BOOK XI. 
ARGUMENT. 
HERE BEGINS THE SECOND PART(1) OF THIS WORK, WHICH TREATS OF THE ORIGIN, 
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 WERE FORMED 
ORIGINALLY, BY THE SEPARATION OF THE GOOD AND BAD ANGELS; AND TAKES OCCASION TO 
TREAT OF THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, AS IT IS DESCRIBED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE IN THE 
BEGINNING OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 
CHAP. 1--OF THIS PART OF THE WORK, WHEREIN WE 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 WHICH NO MAN CAN ATTAIN SAVE THROUGH THE 
MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND MEN, THE MAN CHRIST 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 CANONICAL SCRIPTURES COMPOSED BY THE DIVINE 
SPIRIT. 
This Mediator, having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, 
then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the 
Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which 
we yield assent in all matters of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet 
cannot know of ourselves. For if we attain the knowledge of present objects by 
the testimony of our own senses,(3) whether internal or external, then, 
regarding objects remote from our own senses, we need others to bring their 
testimony, since we cannot know them by our own, and we credit the persons to 
whom the objects have been or are sensibly present. Accordingly, as in the case 
of visible objects which we have not seen, we trust those who have, (and 
likewise with all sensible objects,) so in the case of things which are 
perceived 4 by the mind and spirit, i.e., which are remote from our own interior 
sense, it behoves us to trust those who have seen them set in that incorporeal 
light, or abidingly contemplate them. 
CHAP. 4.--THAT THE WORLD IS NEITHER WITHOUT BEGINNING, NOR YET CREATED BY A NEW 
DECREE OF GOD, BY WHICH HE AFTERWARDS WILLED WHAT HE HAD NOT BEFORE WILLED. 
Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible, the greatest 
is God. But, that the world is, we see; that God is, we believe. That God made 
the world, we can believe from no one more safely than from God Himself. But 
where have we heard Him? Nowhere more distinctly than in the Holy Scriptures, 
where His prophet said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth." s Was the prophet present when God made the heavens and the earth? No; 
but the wisdom of God, by whom all things were made, was there,(6) and wisdom 
insinuates itself into holy souls, and makes them the friends of God and His 
prophets, and noiselessly informs them of His works. They are taught also by the 
angels of God, who always behold the face of the Father,(7) and announce His 
will to whom it befits. Of these prophets was he who said and wrote, "In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." And so fit a witness was he of 
God, that the same Spirit of God, who revealed these things to him, enabled him 
also so long before to predict that our faith also would be forthcoming. 
But why did God choose then to create the heavens and earth which up to that 
time He had not made?(1) If they who put this question wish to make out that the 
world is eternal and without beginning, and that consequently it has not been 
made by God, they are strangely deceived, and rave in the incurable madness of 
impiety. For, though the voices of the prophets were silent, the world itself, 
by its well-ordered changes and movements, and by the fair appearance of all 
visible things, bears a testimony of its own, both that it has been created, and 
also that it could not have been created save by God, whose greatness and beauty 
are unutterable and invisible. As for those(2) who own, indeed, that it was made 
by God, and yet ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational beginning, so 
that in some scarcely intelligible way the world should always have existed a 
created world they make an assertion which seems to them to defend God from the 
charge of arbitrary hastiness, or of suddenly conceiving the idea of creating 
the world as a quite new idea, or of casually changing His will, though He be 
unchangeable. But I do not see how this supposition of theirs can stand in other 
respects, and chiefly in respect of the soul; for if they contend that it is 
co-eternal with God, they will be quite at a loss to explain whence there has 
accrued to it new misery, which through a previous eternity had not existed. For 
if they said that its happiness and misery ceaselessly alternate, they must say, 
further, that this alternation will continue for ever; whence will result this 
absurdity, that, though the soul is called blessed, it is not so in this, that 
it foresees its own misery and disgrace. And yet, if it does not foresee it, and 
supposes that it will be neither disgraced nor wretched, but always blessed, 
then it is blessed because it is deceived; and a more foolish statement one 
cannot make. But if their idea is that the soul's misery has alternated with its 
bliss during the ages of the past eternity, but that now, when once the soul, 
has been set free, it will return henceforth no more to misery, they are 
nevertheless of opinion that it has never been truly blessed before, but begins 
at last to enjoy a new and uncertain happiness; that is to say, they must 
acknowledge that some new thing, and that an important and signal thing, happens 
to the soul which never in a whole past eternity happened it before. And if they 
deny that God's eternal purpose included this new experience of the soul, they 
deny that He is the Author of its blessedness, which is unspeakable impiety. If, 
on the other hand, they say that the future blessedness of the soul is the 
result of a new decree of God, how will they show that God is not chargeable 
with that mutability which displeases them? Further, if they acknowledge that it 
was created in time, but will never perish in time,--that it has, like 
number,(3) a beginning but no end, --and that, therefore, having once made trial 
of misery, and been delivered from it, it will never again return thereto, they 
will certainly admit that this takes place without any violation of the 
immutable counsel of God. Let them, then, in like manner believe regarding the 
world that it too could be made in time, and yet that God, in making it, did not 
alter His eternal design. 
CHAP. 5.--THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO SEEK TO COMPREHEND THE INFINITE AGES OF TIME 
BEFORE THE WORLD, NOR THE INFINITE REALMS OF SPACE. 
Next, we must see what reply can be made to those who agree that God is the 
Creator of the world, but have difficulties about the time of its creation, and 
what reply, also, they can make to difficulties we might raise about the place 
of its creation. For, as they demand why the world was created then and no 
sooner, we may ask why it was created just here where it is, and not elsewhere. 
For if they imagine infinite spaces of time before the world, during which God 
could not have been idle, in like manner they may conceive outside the world 
infinite realms of space, in which, if any one says that the Omnipotent cannot 
hold His hand from working, will it not follow that they must adopt Epicurus' 
dream of innumerable worlds? with this difference only, that he asserts that 
they are formed and destroyed by the fortuitous movements of atoms, while they 
will hold that they are made by God's hand, if they maintain that, throughout 
the boundless immensity of space, stretching interminably in every direction 
round the world, God cannot rest, and that the worlds which they suppose Him to 
make cannot be destroyed. For here the question is with those who, with 
ourselves, believe that God is spiritual, and the Creator of all existences but 
Himself. As for others, it is a condescension to dispute with them on a 
religious question, for they have acquired a reputation only among men who pay 
divine honors to a number of gods, and have become conspicuous among the other 
philosophers for no other reason than that, though they are still far from the 
truth, they are near it in comparison with the rest. While these, then, neither 
confine in any place, nor limit, nor distribute the divine substance, but, as is 
worthy of God, own it to be wholly though spiritually present everywhere, will 
they perchance say that this substance is absent from such immense spaces 
outside the world, and is occupied in one only, (and that a very little one 
compared with the infinity beyond), the one, namely, in which is the world? I 
think they will not proceed to this absurdity. Since they maintain that there is 
but one world, of vast material bulk, indeed, yet finite, and in its own 
determinate position, and that this was made by the working of God, let them 
give the same account of God's resting in the infinite times before the world as 
they give of His resting in the infinite spaces outside of it. And as it does 
not follow that God set the world in the very spot it occupies and no other by 
accident rather than by divine reason, although no human reason can comprehend 
why it was so set, and though there was no merit in the spot chosen to give it 
the precedence of infinite others, so neither does it follow that we should 
suppose that God was guided by chance when He created the world in that and no 
earlier time, although previous times had been running by during an infinite 
past, and though there was no difference by which one time could be chosen in 
preference to another. But if they say that the thoughts of men are idle when 
they conceive infinite places, since there is no place beside the world, we 
reply that, by the same showing, it is vain to conceive of the past times of 
God's rest, since there is no time before the world. 
