Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But these things are declared to be false by the loud testimony\r\nof religion and truth; for religion truthfully promises a\r\ntrue blessedness, of which we shall be eternally assured, and\r\nwhich cannot be interrupted by any disaster. Let us therefore\r\nkeep to the straight path, which is Christ, and, with Him\r\nas our Guide and Saviour, let us turn away in heart and\r\nmind from the unreal and futile cycles of the godless. Porphyry,\r\nPlatonist though he was, abjured the opinion of his\r\nschool, that in these cycles souls are ceaselessly passing away\r\nand returning, either being struck with the extravagance of\r\nthe idea, or sobered by his knowledge of Christianity. As I\r\nmentioned in the tenth book,<a id=\"FNanchor_559_559\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_559_559\">[559]</a> he preferred saying that the\r\nsoul, as it had been sent into the world that it might know\r\nevil, and be purged and delivered from it, was never again\r\nexposed to such an experience after it had once returned to<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_512\">[Pg 512]</a></span>\r\nthe Father. And if he abjured the tenets of his school, how\r\nmuch more ought we Christians to abominate and avoid an\r\nopinion so unfounded and hostile to our faith? But having\r\ndisposed of these cycles and escaped out of them, no necessity\r\ncompels us to suppose that the human race had no beginning\r\nin time, on the ground that there is nothing new in\r\nnature which, by I know not what cycles, has not at some\r\nprevious period existed, and is not hereafter to exist again.\r\nFor if the soul, once delivered, as it never was before, is never\r\nto return to misery, then there happens in its experience something\r\nwhich never happened before; and this, indeed, something\r\nof the greatest consequence, to wit, the secure entrance\r\ninto eternal felicity. And if in an immortal nature there can\r\noccur a novelty, which never has been, nor ever shall be, reproduced\r\nby any cycle, why is it disputed that the same may\r\noccur in mortal natures? If they maintain that blessedness\r\nis no new experience to the soul, but only a return to that\r\nstate in which it has been eternally, then at least its deliverance\r\nfrom misery is something new, since, by their own showing,\r\nthe misery from which it is delivered is itself, too, a new\r\nexperience. And if this new experience fell out by accident,\r\nand was not embraced in the order of things appointed by\r\nDivine Providence, then where are those determinate and\r\nmeasured cycles in which no new thing happens, but all\r\nthings are reproduced as they were before? If, however, this\r\nnew experience was embraced in that providential order of\r\nnature (whether the soul was exposed to the evil of this world\r\nfor the sake of discipline, or fell into it by sin), then it is\r\npossible for new things to happen which never happened\r\nbefore, and which yet are not extraneous to the order of\r\nnature. And if the soul is able by its own imprudence to\r\ncreate for itself a new misery, which was not unforeseen by the\r\nDivine Providence, but was provided for in the order of nature\r\nalong with the deliverance from it, how can we, even with\r\nall the rashness of human vanity, presume to deny that God\r\ncan create new things—new to the world, but not to Him—which\r\nHe never before created, but yet foresaw from all\r\neternity? If they say that it is indeed true that ransomed\r\nsouls return no more to misery, but that even so no new thing<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_513\">[Pg 513]</a></span>\r\nhappens, since there always have been, now are, and ever shall\r\nbe a succession of ransomed souls, they must at least grant\r\nthat in this case there are new souls to whom the misery and\r\nthe deliverance from it are new. For if they maintain that\r\nthose souls out of which new men are daily being made (from\r\nwhose bodies, if they have lived wisely, they are so delivered\r\nthat they never return to misery) are not new, but have\r\nexisted from eternity, they must logically admit that they are\r\ninfinite. For however great a finite number of souls there\r\nwere, that would not have sufficed to make perpetually new\r\nmen from eternity,—men whose souls were to be eternally\r\nfreed from this mortal state, and never afterwards to return to\r\nit. And our philosophers will find it hard to explain how there\r\nis an infinite number of souls in an order of nature which\r\nthey require shall be finite, that it may be known by God.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK TWELFTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-876"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"899a6963e66fed1a7c51e10df1025538c9ac236e5ea48d1221b5946216a0506c","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_559_559","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_559_559","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_559_559\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_559_559\"><span class=\"label\">[559]</span></a> C. <a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#chap30\">30</a>.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_559_559","text_sha256":"13acecc1c3ce8d38299e521c9b79c31d8475625160f4d4580571c90ea14390d1","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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