Part One: The incapacity of traditional Roman religion to bring Felicitas to its votaries.

==B1== (36Chs)The calamities of 410AD

C1 = Barbarians hid in churches against the sacking
C8 = “For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.”
“So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.”
c9 =+= Very good chapter
C10 = The rich care for things of this world, and are sorrowful to lose it.
XPns act as “if they used the world as not using it”
Quotes XP to store up treasure where it cannot be lost
C11 = “Of this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time.”
C15 = Marcus Regulus - willing to die for his city according to the word to his gods,
If he was willing, without the knowledge of the life to come, XPns know they are anticipating the heavenly country, and “know that they are pilgrims even in their own homes.”
C16, C17 = Rape of Consecrated
Cannot commit suicide
C18 = Another’s lust cannot pollute one’s own soul and body
C19 = Lucretia, should not be praised for suicide after rape
The romans had purity laws for women, not the same for men
C22 = “Is it not rather proof of a feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains of bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of the vulgar?”
C23 = Cato/Cicero not honorable in suicide at the victory of Caesar
C27 = If Suicide is ok, just kill oneself immediately after baptism, haha
C28 = The raped could have taken too much pride in their virginity, while chastity is not lost.
If not too much vainglory, could prevent. or could show how bodily integrity and chastity are not the same
C30, C31 = Scipio Nasica said not to destroy Carthage, because the safety would cause more problems. And the Romans ended up being more afraid of the fellows than their enemies
Unrestrained Luxury is the goal of the pagans’ invective against XPians
c25 = “In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effects their separation. I now proceed to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end of these two cities; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter lustre.”

==B2== (29Chs)Corrupt morals of Romans and gods

C1 = issues with replying
C2 = sum of previous book
C3 = Many calamities to Rome before XPnity
Why would their gods allow these?
C4 = Why didn’t these gods give better morals?
many did bad things in their worship
C5 = rites for mother-god would make their own mothers blush
“true piety and religion, without which natural genius, however brilliant, vapors into pride and comes to nothing”
C6 = Where is the holiness of the gods teaching?
“Be taught, you abandoned creatures, and ascertain the causes of things; what we are, and for what end we are born; what is the law of our success in life; and by what art we may turn the goal without making shipwreck; what limit we should put to our wealth, what we may lawfully desire, and what uses filthy lucre serves; how much we should bestow upon our country and our family; learn, in short, what God meant you to be, and what place He has ordered you to fill.” ~ Persius
C7 = Why not worship the philosophers instead, unless you just want debauchery.
golden shower example
C8 = Plays are shameful, and gods approve
C9 = The stories attribute terrible things about the gods, which would be censored of real mean
C10 = demons are ok with evils attributed to them, because it leads men to worse
C11 = Greeks gave civic honors to actors
“and it is an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods; but these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods, but evil spirits”
C12 = Romans would not receive the same evil attribution which the gods would
C13 = “syllogism:… Maj. If such gods are to be worshipped, then certainly such men may be honored. Min. But such men must by no means be honoured. Con. Therefore such gods must by no means be worshipped.” Brilliant
C14 = Plato wouldn’t let actors into the well-ordered city, and he was better than the gods
“We for our part, indeed, reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod; we would not even compare him to any of God’s holy angels; nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man.”
C15 = gods are result of stories that pleased,
C16 = Why didn’t the gods give laws to Rome? Instead of them needing to go to Athens to get Solon’s?
C17 = Rape of the Sabine Women is a foundational part of Rome, how is that justified?
C18 = goodness did not last long
““Yet, after the destruction of Carthage, discord, avarice, ambition, and the other vices which are commonly generated by prosperity, more than ever increased.” If they “increased,” and that “more than ever,” then already they had appeared, and had been increasing.”
C19 = XPns received many laws and prophets who condemned avarice and corruption
C20 =
“Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind.”
C21 =+= The Republic was already unjust with Cicero
“definition of a people—an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by a community of interests.”
“quoniam non esset multitudo juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociata, sicut populus fuerat definitus.”
- “But our age, receiving the republic as a chef-d’oeuvre of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not merely neglected to restore the colors of the original, but has not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general outline and most outstanding features. For what survives of that primitive morality which the poet called Rome’s safeguard? It is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from practising it, one does not even know it. And of the citizens what shall I say? Morality has perished through poverty of great men; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and have long since lost the reality.” ~Cicero
Surely this would have been blamed on XPans, if they had existed
- “But the fact is, true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic; and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people’s weal.”
C22 = The demons never cared about the failing morals
C23 = the demons don’t help misfortune
C24 = if the demons could give augers, why can’t they help?
“The demons gave no indication… For they feared his amendment more than his defeat.”
C25 = demons incite men to evil by either bad example or of feigned example
C26 =
- “Where else can such confusion reign, but in devils’ temples? Where, but in the haunts of deceit? For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous, who are few in number; the wicked examples are exhibited to encourage the vicious, who are countless.”
C27 = “the gods did not enrol themselves as defenders of the battlements against the besiegers, until they had first stormed and sacked the morality of the citizens.”
C28 = XPns worship respectfully
C29 = the martyrs win a victory for the City of God
the Demons are jealous of the dignity of Man that God wished to save
- “Incomparably more glorious than Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity.”

==B3==

C1 =

==B4==

C1 =
C2
C3 = two men, better to be poor and happy than wealthy and miserable
- The dominion of bad men is bad for those who rule
Those put under bad rulers are hurt only by their own iniquity
? How does this get squared with “For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, so that the righteous may not stretch out their hands to do wrong.”Ps125:3
- “Therefore, the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters treats, it says, ‘For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.’”
C4 = Unjust Kingdoms are just robberies
Pirate to Alexander, ship verses fleet makes the empire
C5 = runaway gladiators who made a kingdom
C6 = Ninus is said to be the first to expand kingdoms by war
C7 = the kingdom started by Ninus lasted 1200 years in injustice, if that lasted so long without gods, why is Rome’s success because of gods?
C8 = how many gods are required for growing crops, or of even doors
C9 = how is Jove so special?
C10 = why are so many gods so unintelligibly put over the various parts of the world?
C11 = Jove is said to be the soul of the world
C12 = vile and base things are said to be of the gods
C15 = should good men wish to expand empire?
- Better to have a good neighbor in peace than a bad one concoured in war
- if there is a goddess of victory, why pray to Jupiter?
C16 = the quite temple outside of the city
C17 = same as 15
C18 = If Felicity is a god, then why worship any other?
- Why not also fortune? They say they are the same, but that only Felicity is for those who worship, and fortune when she gives to her friend and enemy alike
C19 = Lady Fortuna,
C20 = Faith and Virtue are gods, why not the other cardinal virtues
C21 = Why not worship virtue ? or to the goddess felicity, because anything with felicity is better than that same thing with only one other god
C23 = couldn’t see felicity among the crowds
- men might fear to be a king, but none would fear to be happy
C25 = giver of felicity
C27 = 3 kinds of gods, Pontiff Scaevola
C28..30 dont worship the gods
C31 = Varo thinking of one god, but not able to find
- for 150y worshiping gods without an image
C34 = without the gods they did what they did, and well
- without the gods of food they ate, without fecundity, they reproduced