CHAP. 6.--THAT THE WORLD AND TIME HAD BOTH ONE BEGINNING, AND THE ONE DID NOT 
ANTICIPATE THE OTHER. 
For if eternity and time are rightly distinguished by this, that time does not 
exist without some movement and transition, while in eternity there is no 
change, who does not see that there could have been no time had not some 
creature been made, which by some motion could give birth to change,--the 
various parts of which motion and change, as they cannot be simultaneous, 
succeed one another,--and thus, in these shorter or longer intervals of 
duration, time would begin? Since then, God, in whose eternity is no change at 
all, is the Creator and Ordainer of time, I do not see how He can be said to 
have created the world after spaces of time had elapsed, unless it be said that 
prior to the world there was some creature by whose movement time could pass. 
And if the sacred and infallible Scriptures say that in the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth, in order that it may be understood that He 
had made nothing previously,--for if He had made anything before the rest, this 
thing would rather be said to have been made "in the beginning,"--then assuredly 
the world was made, not in time, but simultaneously with time. For that which is 
made in time is made both after and before some time,--after that which is past, 
before that which is future. But none could then be past, for there was no 
creature by whose movements its duration could be measured. But simultaneously 
with time the world was made, if in the world's creation change and motion were 
created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in 
these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all 
things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was 
mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is 
extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more 
to say! 
CHAP. 7.--OF THE NATURE OF THE FIRST DAYS, WHICH ARE SAID TO HAVE HAD MORNING 
AND EVENING, BEFORE THERE WAS A SUN. 
We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting, and 
no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first three days of all were 
passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. 
And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, 
separated it from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness 
Night; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made 
evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we 
understand how it was, and .yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For either it 
was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper parts of the world, 
far removed from our sight, or from the spot where the sun was afterwards 
kindled; or under the name of light the holy city was signified, composed of 
holy angels and blessed spirits, the city of which the apostle says, "Jerusalem 
which is above is our eternal mother in heaven;"(1) and in another place, "For 
ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of 
the night, nor of darkness."' Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak of 
a morning and evening of this day also. For the knowledge of the creature is, in 
comparison of the knowledge of the Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and 
breaks into morning when the creature is drawn to the praise and love of the 
Creator; and night never falls when the Creator is not forsaken through love of 
the creature. In fine, Scripture, when it would recount those days in order, 
never mentions the word night. It never says, " Night was," but "The evening and 
the morning were the first day." So of the second and the rest. And, indeed, the 
knowledge of created things contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more 
colorless than when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which 
they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure than night; and yet, 
as I said, morning returns when the creature returns to the praise and love of 
the Creator. When it does so in the knowledge of itself, that is the first day; 
when in the knowledge of the firmament, which is the name given to the sky 
between the waters above and those beneath, that is the second day; when in the 
knowledge of the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth, 
that is the third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less luminaries, 
and all the stars, that is the fourth day; when in the knowledge of all animals 
that swim in the waters and that fly in the air, that is the fifth day; when in 
the knowledge of all animals that live on the earth, and of man himself, that is 
the sixth day.(3) 
CHAP. 8.--WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND OF GOD'S RESTING ON THE SEVENTH DAY, AFTER 
THE SIX DAYS' WORK. 
When it is said that God rested on the seventh day from all His works, and 
hallowed it, we are not to conceive of this in a childish fashion, as if work 
were a toil to God, who "spake and it was done,"--spake by the spiritual and 
eternal, not audible and transitory word. But God's rest signifies the rest of 
those who rest in God, as the joy of a house means the joy of those in the house 
who rejoice, though not the house, but something else, causes the joy. How much 
more intelligible is such phraseology, then, if the house itself, by its own 
beauty, makes the inhabitants joyful! For in this case we not only call it 
joyful by that figure of speech in which the thing containing is used for the 
thing contained (as when we say, "The theatres applaud," "The meadows low," 
meaning that the men in the one applaud, and the oxen in the other low), but 
also by that figure in which the cause is spoken of as if it were the effect, as 
when a letter is said to be joyful, because it makes its readers so. Most 
appropriately, therefore, the sacred narrative states that God rested, meaning 
thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest. And this the 
prophetic narrative promises also to the men to whom it speaks, and for whom it 
was written, that they themselves, after those good works which God does in and 
by them, if they have managed by faith to get near to God in this life, shall 
enjoy in Him eternal rest. This was pre-figured to the ancient people of God by 
the rest enjoined in their sabbath law, of which, in its own place, I shall 
speak more at large. 
CHAP. 9.--WHAT THE SCRIPTURES TEACH US TO BELIEVE CONCERNING THE CREATION OF THE 
ANGELS, 
At present, since I have undertaken to treat of the origin of the holy city, and 
first of the holy angels, who constitute a large part of this city, and indeed 
the more blessed part, since they have never been expatriated, I will give 
myself to the task of explaining, by God's help, and as far as seems suitable, 
the Scriptures which relate to this point. Where Scripture speaks of the world's 
creation, it is not plainly said whether or when the angels were created; but if 
mention of them is made, it is implicitly under the name of "heaven," when it is 
said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," or perhaps 
rather under the name of "light," of which presently. But that they were wholly 
omitted, I am unable to believe, because it is written that God on the seventh 
day rested from all His works which He made; and this very book itself begins, 
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," so that before heaven 
and earth God seems to have made nothing. Since, therefore, He began with the 
heavens and the earth,--and the earth itself, as Scripture adds, was at first 
invisible and formless, light not being as yet made, and darkness covering the 
face of the deep (that is to say, covering an undefined chaos of earth and sea, 
for where light is not, darkness must needs be),--and then when all things, 
which are recorded to have been completed in six days, were created and arranged 
how should the angels be omitted, as if they were not among the works of God, 
from which on the seventh day He rested? Yet, though the fact that the angels 
are the work of God is not omitted here, it is indeed not explicitly mentioned; 
but elsewhere Holy Scripture asserts it in the clearest manner. For in the Hymn 
of the Three Children in the Furnace it was said, "O all ye works of the Lord 
bless ye the Lord;"(1) and among these works mentioned afterwards in detail, the 
angels are named. And in the psalm it is said, "Praise ye the Lord from the 
heavens, praise Him in the heights. Praise ye Him, all His angels; praise ye 
Him, all His hosts. Praise ye Him, sun and moon; praise him, all ye stars of 
light. Praise Him, ye heaven of heavens; and ye waters that be above the 
heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they were 
created."(2) Here the angels are most expressly and by divine authority said to 
have been made by God, for of them among the other heavenly things it is said, 
"He commanded, and they were created." Who, then, will be bold enough to suggest 
that the angels were made after the six days' creation? If any one is so 
foolish, his folly is disposed of by a scripture of like authority, where God 
says, "When the stars were made, the angels praised me with a loud voice."(3) 
The angels therefore existed before the stars; and the stars were made the 
fourth day. Shall we then say that they were made the third day? Far from it; 
for we know what was made that day. The earth was separated from the water, and 
each element took its own distinct form, and the earth produced all that grows 
on it. On the second day, then? Not even on this; for on it the firmament was 
made between the waters above and beneath, and was called "Heaven," in which 
firmament the stars were made on the fourth day. There is no question, then, 
that if the angels are included in the works of God during these six days, they 
are that light which was called "Day," and whose unity Scripture signalizes by 
calling that day not the "first day," but "one day."(4) For the second day, the 
third, and the rest are not other days; but the same "one" day is repeated to 
complete the number six or seven, so that there should be knowledge both of 
God's works and of His rest. For when God said, "Let there be light, and there 
was light," if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of 
the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light 
which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom 
we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light 
that created them, might themselves become light and be called "Day," in 
participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by 
whom both themselves and all else were made. "The true Light, which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world,"(5)--this Light lighteth also every pure 
angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel 
turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, 
and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived 
of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the 
loss of good has received the name "evil."(6) 
CHAP. 10.--OF THE SIMPLE AND UNCHANGEABLE TRINITY, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST, 
ONE GOD, IN WHOM SUBSTANCE AND QUALITY ARE IDENTICAL. 
