in winning glory.” What glory, Lord? A glory that was not in you. For just as the beggar’s joy was not true joy, so my glory was not true glory. Moreover it had a worse effect on my mind. The beggar would sleep off his drunkenness that very night; but I had gone to bed with mine and woken up with it day after day after day and I should go on doing so. Certainly it makes a difference what is the source of a man’s happiness. I know it does. And the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond all such vanity. Yes, and so was the beggar then beyond me; without any doubt he was the happier, not only because he was drenched in merriment while I [was] eaten up with anxieties, but also because he by wishing people good luck had got some wine for himself while I by lying was seeking for an empty bubble of praise.

I said much along these lines to my intimate friends at the time, and I often noticed that it was the same with them as it was with me, and I found that things were not at all well with me, and I worried about it and by worrying made matters twice as bad, and if fortune seemed to smile on me at all, I felt too tired to grasp my opportunity, for it fled away almost before I could take hold of it.

7. All of us who were friends together were depressed by these thoughts. The ones I talked to most about it were Alypius and Nebridius. Alypius was born in the same town as I, and his parents were important people there. He was younger than I. Indeed he had studied under me when I began teaching in our town and later in Carthage. He was very fond of me, because he thought me good and learned, and I was very fond of him because of his natural tendency toward virtue which was really remarkable in one so young. Nevertheless, he had been sucked into the whirlpool of Carthaginian bad habits, and in particular the empty enthusiasm for shows in the Circus. At the time when he was becoming involved in this wretched passion I had set up as a teacher of rhetoric there with a school open to the public, but he did not come to me as a pupil because of some difference which had arisen between his father and me. I had found out that he had got this fatal passion for the Circus and I was greatly disturbed about it, because it seemed to me that he was likely to throw away, if he had not thrown away already, all those high hopes we held of him. But I had no means of giving him advice or of using any kind of authority to restrain him; I could not appeal to his good will as a friend or to his duty as a pupil. For I thought that he shared his father’s views about me. In fact he did not, and so, not allowing himself to be influenced by his father’s quarrel, he began to greet me when we met and used to come into my school and sit listening for a time before going away.

Nevertheless, I had forgotten about any idea I might have had for trying to influence him so as to prevent the waste of such a good intelligence on a blind and headstrong enthusiasm for empty shows. But you, Lord, you, whose hand is on the helm of all that you have created, had not forgotten him, who was to become one day a member of your family and a high priest of your sacrament. And his reform must quite clearly be attributed to you, as is shown by the fact that, though you brought it about by means of me, I did not know what I was doing. This was what happened. One day when I was sitting in my usual place with my pupils around me, Alypius came in and, after saluting me, sat down and listened to what was going on. In the course of my exposition of the passage of literature with which I happened to be dealing it occurred to me that I could make an apt use of a comparison taken from the games in the Circus; this would make my point clearer and more amusing, and I could combine it with some bitter sarcasm at the expense of those who were the prey of this kind of madness. You, God, know that at that time I had no thought of curing Alypius of that disease. But he took my remarks personally and believed that it was only because of him that I had made them. Another person would have taken this as a reason for being angry with me, but this fair-minded young man took it as a reason for being angry with himself and for loving me all the more. For you said long ago, and you had it put in your book: Rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.

In fact I had not been rebuking him, but you make use of all men, whether or not they are aware of it, according to a method that is known to you, and that order and method is just. So out of my heart and tongue you made burning coals to cauterize and to cure that promising mind of his as it lay sick. Who can fail to praise you if he considers your mercies, mercies which I myself confess to you from the very marrow of my bones? For after those words of mine Alypius clambered out of that deep pit into which he had been glad enough to sink and in which he was being blinded by his pleasures; he took a firm hold on his mind and shook it; all the filth of the Circus fell off and he never went there again. Then he won over his father so that he might be allowed to attend my classes as a pupil. His father was unwilling enough, but gave way and gave in. Alypius was once more my pupil and became involved with me in the same superstition. He loved the Manichaean pretense of continence, considering it to be real and genuine, though in fact this kind of continence was senseless and misleading and ensnared precious souls which were not yet able to reach the depth of virtue but could easily be deceived by the superficial appearance of a virtue which was shadowy and pretended.

8. But there was no abandoning of the worldly career which his parents were always talking to him about. He had gone to Rome before me in order to study law and in Rome he had been quite swept away, incredibly and with a most incredible passion, by the gladiatorial shows. He was opposed to such things and detested them; but he happened to meet some of his friends and fellow pupils on their way back from dinner, and they, in spite of his protests and his vigorous resistance, used a friendly kind of violence and forced him to go along with them to the amphitheater on a day when one of these cruel and bloody shows was being presented. As he went, he said to them: “You can drag my body there, but don’t imagine that you can make me turn my eyes or give my mind to the show. Though there, I shall not be there, and so I shall have the better both of you and of the show.”

After hearing this his friends were all the keener to bring him along with them. No doubt they wanted to see whether he could actually do this or not. So they came to the arena and took the seats which they could find. The whole place was seething with savage enthusiasm, but he shut the doors of his eyes and forbade his soul to go out into a scene of such evil. If only he could have blocked up his ears too! For in the course of the fight some man fell; there was a great roar from the whole mass of spectators which fell upon his ears; he was overcome by curiosity and opened his eyes, feeling perfectly prepared to treat whatever he might see with scorn and to rise above it. But he then received in his soul a worse wound than that man, whom he had wanted to see, had received in his body. His own fall was more wretched than that of the gladiator which had caused all that shouting which had entered his ears and unlocked his eyes and made an opening for the thrust which was to overthrow his soul—a soul that had been reckless rather than strong and was all the weaker because it had trusted in itself when it ought to have trusted in you. He saw the blood and he gulped down savagery. Far from turning away, he fixed his eyes on it. Without knowing what was happening, he drank in madness, he was delighted with the guilty contest, drunk with the lust of blood. He was no longer the man who had come there but was one of the crowd to which he had come, a true companion of those who had brought him.

There is no more to be said. He looked, he shouted, he raved with excitement; he took away with him a madness which would goad him to come back again, and he would not only come with those who first got him there; he would go ahead of them and he would drag others with him. Yet you, with your most strong and merciful hand, rescued him from this, and you taught him to put his trust not in himself but in you. This, however, was much later.

9. Nevertheless, this was already being stored up in his memory for his future healing. So also was something which happened to him when he was still a pupil of mine at Carthage. He was in the market place in the middle of the day, thinking over the words of a passage which in the ordinary course of his education he would have to say by heart. You then allowed him to be arrested by the market police as a thief, and, our God, I think that the only reason why you allowed this to happen was that one who was going to become such a great man should even then begin to learn that in cases of judging guilt man must not be too easily condemned by man on a basis of rash credulity. What happened was this: he was walking about by himself, with his notebooks and pen, in front of the law court, and just then a young man, also a student who was the real thief, with an ax hidden under his clothes, got in (though Alypius did not see him) as far as the leaden gratings over the silversmiths’ shops and began to cut away the lead. But the silversmiths underneath heard the sound of the ax, raised the alarm, and sent people to catch whomever they could find. Hearing their voices the thief ran away, leaving the ax behind for fear that he might be caught with it. Alypius had not seen the man coming in, but he noticed him going out and saw that he was running away fast. Wanting to know the reason for this, he went into the place, found the ax, and stood in front of it, wondering what it was doing there. At this moment the men who had been sent found him, alone and with the weapon whose noise had alarmed them and brought them there. They seized hold of him and dragged him off, boasting to the shopkeepers in the forum, who came crowding around, that they had caught the thief red-handed. And so he was led away to be handed over to justice. But his lesson stopped here. You, Lord, now came to the aid of his innocence, of which you were the only witness. For as he was being led off to prison or to torture they were met by a man who was the chief architect in charge of the public buildings. Alypius’ captors were particularly glad to meet him because they themselves were often suspected by him of making off with property that had disappeared from the market place; now at last, they thought, they could show him who was really guilty. But the architect had often seen Alypius in the house of one of the senators at which he was in the habit of calling. He recognized him at once, took him by the hand, got him out of the way of the mob, and asked him what all this trouble was about. He heard what had happened and told the crowd, who were in a most turbulent and threatening mood, to come with him. They went to the house of the young man who had actually committed the crime. By the door was a boy who was too small to imagine that anything he might say could injure his master and who was therefore likely to tell the whole story, for he had followed his master into the market place. Alypius recognized him and pointed him out to the architect, who showed him the ax and asked him whom it belonged to. The boy at once said: “It’s ours,” and, after further questioning, told everything. So the crime was laid at the door of that house, much to the confusion of the crowd, who had already begun to treat Alypius as though he were their prisoner. He, who in the future would be a dispenser of your word and an investigator of many cases in your Church, went away a wiser and a more experienced man.

10. I found Alypius at Rome. We became very close friends, and he came with me to Milan, partly so as not to desert me and partly to practice the law which he had studied—though this was rather to please his parents than because he wanted to. He had already sat three times as an assessor and had shown an integrity which made others wonder at him, though he himself was more inclined to wonder at those others who could prefer gold to honesty. His character was also tested not only by the lure of gain but also by the threat of danger. At Rome he was assessor to the Count of the Italian Treasury. There was at the time an extremely powerful senator; many people were under obligations to him, and many people were afraid of him. This man, counting upon his usual influence, wanted to get something or other past the courts which was in fact illegal. Alypius stood out against it. Bribes were offered, which he treated with contempt; threats were made and he spurned them. Everyone wondered at so rare a spirit, which neither courted the friendship nor feared the enmity of a man who was so powerful and who was so well known for having countless means of helping people on or of doing them harm. The judge himself, in whose court Alypius sat, was also against making the concession, but he would not refuse it openly; instead he made Alypius responsible, saying that it was Alypius who was preventing him; and in fact, if he had given in, Alypius would have left the court.

One thing did tempt him, and that was his love of learning. He knew that he could have books copied for him at the cheap rate allowed to praetors. But when he considered the justice of the matter, he changed his mind for the better. Equity forbade, power allowed; he chose the former as being the more valuable. A small thing, perhaps. But he that is faithful in little, is faithful also in much. Nor can this be an empty word which came from the mouth of your truth: If ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?

This was the sort of person that Alypius was at that time. He was my great friend and together with me he was in a state of mental confusion as to what way of life we should take.

There was Nebridius too. He had left his native place near Carthage; he had left Carthage itself, where he usually lived; he had left his rich family estate in the country, left his home, and left his mother, since she was not prepared to follow him. He had come to Milan, and his one reason for doing so was to live with me in a most ardent search for truth and wisdom. Together with me he sighed and together with me he wavered. How he burned to discover the happy life! How keen and close was his scrutiny of the most difficult questions!

So there were together the mouths of three hungry people, sighing out their wants one to another, and waiting upon Thee that Thou mightest give them their meat in due season. And in all the bitterness which by your mercy followed all our worldly actions, as we looked toward the end and asked ourselves why should we suffer like this, darkness came down upon us, and we turned away in sorrow saying, How long shall these things be? This we said often enough, yet still we did not forsake these things, because there was no dawning gleam of a certainty to which we could hold once these things had been forsaken.

11. And I, as I looked back over my life, was quite amazed to think of how long a time had passed since my nineteenth year, when I had first become inflamed with a passion for wisdom and had resolved that, when once I found it, I would leave behind me all the empty hopes and deceitful frenzies of vain desires. And now I was in my thirtieth year, still sticking in the same mud, still greedy for the enjoyment of things present, which fled from me and wasted me away, and all the time saying: “I shall find it tomorrow. See, it will become quite clear and I shall grasp it. Now Faustus will come and explain everything. What great men the Academics are! Is it true that no certainty can possibly be comprehended for the direction of our lives? No, it cannot be. We must look into things more carefully and not give up hope. And now see, those things in the Scriptures which used to seem absurd are not absurd; they can be understood in a different and perfectly good way. I shall take my stand where my parents placed me as a child until I can see the truth plainly. But where shall I look for it? And when shall I look for it? Ambrose has no spare time; nor have I time for reading. And where can I find the books? From where can I get them and when can I get them? Can I borrow them from anybody? I must arrange fixed periods of time and set aside certain hours for the health of my soul. A great hope has dawned. The Catholic faith does not teach the things I thought it did and vainly accused it of teaching. The learned men of that faith think it quite wrong to believe that God is bounded within the shape of a human body. Why then do I hesitate to knock, so that the rest may be laid open to me? My pupils take up all my time in the morning. But what do I do for the rest of the day? Why not do this? But, if I do, how shall I find time to call on influential friends whose support will be useful to me? When shall I prepare the lessons for which my pupils pay? When shall I have time to relax and to refresh my mind from all my preoccupations?

“But these are not the thoughts I should have. I must give up all this vanity and emptiness and devote myself entirely to the search for truth. Life is a misery, death an uncertainty. Suppose it steals suddenly upon me, in what state shall I leave this world? When can I learn what I have here neglected to learn? Shall I not be punished for my negligence? Or is it true that death will cut off and put an end to all care and all feeling? This too is something to be inquired into. But no, this cannot be true. It is not for nothing, it is not meaningless that all over the world is displayed the high and towering authority of the Christian faith. Such great and wonderful things would never have been done for us by God, if the life of the soul were to end with the death of the body. Why then do I delay? Why do I not abandon my hopes of this world and devote myself entirely to the search for God and for the happy life?

“But wait. These worldly things too are sweet; the pleasure they give is not inconsiderable; we must not be too hasty about rejecting them, because it would be a shame to go back to them again. Now think: it would not be very difficult to get some high official appointment, and then what more could I want? I have quite a number of influential friends. Not to press on too fast, I could easily get a governorship. Then I should marry a wife with money, so that she would not increase my expenses. And then I should have nothing more to desire. There have been many great men, well worth imitating, who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of wisdom and have also been married.”

So I used to speak and so the winds blew and shifted and drove my heart this way and that, and time went by and I was slow in turning to the Lord. My life in you I kept on putting off from one day to the next, but I did not put off the death that daily I was dying in myself. I was in love with the idea of the happy life, but I feared to find it in its true place, and I sought for it by running away from it. I thought that I should be unbearably unhappy if I were deprived of the embraces of a woman, and I never thought of your mercy as a medicine to cure that weakness, because I had never tried it. I believed that continency was something which depended on one’s own strength, and I knew that I had not enough strength for it; for I was such a fool that I did not know that it is written that no one can be continent unless you give the power. And undoubtedly you would have given it to me if with the groans of my heart I had beaten upon your ears and if in settled faith I had cast my cares upon you.

12. Alypius certainly kept me from marrying. He was always saying that, if I did marry, it would be quite impossible for us to have the untroubled leisure in which we could live together in the love of wisdom, as we had so long wanted to do. With regard to all this he himself was even then quite extraordinarily chaste. When he was an adolescent he had had the experience of sexual intercourse, but, so far from becoming addicted to it, he had regretted the experience and despised it and ever since had lived in the greatest continence. As to me, I countered his arguments by producing examples of men who, though married, had pursued wisdom and served God and kept their friends and loved them faithfully. In fact I myself fell far short of their grandeur of spirit; I was the prisoner of this disease of the flesh and of its deadly sweetness, and I dragged my chain about with me, dreading the idea of its being loosed, and I pushed aside the good advice of Alypius as I might push aside the hand of one coming to unchain me which had knocked against a wound.

Also it was by means of me that the serpent began to speak to Alypius himself. My tongue was used to weave sweet snares and scatter them in his path to trap his free and unsuspecting feet. He was much surprised to find that I, of whom he thought so highly, was so stuck in the glue of this kind of pleasure that I would assert, whenever we discussed the subject, that it was quite impossible for me to live a single life. I on my side, when I saw how surprised he was, would defend myself by saying that there was a great difference between that hurried and furtive experience of his—which he could now scarcely remember and could thus quite easily despise—and the delights of my normal state. If, I said, to these was added the honorable name of marriage, he could have no reason to be surprised that I was incapable of rejecting such a way of life. On hearing this Alypius began to want to get married himself, not because he lusted after that kind of pleasure, but simply for curiosity. He wanted to find out, he said, what this thing was without which my life, which seemed to him so pleasant, would be to me not worth living and indeed a torment. For his mind was free of my kind of bondage and was simply amazed at it. So from being amazed he went on to desire the experience of it. And he would have proceeded to the same experience and next might well have fallen into the same slavery as that which amazed him in me; since he wished to make a covenant with death, and he that loves danger shall fall into it. For neither of us had more than the faintest interest in the good and honorable side of marriage—the duty of a controlled association and of having children. In my case what chiefly enslaved me and kept me on tenterhooks was the habit of sating a lust that could never be satisfied; while he was being dragged into slavery simply by his amazement at my behavior. So there we were until you, most high, not forsaking our dust, but pitying our pitiful state, came to our help in secret and wonderful ways.

13. The move to get me married went on apace. I made my proposal and the girl was promised to me. In all this my mother played a large part, for, once I was married, she wanted me to be washed in the health-giving water of baptism for which, to her joy, she saw me becoming more fit every day, so that she now felt that her own prayers and your promises were being fulfilled in my faith: It was at my request and also to satisfy her own longing that at this time she begged you every day, crying out to you from her heart, to show her in a vision something about my future marriage; but you were never willing to do so. She did have some visual experiences of a vain and fantastical nature (caused no doubt by the eagerness of a human mind to be satisfied on this particular point), but when she told me of them, she spoke slightingly of them and not with the confidence which she always had when you were really showing her something. She used to say that there was a kind of tone or savor, impossible to define in words, by which she could tell the difference between your revelations to her and the dreams that came from her own spirit. Nevertheless, plans for my marriage went ahead and the girl was asked for. She was still about two years below the marriageable age, but I liked her and was prepared to wait.

14. A group of us, all friends together, after much thought and conversation on how we hated the whole wearisome business of human life, had almost reached the conclusion that we would retire from the crowd and live a life of peace. In order to achieve this we planned to pool our resources and make one common property out of the property of all of us. So, in the sincerity of friendship, there would be no distinction between what belonged to one man or another; all our possessions should count as one piece of property, and the whole should belong to each individual and everything should belong to everybody. It appeared that there might be about ten of us in this society and among these ten were some very rich men—Romanianus in particular, who was a fellow townsman of ours and had been a great friend of mine from childhood. He had now come to the court at Milan because of some urgent business in connection with his own affairs. He was particularly enthusiastic about the project and his voice had much weight in persuading the rest of us, since his property was much greater than anybody else’s. We had decided that two of us should be, like magistrates, appointed every year to deal with the necessary provisions for life, while the rest would be left in peace. Next, however, the question was raised as to whether our wives would put up with it—some of us having wives already and I being anxious to have one. And so the whole scheme, which had been so well worked out, fell to pieces in our hands and was abandoned as impracticable. We went back to our sighing and complaining and our steps continued to follow the broad and well-worn paths of the world; for we had many thoughts in our hearts, but Thy counsel standeth forever. And out of this counsel you laughed ours to scorn, and you were preparing for us your own things, being about to give us meat in due season, and to open Thy hand, and to fill our souls with blessing.

15. Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied. The woman with whom I was in the habit of sleeping was torn from my side on the grounds of being an impediment to my marriage, and my heart, which clung to her, was broken and wounded and dropping blood. She had returned to Africa after having made a vow to you that she would never go to bed with another man, and she had left with me the natural son I had had by her. But I, in my misery, could not follow the example of a woman. I had two years to wait until I could have the girl to whom I was engaged, and I could not bear the delay. So, since I was not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust, I found another woman for myself—not, of course, as a wife. In this way my soul’s disease was fed and kept alive so that it might reach the domination of matrimony just as strong as before, or stronger, and still the slave of an unbreakable habit. Nor was the wound healed which had been made by the cutting off of my previous mistress. It burned, it hurt intensely, and then it festered, and if the pain became duller, it became more desperate.

16. Praise to you, glory to you, fountain of mercies! As I became more unhappy, so you drew closer to me. Your right hand was ready, it was ready to drag me out of the mud and to wash me; but I did not know. And there was nothing to call me back from that deeper gulf of carnal pleasure, except the fear of death and of judgment to come, and this, whatever the opinions I held from time to time, never left my mind. I used to discuss the nature of good and evil with my friends Alypius and Nebridius, and certainly in my judgment Epicurus would have won the palm if I had not believed (as he refused to believe) that there was a life for the soul after death and treatment in accordance with its deserts. And I would put the question: “Suppose we were immortal and could live in perpetual bodily pleasure without any fear of loss, why should we not be happy, Or what more could we want?” And I never realized that it was just this that made me so miserable, that in my drowned and sightless state I was unable to form an idea of the light of honor and of a beauty that is embraced for its own sake, which is invisible to the eye of flesh and can only be seen by the inner soul. I was wretched enough not to consider why and from what source it was that I found it a pleasure to discuss these ideas (shabby though they were) in the company of friends and that I could not be happy, even in the way I then understood happiness, without friends, however great might be the amount of carnal pleasure I had in addition. For certainly I loved my friends for their own sake, and I knew that they too loved me for my own sake. What tortuous ways these were, and how hopeless was the plight of my foolhardy soul which hoped to have something better if it went away from you! It has turned indeed, over and over, on back and side and front, and always the bed was hard and you alone are rest. And, see, you are close to us, and you rescue us from our unhappy errors, and you set our feet in your way and speak kindly to us and say: “Run and I will hold you and I will bring you through and there also I will hold you.”

Book VIII

1. My God, let me remember with thanks and let me confess to you your mercies done to me. Let my bones be penetrated with your love and let them say: Who is like unto Thee, O Lord? Thou hast broken my bonds in sunder, I will offer unto Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. I will tell how it was that you broke my bonds, and all your worshipers who hear this will say: “Blessed be the Lord in heaven and in earth, great and wonderful is His name.”

Your words had stuck in my heart and I was hedged around about on all sides by Thee. Of your eternal life I was now certain, although I had seen it in an enigma and as through a glass. But I had ceased to have any doubt that there was an incorruptible substance from which came every substance. I no longer desired to be more certain of you, only to stand more firmly in you.

In my own temporal life everything was unsettled and my heart had to be purged from the old leaven. The way—the Saviour Himself—pleased me; but I was still reluctant to enter its narrowness. It was you who put the idea into my mind (and the idea seemed good to me) to go to Simplicianus. He seemed to me a good servant of yours and your grace shone in him. I had heard too that from his youth he had lived a life devoted to you. He had now grown old, and it seemed to me that he must have experienced much and learned much as a result of having lived so long in so earnestly following your way, and so indeed he had. So, after telling him of my troubles, I wanted him to make use of his experience and learning in order to show me the best means by which someone feeling as I did could set his foot on your way.

For I saw the Church full, and one went this way, and another that way. But I was displeased with the worldly life which I was leading. It was a really great burden to me and to help me bear such a heavy form of slavery I no longer had the impulse and encouragement of my old hopes and desires for position and wealth. Compared with your sweetness and the beauty of your house, which I loved, these things no longer pleased me. But I was still closely bound by my need of woman. Not that the apostle forbade me to marry, although he might recommend something better, his great wish being that all men should be as he was. But I lacked the strength and was inclined to choose the softer place, and because of this one thing everything else with me was in confusion; I was tired out and wasted away with gnawing anxieties, because I was compelled to put up with all sorts of things which I did not want simply because they were inseparable from that state of living with a wife to which I was utterly and entirely bound. I had heard from the mouth of Truth that there were some eunuchs, which had made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of heaven’s sake; but, he says, let him who can receive it, receive it. Surely vain are all men who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen, find out Him who is good. But I was no longer in that kind of vanity; I had gone beyond it, and, by the common witness of all creation, I had found you, our Creator, and your Word, God with you, and one God together with you, by whom you created all things. But there is also another kind of impiety, that of those who knowing God, glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. I had fallen into this wickedness too, but your right hand upheld me, took me out of it, and placed me where I might recover. For you have said to man, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and Desire not to seem wise; because they who affirmed themselves to be wise, became fools. And I had now found that pearl of great price, and I ought to have sold all that I had and bought it. But I hesitated.

2. So I went to Simplicianus who, in the matter of receiving grace, had been the father of Ambrose, now bishop, and indeed Ambrose loved him as a father. I described to him the winding paths of my error. But when I told him that I had read some books of the Platonists which had been translated into Latin by Victorinus—once professor of rhetoric at Rome, who, so I had heard, had died a Christian—he congratulated me for not having fallen upon the writings of other philosophers full of fallacies and deceits, after the rudiments of this world, whereas in the Platonists God and His Word are everywhere implied. Then, in order to lead me toward the humility of Christ (hidden from the wise, and revealed to little ones), he went on to speak of Victorinus himself, with whom he had been on very friendly terms when he was in Rome. I shall make no secret of what he told me about him, for it is a story which ought to be confessed to you, containing, as it does, great praise of your grace. For Victorinus was an extremely learned old man, an expert scholar in all the liberal sciences, one who had read and weighed very many of the works of the philosophers, one who had been the teacher of numbers of distinguished senators and who, because of the exceptional brilliance of his teaching, had earned and accepted the honor of having his statue set up in the Roman forum, a thing which the citizens of this world regard as something quite remarkable, and up to old age he worshiped idols and took part in those sacrilegious ceremonies which were the craze with nearly all the Roman nobility, who had inspired the people with their enthusiasm for Osiris and the dog Anubis and that monstrous brood of deity which once took arms and fought in arms against Minerva, Neptune, Venus—gods which Rome had conquered and to which she now prayed, and for all these years old Victorinus, with his thundering eloquence, had been the champion of these gods; yet he did not blush to become the child of your Christ, an infant at your font, bending his neck to the yoke of humility and submitting his forehead to the ignominy of the Cross.

O Lord, Lord, Which has bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what means did you find your way into that man’s heart? According to Simplicianus, he read the Holy Scripture and examined all Christian literature with the most thorough and exact attention. He then said to Simplicianus—not in public, but in a private friendly conversation—“I should like you to know that I am now a Christian.” Simplicianus replied: “That I will not believe, and I shall not count you as a Christian until I see you in the Church of Christ.” Victorinus smiled and said: “Is it the walls, then, that make Christians?” And he often repeated that he was a Christian, and Simplicianus often made the same reply which was again countered by the joke about the walls. For Victorinus was afraid of offending his friends, who were important people and worshipers of these devils; he feared a great torrent of ill will falling upon him from the height of their Babylonian dignity, as from the tops of the cedars of Lebanon which the Lord had not yet brought down. But from his reading and deep meditation he drew strength. He feared that, if he was afraid to confess Christ before men, Christ might deny him in front of the holy angels, and it seemed to him that he was guilty of a great crime in being ashamed of the sacraments of the humility of your Word, while not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud demons, in which he, imitating their pride, had taken part. So he turned his pride against what was vain, and kept his humility for the truth. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly he said to Simplicianus, as Simplicianus himself told me, “Let us go to the Church. I want to be made a Christian.” And Simplicianus, who could not contain himself for joy, went along with him. Soon after he had received instruction in the first mysteries, he gave in his name as one who wished to be regenerated by baptism. Rome wondered and the Church rejoiced. The proud saw and were wroth; they gnashed with their teeth and melted away. But the Lord God was the hope of your servant, and he regarded not vanities and lying madness.

Finally the time came for him to make his profession of faith. At Rome this was usually done by those who were about to enter into your grace, and there was a fixed form of words which was learned by heart and spoken from a platform in the sight of the faithful. In the case of Victorinus, however, so Simplicianus told me, the priests gave him the opportunity to make his profession in a less public manner—as was often allowed to those who seemed likely to be frightened or embarrassed by the ceremony. But Victorinus preferred to declare openly his salvation in front of the holy congregation. In the past he had taught rhetoric and there had been no salvation in that; yet he had publicly professed it. He had shown no nervousness when using his own words in front of crowds of people who could scarcely be described as sane; why, then, in front of your meek flock, should he fear to pronounce your Word? So, when he mounted the platform to make his profession, all those who knew him (and who was there who did not?) began to whisper his name one to another in glad murmurs. From the lips of the whole rejoicing people came the soft sound: “Victorinus, Victorinus.” Quickly the sound had arisen because of the exultation they felt when they saw him, and now quickly they became silent again so as to hear him speak. With a fine confidence he declared openly the true faith, and they all wished that they could draw him into their very hearts. And in their love and their rejoicing (for these were the hands they used) they did take him into their hearts.

3. O good God, what is it in men that makes them rejoice more when a soul that has been despaired of and is in very great danger is saved than when there has always been hope and the danger has not been so serious? For you too, merciful father, dost more rejoice over one penitent than over ninety-nine just persons, that need no repentance. We too are filled with joy whenever we hear the story of how the sheep which had strayed was brought back on the exultant shoulders of the shepherd and of how the coin was put back into your treasury with all the neighbors of the woman who found it rejoicing. And the joy we feel in the solemn service of your house brings tears to our eyes, when in your house we hear read the story of your younger son, that he was dead and lived again; had been lost and is found. Indeed you rejoice in us and you rejoice in your angels who are holy in holy charity. For you are always the same, and as to those things which do not always exist or do not always exist in the same way, you know all of them, always and in the same way.

What is it in the soul, then, which makes it take more pleasure in the finding or recovery of things it loves than in the continual possession of them? There are all sorts of other examples of this; indeed the evidence is everywhere, simply crying out: “It is so.” The victorious general has his triumph; but he would not have been victorious if he had not fought a battle, and the more danger there was in the battle, the more joy there is in the triumph. Sailors are tossed by a storm and in danger of shipwreck; they all grow pale at the thought of approaching death; then sky and sea become calm and their joy is just as excessive as was their fear. A friend is ill and his pulse shows that he is in danger; all who want him to be well become sick in mind with him; then he recovers, though he cannot walk yet quite as easily as he used to do; but there is already more joy than there was before, when he was well and perfectly able to walk. Also with regard to the ordinary pleasures of life, men seek them by way of difficulty and discomfort which are voluntary and self-chosen and not the kind which comes upon them unexpectedly and against their wills. There is no pleasure in eating or drinking unless it is preceded by the discomfort, of being hungry or thirsty. Drunkards eat various kinds of salty things in order to produce an uncomfortable dryness, and, when this is alleviated by drink, they feel pleasure. It is also customary for girls who are engaged not to be given over immediately to their bridegrooms, the idea being that the husband may hold a woman cheap unless, while engaged, he has sighed for the long time he has had to wait.

We notice this, then, in pleasures that are foul and disgraceful and also in pleasures which are lawful and permitted; we notice it in the pure sincerity of friendship, and also in the case of him who was dead and became alive again, who had been lost and was found. Everywhere we find that the more pain there is first, the more joy there is after. Why is this, my Lord God? For you are to yourself eternal joy, you yourself are joy, and those beings who are around you find their joy forever in you. Why is it that this part of the universe alternates between deprivation and fulfillment, between discord and harmony? Or is this its condition, the measure given to it by you when, from the heights of heaven to the depths of earth, from the beginning to the end of time, from the angel to the worm, from the first movement to the last, you settled all the varieties of good and all your just works each in its proper place, each to be in its appointed time? I am abashed when I think how high you are in what is highest, how deep in what is deepest. Nowhere do you depart from us, and hard it is for us to return to you.

4. Come, Lord, act upon us and rouse us up and call us back! Fire us, clutch us, let your sweet fragrance grow upon us! Let us love, let us run! Certainly there are many who from a deeper hell of blindness than Victorinus come back to you and approach you and are enlightened with that light which those who receive, receive power from Thee to become Thy sons. But if they are not so well known in the world there is not so much rejoicing even among those who do know them; for when many people rejoice together, the joy of each individual is all the richer, since each one inflames the other and the warmth spreads throughout them all. Then too by the mere fact of being well known they have a great influence on others, leading them to salvation; they go first and many will follow in their steps. Thus even those who have gone before them on the same way feel great joy, and the joy is not only for them. Indeed we must certainly not think that in your tabernacle the persons of the rich should be more welcome than the poor, or the people of birth more welcome than the ordinary man. Since Thou hast chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the strong, and the base things of this world, and the things despised hast Thou chosen, and those things which are not, that Thou mightest bring to nought things that are. These words of yours were spoken by the tongue of the least of your apostles. Yet when, as the result of his good service, the pride of Paulus the proconsul was so beaten down that he came under the light yoke of your Christ and became a simple subject of the great king, the apostle, to mark the glory of such a victory, wished to be called Paul instead of Saul, as he was called previously. For the defeat of the enemy is all the more conspicuous when one wins over from him a man of whom he has a particular hold and through whom he can particularly influence others. And people of importance in the world satisfy both conditions; their nobility gives him a particular hold over them, and their authority enables him to use them as an influence over others. It was natural, therefore, for there to be a particular welcome for the heart of Victorinus, which the devil had held as an impregnable stronghold, and for the tongue of Victorinus, which the devil had made use of as a strong and keen weapon for the destruction of so many. And it was right for your sons to feel a particular joy because our King had bound the strong man, and they saw his vessels taken from him and cleansed, and made meet for Thy honor, and become serviceable for the Lord, unto every good work.

5. When this man of yours, Simplicianus, told me all this about Victorinus, I was on fire to be like him, and this, of course, was why he had told me the story: He told me this too—that in the time of the Emperor Julian, when a law was passed forbidding Christians to teach literature and rhetoric, Victorinus had obeyed the law, preferring to give up his talking-shop rather than your Word, by which you make even the tongues of infants eloquent. In this I thought that he was not only brave but lucky, because he had got the chance of giving all his time to you. This was just what I longed for myself, but I was held back, and I was held back not by fetters put on me by someone else, but by the iron bondage of my own will. The enemy held my will and made a chain out of it and bound me with it. From a perverse will came lust, and slavery to lust became a habit, and the habit, being constantly yielded to, became a necessity. These were like links, hanging each to each (which is why I called it a chain), and they held me fast in a hard slavery. And the new will which I was beginning to have and which urged me to worship you in freedom and to enjoy you, God, the only certain joy, was not yet strong enough to overpower the old will which by its oldness had grown hard in me. So my two wills, one old, one new, one carnal, one spiritual, were in conflict, and they wasted my soul by their discord. In this way my personal experience enabled me to understand what I had read—that the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. I, no doubt, was on both sides, but I was more myself when I was on the side which I approved of for myself than when I was on the side of which I disapproved. For it was no longer really I myself who was on this second side; since there to a great extent I was rather suffering things against my will than doing them voluntarily. Yet it was my own fault that habit fought back so strongly against me; for I had come willingly where I now did not will to be. And who has any right to complain when just punishment overtakes the sinner? Nor did I have any longer the excuse which I used to think I had when I said that the reason why I had not yet forsaken the world and given myself up to your service was because I could not see the truth clearly. Now I could see it perfectly clearly. But I was still tied down to earth and refused to take my place in your army. And I was just as frightened of being freed from all my hampering baggage as I ought to have been frightened of being hampered. The pack of this world was a kind of pleasant weight upon me, as happens in sleep, and the thoughts in which I meditated on you were like the efforts of someone who tries to get up but is so overcome with drowsiness that he sinks back again into sleep. Of course no one wants to sleep forever, and everyone in his senses would agree that it is better to be awake; yet all the same, when we feel a sort of lethargy in our limbs, we often put off the moment of shaking off sleep, and, even though it is time to get up, we gladly take a little longer in bed, conscious though we may be that we should not be doing so. In just the same way I was quite certain that it was better to give myself up to your charity rather than to give in to my own desires; but, though the former course was a conviction to which I gave my assent, the latter was a pleasure to which I gave my consent. For I had no answer to make to you when you called me: Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. And, while you showed me wherever I looked that what you said was true, I, convinced by the truth, could still find nothing at all to say except lazy words spoken half asleep: “A minute,” “just a minute,” “just a little time longer.” But there was no limit to the minutes, and the little time longer went a long way. It was in vain that I delighted in Thy law according to the inner man, when another law in my members rebelled against the law of my mind, and led me captive under the law of sin which was in my members. For the law of sin is the strong force of habit, which drags the mind along and controls it even against its will—though deservedly, since the habit was voluntarily adopted. Who then should deliver me thus wretched from the body of this death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord?

6. Now, Lord, my helper and my redeemer, I shall tell and confess to your name how it was that you freed me from the bondage of my desire for sex, in which I was so closely fettered, and from my slavery to the affairs of this world. I was leading my usual life; my anxiety was growing greater and greater, and every day I sighed to you. I went often to your Church, whenever I had time to spare from all that business under the weight of which I was groaning. Alypius was with me. He was free from his official legal work after a third term as assessor and was now waiting to sell his legal advice to anyone who came along, just as I was selling the ability to make speeches—if such an ability can be imparted by teaching. Nebridius, as an act of friendship to us, had consented to teach under Verecundus, a great friend of us all, a citizen and elementary schoolmaster of Milan. He had been very eager to have Nebridius on his staff and indeed had claimed it as something due from our friendship that one of us should come and give him the help and support which he badly needed. Nebridius was not influenced by any desire for profit; he could have done better for himself by teaching literature, if he had wanted. But he was the kindest and best of friends, and, being always ready to help others, would not turn down our request. He conducted himself very carefully in his work, being unwilling to become known in what are regarded by the world as “distinguished circles,” and avoiding everything which could disturb his peace of mind; for he wanted to have his mind free and at leisure for as many hours as possible so as to pursue wisdom, to read about it, or to hear about it.

One day, when Alypius and I were at home (Nebridius, for some reason which I cannot remember, was away) we were visited by a man called Ponticianus who, coming from Africa, was a fellow countryman of ours and who held an important appointment at the emperor’s court. He had something or other which he wanted to ask us, and we sat down to talk. In front of us was a table for playing games on, and he happened to notice a book lying on the table. He took it, opened it, and found that it was the apostle Paul. He was quite surprised at this, since he had imagined it would be one of the books over which I wearied myself out in the course of my profession. Next he began to smile and, looking closely at me, told me that he was not only surprised but pleased at his unexpected discovery that I had this book and only this book at my side. For he was a Christian, and baptized. He often knelt before you, our God, in Church, praying long and frequently to you. I told him that I gave the greatest attention to these works of Scripture, and then, on his initiative, a conversation began about the Egyptian monk Antony, whose name was very well known among your servants, although Alypius and I up to this time had never heard of him. When Ponticianus discovered this he talked all the more about him, since he wanted us in our ignorance, at which he was much surprised, to learn more about such a great man. And we were amazed as we heard of these wonderful works of yours, which had been witnessed by so many people, had been done in the true faith and the Catholic Church, and all so recently—indeed practically in our own times. All of us were full of wonder, Alypius and I at the importance of what we were hearing, Ponticianus at the fact that we had never heard the story before.

He went on to speak of the communities living in monasteries, of their way of life which was full of the sweet fragrance of you, and of the fruitful deserts in the wilderness, about which we knew nothing. There was actually a monastery in Milan outside the walls of the city. It was full of good brothers and was under the care of Ambrose, but we had not even heard of this. So Ponticianus went on speaking and we sat quiet, listening to him eagerly. In the course of his talk he told us how once, when the emperor was at Treves and busy with holding the chariot races in the Circus, he himself with three friends had gone for a walk in the afternoon through the gardens near the city walls. It happened that they walked in two groups, one of the three going one way with him, and the others going another way by themselves. These other two, as they strolled along, happened to come to a small house which was inhabited by some of your servants, poor in spirit, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, and there they found a book in which was written an account of the life of Antony. One of the two friends began to read it. He became full of wonder and excitement, and, as he read, he began to think of how he himself could lead a life like this and, abandoning his profession in this world, give his service to you. For these two men were both officials in the emperor’s civil service. Suddenly, then, he was filled with a holy reverence and felt a sober shame, and, angry with himself, he looked toward his friend and said: “Tell me now; in all this hard work which we do, what are we aiming at? What is it that we want? Why is it that we are state officials? Can we have any higher hope at court than to become friends of the emperor? And is not that a position difficult to hold and full of danger? Indeed does one not have to go through danger after danger simply to reach a place that is more dangerous still? And how long will it take to get there? But, if I want, I can be the friend of God now, this moment.” After saying this, he turned back to the book, troubled and perplexed by the new life to which he was giving birth. So he read on, and his heart, where you saw it, was changed, and, as soon appeared, his mind shook off the burden of the world. While he was reading and the waves in his heart rose and fell, there were times when he cried out against himself, and then he distinguished the better course and chose it for his own. Now he was yours, and he said to his friend: “I have now broken away from all our hopes and ambitions and have decided to serve God, and I am entering on this service now, this moment, in this place. You may not like to imitate me in this, but you must not oppose me.”

The other replied that he would stay with him and be his comrade in so great a service and for so great a reward. Both of them were now yours; they were building their own fortress at the right cost—namely, the forsaking of all that they had and the following of you.

At this point Ponticianus and his companion, who had been walking in a different part of the garden, looking for their friends, came and found them in this place. When they found them, they suggested that they should go back, as it was now nearly sunset. The others however told them of the decision which they had reached and what they proposed to do; they described how the whole thing had started and how their resolution was now fixed, and they begged their friends, if they would not join them, not to interfere with their purpose. Ponticianus and his friend, while not changing from their former ways, did (as Ponticianus told us) weep for themselves and, devoutly and sincerely congratulating the others, asked them to remember them in their prayers; then, with their own hearts still down on the earth, they went off to the palace. But the other two, with their hearts fixed on heaven; remained there in the cottage. Each of these two was engaged to be married, and when the girls to whom they were engaged heard what had happened, they also dedicated their virginity to you.

7. This was what Ponticianus told us. But you, Lord, while he was speaking, were turning me around so that I could see myself; you took me from behind my own back, which was where I had put myself during the time when I did not want to be observed by myself, and you set me in front of my own face so that I could see how foul a sight I was—crooked, filthy, spotted, and ulcerous. I saw and I was horrified, and I had nowhere to go to escape from myself. If I tried to look away from myself, Ponticianus still went on with his story, and again you were setting me in front of myself, forcing me to look into my own face, so that I might see my sin and hate it. I did know it, but I pretended that I did not. I had been pushing the whole idea away from me and forgetting it.

But now the more ardent was the love. I felt for those two men of whom I was hearing and of how healthfully they had been moved to give themselves up entirely to you to be cured, the more bitter was the hatred I felt for myself when I compared myself with them. Many years (at least twelve) of my own life had gone by since the time when I was nineteen and was reading Cicero’s Hortensius and had been fired with an enthusiasm for wisdom. Yet I was still putting off the moment when, despising this world’s happiness, I should give all my time to the search for that of which not only the finding but merely the seeking must be preferred to the discovered treasures and kingdoms of men or to all the pleasures of the body easily and abundantly available. But I, wretched young man that I was—even more wretched at the beginning of my youth—had begged you for chastity and had said: “Make me chaste and continent, but not yet.” I was afraid that you might hear me too soon and cure me too soon from the disease of a lust which I preferred to be satisfied rather than extinguished. And I had gone along evil ways, following a sacrilegious superstition—not because I was convinced by it, but simply preferring it to the other doctrines into which I never inquired in a religious spirit, but merely attacked them in a spirit of spite.

I had thought that the reason why I was putting off from day to day the time when I should despise all worldly hopes and follow you alone was because I could see no certainty toward which I could direct my course. But now the day had come when in my own eyes I was stripped naked and my conscience cried out against me: “Can you not hear me? Was it not this that you used to say, that you would not throw off the burden of vanity for a truth that was uncertain? Well, look. Now the truth is certain, and you are still weighed down by your burden. Yet these others, who have not been so worn out in the search and not been meditating the matter for ten years or more, have had the weight taken from their backs and have been given wings to fly.”

So I was being gnawed at inside, and as Ponticianus went on with his story I was lost and overwhelmed in a terrible kind of shame. When the story was over and the business about which he had come had been settled he went away, and I retired into myself. Nor did I leave anything unsaid against myself. With every scourge of condemnation I lashed my soul on to follow me now that I was trying to follow you. And my soul hung back; it refused to follow, and it could give no excuse for its refusal. All the arguments had been used already and had been shown to be false. There remained a mute shrinking; for it feared like death to be restrained from the flux of a habit by which it was melting away into death.

8. And now inside my house great indeed was the quarrel which I had started with my soul in that bedroom of my heart which we shared together. My looks were as disordered as my mind as I turned on Alypius and cried out to him: “What is wrong with us? What is this which you have just heard? The unlearned rise up and take heaven by force, while we (look at us!) with all our learning are wallowing in flesh and blood. Is it because they have gone ahead that we are ashamed to follow? And do we feel no shame at not even following at all?” Some such words as these I spoke, and then the disturbance in my mind tore me away from him, while he stared at me in silence and amazed. For I sounded strange to him. My forehead, cheeks, eyes, color of face, and inflection of voice expressed my mind better than the words I used.

There was a garden attached to our lodging, and we had the use of this as of the whole house; for our landlord, the owner of the house, did not live there. To this garden the tumult in my heart had driven me, as to a place where no one could intervene in this passionate suit which I had brought against myself until it could be settled—though how it would be settled you knew, not I. As to me I was mad and dying; but there was sanity in my madness, life in my death; I knew how evil I was; I did not know how well I would be soon.

So I withdrew to the garden and Alypius followed close after me. When he was there, I still felt myself in privacy, and how could he leave me when I was in such a state? We sat down as far as possible from the house. My spirit was in a turmoil; I was boiling with indignation against myself for not entering into your will and covenant, my God, where all my bones cried out that I should enter and praised it to the skies. And the way there is not by ship or chariot or on foot; the distance is not so great as that which I had come from the house to the place where we were sitting. All I had to do was to will to go there, and I would not only go but would immediately arrive; but it was necessary for the will to be resolute and sincere, not the turning and twisting this way and that of a will that was half maimed, struggling, with one part rising and another part falling. Then in the middle of this storm of mental hesitation I made many movements with my body—the kind of movements which people sometimes want to make, but cannot make, either because they have not the limbs, or because their limbs are bound or weakened by illness or in some way or other prevented from action. But I, if I tore my hair, beat my forehead, locked my fingers together, clasped my knee, was performing these actions because I willed to do so. But I might have willed to do so and still not done so if the power of motion in my limbs had not followed the dictates of my will. So I was performing all sorts of actions where the will to do and the power to do are not the same thing, and I was not doing something the idea of which pleased me incomparably more and which soon after, when I should have the will, I should have the power to do, since when I willed, I should will it thoroughly. For in this matter the power was the same thing as the will, and merely to will was already to perform. And yet this was not done. It was easier for my body to obey the slightest intimation of the soul’s will that the limbs should be put immediately in motion than it was for the soul to give obedience to itself so as to carry out by the mere act of willing what was its own great will.

9. What can be the explanation of such an absurdity? Enlighten me with your mercy, so that I may ask the question, if perhaps an answer may be found in the secret places of man’s punishment and in those darkest agonies of the sons of Adam. What can be the explanation of such an absurdity? The mind gives an order to the body, and the order is obeyed immediately: the mind gives an order to itself, and there is resistance. The mind orders the hand to move, and such readiness is shown that you can hardly distinguish the command from its execution. Yet the mind is mind, and the hand is body. The mind orders the mind to will; it is the same mind, yet it does not obey. What can be the explanation of such an absurdity? The mind, I say, orders itself to will: it would not give the order, unless it willed it, yet it does not obey the order. The fact is that it does not will the thing entirely; consequently it does not give the order entirely. The force of the order is in the force of the will, and disobedience to the order results from insufficiency of the will. For the will orders that there should be a will—not a different will, but itself. But it is not entire in itself when it gives the order, and therefore its order is not obeyed. For if it were entire in itself, it would not give the order to will; the will would be there already. So it is not an absurdity partly to will and partly not to will; it is rather a sickness of the soul which is weighed down with habit so that it cannot rise up in its entirety, lifted aloft by truth. So the reason why there are two wills in us is because one of them is not entire, and one has what the other lacks.

10. Let them perish from your presence, God, as perish empty talkers and seducers of the soul, who, having observed that there are two wills in the act of deliberating, conclude from this that we have in us two minds of two different natures, one good and one evil. They themselves are truly evil, when they hold these evil opinions, and they are just as capable of becoming good if they will realize the truth and agree with the truth, so that your apostle may say to them: Ye were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord. But these people, by imagining that the nature of the soul is what God is, want to be light, not in the Lord, but in themselves, and the result is that they have become an even deeper darkness, since in their appalling arrogance they have gone further away from you—from you, the true Light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. Take heed what you say, and blush for shame: draw near unto Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.

As to me, when I was deliberating about entering the service of the Lord my God, as I had long intended to do, it was I who willed it, and it was I who was unwilling. It was the same “I” throughout. But neither my will nor my unwillingness was whole and entire. So I fought with myself and was torn apart by myself. It was against my will that this tearing apart took place, but this was not an indication that I had another mind of a different nature; it was simply the punishment which I was suffering in my own mind. It was not I, therefore, who caused it, but the sin dwells in me, and, being a son of Adam, I was suffering for his sin which was more freely committed.

For if there are as many contrary natures as there are conflicting wills, we shall find that there are not two only, but many more. Suppose a man is wondering whether to go to one of the Manichaean conventicles or to the theater; the Man-ichees will say: “Here is an example of the two natures, one good, leading in one direction, one bad, leading in another. How else can you explain the hesitation caused by two wills in opposition to each other?” But I should say that both wills are bad—the one that takes a man to the Manichees and the one which takes him to the theater instead. But they of course believe that the will which takes a man to them must necessarily be good. Very well, then. Suppose now the case of one of us who, also with two wills struggling inside him, is wondering whether to go to the theater or to our Church. Will not the Manichees also be in a state of indecision about what to say on this point? They will either have to make an admission which they would be most reluctant to make—namely, that it is a good will which takes a man to our Church, just as the will is good which leads men who have received and are bound by their sacraments to their church; or else they will have to assume that in one man there are two evil natures and two evil wills in conflict, and then what they are always saying will not be true—that there is one evil and one good will. Otherwise they will have to be converted to the truth and not deny that when one is making up one’s mind there is just one soul which is pulled in different directions by different wills.

Therefore, they can no longer say, when they observe two conflicting wills in one man, that the conflict is between two opposing minds, of two opposing substances, from two opposing principles—one good, one evil. Their arguments are checked, overthrown, and put out of court by you, God of truth. Take the case, for example, when both wills are bad, as when a man deliberates whether to commit a murder by poison or by a dagger; whether to seize this or that part of another man’s property, since he cannot seize both; whether to squander his money on pleasure or to hoard it up like a miser; whether to go to the races or to the theater, if they happen both to be on the same day; or, as a third possibility, this same man may be wondering whether to commit a theft from someone else’s house, if he gets the chance; or, as a fourth possibility, whether to commit adultery, supposing that the opportunity occurs at the same time. Now if all these four possibilities become practicable at the same moment and all are equally desired, though they cannot all be done simultaneously, the mind will be torn apart by four conflicting wills; indeed, considering the multitude of things which can be desired, there may be even more than four wills in conflict. But the Manichees do not hold that there is a similar abundance of different substances.

The same principle holds with regard to wills that are good. Let me ask them this question: Is it good to take pleasure in reading the Apostle, and also good to take pleasure in a sober psalm, and also good to discuss the Gospel? In each case they will reply: “It is good.” If then all these activities at one and the same time offer us equal pleasure, must it not be that different wills are pulling at a man’s heart while he makes up his mind which activity in particular he should choose? All these wills are good, yet they conflict with one another until one particular choice has been made, toward which the whole will, which was previously divided, now turns entirely. So too when eternity offers us a higher pleasure and the delight in some temporal good holds us down below, it is the same soul which feels both impulses; only its will for one or the other course is not total and complete, and consequently it is torn apart and heavily distressed as truth puts one way first and habit will not allow the other way to be abandoned.

11. So I was sick and in torture. I reproached myself much more bitterly than ever, and I turned and twisted in my chain till I could break quite free. Only a little of it still held me, but it did still hold me. And you, Lord, in the secret places of my soul, stood above me in the severity of your mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame, so that I should not give way once more and so that that small weak piece of chain which still remained should not instead of snapping grow strong again and tie me down more firmly than before. I was saying inside myself: “Now, now, let it be now!” and as I spoke the words I was already beginning to go in the direction I wanted to go. I nearly managed it, but I did not quite manage it. Yet I did not slip right back to the beginning; I was a stage above that, and I stood there to regain my breath. And I tried again and I was very nearly there; I was almost touching it and grasping it, and then I was not there, I was not touching it, I was not grasping it; I hesitated to die to death and to live to life; inveterate evil had more power over me than the novelty of good, and as that very moment of time in which I was to become something else drew nearer and nearer, it struck me with more and more horror. But I was not struck right back or turned aside; I was just held in suspense.

Toys and trifles, utter vanities had been my mistresses, and now they were holding me back, pulling me by the garment of my flesh and softly murmuring in my ear: “Are you getting rid of us?” and “From this moment shall we never be with you again for all eternity?” and “From this moment will you never for all eternity be allowed to do this or to do that?” My God, what was it, what was it that they suggested in those words “this” or “that” which I have just written? I pray you in your mercy to keep such things from the soul of your servant. How filthy, how shameful were these things they were suggesting! And now their voices were not half so loud in my ears; now they no longer came out boldly to contradict me face to face; it was more as though they were muttering behind my back, stealthily pulling at my sleeve as I was going away so that I should turn and look at them. Yet still they did hold me back as I hesitated to tear myself away and to shake them off and to take the great step in the direction where I was called. Violence of habit spoke the words: “Do you think that you can live without them?”

But by now it spoke very faintly. In the direction toward which I had turned my face and still trembled to take the last step, I could see the chaste dignity of continence; she was calm and serene, cheerful without wantonness, and it was in truth and honor that she was enticing me to come to her without hesitation, stretching out to receive and to embrace me with those holy hands of hers, full of such multitudes of good examples. With her were so many boys and girls, so much of youth, so much of every age, grave widows and women grown old in virginity, and in them all was Continence herself, not barren, but a fruitful mother of children, her joys, by you, Lord, her husband. She smiled at me and there was encouragement in her smile, as though she were saying: “Can you not do what these men and these women have done? Or do you think that their ability is in themselves and not in the Lord their God? It was the Lord God who gave me to them. Why do you try and stand by yourself, and so not stand at all? Let him support you. Do not be afraid. He will not draw away and let you fall. Put yourself fearlessly in His hands. He will receive you and will make you well.”

And I was blushing for shame, because I could still hear the dim voices of those vanities, and still I hung back in hesitation. And again she seemed to be speaking: “Stop your ears against those unclean members of yours, so that they may be mortified. They tell you of delights, but not of such delights as the law of the Lord your God tells.”

So went the controversy in my heart—about self, and self against self. And Alypius stayed close by me, waiting silently to see how this strange agitation of mine would end.

12. And now from my hidden depths my searching thought had dragged up and set before the sight of my heart the whole mass of my misery. Then a huge storm rose up within me bringing with it a huge downpour of tears. So that I might pour out all these tears and speak the words that came with them I rose up from Alypius (solitude seemed better for the business of weeping) and went further away so that I might not be embarrassed even by his presence. This was how I felt and he realized it. No doubt I had said something or other, and he could feel the weight of my tears in the sound of my voice. And so I rose to my feet, and he, in a state of utter amazement, remained in the place where we had been sitting. I flung myself down on the ground somehow under a fig tree and gave free rein to my tears; they streamed and flooded from my eyes, an acceptable sacrifice to Thee. And I kept saying to you, not perhaps in these words, but with this sense: “And Thou, O Lord, how long? How long, Lord; wilt Thou be angry forever? Remember not our former iniquities.” For I felt that it was these which were holding me fast. And in my misery I would exclaim: “How long, how long this ‘tomorrow and tomorrow’? Why not now? Why not finish this very hour with my uncleanness?”

So I spoke, weeping in the bitter contrition of my heart. Suddenly a voice reaches my ears from a nearby house. It is the voice of a boy or a girl (I don’t know which) and in a kind of singsong the words are constantly repeated: “Take it and read it. Take it and read it.” At once my face changed, and I began to think carefully of whether the singing of words like these came into any kind of game which children play, and I could not remember that I had ever heard anything like it before. I checked the force of my tears and rose to my feet, being quite certain that I must interpret this as a divine command to me to open the book and read the first passage which I should come upon. For I had heard this about Antony: he had happened to come in when the Gospel was being read, and as though the words read were spoken directly to himself, had received the admonition: Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. And by such an oracle he had been immediately converted to you. So I went eagerly back to the place where Alypius was sitting, since it was there that I had left the book of the Apostle when I rose to my feet. I snatched up the book, opened it, and read in silence the passage upon which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in concupiscence. I had no wish to read further; there was no need to. For immediately I had reached the end of this sentence it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away.

Before shutting the book I put my finger or some other marker in the place and told Alypius what had happened. By now my face was perfectly calm. And Alypius in his turn told me what had been going on in himself, and which I knew nothing about. He asked to see the passage which I had read. I showed him and he went on further than the part I had read, nor did I know the words which followed. They were these: Him that is weak in the faith, receive. He applied this to himself and told me so. He was strengthened by the admonition; calmly and unhesitatingly he joined me in a purpose and a resolution so good, and so right for his character, which had always been very much better than mine.

The next thing we do is to go inside and tell my mother. How happy she is! We describe to her how it all took place, and there is no limit to her joy and triumph. Now she was praising you, Who art able to do above that which we ask or think; for she saw that with regard to me you had given her so much more than she used to ask for when she wept so pitifully before you. For you converted me to you in such a way that I no longer sought a wife nor any other worldly hope. I was now standing on that rule of faith, just as you had shown me to her in a vision so many years before. And so you had changed her mourning into joy, a joy much richer than she had desired and much dearer and purer than that which she looked for by having grandchildren of my flesh.

Diagnostic Questions

1. What is the theological issue in the opening paragraphs of Augustine’s Confessions?

2. Comment on the famous phrase often translated “and our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee.”

3. How significant is it that much of this account is formulated as prayer?

4. What were Augustine’s biggest struggles as a young man?

5. What inadequate remedies did he apply?

6. What role did his mother, Monica, play in his spiritual journey?

7. What were the dynamics of Augustine’s conversion?

8. How did he gradually move away from Manichaeism?

Introduction to Augustine’s City of God

Any survey of apologetic literature must include Augustine’s magnificent work The City of God. Depending on one’s criteria, it could easily be argued that Augustine was the most influential father in the history of the church. The sheer scope and substance of this one work would qualify him for such a distinction. In any case, Augustine’s arguments, abbreviated herein, deserve careful attention and thought.

The City of God is the longest of Augustine’s works and was written during the latter years of his life. The entire work took him ten (or perhaps slightly more) years to complete. It is, by every reckoning, one of his greatest works, in that it is the first major work to lay out, against the “pagans” and for the church, a Christian philosophy of history.

The mediate occasion for writing was the invasion of Rome by the Goths in AD 410. In light of that invasion, some wanted to attribute Rome’s destruction to the Christians, given that Christians were accused of being poor citizens. As Augustine explains in his Retractions (2.43):

Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their king,[2] the worshippers of false gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the defence of the city of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention, and which I could not defer. However, this great undertaking was at last completed in twenty-two books.[3]

Augustine’s primary concern in this work, therefore, is not with the invasion itself, though that was unjust and cruel. His concern is rather for the “house of God.” He is intent on writing to ensure, as far as it lies within him, that Christians will act as Christians in the face of such political turmoil. He is concerned that some might be led astray from the fold as a result of the Gothic invasion and the ways in which that attack threatens to influence the church.

As Augustine notes in the preface, the immediate cause of writing this work was his promise to Marcellinus: “The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest son Marcellinus, suggested, and which is due to you by my promise.” Marcellinus was the proconsul at the council in Carthage in 411, which was called to resolve the Donatist controversy. The genesis of the controversy, beginning some one hundred years prior to the sack of Rome, revolved around the status of those Christians who had compromised their faith during various persecutions, and then who desired later to be members in good standing of the church. There were some in the church, particularly in its leadership, who were arguing that any church leader who had compromised his Christian commitment during persecution (so-called traditors) was not worthy to be accepted again in the church as a Christian. By the time Augustine took up the challenge of this controversy, much of it had become politicized, attaching itself at least tangentially to the Roman domination of the time.

