That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, 521
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
"Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric
their king,[1] the worshippers of false gods, or pagans, as we
commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to
the Christian religion, and began to blaspheme the true God with
even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was this
which kindled my zeal for the house of God, and prompted me to
undertake the defence of the city of God against the charges and
misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands for
several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many other
affairs which had a prior claim on my attention, and which I could
not defer. However, this great undertaking was at last completed in
twenty-two books. Of these, the first five refute those who fancy
that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly
prosperity, and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen
us in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five books I
address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all
times attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and
that they constantly recur in forms more or less disastrous, varying
only in the scenes, occasions, and persons on whom they light, but,
while admitting this, maintain that the worship of the gods is
advantageous for the life to come. In these ten books, then, I refute
these two opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic
to the Christian religion.
"But that no one might have occasion to say, that though I had
refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to establish my
own, I devote to this object the second part of this work, which
comprises twelve books, although I have not scrupled, as occasion
offered, either to advance my own opinions in the first ten books,
or to demolish the arguments of my opponents in the last twelve. Of
these twelve books, the first four contain an account of the origin
of these two cities--the city of God, and the city of the world.
The second four treat of their history or progress; the third and
last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, though all these
twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have named them after
the better city, and called them The City of God."
Such is the account given by Augustine himself[2] of the occasion
and plan of this his greatest work. But in addition to this explicit
information, we learn from the correspondence[3] of Augustine, that
it was due to the importunity of his friend Marcellinus that this
defence of Christianity extended beyond the limits of a few letters.
Shortly before the fall of Rome, Marcellinus had been sent to Africa
by the Emperor Honorius to arrange a settlement of the differences
between the Donatists and the Catholics. This brought him into
contact not only with Augustine, but with Volusian, the proconsul
of Africa, and a man of rare intelligence and candour. Finding that
Volusian, though as yet a pagan, took an interest in the Christian
religion, Marcellinus set his heart on converting him to the true
faith. The details of the subsequent significant intercourse between
the learned and courtly bishop and the two imperial statesmen,
are unfortunately almost entirely lost to us; but the impression
conveyed by the extant correspondence is, that Marcellinus was
the means of bringing his two friends into communication with one
another. The first overture was on Augustine's part, in the shape of
a simple and manly request that Volusian would carefully peruse the
Scriptures, accompanied by a frank offer to do his best to solve any
difficulties that might arise in such a course of inquiry. Volusian
accordingly enters into correspondence with Augustine; and in order
to illustrate the kind of difficulties experienced by men in his
position, he gives some graphic notes of a conversation in which
he had recently taken part at a gathering of some of his friends.
The difficulty to which most weight is attached in this letter, is
the apparent impossibility of believing in the Incarnation. But a
letter which Marcellinus immediately despatched to Augustine, urging
him to reply to Volusian at large, brought the intelligence that
the difficulties and objections to Christianity were thus limited
merely out of a courteous regard to the preciousness of the bishop's
time, and the vast number of his engagements. This letter, in short,
brought out the important fact, that a removal of speculative doubts
would not suffice for the conversion of such men as Volusian, whose
life was one with the life of the empire. Their difficulties were
rather political, historical, and social. They could not see how
the reception of the Christian rule of life was compatible with
the interests of Rome as the mistress of the world.[4] And thus
Augustine was led to take a more distinct and wider view of the whole
relation which Christianity bore to the old state of things,--moral,
political, philosophical, and religious,--and was gradually drawn on
to undertake the elaborate work now presented to the English reader,
and which may more appropriately than any other of his writings be
called his masterpiece[5] or life-work. It was begun the very year
of Marcellinus' death, A.D. 413, and was issued in detached portions
from time to time, until its completion in the year 426. It thus
occupied the maturest years of Augustine's life--from his fifty-ninth
to his seventy-second year.[6]
From this brief sketch, it will be seen that though the accompanying
work is essentially an Apology, the Apologetic of Augustine can be
no mere rehabilitation of the somewhat threadbare, if not effete,
arguments of Justin and Tertullian.[7] In fact, as Augustine
considered what was required of him,--to expound the Christian faith,
and justify it to enlightened men; to distinguish it from, and
show its superiority to, all those forms of truth, philosophical or
popular, which were then striving for the mastery, or at least for
standing-room; to set before the world's eye a vision of glory that
might win the regard even of men who were dazzled by the fascinating
splendour of a world-wide empire,--he recognised that a task was laid
before him to which even his powers might prove unequal,--a task
certainly which would afford ample scope for his learning, dialectic,
philosophical grasp and acumen, eloquence, and faculty of exposition.
But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests it at once
with grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven hundred years
of steady and triumphant progress, Rome had been taken and sacked.
It is difficult for us to appreciate, impossible to overestimate,
the shock which was thus communicated from centre to circumference
of the whole known world. It was generally believed, not only by
the heathen, but also by many of the most liberal-minded of the
Christians, that the destruction of Rome would be the prelude to
the destruction of the world.[8] Even Jerome, who might have been
supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress of the world by
her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal his profound emotion
on hearing of her fall. "A terrible rumour," he says, "reaches me
from the West, telling of Rome besieged, bought for gold, besieged
again, life and property perishing together. My voice falters, sobs
stifle the words I dictate; for she is a captive, that city which
enthralled the world."[9] Augustine is never so theatrical as Jerome
in the expression of his feeling, but he is equally explicit in
lamenting the fall of Rome as a great calamity; and while he does not
scruple to ascribe her recent disgrace to the profligate manners,
the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is not without hope
that, by a return to the simple, hardy, and honourable mode of life
which characterized the early Romans, she may still be restored to
much of her former prosperity.[10] But as Augustine contemplates the
ruins of Rome's greatness, and feels, in common with all the world
at this crisis, the instability of the strongest governments, the
insufficiency of the most authoritative statesmanship, there hovers
over these ruins the splendid vision of the city of God "coming down
out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband." The old social
system is crumbling away on all sides, but in its place he seems to
see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that human history and human
destiny are not wholly identified with the history of any earthly
power--not though it be as cosmopolitan as the empire of Rome.[11]
He directs the attention of men to the fact that there is another
kingdom on earth,--a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He teaches men to take profounder views of history,
and shows them how from the first the city of God, or community of
God's people, has lived alongside of the kingdoms of this world and
their glory, and has been silently increasing, "crescit occulto velut
arbor ævo." He demonstrates that the superior morality, the true
doctrine, the heavenly origin of this city, ensure its success; and
over against this, he depicts the silly or contradictory theorizings
of the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the people,
and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the presence of
so manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome's downfall, there is
room for imputing it to the spread of Christianity. He traces the
antagonism of these two grand communities of rational creatures,
back to their first divergence in the fall of the angels, and down
to the consummation of all things in the last judgment and eternal
destination of the good and evil. In other words, the city of God is
"the first real effort to produce a philosophy of history,"[12] to
exhibit historical events in connection with their true causes, and
in their real sequence. This plan of the work is not only a great
conception, but it is accompanied with many practical advantages;
the chief of which is, that it admits, and even requires, a full
treatment of those doctrines of our faith that are more directly
historical,--the doctrines of creation, the fall, the incarnation,
the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and the doctrine
of "the last things."[13]
The effect produced by this great work it is impossible to determine
with accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness which we should condemn
as presumption in any less competent authority, declares that its
effect can only have been very slight.[14] Probably its effect
would be silent and slow; telling first upon cultivated minds, and
only indirectly upon the people. Certainly its effect must have
been weakened by the interrupted manner of its publication. It is
an easier task to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this also
patristic and literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that
it is very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of
matters which are introduced to illustrate and forward the argument,
but censures the author for discussing very useless questions, and
for adducing reasons which could satisfy no one who was not already
convinced.[15] Huet also speaks of the book as "un amas confus
d'excellents materiaux; c'est de l'or en barre et en lingots."[16]
L'Abbé Flottes censures these opinions as unjust, and cites with
approbation the unqualified eulogy of Pressensé.[17] But probably the
popularity of the book is its best justification. This popularity
may be measured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467 and
the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty editions
were called for, that is to say, a fresh edition every eighteen
months.[18] And in the interesting series of letters that passed
between Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus, who had engaged him to write a
commentary on the _City of God_ for his edition of Augustine's works,
we find Vives pleading for a separate edition of this work, on the
plea that, of all the writings of Augustine, it was almost the only
one read by patristic students, and might therefore naturally be
expected to have a much wider circulation.[19]
If it were asked to what this popularity is due, we should be
disposed to attribute it mainly to the great variety of ideas,
opinions, and facts that are here brought before the reader's mind.
