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The City of God

Chapter 12.--That Even the Fierceness of War and All the Disquietude of Men Make Towards This One End of Peace, Which Every Nature Desires.

Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to our common nature, will recognize that if there is no man who does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who does not wish to have peace. For even they who make war desire nothing but victory,--desire, that is to say, to attain to peace with glory. For what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist us? and when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace. For even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a peace that suits them better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no peace, but only one more to their mind. And in the case of sedition, when men have separated themselves from the community, they yet do not effect what they wish, unless they maintain some kind of peace with their fellow-conspirators. And therefore even robbers take care to maintain peace with their comrades, that they may with greater effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And if an individual happen to be of such unrivalled strength, and to be so jealous of partnership, that he trusts himself with no comrades, but makes his own plots, and commits depredations and murders on his own account, yet he maintains some shadow of peace with such persons as he is unable to kill, and from whom he wishes to conceal his deeds. In his own home, too, he makes it his aim to be at peace with his wife and children, and any other members of his household; for unquestionably their prompt obedience to his every look is a source of pleasure to him. And if this be not rendered, he is angry, he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he secures the calm peace of his own home, as occasion demands. For he sees that peace cannot be maintained unless all the members of the same domestic circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his own house. And therefore if a city or nation offered to submit itself to him, to serve him in the same style as he had made his household serve him, he would no longer lurk in a brigand's hiding-places, but lift his head in open day as a king, though the same coveteousness and wicked ness should remain in him. And thus all men desire to have peace with their own circle whom they wish to govern as suits themselves. For even those whom they make war against they wish to make their own, and impose on them the laws of their own peace.

But let us suppose a man such as poetry and mythology speak of,--a man so insociable and savage as to be called rather a semi-man than a man. ¹ Although, then, his kingdom was the solitude of a dreary cave, and he himself was so singularly bad-hearted that he was named Kakos, which is the Greek word for bad; though he had no wife to soothe him with endearing talk, no children to play with, no sons to do his bidding, no friend to enliven him with intercourse, not even his father Vulcan (though in one respect he was happier than his father, not having begotten a monster like himself); although he gave to no man, but took as he wished whatever he could, from whomsoever he could, when he could yet in that solitary den, the floor of which, as Virgil ² says, was always reeking with recent slaughter, there was nothing else than peace sought, a peace in which no one should molest him, or disquiet him with any assault or alarm. With his own body he desired to be at peace, and he was satisfied only in proportion as he had this peace. For he ruled his members, and they obeyed him; and for the sake of pacifying his mortal nature, which rebelled when it needed anything, and of allaying the sedition of hunger which threatened to banish the soul from the body, he made forays, slew, and devoured, but used the ferocity and savageness he displayed in these actions only for the preservation of his own life's peace. So that, had he been willing to make with other men the same peace which he made with himself in his own cave, he would neither have been called bad, nor a monster, nor a semi-man. Or if the appearance of his body and his vomiting smoky fires frightened men from having any dealings with him, perhaps his fierce ways arose not from a desire to do mischief, but from the necessity of finding a living. But he may have had no existence, or, at least, he was not such as the poets fancifully describe him, for they had to exalt Hercules, and did so at the expense of Cacus. It is better, then, to believe that such a man or semi-man never existed, and that this, in common with many other fancies of the poets, is mere fiction. For the most savage animals (and he is said to have been almost a wild beast) encompass their own species with a ring of protecting peace. They cohabit, beget, produce, suckle, and bring up their young, though very many of them are not gregarious, but solitary,--not like sheep, deer, pigeons, starlings, bees, but such as lions, foxes, eagles, bats. For what tigress does not gently purr over her cubs, and lay aside her ferocity to fondle them? What kite, solitary as he is when circling over his prey, does not seek a mate, build a nest, hatch the eggs, bring up the young birds, and maintain with the mother of his family as peaceful a domestic alliance as he can? How much more powerfully do the laws of man's nature move him to hold fellowship and maintain peace with all men so far as in him lies, since even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him! It is thus that pride in its perversity apes God. It abhors equality with other men under Him; but, instead of His rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own upon its equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God, and loves its own unjust peace; but it cannot help loving peace of one kind or other. For there is no vice so clean contrary to nature that it obliterates even the faintest traces of nature.

