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
Whoever gives even moderate attention to human affairs and to
our common nature, will recognise that if there is no man who
does not wish to be joyful, neither is there any one who does not
wish to have peace. For even they who make war desire nothing but
victory,--desire, that is to say, to attain to peace with glory. For
what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist us? and
when this is done there is peace. It is therefore with the desire
for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in
exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it
is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man
seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace.
For even they who intentionally interrupt the peace in which they
are living have no hatred of peace, but only wish it changed into a
peace that suits them better. They do not, therefore, wish to have no
peace, but only one more to their mind. And in the case of sedition,
when men have separated themselves from the community, they yet do
not effect what they wish, unless they maintain some kind of peace
with their fellow-conspirators. And therefore even robbers take care
to maintain peace with their comrades, that they may with greater
effect and greater safety invade the peace of other men. And if an
individual happen to be of such unrivalled strength, and to be so
jealous of partnership, that he trusts himself with no comrades,
but makes his own plots, and commits depredations and murders on
his own account, yet he maintains some shadow of peace with such
persons as he is unable to kill, and from whom he wishes to conceal
his deeds. In his own home, too, he makes it his aim to be at peace
with his wife and children, and any other members of his household;
for unquestionably their prompt obedience to his every look is a
source of pleasure to him. And if this be not rendered, he is angry,
he chides and punishes; and even by this storm he secures the calm
peace of his own home, as occasion demands. For he sees that peace
cannot be maintained unless all the members of the same domestic
circle be subject to one head, such as he himself is in his own
house. And therefore if a city or nation offered to submit itself
to him, to serve him in the same style as he had made his household
serve him, he would no longer lurk in a brigand's hiding-places, but
lift his head in open day as a king, though the same covetousness
and wickedness should remain in him. And thus all men desire to
have peace with their own circle whom they wish to govern as suits
themselves. For even those whom they make war against they wish to
make their own, and impose on them the laws of their own peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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