Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
City of God (Penguin Classics) (103 page)
2.
The children of the flesh and the children of the promise
There was certainly a kind of shadow and prophetic image of this City which served rather to point towards it than to reproduce it on earth at the time when it was due to be displayed. This image was also called the holy city, in virtue of its pointing to that other City, not as being the express likeness of the reality which is yet to be. Concerning this image, in its status as a servant, and that free City to which it points, the Apostle says, when writing to the Galatians,
Now tell me, you who want to be under law; have you not listened to what the Law says? We are told in Scripture that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave-woman, one by his free-born wife. The slave-woman’s son was born in the course of nature, the free woman’s as a result of a promise. These facts are allegorical. For the two women stand for two covenants. The one bearing children for slavery is the covenant from Mount Sinai; this is Hagar. Now Sinai is a mountain in Arabia and it stands for the present Jerusalem; for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; and she is our mother. For Scripture says: ‘Rejoice, you barren woman who bear no child: break into a cry of joy, you who are not in labour; for the deserted woman has many sons, more than the woman who has a husband’.
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Now we, my brothers, are sons of the promise, as Isaac was. But just as at that time the son who was born in the course of nature persecuted the son who was spiritually born, so it is now. But what does Scripture say? ‘Send away the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave shall not be joint-heir with the son of the free woman’.
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Thus you see, brothers, that we are not the sons of a slave-woman, but of the free woman, by reason of the freedom brought us by Christ’s liberation.
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This manner of interpretation, which comes down to us with apostolic authority, reveals to us how we are to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants, the old and the new. One part of the earthly city has been made into an image of the Heavenly City, by symbolizing something other than itself, namely that other City; and for that reason it is a servant. For it was established not for its own sake but in order to symbolize another City; and since it was signified by an antecedent symbol, the foreshadowing symbol was itself foreshadowed.
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Hagar, the servant of Sarah, represented, with her son, the image of this image. But the shadows were to pass away with the coming of the light, and Sarah, the free woman, stood for the free city
which the shadow, Hagar, for her part served to point to in another way. And that is why Sarah said, ‘Send away the slave-woman and her son; for the son of the slave shall not be joint-heir with my son Isaac.’ or as the Apostle puts it, ‘with the son of the free woman’.
Thus we find in the earthly city a double significance: in one respect it displays its own presence, and in the other it serves by its presence to signify the Heavenly City. But the citizens of the earthly city are produced by a nature which is vitiated by sin, while the citizens of the Heavenly City are brought forth by grace, which sets nature free from sin. That is why the former are called ‘vessels of wrath’, the latter ‘vessels of mercy’.
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This difference is also symbolized in Abraham’s two sons: the one, Ishmael, son of the slave named Hagar, was born in the course of nature, whereas the other, Isaac, son of Sarah, the free woman, was born in fulfilment of a promise. Both sons, it is true, were born of Abraham’s seed; but one was begotten by the normal procedure, a demonstration of nature’s way, while the other was given by a promise, a symbol of God’s grace. In one case we are shown man’s customary behaviour, in the other we are given a revelation of the goodness of God.
3.
The barrenness of Sarah, made fertile by the grace of God
Sarah, as we know, was barren, and, despairing of her chances of children, she was eager at least to have from her slave-girl what she realized she could not have from herself; and so she gave her slave to her husband to be made pregnant by him.
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She had wished to have children by him, but it had proved impossible. Thus she exacted her due from her husband even so, by availing herself of her rights in respect of another’s womb. Thus Ishmael was born, as men in general are born, as a result of sexual intercourse, following the established laws of nature. Hence the expression, ‘according to the flesh’ for ‘in the course of nature’. It does not mean that such bounties do not come from God, or that those operations are not part of God’s activity, whose craftsman, Wisdom, ‘reaches’, according to Scripture, ‘from one end to another in its power, and orders all things delightfully.’