He, then, who prefers what is right to what is wrong, and what is well-ordered to what is perverted, sees that the peace of unjust men is not worthy to be called peace in comparison with the peace of the just. And yet even what is perverted must of necessity be in harmony with, and in dependence on, and in some part of the order of things, for otherwise it would have no existence at all. Suppose a man hangs with his head downwards, this is certainly a perverted attitude of body and arrangement of its members; for that which nature requires to be above is beneath, and vice versâ. This perversity disturbs the peace of the body, and is therefore painful. Nevertheless the spirit is at peace with its body, and labors for its preservation, and hence the suffering; but if it is banished from the body by its pains, then, so long as the bodily framework holds together, there is in the remains a kind of peace among the members, and hence the body remains suspended. And inasmuch as the earthly body tends towards the earth, and rests on the bond by which it is suspended, it tends thus to its natural peace, and the voice of its own weight demands a place for it to rest; and though now lifeless and without feeling, it does not fall from the peace that is natural to its place in creation, whether it already has it, or is tending towards it. For if you apply embalming preparations to prevent the bodily frame from mouldering and dissolving, a kind of peace still unites part to part, and keeps the whole body in a suitable place on the earth,--in other words, in a place that is at peace with the body. If, on the other hand, the body receive no such care, but be left to the natural course, it is disturbed by exhalations that do not harmonize with one another, and that offend our senses; for it is this which is perceived in putrefaction until it is assimilated to the elements of the world, and particle by particle enters into peace with them. Yet throughout this process the laws of the most high Creator and Governor are strictly observed, for it is by Him the peace of the universe is administered. For although minute animals are produced from the carcass of a larger animal, all these little atoms, by the law of the same Creator, serve the animals they belong to in peace. And although the flesh of dead animals be eaten by others, no matter where it be carried, nor what it be brought into contact with, nor what it be converted and changed into, it still is ruled by the same laws which pervade all things for the conservation of every mortal race, and which bring things that fit one another into harmony.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XII: Quod etiam bellantium saeuitia omnesque hominum inquietudines ad pacis finem cupiant peruenire, sine cuius adpetitu nulla natura sit.

