were which the true God, in whose power are also the kingdoms of the
earth, condescended to help in order to raise the empire, and also
for what reason He did so. And, in order to discuss this question on
clearer ground, we have written the former books, to show that the
power of those gods, who, they thought, were to be worshipped with
such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter; and
also what we have already accomplished of the present volume, to
refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might have been already
persuaded that the Roman empire was not extended and preserved by
the worship of these gods, might still be attributing its extension
and preservation to some kind of fate, rather than to the most
powerful will of God most high. The ancient and primitive Romans,
therefore, though their history shows us that, like all the other
nations, with the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped
false gods, and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have
nevertheless this commendation bestowed on them by their historian,
that they were "greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous of
great glory, and content with a moderate fortune."[193] Glory they
most ardently loved: for it they wished to live, for it they did not
hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by the strength of
their passion for that one thing. At length their country itself,
because it seemed inglorious to serve, but glorious to rule and to
command, they first earnestly desired to be free, and then to be
mistress. Hence it was that, not enduring the domination of kings,
they put the government into the hands of two chiefs, holding office
for a year, who were called consuls, not kings or lords.[194] But
royal pomp seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler
(_regentis_), or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for
the public good) (_consulentis_), but rather with the haughtiness of
a lord (_dominantis_). King Tarquin, therefore, having been banished,
and the consular government having been instituted, it followed, as
the same author already alluded to says in his praises of the Romans,
that "the state grew with amazing rapidity after it had obtained
liberty, so great a desire of glory had taken possession of it."
That eagerness for praise and desire of glory, then, was that which
accomplished those many wonderful things, laudable, doubtless, and
glorious according to human judgment. The same Sallust praises the
great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Cæsar, saying that
for a long time the republic had no one great in virtue, but that
within his memory there had been these two men of eminent virtue, and
very different pursuits. Now, among the praises which he pronounces
on Cæsar he put this, that he wished for a great empire, an army,
and a new war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and
virtue might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer of men of
heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations to war,
and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge, so that there
might be occasion for the display of their valour. This, forsooth, is
what that desire of praise and thirst for glory did. Wherefore, by
the love of liberty in the first place, afterwards also by that of
domination and through the desire of praise and glory, they achieved
many great things; and their most eminent poet testifies to their
having been prompted by all these motives:
"Porsenna there, with pride elate,
Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate;
With arms he hems the city in,
Æneas' sons stand firm to win."[195]
At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die bravely
or to live free; but when liberty was obtained, so great a desire
of glory took possession of them, that liberty alone was not enough
unless domination also should be sought, their great ambition being
that which the same poet puts into the mouth of Jupiter:
"Nay, Juno's self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms,
Shall change for smiles her moody frown,
And vie with me in zeal to crown
Rome's sons, the nation of the gown.
So stands my will. There comes a day,
While Rome's great ages hold their way,
When old Assaracus's sons
Shall quit them on the myrmidons,
O'er Phthia and Mycenæ reign,
And humble Argos to their chain."[196]
Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future, whilst,
in reality, he was only himself passing in review in his own mind
things which were already done, and which were beheld by him as
present realities. But I have mentioned them with the intention
of showing that, next to liberty, the Romans so highly esteemed
domination, that it received a place among those things on which
they bestowed the greatest praise. Hence also it is that that poet,
preferring to the arts of other nations those arts which peculiarly
belong to the Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and
of subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,
"Others, belike, with happier grace,
From bronze or stone shall call the face,
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,
And tell when planets set or rise;
But Roman thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide;
Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes,
Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."[197]
These arts they exercised with the more skill the less they gave
themselves up to pleasures, and to enervation of body and mind in
coveting and amassing riches, and through these corrupting morals, by
extorting them from the miserable citizens and lavishing them on base
stage-players. Hence these men of base character, who abounded when
Sallust wrote and Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honours
and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. Wherefore the
same says, "But at first it was rather ambition than avarice that
stirred the minds of men, which vice, however, is nearer to virtue. For
glory, honour, and power are desired alike by the good man and by the
ignoble; but the former," he says, "strives onward to them by the true
way, whilst the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them by
fraud and deceit."[198] And what is meant by seeking the attainment
of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek them by virtue,
and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good and the ignoble man alike
desire these things, but the good man strives to overtake them by the
true way. The way is virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of
possession--namely, to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even by the temples
of their gods; for they built in very close proximity the temples of
Virtue and Honour, worshipping as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can
understand what they who were good thought to be the end of virtue,
and to what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as to
the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honour, and strove to
possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a higher kind is bestowed
upon Cato, for he says of him, "The less he sought glory, the more it
followed him."[199] We say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with
the desire of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men thinking
well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is content with no
human judgment save that of one's own conscience. Whence the apostle
says, "For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience."[200]
And in another place he says, "But let every one prove his own work,
and then he shall have glory in himself, and not in another."[201] That
glory, honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for themselves,
and to which the good sought to attain by good arts, should not be
sought after by virtue, but virtue by them. For there is no true virtue
except that which is directed towards that end in which is the highest
and ultimate good of man. Wherefore even the honours which Cato sought
he ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have conferred them
on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.
But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he whose virtue
was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue. Wherefore, let
us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to discover what was the
judgment he had formed concerning the condition of the state both
then and in former times. "I do not think," he says, "that it was by
arms that our ancestors made the republic great from being small.
Had that been the case, the republic of our day would have been by
far more flourishing than that of their times, for the number of
our allies and citizens is far greater; and, besides, we possess a
far greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did. But it
was other things than these that made them great, and we have none
of them: industry at home, just government without, a mind free in
deliberation, addicted neither to crime nor to lust. Instead of
these, we have luxury and avarice, poverty in the state, opulence
among citizens; we laud riches, we follow laziness; there is no
difference made between the good and the bad; all the rewards of
virtue are got possession of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every
individual consults only for his own good, when ye are the slaves of
pleasure at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no
wonder that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic."[202]
He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably thinks that
such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was applicable to all of
them, or, at least, to very many of them. It is not so; otherwise
the things which Cato himself writes, and which I have quoted in
the second book of this work, would not be true. In that passage he
says, that even from the very beginning of the state wrongs were
committed by the more powerful, which led to the separation of the
people from the fathers, besides which there were other internal
dissensions; and the only time at which there existed a just and
moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings, and
that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of Tarquin,
and were carrying on the grievous war which had been undertaken on
his account against Etruria; but afterwards the fathers oppressed the
people as slaves, flogged them as the kings had done, drove them from
their land, and, to the exclusion of all others, held the government
in their own hands alone. And to these discords, whilst the fathers
were wishing to rule, and the people were unwilling to serve, the
second Punic war put an end; for again great fear began to press upon
their disquieted minds, holding them back from those distractions by
another and greater anxiety, and bringing them back to civil concord.
But the great things which were then achieved were accomplished
through the administration of a few men, who were good in their own
way. And by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which
first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated them,
it waxed greater and greater. And this the same historian affirms,
when he says that, reading and hearing of the many illustrious
achievements of the Roman people in peace and in war, by land and by
sea, he wished to understand what it was by which these great things
were specially sustained. For he knew that very often the Romans had
with a small company contended with great legions of the enemy; and
he knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars with
opulent kings. And he says that, after having given the matter much
consideration, it seemed evident to him that the pre-eminent virtue
of a few citizens had achieved the whole, and that that explained
how poverty overcame wealth, and small numbers great multitudes.
But, he adds, after that the state had been corrupted by luxury and
indolence, again the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear
the vices of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even the praises
of Cato are only applicable to a few; for only a few were possessed
of that virtue which leads men to pursue after glory, honour, and
power by the true way,--that is, by virtue itself. This industry at
home, of which Cato speaks, was the consequence of a desire to enrich
the public treasury, even though the result should be poverty at
home; and therefore, when he speaks of the evil arising out of the
corruption of morals, he reverses the expression, and says, "Poverty
in the state, riches at home."
13. _Concerning the love of praise, which, though it is a vice, is
reckoned a virtue, because by it greater vice is restrained._
Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for
a long time, it pleased God that there should also arise a Western
empire, which, though later in time, should be more illustrious
in extent and greatness. And, in order that it might overcome the
grievous evils which existed among other nations, He purposely
granted it to such men as, for the sake of honour, and praise, and
glory, consulted well for their country, in whose glory they sought
their own, and whose safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their
own, suppressing the desire of wealth and many other vices for
this one vice, namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest
perception who recognises that even the love of praise is a vice; nor
has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who says,
"You're bloated by ambition? take advice:
Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice."[203]
And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with the desire
of repressing the passion for domination:
"Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast
A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join
To distant Gades Lybia, and thus
Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian."[204]
Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the power of
the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety, or by the love
of intelligible beauty, but by desire of human praise, or, at
all events, restrain them better by the love of such praise, are
not indeed yet holy, but only less base. Even Tully was not able
to conceal this fact; for, in the same books which he wrote, _De
Republica_, when speaking concerning the education of a chief of
the state, who ought, he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to
say that their ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things
through desire of glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this
vice, they even thought that it ought to be excited and kindled up,
supposing that that would be beneficial to the republic. But not even
in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate this poisonous
opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than day. For when he is
speaking of those studies which are to be pursued with a view to the
_true good_, and not with the vainglorious desire of human praise, he
introduces the following universal and general statement:
"Honour nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the
prosecution of studies by glory; and those pursuits are always
neglected which are generally discredited."[205]
14. _Concerning the eradication of the love of human praise,
because all the glory of the righteous is in God._
It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire than to
yield to it, for the purer one is from this defilement, the liker
is he to God; and, though this vice be not thoroughly eradicated
from his heart,--for it does not cease to tempt even the minds of
those who are making good progress in virtue,--at any rate, let
the desire of glory be surpassed by the love of righteousness, so
that, if there be seen anywhere "lying neglected things which are
generally discredited," if they are good, if they are right, even
the love of human praise may blush and yield to the love of truth.
