{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But in order to your acquiescence in this truth, it is lowliness\r\nthat is requisite, and to this it is extremely difficult to bend\r\nyou. For what is there incredible, especially to men like you,\r\naccustomed to speculation, which might have predisposed you\r\nto believe in this,—what is there incredible, I say, in the\r\nassertion that God assumed a human soul and body? You\r\nyourselves ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul,\r\nwhich is, after all, the human soul, that you maintain that it\r\ncan become consubstantial with that intelligence of the Father\r\nwhom you believe in as the Son of God. What incredible\r\nthing is it, then, if some one soul be assumed by Him in an\r\nineffable and unique manner for the salvation of many?<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_425\">[Pg 425]</a></span>\r\nMoreover, our nature itself testifies that a man is incomplete\r\nunless a body be united with the soul. This certainly would\r\nbe more incredible, were it not of all things the most common;\r\nfor we should more easily believe in a union between spirit\r\nand spirit, or, to use your own terminology, between the\r\nincorporeal and the incorporeal, even though the one were\r\nhuman, the other divine, the one changeable and the other\r\nunchangeable, than in a union between the corporeal and the\r\nincorporeal. But perhaps it is the unprecedented birth of a\r\nbody from a virgin that staggers you? But, so far from this\r\nbeing a difficulty, it ought rather to assist you to receive our\r\nreligion, that a miraculous person was born miraculously. Or,\r\ndo you find a difficulty in the fact that, after His body had\r\nbeen given up to death, and had been changed into a higher\r\nkind of body by resurrection, and was now no longer mortal\r\nbut incorruptible, He carried it up into heavenly places?\r\nPerhaps you refuse to believe this, because you remember that\r\nPorphyry, in these very books from which I have cited so\r\nmuch, and which treat of the return of the soul, so frequently\r\nteaches that a body of every kind is to be escaped from, in\r\norder that the soul may dwell in blessedness with God. But\r\nhere, in place of following Porphyry, you ought rather to have\r\ncorrected him, especially since you agree with him in believing\r\nsuch incredible things about the soul of this visible world and\r\nhuge material frame. For, as scholars of Plato, you hold that\r\nthe world is an animal, and a very happy animal, which you\r\nwish to be also everlasting. How, then, is it never to be loosed\r\nfrom a body, and yet never lose its happiness, if, in order to\r\nthe happiness of the soul, the body must be left behind? The\r\nsun, too, and the other stars, you not only acknowledge to be\r\nbodies, in which you have the cordial assent of all seeing men,\r\nbut also, in obedience to what you reckon a profounder insight,\r\nyou declare that they are very blessed animals, and eternal,\r\ntogether with their bodies. Why is it, then, that when the\r\nChristian faith is pressed upon you, you forget, or pretend to\r\nignore, what you habitually discuss or teach? Why is it that\r\nyou refuse to be Christians, on the ground that you hold\r\nopinions which, in fact, you yourselves demolish? Is it not\r\nbecause Christ came in lowliness, and ye are proud? The<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_426\">[Pg 426]</a></span>\r\nprecise nature of the resurrection bodies of the saints may\r\nsometimes occasion discussion among those who are best read\r\nin the Christian Scriptures; yet there is not among us the\r\nsmallest doubt that they shall be everlasting, and of a nature\r\nexemplified in the instance of Christ's risen body. But whatever\r\nbe their nature, since we maintain that they shall be\r\nabsolutely incorruptible and immortal, and shall offer no\r\nhindrance to the soul's contemplation by which it is fixed\r\nin God, and as you say that among the celestials the bodies\r\nof the eternally blessed are eternal, why do you maintain that,\r\nin order to blessedness, every body must be escaped from?\r\nWhy do you thus seek such a plausible reason for escaping\r\nfrom the Christian faith, if not because, as I again say, Christ\r\nis humble and ye proud? Are ye ashamed to be corrected?\r\nThis is the vice of the proud. It is, forsooth, a degradation\r\nfor learned men to pass from the school of Plato to the discipleship\r\nof Christ, who by His Spirit taught a fisherman to think\r\nand to say, \"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word\r\nwas with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the\r\nbeginning with God. All things were made by Him; and\r\nwithout Him was not anything made that was made. In Him\r\nwas life; and the life was the light of men. And the light\r\nshineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_427_427\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_427_427\">[427]</a>\r\nThe old saint Simplicianus, afterwards bishop of Milan, used to\r\ntell me that a certain Platonist was in the habit of saying that\r\nthis opening passage of the holy gospel, entitled \"According\r\nto John,\" should be written in letters of gold, and hung up in\r\nall churches in the most conspicuous place. But the proud\r\nscorn to take God for their Master, because \"the Word was\r\nmade flesh and dwelt among us.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_428_428\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_428_428\">[428]</a> So that, with these miserable\r\ncreatures, it is not enough that they are sick, but they boast\r\nof their sickness, and are ashamed of the medicine which could\r\nheal them. And, doing so, they secure not elevation, but a more\r\ndisastrous fall.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK TENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-742"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"8b1126b64c9bff83aa5ba901257b77e9a6a193bc6234c8e08ae77217d5f16d7f","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":[{"book":"JHN","chapter":1,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"John i. 1-5","verse":1,"verse_end":5}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_427_427","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_427_427","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_427_427\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_427_427\"><span class=\"label\">[427]</span></a> John i. 1-5.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_427_427","text_sha256":"7b8ab6ee4e81995b9a9f49a639e72fe5f2dda92e08c8f32e7407e67a7a63e448","verified":false,"work_id":null}