There is, accordingly, a good which is alone simple, and therefore alone 
unchangeable, and this is God. By this Good have all others been created, but 
not simple, and therefore not unchangeable. "Created," I say,--that is, made, 
not begotten. For that which is begotten of the simple Good is simple as itself, 
and the same as itself. These two we call the Father and the Son; and both 
together with the Holy Spirit are one God; and to this Spirit the epithet Holy 
is in Scripture, as it were, appropriated. And He is another than the Father and 
the Son, for He is neither the Father nor the Son. I say "another," not "another 
thing," because He is equally with them the simple Good, unchangeable and 
co-eternal. And this Trinity is one God; and none the less simple because a 
Trinity. For we do not say that the nature of the good is simple, because the 
Father alone possesses it, or the Son alone, or the Holy Ghost alone; nor do we 
say, with the Sabellian heretics, that it is only nominally a Trinity, and has 
no real distinction of persons; but we say it is simple, because it is what it 
has, with the exception of the relation of the persons to one another. For, in 
regard to this relation, it is true that the Father has a Son, and yet is not 
Himself the Son; and the Son has a Father, and is not Himself the Father. But, 
as regards Himself, irrespective of relation to the other, each is what He has; 
thus, He is in Himself living, for He has life, and is Himself the Life which He 
has. 
It is for this reason, then, that the nature of the Trinity is called simple, 
because it has not anything which it can lose, and because it is not one thing 
and its contents another, as a cup and the liquor, or a body and its color, or 
the air and the light or heat of it, or a mind and its wisdom. For none of these 
is what it has: the cup is not liquor, nor the body color, nor the air light and 
heat, nor the mind wisdom. And hence they can be deprived of what they have, and 
can be turned or changed into other qualities and states, so that the cup may be 
emptied of the liquid of which it is full, the body be discolored, the air 
darken, the mind grow silly. The incorruptible body which is promised to the 
saints in the resurrection cannot, indeed, lose its quality of incorruption, but 
the bodily substance and the quality of incorruption are not the same thing. For 
the quality of incorruption resides entire in each several part, not greater in 
one and less in another; for no part is more incorruptible than another. The 
body, indeed, is itself greater in whole than in part; and one part of it is 
larger, another smaller, yet is not the larger more incorruptible than the 
smaller. The body, then, which is not in each of its parts a whole body, is one 
thing; incorruptibility, which is throughout complete, is another thing;--for 
every part of the incorruptible body, however unequal to the rest otherwise, is 
equally incorrupt. For the hand, e.g., is not more incorrupt than the finger 
because it is larger than the finger; so, though finger and hand are unequal, 
their incorruptibility is equal. Thus, although incorruptibility is inseparable 
from an incorruptible body, yet the substance of the body is one thing, the 
quality of incorruption another. And therefore the body is not what it has. The 
soul itself, too, though it be always wise (as it will be eternally when it is 
redeemed), will be so by participating in the unchangeable wisdom, which it is 
not; for though the air be never robbed of the light that is shed abroad in it, 
it is not on that account the same thing as the light. I do not mean that the 
soul is air, as has been supposed by some who could not conceive a spiritual 
nature;(1) but, with much dissimilarity, the two things have a kind of likeness, 
which makes it suitable to say that the immaterial soul is illumined with the 
immaterial light of the simple wisdom of God, as the material air is irradiated 
with material light, and that, as the air, when deprived of this light, grows 
dark, (for material darkness is nothing else than air wanting light,(2)) so the 
soul, deprived of the light of wisdom, grows dark. 
According to this, then, those things which are essentially and truly divine are 
called simple, because in them quality and substance are identical, and because 
they are divine, or wise, or blessed in themselves, and without extraneous 
supplement. In Holy Scripture, it is true, the Spirit of wisdom is called 
"manifold"(3) because it contains many things in it; but what it contains it 
also is, and it being one is all these things. For neither are there many 
wisdoms, but one, in which are untold and infinite treasures of things 
intellectual, wherein are all invisible and unchangeable reasons of things 
visible and changeable which were created by it.(4) For God made nothing 
unwittingly; not even a human workman can be said to do so. But if He knew all 
that He made, He made only those things which He had known. Whence flows a very 
striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be known to us unless it 
existed, but could not have existed unless it had been known to God. 
CHAP. 11.--WHETHER THE ANGELS THAT FELL PARTOOK OF THE BLESSEDNESS WHICH THE 
HOLY ANGELS HAVE ALWAYS ENJOYED FROM THE TIME OF THEIR CREATION. 
And since these things are so, those spirits whom we call angels were never at 
any time or in any way darkness, but, as soon as they were made, were made 
light; yet they were not so created in order that they might exist and live in 
any way whatever, but were enlightened that they might live wisely and 
blessedly. Some of them, having turned away from this light, have not won this 
wise and blessed life, which is certainly eternal, and accompanied with the sure 
confidence of its eternity; but they have still the life of reason, though 
darkened with folly, and this they cannot lose even if they would. But who can 
determine to what extent they were partakers of that wisdom before they fell? 
And how shall we say that they participated in it equally with those who through 
it are truly and fully blessed, resting in a true certainty of eternal felicity? 
For if they had equally participated in this true knowledge, then the evil 
angels would have remained eternally blessed equally with the good, because they 
were equally expectant of it. For, though a life be never so long, it cannot be 
truly called eternal if it is destined to have an end; for it is called life 
inasmuch as it is lived, but eternal because it has no end. Wherefore, although 
everything eternal is not therefore blessed (for hell-fire is eternal), yet if 
no life can be truly and perfectly blessed except it be eternal, the life of 
these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end, and therefore not 
eternal, whether they knew it or not. In the one case rear, in the other 
ignorance, prevented them from being blessed. And even if their ignorance was 
not so great as to breed in them a wholly false expectation, but left them 
wavering in uncertainty whether their good would be eternal or would some time 
terminate, this very doubt concerning so grand a destiny was incompatible with 
the plenitude of blessedness which we believe the holy angels enjoyed. For we do 
not so narrow and restrict the application of the term "blessedness" as to apply 
it to God only,(1) though doubtless He is so truly blessed that greater 
blessedness cannot be; and, in comparison of His blessedness, what is that of 
the angels, though, according to their capacity, they be perfectly blessed? 
CHAP. 12.--A COMPARISON OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS, WHO HAVE NOT YET 
RECEIVED THE DIVINE REWARD, WITH THAT OF OUR FIRST PARENTS IN PARADISE. 
