Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
28.
The end of the wicked
In contrast with this, however, the wretchedness of those who do not belong to this City of God will be everlasting. This is called also ‘the second death’, because the soul cannot be said to be alive in that state, when it is separated from the life of God, nor can the body, when it is subjected to eternal torments. And this is precisely the reason why this ‘second death’ will be harder to bear, because it cannot come to an end in death. But here a question arises; for just as wretchedness is the opposite of blessedness, and death of life, so war is evidently the opposite of peace. And the question is rightly asked: What war, or what kind of war, can be understood to exist in the final state of the wicked, corresponding, by way of contrast, to that peace which is proclaimed with joyful praises in the final state of the good? Now anyone who puts this question should observe what it is that is harmful and destructive in war; and he will see that it is precisely the mutual opposition and conflict of the forces engaged. What war, then, can be imagined more serious and more bitter than a struggle in which the will is so at odds with the feelings and the feelings with the will, that their hostility cannot be ended by the victory of either – a struggle in which the violence of pain is in such conflict with the nature of the body that neither can yield to the other? For in this life, when such a conflict occurs, either pain wins, and death takes away feeling, or nature conquers, and health removes the pain. But in that other life, pain continues to torment, while nature lasts to feel the pain. Neither ceases to exist, lest the punishment also should cease.
These, then, are the final states of good and evil. The first we should seek to attain, the latter we should strive to escape. And since it is through a judgement that the good will pass to the one, and the evil to the other, it is of this judgement that I shall deal, as far as God grants, in the book which follows.
1.
God judges at all times
;
but the subject of this book is the last judgement
I
AM
going to speak about the day of God’s final judgement, as far as he will grant me, and to assert it in the face of the irreligious and the unbelieving; and I must start by laying down as, so to speak, the foundation of the building, the evidence of inspired Scripture. Those who refuse to believe that evidence attempt to contravert it with false and fallacious quibbles of human ingenuity, designed either to establish that what is proffered as evidence from the holy Scriptures has some different meaning or to deny altogether that it is divinely inspired. For I am of the opinion that no man on earth who understands these statements as they were uttered and believes that they were spoken by the supreme and true God through the mouths of holy souls, can fail to yield his assent to them, whether he openly acknowledges this or, because of some fault, is embarrassed and afraid to do so, or even, with an obstinacy closely akin to madness, makes every effort to defend with the utmost energy what he knows or believes to be false against what he knows or believes to be true.
Now it is a belief held by the whole Church of the true God, in private confession and also in public profession, that Christ is to come from heaven to judge both the living and the dead, and this is what we call the Last Day, the day of divine judgement – that is, the last period of time; for it is not certain for how many days this judgement will extend. But no one who reads the holy Scriptures, however inattentively, is unaware that it is the normal use of those documents to use the word ‘day’ for ‘time’. Now when talking of the day of God’s judgement, we add the word ‘last’ or ‘final’ the reason is that God is even now judging, and he has been judging from the beginning of the human race, when he expelled the first human beings from paradise and barred them from the tree of life as perpetrators of a great sin. Yes, and even before that he undoubtedly gave judgement when he ‘did not spare the angels who sinned’,
1
the chief of whom, the author
of his own ruin, ruined man in his envy. And it is by God’s deep and just judgement
2
that the life of demons in the air of our sky and the life of men on this earth is most miserable, being full of errors and anxieties. But even if no one had sinned, it could only have been by his good and right judgement that he would have maintained in eternal blessedness the whole rational creation, as with perfect constancy it held fast to him as its Lord.
Moreover, not only does he give an all-embracing judgement on the race of demons and on the human race, condemning them to misery as the deserved retribution for the first sins of the race; he also judges the particular actions of individuals performed by the decision of their will. For the demons beg that they may not suffer torment;
3
and it is certainly not without justice that they are spared or tormented according to their particular degree of wickedness. Men also are punished by God for their deeds, often openly, always secretly, either in this life or after death, although no human being acts rightly unless he is supported by divine help, and no demon or man acts wickedly unless he is permitted by the same divine and completely just judgement. For, as the Apostle says, ‘There is no injustice in God’;
4
and, as he says in another place, ‘His judgements are inscrutable, and his ways untraceable.’
