ORIGINALLY IN LATIN.

BOOK FIRST

ARGUMENT

AUGUSTINE CENSURES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE CALAMITIES OF THE WORLD, AND

ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS

PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE, WHICH

THEN, AS ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES THE

SHAMELESSNESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED

BY THE SOLDIERS.

PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING THIS WORK

I glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my

dearest son Marcellinus, suggested, and which is due to you by my

promise. I have undertaken its defence against those who prefer their

own gods to the Founder of this city—a city surpassingly glorious,

whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time,

and sojourns as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall

dwell in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with patience

waits for, expecting until “righteousness shall return unto judgment,”1

and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace.

A great work this, and an arduous ; but God is my helper. For I am aware

what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue of

humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but by a

divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this shifting scene.

For the King and Founder of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture

uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in these words: “God

resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”2 But this, which

is God’s prerogative, the inflated ambition of a proud spirit also affects,

and dearly loves that this be numbered among its attributes, to

“Show pity to the humbled soul,

And crush the sons of pride.”3

And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and

as occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though

it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.

1. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ, whom the barbarians for Christ’s sake spared when

they stormed the city

For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to

defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from

their ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens of this

city ; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and are so

ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they

would now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had they

not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy’s steel, that

life in which they now boast themselves. Are not those very Romans,

who were spared by the barbarians through their respect for Christ,

become enemies to the name of Christ? The reliquaries of the martyrs

and the churches of the apostles bear witness to this ; for in the sack of

the city they were open sanctuary for all who fled to them, whether

Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold the bloodthirsty enemy

raged ; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did such of the

enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they had given quarter,

lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed,

when even those murderers who everywhere else showed themselves

pitiless came to these spots where that was forbidden which the licence

of war permitted in every other place, their furious rage for slaughter

was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus

escaped multitudes who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute

to Christ the ills that have befallen their city ; but the preservation of

their own life—a boon which they owe to the respect entertained for

Christ by the barbarians—they attribute not to our Christ, but to their

own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right perceptions, to

attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by their enemies, to that

divine providence which is wont to reform the depraved manners of men

by chastisement, and which exercises with similar afflictions the

righteous and praiseworthy—either translating them, when they have

passed through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them still on

earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute it to the spirit of

these Christian times, that, contrary to the custom of war, these

bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and spared them for Christ’s sake,

whether this mercy was actually shown in promiscuous places, or in

those places specially dedicated to Christ’s name, and of which the very

largest were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be given

to the expansive compassion which desired that a large multitude might

find shelter there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with

sincere confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape

the punishment of eternal fire—they who with lying lips took upon them

this name, that they might escape the punishment of present destruction.

For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insulting the

servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not have escaped that

destruction and slaughter had they not pretended that they themselves

were Christ’s servants. Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious

madness, and at the risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they

perversely oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected

themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief life.

2. That it is quite contrary to the usage of war, that the victors should spare the vanquished for

the sake of their gods

There are histories of numberless wars, both before the building of

Rome and since its rise and the extension of its dominion: let these be

read, and let one instance be cited in which, when a city had been taken

by foreigners, the victors spared those who were found to have fled for

sanctuary to the temples of their gods ; 4 or one instance in which a

barbarian general gave orders that none should be put to the sword who

had been found in this or that temple. Did not Æneas see

“Dying Priam at the shrine,

Staining the hearth he made divine?”°

Did not Diomedes and Ulysses

“Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,

Her fateful image from your fane,

Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore

The virgin coronal she wore?”®

Neither is that true which follows, that

“Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,

And Greece grew weak.””

For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and sword ;

after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars. Neither did Troy

perish because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself first lost,

that she should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt ; just her guards.

For as soon as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact,

the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by the men.

How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and the citizens, she who

could not defend her own defenders?

3. That the Romans did not show their usual sagacity when they trusted that they would be

benefited by the gods who had been unable to defend Troy

And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were

delighted to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And they are

enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from

being enraged at their own writers, they part with money to learn what

they say ; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are reckoned

worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of other honours. There is

Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that this great poet, this most

famous and approved of all poets, may impregnate their virgin minds,

and may not readily be forgotten by them, according to that saying of

Horace,

“The fresh cask long keeps its first tang.”®

Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans,

and stirring up Æolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words,

“A race I hate now ploughs the sea,

Transporting Troy to Italy,

And home-gods conquered”? ...

And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of Rome to these

conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno,

who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What,

then, says Aineas himself—AZneas who is so often designated “pious?”

Does he not say,

“Lo! Panthus, ’scaped from death by flight,

Priest of Apollo on the height,

His conquered gods with trembling hands

He bears, and shelter swift demands?”!°

Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call

“conquered”) were rather entrusted to Aineas than he to them, when it is

said to him,

“The gods of her domestic shrines

Your country to your care consigns?”!1

If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were

conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under

the protection of a man, what madness is it to suppose that Rome had

been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken

unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors

and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil

omens?!2 Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never

have fallen into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but

rather that they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved

them as long as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it,

what a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under

vanquished defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost

their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was

that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The

poets, therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the

conquered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as

honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be

carefully and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place.

Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I

meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to

Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of

their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ’s sake spared them

in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice ;

and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name

those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their

lives might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His

sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that

they might be safe and protected ; but no sooner do they emerge from

these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him

curses full of hate.

4. Of the asylum of Juno in Troy, which saved no one from the Greeks ; and of the churches of

the apostles, which protected from the barbarians all who fled to them

Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, was not able, as I have

said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places of their gods from

the fire and sword of the Greeks, though the Greeks worshipped the

same gods. Not only so, but

“Phoenix and Ulysses fell

In the void courts by Juno’s cell

Were set the spoil to keep ;

Snatched from the burning shrines away,

There Ilium’s mighty treasure lay,

Rich altars, bowls of massy gold,

And captive raiment, rudely rolled

In one promiscuous heap ;

While boys and matrons, wild with fear,

In long array were standing near.”!3

In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was chosen,

not that from it none might be led out a captive, but that in it all the

captives might be immured. Compare now this “asylum”—the asylum

not of an ordinary god, not of one of the rank and file of gods, but of

Jove’s own sister and wife, the queen of all the gods—with the churches

built in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils rescued

from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods, not that they

might be restored to the vanquished, but divided among the victors ;

while into these was carried back, with the most religious observance

and respect, everything which belonged to them, even though found

elsewhere. There liberty was lost ; here preserved. There bondage was

strict ; here strictly excluded. Into that temple men were driven to

become the chattels of their enemies, now lording it over them ; into

these churches men were led by their relenting foes, that they might be

at liberty. In fine, the gentle! + Greeks appropriated that temple of Juno

to the purposes of their own avarice and pride ; while these churches of

Christ were chosen even by the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for

humility and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that victory

of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they worshipped in

common with the Trojans, and did not dare to put to the sword or make

captive the wretched and vanquished Trojans who fled thither ; and

perhaps Virgil, in the manner of poets, has depicted what never really

happened? But there is no question that he depicted the usual custom of

an enemy when sacking a city.

5. Cesar’s statement regarding the universal custom of an enemy when sacking a city

Even Cesar himself gives us positive testimony regarding this custom ;

for, in his deliverance in the senate about the conspirators, he says (as

Sallust, a historian of distinguished veracity, writes!5) “that virgins and

boys are violated, children torn from the embrace of their parents,

matrons subjected to whatever should be the pleasure of the conquerors,

temples and houses plundered, slaughter and burning rife ; in fine, all

things filled with arms, corpses, blood, and wailing.” If he had not

mentioned temples here, we might suppose that enemies were in the

habit of sparing the dwellings of the gods. And the Roman temples were

in danger of these disasters, not from foreign foes, but from Catiline and

his associates, the most noble senators and citizens of Rome. But these, it

may be said, were abandoned men, and the parricides of their

fatherland.

6. That not even the Romans, when they took cities, spared the conquered in their temples

Why, then, need our argument take note of the many nations who

have waged wars with one another, and have nowhere spared the

conquered in the temples of their gods? Let us look at the practice of the

Romans themselves: let us, I say, recall and review the Romans, whose

chief praise it has been “to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud,”

and that they preferred “rather to forgive than to revenge an injury ; ”16

and among so many and great cities which they have stormed, taken,

and overthrown for the extension of their dominion, let us be told what

temples they were accustomed to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in

them was free. Or have they really done this, and has the fact been

suppressed by the historians of these events? Is it to be believed, that

men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points they could

praise, would omit those which, in their own estimation, are the most

signal proofs of piety? Marcus Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who

took Syracuse, a most splendidly adorned city, is reported to have

bewailed its coming ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it before

he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve the chastity even of his

enemy. For before he gave orders for the storming of the city, he issued

an edict forbidding the violation of any free person. Yet the city was

sacked according to the custom of war ; nor do we anywhere read, that

even by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that no

one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple. And this

certainly would by no means have been omitted, when neither his

weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity could be passed in silence.

Fabius, the conqueror of the city of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining

from making booty of the images. For when his secretary proposed the

question to him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods,

which had been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation under

a joke. For he asked of what sort they were ; and when they reported to

him that there were not only many large images, but some of them

armed, “Oh,” says he, “let us leave with the Tarentines their angry

gods.” Seeing, then, that the writers of Roman history could not pass in

silence, neither the weeping of the one general nor the laughing of the

other, neither the chaste pity of the one nor the facetious moderation of

the other, on what occasion would it be omitted, if, for the honour of

any of their enemy’s gods, they had shown this particular form of

leniency, that in any temple slaughter or captivity was prohibited?

7. That the cruelties which occurred in the sack of Rome were in accordance with the custom of

war, whereas the acts of clemency resulted from the influence of Christ’s name

All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent

calamity—all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery—was the

result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage

barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest

churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with

the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were

slain, from them none forcibly dragged ; that into them many were led by

their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none

were led into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see that this is

to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is

blind ; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful ; whoever

hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent man

to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody minds

were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so long

before said by His prophet, “I will visit their transgression with the rod,

and their iniquities with stripes ; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I

not utterly take from them.”!7

8. Of the advantages and disadvantages which often indiscriminately accrue to good and wicked

men

Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended

even to the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy

of Him who daily “maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good,

and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”!8 For though some of

these men, taking thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform,

some, as the apostle says, “despising the riches of His goodness and long-

suffering, after their hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto

themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the

righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to

his deeds:”19 nevertheless does the patience of God still invite the

wicked to repentance, even as the scourge of God educates the good to

patience. And so, too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that it

may cherish them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked to punish

them. To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the

world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall

not enjoy ; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be

tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has

willed that these should be common to both ; that we might not too

eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy,

nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men

often suffer.

There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by

those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the

good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by

its ills ; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s

happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.29 Yet often, even

in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince

His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest

punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment ;

on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it

would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of

the good things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality

confer these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say

that these good things were not at His disposal ; and if He gave them to

all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only

rewards of His service ; and such a service would make us not godly, but

greedy rather, and covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men

suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the

men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer.

For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in

the sufferers ; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice

are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly,

and chaff to smoke ; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small,

while the grain is cleansed ; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil,

though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same

violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins,

exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the

wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So

material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what

kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud

exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odour.

9. Of the reasons for administering correction to bad and good together

What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period,

which would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered the

following circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider those

very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible

disasters ; for although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral,

and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed

from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills.

For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to

the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enormity of

wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abominable profanity, yet

he slips into some sins, either rarely or so much the more frequently as

the sins seem of less account. But not to mention this, where can we

readily find a man who holds in fit and just estimation those persons on

account of whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed

iniquities and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions

threatened? Where is the man who lives with them in the style in which

it becomes us to live with them? For often we wickedly blind ourselves

to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them, sometimes even of

reprimanding and chiding them, either because we shrink from the

labour or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good

friendships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement, or

injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous disposition

desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from losing. So that, although

the conduct of wicked men is distasteful to the good, and therefore they

do not fall with them into that damnation which in the next life awaits

such persons, yet, because they spare their damnable sins through fear,

therefore, even though their own sins be slight and venial, they are

justly scourged with the wicked in this world, though in eternity they

quite escape punishment. Justly, when God afflicts them in common

with the wicked, do they find this life bitter, through love of whose

sweetness they declined to be bitter to these sinners.

If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are doing

wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or because he

fears they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other weak persons

may be disheartened from endeavouring to lead a good and pious life,

and may be driven from the faith ; this man’s omission seems to be

occasioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration. But

what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves revolt from the

conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another fashion, yet spare those

faults in other men which they ought to reprehend and wean them from ;

and spare them because they fear to give offence, lest they should injure

their interests in those things which good men may innocently and

legitimately use—though they use them more greedily than becomes

persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope of a

heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren, who enjoy married

life, and have children (or desire to have them), and own houses and

establishments, whom the apostle addresses in the churches, warning

and instructing them how they should live, both the wives with their

husbands, and the husbands with their wives, the children with their

parents, and parents with their children, and servants with their masters,

and masters with their servants—not only do these weaker brethren

gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on

account of which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked

life greatly displeases them ; but those also who live at a higher level,

who are not entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre

food and raiment, do often take thought of their own safety and good

name, and abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear

their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them to such an

extent as to be drawn to the commission of like iniquities, nay, not by

any threats or violence soever ; yet those very deeds which they refuse to

share in the commission of, they often decline to find fault with, when

possibly they might by finding fault prevent their commission. They

abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect,

their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed ; not

because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that

they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but

rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and

fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body ; that

is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of

love.

Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good

are chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with

temporal punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are

punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life,

but because the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with

them, love this present life ; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the

wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay

hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good

in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt

with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether

they may not come to a better mind. These selfish persons have more

cause to fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, “He is

taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s

hand.”2! For watchmen or overseers of the people are appointed in

churches, that they may unsparingly rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless

of the sin we speak of, who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in

the conduct of those with whom the relationships of this life bring him

into contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks

them, fearing to give offence, and lose such worldly blessings as may

legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly grasps. Then, lastly,

there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal

calamities—the reason which Job’s case exemplifies: that the human

spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude

of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.22

10. That the saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods

These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he

may answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and

godly which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question

is needless, and that the apostle is vapouring when he says, “We know

that all things work together for good to them that love God?”23

They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions of

the hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great

price?24 Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians, to

whom the wealthy apostle said, “Godliness with contentment is great

gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can

carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith

content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and

into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and

perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil ; which, while

some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced

themselves through with many sorrows.”25

They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they

owned their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who

himself was poor without, but rich within—that is to say, if they used

the world as not using it—could say in the words of Job, heavily tried,

but not overcome: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked

shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; as it

pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass: blessed be the name of the

Lord.”26 Like a good servant, Job counted the will of his Lord his great

possession, by obedience to which his soul was enriched ; nor did it

grieve him to lose, while yet living, those goods which he must shortly

leave at his death. But as to those feebler spirits who, though they

cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to

them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they have discovered by

the pain of losing these things how much they were sinning in loving

them. For their grief is of their own making ; in the words of the apostle

quoted above, “they have pierced themselves through with many

sorrows.” For it was well that they who had so long despised these

verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For when

the apostle says, “They that will be rich fall into temptation,” and so on,

what he blames in riches is not the possession of them, but the desire of

them. For elsewhere he says, “Charge them that are rich in this world,

that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the

living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; that they do good,

that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to

communicate ; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation

against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”2” They

who were making such a use of their property have been consoled for

light losses by great gains, and have had more pleasure in those

possessions which they have securely laid past, by freely giving them

away, than grief in those which they entirely lost by an anxious and

selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could perish on earth save what

they would be ashamed to carry away from earth. Our Lord’s injunction

runs, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and

rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; but lay up

for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth

corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where

your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”28 And they who have

listened to this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how

well they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher,

and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many

were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the enemy

chanced not to light upon, how much better founded was the joy of

those who, by the counsel of their God, had fled with their treasure to a

citadel which no enemy can possibly reach! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of

Nola,22 who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor,

though abundantly rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola,

and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he afterwards told me,

“O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver, for where all my

treasure is Thou knowest.” For all his treasure was where he had been

taught to hide and store it by Him who had also foretold that these

calamities would happen in the world. Consequently those persons who

obeyed their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up

treasure, did not lose even their earthly possessions in the invasion of

the barbarians ; while those who are now repenting that they did not

obey Him have learnt the right use of earthly goods, if not by the

wisdom which would have prevented their loss, at least by the

experience which follows it.

But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that

they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They could

indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves good.

If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of

iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they should have

been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the sake of money,

they should endure all torment, if need be, for Christ’s sake ; that they

might be taught to love Him rather who enriches with eternal felicity all

who suffer for Him, and not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to

suffer, whether they preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the

truth. For under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no

one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly the

torture which taught them that they should set their affections on a

possession they could not lose, was more useful than those possessions

which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their

anxious owners. But then we are reminded that some were tortured who

had no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they said

so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for wealth, and were

not willingly poor with a holy resignation ; and to such it had to be made

plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the desire of wealth,

deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any

hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a

better life—I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on the

supposition that he had wealth ; but if so, then certainly in confessing,

when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And

though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe

him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured without

receiving a heavenly reward.

Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But

this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of it. For

those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of this life, as

a kindly disease would have done ; and those who were only hunger-

bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.

11. Of the end of this life, whether it is material that it be long delayed

But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to

death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well if this be hard to bear, it is

assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of this at

least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die

some time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with the

shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to be, the one is not

better, the other worse—the one greater, the other less.30 And of what

consequence is it what kind of death puts an end to life, since he who

has died once is not forced to go through the same ordeal a second time?

And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened

with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is

his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than

to live in fear of all? I am not unaware of the poor-spirited fear which

prompts us to choose rather to live long in fear of so many deaths, than

to die once and so escape them all ; but the weak and cowardly shrinking

of the flesh is one thing, and the well-considered and reasonable

persuasion of the soul quite another. That death is not to be judged an

evil which is the end of a good life ; for death becomes evil only by the

retribution which follows it. They, then, who are destined to die, need

not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but into what place

death will usher them. And since Christians are well aware that the

death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked was far better

than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple and fine linen, what harm

could these terrific deaths do to the dead who had lived well?

12. Of the burial of the dead: that the denial of it to Christians does them no injury?

Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as then occurred,

the bodies could not even be buried. But godly confidence is not

appalled by so ill-omened a circumstance ; for the faithful bear in mind

that assurance has been given that not a hair of their head shall perish,

and that, therefore, though they even be devoured by beasts, their

blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered. The Truth would

nowise have said, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to

kill the soul,”32 if anything whatever that an enemy could do to the body

of the slain could be detrimental to the future life. Or will some one

perhaps take so absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the

body are not to be feared before death, and lest they kill the body, but

after death, lest they deprive it of burial? If this be so, then that is false

which Christ says, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after

that have no more that they can do ; ”33 for it seems they can do great

injury to the dead body. Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can

be thus false. They who kill the body are said “to do something,”

because the death-blow is felt, the body still having sensation ; but after

that, they have no more that they can do, for in the slain body there is

no sensation. And so there are indeed many bodies of Christians lying

unburied ; but no one has separated them from heaven, nor from that

earth which is all filled with the presence of Him who knows whence He

will raise again what He created. It is said, indeed, in the Psalm: “The

dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of

the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their

blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem ; and there was

none to bury them.”34 But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of

those who did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them.

To the eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet “precious in

the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”35 Wherefore all these last

offices and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral

arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of

obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort of the

dead. If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial,

or none at all, may harm the godly. His crowd of domestics furnished the

purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man ; but in the

sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral which the ulcerous

pauper received at the hands of the angels, who did not carry him out to

a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham’s bosom.

The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the city of God

laugh at all this. But even their own philosophers?6 have despised a

careful burial ; and often whole armies have fought and fallen for their

earthly country without caring to inquire whether they would be left

exposed on the field of battle, or become the food of wild beasts. Of this

noble disregard of sepulture poetry has well said: “He who has no tomb

has the sky for his vault.”37 How much less ought they to insult over the

unburied bodies of Christians, to whom it has been promised that the

flesh itself shall be restored, and the body formed anew, all the members

of it being gathered not only from the earth, but from the most secret

recesses of any other of the elements in which the dead bodies of men

have lain hid!

13. Reasons for burying the bodies of the saints

Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be

despised and left unburied ; least of all the bodies of the righteous and

faithful, which have been used by the Holy Ghost as His organs and

instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or

anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to the love

they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for the

bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and

intimately than any clothing? For the body is not an extraneous

ornament or aid, but a part of man’s very nature. And therefore to the

righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and

sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated ; 38 and they

themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons about the

burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some

favourite place.3? And Tobit, according to the angel’s testimony, is

commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead.49 Our

Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day, applauds,

and commends to our applause, the good work of the religious woman

who poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His

burial.41 And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were

careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in

costly cerements, and see to its burial.42 These instances certainly do not

prove that corpses have any feeling ; but they show that God’s

providence extends even to the bodies of the dead, and that such pious

offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And

we may also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does

not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the

unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we exercise

towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the holy patriarchs said

of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant to be taken in a

prophetic sense ; but of these we need not here speak at large, what we

have already said being sufficient. But if the want of those things which

are necessary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though

painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and virtuous

endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls, but rather

renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the funeral,

and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those

wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed!

Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of other towns the dead

bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices, this is neither

the fault of the living, for they could not render them ; nor an infliction

to the dead, for they cannot feel the loss.

14. Of the captivity of the saints, and that divine consolation never failed them therein

But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This

indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place

where they could not find their God. But for this calamity also sacred

Scripture affords great consolation. The three youths*3 were captives ;

Daniel was a captive ; so were other prophets: and God, the comforter,

did not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed His own people

in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is yet human—He

who did not abandon the prophet*4 in the belly of a monster. These

things, indeed, are turned to ridicule rather than credited by those with

whom we are debating ; though they believe what they read in their own

books, that Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist,45 when he was

thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin’s back and carried to land.

But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is far more incredible—

more incredible because more marvellous, and more marvellous because

a greater exhibition of power.

15. Of Regulus, in whom we have an example of the voluntary endurance of captivity for the sake

of religion ; which yet did not profit him, though he was a worshipper of the gods

But among their own famous men they have a very noble example of

the voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience to a religious scruple.

Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman general, was a prisoner in the hands of

the Carthaginians. But they, being more anxious to exchange their

prisoners with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special

envoy with their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange, but bound

him first with an oath, that if he failed to accomplish their wish, he

would return to Carthage. He went, and persuaded the senate to the

opposite course, because he believed it was not for the advantage of the

Roman republic to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus

exerted his influence, the Romans did not compel him to return to the

enemy ; but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed. But the

Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elaborate, and horrible

tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box, in which he was compelled

to stand, and in which finely sharpened nails were fixed all round about

him, so that he could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain ;

and so they killed him by depriving him of sleep.4© With justice, indeed,

do they applaud the virtue which rose superior to so frightful a fate.

However, the gods he swore by were those who are now supposed to

avenge the prohibition of their worship, by inflicting these present

calamities on the human race. But if these gods, who were worshipped

specially in this behalf, that they might confer happiness in this life,

either willed or permitted these punishments to be inflicted on one who

kept his oath to them, what more cruel punishment could they in their

anger have inflicted on a perjured person? But why may I not draw from

my reasoning a double inference? Regulus certainly had such reverence

for the gods, that for his oath’s sake he would neither remain in his own

land, nor go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned to his bitterest

enemies. If he thought that this course would be advantageous with

respect to this present life, he was certainly much deceived, for it

brought his life to a frightful termination. By his own example, in fact,

he taught that the gods do not secure the temporal happiness of their

worshippers ; since he himself, who was devoted to their worship, was

both conquered in battle and taken prisoner, and then, because he

refused to act in violation of the oath he had sworn by them, was

tortured and put to death by a new, and hitherto unheard of, and all too

horrible kind of punishment. And on the supposition that the

worshippers of the gods are rewarded by felicity in the life to come,

why, then, do they calumniate the influence of Christianity? why do

they assert that this disaster has overtaken the city because it has ceased

to worship its gods, since, worship them as assiduously as it may, it may

yet be as unfortunate as Regulus was? Or will some one carry so

wonderful a blindness to the extent of wildly attempting, in the face of

the evident truth, to contend that though one man might be unfortunate,

though a worshipper of the gods, yet a whole city could not be so? That

is to say, the power of their gods is better adapted to preserve multitudes

than individuals—as if a multitude were not composed of individuals.

But if they say that M. Regulus, even while a prisoner and enduring

these bodily torments, might yet enjoy the blessedness of a virtuous

soul,47 then let them recognise that true virtue by which a city also may

be blessed. For the blessedness of a community and of an individual flow

from the same source ; for a community is nothing else than a

harmonious collection of individuals. So that I am not concerned

meantime to discuss what kind of virtue Regulus possessed: enough, that

by his very noble example they are forced to own that the gods are to be

worshipped not for the sake of bodily comforts or external advantages ;

for he preferred to lose all such things rather than offend the gods by

whom he had sworn. But what can we make of men who glory in having

such a citizen, but dread having a city like him? If they do not dread

this, then let them acknowledge that some such calamity as befell

Regulus may also befall a community, though they be worshipping their

gods as diligently as he ; and let them no longer throw the blame of their

misfortunes on Christianity. But as our present concern is with those

Christians who were taken prisoners, let those who take occasion from

this calamity to revile our most wholesome religion in a fashion not less

imprudent than impudent, consider this and hold their peace ; for if it

was no reproach to their gods that a most punctilious worshipper of

theirs should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be deprived of his

native land without hope of finding another, and fall into the hands of

his enemies, and be put to death by a long-drawn and exquisite torture,

much less ought the Christian name to be charged with the captivity of

those who believe in its power, since they, in confident expectation of a

heavenly country, know that they are pilgrims even in their own homes.

16. Of the violation of the consecrated and other Christian virgins to which they were subjected in

captivity, and to which their own will gave no consent ; and whether this contaminated their

souls

But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against Christianity,

when they aggravate the horror of captivity by adding that not only

wives and unmarried maidens, but even consecrated virgins, were

violated. But truly, with respect to this, it is not Christian faith, nor

piety, nor even the virtue of chastity, which is hemmed into any

difficulty: the only difficulty is so to treat the subject as to satisfy at once

modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not be so careful to

reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends. Let this, therefore, in the

first place, be laid down as an unassailable position, that the virtue

which makes the life good has its throne in the soul, and thence rules the

members of the body, which becomes holy in virtue of the holiness of

the will ; and that while the will remains firm and unshaken, nothing that

another person does with the body, or upon the body, is any fault of the

person who suffers it, so long as he cannot escape it without sin. But as

not only pain may be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another,

whenever anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a

thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed—shame,

lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual pleasure,

should be believed to have been committed also with some assent of the

will.

17. Of suicide committed through fear of punishment or dishonour

And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed themselves to

avoid such disgrace, who that has any human feeling would refuse to

forgive them? And as for those who would not put an end to their lives,

lest they might seem to escape the crime of another by a sin of their

own, he who lays this to their charge as a great wickedness is himself

not guiltless of the fault of folly. For if it is not lawful to take the law

into our own hands, and slay even a guilty person, whose death no

public sentence has warranted, then certainly he who kills himself is a

homicide, and so much the guiltier of his own death, as he was more

innocent of that offence for which he doomed himself to die. Do we

justly execrate the deed of Judas, and does truth itself pronounce that by

hanging himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of that

most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God’s mercy in his

sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place for a healing

penitence? How much more ought he to abstain from laying violent

hands on himself who has done nothing worthy of such a punishment!

For Judas, when he killed himself, killed a wicked man ; but he passed

from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with his

own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing

himself was another crime. Why, then, should a man who has done no ill

do ill to himself, and by killing himself kill the innocent to escape

another’s guilty act, and perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that

the sin of another may not be perpetrated on him?

18. Of the violence which may be done to the body by another’s lust, while the mind remains

inviolate

But is there a fear that even another’s lust may pollute the violated? It

will not pollute, if it be another’s: if it pollute, it is not another’s, but is

shared also by the polluted. But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and

has for its companion virtue the fortitude which will rather endure all

ills than consent to evil ; and since no one, however magnanimous and

pure, has always the disposal of his own body, but can control only the

consent and refusal of his will, what sane man can suppose that, if his

body be seized and forcibly made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he

thereby loses his purity? For if purity can be thus destroyed, then

assuredly purity is no virtue of the soul ; nor can it be numbered among

those good things by which the life is made good, but among the good

things of the body, in the same category as strength, beauty, sound and

unbroken health, and, in short, all such good things as may be

diminished without at all diminishing the goodness and rectitude of our

life. But if purity be nothing better than these, why should the body be

perilled that it may be preserved? If, on the other hand, it belongs to the

soul, then not even when the body is violated is it lost. Nay more, the

virtue of holy continence, when it resists the uncleanness of carnal lust,

sanctifies even the body, and therefore when this continence remains

unsubdued, even the sanctity of the body is preserved, because the will

to use it holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power

also.

For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the integrity of its

members, nor in their exemption from all touch ; for they are exposed to

various accidents which do violence to and wound them, and the

surgeons who administer relief often perform operations that sicken the

spectator. A midwife, suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally,

or through unskilfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while

endeavouring to ascertain it: I suppose no one is so foolish as to believe

that, by this destruction of the integrity of one organ, the virgin has lost

anything even of her bodily sanctity. And thus, so long as the soul keeps

this firmness of purpose which sanctifies even the body, the violence

done by another’s lust makes no impression on this bodily sanctity,

which is preserved intact by one’s own persistent continence. Suppose a

virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to meet her

seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall we say that as she

goes she is possessed even of bodily sanctity, when already she has lost

and destroyed that sanctity of soul which sanctifies the body? Far be it

from us to so misapply words. Let us rather draw this conclusion, that

while the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is violated,

the sanctity of the body is not lost ; and that, in like manner, the sanctity

of the body is lost when the sanctity of the soul is violated, though the

body itself remain intact. And therefore a woman who has been violated

by the sin of another, and without any consent of her own, has no cause

to put herself to death ; much less has she cause to commit suicide in

order to avoid such violation, for in that case she commits certain

homicide to prevent a crime which is uncertain as yet, and not her own.

19. Of Lucretia, who put an end to her life because of the outrage done her

This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid. We maintain

that when a woman is violated while her soul admits no consent to the

iniquity, but remains inviolably chaste, the sin is not hers, but his who

violates her. But do they against whom we have to defend not only the

souls, but the sacred bodies too of these outraged Christian captives—do

they, perhaps, dare to dispute our position? But all know how loudly

they extol the purity of Lucretia, that noble matron of ancient Rome.

When King Tarquin’s son had violated her body, she made known the

wickedness of this young profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to

Brutus her kinsman, men of high rank and full of courage, and bound

them by an oath to avenge it. Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear the

shame, she put an end to her life. What shall we call her? An adulteress,

or chaste? There is no question which she was. Not more happily than

truly did a declaimer say of this sad occurrence: “Here was a marvel:

there were two, and only one committed adultery.” Most forcibly and

truly spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the union of the two bodies

the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the other, and giving heed

not to the contact of the bodily members, but to the wide diversity of

their souls, says: “There were two, but the adultery was committed only

by one.”

But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime bears the

heavier punishment of the two? For the adulterer was only banished

along with his father ; she suffered the extreme penalty. If that was not

impurity by which she was unwillingly ravished, then this is not justice

by which she, being chaste, is punished. To you I appeal, ye laws and

judges of Rome. Even after the perpetration of great enormities, you do

not suffer the criminal to be slain untried. If, then, one were to bring to

your bar this case, and were to prove to you that a woman not only

untried, but chaste and innocent, had been killed, would you not visit

the murderer with punishment proportionably severe? This crime was

committed by Lucretia ; that Lucretia so celebrated and lauded slew the

innocent, chaste, outraged Lucretia. Pronounce sentence. But if you

cannot, because there does not compear any one whom you can punish,

why do you extol with such unmeasured laudation her who slew an

innocent and chaste woman? Assuredly you will find it impossible to

defend her before the judges of the realms below, if they be such as your

poets are fond of representing them ; for she is among those

“Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,

And all for loathing of the day,

In madness threw their lives away.”

