THE CITY OF GOD AND THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. SAN AGUSTIN

 

BOOK THIRTEENTH. DEATH, PENALTY OF THE SIN OF ADAM. CAUSE OF OUR MISFORTUNE

  First chapter. From the fall of the first man, by whom we inherit being mortal

  Since we have aired the rugged and difficult questions about the origin of our century and the beginning of the human lineage, it seems the methodical order demands that we continue the dispute about the fall of the first man, or, rather, of the first men; and the origin and propagation of man's death. Because God did not create men in the same condition as angels, who, although they sinned, could not die; but of such a condition that, complying with the obligation of obedience, they could achieve, without the intervention of death, angelic immortality and blissful eternity, and being disobedient they incurred the death penalty by means of a most just condemnation, as we have already suggested. in the previous book.

  Chapter II. Of the death that the soul can suffer, free from the body, and of that to which the soul is subject united to the body.

  The time seems to have come for me to deal more accurately and scrupulously with the two kinds of death; for, although it is truly said that the soul of man is immortal, nevertheless, it also suffers its peculiar death. It is said to be immortal because in a certain way it never ceases to live and feel, and the body is therefore mortal, because it can totally lack life, and by itself it cannot live in any way. Thus, the death of the soul occurs when the Lord forsakes it, as well as that of the body when the soul leaves it; Therefore, the death of one and the other, that is, of the whole man, occurs when the soul, abandoned by God, abandons the body; because thus neither she lives with God, nor the body with her. 

This death of all man is followed by the one whom the authority of Sacred Scripture calls the second death, which the Savior signified to us when he says:  <Fear him who has the power to cast body and soul into hell forever. >; Which, as it does not happen before the soul has joined the body, but afterwards, so that there is no force that can divide and separate them, can cause admiration that we say that the body dies without being abandoned by the soul; before if, being animated and feeling, he dies tormented. Because in that last and eternal pain (of which we will deal when it is conducive in its respective place), it can very well be said that the soul dies because it does not live with God; ¿But let the body die, how can it happen, if it lives with the soul? He could not otherwise feel the bodily torments that he has to suffer after the resurrection. Shall we say, perhaps, that because life, whatever it may be, is a singular good, and pain an evil, that is why it should not be said that the body lives where the soul is not the cause of living,but to suffer with pain? So the soul lives with God when it lives well, because it cannot live well if God is not working in it that is good; but the body lives with the soul when the soul lives in the body, whether she lives, she no longer lives with God. Because the life of the wicked in the bodies is not the life of the souls, but of the bodies, which souls can give them, even if they are dead, that is, abandoned by God, without being left by life itself, whoever that is, by which they are also immortal. But in the last and final condemnation, although man will not cease to feel, however, because the same sense will not be soft by delight, nor healthy by stillness, but painful by pain, not without reason they call it a better death than life, and for the same reason the second, because it is after the first that the division of the natures that were together is made, whether of God and of the soul, or of the soul and of the body;so that the first death of the body can be said to be good for the good and bad for the bad; but the second, without given, which, as it is not of any good, thus it is good for none.

Chapter III. If death, which was communicated to all men through the sin of the first men, is also the penalty of sin in the saints.

  But there is a doubt that is not a reason to omit: if really death, with which the soul and the body are divided, is good for the good. Because if so, how can it be defended that it is also a penalty for sin? For the first men would surely not incur it if they did not sin; ¿And in what way can it be good for the good that could only happen to the bad? And, on the other hand, if it could only happen to the bad, it could no longer be good for the good, before they should not suffer it; ¿Well, why should there be pain where there was nothing to punish? For this reason we must confess that, although God created the first men in such a way that if they did not sin they would not incur any kind of death, nevertheless, those who first sinned, He condemned to death so that everything that was born of their descendants were also subject to the same punishment, since nothing else was to be born from them than they had been. For the penalty, depending on the gravity of that guilt, worsened the nature of such conformity that what criminally preceded the first men who sinned, the same continued as naturally in the others who were born. For man was not formed from another man, just as man was formed from dust; for dust to make man served as matter, but man to beget man served as father. Therefore, the flesh is not what the earth is, although the flesh was made from the earth; whereas what is the father man is also the son man. The entire human lineage that was to be propagated through the woman in her children and generation existed in the first man when the first two married people received the divine sentence of their condemnation; and what man was made, not when God created him, but when he sinned and was punished, that is what he engendered regarding the origin of sin and death.