For so hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the love of glory be
greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the Lord
said, "How can ye believe, who look for glory from one another,
and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?"[206] Also,
concerning some who had believed on Him, but were afraid to confess
Him openly, the evangelist says, "They loved the praise of men more
than the praise of God;"[207] which did not the holy apostles, who,
when they proclaimed the name of Christ in those places where it
was not only discredited, and therefore neglected,--according as
Cicero says, "Those things are always neglected which are generally
discredited,"--but was even held in the utmost detestation, holding
to what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also the
physician of minds, "If any one shall deny me before men, him will I
also deny before my Father who is in heaven, and before the angels
of God,"[208] amidst maledictions and reproaches, and most grievous
persecutions and cruel punishments, were not deterred from the
preaching of human salvation by the noise of human indignation. And
when, as they did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives,
conquering, as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the
peace of righteousness, great glory followed them in the church of
Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their virtue, but,
referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by whose grace they
were what they were, they sought to kindle, also by that same flame,
the minds of those for whose good they consulted, to the love of Him,
by whom they could be made to be what they themselves were. For their
Master had taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human
glory, saying, "Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before
men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not have a reward from
your Father who is in heaven."[209] But again, lest, understanding
this wrongly, they should, through fear of pleasing men, be less
useful through concealing their goodness, showing for what end they
ought to make it known, He says, "Let your works shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in
heaven."[210] Not, observe, "that ye may be seen by them, that is, in
order that their eyes may be directed upon you,"--for of yourselves
ye are nothing,--but "that they may glorify your Father who is in
heaven," by fixing their regards on whom they may become such as ye
are. These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the
Curtiuses, and the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true
piety, and also in the greatness of their number. But since those
Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as the end of
all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom,
not in heaven, but in earth,--not in the sphere of eternal life, but
in the sphere of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded
by the dying,--what else but glory should they love, by which they
wished even after death to live in the mouths of their admirers?
15. _Concerning the temporal reward which God granted to the
virtues of the Romans._
Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not purpose to
give eternal life with His holy angels in His own celestial city,
to the society of which that true piety which does not render the
service of religion, which the Greeks call λατρεία, to any save the
true God conducts, if He had also withheld from them the terrestrial
glory of that most excellent empire, a reward would not have been
rendered to their good arts,--that is, their virtues,--by which they
sought to attain so great glory. For as to those who seem to do
some good that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says,
"Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward."[211] So
also these despised their own private affairs for the sake of the
republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted for the
good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted neither to
what their laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust. By all these
acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to honours, power,
and glory; they were honoured among almost all nations; they imposed
the laws of their empire upon many nations; and at this day, both in
literature and history, they are glorious among almost all nations.
There is no reason why they should complain against the justice of
the supreme and true God,--"they have received their reward."
16. _Concerning the reward of the holy citizens of the celestial
city, to whom the example of the virtues of the Roman are useful._
But the reward of the saints is far different, who even here endured
reproaches for that city of God which is hateful to the lovers of
this world. That city is eternal. There none are born, for none die.
There is true and full felicity,--not a goddess, but a gift of God.
Thence we receive the pledge of faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we
sigh for its beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the
evil, but the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no
great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury by
suffering privations at home, for there is the common treasury of
truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the sake of recompensing
the citizens of Rome that her empire and glory had been so signally
extended, but also that the citizens of that eternal city, during
their pilgrimage here, might diligently and soberly contemplate these
examples, and see what a love they owe to the supernal country on
account of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much
beloved by its citizens on account of human glory.
17. _To what profit the Romans carried on wars, and how much they
contributed to the well-being of those whom they conquered._
For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent
and ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose government
a dying man lives, if they who govern do not force him to impiety
and iniquity? Did the Romans at all harm those nations, on whom,
when subjugated, they imposed their laws, except in as far as that
was accomplished with great slaughter in war? Now, had it been done
with consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater
success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for neither
did the Romans themselves live exempt from those laws which they
imposed on others. Had this been done without Mars and Bellona, so
that there should have been no place for victory, no one conquering
where no one had fought, would not the condition of the Romans and
of the other nations have been one and the same, especially if that
had been done at once which afterwards was done most humanely and
most acceptably, namely, the admission of all to the rights of Roman
citizens who belonged to the Roman empire, and if that had been made
the privilege of all which was formerly the privilege of a few, with
this one condition, that the humbler class who had no lands of their
own should live at the public expense--an alimentary impost, which
would have been paid with a much better grace by them into the hands
of good administrators of the republic, of which they were members,
by their own hearty consent, than it would have been paid with had it
to be extorted from them as conquered men? For I do not see what it
makes for the safety, good morals, and certainly not for the dignity,
of men, that some have conquered and others have been conquered,
except that it yields them that most insane pomp of human glory, in
which "they have received their reward," who burned with excessive
desire of it, and carried on most eager wars. For do not their lands
pay tribute? Have they any privilege of learning what the others are
not privileged to learn? Are there not many senators in the other
countries who do not even know Rome by sight? Take away outward
show,[212] and what are all men after all but men? But even though
the perversity of the age should permit that all the better men
should be more highly honoured than others, neither thus should human
honour be held at a great price, for it is smoke which has no weight.
But let us avail ourselves even in these things of the kindness of
God. Let us consider how great things they despised, how great things
they endured, what lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory,
who merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and
let this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as that
city in which it has been promised us to reign as far surpasses this
one as heaven is distant from the earth, as eternal life surpasses
temporal joy, solid glory empty praise, or the society of angels the
society of mortals, or the glory of Him who made the sun and moon
the light of the sun and moon, the citizens of so great a country
may not seem to themselves to have done anything very great, if, in
order to obtain it, they have done some good works or endured some
evils, when those men for this terrestrial country already obtained,
did such great things, suffered such great things. And especially
are all these things to be considered, because the remission of
sins which collects citizens to the celestial country has something
in it to which a shadowy resemblance is found in that asylum of
Romulus, whither escape from the punishment of all manner of crimes
congregated that multitude with which the state was to be founded.
18. _How far Christians ought to be from boasting, if they have done
anything for the love of the eternal country, when the Romans did
such great things for human glory and a terrestrial city._
What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if
for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put to death
his son,--a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels no one to make?
But certainly it is more difficult to put to death one's sons, than
to do what is required to be done for the heavenly country, even
to distribute to the poor those things which were looked upon as
things to be amassed and laid up for one's children, or to let them
go, if there arise any temptation which compels us to do so, for
the sake of faith and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches
which make us or our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us
in our lifetime, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know
not, or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes us
happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus, even the poet
who celebrates his praises testifies that it was the occasion of
unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for he says,
"And call his own rebellious seed
For menaced liberty to bleed.
Unhappy father! howsoe'er
The deed be judged by after days."[213]
But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness, saying,
"His country's love shall all o'erbear."
There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire of human
praise, which compelled the Romans to admirable deeds. If, therefore,
for the liberty of dying men, and for the desire of human praise
which is sought after by mortals, sons could be put to death by a
father, what great thing is it, if, for the true liberty which has
made us free from the dominion of sin, and death, and the devil,--not
through the desire of human praise, but through the earnest desire of
freeing men, not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince
of the demons,--we should, I do not say put to death our sons, but
reckon among our sons Christ's poor ones? If, also, another Roman
chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son, not because he fought
against his country, but because, being challenged by an enemy,
he through youthful impetuosity fought, though for his country,
yet contrary to orders which he his father had given as general;
and this he did, notwithstanding that his son was victorious, lest
there should be more evil in the example of authority despised, than
good in the glory of slaying an enemy;--if, I say, Torquatus acted
thus, wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of
a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are
loved far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned by
those who envied him, notwithstanding that he had thrown off from
the necks of his countrymen the yoke of their most bitter enemies,
the Veientes, again delivered his ungrateful country from the Gauls,
because he had no other in which he could have better opportunities
for living a life of glory;--if Camillus did thus, why should he be
extolled as having done some great thing, who, having, it may be,
suffered in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous
and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical
enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has rather
defended her, as far as he was able, from the most pernicious
perversity of heretics, since there is not another church, I say not
in which one can live a life of glory, but in which eternal life can
be obtained? If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with King
Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war, when
he did not succeed in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake
for him, reached forth his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar,
saying that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for his
destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at the
thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay recalled all
his warlike purposes, and made peace;--if, I say, Mucius did this,
who shall speak of his meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven,
if for it he may have given to the flames not one hand, but even his
whole body, and that not by his own spontaneous act, but because he
was persecuted by another? If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw
himself all armed into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of
their gods, which had commanded that the Romans should throw into
that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could only
understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and arms, the
gods had commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong into
that destruction;--if he did this, shall we say that that man has
done a great thing for the eternal city who may have died by a like
death, not, however, precipitating himself spontaneously into a
gulf, but having suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of
his faith, more especially when he has received from his Lord, who
is also King of his country, a more certain oracle, "Fear not them
who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul?"[214] If the Decii
dedicated themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of
words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood the
wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering the Roman
army;--if they did this, let not the holy martyrs carry themselves
proudly, as though they had done some meritorious thing for a share
in that country where are eternal life and felicity, if even to
the shedding of their blood, loving not only the brethren for whom
it was shed, but, according as had been commanded them, even their
enemies by whom it was being shed, they have vied with one another in
faith of love and love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when engaged
in dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received with
such indifference the false intelligence which was brought to him of
the death of his son, with the intention of so agitating him that he
should go away, and thus the glory of dedicating the temple should
fall to his colleague;--if he received that intelligence with such
indifference that he even ordered that his son should be cast out
unburied, the love of glory having overcome in his heart the grief
of bereavement, how shall any one affirm that he has done a great
thing for the preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the
heavenly city are delivered from divers errors, and gathered together
from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when anxious about
the burial of his father, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their
dead?"[215] Regulus, in order not to break his oath, even with his
most cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself, because (as
he is said to have replied to the Romans when they wished to retain
him) he could not have the dignity of an honourable citizen at Rome
after having been a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put
him to death with the utmost tortures, because he had spoken against
them in the senate. If Regulus acted thus, what tortures are not to
be despised for the sake of good faith toward that country to whose
beatitude faith itself leads? Or what will a man have rendered to the
Lord for all He has bestowed upon him, if, for the faithfulness he
owes to Him, he shall have suffered such things as Regulus suffered
at the hands of his most ruthless enemies for the good faith which
he owed to them? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of
his voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during the
pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered on the
way which leads to the country where the true riches are, even God
Himself;--how, I say, shall he vaunt himself for this, when he hears
or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died when he was holding the
office of consul, was so poor that his funeral expenses were paid
with money collected by the people?--or when he hears that Quintius
Cincinnatus, who, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating
them with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator,--an office more honourable even than that of consul,--and
that, after having won great glory by conquering the enemy, he
preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty? Or how shall he
boast of having done a great thing, who has not been prevailed upon
by the offer of any reward of this world to renounce his connection
with that heavenly and eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius
could not be prevailed on to forsake the Roman city by the great
gifts offered to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, who promised him
the fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his
poverty as a private individual? For if, when their republic,--that
is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country, the
common interest,--was most prosperous and wealthy, they themselves
were so poor in their own houses, that one of them, who had already
been twice a consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by
the censor, because he was discovered to possess ten pounds weight
of silver-plate,--since, I say, those very men by whose triumphs the
public treasury was enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians,
who make common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose,
even that (according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles)
they may distribute to each one according to his need, and that no
one may say that anything is his own, but that all things may be
their common possession,[216]--ought they not to understand that they
should not vaunt themselves, because they do that to obtain the
society of angels, when those men did well-nigh the same thing to
preserve the glory of the Romans?