And the angels are not the only members of the rational and intellectual 
creation whom we call blessed. For who will take upon him to deny that those 
first men in Paradise were blessed previously to sin, although they were 
uncertain how long their blessedness was to last, and whether it would be 
eternal (and eternal it would have been had they not sinned),--who, I say, will 
do so, seeing that even now we not unbecomingly call those blessed whom we see 
leading a righteous and holy life, in hope of immortality, who have no harrowing 
remorse of conscience, but obtain readily divine remission of the sins of their 
present infirmity? These, though they are certain that they shall be rewarded if 
they persevere, are not certain that they will persevere. For what man can know 
that he will persevere to the end in the exercise and increase of grace, unless 
he has been certified by some revelation from Him who, in His just and secret 
judgment, while He deceives none, informs few regarding this matter? 
Accordingly, so far as present comfort goes, the first man in Paradise was more 
blessed than any just man in this insecure state; but as regards the hope of 
future good, every man who not merely supposes, but certainly knows that he 
shall eternally enjoy the most high God in the company of angels, and beyond the 
reach of ill,--this man, no matter what bodily torments afflict him, is more 
blessed than was he who, even in that great felicity of Paradise, was uncertain 
of his fate.(2) 
CHAP. 13.--WHETHER ALL THE ANGELS WERE SO CREATED IN ONE COMMON STATE OF 
FELICITY, THAT THOSE WHO FELL WERE NOT AWARE THAT THEY WOULD FALL, AND THAT 
THOSE WHO STOOD RECEIVED ASSURANCE OF THEIR OWN PERSEVERANCE AFTER THE RUIN OF 
THE FALLEN. 
From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness which an 
intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results from a combination of 
these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, 
which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and know certainly that 
it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment. That it is so with the angels of 
light we piously believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default 
lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned, reason 
bids us conclude. Yet if their life was of any duration before they fell, we 
must allow them a blessedness of some kind, though not that which is accompanied 
with foresight. Or, if it seems hard to believe that, when the angels were 
created, some were created in ignorance either of their perseverance or their 
fail, while others were most certainly assured of the eternity of their 
felicity,--if it is hard to believe that they were not all from the beginning on 
an equal footing, until these who are now evil did of their own will fall away 
from the light of goodness, certainly it is much harder to believe that the holy 
angels are now uncertain of their eternal blessedness, and do not know regarding 
themselves as much as we have been able to gather regarding them from the Holy 
Scriptures. For what catholic Christian does not know that no new devil will 
ever arise among the good angels, as he knows that this present devil will never 
again return into the fellowship of the good? For the truth in the gospel 
promises to the saints and the faithful that they will be equal to the angels of 
God; and it is also promised them that they will "go away into life eternal."(1) 
But if we are certain that we shall never lapse from eternal felicity, while 
they are not certain, then we shall not be their equals, but their superiors. 
But as the truth never deceives, and as we shall be their equals, they must be 
certain of their blessedness. And because the evil angels could not be certain 
of that, since their blessedness was destined to come to an end, it follows 
either that the angels were unequal, or that, if equal, the good angels were 
assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the perdition of the others; 
unless, possibly, some one may say that the words of the Lord about the devil 
"He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,"(2) are to be 
understood as if he was not only a murderer from the beginning of the human 
race, when man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made, but also that he did 
not abide in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was accordingly 
never blessed with the holy angels, but refused to submit to his Creator, and 
proudly exulted as if in a private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived 
and deceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded; and he who 
will not piously submit himself to things as they are, proudly feigns, and mocks 
himself with a state of things that does not exist; so that what the blessed 
Apostle John says thus becomes intelligible: "The devil sinneth from the 
beginning,"(3)--that is, from the time he was created he refused righteousness, 
which none but a will piously subject to God can enjoy. Whoever adopts this 
opinion at least disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other 
pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from some adverse 
evil principle a nature proper to himself. These persons are so befooled by 
error, that, although they acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the 
gospels, they do not notice that the Lord did not say, "The devil was naturally 
a stranger to the truth," but "The devil abode not in the truth," by which He 
meant us to understand that he had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had 
abode, he would have become a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness 
along with the holy angels.(4) 
CHAP. 14.--AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS SAID OF THE DEVIL, THAT HE DID NOT ABIDE IN 
THE TRUTH, BECAUSE THE TRUTH WAS NOT IN HIM. 
Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in the truth, 
our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, "because the truth is not in him." Now, it 
would be in him had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For, as the 
words stand, "He abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him," it 
seems as if the truth's not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in 
it; whereas his not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in 
him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm: "I have called upon Thee, 
for Thou hast heard me, O God,"(5) where we should expect it to be said, Thou 
hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said, "I have 
called," then, as if some one were seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the 
effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God's hearing it; as if he 
had said, The proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me. 
CHAP. 15.--HOW WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORDS, "THE DEVIL SINNETH FROM THE 
BEGINNING." 
As for what John says about the devil, "The devil sinneth from the beginning"(6) 
they(7) who suppose it is meant hereby that the devil was made with a sinful 
nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how 
do they answer the prophetic proofs,--either what Isaiah says when he represents 
the devil under the person of the king of Babylon, "How art thou fallen, O 
Lucifer, son of the morning!"(8) or what Ezekiel says, "Thou hast been in Eden, 
the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,"(9) where it is meant 
that he was some time without sin; for a little after it is still more 
explicitly said, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways?" And if these passages cannot 
well be otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also, "He abode 
not in the truth," that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And 
from this passage." The devil sinneth from the beginning," it is not to be 
supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from 
the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to sin. There 
is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: "This 
is the beginning of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His 
angels,"(1) which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, "There is that dragon 
which Thou hast made to be a sport therein."(2) But these passages are not to 
lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the 
angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, 
then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and 
lowest, and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has 
proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can be planned 
or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature, which surpasses in 
dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of the Most High! 
CHAP. 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 titilates 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. 
CHAP. 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; "(3) for, without doubt, wickedness can be a flaw or vice(4) 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 Thou hast made to be a sport therein,"(5) 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 
CHAP. 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,(1) 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."(2) 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."(3) 
CHAP. 19.--WHAT, SEEMINGLY, WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY THE WORDS, "GODDIVIDED 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."(4) 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. 
CHAP. 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 ease, the 
light alone received the approbation of the Creator, while the angelic darkness, 
though it had been ordained, was yet not approved. 
CHAP. 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.(1) 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. Nether 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."(2) 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;(3) 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 
CHAP. 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,(1) because there are, forsooth, 
many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit 
but injure this thinblooded 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 levelling 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. 
CHAP. 23.---OF THE ERROR IN WHICH THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGEN IS INVOLVED. 