Thus, in Augustine’s defense of the Donatists, and in Marcellinus’s able support of Augustine, a friendship was forged. Marcellinus was much impressed with the doctrine of the church, in its relationship to the state, that Augustine had set forth at that council. The Donatist controversy, therefore, was one of the main catalysts behind The City of God.

Augustine was concerned in this work, first of all, to refute pagan religions that were attempting to take hold in the culture. At the same time, he sought to offer a positive contribution, writing much that was meant to benefit and build up the church. Again, he notes, in summarizing the twenty-two books of The City of God:

Of these, the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity, and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five books I address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and persons on whom they light, but, while admitting this, maintain that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life to come. In these ten books, then, I refute these two opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to the Christian religion.

The first ten books, then, deal with what is sometime called “negative apologetics.” There he refutes the beliefs of the pagan religions. After this, he turns his attention to what is sometimes called “positive apologetics.”

But that no one might have occasion to say, that though I had refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to establish my own, I devote to this object the second part of this work, which comprises twelve books, although I have not scrupled, as occasion offered, either to advance my own opinions in the first ten books, or to demolish the arguments of my opponents in the last twelve. Of these twelve books, the first four contain an account of the origin of these two cities—the city of God, and the city of the world. The second four treat of their history or progress; the third and last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, though all these twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have named them after the better city and called them the City of God.[4]

What we have, therefore, in this magnum opus is a clear apologetic, a defense of the Christian faith. It is a defense applied to a very specific occasion. Even so, the general principles that Augustine is able to advance and develop, as he argues for the heavenly citizenship of every Christian, are themselves applicable across the spectrum of the church’s history. The chapters included in this abbreviated version of The City of God provide an introduction to some of those principles.

The City of God

Book I

Preface: Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work

The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest son Marcellinus, suggested, and which is due to you by my promise. I have undertaken its defense against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of this city—a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until “righteousness shall return unto judgment,”[5] and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace. A great work this, and an arduous; but God is my helper. For I am aware what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this shifting scene. For the King and Founder of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in these words: “God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.”[6] But this, which is God’s prerogative, the inflated ambition of a proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered among its attributes, to

Show pity to the humbled soul,

And crush the sons of pride.

And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.

Chapter 1. Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ’s Sake Spared When They Stormed the City

For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens of this city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and are so ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they would now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had they not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy’s steel, that life in which they now boast themselves. Are not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The reliquaries[7] of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear witness to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary for all who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold the blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those murderers who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came to those spots where that was forbidden which the license of war permitted in every other place, their furious rage for slaughter was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the ills that have befallen their city; but the preservation of their own life—a boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ by the barbarians—they attribute not to our Christ, but to their own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right perceptions, to attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by their enemies, to that divine providence which is wont to reform the depraved manners of men by chastisement, and which exercises with similar afflictions the righteous and praiseworthy—either translating them, when they have passed through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and spared them for Christ’s sake, whether this mercy was actually shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially dedicated to Christ’s name, and of which the very largest were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be given to the expansive compassion which desired that a large multitude might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with sincere confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape the punishment of eternal fire—they who with lying lips took upon them this name, that they might escape the punishment of present destruction. For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insulting the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pretended that they themselves were Christ’s servants. Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief life.

Chapter 2. That It Is Quite Contrary to the Usage of War, That the Victors Should Spare the Vanquished for the Sake of Their Gods

There are histories of numberless wars, both before the building of Rome and since its rise and the extension of its dominion; let these be read, and let one instance be cited in which, when a city had been taken by foreigners, the victors spared those who were found to have fled for sanctuary to the temples of their gods; or one instance in which a barbarian general gave orders that none should be put to the sword who had been found in this or that temple. Did not Aeneas see

Dying Priam at the shrine,

Staining the hearth he made divine?

Did not Diomede and Ulysses

Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,

Her fateful image from your fane,

Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore

The virgin coronal she wore?

Neither is that true which follows, that

Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,

And Greece grew weak.

For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and sword; after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars. Neither did Troy perish because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself first lost, that she should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt; just her guards. For as soon as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact, the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders?

Chapter 3. That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted That They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend Troy

And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were delighted to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And they are enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged at their own writers, they part with money to learn what they say; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of other honors. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace,

The fresh cask long keeps its first tang.

Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans, and stirring up Aeolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words,

A race I hate now ploughs the sea,

Transporting Troy to Italy,

And home-gods conquered . . .

And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defense of Rome to these conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What, then, says Aeneas himself—Aeneas who is so often designated “pious”? Does he not say,

Lo! Panthus, ’scaped from death by flight,

Priest of Apollo on the height,

His conquered gods with trembling hands

He bears, and shelter swift demands?

Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call “conquered”) were rather entrusted to Aeneas than he to them, when it is said to him,

The gods of her domestic shrines

Your country to your care consigns?

If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under the protection of a man, what a madness is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil omens? Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets, therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the conquered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ’s sake spared them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.

Chapter 4. Of the Asylum of Juno in Troy, Which Saved No One from the Greeks; and of the Churches of the Apostles, Which Protected from the Barbarians All Who Fled to Them

Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, was not able, as I have said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places of their gods from the fire and sword of the Greeks, though the Greeks worshipped the same gods. Not only so, but

Phoenix and Ulysses fell

In the void courts by Juno’s cell

Were set the spoils to keep;

Snatched from the burning shrines away,

There Ilium’s mighty treasure lay,

Rich altars, bowls of massy gold,

And captive raiment, rudely rolled

In one promiscuous heap;

While boys and matrons, wild with fear,

In long array were standing near.

In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was chosen, not that from it none might be led out a captive, but that in it all the captives might be immured. Compare now this “asylum”—the asylum not of an ordinary god, not of one of the rank and file of gods, but of Jove’s own sister and wife, the queen of all the gods—with the churches built in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils rescued from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods, not that they might be restored to the vanquished, but divided among the victors; while into these was carried back, with the most religious observance and respect, everything which belonged to them, even though found elsewhere. There liberty was lost; here preserved. There bondage was strict; here strictly excluded. Into that temple men were driven to become the chattels of their enemies, now lording it over them; into these churches men were led by their relenting foes, that they might be at liberty. In fine, the gentle Greeks appropriated that temple of Juno to the purposes of their own avarice and pride; while these churches of Christ were chosen even by the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for humility and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that victory of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they worshipped in common with the Trojans, and did not dare to put to the sword or make captive the wretched and vanquished Trojans who fled thither; and perhaps Virgil, in the manner of poets, has depicted what never really happened? But there is no question that he depicted the usual custom of an enemy when sacking a city.

Chapter 5. Caesar’s Statement regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City

Even Caesar himself gives us positive testimony regarding this custom; for, in his deliverance in the senate about the conspirators, he says (as Sallust, a historian of distinguished veracity, writes) “that virgins and boys are violated, children torn from the embrace of their parents, matrons subjected to whatever should be the pleasure of the conquerors, temples and houses plundered, slaughter and burning rife; in fine, all things filled with arms, corpses, blood, and wailing.” If he had not mentioned temples here, we might suppose that enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of the gods. And the Roman temples were in danger of these disasters, not from foreign foes, but from Catiline and his associates, the most noble senators and citizens of Rome. But these, it may be said, were abandoned men, and the parricides of their fatherland.

Chapter 6. That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples

Why, then, need our argument take note of the many nations who have waged wars with one another, and have nowhere spared the conquered in the temples of their gods? Let us look at the practice of the Romans themselves; let us, I say, recall and review the Romans, whose chief praise it has been “to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud,” and that they preferred “rather to forgive than to revenge an injury”; and among so many and great cities which they have stormed, taken, and overthrown for the extension of their dominion, let us be told what temples they were accustomed to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or have they really done this, and has the fact been suppressed by the historians of these events? Is it to be believed, that men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points they could praise, would omit those which, in their own estimation, are the most signal proofs of piety? Marcus Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most splendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its coming ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it before he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve the chastity even of his enemy. For before he gave orders for the storming of the city, he issued an edict forbidding the violation of any free person. Yet the city was sacked according to the custom of war; nor do we anywhere read, that even by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that no one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple. And this certainly would by no means have been omitted, when neither his weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity could be passed in silence. Fabius, the conqueror of the city of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining from making booty of the images. For when his secretary proposed the question to him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which had been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation under a joke. For he asked of what sort they were; and when they reported to him that there were not only many large images, but some of them armed, “Oh,” says he, “let us leave with the Tarentines their angry gods.” Seeing, then, that the writers of Roman history could not pass in silence, neither the weeping of the one general nor the laughing of the other, neither the chaste pity of the one nor the facetious moderation of the other, on what occasion would it be omitted, if, for the honor of any of their enemy’s gods, they had shown this particular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or captivity was prohibited?

Chapter 7. That the Cruelties Which Occurred in the Sack of Rome Were in Accordance with the Custom of War, whereas the Acts of Clemency Resulted from the Influence of Christ’s Name

All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent calamity—all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery—was the result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain, from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent man to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvelously tempered by Him who so long before said by His prophet, “I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them.”[8]

Chapter 8. Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men

Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended even to the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy of Him who daily “makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”[9] For though some of these men, taking thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform, some, as the apostle says, “despising the riches of His goodness and long-suffering, after their hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds”:[10] nevertheless does the patience of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as the scourge of God educates the good to patience. And so, too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that it may cherish them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked to punish them. To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.

There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness. Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.

Chapter 9. Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together

What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period, which would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered the following circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account. But not to mention this, where can we readily find a man who holds in fit and just estimation those persons on account of whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniquities and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions threatened? Where is the man who lives with them in the style in which it becomes us to live with them? For often we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chiding them, either because we shrink from the labor or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friendships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement, or injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from losing. So that, although the conduct of wicked men is distasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with them into that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons, yet, because they spare their damnable sins through fear, therefore, even though their own sins be slight and venial, they are justly scourged with the wicked in this world, though in eternity they quite escape punishment. Justly, when God afflicts them in common with the wicked, do they find this life bitter, through love of whose sweetness they declined to be bitter to these sinners.

If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened from endeavoring to lead a good and pious life, and may be driven from the faith; this man’s omission seems to be occasioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration. But what is blame-worthy is, that they who themselves revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought to reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because they fear to give offense, lest they should injure their interests in those things which good men may innocently and legitimately use—though they use them more greedily than becomes persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how they should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the husbands with their wives, the children with their parents, and parents with their children, and servants with their masters, and masters with their servants—not only do these weaker brethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on account of which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them; but those also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment, do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission of they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they might by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love.

Accordingly this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good are chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with temporal punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, “He is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand” (Ezekiel 33:6). For watchmen or overseers of the people are appointed in churches, that they may unsparingly rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of, who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of those with whom the relationships of this life bring him into contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks them, fearing to give offense, and lose such worldly blessings as may legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities—the reason which Job’s case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.

Chapter 10. That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods

These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is needless, and that the apostle is vaporing when he says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God?”[11]

They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions of the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great price?[12] Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians, to whom the wealthy apostle said, “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.*”[13]

They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who himself was poor without, but rich within—that is to say, if they used the world as not using it—could say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass: blessed be the name of the Lord.”[14] Like a good servant, Job counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death. But as to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their own making; in the words of the apostle quoted above, “they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” For it was well that they who had so long despised these verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For when the apostle says, “They that will be rich fall into temptation,” and so on, what he blames in riches is not the possession of them, but the desire of them. For elsewhere he says, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”[15] They who were making such a use of their property have been consoled for light losses by great gains, and have had more pleasure in those possessions which they have securely laid past, by freely giving them away, than grief in those which they entirely lost by an anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to carry away from earth. Our Lord’s injunction runs, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”[16] And they who have listened to this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how well they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher, and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly reach! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola, who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he afterwards told me, “O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver, for where all my treasure is You know.” For all his treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it by Him who had also foretold that these calamities would happen in the world. Consequently those persons who obeyed their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up treasure, did not lose even their earthly possessions in the invasion of the barbarians; while those who are now repenting that they did not obey Him have learned the right use of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have prevented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.

But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for Christ’s sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they preserved it by telling a lie or lost it by telling the truth. For under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly the torture which taught them that they should set their affections on a posselssion they could not lose, was more useful than those possessions which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation; and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a better life—I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured without receiving a heavenly reward.

Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.

Chapter 11. Of the End of This Life, whether It Is Material That It Be Long Delayed

But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to be, the one is not better, the other worse—the one greater, the other less. And of what consequence is it what kind of death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not forced to go through the same ordeal a second time? And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all? I am not unaware of the poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose rather to live long in fear of so many deaths, than to die once and so escape them all; but the weak and cowardly shrinking of the flesh is one thing, and the well-considered and reasonable persuasion of the soul quite another. That death is not to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life; for death becomes evil only by the retribution which follows it. They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will usher them. And since Christians are well aware that the death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked was far better than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple and fine linen, what harm could these terrific deaths do to the dead who had lived well?

Book XI

Chapter 16. Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated by Their Utility, or according to the Natural Gradations of Being

For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God the Creator’s essence, those which have life are ranked above those which have none; those that have the power of generation, or even of desiring, above those which want this faculty. And, among things that have life, the sentient are higher than those which have no sensation, as animals are ranked above trees. And, among the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not intelligence,—men, e.g., above cattle. And, among the intelligent, the immortal such as the angels, above the mortal, such as men. These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity), more is often given for a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titillates the bodily sense. But of such consequence in rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love, that though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by the scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.

Chapter 17. That the Flaw of Wickedness Is Not Nature, but Contrary to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, but in the Will

It is with reference to the nature, then, and not to the wickedness of the devil, that we are to understand these words, “This is the beginning of God’s handiwork”; for, without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice only where the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature. But God, as He is the supremely good Creator of good natures, so is He of evil wills the most just Ruler; so that, while they make an ill use of good natures, He makes a good use even of evil wills. Accordingly, He caused the devil (good by God’s creation, wicked by his own will) to be cast down from his high position, and to become the mockery of His angels—that is, He caused his temptations to benefit those whom he wishes to injure by them. And because God, when He created him, was certainly not ignorant of his future malignity, and foresaw the good which He Himself would bring out of his evil, therefore says the psalm, “This leviathan whom You have made to be a sport therein,” that we may see that, even while God in His goodness created him good, He yet had already foreseen and arranged how He would make use of him when he became wicked.

Chapter 18. Of the Beauty of the Universe, Which Becomes, by God’s Ordinance, More Brilliant by the Opposition of Contraries

For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses. For what are called antitheses are among the most elegant of the ornaments of speech. They might be called in Latin “oppositions,” or, to speak more accurately, “contrapositions”; but this word is not in common use among us, though the Latin, and indeed the languages of all nations, avail themselves of the same ornaments of style. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul also makes a graceful use of antithesis, in that place where he says, “By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”[17] As, then, these oppositions of contraries lend beauty to the language, so the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things. This is quite plainly stated in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in this way: “Good is set against evil, and life against death: so is the sinner against the godly. So look upon all the works of the Most High, and these are two and two, one against another.”[18]

Chapter 19. What, Seemingly, We Are to Understand by the Words, “God Divided the Light from the Darkness”

Accordingly, though the obscurity of the divine word has certainly this advantage, that it causes many opinions about the truth to be started and discussed, each reader seeing some fresh meaning in it, yet, whatever is said to be meant by an obscure passage should be either confirmed by the testimony of obvious facts, or should be asserted in other and less ambiguous texts. This obscurity is beneficial, whether the sense of the author is at last reached after the discussion of many other interpretations, or whether, though that sense remain concealed, other truths are brought out by the discussion of the obscurity. To me it does not seem incongruous with the working of God, if we understand that the angels were created when that first light was made, and that a separation was made between the holy and the unclean angels, when, as is said, “God divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.” For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride. For, so far as regards the day and night, with which we are familiar, He commanded those luminaries of heaven that are obvious to our senses to divide between the light and the darkness. “Let there be,” He says, “lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night”; and shortly after He says, “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.”[19] But between that light, which is the holy company of the angels spiritually radiant with the illumination of the truth, and that opposing darkness, which is the noisome foulness of the spiritual condition of those angels who are turned away from the light of righteousness, only He Himself could divide, from whom their wickedness (not of nature, but of will), while yet it was future, could not be hidden or uncertain.

Chapter 20. Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and Darkness, “And God Saw the Light That It Was Good”

Then, we must not pass from this passage of Scripture without noticing that when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” it was immediately added, “And God saw the light that it was good.” No such expression followed the statement that He separated the light from the darkness, and called the light Day and the darkness Night, lest the seal of His approval might seem to be set on such darkness, as well as on the light. For when the darkness was not subject of disapprobation, as when it was divided by the heavenly bodies from this light which our eyes discern, the statement that God saw that it was good is inserted, not before, but after the division is recorded. “And God set them,” so runs the passage, “in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.” For He approved of both, because both were sinless. But where God said, “Let there be light, and there was light; and God saw the light that it was good”; and the narrative goes on, “and God divided the light from the darkness! and God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night,” there was not in this place subjoined the statement, “And God saw that it was good,” lest both should be designated good, while one of them was evil, not by nature, but by its own fault. And therefore, in this case, the light alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic darkness, though it had been ordained, was yet not approved.

Chapter 21. Of God’s Eternal and Unchangeable Knowledge and Will, whereby All He Has Made Pleased Him in the Eternal Design as Well as in the Actual Result

For what else is to be understood by that invariable refrain, “And God saw that it was good,” than the approval of the work in its design, which is the wisdom of God? For certainly God did not in the actual achievement of the work first learn that it was good, but, on the contrary, nothing would have been made had it not been first known by Him. While, therefore, He sees that that is good which, had He not seen it before it was made, would never have been made, it is plain that He is not discovering, but teaching that it is good. Plato, indeed, was bold enough to say that, when the universe was completed, God was, as it were, elated with joy. And Plato was not so foolish as to mean by this that God was rendered more blessed by the novelty of His creation; but he wished thus to indicate that the work now completed met with its Maker’s approval, as it had while yet in design. It is not as if the knowledge of God were of various kinds, knowing in different ways things which as yet are not, things which are, and things which have been. For not in our fashion does He look forward to what is future, nor at what is present, nor back upon what is past; but in a manner quite different and far and profoundly remote from our way of thinking. For He does not pass from this to that by transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness; so that of those things which emerge in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal presence. Neither does He see in one fashion by the eye, in another by the mind, for He is not composed of mind and body; nor does His present knowledge differ from that which it ever was or shall be, for those variations of time, past, present, and future, though they alter our knowledge, do not affect His, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”[20] Neither is there any growth from thought to thought in the conceptions of Him in whose spiritual vision all things which He knows are at once embraced. For as without any movement that time can measure, He Himself moves all temporal things, so He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure. And therefore He saw that what He had made was good, when He saw that it was good to make it. And when He saw it made, He had not on that account a twofold nor any way increased knowledge of it; as if He had less knowledge before He made what He saw. For certainly He would not be the perfect worker He is, unless His knowledge were so perfect as to receive no addition from His finished works. Wherefore, if the only object had been to inform us who made the light, it had been enough to say, “God made the light”; and if further information regarding the means by which it was made had been intended, it would have sufficed to say, “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” that we might know not only that God had made the world, but also that He had made it by the word. But because it was right that three leading truths regarding the creature be intimated to us, viz., who made it, by what means, and why, it is written, “God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good.” If, then, we ask who made it, it was “God.” If, by what means, He said “Let it be,” and it was. If we ask, why He made it, “it was good.” Neither is there any author more excellent than God, nor any skill more efficacious than the word of God, nor any cause better than that good might be created by the good God. This also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world, that good works might be made by a good God; whether he read this passage, or, perhaps, was informed of these things by those who had read them, or, by his quick-sighted genius, penetrated to things spiritual and invisible through the things that are created, or was instructed regarding them by those who had discerned them.

Chapter 22. Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which Are a Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think That There Is Some Natural Evil

This cause, however, of a good creation, namely, the goodness of God—this cause, I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognized by some heretics, because there are, forsooth, many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment. They do not consider how admirable these things are in their own places, how excellent in their own natures, how beautifully adjusted to the rest of creation, and how much grace they contribute to the universe by their own contributions as to a commonwealth; and how serviceable they are even to ourselves, if we use them with a knowledge of their fit adaptations,—so that even poisons, which are destructive when used injudiciously, become wholesome and medicinal when used in conformity with their qualities and design; just as, on the other hand, those things which give us pleasure, such as food, drink, and the light of the sun, are found to be hurtful when immoderately or unseasonably used. And thus divine providence admonishes us not foolishly to vituperate things, but to investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity or infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that there were other things which we all but failed to discover. For this concealment of the use of things is itself either an exercise of our humility or a leveling of our pride; for no nature at all is evil, and this is a name for nothing but the want of good. But from things earthly to things heavenly, from the visible to the invisible, there are some things better than others; and for this purpose are they unequal, in order that they might all exist. Now God is in such sort a great worker in great things, that He is not less in little things—for these little things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!—for that is not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of the members. But we do not greatly wonder that persons, who suppose that some evil nature has been generated and propagated by a kind of opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the cause of the creation was this, that the good God produced a good creation. For they believe that He was driven to this enterprise of creation by the urgent necessity of repulsing the evil that warred against Him, and that He mixed His good nature with the evil for the sake of restraining and conquering it; and that this nature of His, being thus shamefully polluted, and most cruelly oppressed and held captive, He labors to cleanse and deliver it, and with all His pains does not wholly succeed; but such part of it as could not be cleansed from that defilement is to serve as a prison and chain of the conquered and incarcerated enemy. The Manichaeans would not drivel, or rather, rave in such a style as this, if they believed the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely incorruptible, and subject to no injury; and if, moreover, they held in Christian sobriety, that the soul which has shown itself capable of being altered for the worse by its own will, and of being corrupted by sin, and so, of being deprived of the light of eternal truth—that this soul, I say, is not a part of God, nor of the same nature as God, but is created by Him, and is far different from its Creator.

Book XIV

Chapter 27. Of the Angels and Men Who Sinned, and That Their Wickedness Did Not Disturb the Order of God’s Providence

The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the “great works of the Lord which accomplish His will.” For He who by His providence and omnipotence distributes to every one his own portion, is able to make good use not only of the good, but also of the wicked. And thus making a good use of the wicked angel, who, in punishment of his first wicked volition, was doomed to an obduracy that prevents him now from willing any good, why should not God have permitted him to tempt the first man, who had been created upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had been so constituted, that if he looked to God for help, man’s goodness should defeat the angel’s wickedness; but if by proud self-pleasing he abandoned God, his Creator and Sustainer, he should be conquered. If his will remained upright, through leaning on God’s help, he should be rewarded; if it became wicked, by forsaking God, he should be punished. But even this trusting in God’s help could not itself be accomplished without God’s help, although man had it in his own power to relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing himself. For as it is not in our power to live in this world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those do who kill themselves, so it was not in man’s power, even in Paradise, to live as he ought without God’s help; but it was in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut short his happiness, and incur very just punishment. Since, then, God was not ignorant that man would fall, why should He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who hated and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was unaware that he should be conquered, but because He foresaw that by the man’s seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil himself should be conquered, to the greater glory of the saints. All was brought about in such a manner, that neither did any future event escape God’s foreknowledge, nor did His foreknowledge compel any one to sin, and so as to demonstrate in the experience of the intelligent creation, human and angelic, how great a difference there is between the private presumption of the creature and the Creator’s protection. For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in God’s power to prevent both angels and men from sinning? But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace.

Chapter 28. Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “You are my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love You, O Lord, my strength.” And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride—“they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.”[21] But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, “that God may be all in all.”[22]

Book XIX

Chapter 1. That Varro Has Made Out That Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight Different Sects of Philosophy Might Be Formed by the Various Opinions regarding the Supreme Good

As I see that I have still to discuss the fit destinies of the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, I must first explain, so far as the limits of this work allow me, the reasonings by which men have attempted to make for themselves a happiness in this unhappy life, in order that it may be evident, not only from divine authority, but also from such reasons as can be adduced to unbelievers, how the empty dreams of the philosophers differ from the hope which God gives to us, and from the substantial fulfillment of it which He will give us as our blessedness. Philosophers have expressed a great variety of diverse opinions regarding the ends of goods and of evils, and this question they have eagerly canvassed, that they might, if possible, discover what makes a man happy. For the end of our good is that for the sake of which other things are to be desired, while it is to be desired for its own sake; and the end of evil is that on account of which other things are to be shunned, while it is avoided on its own account. Thus, by the end of good, we at present mean, not that by which good is destroyed, so that it no longer exists, but that by which it is finished, so that it becomes complete; and by the end of evil we mean, not that which abolishes it, but that which completes its development. These two ends, therefore, are the supreme good and the supreme evil; and, as I have said, those who have in this vain life professed the study of wisdom have been at great pains to discover these ends, and to obtain the supreme good and avoid the supreme evil in this life. And although they erred in a variety of ways, yet natural insight has prevented them from wandering from the truth so far that they have not placed the supreme good and evil, some in the soul, some in the body, and some in both. From this tripartite distribution of the sects of philosophy, Marcus Varro, in his book De Philosophia, has drawn so large a variety of opinions, that, by a subtle and minute analysis of distinctions, he numbers without difficulty as many as 288 sects—not that these have actually existed, but sects which are possible.

To illustrate briefly what he means, I must begin with his own introductory statement in the above-mentioned book, that there are four things which men desire, as it were by nature without a master, without the help of any instruction, without industry or the art of living which is called virtue, and which is certainly learned: either pleasure, which is an agreeable stirring of the bodily sense; or repose, which excludes every bodily inconvenience; or both these, which Epicurus calls by the one name, pleasure; or the primary objects of nature, which comprehend the things already named and other things, either bodily, such as health, and safety, and integrity of the members, or spiritual, such as the greater and less mental gifts that are found in men. Now these four things—pleasure, repose, the two combined, and the primary objects of nature—exist in us in such sort that we must either desire virtue on their account, or them for the sake of virtue, or both for their own sake; and consequently there arise from this distinction twelve sects, for each is by this consideration tripled. I will illustrate this in one instance, and, having done so, it will not be difficult to understand the others. According, then, as bodily pleasure is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, there are three sects. It is subjected to virtue when it is chosen as subservient to virtue. Thus it is a duty of virtue to live for one’s country, and for its sake to beget children, neither of which can be done without bodily pleasure. For there is pleasure in eating and drinking, pleasure also in sexual intercourse. But when it is preferred to virtue, it is desired for its own sake, and virtue is chosen only for its sake, and to effect nothing else than the attainment or preservation of bodily pleasure. And this, indeed, is to make life hideous; for where virtue is the slave of pleasure it no longer deserves the name of virtue. Yet even this disgraceful distortion has found some philosophers to patronize and defend it. Then virtue is united to pleasure when neither is desired for the other’s sake, but both for their own. And therefore, as pleasure, according as it is subjected, preferred, or united to virtue, makes three sects, so also do repose, pleasure and repose combined, and the prime natural blessings, make their three sects each. For as men’s opinions vary, and these four things are sometimes subjected, sometimes preferred, and sometimes united to virtue, there are produced twelve sects. But this number again is doubled by the addition of one difference, viz., the social life; for whoever attaches himself to any of these sects does so either for his own sake alone, or for the sake of a companion, for whom he ought to wish what he desires for himself. And thus there will be twelve of those who think some one of these opinions should be held for their own sakes, and [an]other twelve who decide that they ought to follow this or that philosophy not for their own sakes only, but also for the sake of others whose good they desire as their own. These twenty-four sects again are doubled, and become forty-eight by adding a difference taken from the New Academy. For each of these four and twenty sects can hold and defend their opinion as certain, as the Stoics defended the position that the supreme good of man consisted solely in virtue; or they can be held as probable, but not certain, as the New Academics did. There are, therefore, twenty-four who hold their philosophy as certainly true, other twenty-four who hold their opinions as probable, but not certain. Again, as each person who attaches himself to any of these sects may adopt the mode of life either of the Cynics or of the other philosophers, this distinction will double the number, and so make ninety-six sects. Then, lastly, as each of these sects may be adhered to either by men who love a life of ease, as those who have through choice or necessity addicted themselves to study, or by men who love a busy life, as those who, while philosophizing, have been much occupied with state affairs and public business, or by men who choose a mixed life, in imitation of those who have apportioned their time partly to erudite leisure, partly to necessary business: by these differences the number of the sects is tripled, and becomes 288.

I have thus, as briefly and lucidly as I could, given in my own words the opinions which Varro expresses in his book. But how he refutes all the rest of these sects, and chooses one, the Old Academy, instituted by Plato, and continuing to Polemo, the fourth teacher of that school of philosophy which held that their system was certain; and how on this ground he distinguishes it from the New Academy, which began with Polemo’s successor Arcesilaus, and held that all things are uncertain; and how he seeks to establish that the Old Academy was as free from error as from doubt—all this, I say, were too long to enter upon in detail, and yet I must not altogether pass it by in silence. Varro then rejects, as a first step, all those differences which have multiplied the number of sects; and the ground on which he does so is that they are not differences about the supreme good. He maintains that in philosophy a sect is created only by its having an opinion of its own different from other schools on the point of the ends-in-chief. For man has no other reason for philosophizing than that he may be happy; but that which makes him happy is itself the supreme good. In other words, the supreme good is the reason of philosophizing; and therefore that cannot be called a sect of philosophy which pursues no way of its own towards the supreme good. Thus, when it is asked whether a wise man will adopt the social life, and desire and be interested in the supreme good of his friend as in his own, or will, on the contrary, do all that he does merely for his own sake, there is no question here about the supreme good, but only about the propriety of associating or not associating a friend in its participation: whether the wise man will do this not for his own sake, but for the sake of his friend in whose good he delights as in his own. So, too, when it is asked whether all things about which philosophy is concerned are to be considered uncertain, as by the New Academy, or certain, as the other philosophers maintain, the question here is not what end should be pursued, but whether or not we are to believe in the substantial existence of that end; or, to put it more plainly, whether he who pursues the supreme good must maintain that it is a true good, or only that it appears to him to be true, though possibly it may be delusive,—both pursuing one and the same good. The distinction, too, which is founded on the dress and manners of the Cynics, does not touch the question of the chief good, but only the question whether he who pursues that good which seems to himself true should live as do the Cynics. There were, in fact, men who, though they pursued different things as the supreme good, some choosing pleasure, others virtue, yet adopted that mode of life which gave the Cynics their name. Thus, whatever it is which distinguishes the Cynics from other philosophers, this has no bearing on the choice and pursuit of that good which constitutes happiness. For if it had any such bearing, then the same habits of life would necessitate the pursuit of the same chief good, and diverse habits would necessitate the pursuit of different ends.

Chapter 2. How Varro, by Removing All the Differences Which Do Not Form Sects, but Are Merely Secondary Questions, Reaches Three Definitions of the Chief Good, of Which We Must Choose One

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

Chapter 3. Which of the Three Leading Opinions regarding the Chief Good Should Be Preferred, according to Varro, Who Follows Antiochus and the Old Academy

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

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

Chapter 4. What the Christians Believe regarding the Supreme Good and Evil, in Opposition to the Philosophers, Who Have Maintained That the Supreme Good Is in Themselves

If, then, we be asked what the city of God has to say upon these points, and, in the first place, what its opinion regarding the supreme good and evil is, it will reply that life eternal is the supreme good, death eternal the supreme evil, and that to obtain the one and escape the other we must live rightly. And thus it is written, “The just lives by faith” (Hab. 2:4), for we do not as yet see our good, and must therefore live by faith; neither have we in ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so only if He who has given us faith to believe in His help do help us when we believe and pray. As for those who have supposed that the sovereign good and evil are to be found in this life, and have placed it either in the soul or the body, or in both, or, to speak more explicitly, either in pleasure or in virtue, or in both; in repose or in virtue, or in both; in pleasure and repose, or in virtue, or in all combined; in the primary objects of nature, or in virtue, or in both—all these have, with a marvelous shallowness, sought to find their blessedness in this life and in themselves. Contempt has been poured upon such ideas by the Truth, saying by the prophet, “The Lord knows the thoughts of men” (or, as the Apostle Paul cites the passage, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise”) “that they are vain.”[23]

For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? Cicero, in the Consolation on the death of his daughter, has spent all his ability in lamentation; but how inadequate was even his ability here? For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accidents? Is the body of the wise man exempt from any pain which may dispel pleasure, from any disquietude which may banish repose? The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity—and which of these is it that may not assail the flesh of the wise man? Comely and fitting attitudes and movements of the body are numbered among the prime natural blessings; but what if some sickness makes the members tremble? what if a man suffers from curvature of the spine to such an extent that his hands reach the ground, and he goes upon all-fours like a quadruped? Does not this destroy all beauty and grace in the body, whether at rest or in motion? What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense and intellect, of which the one is given for the perception, and the other for the comprehension of truth? But what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? We can scarcely, or not at all, refrain from tears, when we think of or see the actions and words of such frantic persons, and consider how different from and even opposed to their own sober judgment and ordinary conduct their present demeanor is. And what shall I say of those who suffer from demoniacal possession? Where is their own intelligence hidden and buried while the malignant spirit is using their body and soul according to his own will? And who is quite sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? Then, as to the perception of truth, what can we hope for even in this way while in the body, as we read in the true book of Wisdom, “The corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle presses down the mind that muses upon many things?”[24] And eagerness, or desire of action, if this is the right meaning to put upon the Greek , is also reckoned among the primary advantages of nature; and yet is it not this which produces those pitiable movements of the insane, and those actions which we shudder to see, when sense is deceived and reason deranged?

In fine, virtue itself, which is not among the primary objects of nature, but succeeds to them as the result of learning, though it holds the highest place among human good things, what is its occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices—not those that are outside of us, but within; not other men’s, but our own—a war which is waged especially by that virtue which the Greeks call , and we temperance, and which bridles carnal lusts, and prevents them from winning the consent of the spirit to wicked deeds? For we must not fancy that there is no vice in us, when, as the apostle says, “The flesh lusts against the spirit”;[25] for to this vice there is a contrary virtue, when, as the same writer says, “The spirit lusts against the flesh.” “For these two,” he says, “are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things which you would.” But what is it we wish to do when we seek to attain the supreme good, unless that the flesh should cease to lust against the spirit, and that there be no vice in us against which the spirit may lust? And as we cannot attain to this in the present life, however ardently we desire it, let us by God’s help accomplish at least this, to preserve the soul from succumbing and yielding to the flesh that lusts against it, and to refuse our consent to the perpetration of sin. Far be it from us, then, to fancy that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the happiness which we seek to reach by victory. And who is there so wise that he has no conflict at all to maintain against his vices?

What shall I say of that virtue which is called prudence? Is not all its vigilance spent in the discernment of good from evil things, so that no mistake may be admitted about what we should desire and what avoid? And thus it is itself a proof that we are in the midst of evils, or that evils are in us; for it teaches us that it is an evil to consent to sin, and a good to refuse this consent. And yet this evil, to which prudence teaches and temperance enables us not to consent, is removed from this life neither by prudence nor by temperance. And justice, whose office it is to render to every man his due, whereby there is in man himself a certain just order of nature, so that the soul is subjected to God, and the flesh to the soul, and consequently both soul and flesh to God—does not this virtue demonstrate that it is as yet rather laboring towards its end than resting in its finished work? For the soul is so much the less subjected to God as it is less occupied with the thought of God; and the flesh is so much the less subjected to the spirit as it lusts more vehemently against the spirit. So long, therefore, as we are beset by this weakness, this plague, this disease, how shall we dare to say that we are safe? And if not safe, then how can we be already enjoying our final beatitude? Then that virtue which goes by the name of fortitude is the plainest proof of the ills of life, for it is these ills which it is compelled to bear patiently. And this holds good, no matter though the ripest wisdom co-exists with it. And I am at a loss to understand how the Stoic philosophers can presume to say that these are no ills, though at the same time they allow the wise man to commit suicide and pass out of this life if they become so grievous that he cannot or ought not to endure them. But such is the stupid pride of these men who fancy that the supreme good can be found in this life, and that they can become happy by their own resources, that their wise man, or at least the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life that is beset with these evils happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it? If it is happy, let the wise man remain in it; but if these ills drive him out of it, in what sense is it happy? Or how can they say that these are not evils which conquer the virtue of fortitude, and force it not only to yield, but so to rave that it in one breath calls life happy and recommends it to be given up? For who is so blind as not to see that if it were happy it would not be fled from? And if they say we should flee from it on account of the infirmities that beset it, why then do they not lower their pride and acknowledge that it is miserable? Was it, I would ask, fortitude or weakness which prompted Cato to kill himself? for he would not have done so had he not been too weak to endure Caesar’s victory. Where, then, is his fortitude? It has yielded, it has succumbed, it has been so thoroughly overcome as to abandon, forsake, flee this happy life. Or was it no longer happy? Then it was miserable. How, then, were these not evils which made life miserable, and a thing to be escaped from?

And therefore those who admit that these are evils, as the Peripatetics do, and the Old Academy, the sect which Varro advocates, express a more intelligible doctrine; but theirs also is a surprising mistake, for they contend that this is a happy life which is beset by these evils, even though they be so great that he who endures them should commit suicide to escape them. “Pains and anguish of body,” says Varro, “are evils, and so much the worse in proportion to their severity; and to escape them you must quit this life.” What life, I pray? This life, he says, which is oppressed by such evils. Then it is happy in the midst of these very evils on account of which you say we must quit it? Or do you call it happy because you are at liberty to escape these evils by death? What, then, if by some secret judgment of God you were held fast and not permitted to die, nor suffered to live without these evils? In that case, at least, you would say that such a life was miserable. It is soon relinquished, no doubt but this does not make it not miserable; for were it eternal, you yourself would pronounce it miserable. Its brevity, therefore, does not clear it of misery; neither ought it to be called happiness because it is a brief misery. Certainly there is a mighty force in these evils which compel a man—according to them even a wise man—to cease to be a man that he may escape them, though they say, and say truly, that it is as it were the first and strongest demand of nature that a man cherish himself, and naturally therefore avoid death, and should so stand his own friend as to wish and vehemently aim at continuing to exist as a living creature, and subsisting in this union of soul and body. There is a mighty force in these evils to overcome this natural instinct by which death is by every means and with all a man’s efforts avoided, and to overcome it so completely that what was avoided is desired, sought after, and if it cannot in any other way be obtained, is inflicted by the man on himself. There is a mighty force in these evils which make fortitude a homicide,—if, indeed, that is to be called fortitude which is so thoroughly overcome by these evils, that it not only cannot preserve by patience the man whom it undertook to govern and defend, but is itself obliged to kill him. The wise man, I admit, ought to bear death with patience, but when it is inflicted by another. If, then, as these men maintain, he is obliged to inflict it on himself, certainly it must be owned that the ills which compel him to this are not only evils, but intolerable evils. The life, then, which is either subject to accidents, or environed with evils so considerable and grievous, could never have been called happy, if the men who give it this name had condescended to yield to the truth, and to be conquered by valid arguments, when they inquired after the happy life, as they yield to unhappiness, and are overcome by overwhelming evils, when they put themselves to death, and if they had not fancied that the supreme good was to be found in this mortal life; for the very virtues of this life, which are certainly its best and most useful possessions, are all the more telling proofs of its miseries in proportion as they are helpful against the violence of its dangers, toils, and woes. For if these are true virtues—and such cannot exist save in those who have true piety—they do not profess to be able to deliver the men who possess them from all miseries; for true virtues tell no such lies, but they profess that by the hope of the future world this life, which is miserably involved in the many and great evils of this world, is happy as it is also safe. For if not yet safe, how could it be happy? And therefore the Apostle Paul, speaking not of men without prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice, but of those whose lives were regulated by true piety, and whose virtues were therefore true, says, “For we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”[26] As, therefore, we are saved, so we are made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness, and this “with patience”; for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought patiently to endure, until we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall be no longer anything to endure. Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. And this happiness these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not see it, and attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is as deceitful as it is proud.

Chapter 5. Of the Social Life, Which, Though Most Desirable, Is Frequently Disturbed by Many Distresses

We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that the life of the wise man must be social. For how could the city of God (concerning which we are already writing no less than the nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning or be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life of the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? Hear how one of their comic writers makes one of his characters express the common feelings of all men in this matter: “I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me; they are additional cares.” What shall I say of the miseries of love which Terence also recounts—“slights, suspicions, quarrels, war today, peace tomorrow”? Is not human life full of such things? Do they not often occur even in honorable friendships? On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it today, we should be as ignorant of what it might be tomorrow. Who ought to be, or who are more friendly than those who live in the same family? And yet who can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret treachery has often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter as the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the most perfect dissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero so move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: “There are no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under the guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man who is your declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution; but this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely exists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine it.” It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine saying, “A man’s foes are those of his own household,”[27]—words which one cannot hear without pain; for though a man have sufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and sufficient sagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he himself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at the discovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have always been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have fallen from a better to a malicious disposition. If, then, home, the natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what shall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the more filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never free from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of disturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?

Chapter 6. Of the Error of Human Judgments When the Truth Is Hidden

What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and which are necessary in communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are, since the judges are men who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are therefore frequently compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture to ascertain the truth regarding the crimes of other men. What shall I say of torture applied to the accused himself? He is tortured to discover whether he is guilty, so that, though innocent, he suffers most undoubted punishment for crime that is still doubtful, not because it is proved that he committed it, but because it is not ascertained that he did not commit it. Thus the ignorance of the judge frequently involves an innocent person in suffering. And what is still more unendurable—a thing, indeed, to be bewailed, and, if that were possible, watered with fountains of tears—is this, that when the judge puts the accused to the question, that he may not unwittingly put an innocent man to death, the result of this lamentable ignorance is that this very person, whom he tortured that he might not condemn him if innocent, is condemned to death both tortured and innocent. For if he has chosen, in obedience to the philosophical instructions to the wise man, to quit this life rather than endure any longer such tortures, he declares that he has committed the crime which in fact he has not committed. And when he has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in ignorance whether he has put to death an innocent or a guilty person, though he put the accused to the torture for the very purpose of saving himself from condemning the innocent; and consequently he has both tortured an innocent man to discover his innocence, and has put him to death without discovering it. If such darkness shrouds social life, will a wise judge take his seat on the bench or no? Beyond question he will. For human society, which he thinks it a wickedness to abandon, constrains him and compels him to this duty. And he thinks it no wickedness that innocent witnesses are tortured regarding the crimes of which other men are accused; or that the accused are put to the torture, so that they are often overcome with anguish, and, though innocent, make false confessions regarding themselves, and are punished; or that, though they be not condemned to die, they often die during, or in consequence of, the torture; or that sometimes the accusers, who perhaps have been prompted by a desire to benefit society by bringing criminals to justice, are themselves condemned through the ignorance of the judge, because they are unable to prove the truth of their accusations though they are true, and because the witnesses lie, and the accused endures the torture without being moved to confession. These numerous and important evils he does not consider sins; for the wise judge does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him, and because human society claims him as a judge. But though we therefore acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less condemn human life as miserable. And if he is compelled to torture and punish the innocent because his office and his ignorance constrain him, is he a happy as well as a guiltless man? Surely it were proof of more profound considerateness and finer feeling were he to recognize the misery of these necessities, and shrink from his own implication in that misery; and had he any piety about him, he would cry to God “From my necessities deliver me.”

Chapter 7. Of the Diversity of Languages, by Which the Intercourse of Men Is Prevented; and of the Misery of Wars, Even of Those Called Just

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

Chapter 8. That the Friendship of Good Men Cannot Be Securely Rested in, So Long as the Dangers of This Life Force Us to Be Anxious

In our present wretched condition we frequently mistake a friend for an enemy, and an enemy for a friend. And if we escape this pitiable blindness, is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered, the more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light upon them. For we are not only anxious lest they suffer from famine, war, disease, captivity, or the inconceivable horrors of slavery, but we are also affected with the much more painful dread that their friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and injustice. And when these contingencies actually occur—as they do the more frequently the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered—and when they come to our knowledge, who but the man who has experienced it can tell with what pangs the heart is torn? We would, in fact, prefer to hear that they were dead, although we could not without anguish hear of even this. For if their life has solaced us with the charms of friendship, can it be that their death should affect us with no sadness? He who will have none of this sadness must, if possible, have no friendly intercourse. Let him interdict or extinguish friendly affection; let him burst with ruthless insensibility the bonds of every human relationship; or let him contrive so to use them that no sweetness shall distill into his spirit. But if this is utterly impossible, how shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those whose life has been sweet to us? Hence arises that grief which affects the tender heart like a wound or a bruise, and which is healed by the application of kindly consolation. For though the cure is affected all the more easily and rapidly the better condition the soul is in, we must not on this account suppose that there is nothing at all to heal. Although, then, our present life is afflicted, sometimes in a milder, sometimes in a more painful degree, by the death of those very dear to us, and especially of useful public men, yet we would prefer to hear that such men were dead rather than to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue—in other words, that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the earth is full, and therefore it is written, “Is not human life upon earth a trial?”[28] And with the same reference the Lord says, “Woe to the world because of offenses!”[29] and again, “Because iniquity abounded, the love of many shall wax cold.”[30] And hence we enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of men are broken down or corrupted, or are in danger of both results.

Chapter 9. Of the Friendship of the Holy Angels, Which Men Cannot Be Sure of in This Life, owing to the Deceit of the Demons Who Hold in Bondage the Worshippers of a Plurality of Gods

The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read,[31] sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God’s mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness. And is this not a great misery of human life, that we are involved in such ignorance as, but for God’s mercy, makes us a prey to these demons? And it is very certain that the philosophers of the godless city, who have maintained that the gods were their friends, had fallen a prey to the malignant demons who rule that city, and whose eternal punishment is to be shared by it. For the nature of these beings is sufficiently evinced by the sacred or rather sacrilegious observances which form their worship, and by the filthy games in which their crimes are celebrated, and which they themselves originated and exacted from their worshippers as a fit propitiation.

Chapter 10. The Reward Prepared for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This Life

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

Chapter 11. Of the Happiness of the Eternal Peace, Which Constitutes the End or True Perfection of the Saints

And thus we may say of peace, as we have said of eternal life, that it is the end of our good; and the rather because the Psalmist says of the city of God, the subject of this laborious work, “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion: for He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you; who has made your borders peace.”[32] For when the bars of her gates shall be strengthened, none shall go in or come out from her; consequently we ought to understand the peace of her borders as that final peace we are wishing to declare. For even the mystical name of the city itself, that is, Jerusalem, means, as I have already said, “Vision of Peace.” But as the word peace is employed in connection with things in this world in which certainly life eternal has no place, we have preferred to call the end or supreme good of this city life eternal rather than peace. Of this end the apostle says, “But now, being freed from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end life eternal.”[33] But, on the other hand, as those who are not familiar with Scripture may suppose that the life of the wicked is eternal life, either because of the immortality of the soul, which some of the philosophers even have recognized, or because of the endless punishment of the wicked, which forms a part of our faith, and which seems impossible unless the wicked live for ever, it may therefore be advisable, in order that every one may readily understand what we mean, to say that the end or supreme good of this city is either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying. So that if we dwell for a little longer on this subject, we shall not, in my opinion, be wearisome to our readers, who will attend both for the sake of understanding what is the end of this city of which we speak, and for the sake of the sweetness of peace which is dear to all.

Chapter 12. That Even the Fierceness of War and All the Disquietude of Men Make towards This One End of Peace, Which Every Nature Desires

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

But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of—a man so insociable and savage as to be called rather a semi-man than a man. Although, then, his kingdom was the solitude of a dreary cave, and he himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named , which is the Greek word for bad; though he had no wife to soothe him with endearing talk, no children to play with, no sons to do his bidding, no friend to enliven him with intercourse, not even his father Vulcan (though in one respect he was happier than his father, not having begotten a monster like himself); although he gave to no man, but took as he wished whatever he could, from whomsoever he could, when he could yet in that solitary den, the floor of which, as Virgil says, was always reeking with recent slaughter, there was nothing else than peace sought, a peace in which no one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or alarm. With his own body he desired to be at peace, and he was satisfied only in proportion as he had this peace. For he ruled his members, and they obeyed him; and for the sake of pacifying his mortal nature, which rebelled when it needed anything, and of allaying the sedition of hunger which threatened to banish the soul from the body, he made forays, slew, and devoured, but used the ferocity and savageness he displayed in these actions only for the preservation of his own life’s peace. So that, had he been willing to make with other men the same peace which he made with himself in his own cave, he would neither have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man. Or if the appearance of his body and his vomiting smoky fires frightened men from having any dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways arose not from a desire to do mischief, but from the necessity of finding a living. But he may have had no existence, or, at least, he was not such as the poets fancifully describe him, for they had to exalt Hercules, and did so at the expense of Cacus. It is better, then, to believe that such a man or semi-man never existed, and that this, in common with many other fancies of the poets, is mere fiction. For the most savage animals (and he is said to have been almost a wild beast) encompass their own species with a ring of protecting peace. They cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring up their young, though very many of them are not gregarious, but solitary—not like sheep, deer, pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes, eagles, bats. For what tigress does not gently purr over her cubs, and lay aside her ferocity to fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when circling over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a nest, hatch the eggs, bring up the young birds, and maintain with the mother of his family as peaceful a domestic alliance as he can? How much more powerfully do the laws of man’s nature move him to hold fellowship and maintain peace with all men so far as in him lies, since even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that pride in its perversity apes God. It abhors equality with other men under Him; but, instead of His rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own upon its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one kind or other. For there is no vice so clean contrary to nature that it obliterates even the faintest traces of nature.

He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-ordered to what is perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with the peace of the just. And yet even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony with, and in dependence on, and in some part of the order of things, for otherwise it would have no existence at all. Suppose a man hangs with his head downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of body and arrangement of its members; for that which nature requires to be above is beneath, and vice versa. This perversity disturbs the peace of the body, and is therefore painful. Nevertheless the spirit is at peace with its body, and labors for its preservation, and hence the suffering; but if it is banished from the body by its pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds together, there is in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and hence the body remains suspended. And inasmuch as the earthly body tends towards the earth, and rests on the bond by which it is suspended, it tends thus to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place for it to rest; and though now lifeless and without feeling, it does not fall from the peace that is natural to its place in creation, whether it already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply embalming preparations to prevent the bodily frame from mouldering and dissolving, a kind of peace still unites part to part, and keeps the whole body in a suitable place on the earth—in other words, in a place that is at peace with the body. If, on the other hand, the body receive no such care, but be left to the natural course, it is disturbed by exhalations that do not harmonize with one another, and that offend our senses; for it is this which is perceived in putrefaction until it is assimilated to the elements of the world, and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet throughout this process the laws of the most high Creator and Governor are strictly observed, for it is by Him the peace of the universe is administered. For although minute animals are produced from the carcass of a larger animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the same Creator, serve the animals they belong to in peace. And although the flesh of dead animals be eaten by others, no matter where it be carried, nor what it be brought into contact with, nor what it be converted and changed into, it still is ruled by the same laws which pervade all things for the conservation of every mortal race, and which bring things that fit one another into harmony.

Chapter 13. Of the Universal Peace Which the Law of Nature Preserves through All Disturbances, and by Which Every One Reaches His Desert in a Way Regulated by the Just Judge

The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquillity of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place. And hence, though the miserable, in so far as they are such, do certainly not enjoy peace, but are severed from that tranquillity of order in which there is no disturbance, nevertheless, inasmuch as they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are by their very misery connected with order. They are not, indeed, conjoined with the blessed, but they are disjoined from them by the law of order. And though they are disquieted, their circumstances are notwithstanding adjusted to them, and consequently they have some tranquillity of order, and therefore some peace. But they are wretched because, although not wholly miserable, they are not in that place where any mixture of misery is impossible. They would, however, be more wretched if they had not that peace which arises from being in harmony with the natural order of things. When they suffer, their peace is in so far disturbed; but their peace continues in so far as they do not suffer, and in so far as their nature continues to exist. As, then, there may be life without pain, while there cannot be pain without some kind of life, so there may be peace without war, but there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one kind or other.

And therefore there is a nature in which evil does not or even cannot exist; but there cannot be a nature in which there is no good. Hence not even the nature of the devil himself is evil, in so far as it is nature, but it was made evil by being perverted. Thus he did not abide in the truth, John 8:44, but could not escape the judgment of the Truth; he did not abide in the tranquillity of order, but did not therefore escape the power of the Ordainer. The good imparted by God to his nature did not screen him from the justice of God by which order was preserved in his punishment; neither did God punish the good which He had created, but the evil which the devil had committed. God did not take back all He had imparted to his nature, but something He took and something He left, that there might remain enough to be sensible of the loss of what was taken. And this very sensibility to pain is evidence of the good which has been taken away and the good which has been left. For, were nothing good left, there could be no pain on account of the good which had been lost. For he who sins is still worse if he rejoices in his loss of righteousness. But he who is in pain, if he derives no benefit from it, mourns at least the loss of health. And as righteousness and health are both good things, and as the loss of any good thing is matter of grief, not of joy—if, at least, there is no compensation, as spiritual righteousness may compensate for the loss of bodily health—certainly it is more suitable for a wicked man to grieve in punishment than to rejoice in his fault. As, then, the joy of a sinner who has abandoned what is good is evidence of a bad will, so his grief for the good he has lost when he is punished is evidence of a good nature. For he who laments the peace his nature has lost is stirred to do so by some relics of peace which make his nature friendly to itself. And it is very just that in the final punishment the wicked and godless should in anguish bewail the loss of the natural advantages they enjoyed, and should perceive that they were most justly taken from them by that God whose benign liberality they had despised. God, then, the most wise Creator and most just Ordainer of all natures, who placed the human race upon earth as its greatest ornament, imparted to men some good things adapted to this life, to wit, temporal peace, such as we can enjoy in this life from health and safety and human fellowship, and all things needful for the preservation and recovery of this peace, such as the objects which are accommodated to our outward senses, light, night, the air, and waters suitable for us, and everything the body requires to sustain, shelter, heal, or beautify it: and all under this most equitable condition, that every man who made a good use of these advantages suited to the peace of this mortal condition, should receive ampler and better blessings, namely, the peace of immortality, accompanied by glory and honor in an endless life made fit for the enjoyment of God and of one another in God; but that he who used the present blessings badly should both lose them and should not receive the others.

Chapter 14. Of the Order and Law Which Obtain in Heaven and Earth, whereby It Comes to Pass That Human Society Is Served by Those Who Rule It

The whole use, then, of things temporal has a reference to this result of earthly peace in the earthly community, while in the city of God it is connected with eternal peace. And therefore, if we were irrational animals, we should desire nothing beyond the proper arrangement of the parts of the body and the satisfaction of the appetites,—nothing, therefore, but bodily comfort and abundance of pleasures, that the peace of the body might contribute to the peace of the soul. For if bodily peace be awanting, a bar is put to the peace even of the irrational soul, since it cannot obtain the gratification of its appetites. And these two together help out the mutual peace of soul and body, the peace of harmonious life and health. For as animals, by shunning pain, show that they love bodily peace, and, by pursuing pleasure to gratify their appetites, show that they love peace of soul, so their shrinking from death is a sufficient indication of their intense love of that peace which binds soul and body in close alliance. But, as man has a rational soul, he subordinates all this which he has in common with the beasts to the peace of his rational soul, that his intellect may have free play and may regulate his actions, and that he may thus enjoy the well-ordered harmony of knowledge and action which constitutes, as we have said, the peace of the rational soul. And for this purpose he must desire to be neither molested by pain, nor disturbed by desire, nor extinguished by death, that he may arrive at some useful knowledge by which he may regulate his life and manners. But, owing to the liability of the human mind to fall into mistakes, this very pursuit of knowledge may be a snare to him unless he has a divine Master, whom he may obey without misgiving, and who may at the same time give him such help as to preserve his own freedom. And because, so long as he is in this mortal body, he is a stranger to God, he walks by faith, not by sight; and he therefore refers all peace, bodily or spiritual or both, to that peace which mortal man has with the immortal God, so that he exhibits the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. But as this divine Master inculcates two precepts,—the love of God and the love of our neighbor—and as in these precepts a man finds three things he has to love—God, himself, and his neighbor—and that he who loves God loves himself thereby, it follows that he must endeavor to get his neighbor to love God, since he is ordered to love his neighbor as himself. He ought to make this endeavor in behalf of his wife, his children, his household, all within his reach, even as he would wish his neighbor to do the same for him if he needed it; and consequently he will be at peace, or in well-ordered concord, with all men, as far as in him lies. And this is the order of this concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second, do good to every one he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the apostle says, “Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”[34] This is the origin of domestic peace, or the well-ordered concord of those in the family who rule and those who obey. For they who care for the rest rule—the husband the wife, the parents the children, the masters the servants; and they who are cared for obey—the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others—not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.

Chapter 15. Of the Liberty Proper to Man’s Nature, and the Servitude Introduced by Sin—a Servitude in Which the Man Whose Will Is Wicked Is the Slave of His Own Lust, Though He Is Free so far as Regards Other Men

This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has created man. For “let them,” He says, “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing which creeps on the earth.”[35] He did not intend that His rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation,—not man over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the word “slave” in any part of Scripture until righteous Noah branded the sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore, introduced by sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for slave is supposed to be found in the circumstance that those who by the law of war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by their victors, and were hence called servants. And these circumstances could never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war, our adversaries must be sinning; and every victory, even though gained by wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of God, who humbles the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing their sins. Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity, confessed to God his own sins and the sins of his people, and declares with pious grief that these were the cause of the captivity.[36] The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow—that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offense. But our Master in heaven says, “Every one who does sin is the servant of sin,” John 8:34. And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious men as their slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; “for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”[37] And beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men’s hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave either of man or of sin. This servitude is, however, penal, and is appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had been done in violation of that law, there would have been nothing to restrain by penal servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes slaves to be subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and with good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they may themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away, and all principality and every human power be brought to nothing, and God be all in all.

Chapter 16. Of Equitable Rule

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

Chapter 17. What Produces Peace, and What Discord, between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities

But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of the corruptible body which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely different aim in using them. The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men’s wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away. Consequently, so long as it lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it, it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, as this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs to it. But, as the earthly city has had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by the divine teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures or by demons, supposed that many gods must be invited to take an interest in human affairs, and assigned to each a separate function and a separate department—to one the body, to another the soul; and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and each of the other members to one of the gods; and in like manner, in the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned, to another education, to another anger, to another lust; and so the various affairs of life were assigned—cattle to one, corn to another, wine to another, oil to another, the woods to another, money to another, navigation to another, wars and victories to another, marriages to another, births and fecundity to another, and other things to other gods: and as the celestial city, on the other hand, knew that one God only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that service which the Greeks call latreiva,[38] and which can be given only to a god, it has come to pass that the two cities could not have common laws of religion, and that the heavenly city has been compelled in this matter to dissent, and to become obnoxious to those who think differently, and to stand the brunt of their anger and hatred and persecutions, except in so far as the minds of their enemies have been alarmed by the multitude of the Christians and quelled by the manifest protection of God accorded to them. This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It therefore is so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced. Even the heavenly city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the peace of earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and godliness, desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding the acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God. When we shall have reached that peace, this mortal life shall give place to one that is eternal, and our body shall be no more this animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but a spiritual body feeling no want, and in all its members subjected to the will. In its pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace every good action towards God and man; for the life of the city is a social life.