Its importance as a contribution to the history of opinion cannot be
overrated. We find in it not only indications or explicit enouncement
of the author's own views upon almost every important topic which
occupied his thoughts, but also a compendious exhibition of the
ideas which most powerfully influenced the life of that age. It
thus becomes, as Poujoulat says, "comme l'encyclopédie du cinquième
siècle." All that is valuable, together with much indeed that is
not so, in the religion and philosophy of the classical nations of
antiquity, is reviewed. And on some branches of these subjects it
has, in the judgment of one well qualified to judge, "preserved
more than the whole surviving Latin literature." It is true we
are sometimes wearied by the too elaborate refutation of opinions
which to a modern mind seem self-evident absurdities; but if these
opinions were actually prevalent in the fifth century, the historical
inquirer will not quarrel with the form in which his information is
conveyed, nor will commit the absurdity of attributing to Augustine
the foolishness of these opinions, but rather the credit of exploding
them. That Augustine is a well-informed and impartial critic,
is evinced by the courteousness and candour which he uniformly
displays to his opponents, by the respect he won from the heathen
themselves, and by his own early life. The most rigorous criticism
has found him at fault regarding matters of fact only in some very
rare instances, which can be easily accounted for. His learning
would not indeed stand comparison with what is accounted such in our
day: his life was too busy, and too devoted to the poor and to the
spiritually necessitous, to admit of any extraordinary acquisition.
He had access to no literature but the Latin; or at least he had only
sufficient Greek to enable him to refer to Greek authors on points of
importance, and not enough to enable him to read their writings with
ease and pleasure.[20] But he had a profound knowledge of his own
time, and a familiar acquaintance not only with the Latin poets, but
with many other authors, some of whose writings are now lost to us,
save the fragments preserved through his quotations.
But the interest attaching to the _City of God_ is not merely
historical. It is the earnestness and ability with which he developes
his own philosophical and theological views which gradually fascinate
the reader, and make him see why the world has set this among the few
greatest books of all time. The fundamental lines of the Augustinian
theology are here laid down in a comprehensive and interesting form.
Never was thought so abstract expressed in language so popular.
He handles metaphysical problems with the unembarrassed ease of
Plato, with all Cicero's accuracy and acuteness, and more than
Cicero's profundity. He is never more at home than when exposing
the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or demonstrating the harmony of
Christian doctrine and true philosophy. And though there are in
the _City of God_, as in all ancient books, things that seem to us
childish and barren, there are also the most surprising anticipations
of modern speculation. There is an earnest grappling with those
problems which are continually re-opened because they underlie man's
relation to God and the spiritual world,--the problems which are not
peculiar to any one century. As we read these animated discussions,
"The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
No outward sign to us is given,
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky."
It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be desired:
there are passages which can possess an interest only to the
antiquarian; there are others with nothing to redeem them but
the glow of their eloquence; there are many repetitions; there
is an occasional use of arguments "plus ingenieux que solides,"
as M. Saisset says. Augustine's great admirer, Erasmus, does not
scruple to call him a writer "obscuræ subtilitatis et parum amœnæ
prolixitatis;"[21] but "the toil of penetrating the apparent
obscurities will be rewarded by finding a real wealth of insight and
enlightenment." Some who have read the opening chapters of the _City
of God_, may have considered it would be a waste of time to proceed;
but no one, we are persuaded, ever regretted reading it all. The
book has its faults; but it effectually introduces us to the most
influential of theologians, and the greatest popular teacher; to a
genius that cannot nod for many lines together; to a reasoner whose
dialectic is more formidable, more keen and sifting, than that of
Socrates or Aquinas; to a saint whose ardent and genuine devotional
feeling bursts up through the severest argumentation; to a man whose
kindliness and wit, universal sympathies and breadth of intelligence,
lend piquancy and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.
The propriety of publishing a translation of so choice a specimen
of ancient literature needs no defence. As Poujoulat very sensibly
remarks, there are not a great many men now-a-days who will read a
work in Latin of twenty-two books. Perhaps there are fewer still who
ought to do so. With our busy neighbours in France, this work has
been a prime favourite for 400 years. There may be said to be eight
independent translations of it into the French tongue, though some
of these are _in part_ merely revisions. One of these translations
has gone through as many as four editions. The most recent is that
which forms part of the Nisard series; but the best, so far as we
have seen, is that of the accomplished Professor of Philosophy in the
College of France, Emile Saisset. This translation is indeed all that
can be desired: here and there an omission occurs, and about one or
two renderings a difference of opinion may exist; but the exceeding
felicity and spirit of the whole show it to have been a labour of
love, the fond homage of a disciple proud of his master. The preface
of M. Saisset is one of the most valuable contributions ever made to
the understanding of Augustine's philosophy.[22]
Of English translations there has been an unaccountable poverty. Only
one exists,[23] and this so exceptionally bad, so unlike the racy
translations of the seventeenth century in general, so inaccurate,
and so frequently unintelligible, that it is not impossible it may
have done something towards giving the English public a distaste for
the book itself. That the present translation also might be improved,
we know; that many men were fitter for the task, on the score of
scholarship, we are very sensible; but that any one would have executed
it with intenser affection and veneration for the author, we are not
prepared to admit. A few notes have been added where it appeared to be
necessary. Some are original, some from the Benedictine Augustine, and
the rest from the elaborate commentary of Vives.[24]
THE EDITOR.
GLASGOW, 1871.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A.D. 410.
[2] _Retractations_, ii. 43.
[3] _Letters_ 132-8.
[4] See some admirable remarks on this subject in the useful work of
Beugnot, _Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme_, ii. 83 et sqq.
[5] As Waterland (iv. 760) does call it, adding that it is "his most
learned, most correct, and most elaborate work."
[6] For proof, see the Benedictine Preface.
[7] "Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular
exigencies: they were either brief and pregnant statements of the
Christian doctrines; refutations of prevalent calumnies; invectives
against the follies and crimes of Paganism; or confutations of
anti-Christian works like those of Celsus, Porphyry, or Julian,
closely following their course of argument, and rarely expanding into
general and comprehensive views of the great conflict."--MILMAN,
_History of Christianity_, iii. c. 10. We are not acquainted with any
more complete preface to the _City of God_ than is contained in the
two or three pages which Milman has devoted to this subject.
[8] See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, _Instit._ vii. 25.
[9] "Hæret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur
urbs quæ totum cepit orbem."--JEROME, iv. 783.
[10] See below, iv. 7.
[11] This is well brought out by Merivale, _Conversion of the Roman
Empire_, p. 145, etc.
[12] Ozanam, _History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century_ (Eng.
trans.), ii. 160.
[13] Abstracts of the work at greater or less length are given by
Dupin, Bindemann, Böhringer, Poujoulat, Ozanam, and others.
[14] His words are: "Plus on examine la Cité de Dieu, plus on reste
convaincu que cet ouvrage dût exercea tres-peu d'influence sur
l'esprit des païens" (ii. 122); and this though he thinks one cannot
but be struck with the grandeur of the ideas it contains.
[15] _History of Ecclesiastical Writers_, i. 406.
[16] _Huetiana_, p. 24.
[17] Flottes, _Etudes sur S. Augustin_ (Paris, 1861), pp. 154-6, one
of the most accurate and interesting even of French monographs on
theological writers.
[18] These editions will be found detailed in the second volume of
Schoenemann's _Bibliotheca Pat._
[19] His words (in Ep. vi.) are quite worth quoting: "Cura rogo te,
ut excudantur aliquot centena exemplarium istius operis a reliquo
Augustini corpore separata; nam multi erunt studiosi qui Augustinum
totum emere vel nollent, vel non poterunt, quia non egebunt, seu
quia tantum pecuniæ non habebunt. Scio enim fere a deditis studiis
istis elegantioribus præter hoc Augustini opus nullum fere aliud legi
ejusdem autoris."
[20] The fullest and fairest discussion of the very simple yet
never settled question of Augustine's learning will be found in
Nourrisson's _Philosophie de S. Augustin_, ii. 92-100.
[21] Erasmi _Epistolæ_ xx. 2.
[22] A large part of it has been translated in Saisset's _Pantheism_
(Clark, Edin.).
[23] By J. H., published in 1610, and again in 1620, with Vives'
commentary.
[24] As the letters of Vives are not in every library, we give his
comico-pathetic account of the result of his Augustinian labours on
his health: "Ex quo Augustinum perfeci, nunquam valui ex sententia;
proximâ vero hebdomade et hac, fracto corpore cuncto, et nervis
lassitudine quadam et debilitate dejectis, in caput decem turres
incumbere mihi videntur incidendo pondere, ac mole intolerabili; isti
sunt fructus studiorum, et merces pulcherrimi laboris; quid labor et
benefacta juvant?"
THE CITY OF GOD.
BOOK FIRST.
ARGUMENT.
AUGUSTINE CENSURES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE CALAMITIES OF THE
WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF
THE GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE, WHICH
THEN, AS ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY,
HE REBUKES THE SHAMELESSNESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE
CHRISTIANS THAT THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE SOLDIERS.
PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING
THIS WORK.
The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my
dearest son Marcellinus,[25] suggested, and which is due to you by
my promise. I have undertaken its defence against those who prefer
their own gods to the Founder of this city,--a city surpassingly
glorious, whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this
fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in the midst
of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its
eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until
"righteousness shall return unto judgment,"[26] and it obtain, by
virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace. A great
work this, and an arduous; but God is my helper. For I am aware what
ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue
of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but
by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this
shifting scene. For the King and Founder of this city of which we
speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine
law in these words: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto
the humble."[27] But this, which is God's prerogative, the inflated
ambition of a proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this
be numbered among its attributes, to
"Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."[28]
And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires,
and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city,
which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its
lust of rule.
