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The City of God

Chapter 35.--Of the Sons of the Church Who are Hidden Among the Wicked, and of False Christians Within the Church.

Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers can be found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family of the Lord Christ, and by the pilgrim city of King Christ. But let this city bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be fellow-citizens, that she may not think it a fruitless labor to bear what they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too, as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of these, some are not now recognized; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose sacramental badge they wear. These men you may to-day see thronging the churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless. But we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation even of such persons, if among our most declared enemies there are now some, unknown to themselves, who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effects their separation. I now proceed to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end of these two cities; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter lustre.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXXV: De latentibus inter inpios ecclesiae filiis et de falsis intra ecclesiam Christianis.

Haec et talia, si qua uberius et commodius potuerit, respondeat inimicis suis redempta familia domini Christi et peregrina ciuitas regis Christi. meminerit sane in ipsis inimicis latere ciues futuros, ne infructuosum uel apud ipsos putet, quod, donec perueniat ad confessos, portat infensos; sicut ex illorum numero etiam dei ciuitas habet se cum, quamdiu peregrinatur in mundo, conexos communione sacramentorum, nec se cum futuros in aeterna sorte sanctorum, qui partim in occulto, partim in aperto sunt, qui etiam cum ipsis inimicis aduersus deum, cuius sacramentum gerunt, murmurare non dubitant, modo cum illis theatra, modo ecclesias nobis cum replentes. de correctione autem quorundam etiam talium multo minus est desperandum, si apud apertissimos aduersarios praedestinati amici latitant, adhuc ignoti etiam sibi. perplexae quippe sunt istae duae ciuitates in hoc saeculo inuicemque permixtae, donec ultimo iudicio dirimantur; de quarum exortu et procursu et debitis finibus quod dicendum arbitror, quantum diuinitus adiuuabor, expediam propter gloriam ciuitatis dei, quae alienis a contrario comparatis clarius eminebit.