Of the events down to the time of the Saviour, as discussed in the previous seventeen books

I promised that, with the help of God's grace, I would first refute the enemies of the City of God, who favour their own gods above Christ, the founder of that City, and cruelly envy the Christians with a hatred pernicious above all to themselves; and this I did in the first ten books. Next, I undertook to write of the origin, progress and proper ends of the two cities, one of which, the City of God, dwells in the other, the city of this world, as far as the race of men is concerned, but as a pilgrim. But the promise to which I have just referred was threefold; and in the four books following the tenth I gave a digest of the origin of both these cities. Then, in one book, which was the fifteenth of this work, I dealt with their progress from the first man down to the Flood; and, next, our narrative pursued the course of the two cities down to the time of Abraham. It seems, however, that, from father Abraham down to the time of the kings of Israel, where we brought the sixteenth book to an end, and from then down to the coming of the Saviour in the flesh, which we reached at the end of the seventeenth book, my pen has dealt only with the City of God.

That, according to Varro, the various opinions concerning the Supreme Good might give rise to 288 different philosophical sects

I see that I must next discuss the proper ends of these two cities, the earthly and the Heavenly. First, then, let me expound, as fully as the plan of this work permits, the arguments advanced by mortals in their efforts to create happiness for themselves in the midst of the unhappiness of this life. I shall do this in order to make clear the difference between their vain beliefs and the hope which God gives us: a hope which will be fulfilled in the true blessedness which He will bestow upon us. And I shall do it not only by calling upon divine authority, but also, for the sake of unbelievers, by making as much use of reason as possible.

Now the philosophers have devised a great multitude of different arguments concerning the supreme ends of good and evil. They have devoted the greatest possible attention to this question in the attempt to discover what makes a man happy. For our Final Good is that for the sake of which other things are to be desired, while it is itself to be desired for its own sake; and the Final Evil is that for which other things are to be avoided, while it is itself to be avoided on its own account.

Preface

It seems to me, then, that, in the five preceding books, I have now argued sufficiently against those who believe that many false gods are to be worshipped for the sake of this mortal life and earthly things. They believe that they are to be worshipped by means of that ritual and service which the Greeks call latreia, and which is due only to the one true God. But Christian truth has shown these gods to be either useless images or unclean spirits and malignant demons: created beings, at any rate, and not the Creator.

But who does not know that neither these five books, nor any other number whatsoever, can be enough to overcome the great stupidity and obstinacy of our adversaries? For it is esteemed the glory of vanity to concede nothing to the force of truth even when he who is dominated by so gross a fault perishes thereby. The disease remains unconquered despite all the industry of the physician, for the patient himself is incurable. There are, however, some who understand and carefully ponder what they read without any – or at least without any great and excessive degree – of the obstinacy of long-held error. These will be more ready to judge that I have done more than was required in the five books now completed than to think that I have discussed the question less thoroughly than necessity demanded.

That the Platonists themselves assert that only the one God can confer blessedness, whether upon angels or men. We must, however, ask whether the spirits who they believe are to be worshipped for the sake of such blessedness require sacrifices to be offered only to the one God or to themselves also

It is the settled opinion of anyone who is in any way capable of using reason that all men wish to be blessed. But whenever men in their weakness ask who is blessed or what makes them so, they raise a great host of controversies upon which the philosophers have exhausted their efforts and spent their leisure. It would take too long, and it is not here necessary, to review such controversies. For the reader will recall what we said in the eighth book, when choosing those philosophers with whom we might discuss the blessed life which is to come after death. There, we asked whether this is to be achieved by paying divine honours to the one true God Who is the Maker of all gods, or by worshipping many. The reader will not expect us to repeat the same arguments here; and, if he has forgotten them, he can in any case read them again in order to refresh his memory.

God is always judging; but it is reasonable to confine our attention in this book to His last judgment

As far as He will grant me power to do so, I shall now speak of the day of God's final judgment and affirm it against the ungodly and the unbelieving. I must begin by laying down, as the foundation of the building, as it were, the evidence of Divine Scripture. Those who do not wish to believe such evidence endeavour to overturn it by means of a false and fallacious process of human hair-splitting. They either contend that what is put forward as evidence from the Holy Scriptures has some other meaning, or they simply deny that it is divinely inspired. But I believe that no mortal man who understands these statements as they were uttered and believes that they were spoken by the supreme and true God through the agency of holy souls will fail to yield and consent to them, whether he openly acknowledges this or not; although it may be, of course, that he is ashamed or afraid to do so because of some fault. It may even be, indeed, that, with a perversity closely allied to madness, he strives with all his might to defend what he knows or believes to be false against what he knows or believes to be true.

