CITY OFGOD(BOOKXII) 293
power to harm, but merely an inclination to oppose Him. In any case, God is immutable
and completely invulnerable. Hence, the malice by which His so-called enemies oppose
God is not a menace to Him, but merely bad for themselves—an evil because what is
good in their nature is wounded. It is not their nature, but the wound in their nature, that
is opposed to God—as evil is opposed to good.
No one will deny that God is supremely good. Thus, any lack of goodness is
opposed to God as evil is opposed to good. At the same time, the nature itself is not less
good because the lack of goodness is evil and, therefore, the evil of lacking some good-
ness is opposed to this good, which is the goodness of the nature. Note that in respect to
God the contrast is merely that of evil to good, but in respect to the nature which suffers
a lack of something good, the lack is not only evil but also harmful. No evils, of course,
can be harmful to God, but only to mutable and corruptible natures—and, even then, the
harm done bears witness to the goodness of the natures which suffer, for, unless they
were good, they could not suffer the wounds of a lack of goodness.
Just consider the harm done by these wounds—the loss of integrity, of beauty, of
health, of virtue, or of any other natural good which can be lost or lessened by sin or
sickness. If a nature has nothing of goodness to lose, then there is no harm done by lack-
ing this nothing and, consequently, there is nothing wrong. For, there is no such thing as
something wrong that does no harm.
The conclusion is that, although no defect can damage an unchangeable good, no
nature can be damaged by a defect unless that nature itself is good—for the simple rea-
son that a defect exists only where harm is done. To put the matter in another way: a
defect can never be found in the highest good, nor ever apart from some kind of good.
Thus, good things without defects can sometimes be found; absolutely bad things,
never—for even those natures that were vitiated at the outset by an evil will are only
evil in so far as they are defective, while they are good in so far as they are natural. And
when a vitiated nature is being punished, in addition to the good of being what it is, it is
a good for it not to go unpunished, since this is just and whatever is just is certainly
good. No one is punished for natural defects, but only for deliberate faults. And even for
a vice to develop, by force of habit and overindulgence, into a strong natural defect, the
vice must have begun in the will. But here, of course, I am speaking of the vices of that
nature which has a mind illumined by an immaterial light in virtue of which it can dis-
tinguish what is just from what is unjust.
CHAPTER 4
Of course, in the case of beasts, trees, and other mutable and mortal creatures which
lack not merely an intellect, but even sensation or life itself, it would be ridiculous to
condemn in them the defects which destroy their corruptible nature. For, it was by the
will of the Creator that they received that measure of being whereby their comings and
goings and fleeting existences should contribute to that special, if lowly, loveliness of
our earthly seasons which chimes with the harmony of the universe. For, there was
never any need for the things of earth either to rival those of heaven or to remain uncre-
ated merely because the latter are better.
It is, in fact, the very law of transitory things that, here on earth where such things
are at home, some should be born while others die, the weak should give way to the strong
and the victims should nourish the life of the victors. If the beauty of this order fails to
delight us, it is because we ourselves, by reason of our mortality, are so enmeshed in this