Gift of Harmony

In City of God 5.11, Augustine rhapsodizes concerning the works of God the Triune Creator. His works are works of gift-giving. Three times Augustine uses the verb “gave” ( dedit ), and the gifts go from angels to men to animals to seeds to stones, and include intellectual gifts, beauty, health, fruitfulness, sensation, memory, desire.

And none has he left in dissonance: From heaven to the smallest creatures God has given everything “a harmony and, as it were, a peace among its parts” (qui non solum caelum et terram, nec solum angelum et hominem, sed nec exigui et contemptibilis animantis viscera nec avis pinnulam, nec herbae flosculum nec arboris folium sine suarum partium convenientia et quadam veluti pace dereliquit). Cicero defines the key term convenientia as the equivalent of conjunctio and the Greek sympatheian ( Div . 2.60.124), and elsewhere speaks of it as rerum in amicitia .

From the harmony of God with His Son and Spirit comes the harmony of each thing with itself and each with all. From the God of peace comes peace.