But it is much more surprising that some even of those who, with ourselves, 
believe that there is one only source of all things, and that no nature which is 
not divine can exist unless originated by that Creator, have yet refused to 
accept with a good and simple faith this so good and simple a reason of the 
world's creation, that a good God made it good; and that the things created, 
being different from God, were inferior to Him, and yet were good, being created 
by none other than He. But they say that souls, though not, indeed, parts of 
God, but created by Him, sinned by abandoning God; that, in proportion to their 
various sins, they merited different degrees of debasement from heaven to earth, 
and diverse bodies as prison-houses; and that this is the world, and this the 
cause of its creation, not the production of good things, but the restraining of 
evil. Origen is justly blamed for holding this opinion. For in the books which 
he entitles <greek>peri</greek> <greek>arkpn</greek>, that is, Of Origins, this 
is his sentiment, this his utterance. And I can not sufficiently express my 
astonishment, that a man so erudite and well versed in ecclesiastical 
literature, should not have observed, in the first place, how opposed this is to 
the meaning of this authoritative Scripture, which, in recounting all the works 
of God, regularly adds, "And God saw that it was good;" and, when all were 
completed, inserts the words, "And God saw everything that He had made, and, 
behold, it was very good."(1) Was it not obviously meant to be understood that 
there was no other cause of the world's creation than that good creatures should 
be made by a good God? In this creation, had no one sinned, the world would have 
been filled and beautified with natures good without exception; and though there 
is sin, all things are not therefore full of sin, for the great majority of the 
heavenly inhabitants preserve their nature's integrity. And the sinful will 
though it violated the order of its own nature, did not on that account escape 
the laws of God, who justly orders all ܥe #� {&#8222; � u� ,&#339; l ,&#339; l &#339; &#339; 

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�&#339; &#732;&#339; T �&#339; � � he more venial sinners receiving lighter and more ethereal 
bodies, while the grosser and graver sinners received bodies more crass and 
grovelling, then it would follow that the devils, who are deepest in wickedness, 
ought, rather than even wicked men, to have earthly bodies, since these are the 
grossest and least ethereal of all, But in point of fact, that we might see that 
the deserts of souls are not to be estimated by the qualities of bodies, the 
wickedest devil possesses an ethereal body, while man, wicked, it is true, but 
with a wickedness small and venial in comparison with his, received even before 
his sin a body of clay. And what more foolish assertion can be advanced than 
that God, by this sun of ours, did not design to benefit the material creation, 
or lend lustre to its loveliness, and therefore created one single sun for this 
single world, but that it so happened that one soul only had so sinned as to 
deserve to be enclosed in such a body as it is? On this principle, if it had 
chanced that not one, but two, yea, or ten, or a hundred had sinned similarly, 
and with a like degree of guilt, then this world would have one hundred suns. 
And that such is not the case, is due not to the considerate foresight of the 
Creator, contriving the safety and beauty of things material, but rather to the 
fact that so fine a quality of sinning was hit upon by only one soul, so that it 
alone has merited such a body. Manifestly persons holding such opinions should 
aim at confining, not souls of which they know not what they say, but 
themselves, lest they fall, and deservedly, far indeed from the truth. And as to 
these three answers which I formerly recommended when in the case of any 
creature the questions are put, Who made it? By what means? Why? that it should 
be replied, God, By the Word, Because it was good,--as to these three answers, 
it is very questionable whether the Trinity itself is thus mystically indicated, 
that is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or whether there is some good 
reason for this acceptation in this passage of Scripture,--this, I say, is 
questionable, and one can't be expected to explain everything in one volume. 
CHAP. 24.--OF THE DIVINE TRINITY, AND THE INDICATIONS OF ITS PRESENCESCATTERED 
EVERYWHERE AMONG ITS WORKS. 
We believe, we maintain, we faithfully preach, that the Father begat the Word, 
that is, Wisdom, by which all things were made, the only-begotten Son, one as 
the Father is one, eternal as the Father is eternal, and, equally with the 
Father, supremely good; and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit alike of Father 
and of Son, and is Himself consubstantial and co-eternal with both; and that 
this whole is a Trinity by reason of the individuality(2) of the persons, and 
one God by reason of the indivisible divine substance, as also one Almighty by 
reason of the indivisible omnipotence; yet so that, when we inquire regarding 
each singly, it is said that each is God and Almighty; and, when we speak of all 
together, it is said that there are not three Gods, nor three Almighties, but 
one God Almighty; so great is the indivisible unity of these Three, which 
requires that it be so stated. But, whether the Holy Spirit of the Father, and 
of the Son, who are both good, can be with propriety called the goodness of 
both, because He is common to both, I do not presume to determine hastily. 
Nevertheless, I would have less hesitation in saying that He is the holiness of 
both, not as if He were a divine attribute merely, but Himself also the divine 
substance, and the third person in the Trinity. I am the rather emboldened to 
make this statement, because, though the Father is a spirit, and the Son a 
spirit, and the Father holy, and the Son holy, yet the third person is 
distinctively called the Holy Spirit, as if He were the substantial holiness 
consubstantial with the other two. But if the divine goodness is nothing else 
than the divine holiness, then certainly it is a reasonable studiousness, and 
not presumptuous intrusion, to inquire whether the same Trinity be not hinted at 
in an enigmatical mode of speech, by which our inquiry is stimulated, when it is 
written who made each creature, and by what means, and why. For it is the Father 
of the Word who said, Let there be. And that which was made when He spoke was 
certainly made by means of the Word. And by the words, "God saw that it was 
good," it is sufficiently intimated that God made what was made not from any 
necessity, nor for the sake of supplying any want, but solely from His own 
goodness, i.e., because it was good. And this is stated after the creation had 
taken place, that there might be no doubt that the thing made satisfied the 
goodness on account of which it was made. And if we are right in understanding; 
that this goodness is the Holy Spirit, then the whole Trinity is revealed to us 
in the creation. In this, too, is the origin, the enlightenment, the blessedness 
of the holy city which is above among the holy angels. For if we inquire whence 
it is, God created it; or whence its wisdom, God illumined it; or whence its 
blessedness, God is its bliss. It has its form by subsisting in Him; its 
enlightenment by contemplating Him; its joy by abiding in Him. It is; it sees; 
it loves. In God's eternity is its life; in God's truth its light; in God's 
goodness its joy. 
CHAP. 25.--OF THE DIVISION OF PHILOSOPHY 
INTO THREE PARTS. 
As far as one can judge, it is for the same reason that philosophers have aimed 
at a threefold division of science, or rather, were enabled to see that there 
was a threefold division (for they did not invent, but only discovered it), of 
which one part is called physical, another logical, the third ethical. The Latin 
equivalents of these names are now naturalized in the writings of many authors, 
so that these divisions are called natural, rational, and moral, on which I have 
touched slightly in the eighth book. Not that I would conclude that these 
philosophers, in this threefold division, had any thought of a trinity in God, 
although Plato is said to have been the first to discover and promulgate this 
distribution, and he saw that God alone could be the author of nature, the 
bestower of intelligence, and the kindlet of love by which life becomes good and 
blessed. But certain it is that, though philosophers disagree both regarding the 
nature of things, and the mode of investigating truth, and of the good to which 
all our actions ought to tend, yet in these three great general questions all 
their intellectual energy is spent. And though there be a confusing diversity of 
opinion, every man striving to establish his own opinion in regard to each of 
these questions, yet no one of them all doubts that nature has some cause, 
science some method, life some end and aim. Then, again, there are three things 
which every artificer must possess if he is to effect anything,--nature, 
education, practice. Nature is to be judged by capacity, education by knowledge, 
practice by its fruit. I am aware that, properly speaking, fruit is what one 
enjoys, use [practice] what one uses. And this seems to be the difference 
between them, that we are said to enjoy that which in itself, and irrespective 
of other ends, delights us; to use that which we seek for the sake of some end 
beyond. For which reason the things of time are to be used rather than enjoyed, 
that we may deserve to enjoy things eternal; and not as those perverse creatures 
who would fain enjoy money and use God,--not spending money for God's sake, but 
worshipping God for money's sake. However, in common parlance, we both use 
fruits and enjoy uses. For we correctly speak of the "fruits of the field," 
which certainly we all use in the present life. And it was in accordance with 
this usage that I said that there were three things to be observed in a man, 
nature, education, practice. From these the philosophers have elaborated, as I 
said, the threefold division of that science by which a blessed life is 
attained: the natural having respect to nature, the rational to education, the 
moral to practice. If, then, we were ourselves the authors of our nature, we 
should have generated knowledge in ourselves, and should not require to reach it 
by education, i.e., by learning it from others. Our love, too, proceeding from 
ourselves and returning to us, would suffice to make our life blessed, and would 
stand in need of no extraneous enjoyment. But now, since our nature has God as 
its requisite author, it is certain that we must have Him for our teacher that 
we may be wise; Him, too, to dispense to us spiritual sweetness that we may be 
blessed 
CHAP. 26.--OF THE IMAGE OF THE SUPREME TRINITY, WHICH WE FIND IN SOLVE SORT IN 
HUMAN NATURE EVEN IN ITS PRESENT STATE. 
