City of God 14.5–14.10

Chapter 5. That the opinion of the Platonists about the nature of body and soul is indeed more tolerable than that of the Manichees, but is also to be rejected, since they ascribe the causes of all faults to the nature of the flesh.

There is no need, then, in our sins and faults, to accuse the nature of the flesh, to the Creator's injury, since it is good in its own kind and order; but to forsake the good Creator and live according to a created good is not good, whether one chooses to live according to the flesh, or according to the soul, or according to the whole man, who consists of soul and flesh (and can therefore be signified by the name of the soul alone or of the flesh alone). For he who praises the nature of the soul as the highest good and accuses the nature of the flesh as evil certainly both seeks the soul carnally and flees the flesh carnally, since he thinks this by human vanity, not by divine truth. The Platonists indeed are not as foolish as the Manichees, so as to detest earthly bodies as a nature of evil, since they ascribe all the elements of which this visible and tangible world is composed, and their qualities, to God as maker; yet they think that souls are so affected by earthly limbs and dying members that from these come their diseases of desires and fears and of joy or sadness; and in these four, whether disturbances, as Cicero calls them, or passions, as most render the Greek word word for word, all the viciousness of human conduct is contained. If this is so, why is it that Aeneas in Virgil, when he had heard from his father in the underworld that souls would return again to bodies, wonders at this opinion, exclaiming:

O father, must we think that some souls go from here to the sky, lofty, and return again to sluggish bodies? What is this so dread desire of the light in the wretched?

Is this so dread desire, then, still present from earthly limbs and dying members in that much-proclaimed purity of souls? Does he not assert that they have been cleansed of all such bodily plagues, as he says, when they begin again to wish to return into bodies? From this it is gathered that, even if it were so (which is utterly vain) that the cleansing and defiling of souls going and returning alternated unceasingly by turns, it could not truly be said that all the culpable and vicious motions of souls grow in them from earthly bodies; since, according to them, that “dread desire,” as the noble speaker says, is so far from coming from the body that it compels the soul to be in a body when it has been purged of every bodily plague and placed outside every body. Hence, by their own admission, the soul is affected not only from the flesh, so as to desire, fear, rejoice, or grieve, but can also be stirred by these motions from itself.

Chapter 6. Of the character of the human will, by whose judgment the affections of the mind are held to be either wrong or right.

What matters, however, is what the will of man is like; for if it is perverse, it will have these motions perverse; but if it is right, they will be not only blameless but even praiseworthy. For the will is in them all; indeed they are all nothing else than wills. For what is desire and joy but will in consent to the things we will? And what is fear and sadness but will in dissent from the things we do not will? But when we consent by seeking the things we will, it is called desire; when we consent by enjoying the things we will, it is called joy. Likewise, when we dissent from what we do not will to happen, such a will is fear; but when we dissent from what happens to us against our will, such a will is sadness. And in general, according to the variety of things that are sought or shunned, as the will of man is attracted or offended, so it is changed and turned into these affections or those. Therefore the man who lives according to God, not according to man, must be a lover of the good; from which it follows that he hates evil. And since no one is evil by nature, but whoever is evil is evil by fault, he who lives according to God owes a perfect hatred to the evil, so that he neither hates the man because of the fault nor loves the fault because of the man, but hates the fault and loves the man. For when the fault is healed, all that remains will be what he ought to love, and nothing that he ought to hate.

Chapter 7. That love (amor) and affection (dilectio) are found in the sacred writings used without distinction both of good and of evil.

For whoever has the purpose to love God and to love his neighbor as himself, not according to man but according to God, is beyond doubt called a man of good will because of this love; which in the holy Scriptures is more usually called charity, but is also called love according to the same sacred writings. For the apostle says that he whom he commands to be chosen to rule the people must be a lover of the good; and the Lord himself, when he had asked the apostle Peter, “Do you hold me dear [diligis] more than these?”, he answered, “Lord, you know that I love [amo] you”; and again the Lord asked not whether he loved him but whether Peter held him dear; and he answered again, “Lord, you know that I love you”; but at the third question Jesus himself does not say, “Do you hold me dear?” but, “Do you love me?”; whereupon the evangelist goes on to say, “Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, Do you love me?” though the Lord said “Do you love me?” not three times but once, and “Do you hold me dear?” twice. From this we understand that even when the Lord said, “Do you hold me dear?”, he was saying nothing other than, “Do you love me?” But Peter did not change the word for this one thing, but the third time too said, “Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.”

