Chapter X.—That All Things Exist that They May Perish, and that We are Not Safe Unless God Watches Over Us.

15. “Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”187    Ps. lxxx. 19. For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, unless towards Thee, it is affixed to sorrows,188    See iv. cc. 1, 12, and vi. c. 16, below. yea, though it is affixed to beauteous things without Thee and without itself. And yet they were not unless they were from Thee. They rise and set; and by rising, they begin as it were to be; and they grow, that they may become perfect; and when perfect, they wax old and perish; and all wax not old, but all perish. Therefore when they rise and tend to be, the more rapidly they grow that they may be, so much the more they hasten not to be. This is the way of them.189    It is interesting in connection with the above passages to note what Augustin says elsewhere as to the origin of the law of death in the sin of our first parents. In his De Gen. ad Lit. (vi. 25) he speaks thus of their condition in the garden, and the provision made for the maintenance of their life: “Aliud est non posse mori, sicut quasdam naturas immortales creavit Deus; aliud est autem posse non mori, secundum quem modum primus creatus est homo immortalis.” Adam, he goes on to say, was able to avert death, by partaking of the tree of life. He enlarges on this doctrine in Book xiii. De Civ. Dei. He says (sec. 20): “Our first parents decayed not with years, nor drew nearer to death—a condition secured to them in God’s marvellous grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise.” Again (sec. 19) he says: “Why do the philosophers find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches, namely, that our first parents were so created, that, if they had not sinned, they would not have been dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies?” That this was the doctrine of the early Church has been fully shown by Bishop Bull in his State of Man before the Fall, vol. ii. Theophilus of Antioch was of opinion (Ad Autolyc. c. 24) that Adam might have gone on from strength to strength, until at last he “would have been taken up into heaven.” See also on this subject Dean Buckland’s Sermon on Death; and Delitzsch, Bibl. Psychol. vi. secs. 1 and 2. Thus much hast Thou given them, because they are parts of things, which exist not all at the same time, but by departing and succeeding they together make up the universe, of which they are parts. And even thus is our speech accomplished by signs emitting a sound; but this, again, is not perfected unless one word pass away when it has sounded its part, in order that another may succeed it. Let my soul praise Thee out of all these things, O God, the Creator of all; but let not my soul be affixed to these things by the glue of love, through the senses of the body. For they go whither they were to go, that they might no longer be; and they rend her with pestilent desires, because she longs to be, and yet loves to rest in what she loves. But in these things no place is to be found; they stay not—they flee; and who is he that is able to follow them with the senses of the flesh? Or who can grasp them, even when they are near? For tardy is the sense of the flesh, because it is the sense of the flesh, and its boundary is itself. It sufficeth for that for which it was made, but it is not sufficient to stay things running their course from their appointed starting-place to the end appointed. For in Thy word, by which they were created, they hear the fiat, “Hence and hitherto.”

CAPUT X. Labiles creaturae, nec in eis potest anima requiescere.

15. Deus virtutum, converte nos, et ostende faciem tuam et salvi erimus (Psal. LXXIX, 4). Nam quoquoversum se verterit anima hominis, ad dolores figitur alibi praeterquam in te; tametsi figitur in pulchris extra te et extra se. Quae tamen nulla essent nisi essent abs te, quae oriuntur et occidunt, et oriendo quasi esse incipiunt, et crescunt ut perficiantur, et perfecta senescunt et intereunt: et non omnia senescunt, et omnia intereunt. Ergo cum oriuntur et tendunt esse; quo magis celeriter crescunt ut sint, eo magis festinant ut non sint: sic est modus eorum. Tantum dedisti eis, quia partes sunt rerum, quae non sunt omnes simul; sed decedendo ac succedendo agunt omnes universum, cujus partes sunt. Ecce sic peragitur et sermo noster per signa sonantia. Non enim erit totus sermo, si unum verbum non decedat cum sonuerit partes suas, ut succedat aliud. Laudet 0700 te ex illis anima mea, Deus creator omnium; sed non in eis infigatur glutine amoris per sensus corporis. Eunt enim quo ibant, ut non sint , et conscindunt eam desideriis pestilentiosis; quoniam ipsa esse vult, et requiescere amat in eis quae amat. In illis autem non est ubi: quia non stant, fugiunt; et quis ea sequitur sensu carnis? aut quis ea comprehendit, vel cum praesto sunt? Tardus est enim sensus carnis, quoniam sensus carnis est, et ipse est modus ejus. Sufficit ad aliud ad quod factus est: ad illud autem non sufficit, ut teneat transcurrentia ab initio debito usque ad finem debitum. In verbo enim tuo per quod creantur, ibi audiunt: Hinc, et hucusque.