How could these, and whatever like things are found in the Roman
history, have become so widely known, and have been proclaimed by so
great a fame, had not the Roman empire, extending far and wide, been
raised to its greatness by magnificent successes? Wherefore, through
that empire, so extensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious
and glorious also through the virtues of such great men, the reward
which they sought was rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition, in order
that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that we have not held
fast those virtues for the sake of the most glorious city of God, which
are, in whatever way, resembled by those virtues which they held fast
for the sake of the glory of a terrestrial city, and that, too, if we
shall feel conscious that we have held them fast, we may not be lifted
up with pride, because, as the apostle says, "The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be
revealed in us."[217] But so far as regards human and temporal glory,
the lives of these ancient Romans were reckoned sufficiently worthy.
Therefore, also, we see, in the light of that truth which, veiled in
the Old Testament, is revealed in the New, namely, that it is not in
view of terrestrial and temporal benefits, which divine providence
grants promiscuously to good and evil, that God is to be worshipped,
but in view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society
of the heavenly city itself;--in the light of this truth we see that
the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory of the
Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on earthly glory, and
sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they were, conquered those who,
in their great depravity, slew and rejected the giver of true glory,
and of the eternal city.
19. _Concerning the difference between true glory and the desire
of domination._
There is assuredly a difference between the desire of human glory
and the desire of domination; for, though he who has an overweening
delight in human glory will be also very prone to aspire earnestly
after domination, nevertheless they who desire the true glory even of
human praise strive not to displease those who judge well of them.
For there are many good moral qualities, of which many are competent
judges, although they are not possessed by many; and by those good
moral qualities those men press on to glory, honour, and domination,
of whom Sallust says, "But they press on by the true way."
But whosoever, without possessing that desire of glory which makes
one fear to displease those who judge his conduct, desires domination
and power, very often seeks to obtain what he loves by most open
crimes. Therefore he who desires glory presses on to obtain it either
by the true way, or certainly by deceit and artifice, wishing to
appear good when he is not. Therefore to him who possesses virtues
it is a great virtue to despise glory; for contempt of it is seen by
God, but is not manifest to human judgment. For whatever any one does
before the eyes of men in order to show himself to be a despiser of
glory, if they suspect that he is doing it in order to get greater
praise,--that is, greater glory,--he has no means of demonstrating
to the perceptions of those who suspect him that the case is really
otherwise than they suspect it to be. But he who despises the judgment
of praisers, despises also the rashness of suspectors. Their salvation,
indeed, he does not despise, if he is truly good; for so great is the
righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from the Spirit of
God, that he loves his very enemies, and so loves them that he desires
that his haters and detractors may be turned to righteousness, and
become his associates, and that not in an earthly but in a heavenly
country. But with respect to his praisers, though he sets little value
on their praise, he does not set little value on their love; neither
does he elude their praise, lest he should forfeit their love. And,
therefore, he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him
from whom every one receives whatever in him is truly praiseworthy. But
he who is a despiser of glory, but is greedy of domination, exceeds
the beasts in the vices of cruelty and luxuriousness. Such, indeed,
were certain of the Romans, who, wanting the love of esteem, wanted
not the thirst for domination; and that there were many such, history
testifies. But it was Nero Cæsar who was the first to reach the summit,
and, as it were, the citadel, of this vice; for so great was his
luxuriousness, that one would have thought there was nothing manly to
be dreaded in him, and such his cruelty, that, had not the contrary
been known, no one would have thought there was anything effeminate in
his character. Nevertheless power and domination are not given even to
such men save by the providence of the most high God, when He judges
that the state of human affairs is worthy of such lords. The divine
utterance is clear on this matter; for the Wisdom of God thus speaks:
"By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land."[218] But, that it
may not be thought that by "tyrants" is meant, not wicked and impious
kings, but brave men, in accordance with the ancient use of the word,
as when Virgil says,
"For know that treaty may not stand
Where king greets king and joins not hand,"[219]
in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that He
"maketh the man who is an hypocrite to reign on account of the
perversity of the people."[220] Wherefore, though I have, according
to my ability, shown for what reason God, who alone is true and just,
helped forward the Romans, who were good according to a certain
standard of an earthly state, to the acquirement of the glory of so
great an empire, there may be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause,
known better to God than to us, depending on the diversity of the
merits of the human race. Among all who are truly pious, it is at all
events agreed that no one without true piety--that is, true worship
of the true God--can have true virtue; and that it is not true virtue
which is the slave of human praise. Though, nevertheless, they who
are not citizens of the eternal city, which is called the city of
God in the sacred Scriptures, are more useful to the earthly city
when they possess even that virtue than if they had not even that.
But there could be nothing more fortunate for human affairs than
that, by the mercy of God, they who are endowed with true piety of
life, if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have the
power. But such men, however great virtues they may possess in this
life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has bestowed
it on them--willing, believing, seeking. And, at the same time, they
understand how far they are short of that perfection of righteousness
which exists in the society of those holy angels for which they are
striving to fit themselves. But however much that virtue may be
praised and cried up, which without true piety is the slave of human
glory, it is not at all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings
of the virtue of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and
mercy of the true God.
20. _That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory
as bodily pleasure._
Philosophers,--who place the end of human good in virtue itself, in
order to put to shame certain other philosophers, who indeed approve
of the virtues, but measure them all with reference to the end of
bodily pleasure, and think that this pleasure is to be sought for its
own sake, but the virtues on account of pleasure,--are wont to paint
a kind of word-picture, in which Pleasure sits like a luxurious queen
on a royal seat, and all the virtues are subjected to her as slaves,
watching her nod, that they may do whatever she shall command. She
commands Prudence to be ever on the watch to discover how Pleasure
may rule, and be safe. Justice she orders to grant what benefits
she can, in order to secure those friendships which are necessary
for bodily pleasure; to do wrong to no one, lest, on account of the
breaking of the laws, Pleasure be not able to live in security.
Fortitude she orders to keep her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely
in her mind, if any affliction befall her body which does not
occasion death, in order that by remembrance of former delights she
may mitigate the poignancy of present pain. Temperance she commands
to take only a certain quantity even of the most favourite food,
lest, through immoderate use, anything prove hurtful by disturbing
the health of the body, and thus Pleasure, which the Epicureans make
to consist chiefly in the health of the body, be grievously offended.
Thus the virtues, with the whole dignity of their glory, will be the
slaves of Pleasure, as of some imperious and disreputable woman.
There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful and
monstrous than this picture, and which the eyes of good men can
less endure. And they say the truth. But I do not think that the
picture would be sufficiently becoming, even if it were made so that
the virtues should be represented as the slaves of human glory;
for, though that glory be not a luxurious woman, it is nevertheless
puffed up, and has much vanity in it. Wherefore it is unworthy
of the solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as
serving this glory, so that Prudence shall provide nothing, Justice
distribute nothing, Temperance moderate nothing, except to the end
that men may be pleased and vainglory served. Nor will they be able
to defend themselves from the charge of such baseness, whilst they,
by way of being despisers of glory, disregard the judgment of other
men, seem to themselves wise, and please themselves. For their
virtue,--if, indeed, it is virtue at all,--is only in another way
subjected to human praise; for he who seeks to please himself seeks
still to please man. But he who, with true piety towards God, whom
he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more on those
things in which he displeases himself, than on those things, if there
are any such, which please himself, or rather, not himself, but the
truth, does not attribute that by which he can now please the truth
to anything but to the mercy of Him whom he has feared to displease,
giving thanks for what in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for
the healing of that which is yet unhealed.
21. _That the Roman dominion was granted by Him from whom is all
power, and by whose providence all things are ruled._
These things being so, we do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms
and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the
kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth
both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good
pleasure is always just. For though we have said something about the
principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has seemed
good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much for us, and far
surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden things of men's hearts,
and by a clear examination to determine the merits of various kingdoms.
He, therefore, who is the one true God, who never leaves the human
race without just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Romans when
He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to the Assyrians,
and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books testify, only two
gods are worshipped, the one good and the other evil,--to say nothing
concerning the Hebrew people, of whom I have already spoken as much
as seemed necessary, who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped
none save the true God. The same, therefore, who gave to the Persians
harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia, who gave the
other blessings of the earth, though they did not worship the many gods
which the Romans supposed to preside, each one over some particular
thing, or even many of them over each several thing,--He, I say, gave
the Persians dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to
whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the empire. And the
same is true in respect of men as well as nations. He who gave power to
Marius gave it also to Caius Cæsar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it
also to Nero; He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors, the
Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel Domitian; and,
finally, to avoid the necessity of going over them all, He who gave it
to the Christian Constantine gave it also to the apostate Julian, whose
gifted mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity,
stimulated by the love of power. And it was because he was addicted
through curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he
burned the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for
his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly audacious
enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just consequence of his
recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an enemy's country,
and in such a predicament that it never could have escaped, save by
altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation of that omen
of the god Terminus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god
Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to Jupiter.
Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by the one God according
as He pleases; and if His motives are hid, are they therefore unjust?
