22. See notes to the Appendix.
INTRODUCTION XXIU
Printed in the Appendix is an essay presenting the substance of two lectures on the political ideas of St. Augustine delivered at Columbia University in 1954 by the eminent medievalist, Professor Dino Bigongiari.22 Readers of this volume will find it an invaluable guide to the interpretation of the texts they have read and also to further study.
22. See notes to the Appendix.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The selections in this volume are drawn from the following translations:
The City of God, trs. M. Dods, J. J. Smith, and
G. Wilson. Edinburgh: 1872.
Expositions on the Book of Psalm5, Vols.
Ill-VI, eds. C. Marriot and H. Walford, trs. T. Scratton, H. M. Wilkins, and H. Walford. Oxford: 1849-1857. Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According TO St. John, Vols. I-II, tr. J. Gibb. Edinburgh: 1873, 1874. Letters of St. Augustine, Vols. I-II, tr. J. G. Cunningham. Edinburgh: 1872, 1875. Letters (Fathers of the Church Edition), Vol.
Ill, tr. Sister W. Parsons. New York: 1953. Used with the kind permission of the Catholic University of America Press. Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New
Testament, Vols. I-II, tr. R. G. Macmullen. Oxford: 1844, 1845. Writings in Connection with the Donatist
Controversy, Vol. Ill, tr. J. R. King. Edinburgh: 1872. Writings in Connection with the Manichaean
Heresy, tr. R. Stothert. Edinburgh: 1872. Many passages of the translations used, especially those from Dods' version of The City of
XXVi BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
God, have been considerably revised to bring them into closer accord with the Latin texts as found in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum or Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Completus:
Series Latina. Slight modifications, consistent with the meaning of the Latin text have occasionally been introduced to facilitate transitions from one selection to the next.
A letter in superscript (*) indicates the beginning of a selection, and the source is given in the corresponding footnote.
CHAPTER I
Origins of Coercive Government
A. Fallen Nature and the Two Cities
desiring not only that the human race might be able by their similarity of nature to associate with one another, but also that they might be bound together in harmony and peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all men from one individual. And He created men with such a nature that the members of the race should not have died, had not the first two (of whom one was created out of nothing, and the other out of him) merited this with their disobedience; for by them so great a sin was committed, that by it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity.
the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to be called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all the errors that enfold the children of Adam, and from which no man can be dehvered without toil, pain, and fear? Is it not proved by his love of so many vain and hurtful things, which proa. City of God, XIV, 1. b. Ibid., XXII, 22.
2 ST. AUGUSTINE duces gnawing cares, disquiet, griefs, fears, wild joys, quarrels, law-suits, wars, treasons, angers, hatreds, deceit, flattery, fraud, theft, robbery, perfidy, pride, ambition, envy, murders, parricides, cruelty, ferocity, wickedness, luxury, insolence, impudence, shamelessness, fornications, adulteries, incests, and the numberless uncleannesses and unnatural acts of both sexes, which it is shameful so much as to mention; sacrileges, heresies, blasphemies, perjuries, oppression of the innocent, calumnies, plots, falsehoods, false witnessings, unrighteous judgments, violent deeds, plunderings, and innumerable other crimes that do not easily come to mind, but that never absent themselves from the actuality of human existence? These are indeed the crimes of wicked men, yet they spring from that root of error and misplaced love which is born with every son of Adam. For who is there that has not observed with what profound ignorance, manifesting itself even in infancy, and with what superfluity of foolish desires, beginning to appear in boyhood, man comes into this life, so that, were he left to live as he pleased, and to do whatever he pleased, he would plunge into all, or certainly into many of those crimes and iniquities which I mentioned, and could not mention?
But because God does not wholly desert those whom He condemns, nor shuts up in His anger His tender mercies, the human race is restrained by law and education, which keep guard against the ignorance that besets us, and oppose the assaults of vice, but are themselves full of labour and sorrow. For what mean those multifarious threats which are used to restrain the folly of children? What mean pedagogues, masters, the birch,