Diagnostic Questions

1. How would you describe Augustine’s view of the relationship of Christianity to the state in The City of God?

2. What would be three main differences between Augustine’s apologetic method and the method of Justin?

3. What principles of apologetics does Augustine employ in his situation that might be applicable today?

1. Concubinage was tolerated in the Roman Empire, particularly since formal marriage was often a matter of class and property contracts. Nevertheless, Augustine recognized the irregularity of his situation and would eventually send his concubine away, after thirteen years together. He would never marry.

2. Alaric was apparently an Arian, holding that Christ was a created being.

3. “Translator’s Preface,” in Augustine, The City of God, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. Marcus Dods, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), xi.

4. Ibid.

5. Ps. 94:15.

6. James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5.

7. Something that purportedly contains holy relics.

8. Ps. 89:32.

9. Matt. 5:45.

10. Rom. 2:4-6.

11. Rom. 8:28.

12. 1 Peter 3:4.

13. 1 Tim. 6:6–10.

14. Job 1:21.

15. 1 Tim. 6:17–19.

16. Matt. 6:19–21.

17. 2 Cor. 6:7–10.

18. Sir. 33:15.

19. Gen. 1:14–18.

20. James 1:17.

21. Rom. 1:21–25.

22. 1 Cor. 15:28.

23. 1 Cor. 3:20.

24. Wis. 9:15.

25. Gal. 5:17.

26. Rom. 8:24.

27. Matt. 10:36.

28. Job 7:1.

29. Matt. 18:7.

30. Matt. 24:12.

31. 2 Cor. 11:14.

32. Ps. 147:12–14.

33. Rom. 6:22.

34. 1 Tim. 5:8.

35. Gen. 1:26.

36. Dan. 9.

37. 2 Peter 2:19.

38. That is, religious service.

PART TWO

The Middle Ages

The Church Becomes Established

Part 2 Introduction

For most Christians today, it is difficult to identify with the reality of persecution. Though many even in the twenty-first century are persecuted for their faith, the vast majority of us enjoy a freedom of worship and faith that was only imagined in the early church. To be a Christian in the first three centuries of Christianity was to put one’s life in jeopardy, perhaps even to die. As Tertullian noted, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” The church developed in these early years because of the faithfulness of those who would not deny their Lord, even if it meant certain death. It is important, as we have already seen, that we think carefully about the context of those whose apologies were given (even, at times, before the emperor!) with the very real threat of death by the emperor.

Of the ten persecutions suffered by Christians in the first few centuries of the church’s development, the worst was the persecution under Diocletian (284–305). Church officers were ordered imprisoned, tortured, and made to offer pagan sacrifices; copies of Holy Scripture were gathered and burned. The historian Eusebius writes of the massacre of an entire town during this time because its citizens refused to renounce their worship of the Christian God.[1] It was because of the intensity of this persecution that the Donatist controversy was spawned (see the introduction to Augustine). Many who professed faith in Christ agreed to cease their worship of him in order to save their own lives.

Given the intensity of these persecutions and the extent of Diocletian’s terror, it would be difficult to overestimate the significance of the change that came about in the fourth century and into the fifth. Along with the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the fourth century is singularly and centrally important in the history of the church. In it began surely the most outstanding series of events for the development of Christianity. Two events of lasting significance should be noted.

First, the Roman Empire collapsed. Though the literature on this collapse is vast, and it may not be wise to pinpoint too precise a date, it has been argued that the last straw in the collapse occurred with the sack of Rome in 410. For many, the so-called Middle Ages began at this time and extended to the time of the Renaissance and Reformation.[2] The precise dating of Rome’s collapse is not particularly relevant for our purposes here. What are relevant are the occasions that such a collapse began to produce, one of which brings us to our second significant event.

Diocletian’s reign began in 284 and ended with his abdication in 305.[3] Through a series of political circumstances, and with the empire now dividing between East and West, Constantine became ruler of the Western Empire. With his reign and because of the political implications, Constantine set out to make Christianity a legitimate religion.[4] Of monumental significance during this time, the Edict of Milan (313) declared that Christianity would henceforth be legitimate and tolerated throughout the empire. This turn of events not only altered the Roman Empire and alleviated much of the pressure that Christians had been under for a few centuries; it also altered the ways in which apologetics could be carried out from this time forward.

Of global and ecclesiastical import in this regard is the Council of Nicaea (325), which was called by Constantine in order to deal with the rampant Arian-ism that had permeated the church during this time. The first truly “ecumenical” council (given the breadth of church leaders in attendance), this council sought to set forth the truth of the Christian religion, especially given the reality of the appearance of the person of Jesus Christ.

We should note again that those committed to working out a faithful exposition of Scripture during this time were not concerned at all for an abstract theology. Their primary concern (without ignoring the political implications involved)[5] was that true worship requires true doctrine. One cannot worship what one does not know, and to the extent that one knows the teaching of Scripture, one is able truly to worship the God who is revealed therein. So, although precision of language and terminology played a prominent role in this council, and in the discussions surrounding it, such precision was not for purposes of academia; it was for the church.

It is likely that there were more than three hundred church leaders present at the council, mostly of Greek origin. Arius, who denied the full deity of Christ, was himself called into the council on more than one occasion to defend his views. In the end, however, the council declared, with only two detractors, that the doctrines set out by the creed are the doctrines of the apostolic church. Arius’s views were condemned, Arius was exiled, and his manuscripts were ordered burned.[6]

Within the span of about twenty-five years, therefore, Christianity had gained official status, and its most controversial doctrine, that of the person of Christ, had been set forth with some precision.[7] These events paved the way for apologetics to focus its attention both on its relationship to the “spirit of the age,” as we see in Augustine’s City of God, and on more specifically doctrinal controversies, as we see in Boethius and to some extent in Aquinas.

The change in focus, such that those defending the faith were not immediately in danger of execution, also changed the styles and methods used. In our selections from Augustine, we begin to see for the first time a psychological focus, in The Confessions, in that Augustine was writing about his own personal relationship to God. In The City of God, we see Augustine concerned not with the threat of death, as we have seen in Justin and Athenagoras, but with a proper understanding of the kingdom of God on earth, as that kingdom comes in contact with the kingdoms of this world. These two works show the luxury of a reflective style of theology and apologetics that would not have been available in the previous era.

With the relative openness of Christendom, compared to centuries prior, came also the establishment of schools and universities for the purpose of propagating and teaching the Christian faith. The development of schools of theology began in seed form with Augustine and Boethius, and reached its high point in the latter Middle Ages. Boethius began to develop a curriculum of sorts, in which all who desired to study would need to grasp the essentials of three basic categories—grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric—the so-called Trivium. These categories provided the student with tools that could be used in any and all disciplines.

In light of this new emphasis on the development of learning, it became apparent that theology itself would need to be organized in such a way that it could be taught systematically. One of the first attempts at such organization, and one that became vastly influential in the medieval period (and beyond), was the Sentences set forth by Peter Lombard (ca. 1105–ca. 1160), on which a vast number of medieval scholars would comment. (Aquinas’s first major work was a commentary on Lombard’s Sentences.) With this new emphasis on the “schools” and on a systematic understanding of knowledge, including theology, came a new methodology for learning and teaching called scholasticism.

Scholasticism is itself a methodology rather than a theology. Because of its intensive and extensive use during the Middle Ages, some have wanted to equate medieval theology with scholasticism, the one referring to the other. This, however, is not quite accurate. What is accurate is that the rise of medieval theology and medieval philosophical theology was in tandem with the rise of scholastic methodology. But this methodology itself transcends, and moves well beyond, the theology developed and articulated in the Middle Ages.

For our purposes, the following is directly relevant to (some of) the apologetic material that we will encounter during this time. One of the primary features of a scholastic methodology was the quaestio or “question.” As we will see in our selection from Aquinas, the quaestio method begins by asking the question to be discussed and then cites various opinions and authorities on that question. In the universities of the twelfth century, for example, the quaestio method was used in order that students might enter into disputations on a given topic. Along with this practice, other disputations were known as quodlibetals, in which students and scholars would debate “whatever” (quodlibet) topic was currently being discussed.

In the selections from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas, the reader can see a significant transition in style. Boethius is often considered a transitional figure from the classical culture of the Roman Empire to the culture of the schools and universities in the Middle Ages. Thomas, it will be seen, is easily one of the most brilliant and best examples of medieval scholastic methodology.

1. A topic for another time and place might be whether many of today’s Western Christians would be content to maintain a privatized faith, agreeing not to worship publicly. For these early Christians, to refuse to worship Christ was tantamount to unbelief.

2. Colin Brown notes: “The notion of a Middle Age (medium aevum) is already found toward the close of the period itself. It occurs in the writings of the Italian humanist historian Flavio Biondo (1392–1463) and was in established use shortly after his death. Flavio Biondo used the term to describe the thousand-year period between the end of the ancient world (which he dated from the sack of Rome in 410) and the Italian Renaissance.” Colin Brown, Christianity and Western Thought: From the Ancient World to the Age of Enlightenment (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 101–2.

3. One of Diocletian’s tetrarchs, Licinius, continued to persecute Christians off and on until his death in 325. So, even though Diocletian himself did not persecute Christians after his abdication, persecution did continue. It continued, however, as we will see, against the backdrop of Christianity’s general acceptability.

4. Whether or not Constantine was actually a Christian is a matter of debate. It seems clear that he considered himself one, but it also seems clear that the close association between Christian worship and the worship of the “Unconquered Sun,” creates some doubts as to Constantine’s real allegiance. It should be noted as well that he was not baptized until just prior to his death in 337.

5. Note, for example, that the council was called by Constantine at the point of Licinius’s final defeat and execution, and there seems to be little question that Constantine’s primary concern was for religious peace. The rate at which the Nicene Creed was disseminated, however, indicates the importance of its contents according to the church officers present at the council.

6. Arian views had been anathematized a few years earlier, in Alexandria, but this did little to thwart their influence. Arianism’s influence continued well after the Council of Nicaea concluded.

7. It is widely agreed that Constantine’s insistence on using the word homoousios (of one essence) in the creed had more to do with its ambiguity at this stage than with its precision. He was concerned that there be widespread agreement with the creed, rather than that the term itself be more precisely defined. The Arian term, however, homoiousios (of like essence) was rejected. For more on Nicaea and its aftermath, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 223–51. The importance of Nicaea’s affirmations can be seen in our selection from Boethius, A Treatise against Eutyches and Nestorius.

CHAPTER 11

Boethius

(480–524)

Boethius was born in Rome, was an early orphan, and was raised by the consul Symmachus (whose daughter he eventually married). In part because of this, he himself was appointed consul under the Arian Theodoric the Ostrogoth. This lofty position, though beginning well, turned to tragedy for Boethius. While serving as consul, he was accused of attempting to overthrow Theodoric and to reinstate Roman rule, and he was subsequently thrown into prison. After some time there, he was tortured and executed in 524.

Boethius has been recognized in church history as one whose learning, especially in Greek philosophy, was great. He translated and wrote a commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry. He also translated the Organon of Aristotle, and wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories and On Interpretation. It has been said that Boethius set for himself the near impossible goal of the “transmission to his countrymen of all the works of Plato and Aristotle, and the reconciliation of their apparently divergent views.”[1] This task was never completed.

Boethius is important in the history of apologetics, primarily because he is a transitional figure from the ancient church to the medieval period. Not only is this important historically, but he is also credited with the transition from a more specifically “Roman” philosophy to the beginning of a scholastic methodology in which Christian theology makes substantive use of philosophy in the arguments and articulations of its various doctrines.

Boethius’s most extensive work, The Consolation of Philosophy, gives clear indication of the problem, in seminal form, of how one might relate theology to philosophy. In that work, written entirely when Boethius was in prison, he sets out to give reason free reign and leaves aside any reference to Christianity. So empty is the Consolation of any Christian reference, that many have argued that Boethius lost his faith in the end. The Consolation, as it has been put, is the “supreme essay of one who throughout his life had found his highest solace in the dry light of reason.”[2] It is this kind of description of the Consolation that causes many to question his Christian commitment.

If, as most seem to think, Boethius did not in fact lose his faith during his imprisonment, it seems clear that his methodology assumes a significant distance, if not an outright separation, between the methodology employed in pure philosophy and that of theology. Philosophy’s task, for Boethius, is to deal with the truths of reason, while theology occupies itself with the truths given to the church in Holy Scripture. Whatever the case, it is certainly true that Boethius offers in the Consolation an example of philosophical reasoning that has no foundation in biblical revelation. In that sense, the Consolation is a fitting entrée to discussions that would occupy a significant part of Christendom for centuries to come.

There was, however, according to Boethius’s own writings, another, more synthetic, way of understanding the relationship of philosophy to theology. Even if Boethius held that there were two separate methodologies based on two separate principia (reason, for philosophy, and revelation, for theology), Boethius also saw a certain usefulness of philosophy to theology, in that the former is able to help articulate, by way of its terminology and various methodologies, some of the truths of the latter. In that light, we have decided to offer one of Boethius’s famous tractates, or treatises—Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, or Against Eutyches and Nestorius. In this treatise, Boethius confronts the christological heresies of Nestorianism, which held that Christ must be two persons, and Eutychianism, which held that he must be composed of only one nature.[3] The letter is addressed to “John the Deacon” (who later became Pope John) and is written probably around AD 512. As Boethius notes in the opening, he had hoped to discuss these things in person, but since that seemed improbable, he determined instead to set it down in writing.

In this Treatise, a couple of methodological points should be noted. First, discussions and debates, as well as ecclesiastical councils, had been occupied with the nature of the incarnation and the person of Christ since almost the beginning of the ancient church. This is the case, we should note, not because of a desire for pure speculation or even for abstract theology. It is instead because, since the time of Christ, Christians were deeply concerned to know the One whom they were to worship. This may be a somewhat foreign concept to those of us living in the twenty-first century. We have the luxury of taking so much theology for granted. With that luxury, however, may also come a theological laziness that inhibits us from thinking carefully and biblically about the God we worship. That was not the case for Boethius or for many of his predecessors. For them, there was an intense concern to understand aright just who it is they worship, because they thought, quite rightly, that the better we understand him, the more faithfully are we able to worship him. So, the great care taken by Boethius (note especially chapter III) in defining his terms and in exposing the errors of Eutyches and Nestorius was for the sake of the church, to keep it from error. This treatise, then, is centrally apologetic in its focus—defending the faith, specifically the truth of the person of Christ, from errors that would seek to encroach on the people of God and thus adversely affect their worship.[4]

Second, the reader will almost immediately notice the great care with which Boethius treats the terminology that is customarily used in discussions about the person of Christ. The importance, historically, of theological terminology may need a bit of explanation.

Boethius’s Use of Theological Terminology

Certain fairly standard theological terms and concepts have been used throughout the history of the church as a kind of shorthand for articulating some of the mysteries and doctrines of the Christian faith. We should not balk at the use of these words, since they are meant to be faithful to Scripture and to help us communicate with concise precision.

By the time of the Reformation, the question of terminology again took central status in theological development. Part of the reason for this was that the Reformation’s proper insistence on sola Scriptura caused some to question whether terms that were not strictly biblical should be used, or used extensively, in formulating theological doctrines. The Reformers, generally speaking, answered this question with a carefully qualified yes.[5] In this respect, they followed Boethius.

For example, regarding the use of some of these technical terms in explaining the Trinity, Calvin says:

Now, although the heretics rail at the word “person,” or certain squeamish men cry out against admitting a term fashioned by the human mind, they cannot shake our conviction that three are spoken of, each of which is entirely God, yet that there is not more than one God. What wickedness, then, it is to disapprove of words that explain nothing else than what is attested and sealed by Scripture![6]

In other words, terminology that is itself derived from biblical truth is helpful in giving us accurate ways to express what is taught in biblical revelation. While we may want to hold on to such terminology tentatively, we would do well not simply to reject it out of hand without long and serious consideration of its meaning and intent. Once more, as Calvin says (again in the context of the Trinity):

If, therefore, these terms were not rashly invented, we ought to beware lest by repudiating them we be accused of overweening rashness. Indeed, I could wish they were buried, if only among all men this faith were agreed on: that Father and Son and Spirit are one God, yet the Son is not the Father, nor the Spirit the Son, but that they are differentiated by a peculiar quality.[7]

It is not the terms themselves that are the end result of the truth. But, as Calvin says here, the terms are meant to lead us to the truth of what Scripture as a whole teaches. Calvin “could wish they were buried” as long as the truth of the matter were confessed. But he knows that our understanding has a certain dependence on the terms as they have been defined and refined in the Christian tradition.

A thousand years prior to Calvin, Boethius saw that as well. His arguments are consistent with Calvin’s sentiments expressed above. He had inherited some fairly standard terminology in discussions concerning who exactly the Son of God, who had come in the flesh, was. While there may have been some temptation to leave the terminology behind, Boethius was well aware that, at minimum, to engage the heresies that were making headway in the church, it was useful, if not necessary, to engage them in their own terms. He was also aware that, especially since the Arian debates and the council of Nicaea, certain terms had proved very useful and accurate for establishing, by way of biblical concepts, who Jesus Christ is. To abandon the standard terminology, then, would have been to abandon the orthodox way of affirming theological truth.

For this reason, at least, Boethius begins his Treatise by carefully defining his terms, even to the point of linking the well-worn Greek terms with their Latin equivalents. Only by such care can he begin to refute the movements that have sought to oppose the standard orthodox views in favor of much more “reasonable” and palatable doctrines.[8]

What we have, therefore, in this masterful Treatise of Boethius is both a persuasive (in that he uses the language of his opponents) and clear (in that he defines the terms he uses) theologico-philosophical apologetic. Boethius does not simply appeal to the Christian tradition, nor does he resort only to biblical terminology, but he takes that which is commonly discussed in the matter at hand (terminology related to the person of Christ) and develops it according to biblical and traditional doctrine.

A Treatise against Eutyches and Nestorius

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

I have been long and anxiously waiting for you to discuss with me the problem which was raised at the meeting. But since your duties have prevented your coming and I shall be for some time involved in my business engagements, I am setting down in writing what I had been keeping to say by word of mouth.

You no doubt remember how, when the letter[9] was read in the assembly, it was asserted that the Eutychians confess that Christ is formed from two natures but does not consist of them—whereas Catholics admit both propositions, for among followers of the true Faith He is equally believed to be of two natures and in two natures. Struck by the novelty of this assertion I began to inquire what difference there can be between unions formed from two natures and unions which consist in two natures, for the point which the bishop who wrote the letter refused to pass over because of its gravity, seemed to me of importance and not one to be idly and carelessly slurred over. On that occasion all loudly protested that the difference was evident, that there was no obscurity, confusion or perplexity, and in the general storm and tumult there was no one who really touched the edge of the problem, much less anyone who solved it.

I was sitting a long way from the man whom I especially wished to watch,[10] and if you recall the arrangement of the seats, I was turned away from him, with so many between us, that however much I desired it I could not see his face and expression and glean therefrom any sign of his opinion. Personally, indeed, I had nothing more to contribute than the rest, in fact rather less than more. I, no more than the others, had any view about the question at issue, while my possible contribution was less by one thing, namely, the false assumption of a knowledge that I had not got. I was, I admit, much put out, and being overwhelmed by the mob of ignorant speakers, I held my peace, fearing lest I should be rightly set down as insane if I held out for being sane among those madmen.

So I continued to ponder all the questions in my mind, not swallowing what I had heard, but rather chewing the cud of constant meditation. At last the door opened to my insistent knocking, and the truth which I found cleared out of my way all the clouds of the Eutychian error. And with this discovery a great wonder came upon me at the vast temerity of unlearned men who use the cloak of impudent presumption to cover up the vice of ignorance, for not only do they often fail to grasp the point at issue, but in a debate of this kind they do not even understand their own statements, forgetting that the case of ignorance is all the worse if it is not honestly admitted.

I turn from them to you, and to you I submit this little essay for your first judgment and consideration. If you pronounce it to be sound I beg you to place it among the other writings of mine which you possess; but if there is anything to be struck out or added or changed in any way, I would ask you to let me have your suggestions, in order that I may enter them in my copies just as they leave your hands. When this revision has been duly accomplished, then I will send the work on to be judged by the man to whom I always submit everything. But since the pen is now to take the place of the living voice, let me first clear away the extreme and self-contradictory errors of Nestorius and Eutyches; after that, by God’s help, I will temperately set forth the middle way of the Christian Faith. But since in this whole question of self-contradictory heresies the matter of debate is “Persons” and “Natures,”[11] these terms must first be defined and distinguished by their proper differences.

I. Nature, then, may be affirmed either of bodies alone or of substances alone, that is, of corporeals or incorporeals, or of everything that is in any way capable of affirmation. Since, then, nature can be affirmed in three ways, it must obviously be defined in three ways. For if you choose to affirm nature of the totality of things, the definition will be of such kind as to include all things that are. It will accordingly be something of this kind: “Nature belongs to those things which, since they exist, can in some measure be apprehended by the mind.” This definition, then, includes both accidents and substances,[12] for they all can be apprehended by the mind. But I add “in some measure” because God and matter cannot be apprehended by mind, be it never so whole and perfect, but still they are apprehended in a measure through the removal of accidents. The reason for adding the words, “since they exist,” is that the mere word “nothing” denotes something, though it does not denote nature. For it denotes, indeed, not that anything is, but rather non-existence; but every nature exists. And if we choose to affirm “nature” of the totality of things, the definition will be as we have given it above.

But if “nature” is affirmed of substances alone, we shall, since all substances are either corporeal or incorporeal, give to nature denoting substances a definition of the following kind: “Nature is either that which can act or that which can be acted upon.” Now the power to act and to suffer belongs to all corporeals and the soul of corporeals; for it both acts in the body and suffers by the body. But only to act belongs to God and other divine substances.[13]

Here, then, you have a further definition of what nature is as applied to substances alone. This definition comprises also the definition of substance. For if the word nature signifies substance, when once we have defined nature we have also settled the definition of substance. But if we neglect incorporeal substances and confine the name nature to corporeal substances so that they alone appear to possess the nature of substance—which is the view of Aristotle and the adherents both of his and various other schools—we shall define nature as those do who have only allowed the word to be applied to bodies. Now, in accordance with this view, the definition is as follows: “Nature is the principle of movement properly inherent in and not accidentally attached to bodies.” I say “principle of movement” because everybody has its proper movement, fire moving upwards, the earth moving downwards. And what I mean by “movement properly inherent and not accidentally attached” is seen by the example of a wooden bed which is necessarily borne downward and is not carried downward by accident. For it is drawn downward by weight and heaviness because it is of wood, i.e. an earthly material. For it falls down not because it is a bed, but because it is earth, that is, because it is an accident of earth that it is a bed; hence we call it wood in virtue of its nature, but bed in virtue of the art that shaped it.

Nature has, further, another meaning according to which we speak of the different nature of gold and silver, wishing thereby to point the special property of things; this meaning of nature will be defined as follows: “Nature is the specific difference that gives form to anything.” Thus, although nature is described or defined in all these different ways, both Catholics and Nestorians firmly hold that there are in Christ two natures of the kind laid down in our last definition, for the same specific differences cannot apply to God and man.

II. But the proper definition of Person is a matter of very great perplexity.[14] For if every nature has person, the difference between nature and person is a hard knot to unravel; or if person is not taken as the equivalent of nature but is a term of less scope and range, it is difficult to say to what natures it may be extended, that is, to what natures the term person may be applied and what natures are dissociate from it. For one thing is clear, namely that nature is a substrate of Person, and that Person cannot be predicated apart from nature.

We must, therefore, conduct our inquiry into these points as follows.

Since Person cannot exist apart from nature and since natures are either substances or accidents and we see that a person cannot come into being among accidents (for who can say there is any person of white or black or size?), it therefore remains that Person is properly applied to substances.[15] But of substances, some are corporeal and others incorporeal. And of corporeals, some are living and others the reverse; of living substances, some are sensitive and others insensitive; of sensitive substances, some are rational and others irrational. Similarly of incorporeal substances, some are rational, others the reverse (for instance the animating spirits of beasts); but of rational substances there is one which is immutable and impassible by nature, namely God, another which in virtue of its creation is mutable and passible except in that case where the Grace of the impassible substance has transformed it to the unshaken impassibility which belongs to angels and to the soul.

Now from all the definitions we have given it is clear that Person cannot be affirmed of bodies which have no life (for no one ever said that a stone had a person), nor yet of living things which lack sense (for neither is there any person of a tree), nor finally of that which is bereft of mind and reason (for there is no person of a horse or ox or any other of the animals which dumb and unreasoning live a life of sense alone), but we say there is a person of a man, of God, of an angel. Again, some substances are universal, others are particular. Universal terms are those which are predicated of individuals, as man, animal, stone, stock and other things of this kind which are either genera or species; for the term man is applied to individual men just as animal is to animals, and stone and stock to individual stones and stocks. But particulars are terms which are never predicated of other things, as Cicero, Plato, this stone from which this statue of Achilles was hewn, this piece of wood out of which this table was made. But in all these things person cannot in any case be applied to universals, but only to particulars and individuals; for there is no person of a man as animal or general, only the single persons of Cicero, Plato, or other single individuals are termed persons.

III. Wherefore if Person belongs to substances alone, and these rational, and if every nature is a substance, existing not in universals but in individuals, we have found the definition of Person, viz.: “The individual substance of a rational creature.”[16] Now by this definition we Latins have described what the Greeks call . For the word “person” seems to be borrowed from a different source, namely from the masks (personae) which in comedies and tragedies used to signify the different subjects of representation. Now persona (mask) is derived from personare, with a circumflex on the penultimate. But if the accent is put on the antepenultimate the word will clearly be seen to come from sonus “sound,” and for this reason, that the hollow mask necessarily produces a larger sound.

The Greeks, too, call these masks from the fact that they are placed over the face and conceal the countenance from the spectator: (from being put up against the face). But since, as we have said, it was by the masks they put on that actors played the different characters represented in a tragedy or comedy—Hecuba or Medea or Simon or Chremes,—so also all other men who could be recognized by their several characteristics were designated by the Latins with the term persona and by the Greeks with . But the Greeks far more clearly gave to the individual subsistence of a rational nature the name , while we through want of appropriate words have kept a borrowed term, calling that persona which they call uJpovstasiV, but Greece with its richer vocabulary gives the name uJpovstasiV to the individual subsistence. And, if I may use Greek in dealing with matters which were first mooted by Greeks before they came to be interpreted in Latin: , that is: essences indeed can have a general existence in universals, but they have particular substantial existence in particulars alone. For it is from particulars that all our comprehension of universals is taken. Wherefore since subsistences are present in universals but acquire substance in particulars they rightly gave the name to subsistences which acquired substance through the medium of particulars. For to no one using his eyes with any care or penetration will subsistence and substance appear identical.

For our equivalents of the Greek terms are respectively subsistentia and subsistere, while their are represented by our substantia and substare. For a thing has subsistence when it does not require accidents in order to be, but that thing has substance which supplies to other things, accidents to wit, a substrate enabling them to be; for it “substands” those things so long as it is subjected to accidents. Thus genera and species have only subsistence, for accidents do not attach to genera and species. But particulars have not only subsistence but substance, for they, no more than generals, depend on accidents for their Being; for they are already provided with their proper and specific differences and they enable accidents to be by supplying them with a substrate. Wherefore esse and subsistere represent and while, substare represents . For Greece is not, as Marcus Tullius playfully says, short of words, but provides exact equivalents for essentia, subsistentia, substantia and persona— for essentia, for subsistentia, for substantia, for persona. But the Greeks called individual substances because they underlie the rest and offer support and substrate to what are called accidents; and we in our term call them substances as being substrate— , and since they also term the same substances , we too may call them persons. So is identical with essence, with subsistence, with substance, with person. But the reason why the Greek does not use of irrational animals while we apply the term substance to them is this: This term was applied to things of higher value, in order that what is more excellent might be distinguished, if not by a definition of nature answering to the literal meaning of = substare, at any rate by the words = substantia.

To begin with, then, man is essence, i.e. , subsistence, i.e. , , i.e. substance, and , i.e. person: or essentia because he is, or subsistence because he is not accidental to any subject, or substance because be is subject to all the things which are not subsistences or , while he is or person because he is a rational individual. Next, God is or essence, for He is and is especially that from which proceeds the Being of all things. To Him belong , i.e. subsistence, for He subsists in absolute independence, and , for He is substantial Being. Whence we go on to say that there is one or , i.e. one essence or subsistence of the Godhead, but three or substances. And indeed, following this use, men have spoken of One essence, three substances and three persons of the Godhead. For did not the language of the Church forbid us to say three substances in speaking of God,[17] substance might seem a right term to apply to Him, not because He underlies all other things like a substrate, but because, just as He excels above all things, so He is the foundation and support of things, supplying them all with or subsistence.

IV. You must consider that all I have said so far has been for the purpose of marking the difference between “Nature” and “Person,” that is, and . The exact terms which should be applied in each case must be left to the decision of ecclesiastical usage. For the time being let that distinction between “Nature” and “Person” hold which I have affirmed, viz. that “Nature” is the specific property of any substance, and “Person” the individual substance of a rational nature. Nestorius affirmed that in Christ “Person” was twofold, being led astray by the false notion that Person may be applied to every nature. For on this assumption, understanding that there were in Christ two natures, he declared that there were likewise two persons. And although the definition which we have already given is enough to prove Nestorius wrong, his error shall be further declared by the following argument. If the Person of Christ is not single, and if it is clear that there are in Him two natures, to wit, divine and human (and no one will be so foolish as to fail to include either in the definition), it follows that there must apparently be two persons; for “Person,” as has been said, is the individual substance of a rational nature.

What kind of union, then, between God and man has been effected? Is it as when two bodies are laid the one against the other, so that they are only joined locally, and no touch of the quality of the one reaches the other—the kind of union which the Greeks term “by juxtaposition”? But if humanity has been united to divinity in this way no one thing has been formed out of the two, and hence Christ is nothing. The very name of Christ, indeed, denotes by its singular number a unity. But if the two persons continued and such a union of natures as we have above described took place, there could be no unity formed from two things, for nothing could ever possibly be formed out of two persons. Therefore Christ is, according to Nestorius, in no respect one, and therefore He is absolutely nothing. For what is not one cannot exist either; because Being and unity are convertible terms, and whatever is one is. Even things which are made up of many items, such as a heap or chorus, are nevertheless a unity. Now we openly and honestly confess that Christ is; therefore we say that Christ is a Unity. And if this is so, then without controversy the Person of Christ is one also. For if He had two Persons He could not be one; but to say that there are two Christs is nothing else than the madness of a distraught brain. Could Nestorius, I ask, dare to call the one man and the one God in Christ two Christs? Or why does he call Him Christ who is God, if he is also going to call Him Christ who is man, when his combination gives the two no common factor, no coherence? Why does he wrongly use the same name for two utterly different natures, when, if he is compelled to define Christ, he cannot, as he himself admits, apply the substance of one definition to both his Christs? For if the substance of God is different from that of man, and the one name of Christ applies to both, and the combination of different substances is not believed to have formed one Person, the name of Christ is equivocal and cannot be comprised in any definition. But in what Scriptures is the name of Christ ever made double? Or what new thing has been wrought by the coming of the Saviour? For the truth of the faith and the unwontedness of the miracle alike remain, for Catholics, unshaken. For how great and unprecedented a thing it is—unique and incapable of repetition in any other age—that the nature of Him who is God alone should come together with human nature which was entirely different from God to form from different natures by conjunction a single Person! But now, if we follow Nestorius, what happens that is new? “Humanity and divinity,” quoth he, “keep their proper Persons.” Well, when had not divinity and humanity each its proper Person? And when, we answer, will this not be so? Or wherein is the birth of Jesus more significant than that of any other child, if, the two Persons remaining distinct the natures also were distinct? For while the Persons remained so there could no more be a union of natures in Christ than there could be in any other man with whose substance, be it never so perfect, no divinity was ever united because of the subsistence of his proper person. But for the sake of argument let him call Jesus, i.e. the human person, Christ, because through that person God wrought certain wonders. Agreed. But why should he call God Himself by the name of Christ?

Why should he not go on to call the very elements by that name? For through them in their daily movements God works certain wonders. Is it because irrational substances cannot possess a Person enabling them to receive the name of Christ? Is not the operation of God seen plainly in men of holy life and notable piety? There will surely be no reason not to call the saints also by that name, if Christ taking humanity on Him is not one Person through conjunction. But perhaps he will say, “I allow that such men are called Christs, but it is because they are in the image of the true Christ.” But if no one Person has been formed of the union of God and man, we shall consider all of them just as true Christs as Him who, we believe, was born of a Virgin. For no Person has been made one by the union of God and man either in Him or in them who by the Spirit of God foretold the coming Christ, for which cause they too were called Christs. So now it follows that so long as the Persons remain, we cannot in any wise believe that humanity has been assumed by divinity. For things which differ alike in persons and natures are certainly separate, nay absolutely separate; man and oxen are not further separate than are divinity and humanity in Christ, if the Persons have remained. Men indeed and oxen are united in one animal nature, for by genus they have a common substance and the same nature in the collection which forms the universal. But God and man will be at all points fundamentally different if we are to believe that distinction of Persons continues under difference of nature. Then the human race has not been saved, the birth of Christ has brought us no salvation, the writings of all the prophets have but beguiled the people that believed in them, contempt is poured upon the authority of the whole Old Testament which promised to the world salvation by the birth of Christ. It is plain that salvation has not been brought us, if there is the same difference in Person that there is in Nature. No doubt He saved that humanity which we believe He assumed; but no assumption can be conceived, if the separation abides alike of Nature and of Person. Hence that human nature which could not be assumed as long as the Person continued, will certainly and rightly appear incapable of salvation by the birth of Christ. Wherefore man’s nature has not been saved by the birth of Christ—an impious conclusion.

But although there are many weapons strong enough to wound and demolish the Nestorian view, let us for the moment be content with this small selection from the store of arguments available.

V. I must now pass to Eutyches who, wandering from the path of primitive doctrine, has rushed into the opposite error and asserts that so far from our having to believe in a twofold Person in Christ, we must not even confess a double Nature; humanity, he maintains, was so assumed that the union with Godhead involved the disappearance of the human nature. His error springs from the same source as that of Nestorius. For just as Nestorius deems there could not be a double Nature unless the Person were doubled, and therefore, confessing the double Nature in Christ, has perforce believed the Person to be double, so also Eutyches denied that the Nature was not double unless the Person was double and since he did not confess a double Person, he thought it a necessary consequence that the Nature should be regarded as single. Thus Nestorius, rightly holding Christ’s Nature to be double, sacrilegiously professes the Persons to be two; whereas Eutyches, rightly believing the Person to be single, impiously believes that the Nature also is single. And being confuted by the plain evidence of facts, since it is clear that the Nature of God is different from that of man, he declares his belief to be: two Natures in Christ before the union and only one after the union. Now this statement does not express clearly what he means. However, let us scrutinize his extravagance. It is plain that this union took place either at the moment of conception or at the moment of resurrection. But if it happened at the moment of conception Eutyches seems to think that even before conception He had human flesh, not taken from Mary but prepared in some other way, while the Virgin Mary was brought in to give birth to flesh that was not taken from her; that this flesh, which already existed, was apart and separate from the substance of divinity, but that when He was born of the Virgin it was united to God, so that the Nature seemed to be made one. Or if this be not his opinion, since he says that there were two Natures before the union and one after, supposing the union to be established by conception, an alternative view may be that Christ indeed took a body from Mary but that before He took it the Natures of Godhead and manhood were different: but the Nature assumed became one with that of Godhead into which it passed. But if he thinks that this union was effected not by conception but by resurrection, we shall have to assume that this too happened in one of two ways; either Christ was conceived and did not assume a body from Mary or He did assume flesh from her, and there were (until indeed He rose) two Natures which became one after the Resurrection. From these alternatives a dilemma arises which we will examine as follows: Christ who was born of Mary either did or did not take human flesh from her. If Eutyches does not admit that He took it from her, then let him say what manhood He put on to come among us—that which had fallen through sinful disobedience or another? If it was the manhood of that man from whom all men descend, what manhood did divinity invest? For if that flesh in which He was born came not of the seed of Abraham and of David and finally of Mary, let Eutyches show from what man’s flesh he descended, since, after the first man, all human flesh is derived from human flesh. But if he shall name any child of man beside Mary the Virgin as the cause of the conception of the Saviour, he will both be confounded by his own error, and, himself a dupe, will stand accused of stamping with falsehood the very Godhead for thus transferring to others the promise of the sacred oracles made to Abraham and David that of their seed salvation should arise for all the world, especially since if human flesh was taken it could not be taken from any other but Him of whom it was begotten. If, therefore, His human body was not taken from Mary but from any other, yet that was engendered through Mary which had been corrupted by disobedience, Eutyches is confuted by the argument already stated. But if Christ did not put on that manhood which had endured death in punishment for sin, it will result that of no man’s seed could ever one have been born who should be, like Him, without punishment for original sin. Therefore flesh like His was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new-formed for the purpose. But did this flesh then either so appear to human eyes that the body was deemed human which was not really human, because it was not subject to any primal penalty, or was some new true human flesh formed as a makeshift, not subject to the penalty for original sin? If it was not a truly human body, the Godhead is plainly convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body which was not real and thus deceived those who thought it real. But if flesh had been formed new and real and not taken from man, to what purpose was the tremendous tragedy of the conception? Where the value of His long Passion? I cannot but consider foolish even a human action that is useless. And to what useful end shall we say this great humiliation of Divinity was wrought if ruined man has not been saved by the conception and the Passion of Christ—for they denied that he was taken into Godhead? Once more then, just as the error of Eutyches took its rise from the same source as that of Nestorius, so it hastens to the same goal inasmuch as according to Eutyches also the human race has not been saved, since man who was sick and needed health and salvation was not taken into Godhead. Yet this is the conclusion he seems to have drawn, if he erred so deeply as to believe that Christ’s body was not taken really from man but from a source outside him and prepared for the purpose in heaven, for He is believed to have ascended with it up into heaven. Which is the meaning of the text: none hath ascended into heaven save Him who came down from heaven.

VI. I think enough has been said on the supposition that we should believe that the body which Christ received was not taken from Mary. But if it was taken from Mary and the human and divine natures did not continue, each in its perfection, this may have happened in one of three ways. Either Godhead was translated into manhood, or manhood into Godhead, or both were so modified and mingled that neither substance kept its proper form. But if Godhead was translated into manhood, that has happened which piety forbids us to believe, viz. while the manhood continued in unchangeable substance Godhead was changed, and that which was by nature passible and mutable remained immutable, while that which we believe to be by nature immutable and impassible was changed into a mutable thing. This cannot happen on any show of reasoning. But perchance the human nature may seem to be changed into Godhead. Yet how can this be if Godhead in the conception of Christ received both human soul and body? Things cannot be promiscuously changed and interchanged. For since some substances are corporeal and others incorporeal, neither can a corporeal substance be changed into all incorporeal, nor can an incorporeal be changed into that which is body, nor yet incorporeals interchange their proper forms; for only those things can be interchanged and transformed which possess the common substrate of the same matter, nor can all of these so behave, but only those which can act upon and be acted on by each other. Now this is proved as follows: bronze can no more be converted into stone than it can be into grass, and generally no body can be transformed into any other body unless the things which pass into each other have a common matter and can act upon and be acted on by each other, as when wine and water are mingled both are of such a nature as to allow reciprocal action and influence. For the quality of water can be influenced in some degree by that of wine, similarly the quality of wine can be influenced by that of water. And therefore if there be a great deal of water but very little wine, they are not said to be mingled, but the one is ruined by the quality of the other. For if you pour wine into the sea the wine is not mingled with the sea but is lost in the sea, simply because the quality of the water owing to its bulk has been in no way affected by the quality of the wine, but rather by its own bulk has changed the quality of the wine into water. But if the natures which are capable of reciprocal action and influence are in moderate proportion and equal or only slightly unequal, they are really mingled and tempered by the qualities which are in moderate relation to each other. This indeed takes place in bodies but not in all bodies, but only in those, as has been said, which are capable of reciprocal action and influence and have the same matter subject to their qualities. For all bodies which subsist in conditions of birth and decay seem to possess a common matter, but all bodies are not capable of reciprocal action and influence. But corporeals cannot in any way be changed into incorporeals because they do not share in any common underlying matter which can be changed into this or that thing by taking on its qualities. For the nature of no incorporeal substance rests upon a material basis; but there is no body that has not matter as a substrate. Since this is so, and since not even those things which naturally have a common matter can pass over into each other unless they have the power of acting on each other and being acted upon by each other, far more will those things not suffer interchange which not only have no common matter but are different in substance, since one of them, being body, rests on a basis of matter, while the other, being incorporeal, cannot possibly stand in need of a material substrate.

It is therefore impossible for a body to be changed into an incorporeal species, nor will it ever be possible for incorporeals to be changed into each other by any process of mingling. For things which have no common matter cannot be changed and converted one into another. But incorporeal things have no matter; they can never, therefore, be changed about among themselves. But the soul and God are rightly believed to be incorporeal substances; therefore the human soul has not been converted into the Godhead by which it was assumed. But if neither body nor soul can be turned into Godhead, it could not possibly happen that manhood should be transformed into God. But it is much less credible that the two should be confounded together since neither can incorporeality pass over to body, nor again, contrariwise, can body pass over into incorporeality when these have no common matter underlying them which can be converted by the qualities of one of two substances.

But the Eutychians say that Christ consists indeed of two natures, but not in two natures, meaning, no doubt, thereby, that a thing which consists of two elements can so far become one, that the elements of which it is said to be made up disappear; just as, for example, when honey is mixed with water neither remains, but the one thing being spoilt by conjunction with the other produces a certain third thing, so that third thing which is produced by the combination of honey and water is said to consist of both, but not in both. For it can never consist in both so long as the nature of both does not continue. For it can consist of both even though each element of which it is compounded has been spoiled by the quality of the other; but it can never consist in both natures of this kind since the elements which have been transmuted into each other do not continue, and both the elements in which it seems to consist cease to be, since it consists of two things translated into each other by change of qualities.

But Catholics in accordance with reason confess both, for they say that Christ consists both of and in two natures. How this can be affirmed I will explain a little later. One thing is now clear; the opinion of Eutyches has been confuted on the ground that, although there are three ways by which the one nature can subsist of the two, viz. either the translation of divinity into humanity or of humanity into divinity or the compounding of both together, the foregoing train of reasoning proves that no one of the three ways is a possibility.

VII. It remains for us to show how in accordance with the affirmation of Catholic belief (catholica fides) Christ consists at once in and of both natures.

The statement that a thing consists of two natures bears two meanings; one, when we say that anything is a union of two natures, as e.g. honey and water, where the union is such that in the combination however the elements be confounded, whether by one nature changing into the other, or by both mingling with each other, the two entirely disappear. This is the way in which according to Eutyches Christ consists of two natures.

The other way in which a thing can consist of two natures is when it is so combined of two that the elements of which it is said to be combined continue without changing into each other, as when we say that a crown is composed of gold and gems. Here neither is the gold converted into gems nor is the gem turned into gold, but both continue without surrendering their proper form.

Things then like this, composed of various elements, we say consist also in the elements of which they are composed. For in this case we can say that a crown is composed of gems and gold, for gems and gold are that in which the crown consists. For in the former mode of composition honey and water is not that in which the resulting union of both consists.

Since then the Catholic Faith confesses that both natures continue in Christ and that they both remain perfect, neither being transformed into the other, it says with right that Christ consists both in and of the two natures; in the two because both continue, of the two because the One Person of Christ is formed by the union of the two continuing natures.

But the Catholic Faith does not hold the union of Christ out of two natures according to that sense which Eutyches puts upon it. For the interpretation of the conjunction out of two natures which he adopts forbids him to confess consistence in two or the continuance of the two either; but the Catholic adopts an interpretation of the consistence out of two which comes near to that of Eutyches, yet keeps the interpretation which confesses consistence in two.

“To consist of two natures” is therefore an equivocal or rather a doubtful term of double meaning denoting different things; according to one of its interpretations the substances out of which the union is said to have been composed do not continue, according to another the union effected of the two is such that both natures continue.

When once this knot of doubt or ambiguity has been untied, nothing further can be advanced to shake the true and solid content of the Catholic Faith, which is that the same Christ is perfect man and God, and that He who is perfect man and God is One God and Son of Man, that, however, quaternity is not added to the Trinity by the addition of human nature to perfect Godhead, but that one and the same Person completes the number of the Trinity, so that, although it was the manhood which suffered, yet God can be said to have suffered, not by manhood becoming Godhead but by manhood being assumed by Godhead. Further, He who is man is called Son of God not in virtue of divine but of human substance, which latter none the less was conjoined to Godhead in a unity of natures. And although thought is able to distinguish and combine the manhood and the Godhead, yet one and the same is perfect man and God, God because He was begotten of the substance of the Father, but man because He was engendered of the Virgin Mary. And further He who is man is God in that manhood was assumed by God, and He who is God is man in that God was clothed with manhood. And although in the same Person the Godhead which took manhood is different from the manhood which it took, yet the same is God and man. For if you think of man, the same is man and God, being man by nature, God by assumption. But if you think of God, the same is God and man, being God by nature, man by assumption. And in Him nature becomes double and substance double because he is God-man, and One Person since the same is man and God. This is the middle way between two heresies, just as virtues also hold a middle place. For every virtue has a place of honor midway between extremes. For if it stands beyond or below where it should it ceases to be virtue. And so virtue holds a middle place.

Wherefore if the following four assertions can be said to be neither beyond or below reason, viz. that in Christ are either two Natures and two Persons as Nestorius says, or one Person and one Nature as Eutyches says, or two Natures but one Person as the Catholic Faith believes, or one Nature and two Persons, and inasmuch as we have refuted the doctrine of two Natures and two Persons in our argument against Nestorius and incidentally have shown that the one Person and one Nature suggested by Eutyches is impossible—since there has never been anyone so mad as to believe that His Nature was single but His Person double—it remains that the article of belief must be true which the Catholic Faith affirms, viz. that the Nature is double, but the Person one. But as I have just now remarked that Eutyches confesses two Natures in Christ before the union, but only one after the union, and since I proved that under this error lurked two opposite opinions, one, that the union was brought about by conception although the human body was certainly not taken from Mary; the other that the body taken from Mary formed part of the union by means of the Resurrection, I have, it seems to me, argued the twofold aspect of the case as completely as it deserves. What we have now to inquire is how it came to pass that two Natures were combined into one Substance.

VIII. Nevertheless there remains yet another question which can be advanced by those who do not believe that the human body was taken from Mary, but that the body was in some other way set apart and prepared, which in the moment of union appeared to be conceived and born of Mary’s womb. For they say: if the body was taken from man while every man was, from the time of the first disobedience, not only enslaved by sin and death but also involved in sinful desires, and if his punishment for sin was that, although he was held in chains of death, yet at the same time he should be guilty because of the will to sin, why was there in Christ neither sin nor any will to sin? And certainly such a question is attended by a difficulty which deserves attention. For if the body of Christ was assumed from human flesh, it is open to doubt of what kind we must consider that flesh to be which was assumed.

In truth, the manhood which He assumed He likewise saved; but if He assumed such manhood as Adam had before sin, He appears to have assumed a human nature complete indeed, but one which was in no need of healing. But how can it be that He assumed such manhood as Adam had when there could be in Adam both the will and the desire to sin, whence it came to pass that even after the divine commands had been broken, he was still held captive to sins of disobedience? But we believe that in Christ there was never any will to sin, because especially if He assumed such a human body as Adam had before his sin, He could not be mortal, since Adam, had he not sinned, would in no wise have suffered death. Since, then, Christ never sinned, it must be asked why He suffered death if He assumed the body of Adam before sin. But if He accepted human conditions such as Adam’s were after sin, it seems that Christ could not avoid being subject to sin, perplexed by passions, and, since the canons of judgment were obscured, prevented from distinguishing with unclouded reason between good and evil, since Adam by his disobedience incurred all these penalties of crime.

To whom we must reply that there are three states of man to envisage: one, that of Adam before his sin, in which, though free from death and still unstained by any sin, he could yet have within him the will to sin; the second, that in which he might have suffered change had he chosen to abide steadfastly in the commands of God, for then it could have been further granted him not only not to sin or wish to sin, but to be incapable of sinning or of the will to transgress. The third state is the state after sin, into which man needs must be pursued by death and sin and the sinful will. Now the points of extreme divergence between these states are the following: one state would have been for Adam a reward if he had chosen to abide in God’s laws; the other was his punishment because he would not abide in them; for in the former state there would have been no death nor sin nor sinful will, in the latter there was both death and sin and every desire to transgress, and a general tendency to ruin and a condition helpless to render possible a rise after the Fall. But that middle state from which actual death or sin was absent, but the power for both remained, is situate between the other two.

Each one, then, of these three states somehow supplied to Christ a cause for his corporeal nature; thus His assumption of a mortal body in order to drive death far from the human race belongs properly to that state which was laid on man by way of punishment after Adam’s sin, whereas the fact that there was in Christ no sinful will is borrowed from that state which might have been if Adam had not surrendered his will to the frauds of the tempter. There remains, then, the third or middle state, to wit, that which was before death had come and while the will to sin might yet be present. In this state, therefore, Adam was able to eat and drink, digest the food he took, fall asleep, and perform all the other functions which always belonged to him as man, though they were allowed and brought with them no pain of death.

There is no doubt that Christ was in all points thus conditioned; for He ate and drank and discharged the bodily function of the human body. For we must not think that Adam was at the first subject to such need that unless he ate he could not have lived, but rather that, if he had taken food from every tree, he could have lived for ever, and by that food have escaped death; and so by the fruits of the Garden he satisfied a need. And all know that in Christ the same need dwelt, but lying in His own power and not laid upon Him. And this need was in Him before the Resurrection, but after the Resurrection He became such that His human body was changed as Adam’s might have been but for the bands of disobedience. Which state, moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us to desire in our prayers, asking that His Will be done as in heaven so on earth, and that His Kingdom come, and that He may deliver us from evil. For all these things are sought in prayer by those members of the human family who rightly believe and who are destined to undergo that most blessed change of all.

So much have I written to you concerning what I believe should be believed. In which matter if I have said aught amiss, I am not so well pleased with myself as to try to press my effusions in the face of wiser judgment. For if there is no good thing in us there is nothing we should fancy in our opinions. But if all things are good as coming from Him who alone is good, that rather must be thought good which the Unchangeable Good and Cause of all Good indites.[18]

Diagnostic Questions

1. What is the Eutychian view?

2. What is the Nestorian view?

3. Does Boethius’s definition of terms cohere with biblical teaching?

Explain.

4. Does philosophy serve theology in Boethius’s Treatise, or does theology serve philosophy?

5. How does one justify the use of terms not presented in Scripture to defend the teaching of Scripture?

6. What role does Scripture play in Boethius’s Treatise? Explain.

18. The Latin word translated “indites” here is perscribit and could be translated “writes down.”

1. Boethius, Tractates, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, and S. J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library, no. 74 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978), xi.

2. Ibid., xii.

3. As we will see, the terms person and nature are central to this debate, and for that reason Boethius attempts to give them as much clarity as he can.

4. This is a good place to remind ourselves that apologetics offers a defense not only against false philosophy, but also against false theology. For contemporary examples of this, see Cornelius Van Til, The New Modernism: An Appraisal of the Theology of Barth and Brunner (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1946); and Van Til, Christianity and Barthianism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962).

5. It should be noted that in some Reformed debates with, for example, the Socinians in the seventeenth century, it was the Socinians who claimed to be “biblical” in their arguments against any foreign terminology.

6. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 1.13.3.

7. Ibid., 1.13.5.

8. Turretin’s emphasis in this regard, some twelve hundred years later, is worth quoting: “But it is often found that they who litigate more pertinaciously than others against the words, cherish a secret virus. It is sufficiently evident that those new corruptors of religion condemn the words adopted by the ancients for no other reason than that they are unwilling to receive the things designed by them. Knowing that with the words they might abolish the doctrine also, we therefore did right in retaining them and insist on their use being not only lawful, but also beneficial and necessary for repressing the pertinacity of heretics and for bringing them out of their lurking places.” Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T . Dennison Jr., 3 vols. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992–97), 1:258.

9. This refers, apparently, to a letter sent to the pope by bishops in the East asking about a middle way between Nestorius and Eutyches. See Boethius, Tractates, The Consolation of Philosophy, 72–73.

10. “Obviously, his father-in-law Symmachus” (translator’s note in ibid., 74).

11. As will be clearer below, these two terms were widely used and debated in discussions of the Trinity and Christology. Boethius will attempt to further clarify both terms in order to set out an orthodox Christology.

12. Substances and accidents are the general categories that compose things. Substances are the most basic, and accidents are those properties that may attach to substances. Thus, for example, human nature is the substance of Socrates; snub-nosed is an accident.

13. That is, God cannot be acted upon.

14. This “perplexity,” despite Boethius’s efforts, continued into the time of the Reformation and beyond.

15. That is, person cannot, in the first place, be a compilation of accidents, but is foundational to whatever accidents might apply to it.

16. This “definition of Person” was later adopted by Thomas Aquinas and became a standard view, though not without its problems, during the Reformation and into the seventeenth century.

17. Note that already by this time there is a fairly standard technical vocabulary established by the church.

18. The Latin word translated “indites” here is perscribit and could be translated “writes down.”

CHAPTER 12

Peter Abelard

(ca. 1079–1142)

Compared to many medievals, Abelard offers us fairly extensive knowledge of his life. We possess his record of his inner struggles in a letter called Historia calamitatum (The Story of My Misfortunes). We also have the famous correspondence between him and Héloise.[1]

Abelard was born in Le Pallet, in Brittany, France. He trained in the classics (humane letters), showing himself to be a brilliant student. Though from a noble family, he renounced his inheritance in order to pursue philosophy. Among his instructors were Roscelin and Guillaume de Champeaux. Abelard began giving instruction to students while in his twenties.

He struggled with health problems and went home to Brittany for a few years. After his recovery he went to Paris sometime between 1108 and 1113. He attended some of Guillaume’s lectures and debated him, in good medieval tradition, about the problem of universals. Abelard fared well in the debate, and he began to be recognized as a fine teacher (a dialectician). Around 1113 he began the study of theology with Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with Anselm of Canterbury), but it did not go well, and so he thenceforth worked on his own.

Abelard became a resident scholar at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and during that time fell in love with a brilliant young woman, Héloise. This is one of the best-known stories from that period, one that is filled with intrigue and tragedy. She lived with Fulbert, her uncle. Abelard took a room from him, fell in love with Héloise, and then was forced to separate from her. They continued to meet in secret, and she became pregnant and fled to Brittany in order to have the child. They married secretly but Fulbert knew of it, and so Héloise fled to Argenteuil. Believing Abelard was trying to banish her, Fulbert and some other men broke into his room and had him castrated. This meant, by church law, that he could no longer serve as a priest. Héloise became a nun according to Abelard’s wishes, since he would never be able to serve as a husband. He then resumed his teaching in a local priory. The two continued to correspond.

He taught on the Trinity and related topics. His pedagogy and philosophy were deemed incompatible with the traditional approach, and so a special synod was convened in Soissons to review his writings. His book On the Trinity was condemned, and Abelard was made to give a public affirmation of his faith, an experience he found most humiliating. After a brief period of seclusion he came back to teach and was again extremely popular. His students built a special oratory for him called the Paraclete. He then was invited to become the abbot of the monastery of Saint Gildas de Rhuys in Brittany. He bequeathed the Paraclete to Héloise, whose own convent had been terminated.

Abelard then returned to Paris (in the mid 1130s), where he taught at the Mont Sainte-Geneviève school. Controversy would again follow him. This time his writings were brought to the attention of Bernard de Clairvaux, who had strong concerns with Abelard’s approach. Abelard challenged Bernard to a debate, but the latter at first refused, and then set up a disputation on his own terms, including another special commission to examine Abelard’s works. When Abelard learned about this, he declined the debate and decided to appeal directly to the pope about the matter. But various letters were written to the pope, and the decision of Soissons was made known to him, so that the pontiff ordered Abelard to be silent. He apparently complied and then went quietly to Bernard to work out their differences. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, wrote in Abelard’s defense to the pope, who then lifted the ban. Abelard’s health deteriorated, he died in 1142, and he was buried at the Paraclete. Today his tomb is next to Héloise’s in the famous Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Surrounded with intrigue, Abelard’s life is the stuff of novels. At a time of conflict over classical authority, different translations, and new evidences for text, it was natural for him to write a work like Sic et non (Yes and no), which identified various contradictions from Scripture and other early writings, together with his rules for reconciling them. This provided the initial curriculum for the scholastic method. In addition to writing on philosophy, theology, and ethics, he was a composer of hymns. Though direct references to his works are few in the Middle Ages, it is clear that he wielded an enormous influence over theologians, philosophers, and even kings. Poetry and song record reflections on him.

Philosophy and Ethics

Abelard was the first great nominalist in the Middle Ages. From the Latin nomina, “belonging to a name,” nominalism teaches that things sharing the same name are not otherwise related. Put differently, the existence of true universals is doubtful. The only thing chairs have in common is that they are called chairs. Nominalism was no doubt identified first by Plato, who opposed it. He thought that chairs did have something in common, namely, the form of “chairness.” The opposite of nominalism is realism, which holds that there really do exist universals. If grass is green and my living room is painted green, then there is something real that can be properly identified as greenness. As can be expected, there are very few pure nominalists or pure realists. Many shades of difference between the two can be identified. Abelard himself has been labeled a moderate realist, because even he could not get around the fact that we do name things, and that these names must somehow correspond to reality.

Abelard’s view is sometimes called irrealist, in that its point is to deny the reality of abstractions. He is a fairly consistent irrealist, since he applies this view not only to universals but also to propositions, events, relations, natural phenomena, and even times other than the present. For example, he argues that if universals are real in the world, then the same item must be completely present in both Socrates and the donkey, or not at all. So, if that item is animal, then it cannot work to describe the commonality of Socrates and a donkey. The human being is rational, and the donkey is irrational (according to the way ancient philosophy identified the species). Both rationality and irrationality cannot be true of a thing as a whole at the same time. As might be expected, discussions of nominalism and realism take us into deep waters. Space prohibits going into great detail here. The interested reader may find a helpful resource in the The Cambridge Companion to Abelard.[2]

Abelard is arguably the greatest logician since antiquity. Not until Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) would we have such a consolidator of the discipline. His major contributions include the distinction between force and content, and the theory of entailment in an argument. Entailment means inference, and the issue is whether or not the connection between two propositions is necessary or relevant. It may be noted that a conclusion can be necessary or relevant to the premise, yet not formally valid, which makes it an incomplete entailment. Abelard also noted that the same propositional content can be expressed for different purposes, and with different strengths, depending on the contexts. Thus, “Socrates is in the house” and “if only Socrates were in the house” hold similar propositions but in different modes.

As to ethics, Abelard centers his evaluation of a moral act on the intention of the agent. That is, the worth or value of an action is based on motive, not result. So, for example, if two people decide to provide alms for the poor, but one is robbed along the way, this unintended consequence does not affect the worth of his decision. According to Abelard, to evaluate choices on the basis of outcomes would amount to saying, “Rich people are better!” Actual deeds are not quite irrelevant, but nearly so, as compared to motives.

Abelard gives the following example: Imagine twins, a boy and a girl, are separated at birth and know nothing of their relation as they grow up. They decide to marry. This is incest, and yet there is no fault or blame for the two agents, as they are ignorant of their situation and therefore intend no wrong.