Quod enim me cum quisquis res humanas naturamque communem utcumque intuetur agnoscit, sicut nemo est qui gaudere nolit, ita nemo est qui pacem habere nolit. quandoquidem et ipsi, qui bella uolunt, nihil aliud quam uincere uolunt; ad gloriosam ergo pacem bellando cupiunt peruenire. nam quid est aliud uictoria nisi subiectio repugnantium? quod cum factum fuerit, pax erit. pacis igitur intentione geruntur et bella, ab his etiam, qui uirtutem bellicam student exercere imperando atque pugnando. unde pacem constat belli esse optabilem finem. omnis enim homo etiam belligerando pacem requirit; nemo autem bellum pacificando. nam et illi qui pacem, in qua sunt, perturbari uolunt, non pacem oderunt, sed eam pro arbitrio suo cupiunt commutari. non ergo ut sit pax nolunt, sed ut ea sit quam uolunt. denique etsi per seditionem se ab aliis separauerint, cum eis ipsis conspiratis uel coniuratis suis nisi qualemcumque speciem pacis teneant, non efficiunt quod intendunt. proinde latrones ipsi, ut uehementius et tutius infesti sint paci ceterorum, pacem uolunt habere sociorum. sed etsi unus sit tam praepollens uiribus et conscios ita cauens, ut nulli socio se committat solusque insidians et praeualens quibus potuerit obpressis et exstinctis praedas agat, cum eis certe, quos occidere non potest et quos uult latere quod facit, qualemcumque umbram pacis tenet. in domo autem sua cum uxore et cum filiis, et si quos alios illic habet, studet profecto esse pacatus; eis quippe ad nutum obtemperantibus sine dubio delectatur. nam si non fiat, indignatur corripit uindicat et domus suae pacem, si ita necesse sit, etiam saeuiendo conponit, quam sentit esse non posse, nisi cuidam principio, quod ipse in domo sua est, cetera in eadem domestica societate subiecta sint. ideoque si offerretur ei seruitus plurium, uel ciuitatis uel gentis, ita ut sic ei seruirent, quemadmodum sibi domi suae seruiri uolebat, non se iam latronem latebris conderet, sed regem conspicuum sublimaret, cum eadem in illo cupiditas et malitia permaneret. pacem itaque cum suis omnes habere cupiunt, quos ad arbitrium suum uolunt uiuere. nam et cum quibus bellum gerunt, suos facere, si possint, uolunt eisque subiectis leges suae pacis inponere. sed faciamus aliquem, qualem canit poetica et fabulosa narratio, quem fortasse propter ipsam insociabilem feritatem semihominem quam hominem dicere maluerunt. quamuis ergo huius regnum dirae speluncae fuerit solitudo tamque malitia singularis, ut ex hac ei nomen inuentum sit - Graece namque malus κακὸς dicitur, quod ille uocabatur - , nulla coniux ei blandum ferret referretque sermonem, nullis filiis uel adluderet paruulis uel grandiusculis imperaret, nullo amici conloquio frueretur, nec Vulcani patris, quo uel hinc tantum non parum felicior fuit, quia tale monstrum ipse non genuit; nihil cuiquam daret, sed a quo posset quidquid uellet et quando posset et cum uellet auferret: tamen in ipsa sua spelunca solitaria, cuius, ut describitur, semper recenti caede tepebat humus, nihil aliud quam pacem uolebat, in qua nemo illi molestus esset, nec eius quietem uis ullius terrorue turbaret. cum corpore denique suo pacem habere cupiebat, et quantum habebat, tantum bene illi erat. quandoquidem membris obtemperantibus imperabat, et ut suam mortalitatem aduersum se ex indigentia rebellantem ac seditionem famis ad dissociandam atque excludendam de corpore animam concitantem quanta posset festinatione pacaret, rapiebat necabat uorabat et quamuis inmanis ac ferus paci tamen suae uitae ac salutis inmaniter ac ferociter consulebat; ac per hoc si pacem, quam in sua spelunca atque in se ipso habere satis agebat, etiam cum aliis habere uellet, nec malus nec monstrum nec semihomo uocaretur. aut si eius corporis forma et atrorum ignium uomitus ab eo deterrebat hominum societatem, forte non nocendi cupiditate, sed uiuendi necessitate saeuiebat. uerum iste non fuerit uel, quod magis credendum est, non talis fuerit, qualis poetica uanitate describitur; nisi enim nimis accusaretur Cacus, parum Hercules laudaretur. talis ergo homo siue semihomo melius, ut dixi, creditur non fuisse, sicut multa figmenta poetarum. ipsae enim saeuissimae ferae, unde ille partem habuit feritatis - nam et semiferus dictus est - , genus proprium quadam pace custodiunt, coeundo gignendo pariendo, fetus fouendo atque nutriendo, cum sint pleraeque insociabiles et soliuagae; non scilicet ut oues cerui columbae sturni apes, sed ut leones uulpes aquilae noctuae. quae enim tigris non filiis suis mitis inmurmurat et pacata feritate blanditur? quis miluus, quantumlibet solitarius rapinis circumuolet, non coniugium copulat, nidum congerit, oua confouet, pullos alit et quasi cum sua matre familias societatem domesticam quanta potest pace conseruat? quanto magis homo fertur quodammodo naturae suae legibus ad ineundam societatem pacemque cum hominibus, quantum in ipso est, omnibus obtinendam, cum etiam mali pro suorum pace belligerent omnes que, si possint, suos facere uelint, ut uni cuncti et cuncta deseruiant; quo pacto, nisi in eius pacem uel amando uel timendo consentiant? sic enim superbia peruerse imitatur deum. odit namque cum sociis aequalitatem sub illo, sed inponere uult sociis dominationem suam pro illo. odit ergo iustam pacem dei et amat iniquam pacem suam. non amare tamen qualemcumque pacem nullo modo potest. nullius quippe uitium ita contra naturam est, ut naturae deleat etiam extrema uestigia. itaque pacem iniquorum in pacis conparatione iustorum ille uidet nec pacem esse dicendam, qui nouit praeponere recta prauis et ordinata peruersis. quod autem peruersum est, etiam hoc necesse est ut in aliqua et ex aliqua et cum aliqua rerum parte pacatum sit, in quibus est uel ex quibus constat; alioquin nihil esset omnino. uelut si quisquam capite deorsum pendeat, peruersus est utique situs corporis et ordo membrorum, quia id, quod desuper esse natura postulat, subter est, et quod illa subter uult esse, desuper factum est; conturbauit carnis pacem ista peruersitas et ideo molesta est: uerumtamen anima corpori suo pacata est et pro eius salute satagit, et ideo est qui doleat; quae si molestiis eius exclusa discesserit, quamdiu conpago membrorum manet, non est sine quadam partium pace quod remanet, et ideo est adhuc qui pendeat. et quod terrenum corpus in terram nititur et uinculo quo suspensum est renititur, in suae pacis ordinem tendit et locum quo requiescat quodammodo uoce ponderis poscit, iamque exanime ac sine ullo sensu a pace tamen naturali sui ordinis non recedit, uel cum tenet eam, uel cum fertur ad eam. si enim adhibeantur medicamenta atque curatio, quae formam cadaueris dissolui dilabique non sinat, adhuc pax quaedam partes partibus iungit totamque molem adplicat terreno et conuenienti ac per hoc pacato loco. si autem nulla adhibeatur cura condendi, sed naturali cursui relinquatur, tamdiu quasi tumultuatur dissidentibus exhalationibus et nostro inconuenientibus sensui - id enim est quod in putore sentitur - , donec mundi conueniat elementis et in eorum pacem paulatim particulatimque discedat. nullo modo tamen inde aliquid legibus summi illius creatoris ordinatorisque subtrahitur, a quo pax uniuersitatis administratur; quia, etsi de cadauere maioris animantis animalia minuta nascantur, eadem lege creatoris quaeque corpuscula in salutis pace suis animulis seruiunt; etsi mortuorum carnes ab aliis animalibus deuorentur, easdem leges per cuncta diffusas ad salutem generis cuiusque mortalium congrua congruis pacificantes, quaquauersum trahantur et rebus quibuscumque iungantur et in res quaslibet conuertantur et commutentur, inueniunt.