Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
1.
The punishment of the condemned to be treated before the bliss of the saints
Now that both those cities, God’s City and the Devil’s, have reached their appointed ends, through the judgement of Jesus Christ our Lord – the judge of the living and the dead – we must proceed to a more-careful discussion of the kind of punishment which is in store for the Devil, and for all those of his party; and, with the help of God, I shall discharge this task in the present book, to the best of my power. The reason for preferring this order, and dealing afterwards with the felicity of the saints, is that both the saints and the damned will be united with their bodies, and it seems more incredible that bodies should endure in eternal torments than that they should continue, without pain, in everlasting bliss. It follows that when I have shown that this eternal punishment ought not to be thought incredible, this will be a great help to me by making it much easier to believe that the bodily immortality of the saints is to be exempt from any kind of distress. And this order is not repugnant to the holy Scriptures; for there we find sometimes the bliss of the saints put first, as in: ‘those whose actions have been good will come from the graves to the resurrection of life; those whose deeds have been wicked, to the resurrection of judgement’; whereas sometimes it is put second, as in the following: ”The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all the stumbling-blocks and consign them to a blazing furnace of fire: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father’;
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and as in 67dus statement: ‘So those will go to eternal punishment; but the righteous will go into life eternal.’
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In the prophets also it will be found on examination that now the one order is observed, now the other; it would take too long to list the instances, and I have already given my reason for the order I have adopted.
2.
Can a material body be exempt from destruction by fire
?
What evidence can I produce to convince the unbelievers that it is possible for human bodies, possessed of soul and life, not only to escape disintegration by death but even to persist in the torments of everlasting fires? For these unbelievers refuse to allow us to ascribe this to the power of the Almighty, and they demand that we persuade them by producing some instance of it. We may reply that there are examples of animals which are undoubtedly subject to decay, because they are mortal, which nevertheless can live in the middle of a fire; and that there is also a species of worm to be found in the gushing springs of hot baths. These are too hot for anyone to put a hand in with impunity, whereas the worms not only live in it without damage but are unable to exist elsewhere. But the incredulous either refuse to believe this if we are unable to give a demonstration, or, if we are able to give concrete proof of our statements before their eyes, or to establish the facts by means of qualified witnesses, they maintain with unshaken scepticism that the phenomena are insufficient as a precedent for the matter in question. They argue that these animals do not live for ever, and that they live in those temperatures without feeling pain; in fact, they say, they thrive in elements to which their nature is adapted, which are not to them a means of torment. We are asked to suppose that it is not more incredible that creatures should thrive in such an environment than that they should be tortured in it! For it is amazing that any creature should be in pain in the fire and yet should continue to live; but it is more astonishing that it should live in the fire without feeling pain. But if the latter is believed to be a fact, why should the former be incredible?
3.
Can a physical body endure eternal pain
?
But, they urge, there is no body which can suffer pain and at the same time can be incapable of dying. How do we know this? Who can be sure whether it is or is not in their bodies that demons are suffering when they confess that they are tormented with great pain? If it is replied that there is certainly no solid and visible body (or, to put it in a word, no
flesh
) which can suffer and yet cannot the, is this not merely to make an assertion grounded only on human inference from the experience of the physical senses? For men have acquaintance solely with
mortal
flesh, and so they judge anything to be utterly impossible that does not fall within their experience, and on this assumption
they base their reasoning. Yet what sort of logic is it to make pain a proof of death when it is in fact the evidence of life! For although the question is whether eternal life in pain is possible, nevertheless one thing is certain, that anything which feels pain is alive, and no pain can exist except in a living thing. Thus it is inevitable that a sufferer should be alive, but it is not inevitable that pain should kill the sufferer, because pain does not in every case kill bodies liable to death and undoubtedly destined for death. The reason why some pain can cause death is that the soul is connected with this body of ours in such a way that it succumbs and departs from the body under pressure from extreme pain. In our bodily frame, in fact, the connection of the limbs and the vital parts is so weak that it cannot endure the violent assault of extreme, or even considerable pain. But in the life hereafter the soul and the body will be connected in such a way that just as the bond that links them will not be unloosed by any passage of time, however long, so it will not be able to be broken by any pain. Accordingly, even though there now exists no physical body of such a kind as to be capable of suffering pain while being incapable of dying, there will then be flesh of such a kind as does not now exist, just as there will also be a death of such a kind as does not now exist. For death will not then be non-existent but everlasting, seeing that the soul will not be able to live, because deprived of God, nor yet to be released from bodily suffering by dying. The first death drives the soul from the body against her will; the second death holds the soul in the body against her will. But both these deaths have this in common, that the soul suffers against her will from her connection with the body.
