ness and delusion, great as they are, it could 20. I have said thus much, that even those
CHAP. XIV.] ON THE TRINITY. 193 he who does not love God, even if he does love himself,—a thing implanted in him by nature,—yet is not unsuitably said to hate himself, inasmuch 'as he does that which is ad- «verse to himself, and assails himself as though and knoweth not who shall gather them." For why does he heap up treasures,unless because his strength has deserted him, through which he would have God, and so lack nothing? And why cannot he tell for whom he shall gather them, unless because the light of his eyes is taken from him? And so he does not see what the Truth saith, '' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?''7 Yet because even such a man walketh in an image, and the man's mind has remembrance, understanding, and love of itself; if it were made plain to it that it could not have both, while it was permitted to choose one and lose the other, vzz. either the treasures it has heaped up, or the mind; who is so. utterly without mind, as to prefer to have the treasures rather than the mind? For treasures commonly are able to subvert the mind, but the mind that is not subverted by treasures can live more easily and unencumberedly without any treasures. But who will be able to possess treasures unless it be by means of the mind? For if an infant, born as rich as you please, although lord of he were his own enemy. And this is no doubt a terrible delusion, that whereas all will to profit themselves, many do nothing but that which is most pernicious to themselves. When the poet was describing a like disease of dumb animals, '* May the gods,"' says he,
grant better things to the pious, and assign that delusion to enemies. They were rending with bare teeth their own torn limbs.'' * Since it was a disease of the body he was speaking of, why has he called it a delusion, unless because, while nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can of itself, that disease was such that those animals rent those very limbs of theirs which they desired should be safe and sound? But when the mind loves God, and by consequence, as has been said, remembers and understands Him, then it is tightly enjoined also to love its neighbor as itself; for it has now come to love itself rightly and not perversely when it loves God, by partaking of whom that image not only exists, but is also renewed so as to be no longer old, and restored so as to be no longer deeverything that is rightfully his, yet possesses nothing if his mind be unconscious, how can any one possibly possess anything whose mind is wholly lost? But why say of treasures, that anybody, if the choice be given him, prefers going without them to going without a mind; when there is no one that prefers, nay, no one that compares them, to those lights of the body, by which not one man only here and there, as in the case of gold, but every man, possesses the very heaven? For every one possesses by the eyes of the body whatever he gladly sees. Who then is there, who, if he could not keep both, but must lose one, would not rather lose his treasures than his eyes? And yet if it were put to him on the same condition, whether he would rather lose eyes than mind, who is there witha mind that does not see that he would rather lose the former than the latter? Fora mind without the eyes of the flesh is still human, but the eyes ot the flesh without a mind are bestial. And who would not rather be a man, even though blind in fleshly sight, than a beast that can see?
faced, and beatified so as to be no longer unhappy. For although it so love itself, that, supposing the alternative to be proposed to it, it would lose all things which it loves less than itself rather than perish; still, by abandoning Him who is above it, in dependence upon whom alone it could guard its own strength, and enjoy Him as its light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm, ''I will guard my strength in dependence upon Thee," ? and again, '' Draw near to Him, and be enlightened,''—it has been made so weak and so dark, that it has fallen away unhappily from itself too, to those things that are not what itself is, and which are beneath itself, by affections that it cannot conquer, and delusions from which it sees no way to return. And hence, when by God's mercy now penitent, it cries out in the Psalms, '* My strength faileth me; as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.'' 4
19. Yet, in the midst of these evils of weakness and delusion, great as they are, it could not lose its natural memory, understanding and love of itself. And therefore what I quoted above' can be rightly said, '° Although man walketh in an image, surely he is disquieted in vain: he heapeth up treasures,
20. I have said thus much, that even those who are slower of understanding, to whose eyes or ears this book may come, might be admonished, however briefly, how greatly even a weak and erring mind loves itself, in wrongly loving and pursuing things beneath itself. Now it could not love itself if it
2 Ps. lix. 9. Virg. Georg. iii. 513-514.
i 4 Ps. xxxviii. ro. Ps, xxxiv. 5-
6 Ps, xxxix. 6. 7 Luke xii. 20,
THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [Book XIV.