==B5==

C1 = astrology
- the heavens, which are said to be noble, cannot be said to decree such ignoble evils to happen
C2 = twins disprove astrological control
C3 = Nigidius
- Nigidius the does some chaos theory. Small differences in initial conditions lead to large final conditions
- ex: spinning a potters wheel, and putting two paint marks, in quickest succession, such that it seemed they were in the same place. but after, they were really far separated around the rotation.
- Augustine’s response is then, how could you possibly predict someone’s life if there is such a manifest variance in result from indistinguishable variance in initiation?
C4 = Esau and Jacob, and their differences
C5 = smart people can be convinced of dumb things,
- mathematicians believe in astrology
> my own thing, smart people do dumb things with Corona Virus
> smart people will kill their children thinking that they shouldn’t hold them
C6 = twins of different sexes
C7 = picking to copulate so the birth will be when the stars are “right”
- what about grain, flies, and camels born at the same astrological time?
C8 = fate followers instead of those who follow astrology
- Seneca and Cicero
C9 = Foreknowledge of God and free will in man, against Cicero
- Cicero, in order to get around astrology, denies knowledge of future, including in God
= Cicero: If an order of things, an order of causes, and our will is a cause
= Aug: Our wills are part of the causses foreknown by God
- “But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills.”
C10 = Will and necessity
- God will know what is in our will
C11 = Providence by which laws are governed
C12 = The true God would be better for the empire,
- it was by His permission that they had grew and accomplished
C13 = amore laudis, Love of Praise is considered a virtue
- They were willing to sacrifice much only for the sake of honor and praise
- dominandi libidinem
- Gloria of the saints is better than the glory of men
C14 = The glory of the righteous is in God (De resecando amore laudis humanae)
= even the martyrs refer their glory to God, not doing for that reason
- “But since those Romans were in an earthly city,… where the dead are succeeded by the dying,—what else but glory should they love, by which they wished even after death to live in the mouths of their admirers?”
C15 = the temporal rewards God gives to the Romans’ natural virtues
C16 = The reward of the saints are far different
- it is not for this life or glory, but “true and full felicity, - not a goddess, but a gift from God”
C17 = used to justify liberalism, and separation of Church and State
- The wars the Romans committed and suffering caused
- “For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose government a dying man lives, if they who govern do not force him to impiety and iniquity?”
- “Tolle jactantiam, et omnes homines quid sunt nisi homines? Quod si perversitas saeculi admitteret, ut honoratiores essent quique meliores; nec sic pro magno haberi debuit honor humanus, quia nullius est ponderis fumus.”
—“Take away outward show, and what are all men after all but men? But even though the perversity of the age should permit that all the better men should be more highly honored than others, neither thus should human honor be held at a great price, for it is smoke which has no weight.”
- “And especially are all these things to be considered, because the remission of sins which collects citizens to the celestial country has something in it to which a shadowy resemblance is found in that asylum of Romulus, whither escape from the punishment of all manner of crimes congregated that multitude with which the state was to be founded.”
C18 = Men are willing to do heroic things for silly human honor
- Therefore Christians have no reason to boast to do their minimal
- Cincinnatus only had 4 acers, and after being dictator, went back to poverty
C19 = concupiscence of praise and domination (cupiditas gloriae, et cupiditas dominationis)
sets up, amor laudis & libido dominadi
C20 = It is shameful for virtues to serve bodily pleasure
C21 = So Rome got its dominion from God
C22 = The length of war is determined by providence
C23 = Radagaisus, King of the Goths was conquered in one day
C24 = The Christian emperors were far happier than even the pagan emperors who did things only for this life.
C25 = Constantine was given far better rule than almost all the other emperors
- though his children do not have universal success, lest people think following Christ is for earthly success
C26 = the Faith and Piety, Theodosius

==B6== (12Chs) Fable Religion does not give eternal life

C1 = the gods cannot even give the most basic material mean, how will they give eternal life?
Is this potentially hypocritical
C2 = Varro, everyone agrees is great, still criticizes the superstition
C3 = Varro’s Antiquities, Structure broken into 41 books, 25 on human things, 16 on divine things
C4 = The gods rely on the the more ancient human things for their divine things,
how can they give eternal life?
C5 = Three Kinds of Theology According to Varro, Fabulous, Natural, Civil
- Fables, mythical, theology ~of poets - obviously wrong, obscene in plays and festivals
- Natural, physical, theology ~of philosophers -
- Civil theology ~ of priests - the sacrifices of the priests,
= If the Natural theology is wrong, the civil is too, which would be dependent. Also, if the civil is separated from the natural, then isn’t still wrong?
C6 = Even trying to separate them, they are still all together condemned
- The civil theology combines both. and in so doing, it makes its error clear.
- The same bad things happen in the temples as in the plays
C7 = Both civil and fable agree. They attribute carnal pleasures to the gods, who have human forms
C8 = They try to give a natural explanations of the rites, how is Sodomy symbolic? Wabout Saturn?
C9 = The multiple gods who are needed to do basic things
- “Let human modesty be spared. … Why is the bed-chamber filled with a crowd of deities, when even the groomsmen have departed? … Let her blush; let her go forth. Let the husband himself do something.”
C10 = Seneca also condemns civil theology
C11 = Seneca blames the Jews for the sabbath
C12 = if gods can’t give temporal happiness, can’t give eternal life, is happiness without end

~somewhere in 6 or 7, the natural you wish to worship, the civil you are compelled

==B7== (26Chs) Civil Theology does not give eternal life

Pref= The above should suffice, but this is for the dumb
C1 = select gods dii selecti, doesn’t mean much
C2 = what about these other ones which have mixed importnace
C3 = the gods and ranks are without reason
C4 = inferior gods’ calibrations are less obscene than those of the select gods
C5 = Varro gives physical interpretations to evil stories, but they are weak excuses
C6 = Varro says the god is the soul of the world, but there are still many part souls?
C7 = Why are Janus and Terminus separate? they do the same stuff
C8 = Janus is contradictory, sometime 2 faces, sometimes 4. compares to a fish
C9 = Jupiter is more powerful than Janus, but the highest is greater than the first?
C10 = the distention between both seems like a mistaken one
C11 = there are other gods who do what Jupiter, who supposed to be over all, does
C12 = Jupiter is also called Pecunia, all things are money! - very American
C13 = Saturn and Genus are just Jupiter, or so it seems
C14 = Mercery and Mars need something to do, and so Felicity can’t do her job
C15 = why is the star Venus brighter than Jupiter? even if further way, Saturn is further
C16 = Apollo and Diana are also parts of the world, which is both Janus and Jupiter
C17 = Varro admits this stuff is ambiguous
C18 = It is more likely that the gods were real men, whose stories attributed godhood to them
C19 = the worship of Saturn is confusing
C20 = Rites of Eleusinian Ceres for seeds and stuff
C21 = Liber is a phallic cult
C22 = Salacia and Venilia are goddesses of coming and going of waves
= the goddess of the earth, according to Varro
- bad natural theology, the god is the intelligent soul, in the soul of the world
- He then deals with Varro as a civil theologian
C23 = Tellus should just be one god with multiple names
= The modesty and lack of shame is contradictory and strange. How is there shame and modesty for families where a bride sits on a Priapus and a married woman publicly puts wreath on phallus for a celebration
- “”
C24 = Atys got castrated, Varro ignores this
C25 = At the festivals of the great mother, they castrate men and have them go about effeminate
This is part of civil theology, the poets won’t even talk of it
C26 = The Natural Theologians still don’t serve the real God
- “Wherefore it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil theology is occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and most impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and through these to take possession of stupid hearts.”
C27 = The physical / natural theologian still isn’t worshiping the true God
C28 = Varro on assigning gods male and female: of heaven, earth, form - what about Pluto?
C29 = the natural / physical theologians should attribute all to one God,
C30 = God makes distinct things in distinct effects, is One, vs many gods
C31 = This same God gives us many good gifts and brings us to Himself eternally
C32 = the Hebrews were given some message, by men who did and did not understand the message
C33 = Only the True Religion exposes the errors of paganism
= “This, the only true religion, has alone been able to manifest that the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who desire to be thought gods, availing themselves of the names of certain defunct souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures, and with proud impurity rejoicing in things most base and infamous, as though in divine honors, and envying human souls their conversion to the true God.”
“Per hanc ergo religionem unam et veram potuit aperiri, deos Gentium esse immundissimos daemones, sub defunctarum occasionibus animarum vel creaturarum specie mundanarum deos se putari cupientes, et quasi divinis honoribus eisdemque scelestis ac turpibus rebus superba impuritate laetantes, atque ad verum Deum conversionem humanis animis invidentes.”
C34 = rites of Numa Pompilius burned because they were not good
n.b. Terentius found on the Janiculum, books of the rites of Numa Pompilius,
C35 = Numa Pompilius used hydromancy, that was how he learned the evil rites