Man was not reduced with sin or with pain to the ignorance and weakness of the soul and body that we observe in children (who in this ignorance and imbecility God wanted them to enter life, like the children of the beasts, the tender children of parents that he had condemned to a life and death typical of beasts, as Sacred Scripture says:  <Man, when he lived honestly in original justice, did not understand, did not use reason, and sinning, he became similar to the beasts, who have no speech or reason, being mortal like them>; And we still observe in children that in the use and movement of their limbs, and in the sense of wanting or avoiding, they are even weaker and more indolent than the most tender children of other animals, as if human virtue with such greater excellence the more he pauses in expanding his empire, withdrawing him back like an arrow when the bow is drawn); So not only did the first man fall with his illicit and vain presumption, or they threw him and condemned with the most just decree the rudeness and weakness of children, but human nature remained in him corrupted and changed, so that he suffered in his members disobedience and repugnance of lust, and be subject to the need to die, and thus engender what came to be through their fault and the penalty and punishment that they did in him, that is,children subject to sin and death. And when children are freed from this subjection of sin by grace, of Jesus Christ, our mediator and redeemer; They can only suffer the death that separates and divides the soul from the body, but they do not pass to that second of eternal penalties, because they are already free from the obligation of sin.

Chapter IV. Why those who are absolved from sin by the grace of regeneration are not absolved from death; that is, of the penalty of sin.

But if anyone doubts to believe that they also suffer this death, if this is also the penalty of sin, those whose guilt was forgiven by grace, this question has already been dealt with and investigated in another book that I entitled The Baptism of Children, where I said that the The reason why the soul had to undergo the experience of separation from the body, even though it was absolved from the bond of sin, was because if the immortality of the body were subsequently followed by the sacrament of regeneration, faith itself would lose its strength and vigor; which then is faith, when one waits with hope for what is not yet seen in reality. And with the virtue and contrast of faith in mature age, men were to overcome the fear of death, which mainly shone in the holy martyrs; well of this contrast.and struggle there would be, without a doubt, neither victory nor glory, because neither could there be this same contrast and battle if after regeneration and baptism the saints could not suffer bodily death. And who would there be that, with the little ones who are to be baptized, would not resort to the grace of Jesus Christ, mainly because they did not separate and divide themselves from the body? Faith, then, would not be estimated by the invisible prize, nor would it be faith finding and receiving the prize of their labors in cash then, faith for the invisible prize, nor would it be faith finding and receiving in cash the prize of their labors then, faith for the invisible prize, nor would it be faith finding and receiving in cash the prize of their labors.

But from this other conformity with much greater and more admirable advantage of the grace of the Savior, we see the penalty of sin converted into utility and profit of justice; because then God said to man: <you will die if you sin>, and now he says to the martyr: <die why you do not sin>; Then he said to him: <if you break the commandment, you will die of death>; now he says to them: <if you refuse death, you will break the precept>. What then should have put a brake on them and fear in order not to sin, now they must admit and embrace so that they do not sin; And in this way, by the ineffable mercy of God, the very penalty of vices is converted and bartered into weapons for virtue, and even the punishment of the sinner becomes the merit of the just, because then he earned death by sinning, and now justice is served by dying.But this is understood in the holy martyrs, to whom the tyrant proposes one of two, or that they renounce the faith or suffer death, because the just want more, believing, to suffer what sinners suffered at first, not believing; for if these did not sin, they would not die; but those will sin if they do not die. So those died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die; it happened because of those who incurred the punishment; it happens because of the penalty of these that they do not fall into guilt; not because death has become a good thing, being bad before, but because God gave so much grace to faith that death, which, as is well known, is contrary to life, if it came to become an instrument by which could come to life.or that they abjure the faith or suffer death, because the just want more, believing, to suffer what sinners suffered at first, not believing; for if these did not sin, they would not die; but those will sin if they do not die. So those died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die; it happened because of those who incurred the punishment; it happens because of the penalty of these that they do not fall into guilt; not because death has become a good thing, being bad before, but because God gave so much grace to faith that death, which, as is well known, is contrary to life, if it came to become an instrument by which could come to life.or that they abjure the faith or suffer death, because the just want more, believing, to suffer what sinners suffered at first, not believing; for if these did not sin, they would not die; but those will sin if they do not die. So those died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die; it happened because of those who incurred the punishment; it happens because of the penalty of these that they do not fall into guilt; not because death has become a good thing, being bad before, but because God gave so much grace to faith that death, which, as is well known, is contrary to life, if it came to become an instrument by which could come to life.but those will sin if they do not die. So those died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die; it happened because of those who incurred the punishment; it happens because of the penalty of these that they do not fall into guilt; not because death has become a good thing, being bad before, but because God gave so much grace to faith that death, which, as is well known, is contrary to life, if it came to become an instrument by which could come to life.but those will sin if they do not die. So those died because they sinned; these do not sin because they die; it happened because of those who incurred the punishment; it happens because of the penalty of these that they do not fall into guilt; not because death has become a good thing, being bad before, but because God gave so much grace to faith that death, which, as is well known, is contrary to life, if it came to become an instrument by which could come to life.if he came to make an instrument through which life could be passed.if he came to make an instrument through which life could be passed.