I thought this worth mentioning because some think that dilectio or charity is one thing, amor another. For they say that dilectio is to be taken in a good sense, amor in a bad. But it is quite certain that not even the authors of secular literature spoke so. Let the philosophers see whether, or on what principle, they distinguish them; yet their books sufficiently tell how highly they esteem amor in good things and toward God himself. But it had to be shown that the Scriptures of our religion, whose authority we set above all other writings, do not call amor one thing and dilectio or charity another. For we have already shown that amor is said in a good sense. But lest anyone think that amor is indeed said both in a bad and a good sense, but dilectio only in a good, let him attend to what is written in the psalm: “But he who holds iniquity dear hates his own soul,” and to that saying of the apostle John: “If anyone holds the world dear, the dilectio of the Father is not in him.” See, dilectio in one place both in a good and in a bad sense. And lest anyone demand amor in a bad sense (for we have already shown it in a good), let him read what is written: “For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money.” A right will, then, is good love, and a perverse will is bad love. Love, then, longing to have what is loved, is desire; having it and enjoying it, is joy; fleeing what opposes it, is fear; and feeling it if it has happened, is sadness. Accordingly these are bad if the love is bad, good if it is good.

Let us prove what we say from the Scriptures. The apostle desires to depart and be with Christ; and, “My soul has desired to long for your judgments,” or, if it is more fittingly put, “My soul has longed to desire your judgments”; and, “The desire of wisdom leads to a kingdom.” Yet usage has established this manner of speaking, that if cupiditas or concupiscentia is spoken of without adding of what, it can be understood only in a bad sense. Joy is in a good sense: “Rejoice in the Lord and exult, you righteous”; and, “You have put joy in my heart”; and, “You will fill me with joy with your countenance.” Fear is in a good sense in the apostle, where he says: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”; and, “Do not be high-minded, but fear”; and, “But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds too may be corrupted from the chastity which is in Christ.” But concerning sadness, which Cicero rather calls aegritudo (sickness), and Virgil dolor (grief), where he says, “they grieve and rejoice” (but I have preferred to say sadness, because sickness or grief are more usually said of bodies), it is a more delicate question whether it can be found in a good sense.

Chapter 8. Of the three disturbances which the Stoics held to be in the mind of the wise man, excluding grief or sadness, which the virtue of the mind ought not to feel.

The Stoics held that what the Greeks call eupatheiai, and Cicero in Latin named constantiae (steady states), are three, in place of three disturbances, in the mind of the wise man: will in place of desire, gladness in place of joy, caution in place of fear; but in place of sickness or grief, which we have preferred to call sadness to avoid ambiguity, they denied that anything could be in the mind of the wise man. For will, they say, seeks the good, which the wise man does; gladness is about a good obtained, which the wise man obtains everywhere; caution avoids evil, which the wise man ought to avoid; but since sadness is about an evil that has already happened, and they think that no evil can happen to the wise man, they said that nothing could be in his mind in its place. So they speak in such a way that they deny that anyone but the wise man wills, is glad, and is cautious; and that the fool does nothing but desire, rejoice, fear, and be sad; and that the former three are steady states, the latter four disturbances according to Cicero, but passions according to most. In Greek the three, as I said, are called eupatheiai, and these four pathē.