He goes yet further. Imagine a monk is bound in chains between two women who proceed to touch him. If he is brought to pleasure, this is not the same as consent, since humans are so constituted as to have pleasure in certain circumstances, whether they intend it or not. He even goes further. Those who crucified Christ were not evil for doing so, because they were ignorant of his divine nature. Indeed, they would have been guilty for not crucifying him if they believed themselves obliged to do so. Thus, any failure to follow conscience is culpable.

Of course, this is one of the reasons Abelard troubled the authorities. He stressed intentions so much that it appeared to them he was denying the objectivity of God’s law. He answered that while there is a natural law, only God fully knows it and renders us accountable. At the same time, we can be guided by such pragmatic things as example and deterrent. While a man may not be guilty of intending a crime of, say, homicide, his punishment can be an example or a deterrent to would-be criminals.

It is apparent that however faulty, this irrealist philosophy and this intentionalist ethics was very attractive to students and others who were wary of high-flying Platonism or unquestioned doctrine handed down by the church. Whatever his bravado and “troubles,” he was understandably a fascinating and popular figure in his own time and still is today.

Sic et Non

Perhaps his best-known text, Sic et non (1120) will not be reproduced here. Much of its contents overlap the Ethics or Know Yourself, which we will reproduce. Meaning “Yes and No,” or, perhaps more accurately, “For and Against,” Sic et non is a unique and influential work addressing the problem of apparent and sometimes real contradictions, particularly in regard to ethical direction. For example, one finds many contradictory statements in the directives of the church fathers. In the medieval world to which Abelard belonged one needed to assume that the fathers spoke with authority. Therefore most of the time their words could not be portrayed as real or final contradictions. How, then, might one explain them?

There may be many grounds for what could appear contradictory. As we saw above, one may use different terms with the same basic content, perhaps for variety and to avert boredom. A writer may use generalizations so that simple folk can understand. Approximations may be more helpful than absolute precision would be. Poetical language is often more compelling than simple prose. One father may quote another who is in error. Or the conflict between their writings might be real. In this case the reader must learn to choose the truer statement.

Abelard boldly states that the fathers may err. He cites the case of Peter the apostle when he was admonished by Paul for succumbing to Jewish ceremonial traditions discarded by the gospel (Gal. 2:11–14). Augustine wrote the Retractions discussed in the previous section. Even though the fathers were imbued with great authority, readers should scrutinize their writings before accepting them as true. Abelard’s own followers were expected to do this with his writings. Otherwise no discussion would be possible, but only rote learning.

The exception to this freedom to criticize is when one is reading the Scriptures. If while studying the sacred writ one comes across a difficulty, it is possible that the original writer did not err but that the scribe who copied the manuscript missed something. Abelard also recommends that we simply admit that the passage may be hard to understand.

Sic et non was likely a student manual to impart the art of debate and creative discussion. Following Aristotle, Abelard believed that doubting led to deeper examination, and deeper examination led to truth.

Ethics, or Know Yourself

Both the Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew and the Ethics were written sometime between 1136 and 1139. Both concern the placement of ethics, or the study of morals, in relation to various methods of evaluation. They center on the question of the summon bonum, the ultimate good.

The Ethics has the alternate title Know Yourself, with a bow to Socrates. The purpose of this text is to study “the defects or qualities of the mind which dispose us to bad or good actions” (prologue). It is a detailed study of motivation. Questions are posed, such as whether there can be an inclination to evil, whether physical defects can contribute to sin, whether unintended consequences are culpable, and the like. The significance of this work for apologetics is its defense of God’s sovereignty over a world full of moral ambiguity. For example, though Judas the betrayer was motivated by evil, God used it for the greater good (Rom. 8:32). “God considers not the action, but the spirit of the action,” Abelard says (chap. 3).

In the intricacies of the text, Abelard introduces us to fine distinctions that have for their goal to understand moral worth in relation to the basic motivations and predispositions of moral agents. Abelard put great emphasis on personal intentions. They became almost the sole measure of the true moral value of an action. Pushed to an extreme, his approach could lead to speculation. Abelard is credited with anticipating some of the more contemporary discussions in ethics in a way his scholastic successors did not.

Ethics

The Beginning of Master Peter Abelard’s Book

Called “Know Yourself”

Book I

(1) We call “morals” the mind’s vices or virtues that make us disposed to bad or good deeds.

(2) Not only are there the mind’s vices or goods, but also the body’s. For example, weakness of the body or the strength we call vigor, sluggardness or nimbleness, lameness or walking erect, blindness or sight. That is why when we said “vices” we prefixed the words “the mind’s,” in order to exclude such bodily vices. Now these vices (that is, the mind’s) are contrary to virtues. For example, injustice to justice, laziness to perseverance, immoderateness to moderation.

On Mental Vice Relevant to Morals

(3) But there are also some vices or goods of the mind that are unconnected to morals and don’t make a human life deserving of censure or praise. For example, mental obtuseness or a quick wit, being forgetful or having a good memory, ignorance or knowledge. Since all these things turn up among reprobates and good people alike, they are irrelevant to the make-up of morals and don’t make a life shameful or respectable. Thus when we said “the mind’s vices” above [(1)], we were right to add, in order to exclude such morally irrelevant vices, the words “that make us disposed to bad deeds” that is, they incline the will to something that isn’t properly to be done or renounced at all.

What Difference Is There between a Sin and a Vice Inclining One to Evil?

(4) This kind of mental vice isn’t the same as a sin. And a sin isn’t the same as a bad action. For instance, being hot tempered—that is, disposed or easily given to the turmoil that is anger—is a vice. It inclines the mind to doing something impulsively and irrationally that isn’t fit to be done at all. Now this vice is in the soul in such a way that the soul is easily given to getting angry even when it isn’t being moved to anger, just as the lameness whereby a person is called “lame” is in him even when he isn’t limping around. For the vice is present even when the action is absent.

(5) So also the body’s very nature or structure makes many people prone to wantonness, just as it does to anger. But they don’t sin by the fact that they are like this. Rather they get from it material for a fight, so that victorious over themselves through the virtue of moderation they might obtain a crown. Thus Solomon says, “The long-suffering man is better than the mighty man, and the one who rules his mind than the capturer of cities.” For religion doesn’t think it shameful to be defeated by a human being, but by a vice. The former surely happens to good people too, but in the latter we depart from goods.

(6) In recommending this victory to us, the Apostle says, “No one will be crowned unless he struggles according to the Law.” Struggles, I say, in resisting not people so much as vices, lest they drag us away to improper consent. They don’t stop assaulting us, even if people do stop, so that the vices’ attack against us is more dangerous the more it is repeated, and victory is more glorious the more difficult it is. But no matter how much people influence us, they force nothing shameful on our life unless, having so to speak been turned into vices for us, they subject us to shameful consent the way vices do. There is no risk to true liberty while others rule the body; we don’t run into any abominable slavery as long as the mind is free. For it isn’t shameful to serve a human being but to serve a vice, and it isn’t bodily slavery that disfigures the soul but submission to vices. For whatever is common to good and bad people equally is irrelevant to virtue or vice.

What Is Mental Vice, and What Is Properly Called “Sin”?

(7) So it is vice that makes us disposed to sin—that is, we are inclined to consent to what is inappropriate, so that we do it or renounce it. This consent is what we properly call “sin,” the fault of the soul whereby it merits damnation or is held guilty before God. For what is this consent but scorn for God and an affront against him? God cannot be offended by injury but he can by scorn. For he is the ultimate power, not diminished by any injury but wreaking vengeance on scorn for him.

(8) Thus our sin is scorn for the creator, and to sin is to scorn the creator—not to do for his sake what we believe we ought to do for his sake, or not to renounce for his sake what we believe ought to be renounced. And so when we define sin negatively, saying it is not doing or not renouncing what is appropriate, we show clearly that there is no substance to a sin; it consists of non-being rather than of being. It is as if we define shadows by saying they are the absence of light where light did have being.

(9) But perhaps you will say that willing a bad deed is also a sin; it renders us guilty before God, just as willing a good deed makes us just. As a result, in the same way as there is virtue in a good will so there is sin in a bad will, and there is sin not only in non-being but also in being, just as with virtue. For just as by willing to do what we believe pleases God we do please him, so by willing to do what we believe displeases God we do displease him, and appear to affront or scorn him.

(10) But I say that if we look more closely, we have to view this matter quite otherwise than it appears. For sometimes we sin without any bad will. And when a bad will is curbed without being extinguished, it wins the palm-branch of victory for those resisting it, and provides the material for a fight and a crown of glory. It shouldn’t itself be called a “sin” but a kind of illness that is now necessary.

(11) Look, here is some innocent person. His cruel master is so enraged with fury at him that with bared blade he hunts him down to kill him. The innocent man flees him for a long time, and avoids his own murder as long as he can. Finally, under duress and against his will, he kills his master in order not to be killed by him.

(12) Whoever you are, tell me what bad will he had in doing this deed! If he wanted to flee death, he also wanted to save his own life. But was this willing a bad one?

(13) You will say: It isn’t this will, I think, that is bad, but the will he had for killing the master who was hunting him down.

(14) I reply: You speak well and astutely, if you can point to a will in what you are saying. But, as was already said [(11)], it was against his will and under duress that he did what kept his life intact as long as possible. Also, he knew danger would threaten his own life as a result of this slaying. How then did he willingly do what he did with this danger even to his own life?

(15) If you reply that this too was done because of a willing, since obviously he was brought to this point by willing to escape death, not by willing to kill his master, we aren’t contesting that. But as was already said, this willing isn’t to be condemned as bad. As you say, through it he wanted to escape death, not to kill his master. Yet he did wrong in consenting (even though he was under duress from the fear of death) to an unjust slaying he should have borne rather than inflicted. He certainly took up the sword on his own; he didn’t have it entrusted to him by some power.

(16) Hence Truth says, “Everyone who takes up the sword will perish by the sword.” “Who,” he says, “takes up the sword” out of presumptuousness, not someone to whom it was entrusted for the sake of administering punishment. “Will perish by the sword”—that is, brings upon himself damnation and the slaying of his own soul by this foolhardiness. And so, as was said, he wanted to escape death, not to kill his master. But because he consented to a killing he shouldn’t have consented to, his unjust consent that preceded the killing was a sin.

(17) Now if perhaps someone says this person wanted to slay his master for the purpose of escaping death, he cannot without qualification infer from this that he wanted to kill him. It is as if I tell someone, “I want you to have my cap, for the purpose of your giving me fifty cents,” or “I cheerfully want it to become yours for that price.” I don’t therefore grant that I want it to be yours. And if someone confined in jail wants to put his son there instead of himself, so that he might look for his own ransom, do we therefore grant without qualification that he wants to send his son to jail—an event he is forced to accept, with great tears and many groans?

(18) Surely a so called “willing” like this, one that consists of great mental sorrow, isn’t to be called a “willing” but instead a “suffering.” To say he “wants” one thing because of another is like saying he tolerates what he doesn’t want because of something else he does desire. So too a sick person is said to “want” to be cauterized or to be operated on in order to be cured. And the martyrs “wanted” to suffer in order to reach Christ, or Christ himself “wanted” to suffer that we might be saved by his suffering. But we aren’t thereby forced to grant without qualification that they wanted this. For there cannot be a “suffering” at all except where something happens against one’s will; no one “suffers” when he accomplishes his will and when what happens delights him. Surely the Apostle who says, “I long to be dissolved and to be with Christ”—that is, to die in order to reach him—elsewhere comments, “We do not want to be disrobed but to be clothed over, so that what is mortal be absorbed by life.”

(19) Blessed Augustine also mentions this view, stated by the Lord where he says to Peter, “You will hold out your hands, and someone else will gird you and lead you where you do not want to go.” In accordance with human nature’s assumed infirmity, the Lord also says to the Father: “If it is possible, let this chalice pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you do.” Surely his soul was naturally terrified at the great suffering of his death, and what he knew would be a penalty couldn’t be a matter of “willing” for him. Even though elsewhere it is written about him, “He was offered up because he himself willed it,” either this has to be taken in accordance with the nature of divinity, the will of which included the assumed man’s suffering, or else “willed it” is here used in the sense of “arranged it,” in accordance with the Psalmist’s statement, “He has done whatever he willed.”

(20) Hence it is plain that sin is sometimes committed without any bad will at all, so that it is clear from this that willing isn’t said to be what sin is.

(21) Of course, you will say, this holds where we sin under duress, but it doesn’t hold where we sin willingly. For example, if we want to commit some deed we know shouldn’t be committed by us. In that case, surely, the bad willing and the sin appear to be the same. For example, someone sees a woman and falls into lust. His mind is stirred by the pleasure of the flesh, with the result that he is set on fire for the shamefulness of sex. So, you say, what else is this willing and shameful desire but sin?

(22) I reply: What if this willing is curbed by the virtue of moderation but not extinguished, stays for the fight, holds out for the struggle, and doesn’t give up even when defeated? For where is the fight if the material for the fight is absent? Where does the great reward come from if there is nothing serious we put up with? When the struggle has passed, there is no fighting left but only the receiving of the reward. We struggle by fighting here in order that, triumphant in the struggle, we might receive a crown elsewhere. But to have a fight it’s proper to have an enemy who resists, not one who gives up altogether. Now this enemy is our bad will, the one we triumph over when we subject it to the divine will. But we don’t entirely extinguish it, so that we always have a will we might strive against.

(23) For what great deed do we do for God’s sake if we don’t put up with anything opposed to our willing but instead accomplish what we will? Indeed who thanks us if, in what we say we are doing for his sake, we are accomplishing our own will?

(24) Rather, you will say, what do we merit before God from what we do, either willingly or unwillingly?

(25) I reply: Nothing, of course, since in giving out rewards he takes account of the mind rather than the action. The action doesn’t add anything to the merit, whether it springs from good or bad willing, as we shall show later on [(30), (35)–(48)].

(26) But when we prefer his will to ours, so that we follow his rather than ours, we do obtain great merit before him, according to the perfection of Truth, “I did not come to do my will but his who sent me.” In encouraging us to do this, he says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, indeed even his own soul, he is not worthy of me.” That is, unless he refuses their suggestions or his own will and submits himself entirely to my commands. Therefore, if we are ordered to hate our father but not kill him, so too for our will; the order is that we not follow it, not that we destroy it entirely.

(27) For he who says, “Do not pursue your lusts, and turn away from your will,” commanded us not to satisfy our lusts, but not to do without them altogether. For satisfying them is wicked, but going without them is impossible in our feeble state. And so it isn’t the lusting after a woman but the consenting to the lust that is the sin. It isn’t the will to have sex with her that is damnable but the will’s consent.

(28) Let’s look at gluttony with respect to what we said about wantonness.

Someone is going by another person’s garden and on seeing the delicious fruits falls to craving them. But he doesn’t consent to his craving so that he takes something away from there by theft or plunder, although his mind has been inflamed to a great desire by the deliciousness of the food. Now where there is desire, no doubt there is will. So he desires to eat the other person’s fruit, and he doesn’t doubt there is pleasure in eating it. Indeed he is driven by the very nature of his feeble state to desire what he may not take without its owner’s knowledge and permission. He curbs his desire; he doesn’t destroy it. But because he isn’t drawn into consent, he doesn’t fall into sin.

(29) What is the point of this? In brief, to make it clear that in such cases too the sin isn’t said to be the willing itself or the desire to do what isn’t allowed, but rather the consent, as we said. Now we consent to what isn’t allowed when we don’t draw back from committing it and are wholly ready to carry it out should the opportunity arise.

(30) So whoever is found in this condition has incurred complete guilt. Adding on the performance of the deed doesn’t add anything to increase the sin. Instead, for God, someone who tries as hard as he can to go through with it is just as guilty as one who does go through with it insofar as he is able. It is just as if he too had been apprehended in the very deed, as blessed Augustine remarks.

(31) But although the willing isn’t the sin and sometimes we even commit sins against our will, as we said, nevertheless some people say every sin is “voluntary.” In so doing they find a kind of difference between the sin and the willing. For one thing is called the “will,” and another thing is called “voluntary”; that is, the will is other than what is committed by the will. But if we call a sin what we have said above is properly called a sin—namely scorn for God, consenting to what we believe should be renounced for his sake—then how do we say the sin is “voluntary”? That is, how do we say we want to scorn God (which is what sinning is), or to grow worse or to be made deserving of damnation? For although we might want to do what we know ought to be punished, or that whereby we might be deserving of punishment, nevertheless we don’t want to be punished. In this respect we are plainly being unfair, because we want to do what is unfair but don’t want to yield to the fairness of a penalty that is just. The penalty, which is just, displeases; the action, which is unjust, pleases.

(32) Often too it comes about that although, attracted by her appearance, we want to have sex with someone we know is married, nevertheless we wouldn’t want to commit adultery with her; we would want her not to be married. Conversely, there are many who for the sake of their own fame yearn more for the wives of powerful men, because they are the wives of such men, than they would if the same women were unmarried. They are more eager to commit adultery than fornication, to deviate more rather than less.

(33) There are also people who entirely regret being drawn into consenting to lust or into an evil will, and are compelled by the flesh’s weakness to want what they don’t want to want at all.

(34) Therefore, I really don’t see how this consent that we don’t want is going to be called “voluntary” so that, following some people as was said, we call every sin “voluntary” unless we understand the “voluntary” as merely excluding the necessary (since no sin is inevitable), or call the “voluntary” whatever arises from some will (for although he who killed his master under duress didn’t have a will for killing, nevertheless he committed it from some will, since he wanted to escape or put off death).

(35) Some people may be more than a little upset because they hear us say that doing the sin doesn’t add anything to the guilt or to the damnation before God. For they object that in acting out a sin there follows a kind of pleasure that increases the sin, as in sex or in the eating we talked about.

(36) It wouldn’t be absurd of them to say this, if they proved that this kind of bodily pleasure is a sin and that no one can commit anything like that without sinning. If they actually accept that, then surely it is illicit for anyone to have this bodily pleasure. Hence not even married couples are exempt from sin when they are brought together by this bodily pleasure that is permitted to them, and neither is one who enjoys a delicious meal of his own fruit. All sick people too would be at fault who favor sweeter foods for refreshment, in order to recuperate from their illness. They surely don’t take these foods without pleasure; otherwise if they took them they wouldn’t help.

(37) Finally, even the Lord, the creator of foods as well as of our bodies, wouldn’t be without fault if he inserted into those foods flavors such as would necessarily force those who eat them into sin by their pleasure in them. For why would he make such foods for our eating, or permit us to eat them, if it were impossible for us to eat them without sin? And how can sin be said to be committed in doing what is permitted?

(38) For if what were at one time illegal and prohibited deeds are later permitted and so legalized, they are committed now without any sin at all. For example, eating the flesh of pigs and many other actions once prohibited to the Jews but now permitted to us. So when we see even Jews who have been converted to Christ freely eating the kinds of foods the Law had prohibited, how do we defend them as without fault except by maintaining that this is now permitted to them by God?

(39) Hence if in such eating, formerly prohibited to them but now permitted, the permission itself excuses the sin and takes away scorn for God, who can say anyone sins in doing what divine permission has made legal for him? Therefore, if having sex with one’s wife or eating delicious food has been permitted to us from the first day of our creation, which was lived without sin in paradise, who will argue that we have sinned if we don’t go beyond the bounds of permission?

(40) But again, they say sex in marriage and the eating of delicious food are only permitted in such a way that the pleasure itself is not permitted. Rather, they should be done entirely without pleasure. But surely if this is so, then they were permitted to be done in a way such that they cannot be done at all. An authorization that permitted their being done in a way that they certainly cannot be done is unreasonable.

(41) Furthermore, why did the Law at one time urge marriage so that each one would leave behind his seed in Israel, or why did the Apostle require married couples to fulfill their duty to one another, if these things cannot be done without sin? Why does he talk about “duty” here, where already there is necessarily sin? How is anyone supposed to be required to do what will offend God by sinning?

(42) In my judgment, it is plain from these considerations that no natural bodily pleasure is to be counted as a sin. It isn’t to be regarded as a fault that we take pleasure in what is such that, when it has occurred, pleasure is necessarily felt. For example, if someone forces someone in religious orders, bound by chains, to lie among women, and he is led into pleasure—but not into consent—by the bed’s softness and the touch of the women around him, who can venture to call this pleasure nature has made necessary a “sin”?

(43) Now suppose you object that, as it appears to some people, even bodily pleasure in lawful sex is regarded as a sin. For David says, “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities.” And when the Apostle said, “Come back together again, that Satan not tempt you because of your lack of self-restraint,” he adds, “Now I say this as an indulgence, not as a commandment.” These texts seem to bind us, more by authority than by reason, to grant that bodily pleasure is itself a sin. For it is well known that David wasn’t conceived in fornication but in marriage. And indulgence—that is, forgiving, as they say—doesn’t occur where fault is completely missing.

(44) But as far as appears to me, the fact that David says he had been conceived in iniquities, or “sins,” and didn’t specify whose, refers to the general curse of original sin, the sin whereby everyone is made subject to damnation by the fault of his own parents. This accords with what is written elsewhere, “No one is clean of stain if his life is on earth, not even the day-old infant.” For as blessed Jerome has remarked, and as plain reason has it, the soul lacks sin as long as it is in infancy. Therefore, if it is clean of sin, how is it unclean with the stain of sin, unless it’s because the former is to be understood with respect to fault, the latter with respect to punishment?

(45) Surely one who doesn’t yet perceive by reason what he ought to do doesn’t have any fault because of scorn for God. Yet he isn’t immune to the stain of his earlier parents’ sin, from which he already incurs punishment even if not fault; he preserves in his punishment what they committed in their fault. Thus when David says he was conceived in iniquities or sins, he perceived that he was subject to the general pronouncement of damnation from the fault of his parents. And he referred these offenses not so much to his immediate parents as to earlier ones.

(46) Now what the Apostle called “indulging” isn’t to be taken, as they wish it to be, in the sense that he called forgiving a sin “indulging” in the sense of “allowing.” Surely his expression, “as an authorization, not as compulsory,” is as if he had said “by way of allowing, not by coercing.” For if a married couple wishes, and they have decided by mutual consent, they can completely abstain from carnal practice; they are not to be forced into it by a commandment. But if they haven’t decided this, they have the “indulgence”—that is, they are allowed—to turn away from the more perfect life to the practice of a more lenient life. Therefore, the Apostle in this passage didn’t understand “indulging” as forgiving a sin, but as the authorization of a more lenient life in order to avoid fornication, with the result that the inferior life would prevent a great amount of sin, and is less in merits so that it not become greater in sins.

(47) We have brought up these matters so that no one, perhaps wanting every pleasure of the flesh to be a sin, would say that sin itself is increased by the action when one extends the mind’s consent to the point of performing the deed, so that one is defiled not only by consent to shamefulness but also by the stains of the act. As if what occurred outside in the body could defile the soul!

(48) Therefore, any kind of carrying out of deeds is irrelevant to increasing a sin. Nothing taints the soul but what belongs to it, namely the consent that we’ve said is alone the sin, not the will preceding it or the subsequent doing of the deed. For even if we want or do what is improper, we don’t thereby sin, since these things frequently occur without sin, just as, conversely, consent occurs without these things. We have already shown this in part: the point about the will without consent, in the example of the man who fell into lust for a woman he saw, or for someone else’s fruit, yet wasn’t enticed to consent; the point about bad consent without a bad will, in the example of the person who killed his master unwillingly.

(49) Now as for things that ought not to be done, I don’t think it escapes anyone how often they are done without sin, for example when they are committed through force or ignorance. For instance, if a woman subjected to force has sex with someone else’s husband, or if a man somehow deceived sleeps with a woman he thought was his wife, or if by mistake he kills someone he believed should be killed by him in his role as a judge. So it isn’t a sin to lust after someone else’s wife, or to have sex with her; the sin is rather to consent to this lust or to this action.

(50) Indeed the Law calls this consent to lust “lust” when it says, “Thou shalt not lust.” For it isn’t the lusting that had to be prohibited (which we cannot avoid and wherein we do not sin, as was said), but rather the assent to it. The Lord’s words too, “He who shall look at a woman in order to lust after her,” have to be understood in this way: he who shall look at her in order to fall into consent to lust “has already committed adultery in his heart,” even if he hasn’t committed adultery in deed. That is, he already has the guilt for the sin, even if he is still lacking the performance of it.

(51) If we look carefully, wherever deeds appear to be included under a command or prohibition, they are to be referred more to the will or the consent to the deeds than to the deeds themselves. Otherwise, nothing relevant to merit would come under the scope of a command. For things less in our power are less worth commanding. There are surely many things we are prevented from doing, but we always have will and consent within our power of choosing.

(52) Look, the Lord says “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” If we take these at face value, as being only about the deed, guilt isn’t proscribed at all. Neither is fault prohibited, but only the action associated with the fault. For it isn’t a sin to kill a human being or to have sex with someone else’s wife. These acts can be committed sometimes without sin. If this kind of prohibition is taken at face value, as being about the deed, then he who wants to bear false witness, or even he who consents to saying it, as long as he doesn’t say it and keeps quiet for whatever reason, doesn’t become guilty before the Law. For it wasn’t stated that we should not want to bear false witness, or not agree to bearing it, but only that we should not bear it.

(53) Or again, when the Law forbids us from taking our sisters in marriage, or from joining together with them, there is no one who can keep this commandment, since often someone cannot recognize his sisters—no one, I say, if the prohibition is made with respect to the act rather than to the consent. So when someone out of ignorance accidentally takes his sister in marriage, does he break the commandment because he does what the Law forbade him to do?

(54) You will say he doesn’t break it, because he didn’t consent to breaking it insofar as he acted unknowingly. Therefore, just as he who does what is forbidden isn’t to be called a lawbreaker, but rather he who consents to what is agreed to be forbidden, so neither is the prohibition to be taken with respect to the deed, but with respect to the consent. Thus, when it says “Do not do this or that,” it’s like saying “Do not consent to doing this or that” as if it said “Do not knowingly venture to do this.”

(55) Blessed Augustine too thought about this closely and reduced every command or prohibition to charity or greed rather than to deeds. He says, “The Law commands nothing but charity, and forbids nothing but greed.” Hence too the Apostle says, “All the law is fulfilled in one statement: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And again, “The fulfillment of the Law is love.”

(56) Surely it has no bearing on merit whether you give alms to one in need. Charity may make you prepared to give alms and your will may be ready, although the means are absent and the power to do so doesn’t remain in you, no matter what chance event it is that impedes you. Surely it is plain that deeds appropriately done or not are equally carried out by good people as by bad. The intention alone separates the two cases.

(57) Indeed, as the aforesaid Doctor remarks, in the same deed in which we see God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we also see Judas the traitor. When the Father handed over the Son and the Son handed himself over, as the Apostle mentions, and Judas handed over his master, certainly the handing over of the Son was done by God the Father; it was also done by the Son, and it was done by the traitor. Therefore, the traitor did what God did too. But did he do well to do it? For even if it was good, it was not at any rate done well, or something that ought to have been beneficial to him. For God doesn’t think about the things that are done but rather in what mind they are done. The merit or praiseworthiness of the doer doesn’t consist in the deed but in the intention.

(58) Often in fact the same thing is done by different people, through the justice of one and the viciousness of the other. For example, if two people hang a criminal, one out of a zeal for justice and the other out of hatred springing from an old feud, then although the hanging is the same action, and although they certainly do what is good to be done and what justice demands, nevertheless through the difference in their intention the same thing is done by different people, one badly and the other well.

(59) Finally, who doesn’t know that the Devil himself does nothing but what he is permitted to do by God, when he either punishes an unjust person deservedly or else is allowed to afflict a just person, either to purify him or else to offer an example of patience? But because it is at the instigation of his own viciousness that he does what God permits him to do, his power is said to be good or even just, while his will is always unjust. The former he gets from God; the latter he has from himself.

(60) Also, who among the elect can be the equal of the hypocrites in matters pertaining to deeds? Who puts up with or does so many things from the love of God as they do from greed for human praise? Finally, who doesn’t know that sometimes things God forbids to be done are rightly performed anyway, or should be done, just as sometimes, contrariwise, he commands some things that nevertheless aren’t fit to be done? For look, we know that when he was curing illnesses, some of his miracles he forbade to be revealed, as an example of humility, so that no one would crave fame from perhaps having a similar grace bestowed on himself. Yet nonetheless, those who received the benefits didn’t stop publicizing them for the honor of him who both did them and forbade their being revealed. It is written of those people, “As much as he commanded them not to tell, so much more did they proclaim it,” etc.

(61) Will you judge such people guilty of breaking the law? They acted contrary to the command they received, and even did so knowingly. What will excuse them from lawbreaking except the fact that nothing they decided to do to honor the one who gave the command did they do out of scorn for him? Tell me, please, did Christ command what should not have been commanded? Or did they reject a command that should have been kept? What wasn’t good to be done was nevertheless good to be commanded.

(62) No doubt you’ll find fault with the Lord even in the case of Abraham. He first commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, but afterwards prevented it himself. Did God not do well to command to be done what wasn’t good to be done? For if it was good, why was it forbidden later on? But if the same thing was both good to be commanded and good to be forbidden (for God neither permits anything to happen nor consents to do it without reasonable cause), you see that only the intention of the commandment excuses God, not the doing of the deed. He did well to command what wasn’t good to be done. For God didn’t intend this or command it to be done in order that Abraham would really sacrifice his son, but in order that his obedience and the steadfastness of his faith or of his love for him might be sorely tried and left as an example to us.

(63) Surely the Lord himself plainly acknowledged this later on, when he said, “I have recognized now that you fear the Lord” as if he had said openly, “What you have shown yourself prepared to do, this I commanded of you, so that I might make others know what I myself had known about you before the ages.”

(64) Thus, this intention of God’s was right, in the case of a deed that was not right. So too his prohibition was right in the matters we mentioned. He forbade them not in order that the prohibition be observed but in order that examples of shunning empty glory might be given to us invalids.

(65) So God commanded what wasn’t good to be done, just as conversely he forbade what was good to be done. And as in the former case the intention excuses him, so too in the latter it excuses those who didn’t fulfill the commandment in deed. They surely knew he hadn’t commanded it for the sake of the commandment’s being kept, but in order that the abovementioned example be set out. Keeping the will of the order-giver, they didn’t scorn him whose will they understood they weren’t going against.

(66) Therefore, if we think of deeds rather than of the intention, we will see not only that sometimes one wills something to be done contrary to God’s command, but even that it is done, and done knowingly, without any of the guilt belonging to sin. When the intention of the one to whom the command is given doesn’t depart from the will of the command-giver, the will or the action isn’t to be called “bad” just because it doesn’t keep God’s command in deed. For just as the intention of the order-giver excuses him who commands to be done what nevertheless isn’t fit to be done, so too the intention of charity excuses him to whom the command is given.

(67) To gather all that has been said into one short conclusion, there are four things we have set out above in order that we might carefully distinguish them from one another: (a) the mental vice that makes us disposed to sin; after that (b) the sin itself, which we have located in consent to evil or in scorn for God; then (c) the will for evil; and (d) the doing of the evil. Now just as willing isn’t the same as accomplishing the will, so sinning isn’t the same as carrying out the sin. The former is to be taken as the mind’s consent by which we sin, the latter as the result of the doing, when we accomplish in deed what we have consented to earlier.

(68) Thus, when we say sin or temptation comes about in three ways—by suggestion, pleasure and consent—it is to be understood that we are often seduced into doing sin by these three things, as happened with our first parents. For the devil’s persuading came first, when he promised immortality would come from tasting of the forbidden tree. Pleasure followed when the woman, seeing the fine wood and understanding it was sweet to eat, was set on fire with a craving for it by the pleasure she believed she would take from the food. Although to keep the commandment she should have curbed her craving, she was drawn into sin by her consenting to it. And while she should have corrected the sin by repenting, to merit forgiveness, in the end she brought it to completion in her deed. And so she progressed in three phases to performing the sin.

(69) So too we often reach the point, not of sinning but of performing the sin, by these same steps: (a) by suggestion, at the instigation of someone who urges us from outside to do something improper. But if we know it is pleasurable to do it, then (b) even before it is done our mind is carried away by the pleasure of the deed, and in the thought itself we are tempted by pleasure. When (c) we approve of this pleasure by consent, we sin. By these three steps, we finally reach the point of performing the sin.

(70) There are some people who want the suggestion of the flesh, even if a suggesting person is absent, to be included under the name “suggestion.” For example when a woman is seen, if someone falls into lust for her. But actually, it seems that this “suggestion” ought to be called nothing but pleasure. In fact this pleasure, which comes about necessarily so to speak, and others like it that we remarked above are not a sin, the Apostle calls “human temptation” when he says: “Let temptation not grab hold of you, unless it is human temptation. Now God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted more than you are able to bear. Rather along with the temptation he will also make a way out for you, so that you can withstand it.”

(71) Now temptation in general is said to be any inclination of the mind to doing something improper, whether that inclination is a will or a consent. But a temptation without which human frailty is now hardly or never able to go on is called “human.” For example, carnal lust or desiring delicious food. The one who said, “Release me from my needs, Lord” asked to be freed from them—that is, from these temptations of lusts that now come about so to speak naturally and necessarily, so that they not draw me into consent, or so that I will lack them entirely when this life full of temptations is over.

(72) Therefore, the Apostle’s statement, “Let temptation not grab hold of you, unless it is a human temptation,” is much like saying, “If the mind is inclined by a pleasure that is a ‘human’ temptation, as we have called it, let it not lead the mind as far as the consent sin consists of.” He says, as if someone had asked what power of ours enables us to resist these lusts: “God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted.” It is as if he had said, “Rather than trusting in ourselves, we should place our confidence in him who promises us aid and is truthful in all his promises.” This is what it is for him to be faithful, so that faith in him is to be extended in all matters. If we do this, he doesn’t allow us to be tempted more than we are able to bear, since he so tempers this human temptation with his mercy that it doesn’t pressure us into sin more than we can endure by resisting it.

(73) But more than that, he then turns this temptation itself into an opportunity for us, when he exercises us by it so that thereafter it can be less hard on us when it occurs, and so that even now we may fear less the assault of an enemy we have already conquered and know how to endure. Surely, every fight we haven’t yet been through is harder to withstand and is feared more. But when it comes to be routine for the victors, its strength and terror alike disappear.

Diagnostic Questions

1. How would you describe the relation of the body and the will in Abelard’s view?

2. Why does he struggle to circumscribe sin so carefully? What is at stake for him?

3. What is Abelard’s view of pleasure?

4. In paragraph 57, why does Abelard compare the Father and Judas, in the act of “handing over”?

5. What is your overall evaluation of Abelard’s handling of desire, temptation, and sin?

The Dialogue

In Abelard’s Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew and a Christian, the philosopher and the Christian agree that the fundamental issue is not only the location but the nature of the ultimate good and ultimate evil. And since true happiness is in the pursuit of the ultimate good, they agree on the need to find the path to true happiness. Together with the Jew, all three agree that moral philosophy is the goal of every discipline. Each being a theist, they also agree that the answer to this question is connected to the soul’s need for salvation.

The Dialogue is a fascinating read, for it introduces us to the way in which each tradition, by the twelfth century—Greek, Jewish, and Christian—has been conceived. While there is general agreement on the distinction between God-given natural law and man-made civil law, there is disagreement about how best to serve God. The philosopher initially thinks Jews are “fools” because they misread the Scriptures, and Christians are “crazy” because they prefer authority to the use of reason. The work is remarkable for its lack of condemnation of the Jews. As mentioned above, if they crucified Jesus it was out of a sense of obedience to God and thus not culpable. The philosopher is at first the closest to Abelard, although it becomes clear that he is promoting the dialogue as an incentive for discussion.

Dialogue 2: Between the Philosopher and the Christian

(137) The Philosopher: “Now then, Christian, I urge you also to reply to my investigation according to the agreement in our plan. Your Law should be more perfect, stronger in its reward and more reasonable in its teaching, the later it is. Certainly, the earlier laws would have been written for people to no avail if something hadn’t been added to them to complete their teaching. One of our people, thinking this over carefully in the second book of his Rhetoric, while preparing a case involving laws contrary to one another, advised that one must pay attention to ‘which law was passed later, since whichever is last,’ he says, ‘carries the greatest weight.’”

(138) The Christian: “I’m surprised you’re so shameless in differing from what you claimed at the beginning. For since you first said you had found in your investigations that the Jews were fools and the Christians crazy, and later said you were not looking for controversy but meeting to investigate the truth, why in the world do you now expect the truth to be taught by people you’ve even found crazy? Do you suppose their craziness has stopped now, after your investigations, so that they can suffice now for your education? Certainly, if you suppose the Christian religious faith is craziness, and count the people who follow this sect as crazy, then look, you philosopher! What should be thought of those greatest Greek philosophers who all became the craziest converts to it by means of the rustic and uncouth preaching of simple people—the apostles? This ‘craziness’ of ours, as you call it, was rooted and fortified among the Greeks to such an extent that both the Gospels’ and the apostles’ teaching was written down there. Later on, after the great councils were held, it filled the whole world from there and crushed all heresies.”

(139) The Philosopher: “Sometimes people are more easily provoked by insults and mockeries than they’re prevailed upon by beggings and entreaties. Those provoked like this take more trouble over the fight than people are moved by graciousness who are beseeched.”

(140) The Christian: “You’re to be excused if you did it for that purpose. But now, lest I seem to delay this fight out of timidity, both you and I must pray that the Lord himself, who wishes all people to come to be saved and come to a knowledge of him, might inspire us about what you should ask and what I should reply.”

(141) The Philosopher: “Amen.”

(142) The Christian: “So be it, so be it. Now then please, since you don’t take part in the perfection of our Law—that is, of the Gospels’ and the apostles’ teaching—let’s look at it first and compare it to all other teachings, so that you may prefer it, as you must do if you see it’s more perfect in the commandments and exhortations that justify. Your rhetorician remarked on this above. Dealing as you said with contrary laws, he advised, ‘If two or more laws cannot be kept because they disagree with one another, let that one be regarded as having most to be kept that seems to deal with the greatest matters.’”

(143) The Philosopher: “Nothing is more plausible than this advice, and nothing stupider than to depart from old laws for new ones unless they’re stronger in their teaching. Those who put together these new laws were able to write them more carefully and completely insofar as, taught by the earlier laws’ discipline and by experience with matters of necessity, they were able by their own talent easily to add what was missing, as happens too in other branches of philosophy.

(144) “Now if modern writers were able to equal the old ones in talents, then the greatest confidence should be placed in the later writers’ perfection. But what is to be hoped for if perhaps they even far surpass them? You certainly don’t doubt this with the law-giver Christ, whom you call God’s very wisdom. You maintain that even our Job celebrated him earlier: ‘Behold God in his strength, and there is none like him among law-givers.’ And your Apostle, setting out his teaching and plainly showing the first Law’s imperfection, says: ‘Formerly, God spoke in various and many ways to the fathers by the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us by his son,’ etc. Again further down, while judging the distinction between the Old and the New Law, he says: ‘The rejection of the earlier decree came about on account of its weakness and uselessness. For the Law made nothing perfect. But the introduction of a better hope does, whereby we get closer to God.’”

(145) The Christian: “As I see it, ignorance of our faith certainly doesn’t condemn you, but more the stubbornness of your disbelief. You’ve learned our Law’s perfection from its writings, and still you’re looking for something to follow—as if you don’t have there a perfect lesson, more excellent than all others, in the virtues that you don’t doubt are enough for blessedness.

(146) “In fact, when the Lord himself handed down the New Testament, filling in things lacking in his old one, he started off right away with this perfection, and said to the disciples, ‘Unless your justice is abundant,’ etc. Continuing immediately, he carefully portrayed the new Law’s abundance through individual examples of where moral perfection was lacking, and summed up a true ethics. Indeed, it can easily be shown in this comparison that whatever things had been handed down by the old fathers or prophets, about teaching morals and distinguishing virtues, are nothing if we carefully compare them with the earlier ones.”

(147) The Philosopher: “As you know, only the desire for these comparisons brought me here, and we are all gathered with this purpose.”

(148) The Christian: “As far as I see it, we’re really proceeding now toward the goal and summation of all disciplines. Surely the discipline you have usually called ‘ethics’—that is, morals—we have usually called ‘divinity.’ That is, whereas we call it such from what it is directed at comprehending, namely God, you do so from the means by which it arrives there, namely the moral goods you call ‘virtues.’”

(149) The Philosopher: “I agree that’s clear. And I very much approve your new terminology. For because you regard the destination arrived at as worthier than the means of getting there, and to have arrived as more felicitous than coming, your terminology is the one for more eminent things, the one that appeals to the reader more from the proper origin of the word ‘divination.’ If it is as outstanding on the basis of its teaching as it is on the basis of the word, I think no discipline is to be compared with it. Therefore, we want you now to determine please what the culmination of true ethics consists in, what we are to have in view from this discipline, and how its purpose is achieved when it is arrived at.”

(150) The Christian: “The whole culmination of this discipline, I think, is gathered together in this: that it reveal where the ultimate good is and by what road we are to arrive there.”

(151) The Philosopher: “It’s certainly extremely pleasing for the culmination of so great a thing to be expressed in so few words, and for the purpose of all ethics to be so carefully recounted. Indeed, these words describing its purpose so immediately snatch the hearer to themselves and commend this discipline’s study, that in comparison with it all other arts’ teachings become vile.

(152) “For insofar as the ultimate good, the enjoyment of which comprises true blessedness, is more excellent than all other things, it’s plain without a doubt that its teaching far surpasses other teachings in both usefulness and worthiness. Indeed, the studies of the others stay far below the ultimate good, and don’t reach the pinnacle of blessedness. Nothing fruitful is apparent in them, except to the extent that they serve this ultimate philosophy like busy maidservants around their mistress. For what is there to the study of grammar, dialectic or the other arts that has to do with seeking out true human blessedness? They all lie far below this pinnacle and aren’t strong enough to raise themselves up to such a peak. But they do deal with certain kinds of speech or busy themselves with some of the natures of things, as if providing certain steps up to this loftiness. For we must speak about it and make it known by using some of the natures of things as an example or analogy. Thus through them we reach it, as though reaching the mistress through a kind of escort by the maidservants. In them we have the route for our trip, while in her we achieve peace and an end to our weariness.”

(153) The Christian: “I’m glad you’ve so carefully noted this philosophy’s superiority and distinguished it from the others. I gather from this you are mainly occupied in studying it.”

(154) The Philosopher: “I say ‘correctly’ occupied. Indeed, this alone is training in the natural law. Directed toward moral commands, it fits philosophers to a greater extent the more they keep using this law and clinging to reasons. As your own teacher mentions, ‘For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks are looking for wisdom.’ In fact, only the Jews, because they are animal and sensual and aren’t educated in any philosophy whereby they can discuss reasons, are moved to faith by miracles in outward deeds alone. As if God alone can do these things, and no demonic illusion can occur with them! The magicians in Egypt taught them, and Christ especially instructed you, how stupid it is to admit that. Forewarning them about Antichrist’s false prophets, he bears witness that such miracles will be done in seducing people ‘that even the elect are led into error, if that can be done.’

(155) “So, as if looking for these signs is stupidity, the Apostle cited earlier is thinking of the contrary in the addition, where he adds, ‘and the Greeks are looking for wisdom.’ That is, they need reasons, wisdom’s sure instruments, from preachers. Thus your (that is, Christian) preaching is highly praised because it was able to convert those people to the faith who most relied on and abounded in reasons, those who were trained in the studies of the liberal arts and armed with reasons. In fact, they were not only inquirers into these studies, but even their discoverers. From their fountains, streams have flowed into the whole world. For this reason especially, we even now have confidence that your teaching is more capable in the battle of reasons insofar it has already grown firmer in strength.”

(156) The Christian: “On the contrary, after such great philosophers’ conversion neither you nor your posterity can legitimately hesitate about our faith, and there seems no need for such a battle. Why do you believe their authority on all matters in the secular disciplines, yet are not moved to faith by their examples, saying with the prophet, ‘Neither are we better than our fathers’?”

(157) The Philosopher: “We don’t yield to their authority in the sense of not discussing their statements rationally before we approve them. Otherwise we would be ceasing to do philosophy if while disregarding the investigation of reasons we mainly used topics from authority. The latter are declared inartificial and are entirely disconnected from the reality itself, consisting of opinion more than of truth.

(158) “And we might believe that our forebears weren’t so much led by reason to confessing your faith as they were dragged by force, as even your histories agree. Indeed, before the emperors’ or princes’ conversion to your faith—through miracles, you say—your preaching secured few if any of the wise, even though nations could then easily be pulled away from the most blatant mistakes of idolatry and brought over to any monotheistic cult. Thus your own Paul, shrewdly taking the opportunity of his attack on the Athenians, begins by saying ‘Athenian men, I see that you are superstitious about all things,’ etc. For knowledge of the natural law and of veneration of the divine had already died out then, and the crowd of mistaken people had wiped out or overcome the few wise ones. To speak from our conscience and acknowledge the not inconsiderable fruit of Christian preaching, we don’t doubt that idolatry in the world was wiped out then mainly through this preaching.”

(159) The Christian: “Add too that plainly both the natural law was restored and the perfect discipline of morals was handed down by no one but him. You rely on it alone, you say [(11)], and believe it’s enough for being saved. Whoever are truly instructed by him as by true ‘sophia’—that is, by God’s wisdom—are to be called ‘philosophers.’”

(160) The Philosopher: “I wish you could establish what you say, to show yourselves truly to be logicians and to be armed as you say with reasons for your words by the supreme wisdom you call ‘logos’ in Greek and ‘verbum dei’ in Latin. Don’t suppose I will offer your Gregory’s famous escape for the wretched: ‘Faith for which human reason supplies a test,’ he says, ‘has no merit.’ Because people among you aren’t strong enough to discuss the faith they affirm, they right away adopt this statement of Gregory’s as consolation for their incompetence. Now what else in fact does this amount to in their opinion, except that we should be content with all kinds of preaching of the faith, stupid and sound alike?

(161) “For if faith isn’t to be discussed rationally at all lest it lose merit, and the question what has to be believed isn’t to be discussed with the mind’s judgment, but instead the things preached have to be agreed with at once no matter what mistakes the preaching sows, then accepting what is preached is pointless. For where using reason isn’t allowed, refuting anything by reason isn’t allowed.

(162) “Let the idolater say of a stone or piece of wood, or of any creature at all, ‘Here is the true God, the creator of heaven and earth.’ Or let him preach anything blatantly abhorrent. Who will be able to refute him if nothing about faith is to be discussed rationally? He will right away raise against the person arguing with him, especially a Christian, the objection just given, ‘Faith has no merit,’ etc. The Christian who says his reasonings aren’t to be listened to at all in such matters will be confounded at once by his own defense. He who doesn’t allow himself to be attacked at all can’t rightly attack someone with reasons concerning the faith, where he forbids them to be brought in altogether.”

(163) The Christian: “As the greatest of the wise says, ‘There are paths for a person that seem right, yet their last steps lead to his death.’ So too, quite often there seem to be reasons—that is, things reasonably and coherently stated—when that isn’t the case at all.”

(164) The Philosopher: “What about those treated as authorities? Aren’t they often in error? Otherwise, if all people used the same authorities, there wouldn’t be so many different religious faiths. But just as everyone deliberates with his own reason, individuals pick the authorities they follow. Otherwise all writings’ views would have to be accepted indiscriminately, if reason, which is naturally prior to them, didn’t have the means to judge about them in advance. For those who wrote only on the basis of reason, whose views are seen to abound with it, have earned their authority, their being worth believing. But even in their judgment, reason is put before authority. Thus as your Anthony remarks, ‘Since human reason’s perception was the originator of the writings, for one whose perception is unimpaired the writings are not needed at all.’

(165) “Authority is regarded as having last place, or none at all, in every philosophical disputation, so that those who are confident of their own powers and disdain relying on someone else’s ability are completely ashamed to bring in what are called arguments ‘from the judgment of the matter’—that is, from authority. So when the orator is forced to take refuge in them more than the philosopher is, philosophers rightly regarded the topics of such arguments as entirely extrinsic and disconnected from the reality, and as completely devoid of force insofar as they consist of opinion more than of truth, and don’t proceed on the basis of any talented skill in finding their arguments. For one who brings them in isn’t using his own words, but someone else’s.

(166) “Thus, combining in his Topics both the Themistian and the Ciceronian division of topics, your Boethius says, ‘Arguments that are from the judgment of the matter offer testimony, as it were. They are artificial topics, and entirely disconnected. They do not follow the reality so much as opinion and judgment.’ Again, on the same topic, he says in accordance with Cicero: ‘There remains the topic he said is taken from outside. It relies on judgment and authority. It is wholly plausible and contains nothing necessary.’ And somewhat later:

Now this topic is said to be constituted from outside. For the term is not taken from things that belong to the predicate or subject, but comes from a given judgment, from outside. Thus it is also called ‘inartificial’ and ‘lacking,’ because the orator does not put the argument together for himself, but uses prepared and given testimonies.

(167) “Your point that errors sometimes occur in distinguishing or recognizing reasons is certainly true and obvious. But this only happens to people lacking in experience of rational philosophy and in discerning arguments. The Jews who ask for signs instead of arguments, and those who put their defense in another person’s words, admit to being like this—as though it’s easier to judge about the authority or text of someone absent than about the reasoning or view of someone present, and as if the former’s meaning can be examined better than the latter’s can.

(168) “When we inquire after God as much as we can, anxious about our salvation, his grace surely supplies what our deeds are not enough for. He helps the willing, so they may be able. He even inspires the very fact that they are willing. He who often drags the unwilling along doesn’t reject the willing. He holds out his right hand to one who is trying, whose carelessness he cannot blame. What you call Truth itself, the Christ who makes you safe, tacitly understands this when the apt analogy is given: ‘Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and who seeks finds, and to the knocker it will be opened.’

(169) “Indeed in explaining the above words in a certain work of his On Mercy, Augustine says, as I recall, ‘Ask by praying, seek by disputing, knock by demanding.’ Thus too in the second book of On Order, putting the art of argument ahead of the disciplines as if it alone knows or makes people knowers, he says in praise of it: ‘The discipline of disciplines they call dialectic. It teaches how to teach; it teaches how to learn. In it reason itself demonstrates what it is; it alone knows what it wants. It not only wants to make people knowers, but is also able to do so.’

(170) “In the second book of On Christian Teaching, while showing that dialectic is quite necessary for reading Sacred Scripture, he says:

There remain matters that do not pertain to the body’s senses but to reason, where the discipline of disputation and number rules. Now the discipline of disputation is of enormous value for going into all the kinds of questions that come up in sacred literature. Yet one has to be careful there of the passion for wrangling and a kind of childish display of deceiving the adversary. For there are many false conclusions of reasonings, called ‘sophisms,’ and very often they imitate true conclusions so much that they deceive not only slow people, but even clever ones when they are less attentive. As far as I can see, Scripture curses this kind of captious conclusions in the passage where it is said, ‘He who speaks sophistically is loathsome.’”

(171) The Christian: “Surely no discerning person forbids investigating and discussing our faith by means of reasons. One does not rationally agree to things that were doubtful without first setting out a reason why one has to agree. When that reason produces faith in something doubtful, it truly becomes what you call an argument. Certainly controversy arises in every discipline, both about the text and about the view. And in any battle of disputation, a declared truth of reason is stronger than pointing to an authority.

(172) “For it isn’t what holds in reality that’s relevant to affirming the faith, but what can be believed. Many questions come up about the words of the authority itself, so that one must judge about them before judging by means of them. But after the reason has been declared—even if it’s not really a reason but only seems to be—no question remains because there’s no doubt left.

(173) “Now the more you rely on reason and the less you recognize Scripture’s authority, the less one should deal with you on the basis of authority. Certainly no one can be argued against except on the basis of what he’s granted, and he can only be convinced by what he accepts. We must do battle with you differently than we do with one another. We know that what Gregory, our other teachers, or even what Christ himself or Moses affirms doesn’t yet affect you so that you are forced into the faith by their statements. Among us who accept them they have a place. Yet sometimes one must affirm or defend the faith mainly by reasons. The second book of the Christian Theology discusses these reasons more fully, I recall, against those who deny that faith is to be investigated by reasons, and refutes the rebellious both by the power of reasons and by the authority of the texts.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Describe the philosopher’s tone.

2. What is the point of agreement between the two, at the beginning? Is that the best place to begin?

3. What is at stake in the discussion of natural law?

4. Comment on the importance of reason in relation to faith.

5. Evaluate the Christian’s view of authority.

1. See The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. Betty Radice (New York: Penguin Books, 1974).

2. Edited by Jeff Brower and Kevin Guilfoy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

CHAPTER 13

Anselm

(1033–1109)

Anselm of Canterbury was born at Aost (in the Piedmont area) and died at Canterbury, England. Sometimes called “the second Augustine,” Anselm was not only influenced by Augustine (that, in itself, would be nothing original for one of his time), but was himself, like Augustine, a prolific and creative thinker, dealing with matters of “Christian philosophy,” as well as deep theological topics such as the nature of free will (De libertate arbitrii) and of predestination (De concordia praescientia et praedestinationis et gratiae Dei cum libero arbitrio).

Anselm determined early on to enter the monastery, in hopes of forging a life of contemplation, study, and meditation. Initially denied, he later came under the influence of Lanfranc, the prior of the monastery at Bec.[1] Because of that influence, two things of note marked Anselm’s life. First, he was able to become a monk (1060) and, after Lanfranc, became the prior of the monastery at Bec. Second, he engaged in an education that would eventually mark him as the father of medieval scholasticism.

Upon Lanfranc’s death in 1089, Anselm was thought to be the choice for archbishop of Canterbury. Because King William Rufus was intent on keeping the revenues of the office for himself, he was not in favor of Anselm’s appointment, nor was Anselm desirous of taking it. When the King fell ill, however, in 1093, Anselm was (almost literally) forced to become the archbishop of Canterbury. His position there was never without significant controversy, mostly having to do with administrative matters. Anselm died in Canterbury in 1109. He was canonized by the Roman Church in 1494.

The sheer genius of Anselm can be seen in the volumes of explanations, interpretations, and influence that his writings produced. In theology, his Cur Deus homo? (Why did God become man?) has been rightly viewed as a classic on the atonement (though his theories have been, for the most part, rejected in orthodox circles). With respect to apologetics, his Monologion and the work that we will offer here in part, the Proslogion, are masterful expositions of one who sought to use the tools of reason to persuade his readers of the rationality of Christianity. This point needs further elaboration.

The relationship of Christian faith to reason, or the reasoning process, has been debated and discussed almost since the beginning of Christianity. In the case of the Proslogion, the discussion can become confusing. One of the reasons for such confusion is that the original title of the Proslogion was, Fides quaerens intellectum (Faith seeking understanding). Surely, any argument that is produced under such a title would be an argument in which Christian faith is presupposed. The matter does not seem to be so simple, however, for the following reasons.

First, at the beginning of the Monologion, Anselm gives the reason for writing it:

Certain brethren have often and earnestly entreated me to put in writing some thoughts that I had offered them in familiar conversation, regarding meditation on the Being of God, and on some other topics connected with this subject, under the form of a meditation on these themes. It is in accordance with their wish, rather than with my ability, that they have prescribed such a form for the writing of this meditation; in order that nothing in Scripture should be urged on the authority of Scripture itself, but that whatever the conclusion of independent investigation should declare to be true, should, in an unadorned style, with common proofs and with a simple argument, be briefly enforced by the cogency of reason, and plainly expounded in the light of truth. It was their wish also, that I should not disdain to meet such simple and almost foolish objections as occur to me.[2]

Clearly, his discussion in the Monologion is designed to discuss the nature of God without recourse to the authority of Scripture.

Second, though the Proslogion originally had a title that translates as “faith seeking understanding,” it is commonly assumed that Anselm’s goal there as well was to produce a “single argument” that would, in and of itself, establish the truth of God’s existence.

After I had published, at the solicitous entreaties of certain brethren, a brief work (the Monologium) as an example of meditation on the grounds of faith, in the person of one who investigates, in a course of silent reasoning with himself, matters of which he is ignorant; considering that this book was knit together by the linking of many arguments, I began to ask myself whether there might be found a single argument which would require no other for its proof than itself alone; and alone would suffice to demonstrate that God truly exists, and that there is a supreme good requiring nothing else, which all other things require for their existence and well-being; and whatever we believe regarding the divine Being.[3]

Because Anselm attempts, in this work, to set forth an argument that “would require no other for its proof than itself alone,” some have evaluated Anselm’s efforts here as giving full reign to reason, to the neglect of the authority of Scripture. For example:

Indeed, the extreme ardor which impels him to search everywhere for arguments favorable to the dogma, is a confession on his part that the dogma needs support, that it is debatable, that it lacks self-evidence, the criterion of truth. Even as a monk, it was his chief concern to find a simple and conclusive argument in support of the existence of God and of all the doctrines of the Church concerning the Supreme Being. Mere affirmation did not satisfy him; he demanded proofs. This thought was continually before his mind; it caused him to forget his meals, and pursued him even during the solemn moments of worship. He comes to the conclusion that it is a temptation of Satan, and seeks deliverance from it. But in vain. After a night spent in meditation, he at last discovers what he has been seeking for years: the incontrovertible argument in favor of the Christian dogma, and he regards himself as fortunate in having found, not only the proof of the existence of God, but his peace of soul. His demonstrations are like the premises of modern rationalism.[4]

This does not, however, mean that Anselm was a rationalist in the Enlightenment sense of that term. He was convinced that there was no disharmony between revelation and reason; to appeal to the truth gleaned by the latter is consistent with truth given in the former. Reason alone, for Anselm, meant the right use of reason.

So, for example, Anselm’s work has also been evaluated according to this presumed consistency in the following way:

The goal of Anselm’s treatises is not to provide a philosophical substitute for the Christian faith, nor to rationalize or systematize it solely in the light of natural reason. Rather, in the cases of the Monologion and Proslogion, he aims to treat meditatively, by reason’s resources, central aspects of the Christian faith, namely, as he puts it in the Proslogion’s Prologue: “that God truly is, and that he is the supreme good needing no other, and that he is what all things need so that they are and so that they are well, and whatever else we believe about the divine substance.” . . . Fides quaerens intellectum, . . . is an apt designation for Anselm’s philosophical and theological projects as a whole. Anselm begins from, and never leaves the standpoint of a committed and practicing Catholic Christian, but this does not mean that his philosophical work is thereby vitiated as philosophy by operating on the basis of and within the confines of theological presuppositions. Rather, Anselm engages in philosophy, employing reasoning rather than appeal to Scriptural or patristic authority in order to establish the doctrines of the Christian faith (which, as a faithful and practicing believer, he takes as already established) in a different, but possible way, through the employment of reason. Faith seeking understanding goes beyond simply establishing faith’s doctrines, however, precisely because it seeks understanding, the rational intelligibility (as far as is possible) of the doctrines.[5]

In other words, it may be that Anselm assumes that reason alone has the power to ascertain the character of God, but that is only because the truth of the matter is consistent with what we have in biblical revelation. Does this mean that Anselm presupposed the Christian revelation in his argumentation? It seems difficult to affirm that he did.[6]

Anselm’s argument received a quick reply from the pen of Gaunilon, a monk of Marmoutier, which we will include here. Among other objections, Gaunilon argues to the absurd by positing the most excellent island:

For example: it is said that somewhere in the ocean is an island, which, because of the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of discovering what does not exist, is called the lost island. And they say that this island has an inestimable wealth of all manner of riches and delicacies in greater abundance than is told of the Islands of the Blest; and that having no owner or inhabitant, it is more excellent than all other countries, which are inhabited by mankind, in the abundance with which it is stored.