1. _Of the adversaries of the name of Christ, whom the barbarians for
Christ's sake spared when they stormed the city._
For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to
defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from
their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens
of this city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and
are so ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to
forget that they would now be unable to utter a single word to its
prejudice, had they not found in its sacred places, as they fled from
the enemy's steel, that life in which they now boast themselves. Are
not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The
reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear
witness to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary
for all who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very
threshold the bloodthirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury
owned a limit. Thither did such of the enemy as had any pity convey
those to whom they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully
disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those murderers
who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came to these spots
where that was forbidden which the licence of war permitted in every
other place, their furious rage for slaughter was bridled, and their
eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes
who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the
ills that have befallen their city; but the preservation of their own
life--a boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ
by the barbarians--they attribute not to our Christ, but to their
own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right perceptions, to
attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by their enemies, to
that divine providence which is wont to reform the depraved manners
of men by chastisement, and which exercises with similar afflictions
the righteous and praiseworthy,--either translating them, when they
have passed through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them
still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute
it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the
custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and
spared them for Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually
shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially dedicated
to Christ's name, and of which the very largest were selected as
sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be given to the expansive
compassion which desired that a large multitude might find shelter
there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with sincere
confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape
the punishment of eternal fire--they who with lying lips took upon
them this name, that they might escape the punishment of present
destruction. For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly
insulting the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not
have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pretended
that they themselves were Christ's servants. Yet now, in ungrateful
pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in
everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which
they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the
light of this brief life.
2. _That it is quite contrary to the usage of war, that the victors
should spare the vanquished for the sake of their gods._
There are histories of numberless wars, both before the building of
Rome and since its rise and the extension of its dominion: let these
be read, and let one instance be cited in which, when a city had been
taken by foreigners, the victors spared those who were found to have
fled for sanctuary to the temples of their gods;[29] or one instance
in which a barbarian general gave orders that none should be put to
the sword who had been found in this or that temple. Did not Æneas see
"Dying Priam at the shrine,
Staining the hearth he made divine?"[30]
Did not Diomede and Ulysses
"Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,
Her fateful image from your fane,
Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore
The virgin coronal she wore?"[31]
Neither is that true which follows, that
"Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,
And Greece grew weak."[32]
For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and sword;
after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars. Neither did
Troy perish because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself
first lost, that she should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt;
just her guards. For as soon as they were slain, she could be stolen.
It was not, in fact, the men who were preserved by the image, but the
image by the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and
the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders?
3. _That the Romans did not show their usual sagacity when they
trusted that they would be benefited by the gods who had been
unable to defend Troy._
And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were
delighted to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And
they are enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though,
so far from being enraged at their own writers, they part with money
to learn what they say; and, indeed, the very teachers of these
authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of
other honours. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that
this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may
impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by
them, according to that saying of Horace,
"The fresh cask long keeps its first tang."[33]
Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the
Trojans, and stirring up Æolus, the king of the winds, against them
in the words,
"A race I hate now ploughs the sea,
Transporting Troy to Italy,
And home-gods conquered. "[34]...
And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of Rome to these
conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of
Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying.
What, then, says Æneas himself,--Æneas who is so often designated
"pious?" Does he not say,
"Lo! Panthus, 'scaped from death by flight,
Priest of Apollo on the height,
His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands?"[35]
Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call
"conquered") were rather entrusted to Æneas than he to them, when it
is said to him,
"The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns?"[36]
If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were
conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under
the protection of a man, what madness is it to suppose that Rome had
been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been
taken unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods
as protectors and champions, what is this but to worship, not good
divinities, but evil omens?[37] Would it not be wiser to believe,
not that Rome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had
not they first perished, but rather that they would have perished
long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For who
does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is
that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and
that they only perished because they had lost their guardian gods,
when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that they chose
for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets, therefore,
when they composed and sang these things about the conquered gods,
had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men,
what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully
and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile
I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant
to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ
the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their
own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared them
in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to
notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against
His name those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same
name that their lives might be spared. In the places consecrated
to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they
restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but
no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle
these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.
4. _Of the asylum of Juno in Troy, which saved no one from the
Greeks; and of the churches of the apostles, which protected
from the barbarians all who fled to them._
Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, was not able, as I have
said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places of their gods
from the fire and sword of the Greeks, though the Greeks worshipped
the same gods. Not only so, but
"Phœnix and Ulysses fell
In the void courts by Juno's cell
Were set the spoil to keep;
Snatched from the burning shrines away,
There Ilium's mighty treasure lay,
Rich altars, bowls of massy gold,
And captive raiment, rudely rolled
In one promiscuous heap;
While boys and matrons, wild with fear,
In long array were standing near."[38]
In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was
chosen, not that from it none might be led out a captive, but that in
it all the captives might be immured. Compare now this "asylum"--the
asylum not of an ordinary god, not of one of the rank and file
of gods, but of Jove's own sister and wife, the queen of all the
gods--with the churches built in memory of the apostles. Into it were
collected the spoils rescued from the blazing temples and snatched
from the gods, not that they might be restored to the vanquished, but
divided among the victors; while into these was carried back, with
the most religious observance and respect, everything which belonged
to them, even though found elsewhere. There liberty was lost; here
preserved. There bondage was strict; here strictly excluded. Into
that temple men were driven to become the chattels of their enemies,
now lording it over them; into these churches men were led by
their relenting foes, that they might be at liberty. In fine, the
gentle[39] Greeks appropriated that temple of Juno to the purposes
of their own avarice and pride; while these churches of Christ were
chosen even by the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for humility
and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that victory
of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they worshipped in
common with the Trojans, and did not dare to put to the sword or
make captive the wretched and vanquished Trojans who fled thither;
and perhaps Virgil, in the manner of poets, has depicted what never
really happened? But there is no question that he depicted the usual
custom of an enemy when sacking a city.
5. _Cæsar's statement regarding the universal custom of an enemy when
sacking a city._
Even Cæsar himself gives us positive testimony regarding this custom;
for, in his deliverance in the senate about the conspirators, he
says (as Sallust, a historian of distinguished veracity, writes[40])
"that virgins and boys are violated, children torn from the embrace
of their parents, matrons subjected to whatever should be the
pleasure of the conquerors, temples and houses plundered, slaughter
and burning rife; in fine, all things filled with arms, corpses,
blood, and wailing." If he had not mentioned temples here, we might
suppose that enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of
the gods. And the Roman temples were in danger of these disasters,
not from foreign foes, but from Catiline and his associates, the most
noble senators and citizens of Rome. But these, it may be said, were
abandoned men, and the parricides of their fatherland.
6. _That not even the Romans, when they took cities, spared the
conquered in their temples._
Why, then, need our argument take note of the many nations who have
waged wars with one another, and have nowhere spared the conquered
in the temples of their gods? Let us look at the practice of the
Romans themselves: let us, I say, recall and review the Romans,
whose chief praise it has been "to spare the vanquished and subdue
the proud," and that they preferred "rather to forgive than to
revenge an injury;"[41] and among so many and great cities which
they have stormed, taken, and overthrown for the extension of their
dominion, let us be told what temples they were accustomed to exempt,
so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or have they really
done this, and has the fact been suppressed by the historians of
these events? Is it to be believed, that men who sought out with
the greatest eagerness points they could praise, would omit those
which, in their own estimation, are the most signal proofs of piety?
Marcus Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most
splendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its coming
ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it before he spilt its
blood. He took steps also to preserve the chastity even of his enemy.
For before he gave orders for the storming of the city, he issued
an edict forbidding the violation of any free person. Yet the city
was sacked according to the custom of war; nor do we anywhere read,
that even by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that
no one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple. And
this certainly would by no means have been omitted, when neither
his weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity could be passed
in silence. Fabius, the conqueror of the city of Tarentum, is
praised for abstaining from making booty of the images. For when his
secretary proposed the question to him, what he wished done with the
statues of the gods, which had been taken in large numbers, he veiled
his moderation under a joke. For he asked of what sort they were;
and when they reported to him that there were not only many large
images, but some of them armed, "Oh," says he, "let us leave with
the Tarentines their angry gods." Seeing, then, that the writers of
Roman history could not pass in silence, neither the weeping of the
one general nor the laughing of the other, neither the chaste pity of
the one nor the facetious moderation of the other, on what occasion
would it be omitted, if, for the honour of any of their enemy's gods,
they had shown this particular form of leniency, that in any temple
slaughter or captivity was prohibited?