When I inquired as carefully as I could whether this way of speaking agrees with the holy Scriptures, I found what the prophet says: “There is no gladness for the wicked, says the Lord”; as if the wicked could rejoice rather than be glad about evils, because gladness belongs properly to the good and godly. Likewise that saying in the Gospel, “Whatever you will that men should do to you, do so to them also,” seems to have been said as though no one could will anything badly or shamefully, but only desire it. Indeed, because of the usage of speech, some translators added “good” and translated thus: “Whatever good things you will that men should do to you.” For they thought it must be guarded against that anyone should will dishonorable things to be done to him by men, to say nothing of more shameful things, luxurious banquets at least, in which he might think he would fulfill this precept if he did the same for them. But in the Greek Gospel, from which it was translated into Latin, “good” is not read, but, “Whatever you will that men should do to you, do so to them also”; I believe because in saying “you will” he already meant good things to be understood. For he did not say “you desire.” Yet our speech is not always to be bridled by these precise meanings, but they are to be used at times; and when we read those whose authority it is not lawful to resist, the meanings are to be understood there where a right sense can find no other way out, as with these examples we have recalled, partly from the prophet, partly from the Gospel. For who does not know that the wicked exult with joy? And yet, “There is no gladness for the wicked, says the Lord.” Why, unless because to be glad is something else when this word is used properly and precisely? Likewise, who would deny that it would not be right to command men that whatever they desire others to do to them they should do to them too, lest they delight one another with the shamefulness of unlawful pleasure? And yet it is a most wholesome and most true precept: “Whatever you will that men should do to you, do the same to them also.” And why this, unless because in this place the will is set down in a certain proper sense, which cannot be taken in a bad sense? But in the more usual manner of speaking, which the custom of speech most frequently uses, it certainly would not be said, “Do not will to tell any lie,” were there not also an evil will, from whose depravity that will is distinguished which the angels proclaimed, saying, “Peace on earth to men of good will.” For “good” would have been added superfluously if there could be no will but a good one. And what great thing would the apostle have said in the praises of charity, that it “does not rejoice over iniquity,” unless because malice does so rejoice?

And among the authors of secular literature such indifference of these words is found. For Cicero, the most eminent orator, says: “I desire, conscript fathers, to be merciful.” Since he used this word in a good sense, who is so perversely learned as to contend that he ought to have said not “I desire” but rather “I will”? Further, in Terence a disgraceful young man, burning with insane desire, says: “I will nothing else but Philumena.” That this will was lust the answer of his more sensible slave, which is introduced there, sufficiently shows. For he says to his master:

How much better that you should take pains to remove this love from your mind, than to say what makes your lust burn in vain!

That they used gladness in a bad sense too, that Virgilian verse itself is witness, where he embraced these four disturbances with the greatest brevity: “Hence they fear and desire, grieve and are glad.” The same author also said, “the evil gladnesses of the mind.” Accordingly both good and bad men will, are cautious, and are glad; and, to state the same in other words, both good and bad men desire, fear, and rejoice; but the former well, the latter badly, as men's will is either right or perverse.

Sadness itself too, in place of which the Stoics thought nothing could be found in the mind of the wise man, is found in a good sense, and especially among our writers. For the apostle praises the Corinthians because they were made sad according to God. But perhaps someone will say that the apostle congratulated them because they were made sad by repenting, a sadness which can belong only to those who have sinned. For he says thus: “I see that that letter made you sad, though only for a while; now I rejoice, not because you were made sad, but because you were made sad to repentance. For you were made sad according to God, so that you suffered loss from us in nothing. For sadness according to God works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sadness of the world works death. For see what earnestness this very thing, being made sad according to God, has produced in you.” And so the Stoics can answer for their side that sadness seems useful for this, that one repents of having sinned, but that it cannot be in the mind of the wise man because neither does sin befall him, for repentance of which he might be made sad, nor any other evil, by suffering and feeling which he might be sad. For they say that Alcibiades too (if my memory does not deceive me about the man's name), when he seemed to himself happy, wept when Socrates argued with him and showed him how wretched he was, since he was a fool. For him, then, folly was the cause even of this useful and desirable sadness, by which a man grieves that he is what he ought not to be. But the Stoics say that not the fool but the wise man cannot be sad.

Chapter 9. Of the disturbances of the mind, whose affections the life of the righteous has rightly ordered.

But to these philosophers, as far as this question of the disturbances of the mind is concerned, we have already replied in the ninth book of this work, showing that they are eager for contention about words rather than about things, and not for truth. Among us, however, according to the holy Scriptures and sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of God, living according to God in the pilgrimage of this life, fear and desire, grieve and rejoice; and because their love is right, they have all these affections right. They fear eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve in reality, because they themselves still groan within themselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of their body; they rejoice in hope, because the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Likewise they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they grieve over sins, they rejoice in good works. For that they may fear to sin, they hear: “Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold”; that they may desire to persevere, they hear what is written: “He who perseveres to the end will be saved”; that they may grieve over sins, they hear: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”; that they may rejoice in good works, they hear: “God loves a cheerful giver.” Likewise, according as their weakness or strength may be, they fear to be tempted and desire to be tempted, they grieve in temptations and rejoice in temptations. For that they may fear to be tempted, they hear: “If anyone is overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted”; but that they may desire to be tempted, they hear a certain brave man of the city of God saying: “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart”; that they may grieve in temptations, they see Peter weeping; that they may rejoice in temptations, they hear James saying: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations.”

