The City of God, Books VIII–XVI

Book Eight

BOOK EIGHT Chapter 1 iiiMUST NOW TURN to a matter which calls for much deeper thought than was needed to resolve the issues raised in the previous Books. I mean natural theology . Unlike the poetical theology of the stage which flaunts the crimes of the gods and the political theology of the city which publicizes their evil desires, and both of which reveal them as dangerous demons rather than deities, natural theology cannot be discussed with men in the street but only with philosophers, that is, as the name implies, with lovers of wisdom.1 I may add that, since divine truth and scripture dearly teach us that God, the Creator of all things, is Wisdom, a true philosopher will be a lover of God. That does not mean that all who answer to the name are really in love with genuine wisdom, for it is one thing to be and another to be called a philosopher. And, therefore, from all the philosophers whose teachings I have learned from books I shall select only those with whom it would not be improper to discuss this subject. I shall not bother in this work to refute all the errors of all the philosophers, but only such as pertain to theology-which term from its Greek derivation I take to mean a study of the divine nature. My only purpose is to challenge the opinions of those philosophers who, while admitting that there is a God I Cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.lI,8,9. 21 22 SAINT AUGUSTINE who concerns himself with human affairs, claim that, since the worship of this one unchangeable God is not sufficient to attain happiness even after death, lesser gods, admittedly created and directed by this supreme God, should also be reverenced. I must say that such philosophers were nearer to the truth than Varro was.2 His idea of natural theology embraced at most the universe and the world-soul. They, on the contrary, acknowledged a God who transcends the nature of every kind of soul, a God who created the visible cosmos of heaven and earth, and the spirit of every living creature, and who, by the communication of His own immutable and immaterial light, makes blessed the kind of rational and intellectual soul which man possesses. Even the most superficial student will recognize in these men the Platonic philosophers, so named after their master, Plato.3 I shall speak briefly about Plato's ideas, in so far as they are relevant to the matter in hand, but first I must review the opinions of his predecessors in the field of philosophy. Chapter 2 The legacy of literature written in the universally admired Greek language records two schools of philosophy. They are, first, the Italian, established in that part of Italy formerly known as Magna Graecia; and second, the Ionian, in that country which is now called Greece. Pythagoras of Samos1 is said to be the founder of the Italian school and also the originator of the word philosophy. Before his time, any person of outstanding achievement was called a sage. But when 2 Marcus Terentius Varro (116·27 B.C.); d. City of God 6.2. S c.428-c.M8 B.C. 1 582·c.507 B.C. THE CITY OF GOD: BOOK VIII 23 Pythagoras, who considered it arrogance to call one's self wise, was asked his profession, he replied that he was a philosopher , that is to say, a man in pursuit of, or in love with, wisdom. Thales of Miletus,2 who initiated the Ionian School, was one of the celebrated Seven Wise Men. While the remaining six were distinguished by balanced lives and moral teachings, Thales took up the study of nature and committed the results of his researches to writing. He won particular applause by his mastery of astronomical calculations and by his predictions of solar and lunar eclipses.3 His deliberate purpose in this was to found a school that would survive him. His main theory was that the primary stuff of all things is water, and that from this principle originated the elements, the cosmos and everything which the world produced. As far as he was concerned, nothing of all this universe, so marvelous to gaze upon, was directed by divine intelligence. His disciple and successor, Anaximander,4 proposed a new cosmological theory. For him, there could be no one ultimate element of all things such as water; rather, each thing is derived from...