5
Now in this book I shall discuss, as far as God gives me power, not those first judgements, nor those judgements in the meantime, but the last judgement itself, when Christ is to come from heaven to judge the living and the dead. For that day is obviously now called the Day of Judgement in a special sense, in that no room will be left on that day for the ignorant complaint that asks why this unjust man is happy and that just man unhappy. It will then be made clear that true and complete happiness belongs to all the good, and only to them, while all the wicked, and only the wicked, are destined for deserved and supreme unhappiness.
2.
The diversity of human fortunes. God
’
s judgement not absent, but untraceable
In our present situation, however, we are learning to bear with equanimity the ills that even good men suffer, and at the same time not to set much store by the good things which the wicked also acquire. In this way there is salutary instruction from God, even in situations
where God’s justice is not apparent. For we do not know by what decision of God this good man is poor, while that wicked man is rich; why this man is cheerful, though, in our opinion, his desperate moral character makes him deserve the tortures of grief, while that man, whose exemplary life convinces us that he deserves to be cheerful, is full of sorrow; why an innocent man leaves the court not merely unavenged but actually condemned, either overcome by the injustice of the judge, or overwhelmed by false evidence, while, in contrast, his criminal adversary gloats over him, as he goes away not only unpunished but even vindicated; why the impious man is hale and hearty, while the devout man pines away in weakness; why young men practise highway-robbery, and enjoy excellent health, while infants who could not have hurt anyone, even by word, are afflicted by all manner of cruel diseases; a useful member of society is snatched off by an untimely death, while one who, as it seems to us, ought never to have been born lives on long beyond the normal span; one whose record is full of crimes is exalted to high position, while another who is beyond reproach is hidden in the shadows of obscurity. Who could list or enumerate all the other examples of this kind?
Now if such cases exhibited some consistency in their very irrationality, as we may call it, if, that is, in this life (in which as the sacred psalm says, ‘man is like a mere nothing, and his days pass by like a shadow’
6
) only the wicked obtained the transitory goods of this world, and only the good suffered the transitory ills, this situation could be ascribed to the just, or even the benevolent, judgement of God. Thus those who were not to attain the eternal blessings which bring true happiness would be either deluded by temporal benefits in return for their wickedness or else, by God’s mercy, would be consoled by them, while those who were not to suffer eternal torments would be either afflicted by temporal ills in retribution for whatever sins, however small, they had committed, or would be trained by them to bring their virtue to perfection. But in fact, though there are good men in adversity and bad men in prosperity, which seems unjust, it remains true that, in general, bad men come to a bad end, and good men enjoy eventual success. And so the judgements of God become the more inscrutable and his ways the more untraceable.
7
Thus we do not know by what judgement God causes these situations, or else allows them to happen; for in him there is the highest power, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, and in him there is no weakness, no unreason, no injustice. For all that, it is salutary for us to
learn not to set great store by those things, whether good or bad, which, as we see, are common to good men and evil alike; but to seek instead those good things which are the special possession of good men, and to shun with particular care the bad things which are the distinctive property of evil men. However, when we reach that judgement of God, the time of which is in a special sense called the Day of Judgement and sometimes the Day of the Lord, then it will become plain that God’s judgements are perfectly just, not only all the judgements that will then be passed, but also all the judgements passed from the beginning, and all which are to be pronounced hereafter until that judgement day. At that day too, it will become evident by what just decision of God it comes about that at this present time so many, in fact almost all, of the just judgements of God are hidden from mortal perception and understanding. However, in this matter one thing is not hidden from the faith of the devout; and that is, that what is hidden is just
3.