22. _The durations and issues of war depend on the will of God._
Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him as He may see
meet, according to His righteous will, and pleasure, and mercy, to
afflict or to console the human race, so that they are sometimes of
longer, sometimes of shorter duration. The war of the Pirates and the
third Punic war were terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war
of the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Roman generals and the
consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted and ravaged, was
nevertheless ended in the third year, having itself been, during its
continuance, the end of much. The Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni,
not distant but Italian nations, after a long and most loyal servitude
under the Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty,
though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman power, and
Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian war the Romans were very
often defeated, and two consuls perished, besides other noble senators;
nevertheless this calamity was not protracted over a long space of
time, for the fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war,
lasting for the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest
disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and well-nigh
consumed the strength of the Romans; for in two battles about seventy
thousand Romans fell.[221] The first Punic war was terminated after
having been waged for three-and-twenty years. The Mithridatic war was
waged for forty years. And that no one may think that in the early and
much belauded times of the Romans they were far braver and more able
to bring wars to a speedy termination, the Samnite war was protracted
for nearly fifty years; and in this war the Romans were so beaten that
they were even put under the yoke. But because they did not love glory
for the sake of justice, but seemed rather to have loved justice for
the sake of glory, they broke the peace and the treaty which had been
concluded. These things I mention, because many, ignorant of past
things, and some also dissimulating what they know, if in Christian
times they see any war protracted a little longer than they expected,
straightway make a fierce and insolent attack on our religion,
exclaiming that, but for it, the deities would have been supplicated
still, according to ancient rites; and then, by that bravery of the
Romans, which, with the help of Mars and Bellona, speedily brought to
an end such great wars, this war also would be speedily terminated. Let
them, therefore, who have read history recollect what long-continued
wars, having various issues and entailing woful slaughter, were waged
by the ancient Romans, in accordance with the general truth that
the earth, like the tempestuous deep, is subject to agitations from
tempests--tempests of such evils, in various degrees,--and let them
sometimes confess what they do not like to own, and not, by madly
speaking against God, destroy themselves and deceive the ignorant.
23. _Concerning the war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a
worshipper of demons, was conquered in one day, with all his
mighty forces._
Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what God has very
recently, and within our own memory, wonderfully and mercifully done,
but as far as in them lies they attempt, if possible, to bury it in
universal oblivion. But should we be silent about these things, we
should be in like manner ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the
Goths, having taken up his position very near to the city, with a
vast and savage army, was already close upon the Romans, he was in
one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, whilst not even
one Roman was wounded, much less slain, far more than a hundred
thousand of his army were prostrated, and he himself and his sons,
having been captured, were forthwith put to death, suffering the
punishment they deserved. For had so impious a man, with so great and
so impious a host, entered the city, whom would he have spared? what
tombs of the martyrs would he have respected? in his treatment of what
person would he have manifested the fear of God? whose blood would
he have refrained from shedding? whose chastity would he have wished
to preserve inviolate? But how loud would they not have been in the
praises of their gods! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying
that Radagaisus had conquered, that he had been able to achieve such
great things, because he propitiated and won over the gods by daily
sacrifices,--a thing which the Christian religion did not allow the
Romans to do! For when he was approaching to those places where he
was overwhelmed at the nod of the Supreme Majesty, as his fame was
everywhere increasing, it was being told us at Carthage that the
pagans were believing, publishing, and boasting, that he, on account
of the help and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of
the sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to them, would
certainly not be conquered by those who were not performing such
sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not even permit that they should
be offered by any one. And now these wretched men do not give thanks
to God for His great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the
corruption of men, which was worthy of far heavier chastisement than
the corruption of the barbarians, tempered His indignation with such
mildness as, in the first instance, to cause that the king of the Goths
should be conquered in a wonderful manner, lest glory should accrue to
demons, whom he was known to be supplicating, and thus the minds of
the weak should be overthrown; and then, afterwards, to cause that,
when Rome was to be taken, it should be taken by those barbarians
who, contrary to any custom of all former wars, protected, through
reverence for the Christian religion, those who fled for refuge to
the sacred places, and who so opposed the demons themselves, and the
rites of impious sacrifices, that they seemed to be carrying on a far
more terrible war with them than with men. Thus did the true Lord
and Governor of things both scourge the Romans mercifully, and, by
the marvellous defeat of the worshippers of demons, show that those
sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of present things;
so that, by those who do not obstinately hold out, but prudently
consider the matter, true religion may not be deserted on account of
the urgencies of the present time, but may be more clung to in most
confident expectation of eternal life.
24. _What was the happiness of the Christian emperors, and how far
it was true happiness._
For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore
happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death,
left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the
enemies of the republic, or were able both to guard against and to
suppress the attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. These
and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life even certain
worshippers of demons have merited to receive, who do not belong to
the kingdom of God to which these belong; and this is to be traced to
the mercy of God, who would not have those who believe in Him desire
such things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy if
they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid the praises of those
who pay them sublime honours, and the obsequiousness of those who
salute them with an excessive humility, but remember that they are
men; if they make their power the handmaid of His majesty by using
it for the greatest possible extension of His worship; if they fear,
love, worship God; if more than their own they love that kingdom
in which they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to
punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as necessary
to government and defence of the republic, and not in order to
gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon, not that iniquity may
go unpunished, but with the hope that the transgressor may amend his
ways; if they compensate with the lenity of mercy and the liberality
of benevolence for whatever severity they may be compelled to
decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather than
any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through
ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal felicity,
not neglecting to offer to the true God, who is their God, for their
sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer. Such
Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the present time by hope,
and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the reality itself,
when that which we wait for shall have arrived.
25. _Concerning the prosperity which God granted to the Christian
emperor Constantine._
For the good God, lest men, who believe that He is to be worshipped
with a view to eternal life, should think that no one could attain
to all this high estate, and to this terrestrial dominion, unless he
should be a worshipper of the demons,--supposing that these spirits
have great power with respect to such things,--for this reason He
gave to the Emperor Constantine, who was not a worshipper of demons,
but of the true God Himself, such fulness of earthly gifts as no
one would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the honour of
founding a city,[222] a companion to the Roman empire, the daughter,
as it were, of Rome itself, but without any temple or image of the
demons. He reigned for a long period as sole emperor, and unaided
held and defended the whole Roman world. In conducting and carrying
on wars he was most victorious; in overthrowing tyrants he was most
successful. He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and
left his sons to succeed him in the empire.[223] But again, lest any
emperor should become a Christian in order to merit the happiness
of Constantine, when every one should be a Christian for the sake
of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner than Julian, and
permitted that Gratian should be slain by the sword of a tyrant. But
in his case there was far more mitigation of the calamity than in the
case of the great Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom
he had left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though
pious minds require not such consolations, was avenged by Theodosius,
whom he had associated with himself in the empire, though he had a
little brother of his own, being more desirous of a faithful alliance
than of extensive power.
26. _On the faith and piety of Theodosius Augustus._
And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during the
lifetime of Gratian that fidelity which was due to him, but also,
after his death, he, like a true Christian, took his little brother
Valentinian under his protection, as joint emperor, after he had
been expelled by Maximus, the murderer of his father. He guarded
him with paternal affection, though he might without any difficulty
have got rid of him, being entirely destitute of all resources,
had he been animated with the desire of extensive empire, and not
with the ambition of being a benefactor. It was therefore a far
greater pleasure to him, when he had adopted the boy, and preserved
to him his imperial dignity, to console him by his very humanity
and kindness. Afterwards, when that success was rendering Maximus
terrible, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing anxieties,
was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a sacrilegious and
unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose abode was in the desert
of Egypt,--for he had learned that this servant of God (whose fame
was spreading abroad) was endowed with the gift of prophecy,--and
from him he received assurance of victory. Immediately the slayer
of the tyrant Maximus, with the deepest feelings of compassion and
respect, restored the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire
from which he had been driven. Valentinianus being soon after
slain by secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident,
Theodosius, having again received a response from the prophet, and
placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant Eugenius,
who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that emperor, and defeated
his very powerful army, more by prayer than by the sword. Some
soldiers who were at the battle reported to me that all the missiles
they were throwing were snatched from their hands by a vehement wind,
which blew from the direction of Theodosius' army upon the enemy; nor
did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were hurled
against them, but also turned back upon their own bodies the darts
which they themselves were throwing. And therefore the poet Claudian,
although an alien from the name of Christ, nevertheless says in his
praises of him, "O prince, too much beloved by God, for thee Æolus
pours armed tempests from their caves; for thee the air fights, and
the winds with one accord obey thy bugles."[224] But the victor, as
he had believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter,
which had been, as it were, consecrated by I know not what kind of
rites against him, and set up in the Alps. And the thunderbolts of
these statues, which were made of gold, he mirthfully and graciously
presented to his couriers, who (as the joy of the occasion permitted)
were jocularly saying that they would be most happy to be struck
by such thunderbolts. The sons of his own enemies, whose fathers
had been slain not so much by his orders as by the vehemence of
war, having fled for refuge to a church, though they were not yet
Christians, he was anxious, taking advantage of the occasion, to
bring over to Christianity, and treated them with Christian love.
Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides allowing
them to retain it, bestowed on them additional honours. He did not
permit private animosities to affect the treatment of any man after
the war. He was not like Cinna, and Marius, and Sylla, and other
such men, who wished not to finish civil wars even when they were
finished, but rather grieved that they had arisen at all, than wished
that when they were finished they should harm any one. Amid all
these events, from the very commencement of his reign, he did not
cease to help the troubled church against the impious by most just
and merciful laws, which the heretical Valens, favouring the Arians,
had vehemently afflicted. Indeed, he rejoiced more to be a member of
this church than he did to be a king upon the earth. The idols of the
Gentiles he everywhere ordered to be overthrown, understanding well
that not even terrestrial gifts are placed in the power of demons,
but in that of the true God. And what could be more admirable than
his religious humility, when, compelled by the urgency of certain of
his intimates, he avenged the grievous crime of the Thessalonians,
which at the prayer of the bishops he had promised to pardon, and,
being laid hold of by the discipline of the church, did penance
in such a way that the sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated
made the people who were interceding for him weep more than the
consciousness of offence had made them fear it when enraged? These
and other similar good works, which it would be long to tell, he
carried with him from this world of time, where the greatest human
nobility and loftiness are but vapour. Of these works the reward is
eternal happiness, of which God is the giver, though only to those
who are sincerely pious. But all other blessings and privileges of
this life, as the world itself, light, air, earth, water, fruits, and
the soul of man himself, his body, senses, mind, life, He lavishes on
good and bad alike. And among these blessings is also to be reckoned
the possession of an empire, whose extent He regulates according to
the requirements of His providential government at various times.
