Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
City of God (Penguin Classics) (65 page)
10.
The opinion of Plotinus that men are less wretched in their mortal bodies than demons in their eternal bodies
Plotinus is accorded the praise of having understood Plato more thoroughly than anyone else, at any rate in modern times. And when speaking of the human soul, he says, ‘The Father in his compassion made these fetters mortal.’
19
That is, he considered that the very fact of man’s corporal mortality is due to the compassion of God, who would not have us kept for ever in the misery of this life. The wickedness of the demons was not judged worthy of this compassion, and in the misery of their condition, with a soul subject to passions, they have not been granted the mortal body, which man has received, but an eternal body. They would certainly have been happier than man, if they had shared man’s mortal body and the blessed soul of the gods. They would have been on an equality with man, if they had been counted worthy to share man’s wretched soul, but, at the same time, his mortal body – provided that they could have acquired some measure of piety, so that they might at least in death have rest from their sorrows. As it is, not only does the wretchedness of their soul prevent them from being happier than men; they are even more miserable than men because they are chained to the body for all eternity. For our Platonist did not want it to be supposed that demons could make progress in the practice of piety and wisdom and so turn into gods. He declared in unmistakeable terms that they are demons in perpetuity.
11.
The notion of the Platonists that the souls of men, released from the body, become demons
Apuleius says also that the souls of men are demons.
20
On leaving human bodies they become
lares
if they have shown themselves good, if evil,
lemures or larvae
, while they are called
di manes
, if it is not certain to which class they belong. Surely anyone can see, on a moment’s reflection, what an abyss of moral degradation is opened by this notion. It means that however wicked men have been, they will suppose that they are on the way to becoming
larvae
, or
di manes
, and they will become worse in proportion to their desire to do evil, believing that after their death some sort of sacrifice will be offered them, like the honours paid to the gods, to invite them to continue their evil
work. According to Apuleius, larvae are malignant demons created out of men; but that raises another question. He also says that this is the reason why the blessed are called in Greek
eudaimones
;
21
it is because their souls, that is to say their
demons
, are good, which proves, he thinks, that the souls of men are demons.
12.
The distinctive marks of demons and men, according to the Platonists
Our present concern is with those demons whose special characteristics have been listed by Apuleius, situated between gods and men, belonging to the ‘animal’ species, with a rational mind, a soul subject to passions, a body made of air, a life-span of eternity.
22
Having located the gods in the heights of heaven and men on the earth, the lowest level of the universe, he concludes with these words:
You now have two classes of ‘animals’: the gods are vastly different from man in respect of their lofty abode, the perpetuity of their life, the perfection of their nature: there is no direct intercourse between gods and men, because of the immensity of the gulf which yawns between the highest and the lowest dwelling-places; and the life there above is eternal and unfailing, while here below it is fleeting and unreliable; and natures there are lifted up to felicity, while here they are forced down to sorrows.
23
I find quoted here three pairs of contraries distinguishing the two extremes of being, the highest and the lowest. In other words, our author has repeated the three excellencies which he had already ascribed to the gods, to contrast them with three characteristics of mankind. The three attributes of the gods are these: the sublimity of their abode, the eternity of their life, the perfection of their nature. He has repeated these, in different words, so as to oppose to them three contrasting attributes of mankind. Previously he had said, ‘the sublimity of their abode’, now he speaks of ‘the immensity of the gulf which yawns between the highest and lowest habitations’. He had said, ‘eternity of life’; now we have, ‘the life there above is eternal and unfailing, while here below it is fleeting and unreliable.’ And for ‘perfection of their nature’ we read, ‘natures there are lifted up to felicity, while here they are forced down to sorrows.’ Thus he attributes to the gods three characteristics: a sublime abode, eternity, and felicity, and he attributes to men three contraries: a lowly abode, mortality, and misery.
13.
If the demons are not happy like the gods or wretched like men, how can they act as intermediaries
?
Apuleius gave the demons an intermediate position between gods and men in respect of these three pairs of contrary attributes. About their location in the universe there is no dispute. They are assigned a most appropriate place, midway between the heights and the depths. There remain the other two pairs, and here more careful attention is required, both to show that neither attribute is inapplicable to the demons, and then to assign them to the demons in such a way as their intermediate situation appears to demand.
