But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not captivate and divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of the corruptible body which weigh on the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own distinct and widely different aim in using them. The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it aims at, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men's wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it passes away. Consequently, as long as it lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city, though it has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as the pledge of it, it does not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city, by which the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are administered; and thus, since this life is common to both cities, so there is a harmony between them in regard to what belongs to it. But since the earthly city has had some philosophers whose doctrine is condemned by the divine teaching, and who, being deceived either by their own conjectures or by demons, supposed that many gods must be invited to take an interest in human affairs, and assigned to each a separate function and a separate department — to one the body, to another the soul; and in the body itself, to one the head, to another the neck, and each of the other parts to one of the gods; and likewise, in the soul, to one god the natural capacity was assigned, to another education, to another anger, to another lust; and so the various affairs of life were assigned — cattle to one, grain to another, wine to another, oil to another, the woods to another, money to another, navigation to another, wars and victories to another, marriages to another, births and fertility to another, and other things to other gods: and since the heavenly city, on the other hand, knew that one God only was to be worshipped, and that to Him alone was due that service which the Greeks call λατρεία, and which can be given only to a god, it has come about that the two cities could not have common laws of religion, and that the heavenly city has been compelled in this matter to dissent, and to become hateful to those who think differently, and to bear the brunt of their anger and hatred and persecutions, except insofar as the minds of their enemies have been alarmed by the multitude of the Christians and restrained by the manifest protection of God given to them. This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not troubling about differences in the customs, laws, and institutions by which earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that, however various these are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. It is therefore so far from rescinding and abolishing these differences that it even preserves and adopts them, as long as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced. Even the heavenly city, therefore, while in its state of pilgrimage, avails itself of the peace of earth, and, as far as it can without injuring faith and godliness, desires and maintains a common agreement among men regarding the acquisition of the necessities of life, and makes this earthly peace bear on the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and considered the peace of the rational creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God. When we have reached that peace, this mortal life will give place to one that is eternal, and our body will no longer be this animal body which by its corruption weighs down the soul,⁠a but a spiritual body feeling no need, and in all its parts subjected to the will. In its pilgrim state the heavenly city possesses this peace by faith; and by this faith it lives righteously when it refers to the attainment of that peace every good action toward God and man; for the life of the city is a social life.