- THE CITY OF GOD - THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE CREATOR - BY SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO -
- Whether it is just that the punishments of sins last longer than the sins themselves lasted - Page Three -
Some, however, of those against whom we are defending the city of God think it unjust that any man/woman be doomed to an eternal punishment for sins which no matter how great they were, were perpetrated in a brief space of time; as if any law ever regulated the duration of the punishment by the duration of the offence punished! Cicero tells us that the laws recognise eight kinds of penalty - damages, imprisonment, scourging, reparation - "Talio," that is, the rendering of like for like, the punishment being exactly similar to the injury sustained. - disgrace, exile, death, slavery. Is there anyone of these which may be compressed into a brevity proportioned to the rapid commission of the offence, so that no longer time may be spent in its punishment than in its perpetration, unless, perhaps, reparation? For this requires the offender suffer what he did, as that clause of the law says, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth." - Exodus 21:24 - For certainly it is possible for an offender to lose his eye by the severity of legal retaliation in as brief a time as he deprived another of his eye by the cruelty of his own lawlessness. But if scourging be a reasonable penalty for kissing another man's wife, is not the fault of an instant visited with long hours of atonement and the momentary delight punished with lasting pain? What shall we say of imprisonment? Must the criminal be confined only for so long a time as he spent on the offence for which he is committed? or is not a penalty of many years' confinement imposed on the slave who has provoked his master with a word, or struck him a blow that is quickly over? And as to damages, disgrace, exile, slavery, which are commonly inflicted so as to admit of no relaxation or pardon, do not these resemble eternal punishments in so far as this short life allows a resemblance? For they are not eternal only because the life in which they are endured is not eternal; and yet the crimes which are punished with these most protracted sufferings are perpetrated in a very brief space of time. Nor is there anyone who would suppose that the pains of punishment should occupy as short a time as the offence; or that murder, adultery, sacrilege or any other crime, should be measured not by the enormity of the injury or wickedness, but by the length of time spent in its perpetration. Then as to the award of death for any great crime, do the laws reckon the punishment to consist in the brief moment in which death is inflicted or in this, that the offender is eternally banished from the society of the living? And just as the punishment of the first death cuts men off from this present mortal city, so does the punishment of the second death cut men off from that future immortal city. For as the laws of this present city do not provide for the executed criminal's return to it, so neither is he who is condemned to the second death recalled again to life everlasting. But if temporal sin is visited with eternal punishment, how, then, they say, is that true which your Christ says, "With the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again?" - Luke 6:38 - and they do not observe that "the same measure" refers, not to an equal space of time, but to the retribution of evil, or in other words, to the law by which he who has done evil suffers evil. Besides, these words could be appropriately understood as referring to the matter of which our Lord was speaking when He used them, viz. judgements and condemnation. Thus, if he who unjustly judges and condemns is himself justly judged and condemned, he receives "with the same measure" though not the same thing as he gave. For judgement he gave and judgement he receives, though the judgement he gave was unjust, the judgement he receives just.
- Of the greatness of the first transgression, on account of which eternal punishment is due to all who are not within the pale of the Saviour's grace -
But eternal punishment seem hard and and unjust to human perceptions because in the weakness of our mortal condition there is wanting that highest and purest wisdom which it can be perceived how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression. the more enjoyment man found in God, the greater was his wickedness in abandoning Him; and he who destroyed in himself a good which might have been eternal because worthy of eternal evil. Hence the whole mass of the human race is condemned; for he who at first gave entrance to sin has been punished with all his posterity who were in him as in a root, so that no one is exempt from this just and due punishment, unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the human race is so apportioned that in some is displayed the efficacy of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution. For both could not be displayed in all; for if all had remained - Remanerent. But Augustine constantly uses the imp. for the pulp, subjunctive. - under the punishment of just condemnation, there would have been seen in no one the mercy of redeeming grace. And on the other hand, if all had been transferred from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would have been manifested in none. But many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all. And had it been inflicted on all, no one could justly have found fault with the justice of Him who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from that just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the gratuitous bounty of Him who delivers.
