Sermones. De Urbis Excidio

Sermon of Saint Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, on the Destruction of the City. Chapter 1. — 1. By the example of Daniel confessing his own sins, he refutes those who murmur against God concerning the destruction of the City. What Noah, Daniel, and Job signify. Let us consider the first reading of the holy prophet Daniel, where we heard him praying, and we marveled, not only that he confessed the sins of his people, but also his own. For after that prayer itself, the words of which indeed indicated that he was not only a suppliant but also a confessor; after that prayer, therefore, he says: “While I was praying, I confessed my sins and the sins of my people to my Lord God” (Dan. 9:20). Who, then, is there who professes to be without sin, when Daniel confesses his own sins? For it was said to a certain proud man through the prophet Ezekiel: “Are you wiser than Daniel?” (Ezek. 28:5). Likewise, among certain three holy men, through whom God signifies the three kinds of people whom he is to liberate when a great tribulation is about to come upon the human race, he also placed this Daniel: and he said that no one will be liberated from it except Noah, Daniel, and Job (Ezek. 14:14). And indeed it is clear that in these three names God signifies three certain kinds of people, as I have said.

For already those three men have fallen asleep, and their spirits are with God, and their bodies have flowed away in the earth: they await the resurrection and the placing at the right hand, and they fear no tribulation in this world from which they might wish to be freed. How then will Noah, Daniel, and Job be freed from that tribulation? When Ezekiel was saying these things, perhaps Daniel alone was still in the body. For Noah and Job had long since fallen asleep, and had been laid to rest with the sleep of death among their fathers. How then could they be freed from an impending tribulation, having already long since been freed from the flesh? But in Noah are signified the good prelates who rule and govern the Church, as Noah governed the ark in the flood. In Daniel are signified all the continent saints: in Job, all the married who live justly and well. For these three kinds of people God frees from that tribulation. Yet how much Daniel is commended appears from this, that he was worthy to be named as one of those three: and yet he confesses his sins. Therefore, with Daniel confessing his sins, whose pride does not tremble, whose inflation does not subside, whose swelling and elation is not restrained? Who shall boast that he has a chaste heart, or who shall boast that he is clean from sin (Prov. 20:9)?

CHAPTER II. — Why God Did Not Spare the City for the Sake of the Righteous. The Righteous in Two Ways. And men marvel, and would that they only marveled and did not also blaspheme, when God chastises the human race and shakes it with the scourges of paternal correction, exercising discipline before the judgment and often not choosing whom He scourges, unwilling to find whom He condemns. For He scourges the just together with the unjust: although who is just, if Daniel confesses his own sins? i. A reading from the book of Genesis was read some days ago, which, unless I am mistaken, made us very attentive, where Abraham says to the Lord, whether if he finds fifty just men in a city, He will spare the city for their sake, or will destroy the city along with them. And the Lord answered him, that if he finds fifty just men in a city, He will spare the city. Then Abraham added to the inquiry and asked whether if there were fewer than five, and forty-five remained, He would similarly spare. God answered that He would spare even for forty-five. What more? By gradually questioning and subtracting from that number, he came to ten, and asked the Lord whether if he found ten just men in a city, He would destroy them along with the countless wicked, or rather spare the city for the sake of ten just men. God answered that He would not destroy the city even for ten just men (Gen. 18:23-32). What then do we say, brothers?

A strong and pressing question arises for us, especially from men who assail our Scriptures with impiety, not from those who search them with piety; and they say, especially concerning the recent destruction of so great a city: Were there not fifty just men in Rome? In so great a number of the faithful, so great a number of nuns and celibates, so great a number of servants and handmaidens of God, could not even fifty just men be found, nor forty, nor thirty, nor twenty, nor ten? But if it is incredible, why did God not spare that city for the sake of fifty, or even for the sake of ten just men? Scripture does not deceive, if man does not deceive himself. When justice is sought, and God answers concerning justice, He seeks the just according to a divine rule, not according to a human rule. Therefore I answer quickly: Either He found so many just men there, and He spared the city; or if He did not spare the city, He found no just men. But it is answered to me that it is manifest that God did not spare the city. I answer: It is not manifest to me. For the destruction of the city did not happen there as it happened in Sodom. For the question was about Sodom, when Abraham questioned God. But God said, I will not destroy the city: He did not say, I will not scourge the city. He did not spare Sodom, He destroyed Sodom: He utterly consumed Sodom with fire, which He did not defer for judgment, but He inflicted upon it what He reserves for other evil men for judgment.