And if she with the others wishes to return,

“Fate bars the way: around their keep

The slow unlovely waters creep,

And bind with ninefold chain.”48

Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself conscious of guilt,

not of innocence? She herself alone knows her reason ; but what if she

was betrayed by the pleasure of the act, and gave some consent to

Sextus, though so violently abusing her, and then was so affected with

remorse, that she thought death alone could expiate her sin? Even

though this were the case, she ought still to have held her hand from

suicide, if she could with her false gods have accomplished a fruitful

repentance. However, if such were the state of the case, and if it were

false that there were two, but one only committed adultery ; if the truth

were that both were involved in it, one by open assault, the other by

secret consent, then she did not kill an innocent woman ; and therefore

her erudite defenders may maintain that she is not among that class of

the dwellers below “who guiltless sent themselves to doom.” But this

case of Lucretia is in such a dilemma, that if you extenuate the homicide,

you confirm the adultery: if you acquit her of adultery, you make the

charge of homicide heavier ; and there is no way out of the dilemma,

when one asks, If she was adulterous, why praise her? if chaste, why slay

her?

Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are unable to

comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore insult over our

outraged Christian women, it is enough that in the instance of this noble

Roman matron it was said in her praise, “There were two, but the

adultery was the crime of only one.” For Lucretia was confidently

believed to be superior to the contamination of any consenting thought

to the adultery. And accordingly, since she killed herself for being

subjected to an outrage in which she had no guilty part, it is obvious

that this act of hers was prompted not by the love of purity, but by the

overwhelming burden of her shame. She was ashamed that so foul a

crime had been perpetrated upon her, though without her abetting ; and

this matron, with the Roman love of glory in her veins, was seized with

a proud dread that, if she continued to live, it would be supposed she

willingly did not resent the wrong that had been done her. She could not

exhibit to men her conscience, but she judged that her self-inflicted

punishment would testify her state of mind ; and she burned with shame

at the thought that her patient endurance of the foul affront that another

had done her, should be construed into complicity with him. Not such

was the decision of the Christian women who suffered as she did, and

yet survive. They declined to avenge upon themselves the guilt of others,

and so add crimes of their own to those crimes in which they had no

share. For this they would have done had their shame driven them to

homicide, as the lust of their enemies had driven them to adultery.

Within their own souls, in the witness of their own conscience, they

enjoy the glory of chastity. In the sight of God, too, they are esteemed

pure, and this contents them ; they ask no more: it suffices them to have

opportunity of doing good, and they decline to evade the distress of

human suspicion, lest they thereby deviate from the divine law.

20. That Christians have no authority for committing suicide in any circumstances whatever

It is not without significance, that in no passage of the holy canonical

books there can be found either divine precept or permission to take

away our own life, whether for the sake of entering on the enjoyment of

immortality, or of shunning, or ridding ourselves of anything whatever.

Nay, the law, rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says,

“Thou shalt not kill.” This is proved specially by the omission of the

words “thy neighbour,” which are inserted when false witness is

forbidden: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

Nor yet should any one on this account suppose he has not broken this

commandment if he has borne false witness only against himself. For the

love of our neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is

written, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” If, then, he who

makes false statements about himself is not less guilty of bearing false

witness than if he had made them to the injury of his neighbour ;

although in the commandment prohibiting false witness only his

neighbour is mentioned, and persons taking no pains to understand it

might suppose that a man was allowed to be a false witness to his own

hurt ; how much greater reason have we to understand that a man may

not kill himself, since in the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” there

is no limitation added nor any exception made in favour of any one, and

least of all in favour of him on whom the command is laid! And so some

attempt to extend this command even to beasts and cattle, as if it

forbade us to take life from any creature. But if so, why not extend it

also to the plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth?

For though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they also are

said to live, and consequently they can die ; and therefore, if violence be

done them, can be killed. So, too, the apostle, when speaking of the

seeds of such things as these, says, “That which thou sowest is not

quickened except it die ; ” and in the Psalm it is said, “He killed their

vines with hail.” Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this

commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” to pull a flower? Are we thus

insanely to countenance the foolish error of the Manichezans? Putting

aside, then, these ravings, if, when we say, Thou shalt not kill, we do not

understand this of the plants, since they have no sensation, nor of the

irrational animals that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are

dissociated from us by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just

appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our

own uses ; if so, then it remains that we understand that commandment

simply of man. The commandment is, “Thou shalt not kill man ; ”

therefore neither another nor yourself, for he who kills himself still kills

nothing else than man.

21. Of the cases in which we may put men to death without incurring the guilt of murder

However, there are some exceptions made by the divine authority to

its own law, that men may not be put to death. These exceptions are of

two kinds, being justified either by a general law, or by a special

commission granted for a time to some individual. And in this latter

case, he to whom authority is delegated, and who is but the sword in the

hand of him who uses it, is not himself responsible for the death he

deals. And, accordingly, they who have waged war in obedience to the

divine command, or in conformity with His laws have represented in

their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this

capacity have put to death wicked men ; such persons have by no means

violated the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Abraham indeed was

not merely deemed guiltless of cruelty, but was even applauded for his

piety, because he was ready to slay his son in obedience to God, not to

his own passion. And it is reasonably enough made a question, whether

we are to esteem it to have been in compliance with a command of God

that Jephthah killed his daughter, because she met him when he had

vowed that he would sacrifice to God whatever first met him as he

returned victorious from battle. Samson, too, who drew down the house

on himself and his foes together, is justified only on this ground, that the

Spirit who wrought wonders by him had given him secret instructions to

do this. With the exception, then, of these two classes of cases, which are

justified either by a just law that applies generally, or by a special

intimation from God Himself, the fountain of all justice, whoever kills a

man, either himself or another, is implicated in the guilt of murder.

22. That suicide can never be prompted by magnanimity

But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are perhaps to be

admired for their greatness of soul, though they cannot be applauded for

the soundness of their judgment. However, if you look at the matter

more closely, you will scarcely call it greatness of soul, which prompts a

man to kill himself rather than bear up against some hardships of

fortune, or sins in which he is not implicated. Is it not rather proof of a

feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains of bodily servitude or

the foolish opinion of the vulgar? And is not that to be pronounced the

greater mind, which rather faces than flees the ills of life, and which, in

comparison of the light and purity of conscience, holds in small esteem

the judgment of men, and specially of the vulgar, which is frequently

involved in a mist of error? And, therefore, if suicide is to be esteemed a

magnanimous act, none can take higher rank for magnanimity than that

Cleombrotus, who (as the story goes), when he had read Plato’s book in

which he treats of the immortality of the soul, threw himself from a

wall, and so passed from this life to that which he believed to be better.

For he was not hard pressed by calamity, nor by any accusation, false or

true, which he could not very well have lived down: there was, in short,

no motive but only magnanimity urging him to seek death, and break

away from the sweet detention of this life. And yet that this was a

magnanimous rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself, whom he

had read, would have told him ; for he would certainly have been

forward to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not the same

bright intellect which saw that the soul was immortal, discerned also

that to seek immortality by suicide was to be prohibited rather than

encouraged.

Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent an enemy

doing so. But we are not inquiring whether it has been done, but

whether it ought to have been done. Sound judgment is to be preferred

even to examples, and indeed examples harmonize with the voice of

reason ; but not all examples, but those only which are distinguished by

their piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation. For suicide we

cannot cite the example of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles ; though our

Lord Jesus Christ, when He admonished them to flee from city to city if

they were persecuted, might very well have taken that occasion to

advise them to lay violent hands on themselves, and so escape their

persecutors. But seeing He did not do this, nor proposed this mode of

departing this life, though He were addressing His own friends for whom

He had promised to prepare everlasting mansions, it is obvious that such

examples as are produced from the “nations that forget God,” give no

warrant of imitation to the worshippers of the one true God.

23. What we are to think of the example of Cato, who slew himself because unable to endure

Cesar’s victory.

Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said, our

advocates of suicide have some difficulty in finding any other

prescriptive example unless it be that of Cato, who killed himself at

Utica. His example is appealed to, not because he was the only man who

did so, but because he was so esteemed as a learned and excellent man,

that it could plausibly be maintained that what he did was and is a good

thing to do. But of this action of his, what can I say but that his own

friends, enlightened men as he, prudently dissuaded him, and therefore

judged his act to be that of a feeble rather than a strong spirit, and

dictated not by honourable feeling forestalling shame, but by weakness

shrinking from hardships? Indeed, Cato condemns himself by the advice

he gave to his dearly loved son. For if it was a disgrace to live under

Ceesar’s rule, why did the father urge the son to this disgrace, by

encouraging him to trust absolutely to Cesar’s generosity? Why did he

not persuade him to die along with himself? If Torquatus was applauded

for putting his son to death, when contrary to orders he had engaged,

and engaged successfully, with the enemy, why did conquered Cato

spare his conquered son, though he did not spare himself? Was it more

disgraceful to be a victor contrary to orders, than to submit to a victor

contrary to the received ideas of honour? Cato, then, cannot have

deemed it to be shameful to live under Cesar’s rule ; for had he done so,

the father’s sword would have delivered his son from this disgrace. The

truth is, that his son, who he both hoped and desired would be spared by

Cæsar, was not more loved by him than Cesar was envied the glory of

pardoning him (as indeed Cesar himself is reported to have said‘) ; or if

envy is too strong a word, let us say he was ashamed that this glory

should be his.

24. That in that virtue in which Regulus excels Cato, Christians are pre-eminently distinguished

Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the saintly Job,

who endured dreadful evils in his body rather than deliver himself from

all torment by self-inflicted death ; or other saints, of whom it is recorded

in our authoritative and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and

the oppression of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their

own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus Regulus. For

Cato had never conquered Cesar ; and when conquered by him,

disdained to submit himself to him, and that he might escape this

submission put himself to death. Regulus, on the contrary, had formerly

conquered the Carthaginians, and in command of the army of Rome had

won for the Roman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail, and

which the enemy himself was constrained to admire ; yet afterwards,

when he in his turn was defeated by them, he preferred to be their

captive rather than to put himself beyond their reach by suicide. Patient

under the domination of the Carthaginians, and constant in his love of

the Romans, he neither deprived the one of his conquered body nor the

other of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love of life that prevented

him from killing himself. This was plainly enough indicated by his

unhesitatingly returning, on account of his promise and oath, to the

same enemies whom he had more grievously provoked by his words in

the senate than even by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt of

life, and preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies

might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand, he could not

more distinctly have declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be.

Among all their famous and remarkable citizens, the Romans have no

better man to boast of than this, who was neither corrupted by

prosperity, for he remained a very poor man after winning such

victories ; nor broken by adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most

miserable end. But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, who had

but an earthly country to defend, and who, though they had but false

gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and carefully kept their oath to

them ; if these men, who by the custom and right of war put conquered

enemies to the sword, yet shrank from putting an end to their own lives

even when conquered by their enemies ; if, though they had no fear at all

of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit suicide, how

much rather must Christians, the worshippers of the true God, the

aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink from this act, if in God’s

providence they have been for a season delivered into the hands of their

enemies to prove or to correct them! And, certainly, Christians subjected

to this humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High, who

for their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they forget that they are

bound by no laws of war, nor military orders, to put even a conquered

enemy to the sword ; and if a man may not put to death the enemy who

has sinned, or may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to

maintain that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is

going to sin, against him?

25. That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin

But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the body is

subjected to the enemy’s lust, the insidious pleasure of sense may entice

the soul to consent to the sin, and steps must be taken to prevent so

disastrous a result. And is not suicide the proper mode of preventing not

only the enemy’s sin, but the sin of the Christian so allured? Now, in the

first place, the soul which is led by God and His wisdom, rather than by

bodily concupiscence, will certainly never consent to the desire aroused

in its own flesh by another’s lust. And, at all events, if it be true, as the

truth plainly declares, that suicide is a detestable and damnable

wickedness, who is such a fool as to say, Let us sin now, that we may

obviate a possible future sin ; let us now commit murder, lest we perhaps

afterwards should commit adultery? If we are so controlled by iniquity

that innocence is out of the question, and we can at best but make a

choice of sins, is not a future and uncertain adultery preferable to a

present and certain murder? Is it not better to commit a wickedness

which penitence may heal, than a crime which leaves no place for

healing contrition? I say this for the sake of those men or women who

fear they may be enticed into consenting to their violator’s lust, and

think they should lay violent hands on themselves, and so prevent, not

another’s sin, but their own. But far be it from the mind of a Christian

confiding in God, and resting in the hope of His aid ; far be it, I say, from

such a mind to yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh,

howsoever presented. And if that lustful disobedience, which still dwells

in our mortal members, follows its own law irrespective of our will,

surely its motions in the body of one who rebels against them are as

blameless as its motions in the body of one who sleeps.

26. That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the saints are not to be followed

But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women escaped

those who menaced them with outrage, by casting themselves into rivers

which they knew would drown them ; and having died in this manner,

they are venerated in the church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I

do not presume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not

have been vouchsafed to the church some divine authority, proved by

trustworthy evidences, for so honouring their memory: it may be that it

is so. It may be they were not deceived by human judgment, but

prompted by divine wisdom, to their act of self-destruction. We know

that this was the case with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and

intimates by plain evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call

obedience criminal? Who will accuse so religious a submission? But then

every man is not justified in sacrificing his son to God, because Abraham

was commendable in so doing. The soldier who has slain a man in

obedience to the authority under which he is lawfully commissioned, is

not accused of murder by any law of his state ; nay, if he has not slain

him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of despising the

law. But if he has been acting on his own authority, and at his own

impulse, he has in this case incurred the crime of shedding human blood.

And thus he is punished for doing without orders the very thing he is

punished for neglecting to do when he has been ordered. If the

commands of a general make so great a difference, shall the commands

of God make none? He, then, who knows it is unlawful to kill himself,

may nevertheless do so if he is ordered by Him whose commands we

may not neglect. Only let him be very sure that the divine command has

been signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets of

conscience only in so far as these are disclosed to us, and so far only do

we judge: “No one knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man

which is in him.”5° But this we affirm, this we maintain, this we every

way pronounce to be right, that no man ought to inflict on himself

voluntary death, for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into

those of eternity ; that no man ought to do so on account of another

man’s sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not pollute him,

by incurring great guilt of his own ; that no man ought to do so on

account of his own past sins, for he has all the more need of this life that

these sins may be healed by repentance ; that no man should put an end

to this life to obtain that better life we look for after death, for those

who die by their own hand have no better life after death.

27. Whether voluntary death should be sought in order to avoid sin

There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned before, and

which is thought a sound one—namely, to prevent one’s falling into sin

either through the blandishments of pleasure or the violence of pain. If

this reason were a good one, then we should be impelled to exhort men

at once to destroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the

laver of regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all sin. Then

is the time to escape all future sin, when all past sin is blotted out. And if

this escape be lawfully secured by suicide, why not then specially? Why

does any baptized person hold his hand from taking his own life? Why

does any person who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose

himself to them, when he has power so easily to rid himself of them all,

and when it is written, “He who loveth danger shall fall into it?”5!1 Why

does he love, or at least face, so many serious dangers, by remaining in

this life from which he may legitimately depart? But is any one so

blinded and twisted in his moral nature, and so far astray from the truth,

as to think that, though a man ought to make away with himself for fear

of being led into sin by the oppression of one man, his master, he ought

yet to live, and so expose himself to the hourly temptations of this

world, both to all those evils which the oppression of one master

involves, and to numberless other miseries in which this life inevitably

implicates us? What reason, then, is there for our consuming time in

those exhortations by which we seek to animate the baptized, either to

virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or matrimonial fidelity, when we

have so much more simple and compendious a method of deliverance

from sin, by persuading those who are fresh from baptism to put an end

to their lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well-conditioned? If any

one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I say not he is

foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he say to any man, “Kill

yourself, lest to your small sins you add a heinous sin, while you live

under an unchaste master, whose conduct is that of a barbarian?” How

can he say this, if he cannot without wickedness say, “Kill yourself, now

that you are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into similar or

even aggravated sins, while you live in a world which has such power to

allure by its unclean pleasures, to torment by its horrible cruelties, to

overcome by its errors and terrors?” It is wicked to say this ; it is

therefore wicked to kill oneself. For if there could be any just cause of

suicide, this were so. And since not even this is so, there is none.

28. By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to indulge his lust on the bodies of

continent Christians

Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful servants of

Christ, though your chastity was made the sport of your enemies. You

have a grand and true consolation, if you maintain a good conscience,

and know that you did not consent to the sins of those who were

permitted to commit sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask why

this permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence of the

Creator and Governor of the world ; and “unsearchable are His

judgments, and His ways past finding out.”52 Nevertheless, faithfully

interrogate your own souls, whether ye have not been unduly puffed up

by your integrity, and continence, and chastity ; and whether ye have not

been so desirous of the human praise that is accorded to these virtues,

that ye have envied some who possessed them. I, for my part, do not

know your hearts, and therefore I make no accusation ; I do not even

hear what your hearts answer when you question them. And yet, if they

answer that it is as I have supposed it might be, do not marvel that you

have lost that by which you can win men’s praise, and retain that which

cannot be exhibited to men. If you did not consent to sin, it was because

God added His aid to His grace that it might not be lost, and because

shame before men succeeded to human glory that it might not be loved.

But in both respects even the fainthearted among you have a

consolation, approved by the one experience, chastened by the other ;

justified by the one, corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts,

when interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the virtue

of virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but, condescending to

those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling in these gifts of God, and

that they have never envied any one the like excellences of sanctity and

purity, but rose superior to human applause, which is wont to be

abundant in proportion to the rarity of the virtue applauded, and rather

desired that their own number be increased, than that by the smallness

of their numbers each of them should be conspicuous ; —even such

faithful women, I say, must not complain that permission was given to

the barbarians so grossly to outrage them ; nor must they allow

themselves to believe that God overlooked their character when He

permitted acts which no one with impunity commits. For some most

flagrant and wicked desires are allowed free play at present by the secret

judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final judgment.

Moreover, it is possible that those Christian women, who are

unconscious of any undue pride on account of their virtuous chastity,

whereby they sinlessly suffered the violence of their captors, had yet

some lurking infirmity which might have betrayed them into a proud

and contemptuous bearing, had they not been subjected to the

humiliation that befell them in the taking of the city. As, therefore, some

men were removed by death, that no wickedness might change their

disposition, so these women were outraged lest prosperity should

corrupt their modesty. Neither those women, then, who were already

puffed up by the circumstance that they were still virgins, nor those who

might have been so puffed up had they not been exposed to the violence

of the enemy, lost their chastity, but rather gained humility: the former

were saved from pride already cherished, the latter from pride that

would shortly have grown upon them.

We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have

conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as the

body is inviolate, and did not understand that the purity both of the

body and the soul rests on the stedfastness of the will strengthened by

God’s grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an unwilling person.

From this error they are probably now delivered. For when they reflect

how conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again to the

firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those who so serve Him,

and so invoke His aid ; and when they consider, what they cannot doubt,

how pleasing to Him is chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that

He could never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by

them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself had bestowed

upon them, and delights to see in them.

29. What the servants of Christ should say in reply to the unbelievers who cast in their teeth that

Christ did not rescue them from the fury of their enemies

The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a

consolation of its own—a consolation which cannot deceive, and which

has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth can

afford. They will not refuse the discipline of this temporal life, in which

they are schooled for life eternal ; nor will they lament their experience

of it, for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who are not

detained by them, and its ills either prove or improve them. As for those

who insult over them in their trials, and when ills befall them say,

“Where is thy God?”53 we may ask them where their gods are when they

suffer the very calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship

their gods, or maintain they ought to be worshipped ; for the family of

Christ is furnished with its reply: our God is everywhere present, wholly

everywhere ; not confined to any place. He can be present unperceived,

and be absent without moving ; when He exposes us to adversities, it is

either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections ; and in

return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves

for us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should deign to

speak with you even about your own gods, much less about our God,

who is “to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations are

idols ; but the Lord made the heavens.”54

30. That those who complain of Christianity really desire to live without restraint in shameful

luxury

If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once your

pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate, when, in the panic

created by the Punic war, they sought for the best citizen to entertain

the Phrygian goddess, he would curb this shamelessness of yours, though

you would perhaps scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a

man. For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity, unless

because you desire to enjoy your luxurious licence unrestrained, and to

lead an abandoned and profligate life without the interruption of any

uneasiness or disaster? For certainly your desire for peace, and

prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these

blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance,

and piety ; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of

sottish pleasures, and thus to generate front your prosperity a moral

pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the

fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief

pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when

he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome’s rival ; and

opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that

enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be

a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken: the event

proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed,

and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a

crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous

condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce

and bloody seditions ; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful

causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such

bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those

Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the

hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater

cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which

with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated

intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of

the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and

wearied.

31. By what steps the passion for governing increased among the Romans

For at what stage would that passion rest when once it has lodged in a

proud spirit, until by a succession of advances it has reached even the

throne? And to obtain such advances nothing avails but unscrupulous

ambition. But unscrupulous ambition has nothing to work upon, save in

a nation corrupted by avarice and luxury. Moreover, a people becomes

avaricious and luxurious by prosperity ; and it was this which that very

prudent man Nasica was endeavouring to avoid when he opposed the

destruction of the greatest, strongest, wealthiest city of Rome’s enemy.

He thought that thus fear would act as a curb on lust, and that lust being

curbed would not run riot in luxury, and that luxury being prevented

avarice would be at an end ; and that these vices being banished, virtue

would flourish and increase, to the great profit of the state ; and liberty,

the fit companion of virtue, would abide unfettered. For similar reasons,

and animated by the same considerate patriotism, that same chief pontiff

of yours—I still refer to him who was adjudged Rome’s best man without

one dissentient voice—threw cold water on the proposal of the senate to

build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in a very weighty speech

warned them against allowing the luxurious manners of Greece to sap

the Roman manliness, and persuaded them not to yield to the enervating

and emasculating influence of foreign licentiousness. So authoritative

and forcible were his words, that the senate was moved to prohibit the

use even of those benches which hitherto had been customarily brought

to the theatre for the temporary use of the citizens.55 How eagerly would

such a man as this have banished from Rome the scenic exhibitions

themselves, had he dared to oppose the authority of those whom he

supposed to be gods! For he did not know that they were malicious

devils ; or if he did, he supposed they should rather be propitiated than

despised. For there had not yet been revealed to the Gentiles the

heavenly doctrine which should purify their hearts by faith, and

transform their natural disposition by humble godliness, and turn them

from the service of proud devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or

even above the heavens.

32. Of the establishment of scenic entertainments

Know then, ye who are ignorant of this, and ye who feign ignorance

be reminded, while you murmur against Him who has freed you from

such rulers, that the scenic games, exhibitions of shameless folly and

licence, were established at Rome, not by men’s vicious cravings, but by

the appointment of your gods. Much more pardonably might you have

rendered divine honours to Scipio than to such gods as these. The gods

were not so moral as their pontiff. But give me now your attention, if

your mind, inebriated by its deep potations of error, can take in any

sober truth. The gods enjoined that games be exhibited in their honour

to stay a physical pestilence ; their pontiff prohibited the theatre from

being constructed, to prevent a moral pestilence. If, then, there remains

in you sufficient mental enlightenment to prefer the soul to the body,

choose whom you will worship. Besides, though the pestilence was

stayed, this was not because the voluptuous madness of stage-plays had

taken possession of a warlike people hitherto accustomed only to the

games of the circus ; but these astute and wicked spirits, foreseeing that

in due course the pestilence would shortly cease, took occasion to infect,

not the bodies, but the morals of their worshippers, with a far more

serious disease. And in this pestilence these gods find great enjoyment,

because it benighted the minds of men with so gross a darkness, and

dishonoured them with so foul a deformity, that even quite recently (will

posterity be able to credit it?) some of those who fled from the sack of

Rome and found refuge in Carthage, were so infected with this disease,

that day after day they seemed to contend with one another who should

most madly run after the actors in the theatres.

33. That the overthrow of Rome has not corrected the vices of the Romans

O infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness, which

possesses you? How is it that while, as we hear, even the eastern nations

are bewailing your ruin, and while powerful states in the most remote

parts of the earth are mourning your fall as a public calamity, ye

yourselves should be crowding to the theatres, should be pouring into

them and filling them ; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than

ever before? This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of virtue and

honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from when he prohibited the

construction of theatres ; this was his reason for desiring that you might

still have an enemy to fear, seeing as he did how easily prosperity would

corrupt and destroy you. He did not consider that republic flourishing

whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the seductions of

evil-minded devils had more influence with you than the precautions of

prudent men. Hence the injuries you do, you will not permit to be

imputed to you ; but the injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity.

Depraved by good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you

desire in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the

tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your own vicious

luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed by an enemy, that you

might not abandon yourselves to luxurious manners ; but so abandoned

are you, that not even when crushed by the enemy is your luxury

repressed. You have missed the profit of your calamity ; you have been

made most wretched, and have remained most profligate.

34. Of God’s clemency in moderating the ruin of the city

And that you are yet alive is due to God, who spares you that you may

be admonished to repent and reform your lives. It is He who has

permitted you, ungrateful as you are, to escape the sword of the enemy,

by calling yourselves His servants, or by finding asylum in the sacred

places of the martyrs.

It is said that Romulus and Remus, in order to increase the population

of the city they founded, opened a sanctuary in which every man might

find asylum and absolution of all crime—a remarkable foreshadowing of

what has recently occurred in honour of Christ. The destroyers of Rome

followed the example of its founders. But it was not greatly to their

credit that the latter, for the sake of increasing the number of their

citizens, did that which the former have done, lest the number of their

enemies should be diminished.

35. Of the sons of the church who are hidden among the wicked, and of false Christians within

the church

Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers can be

found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family of the Lord

Christ, and by the pilgrim city of King Christ. But let this city bear in

mind, that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be

fellow-citizens, that she may not think it a fruitless labour to bear what

they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too,

as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has in her

communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not

eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of these, some are not now

recognised ; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make

common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose

sacramental badge they wear. These men you may to-day see thronging

the churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless.

But we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation even of such

persons, if among our most declared enemies there are now some,

unknown to themselves, who are destined to become our friends. In

truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and

intermixed until the last judgment effect their separation. I now proceed

to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end of these

two cities ; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that,

being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter

lustre.

36. What subjects are to be handled in the following discourse

But I have still some things to say in confutation of those who refer

the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion, because it prohibits

the offering of sacrifices to the gods. For this end I must recount all, or

as many as may seem sufficient, of the disasters which befell that city

and its subject provinces, before these sacrifices were prohibited ; for all

these disasters they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time

our religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their

sacrifices. I must then go on to show what social well-being the true

God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to grant to them that

their empire might increase. I must show why He did so, and how their

false gods, instead of at all aiding them, greatly injured them by guile

and deceit. And, lastly, I must meet those who, when on this point

convinced and confuted by irrefragable proofs, endeavour to maintain

that they worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this

life, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death. And this, if I am

not mistaken, will be the most difficult part of my task, and will be

worthy of the loftiest argument ; for we must then enter the lists with the

philosophers, not the mere common herd of philosophers, but the most

renowned, who in many points agree with ourselves, as regarding the

immortality of the soul, and that the true God created the world, and by

His providence rules all He has created. But as they differ from us on

other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing their errors,

that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked with such ability as

God may vouchsafe, we may assert the city of God, and true piety, and

the worship of God, to which alone the promise of true and everlasting

felicity is attached. Here, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on

these subjects in a fresh book.

1 Ps. xciv. 15, rendered otherwise in Eng. ver.

2 Jas. iv. 6 and 1 Pet. v. 5.

3 Virgil, Aneid, vi. 854.

4 The Benedictines remind us that Alexander and Xenophon, at least on some occasions, did so.

° Virgil, AEneid, ii. 501-2. The renderings of Virgil are from Coningtos.

6 Ibid. ii. 166.

7 Ibid.

8 Horace, Ep. I. ii. 69.

9 Aineid, i. 71.

10 Ibid. ii. 319.

11 Ibid. 293.

12 Non numina bona, sed omina mala.

13 Virgil, Aineid, ii. 761.

14 Though “levis” was the word usually employed to signify the inconstancy of the Greeks, it is

evidently here used, in opposition to “immanis” of the following clause, to indicate that the

Greeks were more civilised than the barbarians, and not relentless, but, as we say, easily moved.

15 De Conj. Cat. c. 51.

16 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ix.

17 Ps, Ixxxix. 32.

18 Matt. v. 45.

19 Rom. ii. 4.

20 So Cyprian (Contra Demetrianum) says, “Poenam de adversis mundi ille sentlt, cui et letitia et

gloria omnis in mundo est.”

21 Ezek. xxxiii. 6.

22 Compare with this chapter the first homily of Chrysostom to the people of Antioch.

23 Rom. viii. 28.

24 1 Pet. iii. 4.

25 1 Tim. vi. 6-10.

26 Job i. 21.

27 1 Tim. vi. 17-19.

28 Matt. vi. 19-21.

29 Paulinus was a native of Bordeaux, and both by inheritance and marriage acquired great

wealth, which, after his conversion in his thirty-sixth year, he distributed to the poor. He became

bishop of Nola in A.D. 409, being then in his fifty-sixth year. Nola was taken by Alaric shortly

after the sack of Rome.

30 Much of a kindred nature might be gathered from the Stoics. Antoninus says (ii. 14): “Though

thou shouldest be going to live 3000 years, and as many times 10,000 years, still remember that

no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he

now loses. The longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same.”

31 Augustine expresses himself more fully on this subject in his tract, De cura pro mortuis gerenda.

32 Matt. x. 28.

33 Luke xii. 4.

34 Ds, Ixxix. 2, 3.

35 Ps. cxvi. 15.

36 Diogenes especially, and his followers. See also Seneca, De Tranq. c. 14, and Epist. 92 ; and in

Cicero’s Tusc. Disp. i. 43, the answer of Theodorus, the Cyrenian philosopher, to Lysimachus, who

threatened him with the cross: “Threaten that to your courtiers ; it is of no consequence to

Theodorus whether he rot in the earth or in the air.”

37 Lucan, Pharsalia, vii. 819, of those whom Cæsar forbade to be buried after the battle of

Pharsalia.

38 Gen. xxv. 9, xxxv. 29, etc.

39 Gen. xlvii. 29, 1. 24.

40 Tob. xii. 12.

41 Matt. xxvi. 10-13.

42 John xix. 38.

43 Dan. iii.

44 Jonah.

45 “Second to none,” as he is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells his well-known story (Clio.

23, 24).

46 Augustine here uses the words of Cicero (“vigilando peremerunt”), who refers to Regulus, in

Pisonem, c. 19. Aulus Gellius, quoting Tubero and Tuditanus (vi. 4), adds some further particulars

regarding these tortures.

47 As the Stoics generally would affirm.

48 Virgil, Æneid, vi. 434.

49 Plutarch’s Life of Cato, 72.

50 1 Cor. ii. 11.

51 Ecclus. iii. 27.

52 Rom. xi. 33.

53 Ps, xlii. 10.

54 Ps, xcvi. 4, 5.

55 Originally the spectators had to stand, and now (according to Livy, Ep. xlviii.) the old custom

was restored.

BOOK SECOND

ARGUMENT

IN THIS BOOK AUGUSTINE REVIEWS THOSE CALAMITIES WHICH THE ROMANS SUFFERED BEFORE THE

TIME OF CHRIST, AND WHILE THE WORSHIP OF THE FALSE GODS WAS UNIVERSALLY PRACTISED ; AND

DEMONSTRATES THAT, FAR FROM BEING PRESERVED FROM MISFORTUNE BY THE GODS, THE ROMANS

HAVE BEEN BY THEM OVERWHELMED WITH THE ONLY, OR AT LEAST THE GREATEST, OF ALL CALAMITIES

—THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, AND THE VICES OF THE SOUL.