7. _That the cruelties which occurred in the sack of Rome were in
accordance with the custom of war, whereas the acts of clemency
resulted from the influence of Christ's name._
All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent
calamity--all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery--was
the result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage
barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest
churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with
the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain,
from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their
relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were
led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see that this is
to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is
blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever
hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent
man to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody
minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so
long before said by His prophet, "I will visit their transgression
with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my
loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them."[42]
8. _Of the advantages and disadvantages which often indiscriminately
accrue to good and wicked men._
Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended
even to the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy
of Him who daily "maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."[43] For though some
of these men, taking thought of this, repent of their wickedness
and reform, some, as the apostle says, "despising the riches of His
goodness and long-suffering, after their hardness and impenitent
heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to
every man according to his deeds:"[44] nevertheless does the patience
of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as the scourge of
God educates the good to patience. And so, too, does the mercy of God
embrace the good that it may cherish them, as the severity of God
arrests the wicked to punish them. To the divine providence it has
seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good
things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked
evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the
good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these
should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the
things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an
unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both
by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous.
For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of
time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is
corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its
unhappiness.[45] Yet often, even in the present distribution of
temporal things, does God plainly evince His own interference. For if
every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would
seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no
sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded
that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things
of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer
these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that
these good things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them
to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only
rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly,
but greedy rather, and covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men
suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between
the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both
suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an
unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish,
virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes
gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail
the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the
lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by
the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges,
clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And
thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and
blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference
does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man
suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a
horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odour.
9. _Of the reasons for administering correction to bad and good
together._
What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period,
which would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered
the following circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider
those very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such
terrible disasters; for although they be far from the excesses of
wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so
clean removed from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these
even temporal ills. For every man, however laudably he lives, yet
yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall
into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and
abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or
so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account. But not
to mention this, where can we readily find a man who holds in fit and
just estimation those persons on account of whose revolting pride,
luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniquities and impiety, God now smites
the earth as His predictions threatened? Where is the man who lives
with them in the style in which it becomes us to live with them? For
often we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and
admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chiding them,
either because we shrink from the labour or are ashamed to offend them,
or because we fear to lose good friendships, lest this should stand in
the way of our advancement, or injure us in some worldly matter, which
either our covetous disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness
shrinks from losing. So that, although the conduct of wicked men is
distasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with them into
that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons, yet, because
they spare their damnable sins through fear, therefore, even though
their own sins be slight and venial, they are justly scourged with the
wicked in this world, though in eternity they quite escape punishment.
Justly, when God afflicts them in common with the wicked, do they find
this life bitter, through love of whose sweetness they declined to be
bitter to these sinners.
If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are
doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or
because he fears they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other
weak persons may be disheartened from endeavouring to lead a good and
pious life, and may be driven from the faith; this man's omission
seems to be occasioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable
consideration. But what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves
revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another
fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought to
reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because they fear to
give offence, lest they should injure their interests in those things
which good men may innocently and legitimately use,--though they use
them more greedily than becomes persons who are strangers in this
world, and profess the hope of a heavenly country. For not only the
weaker brethren, who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire
to have them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle
addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how they
should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the husbands
with their wives, the children with their parents, and parents with
their children, and servants with their masters, and masters with
their servants,--not only do these weaker brethren gladly obtain
and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on account of
which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked life greatly
displeases them; but those also who live at a higher level, who are
not entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and
raiment, do often take thought of their own safety and good name,
and abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear
their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them to such
an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like iniquities, nay,
not by any threats or violence soever; yet those very deeds which
they refuse to share in the commission of, they often decline to find
fault with, when possibly they might by finding fault prevent their
commission. They abstain from interference, because they fear that,
if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be
damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation
and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those
who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish
the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the
people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their
non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love.
Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good
are chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit
with temporal punishments the profligate manners of a community.
They are punished together, not because they have spent an equally
corrupt life, but because the good as well as the wicked, though
not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to
hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by
their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not
be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they
should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long
as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a
better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to fear than
those to whom it was said through the prophet, "He is taken away
in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's
hand."[46] For watchmen or overseers of the people are appointed
in churches, that they may unsparingly rebuke sin. Nor is that man
guiltless of the sin we speak of, who, though he be not a watchman,
yet sees in the conduct of those with whom the relationships of this
life bring him into contact, many things that should be blamed,
and yet overlooks them, fearing to give offence, and lose such
worldly blessings as may legitimately be desired, but which he too
eagerly grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good
are afflicted with temporal calamities--the reason which Job's
case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it
may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how
unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.[47]
10. _That the saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods._
These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may
answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly
which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is
needless, and that the apostle is vapouring when he says, "We know that
all things work together for good to them that love God?"[48]
They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions
of the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great
price?[49] Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians,
to whom the wealthy apostle said, "Godliness with contentment is great
gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith
content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction
and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which,
while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows."[50]
They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they
owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who
himself was poor without, but rich within,--that is to say, if they
used the world as not using it,--could say in the words of Job,
heavily tried, but not overcome: "Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord
hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass:
blessed be the name of the Lord."[51] Like a good servant, Job
counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to
which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while
yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death.
But as to those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to
prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a
somewhat immoderate attachment, they have discovered by the pain
of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving them.
For their grief is of their own making; in the words of the apostle
quoted above, "they have pierced themselves through with many
sorrows." For it was well that they who had so long despised these
verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For
when the apostle says, "They that will be rich fall into temptation,"
and so on, what he blames in riches is not the possession of them,
but the desire of them. For elsewhere he says, "Charge them that
are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in
uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all
things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works,
ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for
themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may
lay hold on eternal life."[52] They who were making such a use of
their property have been consoled for light losses by great gains,
and have had more pleasure in those possessions which they have
securely laid past, by freely giving them away, than grief in those
which they entirely lost by an anxious and selfish hoarding of them.
For nothing could perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to
carry away from earth. Our Lord's injunction runs, "Lay not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also."[53] And they who have listened
to this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how well
they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher,
and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if
many were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the
enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded was the
joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had fled with their
treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly reach! Thus our
Paulinus, bishop of Nola,[54] who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth
and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in holiness, when the
barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used silently to pray,
as he afterwards told me, "O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold
and silver, for where all my treasure is Thou knowest." For all his
treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it by Him who
had also foretold that these calamities would happen in the world.
Consequently those persons who obeyed their Lord when He warned them
where and how to lay up treasure, did not lose even their earthly
possessions in the invasion of the barbarians; while those who are
now repenting that they did not obey Him have learnt the right use
of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have prevented
their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.
But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that
they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They
could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves
good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the
mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they
should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for
the sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for
Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who
enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not
silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they
preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the truth. For
under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one
preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly
the torture which taught them that they should set their affections
on a possession they could not lose, was more useful than those
possessions which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted
and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded that
some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were
not believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps
some craving for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy
resignation; and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual
possession alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such
excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any hidden
stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a
better life,--I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on
the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in
confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed
Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians
should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be
tortured without receiving a heavenly reward.
Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But
this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of
it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills
of this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were
only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to
longer fasts.
11. _Of the end of this life, whether it is material that it be long
delayed._
But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to
death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to
bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this
life. Of this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who
was not destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the
longest life on a par with the shortest. For of two things which
have alike ceased to be, the one is not better, the other worse--the
one greater, the other less.[55] And of what consequence is it what
kind of death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is
not forced to go through the same ordeal a second time? And as in
the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened
with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of
them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer
one and die, than to live in fear of all? I am not unaware of the
poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose rather to live long in
fear of so many deaths, than to die once and so escape them all; but
the weak and cowardly shrinking of the flesh is one thing, and the
well-considered and reasonable persuasion of the soul quite another.
That death is not to be judged an evil which is the end of a good
life; for death becomes evil only by the retribution which follows
it. They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to
inquire what death they are to die, but into what place death will
usher them. And since Christians are well aware that the death of the
godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked was far better than of the
wicked rich man who lay in purple and fine linen, what harm could
these terrific deaths do to the dead who had lived well?
12. _Of the burial of the dead: that the denial of it to Christians
does them no injury._[56]
Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as then
occurred, the bodies could not even be buried. But godly confidence
is not appalled by so ill-omened a circumstance; for the faithful
bear in mind that assurance has been given that not a hair of their
head shall perish, and that, therefore, though they even be devoured
by beasts, their blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered.
The Truth would nowise have said, "Fear not them which kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul,"[57] if anything whatever that
an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be detrimental to
the future life. Or will some one perhaps take so absurd a position
as to contend that those who kill the body are not to be feared
before death, and lest they kill the body, but after death, lest they
deprive it of burial? If this be so, then that is false which Christ
says, "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have
no more that they can do;"[58] for it seems they can do great injury
to the dead body. Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can
be thus false. They who kill the body are said "to do something,"
because the death-blow is felt, the body still having sensation; but
after that, they have no more that they can do, for in the slain
body there is no sensation. And so there are indeed many bodies
of Christians lying unburied; but no one has separated them from
heaven, nor from that earth which is all filled with the presence
of Him who knows whence He will raise again what He created. It is
said, indeed, in the Psalm: "The dead bodies of Thy servants have
they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy
saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like
water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them."[59]
But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those who did
these things, than the misery of those who suffered them. To the eyes
of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet "precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."[60] Wherefore all
these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful
funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of
obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of
the dead. If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid
burial, or none at all, may harm the godly. 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.