Whence, I see, we must now answer those who, being confuted and
convicted by the most manifest proofs, by which it is shown that for
obtaining these terrestrial things, which are all the foolish desire
to have, that multitude of false gods is of no use, attempt to assert
that the gods are to be worshipped with a view to the interest, not
of the present life, but of that which is to come after death. For
as to those who, for the sake of the friendship of this world, are
willing to worship vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to
their puerile understandings, I think they have been sufficiently
answered in these five books; of which books, when I had published
the first three, and they had begun to come into the hands of many,
I heard that certain persons were preparing against them an answer
of some kind or other in writing. Then it was told me that they had
already written their answer, but were waiting a time when they
could publish it without danger. Such persons I would advise not to
desire what cannot be of any advantage to them; for it is very easy
for a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when he has
only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more loquacious than
vanity? And though it be able, if it like, to shout more loudly than
the truth, it is not, for all that, more powerful than the truth.
But let men consider diligently all the things that we have said,
and if, perchance, judging without party spirit, they shall clearly
perceive that they are such things as may rather be shaken than torn
up by their most impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and
mimic levity, let them restrain their absurdities, and let them
choose rather to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the
foolish. For if they are waiting an opportunity, not for liberty to
speak the truth, but for licence to revile, may not that befall them
which Tully says concerning some one, "Oh, wretched man! who was at
liberty to sin?"[225] Wherefore, whoever he be who deems himself
happy because of licence to revile, he would be far happier if that
were not allowed him at all; for he might all the while, laying aside
empty boast, be contradicting those to whose views he is opposed by
way of free consultation with them, and be listening, as it becomes
him, honourably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by
those whom he consults by friendly disputation.
FOOTNOTES:
[183] Written in the year 415.
[184] On the application of astrology to national prosperity, and the
success of certain religions, see Lecky's _Rationalism_, i. 303.
[185] This fact is not recorded in any of the extant works of
Hippocrates or Cicero. Vives supposes it may have found place in
Cicero's book, _De Fato_.
[186] _i.e._ the potter.
[187] _Epist._ 107.
[188] _Odyssey_, xviii. 136, 137.
[189] _De Divinat._ ii.
[190] Ps. xiv. 1
[191] Book iii.
[192] Ps. lxii. 11, 12.
[193] Sallust, _Cat._ vii.
[194] Augustine notes that the name consul is derived from
_consulere_, and thus signifies a more benign rule than that of a rex
(from _regere_), or dominus (from _dominari_).
[195] _Æneid_, viii. 646.
[196] _Æneid_, i. 279.
[197] _Ibid._ vi. 847.
[198] Sallust, _in Cat._ c. xi.
[199] Sallust, _in Cat._ c. 54.
[200] 2 Cor. i. 12.
[201] Gal. vi. 4.
[202] Sallust, _in Cat._ c. 52.
[203] Horace, _Epist._ i. 1. 36, 37.
[204] Hor. _Carm._ ii. 2.
[205] _Tusc. Quæst._ i. 2.
[206] John v. 44.
[207] John xii. 43.
[208] Matt. x. 33.
[209] Matt. vi. 1.
[210] Matt. v. 16.
[211] Matt. vi. 2.
[212] _Jactantia._
[213] _Æneid_, vi. 820.
[214] Matt. x. 28.
[215] Matt. viii. 22.
[216] Acts ii. 45.
[217] Rom. viii. 18.
[218] Prov. viii. 15.
[219] _Æneid_, vii. 266.
[220] Job xxxiv. 30.
[221] Of the Thrasymene Lake and Cannæ.
[222] Constantinople.
[223] Constantius, Constantine, and Constans.
[224] _Panegyr. de tertio Honorii consulatu._
[225] _Tusc. Quaest._ v. 19.
BOOK SIXTH.
ARGUMENT.
HITHERTO THE ARGUMENT HAS BEEN CONDUCTED AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE
THAT THE GODS ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF TEMPORAL
ADVANTAGES, NOW IT IS DIRECTED AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT
THEY ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF ETERNAL LIFE. AUGUSTINE
DEVOTES THE FIVE FOLLOWING BOOKS TO THE CONFUTATION OF THIS
LATTER BELIEF, AND FIRST OF ALL SHOWS HOW MEAN AN OPINION OF
THE GODS WAS HELD BY VARRO HIMSELF, THE MOST ESTEEMED WRITER
ON HEATHEN THEOLOGY. OF THIS THEOLOGY AUGUSTINE ADOPTS VARRO'S
DIVISION INTO THREE KINDS, MYTHICAL, NATURAL, AND CIVIL; AND AT
ONCE DEMONSTRATES THAT NEITHER THE MYTHICAL NOR THE CIVIL CAN
CONTRIBUTE ANYTHING TO THE HAPPINESS OF THE FUTURE LIFE.
PREFACE.
In the five former books, I think I have sufficiently disputed
against those who believe that the many false gods, which the
Christian truth shows to be useless images, or unclean spirits and
pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not the Creator, are to be
worshipped for the advantage of this mortal life, and of terrestrial
affairs, with that rite and service which the Greeks call λατρεία,
and which is due to the one true God. And who does not know that,
in the face of excessive stupidity and obstinacy, neither these
five nor any other number of books whatsoever could be enough,
when it is esteemed the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of
strength on the side of truth,--certainly to his destruction over
whom so heinous a vice tyrannizes? For, notwithstanding all the
assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a cure, the disease
remains unconquered, not through any fault of his, but because of
the incurableness of the sick man. But those who thoroughly weigh
the things which they read, having understood and considered them,
without any, or with no great and excessive degree of that obstinacy
which belongs to a long-cherished error, will more readily judge
that, in the five books already finished, we have done more than
the necessity of the question demanded, than that we have given
it less discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted
but that all the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring upon
the Christian religion on account of the disasters of this life,
and the destruction and change which befall terrestrial things,
whilst the learned do not merely dissimulate, but encourage that
hatred, contrary to their own consciences, being possessed by a mad
impiety;--they cannot have doubted, I say, but that this hatred
is devoid of right reflection and reason, and full of most light
temerity, and most pernicious animosity.
1. _Of those who maintain that they worship the gods not for the
sake of temporal, but eternal advantages._
Now, as, in the next place (as the promised order demands), those are
to be refuted and taught who contend that the gods of the nations,
which the Christian truth destroys, are to be worshipped not on account
of this life, but on account of that which is to be after death, I
shall do well to commence my disputation with the truthful oracle of
the holy psalm, "Blessed is the man whose hope is the Lord God, and who
respecteth not Vanities and lying follies."[226] Nevertheless, in all
vanities and lying follies the philosophers are to be listened to with
far more toleration, who have repudiated those opinions and errors of
the people; for the people set up images to the deities, and either
feigned concerning those whom they call immortal gods many false and
unworthy things, or believed them, already feigned, and, when believed,
mixed them up with their worship and sacred rites.
With those men who, though not by free avowal of their convictions, do
still testify that they disapprove of those things by their muttering
disapprobation during disputations on the subject, it may not be
very far amiss to discuss the following question: Whether, for the
sake of the life which is to be after death, we ought to worship,
not the one God, who made all creatures spiritual and corporeal, but
those many gods who, as some of these philosophers hold, were made by
that one God, and placed by Him in their respective sublime spheres,
and are therefore considered more excellent and more noble than all
the others?[227] But who will assert that it must be affirmed and
contended that those gods, certain of whom I have mentioned in the
fourth book,[228] to whom are distributed, each to each, the charges
of minute things, do bestow eternal life? But will those most skilled
and most acute men, who glory in having written for the great benefit
of men, to teach on what account each god is to be worshipped, and
what is to be sought from each, lest with most disgraceful absurdity,
such as a mimic is wont for the sake of merriment to exhibit, water
should be sought from Liber, wine from the Lymphs,--will those men
indeed affirm to any man supplicating the immortal gods, that when he
shall have asked wine from the Lymphs, and they shall have answered
him, "We have water, seek wine from Liber," he may rightly say, "If
ye have not wine, at least give me eternal life?" What more monstrous
than this absurdity? Will not these Lymphs,--for they are wont to be
very easily made laugh,[229]--laughing loudly (if they do not attempt
to deceive like demons), answer the suppliant, "O man, dost thou think
that we have life (_vitam_) in our power, who thou hearest have not
even the vine (_vitem_)?" It is therefore most impudent folly to seek
and hope for eternal life from such gods as are asserted so to preside
over the separate minute concernments of this most sorrowful and short
life, and whatever is useful for supporting and propping it, as that
if anything which is under the care and power of one be sought from
another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears very like to
mimic drollery,--which, when it is done by mimics knowing what they are
doing, is deservedly laughed at in the theatre, but when it is done by
foolish persons, who do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed
in the world. Wherefore, as concerns those gods which the states have
established, it has been cleverly invented and handed down to memory
by learned men, what god or goddess is to be supplicated in relation
to every particular thing,--what, for instance, is to be sought from
Liber, what from the Lymphs, what from Vulcan, and so of all the rest,
some of whom I have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have
thought right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from
Ceres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the Lymphs, how
much greater absurdity ought it to be thought, if supplication be made
to any one of these for eternal life?
Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring what gods or goddesses are
to be believed to be able to confer earthly kingdoms upon men, all
things having been discussed, it was shown to be very far from the
truth to think that even terrestrial kingdoms are established by any
of those many false deities, is it not most insane impiety to believe
that eternal life, which is, without any doubt or comparison, to be
preferred to all terrestrial kingdoms, can be given to any one by any
of these gods? For the reason why such gods seemed to us not to be
able to give even an earthly kingdom, was not because they are very
great and exalted, whilst that is something small and abject, which
they, in their so great sublimity, would not condescend to care for,
but because, however deservedly any one may, in consideration of
human frailty, despise the falling pinnacles of an earthly kingdom,
these gods have presented such an appearance as to seem most unworthy
to have the granting and preserving of even those entrusted to them;
and consequently, if (as we have taught in the two last books of our
work, where this matter is treated of) no god out of all that crowd,
either belonging to, as it were, the plebeian or to the noble gods,
is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less is he able
to make immortals of mortals?