Now if someone should tell me that there is such an island, I should easily understand his words, in which there is no difficulty. But suppose that he went on to say, as if by a logical inference: “You can no longer doubt that this island which is more excellent than all lands exists somewhere, since you have no doubt that it is in your understanding. And since it is more excellent not to be in the understanding alone, but to exist both in the understanding and in reality, for this reason it must exist. For if it does not exist, any land which really exists will be more excellent than it; and so the island already understood by you to be more excellent will not be more excellent.”[7]

Anselm’s response, in sum, is that the notion of the “more excellent than all,” existing in the mind, must necessarily exist, only when such a notion applies to being, not to islands or to any particular thing.[8]

The so-called “ontological argument,”[9] as we have it from Anselm in this work, was intended by him to be one and simple. The sheer genius of the argument can be seen in the volumes of literature that this argument alone has produced.[10] Giants in the history of thought such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Hegel have attempted to wrestle with, and refute, the argument. Contemporary philosophers such as Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga have reconstructed and advanced it. The complexity of this one and simple argument seems to know no bounds in the history of philosophy and theology since Anselm. Even after such use and abuse, the argument remains, for many, mysterious in its cogency and persuasive value. It is not overstating the matter to say that Anselm’s ontological argument, set forth in the twelfth century, remains central to any philosophical theology and apologetic that seeks to do justice to the truth of Christianity and the question of God’s existence.

Anselm’s Proslogium or Discourse on the Existence of God

(including Debate with Gaunilo, 1077–1078)

Preface

After I had published, at the solicitous entreaties of certain brethren, a brief work (the Monologium) as an example of meditation on the grounds of faith, in the person of one who investigates, in a course of silent reasoning with himself, matters of which he is ignorant; considering that this book was knit together by the linking of many arguments, I began to ask myself whether there might be found a single argument[11] which would require no other for its proof than itself alone; and alone would suffice to demonstrate that God truly exists, and that there is a supreme good requiring nothing else, which all other things require for their existence and well-being; and whatever we believe regarding the divine Being.

Although I often and earnestly directed my thought to this end, and at some times that which I sought seemed to be just within my reach, while again it wholly evaded my mental vision, at last in despair I was about to cease, as if from the search for a thing which could not be found. But when I wished to exclude this thought altogether, lest, by busying my mind to no purpose, it should keep me from other thoughts, in which I might be successful; then more and more, though I was unwilling and shunned it, it began to force itself upon me, with a kind of importunity. So, one day, when I was exceedingly wearied with resisting its importunity, in the very conflict of my thoughts, the proof of which I had despaired offered itself, so that I eagerly embraced the thoughts which I was strenuously repelling.

Thinking, therefore, that what I rejoiced to have found, would, if put in writing, be welcome to some readers, of this very matter, and of some others, I have written the following treatise, in the person of one who strives to lift his mind to the contemplation of God, and seeks to understand what he believes. In my judgment, neither this work nor the other, which I mentioned above, deserved to be called a book, or to bear the name of an author; and yet I thought they ought not to be sent forth without some title by which they might, in some sort, invite one into whose hands they fell to their perusal. I accordingly gave each a title, that the first might be known as, An Example of Meditation on the Grounds of Faith, and its sequel as, Faith Seeking Understanding. But after both had been copied by many under these titles, many urged me, and especially Hugo, the reverend Archbishop of Lyons, who discharges the apostolic office in Gaul, who instructed me to this effect on his apostolic authority—to prefix my name to these writings. And that this might be done more fitly, I named the first, Monologium, that is, A Soliloquy; but the second, Proslogium, that is, A Discourse.

Chapter I

Exhortation of the mind to the contemplation of God.—It casts aside cares, and excludes all thoughts save that of God, that it may seek him. Man was created to see God. Man by sin lost the blessedness for which he was made, and found the misery for which he was not made. He did not keep this good when he could keep it easily. Without God it is ill with us. Our labors and attempts are in vain without God. Man cannot seek God, unless God himself teaches him; nor find him, unless he reveals himself. God created man in his image, that he might be mindful of him, think of him, and love him. The believer does not seek to understand, that he may believe, but he believes that he may understand: for unless he believed he would not understand.

Up now, slight man! flee, for a little while, thy occupations; hide thyself, for a time, from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside, now, thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God; and rest for a little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and such as can aid thee in seeking him; close thy door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! speak now to God, saying, “I seek thy face; thy face, Lord, will I seek.”[12] And come thou now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek thee, where and how it may find thee.

Lord, if thou art not here, where shall I seek thee, being absent? But if thou art everywhere, why do I not see thee present? Truly thou dwellest in unapproachable light. But where is unapproachable light, or how shall I come to it? Or who shall lead me to that light and into it, that I may see thee in it? Again, by what marks, under what form, shall I seek thee? I have never seen thee, O Lord, my God; I do not know thy form. What, O most high Lord, shall this man do, an exile far from thee? What shall thy servant do, anxious in his love of thee, and cast out afar from thy face? He pants to see thee, and thy face is too far from him. He longs to come to thee, and thy dwelling-place is inaccessible. He is eager to find thee, and knows not thy place. He desires to seek thee, and does not know thy face. Lord, thou art my God, and thou art my Lord, and never have I seen thee. It is thou that hast made me, and hast made me anew, and hast bestowed upon me all the blessing I enjoy; and not yet do I know thee. Finally, I was created to see thee, and not yet have I done that for which I was made.

O wretched lot of man, when he hath lost that for which he was made! O hard and terrible fate! Alas, what has he lost, and what has he found? What has departed, and what remains? He has lost the blessedness for which he was made, and has found the misery for which he was not made. That has departed without which nothing is happy, and that remains which, in itself, is only miserable. Man once did eat the bread of angels, for which he hungers now; he eateth now the bread of sorrows, of which he knew not then. Alas! for the mourning of all mankind, for the universal lamentation of the sons of Hades! He choked with satiety, we sigh with hunger. He abounded, we beg. He possessed in happiness, and miserably forsook his possession; we suffer want in unhappiness, and feel a miserable longing, and alas! we remain empty.

Why did he not keep for us, when he could so easily, that whose lack we should feel so heavily? Why did he shut us away from the light, and cover us over with darkness? With what purpose did he rob us of life, and inflict death upon us? Wretches that we are, whence have we been driven out; whither are we driven on? Whence hurled? Whither consigned to ruin? From a native country into exile, from the vision of God into our present blindness, from the joy of immortality into the bitterness and horror of death. Miserable exchange of how great a good, for how great an evil! Heavy loss, heavy grief, heavy all our fate!

But alas! wretched that I am, one of the sons of Eve, far removed from God! What have I undertaken? What have I accomplished? Whither was I striving? How far have I come? To what did I aspire? Amid what thoughts am I sighing? I sought blessings, and lo! confusion. I strove toward God, and I stumbled on myself. I sought calm in privacy, and I found tribulation and grief, in my inmost thoughts. I wished to smile in the joy of my mind, and I am compelled to frown by the sorrow of my heart. Gladness was hoped for, and lo! a source of frequent sighs! And thou too, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord, dost thou forget us; how long dost thou turn thy face from us? When wilt thou look upon us, and hear us? When wilt thou enlighten our eyes, and show us thy face? When wilt thou restore thyself to us? Look upon us, Lord; hear us, enlighten us, reveal thyself to us. Restore thyself to us, that it may be well with us,—thyself, without whom it is so ill with us. Pity our toilings and strivings toward thee since we can do nothing without thee. Thou dost invite us; do thou help us. I beseech thee, O Lord, that I may not lose hope in sighs, but may breathe anew in hope. Lord, my heart is made bitter by its desolation; sweeten thou it, I beseech thee, with thy consolation. Lord, in hunger I began to seek thee; I beseech thee that I may not cease to hunger for thee. In hunger I have come to thee; let me not go unfed. I have come in poverty to the Rich, in misery to the Compassionate; let me not return empty and despised. And if, before I eat, I sigh, grant, even after sighs, that which I may eat. Lord, I am bowed down and can only look downward; raise me up that I may look upward. My iniquities have gone over my head; they overwhelm me; and, like a heavy load, they weigh me down. Free me from them; unburden me, that the pit of iniquities may not close over me.

Be it mine to look up to thy light, even from afar, even from the depths. Teach me to seek thee, and reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou reveal thyself. Let me seek thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love thee in finding. Lord, I acknowledge and I thank thee that thou hast created me in this thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, may conceive of thee, and love thee; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.[13] For this also I believe,—that unless I believed, I should not understand.

Chapter II

Truly there is a God, although the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.

And so, Lord, do thou, who dost give understanding to faith, give me, so far as thou knowest it to be profitable, to understand that thou art as we believe; and that thou art that which we believe. And indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God?[14] But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak—a being than which nothing greater can be conceived—understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist.

For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.

Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.[15]

Chapter III

God cannot be conceived not to exist.—God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.—That which can be conceived not to exist is not God.

And it assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that, than which nothing greater can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and this being thou art, O Lord, our God.

So truly, therefore, dost thou exist, O Lord, my God, that thou canst not be conceived not to exist; and rightly. For, if a mind could conceive of a being better than thee, the creature would rise above the Creator; and this is most absurd. And, indeed, whatever else there is, except thee alone, can be conceived not to exist. To thee alone, therefore, it belongs to exist more truly than all other beings, and hence in a higher degree than all others. For, whatever else exists does not exist so truly, and hence in a less degree it belongs to it to exist. Why, then, has the fool said in his heart, there is no God, since it is so evident, to a rational mind, that thou dost exist in the highest degree of all? Why, except that he is dull and a fool?

Chapter IV

How the fool has said in his heart what cannot be conceived.—A thing may be conceived in two ways: (1) when the word signifying it is conceived; (2) when the thing itself is understood. As far as the word goes, God can be conceived not to exist; in reality he cannot.

But how has the fool said in his heart what he could not conceive; or how is it that he could not conceive what he said in his heart? since it is the same to say in the heart, and to conceive. But, if really, nay, since really, he both conceived, because he said in his heart; and did not say in his heart, because he could not conceive; there is more than one way in which a thing is said in the heart or conceived. For, in one sense, an object is conceived, when the word signifying it is conceived; and in another, when the very entity, which the object is, is understood. In the former sense, then, God can be conceived not to exist; but in the latter, not at all. For no one who understands what fire and water are can conceive fire to be water, in accordance with the nature of the facts themselves, although this is possible according to the words. So, then, no one who understands what God is can conceive that God does not exist; although he says these words in his heart, either without any or with some foreign, signification. For, God is that than which a greater cannot be conceived. And he who thoroughly understands this, assuredly understands that this being so truly exists, that not even in concept can it be non-existent. Therefore, he who understands that God so exists, cannot conceive that he does not exist.

I thank thee, gracious Lord, I thank thee; because what I formerly believed by thy bounty, I now so understand by thine illumination, that if I were unwilling to believe that thou dost exist, I should not be able not to understand this to be true.

Chapter V

God is whatever it is better to be than not to be; and he, as the only self-existent being, creates all things from nothing.

What art thou, then, Lord God, than whom nothing greater can be conceived? But what art thou, except that which, as the highest of all beings, alone exists through itself, and creates all other things from nothing? For, whatever is not this is less than a thing which can be conceived of. But this cannot be conceived of thee. What good, therefore, does the supreme Good lack, through which every good is? Therefore, thou art just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just; better to be blessed than not blessed.

Chapter VI

How God is sensible although he is not a body.—God is sensible, omnipotent, compassionate, passionless; for it is better to be these than not be. He who in any way knows, is not improperly said in some sort to feel.

But, although it is better for thee to be sensible, omnipotent, compassionate, passionless, than not to be these things; how art thou sensible, if thou art not a body; or omnipotent, if thou hast not all powers; or at once compassionate and passionless? For, if only corporeal things are sensible, since the senses encompass a body and are in a body, how art thou sensible, although thou art not a body, but a supreme Spirit, who is superior to body? But, if feeling is only cognition, or for the sake of cognition,—for he who feels obtains knowledge in accordance with the proper functions of his senses; as through sight, of colors; through taste, of flavors,—whatever in any way cognizes is not inappropriately said, in some sort, to feel.

Therefore, O Lord, although thou art not a body yet thou art truly sensible in the highest degree in respect of this, that thou dost cognize all things in the highest degree; and not as an animal cognizes, through a corporeal sense.

Chapter VII

How he is omnipotent, although there are many things of which he is not capable.—

To be capable of being corrupted, or of lying, is not power, but impotence. God can do nothing by virtue of impotence, and nothing has power against him.

But how art thou omnipotent, if thou art not capable of all things? Or, if thou canst not be corrupted, and canst not lie, nor make what is true, false—as, for example, if thou shouldst make what has been done not to have been done, and the like—how art thou capable of all things? Or else to be capable of these things is not power, but impotence. For, he who is capable of these things is capable of what is not for his good, and of what he ought not to do; and the more capable of them he is, the more power have adversity and perversity against him; and the less has he himself against these. He, then, who is thus capable is so not by power, but by impotence. For, he is not said to be able because he is able of himself, but because his impotence gives something else power over him. Or, by a figure of speech, just as many words are improperly applied, as when we use “to be” for “not to be,” and “to do” for what is really not to do, “or to do nothing.” For, often we say to a man who denies the existence of something: “It is as you say it to be,” though it might seem more proper to say, “It is not, as you say it is not.” In the same way, we say, “This man sits just as that man does,” or, “This man rests just as that man does”; although to sit is not to do anything, and to rest is to do nothing.

So, then, when one is said to have the power of doing or experiencing what is not for his good, or what he ought not to do, impotence is understood in the word power. For, the more he possesses this power, the more powerful are adversity and perversity against him, and the more powerless is he against them.

Therefore, O Lord, our God, the more truly art thou omnipotent, since thou art capable of nothing through impotence, and nothing has power against thee.

Chapter VIII

How he is compassionate and passionless. God is compassionate, in terms of our experience, because we experience the effect of compassion. God is not compassionate, in terms of his own being, because he does not experience the feeling of compassion.

But how art thou compassionate, and, at the same time, passionless? For, if thou art passionless, thou dost not feel sympathy; and if thou dost not feel sympathy, thy heart is not wretched from sympathy for the wretched; but this it is to be compassionate. But if thou art not compassionate, whence cometh so great consolation to the wretched? How, then, art thou compassionate and not compassionate, O Lord, unless because thou art compassionate in terms of our experience, and not compassionate in terms of thy being.

Truly, thou art so in terms of our experience, but thou art not so in terms of thine own. For, when thou beholdest us in our wretchedness, we experience the effect of compassion, but thou dost not experience the feeling. Therefore, thou art both compassionate, because thou dost save the wretched, and spare those who sin against thee; and not compassionate because thou art affected by no sympathy for wretchedness.

Chapter IX

How the all-just and supremely just God spares the wicked, and justly pities the wicked. He is better who is good to the righteous and the wicked than he who is good to the righteous alone. Although God is supremely just, the source of his compassion is hidden. God is supremely compassionate, because he is supremely just. He saveth the just, because justice goes with them; he frees sinners by the authority of justice. God spares the wicked out of justice; for it is just that God, than whom none is better or more powerful, should be good even to the wicked, and should make the wicked good. If God ought not to pity, he pities unjustly. But this it is impious to suppose. Therefore, God justly pities.

But how dost thou spare the wicked, if thou art all just and supremely just? For how, being all just and supremely just, dost thou aught that is not just? Or, what justice is that to give him who merits eternal death everlasting life? How, then, gracious Lord, good to the righteous and the wicked, canst thou save the wicked, if this is not just, and thou dost not aught that is not just? Or, since thy goodness is incomprehensible, is this hidden in the unapproachable light wherein thou dwellest? Truly, in the deepest and most secret parts of thy goodness is hidden the fountain whence the stream of thy compassion flows.

For thou art all just and supremely just, yet thou art kind even to the wicked, even because thou art all supremely good. For thou wouldst be less good if thou wert not kind to any wicked being. For, he who is good, both to the righteous and the wicked, is better than he who is good to the wicked alone; and he who is good to the wicked, both by punishing and sparing them, is better than he who is good by punishing them alone. Therefore, thou art compassionate, because thou art all supremely good. And, although it appears why thou dost reward the good with goods and the evil with evils; yet this, at least, is most wonderful, why thou, the all and supremely just, who lackest nothing, bestowest goods on the wicked and on those who are guilty toward thee.

The depth of thy goodness, O God! The source of thy compassion appears, and yet is not clearly seen! We see whence the river flows, but the spring whence it arises is not seen. For, it is from the abundance of thy goodness that thou art good to those who sin against thee; and in the depth of thy goodness is hidden the reason for this kindness.

For, although thou dost reward the good with goods and the evil with evils, out of goodness, yet this the concept of justice seems to demand. But, when thou dost bestow goods on the evil, and it is known that the supremely Good hath willed to do this, we wonder why the supremely just has been able to will this.

O compassion, from what abundant sweetness and what sweet abundance dost thou well forth to us! O boundless goodness of God how passionately should sinners love thee! For thou savest the just, because justice goeth with them; but sinners thou dost free by the authority of justice. Those by the help of their deserts; these, although their deserts oppose. Those by acknowledging the goods thou hast granted; these by pardoning the evils thou hatest. O boundless goodness, which dost so exceed all understanding, let that compassion come upon me, which proceeds from thy so great abundance! Let it flow upon me, for it wells forth from thee. Spare, in mercy; avenge not, in justice.

For, though it is hard to understand how thy compassion is not inconsistent with thy justice; yet we must believe that it does not oppose justice at all, because it flows from goodness, which is no goodness without justice; nay, that it is in true harmony with justice. For, if thou art compassionate only because thou art supremely good, and supremely good only because thou art supremely just, truly thou art compassionate even because thou art supremely just. Help me, just and compassionate God, whose light I seek; help me to understand what I say.

Truly, then, thou art compassionate even because thou art just. Is, then, thy compassion born of thy justice? And dost thou spare the wicked, therefore, out of justice? If this is true, my Lord, if this is true, teach me how it is. Is it because it is just, that thou shouldst be so good that thou canst not be conceived better; and that thou shouldst work so powerfully that thou canst not be conceived more powerful? For what can be more just than this? Assuredly it could not be that thou shouldst be good only by requiting and not by sparing, and that thou shouldst make good only those who are not good, and not the wicked also. In this way, therefore, it is just that thou shouldst spare the wicked, and make good souls of evil.

Finally, what is not done justly ought not to be done; and what ought not to be done is done unjustly. If, then, thou dost not justly pity the wicked, thou oughtest not to pity them. And, if thou oughtest not to pity them, thou pityest them unjustly. And if it is impious to suppose this, it is right to believe that thou justly pityest the wicked.

In Behalf of the Fool:

An Answer to the Argument of Anselm in the Proslogium

by Gaunilon, a Monk of Marmoutier

1. If one doubts or denies the existence of a being of such a nature that nothing greater than it can be conceived, he receives this answer:

The existence of this being is proved, in the first place, by the fact that he himself, in his doubt or denial regarding this being, already has it in his understanding; for in hearing it spoken of he understands what is spoken of. It is proved, therefore, by the fact that what he understands must exist not only in his understanding, but in reality also.

And the proof of this is as follows.—It is a greater thing to exist both in the understanding and in reality than to be in the understanding alone. And if this being is in the understanding alone, whatever has even in the past existed in reality will be greater than this being. And so that which was greater than all beings will be less than some being, and will not be greater than all: which is a manifest contradiction.

And hence, that which is greater than all, already proved to be in the understanding, must exist not only in the understanding, but also in reality: for otherwise it will not be greater than all other beings.

2. The fool might make this reply:

This being is said to be in my understanding already, only because I understand what is said. Now could it not with equal justice be said that I have in my understanding all manner of unreal objects, having absolutely no existence in themselves, because I understand these things if one speaks of them, whatever they may be?

Unless indeed it is shown that this being is of such a character that it cannot be held in concept like all unreal objects, or objects whose existence is uncertain: and hence I am not able to conceive of it when I hear of it, or to hold it in concept; but I must understand it and have it in my understanding; because, it seems, I cannot conceive of it in any other way than by understanding it, that is, by comprehending in my knowledge its existence in reality.

But if this is the case, in the first place there will be no distinction between what has precedence in time—namely, the having of an object in the understanding—and what is subsequent in time—namely, the understanding that an object exists; as in the example of the picture, which exists first in the mind of the painter, and afterwards in his work.

Moreover, the following assertion can hardly be accepted: that this being, when it is spoken of and heard of, cannot be conceived not to exist in the way in which even God can be conceived not to exist. For if this is impossible, what was the object of this argument against one who doubts or denies the existence of such a being?

Finally, that this being so exists that it cannot be perceived by an understanding convinced of its own indubitable existence, unless this being is afterwards conceived of—this should be proved to me by an indisputable argument, but not by that which you have advanced: namely, that what I understand, when I hear it, already is in my understanding. For thus in my understanding, as I still think, could be all sorts of things whose existence is uncertain, or which do not exist at all, if someone whose words I should understand mentioned them. And so much the more if I should be deceived, as often happens, and believe in them: though I do not yet believe in the being whose existence you would prove.

3. Hence, your example of the painter who already has in his understanding what he is to paint cannot agree with this argument. For the picture, before it is made, is contained in the artificer’s art itself; and any such thing, existing in the art of an artificer, is nothing but a part of his understanding itself. A joiner, St. Augustine says, when he is about to make a box in fact, first has it in his art. The box which is made in fact is not life; but the box which exists in his art is life. For the artificer’s soul lives, in which all these things are, before they are produced. Why, then, are these things life in the living soul of the artificer, unless because they are nothing else than the knowledge or understanding of the soul itself?

With the exception, however, of those facts which are known to pertain to the mental nature, whatever, on being heard and thought out by the understanding, is perceived to be real, undoubtedly that real object is one thing, and the understanding itself, by which the object is grasped, is another. Hence, even if it were true that there is a being than which a greater is inconceivable: yet to this being, when heard of and understood, the not yet created picture in the mind of the painter is not analogous.

4. Let us notice also the point touched on above, with regard to this being which is greater than all which can be conceived, and which, it is said, can be none other than God himself. I, so far as actual knowledge of the object, either from its specific or general character, is concerned, am as little able to conceive of this being when I hear of it, or to have it in my understanding, as I am to conceive of or understand God himself: whom, indeed, for this very reason I can conceive not to exist. For I do not know that reality itself which God is, nor can I form a conjecture of that reality from some other like reality. For you yourself assert that that reality is such that there can be nothing else like it.

For, suppose that I should hear something said of a man absolutely unknown to me, of whose very existence I was unaware. Through that special or general knowledge by which I know what man is, or what men are, I could conceive of him also, according to the reality itself, which man is. And yet it would be possible, if the person who told me of him deceived me, that the man himself, of whom I conceived, did not exist; since that reality according to which I conceived of him, though a no less indisputable fact, was not that man, but any man.

Hence, I am not able, in the way in which I should have this unreal being in concept or in understanding, to have that being of which you speak in concept or in understanding, when I hear the word God or the words, a being greater than all other beings. For I can conceive of the man according to a fact that is real and familiar to me: but of God, or a being greater than all others, I could not conceive at all, except merely according to the word. And an object can hardly or never be conceived according to the word alone.

For when it is so conceived, it is not so much the word itself (which is, indeed, a real thing—that is, the sound of the letters and syllables) as the signification of the word, when heard, that is conceived. But it is not conceived as by one who knows what is generally signified by the word; by whom, that is, it is conceived according to a reality and in true conception alone. It is conceived as by a man who does not know the object, and conceives of it only in accordance with the movement of his mind produced by hearing the word, the mind attempting to image for itself the signification of the word that is heard. And it would be surprising if in the reality of fact it could ever attain to this.

Thus, it appears, and in no other way, this being is also in my understanding, when I hear and understand a person who says that there is a being greater than all conceivable beings. So much for the assertion that this supreme nature already is in my understanding.

5. But that this being must exist, not only in the understanding but also in reality, is thus proved to me:

If it did not so exist, whatever exists in reality would be greater than it. And so the being which has been already proved to exist in my understanding, will not be greater than all other beings.

I still answer: if it should be said that a being which cannot be even conceived in terms of any fact, is in the understanding, I do not deny that this being is, accordingly, in my understanding. But since through this fact it can in no wise attain to real existence also, I do not yet concede to it that existence at all, until some certain proof of it shall be given.

For he who says that this being exists, because otherwise the being which is greater than all will not be greater than all, does not attend strictly enough to what he is saying. For I do not yet say, no, I even deny or doubt that this being is greater than any real object. Nor do I concede to it any other existence than this (if it should be called existence) which it has when the mind, according to a word merely heard, tries to form the image of an object absolutely unknown to it.

How, then, is the veritable existence of that being proved to me from the assumption, by hypothesis, that it is greater than all other beings? For I should still deny this, or doubt your demonstration of it, to this extent, that I should not admit that this being is in my understanding and concept even in the way in which many objects whose real existence is uncertain and doubtful, are in my understanding and concept. For it should be proved first that this being itself really exists somewhere; and then, from the fact that it is greater than all, we shall not hesitate to infer that it also subsists in itself.

6. For example: it is said that somewhere in the ocean is an island, which, because of the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of discovering what does not exist, is called the lost island. And they say that this island has an inestimable wealth of all manner of riches and delicacies in greater abundance than is told of the Islands of the Blest; and that having no owner or inhabitant, it is more excellent than all other countries, which are inhabited by mankind, in the abundance with which it is stored.

Now if some one should tell me that there is such an island, I should easily understand his words, in which there is no difficulty. But suppose that he went on to say, as if by a logical inference: “You can no longer doubt that this island which is more excellent than all lands exists somewhere, since you have no doubt that it is in your understanding. And since it is more excellent not to be in the understanding alone, but to exist both in the understanding and in reality, for this reason it must exist. For if it does not exist, any land which really exists will be more excellent than it; and so the island already understood by you to be more excellent will not be more excellent.”

If a man should try to prove to me by such reasoning that this island truly exists, and that its existence should no longer be doubted, either I should believe that he was jesting, or I know not which I ought to regard as the greater fool: myself, supposing that I should allow this proof; or him, if he should suppose that he had established with any certainty the existence of this island. For he ought to show first that the hypothetical excellence of this island exists as a real and indubitable fact, and in no wise as any unreal object, or one whose existence is uncertain, in my understanding.

7. This, in the mean time, is the answer the fool could make to the arguments urged against him. When he is assured in the first place that this being is so great that its non-existence is not even conceivable, and that this in turn is proved on no other ground than the fact that otherwise it will not be greater than all things, the fool may make the same answer, and say:

When did I say that any such being exists in reality, that is, a being greater than all others?—that on this ground it should be proved to me that it also exists in reality to such a degree that it cannot even be conceived not to exist? Whereas in the first place it should be in some way proved that a nature which is higher, that is, greater and better, than all other natures, exists; in order that from this we may then be able to prove all attributes which necessarily the being that is greater and better than all possesses.

Moreover, it is said that the non-existence of this being is inconceivable. It might better be said, perhaps, that its non-existence, or the possibility of its nonexistence, is unintelligible. For according to the true meaning of the word, unreal objects are unintelligible. Yet their existence is conceivable in the way in which the fool conceived of the non-existence of God. I am most certainly aware of my own existence; but I know, nevertheless, that my non-existence is possible. As to that supreme being, moreover, which God is, I understand without any doubt both his existence, and the impossibility of his non-existence. Whether, however, so long as I am most positively aware of my existence, I can conceive of my non-existence, I am not sure. But if I can, why can I not conceive of the non-existence of whatever else I know with the same certainty? If, however, I cannot, God will not be the only being of which it can be said, it is impossible to conceive of his non-existence.

8. The other parts of this book are argued with such truth, such brilliancy, such grandeur; and are so replete with usefulness, so fragrant with a certain perfume of devout and holy feeling, that though there are matters in the beginning which, however rightly sensed, are weakly presented, the rest of the work should not be rejected on this account. The rather ought these earlier matters to be reasoned more cogently, and the whole to be received with great respect and honor.

Anselm’s Apologetic:

In Reply to Gaunilon’s Answer in Behalf of the Fool

It was a fool against whom the argument of my Proslogium was directed. Seeing, however, that the author of these objections is by no means a fool, and is a Catholic, speaking in behalf of the fool, I think it sufficient that I answer the Catholic.

Chapter I

A general refutation of Gaunilon’s argument. It is shown that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived exists in reality.

You say—whosoever you may be, who say that a fool is capable of making these statements—that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is not in the understanding in any other sense than that in which a being that is altogether inconceivable in terms of reality, is in the understanding. You say that the inference that this being exists in reality, from the fact that it is in the understanding, is no more just than the inference that a lost island most certainly exists, from the fact that when it is described the hearer does not doubt that it is in his understanding.

But I say: if a being than which a greater is inconceivable is not understood or conceived, and is not in the understanding or in concept, certainly either God is not a being than which a greater is inconceivable, or else he is not understood or conceived, and is not in the understanding or in concept. But I call on your faith and conscience to attest that this is most false. Hence, that than which a greater cannot be conceived is truly understood and conceived, and is in the understanding and in concept. Therefore either the grounds on which you try to controvert me are not true, or else the inference which you think to base logically on those grounds is not justified.

But you hold, moreover, that supposing that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is understood, it does not follow that this being is in the understanding; nor, if it is in the understanding, does it therefore exist in reality.

In answer to this, I maintain positively: if that being can be even conceived to be, it must exist in reality. For that than which a greater is inconceivable cannot be conceived except as without beginning. But whatever can be conceived to exist, and does not exist, can be conceived to exist through a beginning. Hence what can be conceived to exist, but does not exist, is not the being than which a greater cannot be conceived. Therefore, if such a being can be conceived to exist, necessarily it does exist.

Furthermore: if it can be conceived at all, it must exist. For no one who denies or doubts the existence of a being than which a greater is inconceivable, denies or doubts that if it did exist, its non-existence, either in reality or in the understanding, would be impossible. For otherwise it would not be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. But as to whatever can be conceived, but does not exist—if there were such a being, its non-existence, either in reality or in the understanding, would be possible. Therefore if a being than which a greater is inconceivable can be even conceived, it cannot be nonexistent.

But let us suppose that it does not exist, even if it can be conceived. Whatever can be conceived, but does not exist, if it existed, would not be a being than which a greater is inconceivable. If, then, there were a being a greater than which is inconceivable, it would not be a being than which a greater is inconceivable: which is most absurd. Hence, it is false to deny that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived exists, if it can be even conceived; much the more, therefore, if it can be understood or can be in the understanding.

Moreover, I will venture to make this assertion: without doubt, whatever at any place or at any time does not exist—even if it does exist at some place or at some time—can be conceived to exist nowhere and never, as at some place and at some time it does not exist. For what did not exist yesterday, and exists to-day, as it is understood not to have existed yesterday, so it can be apprehended by the intelligence that it never exists. And what is not here, and is elsewhere, can be conceived to be nowhere, just as it is not here. So with regard to an object of which the individual parts do not exist at the same places or times: all its parts and therefore its very whole can be conceived to exist nowhere or never.

For, although time is said to exist always, and the world everywhere, yet time does not as a whole exist always, nor the world as a whole everywhere. And as individual parts of time do not exist when others exist, so they can be conceived never to exist. And so it can be apprehended by the intelligence that individual parts of the world exist nowhere, as they do not exist where other parts exist. Moreover, what is composed of parts can be dissolved in concept, and be nonexistent. Therefore, whatever at any place or at any time does not exist as a whole, even if it is existent, can be conceived not to exist.

But that than which a greater cannot be conceived, if it exists, cannot be conceived not to exist. Otherwise, it is not a being than which a greater cannot be conceived: which is inconsistent. By no means, then, does it at any place or at any time fail to exist as a whole: but it exists as a whole everywhere and always.

Do you believe that this being can in some way be conceived or understood, or that the being with regard to which these things are understood can be in concept or in the understanding? For if it cannot, these things cannot be understood with reference to it. But if you say that it is not understood and that it is not in the understanding, because it is not thoroughly understood; you should say that a man who cannot face the direct rays of the sun does not see the light of day, which is none other than the sunlight. Assuredly a being than which a greater cannot be conceived exists, and is in the understanding, at least to this extent—that these statements regarding it are understood.

Chapter II

The argument is continued. It is shown that a being than which a greater is inconceivable can be conceived, and also, in so far, exists.

I have said, then, in the argument which you dispute, that when the fool hears mentioned a being than which a greater is inconceivable, he understands what he hears. Certainly a man who does not understand when a familiar language is spoken, has no understanding at all, or a very dull one. Moreover, I have said that if this being is understood, it is in the understanding. Is that in no understanding which has been proved necessarily to exist in the reality of fact?

But you will say that although it is in the understanding, it does not follow that it is understood. But observe that the fact of its being understood does necessitate its being in the understanding. For as what is conceived, is conceived by conception, and what is conceived by conception, as it is conceived, so is in conception; so what is understood, is understood by understanding, and what is understood by understanding, as it is understood, so is in the understanding. What can be more clear than this?

After this, I have said that if it is even in the understanding alone, it can be conceived also to exist in reality, which is greater. If, then, it is in the understanding alone, obviously the very being than which greater cannot be conceived is one than which a greater can be conceived. What is more logical? For if it exists even in the understanding alone, can it not be conceived also to exist in reality? And if it can be so conceived, does not he who conceives of this conceive of a thing greater than that being, if it exists in the understanding alone? What more consistent inference, then, can be made than this: that if a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is in the understanding alone, it is not that than which a greater cannot be conceived?

But, assuredly, in no understanding is a being than which a greater is conceivable a being than which a greater is inconceivable. Does it not follow, then, that if a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is in any understanding, it does not exist in the understanding alone? For if it is in the understanding alone, it is a being than which a greater can be conceived, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis.

Chapter III

A criticism of Gaunilon’s example, in which he tries to show that in this way the real existence of a lost island might be inferred from the fact of its being conceived.

But, you say, it is as if one should suppose an island in the ocean, which surpasses all lands in its fertility, and which, because of the difficulty, or the impossibility, of discovering what does not exist, is called a lost island; and should say that there can be no doubt that this island truly exists in reality, for this reason, that one who hears it described easily understands what he hears.

Now I promise confidently that if any man shall devise anything existing either in reality or in concept alone (except that than which a greater be conceived) to which he can adapt the sequence of my reasoning, I will discover that thing, and will give him his lost island, not to be lost again.

But it now appears that this being than which a greater is inconceivable cannot be conceived not to be, because it exists on so assured a ground of truth; for otherwise it would not exist at all.

Hence, if any one says that he conceives this being not to exist, I say that at the time when he conceives of this either he conceives of a being than which a greater is inconceivable, or he does not conceive at all. If he does not conceive, he does not conceive of the non-existence of that of which he does not conceive. But if he does conceive, he certainly conceives of a being which cannot be even conceived not to exist. For if it could be conceived not to exist, it could be conceived to have a beginning and an end. But this is impossible.

He, then, who conceives of this being conceives of a being which cannot be even conceived not to exist; but he who conceives of this being does not conceive that it does not exist; else he conceives what is inconceivable. The non-existence, then, of that than which a greater cannot be conceived is inconceivable.

Chapter IV

The difference between the possibility of conceiving of non-existence, and understanding non-existence.

You say, moreover, that whereas I assert that this supreme being cannot be conceived not to exist, it might better be said that its non-existence, or even the possibility of its non-existence, cannot be understood.

But it was more proper to say, it cannot be conceived. For if I had said that the object itself cannot be understood not to exist, possibly you yourself, who say that in accordance with the true meaning of the term what is unreal cannot be understood, would offer the objection that nothing which is can be understood not to be, for the non-existence of what exists is unreal: hence God would not be the only being of which it could be said, it is impossible to understand its non-existence. For thus one of those beings which most certainly exist can be understood not to exist in the same way in which certain other real objects can be understood not to exist.

But this objection, assuredly, cannot be urged against the term conception, if one considers the matter well. For although no objects which exist can be understood not to exist, yet all objects, except that which exists in the highest degree, can be conceived not to exist. For all those objects, and those alone, can be conceived not to exist, which have a beginning or end or composition of parts: also, as I have already said, whatever at any place or at any time does not exist as a whole.

That being alone, on the other hand, cannot be conceived not to exist, in which any conception discovers neither beginning nor end nor composition of parts, and which any conception finds always and everywhere as a whole.

Be assured, then, that you can conceive of your own non-existence, although you are most certain that you exist. I am surprised that you should have admitted that you are ignorant of this. For we conceive of the non-existence of many objects which we know to exist, and of the existence of many which we know not to exist; not by forming the opinion that they so exist, but by imagining that they exist as we conceive of them.

And indeed, we can conceive of the non-existence of an object, although we know it to exist, because at the same time we can conceive of the former and know the latter. And we cannot conceive of the non-existence of an object, so long as we know it to exist, because we cannot conceive at the same time of existence and non-existence.

If, then, one will thus distinguish these two senses of this statement, he will understand that nothing, so long as it is known to exist, can be conceived not to exist; and that whatever exists, except that being than which a greater cannot be conceived, can be conceived not to exist, even when it is known to exist.

So, then, of God alone it can be said that it is impossible to conceive of his non-existence; and yet many objects, so long as they exist, in one sense cannot be conceived not to exist. But in what sense God is to be conceived not to exist, I think has been shown clearly enough in my book.

Chapter V

A particular discussion of certain statements of Gaunilon’s. In the first place, he misquoted the argument which he undertook to refute.

The nature of the other objections which you, in behalf of the fool, urge against me it is easy, even for a man of small wisdom, to detect; and I had therefore thought it unnecessary to show this. But since I hear that some readers of these objections think they have some weight against me, I will discuss them briefly.

In the first place, you often repeat that I assert that what is greater than all other beings is in the understanding; and if it is in the understanding, it exists also in reality, for otherwise the being which is greater than all would not be greater than all.

Nowhere in all my writings is such a demonstration found. For the real existence of a being which is said to be greater than all other beings cannot be demonstrated in the same way with the real existence of one that is said to be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived.

If it should be said that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived has no real existence, or that it is possible that it does not exist, or even that it can be conceived not to exist, such an assertion can be easily refuted. For the non-existence of what does not exist is possible, and that whose non-existence is possible can be conceived not to exist. But whatever can be conceived not to exist, if it exists, is not a being than which a greater cannot be conceived; but if it does not exist, it would not, even if it existed, be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. But it cannot be said that a being than which a greater is inconceivable, if it exists, is not a being than which a greater is inconceivable; or that if it existed, it would not be a being than which a greater is inconceivable.

It is evident, then, that neither is it non-existent, nor is it possible that it does not exist, nor can it be conceived not to exist. For otherwise, if it exists, it is not that which it is said to be in the hypothesis; and if it existed, it would not be what it is said to be in the hypothesis.

But this, it appears, cannot be so easily proved of a being which is said to be greater than all other beings. For it is not so evident that what can be conceived not to exist is not greater than all existing beings, as it is evident that it is not a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. Nor is it so indubitable that if a being greater than all other beings exists, it is no other than the being than which a greater cannot be conceived; or that if it were such a being, some other might not be this being in like manner; as it is certain with regard to a being which is hypothetically posited as one than which a greater cannot be conceived.

For consider: if one should say that there is a being greater than all other beings, and that this being can nevertheless be conceived not to exist; and that a being greater than this, although it does not exist, can be conceived to exist: can it be so clearly inferred in this case that this being is therefore not a being greater than all other existing beings, as it would be most positively affirmed in the other case, that the being under discussion is not, therefore, a being than which a greater cannot be conceived?

For the former conclusion requires another premise than the predication, greater than all other beings. In my argument, on the other hand, there is no need of any other than this very predication, a being than which a greater cannot be conceived.

If the same proof cannot be applied when the being in question is predicated to be greater than all others, which can be applied when it is predicated to be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived, you have unjustly censured me for saying what I did not say; since such a predication differs so greatly from that which I actually made. If, on the other hand, the other argument is valid, you ought not to blame me so for having said what can be proved.

Whether this can be proved, however, he will easily decide who recognises that this being than which a greater cannot be conceived is demonstrable. For by no means can this being than which a greater cannot be conceived be understood as any other than that which alone is greater than all. Hence, just as that than which a greater cannot be conceived is understood, and is in the understanding, and for that reason is asserted to exist in the reality of fact: so what is said to be greater than all other beings is understood and is in the understanding, and therefore it is necessarily inferred that it exists in reality.

You see, then, with how much justice you have compared me with your fool, who, on the sole ground that he understands what is described to him, would affirm that a lost island exists.

Chapter VI

A discussion of Gaunilon’s argument in his second chapter: that any unreal beings can be understood in the same way, and would, to that extent, exist.

Another of your objections is that any unreal beings, or beings whose existence is uncertain, can be understood and be in the understanding in the same way with that being which I discussed. I am surprised that you should have conceived this objection, for I was attempting to prove what was still uncertain, and contented myself at first with showing that this being is understood in any way, and is in the understanding. It was my intention to consider, on these grounds, whether this being is in the understanding alone, like an unreal object, or whether it also exists in fact, as a real being. For if unreal objects, or objects whose existence is uncertain, in this way are understood and are in the understanding, because, when they are spoken of, the hearer understands what the speaker means, there is no reason why that being of which I spoke should not be understood and be in the understanding.

How, moreover, can these two statements of yours be reconciled: (1) the assertion that if a man should speak of any unreal objects, whatever they might be, you would understand, and (2) the assertion that on hearing of that being which does exist, and not in that way in which even unreal objects are held in concept, you would not say that you conceive of it or have it in concept; since, as you say, you cannot conceive of it in any other way than by understanding it, that is, by comprehending in your knowledge its real existence?

How, I ask, can these two things be reconciled: that unreal objects are understood, and that understanding an object is comprehending in knowledge its real existence? The contradiction does not concern me: do you see to it. But if unreal objects are also in some sort understood, and your definition is applicable, not to every understanding, but to a certain sort of understanding, I ought not to be blamed for saying that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is understood and is in the understanding, even before I reached the certain conclusion that this being exists in reality.

Chapter VII

In answer to another objection: that the supremely great being may be conceived not to exist, just as by the fool God is conceived not to exist.

Again, you say that it can probably never be believed that this being, when it is spoken of and heard of, cannot be conceived not to exist in the same way in which even God may be conceived not to exist.

Such an objection could be answered by those who have attained but little skill in disputation and argument. For is it compatible with reason for a man to deny the existence of what he understands, because it is said to be that being whose existence he denies because he does not understand it? Or, if at some times its existence is denied, because only to a certain extent is it understood, and that which is not at all understood is the same to him: is not what is still undetermined more easily proved of a being which exists in some understanding than of one which exists in no understanding?

Hence it cannot be credible that any man denies the existence of a being than which a greater cannot be conceived, which, when he hears of it, he understands in a certain degree: it is incredible, I say, that any man denies the existence of this being because he denies the existence of God, the sensory perception of whom he in no wise conceives of.

Or if the existence of another object, because it is not at all understood, is denied, yet is not the existence of what is understood in some degree more easily proved than the existence of an object which is in no wise understood?

Not irrationally, then, has the hypothesis of a being a greater than which cannot be conceived been employed in controverting the fool, for the proof of the existence of God: since in some degree he would understand such a being, but in no wise could he understand God.

Chapter VIII

The example of the picture, treated in Gaunilon’s third chapter, is examined.—From what source a notion may be formed of the supremely great being, of which Gaunilon inquired in his fourth chapter.

Moreover, your so careful demonstration that the being than which a greater cannot be conceived is not analogous to the not yet executed picture in the understanding of the painter, is quite unnecessary. It was not for this purpose that I suggested the preconceived picture. I had no thought of asserting that the being which I was discussing is of such a nature; but I wished to show that what is not understood to exist can be in the understanding.

Again, you say that when you hear of a being than which a greater is inconceivable, you cannot conceive of it in terms of any real object known to you either specifically or generally, nor have it in your understanding. For, you say, you neither know such a being in itself, nor can you form an idea of it from anything like it.

But obviously this is not true. For everything that is less good, in so far as it is good, is like the greater good. It is therefore evident to any rational mind, that by ascending from the lesser good to the greater, we can form a considerable notion of a being than which a greater is inconceivable.

For instance, who (even if he does not believe that what he conceives of exists in reality) supposing that there is some good which has a beginning and an end, does not conceive that a good is much better, which, if it begins, does not cease to be? And that as the second good is better than the first, so that good which has neither beginning nor end, though it is ever passing from the past through the present to the future, is better than the second? And that far better than this is a being—whether any being of such a nature exists or not—which in no wise requires change or motion, nor is compelled to undergo change or motion?

Is this inconceivable, or is some being greater than this conceivable? Or is not this to form a notion from objects than which a greater is conceivable, of the being than which a greater cannot be conceived? There is, then, a means of forming a notion of a being than which a greater is inconceivable.

So easily, then, can the fool who does not accept sacred authority be refuted, if he denies that a notion may be formed from other objects of a being than which a greater is inconceivable. But if any Catholic would deny this, let him remember that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead (Rom. 1:20).

Chapter IX

The possibility of understanding and conceiving of the supremely great being. The argument advanced against the fool is confirmed.

But even if it were true that a being than which a greater is inconceivable cannot be conceived or understood; yet it would not be untrue that a being than which a greater cannot be conceived is conceivable and intelligible. There is nothing to prevent one’s saying ineffable, although what is said to be ineffable cannot be spoken of. Inconceivable is conceivable, although that to which the word inconceivable can be applied is not conceivable. So, when one says, that than which nothing greater is conceivable, undoubtedly what is heard is conceivable and intelligible, although that being itself, than which a greater is inconceivable, cannot be conceived or understood.

Or, though there is a man so foolish as to say that there is no being than which a greater is inconceivable, he will not be so shameless as to say that he cannot understand or conceive of what he says. Or, if such a man is found, not only ought his words to be rejected, but he himself should be contemned.

Whoever, then, denies the existence of a being than which a greater cannot be conceived, at least understands and conceives of the denial which he makes. But this denial he cannot understand or conceive of without its component terms; and a term of this statement is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. Whoever, then, makes this denial, understands and conceives of that than which a greater is inconceivable.

Moreover, it is evident that in the same way it is possible to conceive of and understand a being whose non-existence is impossible; but he who conceives of this conceives of a greater being than one whose nonexistence is possible. Hence, when a being than which a greater is inconceivable is conceived, if it is a being whose non-existence is possible that is conceived, it is not a being than which a greater cannot be conceived. But an object cannot be at once conceived and not conceived. Hence he who conceives of a being than which a greater is inconceivable, does not conceive of that whose non-existence is possible, but of that whose non-existence is impossible. Therefore, what he conceives of must exist; for anything whose non-existence is possible, is not that of which he conceives.

Chapter X

The certainty of the foregoing argument.—The conclusion of the book.

I believe that I have shown by an argument which is not weak, but sufficiently cogent, that in my former book I proved the real existence of a being than which a greater cannot be conceived; and I believe that this argument cannot be invalidated by the validity of any objection. For so great force does the signification of this reasoning contain in itself, that this being which is the subject of discussion, is of necessity, from the very fact that it is understood or conceived, proved also to exist in reality, and to be whatever we should believe of the divine substance.

For we attribute to the divine substance anything of which it can be conceived that it is better to be than not to be that thing. For example: it is better to be eternal than not eternal; good, than not good; nay, goodness itself, than not goodness itself. But it cannot be that anything of this nature is not a property of the being than which a greater is inconceivable. Hence, the being than which a greater is inconceivable must be whatever should be attributed to the divine essence.

I thank you for your kindness both in your blame and in your praise for my book. For since you have commended so generously those parts of it which seem to you worthy of acceptance, it is quite evident that you have criticised in no unkind spirit those parts of it which seemed to you weak.

Diagnostic Questions

1. How does Anselm’s “I believe in order to understand” cohere with his ontological argument?

2. What role does Scripture play in Anselm’s argument?

3. Does Gaunilon’s response refute Anselm’s argument?

4. How would you respond to Anselm’s argument (1) as an unbeliever? (2) as a Christian?

1. Lanfranc saw Anselm as an innovator in theology primarily because of Anselm’s understanding of reason as authoritative. See Anselm, St. Anselm’s Proslogion with a Reply on Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo and the Author’s Reply to Gaunilo, trans. M. J. Charlesworth (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 43n1.

2. Anselm, Proslogium, Monologium, an Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon, and Cur Deus Homo, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (Grand Rapids: Open Court, 1926), 38, emphasis added.

3. Ibid., 19.

4. Ibid., v. Or, in the words of Pannenberg, “Anselm demanded that in the field of rational argumentation theology should examine what it believes subjectively by reason alone (sola ratione). It may not, then, make the subjective presupposition of faith the starting point of the argument. The force of the argument alone is what counts.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 1:51.

5. Greg Sadler, “Anselm of Canterbury,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anselm.htm#H3, emphasis added.

6. As a matter of fact, in the Cur Deus homo, Anselm is clear that his purpose is to convince the unbeliever “by reason alone” (sola ratione). See the introduction in Anselm, Proslogion, 42.

7. Anselm, Proslogium, 150–51.

8. This is obviously an oversimplified summary of the discussion. Readers interested should consult the entire dialogue. For a recent analysis of this debate, concluding in favor of Gaunilon, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, “In Defense of Gaunilo’s Defense of the Fool,” in Christian Perspectives on Religious Knowledge, ed. C. Stephen Evans and Merold Westphal (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).

9. The designation “ontological argument” is not Anselm’s, but was given by Immanuel Kant in his evaluation of this argument.

10. There are even questions as to whether Anselm’s argument should be labeled “ontological.” See Jean-Luc Marion, “Is the Ontological Argument Ontological: The Argument according to Anselm and Its Metaphysical Interpretation according to Kant,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 30, no. 2 (1992): 201–18.

11.Unum argumentum.

12. Ps. 27:8.

13. Sed credo ut intelligam. To this point, what we have in Anselm is a prayer. For this reason, some have wanted to attribute to Anselm a kind of “presuppositional” argument, but see the introduction.

14. Ps. 14:1.

15. Here in this chapter, in the main, is Anselm’s proof, his “single argument.” It can be summarized in the following way: (1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. (2) Even one who rejects the existence of such a God still understands the concept of something than which nothing greater can be conceived. (3) To understand the concept of that than which nothing greater can be conceived means that such a one exists in the mind. (4) But it is greater to exist in reality than to exist in the mind. (5) Therefore, that than which nothing greater can be conceived, existing in the mind, must also exist in reality.

CHAPTER 14

Thomas Aquinas

(1225–1274)

Thomas Aquinas was without question the most important and influential figure of the medieval period. His intellect and influence are almost unmatched in the history of the church. Whatever else we have to say about Aquinas, we dare not write him off as one who simply chose to wed Christianity to Aristotle.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican theologian, was born Thomas d’Aquino, the son of a baron, in Roccasecca, central Italy, in 1224 or 1225. At about the age of five, Thomas was placed by his parents in the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino. When Monte Cassino became the scene of a battle between papal and imperial troops, however, Thomas withdrew and enrolled at the University of Naples, in November of 1239, where he stayed until April of 1244. There he came into contact with members of the Dominican order and, against the opposition of his family, became a Dominican friar in late April of 1244.

Shortly thereafter, in May of the same year, his family intervened forcibly, having him abducted and detained at Roccasecca. His mother tried to persuade Thomas for more than a year to give up his membership in the Dominican order. When she failed, Thomas was allowed to return to his order in July or August of 1245. He then went north to study for his novitiate till 1248, after which he came under the guidance of St. Albert the Great at Cologne until the fall of 1252. He was ordained a priest (1250/51), and from the fall of 1252 to the spring of1259 Thomas taught at the Dominican house of studies in Paris. It was during this time that he lectured on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.

Between March 3 and June 17 of 1256, Thomas was incepted as a master of theology and was regent master in theology at Paris until 1259, during which time he began his Summa contra Gentiles. The same year found Aquinas leaving Paris for Naples, where he stayed until the autumn of 1261 as head of the Dominican house of studies. There his teachers began to recognize his genius as he began tutoring other students. It was at Naples that one of his teachers wrote that “God had begun to inspire him with the idea of wholly renouncing the world by entering the Order of the Preaching Friars” (the Dominicans).

From September of 1261 to September of 1265, Aquinas was at Orvieto as a lector, where he completed the Summa contra Gentiles. After a time at Rome in 1265 and Viterbo in 1267 (his great work, the Summa theologica, was begun in 1266), he took up his second Parisian regency from January of 1269 to 1272. This was followed by his assignment to Naples in 1272 as regent of theology. December 6, 1273, saw the cessation of his writing after a physical and mental breakdown. When asked why he quit writing, he responded, “I cannot; all that I have written seems like straw.” Some claim that he had some kind of mystical experience, but that has not been substantiated. While going north to attend the Council of Lyon, Thomas injured his head, fell ill, and died in the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova on March 7, 1274.[1] Some say he was on his way to Naples to be condemned; others, that he was on his way to be commended.

Some of Aristotle’s philosophy was condemned in 1277, which by implication condemned much that Aquinas had done as well. Thomas, however, was canonized in 1326 and was made a doctor of the church in 1567, after the Protestant Reformation. In 1879, he was proclaimed a father of the church. He wrote some ninety works, many of them multivolume sets. The Summa theologica, for example, is itself sixty volumes and was never completed.

Metaphysics

There is at least one significant difference between Thomas’s metaphysics and Aristotle’s. For Aristotle, form and essence were identical; for Thomas, they were not. Thus we should understand Thomas, not just as a blind Aristotelian—revolutionary as that was in the thirteenth century—but as significantly advancing Aristotle in some key areas.

In his metaphysical system, Thomas delineated three different methods of scientific inquiry, each related to its particular task. There is, first of all, the method of natural science (or physics). In this method, says Aquinas, the physical scientist is required to abstract the universal from the particular. Physical science deals with things in reality that cannot be understood apart from “sensible matter.” The first level of abstraction, which pertains to physical science, must deal exclusively with individuating matter. “For example, it is necessary to include flesh and bones in the definition of a man.”

The second degree of abstraction deals not with sensible matter, but with so-called intelligible matter and is the method of the mathematician. According to Aquinas, mathematics deals with quantity, which, though dependent on matter for its being, is not dependent on matter for its being understood, as is physical science. “This is the case with lines and numbers.” What is abstracted in this science is not sensible matter but intelligible matter that can be understood conceptually, quite apart from its existence in reality, though it can never exist apart from the matter itself.

Third, and most important for our purposes, is the science of metaphysics. It was Aristotle who maintained that metaphysical science alone exists for its own sake. Though Aquinas, with his appreciation for the science of divine supernatural revelation, may have quarreled with Aristotle on the specifics of his assertion, he seems to see the science of metaphysics, what Aquinas calls theology or divine science, as the first philosophy. In metaphysics we reach the third level of abstraction, which, unlike the previous two, is not dependent on sensible matter either for its being or for being understood. This third level could be called separation. Here the mind considers being itself or being as being, and (this is the crucial point) it can so exist in reality. “There are objects of speculative knowledge that do not depend upon matter for their being, because they can exist without matter.”

Thomas goes on to give examples of such things: God, angels, substance, potency, act, one, many, and so on. Such things may at times exist in matter, but need not do so. The science of metaphysics, therefore, is the science that deals specifically with being as being and consequently with the relation that obtains between being and things.

Proofs for the Existence of God

Aquinas articulated the proofs differently depending on the particular occasion for writing. His theistic proofs have come down to us as the quinque viae, the five ways. Though Thomas himself speaks of them in this way, he and his followers never meant to suggest that these five ways were limited either by number or order. While he presented his proofs succinctly and most simply in his Summa theologica, he never again in his writings presented them as “five ways,” nor in the same order as the Summa. The Summa theologica was meant to be an introductory study and therefore, while metaphysical in character, is not as complete as a more thorough presentation of the proofs might mandate in another context. It seeks to present each of the five proofs in a short and concise paragraph.

In the Summa contra Gentiles, however, because it seems to have been written, in part at least, as a manual of apologetics for missionaries, we have the proofs presented to us in minute detail. Aquinas, in that work, divides the “first way,” which he thought to be the most important, into two arguments, deletes the “third way” of the Summa theologica, but includes the other three. In De potentia, Aquinas divides the proofs under three heads, one from Plato, one from Aristotle, and one from Avicenna. In his Compendium theologiae, Aquinas offers the one proof from the argument from motion. Thus, while Thomists disagree as to whether Thomas’s proofs are reducible, there is no disagreement about the fact that such proofs were never, in Thomas’s own mind, “set in concrete” as it were for the Christian apologist. He used his proofs as the occasion dictated and never in servile, sterile uniformity.

It may be helpful to summarize the five ways:

1. T he first way (clearest by Aquinas’s reckoning) is the argument from motion or change. A being that is moved or changed must be moved or changed by that which is extrinsic to such a being and is in act as to movement or change itself.[2] Because there can be no infinite regress, there must be an Unmoved Mover.

2.T he second way deals, not with the being of things changed, but with their cause. The being of a particular thing is caused by that which has being in itself.

3. T he third way argues from relative or temporal necessity to absolute necessity. A being that exists does so necessarily but, as far as we can tell through our senses, contingently. There must, therefore, be a being that has the necessity of existence in itself.

4.T he fourth way argues from degrees of being. Being that is more or less limited must depend on that being which is inherently unlimited.

5.T he fifth way argues, not unlike the second way (and third), from things moving toward an end to the ultimate cause of such.

Analogy

According to Phelan:

The importance of analogy in the philosophy of St. Thomas literally cannot be overestimated. There is not a problem either in the order of being, or in the order of knowing, or in the order of predicating, which does not depend for its ultimate solution on the principle of analogy. Not a question can be asked either in speculative or practical philosophy which does not require for its final answer an understanding of analogy.[3]

From Cajetan (fifteenth century) to the relatively recent present, most interpreters of Thomas have taken his notion of analogy to be primarily an analogy of proper proportionality. That is, the analogical relationship centers on the proportion that exists between essence and existence in the two analogates.[4] This metaphysical construct gives us the backdrop for Aquinas’s view of analogy, which, again, relates directly to his theistic proofs.

It is difficult to find a consensus among Thomistic scholars as to Aquinas’s own teaching on analogy. Such is the case primarily because Aquinas never set out this crucial doctrine in systematic form. There is little controversy or discussion about the fact that Aquinas did teach what has come to be known as the analogy of proper proportionality.

Analogy of proper proportionality is a metaphysical notion designed to articulate the fact that being itself cannot be seen, but is “seen” in each thing in proportion to its essence. A thing is said to “be” in proportion to its nature. Thus, the being of a man is in some sense similar to and in some sense dissimilar from the being of a rock. There is, then, an analogy of proper proportionality between the rock and the man. As one can see, this analogy is based on the distinction already discussed between existence and essence. Phelan maintains that there are only three ways to conceive of any proportional analogy. The first is that the common character or ratio belongs really and truly to each participant in the same way but in unequal degrees. The second is that the ratio belongs really to only one participant but is attributed to others. The third is that the ratio belongs really and truly to each participant, but only in proportion to its being. This third analogy, of course, is the analogy of proper proportionality and is the analogy used by Thomas Aquinas. It must always deal with the relation of existence and essence in a thing and thus is, by definition, proportional.

Aquinas seeks in the analogy of proper proportionality to distinguish between the same attributes in different things. He denies univocal predication on the basis of God’s coterminous character. Because that which is ascribed to creatures or creation is ascribed in a divided and particular way, and because the same ascription would be simple and universal in God (because God is what he thinks and thinks what he is), such ascription to both cannot be univocal. But Aquinas also must deny equivocal predication. There is indeed a certain likeness of creation to its Creator, though such likeness, as was said, cannot be univocal. Equivocation would show us that though one name is predicated of several things, we cannot infer from one of those things the knowledge of the other because there is, by definition, no point of reference. We could, therefore, understand nothing of God by creation, which for Aquinas is patently false.