And we indeed recognize in ourselves the image of God, that is, of the supreme 
Trinity, an image which, though it be not equal to God, or rather, though it be 
very far removed from Him,--being neither co-eternal, nor, to say all in a word, 
consubstantial with Him,--is yet nearer to Him in nature than any other of His 
works, and is destined to be yet restored, that it may bear a still closer 
resemblance. For we both are, and know that we are, and delight in our being, 
and our knowledge of it. Moreover, in these three things no true-seeming 
illusion disturbs us; for we do not come into contact with these by some bodily 
sense, as we perceive the things outside of us,--colors, e.g., by seeing, sounds 
by hearing, smells by smelling, tastes by tasting, hard and soft objects by 
touching,--of all which sensible objects it is the images resembling them, but 
not themselves which we perceive in the mind and hold in the memory, and which 
excite us to desire the objects. But, without any delusive representation of 
images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in 
this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the 
Academicians, who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am.(1) 
For he who is not, cannot be deceived; and if I am deceived, by this same token 
I am. And since I am if I am deceived, how am I deceived in believing that I am? 
for it is certain that I am if I am deceived. Since, therefore, I, the person 
deceived, should be, even if I were deceived, certainly I am not deceived in 
this knowledge that I am. And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing 
that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And 
when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my 
love, which is of equal moment. For neither am I deceived in this, that I love, 
since in those things which I love I am not deceived; though even if these were 
false, it would still be true that I loved false things. For how could I justly 
be blamed and prohibited from loving false things, if it were false that I loved 
them? But, since they are true and real, who doubts that when they are loved, 
the love of them is itself true and real? Further, as there is no one who does 
not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish to be. For how can he 
be happy, if he is nothing? 
CHAP. 27.--OF EXISTENCE, AND KNOWLEDGE OF 
IT, AND THE LOVE OF BOTH. 
And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so pleasant, that 
even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling to perish; and, when they 
feel that they are wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but 
that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their own esteem, and in 
point of fact, are utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise 
men on account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and 
who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute,--if any one should 
give these men an immortality, in which their misery should be deathless, and 
should offer the alternative, that if they shrank from existing eternally in the 
same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any 
condition, on the instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to 
exist always, even in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The 
well-known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we see that they fear 
to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than end it by death, is it not 
obvious enough how nature shrinks from annihilation? And, accordingly, when they 
know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown 
them, that they may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it 
by death. And so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they would 
accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless destruction. What! do 
not even all irrational animals, to whom such calculations are unknown, from the 
huge dragons down to the least worms, all testify that they wish to exist, and 
therefore shun death by every movement in their power? Nay, the very plants and 
shrubs, which have no such life as enables them to shun destruction by movements 
we can see, do not they all seek in their own fashion to conserve their 
existence, by rooting themselves more and more deeply in the earth, that so they 
may draw nourishment, and throw out healthy branches towards the sky? In fine, 
even the lifeless bodies, which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet 
either seek the upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an intermediate 
position, so that they may protect their existence in that situation where they 
can exist in most accordance with their nature. 
And how much human nature loves the knowledge of its existence, and how it 
shrinks from being deceived, will be sufficiently understood from this fact, 
that every man prefers to grieve in a sane mind, rather than to be glad in 
madness. And this grand and wonderful instinct belongs to men alone of all 
animals; for, though some of them have keener eyesight than ourselves for this 
world's light, they cannot attain to that spiritual light with which our mind is 
somehow irradiated, so that we can form right judgments of all things. For our 
power to judge is proportioned to our acceptance of this light. Nevertheless, 
the irrational animals, though they have not knowledge, have certainly something 
resembling knowledge; whereas the other material things are said to be sensible, 
not because they have senses, but because they are the objects of our senses. 
Yet among plants, their nourishment and generation have some resemblance to 
sensible life. However, both these and all material things have their causes 
hidden in their nature; but their outward forms, which lend beauty to this 
visible structure of the world, are perceived by our senses, so that they seem 
to wish to compensate for their own want of knowledge by providing us with 
knowledge. But we perceive them by our bodily senses in such a way that we do 
not judge of them by these senses. For we have another and far superior sense, 
belonging to the inner man, by which we perceive what things are just, and what 
unjust,--just by means of an intelligible idea, unjust by the want of it. This 
sense is aided in its functions neither by the eyesight, nor by the orifice of 
the ear, nor by the air-holes of the nostrils, nor by the palate's taste, nor by 
any bodily touch. By it I am assured both that I am, and that I know this; and 
these two I love, and in the same manner I am assured that I love them. 
CHAP. 28.--WHETHER WE OUGHT TO LOVE THE LOVE ITSELF WITH WHICH WE LOVE OUR 
EXISTENCE AND OUR KNOWLEDGE OF IT, THAT SO WE MAY MORE NEARLY RESEMBLE THE IMAGE 
OF THE DIVINE TRINITY. 
We have said as much as the scope of this work demands regarding these two 
things, to wit, our existence, and our knowledge of it, and how much they are 
loved by us, and how there is found even in the lower creatures a kind of 
likeness of these things, and yet with a difference. We have yet to speak of the 
love wherewith they are loved, to determine whether this love itself is loved. 
