ARGUMENT.
HERE BEGINS THE SECOND PART(1) OF THIS WORK, WHICH TREATS OF THEORIGIN, HISTORY, AND DESTINIES OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY.
IN THE FIRST PLACE, AUGUSTIN SHOWS IN THIS BOOK HOW THE TWO CITIES WEREFORMED ORIGINALLY, BY THE SEPARATION OF THE GOOD AND BAD ANGELS; AND TAKESOCCASION TO TREAT OF THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, AS IT IS DESCRIBED IN HOLYSCRIPTURE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
CHAP.1--OF THIS PART OF THE WORK, WHEREINWE BEGIN TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN AND END OF THE TWO CITIES.
The City Of God we speak of is the same to which testimony is borne by that Scripture, which excels all the writings of all nations by its divine authority, and has brought under its influence all kinds of minds, and this not by a casual intellectual movement, but obviously by an express providential arrangement.For there it is written, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God."(2) And in another psalm we read, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness, increasing the joy of the whole earth."(3) And, a little after, in the same psalm, "As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God.God has established it for ever." And in another, "There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved."(4) From these and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship.To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God of gods, not of false, i.e., of impious and proud gods, who, being deprived of His unchangeable and freely communicated light, and so reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power, eagerly grasp at their own private privileges, and seek divine honors from their deluded subjects;but of the pious and holy gods, who are better pleased to submit themselves to one, than to subject many to themselves, and who would rather worship God than be worshipped as God.But to the enemies of this city we have replied in the ten preceding books, according to our ability and the help afforded by our Lord and King.Now, recognizing what is expected of me, and not unmindful of my promise, and relying, too, on the same succor, I will endeavor to treat of the origin, and progress, and deserved destinies of the two cities (the earthly and the heavenly, to wit), which, as we said, are in this present world commingled, and as it were entangled together.
And, first, I will explain how the foundations of these two cities were originally laid, in the difference that arose among the angels.
CHAP.2.--OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, TO WHICHNO MAN CAN ATTAIN SAVE THROUGH THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MANCHRIST JESUS.
It is a great and very rare thing for a man after he has contemplated the whole creation, corporeal and incorporeal, and has discerned its mutability, to pass beyond it, and, by the continued soaring of his mind, to attain to the unchangeable substance of God, and, in that height of contemplation, to learn from God Himself that none but He has made all that is not of the divine essence.For God speaks with a man not by means of some audible creature dinning in his ears, so that atmospheric vibrations connect Him that makes with him that hears the sound, nor even by means of a spiritual being with the semblance of a body, such as we see in dreams or similar states; for even in this case He speaks as if to the ears of the body, because it is by means of the semblance of a body He speaks, and with the appearance of a real interval of space,--for visions are exact representations of bodily objects.Not by these, then, does God speak, but by the truth itself, if any one is prepared to hear with the mind rather than with the body.For He speaks to that part of man which is better than all else that is in him, and than which God Himself alone is better.For since man is most properly understood (or, if that cannot be, then, at least, believed)to be made in God's image, no doubt it is that part of him by which he rises above those lower parts he has in common with the beasts, which brings him nearer to the Supreme.But since the mind itself, though naturally capable of reason and intelligence is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed, and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified.And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently towards the truth, the truth itself, God, God's Son, assuming humanity without destroying His divinity,(1) established and founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to man's God through a God-man.
For this is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way.Since, if the way lieth between him who goes, and the place whither he goes, there is hope of his reaching it; but if there be no way, or if he know not where it is, what boots it to know whither he should go? Now the only way that is infallibly secured against all mistakes, is when the very same person is at once God and man, God our end, man our way.(2)CHAP.3.--OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE CANONICALSCRIPTURES COMPOSED BY THE DIVINE SPIRIT.