Thus, Aquinas proposed his doctrine of analogy. That which is predicated of God and man actually exists in both to the extent that their respective essences permit. To say that “God is good” and that “man is good” is to say that God is good in proportion to his received act of to be (which in God is his essence, of which more below) and that man is good with respect to his potential existence. Or to use another example, God knows as deity; man knows as man. The proportion that obtains between being and essence determines the truth of that which is predicated of each thing.

We begin to see something here of Aquinas’s so-called scale of being. Everything is limited in being according to its essence. Every characteristic of a thing is further limited as to the proportion that obtains between its being and its essence. Thus, potential existence limits the received act of to be (existence) and the combination of the two in something limits the attributes and perfections of that which is. We could say then that angels know as angels are, men know as men are, and there is a proportion (1) between knowledge in angels as they exist and (2) between knowledge in angels and knowledge in men. Knowledge, therefore, cannot be predicated in the same identical way when speaking of an angel’s knowledge and a man’s knowledge, the existences of such being proportional to their respective essences.

But there is a tension internal to this Thomistic doctrine that has caused some controversy among his interpreters, yet is crucial to his metaphysics. Simply stated (and on this all seem to agree), the analogy of proper proportionality cannot apply to God! The reason for this is that the analogy of proper proportionality derives its basis from the proportion that obtains between essence and existence. But in God no such proportion obtains. God is Pure Act. His essence is his existence. Unlike any other thing, it belongs to the very essence of God to exist. How, then, can a real analogy be predicated of, for example, men, in whom every act of existence is limited by essence, and God, in whom essence and existence are identical and completely exhaustive one of the other? It seems, though some are not willing to go this far, that there must be a second kind of analogy introduced that will account for One in whom essence and existence are identical. Such an analogy has been called “analogy of intrinsic attribution.”

Such is the case because Aquinas is now attempting to do justice to analogical knowledge with respect to the Creator. This analogy of intrinsic attribution, therefore, has as its basis, not proportionality but causality. The relation of creature to God is a causal relation, yet is proposed as an analogical relationship. Because the definition of potential existence is that which makes a thing what it is, what is of the essence of a thing must be possessed fully by that thing. For example, it is impossible for man to be partly human. It follows, then, for Aquinas, that existence is not intrinsic to created being and, therefore, must be caused by One in whom essence and existence are identical. The analogy of intrinsic attribution becomes, in one sense, the basis for analogy of proper proportionality.

There is much that has been discussed with respect to Thomas and his proofs. According to Davies and Leftow, “The few paragraphs in Aquinas’s ‘Five Ways’ are one of the most heavily discussed passages in all of philosophy: most textbooks and anthologies in philosophy of religion have something to say about them.”[5] In order to understand them for what they are, as Aquinas meant them to be understood, one needs to probe more deeply into Thomas’s entire philosophical theology and, more specifically, into part 1 of the Summa. We will conclude with this reminder:

Each of the Five Ways concludes that a description is satisfied—that there is an unchanging changer, a first efficient cause, and so on. However, it is not obvious that all five descriptions apply to the same being. Nor is it obvious that “all call these God” (2.3) (although the Ways assert this), or that if all do call these God they are correct to do so. These assertions are in effect promissory notes. Questions 3–26 try to redeem them by drawing out implications of these five descriptions. In doing so Aquinas tells us what it is to be an unchanging changer, a first cause, and the rest. By the time we reach Question 26, if Aquinas’s arguments work, we do have something Godlike on our hands. So these five descriptions provide the foundation of Aquinas’s subsequent account of God’s nature.[6]

The text that follows, therefore, should be seen simply as an introduction to some of Thomas’s ideas with respect to God’s existence. It is not meant to be his ultimate, or even his penultimate, conclusion on the matter. Any adequate account of Aquinas’s proofs would require, at minimum, an understanding and evaluation of part 1, through question 26, of his Summa.

Summa Theologica

(selections dealing with evil, sensation, existence of God . . .)

The Existence of God

Concerning the Divine Essence, we must consider: (1) Whether God exists? (2) T he manner of His existence, or, rather, what is NOT the manner of His existence; (3) Whatever concerns His operations—namely, His knowledge, will, power.

Concerning the first, there are three points of inquiry: (1) Whether the proposition “God exists” is self-evident? (2) Whether it is demonstrable? (3) Whether God exists?

Whether the Existence of God Is Self-evident?

Objection 1: It seems that the existence of God is self-evident. Now those things are said to be self-evident to us the knowledge of which is naturally implanted in us, as we can see in regard to first principles. But as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 1, 3), “the knowledge of God is naturally implanted in all.” Therefore the existence of God is self-evident.

Objection 2: Further, those things are said to be self-evident which are known as soon as the terms are known, which the Philosopher (1 Poster. iii) says is true of the first principles of demonstration. Thus, when the nature of a whole and of a part is known, it is at once recognized that every whole is greater than its part. But as soon as the signification of the word “God” is understood, it is at once seen that God exists. For by this word is signified that thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. But that which exists actually and mentally is greater than that which exists only mentally. Therefore, since as soon as the word “God” is understood it exists mentally, it also follows that it exists actually. Therefore the proposition “God exists” is self-evident.

Objection 3: Further, the existence of truth is self-evident. For whoever denies the existence of truth grants that truth does not exist: and, if truth does not exist, then the proposition “Truth does not exist” is true: and if there is anything true, there must be truth. But God is truth itself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” ( John 14:6). Therefore “God exists” is self-evident.

On the contrary, No one can mentally admit the opposite of what is self-evident; as the Philosopher (Metaph. iv, lect. vi) states concerning the first principles of demonstration. But the opposite of the proposition “God is” can be mentally admitted: “The fool said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps. 52:1). Therefore, that God exists is not self-evident.

I answer that, A thing can be self-evident in either of two ways: on the one hand, self-evident in itself, though not to us; on the other, self-evident in itself, and to us. A proposition is self-evident because the predicate is included in the essence of the subject, as “Man is an animal,” for animal is contained in the essence of man. If, therefore the essence of the predicate and subject be known to all, the proposition will be self-evident to all; as is clear with regard to the first principles of demonstration, the terms of which are common things that no one is ignorant of, such as being and non-being, whole and part, and such like. If, however, there are some to whom the essence of the predicate and subject is unknown, the proposition will be self-evident in itself, but not to those who do not know the meaning of the predicate and subject of the proposition. Therefore, it happens, as Boethius says (Hebdom., the title of which is: “Whether all that is, is good”), “that there are some mental concepts self-evident only to the learned, as that incorporeal substances are not in space.”

Therefore I say that this proposition, “God exists,” of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same as the subject, because God is His own existence as will be hereafter shown. Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature—namely, by effects.

Reply to Objection 1: To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else.

Reply to Objection 2: Perhaps not everyone who hears this word “God” understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body. Yet, granted that everyone understands that by this word “God” is signified something than which nothing greater can be thought, nevertheless, it does not therefore follow that he understands that what the word signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally. Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist.

Reply to Objection 3: The existence of truth in general is self-evident but the existence of a Primal Truth is not self-evident to us.

Whether It Can Be Demonstrated That God Exists?

Objection 1: It seems that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated. For it is an article of faith that God exists. But what is of faith cannot be demonstrated, because a demonstration produces scientific knowledge; whereas faith is of the unseen (Heb. 11:1). Therefore it cannot be demonstrated that God exists.

Objection 2: Further, the essence is the middle term of demonstration. But we cannot know in what God’s essence consists, but solely in what it does not consist; as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 4). Therefore we cannot demonstrate that God exists.

Objection 3: Further, if the existence of God were demonstrated, this could only be from His effects. But His effects are not proportionate to Him, since He is infinite and His effects are finite; and between the finite and infinite there is no proportion. Therefore, since a cause cannot be demonstrated by an effect not proportionate to it, it seems that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated.

On the contrary, The Apostle says: “The invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20). But this would not be unless the existence of God could be demonstrated through the things that are made; for the first thing we must know of anything is whether it exists.

I answer that, Demonstration can be made in two ways: One is through the cause, and is called “a priori,” and this is to argue from what is prior absolutely. The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration “a posteriori”; this is to argue from what is prior relatively only to us. When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated, so long as its effects are better known to us; because since every effect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist. Hence the existence of God, in so far as it is not self-evident to us, can be demonstrated from those of His effects which are known to us.

Reply to Objection 1: The existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated.

Reply to Objection 2: When the existence of a cause is demonstrated from an effect, this effect takes the place of the definition of the cause in proof of the cause’s existence. This is especially the case in regard to God, because, in order to prove the existence of anything, it is necessary to accept as a middle term the meaning of the word, and not its essence, for the question of its essence follows on the question of its existence. Now the names given to God are derived from His effects; consequently, in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we may take for the middle term the meaning of the word “God.”

Reply to Objection 3: From effects not proportionate to the cause no perfect knowledge of that cause can be obtained. Yet from every effect the existence of the cause can be clearly demonstrated, and so we can demonstrate the existence of God from His effects; though from them we cannot perfectly know God as He is in His essence.

Whether God Exists?

Objection 1: It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word “God” means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.

Objection 2: Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.

On the contrary, It is said in the person of God: “I am Who am” (Ex. 3:14).

I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence—which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Reply to Objection 1: As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): “Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.” This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.

Reply to Objection 2: Since nature works for a determinate end under the direction of a higher agent, whatever is done by nature must needs be traced back to God, as to its first cause. So also whatever is done voluntarily must also be traced back to some higher cause other than human reason or will, since these can change or fail; for all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle, as was shown in the body of the Article.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Does Thomas affirm the self-evidence of God’s existence?

2. What does Thomas mean by “what is of faith cannot be demonstrated”?

3. In the first way, what argument does Thomas give that “this cannot go on to infinity”?

4. Which of Thomas’s five ways is the most compelling?

5. What are some basic differences between Thomas’s apologetic method and Anselm’s?

1. Much of this biography is taken from http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/aquinas/.

2.To be “in act,” according to medieval metaphysics, is to move from, in this case, potentially in motion to actually in motion. Being “in act” is distinquished from being “in potency.”

3. G. B. Phelan, Saint Thomas and Analogy (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1941), 1.

4. This idea, however, is contrary to McInerny’s notion of analogy as primarily logical and thus could need revision or be wide of the mark altogether. McInerny notes, “Of course, unless things are related in some way we would not purposely impose a common name on them. Nevertheless, the question of analogy does not arise in discussing things as they exist, but as they are known and named.” Ralph M. McInerny, The Logic of Analogy: An Interpretation of St. Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), 75. Even if McInerny is right, the inextricable link between Thomas’s metaphysics and analogy seems still to be there.

5. Brian Leftow and Brian Davies, eds. Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Questions on God, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), xxxv–xxxvi.

6. Ibid., xvii.

CHAPTER 15

Raymond Lull

(ca. 1232–1316)

We come to one of the most fascinating and unique figures in the history of apologetics. He was a Neoplatonic philosopher, a mystic, a novelist, a principal consolidator of written Catalan, and the first writer to use a Romance language to discuss theology, science, and philosophy; moreover, he was a missionary, an apologist, founder of a school of oriental language (for the training of missionaries), and the creator of an intriguing systematization of knowledge, known as the “Art.”

Raymond (or Ramon) Lull (sometimes spelled Llull, Luyl, or Lullius) was born in Palma, the capital of Majorca. Few places were more cosmopolitan or more strategic than this city and this island. By the beginning of the thirteenth century the western Mediterranean was no longer the stronghold of Muslim power that it had been. The Almohad Empire had collapsed. Only Granada was left to the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula. The center of its power was in North Africa. The “Christian” states included Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia. The intellectual power centered in France, which together with the papacy had swallowed up the smaller principalities north of the Pyrenees. The kingdom of Majorca included three smaller units: Roussillon, Montpellier, and most of the Balearic Islands. Raymond Lull’s world “was that of a Balkanized western Mediterranean, a kind of latter-day maritime reinos de taifa.”[1]

Aragon and Catalonia were expanding to the South and to the West. Catalonia provided not only the major strength for this expansion, but also the language that was to have such an influence. Raymond Lull spoke and wrote Catalan, and this language would be a major cultural force in the Mediterranean world.

Lull’s education was typical of those from his class, providing him with little that would be important for his rich and fruitful intellectual life. He wrote poetry and songs, traveled a good deal, and led a generally decadent life until his conversion. Like Abelard, he provided us with an autobiography, called Vita coaetanea (Contemporary life) from which we learn something of the story of his conversion. In around 1263 he began to feel his songs and poems to have been worthless. He was about to compose a new one and had a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. This recurred at least four times, and it struck him that he must leave this world and dedicate his life to the service of Christ.

He became convinced that his primary calling was to convert the “Saracens” to the worship of Christ. In order to do this he needed to write a powerful book in the Arabic language for Muslims. He determined to study the language in Palma, possibly in the monastery of La Real, from a Muslim slave. He did this for nine years and then wrote the large Book of Contemplation in Arabic, a kind of summa of medieval mystical theology. After an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life, he went up to a mountain and received a vision of how he would write his great book against the errors of unbelievers. He began to compose what would become his Art, the systematized book of symbols depicting Christian metaphysics. Through the king’s favor he was able to establish centers for learning Arabic with a view to engaging Muslims. He made three unsuccessful overseas journeys, including to Tunisia, where he challenged Muslims to a debate, but was thrown out.

Lull died in 1316 either in Tunis or on the ship sailing back to Majorca. His orthodoxy was put into question several times, most notably in two papal condemnations. Posterity would nevertheless accord him considerable veneration and the development of his work by a few disciples. The most important figure from the fifteenth century to be influenced by him was Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464). Even Jacque Lefèvre d’Étaples, so significant for the Protestant Reformation in France, contributed strongly to the revitalization of interest in Lull’s work. Today he is noted as a missions-minded figure well before the modern era of missionary consciousness.

The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men

Certainly Lull’s most important apologetic work was The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men. Given the historical circumstances we have described, it was understandable that the three great religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, should need to be defined in contrast to one another. Though fundamentally different, the three seemed to have in common (1) their Semitic origins, (2) the authority of a holy book, (3) theism, and (4) the need to sort out their positions in relation to Greek thought. It is fair to say that since they lived in such close proximity, there were many attempts to persuade one another of the truth of their particular views. We remember that Thomas Aquinas had written his Summa contra Gentiles at the request of Ramon de Penyafort in ca. 1272.

The Book of the Gentile was written sometime between 1274 and 1276, in Catalan, but was rapidly translated into Latin, French, and Spanish. Sources are difficult to determine. It was certainly a narrative and an informal rendering of the ideas set forth in The Art. It is unlikely that Lull knew about Thomas’s work while he wrote The Art, though he did meet the aging Penyafort as a young convert. Later he was acquainted with the Summa contra Gentiles, since he cites it in a work written in 1309.

The Book of the Gentile puts a very human face on each of the interlocutors. The Gentile shows tears of sadness at the first, and then tears of joy in the end. The Jew is distressed at the repeated captivities of his people. The Saracen is passionate about the practical success of Islam for the good of society. Each participant is remarkably civil toward the others. And the end of the book is most surprising, given the general history of such apologetic works. The three resolved to continue the discussion and to continue to honor and serve one another.

The Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men

Supreme high God, honorable in all honor, with Your blessing, grace, and help, and with a view to honoring and serving You, I begin this book called the Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men.

Prologue . . .

7. Goodness Eternity

[The three wise men speaking] “The goodness of God is eternal, and the eternity of God is the goodness of God. Now, since eternity is a much greater good than something that is not eternal, if God has created man’s body to be everlasting, there is even greater goodness in the purpose (that is to say, the reason for which God created the human body) than would exist if the body had an end (that is to say, nonbeing), after which it did not exist. This being the case, if man’s body rises up again and lasts forever after the Resurrection, God’s goodness and eternity will be exhibited in greater nobility and in greater results. And since, according to the conditions of the trees, one should attribute greater nobility to God, therefore it necessarily follows, according to divine, eternal influence, that through that influence there come grace and blessing to the human body, by which it may achieve resurrection and be everlasting to the end of time.” . . .

When the three wise men had proven to the Gentile, by the flowers of the trees, God’s existence and the existence in Him of goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, perfection, and when they had made the Resurrection evident to him, and when the Gentile remembered and understood the reasonings exposed above, and when he looked at the trees and the flowers, then a divine radiance illuminated his understanding, which till then had been in darkness, and made his heart desire salvation. And by God’s virtue, the Gentile spoke these words: “Alas, sinful creature! You who for so long have received divine gifts in this worldly life from the Lord on high, who gave you being, whose goods you have eaten and drunk, who gave you your clothing, gave you children, and gave you whatever wealth you have, who has kept you alive and has honored you among people, you have never, for a single day or even for a single hour, thanked Him for all these things, nor have you obeyed His commandments. Ah, miserable wretch! How you have been deceived by ignorance, which so clouded the eyes of your soul that you did not recognize that Lord who is so honorable, so glorious, so worthy of honors!”

When the Gentile had spoken these words, he felt his soul unburdened of the torments and sorrow with which error and lack of faith had so long and grievously tormented him. Who could recount the joy and happiness the Gentile felt, or tell you of the blessing he bestowed on the three wise men?

The Gentile knelt down on the ground, raised his hands heavenward, as well as his eyes, which were filled with tears and weeping, and with fervent heart he worshiped, saying: “Blessed may you be, glorious God, Father, and mighty Lord of all that is! I give you thanks for having deigned to remember this sinful man, who was at the door of infinite, eternal condemnation. I worship You, O Lord; I bless Your name and ask Your forgiveness. In You I place my hope; from You I await blessing and grace. If ignorance made me not know You, may it please You, O Lord, that the knowledge You have now instilled in me make me love, honor, and serve You, and that from now on, for the rest of my days, my bodily and spiritual strength be employed in nothing save honoring and praising You and in desiring Your glory and blessing, and that in my heart there be nothing but You.”

While the Gentile was worshiping our Lord God in this way, to his soul came remembrance of his land, of his father, of his mother, and of the lack of faith in which they had died; and he remembered all the people living in that land who were on the path to eternal fire without realizing it, and on which they found themselves for lack of grace. When the Gentile remembered these things, because of the compassion he felt for his father, his mother, his relatives, and all those who had died in his land and had lost the glory of God, he wept bitterly and said to the three wise men:

“Ah, wise men! You who have been blessed with the gift of grace, have you no pity for the many people who are in error and have no knowledge of God nor feel any gratitude toward God for the good they receive from Him? And you, whom God has honored so much more than others, why do you not go and honor God among people where God is dishonored, where nobody loves Him, nor knows Him, nor obeys Him, nor has hope in Him, nor fears His high dominion? For the sake of God, I pray you, gentlemen, go to that land and preach there, and indoctrinate me so that I may honor and serve God with all my power. And may it please you to teach me how, by the grace of God and by your doctrine, I may know and be able to lead to the path of salvation so many people who are on the path to eternal fire.”

When the Gentile had spoken these words, each of the three wise men replied, saying the Gentile should convert to his respective religion and belief. “What!” cried the Gentile, “Are the three of you not of a single religion and belief?” “No,” replied the wise men, “we differ as to belief and religion, for one of us is a Jew, the other a Christian, and the other a Saracen.” “And which of you,” asked the Gentile, “has the better religion, and which of these religions is true?” Each of the wise men answered, speaking one against the other, each praising his own belief and blaming the other for what he believed.

When the Gentile heard the three wise men arguing, and each saying that the other’s belief constituted an error for which a person would lose the blessing of Heaven and go to infernal punishment, if formerly his heart had been full of ire and sorrow, now it was even more so, and he said: “Ah, gentlemen! How much happiness and hope you had given me, and how much sorrow you had banished from my heart! But now you have plunged me into much greater ire and grief than before, for then I had no fear of enduring infinite suffering after my death. But now I am sure that if I am not on the true path, every kind of punishment is waiting to torment my soul endlessly after I die. Ah, gentlemen, what stroke of fate is this which has lifted me out of the great error my soul was in, only to have it plunged back into even greater grief.” Having said this, the Gentile could not help crying, nor can I describe to you how disconsolate he was.

For a long time the Gentile was disconsolate and his soul was belabored by oppressive thoughts; but in the end the Gentile begged the three wise men as humbly and reverently as he could that they debate before him and that each give his arguments as best as he could, so that he could see which of them was on the path to salvation. The wise men answered, saying that they would gladly debate in front of him, and that in fact, before he had arrived on the scene, they had already thought about debating, in order to investigate and find out which of them was on the true path and which in error.

One of the wise men said: “How shall we organize this debate we would like to have?” One of the other wise men replied: “The best way to organize it, and that by which we can best and most quickly declare the truth to this wise and noble Gentile who so sincerely asks us to show him the path to salvation, is to keep to the method the Lady of Intelligence showed us, and with the flowers we used to prove to this wise man God’s existence, the existence of virtues in Him, and the existence of the Resurrection, each of us should try to prove the articles in which he believes, and because of which he thinks he is on the true path. And whoever can, according to his belief, make the articles in which he believes best accord with the flowers and with the conditions of the trees, will reveal and demonstrate that his belief is better than the others.”

The other two wise men agreed with what this wise man had said. And since each wanted to honor the other, each hesitated to begin. But the Gentile asked which religion had come first, and the wise man said that of the Jews. And the Gentile therefore asked the Jew to be the first to begin.

Before beginning, the Jew asked the Gentile and his companions if they were going to raise objections to what he said; but upon the Gentile’s suggestion, it was agreed among the three wise men that none would contradict the other while he was presenting his arguments, since contradiction brings ill will to the human heart, and ill will clouds the mind’s ability to understand. The Gentile, however, requested that he alone be allowed to answer their arguments as he saw fit, the better to seek the truth about the true religion, which he so wanted to understand, and each of the wise men granted him his request.

Here Begins the Second Book

First, the Jew prayed, saying, “In the name of the one, almighty God, in whom we place our hope of being delivered from our captivity.” And when he had finished his prayer, he said that the articles in which he believed were eight, namely:

To believe in only one God.

The second article is to believe that God is the creator of all that is. The third is to believe that God gave the Law to Moses.

The fourth is that God will send a Messiah who will free us from our captivity.

The fifth article concerns the Resurrection.

The sixth concerns the Day of Judgment, when God will judge the righteous and the wicked.

The seventh is to believe in heavenly glory.

The eighth is to believe in the existence of Hell.

When the Jew had enumerated his articles, he then began with the first article.

Article 1. One God

The Jew said to the Gentile that there were many conclusive arguments by which he could prove the existence of only one God. “But among others, there are four arguments by which I want to prove it briefly, using the flowers of the trees; of which four arguments this is the first: As we can see, it is evident that the world is directed toward an end; and that everything nature does, it does with an end in view. And this direction and this course of nature signify and demonstrate the existence of only one God; for if there were many Gods, there would be many ends, and some men would naturally be disposed to love one God, and others to love another. And the same thing would happen with other creatures, for each creature would differentiate itself from the next in order to show that the God who created it was different from the other God who had not created it. And if each God had not ordained this in His creature, then His goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, would be imperfect; and if such were the case, it would be impossible for Him to be God. For just as it is not fitting for a creature to be creator, thus, and even less so, is it fitting for imperfection of goodness, greatness, etc., to be God, for to God befits all nobility, according to the conditions of the trees.

“The second argument is as follows: either the greatness of God is infinite in essence and in goodness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, perfection, or it is not. Now if there are two or three or more Gods, it is impossible for God’s greatness to be infinite in essence and in the above-mentioned virtues; but if there is only one God, it is possible for God’s greatness to be infinite in essence in all the above-mentioned virtues. And since possibility and being are in accord, as are impossibility and nonbeing, it is therefore shown that there is one God, whose essence is so great in goodness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, perfection, that no other essence or thing can limit or contain it, but rather it limits and contains all things within itself, and is essentially inside and outside all other things, for if it were not, it would be limited and finite.”

Question. The Gentile said to the Jew: “According to the workings of nature, we know that the four elements are mixed in every body composed of them, and that in such a body each element exists essentially, virtually, and operatively. Similarly there could be many Gods, each mixed among the others, and that the greatness of each be infinite in essence throughout all the virtues and throughout all places.”

Solution. The Jew answered, saying: “It is true that in a compound body, each element is limited by the other, according to its own virtue, for the power of fire is limited by the power of water, which is contrary to it, and the power of water by that of fire, and the same happens with air and with earth. And just as one is limited by the other in virtue, so the operation of one is limited by that of the other, since their workings are different and contrary. This is why each element wants to be simple, by itself and without the other elements, for if it could be without the others, it would be more in accordance with its own being and with its own virtue than it is when mixed with the others. And therefore it is shown that if there were many Gods, the power, goodness, etc., of each would be limited and bounded by the power, etc. of the other, and that it would be better for there to be one God who existed in His own essence, and in His power, etc., than for there to be all those other Gods; and He would be more in accord with being, and it would be more impossible for there to exist in Him envy, pride, imperfection, than if He were mixed with other Gods. And because the greatest nobility, and that by which God is most in accord with being, must be granted, according to the condition of the first tree, and because, as a result, faith, hope, charity, etc., can better be in accord with goodness, greatness, etc., and can be greater and more contrary to the vices, therefore it is demonstrated by these conditions that there must of necessity exist one God.

“The third argument is as follows: if there were one God in one place entirely by himself, and another God beyond that God in another place, and yet another God beyond that place, there would have to be an infinite God who bounded and included these Gods, and this one would more properly be God than the others. And if this were the case, it would follow that, above and beyond the lesser Gods, the greater God would be infinite, and at the same time He would be limited and bounded by the lesser Gods, according to the six directions inherent in anything placed in space, that is to say, up and down, right and left, and forward and backward. And if this were true, it would follow that God would be a body, and if He were a body, He would be finite, for every body must be finite, if it is to be consistent with form, surface, and matter. Now since it is a contradiction for God to be both finite and infinite (the greater God would be bounded by the lesser Gods, and would be infinite beyond the lesser Gods), it is therefore shown that it is impossible for there to be more than one God, without whose unity and singularity it would not be possible for perfection of goodness, greatness, etc., to be in accord with Him.”

Question. The Gentile said, “Perhaps there could be one God in one place and another God in another place, and thus many Gods, infinite in number and finite in size.”

Solution. The Jew replied: “Perfection of goodness, greatness, eternity, power, etc., are in accord with infinity of essence where there is perfection of goodness, greatness, etc., and are in disaccord with the limit of things bounded in space and multiplied in number, for with infinite number there cannot be perfection of goodness, greatness, etc., in each finite thing. For if there were, perfection of goodness, greatness, etc., would be as noble in a finite thing as in an infinite thing. This, however, is impossible, and by this impossibility it is shown that perfection of goodness, greatness, etc., is in accord with an essence infinite in goodness, greatness, etc., and is not in accord with many finite essences, even when they are joined together; for if it were, perfection would be the same in an infinite as in a finite thing, and that is impossible.

“The fourth argument is that hope can more fully develop by trusting in one God, Lord of all things, and charity can more fully develop by loving one God, infinite in goodness, greatness, etc., than they would if there were many Gods, or if there were one God divided into the two or three parts of which He was composed. And since that by which hope and charity are in accord with majority is in accord with truth, and their contrary with falsehood, according to the conditions of the trees, it is therefore shown that there exists only one God.”

Question. “Sir,” said the Gentile, “just as charity is better in accord with perfection the greater it is and can be in loving one God infinite in goodness, greatness, etc., than it would be in loving one or more Gods who were finite, so the will of a man who dislikes a God who is evil and has infinite evil is more noble in its dislike than the will which can dislike nothing more than finite and limited evil. And since the more noble dislike should be granted, it is therefore evident that there exists one evil, infinite God, who is the origin of all evils and whom it is possible for man to dislike.”

Solution. The Jew replied: “It is true, Sir, that with respect to charity, created will would dislike more nobly if it disliked a God whose evil was infinite rather than finite. But since the evil God would be contrary to the good one, and the good God would not have goodness, greatness, eternity, power, etc., if He did not destroy the evil God, therefore it is not right that all that by which the will could dislike greater evil should exist, for created will cannot be in accord with a nobility that would be contrary to the nobility of the creator. And if the good God did not destroy the evil God, so that created will could be improved, He would love his creature more than Himself, which would be an imperfection in Him. And if the good God could not destroy the evil God, they would be equal in power, which is impossible; for if it were possible, being would just as appropriately accord with infinite evil as with infinite good. Since, however, good and being are in accord, as well as evil and nonbeing, and since perfection accords with good and with being, and is in disaccord with evil and with nonbeing, it is therefore evident that it is impossible for infinite evil to exist; for if it did, being and nonbeing would be equally in accord with eternity and with infinity, and that is impossible.”

After the Jew had proved to the Gentile that there was only one God, he asked the Gentile if he felt satisfied with the proof he had given him of God’s unity by the above-mentioned four arguments, or if he wanted him to pick more of the flowers of the trees, proving God’s unity with more arguments. But the Gentile replied that he was quite satisfied with the proof, and if he had contradicted him, it was only the better to seek the truth. He did, nevertheless, beg him to explain what sort of a thing God was, and what He was in Himself, for he very much wanted to know what God was.

“Sir,” said the Jew, “by virtue of God and by the light of Divine Grace, the human understanding arrives in this world at a knowledge of what God is not, that is to say, we have good reasons for knowing that God is not a stone, nor a man, nor the sun, nor a star, nor any bodily thing, nor any spiritual thing which is finite or imperfect. We also know that God is good, great, eternal, powerful, etc., as was proved in the first book. And these things are sufficient for us to know while we are in this world. But what God is in Himself, no man can know, for no one can even know what his own soul is, so how can he know what God is. Nor is it necessary to know such a thing in this world, but in the next world it is known by those who are in glory; and if we knew it in this world, the next world would not be nobler than this one. Since, however, the next world must be nobler than this one, therefore has God ordained that man may not know in this world what he should know in the next.”

Article 2. Creation

“In order to prove that God is creator, we will pick seven flowers—among the many we could pick—from the five trees, and by these it will be made manifest to the human understanding that God created the world; and by each of these flowers we will give a manifest demonstration.”

1. Goodness Eternity

“Eternity is a good thing, since good and being are in accord with eternity, and eternity and being with goodness. Now if eternity were a bad thing, nonbeing and goodness would be in accord against being and eternity; and if they were, all men, plants and animals would naturally wish not to exist, which is impossible, since everything that is likes being and dislikes nonbeing.”

The Jew said to the Gentile: “If the world is not eternal and God did not create it, then the world must have received its beginning from itself or from something else. From itself it could not have received it, for nothing cannot begin something; for if it did, nothing would be something. And if the world had received its beginning from something else that was not God, and if that something had received its beginning from something else which had had a beginning, and so on to infinity, and if God had not been the beginning of any of these beginnings or things begun, it would follow that goodness would be more in accord with begun beginning than with eternity, which is impossible. By this impossibility it is shown that if the world had a beginning, it must have received it from eternal goodness, or from something else that had received it from eternal goodness. And since we have proved the existence of only one God, in whom there is eternal goodness, it is therefore made manifest that if the world had a beginning, it must have received it from God, or from something else that had received its beginning from God.

“If the world is eternal and not created, it is equal in duration to the eternity of God; but since the world is divisible into parts containing imperfection and evil, that is to say things which are limited in magnitude, and which are corruptible, mortal, capable of suffering, and ignorant; and because these things are bad, in that they have imperfection of good, therefore the world is not so well in accord with goodness, as goodness, in which there is no division or evil, is in accord with an eternity in which there are no parts nor anything having beginning or end. It is therefore shown that the good there is in this world has a beginning; for if it did not have a beginning, it would be as much in accord with eternity as the goodness of God. And if created good has a beginning, how much more fitting that evil should have a beginning; for if evil were eternal without a beginning, eternity would not be in accord with goodness, in that it would be in accord with the contrary of good, and this is impossible; by which impossibility it is shown that the world is created and begun.”

Question. The Gentile asked the Jew if God created evil.

Solution. The Jew replied that evil can be considered in two ways; one is evil of wrongdoing, the other is evil of suffering. Now since evil of wrongdoing is contrary to good, it must therefore not have been created; and since evil of suffering is in accord with God’s perfect justice in punishing sin, and with God’s perfect wisdom in making evident the blessing of grace, evil of suffering must therefore have been created by the sovereign, eternal goodness. . . .

Epilogue: The End of This Book

When the Gentile had heard all the arguments of the three wise men, he began to recount everything the Jew had said, and then everything the Christian had said, and similarly with what the Saracen had said. As a result, the three wise men were very pleased, for the Gentile had understood and retained their words; and together they said to the Gentile that it was clear they had not spoken to a man without heart or ears. After recounting the above matter, the Gentile stood up and his understanding was illuminated by the path of salvation, and his heart began to love and to bring tears to his eyes, and he worshiped God saying these words:

Prayer

“Ah! Divine, infinite, sovereign good, which is origin and fulfillment of all good!

To Your holy goodness, O Lord, I give reverence and honor; to it I attribute and give thanks for the great happiness I have received.

“Lord God, I adore and bless Your greatness, which is infinite in goodness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, perfection.

“Glory and praise be given to Your eternity, O Lord, for it is without beginning or end in goodness, greatness, power, wisdom, love, perfection.

“Lord God, that power You possess, which is infinite in Your goodness, greatness, eternity, wisdom, love, perfection, I worship and fear and honor above all other powers.

“Lovable God, who within Yourself have infinite wisdom in Your goodness, greatness, eternity, power, love, perfection, and in everything You have created, Your wisdom, O Lord, I love and worship with all my physical and spiritual strength.

“Your love, which is not an ordinary love, but a love above all other loves, a love which is perfect in Your perfect goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom—that love of Yours, O Lord, I worship and love, and to it, with all my will, with all the strength of my intellect and will all that Your love has seen fit to give me, I give everything, O Lord, to serve and honor and praise Your love every day of my life.

“Divine perfection, You who are the light and cure of all imperfections, who are the hope of all sinners, and who are infinite through all Your goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, to You I turn and to You I ask forgiveness and grace and counsel and help as to how to serve You and to recover, through You, the days I lost through ignorance and wrongdoing.”

After the Gentile, with sighs and tears and true contrition of heart, had worshiped the flowers of the first tree, he beseeched and asked God’s grace and blessing to give him the flowers of the fourth tree, saying these words: “Ah, true faith, you who have taken so long in coming to enlighten my intelligence that my past days are lost and irrecuperable! Ah faith, which is unknown in the land I come from, on account of which ignorance so many men go to everlasting fires! Sweet faith, you are welcome in my soul, for it has been enlightened through you and in you, and you have banished from my mind the darkness in which I have existed all my life. Pain, ire, despair, anguish, tribulations, all these you have banished from my heart. To the God of glory I give thanks for you, and I beg that, by His virtue, you remain in me as long as I shall live, and that I serve you by recounting and spreading abroad your virtue and your fame and your honor.

“Hope, my friend, where have you come from and where have you been? Do you know the despair I have suffered for such a long time? While despair tormented me so grievously, why did you not come and help me against your enemy? Hope, you who are the consolation of the disconsolate, the wealth and treasure of the poor, you who strengthen the weak against the strong and cause the God of Glory to be in the heart of those who desire and love Him, you have entered my heart so strongly that from now on I shall no longer fear your contrary who has so long been my mortal enemy. In you, through you and with you I place my trust and hope in my Lord’s great power, that He fulfill my desire to honor and serve God, and make Him known among those who neither love nor know Him. I shall not despair of my poor power, knowledge, and will, nor shall I despair of my grievous and many sins, for you make me remember the great mercy of that Lord who can accomplish anything, can give any grace and can forgive any sin.”

While the Gentile was saying these words, he frequently knelt down and kissed the ground, and raised his hands and eyes heavenward. He then conceived the desire, with the help of created charity, to worship and contemplate uncreated divine charity, worthy of all honor.

“Ah charity, lovable virtue! Whoever has and loves you is pleasing and lovable by that divine charity which eternally and infinitely loves whatever loves. Charity, you who give of yourself to everyone who will have you, and of whom they may take as much as they want, by what stroke of fortune were you willing to have me beneath your sway without my recalling, knowing, or loving you? Fortune, who has long been my enemy, has, by putting me in your hands, healed all my injuries; but since I am a poor sinner, and since you have made me so love God and my neighbor, how could I repay the great good I have received through you? Alas, wretched creature that I am! In what poverty and misery are all those who neither love nor know charity! And of what use to a man’s heart are riches and blessings without charity? Sweet God, You who have enlightened and warmed me by the fire of charity, enlighten and warm with charity all those poor people lacking in charity who live in the land I come from, by which poverty they will be brought, through paths of darkness, to infinite, everlasting fire, where torments will not cease and where hope will be unable to hope for any alleviation.

“Do not let us forget justice in our prayer, for divine justice knows all my faults and can rightly punish me for all my failings. Whatever divine justice does with me, whether it punishes me and condemns me to everlasting torment, or pardons me to everlasting blessing, in every way I worship and bless God’s justice. Let Him do with me what He will, for charity makes me love, fear, and worship God in His justice, which is always on the side of righteousness. And therefore, let my justice make me desire whatever God’s justice would do with me.

“Prudence, you who are the light of salvation by which wise men go to the divine radiance that illuminates all those who love it, my understanding has long been in darkness because you were not part of it. But since you have now brought me such happiness, I beg you from now on not to let my soul be without you. And may it please the high, excellent, lofty, sovereign good that through you I may have knowledge and light from sovereign wisdom, which gives its light to you and to all other lights; and that through grace and the illumination of this sovereign light you may help me to give light and direction to so many men who are in a state or in times of darkness, ignorant of the path of salvation.

“Fortitude, who strengthens noble hearts so they do not succumb to wickedness or deceit, would you strengthen the weak heart of a lazy, fearful man so that he could suffer the hardships, dangers, and deaths necessary to give praise, glory, and blessing to the name of that Lord who is worthy of all honor and who wishes to be so honored that for the sake of serving Him no torments are feared? Could charity, justice, prudence, and you (together, perhaps, with hope) agree to come to my land and there do the same good I have received from God through you?

“Temperance, abstinence, patience, perseverance, and the other virtues, what are you doing? Do not sleep, for the vices that are your contraries are awake night and day, and they never cease their work of destruction in the hearts of people who are gluttonous, lustful, avaricious, accidious, proud, envious, and full of ire.”

While the Gentile was speaking these words, he realized and saw that his eyes were not crying or shedding their usual tears. And in order that his heart bring to his eyes the water it once had—that which had bathed his eyes in tears—he wanted to recall in his heart the seven mortal sins, and he therefore said:

“Ah, how evil is the servitude of those who are serfs and captives of gluttony! For gluttony gives its servants continual torments; and it spares no one, neither rich nor poor; it brings death closer, and fattens our bodies, so that in a short time they become food for worms.

“Lust, you who not only soil the body, but also soil and deface the memory that recalls you, as well as the intellect that understands you and the will that desires you. And you are such a filthy thing that you are ugly and horrible to see and touch.

“Avarice, you who impoverish the rich and bring the poor beneath your sway, you who make men despair of God who alone can dispense every good, what do you do in this world to make the rich despise the poor and the poor hate the rich?

“Accidie, you who are a sign of damnation in those beneath your sway, and you who make men so indolent in praising and loving God (who is worthy of such praise and such great honor), when will you reward those whom you keep needy and poor, and why do you send them to Hell since they carry out so well your command not to love?

“Pride, if humility were naught, what would you be? And if humility raised you up instead of pulling you down, how great you would be! And just because you cannot be in glory, why do you prevent the humble from going there? For theirs is the glory you have lost and from which you have fallen.

“Envy, you who are sadness of soul, if you do not die while there is still time, when will you die? And if you are never satisfied envying what you do, why do you still desire it? And if you are always taking, when will you give? And if in so many things you employ deceit and treachery, is there nothing in which you are true and loyal?

“Ire, you who are darkness of thought and darkness of intellect and mortal will, contrary to charity, what are you doing among us, and why do you keep us from loving the honor of our Lord, who loves the honor of all His servants and scorns all those who follow you?”

While the Gentile was speaking these words, he realized and saw that his eyes were still not shedding tears, and he said: “Ah, miserable wretch, what is it that keeps your eyes from crying? For if you do not do so, when you can, for joy at the great happiness that came to you by chance (how, you do not know), and if you do not cry for your wrongs and for your sins while you have the chance, when will you cry, you worthless thing? And yet before this day you were crying, because you thought that after your death you would be nothing.”

While the Gentile spoke these words, along with many others it would take too long to recount, his soul endeavored to recall, understand, and love divine virtue, which at last enabled his heart to bring tears to his eyes.

For a long time the Gentile cried sweetly and devoutly, saying: “Ah, God of virtue! How great is the difference between the tears I used to shed and those I am shedding now! For those tears tormented and afflicted the thought of my heart, and these tears are so agreeable and pleasant, and they enliven my soul with such great happiness that I would want no better happiness in the whole world than to have my soul remain in this uninhabitable spot in a continual state of loving, and my eyes forever in tears. Yet I must go from land to land, and I must return to my own land, and I must spread word of God’s honor among those who do not know God—that God through whom such good has come to me. To this end I must strive all the days of my life; and may it please you, Lord God, to let neither hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, weariness, people’s scorn, sickness, torments, nor being abandoned by one’s lord, nor leaving one’s wife, sons, daughters, friends, or worldly possessions, nor to be exiled nor to suffer cruel death, nor any other thing, banish from my heart the thought of your honor nor the praising of your glorious name.

“Lord God, You who give and forgive so many things, may it please You to forgive Your guilty sinner who asks Your forgiveness and who begs the blessed saints in glory to thank You for the good You have done me, for which I alone could not thank You sufficiently. In this hour, O Lord, forgive this sinner who gives You his soul and all his powers, so that he may go in Your path and perform those deeds by which You wish to be served by those beneath Your sway.”

In this way the Gentile worshiped and blessed and thanked his Lord and his Creator. And so great was his endeavor to worship and praise God and to beg forgiveness for his faults, that the three wise men had great pity on him, and marveled at how nobly he prayed. And so great was the devotion they saw in the Gentile that in their souls their consciences made them uneasy and reminded them of the sins in which they had persevered; and all the more so when they realized that the Gentile, in so short a time, had conceived greater devotion in giving praise to God’s name than they who had known of God for a long time.

How the Three Wise Men Took Leave of the Gentile

When the Gentile had finished his prayer, he went to the lovely spring and washed his hands and face, because of the tears he had shed, and dried himself with a white cloth he carried, the one he had formerly used to wipe away his continual tears of sorrow. He then sat down next to the three wise men and said: “Through God’s grace and blessing, I happened to meet you gentlemen here where God saw fit to remember me and take me as His servant. Blessed be the Lord, therefore, and blessed be this place, and may God bless you, and blessed be God for making you want to come here! And in this place, where I have received such good fortune, in the presence of you gentlemen, I want to select and choose that religion which, by the grace of God and by your words, seems to me to be true. And in that religion I want to be, and I want to work for the rest of my life to honor and proclaim it.”

When the Gentile had spoken thus and stood up in order to kneel, and kneeling, proclaim the religion he preferred, he saw far away, coming through the forest, two Gentiles who were from his land, whom he knew, and who were in the same error in which he had once been. And the Gentile therefore said to the three wise men that he wanted to await the arrival of these two Gentiles, so that he could proclaim the true religion in their presence. The three wise men then stood up and most agreeably and devoutly took leave of the Gentile. Many were the blessings the three wise men wished on the Gentile, and the Gentile on the three wise men; and their leave-taking and the end of their conversation was full of embraces, kisses, tears, and sighs. But before the three wise men left, the Gentile asked them in astonishment why they did not wait to hear which religion he would choose in preference to the others. The three wise men answered, saying that, in order for each to be free to choose his own religion, they preferred not knowing which religion he would choose. “And all the more so since this is a question we could discuss among ourselves to see, by force of reason and by means of our intellects, which religion it must be that you will choose. And if, in front of us, you state which religion it is that you prefer, then we would not have such a good subject of discussion nor such satisfaction in discovering the truth.” With these words, the three wise men returned to the city from which they had come. But the Gentile, looking at the flowers of the five trees and recalling what he had decided, waited for the two Gentiles who were coming.

What the Three Wise Men Said as They Returned

One of the three wise men said: “If the Gentile, who was so long in error, has conceived such great devotion and such great fervor in praising God, that he now states that in order to do so he would not hesitate to suffer any hardship or death, no matter how harsh it were, then how much greater should be our devotion and fervor in praising the name of God, considering how long we have known about Him, and all the more so since He has placed us under such obligation by the many blessings and honors He has given us and gives us every day. We should debate and see which of us is in truth and which in error. For just as we have one God, one Creator, one Lord, we should also have one faith, one religion, one sect, one manner of loving and honoring God, and we should love and help one another, and make it so that between us there be no difference or contrariety of faith or customs, which difference and contrariety cause us to be enemies with one another and to be at war, killing one another and falling captive to one another. And this war, death, and servitude prevent us from giving the praise, reverence, and honor we owe God every day of our life.”

When this wise man had finished, another began to speak, saying that people were so rooted in the faith in which they found themselves and in which they were raised by their parents and ancestors, that it was impossible to make them break away by preaching, by disputation, or by any other means man could devise. And this is why, as soon as one starts discussing with them, showing them the error of their ways, they immediately scorn everything one tells them, saying they want to live and die in the faith their parents and ancestors gave them.

The other wise man replied, saying: “It is in the nature of truth to be more strongly rooted in the mind than falsehood, since truth and being are in accord, as are falsehood and nonbeing. And therefore, if falsehood were strongly opposed by truth, continually and by many people, then truth would necessarily have to vanquish falsehood; and all the more so since falsehood never receives any help, great or small, from God, and truth is always helped by that divine virtue which is uncreated truth, which has created created truth for the purpose of destroying falsehood. But since men are lovers of temporal possessions, and lukewarm and of little devotion in loving God and their neighbor, they therefore care little about destroying falsehood and error; and they live in fear of dying and of suffering illness, hardship, and poverty, yet they do not want to give up their wealth, their possessions, their lands, or their relatives to save those who are in error, so they may go to everlasting glory and not undergo infinite suffering. And they should do this mainly in order to be counted among those who praise the name of God and proclaim His virtue, for God wants it to be proclaimed among all nations, and every day He waits to see how we will honor Him among those who dishonor, despise, and are ignorant of Him; and God wants us to do what we can to exalt His glorious name among us. For if we do what we can to praise God, how much more would God do as a result of having His name praised! For if He did not, it would be contrary to Himself and to His honor, which is impossible and against the conditions of the trees. But because we do not prepare ourselves to receive God’s virtue and blessing, nor to be his valiant servants, who praise him, strengthened by stout hearts to face any hardship to exalt His honor, God therefore does not bestow on us that virtue which must be present in those who, through God’s virtue, would destroy the error of people on the road to damnation who think they are on the road to salvation.”

While the wise man was speaking these words and many others, the three of them arrived at the place where they had first met by the city gates; and there they took leave of one another most amiably and politely, and each asked forgiveness of the other for any disrespectful word he might have spoken against his religion. Each forgave the others and when they were about to part, one wise man said: “Do you think we have nothing to gain from what happened to us in the forest? Would you like to meet once a day, and, by the five trees and the ten conditions signified by their flowers, discuss according to the manner the Lady of Intelligence showed us, and have our discussions last until all three of us have only one faith, one religion, and until we can find some way to honor and serve one another, so that we can be in agreement? For war, turmoil, ill will, injury, and shame prevent men from agreeing on one belief.”

Each of the three wise men approved of what the wise man had said, and they decided on a time and place for their discussions, as well as how they should honor and serve one another, and how they should dispute; and that when they had agreed on and chosen one faith, they would go forth into the world giving glory and praise to the name of our Lord God. Each of the three wise men went home and remained faithful to his promise.

Here ends the Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men. Blessed be God, by whose help it was begun and finished, and in whose charge it is committed and placed, and for whose honor it is newly edited and extracted from the Brief Art of Finding Truth, which most thoroughly investigates the cause and principles of all things in all fields of thought, in the liberal as well as the mechanical arts which book constitutes a doctrine and method for enlightening clouded minds and awakening the great who sleep, and for entering into union with and getting to know strangers and friends, by asking what religion they think the Gentile chose in order to find favor with God.

May he who dictated and wrote this book, as well as he who reads and studies it, find favor in God’s glory, and be kept in this world from those paths leading to infernal fires, on which those who incur God’s ire find themselves.

Here Begins the Fourth Book

When the Saracen saw that the time and hour had come for him to speak, he went to the spring and washed his hands, his face, his ears, his nose, and his mouth; and afterwards he washed his feet and other parts of his body, as a sign of original sin and cleanliness of heart. Afterwards he spread a cloth on the ground and knelt three times, touching his head to earth and kissing the ground; then, raising his heart, his hands, and his eyes heavenward, he said: “In the name of God the Merciful, the Mercifying, to whom all praise be given, since He is Lord of the world; Him I adore and in Him I trust, for He leads us on the straight path of salvation.” And the Saracen spoke many other words, as was the custom in his prayers.

After finishing his prayer, the Saracen said to the Gentile that the articles of his religion were twelve, namely: to believe in one God; Creator; Mohammed is Prophet; the Koran is the law given by God; the dead man, upon being buried, is asked by the angel if Mohammed is the messenger of God; all things will die, except God; Resurrection; Mohammed will be heeded on the Day of Judgment; we will give an accounting on the Day of Judgment; merits and faults will be weighed; all will pass along the path; the twelfth article is to believe in the existence of Paradise and Hell.

Article 1. To Believe in the Existence of One God

While the Saracen was looking at the trees, in order to choose the flowers he would need to prove the existence of one God, the Gentile said to him: “You don’t have to prove the existence of one God, because the Jew has already proved it quite adequately.” But the Saracen replied that he wanted to prove that God was not divisible, not separated into parts, nor compound. “Rather, in every way He is one, without there existing in Him any Trinity or plurality. For if there did, then He would have to be compound, and His goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, love, would have to be contrary to perfection; and since this is impossible, it is therefore evident that God does not exist in Trinity.”

When the Saracen said this, the Christian wanted to reply, but the Gentile said it was not his turn to speak, and that he himself would answer the Saracen. The Gentile therefore said to the Saracen: “Surely you remember that I put that same question to the Christian. Now, from what you say and from what I heard the Christian say, I realize that the Christian believes certain things concerning the Trinity of God, which are different from what you think he believes. It therefore seems to me that you cannot agree and live beneath the same faith and belief as the Christian. But let us leave this problem and continue with your articles, for there is no need to discuss this first article any further.” . . .

Article 3. That Mohammed Is Prophet

1. Goodness Greatness

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “There was a time when all the inhabitants of Mecca and of the City of Yathrib, where Mohammed was Prophet, were idolaters and had no knowledge of God, and were in the same error as you when you came here and had no knowledge of God. Now just as you needed consolation in your state of sorrow, so the above-mentioned people needed the help and enlightenment of faith. And since God’s goodness is great, He had pity on those people who were going astray through ignorance, and He decided to enlighten them and give them knowledge of Himself and His glory. And that is why He sent Mohammed as Prophet, so that he could enlighten them and give them knowledge of God; which enlightenment and knowledge are in accord with God’s great goodness, with which they could not accord if there had been no prophet. And since one good should accord with another, therefore, in God’s good and in the good Mohammed did when he guided those who had strayed, lies the proof that Mohammed is the Prophet of God.”

The Gentile replied, saying: “According to what you say, it would follow that God’s perfection is not in accord with His great goodness, as of necessity should be the case, for in the country I come from there are just as many people going to perdition, without anyone giving them knowledge of God. And since God’s goodness does not satisfy all needs, it is therefore contrary to greatness, with which it would be in accord if it could satisfy all needs. And if God’s goodness is contrary to greatness, it cannot possibly accord with perfection; and this is contrary to the conditions of the trees.”

The Saracen replied, saying: “It is clear that God gave man free will to do good and avoid evil. Now, if everyone were on the true path, those who are in fact on the true path would have nothing on which they could exercise their free will. God therefore allows some people to remain in error so that we, who are on the true path, can, for the love of God, go preach to them, convert them, and bring them to the path of salvation, so that we, as a result, may be more glorious in God’s glory.”

2. Power Prudence

“It is customary for a king to practice on his subjects whatever customs he wants. Now since in man God has created prudence by which he can know God’s great power, therefore, in order to demonstrate this great power, God has, at various times, sent prophets and transmitted customs to demonstrate that God has the power to make certain statutes at one time and others at other times. And this is why He sent the prophet Moses to give the law to the Jews, which law God saw fit to conserve until the coming of the prophet Jesus Christ, who was the spirit of God and was born of a woman who was holy and a virgin; and he gave the law to the Christians, which lasted until He sent Mohammed, who revealed to us the Koran, which is our law and the word of God. Now if God did not bring about these changes of customs and laws by different prophecies at different times, prudence would not be so enlightened in its knowledge of God’s power. And since that by which prudence can know God’s power must be in accord with being, therefore, in this being and in the concordance of God’s power and of prudence, it is made clear that Mohammed was God’s messenger.”

The Gentile replied: “According to the flowers of the trees and their conditions, it follows that God did not send one prophet to oppose the other, nor for one to deny or disbelieve what the other had prophesied about God. Thus, since the Christian religion and yours are contrary to one another, it is impossible that both be God-given. And if they are, then the flowers of the first tree must be in accord with falsehood against truth, which is impossible, Furthermore, if the situation were as you claimed, it would follow that God should send another prophet who would refute what Mohammed has said, and then another one after that, and so on infinitely until the end of the world, and that is impossible and against God’s wisdom, perfection. For any craftsman should love his work, so that by this love his work can achieve perfection, provided, of course, he has the necessary wisdom and power.”

3. Wisdom Pride

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “Mohammed was an uneducated man who could not read or write, and God revealed to him the Koran, which is a book of great wisdom and the most beautiful composition there is or could be; for all the men in the world, or all the angels or devils, could not compose so beautiful a work as the Koran, which is our law. Now since those men whom wisdom has made proud and vainglorious customarily look down upon those who are less wise, therefore God wanted to enlighten Mohammed, who had such great wisdom that he was able to divulge the Koran, which is the word of God, without becoming proud, in order to destroy pride and vainglory by exemplifying the humility of God, who so wanted to exalt the wisdom and humility of Mohammed. And since Mohammed had greatness of wisdom and humility, in this greatness of wisdom and humility is signified the fact that Mohammed was a prophet.”

4. Charity Justice

“It is only fitting that one should revere and honor a man who has charity and justice. Now since Mohammed is honored in this world by so many people, it is only right that in him justice accord with God’s charity; for if it did not, God would not allow him to be as honored as he is; and if He did, it would follow that injustice and honor would accord with charity against charity, dishonor and justice, and this is impossible; by which impossibility it is shown—by the honor with which God has so greatly honored Mohammed—that Mohammed is Prophet.”

The Gentile replied to the Saracen: “According to what you say, it follows that Jesus Christ, who is so honored in this world, is God, and that His apostles and other martyrs, who are so honored in this world, died on the true path. For if God did not allow those who died in falsehood to be honored in this world, then what was said of Christ must be true; and if it were, then your religion would not be true, nor would Mohammed be worthy of being honored or of being a prophet.”

5. Hope Gluttony

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “According to what is recounted in the Koran, which is the word of God, in Paradise there will be many great blessings: there will be all kinds of food that will be most pleasing to eat; there will be beautiful clothes, beautiful palaces, and beautiful rooms; and there will be many beds with many beautiful women with whom one will experience agreeable bodily pleasures. Now in order to destroy the gluttony, avarice, and lust of this world, God sent Mohammed so that people would place their hopes in the delights of Paradise and therefore not sin with the delights of this world. And since that by which hope and gluttony can be most contrary to one another must accord with being, and since hope and gluttony can be most contrary if there is the abovementioned happiness in Paradise, therefore in this greater contrariety, according to the conditions of the tree from which we picked the above-mentioned flower, is signified the fact that Mohammed is Prophet.”

The Gentile replied: “According to the conditions of the flowers, it follows that if one flower signifies the existence of a certain thing, then that flower must not be contrary to the other flowers, which signify the nonexistence of that thing. For if this were the case, the flowers could be contrary to one another, and that is impossible.”

Article 4. The Koran

1. Power Love

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “Mohammed was an uneducated man who could not read or write, and the Koran is the most beautiful composition there is or could be. Now if it were not for God’s will and action, Mohammed could not have written or composed such a beautiful composition nor put together such well-ordered words as those of the Koran. And since it is by God’s power that the Koran is such a beautiful composition, and since it was transmitted by Mohammed who was illiterate and did not himself have the power to compose such beautiful words, therefore the Koran must be the word of God.

“Power and love are in accord in God, and since in the Koran there are so many blessings that God promises those who know His glory, therefore the Koran shows us God’s great love for His people. And since no other religion promises men so many blessings as does the Koran, it is therefore evident that the Koran is more pleasing to God than any other law. And if this were not the case, it would follow that one could love God more if He promised lesser blessings rather than greater ones, which is impossible and against the conditions of the trees.

“If the Koran were not God-given, it would be contrary to the truth; and since truth has power over falsehood, and truth is pleasing to God and falsehood odious, and since the Koran cannot be refuted by the doctrines of the Christians nor by those of the Jews, it is therefore evidently God-given, in order to show the concordance existing between the power and will of God, which accord is based on the fact that the power can and the will wants what the Jews and Christians do not have the power to refute, even though they have the will to do so.”

2. Power Justice

“You should know, Gentile, that for both Christians and Jews the most honored and sought-after place in the world is a city called Jerusalem. In the beginning of the world, it was the principal city of the prophets. In that city Jesus Christ was crucified and killed, and there is His tomb, according to what the Christians believe. And this city the Saracens hold, have, and possess in spite of the Christians and Jews. And in that city the Koran is taught publicly, and no book or doctrine is so honored there as is the Koran. Now all of this bears witness to the power and justice of God, for since neither Christians nor Jews believe in the Koran, God punishes them in the most honored and sought-after place they have. It is therefore clear that the Koran is the word of God; for if it were not, it would follow that the power of God and justice would be contrary to the justice of the Christians and Jews, and this is impossible; by which impossibility it is made manifest that the Koran was transmitted and sustained by the power of God.” . . .

Article 5. The Questioning of the Dead Man in the Tomb

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “We believe that when a man dies and is buried, two angels ask him five things, namely: Who is God? From whom comes His law? What is His law? Is Mohammed His prophet? Is Mecca to the south? And if God has given him the grace to reply that God is his creator, his law comes from God, his law is the Koran, and that Mohammed is the messenger of God, and if he grants that Mecca is to the south, then, until the Day of Judgment, he will lie happily and comfortably in his tomb, and he will see Paradise with the glory God promises the blessed, and he will see the infernal punishments he will have escaped. And if that man denies the above-mentioned things and does not know the answers he should give, then the tomb will be tightened around him and he will be in pain and sadness until the Day of Judgment, and he will see the infernal punishments awaiting him, and he will see the glory of Paradise which he has lost.”

The above is an account of what Saracens believe happens to men when they die. Now, to prove this article, we will first pick the flower of . . .

1. Greatness Power

“So that God may prove the greatness of His power, in that by His power dead men can see the above-mentioned things from inside the tomb, He wants the above-mentioned questioning to take place. And since, without this questioning and vision, God’s power would not be so demonstrable, and since that by which God’s power is demonstrable accords with being, therefore in this greater demonstration and vision of power is the above-mentioned article shown to be true.”

Question. The Gentile said: “How can a dead man see all these things, when his body is without a soul, and since a body without a soul cannot see nor understand nor speak nor answer?”

Solution. “Some of us believe that God returns the soul to the body; others believe that the soul remains between the body and the winding sheet. Therefore, by virtue of divine power and by the fact that the soul is still in the tomb, a man can answer and see all these things. And if God’s power were not powerful enough for the dead man to do these things, it would follow that greatness and power were contraries in God, and this is impossible.”