1. Of the limits which must be put to the necessity of replying to an adversary

f the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence

of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a

health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety,

the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them

in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the

errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more

prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the

truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they

hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account

of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly

set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which

prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see. There

therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more fully on those

points which are already clear, that we may, as it were, present them not

to the eye, but even to the touch, so that they may be felt even by those

who close their eyes against them. And yet to what end shall we ever

bring our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we

proceed on the principle that we must always reply to those who reply

to us? For those who are either unable to understand our arguments, or

are so hardened by the habit of contradiction, that though they

understand they cannot yield to them, reply to us, and, as it is written,

“speak hard things,”! and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to

propose to confute their objections as often as they with brazen face

chose to disregard our arguments, and as often as they could by any

means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and fruitless, and

painful a task we should be undertaking. And therefore I do not wish my

writings to be judged even by you, my son Marcellinus, nor by any of

those others at whose service this work of mine is freely and in all

Christian charity put, if at least you intend always to require a reply to

every exception which you hear taken to what you read in it ; for so you

would become like those silly women of whom the apostle says that they

are “always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the

truth.”2

2. Recapitulation of the contents of the first book

In the foregoing book, having begun to speak of the city of God, to

which I have resolved, Heaven helping me, to consecrate the whole of

this work, it was my first endeavour to reply to those who attribute the

wars by which the world is being devastated, and specially the recent

sack of Rome by the barbarians, to the religion of Christ, which prohibits

the offering of abominable sacrifices to devils. I have shown that they

ought rather to attribute it to Christ, that for His name’s sake the

barbarians, in contravention of all custom and law of war, threw open as

sanctuaries the largest churches, and in many instances showed such

reverence to Christ, that not only His genuine servants, but even those

who in their terror feigned themselves to be so, were exempted from all

those hardships which by the custom of war may lawfully be inflicted.

Then out of this there arose the question, why wicked and ungrateful

men were permitted to share in these benefits ; and why, too, the

hardships and calamities of war were inflicted on the godly as well as on

the ungodly. And in giving a suitably full answer to this large question, I

occupied some considerable space, partly that I might relieve the

anxieties which disturb many when they observe that the blessings of

God, and the common and daily human casualties, fall to the lot of bad

men and good without distinction ; but mainly that I might minister some

consolation to those holy and chaste women who were outraged by the

enemy, in such a way as to shock their modesty, though not to sully

their purity, and that I might preserve them from being ashamed of life,

though they have no guilt to be ashamed of. And then I briefly spoke

against those who with a most shameless wantonness insult over those

poor Christians who were subjected to those calamities, and especially

over those brokenhearted and humiliated, though chaste and holy

women ; these fellows themselves being most depraved and unmanly

profligates, quite degenerate from the genuine Romans, whose famous

deeds are abundantly recorded in history, and everywhere celebrated,

but who have found in their descendants the greatest enemies of their

glory. In truth, Rome, which was founded and increased by the labours

of these ancient heroes, was more shamefully ruined by their

descendants, while its walls were still standing, than it is now by the

razing of them. For in this ruin there fell stones and timbers ; but in the

ruin those profligates effected, there fell, not the mural, but the moral

bulwarks and ornaments of the city, and their hearts burned with

passions more destructive than the flames which consumed their houses.

Thus I brought my first book to a close. And now I go on to speak of

those calamities which that city itself, or its subject provinces, have

suffered since its foundation ; all of which they would equally have

attributed to the Christian religion, if at that early period the doctrine of

the gospel against their false and deceiving gods had been as largely and

freely proclaimed as now.

3. That we need only to read history in order to see what calamities the Romans suffered before

the religion of Christ began to compete with the worship of the gods

But remember that, in recounting these things, I have still to address

myself to ignorant men ; so ignorant, indeed, as to give birth to the

common saying, “Drought and Christianity go hand in hand.”3 There are

indeed some among them who are thoroughly well educated men, and

have a taste for history, in which the things I speak of are open to their

observation ; but in order to irritate the uneducated masses against us,

they feign ignorance of these events, and do what they can to make the

vulgar believe that those disasters, which in certain places and at certain

times uniformly befall mankind, are the result of Christianity, which is

being everywhere diffused, and is possessed of a renown and brilliancy

which quite eclipse their own gods.* Let them then, along with us, call to

mind with what various and repeated disasters the prosperity of Rome

was blighted, before ever Christ had come in the flesh, and before His

name had been blazoned among the nations with that glory which they

vainly grudge. Let them, if they can, defend their gods in this article,

since they maintain that they worship them in order to be preserved

from these disasters, which they now impute to us if they suffer in the

least degree. For why did these gods permit the disasters I am to speak

of to fall on their worshippers before the preaching of Christ’s name

offended them, and put an end to their sacrifices?

4. That the worshippers of the gods never received from them any healthy moral precepts, and that

in celebrating their worship all sorts of impurities were practised

First of all, we would ask why their gods took no steps to improve the

morals of their worshippers. That the true God should neglect those who

did not seek His help, that was but justice ; but why did those gods, from

whose worship ungrateful men are now complaining that they are

prohibited, issue no laws which might have guided their devotees to a

virtuous life? Surely it was but just, that such care as men showed to the

worship of the gods, the gods on their part should have to the conduct of

men. But, it is replied, it is by his own will a man goes astray. Who

denies it? But none the less was it incumbent on these gods, who were

men’s guardians, to publish in plain terms the laws of a good life, and

not to conceal them from their worshippers. It was their part to send

prophets to reach and convict such as broke these laws, and publicly to

proclaim the punishments which await evildoers, and the rewards which

may be looked for by those that do well. Did ever the walls of any of

their temples echo to any such warning voice? I myself, when I was a

young man, used sometimes to go to the sacrilegious entertainments and

spectacles ; I saw the priests raving in religious excitement, and heard the

choristers ; I took pleasure in the shameful games which were celebrated

in honour of gods and goddesses, of the virgin Coelestis, > and

Berecynthia,© the mother of all the gods. And on the holy day

consecrated to her purification, there were sung before her couch

productions so obscene and filthy for the ear—I do not say of the mother

of the gods, but of the mother of any senator or honest man—nay, so

impure, that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players

themselves could have formed one of the audience. For natural

reverence for parents is a bond which the most abandoned cannot

ignore. And, accordingly, the lewd actions and filthy words with which

these players honoured the mother of the gods, in presence of a vast

assemblage and audience of both sexes, they could not for very shame

have rehearsed at home in presence of their own mothers. And the

crowds that were gathered from all quarters by curiosity, offended

modesty must, I should suppose, have scattered in the confusion of

shame. If these are sacred rites, what is sacrilege? If this is purification,

what is pollution? This festivity was called the Tables,” as if a banquet

were being given at which unclean devils might find suitable

refreshment. For it is not difficult to see what kind of spirits they must

be who are delighted with such obscenities, unless, indeed, a man be

blinded by these evil spirits passing themselves off under the name of

gods, and either disbelieves in their existence, or leads such a life as

prompts him rather to propitiate and fear them than the true God.

5. Of the obscenities practised in honour of the mother of the gods

In this matter I would prefer to have as my assessors in judgment, not

those men who rather take pleasure in these infamous customs than take

pains to put an end to them, but that same Scipio Nasica who was

chosen by the senate as the citizen most worthy to receive in his hands

the image of that demon Cybele, and convey it into the city. He would

tell us whether he would be proud to see his own mother so highly

esteemed by the state as to have divine honours adjudged to her ; as the

Greeks and Romans and other nations have decreed divine honours to

men who had been of material service to them, and have believed that

their mortal benefactors were thus made immortal and enrolled among

the gods.8 Surely he would desire that his mother should enjoy such

felicity were it possible. But if we proceeded to ask him whether, among

the honours paid to her, he would wish such shameful rites as these to

be celebrated, would he not at once exclaim that he would rather his

mother lay stone-dead, than survive as a goddess to lend her ear to these

obscenities? Is it possible that he who was of so severe a morality, that

he used his influence as a Roman senator to prevent the building of a

theatre in that city dedicated to the manly virtues, would wish his

mother to be propitiated as a goddess with words which would have

brought the blush to her cheek when a Roman matron? Could he

possibly believe that the modesty of an estimable woman would be so

transformed by her promotion to divinity, that she would suffer herself

to be invoked and celebrated in terms so gross and immodest, that if she

had heard the like while alive upon earth, and had listened without

stopping her ears and hurrying from the spot, her relatives, her husband,

and her children would have blushed for her? Therefore, the mother of

the gods being such a character as the most profligate man would be

ashamed to have for his mother, and meaning to enthral the minds of

the Romans, demanded for her service their best citizen, not to ripen

him still more in virtue by her helpful counsel, but to entangle him by

her deceit, like her of whom it is written, “The adulteress will hunt for

the precious soul.”? Her intent was to puff up this high-souled man by an

apparently divine testimony to his excellence, in order that he might rely

upon his own eminence in virtue, and make no further efforts after true

piety and religion, without which natural genius, however brilliant,

vapours into pride and comes to nothing. For what but a guileful

purpose could that goddess demand the best man, seeing that in her own

sacred festivals she requires such obscenities as the best men would be

covered with shame to hear at their own tables?

6. That the gods of the pagans never inculcated holiness of life

This is the reason why those divinities quite neglected the lives and

morals of the cities and nations who worshipped them, and threw no

dreadful prohibition in their way to hinder them from becoming utterly

corrupt, and to preserve them from those terrible and detestable evils

which visit not harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the

body which is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that rules

the whole man. If there was any such prohibition, let it be produced, let

it be proved. They will tell us that purity and probity were inculcated

upon those who were initiated in the mysteries of religion, and that

secret incitements to virtue were whispered in the ear of the élite ; but

this is an idle boast: Let them show or name to us the places which were

at any time consecrated to assemblages in which, instead of the obscene

songs and licentious acting of players, instead of the celebration of those

most filthy and shameless Fugalia!9 (well called Fugalia, since they

banish modesty and right feeling), the people were commanded in the

name of the gods to restrain avarice, bridle impurity, and conquer

ambition ; where, in short, they might learn in that school which Persius

vehemently lashes them to, when he says: “Be taught, ye abandoned

creatures, and ascertain the causes of things ; what we are, and for what

end we are born ; what is the law of our success in life, and by what art

we may turn the goal without making shipwreck ; what limit we should

put to our wealth, what we may lawfully desire, and what uses filthy

lucre serves ; how much we should bestow upon our country and our

family ; learn, in short, what God meant thee to be, and what place He

has ordered you to fill.”!1 Let them name to us the places where such

instructions were wont to be communicated from the gods, and where

the people who worshipped them were accustomed to resort to hear

them, as we can point to our churches built for this purpose in every

land where the Christian religion is received.

7. That the suggestions of philosophers are precluded from having any moral effect, because they

have not the authority which belongs to divine instruction, and because man’s natural bias to

evil induces him rather to follow the examples of the gods than to obey the precepts of men

But will they perhaps remind us of the schools of the philosophers,

and their disputations? In the first place, these belong not to Rome, but

to Greece ; and even if we yield to them that they are now Roman,

because Greece itself has become a Roman province, still the teachings

of the philosophers are not the commandments of the gods, but the

discoveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative

ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and the right

and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to

the rules of logic, and what was inconsequent and erroneous. And some

of them, by God’s help, made great discoveries ; but when left to

themselves they were betrayed by human infirmity, and fell into

mistakes. And this was ordered by divine providence, that their pride

might be restrained, and that by their example it might be pointed out

that it is humility which has access to the highest regions. But of this we

shall have more to say, if the Lord God of truth permit, in its own

place.12 However, if the philosophers have made any discoveries which

are sufficient to guide men to virtue and blessedness, would it not have

been greater justice to vote divine honours to them? Were it not more

accordant with every virtuous sentiment to read Plato’s writings in a

“Temple of Plato,” than to be present in the temples of devils to witness

the priests of Cybele!3 mutilating themselves, the effeminate being

consecrated, the raving fanatics cutting themselves, and whatever other

cruel or shameful, or shamefully cruel or cruelly shameful, ceremony is

enjoined by the ritual of such gods as these? Were it not a more suitable

education, and more likely to prompt the youth to virtue, if they heard

public recitals of the laws of the gods, instead of the vain laudation of

the customs and laws of their ancestors? Certainly all the worshippers of

the Roman gods, when once they are possessed by what Persius calls

“the burning poison of lust,”!4 prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter

rather than to hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young

profligate in Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco representing the

fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Danaé in the form of a golden

shower, accepts this as authoritative precedent for his own

licentiousness, and boasts that he is an imitator of God. “And what

God?” he says. “He who with his thunder shakes the loftiest temples.

And was I, a poor creature compared to him, to make bones of it? No ; I

did it, and with all my heart.”!5

8. That the theatrical exhibitions publishing the shameful actions of the gods, propitiated rather

than offended them

But, some one will interpose, these are the fables of poets, not the

deliverances of the gods themselves. Well, I have no mind to arbitrate

between the lewdness of theatrical entertainments and of mystic rites ;

only this I say, and history bears me out in making the assertion, that

those same entertainments, in which the fictions of poets are the main

attraction, were not introduced in the festivals of the gods by the

ignorant devotion of the Romans, but that the gods themselves gave the

most urgent commands to this effect, and indeed extorted from the

Romans these solemnities and celebrations in their honour. I touched on

this in the preceding book, and mentioned that dramatic entertainments

were first inaugurated at Rome on occasion of a pestilence, and by

authority of the pontiff. And what man is there who is not more likely to

adopt, for the regulation of his own life, the examples that are

represented in plays which have a divine sanction, rather than the

precepts written and promulgated with no more than human authority?

If the poets gave a false representation of Jove in describing him as

adulterous, then it were to be expected that the chaste gods should in

anger avenge so wicked a fiction, in place of encouraging the games

which circulated it. Of these plays, the most inoffensive are comedies

and tragedies, that is to say, the dramas which poets write for the stage,

and which, though they often handle impure subjects, yet do so without

the filthiness of language which characterizes many other performances ;

and it is these dramas which boys are obliged by their seniors to read

and learn as a part of what is called a liberal and gentlemanly

education.16

9. That the poetical licence which the Greeks, in obedience to their gods, allowed, was restrained

by the ancient Romans

The opinion of the ancient Romans on this matter is attested by Cicero

in his work De Republica, in which Scipio, one of the interlocutors, says,

“The lewdness of comedy could never have been suffered by audiences,

unless the customs of society had previously sanctioned the same

lewdness.” And in the earlier days the Greeks preserved a certain

reasonableness in their licence, and made it a law, that whatever

comedy wished to say of any one, it must say it of him by name. And so

in the same work of Cicero’s, Scipio says, “Whom has it not aspersed?

Nay, whom has it not worried? Whom has it spared? Allow that it may

assail demagogues and factions, men injurious to the commonwealth—a

Cleon, a Cleophon, a Hyperbolus. That is tolerable, though it had been

more seemly for the public censor to brand such men, than for a poet to

lampoon them ; but to blacken the fame of Pericles with scurrilous verse,

after he had with the utmost dignity presided over their state alike in

war and in peace, was as unworthy of a poet, as if our own Plautus or

Nevius were to bring Publius and Cneius Scipio on the comic stage, or

as if Ceecilius were to caricature Cato.” And then a little after he goes on:

“Though our Twelve Tables attached the penalty of death only to a very

few offences, yet among these few this was one: if any man should have

sung a pasquinade, or have composed a satire calculated to bring infamy

or disgrace on another person. Wisely decreed. For it is by the decisions

of magistrates, and by a well-informed justice, that our lives ought to be

judged, and not by the flighty fancies of poets ; neither ought we to be

exposed to hear calumnies, save where we have the liberty of replying,

and defending ourselves before an adequate tribunal.” This much I have

judged it advisable to quote from the fourth book of Cicero’s De

Republica ; and I have made the quotation word for word, with the

exception of some words omitted, and some slightly transposed, for the

sake of giving the sense more readily. And certainly the extract is

pertinent to the matter I am endeavouring to explain. Cicero makes some

further remarks, and concludes the passage by showing that the ancient

Romans did not permit any living man to be either praised or blamed on

the stage. But the Greeks, as I said, though not so moral, were more

logical in allowing this licence which the Romans forbade: for they saw

that their gods approved and enjoyed the scurrilous language of low

comedy when directed not only against men, but even against

themselves ; and this, whether the infamous actions imputed to them

were the fictions of poets, or were their actual iniquities commemorated

and acted in the theatres. And would that the spectators had judged

them worthy only of laughter, and not of imitation! Manifestly it had

been a stretch of pride to spare the good name of the leading men and

the common citizens, when the very deities did not grudge that their

own reputation should be blemished.

10. That the devils, in suffering either false or true crimes to be laid to their charge, meant to do

men a mischief

It is alleged, in excuse of this practice, that the stories told of the gods

are not true, but false, and mere inventions ; but this only makes matters

worse, if we form our estimate by the morality our religion teaches ; and

if we consider the malice of the devils, what more wily and astute

artifice could they practise upon men? When a slander is uttered against

a leading statesman of upright and useful life, is it not reprehensible in

proportion to its untruth and groundlessness? What punishment, then,

shall be sufficient when the gods are the objects of so wicked and

outrageous an injustice? But the devils, whom these men repute gods,

are content that even iniquities they are guiltless of should be ascribed

to them, so long as they may entangle men’s minds in the meshes of

these opinions, and draw them on along with themselves to their

predestinated punishment: whether such things were actually committed

by the men whom these devils, delighting in human infatuation, cause to

be worshipped as gods, and in whose stead they, by a thousand malign

and deceitful artifices, substitute themselves, and so receive worship ; or

whether, though they were really the crimes of men, these wicked spirits

gladly allowed them to be attributed to higher beings, that there might

seem to be conveyed from heaven itself a sufficient sanction for the

perpetration of shameful wickedness. The Greeks, therefore, seeing the

character of the gods they served, thought that the poets should

certainly not refrain from showing up human vices on the stage, either

because they desired to be like their gods in this, or because they were

afraid that, if they required for themselves a more unblemished

reputation than they asserted for the gods, they might provoke them to

anger.

11. That the Greeks admitted players to offices of state, on the ground that men who pleased the

gods should not be contemptuously treated by their fellows

It was a part of this same reasonableness of the Greeks which induced

them to bestow upon the actors of these same plays no inconsiderable

civic honours. In the above-mentioned book of the De Republica, it is

mentioned that Aischines, a very eloquent Athenian, who had been a

tragic actor in his youth, became a statesman, and that the Athenians

again and again sent another tragedian, Aristodemus, as their

plenipotentiary to Philip. For they judged it unbecoming to condemn

and treat as infamous persons those who were the chief actors in the

scenic entertainments which they saw to be so pleasing to the gods. No

doubt this was immoral of the Greeks, but there can be as little doubt

they acted in conformity with the character of their gods ; for how could

they have presumed to protect the conduct of the citizens from being cut

to pieces by the tongues of poets and players, who were allowed, and

even enjoined by the gods, to tear their divine reputation to tatters? And

how could they hold in contempt the men who acted in the theatres

those dramas which, as they had ascertained, gave pleasure to the gods

whom they worshipped? Nay, how could they but grant to them the

highest civic honours? On what plea could they honour the priests who

offered for them acceptable sacrifices to the gods, if they branded with

infamy the actors who in behalf of the people gave to the gods that

pleasure or honour which they demanded, and which, according to the

account of the priests, they were angry at not receiving? Labeo,!7 whose

learning makes him an authority on such points, is of opinion that the

distinction between good and evil deities should find expression in a

difference of worship ; that the evil should be propitiated by bloody

sacrifices and doleful rites, but the good with a joyful and pleasant

observance, as, e.g. (as he says himself), with plays, festivals, and

banquets.!8 All this we shall, with God’s help, hereafter discuss. At

present, and speaking to the subject on hand, whether all kinds of

offerings are made indiscriminately to all the gods, as if all were good

(and it is an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods ; but

these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods, but evil

spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, a distinction is made between the

offerings presented to the different gods, the Greeks are equally justified

in honouring alike the priests by whom the sacrifices are offered, and

the players by whom the dramas are acted, that they may not be open to

the charge of doing an injury to all their gods, if the plays are pleasing to

all of them, or (which were still worse) to their good gods, if the plays

are relished only by them.

12. That the Romans, by refusing to the poets the same licence in respect of men which they

allowed them in the case of the gods, showed a more delicate sensitiveness regarding themselves

than regarding the gods

The Romans, however, as Scipio boasts in that same discussion,

declined having their conduct and good name subjected to the assaults

and slanders of the poets, and went so far as to make it a capital crime if

any one should dare to compose such verses. This was a very honourable

course to pursue, so far as they themselves were concerned, but in

respect of the gods it was proud and irreligious: for they knew that the

gods not only tolerated, but relished, being lashed by the injurious

expressions of the poets, and yet they themselves would not suffer this

same handling ; and what their ritual prescribed as acceptable to the

gods, their law prohibited as injurious to themselves. How then, Scipio,

do you praise the Romans for refusing this licence to the poets, so that

no citizen could be calumniated, while you know that the gods were not

included under this protection? Do you count your senate-house worthy

of so much higher a regard than the Capitol? Is the one city of Rome

more valuable in your eyes than the whole heaven of gods, that you

prohibit your poets from uttering any injurious words against a citizen,

though they may with impunity cast what imputations they please upon

the gods, without the interference of senator, censor, prince, or pontiff?

It was, forsooth, intolerable that Plautus or Nevius should attack Publius

and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Czecilius should lampoon Cato ; but

quite proper that your Terence should encourage youthful lust by the

wicked example of supreme Jove.

13. That the Romans should have understood that gods who desired to be worshipped in licentious

entertainments were unworthy of divine honour

But Scipio, were he alive, would possibly reply: “How could we attach

a penalty to that which the gods themselves have consecrated? For the

theatrical entertainments in which such things are said, and acted, and

performed, were introduced into Roman society by the gods, who

ordered that they should be dedicated and exhibited in their honour.”

But was not this, then, the plainest proof that they were no true gods,

nor in any respect worthy of receiving divine honours from the republic?

Suppose they had required that in their honour the citizens of Rome

should be held up to ridicule, every Roman would have resented the

hateful proposal. How then, I would ask, can they be esteemed worthy of

worship, when they propose that their own crimes be used as material

for celebrating their praises? Does not this artifice expose them, and

prove that they are detestable devils? Thus the Romans, though they

were superstitious enough to serve as gods those who made no secret of

their desire to be worshipped in licentious plays, yet had sufficient

regard to their hereditary dignity and virtue, to prompt them to refuse to

players any such rewards as the Greeks accorded them. On this point we

have this testimony of Scipio, recorded in Cicero: “They [the Romans]

considered comedy and all theatrical performances as disgraceful, and

therefore not only debarred players from offices and honours open to

ordinary citizens, but also decreed that their names should be branded

by the censor, and erased from the roll of their tribe.” An excellent

decree, and another testimony to the sagacity of Rome ; but I could wish

their prudence had been more thoroughgoing and consistent. For when I

hear that if any Roman citizen chose the stage as his profession, he not

only closed to himself every laudable career, but even became an outcast

from his own tribe, I cannot but exclaim: This is the true Roman spirit,

this is worthy of a state jealous of its reputation. But then some one

interrupts my rapture, by inquiring with what consistency players are

debarred from all honours, while plays are counted among the honours

due to the gods? For a long while the virtue of Rome was

uncontaminated by theatrical exhibitions ; !9 and if they had been

adopted for the sake of gratifying the taste of the citizens, they would

have been introduced hand in hand with the relaxation of manners. But

the fact is, that it was the gods who demanded that they should be

exhibited to gratify them. With what justice, then, is the player

excommunicated by whom God is worshipped? On what pretext can you

at once adore him who exacts, and brand him who acts these plays?

This, then, is the controversy in which the Greeks and Romans are

engaged. The Greeks think they justly honour players, because they

worship the gods who demand plays: the Romans, on the other hand, do

not suffer an actor to disgrace by his name his own plebeian tribe, far

less the senatorial order. And the whole of this discussion may be

summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks give us the major

premiss: If such gods are to be worshipped, then certainly such men may

be honoured. The Romans add the minor: But such men must by no

means be honoured. The Christians draw the conclusion: Therefore such

gods must by no means be worshipped.

14. That Plato, who excluded poets from a well-ordered city, was better than these gods who

desire to be honoured by theatrical plays

We have still to inquire why the poets who write the plays, and who

by the law of the twelve tables are prohibited from injuring the good

name of the citizens, are reckoned more estimable than the actors,

though they so shamefully asperse the character of the gods? Is it right

that the actors of these poetical and God-dishonouring effusions be

branded, while their authors are honoured? Must we not here award the

palm to a Greek, Plato, who, in framing his ideal republic,2° conceived

that poets should be banished from the city as enemies of the state? He

could not brook that the gods be brought into disrepute, nor that the

minds of the citizens be depraved and besotted, by the fictions of the

poets. Compare now human nature as you see it in Plato, expelling poets

from the city that the citizens be uninjured, with the divine nature as

you see it in these gods exacting plays in their own honour. Plato strove,

though unsuccessfully, to persuade the light-minded and _ lascivious

Greeks to abstain from so much as writing such plays ; the gods used

their authority to extort the acting of the same from the dignified and

sober-minded Romans. And not content with having them acted, they

had them dedicated to themselves, consecrated to themselves, solemnly

celebrated in their own honour. To which, then, would it be more

becoming in a state to decree divine honours—to Plato, who prohibited

these wicked and licentious plays, or to the demons who delighted in

blinding men to the truth of what Plato unsuccessfully sought to

inculcate?

This philosopher, Plato, has been elevated by Labeo to the rank of a

demigod, and set thus upon a level with such as Hercules and Romulus.

Labeo ranks demigods higher than heroes, but both he counts among the

deities. But I have no doubt that he thinks this man whom he reckons a

demigod worthy of greater respect not only than the heroes, but also

than the gods themselves. The laws of the Romans and the speculations

of Plato have this resemblance, that the latter pronounces a wholesale

condemnation of poetical fictions, while the former restrain the licence

of satire, at least so far as men are the objects of it. Plato will not suffer

poets even to dwell in his city: the laws of Rome prohibit actors from

being enrolled as citizens ; and if they had not feared to offend the gods

who had asked the services of the players, they would in all likelihood

have banished them altogether. It is obvious, therefore, that the Romans

could not receive, nor reasonably expect to receive, laws for the

regulation of their conduct from their gods, since the laws they

themselves enacted far surpassed and put to shame the morality of the

gods. The gods demand stage-plays in their own honour ; the Romans

exclude the players from all civic honours:2! the former commanded that

they should be celebrated by the scenic representation of their own

disgrace ; the latter commanded that no poet should dare to blemish the

reputation of any citizen. But that demigod Plato resisted the lust of such

gods as these, and showed the Romans what their genius had left

incomplete ; for he absolutely excluded poets from his ideal state,

whether they composed fictions with no regard to truth, or set the worst

possible examples before wretched men under the guise of divine

actions. We for our part, indeeed, reckon Plato neither a god nor a

demigod ; we would not even compare him to any of God’s holy angels,

nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs

of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man. The reason of this

opinion of ours we will, God prospering us, render in its own place.

Nevertheless, since they wish him to be considered a demigod, we think

he certainly is more entitled to that rank, and is every way superior, if

not to Hercules and Romulus (though no historian could ever narrate nor

any poet sing of him that he had killed his brother, or committed any

crime), yet certainly to Priapus, or a Cynocephalus,22 or the Fever23—

divinities whom the Romans have partly received from foreigners, and

partly consecrated by home-grown rites. How, then, could gods such as

these be expected to promulgate good and wholesome laws, either for

the prevention of moral and social evils, or for their eradication where

they had already sprung up?—gods who used their influence even to

sow and cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or falsely

ascribed to them should be published to the people by means of

theatrical exhibitions, and by thus gratuitously fanning the flame of

human lust with the breath of a seemingly divine approbation. In vain

does Cicero, speaking of poets, exclaim against this state of things in

these words: “When the plaudits and acclamation of the people, who sit

as infallible judges, are won by the poets, what darkness benights the

mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it!”24

15. That it was vanity, not reason, which created some of the Roman gods

But is it not manifest that vanity rather than reason regulated the

choice of some of their false gods? This Plato, whom they reckon a

demigod, and who used all his eloquence to preserve men from the most

dangerous spiritual calamities, has yet not been counted worthy even of

a little shrine ; but Romulus, because they can call him their own, they

have esteemed more highly than many gods, though their secret doctrine

can allow him the rank only of a demigod. To him they allotted a

flamen, that is to say, a priest of a class so highly esteemed in their

religion (distinguished, too, by their conical mitres), that for only three

of their gods were flamens appointed—the Flamen Dialis for Jupiter,

Martialis for Mars, and Quirinalis for Romulus (for when the ardour of

his fellow-citizens had given Romulus a seat among the gods, they gave

him this new name Quirinus). And thus by this honour Romulus has

been preferred to Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter’s brothers, and to Saturn

himself, their father. They have assigned the same priesthood to serve

him as to serve Jove ; and in giving Mars (the reputed father of Romulus)

the same honour, is this not rather for Romulus’ sake than to honour

Mars?

16. That if the gods had really possessed any regard for righteousness, the Romans should have

received good laws from them, instead of having to borrow them from other nations

Moreover, if the Romans had been able to receive a rule of life from

their gods, they would not have borrowed Solon’s laws from the

Athenians, as they did some years after Rome was founded ; and yet they

did not keep them as they received them, but endeavoured to improve

and amend them.25 Although Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized

by Apollo to give laws to the Lacedemonians, the sensible Romans did

not choose to believe this, and were not induced to borrow laws from

Sparta. Numa Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus in the kingdom, is

said to have framed some laws, which, however, were not sufficient for

the regulation of civic affairs. Among these regulations were many

pertaining to religious observances, and yet he is not reported to have

received even these from the gods. With respect, then, to moral evils,

evils of life and conduct—evils which are so mighty, that, according to

the wisest pagans,26 by them states are ruined while their cities stand

uninjured—their gods made not the smallest provision for preserving

their worshippers from these evils, but, on the contrary, took special

pains to increase them, as we have previously endeavoured to prove.

17. Of the rape of the Sabine women, and other iniquities perpetrated in Rome’s palmiest days

But possibly we are to find the reason for this neglect of the Romans

by their gods, in the saying of Sallust, that “equity and virtue prevailed

among the Romans not more by force of laws than of nature.”27 I

presume it is to this inborn equity and goodness of disposition we are to

ascribe the rape of the Sabine women. What, indeed, could be more

equitable and virtuous, than to carry off by force, as each man was fit,

and without their parents’ consent, girls who were strangers and guests,

and who had been decoyed and entrapped by the pretence of a

spectacle! If the Sabines were wrong to deny their daughters when the

Romans asked for them, was it not a greater wrong in the Romans to

carry them off after that denial? The Romans might more justly have

waged war against the neighbouring nation for having refused their

daughters in marriage when they first sought them, than for having

demanded them back when they had stolen them. War should have been

proclaimed at first: it was then that Mars should have helped his warlike

son, that he might by force of arms avenge the injury done him by the

refusal of marriage, and might also thus win the women he desired.

There might have been some appearance of “right of war” in a victor

carrying off, in virtue of this right, the virgins who had been without any

show of right denied him ; whereas there was no “right of peace”

entitling him to carry off those who were not given to him, and to wage

an unjust war with their justly enraged parents. One happy circumstance

was indeed connected with this act of violence, viz., that though it was

commemorated by the games of the circus, yet even this did not

constitute it a precedent in the city or realm of Rome. If one would find

fault with the results of this act, it must rather be on the ground that the

Romans made Romulus a god in spite of his perpetrating this iniquity ;

for one cannot reproach them with making this deed any kind of

precedent for the rape of women.

Again, I presume it was due to this natural equity and virtue, that

after the expulsion of King Tarquin, whose son had violated Lucretia,

Junius Brutus the consul forced Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, Lucretia’s

husband and his own colleague, a good and innocent man, to resign his

office and go into banishment, on the one sole charge that he was of the

name and blood of the Tarquins. This injustice was perpetrated with the

approval, or at least connivance, of the people, who had themselves

raised to the consular office both Collatinus and Brutus. Another

instance of this equity and virtue is found in their treatment of Marcus

Camillus. This eminent man, after he had rapidly conquered the Veians,

at that time the most formidable of Rome’s enemies, and who had

maintained a ten years’ war, in which the Roman army had suffered the

usual calamities attendant on bad generalship, after he had restored

security to Rome, which had begun to tremble for its safety, and after he

had taken the wealthiest city of the enemy, had charges brought against

him by the malice of those that envied his success, and by the insolence

of the tribunes of the people ; and seeing that the city bore him no

gratitude for preserving it, and that he would certainly be condemned,

he went into exile, and even in his absence was fined 10,000 asses.