hadst not received it ?''4 But when it rightly remembers its own Lord, having received His Spirit, then, because it is so taught by an inward teaching, it feels wholly that it cannot rise save by His affection freely given, nor has been able to fall save by its own defection freely chosen. Certainly it does not remember its own blessedness; since that has been, but is not, and it has utterly forgotten it, and therefore cannot even be reminded of it.5 But it believes what the trustworthy Scriptures of its God tellof that blessedness, which were written by His prophet, and tell of the blessedness of Paradise,and hand down to us historical information of that first both good and ill of man. And it remembers the Lord its God; for He always is, nor has been and is not, nor is but has not been; but as He never will not be, so He never was not. And He is whole everywhere. And hence it both lives, and is moved, and is in Him;° and so it can remember Him. Not because it recollects the having known Him in Adam or anywhere else before the life of this present body, or when it was first made in order to be implanted in this body; for it remembers nothing at all of all this. Whatever there is of this, it has been blotted out by forgetfulness, But it is reminded, that it may be turned to God, as though to that light by which it was in some way touched, even when turned away from Him. For hence it is that even the ungodly think of eternity, and rightly blame 'and rightly praise many things in the morals were altogether ignorant of itself, z. ¢. if it did not remember itself, nor understand itself; by which image of God within itself it has such power as to be able to cleave to Him whose image itis. Fcr it is so reckoned in the order, not of place, but of natures, as that there is none above it save Him. When, finally, it shall altogether cleave to Him, then it will be one spirit, as the apostle testifies, saying, '* But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit."* And this by its drawing near to partake of His nature, truth, and blessedness, yet not by His increasing in His own nature, truth and blessedness. In that nature, then, when it happily has cleaved to it, it will live unchangeably, and will see as unchangeable all that it does see. Then, as divine Scripture promises, '' His desire will be satisfied with good things,''*? good things unchangeable, —the very Trinity itself, its own God, whose image it is. And that it may not ever thenceforward suffer wrong, it will be in the hidden place of His presence,? filled with so great fullness of Him, that sin thenceforth will never delight it. But now, when it sees itself, it sees something not unchangeable.
CHAP. 15.— ALTHOUGH THE SOUL HOPES FOR BLESSEDNESS, YET IT DOES NOT REMEMBER LOST BLESSEDNESS, BUT REMEMBERS GOD AND THE RULES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE UNCHANGEABLE RULES OF RIGHT LIVING ARE KNOWN EVEN TO THE UNGODLY.
of men. And by what rules do they thus judge, except by those wherein they see how men ought to live, even though they themselves do not so live? And where do they see these rules? For they do not see them in their own [moral] nature; since no doubt these things are to be seen by the mind, and their minds are confessedly changeable, but these rules are seen as unchangeable by him who can see them at all; nor yet in the character of their own mind, since these rules are rules of righteousness, and their minds are confessedly unrighteous. Where indeed are these rules written, wherein even the unrighteous recognizes what is righteous, wherein he discerns that he ought to have what he himself has not? Where, then, are they written, unless in the book of that Light which is called Truth? whence every righteous law is
21. And of this certainly it feels no doubt, that it is wretched, and longs to be blessed; nor can it hope for the possibility of this on any other ground than its own changeableness; for if it were not changeable, then, as it could not become wretched after being blessed, so neither could it become blessed after being wretched. And what could have made it wretched under an omnipotent and good God, except its own sin and the righteousness of its Lord ? And what will make it blessed, unless its own merit, and its Lord's reward? But its merit, too, is His grace, whose reward will be its blessedness; for it cannot give itself the righteousness it has lost, and so has not. For this it received when man was created, and assuredly lost it by sinning. Therefore it receives righteousness, that on account of this it may deserve to receive blessedness; and hence the apostle truly says to it, when beginning to be proud as it were of its own good, '* For what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Nowif thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou
4 1 Cor. iv. 7. 5 [In the case of knowledge that is remembered, there is something latent and potential—as when past acquisitions are recalled by a voluntary act of recollection. The same is true of innate ideas—these also are latent, and brought into consciousness by reflection. But no man can either remember, or elicit, his original holiness and blessedness, because the is not latent and potential, but wholly lost by the fall.—W. G. 'I'. S. ]
6 Acts xvii. 28.
3 Ps. xxxi. 20, x zt Cor. vi. 17. 2 Ps, ciii. 5.