And more than this, if, according to the opinion of those with whom we
are now arguing, the gods are to be worshipped, not on account of the
present life, but of that which is to be after death, then, certainly,
they are not to be worshipped on account of those particular things
which are distributed and portioned out (not by any law of rational
truth, but by mere vain conjecture) to the power of such gods, as
they believe they ought to be worshipped, who contend that their
worship is necessary for all the desirable things of this mortal life,
against whom I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I was able, in
the five preceding books. These things being so, if the age itself
of those who worshipped the goddess Juventas should be characterized
by remarkable vigour, whilst her despisers should either die within
the years of youth, or should, during that period, grow cold as with
the torpor of old age; if bearded Fortuna should cover the cheeks of
her worshippers more handsomely and more gracefully than all others,
whilst we should see those by whom she was despised either altogether
beardless or ill-bearded; even then we should most rightly say, that
thus far these several gods had power, limited in some way by their
functions, and that, consequently, neither ought eternal life to be
sought from Juventas, who could not give a beard, nor ought any good
thing after this life to be expected from Fortuna Barbata, who has
no power even in this life to give the age itself at which the beard
grows. But now, when their worship is necessary not even on account of
those very things which they think are subjected to their power,--for
many worshippers of the goddess Juventas have not been at all vigorous
at that age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in youthful
strength; and also many suppliants of Fortuna Barbata have either not
been able to attain to any beard at all, not even an ugly one, although
they who adore her in order to obtain a beard are ridiculed by her
bearded despisers,--is the human heart really so foolish as to believe
that that worship of the gods, which it acknowledges to be vain and
ridiculous with respect to those very temporal and swiftly passing
gifts, over each of which one of these gods is said to preside, is
fruitful in results with respect to eternal life? And that they are
able to give eternal life has not been affirmed even by those who, that
they might be worshipped by the silly populace, distributed in minute
division among them these temporal occupations, that none of them might
sit idle; for they had supposed the existence of an exceedingly great
number.
2. _What we are to believe that Varro thought concerning the gods
of the nations, whose various kinds and sacred rites he has
shown to be such that he would have acted more reverently
towards them had he been altogether silent concerning them._
Who has investigated those things more carefully than Marcus Varro?
Who has discovered them more learnedly? Who has considered them more
attentively? Who has distinguished them more acutely? Who has written
about them more diligently and more fully?--who, though he is less
pleasing in his eloquence, is nevertheless so full of instruction
and wisdom, that in all the erudition which we call secular, but
they liberal, he will teach the student of things as much as Cicero
delights the student of words. And even Tully himself renders him
such testimony, as to say in his Academic books that he had held that
disputation which is there carried on with Marcus Varro, "a man," he
adds, "unquestionably the acutest of all men, and, without any doubt,
the most learned."[230] He does not say the most eloquent or the most
fluent, for in reality he was very deficient in this faculty, but he
says, "of all men the most acute." And in those books,--that is, the
Academic,--where he contends that all things are to be doubted, he
adds of him, "without any doubt the most learned." In truth, he was
so certain concerning this thing, that he laid aside that doubt which
he is wont to have recourse to in all things, as if, when about to
dispute in favour of the doubt of the Academics, he had, with respect
to this one thing, forgotten that he was an Academic. But in the first
book, when he extols the literary works of the same Varro, he says,
"Us straying and wandering in our own city like strangers, thy books,
as it were, brought home, that at length we might come to know of who
we were and where we were. Thou hast opened up to us the age of the
country, the distribution of seasons, the laws of sacred things, and of
the priests; thou hast opened up to us domestic and public discipline;
thou hast pointed out to us the proper places for religious ceremonies,
and hast informed us concerning sacred places. Thou hast shown us the
names, kinds, offices, causes of all divine and human things."[231]
This man, then, of so distinguished and excellent acquirements, and,
as Terentian briefly says of him in a most elegant verse,
"Varro, a man universally informed,"[232]
who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write, wrote so
much that we can scarcely believe any one could have read it all,--this
man, I say, so great in talent, so great in learning, had he been an
opposer and destroyer of the so-called divine things of which he wrote,
and had he said that they pertained to superstition rather than to
religion, might perhaps, even in that case, not have written so many
things which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But when he so
worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their worship, as to say,
in that same literary work of his, that he was afraid lest they should
perish, not by an assault by enemies, but by the negligence of the
citizens, and that from this ignominy they are being delivered by him,
and are being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by means
of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that through which
Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred things of Vesta from
the flames, and Æneas to have rescued the Penates from the burning of
Troy; and when he, nevertheless, gives forth such things to be read by
succeeding ages as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit
to be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion; what ought
we to think but that a most acute and learned man,--not, however, made
free by the Holy Spirit,--was overpowered by the custom and laws of his
state, and, not being able to be silent about those things by which he
was influenced, spoke of them under pretence of commending religion?
3. _Varro's distribution of his book which he composed concerning
the antiquities of human and divine things._
He wrote forty-one books of antiquities. These he divided into human
and divine things. Twenty-five he devoted to human things, sixteen
to divine things; following this plan in that division,--namely,
to give six books to each of the four divisions of human things.
For he directs his attention to these considerations: who perform,
where they perform, when they perform, what they perform. Therefore
in the first six books he wrote concerning men; in the second six,
concerning places; in the third six, concerning times; in the fourth
and last six, concerning things. Four times six, however, make only
twenty-four. But he placed at the head of them one separate work,
which spoke of all these things conjointly.
In divine things, the same order he preserved throughout, as far as
concerns those things which are performed to the gods. For sacred
things are performed by men in places and times. These four things
I have mentioned he embraced in twelve books, allotting three to
each. For he wrote the first three concerning men, the following
three concerning places, the third three concerning times, and the
fourth three concerning sacred rites,--showing who should perform,
where they should perform, when they should perform, what they should
perform, with most subtle distinction. But because it was necessary
to say--and that especially was expected--to whom they should perform
sacred rites, he wrote concerning the gods themselves the last three
books; and these five times three made fifteen. But they are in all,
as we have said, sixteen. For he put also at the beginning of these
one distinct book, speaking by way of introduction of all which
follows; which being finished, he proceeded to subdivide the first
three in that fivefold distribution which pertain to men, making
the first concerning high priests, the second concerning augurs,
the third concerning the fifteen men presiding over the sacred
ceremonies.[233] The second three he made concerning places, speaking
in one of them concerning their chapels, in the second concerning
their temples, and in the third concerning religious places. The
next three which follow these, and pertain to times,--that is, to
festival days,--he distributed so as to make one concerning holidays,
the other concerning the circus games, and the third concerning
scenic plays. Of the fourth three, pertaining to sacred things, he
devoted one to consecrations, another to private, the last to public,
sacred rites. In the three which remain, the gods themselves follow
this pompous train, as it were, for whom all this culture has been
expended. In the first book are the certain gods, in the second the
uncertain, in the third, and last of all, the chief and select gods.
4. _That from the disputation of Varro, it follows that the
worshippers of the gods regard human things as more ancient
than divine things._
In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle distributions
and distinctions, it will most easily appear evident from the things
we have said already, and from what is to be said hereafter, to any
man who is not, in the obstinacy of his heart, an enemy to himself,
that it is vain to seek and to hope for, and even most impudent to
wish for eternal life. For these institutions are either the work
of men, or of demons,--not of those whom they call good demons,
but, to speak more plainly, of unclean, and, without controversy,
malign spirits, who with wonderful slyness and secretness suggest to
the thoughts of the impious, and sometimes openly present to their
understandings, noxious opinions, by which the human mind grows more
and more foolish, and becomes unable to adapt itself to and abide in
the immutable and eternal truth, and seek to confirm these opinions
by every kind of fallacious attestation in their power. This very
same Varro testifies that he wrote first concerning human things,
but afterwards concerning divine things, because the states existed
first, and afterward these things were instituted by them. But the
true religion was not instituted by any earthly state, but plainly it
established the celestial city. It, however, is inspired and taught
by the true God, the giver of eternal life to His true worshippers.
The following is the reason Varro gives when he confesses that he
had written first concerning human things, and afterwards of divine
things, because these divine things were instituted by men:--"As the
painter is before the painted tablet, the mason before the edifice,
so states are before those things which are instituted by states."
But he says that he would have written first concerning the gods,
afterwards concerning men, if he had been writing concerning the
whole nature of the gods,--as if he were really writing concerning
some portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods; or as if,
indeed, some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods ought
not to be put before that of men. How, then, comes it that in those
three last books, when he is diligently explaining the certain,
uncertain, and select gods, he seems to pass over no portion of the
nature of the gods? Why, then, does he say, "If we had been writing
on the whole nature of the gods, we would first have finished the
divine things before we touched the human?" For he either writes
concerning the whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion
of it, or concerning no part of it at all. If concerning it all, it
is certainly to be put before human things; if concerning some part
of it, why should it not, from the very nature of the case, precede
human things? Is not even some part of the gods to be preferred
to the whole of humanity? But if it is too much to prefer a part
of the divine to all human things, that part is certainly worthy
to be preferred to the Romans at least. For he writes the books
concerning human things, not with reference to the whole world, but
only to Rome; which books he says he had properly placed, in the
order of writing, before the books on divine things, like a painter
before the painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most
openly confessing that, as a picture or a structure, even these
divine things were instituted by men. There remains only the third
supposition, that he is to be understood to have written concerning
no divine nature, but that he did not wish to say this openly, but
left it to the intelligent to infer; for when one says "not all,"
usage understands that to mean "some," but it _may_ be understood
as meaning _none_, because that which is _none_ is neither all nor
some. In fact, as he himself says, if he had been writing concerning
all the nature of the gods, its due place would have been before
human things in the order of writing. But, as the truth declares,
even though Varro is silent, the divine nature should have taken
precedence of Roman things, though it were not _all_, but only
_some_. But it is properly put after, therefore it is _none_. His
arrangement, therefore, was due, not to a desire to give human things
priority to divine things, but to his unwillingness to prefer false
things to true. For in what he wrote on human things, he followed
the history of affairs; but in what he wrote concerning those things
which they call divine, what else did he follow but mere conjectures
about vain things? This, doubtless, is what, in a subtle manner, he
wished to signify; not only writing concerning divine things after
the human, but even giving a reason why he did so; for if he had
suppressed this, some, perchance, would have defended his doing so
in one way, and some in another. But in that very reason he has
rendered, he has left nothing for men to conjecture at will, and has
sufficiently proved that he preferred men to the institutions of men,
not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus he confessed
that, in writing the books concerning divine things, he did not write
concerning the truth which belongs to nature, but the falseness which
belongs to error; which he has elsewhere expressed more openly (as
I have mentioned in the fourth book[234]), saying that, had he been
founding a new city himself, he would have written according to the
order of nature; but as he had only found an old one, he could not
but follow its custom.