Shortly after, however, his ungrateful country had again to seek his

protection from the Gauls. But I cannot now mention all the shameful

and iniquitous acts with which Rome was agitated, when the aristocracy

attempted to subject the people, and the people resented their

encroachments, and the advocates of either party were actuated rather

by the love of victory than by any equitable or virtuous consideration.

18. What the history of Sallust reveals regarding the life of the Romans, either when straitened

by anxiety or relaxed in security

I will therefore pause, and adduce the testimony of Sallust himself,

whose words in praise of the Romans (that “equity and virtue prevailed

among them not more by force of laws than of nature”) have given

occasion to this discussion. He was referring to that period immediately

after the expulsion of the kings, in which the city became great in an

incredibly short space of time. And yet this same writer acknowledges in

the first book of his history, in the very exordium of his work, that even

at that time, when a very brief interval had elapsed after the government

had passed from kings to consuls, the more powerful men began to act

unjustly, and occasioned the defection of the people from the patricians,

and other disorders in the city. For after Sallust had stated that the

Romans enjoyed greater harmony and a purer state of society between

the second and third Punic wars than at any other time, and that the

cause of this was not their love of good order, but their fear lest the

peace they had with Carthage might be broken (this also, as we

mentioned, Nasica contemplated when he opposed the destruction of

Carthage, for he supposed that fear would tend to repress wickedness,

and to preserve wholesome ways of living), he then goes on to say: “Yet,

after the destruction of Carthage, discord, avarice, ambition, and the

other vices which are commonly generated by prosperity, more than

ever increased.” If they “increased,” and that “more than ever,” then

already they had appeared, and had been increasing. And so Sallust adds

this reason for what he said. “For,” he says, “the oppressive measures of

the powerful, and the consequent secessions of the plebs from the

patricians, and other civil dissensions, had existed from the first, and

affairs were administered with equity and well-tempered justice for no

longer a period than the short time after the expulsion of the kings,

while the city was occupied with the serious Tuscan war and Tarquin’s

vengeance.” You see how, even in that brief period after the expulsion of

the kings, fear, he acknowledges, was the cause of the interval of equity

and good order. They were afraid, in fact, of the war which Tarquin

waged against them, after he had been driven from the throne and the

city, and had allied himself with the Tuscans. But observe what he adds:

“After that, the patricians treated the people as their slaves, ordering

them to be scourged or beheaded just as the kings had done, driving

them from their holdings, and harshly tyrannizing over those who had

no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by these oppressive

measures, and most of all by exorbitant usury, and obliged to contribute

both money and personal service to the constant wars, at length took

arms, and seceded to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus

obtained for themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the

second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and strife.”

You see what kind of men the Romans were, even so early as a few years

after the expulsion of the kings ; and it is of these men he says, that

“equity and virtue prevailed among them not more by force of law than

of nature.”

Now, if these were the days in which the Roman republic shows fairest

and best, what are we to say or think of the succeeding age, when, to use

the words of the same historian, “changing little by little from the fair

and virtuous city it was, it became utterly wicked and dissolute?” This

was, as he mentions, after the destruction of Carthage. Sallust’s brief sum

and sketch of this period may be read in his own history, in which he

shows how the profligate manners which were propagated by prosperity

resulted at last even in civil wars. He says: “And from this time the

primitive manners, instead of undergoing an insensible alteration as

hitherto they had done, were swept away as by a torrent: the young men

were so depraved by luxury and avarice, that it may justly be said that

no father had a son who could either preserve his own patrimony, or

keep his hands off other men’s.” Sallust adds a number of particulars

about the vices of Sylla, and the debased condition of the republic in

general ; and other writers make similar observations, though in much

less striking language.

However, I suppose you now see, or at least any one who gives his

attention has the means of seeing, in what a sink of iniquity that city

was plunged before the advent of our heavenly King. For these things

happened not only before Christ had begun to teach, but before He was

even born of the Virgin. If, then, they dare not impute to their gods the

grievous evils of those former times, more tolerable before the

destruction of Carthage, but intolerable and dreadful after it, although it

was the gods who by their malign craft instilled into the minds of men

the conceptions from which such dreadful vices branched out on all

sides, why do they impute these present calamities to Christ, who

teaches life-giving truth, and forbids us to worship false and deceitful

gods, and who, abominating and condemning with His divine authority

those wicked and hurtful lusts of men, gradually withdraws His own

people from a world that is corrupted by these vices, and is falling into

ruins, to make of them an eternal city, whose glory rests not on the

acclamations of vanity, but on the judgment of truth?

19. Of the corruption which had grown upon the Roman republic before Christ abolished the

worship of the gods

Here, then, is this Roman republic, “which has changed little by little

from the fair and virtuous city it was, and has become utterly wicked

and dissolute.” It is not I who am the first to say this, but their own

authors, from whom we learned it for a fee, and who wrote it long

before the coming of Christ. You see how, before the coming of Christ,

and after the destruction of Carthage, “the primitive manners, instead of

undergoing insensible alteration, as hitherto they had done, were swept

away as by a torrent ; and how depraved by luxury and avarice the youth

were.” Let them now, on their part, read to us any laws given by their

gods to the Roman people, and directed against luxury and avarice. And

would that they had only been silent on the subjects of chastity and

modesty, and had not demanded from the people indecent and shameful

practices, to which they lent a pernicious patronage by their so-called

divinity. Let them read our commandments in the Prophets, Gospels,

Acts of the Apostles, or Epistles ; let them peruse the large number of

precepts against avarice and luxury which are everywhere read to the

congregations that meet for this purpose, and which strike the ear, not

with the uncertain sound of a philosophical discussion, but with the

thunder of God’s own oracle pealing from the clouds. And yet they do

not impute to their gods the luxury and avarice, the cruel and dissolute

manners, that had rendered the republic utterly wicked and corrupt,

even before the coming of Christ ; but whatever affliction their pride and

effeminacy have exposed them to in these latter days, they furiously

impute to our religion. If the kings of the earth and all their subjects, if

all princes and judges of the earth, if young men and maidens, old and

young, every age, and both sexes ; if they whom the Baptist addressed,

the publicans and the soldiers, were all together to hearken to and

observe the precepts of the Christian religion regarding a just and

virtuous life, then should the republic adorn the whole earth with its

own felicity, and attain in life everlasting to the pinnacle of kingly glory.

But because this man listens, and that man scoffs, and most are

enamoured of the blandishments of vice rather than the wholesome

severity of virtue, the people of Christ, whatever be their condition—

whether they be kings, princes, judges, soldiers, or provincials, rich or

poor, bond or free, male or female—are enjoined to endure this earthly

republic, wicked and dissolute as it is, that so they may by this

endurance win for themselves an eminent place in that most holy and

august assembly of angels and republic of heaven, in which the will of

God is the law.

20. Of the kind of happiness and life truly delighted in by those who inveigh against the

Christian religion

But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating

their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic

be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say,

only let it flourish and abound in resources ; let it be glorious by its

victories, or still better, secure in peace ; and what matters it to us? This

is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to

supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the

weak for their own purposes. Let the poor court the rich for a living, and

that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity ; and

let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride.

Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those

who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no

impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the

righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces

stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their

possessions and purveyors of their pleasures ; not with a hearty

reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance

rather of the injury done to another man’s property, than of that done to

one’s own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbour, or injure his

property, family, or person, let him be actionable ; but in his own affairs

let every one with impunity do what he will in company with his own

family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be a plentiful

supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but

specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use. Let

there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in

these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every

one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit,28 dissipate.

Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud,

immodest laughter of the theatre ; let a succession of the most cruel and

the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement. If such

happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy ;

and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it, let him be silenced,

banished, put an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who

procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when

once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish ; let them demand

whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers ; only

let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or

disaster of any kind. What sane man would compare a republic such as

this, I will not say to the Roman empire, but to the palace of

Sardanapalus, the ancient king who was so abandoned to pleasures, that

he caused it to be inscribed on his tomb, that now that he was dead, he

possessed only those things which he had swallowed and consumed by

his appetites while alive? If these men had such a king as this, who,

while self-indulgent, should lay no severe restraint on them, they would

more enthusiastically consecrate to him a temple and a flamen than the

ancient Romans did to Romulus.

21. Cicero’s opinion of the Roman republic

But if our adversaries do not care how foully and disgracefully the

Roman republic be stained by corrupt practices, so long only as it holds

together and continues in being, and if they therefore pooh-pooh the

testimony of Sallust to its “utterly wicked and profligate” condition,

what will they make of Cicero’s statement, that even in his time it had

become entirely extinct, and that there remained extant no Roman

republic at all? He introduces Scipio (the Scipio who had destroyed

Carthage) discussing the republic, at a time when already there were

presentiments of its speedy ruin by that corruption which Sallust

describes. In fact, at the time when the discussion took place, one of the

Gracchi, who, according to Sallust, was the first great instigator of

seditions, had already been put to death. His death, indeed, is mentioned

in the same book. Now Scipio, in the end of the second book, says: “As,

among the different sounds which proceed from lyres, flutes, and the

human voice, there must be maintained a certain harmony which a

cultivated ear cannot endure to hear disturbed or jarring, but which may

be elicited in full and absolute concord by the modulation even of voices

very unlike one another ; so, where reason is allowed to modulate the

diverse elements of the state, there is obtained a perfect concord from

the upper, lower, and middle classes as from various sounds ; and what

musicians call harmony in singing, is concord in matters of state, which

is the strictest bond and best security of any republic, and which by no

ingenuity can be retained where justice has become extinct.” Then, when

he had expatiated somewhat more fully, and had more copiously

illustrated the benefits of its presence and the ruinous effects of its

absence upon a state, Pilus, one of the company present at the

discussion, struck in and demanded that the question should be more

thoroughly sifted, and that the subject of justice should be freely

discussed for the sake of ascertaining what truth there was in the maxim

which was then becoming daily more current, that “the republic cannot

be governed without injustice.” Scipio expressed his willingness to have

this maxim discussed and sifted, and gave it as his opinion that it was

baseless, and that no progress could be made in discussing the republic

unless it was established, not only that this maxim, that “the republic

cannot be governed without injustice,” was false, but also that the truth

is, that it cannot be governed without the most absolute justice. And the

discussion of this question, being deferred till the next day, is carried on

in the third book with great animation. For Pilus himself undertook to

defend the position that the republic cannot be governed without

injustice, at the same time being at special pains to clear himself of any

real participation in that opinion. He advocated with great keenness the

cause of injustice against justice, and endeavoured by plausible reasons

and examples to demonstrate that the former is beneficial, the latter

useless, to the republic. Then, at the request of the company, Lelius

attempted to defend justice, and strained every nerve to prove that

nothing is so hurtful to a state as injustice ; and that without justice a

republic can neither be governed, nor even continue to exist.

When this question has been handled to the satisfaction of the

company, Scipio reverts to the original thread of discourse, and repeats

with commendation his own brief definition of a republic, that it is the

weal of the people. “The people” he defines as being not every

assemblage or mob, but an assemblage associated by a common

acknowledgment of law, and by a community of interests. Then he

shows the use of definition in debate ; and from these definitions of his

own he gathers that a republic, or “weal of the people,” then exists only

when it is well and justly governed, whether by a monarch, or an

aristocracy, or by the whole people. But when the monarch is unjust, or,

as the Greeks say, a tyrant ; or the aristocrats are unjust, and form a

faction ; or the people themselves are unjust, and become, as Scipio for

want of a better name calls them, themselves the tyrant, then the

republic is not only blemished (as had been proved the day before), but

by legitimate deduction from those definitions, it altogether ceases to be.

For it could not be the people’s weal when a tyrant factiously lorded it

over the state ; neither would the people be any longer a people if it were

unjust, since it would no longer answer the definition of a people—‘“an

assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by a

community of interests.”

When, therefore, the Roman republic was such as Sallust described it,

it was not “utterly wicked and profligate,” as he says, but had altogether

ceased to exist, if we are to admit the reasoning of that debate

maintained on the subject of the republic by its best representatives.

Tully himself, too, speaking not in the person of Scipio or any one else,

but uttering his own sentiments, uses the following language in the

beginning of the fifth book, after quoting a line from the poet Ennius, in

which he said, “Rome’s severe morality and her citizens are her

safeguard.” “This verse,” says Cicero, “seems to me to have all the

sententious truthfulness of an oracle. For neither would the citizens have

availed without the morality of the community, nor would the morality

of the commons without outstanding men have availed either to

establish or so long to maintain in vigour so grand a republic with so

wide and just an empire. Accordingly, before our day, the hereditary

usages formed our foremost men, and they on their part retained the

usages and institutions of their fathers. But our age, receiving the

republic as a chef-d’ceuvre of another age which has already begun to

grow old, has not merely neglected to restore the colours of the original,

but has not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general

outline and most outstanding features. For what survives of that

primitive morality which the poet called Rome’s safeguard? It is so

obsolete and forgotten, that, far from practising it, one does not even

know it. And of the citizens what shall I say? Morality has perished

through poverty of great men ; a poverty for which we must not only

assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals

charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by any

mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and have long since

lost the reality.”

This is the confession of Cicero, long indeed after the death of

Africanus, whom he introduced as an interlocutor in his work De

Republica, but still before the coming of Christ. Yet, if the disasters he

bewails had been lamented after the Christian religion had been

diffused, and had begun to prevail, is there a man of our adversaries

who would not have thought that they were to be imputed to the

Christians? Why, then, did their gods not take steps then to prevent the

decay and extinction of that republic, over the loss of which Cicero, long

before Christ had come in the flesh, sings so lugubrious a dirge? Its

admirers have need to inquire whether, even in the days of primitive

men and morals, true justice flourished in it ; or was it not perhaps even

then, to use the casual expression of Cicero, rather a coloured painting

than the living reality? But, if God will, we shall consider this elsewhere.

For I mean in its own place to show that—according to the definitions in

which Cicero himself, using Scipio as his mouthpiece, briefly

propounded what a republic is, and what a people is, and according to

many testimonies, both of his own lips and of those who took part in

that same debate—Rome never was a republic, because true justice had

never a place in it. But accepting the more feasible definitions of a

republic, I grant there was a republic of a certain kind, and certainly

much better administered by the more ancient Romans than by their

modern representatives. But the fact is, true justice has no existence save

in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ, if at least any choose

to call this a republic ; and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people’s

weal. But if perchance this name, which has become familiar in other

connections, be considered alien to our common parlance, we may at all

events say that in this city is true justice ; the city of which Holy

Scripture says, “Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God.”

22. That the Roman gods never took any steps to prevent the republic from being ruined by

immorality

But what is relevant to the present question is this, that however

admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is, it is certain that by

the testimony of their own most learned writers it had become, long

before the coming of Christ, utterly wicked and dissolute, and indeed

had no existence, but had been destroyed by profligacy. To prevent this,

surely these guardian gods ought to have given precepts of morals and a

rule of life to the people by whom they were worshipped in so many

temples, with so great a variety of priests and sacrifices, with such

numberless and diverse rites, so many festal solemnities, so many

celebrations of magnificent games. But in all this the demons only

looked after their own interest, and cared not at all how their

worshippers lived, or rather were at pains to induce them to lead an

abandoned life, so long as they paid these tributes to their honour, and

regarded them with fear. If any one denies this, let him produce, let him

point to, let him read the laws which the gods had given against

sedition, and which the Gracchi transgressed when they threw

everything into confusion ; or those Marius, and Cinna, and Carbo broke

when they involved their country in civil wars, most iniquitous and

unjustifiable in their causes, cruelly conducted, and yet more cruelly

terminated ; or those which Sylla scorned, whose life, character, and

deeds, as described by Sallust and other historians, are the abhorrence of

all mankind. Who will deny that at that time the republic had become

extinct?

Possibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence of the gods,

that they abandoned the city on account of the profligacy of the citizens,

according to the lines of Virgil:

“Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,

Are those who made this realm divine.”22

But, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the Christian

religion, as if it were that which gave offence to the gods and caused

them to abandon Rome, since the Roman immorality had long ago

driven from the altars of the city a cloud of little gods, like as many flies.

And yet where was this host of divinities, when, long before the

corruption of the primitive morality, Rome was taken and burnt by the

Gauls? Perhaps they were present, but asleep? For at that time the whole

city fell into the hands of the enemy, with the single exception of the

Capitoline hill ; and this too would have been taken, had not—the

watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods! And this gave occasion to the

festival of the goose, in which Rome sank nearly to the superstition of

the Egyptians, who worship beasts and birds. But of these adventitious

evils which are inflicted by hostile armies or by some disaster, and

which attach rather to the body than the soul, I am not meanwhile

disputing. At present I speak of the decay of morality, which at first

almost imperceptibly lost its brilliant hue, but afterwards was wholly

obliterated, was swept away as by a torrent, and involved the republic in

such disastrous ruin, that though the houses and walls remained

standing, the leading writers do not scruple to say that the republic was

destroyed. Now, the departure of the gods “from each fane, each sacred

shrine,” and their abandonment of the city to destruction, was an act of

justice, if their laws inculcating justice and a moral life had been held in

contempt by that city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who

declined to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose corrupt

life they had done nothing to reform?

23. That the vicissitudes of this life are dependent not on the favour or hostility of demons, but

on the will of the true God

But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the fulfilment

of men’s desires, instead of authoritatively bridling them? For Marius, a

low-born and self-made man, who ruthlessly provoked and conducted

civil wars, was so effectually aided by them, that he was seven times

consul, and died full of years in his seventh consulship, escaping the

hands of Sylla, who immediately afterwards came into power. Why,

then, did they not also aid him, so as to restrain him from so many

enormities? For if it is said that the gods had no hand in his success, this

is no trivial admission, that a man can attain the dearly coveted felicity

of this life even though his own gods be not propitious ; that men can be

loaded with the gifts of fortune as Marius was, can enjoy health, power,

wealth, honours, dignity, length of days, though the gods be hostile to

him ; and that, on the other hand, men can be tormented as Regulus was,

with captivity, bondage, destitution, watchings, pain, and cruel death,

though the gods be his friends. To concede this is to make a

compendious confession that the gods are useless, and their worship

superfluous. If the gods have taught the people rather what goes clean

counter to the virtues of the soul, and that integrity of life which meets a

reward after death ; if even in respect of temporal and transitory

blessings they neither hurt those whom they hate nor profit whom they

love, why are they worshipped, why are they invoked with such eager

homage? Why do men murmur in difficult and sad emergencies, as if the

gods had retired in anger? and why, on their account, is the Christian

religion injured by the most unworthy calumnies? If in temporal matters

they have power either for good or for evil, why did they stand by

Marius, the worst of Rome’s citizens, and abandon Regulus, the best?

Does this not prove themselves to be most unjust and wicked? And even

if it be supposed that for this very reason they are the rather to be feared

and worshipped, this is a mistake ; for we do not read that Regulus

worshipped them less assiduously than Marius. Neither is it apparent

that a wicked life is to be chosen, on the ground that the gods are

supposed to have favoured Marius more than Regulus. For Metellus, the

most highly esteemed of all the Romans, who had five sons in the

consulship, was prosperous even in this life ; and Catiline, the worst of

men, reduced to poverty and defeated in the war his own guilt had

aroused, lived and perished miserably. Real and secure felicity is the

peculiar possession of those who worship that God by whom alone it can

be conferred.

It is thus apparent, that when the republic was being destroyed by

profligate manners, its gods did nothing to hinder its destruction by the

direction or correction of its manners, but rather accelerated its

destruction by increasing the demoralization and corruption that already

existed. They need not pretend that their goodness was shocked by the

iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger. For they were

there, sure enough ; they are detected, convicted: they were equally

unable to break silence so as to guide others, and to keep silence so as to

conceal themselves. I do not dwell on the fact that the inhabitants of

Minturne took pity on Marius, and commended him to the goddess

Marica in her grove, that she might give him success in all things, and

that from the abyss of despair in which he then lay he forthwith

returned unhurt to Rome, and entered the city the ruthless leader of a

ruthless army ; and they who wish to know how bloody was his victory,

how unlike a citizen, and how much more relentlessly than any foreign

foe he acted, let them read the histories. But this, as I said, I do not

dwell upon ; nor do I attribute the bloody bliss of Marius to, I know not

what Minturnian goddess [Marica], but rather to the secret providence

of God, that the mouths of our adversaries might be shut, and that they

who are not led by passion, but by prudent consideration of events,

might be delivered from error. And even if the demons have any power

in these matters, they have only that power which the secret decree of

the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may not set too great store

by earthly prosperity, seeing it is oftentimes vouchsafed even to wicked

men like Marius ; and that we may not, on the other hand, regard it as an

evil, since we see that many good and pious worshippers of the one true

God are, in spite of the demons, pre-eminently successful ; and, finally,

that we may not suppose that these unclean spirits are either to be

propitiated or feared for the sake of earthly blessings or calamities: for as

wicked men on earth cannot do all they would, so neither can these

demons, but only in so far as they are permitted by the decree of Him

whose judgments are fully comprehensible, justly reprehensible by none.

24. Of the deeds of Sylla, in which the demons boasted that he had their help

It is certain that Sylla—whose rule was so cruel, that, in comparison

with it, the preceding state of things which he came to avenge was

regretted—when first he advanced towards Rome to give battle to

Marius, found the auspices so favourable when he sacrificed, that,

according to Livy’s account, the augur Postumius expressed his

willingness to lose his head if Sylla did not, with the help of the gods,

accomplish what he designed. The gods, you see, had not departed from

“every fane and sacred shrine,” since they were still predicting the issue

of these affairs, and yet were taking no steps to correct Sylla himself.

Their presages promised him great prosperity, but no threatenings of

theirs subdued his evil passions. And then, when he was in Asia

conducting the war against Mithridates, a message from Jupiter was

delivered to him by Lucius Titius, to the effect that he would conquer

Mithridates ; and so it came to pass. And afterwards, when he was

meditating a return to Rome for the purpose of avenging in the blood of

the citizens injuries done to himself and his friends, a second message

from Jupiter was delivered to him by a soldier of the sixth legion, to the

effect that it was he who had predicted the victory over Mithridates, and

that now he promised to give him power to recover the republic from his

enemies, though with great bloodshed. Sylla at once inquired of the

soldier what form had appeared to him ; and, on his reply, recognised

that it was the same as Jupiter had formerly employed to convey to him

the assurance regarding the victory over Mithridates. How, then, can the

gods be justified in this matter for the care they took to predict these

shadowy successes, and for their negligence in correcting Sylla, and

restraining him from stirring up a civil war so lamentable and atrocious,

that it not merely disfigured, but extinguished, the republic? The truth

is, as I have often said, and as Scripture informs us, and as the facts

themselves sufficiently indicate, the demons are found to look after their

own ends only, that they may be regarded and worshipped as gods, and

that men may be induced to offer to them a worship which associates

them with their crimes, and involves them in one common wickedness

and judgment of God.

Afterwards, when Sylla had come to Tarentum, and had sacrificed

there, he saw on the head of the victim’s liver the likeness of a golden

crown. Thereupon the same soothsayer Postumius interpreted this to

signify a signal victory, and ordered that he only should eat of the

entrails. A little afterwards, the slave of a certain Lucius Pontius cried

out, “I am Bellona’s messenger ; the victory is yours, Sylla!” Then he

added that the Capitol should be burned. As soon as he had uttered this

prediction he left the camp, but returned the following day more excited

than ever, and shouted, “The Capitol is fired!” And fired indeed it was.

This it was easy for a demon both to foresee and quickly to announce.

But observe, as relevant to our subject, what kind of gods they are under

whom these men desire to live, who blaspheme the Saviour that delivers

the wills of the faithful from the dominion of devils. The man cried out

in prophetic rapture, “The victory is yours, Sylla!” And to certify that he

spoke by a divine spirit, he predicted also an event which was shortly to

happen, and which indeed did fall out, in a place from which he in

whom this spirit was speaking was far distant. But he never cried,

Forbear thy villanies, Sylla!—the villanies which were committed at

Rome by that victor to whom a golden crown on the calf’s liver had been

shown as the divine evidence of his victory. If such signs as this were

customarily sent by just gods, and not by wicked demons, then certainly

the entrails he consulted should rather have given Sylla intimation of the

cruel disasters that were to befall the city and himself. For that victory

was not so conducive to his exaltation to power, as it was fatal to his

ambition ; for by it he became so insatiable in his desires, and was

rendered so arrogant and reckless by prosperity, that he may be said

rather to have inflicted a moral destruction on himself than corporal

destruction on his enemies. But these truly woful and deplorable

calamities the gods gave him no previous hint of, neither by entrails,

augury, dream, nor prediction. For they feared his amendment more

than his defeat. Yea, they took good care that this glorious conqueror of

his own fellow-citizens should be conquered and led captive by his own

infamous vices, and should thus be the more submissive slave of the

demons themselves.

25. How powerfully the evil spirits incite men to wicked actions, by giving them the quasi-divine

authority of their example

Now, who does not hereby comprehend—unless he has preferred to

imitate such gods rather than by divine grace to withdraw himself from

their fellowship—who does not see how eagerly these evil spirits strive

by their example to lend, as it were, divine authority to crime? Is not

this proved by the fact that they were seen in a wide plain in Campania

rehearsing among themselves the battle which shortly after took place

there with great bloodshed between the armies of Rome? For at first

there were heard loud crashing noises, and afterwards many reported

that they had seen for some days together two armies engaged. And

when this battle ceased, they found the ground all indented with just

such footprints of men and horses as a great conflict would leave. If,

then, the deities were veritably fighting with one another, the civil wars

of men are sufficiently justified ; yet, by the way, let it be observed that

such pugnacious gods must be very wicked or very wretched. If,

however, it was but a sham-fight, what did they intend by this, but that

the civil wars of the Romans should seem no wickedness, but an

imitation of the gods? For already the civil wars had begun ; and before

this, some lamentable battles and execrable massacres had occurred.

Already many had been moved by the story of the soldier, who, on

stripping the spoils of his slain foe, recognised in the stripped corpse his

own brother, and, with deep curses on civil wars, slew himself there and

then on his brother’s body. To disguise the bitterness of such tragedies,

and kindle increasing ardour in this monstrous warfare, these malign

demons, who were reputed and worshipped as gods, fell upon this plan

of revealing themselves in a state of civil war, that no compunction for

fellow-citizens might cause the Romans to shrink from such battles, but

that the human criminality might be justified by the divine example. By

a like craft, too, did these evil spirits command that scenic

entertainments, of which I have already spoken, should be instituted and

dedicated to them. And in these entertainments the poetical

compositions and actions of the drama ascribed such iniquities to the

gods, that every one might safely imitate them, whether he believed the

gods had actually done such things, or, not believing this, yet perceived

that they most eagerly desired to be represented as having done them.

And that no one might suppose, that in representing the gods as fighting

with one another, the poets had slandered them, and imputed to them

unworthy actions, the gods themselves, to complete the deception,

confirmed the compositions of the poets by exhibiting their own battles

to the eyes of men, not only through actions in the theatres, but in their

own persons on the actual field.

We have been forced to bring forward these facts, because their

authors have not scrupled to say and to write that the Roman republic

had already been ruined by the depraved moral habits of the citizens,

and had ceased to exist before the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now

this ruin they do not impute to their own gods, though they impute to

our Christ the evils of this life, which cannot ruin good men, be they

alive or dead. And this they do, though our Christ has issued so many

precepts inculcating virtue and restraining vice ; while their own gods

have done nothing whatever to preserve that republic that served them,

and to restrain it from ruin by such precepts, but have rather hastened

its destruction, by corrupting its morality through their pestilent

example. No one, I fancy, will now be bold enough to say that the

republic was then ruined because of the departure of the gods “from

each fane, each sacred shrine,” as if they were the friends of virtue, and

were offended by the vices of men. No, there are too many presages

from entrails, auguries, soothsayings, whereby they boastingly

proclaimed themselves prescient of future events and controllers of the

fortune of war—all of which prove them to have been present. And had

they been indeed absent, the Romans would never in these civil wars

have been so far transported by their own passions as they were by the

instigations of these gods.

26. That the demons gave in secret certain obscure instructions in morals, while in public their

own solemnities inculcated all wickedness

Seeing that this is so—seeing that the filthy and cruel deeds, the

disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether real or feigned,

were at their own request published, and were consecrated, and

dedicated in their honour as sacred and stated solemnities ; seeing they

vowed vengeance on those who refused to exhibit them to the eyes of

all, that they might be proposed as deeds worthy of imitation, why is it

that these same demons, who, by taking pleasure in such obscenities,

acknowledge themselves to be unclean spirits, and by delighting in their

own villanies and iniquities, real or imaginary, and by requesting from

the immodest, and extorting from the modest, the celebration of these

licentious acts, proclaim themselves instigators to a criminal and lewd

life ; —why, I ask, are they represented as giving some good moral

precepts to a few of their own elect, initiated in the secrecy of their

shrines? If it be so, this very thing only serves further to demonstrate the

malicious craft of these pestilent spirits. For so great is the influence of

probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all men, are moved by the

praise of these virtues ; nor is any man so depraved by vice, but he hath

some feeling of honour left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes

transformed himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light,3° he could

not compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold

impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamour ; in private, a

feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to a few: an open

stage is provided for shameful things, but on the praiseworthy the

curtain falls: grace hides, disgrace flaunts: a wicked deed draws an

overflowing house, a virtuous speech finds scarce a hearer, as though

purity were to be blushed at, impurity boasted of. Where else can such

confusion reign, but in devils’ temples? Where, but in the haunts of

deceit? For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous, who

are few in number ; the wicked examples are exhibited to encourage the

vicious, who are countless.

Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of Coelestis received

any good instructions, we know not. What we do know is, that before

her shrine, in which her image is set, and amidst a vast crowd gathering

from all quarters, and standing closely packed together, we were

intensely interested spectators of the games which were going on, and

saw, as we pleased to turn the eye, on this side a grand display of

harlots, on the other the virgin goddess: we saw this virgin worshipped

with prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no shamefaced mimes,

no actress overburdened with modesty: all that the obscene rites

demanded was fully complied with. We were plainly shown what was

pleasing to the virgin deity, and the matron who witnessed the spectacle

returned home from the temple a wiser woman. Some, indeed, of the

more prudent women turned their faces from the immodest movements

of the players, and learned the art of wickedness by a furtive regard. For

they were restrained, by the modest demeanour due to men, from

looking boldly at the immodest gestures ; but much more were they

restrained from condemning with chaste heart the sacred rites of her

whom they adored. And yet this licentiousness—which, if practised in

one’s home, could only be done there in secret—was practised as a

public lesson in the temple ; and if any modesty remained in men, it was

occupied in marvelling that wickedness which men could not

unrestrainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of the

gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the anger of the gods.

What spirit can that be, which by a hidden inspiration stirs men’s

corruption, and goads them to adultery, and feeds on the full-fledged

iniquity, unless it be the same that finds pleasure in such religious

ceremonies, sets in the temples images of devils, and loves to see in play

the images of vices ; that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to

deceive the few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to

profligacy, to gain possession of the millions who are wicked?