Absolutely no one escaped from Sodom; nothing of man was left, nothing of beast, nothing of houses: fire consumed everything entirely. Behold how God destroyed that city. But from the city of Rome, how many have departed and will return, how many have remained and escaped, how many in holy places could not even be touched! "But captives," they say, "many were led away." This too was Daniel, not for his own punishment, but for the consolation of the rest. "But many," they say, "were killed." This too happened to all the just prophets from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias (Matthew 23:35): this also to the Apostles themselves, this to the Lord Himself of the Prophets and Apostles. "But many," they say, "were tortured with various torments." Do we think anyone suffered as much as Job? Horrible things have been reported to us: slaughter has occurred, fires, plunderings, killings, tortures of men. It is true, we have heard many things, we have groaned over everything, we have often wept, we have been scarcely consoled; I do not deny, I do not gainsay that we have heard many things, that many things were committed in that city.

CHAPTER III. — In the sacking of the City, nothing more grievous befell than the calamity of Job. But, my brothers (let your Charity attend to what I say), we have heard the book of holy Job: that after losing his property, after losing his sons, he could not even keep safe the flesh that alone remained to him; but, struck with a severe wound from head to foot, he sat in dung, rotting with sores, flowing with pus, teeming with worms, tormented by the most bitter agonies of pain. If we were told that a whole city sat thus—sat, I say, a whole city, with no one healthy, in the gravest wound, and rotted alive with worms as the dead rot—which would be more grievous: this, or that war? I think the sword would rage more mildly against human flesh than worms; blood would burst more tolerably from wounds than pus drip from putrefaction. You look at a corpse decaying and you shudder: but that is a lesser punishment because the soul is absent. But in Job, the soul was present, feeling, bound so that it could not flee, subjected so that it might suffer, pierced so that it might blaspheme. Yet he endured the tribulation of Job, and it was counted to him as great righteousness. Therefore, let no one attend to what he suffers, but to what he does. Man, in what you suffer, your power is not yours; in what you do, your will is either harmful or innocent.

Job suffered; his wife was left alone, not for consolation, but for temptation; not to bring medicine, but to urge blasphemy: "Say something," she said, "against God, and die." See how for him death was a benefit, and such a benefit no one was giving. But in all these things which the holy soul endured, patience was exercised, faith was tested, the wife was refuted, the devil was conquered. A great spectacle, and in that foulness of decay, the splendid beauty of virtue! The enemy ravages secretly; the enemy openly urges evil; the devil's helper, not a husband's; a new Eve, but he was not the old Adam: "Say something against God, and die." "Wrest from me by blaspheming what you cannot obtain by praying." "You have spoken," he said, "like one of the foolish women." Attend to the words of the strong, faithful man; attend to the words of the man rotting on the outside, whole within: "You have spoken," he said, "like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil things?" (Job 1 and 2). He is a father; is he to be loved when he caresses, and rejected when he corrects? Is he not a father, both when promising life and when imposing discipline? Has it slipped your mind: "Son, approaching the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation"?

Everything that is applied to you, accept; and in pain endure, and in your humility have patience: for gold and silver are tested in fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation (Ecclus. 2:1-5)? Has it escaped you: For whom the Lord loves, he corrects; and he scourges every Son whom he receives (Prov. 3:12, and Heb. 12:6)? CHAPTER IV. — 4. Temporal torments compared to gehenna, how light. Think of any torments, stretch your mind to any human punishments in this life; compare them to gehenna, and everything you think of is light. Here it is temporal, there it is eternal, both the one who tortures and the one who is tortured. Do those who suffered at that time when Rome was laid waste still suffer? But that rich man still suffers in the underworld (Luke 16:19-26). He burned, he burns, he will burn; he will live until the judgment: he will receive flesh, not as a benefit, but as a punishment. Let us fear those punishments, if we fear God. Whatever a man suffers here, if he is corrected, it is correction: if he is not corrected even so, it is a double damnation. For here he pays temporal penalties, and there he will experience eternal ones. I say to Your Charity, brothers: we certainly praise, glorify, and admire the holy martyrs; we celebrate their days with pious solemnity, we venerate their merits, and, if we can, we imitate them.

