The City of God, Volume IIAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
For whatever direct and manifest prophetic utterances there may be
about anything, it is necessary that those which are tropical should
be mingled with them; which, chiefly on account of those of slower
understanding, thrust upon the more learned the laborious task of
clearing up and expounding them. Some of them, indeed, on the very
first blush, as soon as they are spoken, exhibit Christ and the
Church, although some things in them that are less intelligible
remain to be expounded at leisure. We have an example of this in that
same Book of Psalms: "My heart bubbled up a good matter: I utter my
words to the king. My tongue is the pen of a scribe, writing swiftly.
Thy form is beautiful beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out
in Thy lips: therefore God hath blessed Thee for evermore. Gird Thy
sword about Thy thigh, O Most Mighty. With Thy goodliness and Thy
beauty go forward, proceed prosperously, and reign, because of Thy
truth, and meekness, and righteousness; and Thy right hand shall
lead Thee forth wonderfully. Thy sharp arrows are most powerful. The
people shall fall under Thee: in the heart of the King's enemies.
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a rod of direction is the
rod of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hast hated
iniquity: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil
of exultation above Thy fellows. Myrrh and drops, and cassia from
Thy vestments, from the houses of ivory: out of which the daughters
of kings have delighted Thee in Thine honour."[446] Who is there, no
matter how slow, but must here recognise Christ whom we preach, and
in whom we believe, if he hears that He is God, whose throne is for
ever and ever, and that He is anointed by God, as God indeed anoints,
not with a visible, but with a spiritual and intelligible chrism? For
who is so untaught in this religion, or so deaf to its far and wide
spread fame, as not to know that Christ is named from this chrism,
that is, from this anointing? But when it is acknowledged that this
King is Christ, let each one who is already subject to Him who reigns
because of truth, meekness, and righteousness, inquire at his leisure
into these other things that are here said tropically: how His form
is beautiful beyond the sons of men, with a certain beauty that is
the more to be loved and admired the less it is corporeal; and what
His sword, arrows, and other things of that kind may be, which are
set down, not properly, but tropically.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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