27. That the obscenities of those plays which the Romans consecrated in order to propitiate their

gods, contributed largely to the overthrow of public order

Cicero, a weighty man, and a philosopher in his way, when about to

be made edile, wished the citizens to understand?! that, among the other

duties of his magistracy, he must propitiate Flora by the celebration of

games. And these games are reckoned devout in proportion to their

lewdness. In another place,32 and when he was now consul, and the state

in great peril, he says that games had been celebrated for ten days

together, and that nothing had been omitted which could pacify the

gods: as if it had not been more satisfactory to irritate the gods by

temperance, than to pacify them by debauchery ; and to provoke their

hate by honest living, than soothe it by such unseemly grossness. For no

matter how cruel was the ferocity of those men who were threatening

the state, and on whose account the gods were being propitiated: it

could not have been more hurtful than the alliance of gods who were

won with the foulest vices. To avert the danger which threatened men’s

bodies, the gods were conciliated in a fashion that drove virtue from

their spirits ; and the gods did not enrol themselves as defenders of the

battlements against the besiegers, until they had first stormed and

sacked the morality of the citizens. This propitiation of such divinities—

a propitiation so wanton, so impure, so immodest, so wicked, so filthy,

whose actors the innate and praiseworthy virtue of the Romans disabled

from civic honours, erased from their tribe, recognised as polluted and

made infamous ; —this propitiation, I say, so foul, so detestable, and alien

from every religious feeling, these fabulous and ensnaring accounts of

the criminal actions of the gods, these scandalous actions which they

either shamefully and wickedly committed, or more shamefully and

wickedly feigned, all this the whole city learned in public both by the

words and gestures of the actors. They saw that the gods delighted in the

commission of these things, and therefore believed that they wished

them not only to be exhibited to them, but to be imitated by themselves.

But as for that good and honest instruction which they speak of, it was

given in such secrecy, and to so few (if indeed given at all), that they

seemed rather to fear it might be divulged, than that it might not be

practised.

28. That the Christian religion is health-giving

They, then, are but abandoned and ungrateful wretches, in deep and

fast bondage to that malign spirit, who complain and murmur that men

are rescued by the name of Christ from the hellish thraldom of these

unclean spirits, and from a participation in their punishment, and are

brought out of the night of pestilential ungodliness into the light of most

healthful piety. Only such men could murmur that the masses flock to

the churches and their chaste acts of worship, where a seemly separation

of the sexes is observed ; where they learn how they may so spend this

earthly life, as to merit a blessed eternity hereafter ; where Holy

Scripture and instruction in righteousness are proclaimed from a raised

platform in presence of all, that both they who do the word may hear to

their salvation, and they who do it not may hear to judgment. And

though some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is

either quenched by a sudden change, or is restrained through fear or

shame. For no filthy and wicked action is there set forth to be gazed at

or to be imitated ; but either the precepts of the true God are

recommended, His miracles narrated, His gifts praised, or His benefits

implored.

29. An exhortation to the Romans to renounce paganism

This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable

Roman race—the progeny of your Scevolas and Scipios, of Regulus, and

of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish from that foul vanity and

crafty malice of the devils. If there is in your nature any eminent virtue,

only by true piety is it purged and perfected, while by impiety it is

wrecked and punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your

praise may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no error.

For of popular glory you have had your share ; but by the secret

providence of God, the true religion was not offered to your choice.

Awake, it is now day ; as you have already awaked in the persons of

some in whose perfect virtue and sufferings for the true faith we glory:

for they, contending on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering

them all by bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours

with their blood ; to which country we invite you, and exhort you to add

yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city, which also has a

sanctuary?3 of its own in the true remission of sins. Do not listen to those

degenerate sons of thine who slander Christ and Christians, and impute

to them these disastrous times, though they desire times in which they

may enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life.

Such has never been Rome’s ambition even in regard to her earthly

country. Lay hold now on the celestial country, which is easily won, and

in which you will reign truly and for ever. For there shalt thou find no

vestal fire, no Capitoline stone, but the one true God

“No date, no goal will here ordain:

But grant an endless, boundless reign.”34

No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods ; abjure them

rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty. Gods they are

not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal happiness will be a sore

punishment. Juno, from whom you deduce your origin according to the

flesh, did not so bitterly grudge Rome’s citadels to the Trojans, as these

devils whom yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of

mankind. And thou thyself hast in no wavering voice passed judgment

on them, when thou didst pacify them with games, and yet didst account

as infamous the men by whom the plays were acted. Suffer us, then, to

assert thy freedom against the unclean spirits who had imposed on thy

neck the yoke of celebrating their own shame and filthiness. The actors

of these divine crimes thou hast removed from offices of honour ;

supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those gods who

delight in their crimes—a most disgraceful thing if the crimes are really

theirs, and a most malicious invention if the crimes are feigned. Well

done, in that thou hast spontaneously banished from the number of your

citizens all actors and players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God

cannot be propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man. How,

then, can you believe that gods who take pleasure in such lewd plays,

belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven, when the men by

whom these plays are acted are by yourselves refused admission into the

number of Roman citizens even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more

glorious than Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have

truth ; for dignity, holiness ; for peace, felicity ; for life, eternity. Much less

does it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost blush to admit into

thine such men. Wherefore, if thou wouldst attain to the blessed city,

shun the society of devils. They who are propitiated by deeds of shame,

are unworthy of the worship of right-hearted men. Let these, then, be

obliterated from your worship by the cleansing of the Christian religion,

as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor’s mark.

But, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only blessings the

wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which alone they shrink

from enduring, we will show in the following book that the demons have

not the power they are supposed to have ; and although they had it, we

ought rather on that account to despise these blessings, than for the sake

of them to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the

attainment of these blessings they grudge us. But that they have not even

this power which is ascribed to them by those who worship them for the

sake of temporal advantages, this, I say, I will prove in the following

book ; so let us here close the present argument.

1 Ps. xciv. 4.

2 2 Tim. iii. 7.

3“Pluvia defit, causa Christiani.” Similar accusations and similar replies may be seen in the

celebrated passage of Tertullian’s Apol. c. 40, and in the eloquent exordium of Arnobius, C.

Gentes.

4 Augustine is supposed to refer to Symmachus, who similarly accused the Christians in his

address to the Emperor Valentinianus in the year 384. At Augustine’s request, Paulus Orosius

wrote his history in confutation of Symmachus’ charges.

° Tertullian (Apol. c. 24) mentions Ccelestis as specially worshipped in Africa. Augustine

mentions her again in the 26th chapter of this book, and in other parts of his works.

6 Berecynthia is one of the many names of Rhea or Cybele. Livy (xxix. 11) relates that the image

of Cybele was brought to Rome the day before the ides of April, which was accordingly dedicated

as her feast-day. The image, it seems, had to be washed in the stream Almon, a tributary of the

Tiber, before being placed in the temple of Victory ; and each year, as the festival returned, the

washing was repeated with much pomp at the same spot. Hence Lucan’s line (i. 600), ‘Et lotam

parvo revocant Almone Cybelen,’ and the elegant verses of Ovid, Fast. iv. 337 et seq.

7 “Fercula,” dishes, or courses.

8 See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 24.

9 Prov. vi. 26.

10 Fugalia. Vives is uncertain to what feast Augustine refers. Censorinus understands him to refer

to a feast celebrating the expulsion of the kings from Rome. This feast, however (celebrated on

the 24th February), was commonly called “Regifugium.”

11 Persius, Sat. iii. 66-72.

12 See below, books viii.-xii.

13 “Galli,” the castrated priests of Cybele, who were named after the river Gallus, in Phrygia, the

water of which was supposed to intoxicate or madden those who drank it. According to Vitruvius

(viii. 3), there was a similar fountain in Paphlagonia. Apuleius (Golden Ass, viii.) gives a graphic

and humorous description of the dress, dancing, and imposture of these priests ; mentioning,

among other things, that they lashed themselves with whips and cut themselves with knives till

the ground was wet with blood.

14 Persius, Sat. iii. 37.

15 Ter, Eun. iii. 5. 36 ; and cf. the similar allusion in Aristoph. Clouds, 1033—4. It may be added

that the argument of this chapter was largely used by the wiser of the heathen themselves.

Dionysius Hal. (ii. 20) and Seneca (De Brev. Vit. c. xvi.) make the very same complaint ; and it

will be remembered that his adoption of this reasoning was one of the grounds on which

Euripides was suspected of atheism.

16 This sentence recalls Augustine’s own experience as a boy, which he bewails in his Confessions.

17 Labeo, a jurist of the time of Augustus, learned in law and antiquities, and the author of

several works much prized by his own and some succeeding ages. The two articles in Smith’s

Dictionary on Antistius and Cornelius Labeo should be read.

18 “Lectisternia,” feasts in which the images of the gods were laid on pillows in the streets, and

all kinds of food set before them.

19 According to Livy (vii. 2), theatrical exhibitions were introduced in the year 392 A.U.C. Before

that time, he says, there had only been the games of the circus. The Romans sent to Etruria for

players, who were called “histriones,” “hister” being the Tuscan word for a player. Other

particulars are added by Livy.

20 See the Republic, book iii.

21 Comp. Tertullian, De Spectac. c. 22.

22 The Egyptian gods represented with dogs’ heads, called by Lucan (viii. 832) semicanes deos.

23 The Fever had, according to Vives, three altars in Rome. See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 25, and

A‘lian Var. Hist. xii. 11.

24 Cicero, De Republica, v. Compare the third Tusculan Queest. c. ii.

25 In the year A.U. 299, three ambassadors were sent from Rome to Athens to copy Solon’s laws,

and acquire information about the institutions of Greece. On their return the Decemviri were

appointed to draw up a code ; and finally, after some tragic interruptions, the celebrated Twelve

Tables were accepted as the fundamental statutes of Roman law (fons universi publici privatique

juris). These were graven on brass, and hung up for public information. Livy, iii. 31-34.

26 Possibly he refers to Plautus’ Persa, iv. 4. 11-14.

27 Sallust, Cat. Con. ix. Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarding the chastity of the

Germans: “Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bone leges” (Germ. xix.).

28 The same collocation of words is used by Cicero with reference to the well-known mode of

renewing the appetite in use among the Romans.

29 Aineid, ii. 351-2.

30 2 Cor. xi. 14.

31 Cicero, C. Verrem, vi. 8.

32 Cicero. C. Catilinam, iii. 8.

33 Alluding to the sanctuary given to all who fled to Rome in its early days.

34 Virgil, Aineid, i. 278.

BOOK THIRD

ARGUMENT

AS IN THE FOREGOING BOOK AUGUSTINE HAS PROVED REGARDING MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CALAMITIES,

SO IN THIS BOOK HE PROVES REGARDING EXTERNAL AND BODILY DISASTERS, THAT SINCE THE

FOUNDATION OF THE CITY THE ROMANS HAVE BEEN CONTINUALLY SUBJECT TO THEM ; AND THAT EVEN

WHEN THE FALSE GODS WERE WORSHIPPED WITHOUT A RIVAL, BEFORE THE ADVENT OF CHRIST, THEY

AFFORDED NO RELIEF FROM SUCH CALAMITIES.

1. Of the ills which alone the wicked fear, and which the world continually suffered, even when

the gods were worshipped

f moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to be

deprecated, I think enough has already been said to show that the

false gods took no steps to prevent the people who worshipped them

from being overwhelmed by such calamities, but rather aggravated the

ruin. I see I must now speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by

the heathen—famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and

the like calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For evil men

account those things alone evil which do not make men evil ; neither do

they blush to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good

things they praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad

life, as if it were man’s greatest good to have everything good but

himself. But not even such evils as were alone dreaded by the heathen

were warded off by their gods, even when they were most unrestrictedly

worshipped. For in various times and places before the advent of our

Redeemer, the human race was crushed with numberless and sometimes

incredible calamities ; and at that time what gods but those did the world

worship, if you except the one nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them,

such individuals as the most secret and most just judgment of God

counted worthy of divine grace?! But that I may not be prolix, I will be

silent regarding the heavy calamities that have been suffered by any

other nations, and will speak only of what happened to Rome and the

Roman empire, by which I mean Rome properly so called, and those

lands which already, before the coming of Christ, had by alliance or

conquest become, as it were, members of the body of the state.

2. Whether the gods, whom the Greeks and Romans worshipped in common, were justified in

permitting the destruction of Ilium

First, then, why was Troy or Ilium, the cradle of the Roman people

(for I must not overlook nor disguise what I touched upon in the first

book2), conquered, taken, and destroyed by the Greeks, though it

esteemed and worshipped the same gods as they? Priam, some answer,

paid the penalty of the perjury of his father Laomedon.? Then it is true

that Laomedon hired Apollo and Neptune as his workmen. For the story

goes that he promised them wages, and then broke his bargain. I wonder

that famous diviner Apollo toiled at so huge a work, and never suspected

Laomedon was going to cheat him of his pay. And Neptune too, his

uncle, brother of Jupiter, king of the sea, it really was not seemly that he

should be ignorant of what was to happen. For he is introduced by

Homer‘ (who lived and wrote before the building of Rome) as predicting

something great of the posterity of Æneas, who in fact founded Rome.

And as Homer says, Neptune also rescued Æneas in a cloud from the

wrath of Achilles, though (according to Virgils)

“All his will was to destroy

His own creation, perjured Troy.”

Gods, then, so great as Apollo and Neptune, in ignorance of the cheat

that was to defraud them of their wages, built the walls of Troy for

nothing but thanks and thankless people.© There may be some doubt

whether it is not a worse crime to believe such persons to be gods, than

to cheat such gods. Even Homer himself did not give full credence to the

story ; for while he represents Neptune, indeed, as hostile to the Trojans,

he introduces Apollo as their champion, though the story implies that

both were offended by that fraud. If, therefore, they believe their fables,

let them blush to worship such gods ; if they discredit the fables, let no

more be said of the “Trojan perjury ; ” or let them explain how the gods

hated Trojan, but loved Roman perjury. For how did the conspiracy of

Catiline, even in so large and corrupt a city, find so abundant a supply of

men whose hands and tongues found them a living by perjury and civic

broils? What else but perjury corrupted the judgments pronounced by so

many of the senators? What else corrupted the people’s votes and

decisions of all causes tried before them? For it seems that the ancient

practice of taking oaths has been preserved even in the midst of the

greatest corruption, not for the sake of restraining wickedness by

religious fear, but to complete the tale of crimes by adding that of

perjury.

3. That the gods could not be offended by the adultery of Paris, this crime being so common

among themselves.

There is no ground, then, for representing the gods (by whom, as they

say, that empire stood, though they are proved to have been conquered

by the Greeks) as being enraged at the Trojan perjury. Neither, as others

again plead in their defence, was it indignation at the adultery of Paris

that caused them to withdraw their protection from Troy. For their habit

is to be instigators and instructors in vice, not its avengers. “The city of

Rome,” says Sallust, “was first built and inhabited, as I have heard, by

the Trojans, who, flying their country, under the conduct of Æneas,

wandered about without making any settlement.”” If, then, the gods

were of opinion that the adultery of Paris should be punished, it was

chiefly the Romans, or at least the Romans also, who should have

suffered ; for the adultery was brought about by Æneas’ mother. But how

could they hate in Paris a crime which they made no objection to in

their own sister Venus, who (not to mention any other instance)

committed adultery with Anchises, and so became the mother of Æneas?

Is it because in the one case Menelaus8 was aggrieved, while in the other

Vulcan? connived at the crime? For the gods, I fancy, are so little jealous

of their wives, that they make no scruple of sharing them with men. But

perhaps I may be suspected of turning the myths into ridicule, and not

handling so weighty a subject with sufficient gravity. Well, then, let us

say that Aineas is not the son of Venus. I am willing to admit it ; but is

Romulus any more the son of Mars? For why not the one as well as the

other? Or is it lawful for gods to have intercourse with women, unlawful

for men to have intercourse with goddesses? A hard, or rather an

incredible condition, that what was allowed to Mars by the law of

Venus, should not be allowed to Venus herself by her own law. However,

both cases have the authority of Rome ; for Cesar in modern times

believed no less that he was descended from Venus,!9° than the ancient

Romulus believed himself the son of Mars.

4. Of Varro’s opinion, that it is useful for men to feign themselves the offspring of the gods

Some one will say, But do you believe all this? Not I indeed. For even

Varro, a very learned heathen, all but admits that these stories are false,

though he does not boldly and confidently say so. But he maintains it is

useful for states that brave men believe, though falsely, that they are

descended from the gods ; for that thus the human spirit, cherishing the

belief of its divine descent, will both more boldly venture into great

enterprises, and will carry them out more energetically, and will

therefore by its very confidence secure more abundant success. You see

how wide a field is opened to falsehood by this opinion of Varro’s, which

I have expressed as well as I could in my own words ; and how

comprehensible it is, that many of the religions and sacred legends

should be feigned in a community in which it was judged profitable for

the citizens that lies should be told even about the gods themselves.

5. That it is not credible that the gods should have punished the adultery of Paris, seeing they

showed no indignation at the adultery of the mother of Romulus

But whether Venus could bear Æneas to a human father Anchises, or

Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor, we leave as unsettled

questions. For our own Scriptures suggest the very similar question,

whether the fallen angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of

men, by which the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with

enormously large and strong men. At present, then, I will limit my

discussion to this dilemma: If that which their books relate about the

mother of Æneas and the father of Romulus be true, how can the gods

be displeased with men for adulteries which, when committed by

themselves, excite no displeasure? If it is false, not even in this case can

the gods be angry that men should really commit adulteries, which, even

when falsely attributed to the gods, they delight in. Moreover, if the

adultery of Mars be discredited, that Venus also may be freed from the

imputation, then the mother of Romulus is left unshielded by the pretext

of a divine seduction. For Sylvia was a vestal priestess, and the gods

ought to avenge this sacrilege on the Romans with greater severity than

Paris’ adultery on the Trojans. For even the Romans themselves in

primitive times used to go so far as to bury alive any vestal who was

detected in adultery, while women unconsecrated, though they were

punished, were never punished with death for that crime ; and thus they

more earnestly vindicated the purity of shrines they esteemed divine,

than of the human bed.

6. That the gods exacted no penalty for the fratricidal act of Romulus.

I add another instance: If the sins of men so greatly incensed those

divinities, that they abandoned Troy to fire and sword to punish the

crime of Paris, the murder of Romulus’ brother ought to have incensed

them more against the Romans than the cajoling of a Greek husband

moved them against the Trojans: fratricide in a newly-born city should

have provoked them more than adultery in a city already flourishing. It

makes no difference to the question we now discuss, whether Romulus

ordered his brother to be slain, or slew him with his own hand ; a crime

this latter which many shamelessly deny, many through shame doubt,

many in grief disguise. And we shall not pause to examine and weigh the

testimonies of historical writers on the subject. All agree that the brother

of Romulus was slain, not by enemies, not by strangers. If it was

Romulus who either commanded or perpetrated this crime, Romulus was

more truly the head of the Romans than Paris of the Trojans ; why then

did he who carried off another man’s wife bring down the anger of the

gods on the Trojans, while he who took his brother’s life obtained the

guardianship of those same gods? If, on the other hand, that crime was

not wrought either by the hand or will of Romulus, then the whole city

is chargeable with it, because it did not see to its punishment, and thus

committed, not fratricide, but parricide, which is worse. For both

brothers were the founders of that city, of which the one was by villany

prevented from being a ruler. So far as I see, then, no evil can be

ascribed to Troy which warranted the gods in abandoning it to

destruction, nor any good to Rome which accounts for the gods visiting

it with prosperity ; unless the truth be, that they fled from Troy because

they were vanquished, and betook themselves to Rome to practise their

characteristic deceptions there. Nevertheless they kept a footing for

themselves in Troy, that they might deceive future inhabitants who

repeopled these lands ; while at Rome, by a wider exercise of their

malignant arts, they exulted in more abundant honours.

7. Of the destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a lieutenant of Marius

And surely we may ask what wrong poor Ilium had done, that, in the

first heat of the civil wars of Rome, it should suffer at the hand of

Fimbria, the veriest villain among Marius’ partisans, a more fierce and

cruel destruction than the Grecian sack.!1 For when the Greeks took it

many escaped, and many who did not escape were suffered to live,

though in captivity. But Fimbria from the first gave orders that not a life

should be spared, and burnt up together the city and all its inhabitants.

Thus was Ilium requited, not by the Greeks, whom she had provoked by

wrong-doing ; but by the Romans, who had been built out of her ruins ;

while the gods, adored alike of both sides, did simply nothing, or, to

speak more correctly, could do nothing. Is it then true, that at this time

also, after Troy had repaired the damage done by the Grecian fire, all

the gods by whose help the kingdom stood, “forsook each fane, each

sacred shrine?”

But if so, I ask the reason ; for in my judgment, the conduct of the gods

was as much to be reprobated as that of the townsmen to be applauded.

For these closed their gates against Fimbria, that they might preserve the

city for Sylla, and were therefore burnt and consumed by the enraged

general. Now, up to this time, Sylla’s cause was the more worthy of the

two ; for till now he used arms to restore the republic, and as yet his

good intentions had met with no reverses. What better thing, then, could

the Trojans have done? What more honourable, what more faithful to

Rome, or more worthy of her relationship, than to preserve their city for

the better part of the Romans, and to shut their gates against a parricide

of his country? It is for the defenders of the gods to consider the ruin

which this conduct brought on Troy. The gods deserted an adulterous

people, and abandoned Troy to the fires of the Greeks, that out of her

ashes a chaster Rome might arise. But why did they a second time

abandon this same town, allied now to Rome, and not making war upon

her noble daughter, but preserving a most stedfast and pious fidelity to

Rome’s most justifiable faction? Why did they give her up to be

destroyed, not by the Greek heroes, but by the basest of the Romans? Or,

if the gods did not favour Sylla’s cause, for which the unhappy Trojans

maintained their city, why did they themselves predict and promise Sylla

such successes? Must we call them flatterers of the fortunate, rather than

helpers of the wretched? Troy was not destroyed, then, because the gods

deserted it. For the demons, always watchful to deceive, did what they

could. For, when all the statues were overthrown and burnt together

with the town, Livy tells us that only the image of Minerva is said to

have been found standing uninjured amidst the ruins of her temple ; not

that it might be said in their praise, “The gods who made this realm

divine,” but that it might not be said in their defence, They are “gone

from each fane, each sacred shrine:” for that marvel was permitted to

them, not that they might be proved to be powerful, but that they might

be convicted of being present.

8. Whether Rome ought to have been entrusted to the Trojan gods?

Where, then, was the wisdom of entrusting Rome to the Trojan gods,

who had demonstrated their weakness in the loss of Troy? Will some one

say that, when Fimbria stormed Troy, the gods were already resident in

Rome? How, then, did the image of Minerva remain standing? Besides, if

they were at Rome when Fimbria destroyed Troy, perhaps they were at

Troy when Rome itself was taken and set on fire by the Gauls. But as

they are very acute in hearing, and very swift in their movements, they

came quickly at the cackling of the goose to defend at least the Capitol,

though to defend the rest of the city they were too long in being warned.

9. Whether it is credible that the peace during the reign of Numa was brought about by the gods

It is also believed that it was by the help of the gods that the successor

of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, enjoyed peace during his entire reign, and

shut the gates of Janus, which are customarily kept open!2 during war.

And it is supposed he was thus requited for appointing many religious

observances among the Romans. Certainly that king would have

commanded our congratulations for so rare a leisure, had he been wise

enough to spend it on wholesome pursuits, and, subduing a pernicious

curiosity, had sought out the true God with true piety. But as it was, the

gods were not the authors of his leisure ; but possibly they would have

deceived him less had they found him busier. For the more disengaged

they found him, the more they themselves occupied his attention. Varro

informs us of all his efforts, and of the arts he employed to associate

these gods with himself and the city ; and in its own place, if God will, I

shall discuss these matters. Meanwhile, as we are speaking of the

benefits conferred by the gods, I readily admit that peace is a great

benefit ; but it is a benefit of the true God, which, like the sun, the rain,

and other supports of life, is frequently conferred on the ungrateful and

wicked. But if this great boon was conferred on Rome and Pompilius by

their gods, why did they never afterwards grant it to the Roman empire

during even more meritorious periods? Were the sacred rites more

efficient at their first institution than during their subsequent

celebration? But they had no existence in Numa’s time, until he added

them to the ritual ; whereas afterwards they had already been celebrated

and preserved, that benefit might arise from them. How, then, is it that

those forty-three, or as others prefer it, thirty-nine years of Numa’s reign,

were passed in unbroken peace, and yet that afterwards, when the

worship was established, and the gods themselves, who were invoked by

it, were the recognised guardians and patrons of the city, we can with

difficulty find during the whole period, from the building of the city to

the reign of Augustus, one year—that, viz., which followed the close of

the first Punic war—in which, for a marvel, the Romans were able to

shut the gates of war?!3

10. Whether it was desirable that the Roman empire should be increased by such a furious

succession of wars, when it might have been quiet and safe by following in the peaceful ways of

Numa

Do they reply that the Roman empire could never have been so widely

extended, nor so glorious, save by constant and unintermitting wars? A

fit argument, truly! Why must a kingdom be distracted in order to be

great? In this little world of man’s body, is it not better to have a

moderate stature, and health with it, than to attain the huge dimensions

of a giant by unnatural torments, and when you attain it to find no rest,

but to be pained the more in proportion to the size of your members?

What evil would have resulted, or rather what good would not have

resulted, had those times continued which Sallust sketched, when he

says, “At first the kings (for that was the first title of empire in the

world) were divided in their sentiments: part cultivated the mind, others

the body: at that time the life of men was led without covetousness ;

every one was sufficiently satisfied with his own!”!4 Was it requisite,

then, for Rome’s prosperity, that the state of things which Virgil

reprobates should succeed :

“At length stole on a baser age,

And war’s indomitable rage,

And greedy lust of gain?”!5

But obviously the Romans have a plausible defence for undertaking

and carrying on such disastrous wars—to wit, that the pressure of their

enemies forced them to resist, so that they were compelled to fight, not

by any greed of human applause, but by the necessity of protecting life

and liberty. Well, let that pass. Here is Sallust’s account of the matter:

“For when their state, enriched with laws, institutions, territory, seemed

abundantly prosperous and sufficiently powerful, according to the

ordinary law of human nature, opulence gave birth to envy. Accordingly,

the neighbouring kings and states took arms and assaulted them. A few

allies lent assistance ; the rest, struck with fear, kept aloof from dangers.

But the Romans, watchful at home and in war, were active, made

preparations, encouraged one another, marched to meet their enemies—

protected by arms their liberty, country, parents. Afterwards, when they

had repelled the dangers by their bravery, they carried help to their

allies and friends, and procured alliances more by conferring than by

receiving favours.”!6 This was to build up Rome’s greatness by

honourable means. But, in Numa’s reign, I would know whether the long

peace was maintained in spite of the incursions of wicked neighbours, or

if these incursions were discontinued that the peace might be

maintained? For if even then Rome was harassed by wars, and yet did

not meet force with force, the same means she then used to quiet her

enemies without conquering them in war, or terrifying them with the

onset of battle, she might have used always, and have reigned in peace

with the gates of Janus shut. And if this was not in her power, then

Rome enjoyed peace not at the will of her gods, but at the will of her

neighbours round about, and only so long as they cared to provoke her

with no war, unless perhaps these pitiful gods will dare to sell to one

man as their favour what lies not in their power to bestow, but in the

will of another man. These demons, indeed, in so far as they are

permitted, can terrify or incite the minds of wicked men by their own

peculiar wickedness. But if they always had this power, and if no action

were taken against their efforts by a more secret and higher power, they

would be supreme to give peace or the victories of war, which almost

always fall out through some human emotion, and frequently in

opposition to the will of the gods, as is proved not only by lying legends,

which scarcely hint or signify any grain of truth, but even by Roman

history itself.

11. Of the statue of Apollo at Cume, whose tears are supposed to have portended disaster to the

Greeks, whom the god was unable to succour

And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed in the story

of the Cuman Apollo, who is said to have wept for four days during the

war with the Achzans and King Aristonicus. And when the augurs were

alarmed at the portent, and had determined to cast the statue into the

sea, the old men of Cume interposed, and related that a similar prodigy

had occurred to the same image during the wars against Antiochus and

against Perseus, and that by a decree of the senate gifts had been

presented to Apollo, because the event had proved favourable to the

Romans. Then soothsayers were summoned who were supposed to have

greater professional skill, and they pronounced that the weeping of

Apollo’s image was propitious to the Romans, because Cumz was a

Greek colony, and that Apollo was bewailing (and thereby presaging)

the grief and calamity that was about to light upon his own land of

Greece, from which he had been brought. Shortly afterwards it was

reported that King Aristonicus was defeated and made _ prisoner—a

defeat certainly opposed to the will of Apollo ; and this he indicated by

even shedding tears from his marble image. And this shows us that,

though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not altogether

devoid of truth, but describe the manners of the demons in a sufficiently

fit style. For in Virgil Diana mourned for Camilla,!”7 and Hercules wept

for Pallas doomed to die.18 This is perhaps the reason why Numa

Pompilius, too, when, enjoying prolonged peace, but without knowing or

inquiring from whom he received it, he began in his leisure to consider

to what gods he should entrust the safe keeping and conduct of Rome,

and not dreaming that the true, almighty, and most high God cares for

earthly affairs, but recollecting only that the Trojan gods which Æneas

had brought to Italy had been able to preserve neither the Trojan nor

Lavinian kingdom founded by Æneas himself, concluded that he must

provide other gods as guardians of fugitives and helpers of the weak, and

add them to those earlier divinities who had either come over to Rome

with Romulus, or when Alba was destroyed.

12. That the Romans added a vast number of gods to those introduced by Numa, and that their

numbers helped them not at all

But though Pompilius introduced so ample a ritual, yet did not Rome

see fit to be content with it. For as yet Jupiter himself had not his chief

temple—it being King Tarquin who built the Capitol. And A‘sculapius

left Epidaurus for Rome, that in this foremost city he might have a finer

field for the exercise of his great medical skill.19 The mother of the gods,

too, came I know not whence from Pessinus ; it being unseemly that,

while her son presided on the Capitoline hill, she herself should lie hid

in obscurity. But if she is the mother of all the gods, she not only

followed some of her children to Rome, but left others to follow her. I

wonder, indeed, if she were the mother of Cynocephalus, who a long

while afterwards came from Egypt. Whether also the goddess Fever was

her offspring, is a matter for her grandson, A‘sculapius2° to decide. But

of whatever breed she be, the foreign gods will not presume, I trust, to

call a goddess base-born who is a Roman citizen. Who can number the

deities to whom the guardianship of Rome was entrusted? Indigenous

and imported, both of heaven, earth, hell, seas, fountains, rivers ; and, as

Varro says, gods certain and uncertain, male and female: for, as among

animals, so among all kinds of gods are there these distinctions. Rome,

then, enjoying the protection of such a cloud of deities, might surely

have been preserved from some of those great and horrible calamities, of

which I can mention but a few. For by the great smoke of her altars she

summoned to her protection, as by a beacon-fire, a host of gods, for

whom she appointed and maintained temples, altars, sacrifices, priests,

and thus offended the true and most high God, to whom alone all this

ceremonial is lawfully due. And, indeed, she was more prosperous when

she had fewer gods ; but the greater she became, the more gods she

thought she should have, as the larger ship needs to be manned by a

larger crew. I suppose she despaired of the smaller number, under whose

protection she had spent comparatively happy days, being able to defend

her greatness. For even under the kings (with the exception of Numa

Pompilius, of whom I have already spoken), how wicked a

contentiousness must have existed to occasion the death of Romulus’

brother!

13. By what right or agreement the Romans obtained their first wives

How is it that neither Juno, who with her husband Jupiter even then

cherished

“Rome’s sons, the nation of the gown,”2!

nor Venus herself, could assist the children of the loved Æneas to find

wives by some right and equitable means? For the lack of this entailed

upon the Romans the lamentable necessity of stealing their wives, and

then waging war with their fathers-in-law ; so that the wretched women,

before they had recovered from the wrong done them by their husbands,

were dowried with the blood of their fathers. “But the Romans

conquered their neighbours.” Yes ; but with what wounds on both sides,

and with what sad slaughter of relatives and neighbours! The war of

Cæsar and Pompey was the contest of only one father-in-law with one

son-in-law ; and before it began, the daughter of Cæsar, Pompey’s wife,

was already dead. But with how keen and just an accent of grief does

Lucan22 exclaim: “I sing that worse than civil war waged in the plains of

Emathia, and in which the crime was justified by the victory!”