And doubtless it is; and this is the proof. Because in men who are justly loved, 
it is rather love itself that is loved; for he is not justly called a, good man 
who knows what is good, but who loves it. Is it not then obvious that we love in 
ourselves the very love wherewith we love whatever good we love? For there is 
also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to love; and this love is 
hated by him who loves that wherewith he loves what ought to be loved. For it is 
quite possible for both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is good for a 
man, to the end that this love which conduces to our living well may grow, and 
the other, which leads us to evil may decrease, until our whole life be 
perfectly healed and transmuted into good. For if we were beasts, we should love 
the fleshly and sensual life, and this would be our sufficient good; and when it 
was well with us in respect of it, we should seek nothing beyond. In like 
manner, if we were trees, we could not, indeed, in the strict sense of the word, 
love anything; nevertheless we should seem, as it were, to long for that by 
which we might become more abundantly and luxuriantly fruitful. If we were 
stones, or waves, or wind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we should want, 
indeed, both sensation and life, yet should possess a kind of attraction towards 
our own proper position and natural order. For the specific gravity of bodies 
is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried downwards by their weight, 
or upwards by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit 
by love, whithersoever it is borne.(1) But we are men, created in the image of 
our Creator, whose eternity is true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is 
eternal and true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity, 
without confusion, without separation; and, therefore, while, as we run over all 
the works which He has established, we may detect, as it were, His footprints, 
now more and now less distinct even in those things that are beneath us, since 
they could not so much as exist, or be bodied forth in any shape, or follow and 
observe any law, bad they not been made by Him who supremely is, and is 
supremely good and supremely wise; yet in ourselves beholding His image, let us, 
like that younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and return to 
Him from whom by our sin we had departed. There our being will have no death, 
our knowledge no error, our love no mishap. But now, though we are assured of 
our possession of these three things, not on the testimony of others, but by our 
own consciousness of their presence, and because we see them with our own most 
truthful interior vision, yet, as we cannot of our selves know how long they are 
to continue, and whether they shall never cease to be, and what issue their good 
or bad use will lead to, we seek for others who can acquaint us of these things, 
if we have not already found them. Of the trustworthiness of these witnesses, 
there will, not now, but subsequently, be an opportunity of speaking. But in 
this book let us go on as we have begun, with God's help, to speak of the city 
of God, not in its state of pilgrimage and mortality, but as it exists ever 
immortal in the heavens,--that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain 
their allegiance to God, who never were, nor ever shall be, apostate, between 
whom and those who forsook light eternal and became darkness, God, as we have 
already said, made at the first a separation. 
CHAP. 29.--OF THE KNOWLEDGE BY WHICH THE HOLY ANGELS KNOW GOD IN HIS ESSENCE, 
AND BY WHICH THEY SEE THE CAUSES OF HIS WORKS IN THE ART OF THE WORKER, BEFORE 
THEY SEE THEM IN THE WORKS OF THE ARTIST. 
Those holy angels come to the knowledge of God not by audible words, but by the 
presence to their souls of immutable truth, i.e., of the only-begotten Word of 
God; and they know this Word Himself, and the Father, and their Holy Spirit, and 
that this Trinity is indivisible, and that the three persons of it are one 
substance, and that there are not three Gods but one God; and this they so know 
that it is better understood by them than we are by ourselves. Thus, too, they 
know the creature also, not in itself, but by this better way, in the wisdom of 
God, as if in the art by which it was created; and, consequently, they know 
themselves better in God than in themselves, though they have also this latter 
knowledge. For they were created, and are different from their Creator. In Him, 
therefore, they have, as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves, a twilight 
knowledge, according to our former explanations? For there is a great difference 
between knowing a thing in the design in conformity to which it was made, and 
knowing it in itself,--e.g., the straightness of lines and correctness of 
figures is known in one way when mentally conceived, in another when described 
on paper; and justice is known in one way in the unchangeable truth, in another 
in the spirit of a just man. So is it with all other things,--as, the firmament 
between the water above and below, which was called the heaven; the gathering of 
the waters beneath, and the laying bare of the dry land, and the production of 
plants and trees; the creation of sun, moon, and stars; and of the animals out 
of the waters, fowls, and fish, and monsters of the deep; and of everything that 
walks or creeps on the earth, and of man himself, who excels all that is on the 
earth,--all these things are known in one way by the angels in the Word of God, 
in which they see the eternally abiding causes and reasons according to which 
they were made, and in another way in themselves: in the former, with a clearer 
knowledge; in the latter, with a knowledge dimmer, and rather of the bare works 
than of the design. Yet, when these works are referred to the praise and 
adoration of the Creator Himself, it is as if morning dawned in the minds of 
those who contemplate them. 
CHAP. 30.--OF THE PERFECTION OF THE NUMBER SIX, WHICH IS THE FIRST OF THE 
NUMBERS WHICH IS COMPOSED OF ITS ALIQUOT PARTS. 
These works are recorded to have been completed in six days (the same day being 
six times repeated), because six is a perfect number,--not because God required 
a protracted time, as if He could not at once create all things, which then 
should mark the course of time by the movements proper to them, but because the 
perfection of the works was signified by the number six. For the number six is 
the first which is made up of its own parts, i.e., of its sixth, third, and 
half, which are respectively one, two, and three, and which make a total of six. 
In this way of looking at a number, those are said to be its parts which exactly 
divide it, as a half, a third, a fourth, or a fraction with any 
denominator,e.g., four is a part of nine, but not therefore an aliquot part; but 
one is, for it is the ninth part; and three is, for it is the third. Yet these 
two parts, the ninth and the third, or one and three, are far from making its 
whole sum of nine. So again, in the number ten, four is a part, yet does not 
divide it; but one is an aliquot part, for it is a tenth; so it has a fifth, 
which is two; and a half, which is five. But these three parts, a tenth, a 
fifth, and a half, or one, two, and five, added together, do not make ten, but 
eight. Of the number twelve, again, the parts added together exceed the whole; 
for it has a twelfth, that is, one; a sixth, or two; a fourth, which is three; a 
third, which is four; and a half,which is six. But one, two, three, four, and 
six make up, not twelve, but more, viz., sixteen. So much I have thought fit to 
state for the sake of illustrating the perfection of the number six, which is, 
as I said, the first which is exactly made up of its own parts added together; 
and in this number of days God finished His work.(1) And, therefore, we must not 
despise the science of numbers, which, in many passages of holy Scripture, is 
found to be of eminent service to the careful interpreter.(2) Neither has it 
been without reason numbered among God's praises, "Thou hast ordered all things 
in number, and measure, and weight."(3) 
CHAP. 31.--OF THE SEVENTH DAY, IN WHICH COMPLETENESS AND REPOSE ARE CELEBRATED. 
But, on the seventh day (i.e., the same day repeated seven times, which number 
is also a perfect one, though for another reason), the rest of God is set forth, 
and then, too, we first hear of its being hallowed. So that God did not wish to 
hallow this day by His works, but by His rest, which has no evening, for it is 
not a creature; so that, being known in one way in the Word of God, and in 
another in itself, it should make a twofold knowledge, daylight and dusk (day 
and evening). Much more might be said about tile perfection of the number seven, 
but this book is already too long, and I fear lest I should seem to catch at an 
opportunity of airing my little smattering of science more childishly than 
profitably. I must speak, therefore, in moderation and with dignity, lest, in 
too keenly following "number," I be accused of forgetting "weight" and 
"measure." Suffice it here to say, that three is the first whole number that is 
odd, four the first that is even, and of these two, seven is composed. On this 
account it is often put for all numbers together, as, "A just man falleth seven 
times, and riseth up again,"(4)--that is, let him fall never so often, he will 
not perish (and this was ment to be understood not of sins, but of afflictions 
conducing to lowliness). Again, "Seven times a day will I praise Thee,"(5) which 
elsewhere is expressed thus, "I will bless the Lord at all times."(6) And many 
such instances are found in the divine authorities, in which the number seven 
is, as I said, commonly used to express the whole, or the completeness of 
anything. And so the Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord says, "He will teach you all 
truth,"(7) is signified by this number,(8) In it is the rest of God, the rest 
His people find in Him. For rest is in the whole, i.e.., in perfect 
completeness, while in the part there is labor. And thus we labor as long as we 
know in part; "but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in 
part shall be done away."(9) It is even with toil we search into the Scriptures 
themselves. But the holy angels, towards whose society and assembly we sigh 
while in this our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal 
home, so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and felicity of rest. It is 
without difficulty that they help us; for their spiritual movements, pure and 
free, cost them no effort. 
