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
"They shall
open their teeth like a poor man eating secretly." For some of the
mighty among the Jews shall come to the Lord, admiring His works and
words, and shall greedily eat the bread of His doctrine in secret
for fear of the Jews, just as the Gospel has shown they did. "And
Thou hast sent into the sea Thy horses, troubling many waters," which
are nothing else than many people; for unless all were troubled,
some would not be converted with fear, others pursued with fury. "I
gave heed, and my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my
lips; and trembling entered into my bones, and my habit of body was
troubled under me." He gave heed to those things which he said, and
was himself terrified at his own prayer, which he had poured forth
prophetically, and in which he discerned things to come. For when
many people are troubled, he saw the threatening tribulation of the
Church, and at once acknowledged himself a member of it, and said, "I
shall rest in the day of tribulation," as being one of those who are
rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.[544] "That I may ascend,"
he says, "among the people of my pilgrimage," departing quite from
the wicked people of his carnal kinship, who are not pilgrims in
this earth, and do not seek the country above.[545] "Although the
fig-tree," he says, "shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the
vines; the labour of the olive shall lie, and the fields shall yield
no meat; the sheep shall be cut off from the meat, and there shall
be no oxen in the stalls." He sees that nation which was to slay
Christ about to lose the abundance of spiritual supplies, which, in
prophetic fashion, he has set forth by the figure of earthly plenty.
And because that nation was to suffer such wrath of God, because,
being ignorant of the righteousness of God, it wished to establish
its own,[546] he immediately says, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord;
I will joy in God my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He
will set my feet in completion; He will place me above the heights,
that I may conquer in His song," to wit, in that song of which
something similar is said in the psalm, "He set my feet upon a rock,
and directed my goings, and put in my mouth a new song, a hymn to our
God."[547] He therefore conquers in the song of the Lord, who takes
pleasure in His praise, not in his own; that "He that glorieth, let
him glory in the Lord."[548] But some copies have, "I will joy in God
my Jesus," which seems to me better than the version of those who,
wishing to put it in Latin, have not set down that very name which
for us it is dearer and sweeter to name.
33. _What Jeremiah and Zephaniah have, by the prophetic Spirit,
spoken before concerning Christ and the calling of the nations._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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