Chapter 18.–How Different the Uncertainty of the New Academy is from the Certainty of the Christian Faith.

As regards the uncertainty about everything which Varro alleges to be
the differentiating characteristic of the New Academy, the city of God
thoroughly detests such doubt as madness. Regarding matters which it
apprehends by the mind and reason it has most absolute certainty,
although its knowledge is limited because of the corruptible body
pressing down the mind, for, as the apostle says, “We know in part.”
[1290] It believes also the evidence of the senses which the mind
uses by aid of the body; for [if one who trusts his senses is sometimes
deceived], he is more wretchedly deceived who fancies he should never
trust them. It believes also the Holy Scriptures, old and new, which
we call canonical, and which are the source of the faith by which the
just lives [1291] and by which we walk without doubting whilst we are
absent from the Lord. [1292] So long as this faith remains inviolate
and firm, we may without blame entertain doubts regarding some things
which we have neither perceived by sense nor by reason, and which have
not been revealed to us by the canonical Scriptures, nor come to our
knowledge through witnesses whom it is absurd to disbelieve.

[1290] 1 Cor. xiii. 9.

[1291] Hab. ii. 4.

[1292] 2 Cor. v. 6.

Chapter 17.–What Produces Peace, and What Discord, Between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities.

But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the
earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith
look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as
pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and
divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater ease,
and to keep down the number of those burdens of the corruptible body
which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal
life are used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its
own peculiar and widely different aim in using them. The earthly city,
which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it
proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is
the combination of men’s wills to attain the things which are helpful
to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which
sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only
because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it
shall pass away. Consequently, so long as it lives like a captive and
a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the
promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the earnest of it,
it makes no scruple to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the
things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are
administered; and thus, as this life is common to both cities, so there
is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs to it. But, as the
earthly city has had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by
the divine teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own
conjectures or by demons, supposed that many gods must be invited to
take an interest in human affairs, and assigned to each a separate
function and a separate department,–to one the body, to another the
soul; and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and
each of the other members to one of the gods; and in like manner, in
the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned, to another
education, to another anger, to another lust; and so the various
affairs of life were assigned,–cattle to one, corn to another, wine to
another, oil to another, the woods to another, money to another,
navigation to another, wars and victories to another, marriages to
another, births and fecundity to another, and other things to other
gods: and as the celestial city, on the other hand, knew that one God
only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that service
which the Greeks call latreia, and which can be given only to a god, it
has come to pass that the two cities could not have common laws of
religion, and that the heavenly city has been compelled in this matter
to dissent, and to become obnoxious to those who think differently, and
to stand the brunt of their anger and hatred and persecutions, except
in so far as the minds of their enemies have been alarmed by the
multitude of the Christians and quelled by the manifest protection of
God accorded to them. This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on
earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a
society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities
in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured
and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they
all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It therefore is so
far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even
preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship
of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced. Even the heavenly
city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the
peace of earth, and, so far as it can without injuring faith and
godliness, desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding
the acquisition of the necessaries of life, and makes this earthly
peace bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called
and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it
does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of
one another in God. When we shall have reached that peace, this mortal
life shall give place to one that is eternal, and our body shall be no
more this animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul, but
a spiritual body feeling no want, and in all its members subjected to
the will. In its pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this peace
by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the
attainment of that peace every good action towards God and man; for the
life of the city is a social life.

Chapter 16.–Of Equitable Rule.

And therefore, although our righteous fathers [1289] had slaves, and
administered their domestic affairs so as to distinguish between the
condition of slaves and the heirship of sons in regard to the blessings
of this life, yet in regard to the worship of God, in whom we hope for
eternal blessings, they took an equally loving oversight of all the
members of their household. And this is so much in accordance with the
natural order, that the head of the household was called paterfamilias;
and this name has been so generally accepted, that even those whose
rule is unrighteous are glad to apply it to themselves. But those who
are true fathers of their households desire and endeavor that all the
members of their household, equally with their own children, should
worship and win God, and should come to that heavenly home in which the
duty of ruling men is no longer necessary, because the duty of caring
for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but, until they reach
that home, masters ought to feel their position of authority a greater
burden than servants their service. And if any member of the family
interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected either
by word or blow, or some kind of just and legitimate punishment, such
as society permits, that he may himself be the better for it, and be
readjusted to the family harmony from which he had dislocated himself.
For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some
greater benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man
at the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must
not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish
his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by
his experience, or others be warned by his example. Since, then, the
house ought to be the beginning or element of the city, and every
beginning bears reference to some end of its own kind, and every
element to the integrity of the whole of which it is an element, it
follows plainly enough that domestic peace has a relation to civic
peace,–in other words, that the well-ordered concord of domestic
obedience and domestic rule has a relation to the well-ordered concord
of civic obedience and civic rule. And therefore it follows, further,
that the father of the family ought to frame his domestic rule in
accordance with the law of the city, so that the household may be in
harmony with the civic order.

[1289] The patriarchs.

Chapter 15.–Of the Liberty Proper to Man’s Nature, and the Servitude Introduced by Sin,–A Servitude in Which the Man Whose Will is Wicked is the Slave of His Own Lust, Though He is Free So Far as Regards Other Men.

This is prescribed by the order of nature: it is thus that God has
created man. For “let them,” He says, “have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every creeping thing
which creepeth on the earth.” [1284] He did not intend that His
rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion over
anything but the irrational creation,–not man over man, but man over
the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made
shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to
teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and what the
desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition
of slavery is the result of sin. And this is why we do not find the
word “slave” in any part of Scripture until righteous Noah branded the
sin of his son with this name. It is a name, therefore, introduced by
sin and not by nature. The origin of the Latin word for slave is
supposed to be found in the circumstance that those who by the law of
war were liable to be killed were sometimes preserved by their victors,
and were hence called servants. [1285] And these circumstances could
never have arisen save through sin. For even when we wage a just war,
our adversaries must be sinning; and every victory, even though gained
by wicked men, is a result of the first judgment of God, who humbles
the vanquished either for the sake of removing or of punishing their
sins. Witness that man of God, Daniel, who, when he was in captivity,
confessed to God his own sins and the sins of his people, and declares
with pious grief that these were the cause of the captivity. [1286]
The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the
dominion of his fellow,–that which does not happen save by the
judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to
award fit punishments to every variety of offence. But our Master in
heaven says, “Every one who doeth sin is the servant of sin.” [1287]
And thus there are many wicked masters who have religious men as their
slaves, and who are yet themselves in bondage; “for of whom a man is
overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” [1288] And beyond
question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust;
for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste
men’s hearts with the most ruthless dominion. Moreover, when men are
subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does
as much good to the servant as the proud position does harm to the
master. But by nature, as God first created us, no one is the slave
either of man or of sin. This servitude is, however, penal, and is
appointed by that law which enjoins the preservation of the natural
order and forbids its disturbance; for if nothing had been done in
violation of that law, there would have been nothing to restrain by
penal servitude. And therefore the apostle admonishes slaves to be
subject to their masters, and to serve them heartily and with
good-will, so that, if they cannot be freed by their masters, they may
themselves make their slavery in some sort free, by serving not in
crafty fear, but in faithful love, until all unrighteousness pass away,
and all principality and every human power be brought to nothing, and
God be all in all.

[1284] Gen. i. 26.

[1285] Servus, “a slave,” from servare, “to preserve.”

[1286] Dan. ix.

[1287] John viii. 34.

[1288] 2 Pet. ii. 19.