5. _Concerning the three kinds of theology according to Varro,
namely, one fabulous, the other natural, the third civil._
Now what are we to say of this proposition of his, namely, that there
are three kinds of theology, that is, of the account which is given
of the gods; and of these, the one is called mythical, the other
physical, and the third civil? Did the Latin usage permit, we should
call the kind which he has placed first in order _fabular_,[235] but
let us call it _fabulous_,[236] for mythical is derived from the Greek
μῦθος, a fable; but that the second should be called _natural_, the
usage of speech now admits; the third he himself has designated in
Latin, calling it _civil_.[237] Then he says, "they call that kind
_mythical_ which the poets chiefly use; _physical_, that which the
philosophers use; _civil_, that which the people use. As to the first I
have mentioned," says he, "in it are many fictions, which are contrary
to the dignity and nature of the immortals. For we find in it that one
god has been born from the head, another from the thigh, another from
drops of blood; also, in this we find that gods have stolen, committed
adultery, served men; in a word, in this all manner of things are
attributed to the gods, such as may befall, not merely any man, but
even the most contemptible man." He certainly, where he could, where he
dared, where he thought he could do it with impunity, has manifested,
without any of the haziness of ambiguity, how great injury was done
to the nature of the gods by lying fables; for he was speaking, not
concerning natural theology, not concerning civil, but concerning
fabulous theology, which he thought he could freely find fault with.
Let us see, now, what he says concerning the second kind. "The second
kind which I have explained," he says, "is that concerning which
philosophers have left many books, in which they treat such questions
as these: what gods there are, where they are, of what kind and
character they are, since what time they have existed, or if they
have existed from eternity; whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus
believes; or of number, as Pythagoras; or of atoms, as Epicurus says;
and other such things, which men's ears can more easily hear inside
the walls of a school than outside in the Forum." He finds fault
with nothing in this kind of theology which they call _physical_,
and which belongs to philosophers, except that he has related their
controversies among themselves, through which there has arisen a
multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless he has removed this kind
from the Forum, that is, from the populace, but he has shut it up in
schools. But that first kind, most false and most base, he has not
removed from the citizens. Oh, the religious ears of the people, and
among them even those of the Romans, that are not able to bear what
the philosophers dispute concerning the gods! But when the poets sing
and stage-players act such things as are derogatory to the dignity
and the nature of the immortals, such as may befall not a man merely,
but the most contemptible man, they not only bear, but willingly
listen to. Nor is this all, but they even consider that these things
please the gods, and that they are propitiated by them.
But some one may say, Let us distinguish these two kinds of theology,
the mythical and the physical,--that is, the fabulous and the
natural,--from this civil kind about which we are now speaking.
Anticipating this, he himself has distinguished them. Let us see
now how he explains the civil theology itself. I see, indeed,
why it should be distinguished as fabulous, even because it is
false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to
distinguish the natural from the civil, what else is that but to
confess that the civil itself is false? For if that be natural, what
fault has it that it should be excluded? And if this which is called
civil be not natural, what merit has it that it should be admitted?
This, in truth, is the cause why he wrote first concerning human
things, and afterwards concerning divine things; since in divine
things he did not follow nature, but the institution of men. Let us
look at this civil theology of his. "The third kind," says he, "is
that which citizens in cities, and especially the priests, ought to
know and to administer. From it is to be known what god each one
may suitably worship, what sacred rites and sacrifices each one may
suitably perform." Let us still attend to what follows. "The first
theology," he says, "is especially adapted to the theatre, the second
to the world, the third to the city." Who does not see to which he
gives the palm? Certainly to the second, which he said above is that
of the philosophers. For he testifies that this pertains to the
world, than which they think there is nothing better. But those two
theologies, the first and the third,--to wit, those of the theatre
and of the city,--has he distinguished them or united them? For
although we see that the city is in the world, we do not see that it
follows that any things belonging to the city pertain to the world.
For it is possible that such things may be worshipped and believed in
the city, according to false opinions, as have no existence either
in the world or out of it. But where is the theatre but in the city?
Who instituted the theatre but the state? For what purpose did it
constitute it but for scenic plays? And to what class of things do
scenic plays belong but to those divine things concerning which these
books of Varro's are written with so much ability?
6. _Concerning the mythic, that is, the fabulous, theology, and
the civil, against Varro._
O Marcus Varro! thou art the most acute, and without doubt the most
learned, but still a man, not God,--now lifted up by the Spirit of
God to see and to announce divine things, thou seest, indeed, that
divine things are to be separated from human trifles and lies, but
thou fearest to offend those most corrupt opinions of the populace,
and their customs in public superstitions, which thou thyself, when
thou considerest them on all sides, perceivest, and all your literature
loudly pronounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even
of such gods as the frailty of the human mind supposes to exist in
the elements of this world. What can the most excellent human talent
do here? What can human learning, though manifold, avail thee in
this perplexity? Thou desirest to worship the natural gods; thou art
compelled to worship the civil. Thou hast found some of the gods to be
fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely what thou thinkest,
and, whether thou willest or not, thou wettest therewith even the civil
gods. Thou sayest, forsooth, that the fabulous are adapted to the
theatre, the natural to the world, and the civil to the city; though
the world is a divine work, but cities and theatres are the works of
men, and though the gods who are laughed at in the theatre are not
other than those who are adored in the temples; and ye do not exhibit
games in honour of other gods than those to whom ye immolate victims.
How much more freely and more subtly wouldst thou have decided these
hadst thou said that some gods are natural, others established by men;
and concerning those who have been so established, the literature of
the poets gives one account, and that of the priests another,--both
of which are, nevertheless, so friendly the one to the other, through
fellowship in falsehood, that they are both pleasing to the demons, to
whom the doctrine of the truth is hostile.
That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside
for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed, we ask if any one
is really content to seek a hope for eternal life from poetical,
theatrical, scenic gods? Perish the thought! The true God avert so
wild and sacrilegious a madness! What, is eternal life to be asked
from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things
propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? No one, as I
think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and furious impiety.
So then, neither by the fabulous nor by the civil theology does any
one obtain eternal life. For the one sows base things concerning
the gods by feigning them, the other reaps by cherishing them; the
one scatters lies, the other gathers them together; the one pursues
divine things with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine
things the plays which are made up of these crimes; the one sounds
abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods, the other
consecrates these for the festivities of the gods themselves; the
one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the gods, the other loves them;
the one gives forth or feigns, the other either attests the true or
delights in the false. Both are base; both are damnable. But the one
which is theatrical teaches public abomination, and that one which
is of the city adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal
life be hoped for from these, by which this short and temporal life
is polluted? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life if they
insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our assent? and
does not the society of demons pollute the life, who are worshipped
with their own crimes?--if with true crimes, how wicked the demons!
if with false, how wicked the worship!
When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some one who is
very ignorant of these matters that only those things concerning
the gods which are sung in the songs of the poets and acted on
the stage are unworthy of the divine majesty, and ridiculous, and
too detestable to be celebrated, whilst those sacred things which
not stage-players but priests perform are pure and free from all
unseemliness. Had this been so, never would any one have thought that
these theatrical abominations should be celebrated in their honour,
never would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed to
them. But men are in nowise ashamed to perform these things in the
theatres, because similar things are carried on in the temples. In
short, when the fore-mentioned author attempted to distinguish the
civil theology from the fabulous and natural, as a sort of third and
distinct kind, he wished it to be understood to be rather tempered by
both than separated from either. For he says that those things which
the poets write are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what
the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people to
pry into. "Which," says he, "differ in such a way, that nevertheless
not a few things from both of them have been taken to the account
of the civil theology; wherefore we will indicate what the civil
theology has in common with that of the poet, though it ought to be
more closely connected with the theology of philosophers." Civil
theology is therefore not quite disconnected from that of the poets.
Nevertheless, in another place, concerning the generations of the
gods, he says that the people are more inclined toward the poets
than toward the physical theologists. For in this place he said what
ought to be done; in that other place, what was really done. He said
that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the poets
for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from the poets'
writings, which the people ought not to follow, are the crimes of the
gods; which, nevertheless, amuse both the people and the gods. For,
for amusement's sake, he says, the poets write, and not for that of
utility; nevertheless they write such things as the gods will desire,
and the people perform.
7. _Concerning the likeness and agreement of the fabulous and
civil theologies._
That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic,
and full of all baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into the
civil theology; and part of that theology, which in its totality
is deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation and rejection, is
pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed;--not at all an
incongruous part, as I have undertaken to show, and one which, being
alien to the whole body, was unsuitably attached to and suspended
from it, but a part entirely congruous with, and most harmoniously
fitted to the rest, as a member of the same body. For what else do
those images, forms, ages, sexes, characteristics of the gods show?
If the poets have Jupiter with a beard, and Mercury beardless, have
not the priests the same? Is the Priapus of the priests less obscene
than the Priapus of the players? Does he receive the adoration of
worshippers in a different form from that in which he moves about
the stage for the amusement of spectators? Is not Saturn old and
Apollo young in the shrines where their images stand, as well as when
represented by actor's masks? Why are Forculus, who presides over
doors, and Limentinus, who presides over thresholds and lintels, male
gods, and Cardea between them feminine, who presides over hinges?
Are not those things found in books on divine things, which grave
poets have deemed unworthy of their verses? Does the Diana of the
theatre carry arms, whilst the Diana of the city is simply a virgin?
Is the stage Apollo a lyrist, but the Delphic Apollo ignorant of this
art? But these things are decent compared with the more shameful
things. What was thought of Jupiter himself by those who placed his
wet nurse in the Capitol? Did they not bear witness to Euhemerus,
who, not with the garrulity of a fable-teller, but with the gravity
of an historian who had diligently investigated the matter, wrote
that all such gods had been men and mortals? And they who appointed
the Epulones as parasites at the table of Jupiter, what else did
they wish for but mimic sacred rites? For if any mimic had said
that parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table, he would
assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth laughter. Varro
said it,--not when he was mocking, but when he was commending the
gods did he say it. His books on divine, not on human, things testify
that he wrote this,--not where he set forth the scenic games, but
where he explained the Capitoline laws. In a word, he is conquered,
and confesses that, as they made the gods with a human form, so they
believed that they are delighted with human pleasures.
For also malign spirits were not so wanting to their own business as
not to confirm noxious opinions in the minds of men by converting
them into sport. Whence also is that story about the sacristan of
Hercules, which says that, having nothing to do, he took to playing
at dice as a pastime, throwing them alternately with the one hand
for Hercules, with the other for himself, with this understanding,
that if he should win, he should from the funds of the temple prepare
himself a supper, and hire a mistress; but if Hercules should win the
game, he himself should, at his own expense, provide the same for the
pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been beaten by himself, as
though by Hercules, he gave to the god Hercules the supper he owed
him, and also the most noble harlot Larentina. But she, having fallen
asleep in the temple, dreamed that Hercules had had intercourse with
her, and had said to her that she would find her payment with the
youth whom she should first meet on leaving the temple, and that she
was to believe this to be paid to her by Hercules. And so the first
youth that met her on going out was the wealthy Tarutius, who kept
her a long time, and when he died left her his heir. She, having
obtained a most ample fortune, that she should not seem ungrateful
for the divine hire, in her turn made the Roman people her heir,
which she thought to be most acceptable to the deities; and, having
disappeared, the will was found. By which meritorious conduct they
say that she gained divine honours.