The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the city of God
laugh at all this. But even their own philosophers[61] have despised
a careful burial; and often whole armies have fought and fallen for
their earthly country without caring to inquire whether they would
be left exposed on the field of battle, or become the food of wild
beasts. Of this noble disregard of sepulture poetry has well said:
"He who has no tomb has the sky for his vault."[62] How much less
ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians, to whom
it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be restored, and
the body formed anew, all the members of it being gathered not only
from the earth, but from the most secret recesses of any other of the
elements in which the dead bodies of men have lain hid!
13. _Reasons for burying the bodies of the saints._
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be
despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous
and faithful, which have been used by the Holy Ghost as His organs
and instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father,
or his ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in
proportion to the love they bore him, with how much more reason
ought we to care for the bodies of those we love, which they wore
far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body
is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very
nature. And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last
offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and
obsequies celebrated;[63] 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 favourite place.[64] And
Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is commended, and is said
to have pleased God by burying the dead.[65] Our Lord Himself, too,
though He was to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends
to our applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured
precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial.[66]
And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to
take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly
cerements, and see to its burial.[67] These instances certainly
do not prove that corpses have any feeling; but they show that
God's providence extends even to the bodies of the dead, and that
such pious offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing faith in the
resurrection. And we may also draw from them this wholesome lesson,
that if God does not forget even any kind office which loving care
pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity
we exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the holy
patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant
to be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here speak
at large, what we have already said being sufficient. But if the want
of those things which are necessary for the support of the living,
as food and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down
the fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety
from their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less
can the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions
paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in
the hidden abodes of the blessed! Consequently, though in the sack
of Rome and of other towns the dead bodies of the Christians were
deprived of these last offices, this is neither the fault of the
living, for they could not render them; nor an infliction to the
dead, for they cannot feel the loss.
14. _Of the captivity of the saints, and that divine consolation
never failed them therein._
But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This
indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any
place where they could not find their God. But for this calamity also
sacred Scripture affords great consolation. The three youths[68] were
captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets: and God, the
comforter, did not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed
His own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is
yet human,--He who did not abandon the prophet[69] in the belly of
a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridicule rather than
credited by those with whom we are debating; though they believe
what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna, the
famous lyrist,[70] when he was thrown overboard, was received on a
dolphin's back and carried to land. But that story of ours about the
prophet Jonah is far more incredible,--more incredible because more
marvellous, and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.
15. _Of Regulus, in whom we have an example of the voluntary
endurance of captivity for the sake of religion; which yet did
not profit him, though he was a worshipper of the gods._
But among their own famous men they have a very noble example of the
voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience to a religious scruple.
Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman general, was a prisoner in the
hands of the Carthaginians. But they, being more anxious to exchange
their prisoners with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a
special envoy with their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange,
but bound him first with an oath, that if he failed to accomplish
their wish, he would return to Carthage. He went, and persuaded the
senate to the opposite course, because he believed it was not for
the advantage of the Roman republic to make an exchange of prisoners.
After he had thus exerted his influence, the Romans did not compel
him to return to the enemy; but what he had sworn he voluntarily
performed. But the Carthaginians put him to death with refined,
elaborate, and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box,
in which he was compelled to stand, and in which finely sharpened
nails were fixed all round about him, so that he could not lean
upon any part of it without intense pain; and so they killed him by
depriving him of sleep.[71] With justice, indeed, do they applaud the
virtue which rose superior to so frightful a fate. However, the gods
he swore by were those who are now supposed to avenge the prohibition
of their worship, by inflicting these present calamities on the
human race. But if these gods, who were worshipped specially in this
behalf, that they might confer happiness in this life, either willed
or permitted these punishments to be inflicted on one who kept his
oath to them, what more cruel punishment could they in their anger
have inflicted on a perjured person? But why may I not draw from my
reasoning a double inference? Regulus certainly had such reverence
for the gods, that for his oath's sake he would neither remain in
his own land, nor go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned
to his bitterest enemies. If he thought that this course would be
advantageous with respect to this present life, he was certainly
much deceived, for it brought his life to a frightful termination.
By his own example, in fact, he taught that the gods do not secure
the temporal happiness of their worshippers; since he himself, who
was devoted to their worship, was both conquered in battle and taken
prisoner, and then, because he refused to act in violation of the
oath he had sworn by them, was tortured and put to death by a new,
and hitherto unheard of, and all too horrible kind of punishment.
And on the supposition that the worshippers of the gods are rewarded
by felicity in the life to come, why, then, do they calumniate the
influence of Christianity? why do they assert that this disaster has
overtaken the city because it has ceased to worship its gods, since,
worship them as assiduously as it may, it may yet be as unfortunate
as Regulus was? Or will some one carry so wonderful a blindness to
the extent of wildly attempting, in the face of the evident truth, to
contend that though one man might be unfortunate, though a worshipper
of the gods, yet a whole city could not be so? That is to say, the
power of their gods is better adapted to preserve multitudes than
individuals,--as if a multitude were not composed of individuals.
But if they say that M. Regulus, even while a prisoner and enduring
these bodily torments, might yet enjoy the blessedness of a virtuous
soul,[72] then let them recognise that true virtue by which a city
also may be blessed. For the blessedness of a community and of an
individual flow from the same source; for a community is nothing
else than a harmonious collection of individuals. So that I am not
concerned meantime to discuss what kind of virtue Regulus possessed:
enough, that by his very noble example they are forced to own that
the gods are to be worshipped not for the sake of bodily comforts or
external advantages; for he preferred to lose all such things rather
than offend the gods by whom he had sworn. But what can we make of
men who glory in having such a citizen, but dread having a city
like him? If they do not dread this, then let them acknowledge that
some such calamity as befell Regulus may also befall a community,
though they be worshipping their gods as diligently as he; and let
them no longer throw the blame of their misfortunes on Christianity.
But as our present concern is with those Christians who were taken
prisoners, let those who take occasion from this calamity to revile
our most wholesome religion in a fashion not less imprudent than
impudent, consider this and hold their peace; for if it was no
reproach to their gods that a most punctilious worshipper of theirs
should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be deprived of his
native land without hope of finding another, and fall into the hands
of his enemies, and be put to death by a long-drawn and exquisite
torture, much less ought the Christian name to be charged with the
captivity of those who believe in its power, since they, in confident
expectation of a heavenly country, know that they are pilgrims even
in their own homes.
16. _Of the violation of the consecrated and other Christian
virgins to which they were subjected in captivity, and to which
their own will gave no consent; and whether this contaminated
their souls._
But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against Christianity,
when they aggravate the horror of captivity by adding that not only
wives and unmarried maidens, but even consecrated virgins, were
violated. But truly, with respect to this, it is not Christian faith,
nor piety, nor even the virtue of chastity, which is hemmed into any
difficulty: the only difficulty is so to treat the subject as to
satisfy at once modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not
be so careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends. Let
this, therefore, in the first place, be laid down as an unassailable
position, that the virtue which makes the life good has its throne
in the soul, and thence rules the members of the body, which becomes
holy in virtue of the holiness of the will; and that while the will
remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does with the
body, or upon the body, is any fault of the person who suffers it,
so long as he cannot escape it without sin. But as not only pain may
be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever
anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a
thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,--shame,
lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual
pleasure, should be believed to have been committed also with some
assent of the will.
17. _Of suicide committed through fear of punishment or dishonour._
And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed themselves
to avoid such disgrace, who that has any human feeling would refuse
to forgive them? And as for those who would not put an end to their
lives, lest they might seem to escape the crime of another by a sin
of their own, he who lays this to their charge as a great wickedness
is himself not guiltless of the fault of folly. For if it is not
lawful to take the law into our own hands, and slay even a guilty
person, whose death no public sentence has warranted, then certainly
he who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier of
his own death, as he was more innocent of that offence for which
he doomed himself to die. Do we justly execrate the deed of Judas,
and does truth itself pronounce that by hanging himself he rather
aggravated than expiated the guilt of that most iniquitous betrayal,
since, by despairing of God's mercy in his sorrow that wrought death,
he left to himself no place for a healing penitence? How much more
ought he to abstain from laying violent hands on himself who has
done nothing worthy of such a punishment! For Judas, when he killed
himself, killed a wicked man; but he passed from this life chargeable
not only with the death of Christ, but with his own: for though he
killed himself on account of his crime, his killing himself was
another crime. Why, then, should a man who has done no ill do ill to
himself, and by killing himself kill the innocent to escape another's
guilty act, and perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that the
sin of another may not be perpetrated on him?
