Edition Hide
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXIX: De incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Christi, quam confiteri Platonicorum erubescit inpietas.

Praedicas patrem et eius filium, quem uocas paternum intellectum seu mentem, et horum medium, quem putamus te dicere spiritum sanctum, et more uestro appellas tres deos. ubi, etsi uerbis indisciplinatis utimini, uidetis tamen qualitercumque et quasi per quaedam tenuis imaginationis umbracula, quo nitendum sit; sed incarnationem incommutabilis filii dei, qua saluamur, ut ad illa, quae credimus uel ex quantulacumque parte intellegimus, uenire possimus, non uultis agnoscere. itaque uidetis utcumque, etsi de longinquo, etsi acie caligante, patriam in qua manendum est, sed uiam qua eundum est non tenetis. confiteris tamen gratiam, quandoquidem ad deum per uirtutem intellegentiae peruenire paucis dicis esse concessum. non enim dicis: paucis placuit, uel: pauci uoluerunt; sed cum dicis esse concessum, procul dubio dei gratiam, non hominis sufficientiam confiteris. uteris etiam hoc uerbo apertius, ubi Platonis sententiam sequens nec ipse dubitas in hac uita hominem nullo modo ad perfectionem sapientiae peruenire, secundum intellectum tamen uiuentibus omne quod deest prouidentia dei et gratia post hanc uitam posse conpleri. o si cognouisses dei gratiam per Iesum Christum dominum nostrum ipsamque eius incarnationem, qua hominis animam corpusque suscepit, summum esse exemplum gratiae uidere potuisses. sed quid faciam? scio me frustra loqui mortuo, sed quantum ad te adtinet: quantum autem ad eos, qui te magni pendunt et te uel qualicumque amore sapientiae uel curiositate artium, quas non debuisti discere, diligunt, quos potius in tua conpellatione adloquor, fortasse non frustra. gratia dei non potuit gratius commendari, quam ut ipse unicus dei filius in se incommutabiliter manens indueretur hominem et spem dilectionis suae daret hominibus homine medio, qua ad illum ab hominibus ueniretur, qui tam longe erat inmortalis a mortalibus, incommutabilis a commutabilibus, iustus ab inpiis, beatus a miseris. et quia naturaliter indidit nobis, ut beati inmortalesque esse cupiamus, manens beatus suscipiensque mortalem, ut nobis tribueret quod amamus, perpetiendo docuit contemnere quod timemus. sed huic ueritati ut possetis adquiescere, humilitate opus erat, quae ceruici uestrae difficillime persuaderi potest. quid enim incredibile dicitur, praesertim uobis qui talia sapitis, quibus ad hoc credendum uos ipsos admonere debeatis; quid, inquam, uobis incredibile dicitur, cum dicitur deus adsumpsisse humanam animam et corpus? uos certe tantum tribuitis animae intellectuali, quae anima utique humana est, ut eam consubstantialem paternae illi menti, quem dei filium confitemini, fieri posse dicatis. quid ergo incredibile est, si aliqua una intellectualis anima modo quodam ineffabili et singulari pro multorum salute suscepta est? corpus uero animae cohaerere, ut homo totus et plenus sit, natura ipsa nostra teste cognoscimus. quod nisi usitatissimum esset, hoc profecto esset incredibilius; facilius quippe in fidem recipiendum est, etsi humanum diuino, etsi mutabilem incommutabili, tamen spiritum spiritui, aut ut uerbis utar quae in usu habetis, incorporeum incorporeo, quam corpus incorporeo cohaerere. an forte uos offendit inusitatus corporis partus ex uirgine? neque hoc debet offendere, immo potius ad pietatem suscipiendam debet adducere, quod mirabilis mirabiliter natus est. an uero quod ipsum corpus morte depositum et in melius resurrectione mutatum iam incorruptibile neque mortale in superna subuexit, hoc fortasse credere recusatis intuentes Porphyrium in his ipsis libris, ex quibus multa posui, quos de regressu animae scripsit tam crebro praecipere omne corpus esse fugiendum, ut anima possit beata permanere cum deo? sed ipse potius ista sentiens corrigendus fuit, praesertim cum de anima mundi huius uisibilis et tam ingentis corporeae molis cum illo tam incredibilia sapiatis. Platone quippe auctore animal esse dicitis mundum et animal beatissimum, quod uultis esse etiam sempiternum. quomodo ergo nec umquam soluetur a corpore, nec umquam carebit beatitudine, si, ut beata sit anima, corpus sit omne fugiendum? solem quoque istum et cetera sidera non solum in libris uestris corpora esse fatemini, quod uobis cum omnes homines et conspicere non cunctantur et dicere uerum etiam altiore, ut putatis, peritia haec esse animalia beatissima perhibetis et cum his corporibus sempiterna. quid ergo est, quod, cum uobis fides Christiana suadetur, tunc obliuiscimini, aut ignorare uos fingitis, quid disputare aut docere soleatis? quid causae est, cur propter opiniones uestras, quas uos ipsi obpugnatis, Christiani esse nolitis, nisi quia Christus humiliter uenit et uos superbi estis? qualia sanctorum corpora in resurrectione futura sint, potest aliquanto scrupulosius inter Christianarum scripturarum doctissimos disputari; futura tamen sempiterna minime dubitamus, et talia futura, quale sua resurrectione Christus demonstrauit exemplum. sed qualiacumque sint, cum incorruptibilia prorsus et inmortalia nihiloque animae contemplationem, qua in deo figitur, inpedientia praedicentur uosque etiam dicatis esse in caelestibus inmortalia corpora inmortaliter beatorum: quid est quod, ut beati simus, omne corpus fugiendum esse opinamini, ut fidem Christianam quasi rationabiliter fugere uideamini, nisi quia illud est, quod iterum dico: Christus est humilis, uos superbi? an forte corrigi pudet? et hoc uitium nonnisi superborum est. pudet uidelicet doctos homines ex discipulis Platonis fieri discipulos Christi, qui piscatorem suo spiritu docuit sapere ac dicere: in principio erat uerbum, et uerbum erat apud deum, et deus erat uerbum. hoc erat in principio apud deum. omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est. in ipso uita erat, et uita erat lux hominum, et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt. quod initium sancti euangelii, cui nomen est secundum Iohannem, quidam Platonicus, sicut a sancto sene Simpliciano, qui postea Mediolanensi ecclesiae praesedit episcopus, solebamus audire, aureis litteris conscribendum et per omnes ecclesias in locis eminentissimis proponendum esse dicebat. sed ideo uiluit superbis deus ille magister, quia uerbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis; ut parum sit miseris quod aegrotant, nisi se etiam in ipsa aegritudine extollant et de medicina, qua sanari poterant, erubescant. non enim hoc faciunt ut erigantur, sed ut cadendo grauius adfligantur.