Indeed, there is great glory of the martyrs; but I know not whether the glory of blessed Job was less; yet it was not said to him, "Burn incense to idols, sacrifice to alien gods, deny Christ"; it was said to him, however, "Blaspheme God." Nor was it said, so that he might understand, "If you blaspheme, all the rot will depart and health will return"; but, "If you blaspheme," said the foolish and senseless woman, "you will die, and by dying you will be free from torments." As if, for a dying blasphemer, eternal pain would not succeed. The foolish woman shuddered at the annoyance of present rot, but gave no thought to the eternal flame. He bore the present evil, lest he fall into a future one. He kept his heart from evil thought, his tongue from a curse; he preserved the integrity of his soul in the rot of his body. He saw what he was escaping in the future; therefore he bore what he suffered. Thus, thus every Christian, when he suffers some affliction of the body, should think of Gehenna and see how light is what he suffers. Let him not murmur against God, let him not say: "God, what have I done to you, why do I suffer this?" Rather let him say what Job himself, though holy, said: "You have searched out all my sins, and sealed them as in a sack" (Job 14:16, 17). He who suffered, not to be punished but to be tested, did not dare to call himself without sin. Let each one say this when he suffers.

CHAPTER V. — 5. Whether there were any righteous in Rome, so that the city might be spared on their account. All have sins which they do not feign to confess. There were in Rome fifty righteous; if you consider the human measure, thousands of righteous; if you apply the rule of perfection, no one was righteous. Whoever in Rome dares to call himself righteous, I do not hear him: Are you wiser than Daniel (Ezekiel 28:3)? Listen, then, to him confessing his sins (Daniel 9:20). Or perhaps when he confessed, he was lying? From this, then, he had a sin, because he lied to God about his sins. But sometimes people argue and say, A righteous man ought to say to God that he is a sinner, even though he knows he has no sin; yet he should say to God, I have a sin. I wonder if this is to be called sound advice. Who makes you have no sin? Is it not God, who heals your soul? If, however, you have no sin. For consider; and you will find, not a sin, but sins. Yet if you have absolutely no sin, is it not the benefit of him to whom you said: I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, because I have sinned against you (Psalm 40:5)? If, therefore, your soul is without sin, your soul is completely healed; if your soul is completely healed, why are you ungrateful to your physician, so that you say there is still a wound, where he has already made complete unity?

If you were to show your body, sick or wounded, to a physician, and ask him to apply his healing care, and he did so, and restored you to health and safety, and you still said, "I am not well," would you not be ungrateful to the physician? Would you not be insulting to the physician? If God also has healed you, do you dare to say, "I still have a wound"? Do you not fear that he might answer you, "Then I have done nothing, or I have poured out all that I did; I accept no fee, I deserve no praise"? May God avert this madness, and this vain argument. Let a man say, "I am a sinner," because he is a sinner: let him say, "I have sin," because he has sin. For if he does not have it, he is not wiser than Daniel. Therefore, my brothers, let us at last settle that question. If the righteous are to be called so in a certain human manner, according to a certain way of life by which they live among men without reproach: there were many such in Rome; and on account of them God spared them, and many escaped: but even those who died, God spared them. For those who died in a good life and true righteousness, in good faith, did they not escape the hardships of human affairs and arrive at divine refreshment? They died after tribulations, like that poor man before the rich man's door. Did they suffer hunger? He also suffered. Did they suffer wounds? He also suffered: perhaps the dogs licked them less. Did they die?

He also died: but hear the outcome. "It happened," he says, "that the poor man died and was carried away by angels into the bosom of Abraham" (Luke 16:20-22). Chapter VI.—6. How God spared the city because of the righteous. Constantinople, corrected by the terror of an imminent fire, was divinely saved. If only we could see with our eyes the souls of the saints who died in that war; then you would see how God spared the city. For thousands of saints are in a place of refreshment, rejoicing and saying to God: "Thank you, because you have freed us from the troubles and torments of the flesh. Thank you, because now we fear neither barbarians nor the devil; we do not fear famine on earth, we do not fear hail, we do not fear the enemy, we do not fear the executioner, we do not fear the oppressor: but we are dead on earth, with you, O God, not about to die, safe in your kingdom, by your gift, not by our own merit." What kind of city is this of the humble that speaks thus? Or do you think that a city is to be reckoned in its walls? A city is in its citizens, not in its walls. Finally, if God were to say to the Sodomites, "Flee, because I am about to burn this place," would we not say that they had great merit if they fled, and the flame descending from heaven laid waste the walls and buildings? Did not God spare the city, because the city had migrated and escaped the destruction of that fire?

