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| That the Platonists, Though Knowing Something of the Creator of the Universe, Have Misunderstood the True Worship of God, by Giving Divine Honor to Angels, Good or Bad.
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Chapter 3.—That the Platonists,
Though Knowing Something of the Creator of the Universe, Have
Misunderstood the True Worship of God, by Giving Divine Honor to
Angels, Good or Bad.
This being so, if the Platonists,
or those who think with them, knowing God, glorified Him as God and
gave thanks, if they did not become vain in their own thoughts, if
they did not originate or yield to the popular errors, they would
certainly acknowledge that neither could the blessed immortals
retain, nor we miserable mortals reach, a happy condition without
worshipping the one God of gods, who is both theirs and ours. To
Him we owe the service which is called in Greek λατρεία, whether
we render it outwardly or inwardly; for we are all His temple, each
of us severally and all of us together, because He condescends to
inhabit each individually and the whole harmonious body, being no
greater in all than in each, since He is neither expanded nor
divided. Our heart when it rises to Him is His altar; the priest
who intercedes for us is His Only-begotten; we sacrifice to Him
bleeding victims when we contend for His truth even unto blood; to
Him we offer the sweetest incense when we come before Him burning
with holy and pious love; to Him we devote and surrender ourselves
and His gifts in us; to Him, by solemn feasts and on appointed
days, we consecrate the memory of His benefits, lest through the
lapse of time ungrateful oblivion should steal upon us; to Him we
offer on the altar of our heart the sacrifice of humility and
praise, kindled by the fire of burning love. It is that we may
see Him, so far as He can be seen; it is that we may cleave to Him,
that we are cleansed from all stain of sins and evil passions, and
are consecrated in His name. For He is the fountain of our
happiness, He the end of all our desires. Being attached to Him,
or rather let me say, re-attached,—for we had detached ourselves
and lost hold of Him,—being, I say, re-attached to Him,378
| 378 Augustin here remarks, in a clause
that cannot be given in English, that the word religio is
derived from religere.—So Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii.
28. | we tend
towards Him by love, that we may rest in Him, and find our
blessedness by attaining that end. For our good, about which
philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else than to be
united to God. It is, if I may say so, by spiritually embracing
Him that the intellectual soul is filled and impregnated with true
virtues. We are enjoined to love this good with all our heart,
with all our soul, with all our strength. To this good we ought
to be led by those who love us, and to lead those we love. Thus
are fulfilled those two commandments on which hang all the law and
the prophets: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul;” and “Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”379
For, that man might be
intelligent in his self-love, there was appointed for him an end to
which he might refer all his actions, that he might be blessed.
For he who loves himself wishes nothing else than this. And the
end set before him is “to draw near to God.”380
And so, when one who has this
intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbor as himself,
what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to
commend to him the love of God? This is the worship of God, this
is true religion, this right piety, this the service due to God
only. If any immortal power, then, no matter with what virtue
endowed, loves us as himself, he must desire that we find our
happiness by submitting ourselves to Him, in submission to whom he
himself finds happiness. If he does not worship God, he is
wretched, because deprived of God; if he worships God, he cannot
wish to be worshipped in God’s stead. On the contrary, these
higher powers acquiesce heartily in the divine sentence in which it
is written, “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord
only, he shall be utterly destroyed.”381
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