- Against the opinions of those who think that the punishments of the wicked after death are purgatorial -
The Platonists, indeed, while they maintain that no sins are unpunished, suppose that all punishment is administered for remedial purposes, - Plato's own theory was that punishment had a two fold purpose, to reform and to deter. No one punishes an offender on account of the past offence, and simply because he has done wrong, but for the sake of the future, that the offence may not be again committed, either by the same person or by anyone who has seen him punished." See the Protagoras, 324, b, and Grote's Plato, ii 41. - be it inflicted by human or divine law, in this life or after death; for a man may be scathless here, or, though punished, may yet not amend. hence that passage of Virgil, where, when he had said of our earthly bodies and mortal members, that our souls derive -
"Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, And human laughter, human tears; Immured in dungeon-seeming night, They took abroad, yet see no light," goes on to say: "Nay, when at last the life has fled, And left the body cold and dead, Even then there passes not away, The painful heritage of clay; Full many a long-contracted stain, Perforce must linger deep in grain. So penal sufferings they endure, For ancient crime, to make them pure; Some hang aloft in open view, For winds to pierce them through and through, While others purge their guilt deep-dyed. In burning fire or whelming tide." - AEneid, vi. 733 -
They who are of this opinion would have all punishments after death to be purgatorial; and as the elements of air, fire, and water are superior to earth, one or other of these may be the instrument of expiating and purging away the stain contracted by the contagion of earth. So Virgil hints at the air in the words, "Some hang aloft for winds to pierce;" at the water in "whelming tide;" and the fire in the expression "in burning fire." For our part, we recognise that even in this life some punishments are purgatorial - not, indeed, to those whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them, but to those who are constrained by them to amend their life. All the punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on everyone by divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man's graces. They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men and angels as well as of the good. For even if anyone suffers some hurt through another's wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, why by His just though hidden judgement permits it to be done, sins not. But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment of the world to come.
- Of the temporary punishment of this life to which the human condition is subject -
Quite exceptional are those who are not punished in this life, but only afterwards. Yet that there have been some who have reached the decrepitude of age without experiencing even the slightest sickness and who have had uninterrupted enjoyment of life, I know both from report and from my own observation. However, the very life we mortals lead is itself all punishment, for it is all temptation, as the Sacred Scripture declares, where it is written, "Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation?" - Job 7:1 - For ignorance is itself no slight punishment, or want of culture which it is with justice thought so necessary to escape, that boys are compelled under pain of severe punishment, to learn trades or letters; and the learning to which they are driven by punishment is itself so much of a punishment to them, that they sometimes prefer the pain that drives them to the pain to which they are driven by it. And so would not shrink from the alternative and elect to die, if it were proposed to him either to suffer death or to be again an infant? Our infancy, indeed, introducing us to this life not with laughter but with tears, seems unconsciously to predict the ills we are to encounter. - Compare Goldsmith's saying, "We begin life in tears and everyday tells us why." Zoroaster alone is said to have laughed when he was born and that unnatural omen portended no good to him. For he is said to have been the inventor of magical arts, though indeed they were unable to secure to him even the poor felicity of this present life against the assaults of his enemies. For, himself king of the Bactrians, he was conquered by Ninus king of the Assyrians. In short, the words of Scripture, "An heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day they go out of their mother's womb till the day that they return to the mother of all things," - Ecclesiastes 11:1 - these words till the day that they return to the mother of all things," - 2 Timothy 2:19 - these words so inffallibly find fulfilment that even the little ones, who by the laver of regeneration have been freed from the bond of original sin in which alone they were held, yet suffer many ills and in some instances are even exposed to the assaults of evil spirits. But let us not for a moment suppose that this suffering is prejudicial to their future happiness, even though it has so increased as to sever soul from body, and to terminate their life in that early age.
- That everything which the grace of God does in the way of rescuing us from the inveterate evils in which we are sunk, pertains to the future world, in which all things are made new -
Nevertheless, in the "heavy yoke that is laid upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things" there is found an admirable though painful monitor teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing us that this life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous wickedness which was perpetrated in Paradise,.............
- WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY -
Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!
If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function, so the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. - Ephesians 4:15-16 -
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