The City of God, Volume I

To address this question with precision, Augustine first establishes the terminology of worship. He explains that the Latin language lacks a single term that adequately expresses the supreme adoration owed exclusively to the Deity. The Greek word latria, as used in Scripture, designates that unique service rendered to God, which must be distinguished from douleia, the general service owed to human masters. Common Latin terms prove inadequate: cultus applies broadly to the honor paid to humans, the cultivation of fields, and even the inhabiting of cities. Religio similarly fails, for it describes social bonds and human relationships. Pietas extends to duties toward parents and works of charity. Augustine therefore adopts the Greek designation to mark out that worship which belongs to God alone—the service that makes its worshippers partakers of the divine nature. This definition carries immediate implications: if the holy angels truly love us and desire our happiness, they must direct us to the source of their own blessedness rather than to themselves. An angel who does not worship God would be wretched, deprived of the supreme good; an angel who does worship God cannot desire to receive in God’s stead the honor that belongs exclusively to Him.

Augustine reinforces this reasoning by appealing to the testimony of Plotinus, the eminent Platonist philosopher. Plotinus repeatedly asserts that the souls of the blessed immortals derive their illumination and joy from a source beyond themselves—an intelligible light that is God, distinct from the souls He enlightens. He compares the soul to the moon, which receives its radiance from the sun; in like manner, the rational soul receives its illumination from the divine Light. Plotinus concludes that no nature stands superior to the intellectual soul except God Himself, the Creator of both the world and the soul. This teaching harmonizes with the testimony of Scripture, where John the Baptist distinguishes himself from the true Light that enlightens every person. John was not that Light but came to bear witness to it; the true Light is another, from whom all illumination proceeds. Had the Platonists not been led astray by vanity or popular error, they would have acknowledged that worship of the one God is essential to blessedness for angels and men alike. They would have confessed that neither the blessed immortals could retain, nor could miserable mortals attain, a happy condition without adoring the one God of gods, who is both theirs and ours.

The argument now turns to the nature of sacrifice, which Augustine identifies as a specific and unmistakable form of divine worship. He contends that sacrifice is due to the true God alone. No one would dare to offer sacrifice to anyone he did not regard as divine. The practice is ancient, extending back to Cain and Abel, yet Augustine explains that God has no need of material offerings—neither cattle nor any earthly thing, nor even human righteousness considered as something God requires for His own benefit. The Psalmist declares that God has no need of our goodness. Whatever right worship is paid to God profits not Him, but man. The sacrifices of the ancient covenant were not ends in themselves but visible signs pointing toward an invisible spiritual reality. God desired not the flesh of beasts but the offering of a contrite heart, a humble spirit, works of mercy and justice. The material sacrifices were sacraments—sacred signs—destined to pass away when the reality they signified was fully disclosed. The prophets repeatedly emphasized that God requires mercy rather than sacrifice, justice rather than burnt offerings. The true sacrifice is a broken spirit, a heart humbled in penitent sorrow.

From this foundation, Augustine develops a comprehensive understanding of the true and perfect sacrifice. He asserts that a true sacrifice is every work done for the purpose of uniting us to God in holy fellowship, directed toward that supreme good in which alone we can be truly blessed. Every work of mercy shown to others becomes a sacrifice when offered for God’s sake. The human person, consecrated to God and vowed to His service, becomes a sacrifice by dying to the world in order to live for God. The body itself becomes a sacrifice when disciplined by temperance and presented to God as an instrument of righteousness. The soul, offering itself to God and being inflamed by divine love, loses the deformity of earthly desire and is remolded in the image of eternal beauty. The whole redeemed community—the Church universal—becomes the supreme sacrifice offered to God through the great High Priest who offered Himself for us. In the sacrament of the altar, the Church celebrates this sacrifice continually, learning to offer herself through Christ who is both Priest and Victim.

This understanding illuminates the disposition of the holy angels toward human worship. These blessed spirits, who dwell in celestial habitations and rejoice in the communications of their Creator’s fullness, look upon us miserable mortals with compassion and tender regard. They wish us to become immortal and happy, and therefore they do not desire us to sacrifice to themselves, but to Him whose sacrifice they know themselves to be in common with us. For we and they together constitute the one city of God. The human portion sojourns here below, while the angelic aids from above. From that heavenly city, in which God’s will is the intelligible and unchangeable law, the holy Scripture has descended to us by the ministry of angels. In that Scripture it is written that whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed. This Scripture, this law, these precepts, have been confirmed by such miracles that it is sufficiently evident to whom these immortal and blessed spirits wish us to sacrifice.

Augustine next turns to consider the miracles by which God has authenticated His revelation, contrasting the true miracles of Scripture with the deceptive marvels of theurgy. He recounts the mighty works recorded in sacred history—the birth of Isaac to aged parents, the destruction of Sodom, the plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the provision of manna in the wilderness, the water from the rock, the brazen serpent lifted up for healing. These miracles were wrought for the purpose of commending the worship of the one true God and prohibiting the worship of false deities. They were accomplished through simple faith and godly confidence, not through the incantations and magical arts that characterize the practice of theurgy.