Solomon on the things shared, in this life, by good and bad
Solomon, as is well known, was the wisest king of Israel. He reigned in Jerusalem; and his book called Ecclesiastes is included by the Jews in their canon of holy Scripture. It begins with these words: ‘ “Vanity of vanities”, the preacher said, “vanity of vanities.
8
All is vanity. What profit does a man gain for all his labour, all his toil under the sun?”’ This is the text to which he attaches the rest of his discourse, reminding us of the anxieties and errors of this life, while the passing seasons come and vanish away, this life in which there is nothing solid and stable which is retained in our possession; and in this vanity of all things under the sun he especially deplores the fact that, although wisdom excels folly as abundantly as light excels darkness, and the wise man has eyes in his head while the fool walks in darkness, nevertheless the same lot befalls all alike (meaning, of course, in this life spent ‘under the sun’); and he evidently refers to those evils which, as we observe, are the common portion of good men and bad men. He also remarks that good men suffer evils, as if they themselves were evil, and evil men acquire good things, as if they themselves were good. He says, ‘There is a vanity which is found on earth; the fact that there are righteous men who receive the treatment due to the ungodly;
and there are ungodly men who receive the treatment merited by the righteous. This also, I say, is vanity.’
9
This wisest of men devoted the whole of this book to pointing out this vanity, obviously with the sole intention that we should long for that life which is not made up of vanity under this sun, but of verity under the sun’s creator. Now, in this state of vanity, is it anything but a just judgement of God that man, having become like this vanity, this nothingness, should himself vanish into it? However, in the days of his vanity what matters most is whether a man resists the truth or obeys it, whether he has no part in true religion or participates in it; and this is important not in view of the acquisition of the good things of this life, or the avoidance of evils that pass away into nothingness, but in view of the future judgement, as a result of which the good will have good things and the evil will have evil things which will endure for ever. Our wise author sums it all up when he ends his book with these words: ‘Fear God, and keep his commandments, because this is the whole man; for God will bring up for judgement every action in this world, wherever any has been disregarded, whether good or evil.’
10
Could he have made any statement shorter, truer, more salutary than this?‘ Fear God’, he says, ‘and keep his commandments, because this is the whole man.’ For anyone who really is anything is assuredly this – a keeper, I mean, of God’s commandments – since anyone who is not this is nothing, because he remains in the likeness of vanity, which is nothingness; he is not remade in the likeness of verity, or reality.‘ For every action in this world’ –whatever a man does in his life here – ‘whether good or evil, God will bring up for judgement, wherever any has been disregarded’, that is, wherever a man in this life is seen as contemptible, and therefore is not, in fact, seen. God sees even him, and does not disregard him, nor pass him over when he pronounces judgement.
4.
Testimonies to the last judgement are to be adduced, first from the New Testament, then from the Old
My intention is to produce proofs of this last judgement of God from holy Scripture, and those are to be chosen first from the books of the New Testament, afterwards from the Old. For although the Old Testament is prior in time, the New Testament is to be put before the Old in order of importance, since the Old Testament is the herald of the New. The New Testament, therefore, will be quoted first, and then the
Old will be brought in to confirm its evidence. The Old Testament contains the Law and the Prophets, while the New has the Gospel and the apostolic writings. Now the Apostle says, ̰Through the Law comes the consciousness of sin. But now God’s justice has been revealed, independently of the Law, the justice to which the Law and the Prophets bear witness, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.’
11
This righteousness of God belongs to the New Testament, and it has the testimony of the old books, that is, of the Law and the Prophets. First, then, the case must be presented, and afterwards the witness must be brought in. That this order is to be observed is shown us by Jesus Christ himself, when he says, ‘The scribe who is instructed in the kingdom of God is like a householder who brings out of his store-room things new and old.’
12
He did not say ‘old and new’, which he obviously would have said had he not preferred to observe the order of value rather than the order of time.