Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
true justice, there is no recognition of rights. For what is rightly done is justly done; what is done unjustly cannot be done by right. We are not to reckon as right such human laws as are iniquitous, since even unjust lawgivers themselves call "a right" (jus) only what derives from the fountainhead of justice, and [we must] brand as false the wrong-headed opinion of those who keep saying that "a right" is "whatever is advantageous to the one in power."
It follows that wherever true justice is lacking, there cannot be a multitude of human beings bound together by a mutual recognition of rights; consequently, neither can there be a "people" in the sense of Scipio's or Cicero's definition. Further, if there is no "people," there is no "wealth and welfare of the people," or commonwealth, but only the wealth and welfare of a nondescript mob undeserving of the designation "the people." To resume the argument: If a commonwealth is "the wealth and welfare of the people," and if there is no people where there is no union "bound together by a mutual recognition of rights," and if there are no rights where there is no justice, it follows beyond question that where there is no justice, there is no commonwealth. Now justice is the virtue which accords to each and every one his due.67 What, then, shall we say of a person's "justice" when that person takes himself away from the true God and hands himself over to dirty demons? Is this a giving to each his due? Now we would consider it unjust if someone takes away a farm from its purchaser and hands it over to someone who has no claim upon it. How then can someone who removes himself from the overlordship of the God who created him and goes into the service of wicked spirits be counted just?
To be sure, in [Cicero's] Republic, there is a hard-fought and powerful debate in favor of justice over against injustice. First, the side of injustice was taken. At that point it was claimed that only by injustice could the republic stand firm and be efficiently managed. And this was put forward as the most telling proof: that it is unjust that some human beings should have to serve others as masters; that, nevertheless, the capital of the Empire to which the commonwealth belongs must practice such injustice or surrender her provinces. Then the side of justice made the following rebuttal: that such procedure is, in fact, just because such submission is advantageous to the men in question, that it is for their own good when such sovereignty is properly managed, that is, when the lawless marauding of criminals is repressed and order is established. Conquered peoples thereafter are better off than they were in liberty. Next, to bolster this reasoning, a new argument was brought forward in the form of an admirable example taken, so they said, from nature itself:
67. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 5.5. Cf. De libero arbitrio 1.13.27 (CCL 29:228).
On the City of God 359
"Why, otherwise, does God have mastery over humankind, the mind over the body, reason over lust and the other wrongful movements of the soul?" Surely, now, this example teaches plainly enough for anyone that it is for the good of some to be in an inferior position, and that it is good for all without exception to be subject to God. The soul that is submissive to God justly lords it over the body; in the soul itself, reason, bowing down before its Lord and God, justly lords it over lust and every other evil tendency. Because this is so, what fragment of justice can there be in a human being who is not subject to God, if, indeed, it is a fact that such a one cannot rightfully exercise dominion—soul over body, human reason over sinful propensities? And if there is no justice, either, in an assembly made up of such people? As a result, there is lacking that mutual recognition of rights which makes a mere mob into a "people," a people whose common welfare is a commonwealth. What shall I say of the common good whose common pursuit knits human beings together into a "people," as our definition teaches? Careful scrutiny will show that there is no such good for those who live irreligiously, as all do who serve not God but demons and, particularly, those filthy spirits that are so defiant of God that they look to receive sacrifices as if they were gods. Anyway, what I have said with regard to mutual recognition of rights I consider sufficient to show that, on the basis of the definition itself, a people devoid of justice is not such a people as can constitute a commonwealth. . . .
(23) To sum up: Where the civil community does not take its orders from the one supreme God and carry them out with the help of His grace; where sacrifice is offered to something other than God alone; where, as a result, the civil community is such that not everyone obeys God in this respect; where the soul does not control the body; where reason does not control our evil urges as proper order and faith require; where neither individuals nor the whole community, "the people," live by that faith of the just who do good works through love (Gal 5:6), loving God as He should be loved and one's neighbor as oneself—in other words, wherever justice is lacking, I maintain—there does not exist "a multitude bound together by a mutual recognition of rights and a mutual co-operation for the common good." This being so, there is no proper "people"—if Scipio's definition is correct—nor a commonwealth. For where there is no "people," there is no "people's" wealth or welfare.
(24) It is possible to define a "people" not as Cicero does, but as "a multitude of reasonable beings voluntarily associated in the pursuit of common interests which they love." In that case, one need only consider what these interests are in order to determine of what kind any particular people may be. Still, whatever these interests are, so long as we have a multitude of rational