Now had these things been feigned by the poets and acted by the
mimics, they would without any doubt have been said to pertain to the
fabulous theology, and would have been judged worthy to be separated
from the dignity of the civil theology. But when these shameful
things,--not of the poets, but of the people; not of the mimics, but
of the sacred things; not of the theatres, but of the temples, that
is, not of the fabulous, but of the civil theology,--are reported
by so great an author, not in vain do the actors represent with
theatrical art the baseness of the gods, which is so great; but
surely in vain do the priests attempt, by rites called sacred, to
represent their nobleness of character, which has no existence. There
are sacred rites of Juno; and these are celebrated in her beloved
island, Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter. There are
sacred rites of Ceres, in which Proserpine is sought for, having
been carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites Venus, in which,
her beloved Adonis being slain by a boar's tooth, the lovely youth
is lamented. There are sacred rites of the mother of the gods, in
which the beautiful youth Atys, loved by her, and castrated by her
through a woman's jealousy, is deplored by men who have suffered
the like calamity, whom they call Galli. Since, then, these things
are more unseemly than all scenic abomination, why is it that they
strive to separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet
concerning the gods, as, forsooth, pertaining to the theatre, from
the civil theology which they wish to belong to the city, as though
they were separating from noble and worthy things, things unworthy
and base? Wherefore there is more reason to thank the stage-actors,
who have spared the eyes of men, and have not laid bare by theatrical
exhibition all the things which are hid by the walls of the temples.
What good is to be thought of their sacred rites which are concealed
in darkness, when those which are brought forth into the light are
so detestable? And certainly they themselves have seen what they
transact in secret through the agency of mutilated and effeminate
men. Yet they have _not_ been able to conceal those same men
miserably and vilely enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade
whom they can that they transact anything holy through such men,
who, they cannot deny, are numbered, and live among their sacred
things. We know not what they transact, but we know through whom they
transact; for we know what things are transacted on the stage, where
never, even in a chorus of harlots, hath one who is mutilated or an
effeminate appeared. And, nevertheless, even these things are acted
by vile and infamous characters; for, indeed, they ought not to be
acted by men of good character. What, then, are those sacred rites,
for the performance of which holiness has chosen such men as not even
the obscenity of the stage has admitted?
8. _Concerning the interpretations, consisting of natural
explanations, which the pagan teachers attempt to show for
their gods._
But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that is,
natural interpretations, showing their natural meaning; as though
in this disputation we were seeking physics and not theology, which
is the account, not of nature, but of God. For although He who is
the true God is God, not by opinion, but by nature, nevertheless
all nature is not God; for there is certainly a nature of man, of a
beast, of a tree, of a stone,--none of which is God. For if, when the
question is concerning the mother of the gods, that from which the
whole system of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother
of the gods is the earth, why do we make further inquiry? why do we
carry our investigation through all the rest of it? What can more
manifestly favour them who say that all those gods were men? For they
are earth-born in the sense that the earth is their mother. But in
the true theology the earth is the work, not the mother, of God. But
in whatever way their sacred rites may be interpreted, and, whatever
reference they may have to the nature of things, it is not according
to nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates.
This disease, this crime, this abomination, has a recognised place
among those sacred things, though even depraved men will scarcely
be compelled by torments to confess they are guilty of it. Again,
if these sacred rites, which are proved to be fouler than scenic
abominations, are excused and justified on the ground that they have
their own interpretations, by which they are shown to symbolize the
nature of things, why are not the poetical things in like manner
excused and justified? For many have interpreted even these in like
fashion, to such a degree that even that which they say is the most
monstrous and most horrible,--namely, that Saturn devoured his own
children,--has been interpreted by some of them to mean that length
of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn, consumes whatever
it begets; or that, as the same Varro thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds
which fall back again into the earth from whence they spring. And so
one interprets it in one way, and one in another. And the same is to
be said of all the rest of this theology.
And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is
censured, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpretations
belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology, which is that
of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology, concerning
which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and
peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, because it has invented
unworthy things concerning the gods. Of which, I wot, this is
the secret: that those most acute and learned men, by whom those
things were written, understood that both theologies ought to be
rejected,--to wit, both that fabulous and this civil one,--but the
former they dared to reject, the latter they dared not; the former
they set forth to be censured, the latter they showed to be very
like it; not that it might be chosen to be held in preference to the
other, but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected
together with it. And thus, without danger to those who feared to
censure the civil theology, both of them being brought into contempt,
that theology which they call natural might find a place in better
disposed minds; for the civil and the fabulous are both fabulous and
both civil. He who shall wisely inspect the vanities and obscenities
of both will find that they are both fabulous; and he who shall
direct his attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous
theology in the festivals of the civil gods, and in the divine rites
of the cities, will find they are both civil. How, then, can the
power of giving eternal life be attributed to any of those gods whose
own images and sacred rites convict them of being most like to the
fabulous gods, which are most openly reprobated, in forms, ages, sex,
characteristics, marriages, generations, rites; in all which things
they are understood either to have been men, and to have had their
sacred rites and solemnities instituted in their honour according
to the life or death of each of them, the demons suggesting and
confirming this error, or certainly most foul spirits, who, taking
advantage of some occasion or other, have stolen into the minds of
men to deceive them?
9. _Concerning the special offices of the gods._
And as to those very offices of the gods, so meanly and so minutely
portioned out, so that they say that they ought to be supplicated,
each one according to his special function,--about which we have
spoken much already, though not all that is to be said concerning
it,--are they not more consistent with mimic buffoonery than divine
majesty? If any one should use two nurses for his infant, one of whom
should give nothing but food, the other nothing but drink, as these
make use of two goddesses for this purpose, Educa and Potina, he
should certainly seem to be foolish, and to do in his house a thing
worthy of a mimic. They would have Liber to have been named from
"liberation," because through him males at the time of copulation
are liberated by the emission of the seed. They also say that Libera
(the same in their opinion as Venus) exercises the same function in
the case of women, because they say that they also emit seed; and
they also say that on this account the same part of the male and
of the female is placed in the temple, that of the male to Liber,
and that of the female to Libera. To these things they add the
women assigned to Liber, and the wine for exciting lust. Thus the
Bacchanalia are celebrated with the utmost insanity, with respect to
which Varro himself confesses that such things would not be done by
the Bacchanals except their minds were highly excited. These things,
however, afterwards displeased a saner senate, and it ordered them
to be discontinued. Here, at length, they perhaps perceived how
much power unclean spirits, when held to be gods, exercise over the
minds of men. These things, certainly, were not to be done in the
theatres; for there they play, not rave, although to have gods who
are delighted with such plays is very like raving.
But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between the
religious and the superstitious man, saying that the gods are
feared[238] by the superstitious man, but are reverenced[239] as
parents by the religious man, not feared as enemies; and that they are
all so good that they will more readily spare those who are impious
than hurt one who is innocent? And yet he tells us that three gods are
assigned as guardians to a woman after she has been delivered, lest
the god Silvanus come in and molest her; and that in order to signify
the presence of these protectors, three men go round the house during
the night, and first strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a
pestle, and the third time sweep it with a brush, in order that these
symbols of agriculture having been exhibited, the god Silvanus might be
hindered from entering, because neither are trees cut down or pruned
without a hatchet, neither is grain ground without a pestle, nor corn
heaped up without a besom. Now from these three things three gods
have been named: Intercidona, from the cut[240] made by the hatchet;
Pilumnus, from the pestle; Diverra, from the besom;--by which guardian
gods the woman who has been delivered is preserved against the power of
the god Silvanus. Thus the guardianship of kindly-disposed gods would
not avail against the malice of a mischievous god, unless they were
three to one, and fought against him, as it were, with the opposing
emblems of cultivation, who, being an inhabitant of the woods, is
rough, horrible, and uncultivated. Is this the innocence of the gods?
Is this their concord? Are these the health-giving deities of the
cities, more ridiculous than the things which are laughed at in the
theatres?
When a male and a female are united, the god Jugatinus presides.
Well, let this be borne with. But the married woman must be brought
home: the god Domiducus also is invoked. That she may be in the
house, the god Domitius is introduced. That she may remain with her
husband, the goddess Manturnæ is used. What more is required? Let
human modesty be spared. Let the lust of flesh and blood go on with
the rest, the secret of shame being respected. Why is the bedchamber
filled with a crowd of deities, when even the groomsmen[241] have
departed? And, moreover, it is so filled, not that in consideration
of their presence more regard may be paid to chastity, but that by
their help the woman, naturally of the weaker sex, and trembling
with the novelty of her situation, may the more readily yield her
virginity. For there are the goddess Virginiensis, and the god-father
Subigus, and the goddess-mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda,
and Venus, and Priapus.[242] What is this? If it was absolutely
necessary that a man, labouring at this work, should be helped by
the gods, might not some one god or goddess have been sufficient?
Was Venus not sufficient alone, who is even said to be named from
this, that without her power a woman does not cease to be a virgin?
If there is any shame in men, which is not in the deities, is it not
the case that, when the married couple believe that so many gods
of either sex are present, and busy at this work, they are so much
affected with shame, that the man is less moved, and the woman more
reluctant? And certainly, if the goddess Virginiensis is present
to loose the virgin's zone, if the god Subigus is present that the
virgin may be got under the man, if the goddess Prema is present
that, having been got under him, she may be kept down, and may not
move herself, what has the goddess Pertunda to do there? Let her
blush; let her go forth. Let the husband himself do something. It is
disgraceful that any one but himself should do that from which she
gets her name. But perhaps she is tolerated because she is said to
be a goddess, and not a god. For if she were believed to be a male,
and were called Pertundus, the husband would demand more help against
him for the chastity of his wife than the newly-delivered woman
against Silvanus. But why am I saying this, when Priapus, too, is
there, a male to excess, upon whose immense and most unsightly member
the newly-married bride is commanded to sit, according to the most
honourable and most religious custom of matrons?