Herein we continue, from part 1, considering info on Angels in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon. The point is not to elucidate these references but to provide relevant partial quotations and citations. See my section on Angels here, Cherubim and Seraphim here, Satan here and Demons here.
Angels in Augustine of Hippo’s The City of God, Books I-IV
Book I
Chapter 12 His crowd of domestics furnished the purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man; but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the Angels, who did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham’s bosom.
Chapter 13 And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated; and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some favorite place. And Tobit, according to the Angel’s testimony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead.
Book II
Chapter 14 We for our part, indeed, reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod; we would not even compare him to any of God’s holy Angels; nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man.
Chapter 19 But because this man listens and that man scoffs, and most are enamored of the blandishments of vice rather than the wholesome severity of virtue, the people of Christ, whatever be their condition— whether they be kings, princes, judges, soldiers, or provincials, rich or poor, bond or free, male or female— are enjoined to endure this Earthly republic, wicked and dissolute as it is, that so they may by this endurance win for themselves an eminent place in that most holy and august assembly of Angels and republic of heaven, in which the will of God is the law.
Chapter 26 For so great is the influence of probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all men, are moved by the praise of these virtues; nor is any man so depraved by vice, but he has some feeling of honor left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed himself, as Scripture says, into an Angel of light, he could not compass his deceitful purpose.
Book III
Chapter 5 But whether Venus could bear Æneas to a human father Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor, we leave as unsettled questions. For our own Scriptures suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen Angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which the Earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enormously large and strong men.
Book IV
Chapter 17 This is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to their own imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is the true eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is no person, but His Angel, and causes whom He pleases to conquer; whose counsel may be hidden, but cannot be unjust.
In the next segment, we will consider more on Angels in Augustine of Hippo.
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