And they are moved by these affections not only on their own account but also on account of those whom they desire to be set free and fear may perish, and they grieve if they perish and rejoice if they are set free. For that best and bravest man, who glories in his weaknesses, to recall him above all, since we have come into the church of Christ from the nations, the teacher of the nations in faith and truth, who both labored more than all his fellow apostles and instructed the peoples of God by more letters, not only those who were seen by him as present but also those who were foreseen as future; that man, I say, the athlete of Christ, taught by him, anointed from him, crucified with him, glorious in him, in the theater of this world, to which he was made a spectacle, both to angels and to men, contending lawfully in a great contest and pressing toward what lies ahead for the prize of the upward call: they most gladly watch him with the eyes of faith rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep, having fightings without and fears within, desiring to depart and be with Christ, longing to see the Romans that he might have some fruit among them as among the other nations, jealous for the Corinthians and in that very jealousy fearing lest their minds be led astray from the chastity that is in Christ, having great sadness and continual grief of heart for the Israelites, because, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they were not subject to the righteousness of God; and declaring not only his grief but also his mourning for some who had sinned before and had not repented of the impurity and sexual immorality they had practiced. If these motions, these affections, coming from love of the good and holy charity, are to be called faults, let us allow what are truly faults to be called virtues. But since these affections follow right reason when they are applied where they ought to be, who would dare then to call them diseases or vicious passions?

For this reason the Lord himself too, deigning to lead a human life in the form of a servant, but having no sin at all, applied them where he judged they should be applied. For in him, in whom there was a true human body and a true human mind, human affection was not false. When, then, these things are reported of him in the Gospel, that he was grieved with anger at the hardness of heart of the Jews, that he said, “I rejoice for your sakes, that you may believe,” that when about to raise Lazarus he even shed tears, that he earnestly desired to eat the Passover with his disciples, that as his passion drew near his soul was sorrowful, they are certainly not reported falsely. But he took on these motions in his human mind, by a certain dispensation, when he willed, just as he became man when he willed.

Accordingly, as must be admitted, even when we have these affections rightly and according to God, they belong to this life, not to that which we hope is to come, and we often yield to them even against our will. So sometimes, although we are moved not by culpable desire but by praiseworthy charity, we weep even when we do not want to. We have them, then, from the weakness of the human condition; but not so the Lord Jesus, whose very weakness came from power. But while we bear the weakness of this life, if we had none of them at all, then rather we would not be living rightly. For the apostle found fault with and detested certain people whom he also said were without affection. The sacred psalm too blamed those of whom it says: “I looked for one to grieve with me, and there was none.” For not to grieve at all while we are in this place of misery, as someone even among the literary men of this world thought and said, does not come about without a great price: savagery in the mind, numbness in the body.

Therefore, that which in Greek is called apatheia (which in Latin, if it could be said, would be called impassibility), if it is to be understood (for it is taken of the mind, not of the body) as living without those affections which occur against reason and disturb the mind, is plainly good and greatly to be desired, but it too does not belong to this life. For it is the voice not of just any men, but especially of the godly and very righteous and holy: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” This apatheia, then, will exist when there is no sin in man. But now one lives well enough if without crime; but whoever thinks he lives without sin does not bring it about that he has no sin, but that he receives no pardon. Further, if that is to be called apatheia when no affection at all can touch the mind, who would not judge this numbness worse than all faults? It can, then, not absurdly be said that perfect happiness will be without the sting of fear and without any sadness; but who would say that there will be no love and joy there, unless wholly shut off from the truth? But if apatheia is that state in which no fear terrifies and no grief torments, it is to be shunned in this life if we wish to live rightly, that is, according to God; but in that happy life which is promised as everlasting, it is plainly to be hoped for.