Article 6. Death

1. Power Perfection

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “We believe that everything dies, except God; that is to say, men, angels, devils, and all living things. And this death will take place when the Angel Seraphim sounds the trumpet and then himself dies. And nothing that has life will remain alive, with the sole exception of God. Now to prove this article, the above-mentioned flower is suitable; for if all living things die, then power, perfection will be better signified in God, for greater power and perfection exist in a thing that is not mortal than in one that is mortal, since mortality signifies imperfection, and immortality perfection. And because that by which God’s power and perfection accord with greater nobility should be granted, according to the conditions of the tree, it is therefore shown that everything must and will die, with the sole exception of God.”

Question. The Gentile said: “According to the way I understand it, the conditions of the trees are so arranged that if greater nobility is shown to exist in God by one manner than by another, then one should assign less nobility to the contrary manner. Now if all things die, it is true that God’s power and perfection will seem greater in terms of the use made of His perfect, immortal power. But since even angels and the souls of saints who deserve life rather than death would die, God’s perfection would be against justice and against goodness, since death brings suffering and harm, which suffering and harm should not exist without guilt. Now since it is impossible for divine perfection to be against God’s justice, goodness, it is therefore shown that what you say is not true.”

Solution. The Saracen replied: “What you say would be true if God did not revive angels and souls again. But since they will all be alive again, and God will give them everlasting life, therefore God will be doing them no wrong in having them die, but rather He would be wronging Himself if in creatures He did not make use of His virtues so that they were seen in their greatest nobility and perfection.”

Question. The Gentile said, “Death is the separation of body and soul. Now if angels have no body, how can they die?”

Solution. The Saracen replied, “Angels will die by becoming nothing, and this is what we mean when we say they will die.”

The Gentile replied, “By making them become nothing, God would be contrary to that which accords with being, since the good angels, by the fact of serving God deserve to have being; and if they are naught, God’s virtues accord with nonbeing against being, and that is impossible.”

Article 7. Resurrection

While the Saracen was looking at the first tree, trying to choose a flower with which to prove the Resurrection, the Gentile remembered that in the first book the Resurrection had been proved quite satisfactorily, and he therefore said to the Saracen: “You don’t have to prove the Resurrection, for it was already proved well enough in the first book. But do please tell me in what way you Saracens think you will arise from the dead.”

The Saracen replied: “We believe that when all living things are dead, after forty days there will fall from the sky a rain as white as milk, and then men and beasts and birds and all other living creatures will germinate like grass. And the Angel Seraphim will sound the trumpet again, and the people will rise from the dead and shake the earth from their heads.

“Fire will come from the sky and the heat of the sun will be very great; and because of the great heat, people will lie down on the ground, which will be exceedingly white. And they will be bathed in sweat and their tongues will hang out, and it will seem to them that this day lasts fifty thousand years. More angels than all the men living on earth will come down from the first heaven; and from the second there will come twice as many; and then from the third, and so on, from one heaven to the next each time doubling the number, until the seventh heaven, from which God, along with the angels from that heaven, will descend, saying, ‘I would be unjust if on this day of Resurrection, any living creature escaped my taking revenge upon him for whatever injustice he had done.’ This, Gentile, is the way we believe the Day of Judgment will be, and there are many other things I could tell you, but it would take too long to recount. Since in this discussion we have agreed to talk as briefly as possible, I have therefore told you concisely what our Prophet Mohammed says in the Koran, and what our wise men say in their commentaries upon our Law.”

Article 8. How Mohammed Will Be Heeded

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “We believe that Mohammed will pray to God on behalf of his people and will be heeded. Now, before I prove this article by means of the flowers of the trees, I want to tell you how we believe Mohammed will pray to God and be heeded.

“On the day that everyone will rise from the dead, God will gather them all together in one place, and they will be suffering greatly from the heat to which they will have been subjected and from the sweat in which they will be bathed, for some will be in sweat up to their ankles, others up to their knees, others to their throat, others to their eyes, and yet others will be in sweat like frogs in water, and this will depend on how sinful each person has been.

“While these people are in pain and sweat, they will agree to go to Adam and entreat him to beg God to take them out of this pain, and to place in Paradise those who should be saved, and in Hell those who should be damned. But Adam will reply, ‘I would be ashamed to beseech God, since I disobeyed Him when I ate of the fruit He had commanded me not to eat’; to which Adam will add, ‘Go to Noah and have him pray for you.’ They will go to Noah and beseech him as they did Adam. Noah will reply, ‘I am not worthy of beseeching God nor of being heeded, for I forsook my people who perished on the day of the flood, and I would be ashamed to beseech God. But go to Abraham and ask him to pray for you.’ They will then go to Abraham and tell him the same thing they told Noah. Abraham will reply, ‘I am not worthy of beseeching God, for I lied twice: once when I told my father I had not broken the idols but that they had broken by themselves, and the other time when I said that my wife was my sister and not my wife. Thus, since I am not worthy of beseeching God nor of being heeded, I advise you to go to Moses and ask him to pray for you.’ They will go to Moses and ask him to intercede for them. Moses will reply, ‘I am not worthy of beseeching God nor of being heeded, for I killed a man and I commanded that all those who believed in the Golden Calf, making an idol out of it and worshiping it as if it were God, should die. So I advise you to go to Jesus Christ and ask him to intercede for you.’ They will go to Jesus Christ and beseech him, but he will turn down their request, saying that he is not worthy to beseech God nor to be heeded, ‘and I would be ashamed to beseech God on your behalf, since, without God’s permission, people worshiped me and believed in me as if I were God.’ And he will advise them to go to the holy Prophet Mohammed, so that he may pray for them. They will go to Mohammed, imploring him to beseech God to take them out of the pain in which they are, and to save whoever is to be saved and to condemn whoever is to be condemned. Mohammed will answer saying that he will gladly intercede for them; and at once, before God’s throne, he will kneel down and bow to the ground, and he will beseech God to deliver them from their suffering, and to put in Paradise whoever is to be saved and in Hell whoever is to be damned. While Mohammed will be beseeching God in this way, the voice of God will be heard in the sky, saying, ‘Mohammed, today is no time to pray or to implore. Ask and it shall be given; beseech and it shall be granted.’ Mohammed will then say that God should ask people for an accounting of their actions, so that whoever should go to Paradise may go there and whoever should go to Hell may go there. And God will reply that it will be done as Mohammed asks.

“This is one way, Gentile, that we believe Mohammed will beseech God and will be heeded. There is another way in which Mohammed will beseech God and be heeded: that is after God has passed judgment sending the good to Paradise and the wicked to Hell, and some sinners from among Mohammed’s people will find themselves in Hell, then Mohammed will pray for those people, and God will take them from Hell because of Mohammed’s prayers. And we believe in these two kinds of intercession, which of necessity must exist, as is signified by the conditions and flowers of the trees. And of this truth I offer the following proofs.”

2. Love Justice

The Saracen said to the Gentile: “We find that all the above-mentioned prophets, as we said before, committed sin after becoming prophets; on account of which sin they declined to beseech God, as we have recounted; but we do not find that Mohammed committed any sin after becoming a prophet. Thus, in order to demonstrate that God dearly loves justice and hates injustice, which is sin, Mohammed was honored over the other prophets in being heeded. And since this demonstration of the above flower would not be so complete without the above-mentioned article, therefore, according to the conditions of the trees, God wanted this article to accord with truth, in which concordance this article is provable.” When the Saracen had finished these words, both the Jew and the Christian wanted to reply, but the Gentile did not permit it.

Question. The Gentile said, “Tell me, did Mohammed commit any sin before he became prophet?”

Solution. The Saracen replied, “The truth is that Mohammed sinned through ignorance before he became a prophet, in that he believed in idols, as was the practice in his country, and in which practice his father and mother, who were idolaters, had brought him up.”

Diagnostic Questions

1. Describe the tone of these discussions. How does it compare to others?

2. What arguments might you have expected from the Jew? On what basis does he interact with Greek philosophy?

3. Are the Jew’s arguments from infinity Aristotelian or biblical?

4. How accurate are the Gentile’s assessments of Islam? Why does Lull have him speak instead of the Christian?

1. Anthony Bonner, “Historical Background and Life of Ramon Llull,” in Doctor Illuminatus: A Ramon Llull Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 5.

CHAPTER 16

Girolamo Savonarola

(1452–1498)

In his fascinating introduction to apologetics,[1] Benjamin B. Warfield reckons that “the whole theological activity of the Middle Ages was so far ancillary to apologetics, that its primary effort was the justification of faith to reason.” Thus, every theologian was in effect an apologist. He then adds that a different factor was added at the Renaissance, the repristination of heathenism, calling for a series of new apologists, including Girolamo Savonarola.[2] Savonarola may be one of the reasons authorities became so suspicious of local attempts to reform, in Italy as well as in France, a few years later.

Savonarola was born in Ferrara, Italy, and in 1475 became a Dominican monk. His early concern over a corrupt clergy is evidenced by his poem “De Ruina Ecclesiae” (“On the Downfall of the Church”), in which he likened the Roman curia to a prostitute! He was sent to Florence briefly in 1482 and then permanently in 1490, invited officially by Lorenzo de’ Medici, ruler of Florence and great diplomat and patron of the arts, who has come to symbolize the Renaissance at its apex. He invited Savonarola to reside in Florence at the behest of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the nobleman humanist philosopher whose own views, published as 900 Theses, were condemned by the pope.

From the pulpit of San Marco, Savonarola proclaimed an apocalyptic message. Known as the “son of Thunder,” he preached about the last days and claimed direct communications from God about the impending judgment on the city and the world. While such preaching was not uncommon in those days, three events gave special authority to Savonarola’s message. The first was the French Italian wars, which had the effect of weakening the Medici family’s power over Florence and dramatically increasing the level of poverty there. The second was the spread of syphilis, known as the “French pox,” likely introduced into the city by sailors who brought the disease from the New World. It was as deadly as the Bubonic Plague. (The French attempt to rename this plague the “Neapolitan disease” was unsuccessful!) The third was the approach of the year 1500, which triggered new interest in the millennium and judgment.

Soon Savonarola aimed his messages at the Medici family themselves. In 1494, the French invaded Florence and deposed the family, whereupon Savonarola was declared ruler of the city. He began attempting to make it into a “Christian and religious Republic” where the laws were meant to conform to biblical regulations. We derive the expression “bonfire of the vanities” from the actual fire in 1497 at the famous Florentine carnival, in which books, poems, paintings, fine clothing, and even cosmetics were set ablaze. Though opposed by the Duke of Milan and Pope Alexander VI, Savonarola continued to restructure the city along radical principles.

Soon, however, the people tired of him. Since no divine visitation seemed to occur, various youth riots cropped up, and then dancing, drinking, gambling, and the like were reintroduced. In 1498 he and two close associates were captured and put to death, tortured and burned in the same place as the Bonfire of the Vanities. It is hard to know how much influence Savonarola wielded. He has certainly had his admirers through the centuries. Upon his death a group known as the Piagnoni arose to preserve the memory of his teachings. Macchiavelli called him an “unarmed prophet.” Erasmus is said to have stayed in the church because of reading his books. Charles Haddon Spurgeon hailed him as the courageous pre-Reformation critic of both popery and rationalism, the man for whom “truth was the Empress of his soul.” Canonization has been sought in the past century but has been opposed by the Jesuits.

The Triumph of the Cross against the World’s Wisdom

Our interest here is Savonarola’s approach to apologetics. He often used metaphor and powerful imagery to convey the idea of judgment.[3] Among the most effective imagery was that of a triumphal procession. Il trionfo della croce was penned in 1497 and begins with a dramatic depiction of the wounded Christ on a chariot, riding through the streets, carrying a cross, the Bible, and other symbols of faith. He is surrounded by the virgin and by Old Testament saints, as well as hordes of martyrs and contemporary holy persons. Finally, there are the masses of unsaved ones, enemies of Christ, including philosophers, kings, heretics, slave and free, men and women of every nation.

Such vivid imagery shows Savonarola to be in the league with some of the great Renaissance artists. In book 2, the text becomes a more traditional apologetic, inspired by Thomas Aquinas’s reasonable defense of God’s existence. Savonarola sets forth various grounds for acknowledging the Christian faith as divinely revealed. Interestingly, he commends the faith far less by proofs from prophecy or miracle than by the fruit it bears in the life of the believer. Book 3 lists the main Christian doctrines and commandments, showing them to be compatible with reason. Book 4 is a demonstration of the truth of the faith from the bankruptcy of the alternatives: paganism, Judaism, heresy, and Islam (“the sect of the Mohammedans”).

Reading this text for itself would not betray the authorship of a preacher who so troubled his city that he was sent to death at the stake. Savonarola’s basic doctrine is little different from that of Thomas, a fact of which he reminded his accuser Pope Alexander VI in a letter of 1497. Unlike Savonarola’s theological mentor, though, his writings have a warmth and passion that puts Christ, crucified and raised, and the experience of the Christian life, at the center.

The Triumph of the Cross against the World’s Wisdom

by Fra Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, of the Order of Preachers

Book I.

The Truth of Our Faith Made Manifest

in the Triumph of the Cross

Prologue

The glorious triumph of the Cross embraces so many mysteries that, in attempting to unfold them, and thus to silence the profane and foolish babble of worldly-wise philosophers, I am undertaking a task far above my powers, and can trust only to the help of the Lord.

It would seem mere waste of time to discuss and analyse our Faith, based as it is upon the miraculous works of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which are patent to the whole world, and upon the teaching of venerable theologians. Nevertheless, there are nowadays men living in such bondage to vice, that, even in the light of the noonday sun, they grope in darkness, and scorn the marvels of heavenly science. I, therefore, on fire with zeal for the House of God, intend, for the sake of the salvation of these misguided men, and in order to rouse them from the slumber that oppresses them, to recall to their memory the things of Christ, which they have forgotten and thrust from their hearts.

Our Faith cannot be demonstrated by natural principles and causes. Nevertheless, the past and present events of Church history afford arguments in support of our religion so convincing that no logical mind can reject them. At the same time, no one believes that Faith itself depends upon these arguments, seeing that it is “the gift of God; not of works, that no man may glory” (Eph. ii. 8, 9). We make use of these arguments indeed; but we do so in order to confirm the faith of such as waver, to prepare unbelievers for the reception of supernatural light, and to enable the faithful to confute the arguments of irreligious men; and thus, by exposing their folly, to undeceive the simple and unlearned who have been misled by them.

This use of human reasoning does not detract from the value of Faith; for the axiom that faith proved by argument has no merit, refers only to the faith of such as refuse to believe without proof. They who, being enlightened by God, embrace the Faith without proof, and who then, in order to strengthen their own belief and that of others, investigate the grounds of their faith, deserve commendation, and obey the precept of St. Peter: “Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy everyone that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you” (I Peter iii. 15). In this book we intend to be guided by reason only. We shall not, then, appeal to any authority, but shall proceed as if we had no belief in anyone in the world, no matter how learned he may be. We shall rely solely on reason. Such a mode of procedure must, surely, satisfy everyone who is not absolutely foolish.

Chapter 1. How by Means of Visible Things We Arrive at the Knowledge of Such as Are Invisible

The senses, in which all our knowledge originates, take cognisance only of extrinsic corporeal accidents. Our understanding, on the other hand, is enabled, by its subtlety, to penetrate to the substance of natural things, and thence to rise to the knowledge of such as are invisible and immaterial. Thus, by the investigation of the substance and properties, the order, the causes and the activities of visible things, we are led, by little and little, to the understanding of invisible substance, and, at length, to the knowledge of the Divine Majesty; just as, by means of the external accidents and operations of man, we arrive at the understanding of his soul, and of its invisible parts. Philosophers, from the contemplation of the universe—of the heavens with their magnificence; of the elements with their divers motions and operations; of the variety and activity and individual perfections of the things composed of these elements; and of the wonderful harmony and greatness and beauty of this visible world—have raised their eyes to gaze upon invisible things, and to investigate (so far as might be) their nature and properties. And, as these philosophers have understood that natural things are the work of God’s hands, and are the means of arriving at a knowledge of His infinite power and glory, we likewise desire to show that those things which have been seen, and are still witnessed, in the Church of God, are Divine works, by which we may attain to the knowledge of the glory and Infinite Majesty of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is unseen by us.

Sages of old were wont to marshal before their eyes all the visible things of the universe. Thus, the wonderful works of nature constrained them to acknowledge God as the First Cause of all things, and natural phenomena as the creation of His unerring wisdom. We, in like manner, must bring together before our minds all the wonderful works of Christ, whereby we desire to prove that He was the First Cause of all things, and that all His doings proceeded from God, who cannot err. We would not be understood to say, that these proofs cause Christians to believe; for they are established in their faith by the supernatural light of God (otherwise, their belief would be, not faith, but opinion). But such testimonies confirm us in our Faith, and prove to our adversaries that we believe, not lightly, but thoughtfully and with deliberation. In order the better to bring the works of Christ, which are continually being performed in the Church, before the eyes of men, we will describe them under the figure of a triumphal car, the figure of the entire universe.

Chapter II. How the Triumph of Christ Testifies to the Truth of Our Faith

As the power, wisdom and goodness of God are infinite, they could not be manifested (save most imperfectly) in one creature. Therefore, philosophers have been wont to contemplate the Divine Majesty, revealed in the harmony of the universe, resulting not from one but from numberless creatures, which, on account of their necessary dependence one on the other, can with ease be considered simultaneously. In like manner, we cannot understand the power and wisdom and goodness of Christ by contemplating only one of His works.

We must recall to our minds all the wonders which He wrought. Thus we shall be constrained, not on one count alone, but for many reasons, to acknowledge His Divinity. For, should we not be convinced by one of His miracles or arguments, we cannot (unless we be obstinate) fail to be persuaded when we consider His works and teaching collectively. But, although it be easy, by reason of their mutual dependence, to consider all the marvels of nature collectively, it is not equally easy to contemplate all the works of Christ at once. It has, therefore, occurred to me to present them under the figure of a triumphal car, a similitude easy of comprehension to the feeblest intellect.

Let us, then, represent to our minds a four-wheeled chariot on which is seated Christ, as Conqueror, crowned with thorns, and bearing the marks of His wounds, thus showing that it is through His Passion and death that He has overcome the world. Over His Head shines a light like a triple sun. This represents the Blessed Trinity, which illuminates His Humanity and the whole Church with unspeakable splendour. In His left hand Christ holds the Cross and the instruments of His Passion, in His right the Old and the New Testaments. At His Feet are the Host and chalice; vessels of balsam and of oil; and the other symbols of the Sacraments. The Blessed Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, is seated beneath her Son. Around, and below her, are vessels of gold, silver and precious stones, filled with ashes and bones of the dead. The Apostles and Preachers go before the car, appearing to draw it. They are preceded by the Patriarchs, the Prophets, and innumerable men and women of the Old Testament. The chariot is encircled by the army of Martyrs, forming as it were a crown. They, again, are surrounded by the Doctors of the Church, bearing open books. Around them, again, circles a countless multitude of virgins, of both sexes, adorned with lilies. Behind the car follow innumerable men and women of all conditions—Jews, Greeks, Latins, barbarians, rich and poor, learned and simple, small and great, old and young; all of whom, with one accord, are praising Christ. And, all around this multitude, gathered from the Old and from the New Testaments, are the serried ranks of the enemies of the Church of Christ—emperors and kings; princes and men in power; sages; philosophers; heretics; slaves and freemen; men and women; people of every race and of every tongue. Whilst around them lie idols, prone and broken, heretical books burnt, and all sects, and every false religion confounded and destroyed.

Now the chariot which we have described symbolises a new world, from whence shall spring a new philosophy. Its first cause, and the invisible things which become known to philosophers by means of visible things, are represented by the figure of the Blessed Trinity, True God, above the Head of Christ which represents His Manhood, and by the innumerable company of Angels and Blessed Spirits, who are all unseen by us. We must arrive at the knowledge of these spiritual beings by means of the visible beings grouped around the chariot. And, just as philosophers teach that the heavens are the cause of all things produced beneath them, so we say that, after the Divine Majesty, the chief cause of grace and salvation is the Passion and Cross of Christ. Beneath the firmament are the elements, which derive all their activity from the heavens; so to the Passion of Christ succeed the Sacraments of the Church, deriving all their power from It. The elements are followed in the natural world by particular causes, such as seeds and the like. In our triumph, the seed is represented by the teaching of the Gospel, and by the works and example of the Saints whose relics repose in honour in glorious tombs, and the memory of whose merits and holy lives produces continual fruit in the Church. Particular causes are figured by the Apostles, Patriarchs, Prophets, Martyrs and Doctors; who, while they lived, regenerated, by their teaching, the whole world to Christ. Lastly, as in the natural order effect follows cause, we represent effect by the countless men and women who have been converted by the example and the preaching of the Saints. But, as in nature, every movement is from one contrary to another, and the generation of one thing is the destruction of something else (for in all reproductions there are two opposing forces, of which the stronger prevails), so, in the spiritual generation, Christ and His elect have vanquished His enemies, represented by heresy, prostrate around the triumphal car. The four wheels of the chariot signify the four quarters of the world, so marvellously enlightened by Christ, and by Him brought into subjection.

And, as philosophers, having before their eyes the order of the universe, and considering the wonderful effects of nature, did, by searching for their causes, ascend gradually from the lower to the higher, and attained to the knowledge of invisible things and of the Divine Majesty; so, if we examine attentively the works which Christ has performed, and still does perform, in His Church (represented by this chariot), we shall begin to be filled with wonder, and shall diligently seek the cause of those works, and thus shall, gradually, rise to the knowledge of invisible things, and of the Divine Majesty of Christ.

Chapter III. Containing Certain Fundamental and Irrefragable Principles

If an argument is to be conducted satisfactorily, the disputants must agree with each other about some point. For, if they disagree on every point, there will be no possibility of discussion. They may, or may not, of course, think alike on matters of minor importance; but they must agree about certain principles, which are so generally accepted that no one denies them. We must, therefore, take up our position on certain acknowledged principles. We cannot argue with one who denies them; for he who refuses to accept first principles is unreasonable. First, then, we are all agreed that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Jews, and was afterwards, throughout almost the entire world, adored as God, as we Christians adore Him. This fact is admitted by Jews, heretics, Mahometans, Greeks, Latins and barbarians; the belief in it has never died, but has been handed down, from generation to generation. Testimony to this conviction is, further, forthcoming in the books written in every language and diffused throughout the world, and in the ruins of Christian churches to be found in every land. These are proof positive that there is not a spot on the face of the earth where Christ has not been worshipped, or is not still adored, or where, at least, there is not some knowledge of Christianity. Hence, even unbelievers speak of Christ as the God of the Christians.

If, therefore, no reasonable being will controvert that which is made manifest by the books and the monuments of every nation; he who should deny that Christ was slain by the Jews, and was afterwards adored as God throughout the world, must be so foolish, that argument with him would be waste of time: And, if it be acknowledged that the adoration of Christ has been universal, the same must be said of the confession of the Blessed Trinity, and of the Eucharist, the veneration of the Cross, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Saints. The same evidence demonstrates, further, that the Apostles, who were at first fishermen, preached the Cross of Christ; that they were preceded by the Jewish people, the Patriarchs and Prophets; and that they were followed by the glorious Martyrs, the venerable Doctors, the spotless Virgins of the Church, and likewise by an untold number of monks and priests, both regular and secular. Finally, we must remember that, although the tyrants and the philosophers of the world have fought against the Church, idolatry, nevertheless, has been destroyed, heresy has been extirpated and even the Roman Emperor has been brought into humble subjection to the fisherman, and that the heretics and their heretical books have been destroyed. These things being so well known as to need no proof, we shall presuppose them, as philosophers are wont to presuppose the truths of science. For they are acknowledged, not only by Christians, but by nearly every people and in almost every country, yea even by Indians and innumerable Mahometans, amongst whom exist certain proofs of our faith, who admit that Christ has reigned amongst them and has worked miracles, and who, although they themselves are in grave error, yet punish severely all who blaspheme the Christian truths. Since, then, these truths are so clearly manifest, they can be gainsaid by none but such as are foolishly obstinate.

Chapter IV. Answers to the Objections Which May Be Brought against the Foregoing Propositions

But perhaps some one will say: If your assertions be true, surely it is strange that no pagan historian or orator should make any mention of them; but that they, who minutely describe the wars and other doings of men, should pass over in silence the works of Christ, which are so much greater and more wonderful. Exception must be made in the case of certain historians, who, wishing to refute Christianity, have rendered testimony to its truth.

To these objections we reply, that it is false to say that pagan historians have not written concerning Christ and His Church. For not only have many authors, both Greek and Latin, treated fully and eloquently of His praises, but many of them have been converted to His Faith, and have propagated it by their preaching and their writing. And, if our objectors should reply, that they allude not to those who, after their conversion, have written about Christ, but to those who have remained in their errors; our answer is, that our Faith has confirmed its converts to such a degree, that, not only have they written of the praises of Christ and of the Church, but they have not hesitated to shed their blood for His religion. For not only have those brought up from their infancy as Christians written in behalf of their Faith, but likewise innumerable and well-known men, of different nations, have embraced the truth in their more mature years. And it is a much more convincing proof of the truth of Christianity, that its converts should have died for it, than if they had remained heathens and had written volumes in its praise. What wonder that proud and incredulous men should have neglected to narrate the works of Christ, when, beholding His miracles, they refused to accept His Faith!

There are two further reasons why pagan historians have not written in praise of Christ. One reason is the providence of God; the other their own blindness. God moves all things, both corporeal and spiritual, and cares for all things; and no one can move himself to write, unless he be inspired thereto by God. Therefore, the heathen historians have not written of Christ, because God did not move them to do so.

Now, Divine Providence did not inspire them to write for three reasons. First, God ordinarily makes use of fitting means to achieve an end, and the pagan philosophers, who were stained by infidelity and other vices, were not fit to write of the pure and holy works of Christ and of His Church.

Secondly, as Christ is Truth itself, and came into the world to give testimony of the truth, it was not seemly that men, who, like the pagan poets, orators and historians, perpetuated lies and fables and praised the foulest deeds, should have defiled the pure truths of Christ by writing of Him.

Thirdly, the heathen orators had none but the eloquence which springs from natural reason; they sought rather to magnify themselves than to declare the truth. As the works of Christ, on the other hand, are above natural reason, it is evident that these pagans were not fit men to treat of them.

Another cause which prevented the heathen writers from bearing witness to Christ was the blindness, caused by their sins, especially pride and vain-glory, which so completely darkened their hearts that they took no account of the miracles wrought by Christ, such as the restoration of sight to the blind, the raising of the dead, and so many other wonders, which none but God could perform. Furthermore, as the heathen authors had been nurtured, from their infancy, in the worship of their gods, and in idolatrous fables, they, naturally, entertained a hatred for Christianity, the sworn enemy of idolatry. They would not, therefore, write anything in favour of the Church, both on account of their detestation of her, and for fear of exciting the displeasure of the tyrants who persecuted the Christians.

Again, we must remember that these poets and orators, by their egregious flattery, cultivated the good graces of princes, in the hope of being rewarded by them; and, as they knew that there was nothing to be gained from Christians who loved truth and professed poverty, it is not surprising that they did not write about Christ. Now, on the contrary, when the Church possesses temporal dominion, there is no lack of poets and orators to sing the praises of her princes and prelates; they often even mingle with their eulogies many things which are not true. If the Gentile authors did not espouse the cause of Christ, we need not go far to find the reason of their silence.

Chapter V. The Mode in Which Our Argument Must Be Conducted

Since we attain to the knowledge of the invisible by means of the visible, we must understand, that there are some among the invisible things of God which we can know by the natural power of our understanding, and by means of natural things. Such things are, the Existence of God, His Unity, His Simplicity of Being, and other truths of this sort, to the knowledge of which philosophers have attained. But there are others among the invisible things of God, which we cannot discover by means of human reason. This is not very strange, seeing that, even among men who are equal by nature, philosophers can understand high and subtle matters, of which children and simple persons must remain in ignorance. This being so, is it to be wondered at that in God there are secrets, which no created intellect can investigate? We cannot understand many of the things which we meet with every day; how then shall we comprehend God, who infinitely surpasses all things?

The Divine things which our natural reason is not competent to discover are those which we believe by Faith, to wit, the Trinity and Unity of God, the Divinity and Humanity of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and other truths of the like nature. But, although we cannot prove these truths by natural effects or human arguments, we may, nevertheless, make ourselves very sure of them by their supernatural effects. For, just as, by natural effects, we know that the propositions, “God exists,” and “God is One and Infinite,” etc., are true, and yet by means of them know not God as He is, nor behold His Substance; so also, by means of supernatural effects, we can certify ourselves of the truth of such propositions as “God is Three and One,” “the Son of God is both God and Man.” Yet we cannot understand, nor see these truths, as they are in themselves.

As nature precedes grace, we will first treat of those invisible things of God which we are competent to investigate by means of their natural effects, and afterwards of those which can be known by their effects which are supernatural. The truths of the first category, however, we will consider very briefly, since Catholic theologians and philosophers have discussed them so thoroughly, as to leave no possibility of doubt.

Chapter VI. The Existence of God

If we do not mean to stultify our whole argument, we must begin by proving the existence of God. What do we mean by God? All men use this name to designate that which is higher and more excellent than all other things. Some call this Highest Being the Prime Mover of all things; others call it the First Cause and Principle, or the Highest Good and Supreme Truth. But, whatsoever God may be called, if His name expresses the highest and superexcellent nature, His existence must be acknowledged. This is admitted even by philosophers. It is of His existence that I wish briefly to speak.

Philosophers have proved, most effectually, that everything that moves is moved by something else. Even though men and brutes move themselves, there is in them one thing that moves and another that is moved; for the body cannot move when abandoned by the soul. And, since every movement under the heavens depends on the movement of the heavens, there must be some substance that moves the heavens. Now, does that substance itself move, or does it not? If it does not move, it must be God, who moves all things, but is Himself immovable. But if the substance move, it must then be moved by something else. Now, is that something else immovable, or is it also moved? If it be moved, who moves it? If we continue this chain of argument, we shall see that there must either be one First Mover, or else an infinite series of movements with no First Mover.

The second hypothesis is philosophically absurd. For, if there be no First Mover, on which other motors depend, nothing could move, and no order would reign among the highest things. There must, then, be one supreme Mover, whom we call God.

We can deduce a similar argument from the causation of things. Everything in the world is caused. Nothing can make itself. Since then many causes concur to the same effect, and one thing is always prior to another, we must either assume an infinite series of causes, or believe in One Supreme Cause, whom all men acknowledge as God.

Again, amongst natural things we see that one thing is always more true and more perfect than another. This could not be the case, did it not approximate more closely to some Supreme Truth and Perfection. We must, therefore, agree that there exists some Supreme Being. This can be no other but God.

Again, we see how, in the natural order, unintelligent beings proceed by the right means from their beginning to their end. This cannot happen by chance, since they always, or almost always, act in the same manner. There must, then, be some Intelligence that directs them. What can this Intelligence be save God?

To these arguments we may further add, that no natural inclination can be futile. Now all men are naturally inclined to believe in God. From the beginning of the world until now there has never been (as we know from their superstitious rites and sacrifices) any nation so rude and barbarous as not to believe in a God. Since, then, this belief has been common to every era, and to every nation, it must be based on natural instinct. Again, we see how men, when in danger and deprived of human aid, will, instinctively, invoke the assistance of God. This is another proof that belief in His existence is natural to the human soul.

Chapter VII. God Is Not a Body, nor the Form of a Body, nor Is He a Complex Substance

No true philosopher entertains the slightest doubt that God is not a body, nor the form of a body, nor a complex substance. It would be impossible that God should be a body, seeing that He is the immovable Mover of all things; for one body, unless it first move itself, cannot set another in motion. Again, as spirit is more noble than body, God, were He a body, would not be the noblest of all beings, neither would He be the Supreme Ruler, since the body is governed by the spirit.

We must further hold, that God is not the form of a body, as the soul is the form of the human body; because that which exists of itself is far more noble than that which exists in others. Consequently, as God is the most noble of all things, He must exist in Himself, and not in any body. Again, things composed of matter and of form are more perfect than matter alone and form alone; for the simple reason that the whole is always more perfect than its parts. If, then, God were the form of a body, there would be something more perfect than He; for the combination of matter and form would be more perfect than form alone. It would further follow that God could not act by Himself; since, as form has no being without matter, it cannot operate without matter. Hence, as God would need others for His operations, He would not be the First Cause.

It is, likewise, evident that God is not a complex Being, but Pure Act and Simple Substance; for every complex being depends on others, and composite bodies depend on those that are simple. Since, therefore, God is the First Cause, independent of all others, and the one on whom all things depend, He cannot be a complex Being, but must be Simple Act. Again, were He a complex Substance, He could not be the First Supreme Being in the universe; for complex bodies do not precede their parts, but result from them; and the union of these parts could not take place, had not some first cause preceded them. We must conclude, therefore, that God is Simple Substance and Pure Act.

Chapter VIII. God Is the Perfect and Supreme Good, and Is of Infinite Power; He Is in Every Place; and He Is Immutable and Eternal

If we believe (as we must) that God is Pure Act, we are also compelled to acknowledge that He is perfect, the Supreme Good, Infinite in Power, Ubiquitous, Immutable and Eternal. The greater the simplicity of an immaterial thing, the greater, likewise, will be its perfection. God being absolutely devoid of complexity, Pure Act, and Simplicity Itself, we must also conclude that in Him is supreme Goodness and Perfection.

Again, as everything possesses greater power and virtue, in proportion as it is raised above matter, and becomes more formal; God, as Pure Act, being supremely elevated above all imperfection, and in the highest degree Formal, must be infinite, and infinitely Powerful. And, just as particular effects are reduced to particular causes, universal effects must be reduced to universal causes. Now, being is the most universal of all effects, because it is common to all things; it must therefore proceed from an Universal Cause, which is God, who is the Cause of being, not only by giving it, but also by preserving it. And, since it is necessary that when the cause operates, it must join its power to its effect, God, being His own Power, must be united to the being of all things. Therefore He must be intimately in all things, because being is more closely allied to nature than any other thing.

God, being indivisible, must be in the whole universe, and wholly in each of its parts. He is likewise immutable; because everything that changes must needs be composite, and God, being Pure Act, can know no change. He must necessarily also be eternal; because, were He not eternal, He would be mutable, having beginning and end; and thus He would not be God, but a being dependent on other things, and consequently not the First Cause.

Chapter IX. God Is One

It is clear that there can be only one God, not many gods; for the Divine Nature being Simplicity cannot communicate Itself outside Itself. Every nature which is communicated to others, suffers composition, because it must suffer diversity of being. It is impossible therefore, that the Divine Nature should be shared by other beings.

If there were more gods than one, they would differ from one another; and the cause of their difference would be, either some imperfection, or some perfection. Were the cause an imperfection, the god that had it would not be God, because God is wholly perfect. Were the cause a perfection, the god that had it not, would, for the same reason, not be God. Thus there cannot be more Gods than one.

A third proof of the unity of God lies in the fact, that all things in the universe are most excellently ordered. This perfect order could not be the work of many; it must proceed from one. Among animals, such as bees and cranes, we see one ruler directing a multitude of subjects. And since art imitates nature, in the best human governments we, likewise, see power vested in one head, otherwise the government could not stand. In like manner, since the government of the Universe is of all forms of government the most perfect, we see that in it there is but one Supreme Lord and Ruler, who is God.

Chapter X. God Knows All Things Perfectly, and Acts of His Own Will, and Not from Natural Necessity

It is clear, from what has been said, that God knows all things. We see in the natural order, that those beings that are capable of knowing have a larger and more capacious nature than those that have no cognitive faculty. For, not only do they know their own form, but, being of a nature superior to matter, their cognitive power is able to receive the forms of other things. Hence the cognition of every cognitive form is ample and perfect, in proportion as that form is superior to matter. God, then, being Pure Act, i.e., superior to all matter and all potentiality, must possess the highest degree of cognisance, and the most complete understanding of all things.

God does not understand as men understand, i.e., by receiving the likeness of things into His understanding. For, being Simple Substance, His wisdom and His understanding are His nature, and being wisdom itself He knows all things of Himself. And, since the power of God is nought but God Himself, and He is likewise wisdom itself, His wisdom must comprehend His power; and as His power is infinite, His wisdom must alike be infinite.

Some men entertain the foolish opinion that God knows superterrestrial things determinately, but that His knowledge of earthly things is confused and general; in other words, that man knows more things, or has a more perfect knowledge of them, than has God. Yet, even in merely natural things, the greater and more perfect the power, the more things it embraces and penetrates; and the more elevated a human intellect, the greater is its range of understanding, and the more exquisite its subtlety. Since, then, the Divine understanding is supereminent, and infinitely perfect, it must necessarily penetrate all things to their innermost being. And, since it is Immutable and Eternal, it is necessary that it should have perfect knowledge, not only of all things past, present and future, but also of all those which might ever be called into being. Moreover, this knowledge has not only existed from all eternity, but continues in the present, and will endure for ever.

We must, further, affirm that God acts, not from necessity, but by His Understanding and Will. Nature acts in a certain order without understanding it; and, as there cannot be order without intelligence, the operations of nature must be governed by some superior intellect. Now, as the intellect which governs is higher than the nature which is governed, and as God is the First Principle of all things, it is evident that He must act, not by natural necessity, but by Understanding and Will.

That which acts by natural necessity is drawn by its nature to produce an effect as far as possible similar to itself. Now, as God is Infinite Power, He would, therefore, were He constrained by natural necessity to act, produce infinite things—which would be an impossibility. God produces things according as they exist in Himself as in their Cause. Even as a house exists in the mind of an architect who builds it by means of his intelligence and will, so God also creates all things by means of His Intelligence and Will.

Chapter XI. The Providence of God Extends over All Things

If our foregoing statements be true, there is no room for doubt that the Providence of God extends over all things; not merely over natural things, but over even the smallest human action.

The word Providence signifies a knowledge of the order of things, with an intention of reducing them, by fitting means, to their end. Therefore, as God is Supreme Wisdom, to Him it belongs to order and dispose of all things, as the First Cause, who acts on all things by His understanding, determined by His free will. And, as He is Supreme Wisdom, whose attribute it is to order all things aright, we must acknowledge that in Him is perfect Providence over all things.

Philosophers have never hesitated to recognise Divine Providence in the marvellous operations of Nature. The disordered and confused state of human affairs has, however, presented a difficulty to them, and has led some among them to deny the Providence of God over human things.

But, if we reflect, we shall see that it is foolish to deny the Providence of God in the conduct of human affairs, as well as in the order of nature. For the more noble things are, the more perfectly are they ordered; therefore, as man is the noblest of all beings, his operations must be ordered.

Again, as the wisest men take more thought and care for the things which are nearer to their end, than for those which are more remote from it, so, as man is nearer to God (the end of all things) than are natural things, it would be impossible to believe that, while Providence governs nature, it does not extend to human affairs.

Further, Divine Providence proceeds from the love of God; and the more God loves a creature, the greater is His Providence over it. Since, then, by giving to man a more perfect nature and a higher order of operation than He has given to natural things, God has shown that His love for man is greater than His love for natural things, we cannot doubt that His Providence, likewise, is exercised in human affairs.

Another proof of what we say lies in the fact that it is natural (as we see in the case of animals with their young) for all causes to exercise a certain providence over their effects. But as all secondary causes act only in imitation of God, the First Cause, it is evident that He must exercise Providence over all things, and especially over man, who is His noblest effect, and whom He loves more than other natural things.

We must further remember that, if God does not extend His Providence to man, it must be, either because He cannot do so, or knows not how to do so, or else will not do so. Since He is Infinite Power and Infinite Wisdom, it is vain to say that He cannot care for man, or knows not how to do so. To say that He will not do so, is to derogate from His Infinite Goodness; for none that is good spurns his own work, and no cause despises its own effect. Neither would it be a righteous work to care for imperfect things, and not for perfect ones. When even every good and wise man cares diligently for human affairs, how shall we say that the God of Infinite Goodness takes no heed of them?

Chapter XII. The End to Which Man Is Guided by Divine Providence

Since it is the work of Divine Providence to move all things to their end, and, since all things have their different proximate ends, they must be moved by different means. Irrational beings are led by natural instinct, and are rather ruled by others than self-governing. Man, however, having free will, can take thought for himself, and is moved towards his end by God, in such a way that he governs himself, by working together with God. It is, therefore, essential that he should diligently strive to discover what is the last end to which he is destined by Divine Providence; and what the means are whereby he must attain to it; that so he may be enabled to order his life conformably to the designs of God.

Philosophers have studiously endeavoured to search out the End of Man. In course of time, as their reasoning became more profound, and their investigation approached nearer to the truth, they concluded that the end of human life is the contemplation of Divine things. For this alone is the proper operation of the human soul, and it is not directed to any other thing as to its end, but is desired for itself, and unites man to God. Again, man so far suffices in himself to this operation, that for it he needs but few external aids.

This, in fact, is the end of all things that pertain to man. For all natural things are ordered for the body of man; his body is ordered for his soul; and all the powers of his soul serve to this contemplation, which requires that calm and freedom from passion which art and civil government are intended to procure for us.

It is thus evident that all things, both natural and artificial, are ordered to this contemplation, as to the last end to which Providence moves all men by means of moral virtues. It influences them, however, in such a way, as to leave them the freedom of their will. It is, likewise, clear, that if they will co-operate with the impulse of Providence, they will, by using the fitting means, attain to their desired end.

Chapter XIII. Man’s Last End Cannot Be Attained in This Present Life

If we give serious consideration to what has been said, we shall see how difficult, nay impossible, it would be for man to attain to his last end during the course of the present life. For, although it be true that beatitude is the last perfection of man, it is not every degree of contemplation of Divine things which can render a man happy. Although the contemplation of God forms the happiness of man, this contemplation must be perfect, with the fullest perfection of which human nature is capable. Whereas, during this mortal life, very few, scarce anyone indeed, can attain to this perfection. Perfect contemplation demands a fulness of knowledge to which the greater part of mankind can never arrive. Some men are hindered therefrom by physical ineptitude, or by some imperfection in those interior senses which are the instruments used by the soul in the pursuit of knowledge. Others again, are so obtuse, that they can scarcely understand the clearest matters; whilst others are unable to devote themselves to contemplation, by reason of the duties imposed on them, through family cares, and the necessities of social life. And even those who are able to free themselves from these trammels, must serve a long apprenticeship before they can attain to the perfection of knowledge and contemplation. This for two reasons. Firstly, remembering that we attain to knowledge of immaterial things by means of sensible things, it is only reasonable to expect that an extensive knowledge of material things should be required before we can hope to attain to a perfect knowledge of such as are in the highest degree spiritual. Secondly, in order to attain to perfect contemplation, purity of heart, quiescence of the passions, and the possession of moral virtues, are essential; and these things are rarely met with except among the aged, and even among them are not possessed save by such as have laboured diligently for their acquisition. The greater number of those living in the world, being still young, and, but few of them having opportunity to devote themselves to the contemplation of the Truth, it follows that but a small number will be able to attain to perfect happiness in this life.

Neither need we be astonished at the fact, that it is exceptional to find souls capable of contemplation, when daily experience convinces us of the limitations of human understanding, and of the ease with which men are deceived in purely natural matters. How much more easily may we be deceived in things which are Divine? All our knowledge of natural things springs from the senses, and what more fallible than the eye, which tells us that the sun is a tiny sphere, whereas it is much larger than our entire earth? Again, the imagination can so obscure the intellect, as to render it difficult for us to believe that any beings exist, save such as are corporeal.

Our understanding, again, often deceives us, persuading us to give credence to false and sophistical reasoning, as is proved by the many varying opinions even amongst clever men. The divers passions and affections of our soul, and our evil habits, are a further obstacle to our apprehension of the truth. If, then, our intellect be so shackled in its investigation of purely natural things, how much greater difficulty shall we not have in learning such as are Divine? The more we consider the hindrances which beset us in the acquisition of knowledge, the more clear it becomes that, if true happiness is only to be found in this life, very few amongst us can attain to it. Children, youths, women, and all such as are not capable of learning, and are occupied in human affairs, must be excluded from the chance of acquiring knowledge, and of attaining, through knowledge, to beatitude. Such an idea as this is, of course, absurd, since beatitude is the end of human life, and that for which all mankind is created.

But there is another reason which makes it impossible for man to be wholly happy in this life. This reason is, that happiness being the ultimate good of man, cannot be marred by any admixture of evil, and, being an all-sufficing good, it brings with it all other good; so that when perfect happiness is attained, nothing further remains for man to desire. But where shall we find, in this life, a man who wishes for nothing, and who, having a nature subject, as is our nature, to so many infirmities, enjoys, nevertheless, perfect immunity from every evil? Daily experience shows us, that even those who, like Priam, have been reputed happy, were beset by many misfortunes.

But let us assume that some one has, so far as it be possible in this mortal life, attained to the perfect contemplation of Divine things, and enjoys every other good, still even he cannot be called truly happy. For, since happiness means perfect tranquillity of the human heart, and since all men have a natural, an unceasing desire to know, this desire must be an obstacle to perfect repose, as long as knowledge be not complete. The number of things in the world which men do not know, and yet desire to know, is almost infinite. Philosophers, after lifelong study, and much learning, have died leaving much unknown. For the things of which we have knowledge form but a small portion of that which there is to know, and our actual knowledge is most imperfect. If, then, our intellect be so limited regarding natural things, how can we expect to understand such as are supernatural and Divine? The human heart cannot be satisfied with slight knowledge, but always desires more perfect knowledge. Thus it is, that the more it knows God, the more perfectly it desires to know Him; for natural impetus is swifter, as it nears the end, than at the beginning. Hence, it follows that, as we cannot, in the present life, attain to any perfect knowledge of God, neither can we enjoy perfect happiness.

But, supposing, for argument’s sake, that a man should attain, in this world, to full knowledge of all things natural and Divine, he would still fail to be perfectly happy; because perfect knowledge cannot be acquired save in old age, when death draws nigh. Even if this knowledge could be gained in youth, it would still be no safeguard against death. The desire for immortality is innate in all men; hence, all men desire to continue their lives, either in their children, or by some excellent work; for a wise man who loves a perfect life cannot fail to hate what destroys it. Therefore, were there no other life than this, the wisest man, yea, he whom we assume to be truly happy, could not fail to be saddened at the thought of death. A philosopher would not indeed banish the thought of death, for that would be the act of an unreasonable man; but neither can he be called happy, who has laboured all his life to acquire some good which he is unable to retain, and who knows not whether his end is to be in bliss, or in misery.

We see then, by the foregoing arguments, that, if there be no life beyond the grave, the lot of man is beyond measure wretched. For all other things are led by nature, and easily attain their end; but man is surrounded by difficulties, and either fails to find his end, or, if after much toil, he succeeds in finding it, he will be unable to retain it. That such should be the fate of the noblest of God’s creatures on earth must appear, even to the most unlearned mind, an absurdity.

Chapter XIV. The Soul of Man Is Immortal

The arguments set forth in the last chapter leave no room to doubt that there is another life; and that the human soul is immortal. For, as the Providence of God conducts everything to its own end, man, if his end be not attainable in this life, must be rendered capable of securing it in a life to come. Were it otherwise, the Providence of God would not extend to human affairs.

There is every proof of the existence of a germ of immortality in the human soul. The operations of the intellect cannot proceed from a physical force; because they extend beyond corporeal things, and are occupied with God. This argument has compelled philosophers to acknowledge the immortality and immateriality of the soul. It is, nevertheless, so difficult to understand how an immaterial substance can be the form of the body, that many different opinions have been held about the mode of this immortality in man, which is called intellect. It cannot, however, reasonably be denied, that the intellectual soul is the form of the human body, since all men acknowledge that it is the rationality of man which distinguishes him from other animals. This distinction could not exist were not a rational soul the form of man; for all specific differences arise from form.

Again, it is universally allowed, that the peculiar and pre-eminent activity of man is understanding and reasoning; and man is the principle of this activity. Man is composed of matter and form. We cannot say that he is the principle of this activity by virtue of the matter of which he is composed, but solely by virtue of the form. Consequently, as this form is nothing but the intelligent soul, it is the intelligent soul which is the form of man.

Another argument for the immortality of the soul lies in the fact that man, like other animals, has the power of self-motion. Now, as the other animals move by means of their form, which is their soul, it follows that it must also be his soul which enables man to move. We know that man is governed by will and understanding. The form of man, therefore, must be an intelligent soul, capable of volition.

If a rational soul were not the form of man, the fact that a child, unable to use his understanding, is man would be inexplicable; neither could we see how intelligence could be attributed to a man who does not use his reason. If rational substance be not the form of man, but be self-subsisting, it will not be man, but that rational substance, which works with the intellect. We may, of course, maintain, with Plato, that man is not composed of soul and body; but that he is merely soul, which is united to the body as a motor is joined to that which is movable. But this opinion, if we adopt it, will lead us into many inconsistencies.

For, firstly, if the soul be the whole of man, to the exclusion of the body, man will not be sensitive; and when the soul leaves the body, corruption will not ensue; for the substance of a movable being does not change when the motor leaves it. It follows, likewise, that the human body does not live by the intellectual soul, and is not generated by union with the soul; for a movable thing is not generated by union with its motor. Human generation must, therefore, cease; for as, according to Plato, the soul is not generated, if the body be not man, one man will not be able to generate another. If neither the generated body, nor the soul and body together, but only the soul (which is not generated), be man, there will no longer, in human generation, be either fathers or children. These, and similar absurdities, beset those who will not acknowledge that the form of the body is an intelligent and immortal soul.

As the soul is, by its perfection, supreme among all natural and material forms, it partakes of the nature of incorporeal and immaterial substances; and, inasmuch as it partakes of the nature of inferior forms, it is said to be the form of the human body. In the perfection wherein it pertains to immaterial forms, it is separated from the body, so that the intellectual faculty of the soul is not, like its sensitive faculties, joined to any corporeal organ. Hence, the soul is sometimes called the nexus of the world, being the link between the highest and the lowest things.

We cannot then escape the conclusion, that the form of the body is a rational soul, which, in spite of the corruptibility of the body, remains incorruptible. This attribute of incorruptibility is proper to all intellectual substances, and is so for divers reasons:—

First, because every perfection must be proportioned to the thing of which it is the perfection, and, as universal and incorruptible things, and principally God, are the perfection of the intellectual soul, whose beatitude consists in contemplating them, the soul must be incorruptible.

Secondly, as we know that the perfection of the soul is proportionate to its abstraction from material, and its elevation to immaterial and Divine things, it is folly to say that the soul becomes corrupted by segregation from the body. Such an assertion is tantamount to saying, that separation from corporeal things is, at one and the same time, both the perfection, and the destruction of the soul. And it is equally futile to argue, that the soul attains perfection, by abstraction from the body, by means of the understanding, but suffers corruption by separation from the body by means of its essence. For operation follows nature; and therefore it is impossible that when the operation becomes perfect, the nature should become imperfect. Hence, it is quite unreasonable to say, that the intellectual soul suffers corruption when it is separated from the body.

The natural bias of mankind is a further argument in favour of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. We see that all men are anxious about what takes place after death, and that none have been able to persuade themselves, that there is no future life. Thus the desire to know something of the hereafter is apparent in the writings of philosophers, of poets, and of orators. The fact of such a desire is a proof of our immortality; for if there were no future life, not only would this yearning for knowledge about it be of no service to man, but it would be injurious to him, by raising desires doomed only to disappointment. But if we assume that the intellectual soul is immortal, this natural desire to understand something of its future life is, far from being useless, both wholesome and necessary; it enables man to direct his thoughts to another life, and to tend towards beatitude.

It is evident, then, that if we deny that the intellectual soul is the form of the body, and is immortal, we shall be involved in many inconsistencies. We shall find it impossible to understand how man can be a rational animal endowed with free will, and justly liable to punishment for sin. Neither shall we be able to comprehend what is the End of man, and what the Providence of God in his regard. But, granted that an intellectual and immortal soul be the form of man, all these difficulties will disappear.

Since the consideration of the other life, which awaits the soul after death, exceeds the limits of human reason, we will here conclude our First Book, in order to treat in the next of the supernatural truths of Faith. For where reason halts, Faith begins. When we shall have shown, as we hope to do in the following Book, the truth of our faith, the immortality of the soul will be beyond doubt.

Book II

Method Observed throughout This Book

In our last Book we treated of those things which human reason is capable of grasping. It is our intention to discuss, in this Book, those things which exceed reason, and to prove the truth of the Faith, both by natural means, and by the supernatural deeds of Christ. Since present occurrences carry more weight than past events, our first argument shall be founded on the deeds of Christians within the Church. We speak not of bad Christians, who are cut off from the body of Christ, but of such as are Christians in deed, as well as in name. We will next examine the works which Christ wrought in times past, and which are known to all the world. And, since He Himself by His words, “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (St. John x. 10), shows that His chief work lies in the perfection of Christian life, we will demonstrate the truth of the Faith of Christ: first, by arguments founded on the Christian life; secondly, by others based on the cause of this life; and thirdly, by those drawn from the effects of this life. This chain of reasoning will embrace almost everything which is at present taking place within the Church militant.

Chapter I. Some True Religion Exists in the World

In order to connect what has already been laid down with what still remains to be said, it is necessary to acknowledge the existence on earth of some true religion, or form of Divine worship. Religion, or worship, signifies the due honour paid to God, as to the universal Principle, Ruler, and End of all things. Every effect turns naturally to its cause; submits itself to its cause, in order to become like to it; and, in a certain sense, invokes the protection of its cause. By acting thus, the effect is paying honour and worship to its cause. Now, as man is the effect of God, there must be in his nature an instinct prompting him to turn to God, to become subject to Him, to resemble Him, and to invoke Him, in order from Him to obtain beatitude. As no natural inclination is given us in vain, these promptings must spring from religion; and they are proofs that some true form of Divine worship exists in the world.

This fact is, again, proved on another count. Man is possessed of reason and of free will. Now, as reason is fallible on many points, especially in Divine matters, it follows that, if God had not revealed some true form of worship, we should have gone astray, as did the heathen before the advent of Christ, and should never have attained beatitude. Thus, our natural instinct would have misled us, and the Providence of God would have failed us, in a matter most closely pertaining to our salvation.

It is clear that a natural tendency to religion is innate in the heart of man, from the fact that some form, though frequently an erroneous form, of Divine worship has existed through all generations. If, then, there be no possibility of satisfying this natural inclination, God has provided better for the needs of irrational creatures than for those of man.

It is the property of a cause to infuse its goodness and perfection into its effect, in order that this effect may, as far as is possible, resemble the cause. God, who is the Supreme Good and the First Cause of all things, desires, more earnestly than does any other cause, to infuse His goodness into man in order to bring him to beatitude; and, as the perfection of man consists in that interior homage whereby he subjects himself to God, it is clear, that God cannot have made this interior homage impossible, and that, in other words, some true religion exists in the world.

Chapter II. Religion Is Both Interior and Exterior

God can be honoured by man, both in body and in spirit; and, therefore, religion must be both interior and exterior. Interior worship is paid to God by means of the understanding and the will; and exterior homage by means of ceremonies and sacrifices.

Interior religion, then, strictly speaking, signifies uprightness of heart before God, and perfection of life. For, as every effect honours its cause chiefly by its perfection, man cannot pay to God a greater homage than that of a perfect life. This, therefore, constitutes the truth and completeness of Divine worship, even as the perfection of a work gives glory to the worker.

And, as we pay homage to God, not only in order to honour Him, but also in order to receive beatitude from Him; and as a good life is a more sure way of attaining to beatitude than are sacrifices and ceremonies, it is evident that perfection of life is a more true religion than any exterior form of worship. God is not a body, but Pure Act: therefore man renders to Him more perfect worship by purity of heart, than by external actions, for “God is a Spirit, and they that adore Him, must adore Him in spirit and in truth” (St. John iv. 24).

Chapter III. No Better Life Can Be Found than the Christian Life

As true religion consists in the perfection of human life; and as no better life than the Christian life can be conceived, it follows that there can be no better religion than the Christian religion. This assertion is easily proved. Animal life is more perfect than vegetative life; and among the different degrees of animal life, that one is the highest which is the most largely endowed with sensible feeling. If, further, it be the case that intellectual cognition be superior to sensible feeling, it is certain that the life of man is more perfect than that of animals. Among men are likewise found degrees, not of life but of perfection; for, as man is rational, those men are the most perfect who live the most nearly according to reason; for he who lives not according to reason resembles a beast rather than a man. Again, among those who live according to reason, there are divers degrees of perfection. For, as the end of the life of reason is the contemplation of Divine things, so the more perfectly a man abstracts himself from earthly things, and devotes himself to the contemplation of that which is Divine, the more perfect will be his life. Since the Christian life consists in separating ourselves, not only from temporal things, but also from self-love, and in drawing, by love and contemplation, near to God, so as to become like to Him, and, so far as possible, to be made one with Him, it is clear that nothing better than the Christian life can exist.

As we have already said, the more perfectly a man follows the dictates of reason, the more perfect will be his life. It is evident, therefore, that the Christian life does nothing and permits nothing, not even the least thing, which is contrary to reason; but that it submits in all things to the Divine Law.

A virtuous life tends to the contemplation of heavenly things, and finds its end in this contemplation. Great purity of heart is requisite for the attainment of this end. Consequently, as no life so purifies us, and renders us so apt for contemplation, as does the Christian life, it follows, that nothing better can be found on earth than Christianity.

Chapter IV. The End Presented to Us by the Christian Religion Is the Best Which Can Possibly Be Conceived

In order to show that there can be no life better than the Christian life, we shall first prove that the end set in view by the Christian religion is the best possible end, and the one most in accordance with reason, and that the means furnished by Christianity for the attainment of that end are those best adapted to that purpose.

It is self-evident that the end held out to us by the Christian religion is the best possible end, seeing that it is God, and the vision and fruition of God; and this vision and fruition is not such as may be gained by means of creatures, but that wherein God is beheld “face to face.” Many reasons can be adduced to prove that this clear vision of God is the end of our human life. First, as we have already proved, man’s beatitude cannot be attained in this life; therefore, if he be not created in vain, it must be attainable in the next. But if, in the next life, his happiness were to consist in knowing and contemplating God by means of creatures, it would not be complete happiness, for his heart would not be at rest; and happiness consists in the quiescence or satisfaction of all desires. This tranquillity would be incomplete, whether his knowledge of creatures were perfect or imperfect. If he knew creatures imperfectly, his heart would not be at rest, because he would desire that this knowledge should be perfect. For we know, by daily experience, that we desire distinct and particular cognition of the things which we know only in a general and confused manner. Were his knowledge of creatures perfect, he would still desire to know that on which they depend. For it is natural to us when we see an effect to wish to know its cause; and the more perfectly we know the effect the more intensely do we wish to know its cause, just as the heavier an object is, with the greater energy does it gravitate to its centre. Hence, as man becomes happier and more perfect in proportion to his knowledge of Divine things; and, as his desire of this knowledge increases proportionately to his progress therein, it is certain that his wish for this knowledge will never cease until he attains his Last End. This End can be nought but God. For, as we know by experience, our hearts can never be satisfied by any finite thing. Our intellect is superior to everything finite, because there is nothing superior to its capacity; and our ability to understand increases in proportion to our knowledge. Hence, as everything which is inferior to God is finite; and, as our intellect is capable of knowing infinite things, it is true to say that no creature can fill even one-tenth part of our heart. It becomes, therefore, not merely reasonable, but even necessary, to acknowledge that the happiness of man consists in the vision of God, who alone is greater than the human heart.