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But when there was a need to point out that a gift was being bestowed by God of his free grace, and not as a matter of obligation, then a son had to be given in a way that was independent of the ordinary processes of nature. For nature denies children to the kind of sexual intercourse that was possible to Abraham and Sarah at the age they had
reached. And, apart from that, Sarah had hitherto been barren, and unable to produce a child even when she was the right age. Even then she failed in fertility, and by now she was the wrong age.
The fact that a nature in this condition had no right to any fruit of posterity signifies that human nature corrupted by sin, and therefore rightly condemned, did not deserve any true happiness for the future. Isaac therefore, who was born as a result of a promise, is rightly interpreted as symbolizing the children of grace, the citizens of the free city, the sharers in eternal peace, who form a community where there is no love of a will that is personal and, as we may say, private, but a love that rejoices in a good that is at once shared by all and unchanging – a love that makes ‘one heart’ out of many,
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a love that is the whole-hearted and harmonious obedience of mutual affection.
4. Conflict
and peace in the earthly city
The earthly city will not be everlasting; for when it is condemned to the final punishment it will no longer be a city. It has its good in this world, and rejoices to participate in it with such gladness as can be derived from things of such a kind. And since this is not the kind of good that causes no frustrations to those enamoured of it, the earthly city is generally divided against itself by litigation, by wars, by battles, by the pursuit of victories that bring death with them or at best are doomed to death. For if any section of that city has risen up in war against another part, it seeks to be victorious over other nations, though it is itself the slave of base passions; and if, when victorious, it is exalted in its arrogance, that victory brings death in its train. Whereas if it considers the human condition and the changes and chances common to mankind, and is more tormented by possible misfortunes than puffed up by its present success, then its victory is only doomed to death. For it will not be able to lord it permanently over those whom it has been able to subdue victoriously.
However, it would be incorrect to say that the goods which this city desires are not goods, since even that city is better, in its own human way, by their possession. For example, that city desires an earthly peace, for the sake of the lowest goods; and it is that peace which it longs to attain by making war. For if it wins the war and no one survives to resist, then there will be peace, which the warring sections did not enjoy when they contended in their unhappy poverty for the
things which they could not both possess at the same time. This peace is the aim of wars, with all their hardships; it is this peace that glorious victory (so called) achieves.
Now when the victory goes to those who were fighting for the juster cause, can anyone doubt that the victory is a matter for rejoicing and the resulting peace is something’to be desired? These things are goods and undoubtedly they are gifts of God. But if the higher goods are neglected, which belong to the City on high, where victory will be serene in the enjoyment of eternal and perfect peace
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– if these goods are neglected and those other goods are so desired as to be considered the only goods, or are loved more than the goods which are believed to be higher, the inevitable consequence is fresh misery, and an increase of the wretchedness already there.
5.
Of the first founder of the earthly city, whose fratricide was reproduced by the founder of Rome
The first founder of the earthly city was, as we have seen, a fratricide; for, overcome by envy, he slew his own brother, a citizen of the Eternal City, on pilgrimage in this world. Hence it is no wonder that long afterwards this first precedent – what the Greeks call an
archetype
was answered by a kind of reflection, by an event of the same kind at the founding of the city which was to be the capital of the earthly city of which we are speaking, and was to rule over so many peoples. For there also, as one of their poets says when he mentions the crime,
Those walls were dripping with a brother’s blood.
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For this is how Rome was founded, when Remus, as Roman history witnesses, was slain by his brother Romulus. The difference from the primal crime was that both brothers were citizens of the earthly city. Both sought the glory of establishing the Roman state, but a joint foundation would not bring to each the glory that a single founder would enjoy. Anyone whose aim was to glory in the exercise of power would obviously enjoy less power if his sovereignty was diminished by a living partner. Therefore, in order that the sole power should be wielded by one person, the partner was eliminated; and what would have been kept smaller and better by innocence grew through crime into something bigger and worse.