For that fear of which the apostle John says, “There is no fear in charity, but perfect charity casts out fear, because fear has punishment; and he who fears is not perfect in charity,” is not of the kind of that fear with which the apostle Paul feared lest the Corinthians be led astray by the serpent's cunning; for charity has this fear, indeed only charity has it; but it is of the kind of fear that is not in charity, of which the apostle Paul himself says: “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery again in fear.” But that chaste fear, “enduring for ever and ever,” if it will exist in the age to come too (for how else can “enduring for ever and ever” be understood?), is not a fear that frightens us away from an evil that can happen, but one that holds us in a good that cannot be lost. For where the love of the good attained is unchangeable, surely, if it can be said, the fear of avoiding evil is untroubled. For by the name of chaste fear is signified that will by which we shall necessarily not will to sin, and shall avoid sin not with the anxiety of weakness lest perhaps we sin, but with the tranquillity of charity. Or if there can be no fear of any kind at all in that most sure security of perpetual and happy joys, then “the chaste fear of the Lord enduring for ever and ever” is said in the same way as “the patience of the poor will not perish forever.” For patience itself will not be eternal, since it is needed only where evils must be borne; but that will be eternal to which one comes through patience. So perhaps chaste fear is said to endure for ever and ever because that will endure to which fear itself leads.

This being so, since a right life is to be led by which one may come to the happy life, a right life has all these affections right, a perverse one perverse. But the happy and eternal life will have love and joy not only right but also sure; fear and grief none. Hence it already appears in some measure what the citizens of the city of God, living according to the spirit, not according to the flesh, that is, according to God, not according to man, ought to be in this pilgrimage, and what they will be in that immortality to which they are going. But the city, that is, the society, of the ungodly, who live not according to God but according to man, and who follow the doctrines of men or demons in the very worship of a false divinity and contempt of the true, is shaken by these depraved affections as by diseases and disturbances. And if it has some citizens who seem to govern such motions and as it were temper them, they are so proud and puffed up with impiety that in them the swellings are greater precisely as the pains are less. And if some, with a vanity the more monstrous the rarer it is, have become enamored of this in themselves, that they are raised and stirred by no affection at all, and bent and inclined by none, they rather lose all humanity than attain true tranquillity. For a thing is not right because it is hard, nor sound because it is numb.

Chapter 10. Whether we should believe that the first human beings, placed in paradise, were affected by any disturbances before they sinned.

But it is not without reason asked whether the first man, or rather the first human beings (for it was a married couple), had these affections in the animal body before sin, such as we shall not have in the spiritual body when all sin has been cleansed and ended. For if they had them, how were they happy in that memorable place of happiness, that is, paradise? Who, in the end, can be called absolutely happy who is affected by fear or grief? And what could those human beings fear or grieve over amid so great an abundance of so many goods, where neither death was feared nor any ill health of the body, nor was anything lacking which a good will might obtain, nor was anything present which might offend the flesh or mind of a man living happily? There was love undisturbed toward God and between the spouses, living in a faithful and sincere partnership, and from this love a great joy, since what was loved did not cease to be at hand for enjoyment. There was a tranquil avoidance of sin, and while it remained, no evil at all broke in from anywhere to make them sad. Or did they perhaps desire to touch the forbidden tree to eat, but fear to die, so that both desire and fear were already disturbing those human beings even in that place? Far be it from us to think that this was so where there was no sin at all. For it is itself a sin to desire the things the law of God forbids and to abstain from them from fear of punishment, not love of righteousness. Far be it, I say, that before all sin there was already such a sin there, that they committed with regard to the tree what the Lord says with regard to a woman: “Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” As happy, then, as they were, agitated by no disturbances of mind and harmed by no discomforts of body, so happy would the whole human society have been, had neither they committed the evil which they would transmit even to their descendants, nor anyone of their stock committed iniquity that would receive condemnation; and, this happiness continuing until, through that blessing by which it was said, “Increase and multiply,” the number of the predestined saints was completed, another and greater one would have been given, that which has been given to the most blessed angels, where there would be a sure security that no one would sin and no one would die; and such would the life of the saints have been, after no experience of toil, pain, or death, as it will be after all these things, in the incorruption of bodies restored by the resurrection of the dead.