Now it is impossible that neither attribute should apply. We can speak of an intermediate location as being neither the highest nor the lowest; but we cannot rightly say that the demons, being rational ‘animals’, are neither happy nor wretched like the plants which lack sensibility, or the beasts who lack reason. Beings whose minds are possessed of reason are of necessity either happy or unhappy. Again, we cannot rightly say that the demons are neither mortal nor immortal; for all living things either live for ever, or bring their span of life to an end in death. Besides, our philosopher has said that the demons have a ‘life-span of eternity’.
We must conclude that these intermediate beings have one of the two superior attributes and one of the two inferior. For if they had both of the superior, or both of the inferior, they would not be intermediate; they would either rise up to the higher position, or sink down to the lower. Now since, as has been shown, one of the opposed attributes of these two pairs must apply to them, they will preserve their intermediatestation by receiving one from the higher extreme and one from the lower. Accordingly, since they cannot have their eternity from below, where it is not to be found, that is the attribute they take from the higher side; and thus the only attribute they can have from the lower side to make sure of their intermediate state is misery.
Thus, according to the Platonists, the gods, who dwell on high, have the attributes of blessed eternity or eternal blessedness; men, who inhabit the lowest level of the universe, are characterized by mortal misery, or miserable mortality; the intermediate demons by miserable eternity, or eternal misery. As for those five distinctive marks
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in his definition of the demons, Apuleius has not used them to fulfil his promise to demonstrate the intermediate state of the demons. He
states that they share three attributes with us men: membership of the animal species, possession of reason, susceptibility to passions; one attribute they share with the gods: eternal life; and one, the body of air, is their peculiar possession. How then could they be intermediate, if they have one attribute in common with the superior beings, but share three with the inferior sort? Is it not obvious that, in this case, they have abandoned their middle situation, and are forced down to the lower level?
But it is clear that they could be shown to be in a middle situation, even so, in that they have one peculiar attribute, their body of air – as at the two extremes, the gods have their ethereal bodies and men their terrestrial bodies, as their unique distinction; while two attributes are common to all three, namely, membership of the class of ‘animals’, and rationality. For Apuleius himself says, ‘You have two classes of “animals”,’ meaning gods and men, and the Platonists always represent the gods as endowed with reason. Two characteristics are left: the soul susceptible to passion, and eternal existence. The demons share the former with the lower beings, the latter with the higher, so that their middle state is equally balanced and is not lifted up to the higher level or pushed down to the lower. And this it is that constitutes the miserable eternity, or eternal misery, of the demons. The philosopher speaks of ‘a soul susceptible to passions’; he would have added ‘and wretched’, had he not been embarrassed by the thought of their worshippers. Furthermore, since the world is directed, as these philosophers themselves admit, by the providence of God and not by random chance, the misery of the demons would never have been eternal, had not their wickedness been great.
Therefore, if happy people are correctly called
eudaimones
,
25
the demons, whom these philosophers have situated midway between gods and men, are not
eudaimoncs
. Then what place can be found for the ‘good demons’, so that, being stationed above men and below the gods they may afford help to the former and perform service for the latter? For if they are good and eternal, they are of necessity happy also. But eternal felicity precludes an intermediate state, because it brings them so close to the gods and separates them so far from men. So the philosophers will strive in vain to show how ‘good demons’, if they are immortal and happy, can really be established midway between immortal and blessed gods and mortal and miserable men. Since they have both felicity and immortality in common with the gods, and no community in those respects with men, who are both wretched
and mortal, how can they help being far removed from men, and closely connected with the gods, rather than established midway between the two? In fact they could only be midway between them if they themselves, instead of sharing two attributes with one of the other classes, had one attribute in common with each of them. Thus man is an intermediate being, but intermediate between beasts and angels. A beast is irrational and mortal, while an angel is rational and immortal. Man is intermediate, inferior to the angels, and superior to the beasts; he is a rational and mortal animal, sharing mortality with the beasts, and rationality with the angels. And that is why, when we look for a mean between blessed immortals and wretched mortals, we have to find a being who combines happiness with mortality, or wretchedness with immortality.
14.
Can man
have genuine felicity,
though mortal
?