18. _Of the violence which may be done to the body by another's
lust, while the mind remains inviolate._
But is there a fear that even another's lust may pollute the
violated? It will not pollute, if it be another's: if it pollute,
it is not another's, but is shared also by the polluted. But since
purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its companion virtue
the fortitude which will rather endure all ills than consent to
evil; and since no one, however magnanimous and pure, has always
the disposal of his own body, but can control only the consent and
refusal of his will, what sane man can suppose that, if his body be
seized and forcibly made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he
thereby loses his purity? For if purity can be thus destroyed, then
assuredly purity is no virtue of the soul; nor can it be numbered
among those good things by which the life is made good, but among the
good things of the body, in the same category as strength, beauty,
sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all such good things as may
be diminished without at all diminishing the goodness and rectitude
of our life. But if purity be nothing better than these, why should
the body be perilled that it may be preserved? If, on the other hand,
it belongs to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it
lost. Nay more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists the
uncleanness of carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and therefore
when this continence remains unsubdued, even the sanctity of the body
is preserved, because the will to use it holily remains, and, so far
as lies in the body itself, the power also.
For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the integrity of
its members, nor in their exemption from all touch; for they are
exposed to various accidents which do violence to and wound them,
and the surgeons who administer relief often perform operations that
sicken the spectator. A midwife, suppose, has (whether maliciously or
accidentally, or through unskilfulness) destroyed the virginity of
some girl, while endeavouring to ascertain it: I suppose no one is so
foolish as to believe that, by this destruction of the integrity of
one organ, the virgin has lost anything even of her bodily sanctity.
And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of purpose which
sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another's lust makes
no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is preserved intact by
one's own persistent continence. Suppose a virgin violates the oath
she has sworn to God, and goes to meet her seducer with the intention
of yielding to him, shall we say that as she goes she is possessed
even of bodily sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed
that sanctity of soul which sanctifies the body? Far be it from us
to so misapply words. Let us rather draw this conclusion, that while
the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is violated,
the sanctity of the body is not lost; and that, in like manner,
the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of the soul is
violated, though the body itself remain intact. And therefore a woman
who has been violated by the sin of another, and without any consent
of her own, has no cause to put herself to death; much less has she
cause to commit suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in
that case she commits certain homicide to prevent a crime which is
uncertain as yet, and not her own.
19. _Of Lucretia, who put an end to her life because of the outrage
done her._
This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid. We
maintain that when a woman is violated while her soul admits no
consent to the iniquity, but remains inviolably chaste, the sin is
not hers, but his who violates her. But do they against whom we have
to defend not only the souls, but the sacred bodies too of these
outraged Christian captives,--do they, perhaps, dare to dispute
our position? But all know how loudly they extol the purity of
Lucretia, that noble matron of ancient Rome. When King Tarquin's son
had violated her body, she made known the wickedness of this young
profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kinsman,
men of high rank and full of courage, and bound them by an oath to
avenge it. Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear the shame, she put an
end to her life. What shall we call her? An adulteress, or chaste?
There is no question which she was. Not more happily than truly did
a declaimer say of this sad occurrence: "Here was a marvel: there
were two, and only one committed adultery." Most forcibly and truly
spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the union of the two bodies
the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the other, and
giving heed not to the contact of the bodily members, but to the wide
diversity of their souls, says: "There were two, but the adultery was
committed only by one."
But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime bears the
heavier punishment of the two? For the adulterer was only banished
along with his father; she suffered the extreme penalty. If that was
not impurity by which she was unwillingly ravished, then this is not
justice by which she, being chaste, is punished. To you I appeal,
ye laws and judges of Rome. Even after the perpetration of great
enormities, you do not suffer the criminal to be slain untried. If,
then, one were to bring to your bar this case, and were to prove
to you that a woman not only untried, but chaste and innocent,
had been killed, would you not visit the murderer with punishment
proportionably severe? This crime was committed by Lucretia; that
Lucretia so celebrated and lauded slew the innocent, chaste, outraged
Lucretia. Pronounce sentence. But if you cannot, because there does
not compear any one whom you can punish, why do you extol with such
unmeasured laudation her who slew an innocent and chaste woman?
Assuredly you will find it impossible to defend her before the judges
of the realms below, if they be such as your poets are fond of
representing them; for she is among those
"Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,
And all for loathing of the day,
In madness threw their lives away."
And if she with the others wishes to return,
"Fate bars the way: around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,
And bind with ninefold chain."[73]
Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself conscious of
guilt, not of innocence? She herself alone knows her reason; but what
if she was betrayed by the pleasure of the act, and gave some consent
to Sextus, though so violently abusing her, and then was so affected
with remorse, that she thought death alone could expiate her sin?
Even though this were the case, she ought still to have held her hand
from suicide, if she could with her false gods have accomplished a
fruitful repentance. However, if such were the state of the case,
and if it were false that there were two, but one only committed
adultery; if the truth were that both were involved in it, one by
open assault, the other by secret consent, then she did not kill an
innocent woman; and therefore her erudite defenders may maintain that
she is not among that class of the dwellers below "who guiltless sent
themselves to doom." But this case of Lucretia is in such a dilemma,
that if you extenuate the homicide, you confirm the adultery: if you
acquit her of adultery, you make the charge of homicide heavier;
and there is no way out of the dilemma, when one asks, If she was
adulterous, why praise her? if chaste, why slay her?
Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are unable to
comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore insult over our
outraged Christian women, it is enough that in the instance of this
noble Roman matron it was said in her praise, "There were two, but
the adultery was the crime of only one." For Lucretia was confidently
believed to be superior to the contamination of any consenting
thought to the adultery. And accordingly, since she killed herself
for being subjected to an outrage in which she had no guilty part,
it is obvious that this act of hers was prompted not by the love of
purity, but by the overwhelming burden of her shame. She was ashamed
that so foul a crime had been perpetrated upon her, though without
her abetting; and this matron, with the Roman love of glory in her
veins, was seized with a proud dread that, if she continued to live,
it would be supposed she willingly did not resent the wrong that had
been done her. She could not exhibit to men her conscience, but she
judged that her self-inflicted punishment would testify her state
of mind; and she burned with shame at the thought that her patient
endurance of the foul affront that another had done her, should be
construed into complicity with him. Not such was the decision of
the Christian women who suffered as she did, and yet survive. They
declined to avenge upon themselves the guilt of others, and so add
crimes of their own to those crimes in which they had no share. For
this they would have done had their shame driven them to homicide, as
the lust of their enemies had driven them to adultery. Within their
own souls, in the witness of their own conscience, they enjoy the
glory of chastity. In the sight of God, too, they are esteemed pure,
and this contents them; they ask no more: it suffices them to have
opportunity of doing good, and they decline to evade the distress of
human suspicion, lest they thereby deviate from the divine law.
20. _That Christians have no authority for committing suicide in any
circumstances whatever._
It is not without significance, that in no passage of the holy
canonical books there can be found either divine precept or
permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake of
entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning, or ridding
ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law, rightly interpreted,
even prohibits suicide, where it says, "Thou shalt not kill." This
is proved specially by the omission of the words "thy neighbour,"
which are inserted when false witness is forbidden: "Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbour." Nor yet should any one
on this account suppose he has not broken this commandment if he
has borne false witness only against himself. For the love of our
neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is written,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." If, then, he who makes
false statements about himself is not less guilty of bearing false
witness than if he had made them to the injury of his neighbour;
although in the commandment prohibiting false witness only his
neighbour is mentioned, and persons taking no pains to understand
it might suppose that a man was allowed to be a false witness to
his own hurt; how much greater reason have we to understand that a
man may not kill himself, since in the commandment, "Thou shalt not
kill," there is no limitation added nor any exception made in favour
of any one, and least of all in favour of him on whom the command is
laid! And so some attempt to extend this command even to beasts and
cattle, as if it forbade us to take life from any creature. But if
so, why not extend it also to the plants, and all that is rooted in
and nourished by the earth? For though this class of creatures have
no sensation, yet they also are said to live, and consequently they
can die; and therefore, if violence be done them, can be killed.
So, too, the apostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things
as these, says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened except
it die;" and in the Psalm it is said, "He killed their vines with
hail." Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill," to pull a flower? Are we thus insanely to
countenance the foolish error of the Manichæans? Putting aside,
then, these ravings, if, when we say, Thou shalt not kill, we do not
understand this of the plants, since they have no sensation, nor of
the irrational animals that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are
dissociated from us by their want of reason, and are therefore by
the just appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep
alive for our own uses; if so, then it remains that we understand
that commandment simply of man. The commandment is, "Thou shalt not
kill man;" therefore neither another nor yourself, for he who kills
himself still kills nothing else than man.