Now these opponents of ours observe that there now exists no kind of physical body which is capable of pain but incapable of death; what they fail to observe is that there is something which is by nature more important than the body, namely, the soul. The soul gives life to the body by its presence, and rules the body; and this soul itself can suffer pain, while being incapable of death. Here we have found something which feels pain and yet is immortal. This property, which now, as we know, belongs to the souls of all men, will at that time belong to the bodies of the damned. If we consider more carefully, we see that pain, which is said to be connected with the body, is in fact more closely connected with the soul. For pain is really an experience of the soul, not of the body, even when the cause of pain is presented to the soul by the body – when pain is felt in the part where the body is hurt. Thus, just as we speak of bodies ‘feeling’ and ‘living’, although it is the soul that gives feeling and life to the body; so also we talk of bodies
’suffering pain’ although there can be no pain in the body unless it comes from the soul. And so the soul feels pain along with the body in that part of the body where something occurs to cause pain; and the soul feels pain by itself, although it is in the body, when it is saddened by some cause, even an invisible cause, while the body is unaffected. The soul also suffers when it is not enshrined in a body; for there can be no doubt that the rich man was suffering when he said, ‘I am tortured in these flames.’
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The body, in contrast, does not suffer pain when divorced from the soul, nor, when it is united with the soul, does it suffer independently of the soul. If therefore it would be right to take the fact of pain as an argument for death, on the ground that the possibility of pain entails the possibility of death, death would then be connected with the soul rather than with the body, inasmuch as pain is particularly connected with the soul. Since, however, the soul has more capacity for pain, but is incapable of death, what force is there in the contention that the bodies of the damned, because they will exist in pain, must for that reason be supposed to be destined to the? The Flatonists, it is true, asserted that the soul’s capacity for fear, desire, pain, and joy derives from the structure of earthly bodies that are bound for death; that is why Virgil says, ‘Hence’ – that is, from the earthly, bodily parts that are doomed to die –
Hence the soul’s fear, desire, sorrow, and joy.
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But we have proved to those philosophers in the twelfth book of this work that, on their own showing, souls when purified from every stain contracted from the body are possessed of a fatal longing which makes them begin to desire to return to their bodies. Now the possibility of desire automatically entails the possibility of pain; for frustrated desire, when it either fails to attain its object or loses it after the attainment, turns into pain. The conclusion is that if the soul, which is the principal if not the only subject of the experience of pain, nevertheless has some kind of immortality of its own, appropriate to its mode of being, the fact that the bodies of the damned will feel pain does not entail that they will be capable of dying. Above all, if bodies are responsible for the suffering of the soul, why is it that they can impose suffering on the soul but not death, unless the fact is that it does not follow that what produces pain must also produce death? Then why is it incredible that the fire can impose pain but not death on those bodies, in the same way as the bodies themselves make the souls suffer pain without thereby compelling the death of the souls?
This shows that the fact of pain is not a cogent proof of future death.
4.
Instances in nature showing that bodies can live under conditions of torture
We are told by writers who have carefully studied the natural history of animals that the salamander lives in fire;
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and there are some mountains in Sicily which are a seething mass of flames and yet remain entire; they have been in this state from immemorial antiquity up to the present time and are likely so to continue. This being so, we have in them sufficiently reliable evidence that not everything which burns is destroyed; and the soul gives us warrant for thinking that not everything which is susceptible to pain is capable also of death. Then why are instances still demanded of us to establish that there is nothing incredible in our teaching that the bodies of human beings condemned to eternal punishment by fire do not lose their soul, but burn without loss of substance and feel pain without ceasing to be? For in that future state the substance of our bodies will have a quality bestowed by him who has bestowed on so many different things the marvellous and various properties which we observe without amazement simply because they are so many. For who but the Creator of all things gave to the peacock the power of resisting putrefaction after death? I had heard of this property and had thought it incredible, until one day at Carthage I was served with a roast peacock, and I gave orders that what seemed a sufficient quantity of meat should be cut from the breast and kept. After an interval of some days, long enough to have ensured the putrefaction of any other kind of cooked meat, this was brought out and presented to me; and I found it had no offensive smell. It was then put back in store, and after more than thirty days it was found to be in the same condition; and there was no change in a year’s time except that the flesh was somewhat dry and shrivelled. Who has given to chaff the power of cooling, so that it will keep snow covered with chaff from melting, or the power of heating, so that it will ripen green apples?
Then there is fire itself. Who can explain its marvels? It is itself bright; but it blackens everything that is burnt in it; its colour is beautiful; and yet it discolours everything that it embraces and licks
with its flames, and from a bright living coal produces the filthiest charcoal. And yet this kind of transformation is no hard and fast rule; for by a contrary process stones baked in a glowing fire are themselves turned to a shining white, and although the fire is red rather than white, while the stones become white, still whiteness has the same affinity with light as blackness with darkness. Thus when the fire burns in the wood to bake the stones, it has contrary effects in similar substances. For stones and pieces of wood are different, but not contrary, as are white and black; and fire produces whiteness in stones but blackness in wood; it is bright, and it gives brightness to stones but it darkens the wood, although it would have no effect on the former if it were not alive in the latter. Again, is it not remarkable that charcoal is so brittle that it can be broken with the lightest blow, can easily be ground to powder; and yet it is so durable that it cannot be broken down by moisture, cannot be destroyed by age – so much so that it is customary to put charcoal under boundary marks when they are set up, to refute any litigant who might come forward at any time in the remote future and maintain that a stone fixed in earth was not a boundary stone?