The Romans, then, conquered that they might, with hands stained in

the blood of their fathers-in-law, wrench the miserable girls from their

embrace—girls who dared not weep for their slain parents, for fear of

offending their victorious husbands ; and while yet the battle was raging,

stood with their prayers on their lips, and knew not for whom to utter

them. Such nuptials were certainly prepared for the Roman people not

by Venus, but Bellona ; or possibly that infernal fury Alecto had more

liberty to injure them now that Juno was aiding them, than when the

prayers of that goddess had excited her against Aineas. Andromache in

captivity was happier than these Roman brides. For though she was a

slave, yet, after she had become the wife of Pyrrhus, no more Trojans fell

by his hand ; but the Romans slew in battle the very fathers of the brides

they fondled. Andromache, the victor’s captive, could only mourn, not

fear, the death of her people. The Sabine women, related to men still

combatants, feared the death of their fathers when their husbands went

out to battle, and mourned their death as they returned, while neither

their grief nor their fear could be freely expressed. For the victories of

their husbands, involving the destruction of fellow-townsmen, relatives,

brothers, fathers, caused either pious agony or cruel exaltation.

Moreover, as the fortune of war is capricious, some of them lost their

husbands by the sword of their parents, while others lost husband and

father together in mutual destruction. For the Romans by no means

escaped with impunity, but they were driven back within their walls,

and defended themselves behind closed gates ; and when the gates were

opened by guile, and the enemy admitted into the town, the Forum itself

was the field of a hateful and fierce engagement of fathers-in-law and

sons-in-law. The ravishers were indeed quite defeated, and, flying on all

sides to their houses, sullied with new shame their original shameful and

lamentable triumph. It was at this juncture that Romulus, hoping no

more from the valour of his citizens, prayed Jupiter that they might

stand their ground ; and from this occasion the god gained the name of

Stator. But not even thus would the mischief have been finished, had not

the ravished women themselves flashed out with dishevelled hair, and

cast themselves before their parents, and thus disarmed their just rage,

not with the arms of victory, but with the supplications of filial affection.

Then Romulus, who could not brook his own brother as a colleague, was

compelled to accept Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, as his partner on

the throne. But how long would he who misliked the fellowship of his

own twin-brother endure a stranger? So, Tatius being slain, Romulus

remained sole king, that he might be the greater god. See what rights of

marriage these were that fomented unnatural wars. These were the

Roman leagues of kindred, relationship, alliance, religion. This was the

life of the city so abundantly protected by the gods. You see how many

severe things might be said on this theme ; but our purpose carries us

past them, and requires our discourse for other matters.

14. Of the wickedness of the war waged by the Romans against the Albans, and of the victories

won by the lust of power

But what happened after Numa’s reign, and under the other kings,

when the Albans were provoked into war, with sad results not to

themselves alone, but also to the Romans? The long peace of Numa had

become tedious ; and with what endless slaughter and detriment of both

states did the Roman and Alban armies bring it to an end! For Alba,

which had been founded by Ascanius, son of Æneas, and which was

more properly the mother of Rome than Troy herself, was provoked to

battle by Tullus Hostilius, king of Rome, and in the conflict both

inflicted and received such damage, that at length both parties wearied

of the struggle. It was then devised that the war should be decided by

the combat of three twin-brothers from each army: from the Romans the

three Horatii stood forward, from the Albans the three Curiatii. Two of

the Horatii were overcome and disposed of by the Curiatii ; but by the

remaining Horatius the three Curiatii were slain. Thus Rome remained

victorious, but with such a sacrifice that only one survivor returned to

his home. Whose was the loss on both sides? Whose the grief, but of the

offspring of Aeneas, the descendants of Ascanius, the progeny of Venus,

the grandsons of Jupiter? For this, too, was a “worse than civil” war, in

which the belligerent states were mother and daughter. And to this

combat of the three twin-brothers there was added another atrocious

and horrible catastrophe. For as the two nations had formerly been

friendly (being related and neighbours), the sister of the Horatii had

been betrothed to one of the Curiatii ; and she, when she saw her brother

wearing the spoils of her betrothed, burst into tears, and was slain by

her own brother in his anger. To me, this one girl seems to have been

more humane than the whole Roman people. I cannot think her to blame

for lamenting the man to whom already she had plighted her troth, or,

as perhaps she was doing, for grieving that her brother should have slain

him to whom he had promised his sister. For why do we praise the grief

of Æneas (in Virgil23) over the enemy cut down even by his own hand?

Why did Marcellus shed tears over the city of Syracuse, when he

recollected, just before he destroyed, its magnificence and meridian

glory, and thought upon the common lot of all things? I demand, in the

name of humanity, that if men are praised for tears shed over enemies

conquered by themselves, a weak girl should not be counted criminal for

bewailing her lover slaughtered by the hand of her brother. While, then,

that maiden was weeping for the death of her betrothed inflicted by her

brother’s hand, Rome was rejoicing that such devastation had been

wrought on her mother state, and that she had purchased a victory with

such an expenditure of the common blood of herself and the Albans.

Why allege to me the mere names and words of “glory” and “victory?”

Tear off the disguise of wild delusion, and look at the naked deeds:

weigh them naked, judge them naked. Let the charge be brought against

Alba, as Troy was charged with adultery. There is no such charge, none

like it found: the war was kindled only in order that there

“Might sound in languid ears the cry

Of Tullus and of victory.”2 +

This vice of restless ambition was the sole motive to that social and

parricidal war—a vice which Sallust brands in passing ; for when he has

spoken with brief but hearty commendation of those primitive times in

which life was spent without covetousness, and every one was

sufficiently satisfied with what he had, he goes on: “But after Cyrus in

Asia, and the Lacedemonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue

cities and nations, and to account the lust of sovereignty a sufficient

ground for war, and to reckon that the greatest glory consisted in the

greatest empire ; ”25 and so on, as I need not now quote. This lust of

sovereignty disturbs and consumes the human race with frightful ills. By

this lust Rome was overcome when she triumphed over Alba, and

praising her own crime, called it glory. For, as our Scriptures say, “the

wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom

the Lord abhorreth.”26 Away, then, with these deceitful masks, these

deluding whitewashes, that things may be truthfully seen and

scrutinized. Let no man tell me that this and the other was a “great”

man, because he fought and conquered so and so. Gladiators fight and

conquer, and this barbarism has its meed of praise ; but I think it were

better to take the consequences of any sloth, than to seek the glory won

by such arms. And if two gladiators entered the arena to fight, one being

father, the other his son, who would endure such a spectacle? who

would not be revolted by it? How, then, could that be a glorious war

which a daughter-state waged against its mother? Or did it constitute a

difference, that the battlefield was not an arena, and that the wide plains

were filled with the carcases not of two gladiators, but of many of the

flower of two nations ; and that those contests were viewed not by the

amphitheatre, but by the whole world, and furnished a profane spectacle

both to those alive at the time, and to their posterity, so long as the fame

of it is handed down?

Yet those gods, guardians of the Roman empire, and, as it were,

theatric spectators of such contests as these, were not satisfied until the

sister of the Horatii was added by her brother’s sword as a third victim

from the Roman side, so that Rome herself, though she won the day,

should have as many deaths to mourn. Afterwards, as a fruit of the

victory, Alba was destroyed, though it was there the Trojan gods had

formed a third asylum after Ilium had been sacked by the Greeks, and

after they had left Lavinium, where Æneas had founded a kingdom in a

land of banishment. But probably Alba was destroyed because from it

too the gods had migrated, in their usual fashion, as Virgil says :

“Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,

Are those who made this realm divine.”27

Gone, indeed, and from now their third asylum, that Rome might seem

all the wiser in committing herself to them after they had deserted three

other cities. Alba, whose king Amulius had banished his brother,

displeased them ; Rome, whose king Romulus had slain his brother,

pleased them. But before Alba was destroyed, its population, they say,

was amalgamated with the inhabitants of Rome, so that the two cities

were one. Well, admitting it was so, yet the fact remains that the city of

Ascanius, the third retreat of the Trojan gods, was destroyed by the

daughter-city. Besides, to effect this pitiful conglomerate of the war’s

leavings, much blood was spilt on both sides. And how shall I speak in

detail of the same wars, so often renewed in subsequent reigns, though

they seemed to have been finished by great victories ; and of wars that

time after time were brought to an end by great slaughters, and which

yet time after time were renewed by the posterity of those who had

made peace and struck treaties? Of this calamitous history we have no

small proof, in the fact that no subsequent king closed the gates of war ;

and therefore, with all their tutelar gods, no one of them reigned in

peace.

15. What manner of life and death the Roman kings had

And what was the end of the kings themselves? Of Romulus, a

flattering legend tells us that he was assumed into heaven. But certain

Roman historians relate that he was torn in pieces by the senate for his

ferocity, and that a man, Julius Proculus, was suborned to give out that

Romulus had appeared to him, and through him commanded the Roman

people to worship him as a god ; and that in this way the people, who

were beginning to resent the action of the senate, were quieted and

pacified. For an eclipse of the sun had also happened ; and this was

attributed to the divine power of Romulus by the ignorant multitude,

who did not know that it was brought about by the fixed laws of the

sun’s course: though this grief of the sun might rather have been

considered proof that Romulus had been slain, and that the crime was

indicated by this deprivation of the sun’s light ; as, in truth, was the case

when the Lord was crucified through the cruelty and impiety of the

Jews. For it is sufficiently demonstrated that this latter obscuration of

the sun did not occur by the natural laws of the heavenly bodies,

because it was then the Jewish passover, which is held only at full moon,

whereas natural eclipses of the sun happen only at the last quarter of the

moon. Cicero, too, shows plainly enough that the apotheosis of Romulus

was imaginary rather than real, when, even while he is praising him in

one of Scipio’s remarks in the De Republica, he says: “Such a reputation

had he acquired, that when he suddenly disappeared during an eclipse of

the sun, he was supposed to have been assumed into the number of the

gods, which could be supposed of no mortal who had not the highest

reputation for virtue.”28 By these words, “he suddenly disappeared,” we

are to understand that he was mysteriously made away with by the

violence either of the tempest or of a murderous assault. For their other

writers speak not only of an eclipse, but of a sudden storm also, which

certainly either afforded opportunity for the crime, or itself made an end

of Romulus. And of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king of Rome,

and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero in the same book

says, that “he was not supposed to have been deified by this death,

possibly because the Romans were unwilling to vulgarize the promotion

they were assured or persuaded of in the case of Romulus, lest they

should bring it into contempt by gratuitously assigning it to all and

sundry.” In one of his invectives,29 too, he says, in round terms, “The

founder of this city, Romulus, we have raised to immortality and divinity

by kindly celebrating his services ; ” implying that his deification was not

real, but reputed, and called so by courtesy on account of his virtues. In

the dialogue Hortensius, too, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the

sun, he says that they “produce the same darkness as covered the death

of Romulus, which happened during an eclipse of the sun.” Here you see

he does not at all shrink from speaking of his “death,” for Cicero was

more of a reasoner than an eulogist.

The other kings of Rome, too, with the exception of Numa Pompilius

and Ancus Marcius, who died natural deaths, what horrible ends they

had! Tullus Hostilius, the conqueror and destroyer of Alba, was, as I

said, himself and all his house consumed by lightning. Priscus Tarquinius

was slain by his predecessor’s sons. Servius Tullius was foully murdered

by his son-in-law Tarquinius Superbus, who succeeded him on the

throne. Nor did so flagrant a parricide committed against Rome’s best

king drive from their altars and shrines those gods who were said to

have been moved by Paris’ adultery to treat poor Troy in this style, and

abandon it to the fire and sword of the Greeks. Nay, the very Tarquin

who had murdered, was allowed to succeed his father-in-law. And this

infamous parricide, during the reign he had secured by murder, was

allowed to triumph in many victorious wars, and to build the Capitol

from their spoils ; the gods meanwhile not departing, but abiding, and

abetting, and suffering their king Jupiter to preside and reign over them

in that very splendid Capitol, the work of a parricide. For he did not

build the Capitol in the days of his innocence, and then suffer

banishment for subsequent crimes ; but to that reign during which he

built the Capitol, he won his way by unnatural crime. And when he was

afterwards banished by the Romans, and forbidden the city, it was not

for his own but his son’s wickedness in the affair of Lucretia—a crime

perpetrated not only without his cognizance, but in his absence. For at

that time he was besieging Ardea, and fighting Rome’s battles ; and we

cannot say what he would have done had he been aware of his son’s

crime. Notwithstanding, though his opinion was neither inquired into

nor ascertained, the people stripped him of royalty ; and when he

returned to Rome with his army, it was admitted, but he was excluded,

abandoned by his troops, and the gates shut in his face. And yet, after he

had appealed to the neighbouring states, and tormented the Romans

with calamitous but unsuccessful wars, and when he was deserted by the

ally on whom he most depended, despairing of regaining the kingdom,

he lived a retired and quiet life for fourteen years, as it is reported, in

Tusculum, a Roman town, where he grew old in his wife’s company, and

at last terminated his days in a much more desirable fashion than his

father-in-law, who had perished by the hand of his son-in-law ; his own

daughter abetting, if report be true. And this Tarquin the Romans called,

not the Cruel, nor the Infamous, but the Proud ; their own pride perhaps

resenting his tyrannical airs. So little did they make of his murdering

their best king, his own father-in-law, that they elected him their own

king. I wonder if it was not even more criminal in them to reward so

bountifully so great a criminal. And yet there was no word of the gods

abandoning the altars ; unless, perhaps, some one will say in defence of

the gods, that they remained at Rome for the purpose of punishing the

Romans, rather than of aiding and profiting them, seducing them by

empty victories, and wearing them out by severe wars. Such was the life

of the Romans under the kings during the much-praised epoch of the

state which extends to the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus in the 243d

year, during which all those victories, which were bought with so much

blood and such disasters, hardly pushed Rome’s dominion twenty miles

from the city ; a territory which would by no means bear comparison

with that of any petty Getulian state.

16. Of the first Roman consuls, the one of whom drove the other from the country, and shortly

after perished at Rome by the hand of a wounded enemy, and so ended a career of unnatural

murders

To this epoch let us add also that of which Sallust says, that it was

ordered with justice and moderation, while the fear of Tarquin and of a

war with Etruria was impending. For so long as the Etrurians aided the

efforts of Tarquin to regain the throne, Rome was convulsed with

distressing war. And therefore he says that the state was ordered with

justice and moderation, through the pressure of fear, not through the

influence of equity. And in this very brief period, how calamitous a year

was that in which consuls were first created, when the kingly power was

abolished! They did not fulfil their term of office. For Junius Brutus

deprived his colleague Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, and banished him

from the city ; and shortly after he himself fell in battle, at once slaying

and slain, having formerly put to death his own sons and his brothers-in-

law, because he had discovered that they were conspiring to restore

Tarquin. It is this deed that Virgil shudders to record, even while he

seems to praise it ; for when he says,

“And call his own rebellious seed

For menaced liberty to bleed,”

he immediately exclaims,

“Unhappy father! howsoe’er

The deed be judged by after days ; ”

that is to say, let posterity judge the deed as they please, let them praise

and extol the father who slew his sons, he is unhappy. And then he adds,

as if to console so unhappy a man :

“His country’s love shall all o’erbear,

And unextinguished thirst of praise.”3°

In the tragic end of Brutus, who slew his own sons, and though he slew

his enemy, Tarquin’s son, yet could not survive him, but was survived by

Tarquin the elder, does not the innocence of his colleague Collatinus

seem to be vindicated, who, though a good citizen, suffered the same

punishment as Tarquin himself, when that tyrant was banished? For

Brutus himself is said to have been a relative?! of Tarquin. But Collatinus

had the misfortune to bear not only the blood, but the name of Tarquin.

To change his name, then, not his country, would have been his fit

penalty: to abridge his name by this word, and be called simply L.

Collatinus. But he was not compelled to lose what he could lose without

detriment, but was stripped of the honour of the first consulship, and

was banished from the land he loved. Is this, then, the glory of Brutus—

this injustice, alike detestable and profitless to the republic? Was it to

this he was driven by “his country’s love, and unextinguished thirst of

praise?”

When Tarquin the tyrant was expelled, L. Tarquinius Collatinus, the

husband of Lucretia, was created consul along with Brutus. How justly

the people acted, in looking more to the character than the name of a

citizen! How unjustly Brutus acted, in depriving of honour and country

his colleague in that new office, whom he might have deprived of his

name, if it were so offensive to him! Such were the ills, such the

disasters, which fell out when the government was “ordered with justice

and moderation.” Lucretius, too, who succeeded Brutus, was carried off

by disease before the end of that same year. So P. Valerius, who

succeeded Collatinus, and M. Horatius, who filled the vacancy

occasioned by the death of Lucretius, completed that disastrous and

funereal year, which had five consuls. Such was the year in which the

Roman republic inaugurated the new honour and office of the

consulship.

17. Of the disasters which vexed the Roman republic after the inauguration of the consulship,

and of the non-intervention of the gods of Rome

After this, when their fears were gradually diminished—not because

the wars ceased, but because they were not so furious—that period in

which things were “ordered with justice and moderation” drew to an

end, and there followed that state of matters which Sallust thus briefly

sketches: “Then began the patricians to oppress the people as slaves, to

condemn them to death or scourging, as the kings had done, to drive

them from their holdings, and to tyrannize over those who had no

property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by these oppressive

measures, and most of all by usury, and obliged to contribute both

money and personal service to the constant wars, at length took arms

and seceded to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus secured for

themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the second

Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and strife.”32 But why

should I spend time in writing such things, or make others spend it in

reading them? Let the terse summary of Sallust suffice to intimate the

misery of the republic through all that long period till the second Punic

war—how it was distracted from without by unceasing wars, and torn

with civil broils and dissensions. So that those victories they boast were

not the substantial joys of the happy, but the empty comforts of

wretched men, and seductive incitements to turbulent men to concoct

disasters upon disasters. And let not the good and prudent Romans be

angry at our saying this ; and indeed we need neither deprecate nor

denounce their anger, for we know they will harbour none. For we speak

no more severely than their own authors, and much less elaborately and

strikingly ; yet they diligently read these authors, and compel their

children to learn them. But they who are angry, what would they do to

me were I to say what Sallust says? “Frequent mobs, seditions, and at

last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the

masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly

pretence of seeking the good of senate and people ; citizens were judged

good or bad, without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all

were equally corrupt) ; but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were

esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of

things.” Now, if those historians judged that an honourable freedom of

speech required that they should not be silent regarding the blemishes of

their own state, which they have in many places loudly applauded in

their ignorance of that other and true city in which citizenship is an

everlasting dignity ; what does it become us to do, whose liberty ought to

be so much greater, as our hope in God is better and more assured, when

they impute to our Christ the calamities of this age, in order that men of

the less instructed and weaker sort may be alienated from that city in

which alone eternal and blessed life can be enjoyed? Nor do we utter

against their gods anything more horrible than their own authors do,

whom they read and circulate. For, indeed, all that we have said we

have derived from them, and there is much more to say of a worse kind

which we are unable to say.

Where, then, were those gods who are supposed to be justly

worshipped for the slender and delusive prosperity of this world, when

the Romans, who were seduced to their service by lying wiles, were

harassed by such calamities? Where were they when Valerius the consul

was killed while defending the Capitol, that had been fired by exiles and

slaves? He was himself better able to defend the temple of Jupiter, than

that crowd of divinities with their most high and mighty king, whose

temple he came to the rescue of, were able to defend him. Where were

they when the city, worn out with unceasing seditions, was waiting in

some kind of calm for the return of the ambassadors who had been sent

to Athens to borrow laws, and was desolated by dreadful famine and

pestilence? Where were they when the people, again distressed with

famine, created for the first time a prefect of the market ; and when

Spurius Melius, who, as the famine increased, distributed corn to the

famishing masses, was accused of aspiring to royalty, and at the instance

of this same prefect, and on the authority of the superannuated dictator

L. Quintius, was put to death by Quintus Servilius, master of the horse—

an event which occasioned a serious and dangerous riot? Where were

they when that very severe pestilence visited Rome, on account of which

the people, after long and wearisome and useless supplications of the

helpless gods, conceived the idea of celebrating Lectisternia, which had

never been done before ; that is to say, they set couches in honour of the

gods, which accounts for the name of this sacred rite, or rather

sacrilege?33 Where were they when, during ten successive years of

reverses, the Roman army suffered frequent and great losses among the

Veians, and would have been destroyed but for the succour of Furius

Camillus, who was afterwards banished by an ungrateful country?

Where were they when the Gauls took, sacked, burned, and desolated

Rome? Where were they when that memorable pestilence wrought such

destruction, in which Furius Camillus too perished, who first defended

the ungrateful republic from the Veians, and afterwards saved it from

the Gauls? Nay, during this plague they introduced a new pestilence of

scenic entertainments, which spread its more fatal contagion, not to the

bodies, but the morals of the Romans? Where were they when another

frightful pestilence visited the city—I mean the poisonings imputed to an

incredible number of noble Roman matrons, whose characters were

infected with a disease more fatal than any plagne? Or when both

consuls at the head of the army were beset by the Samnites in the

Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty, 600 Roman

knights being kept as hostages ; while the troops, having laid down their

arms, and being stripped of everything, were made to pass under the

yoke with one garment each? Or when, in the midst of a serious

pestilence, lightning struck the Roman camp and killed many? Or when

Rome was driven, by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send

to Epidaurus for A‘sculapius as a god of medicine ; since the frequent

adulteries of Jupiter in his youth had not perhaps left this king of all

who so long reigned in the Capitol, any leisure for the study of

medicine? Or when, at one time, the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites,

Tuscans, and Senonian Gauls conspired against Rome, and first slew her

ambassadors, then overthrew an army under the pretor, putting to the

sword 13,000 men, besides the commander and seven tribunes? Or when

the people, after the serious and long-continued disturbances at Rome, at

last plundered the city and withdrew to Janiculus ; a danger so grave,

that Hortensius was created dictator—an office which they had recourse

to only in extreme emergencies ; and he, having brought back the people,

died while yet he retained his office—an event without precedent in the

case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those gods who had now

Aésculapius among them?

At that time, indeed, so many wars were everywhere engaged in, that

through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for military service the

proletarii, who received this name, because, being too poor to equip for

military service, they had leisure to beget offspring.3 + Pyrrhus, king of

Greece, and at that time of wide-spread renown, was invited by the

Tarentines to enlist himself against Rome. It was to him that Apollo,

when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered with some

pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that whichever alternative happened,

the god himself should be counted divine. For he so worded the oracle,35

that whether Pyrrhus was conquered by the Romans, or the Romans by

Pyrrhus, the soothsaying god would securely await the issue. And then

what frightful massacres of both armies ensued! Yet Pyrrhus remained

conqueror, and would have been able now to proclaim Apollo a true

diviner, as he understood the oracle, had not the Romans been the

conquerors in the next engagement. And while such disastrous wars

were being waged, a terrible disease broke out among the women. For

the pregnant women died before delivery. And A‘sculapius, I fancy,

excused himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be

arch-physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, similarly perished ; so that it

was believed that the whole race of animals was destined to become

extinct. Then what shall I say of that memorable winter in which the

weather was so incredibly severe, that in the Forum frightfully deep

snow lay for forty days together, and the Tiber was frozen? Had such

things happened in our time, what accusations we should have heard

from our enemies! And that other great pestilence, which raged so long

and carried off so many ; what shall I say of it? Spite of all the drugs of

Aésculapius, it only grew worse in its second year, till at last recourse

was had to the Sibylline books—a kind of oracle which, as Cicero says in

his De Divinatione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make

doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish. In this instance, the

cause of the plague was said to be that so many temples had been used

as private residences. And thus Aisculapius for the present escaped the

charge of either ignominious negligence or want of skill. But why were

so many allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference,

unless because supplication had long been addressed in vain to such a

crowd of gods, and so by degrees the sacred places were deserted of

worshippers, and being thus vacant, could without offence be put at

least to some human uses? And the temples, which were at that time

laboriously recognised and restored that the plague might be stayed, fell

afterwards into disuse, and were again devoted to the same human uses.

Had they not thus lapsed into obscurity, it could not have been pointed

to as proof of Varro’s great erudition, that in his work on sacred places

he cites so many that were unknown. Meanwhile, the restoration of the

temples procured no cure of the plague, but only a fine excuse for the

gods.

18. The disasters suffered by the Romans in the Punic wars, which were not mitigated by the

protection of the gods

In the Punic wars, again, when victory hung so long in the balance

between the two kingdoms, when two powerful nations were straining

every nerve and using all their resources against one another, how many

smaller kingdoms were crushed, how many large and flourishing cities

were demolished, how many states were overwhelmed and ruined, how

many districts and lands far and near were desolated! How often were

the victors on either side vanquished! What multitudes of men, both of

those actually in arms and of others, were destroyed! What huge navies,

too, were crippled in engagements, or were sunk by every kind of

marine disaster! Were we to attempt to recount or mention these

calamities, we should become writers of history. At that period Rome

was mightily perturbed, and resorted to vain and ludicrous expedients.

On the authority of the Sibylline books, the secular games were

reappointed, which had been inaugurated a century before, but had

faded into oblivion in happier times. The games consecrated to the

infernal gods were also renewed by the pontiffs ; for they, too, had sunk

into disuse in the better times. And no wonder ; for when they were

renewed, the great abundance of dying men made all hell rejoice at its

riches, and give itself up to sport: for certainly the ferocious wars, and

disastrous quarrels, and bloody victories—now on one side, and now on

the other—though most calamitous to men, afforded great sport and a

rich banquet to the devils. But in the first Punic war there was no more

disastrous event than the Roman defeat in which Regulus was taken. We

made mention of him in the two former books as an incontestably great

man, who had before conquered and subdued the Carthaginians, and

who would have put an end to the first Punic war, had not an inordinate

appetite for praise and glory prompted him to impose on the worn-out

Carthaginians harder conditions than they could bear. If the unlooked-

for captivity and unseemly bondage of this man, his fidelity to his oath,

and his surpassingly cruel death, do not bring a blush to the face of the

gods, it is true that they are brazen and bloodless.

Nor were there wanting at that time very heavy disasters within the

city itself. For the Tiber was extraordinarily flooded, and destroyed

almost all the lower parts of the city ; some buildings being carried away

by the violence of the torrent, while others were soaked to rottenness by

the water that stood round them even after the flood was gone. This

visitation was followed by a fire which was still more destructive, for it

consumed some of the loftier buildings round the Forum, and spared not

even its own proper temple, that of Vesta, in which virgins chosen for

this honour, or rather for this punishment, had been employed in

conferring, as it were, everlasting life on fire, by ceaselessly feeding it

with fresh fuel. But at the time we speak of, the fire in the temple was

not content with being kept alive: it raged. And when the virgins, scared

by its vehemence, were unable to save those fatal images which had

already brought destruction on three cities36 in which they had been

received, Metellus the priest, forgetful of his own safety, rushed in and

rescued the sacred things, though he was half roasted in doing so. For

either the fire did not recognise even him, or else the goddess of fire was

there—a goddess who would not have fled from the fire supposing she

had been there. But here you see how a man could be of greater service

to Vesta than she could be to him. Now if these gods could not avert the

fire from themselves, what help against flames or flood could they bring

to the state of which they were the reputed guardians? Facts have shown

that they were useless. These objections of ours would be idle if our

adversaries maintained that their idols are consecrated rather as symbols

of things eternal, than to secure the blessings of time ; and that thus,

though the symbols, like all material and visible things, might perish, no

damage thereby resulted to the things for the sake of which they had

been consecrated, while, as for the images themselves, they could be

renewed again for the same purposes they had formerly served. But with

lamentable blindness, they suppose that, through the intervention of

perishable gods, the earthly well-being and temporal prosperity of the

state can be preserved from perishing. And so, when they are reminded

that even when the gods remained among them this well-being and

prosperity were blighted, they blush to change the opinion they are

unable to defend.

19. Of the calamity of the second Punic war, which consumed the strength of both parties

As to the second Punic war, it were tedious to recount the disasters it

brought on both the nations engaged in so protracted and shifting a war,

that (by the acknowledgment even of those writers who have made it

their object not so much to narrate the wars as to eulogize the dominion

of Rome) the people who remained victorious were less like conquerors

than conquered. For, when Hannibal poured out of Spain over the

Pyrenees, and overran Gaul, and burst through the Alps, and during his

whole course gathered strength by plundering and subduing as he went,

and inundated Italy like a torrent, how bloody were the wars, and how

continuous the engagements, that were fought! How often were the

Romans vanquished! How many towns went over to the enemy, and how

many were taken and subdued! What fearful battles there were, and how

often did the defeat of the Romans shed lustre on the arms of Hannibal!

And what shall I say of the wonderfully crushing defeat at Cannz, where

even Hannibal, cruel as he was, was yet sated with the blood of his

bitterest enemies, and gave orders that they be spared? From this field of

battle he sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings, signifying that so

much of the rank of Rome had that day fallen, that it was easier to give

an idea of it by measure than by numbers ; and that the frightful

slaughter of the common rank and file whose bodies lay undistinguished

by the ring, and who were numerous in proportion to their meanness,

was rather to be conjectured than accurately reported. In fact, such was

the scarcity of soldiers after this, that the Romans impressed their

criminals on the promise of impunity, and their slaves by the bribe of

liberty, and out of these infamous classes did not so much recruit as

create an army. But these slaves, or, to give them all their titles, these

freedmen who were enlisted to do battle for the republic of Rome,

lacked arms. And so they took arms from the temples, as if the Romans

were saying to their gods: Lay down those arms you have held so long in

vain, if by chance our slaves may be able to use to purpose what you,

our gods, have been impotent to use. At that time, too, the public

treasury was too low to pay the soldiers, and private resources were used

for public purposes ; and so generously did individuals contribute of their

property, that, saving the gold ring and bulla which each wore, the

pitiful mark of his rank, no senator, and much less any of the other

orders and tribes, reserved any gold for his own use. But if in our day

they were reduced to this poverty, who would be able to endure their

reproaches, barely endurable as they are now, when more money is

spent on actors for the sake of a superfluous gratification, than was then

disbursed to the legions?

20. Of the destruction of the Saguntines, who received no help from the Roman gods, though

perishing on account of their fidelity to Rome

But among all the disasters of the second Punic war, there occurred

none more lamentable, or calculated to excite deeper complaint, than

the fate of the Saguntines. This city of Spain, eminently friendly to

Rome, was destroyed by its fidelity to the Roman people. For when

Hannibal had broken treaty with the Romans, he sought occasion for

provoking them to war, and accordingly made a fierce assault upon

Saguntum. When this was reported at Rome, ambassadors were sent to

Hannibal, urging him to raise the siege ; and when this remonstrance was

neglected, they proceeded to Carthage, lodged complaint against the

breaking of the treaty, and returned to Rome without accomplishing

their object. Meanwhile the siege went on ; and in the eighth or ninth

month, this opulent but ill-fated city, dear as it was to its own state and

to Rome, was taken, and subjected to treatment which one cannot read

much less narrate, without horror. And yet, because it bears directly on

the matter in hand, I will briefly touch upon it. First, then, famine

wasted the Saguntines, so that even human corpses were eaten by some:

so at least it is recorded. Subsequently, when thoroughly worn out, that

they might at least escape the ignominy of falling into the hands of

Hannibal, they publicly erected a huge funeral pile, and cast themselves

into its flames, while at the same time they slew their children and

themselves with the sword. Could these gods, these debauchees and

gourmands, whose mouths water for fat sacrifices, and whose lips utter

lying divinations—could they not do anything in a case like this? Could

they not interfere for the preservation of a city closely allied to the

Roman people, or prevent it perishing for its fidelity to that alliance of

which they themselves had been the mediators? Saguntum, faithfully

keeping the treaty it had entered into before these gods, and to which it

had firmly bound itself by an oath, was besieged, taken, and destroyed

by a perjured person. If afterwards, when Hannibal was close to the

walls of Rome, it was the gods who terrified him with lightning and

tempest, and drove him to a distance, why, I ask, did they not thus

interfere before? For I make bold to say, that this demonstration with

the tempest would have been more honourably made in defence of the

allies of Rome—who were in danger on account of their reluctance to

break faith with the Romans, and had no resources of their own—than in

defence of the Romans themselves, who were fighting in their own

cause, and had abundant resources to oppose Hannibal. If, then, they

had been the guardians of Roman prosperity and glory, they would have

preserved that glory from the stain of this Saguntine disaster ; and how

silly it is to believe that Rome was preserved from destruction at the

hands of Hannibal by the guardian care of those gods who were unable

to rescue the city of Saguntum from perishing through its fidelity to the

alliance of Rome. If the population of Saguntum had been Christian, and

had suffered as it did for the Christian faith (though, of course,

Christians would not have used fire and sword against their own

persons), they would have suffered with that hope which springs from

faith in Christ—the hope not of a brief temporal reward, but of unending

and eternal bliss. What, then, will the advocates and apologists of these

gods say in their defence, when charged with the blood of these

Saguntines ; for they are professedly worshipped and invoked for this

very purpose of securing prosperity in this fleeting and transitory life?