Translation Hide
The City of God

Chapter 29.--Of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Which the Platonists in Their Impiety Blush to Acknowledge.

You proclaim the Father and His Son, whom you call the Father's intellect or mind, and between these a third, by whom we suppose you mean the Holy Spirit, and in your own fashion you call these three Gods. In this, though your expressions are inaccurate, you do in some sort, and as through a veil, see what we should strive towards; but the incarnation of the unchangeable Son of God, whereby we are saved, and are enabled to reach the things we believe, or in part understand, this is what you refuse to recognize. You see in a fashion, although at a distance, although with filmy eye, the country in which we should abide; but the way to it you know not. Yet you believe in grace, for you say it is granted to few to reach God by virtue of intelligence. For you do not say, "Few have thought fit or have wished," but, "It has been granted to few,"--distinctly acknowledging God's grace, not man's sufficiency. You also use this word more expressly, when, in accordance with the opinion of Plato, you make no doubt that in this life a man cannot by any means attain to perfect wisdom, but that whatever is lacking is in the future life made up to those who live intellectually, by God's providence and grace. Oh, had you but recognized the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, and that very incarnation of His, wherein He assumed a human soul and body, you might have seemed the brightest example of grace! ¹ But what am I doing? I know it is useless to speak to a dead man,--useless, at least, so far as regards you, but perhaps not in vain for those who esteem you highly, and love you on account of their love of wisdom or curiosity about those arts which you ought not to have learned; and these persons I address in your name. The grace of God could not have been more graciously commended to us than thus, that the only Son of God, remaining unchangeable in Himself, should assume humanity, and should give us the hope of His love, by means of the mediation of a human nature, through which we, from the condition of men, might come to Him who was so far off,--the immortal from the mortal; the unchangeable from the changeable; the just from the unjust; the blessed from the wretched. And, as He had given us a natural instinct to desire blessedness and immortality, He Himself continuing to be blessed; but assuming mortality, by enduring what we fear, taught us to despise it, that what we long for He might bestow upon us.

But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness that is requisite, and to this it is extremely difficult to bend you. For what is there incredible, especially to men like you, accustomed to speculation, which might have predisposed you to believe in this,--what is there incredible, I say, in the assertion that God assumed a human soul and body? You yourselves ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul, which is, after all, the human soul, that you maintain that it can become consubstantial with that intelligence of the Father whom you believe in as the Son of God. What incredible thing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an ineffable and unique manner for the salvation of many? Moreover, our nature itself testifies that a man is incomplete unless a body be united with the soul. This certainly would be more incredible, were it not of all things the most common; for we should more easily believe in a union between spirit and spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the incorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were human, the other divine, the one changeable and the other unchangeable, than in a union between the corporeal and the incorporeal. But perhaps it is the unprecedented birth of a body from a virgin that staggers you? But, so far from this being a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to receive our religion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously. Or, do you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had been given up to death, and had been changed into a higher kind of body by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal but incorruptible, He carried it up into heavenly places? Perhaps you refuse to believe this, because you remember that Porphyry, in these very books from which I have cited so much, and which treat of the return of the soul, so frequently teaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in order that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But here, in place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have corrected him, especially since you agree with him in believing such incredible things about the soul of this visible world and huge material frame. For, as scholars of Plato, you hold that the world is an animal, and a very happy animal, which you wish to be also everlasting. How, then, is it never to be loosed from a body, and yet never lose its happiness, if, in order to the happiness of the soul, the body must be left behind? The sun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge to be bodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men, but also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight, you declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal, together with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the Christian faith is pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to ignore, what you habitually discuss or teach? Why is it that you refuse to be Christians, on the ground that you hold opinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish? Is it not because Christ came in lowliness, and ye are proud? The precise nature of the resurrection bodies of the saints may sometimes occasion discussion among those who are best read in the Christian Scriptures; yet there is not among us the smallest doubt that they shall be everlasting, and of a nature exemplified in the instance of Christ's risen body. But whatever be their nature, since we maintain that they shall be absolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall offer no hindrance to the soul's contemplation, by which it is fixed in God, and as you say that among the celestials the bodies of the eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that, in order to blessedness, every body must be escaped from? Why do you thus seek such a plausible reason for escaping from the Christian faith, if not because, as I again say, Christ is humble and ye proud? Are ye ashamed to be corrected? This is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degradation for learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship of Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think and to say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." ² The old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to tell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that this opening passage of the holy gospel, entitled, According to John, should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in all churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud scorn to take God for their Master, because "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." ³ So that, with these miserable creatures, it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast of their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could heal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more disastrous fall.