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What is it that makes charcoal capable of enduring so long when buried in damp earth, where timber would rot? Surely it can only be fire, the great destroyer of all substances!
Let us consider the marvels of lime. Apart from the fact that it grows white by the action of fire which makes other things dirty (I have said enough about that already), it also in some most mysterious way takes fire into itself from the fire, and it stores the fire inside the mass of lime, which is cold to the touch, so secretly that it does not present itself to our senses in any way at all, but, when it has been discovered by experiment, it is known to be asleep within the mass even when there is no evidence of its presence. That is why we call it ‘quicklime’, living lime, as if the fire hidden within it were the invisible soul of a visible body. But the really wonderful thing is that when it is quenched, it is kindled! For to get rid of its hidden fire, water is poured on it, or it is plunged into water, and then it grows hot, though it was cold before; and that is the effect of water, which cools all other substances when they are hot. And so, as that lump of lime expires, so to speak, the fire hidden in it makes its appearance at its departure; and thereafter the lime is so cold in death, as it were, that if water is applied to it it will not blaze up, and what was called ‘quicklime’
is now called ‘quenched’ or ‘killed’ lime. Could anything be added to make this marvel more astounding? Yes, there is something more. If you use oil, instead of water, the lime does not grow hot, whether oil is poured on the lime or the lime is plunged in the oil! And yet oil is fuel of fire, and water is not! If we had read about this marvel, or had heard it related of some Indian stone which could not come into our experience, we should certainly dismiss it as a falsehood; or at least we should be vastly astonished. But things which come before our eyes in everyday experience are little reckoned of, not because they are less remarkable in nature but simply because of their continual occurrence – so much so that we have ceased to marvel at many of the marvels of India itself (a part of the world so remote from us) which it has proved possible to bring into our experience.
Many people among us possess diamonds, especially our jewellers and goldsmiths; and the diamond is a stone which, so we are told, neither steel nor fire nor any other force can prevail over, except goat’s blood.
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But do we suppose that those who possess diamonds and are familiar with them are as astonished at the diamond’s properties as were those to whom those powers were first displayed? Those who have not seen those powers demonstrated may perhaps not believe in them; or if they do believe, they marvel at something beyond their experience. If they happen to become acquainted with the diamond, they are indeed for a time filled with amazement at something unfamiliar; but daily familiarity gradually blunts the edge of wonder. We know that the loadstone has an astonishing power to attract iron; and when I first saw this phenomenon I was utterly amazed. I saw, I most certainly saw, an iron ring snatched up and held aloft by a stone! And then it seemed as if the stone had given its own power to the iron which it had snatched up, and made it a joint property; for this first ring was applied to another ring, which it lifted aloft; and the second ring clung to the first just as the first ring clung to the stone; in the same way a third ring was added, then a fourth; and in the end there was a kind of chain of rings hanging, the rings not being joined together internally, by the interlinking of their circles, but adhering to each other from outside. Who could fail to be astounded at this property of the stone, which was not merely inherent in it but also passed on through so many objects suspended from it, and bound them together by invisible connections?
But much more astonishing than this is an experiment with the loadstone which I learnt about from my brother and fellow-bishop,
Severus of Milevis. He told me that he had seen Bathanarius, sometime count of Africa, when the bishop was at dinner at his house, produce a loadstone and hold it beneath a silver dish on which he placed a piece of iron. Then he moved his hand, with the stone in it, underneath the dish and the iron moved about on the dish, following his movements; and there was no effect on the dish in between, while the stone was being drawn by the man backwards and forwards underneath at extremely rapid speed, and the iron was rushing to and fro on top under the influence of the stone. I have described something that I myself witnessed, and I have reported something which I was told by someone else, but someone I believed as thoroughly as if I had witnessed the scene myself. I will now add something which I have read about this loadstone: that when a diamond is placed next to it, the stone does not draw any iron; and if it has already drawn iron to itself, it lets it go as soon as the diamond approaches.
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These stones are imported from India; and if by this time we have become acquainted with them and have ceased to marvel, how much more will this be true of those who export them to us, if these stones are quite common with them. Perhaps they regard them as we regard lime, whose remarkable property of growing hot in water, which normally quenches fire, while not becoming hot in oil, which usually kindles fire, we do not wonder at because it is such an everyday matter.