21. _Of the cases in which we may put men to death without incurring
the guilt of murder._
However, there are some exceptions made by the divine authority to
its own law, that men may not be put to death. These exceptions
are of two kinds, being justified either by a general law, or by a
special commission granted for a time to some individual. And in
this latter case, he to whom authority is delegated, and who is but
the sword in the hand of him who uses it, is not himself responsible
for the death he deals. And, accordingly, they who have waged war
in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws
have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of
government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such
persons have by no means violated the commandment, "Thou shalt not
kill." Abraham indeed was not merely deemed guiltless of cruelty, but
was even applauded for his piety, because he was ready to slay his
son in obedience to God, not to his own passion. And it is reasonably
enough made a question, whether we are to esteem it to have been in
compliance with a command of God that Jephthah killed his daughter,
because she met him when he had vowed that he would sacrifice to God
whatever first met him as he returned victorious from battle. Samson,
too, who drew down the house on himself and his foes together, is
justified only on this ground, that the Spirit who wrought wonders by
him had given him secret instructions to do this. With the exception,
then, of these two classes of cases, which are justified either by a
just law that applies generally, or by a special intimation from God
Himself, the fountain of all justice, whoever kills a man, either
himself or another, is implicated in the guilt of murder.
22. _That suicide can never be prompted by magnanimity._
But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are perhaps to be
admired for their greatness of soul, though they cannot be applauded
for the soundness of their judgment. However, if you look at the
matter more closely, you will scarcely call it greatness of soul,
which prompts a man to kill himself rather than bear up against some
hardships of fortune, or sins in which he is not implicated. Is it not
rather proof of a feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains
of bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of the vulgar? And is not
that to be pronounced the greater mind, which rather faces than flees
the ills of life, and which, in comparison of the light and purity of
conscience, holds in small esteem the judgment of men, and specially
of the vulgar, which is frequently involved in a mist of error? And,
therefore, if suicide is to be esteemed a magnanimous act, none can
take higher rank for magnanimity than that Cleombrotus, who (as the
story goes), when he had read Plato's book in which he treats of the
immortality of the soul, threw himself from a wall, and so passed
from this life to that which he believed to be better. For he was
not hard pressed by calamity, nor by any accusation, false or true,
which he could not very well have lived down: there was, in short,
no motive but only magnanimity urging him to seek death, and break
away from the sweet detention of this life. And yet that this was a
magnanimous rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself, whom he
had read, would have told him; for he would certainly have been forward
to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not the same bright
intellect which saw that the soul was immortal, discerned also that to
seek immortality by suicide was to be prohibited rather than encouraged.
Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent an enemy
doing so. But we are not inquiring whether it has been done, but
whether it ought to have been done. Sound judgment is to be preferred
even to examples, and indeed examples harmonize with the voice of
reason; but not all examples, but those only which are distinguished
by their piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation. For
suicide we cannot cite the example of patriarchs, prophets, or
apostles; though our Lord Jesus Christ, when He admonished them to
flee from city to city if they were persecuted, might very well
have taken that occasion to advise them to lay violent hands on
themselves, and so escape their persecutors. But seeing He did not
do this, nor proposed this mode of departing this life, though
He were addressing His own friends for whom He had promised to
prepare everlasting mansions, it is obvious that such examples as
are produced from the "nations that forget God," give no warrant of
imitation to the worshippers of the one true God.
23. _What we are to think of the example of Cato, who slew himself
because unable to endure Cæsar's victory._
Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said, our advocates
of suicide have some difficulty in finding any other prescriptive
example, unless it be that of Cato, who killed himself at Utica. His
example is appealed to, not because he was the only man who did so,
but because he was so esteemed as a learned and excellent man, that
it could plausibly be maintained that what he did was and is a good
thing to do. But of this action of his, what can I say but that his
own friends, enlightened men as he, prudently dissuaded him, and
therefore judged his act to be that of a feeble rather than a strong
spirit, and dictated not by honourable feeling forestalling shame,
but by weakness shrinking from hardships? Indeed, Cato condemns
himself by the advice he gave to his dearly loved son. For if it
was a disgrace to live under Cæsar's rule, why did the father urge
the son to this disgrace, by encouraging him to trust absolutely to
Cæsar's generosity? Why did he not persuade him to die along with
himself? If Torquatus was applauded for putting his son to death,
when contrary to orders he had engaged, and engaged successfully,
with the enemy, why did conquered Cato spare his conquered son,
though he did not spare himself? Was it more disgraceful to be a
victor contrary to orders, than to submit to a victor contrary to the
received ideas of honour? Cato, then, cannot have deemed it to be
shameful to live under Cæsar's rule, for had he done so, the father's
sword would have delivered his son from this disgrace. The truth
is, that his son, whom he both hoped and desired would be spared by
Cæsar, was not more loved by him than Cæsar was envied the glory of
pardoning him (as indeed Cæsar himself is reported to have said[74]);
or if envy is too strong a word, let us say he was _ashamed_ that
this glory should be his.
24. _That in that virtue in which Regulus excels Cato, Christians
are pre-eminently distinguished._
Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the saintly
Job, who endured dreadful evils in his body rather than deliver
himself from all torment by self-inflicted death; or other saints, of
whom it is recorded in our authoritative and trustworthy books that
they bore captivity and the oppression of their enemies rather than
commit suicide. But their own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus
Cato, Marcus Regulus. For Cato had never conquered Cæsar; and when
conquered by him, disdained to submit himself to him, and that he
might escape this submission put himself to death. Regulus, on the
contrary, had formerly conquered the Carthaginians, and in command of
the army of Rome had won for the Roman republic a victory which no
citizen could bewail, and which the enemy himself was constrained to
admire; yet afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he
preferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond their
reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the Carthaginians,
and constant in his love of the Romans, he neither deprived the one
of his conquered body, nor the other of his unconquered spirit.
Neither was it love of life that prevented him from killing himself.
This was plainly enough indicated by his unhesitatingly returning,
on account of his promise and oath, to the same enemies whom he had
more grievously provoked by his words in the senate than even by his
arms in battle. Having such a contempt of life, and preferring to
end it by whatever torments excited enemies might contrive, rather
than terminate it by his own hand, he could not more distinctly have
declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be. Among all their
famous and remarkable citizens, the Romans have no better man to
boast of than this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he
remained a very poor man after winning such victories; nor broken
by adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most miserable end.
But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, who had but an earthly
country to defend, and who, though they had but false gods, yet
rendered them a true worship, and carefully kept their oath to them;
if these men, who by the custom and right of war put conquered
enemies to the sword, yet shrank from putting an end to their own
lives even when conquered by their enemies; if, though they had no
fear at all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than
commit suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers
of the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink
from this act, if in God's providence they have been for a season
delivered into the hands of their enemies to prove or to correct
them! And, certainly, Christians subjected to this humiliating
condition will not be deserted by the Most High, who for their sakes
humbled Himself. Neither should they forget that they are bound by
no laws of war, nor military orders, to put even a conquered enemy
to the sword; and if a man may not put to death the enemy who has
sinned, or may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to
maintain that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is
going to sin, against him?
25. _That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin._
But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the body is
subjected to the enemy's lust, the insidious pleasure of sense may
entice the soul to consent to the sin, and steps must be taken to
prevent so disastrous a result. And is not suicide the proper mode of
preventing not only the enemy's sin, but the sin of the Christian so
allured? Now, in the first place, the soul which is led by God and
His wisdom, rather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never
consent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by another's lust.
And, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declares,
that suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness, who is such a
fool as to say, Let us sin now, that we may obviate a possible future
sin; let us now commit murder, lest we perhaps afterwards should
commit adultery? If we are so controlled by iniquity that innocence
is out of the question, and we can at best but make a choice of
sins, is not a future and uncertain adultery preferable to a present
and certain murder? Is it not better to commit a wickedness which
penitence may heal, than a crime which leaves no place for healing
contrition? I say this for the sake of those men or women who fear
they may be enticed into consenting to their violator's lust, and
think they should lay violent hands on themselves, and so prevent,
not another's sin, but their own. But far be it from the mind of
a Christian confiding in God, and resting in the hope of His aid;
far be it, I say, from such a mind to yield a shameful consent to
pleasures of the flesh, howsoever presented. And if that lustful
disobedience, which still dwells in our mortal members, follows its
own law irrespective of our will, surely its motions in the body of
one who rebels against them are as blameless as its motions in the
body of one who sleeps.
26. _That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the saints are
not to be followed._
But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women escaped
those who menaced them with outrage, by casting themselves into
rivers which they knew would drown them; and having died in this
manner, they are venerated in the church catholic as martyrs.
Of such persons I do not presume to speak rashly. I cannot tell
whether there may not have been vouchsafed to the church some divine
authority, proved by trustworthy evidences, for so honouring their
memory: it may be that it is so. It may be they were not deceived
by human judgment, but prompted by divine wisdom, to their act of
self-destruction. We know that this was the case with Samson. And
when God enjoins any act, and intimates by plain evidence that He
has enjoined it, who will call obedience criminal? Who will accuse
so religious a submission? But then every man is not justified in
sacrificing his son to God, because Abraham was commendable in so
doing. The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the authority
under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused of murder by
any law of his state; nay, if he has not slain him, it is then he is
accused of treason to the state, and of despising the law. But if he
has been acting on his own authority, and at his own impulse, he has
in this case incurred the crime of shedding human blood. And thus he
is punished for doing without orders the very thing he is punished
for neglecting to do when he has been ordered. If the commands of
a general make so great a difference, shall the commands of God
make none? He, then, who knows it is unlawful to kill himself,
may nevertheless do so if he is ordered by Him whose commands we
may not neglect. Only let him be very sure that the divine command
has been signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets
of conscience only in so far as these are disclosed to us, and so
far only do we judge: "No one knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him."[75] But this we affirm, this we
maintain, this we every way pronounce to be right, that no man ought
to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this is to escape the ills
of time by plunging into those of eternity; that no man ought to do
so on account of another man's sins, for this were to escape a guilt
which could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own;
that no man ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for he
has all the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by
repentance; that no man should put an end to this life to obtain that
better life we look for after death, for those who die by their own
hand have no better life after death.