CHAP. 32.--OF THE OPINION THAT THE ANGELS WERE CREATED BEFORE THE WORLD. 
But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels are not 
referred to when it is said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" if he 
suppose or teach that some material light, then first created, was meant, and 
that the angels were created, not only before the firmament dividing the waters 
and named "the heaven," but also before the time signified in the words, "In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" if he allege that this phrase, 
"In the beginning," does not mean that nothing was made before (for the angels 
were), but that God made all things by His Wisdom or Word, who is named in 
Scripture "the Beginning," as He Himself, in the gospel, replied to the Jews 
when they asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning;(10)--I will not 
contest the point, chiefly because it gives me the liveliest satisfaction to 
find the Trinity celebrated in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. For 
having said "In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth," meaning 
that the Father made them in the Son (as the psalm testifies where it says, "How 
manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in Wisdom hast Thou made them all"(11), a little 
afterwards mention is fitly made of the Holy Spirit also. For, when it had been 
told us what kind of earth God created at first, or what the mass or matter was 
which God, under the name of "heaven and earth," had provided for the 
construction of the world, as is told in the additional words, "And the earth 
was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep," then, 
for the sake of completing the mention of the Trinity, it is immediately added, 
"And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Let each one, then, 
take it as he pleases; for it is so profound a passage, that it may well 
suggest, for the exercise of the reader's tact, many opinions, and none of them 
widely departing from the rule of faith. At the same time, let none doubt that 
the holy angels in their heavenly abodes are, though not, indeed, co-eternal 
with God, yet secure and certain of eternal and true felicity. To their company 
the Lord teaches that His little ones belong; and not only says, "They shall be 
equal to the angels of God,"(1) but shows, too, what blessed contemplation the 
angels themselves enjoy, saying, "Take heed that ye despise not one of these 
little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold 
the face of my Father which is in heaven."(2) 
CHAP. 33.--OF THE TWO DIFFERENT AND DISSIMILAR COMMUNITIES OF ANGELS, WHICH ARE 
NOT INAPPROPRIATELY SIGNIFIED BY THE NAMES LIGHT AND DARKNESS. 
That certain angels sinned, and were thrust down to the lowest parts of this 
world, where they are, as it were, incarcerated till their final damnation in 
the day of judgment, the Apostle Peter very plainly declares, when he says that 
"God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and 
delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved into judgment."(3) Who, 
then, can doubt that God, either in foreknowledge or in act, separated between 
these and the rest? And who will dispute that the rest are justly called 
"light?" For even we who are yet living by faith, hoping only and not yet 
enjoying equality with them, are already called "light" by the apostle: "For ye 
were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord."(4) But as for these 
apostate angels, all who understand or believe them to be worse than unbelieving 
men are well aware that they are called "darkness." Wherefore, though light and 
darkness are to be taken in their literal signification in these passages of 
Genesis in which it is said, "God said, Let there be light, and there was 
light," and "God divided the light from the darkness," yet, for our part, we 
understand these two societies of angels,--the one enjoying God, the other 
swelling with pride; the one to whom it is said, "Praise ye Him, all His 
angels,"(5) the other whose prince says, "All these things will I give Thee if 
Thou wilt fall down and worship me;"(6) the one blazing with the holy love of 
God, the other reeking with the unclean lust of self-advancement. And since, as 
it is written, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble,"(7) 
we may say, the one dwelling in the heaven of heavens, the other cast thence, 
and raging through the lower regions of the air; the one tranquil in the 
brightness of piety, the other tempest-tossed with beclouding desires; the one, 
at God's pleasure, tenderly succoring, justly avenging,--the other, set on by 
its own pride, boiling with the lust of subduing and hurting; the one the 
minister of God's goodness to the utmost of their good pleasure, the other held 
in by God's power from doing the harm it would; the former laughing at the 
latter when it does good unwillingly by its persecutions, the latter envying the 
former when it gathers in its pilgrims. These two angelic communities, then, 
dissimilar and contrary to one another, the one both by nature good and by will 
upright, the other also good by nature but by will depraved, as they are 
exhibited in other and more explicit passages of holy writ, so I think they are 
spoken of in this book of Genesis under the names of light and darkness; and 
even if the author perhaps had a different meaning, yet our discussion of the 
obscure language has not been wasted time; for, though we have been unable to 
discover his meaning, yet we have adhered to the rule of faith, which is 
sufficiently ascertained by the faithful from other passages of equal authority. 
For, though it is the material works of God which are here spoken of, they have 
certainly a resemblance to the spiritual, so that Paul can say, "Ye are all the 
children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of 
darkness."(8) If, on the other hand, the author of Genesis saw in the words what 
we see, then our discussion reaches this more satisfactory conclusion, that the 
man of God, so eminently and divinely wise, or rather, that the Spirit of God 
who by him recorded God's works which were finished on the sixth day, may be 
supposed not to have omitted all mention of the angels whether he included them 
in the words "in the beginning," because He made them first, or, which seems 
most likely, because He made them in the only-begotten Word. And, under these 
names heaven and earth, the whole creation is signified, either as divided into 
spiritual and material, which seems the more likely, or into the two great parts 
of the world in which all created things are contained, so that, first of all, 
the creation is presented in sum, and then its parts are enumerated according to 
the mystic number of the days. 
CHAP. 34.--OF THE IDEA THAT THE ANGELS WERE MEANT WHERE THE SEPARATION OF THE 
WATERS BY THE FIRMAMENT IS SPOKEN OF, AND OF THAT OTHER IDEA THAT THE WATERS 
WERE NOT CREATED. 
Some,(1) however, have supposed that the angelic hosts are somehow referred to 
under the name of waters, and that this is what is meant by "Let there be a 
firmament in the midst of the waters:"(2) that the waters above should be 
understood of the angels, and those below either of the visible waters, or of 
the multitude of bad angels, or of the nations of men. If this be so, then it 
does not here appear when the angels were created, but when they were separated. 
Though there have not been wanting men foolish and wicked enough a to deny that 
the waters were made by God, because it is nowhere written, "God said, Let there 
be waters." With equal folly they might say the same of the earth, for nowhere 
do we read, "God said, Let the earth be." But, say they, it is written, "In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Yes, and there the water is 
meant, for both are included in one word. For "the sea is His," as the psalm 
says, "and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land."(4) But those who 
would understand the angels by the waters above the skies have a difficulty 
about the specific gravity of the elements, and fear that the waters, owing to 
their fluidity and weight, could not be set in the upper parts of the world. So 
that, if they were to construct a man upon their own principles, they would not 
put in his head any moist humors, or "phlegm" as the Greeks call it, and which 
acts the part of water among the elements of our body. But, in God's handiwork, 
the head is the seat of the phlegm, and surely most fitly; and yet, according to 
their supposition, so absurdly that if we were not aware of the fact, and were 
informed by this same record that God had put a moist and cold and therefore 
heavy humor in the uppermost part of man's body, these world-weighers would 
refuse belief. And if they were confronted with the authority of Scripture, they 
would maintain that something else must be meant by the words. But, were we to 
investigate and discover all the details which are written in this divine book 
regarding the creation of the world, we should have much to say, and should 
widely digress from the proposed aim of this work. Since, then, we have now said 
what seemed needful regarding these two diverse and contrary communities of 
angels, in which the origin of the two human communities (of which we intend to 
speak anon) is also found, let us at once bring this book also to a conclusion.