==B8== (27Chs) Natural Theologians are wrong, Platonists

C1 = This will require more thought, haha,
this is not like fabulous / theatrical displays crimes,
or civil / urban theologies expresses evil desires
“Now, if wisdom is God, who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, Wisdom 7:24-27 then the philosopher is a lover of God. But since the thing itself, which is called by this name, exists not in all who glory in the name,—for it does not follow, of course, that all who are called philosophers are lovers of true wisdom,—we must needs select from the number of those with whose opinions we have been able to acquaint ourselves by reading, some with whom we may not unworthily engage in the treatment of this question.”
“Porro si sapientia Deus est, per quem 0225 facta sunt omnia, sicut divina auctoritas veritasque monstravit (Sap. VII, 24-27; et Hebr. 1, 2, 3), verus philosophus est amator Dei. Sed quia res ipsa, cujus hoc nomen est, non est in omnibus qui hoc nomine gloriantur (neque enim continuo verae sapientiae sunt amatores, quicumque appellantur philosophi) : profecto ex omnibus, quorum sententias et litteris nosse potuimus, eligendi sunt cum quibus non indigne quaestio ista tractetur.”
- only address philosopher who assume there is a divine nature, and it is concerned with humans
C2 = History of Philosophy, Italic and Ionic schools
Pythagoras | founder of Italic |
origin of ‘Philosophy’ against the arrogance of claiming title sage
Thales | founder of Ionic | all is water, nothing about god
Anaximander | infinite principles, these are words | innumerable worlds, forming & ceasing
Anaximenes | infinite air | gods come from the air
Anaxagoras | infinite homogenous parts, divine mind orders |
Diogenes | certain air is animated by divine mind | also student of Anaximenes
Archelaus | infinite homogenous, energized by the divine mind, to combine and separate
Socrates follows after Archelaus
C3 = Socrates : description of
- his favorable followers, said though reality could only be discussed with a purified mind
- His followers also wished to go after the chief good (summum bonum)
- “it did not evidently appear what he held to be the chief good, every one took from these disputations what pleased him best, and every one placed the final good in whatever it appeared to himself to consist. Now, that which is called the final good is that at which, when one has arrived, he is blessed.”
- Aristippus after pleasure, Antisthenes after virtue
- many views, Not a credit to a master (Like Stauss)
C4 = Plato : 3 kinds of philosophy
- “master Socrates, he made him the speaker in all his dialogues, putting into his mouth whatever he had learned, either from others, or from the efforts of his own powerful intellect, tempering even his moral disputations with the grace and politeness of the Socratic style.”
- “the study of wisdom consists in action and contemplation … active part… conduct of life, … contemplative part to the investigation into the causes of nature and into pure truth”
- combines Socrates who does active well, Pythagoras who does contemplative well, then splits into 3, morals (action), natural (contemplation), logical (true-false)
C5 = “Let…the fabulous and the civil, give place to the Platonic philosophers,”
- Thales, water; Anaximenes, air; the Stoics, fire; Epicurus, atoms;
C6 = Platonists are better than other thinkers in physics / natural philosophy
- because they realized things are grounded in the unchanging god
- “that the first form is not to be found in those things whose form is changeable”
C7 = Platonists are better than other thinkers in logical / rational philosophy
C8 = Platonists are better than other thinkers in moral / ἠθική philosophy
= final goods, intermediate goods, external goods
- “Let, therefore, all these give place to those philosophers who have not affirmed that a man is blessed by the enjoyment of the body, or by the enjoyment of the mind, but by the enjoyment of God — enjoying Him, however, not as the mind does the body or itself, or as one friend enjoys another, but as the eye enjoys light, if, indeed, we may draw any comparison between these things.”
- “But the true and highest good, according to Plato, is God, and therefore he would call him a philosopher who loves God; for philosophy is directed to the obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed in the enjoyment of God.”
C9 = Platonism comes closest to what Christians know
- “we have in Him the first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happiness of life”
C10 = Christian doctrine is greater than the science of the philosophers
C11 = some say Plato learned from Jeremiah or the Septuagint, but one too early, one too late
- but he does seem to copy Moses
C12 = the Platonists, Academy, and Peripatetics all seem to worship many gods
C13 = there are issues of worship, some even wish to give Plato worship
C14 = Rational souled beings, gods, demons, men. demons share immortality
= Apuleius wrote the book, On the god of Socrates but should have been demon of Socrates
C15 = even if the demons have better bodies, higher places, or immortality, for eternal punishment
- “By this he would have us understand that the same order is not to be observed when the question concerns the merits of animals, though it seems to be the true one in the gradation of bodies; for it appears to be possible that a soul of a higher order may inhabit a body of a lower, and a soul of a lower order a body of a higher.” so what about cosmos, and the axis which higher is better. There is something which still needs to be treated here
C16 = Apuleius the Platonist describes demons
- “Demons are of an animal nature, passive in soul, rational in mind, aerial in body, eternal in time” - but the soul is still better, and they are miserable
C17 = Why would men worship demons who have the vices from which men wish to be freed
C18 = Apuleius offers bad advice, to get from bad demons the favor of the good gods
C19 = magic arts are evil and pernicious, and aided by demons
C20 = are the gods more likely to communicate with the demons? who misrepresent them in plays
C21 = are the demons needed to reconnoiter mans actions, for the gods are far away?
C22 = reject the worship of demons - This is interesting to get into Apuleius mind
C23 = Hermes Trismegistus (Egyptian) says their worship should get removed
- predicted the worship of the Egyptians will come to an end
- “For it can sooner happen that man, who has received an honorable position, may, through lack of understanding, become comparable to the beasts, than that the works of man may become preferable to the work of God, made in His own image, that is, to man himself. Wherefore deservedly is man left to fall away from Him who made Him, when he prefers to himself that which he himself has made.” all of ¶2 is worth studying
C24 = Hermes says their vain worshiping will come to nothing
C25 = We can communicate with the gods, by purity of soul, not by demons efforts
C26 = pagan worship refers to dead men
- “For, having said that their forefathers, erring very far with respect to the knowledge of the gods, incredulous and inattentive to the divine worship and service, invented the art of making gods, with which art, when invented, they associated the appropriate virtue which is inherent in universal nature, and by mixing up that virtue with this art, they called forth the souls of demons or of angels (for they could not make souls), and caused them to take possession of, or associate themselves with holy images and divine mysteries, in order that through these souls the images might have power to do good or harm to men;”
- the demons lamented their tortures they would suffer at the tombs of the Martyrs
C27 = the nature of honoring the Martyrs
- Augustine talks about the sacrifices over the tombs of Peter or Paul or Cyprian, not to

==B9== (23Chs) Natural Theology: Demons

B1 =
C9 = “The Opinion of the Peripatetics and Stoics About Mental Emotions.”
“Greeks call παθη, while some of our own writers, as Cicero, call them perturbations, some affections, and some, to render the Greek word more accurately, passions. Some say that even the wise man is subject to these perturbations, though moderated and controlled by reason, which imposes laws upon them, and so restrains them within necessary bounds. This is the opinion of the Platonists and Aristotelians; for Aristotle was Plato’s disciple”
C12 = “But the place and time of these miracles are dependent on His unchangeable will, in which things future are ordered as if already they were accomplished.”
C13 =
“According to the Platonists, then, the gods, who occupy the highest place, enjoy eternal blessedness, or blessed eternity; men, who occupy the lowest, a mortal misery, or a miserable mortality; and the demons, who occupy the mean, a miserable eternity, or an eternal misery.”
“nature is animal, their mind rational, their soul subject to passions, he said that they have in common with men; one thing, their eternity, in common with the gods; and one proper to themselves, their aerial body.”