St Augustine

Augustine was born at Thagaste in the Roman province of Africa on 13 November 354, to parents of senatorial rank. His mother, Monica, was a Christian; his father Patricius was not, although he was received into the Church shortly before his death. Augustine was brought up as a Christian catechumen; as was commonly the case in the fourth century, however, he was not baptised as a child. His childhood seems to have been full of unhappy experiences, especially in regard to his education; but he writes of his mother with great affection, and is grieved by the memory of the pain which his youthful lapses caused her. In 370, he went to Carthage to study rhetoric. There, he lost touch with Christianity and acquired a mistress, who bore him a son called Adeodatus. As everyone knows, he regards himself as having lived a deplorable life as a young man, although he does not seem to have done much that we should now regard as very shocking. He read Cicero's dialogue called Hortensius (now lost), an exhortation to philosophy which fired his enthusiasm for learning; he was attracted successively to Manichaeism, Scepticism and Neoplatonism; he greatly admired the Enneads of Plotinus. Having taught for some years at Thagaste, Carthage and Rome, he accepted a position as municipal professor of rhetoric at Milan in 384. At Milan, he came under the influence of St Ambrose the bishop, and two Christian friends, Simplicianus and Pontitianus.

That both good and bad angels have only one nature

Having in the foregoing book seen how the two cities began among the angels, we must now speak of the creation of man, and show how the cities took their rise so far as regards the race of rational mortals. Before we do this, however, I see that I must first make certain remarks concerning the angels, by way of demonstrating, as far as I can, that it is not improper or inconsistent to speak of a society consisting of both men and angels. For we may properly speak not of four cities or societies – that is, two of angels and two more of men – but rather of two in all, one composed of the good angels and men together, and the other of the wicked.

It is not permissible for us to doubt that the contrasting appetites of the good and bad angels have arisen not from a difference in their nature and origin – for God, the good Author and Creator of all substances, created them both – but from a difference in their wills and desires. For some remained constant in cleaving to that which was the common good of them all: that is, to God Himself, and His eternity, truth and love. Others, however, delighting in their own power, and supposing that they could be their own good, fell from that higher and blessed good which was common to them all and embraced a private good of their own.

Of the next part of this work, in which we begin to demonstrate the origin and end of the two cities, that is, the heavenly and the earthly

The City of God of which we speak is that to which the Scriptures bear witness: the Scriptures which, excelling all the writings of all the nations in their divine authority, have brought under their sway every kind of human genius, not by a chance motion of the soul, but clearly by the supreme disposition of providence. For it is there written: ‘Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.’ 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.’ And a little later 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 again 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.’ From these testimonies – and there are others of the same kind, but it would take too long to mention them all – we have learned that there is a city of God, whose citizens we long to be because of the love with which its Founder has inspired us.

1. Authors have frequently made use of the term Natural law in their writings without however agreeing on its definition. The method of starting with definitions and avoiding equivocation is of course the proper method for those who leave no opportunity for counter-argument. Others go about it differently. Some of them argue that a particular act is against natural law because it runs counter to the united opinion of all the wisest or most civilized nations. However, they do not tell us who is to pass judgement on the wisdom, learning and morals of all the nations. Others argue from the position that an act is contrary to the agreed opinion of the whole human race. This definition we must certainly not accept; for it would be impossible on this account for anyone except infants and the retarded to offend against such a law. For in the term human race they certainly include all who actively have the use of reason. Offenders therefore are either not acting against the law of nature or are acting against it without their own consent, and are therefore to be excused. But to take the laws of nature from those who more often violate them than observe them is surely unreasonable. Moreover, men condemn in others what they approve in themselves, publicly praise what they secretly reject, and form their opinions from a habit of listening to what they are told, not from their own observation.

1. In the last two chapters we have been speaking of the commonwealth by design [civitas institutiva], the commonwealth which is initiated by an accord between a number of men, binding themselves to each other by agreements and by pledging their faith to each other. The next topic to discuss is the natural commonwealth [Civitas naturalis], which may also be called the commonwealth by Acquisition [Acquisita] since it is acquired by natural power and strength. The most important things to know here are the ways by which the right of Dominion [Dominium] is acquired over men's persons. Where such a right has been acquired, there is a kind of little kingdom. For to be a King is simply to have Dominion over many persons, and thus a kingdom is a large family, and a family is a little kingdom. To return once again to the natural state and to look at men as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms and grown up without any obligation to each other, there are only three ways by which someone can have Dominion over the person of another. The first is if, for the sake of peace and mutual defence, they put themselves under the sway [ditio] and Dominion of some one man or group of men by means of reciprocal agreements made with each other. We have already spoken of this way.

Although Hobbes is known to most readers today primarily as the author of Leviathan, his first claim to fame was as the author of this work, De Cive (On the Citizen). It had been known to a few intimates of Hobbes since 1641, but it was not known to a wider public until the famous Elzevir Company in Amsterdam picked it up and produced it in a generally available edition, which appeared in the bookshops in the early months of 1647, when its author was 59 and was about to begin working on Leviathan. It was entitled (in Latin) Elementa Philosophica de Cive, that is, ‘Philosophical Elements of the Citizen’ or, less literally but more felicitously, ‘Philosophical Elements of Citizenship’, by ‘Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury’.

It was an immediate best-seller – Elzevir's had sold out of its stock by the summer, and rushed out a reprint. And it remained until the nineteenth century the major Hobbesian text for many readers on the Continent, partly because an authoritative French translation by Hobbes's friend Samuel Sorbière appeared in 1649, whereas Leviathan was not translated into French until our own time, and partly because it was kept in print throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hobbes himself never repudiated the book, despite having published Leviathan four years later, and he proudly reprinted it in his collected works (in Latin) in 1668, alongside a Latin translation of Leviathan.