Was it not within the last few years, under the Emperor Arcadius at Constantinople (which I say, perhaps some who know hear, and there are in this congregation those who were present there), that God, wishing to terrify the city, and by terrifying to correct, by terrifying to convert, by terrifying to purify, by terrifying to change, came in a revelation to a certain faithful servant of his, a military man, as he is called, and said to him that the city would perish by fire coming from heaven; and he advised him to tell the bishop. It was told; the bishop did not disregard it, and he addressed the people; the city turned to the lament of penance, just as that ancient Nineveh once did (Jonah 3:5). Lest men think that the one who had spoken was either deceived by falsehood or had deceived by deceit, the day came which God had threatened: with all intent and awaiting the outcome with great fear, at the beginning of night, as the world was already growing dark, a fiery cloud was seen from the east, at first small, then gradually as it approached the city it grew, until it hung over the whole city with terrible fire. A horrible flame seemed to hang, and the smell of sulfur was not lacking. All fled to the church; the place could not hold the multitude. Each person demanded baptism from whomever they could. Not only in the church, but also through homes, through streets and squares, the safety of the Sacrament was demanded; so that the wrath might be fled, not the present one, of course, but the future one.

Yet after that great tribulation, where God showed the faithfulness of His words and of the revelation to His servant, the cloud began, as it had grown, to diminish, and was gradually consumed. The people, having been made secure for a little while, again heard that they must absolutely migrate, because the city was to perish on the coming Sabbath. The whole city migrated with the Emperor; no one remained in a house, no one shut up a house; withdrawing far from the walls and looking back at the dear roofs, they bade farewell to their most beloved homes with a pitiful cry. And when that great multitude had advanced several miles, yet gathered in one place to pour forth prayers to God, they suddenly saw a great smoke and sent forth a great cry to God; and finally, when calm was observed, having sent men to report back, anxious because the hour that had been predicted had passed, and with the reporters saying that all the walls and roofs stood safe, all returned with immense rejoicing. No one lost anything from his house; every man found his house open just as he had left it.

CHAPTER V. — 8. How Constantinople, and likewise Rome, were corrected by God rather than destroyed. What shall we say? Was this the wrath of God, or rather mercy? Who would doubt that the most merciful Father wished to correct, and to punish by terrifying, not by destroying, when such a great impending calamity harmed no men, no houses, no walls? Just as hands are often raised to strike, and are withdrawn in compassion when the one who was to be struck is terrified, so it happened to that city. Yet if, at the time when that city was abandoned and the whole people departed, devastation had rushed upon the place and destroyed the entire city like Sodom, with no ruins even remaining, who would then doubt that God had spared that city, which, forewarned and terrified, with its people departing and migrating, that place would be consumed? Thus it is not to be doubted that God spared even the city of Rome, which, before the hostile fire, had in many ways and in large part migrated. Those who fled migrated; those who departed from the body migrated; many who were present hid themselves in some way; many were kept alive and safe in holy places. Therefore, that city was corrected by the hand of a correcting God rather than destroyed, like a servant who knows his master’s will and does things deserving of blows, and will be beaten (Luke 12:47).

CHAPTER V. — 9. The usefulness of temporal tribulation. But let the example of fear rather restrain the evil concupiscence thirsting for the world and seeking to enjoy the most pernicious pleasures, while the Lord shows how unstable and fleeting are all the vanities and lying follies of this age, than that under the most deserved scourges murmuring be raised against the Lord. The threshing-floor feels one tribulation, that the straw may be cut down, the grain cleansed; the goldsmith’s furnace endures one fire, that the chaff may turn to ashes, the metal be freed from impurities. So too Rome endured one tribulation, in which the pious man was either corrected or set free; the impious man, however, was condemned, whether he was snatched from this life where he would pay the most just penalties, or remained here where he would blaspheme more damnably, or certainly, by the ineffable mercy of God, He reserved for penance those whom He knew were to be saved. Therefore let not the labor of the pious move us; it is an exercise, not a condemnation. Unless perhaps we shudder when we see some just man suffering unworthy and grievous things on this earth, and we forget what the just man of the just, the saint of the saints, endured. What that whole city suffered, one suffered. But see who that one is: the King of kings and Lord of lords (Apoc. 19:16), seized, bound, scourged, driven about with every insult, hung and nailed on wood, killed.

Weigh Rome with Christ, weigh the whole earth with Christ, weigh heaven and earth with Christ: nothing created is weighed against the Creator, no work is compared to the craftsman. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made (John 1:3); and yet by the persecutors He was reckoned as nothing. Let us therefore bear what God has willed us to bear; He, like a physician, knows what pain is useful for our treatment and healing. Certainly it is written, Patience has a perfect work (James 1:4): but what will be the work of patience, if we suffer nothing adverse? Why then do we refuse to endure temporal evils? Or are we perhaps afraid to be perfected? But let us plainly pray and groan and weep to the Lord, that what the Apostle says may be preserved for us: God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear; but will also make an end with the temptation, so that you may be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).