Prop	Demon	man	gods
nature	animal	animal	divine
mind	rational	rational	-
soul	passioned	passioned	stoic
temporality	eternal	mortal	eternal
location	air	earth	heavens

C20 = Angel and demon difference
= the demons have knowledge that puffs up
the Angels have knowledge that edifies
The demons deceive through the material senses
and they are more concerned with material,
vs the angels, who are more concerned with contemplating God
B23 =

==B10== (36Chs) Natural Theology Proves Christ

C1 = “…that all (rational) men desire to be happy”
- ‘Λατρεία’ = praise to God | ‘cultus’ is more broad | ‘religion’ for θρησκεία | Religion doesn’t work because it can be to another | ‘piety’ for εὐσέβεια, but can be for parents | θεοσέβεια for God ‘worship of God’|
C2 = Plotinus on enlightenment from above
C3 = Platonists misunderstood worship, as they gave it to angels and demons
- quotes on the “altar of our hearts” being united to Him who is source of happiness
= dumb for demons to recommend to others what does not make themselves happy
- “and so, when one who has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God? This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this right piety, this the service due to God only.”
- “He that sacrifices unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed. Exodus 22:20”
C4 = sacrifice is due only to the True God
C5 = God does not need our sacrifice, but whishes to have us
= “A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice.”
“Sacrificium ergo visibile invisibilis sacrificii sacramentum, id est sacrum signum, est.”
C6 = The true sacrifice is the offering of a broken heart
- “the entire commonwealth of the redeemed and the society of the saints be offered to God through the High Priest who offered himself also for us in his passion that we might be the body of so great a Head.”
C7 = The holy angels desire us to worship the true God
C8 = God will use angels as agents of his miracles, examples from OT
C9 = Illicit magic from demonology: magic, necromancy, theurgy. Porphyry’s error
- theurgic consecrations which are called ‘mysteries’
C10 = Theurgy does not purify the soul, demons do not purify
C11 = Porphyry letter to Anebo, concerning demons
- are supposed to message to men, but frequently deceive
- Long explanation of demons
- they must do things through tricks and spells
C12 = Real miracles by God through holy angels
- the heavens and earth are miracles, and man is the greatest,
- “Whatever marvel happens in this world, it is certainly less marvellous than this whole world itself”
= Creation is super important to the theology of Augustine
- miracles (synaptics, great signs Gos.John) vs Hume’s mechanisms
- in relation to Church scrutinizing miracles, which is to the mode of credibility
- The demons can do miracles in this way (since Thomas says no)
C13 = Invisible God makes Himself visible, according to ability to bear it
- the Israelites could not bear seeing God fully, so He comes in appearance
C14 = God can not just give eternal rewards, but also temporal boons
- “The education of the human race, represented by the people of God, has advanced, like that of an individual, through certain epochs, or, as it were, ages, so that it might gradually rise from earthly to heavenly things, and from the visible to the invisible.”
- “It was best, therefore, that the soul of man, which was still weakly desiring earthly things, should be accustomed to seek from God alone even these petty temporal boons, and the earthly necessaries of this transitory life, which are contemptible in comparison with eternal blessings, in order that the desire even of these things might not draw it aside from the worship of Him, to whom we come by despising and forsaking such things.”
C15 = The Ministry of the Angels, to fulfil the Will of God
C16 = Can we trust an angel that demands us worship it?
+ No, that angel would have happiness because it worships God
- “If, therefore, any angels demand sacrifice for themselves, we must prefer those who demand it, not for themselves, but for God, the Creator of all, whom they serve.”
C17 = The Ark of the Covenant, “Ark of the Testimony”
C18 = What about not believing the Scriptures? Questioning motives of credibility
- Why would they believe their writings, and not the Scriptures?
= This seems like a weak argument
C19 = It is reasonable to only offer sacrifice to the One True God
C20 = The supreme sacrifice of the real mediator between God and man.
- All false sacrifice have given place to true sacrifice
C21 = Power is given to the demons to glorify the saints in their trials greater than heroes
= “But for a quite opposite reason would we call our martyrs heroes, — supposing, as I said, that the usage of ecclesiastical language would admit of it — not because they lived along with the demons in the air, but because they conquered these demons or powers of the air,”
C22 = Where the saints get power against demons
C23 = Platonists principles of purifying the soul.
- Porphyry doesn’t think corporeal things can purify
C24 = One, only principle which purifies and renews human nature
= “The Principle, therefore, having assumed a human soul and flesh, cleanses the soul and flesh of believers. … He answered He was the principle”
C25 = All the saints, old and new, are purified by Faith in the Mystery of Incarnation
= “Being, then, for the present established in this hope, let us do what the Psalmist further indicates, and become in our measure angels or messengers of God, declaring His will, and praising His glory and His grace. For when he had said, To place my hope in God, he goes on, that I may declare all Your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. This is the most glorious city of God; this is the city which knows and worships one God: she is celebrated by the holy angels, who invite us to their society, and desire us to become fellow citizens with them in this city; for they do not wish us to worship them as our gods, but to join them in worshipping their God and ours; nor to sacrifice to them, but, together with them, to become a sacrifice to God. Accordingly, whoever will lay aside malignant obstinacy, and consider these things, shall be assured that all these blessed and immortal spirits, who do not envy us (for if they envied they were not blessed), but rather love us, and desire us to be as blessed as themselves, look on us with greater pleasure, and give us greater assistance, when we join them in worshipping one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, than if we were to offer to themselves sacrifice and worship.”
C26 = Porphyry’s weakness in not admitting the True God
C27 = The impiety of Porphyry is worse than Apuleius. Learned evil from Egyptians
- Porphyry offers theurgy to those who can’t do philosophy, and is tricked by demons
- How can theurgy which cannot purify the intellect then purify the spiritual part?
C28 = Porphyry misses true wisdom in Christ
C29 = The Incarnation, and the Platonists choice not to acknowledge it
C30 = Porphyry changes Plato
C31 = Argument of the Platonists that a soul will not be eternal
C32 = The only Way of the soul’s deliverance, an Porphyry’s failure
- recap of the last 10 books
- “what I think needs to be said regarding the origin, history, and deserved ends of the two cities, which, as already remarked, are in this world commingled and implicated with one another.”

