{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>We have said as much as the scope of this work demands\r\nregarding these two things, to wit, our existence, and our\r\nknowledge of it, and how much they are loved by us, and\r\nhow there is found even in the lower creatures a kind of likeness\r\nof these things, and yet with a difference. We have yet\r\nto speak of the love wherewith they are loved, to determine\r\nwhether this love itself is loved. And doubtless it is; and\r\nthis is the proof. Because in men who are justly loved, it is\r\nrather love itself that is loved; for he is not justly called a\r\ngood man who knows what is good, but who loves it. Is it\r\nnot then obvious that we love in ourselves the very love\r\nwherewith we love whatever good we love? For there is\r\nalso a love wherewith we love that which we ought not to\r\nlove; and this love is hated by him who loves that wherewith\r\nhe loves what ought to be loved. For it is quite possible\r\nfor both to exist in one man. And this co-existence is\r\ngood for a man, to the end that this love which conduces to\r\nour living well may grow, and the other, which leads us to\r\nevil may decrease, until our whole life be perfectly healed\r\nand transmuted into good. For if we were beasts, we should\r\nlove the fleshly and sensual life, and this would be our\r\nsufficient good; and when it was well with us in respect of<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_472\">[Pg 472]</a></span>\r\nit, we should seek nothing beyond. In like manner, if we\r\nwere trees, we could not, indeed, in the strict sense of the\r\nword, love anything; nevertheless we should seem, as it were,\r\nto long for that by which we might become more abundantly\r\nand luxuriantly fruitful. If we were stones, or waves, or\r\nwind, or flame, or anything of that kind, we should want,\r\nindeed, both sensation and life, yet should possess a kind of\r\nattraction towards our own proper position and natural order.\r\nFor the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love,\r\nwhether they are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards\r\nby their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity,\r\nas the spirit by love, whithersoever it is borne.<a id=\"FNanchor_494_494\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_494_494\">[494]</a> But we are\r\nmen, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity is\r\ntrue, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is eternal and\r\ntrue, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity,\r\nwithout confusion, without separation; and, therefore, while, as\r\nwe run over all the works which He has established, we may\r\ndetect, as it were, His footprints, now more and now less\r\ndistinct even in those things that are beneath us, since they\r\ncould not so much as exist, or be bodied forth in any shape,\r\nor follow and observe any law, had they not been made by\r\nHim who supremely is, and is supremely good and supremely\r\nwise; yet in ourselves beholding His image, let us, like that\r\nyounger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and\r\nreturn to Him from whom by our sin we had departed.\r\nThere our being will have no death, our knowledge no error,\r\nour love no mishap. But now, though we are assured of our\r\npossession of these three things, not on the testimony of others,\r\nbut by our own consciousness of their presence, and because\r\nwe see them with our own most truthful interior vision, yet,\r\nas we cannot of ourselves know how long they are to continue,\r\nand whether they shall never cease to be, and what issue their\r\ngood or bad use will lead to, we seek for others who can\r\nacquaint us of these things, if we have not already found\r\nthem. Of the trustworthiness of these witnesses, there will,\r\nnot now, but subsequently, be an opportunity of speaking.\r\nBut in this book let us go on as we have begun, with God's\r\nhelp, to speak of the city of God, not in its state of pilgrimage<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_473\">[Pg 473]</a></span>\r\nand mortality, but as it exists ever immortal in the\r\nheavens,—that is, let us speak of the holy angels who maintain\r\ntheir allegiance to God, who never were, nor ever shall be,\r\napostate, between whom and those who forsook light eternal\r\nand became darkness, God, as we have already said, made at\r\nthe first a separation.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK ELEVENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-814"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"293906a869f177cd2c2d530fe20ea75dc45fa8dacf66fc2dedf2fbc6fd74cbdd","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_494_494","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_494_494","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_494_494\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_494_494\"><span class=\"label\">[494]</span></a> Compare the <i>Confessions</i>, xiii. 9.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_494_494","text_sha256":"b2617f6234c07c7f3515dfcb03c9af3bb00328e19474143427fa06a164be2a28","verified":false,"work_id":null}