In contrast, the earlier brothers, Cain and Abel, did not both entertain the same ambition for earthly gains; and the one who slew his
brother was not jealous of him because his power would be more restricted if both wielded the sovereignty; for Abel did not aim at power in the city which his brother was founding. But Cain’s was the diabolical envy that the wicked feel for the good simply because they are good, while they themselves are evil. A man’s possession of goodness is in no way diminished by the arrival, or the continuance, of a sharer in it; indeed, goodness is a possession enjoyed more widely by the united affection of partners in that possession in proportion to the harmony that exists among them. In fact, anyone who refuses to enjoy this possession in partnership will not enjoy it at all; and he will find that he possesses it in ampler measure in proportion to his ability to love his partner in it.
Thus the quarrel that arose between Remus and Romulus demonstrated the division of the earthly city against itself; while the conflict between Cain and Abel displayed the hostility between the two cities themselves, the City of God and the city of men. Thus the wicked fight among themselves; and likewise the wicked fight against the good and the good against the wicked. But the good, if they have reached perfect goodness, cannot fight among themselves. However, while they are on their way towards the perfection they have not yet attained, there may be fighting among them inasmuch as any good man may fight against another as a result of that part of him which makes him also fight against himself. And in the individual it is true that ‘the flesh has desires which resist the spirit, and the spirit has desires which resist the flesh’.
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Accordingly, spiritual desire can fight against the carnal desire of another person, or carnal desire against another’s spiritual desire, just as the good and the wicked fight against one another. Or even the carnal desires of two good men (who have obviously not yet attained perfection) may fight, just as the wicked fight among themselves, until those who are on the way to recovery are finally brought to triumphant health.
6.
On the weaknesses from which even the citizens of the City of God suffer as punishment for sin during their life’s pilgrimage, and for which they are cured by God’s healing
Now this kind of weakness, the disobedience, that is, which we discussed in the fourteenth book,
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is, of course, the punishment for the primal disobedience. Consequently, it is not part of nature, but a
defect in nature. Hence the admonition given to the good who are making progress and who are living by faith during this pilgrimage: ‘Carry each other’s loads, and in this way you will fulfil the Law of Christ.’
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And in another place, ‘Correct the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, support the feeble, be patient with all men. Take care that none of you returns evil for evil.’
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And in yet another place, ‘If a man has been caught in any offence, you who are spiritual must instruct such a person in a kindly spirit. Keep an eye on yourself, in case you may be tempted.’
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And elsewhere, ‘Do not let the sun set on your anger.’
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And in the Gospel, ‘If your brother sins against you correct him, just between the two of you.’
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Similarly, on the subject of sins, as a precaution against the bad effect on others, the Apostle says, ‘As for sinners, rebuke them publicly, so as to instil fear in the rest.’
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This is why so many precepts are given about mutual forgiveness and the great care needed for the maintenance of peace, without which no one will be able to see God.
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Hence the terrifying sentence on the slave when he was ordered to repay a debt of ten thousand talents, which had been forgiven, because he did not forgive his fellow slave a debt of a hundred denarii. And when the Lord Jesus had told this parable, he added, ‘This is what your Heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not, every one of you, forgive your brother from your heart.’
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This is how the citizens of the City of God are restored to health while on pilgrimage on this earth, as they sigh for their Heavenly Country. At the same time the Holy Spirit is at work internally to make effective the medicine which is externally applied. Otherwise, even if God makes use of a creature subject to him to speak to human senses in some human form, whether to the bodily senses or those closely resembling them that we possess when we are asleep, and does not rule and guide our minds with his inward grace, no preaching of the truth is of any help to man.
In fact, this is what God does, distinguishing the vessels of wrath from the vessels of mercy, by the deeply hidden yet just dispensation, known only to himself.
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He certainly helps in wonderful and secret ways; and when the sin (or rather the punishment of sin) which dwells in our members no longer, to use the words of the Apostle’s precept, ‘reigns in our mortal bodies inducing obedience to the body’s desires’, and when we no longer ‘place our bodily parts at sin’s disposal,
to be instruments of wickedness’,
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there is a change in us, so that man’s mind, under the rule of God, does not conspire with man to do evil, but man finds in this changed mind a ruler that brings a greater tranquillity, here and now; and hereafter, when he has attained perfect health and achieved immortality, man will reign, without sin, in eternal peace.