==B11== (34Chs) Origins of Two Cities, Angels, World

C1 = principle and end of the two cities
== “From these and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship. To this Founder of the holy city the citizens of the earthly city prefer their own gods, not knowing that He is the God of gods, not of false, i.e., of impious and proud gods, who, being deprived of His unchangeable and freely communicated light, and so reduced to a kind of poverty-stricken power, eagerly grasp at their own private privileges, and seek divine honors from their deluded subjects; but of the pious and holy gods, who are better pleased to submit themselves to one, than to subject many to themselves, and who would rather worship God than be worshipped as God.”
C2 = God does not speak with bodily semblances, but “with the Truth itself”
- “But since the mind itself, though naturally capable of reason and intelligence is disabled by besotting and inveterate vices not merely from delighting and abiding in, but even from tolerating His unchangeable light, until it has been gradually healed, and renewed, and made capable of such felicity, it had, in the first place, to be impregnated with faith, and so purified. And that in this faith it might advance the more confidently towards the truth, the truth itself, God, God’s Son, assuming humanity without destroying His divinity, established and founded this faith, that there might be a way for man to man’s God through a God-man. For this is the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For it is as man that He is the Mediator and the Way.”
C3 = speaks in the Prophets, Himself, and the Apostles
- “Of all visible things, the world is the greatest; of all invisible, the greatest is God. But, that the world is, we see; that God is, we believe. That God made the world, we can believe from no one more safely than from God Himself.”
C4 =some try to say the world is eternal, so that God is not hasty and arbitrarily makes it
- But if the soul existed from all eternity, it could not go to eternal felicity
- either it was already happy, and some new misery beset it
- or it altered from happiness to misery, then that will continue
- or it is really a new state of felicity not existing before,
- but if that is so, then God can make the world, also
C5 = If you don’t hold Epicurus’ dream of innumerable worlds, then also can’t hold time before creation. (if there is not space beyond, there is also not time)
C6 = the world was created with time in one beginning
C7 = the first three days did not have a sun, to have a day, morning and evening
- could be angels and the Heavenly city
- could say morning and evening, the praise of God, according to nature and Grace!
- Morning as the praise of God is from Gods grace, evening from natural ability
- “indeed, the knowledge of created things contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more colorless than when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which they were made.”
C8 = God rested, how to understand and parse this
- A letter is joyful, because it causes Joy, same with “God rested, meaning thereby that those rest who are in Him, and whom He makes to rest.”
C9 = The creation of the Angels, must be included in the creation account
- Angels part of creation
- Benedicere: praise Him you works of the Lord,
- Angels are included
Therefore, they must be the “day” on the first day
C10 = God: simple, unchangeable, in Him substance = quality
= “not one thing and its contents another”
“…as a cup and its liquor, or a body and color”
= “Whence flows a very striking but true conclusion, that this world could not be known to us unless it existed, but could not have existed unless it had been known to God.”
C11 = Did the fallen participate in blessedness?
- not everything eternal is beatified: hellfire
- “the life of these angels was not blessed, for it was doomed to end”
C12 = Blessedness of righteous vs first parents
of those unsure of salvation, our first parents were more blessed, but to those who know they will have Eternal Life, more blessed than Adam
C13 = The fallen angels had to have some blessedness, but not the highest blessedness,
- description of blessedness of angels
- “it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results from a combination of these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment.”
- “…That it is so with the angels of light we piously believe; but that the fallen angels, who by their own default lost that light, did not enjoy this blessedness even before they sinned,”
- Satan, what it means, “murderer from the beginning”, “sins from the beginning”
C14 = explanation of the devil not abiding in the Truth
C15 = Further understanding
Isaiah to the King of Babylon, speaks of the Devil, and also Ezekiel - had some goodness at the start
“His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can be planned or conceived.”
C16 = FIRE -the ranks and differences of Creatures
none < life | generation > without | sentient > sensation | animals > plants | among sentient, intelligence > sentience | immortality > mortality
- “These are the gradations according to the order of nature; but according to the utility each man finds in a thing, there are various standards of value, so that it comes to pass that we prefer some things that have no sensation to some sentient beings. And so strong is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they hold in nature, or, though we know it, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who, e.g., would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas?”
- “seeing that even when valued by men themselves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity),” dignity
- “Thus the reason of one contemplating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers what value a thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titilates the bodily sense.”
- “But of such consequence in rational natures is the weight, so to speak, of will and of love, that though in the order of nature angels rank above men, yet, by the scale of justice, good men are of greater value than bad angels.”
C17 = the Flaw of Wickedness
is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will
- “wickedness can be a flaw or vice only where the nature previously was not vitiated. Vice, too, is so contrary to nature, that it cannot but damage it. And therefore departure from God would be no vice, unless in a nature whose property it was to abide with God. So that even the wicked will is a strong proof of the goodness of the nature.”
C18 = Of the Beauty of the Universe
= “For God would never have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew, unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus embellishing, the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses.”
- “the beauty of the course of this world is achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged, as it were, by an eloquence not of words, but of things.”
C19 = What “God divided the light from the Darkness” means?
A separation between the holy angels and unclean angels
“For He alone could make this discrimination, who was able also before they fell, to foreknow that they would fall, and that, being deprived of the light of truth, they would abide in the darkness of pride.”
C20 = separating light and darkness, day is good
darkness ordained but not approved
C21 = God knows all things, and in plan and act are according to His Will
God is not learning of the goodness of things, but instead teaching that they are good
C22 = Contrary those who thing there is natural evil
= pois in can be good as medicine, food can be bad in the wrong quantity
- “Now God is in such sort a great worker in great things, that He is not less in little things — for these little things are to be measured not by their own greatness (which does not exist), but by the wisdom of their Designer; as, in the visible appearance of a man, if one eyebrow be shaved off, how nearly nothing is taken from the body, but how much from the beauty!— for that is not constituted by bulk, but by the proportion and arrangement of the members.”
C23 = The error of the doctrine of Origen
those who sinned, were given lower and more base places, bodies for those who need correction
The devil is an angel and far greater wickedness than mans wickedness in clay
- “And as to these three answers which I formerly recommended when in the case of any creature the questions are put, Who made it? By what means? Why? That it should be replied, God, By the Word, Because it was good”
C24 = Indications of the Trinity scattered everywhere
= “In this, too, is the origin, the enlightenment, the blessedness of the holy city which is above among the holy angels. For if we inquire whence it is, God created it; or whence its wisdom, God illumined it; or whence its blessedness, God is its bliss. It has its form by subsisting in Him; its enlightenment by contemplating Him; its joy by abiding in Him. It is; it sees; it loves. In God’s eternity is its life; in God’s truth its light; in God’s goodness its joy.”
C25 = The division of Philosophy is in 3 parts: physical, logical, ethical - Like Trinity??
every artificer must have: nature, education, practice
“However, in common parlance, we both use fruits and enjoy uses.”
C26 = Destroying Descartes
= “For if I am deceived, I am. … For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love, which is of equal moment. … Further, as there is no one who does not wish to be happy, so there is no one who does not wish to be. For how can he be happy, if he is nothing?”
C27 = existence, knowledge, love
- “that every man prefers to grieve in a sane mind, rather than to be glad in madness.”
- Is this true anymore?
C28 = Loving the love we have
- “Is it not then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love wherewith we love whatever good we love? For there is also a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to love; and this love is hated by him who loves that wherewith he loves what ought to be loved.”
- of inanimate things “For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit by love, wherever it is borne.”
C29 = The knowledge of the Angels
- They know God in his works, and in Him
- and more importantly, all things in God, more perfectly than directly, even themselves
= “In Him, therefore, they have, as it were, a noonday knowledge; in themselves, a twilight knowledge, according to our former explanations. For there is a great difference between knowing a thing in the design in conformity to which it was made, and knowing it in itself — e.g., the straightness of lines and correctness of figures is known in one way when mentally conceived, in another when described on paper; and justice is known in one way in the unchangeable truth, in another in the spirit of a just man.”
C30 = Hexameron, math of Six
C31 = Seventh Day, repeated 7 times,
math of 7
- “But the holy angels, towards whose society and assembly we sigh while in this our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal home, so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and felicity of rest.”
C32 = To those who speak of things made before the beginning
- silly, and the Trinity is there too
C33 = 2 different communities of Angels, light and dark
- “the one blazing with the holy love of God, the other reeking with the unclean lust of self-advancement.”
C34 = The waters are not eternal, maybe the waters mean angels

==B12== (28Chs)