Every natural movement, as all philosophers will admit, tends to some end, in which, when it is attained, the thing which is moved finds rest. Now God, who is the term of human desire, is the satisfaction of the human heart, leaving nought else to be desired. And this because everything else, being finite, will bear no comparison to Him who is infinite; and, also, because all perfection of creatures is to be found in its fullest excellence in Him who is their Cause. Thus, when the soul of man possesses God it possesses all things; for the intellect which knows Him, will know creatures far more perfectly; and, although the excessive intensity of things sensible weakens the sense perceiving them, the excess of that which is intelligible, far from injuring the understanding, perfects it.

But we must remember that, as God is infinite, and is outside the realm of creation, our intellect cannot, by virtue of its natural light, attain to the vision of Him; because nothing can act beyond the limits of its nature. Nevertheless, our understanding, which is capable of rising to infinite things, may, by the Divine Power, be enabled to behold that which is naturally invisible to it. Thus the beatitude of man consists in the vision of God, and he is enabled to enjoy it by means of a supernatural light, which is called “the light of glory.” It is plain then, that no more reasonable or better end could be devised, as the term of human life, than the end set before us by the Christian religion.

Chapter V. A Christian Life Is the Best Possible Means for Attaining to Happiness

If the vision of God be the end of human life, God, who has made nothing in vain, must have given us some means of attaining to it. For, just as it would be useless for us to possess the power of motion, had we not limbs wherewith to move, so would it be futile to be created for an end, if we have no means of reaching it. The Christian religion teaches, that the means whereby we are to attain to the vision of God are, purity of heart, and grace, together with all the virtues supernaturally infused into the soul.

We shall see how true and how reasonable this doctrine is, if we remember that a means must be proportioned to its end. Now, as the end of man is the supernatural vision of God, the Supreme Object of intelligence, there is needed, in order to attain to it, perfect purity of heart, consisting in a complete aversion of the mind and heart from the love of corporeal things, together with a conversion to things incorporeal and Divine. This purity of heart is far more explicitly enjoined by the Christian religion than by any philosopher. Christianity has included all that philosophy has taught on the subject; at the same time defining more clearly what is meant by this purity of heart, and showing that mere natural virtue, such as is inculcated by philosophers, is not sufficient for the attainment of an end infinitely superior to nature. Christianity teaches that the purity of heart which springs from temperament, imagination, natural religion, from the influence of the heavenly bodies, or from any other created thing, will not suffice to bring us to the vision of God. Our purity must be the fruit of Divine grace. A fuller explanation of the subject may be found in the treatise on The Simplicity of Christian Life, in which it is shown that purity of heart, and the perfect Christian life, is not the result of natural love, nor is it the creation of the imagination nor even of reason; that it is not influenced by the heavenly bodies nor by any spiritual creatures; but that it comes from the grace of God, supernaturally infused into the soul. We need not repeat all that is written in that book, about the most perfect means for attaining the perfection of the Christian life. Suffice it to say, that the life of a true Christian, which embraces the highest form of a holy life, both natural and supernatural, is most conducive to perfect happiness.

Chapter VI. The Christian Life Is a Most Sure Means of Attaining to Beatitude

If, as has been proved, there be in the world some true religion, consisting mainly in uprightness of life; and if the Christian religion surpasses every other; we must acknowledge Christianity to be true, not only in its interior spirit, but also in its exterior forms. For there must be some true external worship which corresponds, in all things, with interior religion. Therefore, if Christians live according to the teaching of their Faith, paying due homage to God, both in order to honour Him and to attain to beatitude, we cannot doubt that they will thus arrive at their Last End.

If, again, it pertains to Divine Providence to bring things to their End by fitting means, and if there are no better means than the Christian religion whereby man may attain to beatitude, who can doubt that the Christian religion conducts man to the eternal enjoyment of the beatific vision?

Further, if God be just—and we must confess that He is; and if He exercise Providence over human things, He will not suffer those who have obeyed His commandments and professed the Christian religion to fail in the attainment of their end. He must bring either some men to beatitude, or none. If none are to attain to beatitude, creation is in vain. Some men, therefore, must be saved, and among them God will not pass over true Christians, who are of all men the best fitted and prepared for beatitude. If Christians do not attain to the fruition of their End, we must needs confess that none others can hope to do so; that all we have hitherto taught and proved is false; and that all men are living in disorder and confusion. For where there is no last end there can be no order in life. It would follow likewise, that man lives by chance, more miserably than the animals. This would only be one of many similar absurdities which would inevitably follow, were we to deny the value of Christianity.

It must be acknowledged, then, that the teaching of the Christian religion about the end of man, and the means necessary for its attainment, is most reasonable; and we must confess this religion to be true.

Chapter VII. The Faith of Christ Is True, Because It Causes Men to Lead a Perfect Life

In proving Christianity to be true, we have hitherto made use of arguments founded on the good life of true Christians. We will now proceed to examine the causes of this virtuous life. One of the chief causes is, as the Scripture teaches, the belief in Christ informed by charity: “The justice of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all, and upon all them that believe in Him” (Rom. iii. 22). “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. xi. 6). By faith informed by charity, we mean that, loving Christ crucified above all things, we believe Him to be truly God and truly Man, One with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and distinct from them only in Person.

Universal experience demonstrates the truth of what we say. For in the present day it is evident to all, and still more was it so in days gone by, that, as soon as a man grasps the Faith of Christ and becomes inflamed with His love, he begins to lead a Christian life, and makes progress in perfection, in proportion to his increase of faith and charity; and at the same time he is confirmed in those virtues, in proportion to his advance in perfection. On the other hand, they who lead bad lives are deficient in faith; and they that lack faith lead bad lives. As this is a truth admitting no denial, we will investigate it, and, by inquiring into the causes of such wonderful effects, will deduce proofs of the truth of the Christian religion.

First. Since all perfection depends upon its cause, no effect can be more perfect than its cause. Therefore, if all the truth and uprightness of the Christian life depends upon the Faith of Christ, as upon its cause, it is impossible that the Faith of Christ should not be true. And if this faith be true, we must, with Christians, confess that Christ is God, and that His religion is the true religion revealed by God.

Again. It is impossible that falsehood and evil should be the cause of truth and goodness; for evil, in so far as it is evil, and falsehood, in so far as it is falsehood, are nothingness. If, then, the Faith of Christ were false, His love would be vain and evil. Now, a life so perfect as is the Christian life could not spring from falsehood and iniquity. Therefore, the Christian religion must be true.

Furthermore. If this religion be untrue it is the most stupid falsehood that can possibly be conceived; for to say (were it not true) that a crucified man is God would be the extreme of folly. Now, as the Christian life is a perfect life, it cannot spring from untruth; for all rightly ordered life proceeds from correctness of understanding, and all error in human conduct springs from some mistake on the part of the intellect.

It must also be remembered that capacity for improvement in any nature is proportioned to the good disposition already existing therein. Now, as the perfection of our intellect is truth, and as purity of heart is the disposition which enables him to become steadfast in truth, the more a man is purged from earthly affections the better he will know the truth, the more closely he will embrace it, and the further he will banish falsehood from his soul. If this be true, surely Christians, since their lives are purer than those of other men, would be the first to know if their religion were false. We see, however, that far from rejecting their faith, Christians cling more closely to it in proportion as they increase in perfection, and that their increase in perfection is proportioned to their steadfastness in their faith. Therefore, their faith cannot be false.

Again, as God is the First Cause moving all things, both spiritual and corporal, it is certain that it is He who must move the human understanding, and that, apart from Him, no truth can be known. But who can doubt that God will inspire to know the truth those who are prepared for its reception, rather than those who are not thus disposed, and especially when the truth concerns eternal salvation? Since then true Christians are better prepared than are any other men to embrace the truth, we cannot doubt that, if the Faith of Christ were false, they would be enlightened by God to reject it. To think otherwise, would be to doubt the providence and goodness of God.

The end regulates the means used to attain it, and he that errs as to his end, will err also as to the means which he uses. Christians do not err as to the means which they adopt for attaining to beatitude, and therefore they do not err as to their end. Now, as all Christians profess that Christ is their End, and that they strive to be made like to Him in this life in order to enjoy Him in the next, it cannot be erroneous to teach that Christ is God, and is the End of human life.

Again, God proceeds in all things in a certain order, and in His wisdom governs inferior things by those that are superior to them. And since the cause is always more perfect than the effect, He has ordained noblest causes for the noblest effects: As there is not in the world a more noble effect than the Christian life, it follows that the cause from which it springs must be the noblest possible. Since the Christian life is an effect of the Faith of Christ, we must acknowledge that that Faith, far from being a fable, is the noble cause of a noble effect.

All secondary causes are instruments of a primary cause. Therefore Christ, the Man who was crucified, is the instrument whereby God chooses to produce that wonderful effect—the Christian life. Had Christ, in spite of His assertions, not been God, His pride and mendacity would have been unparalleled; and God would have used a bad instrument to produce a most perfect effect—a course quite out of keeping with His wisdom.

The more closely an effect resembles its cause, the more perfect does it become. We become more holy and more Divine in proportion as we walk in the footsteps of Christ and become like to Him. This is a clear proof that Christ is true God, and the Cause of man.

Causes are known by their effects, and one of the best arguments in favour of the Christian religion is the reflection that, whereas heathen philosophers have laboured for years to establish rules of conduct, they have gained but few disciples, of whom even the most virtuous have never attained to that standard of living which has been so quickly reached by innumerable Christians of both sexes and of every race and condition. No one who reflects on this fact can fail to see that there is no comparison between the efficacy of the heathen philosophy and of the Christian Faith, which is able to render the proud, avaricious, and luxurious, humble, benevolent and chaste. Every one, consequently, must acknowledge that Christ, as God, is the Principal Cause of human perfection, and, as Man, is its Means and Instrumental Cause.

Chapter VIII. The Doctrines Taught by Christianity Are True, and Come from God

The reading, hearing, and study of Holy Scripture is both a cause of our Christian life, and the substance and foundation of our religion, of which the object is the truth of the Faith. Having examined the arguments founded on the Faith of Christ, we now proceed to investigate those drawn from Holy Writ.

We know that there can be no certain truth or knowledge about future things which may or may not happen. Even philosophers, who were truly wise, admitted this. These can be known to God alone, and to man only when God reveals them to him. Man could not know them, unless it pleased God to make them known. Now Holy Scripture, in almost every portion, but especially in the Old Testament, has foretold things which should come to pass, and which depended on man’s free will. These prophecies concern not only general, but also particular things; and they relate to events which were to occur, not only in one year or in ten, but in a hundred or a thousand, or three or four thousand years; they were to happen not only to the Jews and to Christ and His Church, but were to concern also the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks, the Romans, and other lesser kingdoms. Now many of the events foretold by the Prophets have come to pass; and the fact of their fulfilment inspires us with confidence that any that have not yet been accomplished will eventually be verified. We must, therefore, acknowledge the Holy Scriptures to be, not a work of human ingenuity, but the revelation of God’s Providence towards us.

God alone has prescience of the future. Therefore, no man, be he ever so diligent or wise, can order the wars and doings of kings and princes, and the names and places, and divers actions and circumstances of men in such a way that they shall foreshadow things to come. The reason is simple. God has the ordering of things which are to come; they are subject to Him. They are beyond the power and knowledge of man. The Old Testament foretells the New Testament, and the things which Christ has done and suffered, both in His Person and in His Church. Therefore, we have good reason to believe that both the Old Testament and the New are the Word of God.

It is not reasonable to say that Christians have interpreted the prophecies of Scripture according to their desires. For, taking into account the differences of times and circumstances, of language and of authors, the extraordinary uniformity which exists between the Old and the New Testaments would not be possible, were they not the work of one Mind, which knows all that has taken place at all times. Neither can this uniformity be ascribed to chance, since there is no discord or want of harmony between the two Testaments, but perfect agreement between them, even in the smallest particulars; so that what is obscure in one passage is explained in another; and the Scripture interprets itself. Although those who have not studied the Bible may be ignorant of this fact, the truth of what I say will be acknowledged by all who examine Holy Scripture with faith, humility and purity of heart.

It is on account of this harmony between the Old and New Testaments, that the Bible possesses the dignity of an allegorical meaning. But, observe, that by an allegorical, we do not mean a fabulous, interpretation—such as we find in the poets—for we interpret parables also, and their interpretation is not called an allegorical, but literal and parabolic meaning. We do not intend by the words of the fable or parable to express what is signified by the words themselves, but rather what we understand by the meaning underlying those words. An allegory requires, first, that the words should narrate, not a fiction, but some fact that has really occurred; secondly, that this fact should prefigure some future event; thirdly, that the fact narrated should have taken place not only on account of its intrinsic importance, but also as a forecast of some future occurrence. As no one but God can compose such allegories, and as the Holy Scriptures are full of them, it is clear that only God can be their Author.

The language and style of the Bible are so peculiar, that none of our most learned and eloquent Doctors have ever been able to imitate it; nor has it been copied by any other writer. The Prophets, although they lived at different times and wrote with varying degrees of elegance, have all retained the same mode of expression, which has not been imitated by any other author, and is, in fact, inimitable. This is a clear proof that the Holy Scriptures are a Divine and not a human work.

A further confirmation of what we say may be perceived, if we observe the effects which proceed from the Scriptures; for the virtue of a cause is known by its effect. Now, as upon earth there is no more sublime effect than the Christian life, and as the Bible is a most powerful instrumental cause and foundation of this life, it is manifest that it can only proceed from the First Cause of the Christian life, viz., God. Long experience teaches us that human science avails but little in the formation of virtuous habits; for, before Christianity was preached, the whole world was wrapped in the darkness of ignorance and sin; but from the time the Apostles taught the truth, mankind has been enlightened and initiated into many heavenly secrets.

And even in our own days, we see how the teaching of the Holy Scripture has more efficacy than has any other doctrine, in enlightening and consoling men, and in inclining them to live virtuously. For the preachers who discourse only on philosophical subjects, and pay great attention to oratorical effect, produce scarcely any fruit among their Christian hearers. Whereas our forefathers, who in past times confined themselves to the simple preaching of the Holy Scriptures, were able to fill their hearers with Divine love, enabling them to rejoice in affliction and even in martyrdom. I speak also from personal experience. For, when at one time (in order to demonstrate the profundity of Holy Scripture to sciolists, proud of their intelligence) I was wont to discourse on subtle points of philosophy, I found that the people who heard me were inattentive. But as soon as I devoted myself to the exposition of the Bible, I beheld all eyes riveted upon me, and my audience so intent upon my words, that they might have been carved out of stone. I found, likewise, that when I set aside theological questions, and confined myself to explaining Holy Scripture, my hearers received much more light, and my preaching bore more fruit, in the conversion of men to Christ and to a perfect life. For Holy Scripture contains that marvellous doctrine, which, more surely than a two-edged sword, pierces men’s hearts with love, which has adorned the world with virtue, and has overthrown idolatry, superstition, and numberless errors. This proves that it can proceed from none but God.

The more completely the human intellect is purified, the more capable it becomes of apprehending the truth. Now, as there is no purity of life so perfect as that produced by Christianity, Christian doctors, of whom there are many, would (were the Bible not the work of God) on account of their learning and their holiness, be the first to discern the fact. So far, however, from denying the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church have left many volumes extolling the teaching of Holy Writ, and have written and preached that it is unlawful to alter one iota of the sacred text. Some of them have, in defence of the Divine origin of the Bible, even shed their blood. If these men had not had some certainty that the Scriptures were the work of God, they would, most assuredly, not have sacrificed their lives in such a cause.

Again, truth can never disagree with truth; truth must be in harmony with truth; but it is invariably at war with falsehood. Now, as every science agrees with Holy Scripture, it is evident that it must contain, not falsehood, but truth. The leaders of thought, in every branch of science, have proved that no true science is repugnant to Holy Scripture. Therefore, Christians are not forbidden to study any science, save divination and such like pernicious superstitions, which are derided by all true scientists. This harmony between science and the Bible is a proof of the truth of the latter. Were the Scriptures false, they would infallibly contradict science; whereas the Doctors of the Church show that the Bible and science agree; and they are able to explain any apparent discrepancy between them.

Further. The more truth is impugned, the more, if it have a defender, it becomes clear to the human intellect, which has a natural tendency to truth as to its own perfection. Christianity has been always opposed, both by philosophers and by temporal sovereigns, and has invariably proved itself invincible. This, again, is a strong proof of its truth; for, had it been false, it must, inevitably, have succumbed to persecution.

Chapter IX. The Truth of the Faith Proved by Arguments Founded on the Prayer and Contemplation of Christians

Faith, and meditation on the Holy Scriptures are not only the cause, but also the nourishment and perfection, of the Christian life. Experience, both past and present, shows that Christians given to continual prayer, acquire great perfection in a short space of time, and find such delight in spiritual things, that everything else seems worthless to them. This is the case not with a few learned men only, but with many also of the uneducated. In fact, this is the experience of all, both men and women of every degree, who exercise themselves in prayer. On this fact we intend to found an argument for the truth of our faith.

First. Since God is Pure Act, Supreme Truth, and Infinite Light, it follows that the nearer man approaches to Him (in spirit not in body), the more he will partake of the Divine purity, truth and light. Now, as the Christian life is more pure and perfect than any other, it must be nearer to God than any other life; and Christians approach most closely to Him when they are engaged in the exercise of prayer and contemplation, which renders the soul peculiarly capable of receiving the Divine purity, truth, and light. Since, then, it is by prayer and contemplation, that Christians are confirmed in their Faith in Christ Crucified, and fired with love of Him, it is undeniable that the Faith is Divine truth and light.

Again. Our understanding is naturally inclined to delight in truth, to desire it, and to shun falsehood; and the more a natural inclination is purified, the more vehement it becomes. Prayer purifies the understanding more efficaciously than does any other mental act; and therefore, if in time of prayer, the soul be more drawn to embrace the Faith of Christ than at any other time, this is a proof that the Faith is truth and not falsehood.

Further. Christians, when they pray, make their supplications to God for the sake of Christ Crucified, and through His merits; and nevertheless they ask for great things. Even should this assertion be disbelieved, it cannot, at least, be denied that the chief prayer of a Christian is for grace to live a Christian life, and for joy and peace of soul. Now, if Christ were not the One whom they think Him to be, God would surely enlighten them to see the truth. Or, if they preferred to remain obstinately in error, their prayers would not be, as they now are, heard for the sake of Christ.

Again. No cause prevents matter from receiving a form; and no natural motor prevents a thing from tending to its end. As beatitude is the end to be attained by a good life and by prayer, and as man cannot move himself to pray and to live virtuously, but must be inspired thereto by God, who inspires Christians to so perfect a life, and to such sublimity of prayer, and confirms them in Faith, it is manifest that Faith is the means by which we are to attain to beatitude, and that this Faith must proceed from God.

Every cause listens, if we may so speak, to the prayer of its effect, and by this prayer we mean the desire of the effect for its perfection, which, if its dispositions be ordered aright, it will seek to obtain from its cause. We see in the natural order, that when matter is duly prepared, the cause does not delay in giving it form; and this proceeds from the goodness of the cause, for the characteristic of good is to communicate itself. Hence, as God is Supreme Goodness, He exceeds all causes in listening to the prayer of His effects, when they are disposed to receive His influx. Now, the Christian life, especially as exhibited in the act of prayer and contemplation, is the best possible preparation for being heard by God; and the prayers of Christians are, most surely, not made in vain. There is nothing which Christians more earnestly implore of God than to be enlightened as to the truth. Thus David, in the name of all, prays, saying, “Enlighten mine eyes, O Lord, that I may never sleep in death” (Ps. xii. 4). And therefore we must believe that true Christians are enlightened as to the truth which pertains to salvation. The more they pray, the more confirmed do they become in their faith in Christ. Thus, we have good grounds for believing this faith to be true, and not false.

A further argument is, that if Christ be not God, it would be blasphemy to believe and to confess that He is God—One with the Father and the Holy Ghost—and to pray through His merits. How could the Divine Goodness leave in such blindness Christians, the best of mankind, always ready to extirpate any error which may dishonour the Divine Majesty? It is absurd to say that God leaves them in their misbelief, because they obstinately persevere in it. For, were this the case, why should He hear their blasphemous prayers? Why, on the contrary, should He not punish them severely?

If, again, the Faith of Christ be false, could there be a more absurd superstition than to adore a crucified man as God? Our understanding naturally loves truth and abhors falsehood; how then could it be possible, that innumerable Christians, amongst them men of vast genius and great learning, could so delight in the contemplation and love of Christ Crucified, as for His sake, not only willingly to bear, but even eagerly to desire, hunger and thirst, labours, threats, opprobrium, scourges, imprisonment, and even death? Truly the finger of God is here.

Chapter X. Proofs of the Truth of the Christian Religion Founded on Its External Forms of Worship

Our arguments for the truth of Christianity have hitherto been drawn from the interior aspect of that religion. We will now proceed to proofs based on its Sacraments, ceremonies, and other external rites. We will, instead of considering them individually, which would be a lengthy task, group all the ceremonies and Sacraments of the Church under the one which is chief and most venerable, viz. , the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist. We know by experience, and since the first days of Christianity it has been proved, that the reverent observance of this exterior worship is the cause, the nourishment, and the perfection of the Christian life; that they who frequent the Sacraments devoutly become more holy day by day; and that they who treat them with irreverent familiarity become more hardened than other men in sin. We see this fact exemplified in priests, who, day and night, administer the Sacraments, and perform the ceremonies of the Church. For, those who do so devoutly, are most holy men, so completely purified from earthly affection, and so closely united to God, that, for love of Him, they fear not to expose their lives.

Those, on the other hand, who perform their sacred duties irreligiously, are worse than any other men; for, besides being guilty of pride, avarice, envy, and other sins, they are in the most hopeless state possible, for they are incorrigible; and the admonitions, reprimands and good examples, which cause others to amend, are for them only an incitement to scorn, hatred, and worse sin. We cannot, therefore, deny that the same Sacraments produce contrary effects in different men. We must now investigate the cause of this phenomenon. It is in no wise repugnant to philosophy, that contrary effects should, by reason of contrary disposition of matter, spring from the same cause. For, we see how the rays of the sun harden the earth, and melt ice, cause a well-planted tree to bear flower and fruit, and wither another whose roots have not struck deeply. The two effects of which we have been speaking, viz., the good effect produced by the Sacraments on good priests and religious, and the bad effect produced on those that are bad, cannot spring from a false or empty cause. For, if the externals of religion did not depend on God, and were not the instruments of Divine virtue and truth, they could not produce an effect so excellent as to give birth to the Christian life, and to nourish and perfect it. For as this life is wholly spiritual and Divine, it cannot proceed from any physical power. Who is there that believes that baptism with water, anointing with chrism, smoke of incense, oblation of bread and wine upon the altar, and other rites and ceremonies of the same description, could of themselves, without any other power, suffice to render a soul perfect? Surely if these things were human inventions, or deceits of the devil, they could not produce holy lives.

But, perhaps you will say, the Christian life is not produced by this external worship, but by the exercise of virtues, and by the credulity of men, who, believing these exterior ceremonies to be Divine, do by means of them lead a good life, and thus make progress in virtue. Why is it, then, we would answer, that other men who practise virtue without the Sacraments, never attain to the same degree of holiness, as these good priests? Surely, if external worship were false and useless, those who abstained from it would become all the better, not being contaminated by error; and priests who despised these rites and ceremonies, and made a jest of them, would be the best of men. Daily experience, however, shows us, that facts are quite otherwise.

Again, it stands to reason that as God is the Supreme Truth, man, the more closely he draws nigh to God, partakes more fully of His light and truth; and the more he becomes involved in error and falsehood, the further he recedes from God. But we know that those who devoutly frequent the Sacraments, and make use of the ceremonies of the Church, become so united to God, that manifest signs of the presence of the Divine light appear in their countenance, and many are rapt in ecstasy, and their faces are then so transfigured, that they appear to all men attractive and venerable. And although such phenomena were more common in past times than at present, these marvels are still often to be seen in our own days, amongst both men and women, learned and ignorant. Whence come these ecstasies, and this holy contemplation, this fervour of spirit, and these tears which accompany exterior worship? In truth, if these external ceremonies are not ordained by God, they are full of absurdities and fallacies; for they are all typical of things spiritual and Divine; and our churches, sacraments, altars, priestly vestments, sacred psalmody, and ceremonies all typify falsehoods, especially concerning Christ, of whom they are a figure, and they amount to nothing save useless lies. But if these exterior rites are a mere mockery, good men would not take such delight in them, nor by their means draw so near to God. For, as we have said, in proportion as men are involved in error, they recede from God. Hence, we must conclude that the ritual of the Church is full of grace and truth. The wonderful ceremonial of the Church, again, and the symbolical signification of her rites wherein there is nothing trivial, nothing irrational—but everything, even the most minute detail, is typical of some mystery—proves, that these rites are not a human invention, but a Divine ordinance. It is not our intention here to enlarge upon the meaning of the ecclesiastical ceremonies, as this subject will be briefly handled in the next Book. If, however, anyone wishes to know more of these mysteries without further delay, he will find them explained in the Christian doctrine; and he will see that there is no less harmony and order in the ceremonies of the Church than in the operations of nature. And, unless he be thoroughly perverse, he will be forced to acknowledge, that our worship is the outcome, not of a human, but of a Divine Spirit.

Chapter XI. The Truth of Christianity Evidenced by Its Effects on the Interior Life of Christians

We have, to the best of our poor ability, proved the truth of the Faith by arguments founded on the internal and external causes of the Christian life. We will next proceed to demonstrate its truth by its effects on this life. Its chief interior effect is peace and joy of spirit, and liberty of soul. We see this effect exemplified in the Saints of former times (when there was more fervour than at present). They enjoyed a serenity and peace of mind which enabled them, not only to remain unshaken in the midst of affliction, but even to rejoice at martyrdom.

Now, as this joy in the midst of tribulation increases in them in proportion as they draw nearer to Christ, we see that peace of soul can only be attained by union with God, the last end and only satisfaction of the human heart, in whom alone we can find rest. Those who are closely united to Him have such firm hope of enjoying happiness after this life, that they make no account of the good things of this world, and fear neither persecution nor loss of life, but eagerly look forward to death, as the passage to eternal bliss. And God, though He is everywhere, dwells specially in such souls as these, by His grace and love, and by the gift of contemplation. He sustains them by His presence, delivering them from all fear, and giving them such liberty of spirit, that they are neither cast down by adversity, nor uplifted by prosperity.

This peace, joy, and freedom of soul cannot proceed from any natural human power, weakened as we are by sensuality and ignorance. It must be a supernatural gift of God, causing us to lift our eyes to the Divine light and the beatitude promised to us.

We can prove that this peace of soul is caused by union with God, if we reason in the following manner. The soul is one, and all its powers spring from it. If, then, the soul be fixed on the operation of one power, it cannot attend to the operation of another; just as in intense contemplation the operations of the senses are suspended, and in great physical pain or enjoyment the understanding is no longer exercised. Hence, humanly speaking, it would be quite impossible that, in the midst of intense bodily torture, the intellect should enjoy peace and happiness. And, yet, we behold this phenomenon in innumerable martyrs, of both sexes, and of every rank of life. Of course the sages of this world will adduce examples of a few individuals, who, although not Christians, have experienced the same ecstacy in the midst of sufferings. But the Christians in whom this miracle has been wrought are innumerable, and the least child who is a true Christian is superior to all the heathen saints, whose erroneous judgment and perverted affections are conspicuous in their writings. Thus, this power of rejoicing in the midst of suffering, is not natural; it is a supernatural gift of God. This again is a proof of the veracity of Christianity. For were the Faith of Christ (which is the cause of these wonderful effects), proved to be false, it would not come from God, and Christians would thus be left to their natural weakness, and involved in many errors.

The more virtuously a man lives, the more clearly he discerns the truth, and the better he loves good and hates evil and falsehood. If, then, the religion of Christ were not true, Christians would live in error, and their persistence in adoring Christ as God would be criminal. But experience shows us that Christians are confirmed in their faith, and enjoy peace, and joy, and liberty of soul in proportion to their virtue. This would certainly not be the case were Christianity a falsehood.

The truth of our Faith is also confirmed by the example of the many religious of both sexes, who in these days, as well as in past times, have from desire of perfection left friends and kinsfolk, riches, pleasure, and even their own will, and have retired into a cloister in some far-off land, where, submitting to strangers, they have promised to observe poverty, to possess nothing save with the permission of their superior, to preserve chastity of soul and body, to fast and watch as much as their weakness will permit, and to practise obedience to all commands. Thus, they renounce worldly possessions, earthly happiness and their own will; and yet they live as joyfully, and take as much delight in praising God, as if they had all that earth can give. With one consent they acknowledge that all their peace and joy of soul is based on the Faith in Jesus Crucified. And we cannot repute them as fools, since among them are not only ignorant persons, but men renowned for learning, prudence, and judgment, who would, were their Faith false, speedily recognise their error. Hence, we must reckon that the cause of this wonderful effect is the religion of Christ, which is not false but true.

As these religious, being in a state of life wherein a high degree of perfection is attainable, make every effort to advance in perfection, it follows that they are more fitted than are other men to receive heavenly illumination. Were the faith false, it would not be possible for its falsehood to be disguised during so many centuries, and among so many worthy men; nor could these men confirm their religion every hour in their hearts, by their words, their works, and their innumerable writings; nor, being in the greatest subjection, live in such spiritual liberty and joy.

Again. Every cause does, as far as possible, direct its effect to its end, especially when the effect is disposed to receive the influx of its cause. Hence, God, being supremely good, conducts all things to their end, unless they are hindered, by their unfitness, from attaining to it. Now, as no better disposition for attaining to beatitude can be found than the life of religious, it follows that they must be guided by God to beatitude, and that their peace and joy are a participation of beatitude. As this aptitude for beatitude springs from the Faith of Christ, and increases in proportion to the growth of that Faith, it is clear that the Faith cannot be false, or God would be fostering errors and spurious joy in the souls of well-disposed men, and would thus be leading them astray.

All joy again is based on love, which is that first act of the appetite and will, on which all other acts depend. Now, as the happiness of religious is not centred on worldly goods, which they have relinquished, and as they unanimously acknowledge that the well-spring of their joy is the Faith of Christ and the hope of another life, they cannot be living in error. For, the uprightness of their life would cause them to perceive their mistake; and thus would banish their peace of mind. But we see that they experience quite contrary effects, which prove that the Faith of Christ is true.

Chapter XII. The Truth of Christianity Manifested by Its Visible Effects on the Lives of Christians

Another signal effect of the Christian religion is to be perceived in the exterior of those who profess it; for their countenance and manner constrain men to reverence them and hold them in honour. The fiercest men have become gentle, at the sight of devout Christians clad in lowly guise. Attila, the ferocious King of the Huns, beholding Saint Leo, the Pope, in the city of Ravenna, and hearing his words, abandoned the invasion of Italy. Totila, the savage King of the Goths, could not confront the poor and humble monk, St. Benedict; but, prostrating himself upon the ground, would only rise at the Saint’s behest. Theodosius, the Emperor, after the slaughter of the inhabitants of Thessalonica, was by St. Ambrose banished from the temple of God, and, not daring to disobey, humbled himself and did penance. Time would fail me were I to make mention of all the examples that I can recall; but it is not necessary to enlarge upon what is so clear. Even in our own time we have seen arrogant sinners, smitten with compunction at the sight of holy men; and this compunction has led them to an entire reformation of life.

Now the cause of this effect is supernatural grace, with the infusion of all virtues, for we know how the soul can, by means of the imagination, alter the whole countenance. Thus angry feelings express themselves openly on the face: we grow pale with fear, red with shame; joy makes the eye sparkle, etc. For, as the understanding makes use of those corporeal organs, the senses; the thoughts of the understanding (when they are very intense) often stamp themselves upon the body, especially on the eyes and countenance. Thus a haughty mind can be recognised by the arrogance of a man’s looks; cruelty by his rolling eye; light-mindedness by restless limbs. Nay, sometimes sin can infect the very air and the bodies of others—as we see in the case of malignant old women, who can bewitch little children. Good and bad habits, when they are deeply rooted in the soul, cannot be so completely disguised that they never appear in the face. As we know that every effect expresses its cause, the beautiful and venerable aspect of perfect Christians can proceed from nothing, save from the beauty of their soul, which is, of itself, most efficacious in the conversion of sinners. Even though a man be uneducated, if he leads a holy life, he will have more influence with his fellows than an eloquent and learned philosopher, or than miracles, either reported or witnessed. We see how attentively an audience will listen to the words of a learned preacher, without making any change in their lives; yet, although his eloquence may be much praised, it will remain barren if his life corresponds not to his words. In the same way, both in past days and in our own time, many miracles have been wrought, and crowds of men and women have flocked to see them; but they have produced but little fruit in the reformation of their lives.

A perfect Christian life, on the contrary, will convert to God numberless souls, not only among the poor and simple, but among the learned, and will fill them with compunction. Indeed many have been so strongly influenced by the holiness of life exhibited by perfect Christians, that they have left the world and retired into a cloister. There must, then, be some intrinsic power in those who lead holy lives, which enables them to produce such marvellous effects. I say intrinsic, for this power is not exterior, since the body does not, strictly speaking, act upon the spirit; and therefore the exterior of a perfect Christian could not have power to change the will and the understanding of other men. The chief virtue of a perfect Christian, and that which produces both his good life and his exterior beauty, is his Faith in, and love of Christ Crucified. And the more this Faith and love increase, the more beautiful and venerable does his exterior aspect become.

Truth is stronger than falsehood. Now there is, as we have already said, no more efficacious means of inducing men to lead a good life, than the example of a good Christian. For, the example of virtuous heathens led very few to heathen perfection; whereas those who have been converted by the example of Christianity are innumerable. Hence the root and essence of the Christian religion cannot be false or futile; otherwise it would produce less effect on the lives of men than does philosophy. This, as we know, is not the case.

God is the primary Cause of motion, without which nothing moves; and, as He does all things wisely, He produces the noblest effects from the noblest causes. Therefore, as the Christian life is a most noble effect, it springs from most noble causes, of which one is the good example exhibited by this life. One begets the other, as man begets man, and animals beget animals. Therefore we must acknowledge, that the example of a good life is a most noble cause and instrument, used by God to lead men to true virtue, and that, as this virtue is Faith informed by charity, Faith also must be true.

Chapter XIII. The Truth of the Faith Demonstrated by the Wonderful Works of Christ, Especially Those Which Pertain to His Power

We have, by the assistance of God, proved the truth of Faith by the effects daily visible in the Church of Christ. In further confirmation of our proofs, we can bring forward further arguments, based on the works which Christ wrought in past times, and which were patent to the whole world. As philosophers investigate the natural causes of the things which they see, we will place before our eyes the Triumph of the Cross, described before. And, as philosophers, seeing the greatness and wonderful order and perfection of the Universe, believe God to be the most powerful, the wisest and most perfect Cause of causes, and Prime Mover of all things, we, likewise, from the marvels described in the Triumph of the Cross, desire to show that Christ Crucified has surpassed, in power and wisdom and goodness, all those that have been honoured and adored as gods, and has done incomparably greater and more wonderful things than they have wrought; so that He, most surely, is “a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Ps. xciv. 3).

Let us then begin by considering His power, and by placing before our eyes the Triumph of the Cross. Let us argue in this wise. Either Christ is the True God and the First Cause of all things, or He is not. If He be God, it follows that Christianity is true; and there is no need for further discussion. If He be not God, He must have been the proudest man, and the greatest liar that ever lived. He must also have been exceedingly foolish. For it would have been, indeed, the height of folly for a man, unaided by wealth or worldly power, ignorant of philosophy and of rhetoric, to attempt, merely by virtue of his death, to fight against the Divine Majesty, and to usurp to himself the honour due to It; or to strive to induce learned and powerful men to join a new religion which should change the whole face of the earth, should acknowledge him as God, and should inspire his followers with such fervent love for him, that for his sake they should be ready to lay down life itself. Could any absurdity equal such aspirations as these? If, then, Jesus of Nazareth were not true God, He would be a most foolish and sacrilegious seducer. How could such a man have been able to supersede the Law of Moses, and to struggle successfully against men of authority and learning, against the powers of heaven and hell, nay, against God Himself ? Why, O Jews, did not your God take vengeance on Him? For what reason, ye Gentiles, have your deities not overthrown Him? How has it come to pass that a poor and lowly man, put to death by Crucifixion, has accomplished such mighty deeds? What God, I speak not of men, can be compared with Christ?

Again, consider how foolish it is to draw a comparison between Jesus Christ and Apollonius, Pythagoras, Socrates, Caesar, or any emperor; since none of them has either proclaimed himself God, or done any deed which can be compared to the works of Christ. Mahomet, who never called himself God, attracted a barbarous people to himself by force of arms and by sensual indulgence; he spoke admiringly of Christ, but himself never proposed anything to his followers, above the force of human nature. Jesus Christ did not act thus. His commands to men are most arduous and most difficult to obey; since He would have them believe in a God, One in Nature, Three in Person. His followers must confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are true God, Simple Substance, and that He is very God, the Son of God, One with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and true Man, the Son of the Virgin Mary, who must be reverenced as the true Mother of God. Furthermore, Christians are bound to confess that the Cross, which used to be an instrument of punishment, is a powerful sign of our salvation, and that a little bread and wine is changed, by virtue of certain words pronounced over it, into the Body and Blood of Christ, the heavenly food of our souls, and as such has to be adored. We must also believe that no one can enter into the Kingdom of God unless he receive the baptism which confers heavenly grace. And we must hold, with inviolable firmness, every point taught by Scripture, however difficult it may be to human understanding.

Neither is Faith sufficient for salvation. We must also love invisible things so much as to despise such as are visible, and to be ready to suffer persecution, and even death itself, rather than offend God in anything. Christ does not promise us in this world riches, or honour, or dignity, but rather poverty, persecution, scourges, exile, prison, and death. He reserves for us hereafter happiness unspeakable, a share in the glory of the angels, the resurrection of the body, and joy which “eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive” (I Cor. ii. 9). And although the things which our Lord sets before us are most difficult to human nature, innumerable Christians, of all times and conditions of life, have accepted His teaching, and adhered to it so closely, that they have preferred to die rather than to deny it.

Let us, then, place before our eyes Christ living in poverty, the reputed son of a carpenter; and let us question Him as to His thoughts. He will reply: I, poor though I be and an exile on earth, propose to lay down laws for the whole human race, and so to change the face of the world, that, although I shall be crucified, men shall adore Me as true God, One with the Father and the Holy Ghost. And it is My will that the cross and nails and thorny crown, and all the other instruments of My Passion, shall be honoured and held in veneration as most precious treasures. Likewise men shall believe that a little bread and wine is changed into My Body and Blood, and shall adore It as God. They shall confess that the water of baptism cleanses from sin, and that oil and chrism sanctify, and that My doctrine, of which it is not lawful to change one jot or tittle, surpasses all other teaching. My Virgin Mother also shall be honoured and loved throughout the whole world, and My Apostles, who were fishermen, shall be so revered, that men shall honour their very bones and ashes. If any poor man were to speak thus, should we not deride him as a madman?

But, if, in spite of your ridicule, He should say further: It is My will, not only that men should believe these things, but should on their account live in holiness, and should for the sake of invisible things spurn such as are visible, suffering for love of Me poverty, hunger, thirst, labour, torture and death—would you not think that He had lost His senses? And were He to add: I shall accomplish all these things against the will of the whole world, and shall overcome kings and princes, the powers of hell, and the machinations of men—would you not think Him completely mad?

But what would be your opinion of Him, if, when you asked Him with what weapons He proposed to achieve these victories, He should reply: My only arms will be the tongue, used not in rhetorical or philosophical eloquence, but in simplicity of preaching; and I know that by means of this preaching many will be converted to Me, and will for My name endure suffering and death; and the blood of My faithful will become the seed of the Church. And so great will be the power of My doctrine that Peter the fisherman and his successors will become heads of the proud city of Rome, and the chiefs of the world; and emperors will humbly stoop to kiss their feet. And good and learned men shall, in every language, compose innumerable books filled with My praises, and in defence of My doctrine. And when my priests shall, with great reverence and solemnity, pronounce My word, all people shall listen to it, standing with bared heads. And none shall prevail against Me, but My religion shall endure for ever. Would you not have treated such words as foolish dreams? And, surely, when we consider how all these prophecies have been fulfilled, shall we not see that they could not possibly have been accomplished by one poor man, nor by all men, nor by all natural or supernatural power, but only by the infinite power of God? Beholding these things, can we possibly doubt that they are the work of God, and that the Faith of Christ is true? What conjuror, what philosopher, what powerful king has ever performed the like? Can Mahomet, can the heathen gods be compared to Christ, before whose coming none of these things were accomplished, or even imagined? Neither can we say that these marvels happened by chance, for they had been foretold years before their accomplishment by the Prophets and Sybils, whose books are known to the whole world. This is another argument in favour of the truth of Christianity.

In the course of nature some causes invariably produce their effect; others do so nearly always; and others are indifferent as to whether they produce their effect or not. Again, some arguments, i.e., those called demonstrative, infallibly constrain the understanding to accept a proposition; others almost always incline the understanding to receive it; and others sometimes appeal to the mind, and at other times produce no effect upon it. Demonstration abounds in mathematical science, though there is very little of it in natural science, and still less in moral science which treats of sublime and Divine things. For our understanding is so weak, that it does not really know the nature of things; and, therefore, it is with difficulty convinced with regard to things which are not manifest. If, then, it be difficult to persuade the understanding to embrace moral and Divine things, how much harder must it not be to incline it to virtue and contemplation, seeing how the flesh ever rebels against the spirit? But it is, above all things, difficult to incline the intellect to perseverance in good works. In philosophical schools we see many systems under many founders; but few sincerely love what they learn or teach. For, very few who know what really are good works, are, as a consequence, by their knowledge of them, attracted to persevere in their performance. If, then, the greatest philosophers, with all their learning and eloquence, have scarcely succeeded in persuading a few men to believe things dictated by reason—such as, for instance, God’s providence over human affairs and the duty of practising virtue and avoiding vice—how much less able would they have been to induce men to believe things above natural reason, and, above all, to love good works? But the disciples of Christ, unknown fishermen, were able, by their simple preaching, to persuade the world to accept the truths of faith and to love these truths so ardently, and to pursue good works so unflaggingly, that in comparison with them they esteemed all earthly things as dust and ashes, and refused to deny their faith either for promises or threats, or even for death itself. Surely, if Christianity were false, the Apostles could not more easily have persuaded men to accept it, than philosophers had induced them to embrace systems which appealed to natural reason. And the words of the poor fishermen would not alone have sufficed to convert the world, but those words must needs have been confirmed by miracles, And who but God could have enabled them to work their miracles, which surpassed all the powers of human nature? But, supposing that the Apostles worked no miracles at all, surely the wonder of wonders would be that a crucified man should be able, by means of twelve poor fishermen, to persuade, by words alone, the entire world to embrace His doctrine. Therefore, whether the spread of Christianity be due to miracles or not, we cannot deny that the power of Christ has been beyond any natural power. And, since the First Cause is that which is more powerful than other causes, so the true God must be He that is more mighty than any other god. Therefore, Jesus Christ, whose Faith has been victorious over all other forms of religion, must be the true God, and His teaching must be the true religion.

Chapter XIV. The Truth of Christianity Shown by Arguments Based on the Wisdom of Christ

The property of wisdom is a capacity to subordinate things to their end. Thus, that artist is considered a master who can dispose the circumstances of his art towards the end which he wishes to attain; and it is to the architect, and not to the builders, that the credit of an edifice is due. But artists, seeing that they only work towards some particular end, are relatively, not absolutely, wise. He alone who labours for the last end of human life, and who directs all his activities towards the attainment of that end, is endowed with absolute wisdom. Now, as Jesus of Nazareth has pointed out the true end of human life, and the true means of attaining thereto, and has done so with a clearness and a force exercised by no other man, He alone can be called truly and pre-eminently wise.

Again. As power to beget children is a sign of perfect virility, so power to teach is a mark of perfect wisdom. And, surely, never has teacher arisen whose doctrine is more sublime, or more useful, than is that of Christ; and never has one taught with ease and power comparable to His. The systems of philosophers are obscure, and mingled with many errors; and the teachers themselves are uncertain on many points, such as Divine Providence, the end of human life, and the things which pertain to salvation. But our Saviour, Jesus Christ, has enlightened even women and children, to understand clearly many things incomprehensible to philosophers, and has enabled them to hold His doctrine with a firmness invincible even by death.

Further. As the power of an agent is known by the extent and duration of his work, the wisdom of a teacher is recognised by the number of ignorant sinners whom he converts, and the speed wherewith their conversion is effected. For it is no great sign of power to attract those who are naturally and habitually well disposed; but only great wisdom can instruct, in a short time, men of mean understanding, and women and children, and can reform notorious sinners. Christ alone has succeeded in effecting these wonders throughout the whole world. Therefore, He alone is endowed with incomparable wisdom.

Again. It is no great thing to produce natural effects by natural causes. For example, it does not surprise us if a conflagration be caused by fire, but it would be marvellous were it produced by water. Hence, it is only supreme and infinite power that can act on natural objects, either without instruments or with such as are diametrically opposed to the effect produced; or that can operate on all natural objects with the same instrument. Thus it is nothing very wonderful that philosophers should have been able to teach by means of ordinary methods; but only Supreme Power could have taught by means of that which, in the world, is accounted foolishness. Now Christ, by means of the folly and the ignominy of the Cross, has imparted to men sublime wisdom, true wisdom, which can only be acquired by the teaching of the Cross, wisdom, compared to which all human learning is foolishness. Therefore, the wisdom of Christ must itself be pre-eminent.

If wisdom mean the science of Divine things, the wisdom of Christ must exceed all other wisdom. For, as we see by comparing Christian doctrine with philosophical systems, no one has treated of Divine things so fully, or so sublimely, as Christ has done. Theology has purged philosophy, and made it perfect, and has diffused so widely the knowledge of the Divine, that Christians, even the least educated, easily understand points which are stumbling-blocks to philosophers. And, further, the preaching of the Apostles has illuminated the world to see its errors. Since this dawn of the light of Christ, philosophers and poets, ashamed of their false gods and fables, have tried to disguise their superstitions under a cloak of allegory.

Again. It is only great wisdom that can understand sublime and intricate matters. Christ has taught and easily defended, most subtle doctrine. How, then, shall we hesitate to declare His wisdom incomparable? His doctrine has not only stood the test of argument, but likewise that of cruel persecution, under which philosophers would have denied their first principles. For as their philosophy proceeded from natural reason, they would have had neither strength nor wisdom to uphold it. But the teaching of Christ, being supernatural, is likewise, of necessity, invincible. Christianity is either false or true. If it be true, discussion is at an end. If it be false, Christ must still be acknowledged to have been the wisest of men, seeing that He was able to persuade men to accept doctrines, difficult and unpalatable, and to adhere to them so firmly, that no human reason or power has been able to uproot them from the world. Nevertheless, in all that Christ has taught there is nothing repugnant to philosophy or to science. On the contrary, Christianity culls truth from all systems, even from paganism. If Christ had not been Wisdom Itself, He could never have founded so wise a religion as is this. If His doctrine had been false, it would not be defensible by science. For philosophers find it sufficiently difficult to defend even truth against their opponents. Even were we obliged to acknowledge Christianity to be a falsehood, we should still be constrained to recognise the extraordinary sagacity of its Founder, who by means of subtle fallacies has been able to lead His disciples to sublime perfection of life. But, seeing that there can be no harmony between virtue and deceit, and no agreement between truth and falsehood, we are driven to confess that Christ is truly wise, with a wisdom surpassing that of men. His wisdom is attested by the many who have extolled it, not only by their words and writing, but by their works, and by the shedding of their blood.

Finally. The greatest power of wise men appears, chiefly, in the fact, that they require but a short time in which to lead their pupils to the perfection of knowledge. But as no one has given such clear proofs of this power as Christ has manifested, it is evident that He alone is wise above all men. Every science is either rational or real. By rational science we understand logic, rhetoric and poetry; and the end aimed at by these branches of rational science is to teach us to weave together arguments, chains of reasoning, and exhortations, which will convert men to agree with our opinions. Now, Christ instructed the Apostles in rational science to such good purpose, that, by their preaching, they exercised more influence in the world, than had ever been achieved by any human power or learning. Real science is either practical and moral, or speculative. Christ has taught practical and moral science so effectually, that Christians need no philosophy but His. Speculative science may be concerned with Divine things, and in the teaching of Christ is contained such fulness of Divine knowledge that, beside it, all human wisdom is stultified. Or, on the other hand, it may teach the knowledge of numbers and of figures, as do arithmetic and geometry; but as this knowledge is in no wise necessary to salvation, the teaching of Christ disregards it, except for purposes of allegory. Thirdly, speculative science may treat of sensible things, in order, by means of them, to lead men to speculation on intelligible things. The teaching of Christ exhibits most perfectly this speculative science, seeing that His preaching abounds in the use of visible things, as images or mirrors of such as are invisible. Thus we see that Christ only is supremely wise, since He only has been able, easily, to lead men to the fulness of knowledge.

Again. The pleasures of the mind are far greater than those of the senses; but the greatest of all intellectual enjoyments is the contemplation of Supreme Truth. Therefore, since wisdom consists in the cognition and contemplation of this Truth, he must be wisest who most delights in it. Now, never has the contemplation of Truth been so ardently loved, and so strenuously sought after, as in these days, when, for its sake, men abandon every earthly joy, and: living like disembodied spirits, heed not the things of the flesh, and are disturbed at no tribulation. Thus do they prove that Christ, their Teacher, is wise beyond all human wisdom, and beyond all the wisdom of heathen deities, yea, that He is the very Wisdom of the Eternal God.

Chapter XV. The Truth of Christ’s Teaching Is Proved by His Goodness

We have shown that Jesus of Nazareth surpasses, in wisdom and in power, all men and all heathen deities. Hence, if we believe in the existence of any god, He only can be that God. It will next be our duty to prove His Divinity by arguments founded on His goodness, and to show that Jesus Christ is the Supreme Good and the End of human life. And we must premise that all human operations, i.e. , such as proceed from free will, are effected for some end; for appetite always tends to that which either is good, or appears to be good. It cannot tend to two things as to its ultimate end; for it is so fully satisfied by its last end, that it can desire nothing which is not ordered thereto. Now, as men, though not all of the same opinion or endowed with the same degree of knowledge, are yet all of the same nature, they must all tend to the same end, which is happiness; although, from their difference of condition, they do not all place their happiness in the same thing. If, then, we can prove that Christ is the Last End, to which all nature tends, it will be clear that He must be the very Truth, the First Cause, the Supreme Good, and in fact the true God.

In order to make this argument more clear, we must remember, that, when one thing tends naturally to another as to its end, it will be hindered in the attainment of this end, if it be joined by another thing of a contrary nature. Thus, if a heavy thing move towards its centre, it will be impeded in its course if it be joined to a light thing whose tendency it is to go upwards. Thus birds, whose bodies are heavy, are nevertheless raised aloft by their wings; whereas, a merely heavy thing moves swiftly towards its centre. Now, as man is composed of a corporeal and a spiritual nature, it happens, that, while his spiritual nature tends to true beatitude, his senses disturb and trouble him in the pursuit of his end; and, although they cannot force him to evil, they often incline him to inordinate desires. From these molestations, and from the weakness of his understanding, arise the divers human conceptions of happiness. If we would learn, by means of man’s natural desire, in what his beatitude consists, we must not consider the desires and inclinations of such as live like beasts, but of such as live according to reason. Just as, if we want to see whether heavy things move downwards or upwards, we must not choose birds as a test; but must select something completely heavy. We may learn what is the Last End of man by examining the desires of such as have purified themselves from the defilement of the senses, and who live according to reason. And as no life is so pure and so reasonable as the Christian life, we can, from the desires common to Christians, learn what is the Last End of man. Now, as Christians unite in an intense love for Christ Crucified, as the Last End of human life, it follows that we cannot reasonably hold that any but Christ can be the Last End of man.

Again. Man’s last end is his ultimate perfection; and the more perfect he becomes, the nearer does he approach to his end. Now, nothing causes man to become so perfect in life and in contemplation, as does Jesus Christ Crucified; and they who least resemble Him and are the most remote from Him, are the worst and most imperfect of men. He, therefore, must be the Last End of human life.

Further. The desire of the last end is natural to everything, and is ineradicable. When, therefore, men, who are purged from vice desire something, they love it so much that all other things appear to them as nought in comparison with the object of their desire. They would rather die than relinquish their pursuit of it. Now, as the life of true Christians is a pure life, and as they desire Christ Crucified with so steadfast a desire that they would sacrifice life itself rather than lose His love, and would most gladly die for His sake, it is manifest that Christ is the Supreme Truth and the Last End of human life. Our argument is further strengthened by the fact, that nothing is so steadfastly desired as He. For when men love other things, they love them not more than themselves, but for their own satisfaction; and would rather abandon them than die for their sake.

We see, likewise, how all things of the same species incline naturally to the same end; as all heavy things tend towards their centre. Therefore, Christ must be the Last End of human life, since nothing has been pursued by men with the same ardour and constancy, that they have shown in following Him. This is the reason why Christians are so closely united together; for we see that they love Jesus Christ above all things. For His sake they likewise love each other, of whatsoever race and country they may be; and the more their faith in Christ increases, the stronger grows their brotherly love. This could not be the case were their faith not true. For fallacy and error cause, not harmony, but discord.

Again. The soul enjoys greater happiness in proportion as, by love and contemplation, it draws nearer to its last end. But the happiness enjoyed by Christians far surpasses all pleasures of understanding and sense. This truth is proved by the invincible constancy of the martyrs, who went to death rejoicing and exulting; by the numberless monks and hermits who, relinquishing all things, and living in the practice of the greatest austerity, have yet enjoyed incomparable happiness; and by the numerous philosophers who have found such delight in the study of Holy Scripture, that, in order to devote themselves to it, they have abandoned every other branch of learning. Hence we see that the joy which souls find in Christ exceeds all other happiness. If, then, felicity be synonymous with proximity to our last end, Christ, in whom all happiness is found, must be the Last End of human life.

In order to comprehend, collectively, all the properties of our Last End we reason thus. As all things of the same species tend naturally to the same end, be it proximate or ultimate, it follows that men, who are all of the same species, must be fitted for some one thing which is the common end of human life. Now, all men agree in professing that they tend towards a last end; but they differ as to that wherein their last end is to be found. But since the happiness of mankind consists in the act of understanding, it is natural to conclude that this last end is to be found in that thing, towards which they who live the most rationally and whose affections are the most purified do uniformly incline; that to which they steadfastly adhere, loving it better than themselves; delighting in it; drawing from it sanctity of ways and brightness of heavenly life; and being raised by its influence so far above this world, that, in comparison with their end, they repute all earthly things as worthless. Now, as all these wonderful effects have never been produced in man by any, save by Christ Crucified, He must be the Last End of human life.

But why do we insist on so self-evident a truth knowing, as we do, that it is the property of Good to communicate itself, and that the graces and blessings diffused by Christ over mankind are absolutely unequalled? His coming has purged the world from error, filled it with sanctity and virtue, and communicated to all His followers happiness which no earthly thing could give. His supreme goodness is further shown by the promptitude and liberality wherewith He not only forgives sinners, but so enriches them with His gifts, that where sin did abound, grace has much more abounded, and they who return to Him from their sins are enabled to lead a virtuous life and enjoy their pristine peace and happiness, whereas they who forsake Him lose all tranquillity of mind. What further proof do we require that Christ is the Supreme Good, and the Last End of man?

Chapter XVI. The Truth of Christianity Is Proved by the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of Christ, Considered Collectively

We may sum up in a few words what has been already said about the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of Christ. Had Christ not been God, He would have been the most proud and the most foolish of men. And if (as some hold) the assertion of His Divinity was not made by Himself but by His disciples, how can a religion of such goodness, wisdom, and power, be the outcome of such a falsehood? If Christ be not God, who is God? God preserves and governs all inferior things by the requisite means; and, as no means are so suitable for the attainment of a virtuous life as the Faith and love of our Saviour Jesus Christ, we must either acknowledge that He is the true means whereby we attain beatitude, or must hold, with fatalists, that things happen by chance; and we must end in denying the existence of God.

Again. If there be any true religion in the world; and if no religion be supported by such arguments and undeniable proofs as is the Christian religion; where, save in Christianity, are we to seek the true religion?

Further. No religion has endured the constant and cruel persecution inflicted on Christianity. Other religions, or rather superstitions, have never roused in the world the hatred excited by the Faith of Christ. Yet, in spite of this fact, other religions which persecuted Christianity, have died out, of themselves, without being persecuted. Christianity has only flourished, and waxed stronger, by means of its conflicts. How do we account for this fact, if Christianity be untrue?

We must remember, likewise, that they who have persecuted Christians have been, not good and upright men, but men of infamous life. Is not this a further proof of the truth of our religion?

Again. No religion has made converts under the same conditions as those in which men have accepted the Faith of Christ. For those who have become Christians have done so, not in hopes of gaining riches, or honour, or pleasure, but with the expectation of having to bear poverty and shame, torture and death. If these men had not been enlightened by true light, could they have acted thus?

This collection of arguments, surely, ought to convince all men of the truth of Christianity. For, although the intellect may not be persuaded by one proof, nor by two, nor by three, a series of proofs carries as much weight as does a chain of mathematical demonstrations, or the sight of a dead man raised to life.

If, then, Christianity be true, all other religions must be false; for none can be saved except by Faith. This condition for salvation is a most reasonable one; for our beatitude is to consist in the vision and fruition of God, to which none can attain, save by the supernatural gift of Faith, without which, as St. Paul says, “it is impossible to please God” (Heb. xi. 6). Neither have they any ground for excuse or complaint who live in distant lands, where Christianity is unknown. For, as all men are endowed with reason, which leads to the knowledge of God, and as God further manifests Himself in the natural order of Creation, it follows that if any one live according to reason, and turn to God for help (as nature teaches every effect to turn to its cause), Almighty God, the Supreme Good who is never wanting to any necessity of, even His irrational, creatures, will still less fail man in matters pertaining to salvation. He will rather enlighten him, either by interior inspiration, as He enlightened Job; or by the ministry of angels, as He instructed Cornelius the Centurion; or by preaching, as He taught the Eunuch of Candace, by means of Philip the Apostle.

Diagnostic Questions

1. How effective is Savonarola’s image of the triumphal procession?

1. How effective is Savonarola’s image of the triumphal 2. How can you tell Savonarola was pre-Reformation?

3. What does he mean by the following statement: “Our faith cannot be demonstrated by natural principles and causes.”

4. How does Savonarola relate general revelation to special revelation?

5. In contrast to the teachings of the “philosophers,” how is the cross a principal cause?

6. Do Savonarola’s arguments from the spread of the church remind you of any other apologist?

1. B. B. Warfield, “Apologetics,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908), 232–38.

2.The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1908), 232–38.

3. See Joachim Weinhardt, Savonarola als Apologet: Der Versuch einer empirischen Begründung des christlichen Glaubens in der Zeit der Renaissance (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003).

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Two-Volume Work

Part 1. The Early Church: The Struggle for Vindication

Part 1 Introduction

1. Biblical Texts

2. Aristides

3. Justin Martyr

4. Athenagoras

5. Irenaeus

6.Tertullian

7. Origen

8. Athanasius

9. John Chrysostom

10. Augustine

Part 2. The Middle Ages: The Church Becomes Established

Part 2 Introduction

11. Boethius

12. Peter Abelard

13. Anselm

14.Thomas Aquinas

15. Raymond Lull

16. Girolamo Savonarola