Whether man can be both mortal and happy is a vexed question. Some have formed a low opinion of man’s condition, denying that man is capable of felicity in this mortal life. Others
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have held a more exalted view of the human state, and have dared to say that those who are possessed of wisdom can be happy, though mortal. If that is true, why are such men not established as mediators between wretched mortals and blessed immortals, sharing felicity with blessed immortals and mortality with miserable mortals? For it is certain that if they are happy, they envy no one (for is anything more wretched than envy?) and, therefore, they will give to unhappy mortals all the aid in their power, to help them to attain happiness so that they may also be able to be immortal after death and join the company of immortal and blessed angels.
15. ‘
The Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus
’
The more credible and probable position is that all men, as long as they are mortals, must needs be also wretched. If this is so, we must look for a mediator who is not only human but also divine, so that men may be brought from mortal misery to blessed immortality by the intervention of the blessed mortality of this mediator. It was necessary that he should not fail to become mortal, equally necessary that he should not remain mortal. He was in truth made mortal, not
by the weakening of the godhead of the Word but by the assumption of the weakness of the flesh. But he did not remain mortal in that flesh which he raised from the dead. For the fruit of his mediation is just this: that those for whose liberation he was made a mediator, should not themselves remain for ever in death, even the death of the flesh. Thus it was necessary that the mediator between God and man should have a transient mortality, and a permanent blessedness, so that through that which is transient he might be conformed to the condition of those who are doomed to the, and might bring them back from the dead to that which is permanent. So it is that good angels cannot mediate between wretched mortals and blessed immortals, because they also are both blessed and immortal. On the other hand, bad angels could mediate, because they are immortals, like the gods, and wretched, like men. Utterly different from them is the good Mediator who, in contrast with the immortality and misery of the bad angels, was willing to be mortal for a time, and was able to remain in blessedness for eternity. Those immortals, in their pride, those wretches, in their wickedness, sought to seduce men into misery by their boast of immortality; to prevent this, the good Mediator by the humility of his death and the kindness of his blessedness has destroyed their power over those whose hearts he has purified, through their faith, and delivered from the filthy tyranny of those demons.
So here is man, in his mortality and misery, so far removed from the immortals in their felicity. What kind of mediation is he to choose to unite him to immortality and felicity? What he could find to delight him in the immortality of the demons is in fact nothing but misery; what he might have recoiled from in the mortality of Christ no longer exists. With the demons, everlasting misery is to be dreaded; with Christ, death is not to be feared, for death could not be everlasting, and the felicity which is to be welcomed is everlasting. For the being who is immortal and wretched intervenes simply to prevent one passing to a blessed immortality, since the obstacle that stands in the way, that is, the misery itself, always persists. But the one who is mortal and blessed interposed in order to make an end of mortality, and give immortality to those who were dead – as he showed by his resurrection – and to give to the wretched the happiness from which he himself had never departed.
Thus there is such a thing as a bad intermediary, who separates friends; very different is a good intermediary, who reconciles enemies. And the reason why there are many intermediaries who separate, is that the multitude of the blessed is made blessed by participation in the
one God, and the multitude of evil angels – wretched because deprived of participation in him – rather opposes our approach to blessedness than interposes to help us thither, and even by its very multitude makes a kind of uproar, designed to make it impossible for man to reach that one good which can bring us happiness – that good for which we needed not many mediators, but the one Mediator who could lead us to it. And that Mediator in whom we can participate, and by participation reach our felicity, is the uncreated Word of God, by whom all things were created. And yet he is not the Mediator in that he is the Word; for the Word, being pre-eminently immortal and blessed, is far removed from wretched mortals. He is the Mediator in that he is man, by his very manhood making it plain that for the attainment of that good, which is not only blessed but beatific also, we have not to look for other mediators, through whom, as we may think, we can achieve the approach to happiness. God himself, the blessed God who is the giver of blessedness, became partaker of our human nature and thus offered us a short cut to participation in his own divine nature. For in liberating us from mortality and misery it is not to the immortal and blessed angels that he brings us, so that by participation in their nature we also may be immortal and blessed; it is to that Trinity, in which the angels participate, and so achieve their felicity. For that reason, when he ‘took the form of a servant’,
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so as to be a mediator, and was willing to be ‘below the angels’,
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he remained ‘in the form of God’
29
above the angels. In the lower world he was the Way of life, as in the world above he is the life itself.