C1 = There are not 4 cities, but angels and men mixed in 2
= all things are good in their created nature
C2 = Nothing contrary to the Divine
- from esse comes essentia, οὐσία
C3 = Enemies of God, not by nature, but will
C4 = lifeless and irrational creature are still beautiful
= the lesser helps the whole, and adds to the greater
C5 = God not at fault for creatures willing against
C6 = There is no efficient cause for bad will
= “Thus the true cause of the blessedness of the good angels is found to be this, that they cleave to Him who supremely is. And if we ask the cause of the misery of the bad, it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence. And this vice, what else is it called than pride?”
- “They were unwilling, then, to preserve their strength for God; and as adherence to God was the condition of their enjoying an ampler being, they diminished it by preferring themselves to Him. This was the first defect, and the first impoverishment, and the first flaw of their nature, which was created, not indeed supremely existent, but finding its blessedness in the enjoyment of the Supreme Being; while by abandoning Him it should become, not indeed no nature at all, but a nature with a less ample existence, and therefore wretched.”
C7 = Do not expect to find efficient cause for evil wills
C8 = sin loving things wrongly, not in the things itself, misdirected love
C9 =
“There is, then, no natural efficient cause or, if I may be allowed the expression, no essential cause, of the evil will, since itself is the origin of evil in mutable spirits, by which the good of their nature is diminished and corrupted; and the will is made evil by nothing else than defection from God…”
C10 = falsity of the ancient World theory, only 6000 years
C11 = to those who think there are infinite worlds, or the cyclical cosmos theory
C12 = response to infinite worlds, infinite past,
C13 = response to cyclical worlds
C14 = the creation of the human race in time and history
C15 = There were not always creatures
C16 = “eternal times before…” - does not know
C17 = against cycles of worlds
C18 = response to God cannot comprehend the infinite
C19 = seacula seaculorum
C20 = against those who think can leave beatitude
C21 =
C22 =
C23 =
C24 =
C25 =
= “so that without Him it would not be thus, or thus, nor would have any being at all. If, then, in regard to that outward form which the workman’s hand imposes on his work, we do not say that Rome and Alexandria were built by masons and architects, but by the kings by whose will, plan, and resources they were built, so that the one has Romulus, the other Alexander, for its founder; with how much greater reason ought we to say that God alone is the Author of all natures, since He neither uses for His work any material which was not made by Him, nor any workmen who were not also made by Him, and since, if He were, so to speak, to withdraw from created things His creative power,”
C26 =
C27 =
C28 =

==B13== (24Chs) On life and death in sin

C1 =
C2 =
C3 =
C4 =
C5 =
C6 = first death is the separation of body and soul, second death separation between God and soul
C7 =
= “And precious is it, also, because it has proved that what was originally ordained for the punishment of the sinner, has been used for the production of a richer harvest of righteousness. But not on this account should we look upon death as a good thing, for it is diverted to such useful purposes, not by any virtue of its own, but by the divine interference. Death was originally proposed as an object of dread, that sin might not be committed; now it must be undergone that sin may not be committed, or, if committed, be remitted, and the award of righteousness bestowed on him whose victory has earned it.”
C8 = Saints suffer the first death, to avoid the second death
- “we shall see that even when a man dies faithfully and laudably for the truth’s sake, it is still death he is avoiding.”
C9 = the cessation of sensation is in death, not in dying
C10 = all of life is dying
- “For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than we begin to move ceaselessly towards death. For in the whole course of this life (if life we must call it) its mutability tends towards death.”
C11 = when to say someone is “in death”, 3 options: before, during, after: living, dying, dead
C12 = The warning about eating from the tree, which death?
= “whether it was the death of soul, or of body, or of the whole man, or that which is called second death — we must answer, It is all.”
C13 = The punishment of First Parents’ transgression
= “and covered their shame; for though their members remained the same, they had shame now where they had none before. They experienced a new motion of their flesh, which had become disobedient to them, in strict retribution of their own disobedience to God. For the soul, revelling in its own liberty, and scorning to serve God, was itself deprived of the command it had formerly maintained over the body. And because it had willfully deserted its superior Lord, it no longer held its own inferior servant; neither could it hold the flesh subject, as it would always have been able to do had it remained itself subject to God. Then began the flesh to lust against the Spirit, Galatians 5:17 in which strife we are born, deriving from the first transgression a seed of death, and bearing in our members, and in our vitiated nature, the contest or even victory of the flesh.”
C14 = What state was made created in & postlapsarian state
= “And thus, from the bad use of free will, there originated the whole train of evil, which, with its concatenation of miseries, convoys the human race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only being excepted who are freed by the grace of God.”
C15 = Adam forsook God, so God forsook Adam
- “the words, “In the day you eat of it you shall die the death”, should be understood as meaning, “In the day you desert me in disobedience, I will desert you in justice,” yet assuredly in this death the other deaths also were threatened, which were its inevitable consequence.”
C16 = Some think it is not a punishment to for the soul to separate from the body (first death)
- but Plato does say the inferior gods are promised they will not have to undergo that
- “I should be forced laboriously to demonstrate that it is not the body, but the corruptibility of the body, which is a burden to the soul.”
C17 = “Is God powerless to do everything that is special to the Christian’s creed, but powerful to effect everything the Platonists desire?”
C18 = If man can make boats out of non-floating materials, how much more can God make material things to be in heaven?
C19 = some say sinless man would not be immortal
- Porphyry says there is felicity, but not resurrection from the dead
C20 = The resurrected body will be an elevated one, surpassing our parents’ before sin
- “they remember what has been promised by Him who deceives no man, and who gave them security for the safe keeping even of the hairs of their head, they with a longing patience wait in hope of the resurrection of their bodies, in which they have suffered many hardships, and are now to suffer never again.”
- “For the body will not only be better than it was here in its best estate of health, but it will surpass the bodies of our first parents ere they sinned.”
C21 = some just take a allegorical interpretation of Paradise Eden
- most accurately, the allegory of Paradise Eden applies to the Church
- It is still historical, though
- “For if man despise the will of God, he can only destroy himself; and so he learns the difference between consecrating himself to the common good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, My soul is cast down within me, and when chastened, may say, Because of his strength I will wait upon You.”
C22 = spiritual bodies of the saints will still have matter
- do angels have matter? He talks about them eating
- this is the same thing used to show Christ raised bodily from the dead
C23 = original animal body and saved spiritual body
C24 = the breath breathed into Adam, the Spirit breathed into the Apostles
- “They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be called a man; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone, but a being composed of both.”
- “They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be called a man; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone, but a being composed of both.”
- “But we must understand in what sense man is said to be in the image of God, and is yet dust, and to return to the dust. The former is spoken of the rational soul, which God by His breathing, or, to speak more appropriately, by His inspiration, conveyed to man, that is, to his body; but the latter refers to his body, which God formed of the dust, and to which a soul was given, that it might become a living body, that is, that man might become a living soul.”
- It is an “intimation” that the Spirit is with the Father and Son
- use of πνεῦμα for Holy Spirit, vs πνοή for breath