27. _Whether voluntary death should be sought in order to avoid sin._
There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned before, and
which is thought a sound one,--namely, to prevent one's falling into
sin either through the blandishments of pleasure or the violence of
pain. If this reason were a good one, then we should be impelled
to exhort men at once to destroy themselves, as soon as they have
been washed in the laver of regeneration, and have received the
forgiveness of all sin. Then is the time to escape all future sin,
when all past sin is blotted out. And if this escape be lawfully
secured by suicide, why not then specially? Why does any baptized
person hold his hand from taking his own life? Why does any person
who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose himself to
them, when he has power so easily to rid himself of them all, and
when it is written, "He who loveth danger shall fall into it?"[76]
Why does he love, or at least face, so many serious dangers, by
remaining in this life from which he may legitimately depart? But is
any one so blinded and twisted in his moral nature, and so far astray
from the truth, as to think that, though a man ought to make away
with himself for fear of being led into sin by the oppression of one
man, his master, he ought yet to live, and so expose himself to the
hourly temptations of this world, both to all those evils which the
oppression of one master involves, and to numberless other miseries
in which this life inevitably implicates us? What reason, then, is
there for our consuming time in those exhortations by which we seek
to animate the baptized, either to virginal chastity, or vidual
continence, or matrimonial fidelity, when we have so much more simple
and compendious a method of deliverance from sin, by persuading those
who are fresh from baptism to put an end to their lives, and so pass
to their Lord pure and well-conditioned? If any one thinks that such
persuasion should be attempted, I say not he is foolish, but mad.
With what face, then, can he say to any man, "Kill yourself, lest
to your small sins you add a heinous sin, while you live under an
unchaste master, whose conduct is that of a barbarian?" How can he
say this, if he cannot without wickedness say, "Kill yourself, now
that you are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into
similar or even aggravated sins, while you live in a world which has
such power to allure by its unclean pleasures, to torment by its
horrible cruelties, to overcome by its errors and terrors?" It is
wicked to say this; it is therefore wicked to kill oneself. For if
there could be any just cause of suicide, this were so. And since not
even this is so, there is none.
28. _By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to indulge
his lust on the bodies of continent Christians._
Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful servants of
Christ, though your chastity was made the sport of your enemies. You
have a grand and true consolation, if you maintain a good conscience,
and know that you did not consent to the sins of those who were
permitted to commit sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask
why this permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence
of the Creator and Governor of the world; and "unsearchable are
His judgments, and His ways past finding out."[77] Nevertheless,
faithfully interrogate your own souls, whether ye have not been
unduly puffed up by your integrity, and continence, and chastity;
and whether ye have not been so desirous of the human praise that is
accorded to these virtues, that ye have envied some who possessed
them. I, for my part, do not know your hearts, and therefore I make
no accusation; I do not even hear what your hearts answer when you
question them. And yet, if they answer that it is as I have supposed
it might be, do not marvel that you have lost that by which you can
win men's praise, and retain that which cannot be exhibited to men.
If you did not consent to sin, it was because God added His aid
to His grace that it might not be lost, and because shame before
men succeeded to human glory that it might not be loved. But in
both respects even the fainthearted among you have a consolation,
approved by the one experience, chastened by the other; justified
by the one, corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts, when
interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the virtue of
virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but, condescending
to those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling in these gifts of
God, and that they have never envied any one the like excellences
of sanctity and purity, but rose superior to human applause, which
is wont to be abundant in proportion to the rarity of the virtue
applauded, and rather desired that their own number be increased,
than that by the smallness of their numbers each of them should be
conspicuous;--even such faithful women, I say, must not complain
that permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to outrage
them; nor must they allow themselves to believe that God overlooked
their character when He permitted acts which no one with impunity
commits. For some most flagrant and wicked desires are allowed free
play at present by the secret judgment of God, and are reserved to
the public and final judgment. Moreover, it is possible that those
Christian women, who are unconscious of any undue pride on account of
their virtuous chastity, whereby they sinlessly suffered the violence
of their captors, had yet some lurking infirmity which might have
betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous bearing, had they not
been subjected to the humiliation that befell them in the taking
of the city. As, therefore, some men were removed by death, that
no wickedness might change their disposition, so these women were
outraged lest prosperity should corrupt their modesty. Neither those
women, then, who were already puffed up by the circumstance that
they were still virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed up
had they not been exposed to the violence of the enemy, lost their
chastity, but rather gained humility: the former were saved from
pride already cherished, the latter from pride that would shortly
have grown upon them.
We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have
conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as
the body is inviolate, and did not understand that the purity both
of the body and the soul rests on the stedfastness of the will
strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an
unwilling person. From this error they are probably now delivered.
For when they reflect how conscientiously they served God, and when
they settle again to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise
desert those who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid; and when they
consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is chastity,
they are shut up to the conclusion that He could never have permitted
these disasters to befall His saints, if by them that saintliness
could be destroyed which He Himself had bestowed upon them, and
delights to see in them.
29. _What the servants of Christ should say in reply to the
unbelievers who cast in their teeth that Christ did not rescue
them from the fury of their enemies._
The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a
consolation of its own,--a consolation which cannot deceive, and
which has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs
of earth can afford. They will not refuse the discipline of this
temporal life, in which they are schooled for life eternal; nor will
they lament their experience of it, for the good things of earth they
use as pilgrims who are not detained by them, and its ills either
prove or improve them. As for those who insult over them in their
trials, and when ills befall them say, "Where is thy God?"[78] we may
ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities
for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or maintain
they ought to be worshipped; for the family of Christ is furnished
with its reply: our God is everywhere present, wholly everywhere; not
confined to any place. He can be present unperceived, and be absent
without moving; when He exposes us to adversities, it is either to
prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return
for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for
us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should deign to
speak with you even about your own gods, much less about our God, who
is "to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations are
idols; but the Lord made the heavens."[79]
30. _That those who complain of Christianity really desire to
live without restraint in shameful luxury._
If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once your pontiff,
and was unanimously chosen by the senate, when, in the panic created
by the Punic war, they sought for the best citizen to entertain the
Phrygian goddess, he would curb this shamelessness of yours, though
you would perhaps scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such
a man. For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity,
unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious licence unrestrained,
and to lead an abandoned and profligate life without the interruption
of any uneasiness or disaster? For certainly your desire for peace,
and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using
these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety,
temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an
endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your
prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-fold more
disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this
that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the
whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of
Carthage, Rome's rival; and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction.
He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that
a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he
was not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For
when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from
its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith
resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was
weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed,
by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in
their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel
proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their
virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now
that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of
their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed
among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other
people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued
under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.
31. _By what steps the passion for governing increased among
the Romans._
For at what stage would that passion rest when once it has lodged
in a proud spirit, until by a succession of advances it has reached
even the throne? And to obtain such advances nothing avails but
unscrupulous ambition. But unscrupulous ambition has nothing to work
upon, save in a nation corrupted by avarice and luxury. Moreover,
a people becomes avaricious and luxurious by prosperity; and it
was this which that very prudent man Nasica was endeavouring to
avoid when he opposed the destruction of the greatest, strongest,
wealthiest city of Rome's enemy. He thought that thus fear would act
as a curb on lust, and that lust being curbed would not run riot
in luxury, and that luxury being prevented avarice would be at an
end; and that these vices being banished, virtue would flourish and
increase, to the great profit of the state; and liberty, the fit
companion of virtue, would abide unfettered. For similar reasons,
and animated by the same considerate patriotism, that same chief
pontiff of yours--I still refer to him who was adjudged Rome's best
man without one dissentient voice--threw cold water on the proposal
of the senate to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in
a very weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious
manners of Greece to sap the Roman manliness, and persuaded them not
to yield to the enervating and emasculating influence of foreign
licentiousness. So authoritative and forcible were his words, that
the senate was moved to prohibit the use even of those benches
which hitherto had been customarily brought to the theatre for the
temporary use of the citizens.[80] How eagerly would such a man as
this have banished from Rome the scenic exhibitions themselves, had
he dared to oppose the authority of those whom he supposed to be
gods! For he did not know that they were malicious devils; or if he
did, he supposed they should rather be propitiated than despised.
For there had not yet been revealed to the Gentiles the heavenly
doctrine which should purify their hearts by faith, and transform
their natural disposition by humble godliness, and turn them from the
service of proud devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or
even above the heavens.
32. _Of the establishment of scenic entertainments._