==B14== (28Chs) Two loves, two cities

B1 = misery from disobedience
- “And thus it has come to pass, that though there are very many and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs, speech, arms, and dress, are distinguished by marked differences, yet there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, according to the language of our Scriptures. The one consists of those who wish to live after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the spirit;”
B2 = Carnal life is not just bodily pleasure, but also the outer man
- not
B3 = The sin is from the soul, and the flesh is corrupted
- “nevertheless they are in error who suppose that all the evils of the soul proceed from the body.”
- of Virgil, “he goes on to mention the four most common mental emotions — desire, fear, joy, sorrow”
- “For the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the punishment of the first sin; and it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible.”
- the works of the flesh, the devil doesn’t have these, but still has some of these sins
B4 = man to live according to man vs according to God
B5 = synecdoche of flesh and soul
B6 = desire of the will
= “But the character of the human will is of moment; because, if it is wrong, these motions of the soul will be wrong, but if it is right, they will be not merely blameless, but even praiseworthy. For the will is in them all; yea, none of them is anything else than will.”
B7 = amor and dilectio (love and regard) as the same in scripture
- uses “Peter do you love me?” (dolectio) vs Peter (amo)
B8 = 3 perturbations of the soul (from Stoics, εὐπαθείαι): will, contentment, caution
- the fool has desire, rejoice, fear, sad
- Cicero calls first 3 constantiœ, the last four perturbationes
- 3 εὐπαθείαι and then 4 πάθη
- Do as you would will others to do to you
- The last 4 do affect the wise man
B9 = perturbations can be right affection, according to the Scriptures
- Scriptural account of wise man, St. Paul, Christ
- απάθεια is not necessarily good
- “Whence it already appears in some sort what manner of persons the citizens of the city of God must be in this their pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh — that is to say, according to God, not according to man — and what manner of persons they shall be also in that immortality whither they are journeying. And the city or society of the wicked, who live not according to God, but according to man, and who accept the doctrines of men or devils in the worship of a false and contempt of the true divinity, is shaken with those wicked emotions as by diseases and disturbances. And if there be some of its citizens who seem to restrain and, as it were, temper those passions, they are so elated with ungodly pride, that their disease is as much greater as their pain is less.”
B10 = if perturbation was in our parents before the Fall (?)
B11 = Can restoration of our Parents only be by the Author?
- God repented, only with respect to expectation
- “For though God is said to change His determinations, this is said with reference to man’s expectation, or the order of natural causes, and not with reference to that which the Almighty had foreknown that He would do.”
- demons “preferring to rule with a kind of pomp of empire rather than to be another’s subject, fell from the spiritual Paradise”
B12 = the nature of Man’s first sin
= Very specifically capricious
B13 == That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act
- “And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then — that is to say, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit — was committed by persons who were already wicked.”
- “But man did not so fall away as to become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became more contracted than it was when he clave to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself, that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate to that. And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another name, “self-pleasers”. For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one’s self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition;”
- “It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, You shall be as gods, Genesis 3:5 which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him.”
B14 = The pride of not admitting wrong, worse than the sin
B15 = the justice of the punishment for the original sin
- gave a very brief, very easy precept
- “…because the difficulty of that which was commanded was imperceptible.”
= “For what else is man’s misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot?”
- ” although sometimes a man is angry even at inanimate objects which cannot feel his vengeance, as when one breaks a pen, or crushes a quill that writes badly. Yet even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of revenge, and is, so to speak, a mysterious kind of shadow of [the great law of] retribution, that they who do evil should suffer evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge, which is called anger; there is a lust of money, which goes by the name of avarice; there is a lust of conquering, no matter by what means, which is called opinionativeness; there is a lust of applause, which is named boasting.”
B16 = lust in sexual appetite, doesn’t even obey itself
B17 = nakedness of our first parents, which was only after shameful
B18 = Still sexual activity is hidden, even in corrupted place
B19 = The necessity to bridle anger and lust
B20 = the beastliness of the cynics, Diogenes self-harm did not catch on
B21 = man’s transgression did not annul the blessing of fecundity at creation
- "And they hold that children could no more then than now be begotten without lust, which, after sin, was kindled, observed, blushed for, and covered; and even that children would not have been born in Paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact it turned out. For it was after they were expelled from it that they came together to beget children, and begot them." ??
B22 = the conjugal union was originally made blessed
B23 = Was there going to be generation before sin?
- It seems the number of the saints would still be ordained
- but this would be without lust
- Cicero, the lower parts should be ruled as slaves
B24 = the willed movement of various body parts
- man can flatulate in imitation of singing, a dude could sweat on command
B25 =
B26 =
B27 = Wickedness Did Not Disturb the Order of God’s Providence
B28 = “==Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.== The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.”
= “But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, that God may be all in all.”

==B15== (27Chs)

C1 =
C2 =
C3 =
C9 = larger men, longer life
C10 = can’t prove some of this stuff, but the scriptures are still more reliable
= the difference in length of years in textual tradition
C11 = Methuselah’s age, and if he lived after the flood
= Augustine thinks the Septuagint is more reliable
C12 = the argument that the ages are actually using different dating than our current calendar

C14 = the sons mentioned might not be the oldest

C22 = Sons of God as member of the City of God
- “Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.”
C27 = what about these arguments?

==B16== (Chs)

C1 =
C2 =
C8 = “But whoever is anywhere born a man, that is, a rational, mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he presents in color, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some power, part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he springs from that one protoplast. We can distinguish the common human nature from that which is peculiar, and therefore wonderful.”

C11 = the Hebrew language from Heber and Peleg’s line
C12 = “And thus, as the single family of Noah was preserved through the deluge of water to renew the human race, so, in the deluge of superstition that flooded the whole world, there remained but the one family of Terah in which the seed of God’s city was preserved.”

C19 = is Augustine’s argument acceptable?

==B17== (Chs)

C1 =
C2 =
C3 =
C6 =
- “Non autem quasi nesciat ubi sit, ita sibi hominem Deus quaerit; sed per hominem more hominum loquitur, quia et sic loquendo nos quaerit.”
- “through man speaking, in human standards speaks, because even thus speaking, seeks us”
C10 =

==B18== (Chs)

C1 =
C2 = “The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed for either suffices for none, or not for all, because it is not the very thing. For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any sort of peace and safety to freedom itself; so that they who chose to die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at. For in almost all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those who happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destruction. This does not take place without the providence of God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings. Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of the city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans. First came the one, then the other. The former arose in the east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west. I may speak of other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these.”
C3 =

C10 =

==B19== (28 Chs) Thesis

C1 = 288 sects of philosophers on happiness from Varro
C2 = Ultimately, there are 3 means of coming to it
lettered leisure, or public business, or the alternation of these
C4 = Christians differ from philosophers in understanding of supreme happiness
C5 = the social life is frequently disturbed by many distresses
C6 = erring human judgements about hidden truth
C7 = separation of man by language and war
C8 = friendship of good men not sufficient, as anxiety is still present in this life
C9 = unsurety of the friendship of angels
C10 = reward for the saints after lifes trials
C11 = Happiness of the Eternal Peace, true end
C12 = It is for the desire of peace that war is waged.
Peace is even to be sought out by animals
C13 = Thesis of the whole thing order, concord, obedience, peace
peace in equal to equal,
then peace in superior to inferior, obedience
= “pax hominum ordinata concordia.” | “Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord”

My better translation: "the peace of the Heavenly City is the most well-ordered and most one-hearted society enjoying God and reciprocally in God, the peace of all things is the tranquility of order. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order."

Both "Well-ordered" and "One-hearted" are in the superlative, so both have adjectives of "most". Additionally, these descriptions are of an enjoyment, of God first, and then of a reciprocal and mutual (inuicem) enjoyment of each other in God. Unless, someone would begin to think that St. Augustine thinks Heaven to be a sterile, and cloud-floating existence. We shall delight in others more, because we shall be delighting in them as God sees them, which is far better than we or they can.

→ “the peace of the Heavenly City is the most well-ordered and most one-hearted society enjoying God and reciprocally in God, the peace of all things is the tranquility of order. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order.”
C14 = “even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others—not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy.”
C15 = slavery and liberty, slavery to sin
- “He did not intend that His rational creature, who was made in His image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation,—not man over man, but man over the beasts. And hence the righteous men in primitive times were made shepherds of cattle rather than kings of men, God intending thus to teach us what the relative position of the creatures is, and what the desert of sin; for it is with justice, we believe, that the condition of slavery is the result of sin.”
- “The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow,”
- “And beyond question it is a happier thing to be the slave of a man than of a lust; for even this very lust of ruling, to mention no others, lays waste men’s hearts with the most ruthless dominion.”
- Slaves might make their slavery something of freedom, in the freedom of Christianity
C16 = equitable rule
- “but, until they reach that home, masters ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants their service. And if any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected either by word or blow, or some kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits, that he may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which he had dislocated himself.”
C17 = peace and discord between heavenly and earthly cities
- “In its pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace every good action towards God and man; for the life of the city is a social life.”
- the obedience to temporal rule accidentally
C18 = skepticism of New Academy vs certitude of Faith
C19 = Christian peoples appearance and rule
Charity will break from contemplation
C20 = Saints in this life are bleatified, only in hope
C21 = Was there ever a Roman Republic? no, not even a society
C22 =
C23 =
C24 =
C25 =
C26 =

==B20== (30 Chs) Last Judgement

C1 = Final Judgement
-note always punished as much as should be
-“And men are punished by God for their sins often visibly, always secretly, either in this life or after death, although no man acts rightly save by the assistance of divine aid; and no man or devil acts unrighteously save by the permission of the divine and most just judgment.”
- “For that day is properly called the day of judgment, because in it there shall be no room left for the ignorant questioning why this wicked person is happy and that righteous man unhappy. In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.”
C2 = i human affairs God’s Judgment is Present, but maybe not known
C3 =
C4 = scriptural proofs of final judgements
C5 = scriptural proofs of final judgements, more, NT
C6 = two resurrections: earthlyand spiritual
C7 = two resurrections
C8 = not hyper literal
C9 =
- “Certainly it is in this present time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, and of whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his treasure things new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall gather out the tares which He suffered to grow with the wheat till the harvest, as He explains in the words The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered together and burned with fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all offenses. Matthew 13:39-41 Can He mean out of that kingdom in which are no offenses? Then it must be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are gathered.”
= “understanding what he afterwards says, reigned with Christ a thousand years, Revelation 20:4 — that is, the souls of the martyrs not yet restored to their bodies. For the souls of the pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would be no remembrance made of them at the altar of God in the partaking of the body of Christ, nor would it do any good in danger to run to His baptism, that we might not pass from this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if by penitence or a bad conscience any one may be severed from His body.”
C10 = refuting those who say the resurrection is not bodily
- “In them the second death has no power, are added the words, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years; and this refers not to the bishops alone, and presbyters, who are now specially called priests in the Church; but as we call all believers Christians on account of the mystical chrism, so we call all priests because they are members of the one Priest.”
- HE AKNOWLEDGES THE CHANGE IN WORDING FOR THE MINISTY OF ORDERS
C11 = Gog and Magog persecuting the Church
- ‘gog’ = roof and ‘magog’ = from the roof
C12 = Whether the Fire that Came Down Out of Heaven and Devoured Them Refers to the Last Punishment of the Wicked
C13 = if the 3.5 years is in the 1000 years of the antichrist
= Persecution is when the Saints reign most obviously
- “But who can dare to say that His members shall not reign with Him at that very juncture when they shall most of all, and with the greatest fortitude, cleave to Him, and when the glory of resistance and the crown of martyrdom shall be more conspicuous in proportion to the hotness of the battle?”
C14 = Of the Damnation of the Devil and His Adherents; And a Sketch of the Bodily Resurrection of All the Dead, and of the Final Retributive Judgment
C15 = Who the Dead are Who are Given Up to Judgment by the Sea, and by Death and Hell
= the men in the sea are in this mortal life
C16 = New Heaven and New Earth, Revelation 21
- “no more of the surgings and restlessness of human life, and it is this which is symbolized by the sea.”
C17 = Endless Glory of the City of God / Church
C18 = St. Peter on the Last Judgement
C19 = St. Paul to Thessalonians on the antichrist
- the seduced will already have been seduced in sin and of leaving God, where that is made manifest
C20 = St. Paul to Thessalonians on Resurrection from the dead and rapture
C21 = Isaiah on Resurrection from the dead
C22 = meaning of the good going out to see the torments
- knowing of the punishment
C23 = Daniel on the antichrist
- recommends Jerome’s work on Daniel
C24 = David in the Psalms predicting the end of the world
- Porphyry is dumb
C25 = Malachi or Malachias on the Last Judgement
C26 = The Saints offering sacrifice to God “in primitive days and former years”
- ” For I am the Lord your God, and I am not changed. It is as if He said, Though your fault has changed you for the worse, and my grace has changed you for the better, I am not changed.”
C27 = separation of good from bad
C28 = Moses must be Spiritually understood instead of understanding the law carnally
- “He goes on to say that his efforts to solve this most difficult problem, which arises when the good seem to be wretched and the wicked happy, were in vain until he went into the sanctuary of God, and understood the last things. For in the last judgment things shall not be so; but in the manifest felicity of the righteous and manifest misery of the wicked quite another state of things shall appear.”
C29 = Elijah will come
- “Another and a preferable sense can be found in the words of the Septuagint translators, who have translated Scripture with an eye to prophecy, the sense,”
C30 = Conclusion and Summary, Christ will come, even if not named by the OT

==B21== (27 Chs) Last Judgement

C1 = order
C2 = possible for bodies to go on forever
- gives examples of animals that don’t exist
C3 = does suffering only happen in the destruction of the body?
- we only have experience of mortal bodies
C4 = Bodies which exist in fire
- volcanoes and salamanders
- peacocks are like McDonalds
= strange material properties, who is to know all of the kinds of things to expect of them?
C5 = There are many things reason cannot explain before discovering it
- salt of Agrigentum in Sicily, sounds like sodium or galium
- asbestos
C6 = Reasonableness of belief in the reports of materials and creatures, which anyways proves the above point
= “But, as I have already said in the eighteenth book of this work, we do not hold it necessary to believe all that profane history contains, since, as Varro says, even historians themselves disagree on so many points, that one would think they intended and were at pains to do so; but we believe, if we are disposed, those things which are not contradicted by these books, which we do not hesitate to say we are bound to believe.”
C7 = Isn’t a larger miracle to say that God created the world, than it is to say for on thing which happens in that world?
= “For my own part, I do not wish all the marvels I have cited to be rashly accepted, for I do not myself believe them implicitly, save those which have either come under my own observation, or which any one can readily verify, such as…”
“For what better and stronger reason for such things can be given than to say that the Almighty is able to bring them to pass, and will bring them to pass, having predicted them in those books in which many other marvels which have already come to pass were predicted? Those things which are regarded as impossible will be accomplished according to the word, and by the power of that God who predicted and effected that the incredulous nations should believe incredible wonders.”
C8 = That It is Not Contrary to Nature That, in an Object Whose Nature is Known, There Should Be Discovered an Alteration of the Properties Which Have Been Known as Its Natural Properties
C9 = Hell, nature of eternal punishment
C10 = Whether the Fire of Hell, If It Be Material Fire, Can Burn the Wicked Spirits Immaterial?
C11 = Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves Lasted?
= “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?”
C12 = How evil that first sin was, which forsook God
C13 = Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After Death are Purgatorial
C14 =
C15 =
C16 = The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate
C17 = Against those who say that no man shall be eternally punished
C18 =
C19 =
C23 = about apokatastasis, universalism, scripture citations
C24 = against those who say the saints can pray them out of Hell

B22
C1 = a
- “For it is He who in the beginning created the world full of all visible and intelligible beings, among which He created nothing better than those spirits whom He endowed with intelligence, and made capable of contemplating and enjoying Him, and united in our society, which we call the holy and heavenly city, and in which the material of their sustenance and blessedness is God Himself, as it were their common food and nourishment.”
C6 = That Rome Romulus a god Because Loved Him; But Church Loved Christ Because It Believed Him to Be God
= “The former city loved its founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed Christ to be God, and therefore loved Him.”
C8 = cure which was wrought upon Innocentius

C22 = “From this hell upon earth there is no escape, save through the grace of the Saviour Christ, our God and Lord. The very name Jesus shows this, for it means Saviour;”

“For if we attribute them to ourselves, they shall be servile; for it is said of the Sabbath, You shall do no servile work in it. Deuteronomy 5:14 Wherefore also it is said by Ezekiel the prophet, And I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctify them. Ezekiel 20:12 This knowledge shall be perfected when we shall be perfectly at rest, and shall perfectly know that He is God.
This Sabbath shall appear still more clearly if we count the ages as days, in accordance with the periods of time defined in Scripture, for that period will be found to be the seventh. The first age, as the first day, extends from Adam to the deluge; the second from the deluge to Abraham, equalling the first, not in length of time, but in the number of generations, there being ten in each. From Abraham to the advent of Christ there are, as the evangelist Matthew calculates, three periods, in each of which are fourteen generations—one period from Abraham to David, a second from David to the captivity, a third from the captivity to the birth of Christ in the flesh. There are thus five ages in all. The sixth is now passing, and cannot be measured by any number of generations, as it has been said, It is not for you to know the times, which the Father has put in His own power. Acts 1:7 After this period God shall rest as on the seventh day, when He shall give us (who shall be the seventh day) rest in Himself. But there is not now space to treat of these ages; suffice it to say that the seventh shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening, but by the Lord’s day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, and prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?”

Source
Augustine, City of God (introduction)
Augustine of Hippo, The City of God

Not By Lies

Explorer

Civitas Dei, TEST Notes