Can anything be said but what was alleged in the case of Regulus’ death?

For though there is a difference between the two cases, the one being an

individual, the other a whole community, yet the cause of destruction

was in both cases the keeping of their plighted troth. For it was this

which made Regulus willing to return to his enemies, and this which

made the Saguntines unwilling to revolt to their enemies. Does, then, the

keeping of faith provoke the gods to anger? Or is it possible that not

only individuals, but even entire communities, perish while the gods are

propitious to them? Let our adversaries choose which alternative they

will. If, on the one hand, those gods are enraged at the keeping of faith,

let them enlist perjured persons as their worshippers. If, on the other

hand, men and states can suffer great and terrible calamities, and at last

perish while favoured by the gods, then does their worship not produce

happiness as its fruit. Let those, therefore, who suppose that they have

fallen into distress because their religious worship has been abolished,

lay aside their anger ; for it were quite possible that did the gods not only

remain with them, but regard them with favour, they might yet be left to

mourn an unhappy lot, or might, even like Regulus and the Saguntines,

be horribly tormented, and at last perish miserably.

21. Of the ingratitude of Rome to Scipio, its deliverer, and of its manners during the period

which Sallust describes as the best

Omitting many things, that I may not exceed the limits of the work I

have proposed to myself, I come to the epoch between the second and

last Punic wars, during which, according to Sallust, the Romans lived

with the greatest virtue and concord. Now, in this period of virtue and

harmony, the great Scipio, the liberator of Rome and Italy, who had with

surprising ability brought to a close the second Punic war—that horrible,

destructive, dangerous contest—who had defeated Hannibal and

subdued Carthage, and whose whole life is said to have been dedicated

to the gods, and cherished in their temples—this Scipio, after such a

triumph, was obliged to yield to the accusations of his enemies, and to

leave his country, which his valour had saved and liberated, to spend the

remainder of his days in the town of Liternum, so indifferent to a recall

from exile, that he is said to have given orders that not even his remains

should lie in his ungrateful country. It was at that time also that the

proconsul Cn. Manlius, after subduing the Galatians, introduced into

Rome the luxury of Asia, more destructive than all hostile armies. It was

then that iron bedsteads and expensive carpets were first used ; then, too,

that female singers were admitted at banquets, and other licentious

abominations were introduced. But at present I meant to speak, not of

the evils men voluntarily practise, but of those they suffer in spite of

themselves. So that the case of Scipio, who succumbed to his enemies,

and died in exile from the country he had rescued, was mentioned by me

as being pertinent to the present discussion ; for this was the reward he

received from those Roman gods whose temples he saved from Hannibal,

and who are worshipped only for the sake of securing temporal

happiness. But since Sallust, as we have seen, declares that the manners

of Rome were never better than at that time, I therefore judged it right

to mention the Asiatic luxury then introduced, that it might be seen that

what he says is true, only when that period is compared with the others,

during which the morals were certainly worse, and the factions more

violent. For at that time—I mean between the second and third Punic

war—that notorious Lex Voconia was passed, which prohibited a man

from making a woman, even an only daughter, his heir ; than which law I

am at a loss to conceive what could be more unjust. It is true that in the

interval between these two Punic wars the misery of Rome was

somewhat less. Abroad, indeed, their forces were consumed by wars, yet

also consoled by victories ; while at home there were not such

disturbances as at other times. But when the last Punic war had

terminated in the utter destruction of Rome’s rival, which quickly

succumbed to the other Scipio, who thus earned for himself the surname

of Africanus, then the Roman republic was overwhelmed with such a

host of ills, which sprang from the corrupt manners induced by

prosperity and security, that the sudden overthrow of Carthage is seen to

have injured Rome more seriously than her long-continued hostility.

During the whole subsequent period down to the time of Cesar

Augustus, who seems to have entirely deprived the Romans of liberty—a

liberty, indeed, which in their own judgment was no longer glorious, but

full of broils and dangers, and which now was quite enervated and

languishing—and who submitted all things again to the will of a

monarch, and infused as it were a new life into the sickly old age of the

republic, and inaugurated a fresh régime ; —during this whole period, I

say, many military disasters were sustained on a variety of occasions, all

of which I here pass by. There was specially the treaty of Numantia,

blotted as it was with extreme disgrace ; for the sacred chickens, they

say, flew out of the coop, and thus augured disaster to Mancinus the

consul ; just as if, during all these years in which that little city of

Numantia had withstood the besieging army of Rome, and had become a

terror to the republic, the other generals had all marched against it

under unfavourable auspices.

22. Of the edict of Mithridates, commanding that all Roman citizens found in Asia should be

slain

These things, I say, I pass in silence ; but I can by no means be silent

regarding the order given by Mithridates, king of Asia, that on one day

all Roman citizens residing anywhere in Asia (where great numbers of

them were following their private business) should be put to death: and

this order was executed. How miserable a spectacle was then presented,

when each man was suddenly and treacherously murdered wherever he

happened to be, in the field or on the road, in the town, in his own

home, or in the street, in market or temple, in bed or at table! Think of

the groans of the dying, the tears of the spectators, and even of the

executioners themselves. For how cruel a necessity was it that compelled

the hosts of these victims, not only to see these abominable butcheries in

their own houses, but even to perpetrate them: to change their

countenance suddenly from the bland kindliness of friendship, and in the

midst of peace set about the business of war ; and, shall I say, give and

receive wounds, the slain being pierced in body, the slayer in spirit! Had

all these murdered persons, then, despised auguries? Had they neither

public nor household gods to consult when they left their homes and set

out on that fatal journey? If they had not, our adversaries have no

reason to complain of these Christian times in this particular, since long

ago the Romans despised auguries as idle. If, on the other hand, they did

consult omens, let them tell us what good they got thereby, even when

such things were not prohibited, but authorized, by human, if not by

divine law.

23. Of the internal disasters which vexed the Roman republic, and followed a portentous

madness which seized all the domestic animals

But let us now mention, as succinctly as possible, those disasters

which were still more vexing, because nearer home ; I mean those

discords which are erroneously called civil, since they destroy civil

interests. The seditions had now become urban wars, in which blood was

freely shed, and in which parties raged against one another, not with

wrangling and verbal contention, but with physical force and arms.

What a sea of Roman blood was shed, what desolations and devastations

were occasioned in Italy by wars social, wars servile, wars civil! Before

the Latins began the social war against Rome, all the animals used in the

service of man—dogs, horses, asses, oxen, and all the rest that are

subject to man—suddenly grew wild, and forgot their domesticated

tameness, forsook their stalls and wandered at large, and could not be

closely approached either by strangers or their own masters without

danger. If this was a portent, how serious a calamity must have been

portended by a plague which, whether portent or no, was in itself a

serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the heathen would have

been more rabid against us than their animals were against them.

24. Of the civil dissension occasioned by the sedition of the Gracchi

The civil wars originated in the seditions which the Gracchi excited

regarding the agrarian laws ; for they were minded to divide among the

people the lands which were wrongfully possessed by the nobility. But to

reform an abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full of peril, or

rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what disasters

accompanied the death of the elder Gracchus! what slaughter ensued

when, shortly after, the younger brother met the same fate! For noble

and ignoble were indiscriminately massacred ; and this not by legal

authority and procedure, but by mobs and armed rioters. After the death

of the younger Gracchus, the consul Lucius Opimius, who had given

battle to him within the city, and had defeated and put to the sword

both himself and his confederates, and had massacred many of the

citizens, instituted a judicial examination of others, and is reported to

have put to death as many as 3000 men. From this it may be gathered

how many fell in the riotous encounters, when the result even of a

judicial investigation was so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus himself

sold his head to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the previous

agreement. In this massacre, too, Marcus Fulvius, a man of consular

rank, with all his children, was put to death.

25. Of the temple of Concord, which was erected by a decree of the senate on the scene of these

seditions and massacres

A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by which the temple of

Concord was built on the spot where that disastrous rising had taken

place, and where so many citizens of every rank had fallen.37 I suppose

it was that the monument of the Gracchi’s punishment might strike the

eye and affect the memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to

deride the gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she been

in the city, would not have suffered herself to be torn by such

dissensions? Or was it that Concord was chargeable with that bloodshed

because she had deserted the minds of the citizens, and was therefore

incarcerated in that temple? For if they had any regard to consistency,

why did they not rather erect on that site a temple of Discord? Or is

there a reason for Concord being a goddess while Discord is none? Does

the distinction of Labeo hold here, who would have made the one a

good, the other an evil deity?—a distinction which seems to have been

suggested to him by the mere fact of his observing at Rome a temple to

Fever as well as one to Health. But, on the same ground, Discord as well

as Concord ought to be deified. A hazardous venture the Romans made

in provoking so wicked a goddess, and in forgetting that the destruction

of Troy had been occasioned by her taking offence. For, being indignant

that she was not invited with the other gods [to the nuptials of Peleus

and Thetis], she created dissension among the three goddesses by

sending in the golden apple, which occasioned strife in heaven, victory

to Venus, the rape of Helen, and the destruction of Troy. Wherefore, if

she was perhaps offended that the Romans had not thought her worthy

of a temple among the other gods in their city, and therefore disturbed

the state with such tumults, to how much fiercer passion would she be

roused when she saw the temple of her adversary erected on the scene of

that massacre, or, in other words, on the scene of her own handiwork!

Those wise and learned men are enraged at our laughing at these follies ;

and yet, being worshippers of good and bad divinities alike, they cannot

escape this dilemma about Concord and Discord: either they have

neglected the worship of these goddesses, and preferred Fever and War,

to whom there are shrines erected of great antiquity, or they have

worshipped them, and after all Concord has abandoned them, and

Discord has tempestuously hurled them into civil wars.

26. Of the various kinds of wars which followed the building of the temple of Concord

But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord within the

view of the orators, as a memorial of the punishment and death of the

Gracchi, they were raising an effectual obstacle to sedition. How much

effect it had, is indicated by the still more deplorable wars that followed.

For after this the orators endeavoured not to avoid the example of the

Gracchi, but to surpass their projects ; as did Lucius Saturninus, a tribune

of the people, and Caius Servilius the prætor, and some time after

Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred seditions which first of all

occasioned bloodshed, and then the social wars by which Italy was

grievously injured, and reduced to a piteously desolate and wasted

condition. Then followed the servile war and the civil wars ; and in them

what battles were fought, and what blood was shed, so that almost all

the peoples of Italy, which formed the main strength of the Roman

empire, were conquered as if they were barbarians! Then even historians

themselves find it difficult to explain how the servile war was begun by

a very few, certainly less than seventy gladiators, what numbers of fierce

and cruel men attached themselves to these, how many of the Roman

generals this band defeated, and how it laid waste many districts and

cities. And that was not the only servile war: the province of Macedonia,

and subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also depopulated by

bands of slaves. And who can adequately describe either the horrible

atrocities which the pirates first committed, or the wars they afterwards

maintained against Rome?

27. Of the civil war between Marius and Sylla

But when Marius, stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens, whom

the rage of party had sacrificed, was in his turn vanquished and driven

from the city, it had scarcely time to breathe freely, when, to use the

words of Cicero, “Cinna and Marius together returned and took

possession of it. Then, indeed, the foremost men in the state were put to

death, its lights quenched. Sylla afterwards avenged this cruel victory ;

but we need not say with what loss of life, and with what ruin to the

republic.”38 For of this vengeance, which was more destructive than if

the crimes which it punished had been committed with impunity, Lucan

says: “The cure was excessive, and too closely resembled the disease.

The guilty perished, but when none but the guilty survived: and then

private hatred and anger, unbridled by law, were allowed free

indulgence.”39 In that war between Marius and Sylla, besides those who

fell in the field of battle, the city, too, was filled with corpses in its

streets, squares, markets, theatres, and temples ; so that it is not easy to

reckon whether the victors slew more before or after victory, that they

might be, or because they were, victors. As soon as Marius triumphed,

and returned from exile, besides the butcheries everywhere perpetrated,

the head of the consul Octavius was exposed on the rostrum ; Cæsar and

Fimbria were assassinated in their own houses ; the two Crassi, father

and son, were murdered in one another’s sight ; Bebius and Numitorius

were disembowelled by being dragged with hooks ; Catulus escaped the

hands of his enemies by drinking poison ; Merula, the flamen of Jupiter,

cut his veins and made a libation of his own blood to his god. Moreover,

every one whose salutation Marius did not answer by giving his hand,

was at once cut down before his face.

28. Of the victory of Sylla, the avenger of the cruelties of Marius

Then followed the victory of Sylla, the so-called avenger of the

cruelties of Marius. But not only was his victory purchased with great

bloodshed ; but when hostilities were finished, hostility survived, and the

subsequent peace was bloody as the war. To the former and still recent

massacres of the elder Marius, the younger Marius and Carbo, who

belonged to the same party, added greater atrocities. For when Sylla

approached, and they despaired not only of victory, but of life itself,

they made a promiscuous massacre of friends and foes. And, not satisfied

with staining every corner of Rome with blood they besieged the senate,

and led forth the senators to death from the curia as from a prison.

Mucius Scevola the pontiff was slain at the altar of Vesta, which he had

clung to because no spot in Rome was more sacred than her temple ; and

his blood well-nigh extinguished the fire which was kept alive by the

constant care of the virgins. Then Sylla entered the city victorious, after

having slaughtered in the Villa Publica, not by combat, but by an order,

7000 men who had surrendered, and were therefore unarmed ; so fierce

was the rage of peace itself, even after the rage of war was extinct.

Moreover, throughout the whole city every partisan of Sylla slew whom

he pleased, so that the number of deaths went beyond computation, till

it was suggested to Sylla that he should allow some to survive, that the

victors might not be destitute of subjects. Then this furious and

promiscuous licence to murder was checked, and much relief was

expressed at the publication of the proscription list, containing though it

did the death-warrant of two thousand men of the highest ranks, the

senatorial and equestrian. The large number was indeed saddening, but

it was consolatory that a limit was fixed ; nor was the grief at the

numbers slain so great as the joy that the rest were secure. But this very

security, hard-hearted as it was, could not but bemoan the exquisite

torture applied to some of those who had been doomed to die. For one

was torn to pieces by the unarmed hands of the executioners ; men

treating a living man more savagely than wild beasts are used to tear an

abandoned corpse. Another had his eyes dug out, and his limbs cut away

bit by bit, and was forced to live a long while, or rather to die a long

while, in such torture. Some celebrated cities were put up to auction,

like farms ; and one was collectively condemned to slaughter, just as an

individual criminal would be condemned to death. These things were

done in peace when the war was over, not that victory might be more

speedily obtained, but that, after being obtained, it might not be thought

lightly of. Peace vied with war in cruelty, and surpassed it: for while war

overthrew armed hosts, peace slew the defenceless. War gave liberty to

him who was attacked, to strike if he could ; peace granted to the

survivors not life, but an unresisting death.

29. A comparison of the disasters which Rome experienced during the Gothic and Gallic

invasions, with those occasioned by the authors of the civil wars

What fury of foreign nations, what barbarian ferocity, can compare

with this victory of citizens over citizens? Which was more disastrous,

more hideous, more bitter to Rome: the recent Gothic and the old Gallic

invasion, or the cruelty displayed by Marius and Sylla and their partisans

against men who were members of the same body as themselves? The

Gauls, indeed, massacred all the senators they found in any part of the

city except the Capitol, which alone was defended ; but they at least sold

life to those who were in the Capitol, though they might have starved

them out if they could not have stormed it. The Goths, again, spared so

many senators, that it is the more surprising that they killed any. But

Sylla, while Marius was still living, established himself as conqueror in

the Capitol, which the Gauls had not violated, and thence issued his

death-warrants ; and when Marius had escaped by flight, though destined

to return more fierce and bloodthirsty than ever, Sylla issued from the

Capitol even decrees of the senate for the slaughter and confiscation of

the property of many citizens. Then, when Sylla left, what did the

Marian faction hold sacred or spare, when they gave no quarter even to

Mucius, a citizen, a senator, a pontiff, and though clasping in piteous

embrace the very altar in which, they say, reside the destinies of Rome?

And that final proscription list of Sylla’s, not to mention countless other

massacres, despatched more senators than the Goths could even plunder.

30. Of the connection of the wars which with great severity and frequency followed one another

before the advent of Christ

With what effrontery, then, with what assurance, with what

impudence, with what folly, or rather insanity, do they refuse to impute

these disasters to their own gods, and impute the present to our Christ!

These bloody civil wars, more distressing, by the avowal of their own

historians, than any foreign wars, and which were pronounced to be not

merely calamitous, but absolutely ruinous to the republic, began long

before the coming of Christ, and gave birth to one another ; so that a

concatenation of unjustifiable causes led from the wars of Marius and

Sylla to those of Sertorius and Catiline, of whom the one was proscribed,

the other brought up by Sylla ; from this to the war of Lepidus and

Catulus, of whom the one wished to rescind, the other to defend the acts

of Sylla ; from this to the war of Pompey and Cæsar, of whom Pompey

had been a partisan of Sylla, whose power he equalled or even

surpassed, while Cæsar condemned Pompey’s power because it was not

his own, and yet exceeded it when Pompey was defeated and slain. From

him the chain of civil wars extended to the second Cæsar, afterwards

called Augustus, and in whose reign Christ was born. For even Augustus

himself waged many civil wars ; and in these wars many of the foremost

men perished, among them that skilful manipulator of the republic,

Cicero. Caius [Julius] Cæsar, when he had conquered Pompey, though

he used his victory with clemency, and granted to men of the opposite

faction both life and honours, was suspected of aiming at royalty, and

was assassinated in the curia by a party of noble senators, who had

conspired to defend the liberty of the republic. His power was then

coveted by Antony, a man of very different character, polluted and

debased by every kind of vice, who was strenuously resisted by Cicero

on the same plea of defending the liberty of the republic. At this juncture

that other Cæsar, the adopted son of Caius, and afterwards, as I said,

known by the name of Augustus, had made his début as a young man of

remarkable genius. This youthful Cæsar was favoured by Cicero, in order

that his influence might counteract that of Antony ; for he hoped that

Cæsar would overthrow and blast the power of Antony, and establish a

free state—so blind and unaware of the future was he: for that very

young man, whose advancement and influence he was fostering, allowed

Cicero to be killed as the seal of an alliance with Antony, and subjected

to his own rule the very liberty of the republic in defence of which he

had made so many orations.

31. That it is effrontery to impute the present troubles to Christ and the prohibition of polytheistic

worship, since even when the gods were worshipped such calamities befell the people

Let those who have no gratitude to Christ for His great benefits, blame

their own gods for these heavy disasters. For certainly when these

occurred the altars of the gods were kept blazing, and there rose the

mingled fragrance of “Sabaean incense and fresh garlands ; ”4° the priests

were clothed with honour, the shrines were maintained in splendour ;

sacrifices, games, sacred ecstasies, were common in the temples ; while

the blood of the citizens was being so freely shed, not only in remote

places, but among the very altars of the gods. Cicero did not choose to

seek sanctuary in a temple, because Mucius had sought it there in vain.

But they who most unpardonably calumniate this Christian era, are the

very men who either themselves fled for asylum to the places specially

dedicated to Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they might

be safe. In short, not to recapitulate the many instances I have cited, and

not to add to their number others which it were tedious to enumerate,

this one thing I am persuaded of, and this every impartial judgment will

readily acknowledge, that if the human race had received Christianity

before the Punic wars, and if the same desolating calamities which these

wars brought upon Europe and Africa had followed the introduction of

Christianity, there is no one of those who now accuse us who would not

have attributed them to our religion. How intolerable would their

accusations have been, at least so far as the Romans are concerned, if the

Christian religion had been received and diffused prior to the invasion of

the Gauls, or to the ruinous floods and fires which desolated Rome, or to

those most calamitous of all events, the civil wars! And those other

disasters, which were of so strange a nature that they were reckoned

prodigies, had they happened since the Christian era, to whom but to the

Christians would they have imputed these as crimes? I do not speak of

those things which were rather surprising than hurtful—oxen speaking,

unborn infants articulating some words in their mothers’ wombs,

serpents flying, hens and women being changed into the other sex ; and

other similar prodigies which, whether true or false, are recorded not in

their imaginative, but in their historical works, and which do not injure,

but only astonish men. But when it rained earth, when it rained chalk,

when it rained stones—not hailstones, but real stones—this certainly was

calculated to do serious damage. We have read in their books that the

fires of Etna, pouring down from the top of the mountain to the

neighbouring shore, caused the sea to boil, so that rocks were burnt up,

and the pitch of ships began to run—a phenomenon incredibly

surprising, but at the same time no less hurtful. By the same violent

heat, they relate that on another occasion Sicily was filled with cinders,

so that the houses of the city Catina were destroyed and buried under

them—a calamity which moved the Romans to pity them, and remit

their tribute for that year. One may also read that Africa, which had by

that time become a province of Rome, was visited by a prodigious

multitude of locusts, which, after consuming the fruit and foliage of the

trees, were driven into the sea in one vast and measureless cloud ; so that

when they were drowned and cast upon the shore the air was polluted,

and so serious a pestilence produced that in the kingdom of Masinissa

alone they say there perished 800,000 persons, besides a much greater

number in the neighbouring districts. At Utica they assure us that, of

30,000 soldiers then garrisoning it, there survived only ten. Yet which of

these disasters, suppose they happened now, would not be attributed to

the Christian religion by those who thus thoughtlessly accuse us, and

whom we are compelled to answer? And yet to their own gods they

attribute none of these things, though they worship them for the sake of

escaping lesser calamities of the same kind, and do not reflect that they

who formerly worshipped them were not preserved from these serious

disasters.

1 Compare Aug. Epist. ad Deogratias, 102, 13 ; and De Præd, Sanct. 19.

2 Ch. iv.

3 Virg. Georg. i. 502, ‘Laomedonteæ luimus perjuria Trojæ.

4 Tliad, xx. 293 et seqq.

° Aineid, v. 810, 811.

6 Gratis et ingratis.

7 De Conj. Cat. vi.

8 Helen’s husband.

2 Venus’ husband.

10 Suetonius, in his Life of Julius Cesar (c. 6), relates that, in pronouncing a funeral oration in

praise of his aunt Julia, Cesar claimed for the Julian gens to which his family belonged a descent

from Venus, through Iulus, son of Æneas.

11 Livy, 83, one of the lost books ; and Appian, in Mithridat.

12 The gates of Janus were not the gates of a temple, but the gates of a passage called Janus,

which was used only for military purposes ; shut therefore in peace, open in war.

13 The year of the Consuls T. Manlius and C. Atilius, A.U.C. 519.

14 Sall. Conj. Cat. ii.

15 Æneid, viii. 326-7.

16 Sall. Cat. Conj. vi.

17 Æneid, xi. 532.

18 bid. x. 464.

19 Livy, x. 47

20 Being son of Apollo.

21 Virgil, Ain. i. 286.

22 Pharsal. v. 1.

23 Aineid, x. 821, of Lausus:

“But when Anchises’ son surveyed

The fair, fair face so ghastly made,

He groaned, by tenderness unmanned,

And stretched the sympathizing hand,” etc.

24 Virgil, Aineid, vi. 813.

25 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ii.

26 Ps, x. 3.

27 Aineid, ii. 351-2.

28 Cicero, De Rep. ii. 10.

29 Contra Cat. iii. 2.

30 Æneid, vi. 820, etc.

31 His nephew.

32 Hist. i.

33 Lectisternia, from lectus, a couch, and sterno, I spread.

34 Proletarius, from proles, offspring.

35 The oracle ran: “Dico te, Pyrrhe, vincere posse Romanos.”

36 Troy, Lavinia, Alba.

37 Under the inscription on the temple some person wrote the line, “Vecordiz opus «dem facit

Concordie”—The work of discord makes the temple of Concord.

38 Cicero, in Catilin. iii. sub. fin.

39 Lucan, Pharsal. ii. 142-146.

40 Virgil, Aineid, i. 417.

BOOK FOURTH!

ARGUMENT

IN THIS BOOK IT IS PROVED THAT THE EXTENT AND LONG DURATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IS TO BE

ASCRIBED, NOT TO JOVE OR THE GODS OF THE HEATHEN, TO WHOM INDIVIDUALLY SCARCE EVEN SINGLE

THINGS AND THE VERY BASEST FUNCTIONS WERE BELIEVED TO BE ENTRUSTED, BUT TO THE ONE TRUE

GOD, THE AUTHOR OF FELICITY, BY WHOSE POWER AND JUDGMENT EARTHLY KINGDOMS ARE FOUNDED

AND MAINTAINED.

1. Of the things which have been discussed in the first book

H aving begun to speak of the city of God, I have thought it necessary

first of all to reply to its enemies, who, eagerly pursuing earthly

joys, and gaping after transitory things, throw the blame of all the

sorrow they suffer in them—rather through the compassion of God in

admonishing, than His severity in punishing—on the Christian religion,

which is the one salutary and true religion. And since there is among

them also an unlearned rabble, they are stirred up as by the authority of

the learned to hate us more bitterly, thinking in their inexperience that

things which have happened unwontedly in their days were not wont to

happen in other times gone by ; and whereas this opinion of theirs is

confirmed even by those who know that it is false, and yet dissemble

their knowledge in order that they may seem to have just cause for

murmuring against us, it was necessary, from books in which their

authors recorded and published the history of bygone times that it might

be known, to demonstrate that it is far otherwise than they think ; and at

the same time to teach that the false gods, whom they openly

worshipped, or still worship in secret, are most unclean spirits, and most

malignant and deceitful demons, even to such a pitch that they take

delight in crimes which, whether real or only fictitious, are yet their

own, which it has been their will to have celebrated in honour of them

at their own festivals ; so that human infirmity cannot be called back

from the perpetration of damnable deeds, so long as authority is

furnished for imitating them that seems even divine. These things we

have proved, not from our own conjectures, but partly from recent

memory, because we ourselves have seen such things celebrated, and to

such deities, partly from the writings of those who have left these things

on record to posterity, not as if in reproach, but as in honour of their

own gods. Thus Varro, a most learned man among them, and of the

weightiest authority, when he made separate books concerning things

human and things divine, distributing some among the human, others

among the divine, according to the special dignity of each, placed the

scenic plays not at all among things human, but among things divine ;

though, certainly, if only there were good and honest men in the state,

the scenic plays ought not to be allowed even among things human. And

this he did not on his own authority, but because, being born and

educated at Rome, he found them among the divine things. Now as we

briefly stated in the end of the first book what we intended afterwards to

discuss, and as we have disposed of a part of this in the next two books,

we see what our readers will expect us now to take up.

2. Of those things which are contained in Books Second and Third

We had promised, then, that we would say something against those

who attribute the calamities of the Roman republic to our religion, and

that we would recount the evils, as many and great as we could

remember or might deem sufficient, which that city, or the provinces

belonging to its empire, had suffered before their sacrifices were

prohibited, all of which would beyond doubt have been attributed to us,

if our religion had either already shone on them, or had thus prohibited

their sacrilegious rites. These things we have, as we think, fully disposed

of in the second and third books, treating in the second of evils in

morals, which alone or chiefly are to be accounted evils ; and in the

third, of those which only fools dread to undergo—namely, those of the

body or of outward things—which for the most part the good also suffer.

But those evils by which they themselves become evil, they take, I do

not say patiently, but with pleasure. And how few evils have I related

concerning that one city and its empire! Not even all down to the time of

Cesar Augustus. What if I had chosen to recount and enlarge on those

evils, not which men have inflicted on each other, such as the

devastations and destructions of war, but which happen in earthly

things, from the elements of the world itself? Of such evils Apuleius

speaks briefly in one passage of that book which he wrote, De Mundo,

saying that all earthly things are subject to change, overthrow, and

destruction.2 For, to use his own words, by excessive earthquakes the

ground has burst asunder, and cities with their inhabitants have been

clean destroyed: by sudden rains whole regions have been washed away ;

those also which formerly had been continents, have been insulated by

strange and new-come waves, and others, by the subsiding of the sea,

have been made passable by the foot of man: by winds and storms cities

have been overthrown ; fires have flashed forth from the clouds, by

which regions in the East being burnt up have perished ; and on the

western coasts the like destructions have been caused by the bursting

forth of waters and floods. So, formerly, from the lofty craters of Etna,

rivers of fire kindled by God have flowed like a torrent down the steeps.

If I had wished to collect from history wherever I could, these and

similar instances, where should I have finished what happened even in

those times before the name of Christ had put down those of their idols,

so vain and hurtful to true salvation? I promised that I should also point

out which of their customs, and for what cause, the true God, in whose

power all kingdoms are, had deigned to favour to the enlargement of

their empire ; and how those whom they think gods can have profited

them nothing, but much rather hurt them by deceiving and beguiling

them ; so that it seems to me I must now speak of these things, and

chiefly of the increase of the Roman empire. For I have already said not

a little, especially in the second book, about the many evils introduced

into their manners by the hurtful deceits of the demons whom they

worshipped as gods. But throughout all the three books already

completed, where it appeared suitable, we have set forth how much

succour God, through the name of Christ, to whom the barbarians

beyond the custom of war paid so much honour, has bestowed on the

good and bad, according as it is written, “Who maketh His sun to rise on

the good and the evil, and giveth rain to the just and the unjust.”

3. Whether the great extent of the empire, which has been acquired only by wars, is to be

reckoned among the good things either of the wise or the happy

Now, therefore, let us see how it is that they dare to ascribe the very

great extent and duration of the Roman empire to those gods whom they

contend that they worship honourably, even by the obsequies of vile

games and the ministry of vile men: although I should like first to

inquire for a little what reason, what prudence, there is in wishing to

glory in the greatness and extent of the empire, when you cannot point

out the happiness of men who are always rolling, with dark fear and

cruel lust, in warlike slaughters and in blood, which, whether shed in

civil or foreign war, is still human blood ; so that their joy may be

compared to glass in its fragile splendour, of which one is horribly afraid

lest it should be suddenly broken in pieces. That this may be more easily

discerned, let us not come to nought by being carried away with empty

boasting, or blunt the edge of our attention by loud-sounding names of

things, when we hear of peoples, kingdoms, provinces. But let us

suppose a case of two men ; for each individual man, like one letter in a

language, is as it were the element of a city or kingdom, however far-

spreading in its occupation of the earth. Of these two men let us suppose

that one is poor, or rather of middling circumstances ; the other very

rich. But the rich man is anxious with fears, pining with discontent,

burning with covetousness, never secure, always uneasy, panting from

the perpetual strife of his enemies, adding to his patrimony indeed by

these miseries to an immense degree, and by these additions also

heaping up most bitter cares. But that other man of moderate wealth is

contented with a small and compact estate, most dear to his own family,

enjoying the sweetest peace with his kindred neighbours and friends, in

piety religious, benignant in mind, healthy in body, in life frugal, in

manners chaste, in conscience secure. I know not whether any one can

be such a fool, that he dare hesitate which to prefer. As, therefore, in the

case of these two men, so in two families, in two nations, in two

kingdoms, this test of tranquillity holds good ; and if we apply it

vigilantly and without prejudice, we shall quite easily see where the

mere show of happiness dwells, and where real felicity. Wherefore if the

true God is worshipped, and if He is served with genuine rites and true

virtue, it is advantageous that good men should long reign both far and

wide. Nor is this advantageous so much to themselves, as to those over

whom they reign. For, so far as concerns themselves, their piety and

probity, which are great gifts of God, suffice to give them true felicity,

enabling them to live well the life that now is, and afterwards to receive

that which is eternal. In this world, therefore, the dominion of good men

is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the

dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they

destroy their own souls by greater licence in wickedness ; while those

who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own

iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers

are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the

good man, although he is a slave, is free ; but the bad man, even if he

reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more

grievous, of as many masters as he has vices ; of which vices when the

divine Scripture treats, it says, “For of whom any man is overcome, to

the same he is also the bond-slave.”4

4. How like kingdoms without justice are to robberks

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great

robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The

band itself is made up of men ; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it

is knit together by the pact of the confederacy ; the booty is divided by

the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil

increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes

possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the

name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on

it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity.

Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the

Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the

man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he

answered with bold pride, “What thou meanest by seizing the whole

earth ; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst

thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.”5

5. Of the runaway gladiators whose power became like that of royal dignity

I shall not therefore stay to inquire what sort of men Romulus

gathered together, seeing he deliberated much about them—how, being

assumed out of that life they led into the fellowship of his city, they

might cease to think of the punishment they deserved, the fear of which

had driven them to greater villanies ; so that henceforth they might be

made more peaceable members of society. But this I say, that the Roman

empire, which by subduing many nations had already grown great and

an object of universal dread, was itself greatly alarmed, and only with

much difficulty avoided a disastrous overthrow, because a mere handful

of gladiators in Campania, escaping from the games, had recruited a

great army, appointed three generals, and most widely and cruelly

devastated Italy. Let them say what god aided these men, so that from a

small and contemptible band of robbers they attained to a kingdom,

feared even by the Romans, who had such great forces and fortresses. Or

will they deny that they were divinely aided because they did not last

long?© As if, indeed, the life of any man whatever lasted long. In that

case, too, the gods aid no one to reign, since all individuals quickly die ;

nor is sovereign power to be reckoned a benefit, because in a little time

in every man, and thus in all of them one by one, it vanishes like a

vapour. For what does it matter to those who worshipped the gods under

Romulus, and are long since dead, that after their death the Roman

empire has grown so great, while they plead their causes before the

powers beneath? Whether those causes are good or bad, it matters not to

the question before us. And this is to be understood of all those who

carry with them the heavy burden of their actions, having in the few

days of their life swiftly and hurriedly passed over the stage of the

imperial office, although the office itself has lasted through long spaces

of time, being filled by a constant succession of dying men. If, however,

even those benefits which last only for the shortest time are to be

ascribed to the aid of the gods, these gladiators were not a little aided,

who broke the bonds of their servile condition, fled, escaped, raised a

great and most powerful army, obedient to the will and orders of their

chiefs and much feared by the Roman majesty, and remaining

unsubdued by several Roman generals, seized many places, and, having

won very many victories, enjoyed whatever pleasures they wished, and

did what their lust suggested, and, until at last they were conquered,

which was done with the utmost difficulty, lived sublime and dominant.

But let us come to greater matters.

6. Concerning the covetousness of Ninus, who was the first who made war on his neighbours,

that he might rule more widely

Justinus, who wrote Greek or rather foreign history in Latin, and

briefly, like Trogus Pompeius whom he followed, begins his work thus:

“In the beginning of the affairs of peoples and nations the government

was in the hands of kings, who were raised to the height of this majesty

not by courting the people, but by the knowledge good men had of their

moderation. The people were held bound by no laws ; the decisions of

the princes were instead of laws. It was the custom to guard rather than

to extend the boundaries of the empire ; and kingdoms were kept within

the bounds of each ruler’s native land. Ninus king of the Assyrians first

of all, through new lust of empire, changed the old and, as it were,

ancestral custom of nations. He first made war on his neighbours, and

wholly subdued as far as to the frontiers of Libya the nations as yet

untrained to resist.” And a little after he says: “Ninus established by

constant possession the greatness of the authority he had gained. Having

mastered his nearest neighbours, he went on to others, strengthened by

the accession of forces, and by making each fresh victory the instrument

of that which followed, subdued the nations of the whole East.” Now,

with whatever fidelity to fact either he or Trogus may in general have

written—for that they sometimes told lies is shown by other more

trustworthy writers—yet it is agreed among other authors, that the

kingdom of the Assyrians was extended far and wide by King Ninus. And

it lasted so long, that the Roman empire has not yet attained the same

age ; for, as those write who have treated of chronological history, this

kingdom endured for twelve hundred and forty years from the first year

in which Ninus began to reign, until it was transferred to the Medes. But

to make war on your neighbours, and thence to proceed to others, and

through mere lust of dominion to crush and subdue people who do you

no harm, what else is this to be called than great robbery?

7. Whether earthly kingdoms in their rise and fall have been either aided or deserted by the help

of the gods

If this kingdom was so great and lasting without the aid of the gods,

why is the ample territory and long duration of the Roman empire to be

ascribed to the Roman gods? For whatever is the cause in it, the same is

in the other also. But if they contend that the prosperity of the other also

is to be attributed to the aid of the gods, I ask of which? For the other

nations whom Ninus overcame, did not then worship other gods. Or if

the Assyrians had gods of their own, who, so to speak, were more skilful

workmen in the construction and preservation of the empire, whether

are they dead, since they themselves have also lost the empire ; or,

having been defrauded of their pay, or promised a greater, have they

chosen rather to go over to the Medes, and from them again to the

Persians, because Cyrus invited them, and promised them something still

more advantageous? This nation, indeed, since the time of the kingdom

of Alexander the Macedonian, which was as brief in duration as it was

great in extent, has preserved its own empire, and at this day occupies

no small territories in the East. If this is so, then either the gods are

unfaithful, who desert their own and go over to their enemies, which

Camillus, who was but a man, did not do, when, being victor and

subduer of a most hostile state, although he had felt that Rome, for

whom he had done so much, was ungrateful, yet afterwards, forgetting

the injury and remembering his native land, he freed her again from the

Gauls ; or they are not so strong as gods ought to be, since they can be

overcome by human skill or strength. Or if, when they carry on war

among themselves, the gods are not overcome by men, but some gods

who are peculiar to certain cities are perchance overcome by other gods,

it follows that they have quarrels among themselves which they uphold,

each for his own part. Therefore a city ought not to worship its own

gods, but rather others who aid their own worshippers. Finally, whatever

may have been the case as to this change of sides, or flight, or migration,

or failure in battle on the part of the gods, the name of Christ had not

yet been proclaimed in those parts of the earth when these kingdoms

were lost and transferred through great destructions in war. For if, after

more than twelve hundred years, when the kingdom was taken away

from the Assyrians, the Christian religion had there already preached

another eternal kingdom, and put a stop to the sacrilegious worship of

false gods, what else would the foolish men of that nation have said, but

that the kingdom which had been so long preserved, could be lost for no

other cause than the desertion of their own religions and the reception of

Christianity? In which foolish speech that might have been uttered, let

those we speak of observe their own likeness, and blush, if there is any

sense of shame in them, because they have uttered similar complaints ;

although the Roman empire is afflicted rather than changed—a thing

which has befallen it in other times also, before the name of Christ was

heard, and it has been restored after such affliction—a thing which even

in these times is not to be despaired of. For who knows the will of God

concerning this matter?

8. Which of the gods can the Romans suppose presided over the increase and preservation of their

empire, when they have believed that even the care of single things could scarcely be committed

to single gods?

Next let us ask, if they please, out of so great a crowd of gods which

the Romans worship, whom in especial, or what gods they believe to

have extended and preserved that empire. Now, surely of this work,

which is so excellent and so very full of the highest dignity, they dare

not ascribe any part to the goddess Cloacina,’” or to Volupia, who has her

appellation from voluptuousness ; or to Libentina, who has her name

from lust ; or to Vaticanus, who presides over the screaming of infants ; or

to Cunina, who rules over their cradles. But how is it possible to recount

in one part of this book all the names of gods or goddesses, which they

could scarcely comprise in great volumes, distributing among these

divinities their peculiar offices about single things? They have not even

thought that the charge of their lands should be committed to any one

god: but they have entrusted their farms to Rusina ; the ridges of the

mountains to Jugatinus ; over the downs they have set the goddess

Collatina ; over the valleys, Vallonia. Nor could they even find one

Segetia so competent, that they could commend to her care all their corn

crops at once ; but so long as their seed-corn was still under the ground,

they would have the goddess Seia set over it ; then, whenever it was

above ground and formed straw, they set over it the goddess Segetia ;

and when the grain was collected and stored, they set over it the goddess

Tutilina, that it might be kept safe. Who would not have thought that

goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of the standing corn until it had

passed from the first green blades to the dry ears? Yet she was not

enough for men, who loved a multitude of gods, that the miserable soul,

despising the chaste embrace of the one true God, should be prostituted

to a crowd of demons. Therefore they set Proserpina over the

germinating seeds ; over the joints and knots of the stems, the god

Nodotus ; over the sheaths enfolding the ears, the goddess Volutina ;

when the sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was

ascribed to the goddess Patelana ; when the stems stood all equal with

new ears, because the ancients described this equalizing by the term

hostire, it was ascribed to the goddess Hostilina ; when the grain was in

flower, it was dedicated to the goddess Flora ; when full of milk, to the

god Lacturnus ; when maturing, to the goddess Matuta ; when the crop

was runcated—that is, removed from the soil—to the goddess Runcina.

Nor do I yet recount them all, for I am sick of all this, though it gives

them no shame. Only, I have said these very few things, in order that it

may be understood they dare by no means say that the Roman empire

has been established, increased, and preserved by their deities, who had

all their own functions assigned to them in such a way, that no general

oversight was entrusted to any one of them. When, therefore, could

Segetia take care of the empire, who was not allowed to take care of the

corn and the trees? When could Cunina take thought about war, whose

oversight was not allowed to go beyond the cradles of the babies? When

could Nodotus give help in battle, who had nothing to do even with the

sheath of the ear, but only with the knots of the joints? Every one sets a

porter at the door of his house, and because he is a man, he is quite

sufficient ; but these people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors,

Cardea to the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold.8 Thus Forculus could

not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the threshold.

9. Whether the great extent and long duration of the Roman empire should be ascribed to Jove,

whom his worshippers believe to be the chief god

Therefore omitting, or passing by for a little, that crowd of petty gods,

we ought to inquire into the part performed by the great gods, whereby

Rome has been made so great as to reign so long over so many nations.

Doubtless, therefore, this is the work of Jove. For they will have it that

he is the king of all the gods and goddesses, as is shown by his sceptre

and by the Capitol on the lofty hill. Concerning that god they publish a

saying which, although that of a poet, is most apt, “All things are full of

Jove.”9 Varro believes that this god is worshipped, although called by

another name, even by those who worship one God alone without any

image. But if this is so, why has he been so badly used at Rome (and

indeed by other nations too), that an image of him should be made?—a

thing which was so displeasing to Varro himself, that although he was

overborne by the perverse custom of so great a city, he had not the least

hesitation in both saying and writing, that those who have appointed

images for the people have both taken away fear and added error.

10. What opinions those have followed who have set divers gods over divers parts of the world

Why, also, is Juno united to him as his wife, who is called at once

“sister and yokefellow?”!° Because, say they, we have Jove in the ether,

Juno in the air ; and these two elements are united, the one being

superior, the other inferior. It is not he, then, of whom it is said, “All

things are full of Jove,” if Juno also fills some part. Does each fill either,

and are both of this couple in both of these elements, and in each of

them at the same time? Why, then, is the ether given to Jove, the air to

Juno? Besides, these two should have been enough. Why is it that the

sea is assigned to Neptune, the earth to Pluto? And that these also might

not be left without mates, Salacia is joined to Neptune, Proserpine to

Pluto. For they say that, as Juno possesses the lower part of the heavens

—that is, the air—so Salacia possesses the lower part of the sea, and

Froserpine the lower part of the earth. They seek how they may patch up

these fables, but they find no way. For, if these things were so, their

ancient sages would have maintained that there are three chief elements

of the world, not four, in order that each of the elements might have a

pair of gods. Now, they have positively affirmed that the ether is one

thing, the air another. But water, whether higher or lower, is surely

water. Suppose it ever so unlike, can it ever be so much so as no longer

to be water? And the lower earth, by whatever divinity it may be

distinguished, what else can it be than earth? Lo, then, since the whole

physical world is complete in these four or three elements, where shall

Minerva be? What should she possess, what should she fill? For she is

placed in the Capitol along with these two, although she is not the

offspring of their marriage. Or if they say that she possesses the higher

part of the ether—and on that account the poets have feigned that she

sprang from the head of Jove—why then is she not rather reckoned

queen of the gods, because she is superior to Jove? Is it because it would

be improper to set the daughter before the father? Why, then, is not that

rule of justice observed concerning Jove himself toward Saturn? Is it

because he was conquered? Have they fought then? By no means, say

they ; that is an old wife’s fable. Lo, we are not to believe fables, and

must hold more worthy opinions concerning the gods! Why, then, do

they not assign to the father of Jove a seat, if not of higher, at least of

equal honour? Because Saturn, say they, is length of time.!! Therefore

they who worship Saturn worship Time ; and it is insinuated that Jupiter,

the king of the gods, was born of Time. For is anything unworthy said

when Jupiter and Juno are said to have been sprung from Time, if he is

the heaven and she is the earth, since both heaven and earth have been

made, and are therefore not eternal? For their learned and wise men

have this also in their books. Nor is that saying taken by Virgil out of

poetic figments, but out of the books of philosophers.

“Then Ether, the Father Almighty, in copious showers descended Into his spouse’s glad

bosom, making it fertile,”!2

—that is, into the bosom of Tellus, or the earth. Although here, also,

they will have it that there are some differences, and think that in the

earth herself Terra is one thing, Tellus another, and Tellumo another.

And they have all these as gods, called by their own names,

distinguished by their own offices, and venerated with their own altars

and rites. This same earth also they call the mother of the gods, so that

even the fictions of the poets are more tolerable, if, according, not to

their poetical but sacred books, Juno is not only the sister and wife, but

also the mother of Jove. The same earth they worship as Ceres, and also

as Vesta ; while yet they more frequently affirm that Vesta is nothing else

than fire, pertaining to the hearths, without which the city cannot exist ;

and therefore virgins are wont to serve her, because as nothing is born of

a virgin, so nothing is born of fire ; —but all this nonsense ought to be

completely abolished and extinguished by Him who is born of a virgin.

For who can bear that, while they ascribe to the fire so much honour,

and, as it were, chastity, they do not blush sometimes even to call Vesta

Venus, so that honoured virginity may vanish in her handmaidens? For if

Vesta is Venus, how can virgins rightly serve her by abstaining from

venery? Are there two Venuses, the one a virgin, the other not a maid?

Or rather, are there three, one the goddess of virgins, who is also called

Vesta, another the goddess of wives, and another of harlots? To her also

the Phenicians offered a gift by prostituting their daughters before they

united them to husbands.!3 Which of these is the wife of Vulcan?

Certainly not the virgin, since she has a husband. Far be it from us to say

it is the harlot, lest we should seem to wrong the son of Juno and fellow-

worker of Minerva. Therefore it is to be understood that she belongs to

the married people ; but we would not wish them to imitate her in what

she did with Mars. “Again,” say they, “you return to fables.” What sort of

justice is that, to be angry with us because we say such things of their

gods, and not to be angry with themselves, who in their theatres most

willingly behold the crimes of their gods? And—a thing incredible, if it

were not thoroughly well proved—these very theatric representations of

the crimes of their gods have been instituted in honour of these same

gods.

11. Concerning the many gods whom the pagan doctors defend as being one and the same Jove

Let them therefore assert as many things as ever they please in

physical reasonings and disputations. One while let Jupiter be the soul of

this corporeal world, who fills and moves that whole mass, constructed

and compacted out of four, or as many elements as they please ; another

while, let him yield to his sister and brothers their parts of it: now let

him be the ether, that from above he may embrace Juno, the air spread

out beneath ; again, let him be the whole heaven along with the air, and

impregnate with fertilizing showers and seeds the earth, as his wife, and,

at the same time, his mother (for this is not vile in divine beings) ; and

yet again (that it may not be necessary to run through them all), let him,

the one god, of whom many think it has been said by a most noble poet,

or God pervadeth all things,

ll lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depth of the heavens,”!4—

let it be him who in the ether is Jupiter ; in the air, Juno ; in the sea,

Neptune ; in the lower parts of the sea, Salacia ; in the earth, Pluto ; in the

lower part of the earth, Proserpine ; on the domestic hearths, Vesta ; in

the furnace of the workmen, Vulcan ; among the stars, Sol, and Luna, and

the Stars ; in divination, Apollo ; in merchandise, Mercury ; in Janus, the

initiator ; in Terminus, the terminator ; Saturn, in time ; Mars and Bellona,

in war ; Liber, in vineyards ; Ceres, in corn-fields ; Diana, in forests ;

Minerva, in learning. Finally, let it be him who is in that crowd, as it

were, of plebeian gods: let him preside under the name of Liber over the

seed of men, and under that of Libera over that of women: let him be

Diespiter, who brings forth the birth to the light of day: let him be the

goddess Mena, whom they set over the menstruation of women: let him

be Lucina, who is invoked by women in childbirth: let him bring help to

those who are being born, by taking them up from the bosom of the

earth, and let him be called Ops: let him open the mouth in the crying

babe, and be called the god Vaticanus: let him lift it from the earth, and

be called the goddess Levana ; let him watch over cradles, and be called

the goddess Cunina: let it be no other than he who is in those goddesses,

who sing the fates of the new born, and are called Carmentes: let him

preside over fortuitous events, and be called Fortuna: in the goddess

Rumina, let him milk out the breast to the little one, because the

ancients termed the breast ruma: in the goddess Potina, let him

administer drink: in the goddess Educa, let him supply food: from the

terror of infants, let him be styled Paventia: from the hope which comes,

Venilia ; from voluptuousness, Volupia ; from action, Agenor: from the

stimulants by which man is spurred on to much action, let him be named

the goddess Stimula: let him be the goddess Strenia, for making

strenuous ; Numeria, who teaches to number ; Camoena, who teaches to

sing: let him be both the god Consus for granting counsel, and the

goddess Sentia for inspiring sentences: let him be the goddess Juventas,

who, after the robe of boyhood is laid aside, takes charge of the

beginning of the youthful age: let him be Fortuna Barbata, who endues

adults with a beard, whom they have not chosen to honour ; so that this

divinity, whatever it may be, should at least be a male god, named either

Barbatus, from barba, like Nodotus, from nodus ; or, certainly, not

Fortuna, but because he has beards, Fortunius: let him, in the god

Jugatinus, yoke couples in marriage ; and when the girdle of the virgin

wife is loosed, let him be invoked as the goddess Virginiensis: let him be

Mutunus or Tuternus, who, among the Greeks, is called Priapus. If they

are not ashamed of it, let all these which I have named, and whatever

others I have not named (for I have not thought fit to name all), let all

these gods and goddesses be that one Jupiter, whether, as some will

have it, all these are parts of him, or are his powers, as those think who

are pleased to consider him the soul of the world, which is the opinion

of most of their doctors, and these the greatest. If these things are so

(how evil they may be I do not yet meanwhile inquire), what would they

lose, if they, by a more prudent abridgment, should worship one god?

For what part of him could be contemned if he himself should be

worshipped? But if they are afraid lest parts of him should be angry at

being passed by or neglected, then it is not the case, as they will have it,

that this whole is as the life of one living being, which contains all the

gods together, as if they were its virtues, or members, or parts ; but each

part has its own life separate from the rest, if it is so that one can be

angered, appeased, or stirred up more than another. But if it is said that

all together—that is, the whole Jove himself—would be offended if his

parts were not also worshipped singly and minutely, it is foolishly

spoken. Surely none of them could be passed by if he who singly

possesses them all should be worshipped. For, to omit other things which

are innumerable, when they say that all the stars are parts of Jove, and

are all alive and have rational souls, and therefore without controversy

are gods, can they not see how many they do not worship, to how many

they do not build temples or set up altars, and to how very few, in fact,

of the stars they have thought of setting them up and offering sacrifice?

If, therefore, those are displeased who are not severally worshipped, do

they not fear to live with only a few appeased, while all heaven is

displeased? But if they worship all the stars because they are part of

Jove whom they worship, by the same compendious method they could

supplicate them all in him alone. For in this way no one would be

displeased, since in him alone all would be supplicated. No one would be

contemned, instead of there being just cause of displeasure given to the

much greater number who are passed by in the worship offered to some ;

especially when Priapus, stretched out in vile nakedness, is preferred to

those who shine from their supernal abode.

12. Concerning the opinion of those who have thought that God is the soul of the world, and the

world is the body of God

Ought not men of intelligence, and indeed men of every kind, to be

stirred up to examine the nature of this opinion? For there is no need of

excellent capacity for this task, that putting away the desire of

contention, they may observe that if God is the soul of the world, and

the world is as a body to Him, who is the soul, He must be one living

being consisting of soul and body, and that this same God is a kind of

womb of nature containing all things in Himself, so that the lives and

souls of all living things are taken, according to the manner of each one’s

birth, out of His soul which vivifies that whole mass, and therefore

nothing at all remains which is not a part of God. And if this is so, who

cannot see what impious and irreligious consequences follow, such as

that whatever one may trample, he must trample a part of God, and in

slaying any living creature, a part of God must be slaughtered? But I am

unwilling to utter all that may occur to those who think of it, yet cannot

be spoken without irreverence.

13. Concerning those who assert that only rational animals are parts of the one God

But if they contend that only rational animals, such as men, are parts

of God, I do not really see how, if the whole world is God, they can

separate beasts from being parts of Him. But what need is there of

striving about that? Concerning the rational animal himself—that is,

man—what more unhappy belief can be entertained than that a part of

God is whipped when a boy is whipped? And who, unless he is quite

mad, could bear the thought that parts of God can become lascivious,

iniquitous, impious, and altogether damnable? In brief, why is God

angry at those who do not worship Him, since these offenders are parts

of Himself? It remains, therefore, that they must say that all the gods

have their own lives ; that each one lives for himself, and none of them is

a part of any one ; but that all are to be worshipped—at least as many as

can be known and worshipped ; for they are so many it is impossible that

all can be so. And of all these, I believe that Jupiter, because he presides

as king, is thought by them to have both established and extended the

Roman empire. For if he has not done it, what other god do they believe

could have attempted so great a work, when they must all be occupied

with their own offices and works, nor can one intrude on that of

another? Could the kingdom of men then be propagated and increased

by the king of the gods?

14. The enlargement of kingdoms is unsuitably ascribed to Jove ; for if, as they will have it, Victoria

is a goddess, she alone would suffice for this business

Here, first of all, I ask, why even the kingdom itself is not some god?

For why should not it also be so, if Victory is a goddess? Or what need is

there of Jove himself in this affair, if Victory favours and is propitious,

and always goes to those whom she wishes to be victorious? With this

goddess favourable and propitious, even if Jove was idle and did

nothing, what nations could remain unsubdued, what kingdom would

not yield? But perhaps it is displeasing to good men to fight with most

wicked unrighteousness, and provoke with voluntary war neighbours

who are peaceable and do no wrong, in order to enlarge a kingdom? If

they feel thus, I entirely approve and praise them.

15. Whether it is suitable for good men to wish to rule more widely

Let them ask, then, whether it is quite fitting for good men to rejoice

in extended empire. For the iniquity of those with whom just wars are

carried on favours the growth of a kingdom, which would certainly have

been small if the peace and justice of neighbours had not by any wrong

provoked the carrying on of war against them ; and human affairs being

thus more happy, all kingdoms would have been small, rejoicing in

neighbourly concord ; and thus there would have been very many

kingdoms of nations in the world, as there are very many houses of

citizens in a city. Therefore, to carry on war and extend a kingdom over

wholly subdued nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to good men

necessity. But because it would be worse that the injurious should rule

over those who are more righteous, therefore even that is not unsuitably

called felicity. But beyond doubt it is greater felicity to have a good

neighbour at peace, than to conquer a bad one by making war. Your

wishes are bad, when you desire that one whom you hate or fear should

be in such a condition that you can conquer him. If, therefore, by

carrying on wars that were just, not impious or unrighteous, the Romans

could have acquired so great an empire, ought they not to worship as a

goddess even the injustice of foreigners? For we see that this has co-

operated much in extending the empire, by making foreigners so unjust

that they became people with whom just wars might be carried on, and

the empire increased. And why may not injustice, at least that of foreign

nations, also be a goddess, if Fear and Dread, and Ague have deserved to

be Roman gods? By these two, therefore—that is, by foreign injustice,

and the goddess Victoria, for injustice stirs up causes of wars, and

Victoria brings these same wars to a happy termination—the empire has

increased, even although Jove has been idle. For what part could Jove

have here, when those things which might be thought to be his benefits

are held to be gods, called gods, worshipped as gods, and are themselves

invoked for their own parts? He also might have some part here, if he

himself might be called Empire, just as she is called Victory. Or if empire

is the gift of Jove, why may not victory also be held to be his gift? And it

certainly would have been held to be so, had he been recognised and

worshipped, not as a stone in the Capitol, but as the true King of kings

and Lord of lords.

16. What was the reason why the Romans, in detailing separate gods for all things and all

movements of the mind, chose to have the temple of Quiet outside the gates

But I wonder very much, that while they assigned to separate gods

single things, and (well nigh) all movements of the mind ; that while they

invoked the goddess Agenoria, who should excite to action ; the goddess

Stimula, who should stimulate to unusual action ; the goddess Murcia,

who should not move men beyond measure, but make them, as

Pomponius says, murcid—that is, too slothful and inactive ; the goddess

Strenua, who should make them strenuous ; and that while they offered

to all these gods and goddesses solemn and public worship, they should

yet have been unwilling to give public acknowledgment to her whom

they name Quies because she makes men quiet, but built her temple

outside the Colline gate. Whether was this a symptom of an unquiet

mind, or rather was it thus intimated that he who should persevere in

worshipping that crowd, not, to be sure, of gods, but of demons, could

not dwell with quiet ; to which the true Physician calls, saying, “Learn of

me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your

souls?”

17. Whether, if the highest power belongs to Jove, Victoria also ought to be worshipped

Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess Victoria, and

that she, as it were, acting in obedience to the king of the gods, comes to

those to whom he may have despatched her, and takes up her quarters

on their side? This is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to

their own imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is

the true eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is no person,

but His angel, and causes whom He pleases to conquer ; whose counsel

may be hidden, but cannot be unjust. For if Victory is a goddess, why is

not Triumph also a god, and joined to Victory either as husband, or

brother, or son? Indeed, they have imagined such things concerning the

gods, that if the poets had feigned the like, and they should have been

discussed by us, they would have replied that they were laughable

figments of the poets not to be attributed to true deities. And yet they

themselves did not laugh when they were, not reading in the poets, but

worshipping in the temples such doating follies. Therefore they should

entreat Jove alone for all things, and supplicate him only. For if Victory

is a goddess, and is under him as her king, wherever he might have sent

her, she could not dare to resist and do her own will rather than his.

18. With what reason they who think Felicity and Fortune goddesses have distinguished them

What shall we say, besides, of the idea that Felicity also is a goddess?

She has received a temple ; she has merited an altar ; suitable rites of

worship are paid to her. She alone, then, should be worshipped. For

where she is present, what good thing can be absent? But what does a

man wish, that he thinks Fortune also a goddess and worships her? Is

felicity one thing, fortune another? Fortune, indeed, may be bad as well

as good ; but felicity, if it could be bad, would not be felicity. Certainly

we ought to think all the gods of either sex (if they also have sex) are

only good. This says Plato ; this say other philosophers ; this say all

estimable rulers of the republic and the nations. How is it, then, that the

goddess Fortune is sometimes good, sometimes bad? Is it perhaps the

case that when she is bad she is not a goddess, but is suddenly changed

into a malignant demon? How many Fortunes are there then? Just as

many as there are men who are fortunate, that is, of good fortune. But

since there must also be very many others who at the very same time are

men of bad fortune, could she, being one and the same Fortune, be at

the same time both bad and good—the one to these, the other to those?

She who is the goddess, is she always good? Then she herself is felicity.

Why, then, are two names given her? Yet this is tolerable ; for it is

customary that one thing should be called by two names. But why

different temples, different altars, different rituals? There is a reason, say

they, because Felicity is she whom the good have by previous merit ; but

fortune, which is termed good without any trial of merit, befalls both

good and bad men fortuitously, whence also she is named Fortune. How,

therefore, is she good, who without any discernment comes both to the

good and to the bad? Why is she worshipped, who is thus blind, running

at random on any one whatever, so that for the most part she passes by

her worshippers, and cleaves to those who despise her? Or if her

worshippers profit somewhat, so that they are seen by her and loved,

then she follows merit, and does not come fortuitously. What, then,

becomes of that definition of fortune? What becomes of the opinion that

she has received her very name from fortuitous events? For it profits one

nothing to worship her if she is truly fortune. But if she distinguishes her

worshippers, so that she may benefit them, she is not fortune. Or does

Jupiter send her too, whither he pleases? Then let him alone be

worshipped ; because Fortune is not able to resist him when he

commands her, and sends her where he pleases. Or, at least, let the bad

worship her, who do not choose to have merit by which the goddess

Felicity might be invited.

19. Concerning Fortuna Muliebris!*

To this supposed deity, whom they call Fortuna, they ascribe so much,

indeed, that they have a tradition that the image of her, which was

dedicated by the Roman matrons, and called Fortuna Muliebris, has

spoken, and has said, once and again, that the matrons pleased her by

their homage ; which, indeed, if it is true, ought not to excite our

wonder. For it is not so difficult for malignant demons to deceive, and

they ought the rather to advert to their wits and wiles, because it is that

goddess who comes by haphazard who has spoken, and not she who

comes to reward merit. For Fortuna was loquacious, and Felicitas mute ;

and for what other reason but that men might not care to live rightly,

having made Fortuna their friend, who could make them fortunate

without any good desert? And truly, if Fortuna speaks, she should at

least speak, not with a womanly, but with a manly voice ; lest they

themselves who have dedicated the image should think so great a

miracle has been wrought by feminine loquacity.

20. Concerning Virtue and Faith, which the pagans have honoured with temples and sacred rites,

passing by other good qualities, which ought likewise to have been worshipped, if deity was

rightly attributed to these

They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it could be a

goddess, had been preferable to many. And now, because it is not a

goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained by prayer from Him, by

whom alone it can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods vanishes.

But why is Faith believed to be a goddess, and why does she herself

receive temple and altar? For whoever prudently acknowledges her

makes his own self an abode for her. But how do they know what faith

is, of which it is the prime and greatest function that the true God may

be believed in? But why had not virtue sufficed? Does it not include faith

also? Forasmuch as they have thought proper to distribute virtue into

four divisions—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and as

each of these divisions has its own virtues, faith is among the parts of

justice, and has the chief place with as many of us as know what that

saying means, “The just shall live by faith.”!© But if Faith is a goddess, I

wonder why these keen lovers of a multitude of gods have wronged so

many other goddesses, by passing them by, when they could have

dedicated temples and altars to them likewise. Why has temperance not

deserved to be a goddess, when some Roman princes have obtained no

small glory on account of her? Why, in fine, is fortitude not a goddess,

who aided Mucius when he thrust his right hand into the flames ; who

aided Curtius, when for the sake of his country he threw himself

headlong into the yawning earth ; who aided Decius the sire, and Decius

the son, when they devoted themselves for the army?—though we might

question whether these man had true fortitude, if this concerned our

present discussion. Why have prudence and wisdom merited no place

among the gods? Is it because they are all worshipped under the general

name of Virtue itself? Then they could thus worship the true God also, of

whom all the other gods are thought to be parts. But in that one name of

virtue is comprehended both faith and chastity, which yet have obtained

separate altars in temples of their own.

21. That although not understanding them to be the gifts of God, they ought at least to have been

content with Virtue and Felicity

These, not verity but vanity has made goddesses. For these are gifts of

the true God, not themselves goddesses. However, where virtue and

felicity are, what else is sought for? What can suffice the man whom

virtue and felicity do not suffice? For surely virtue comprehends all

things we need do, felicity all things we need wish for. If Jupiter, then,

was worshipped in order that he might give these two things—because,

if extent and duration of empire is something good, it pertains to this

same felicity—why is it not understood that they are not goddesses, but

the gifts of God? But if they are judged to be goddesses, then at least that

other great crowd of gods should not be sought after. For, having

considered all the offices which their fancy has distributed among the

various gods and goddesses, let them find out, if they can, anything

which could be bestowed by any god whatever on a man possessing

virtue, possessing felicity. What instruction could be sought either from

Mercury or Minerva, when Virtue already possessed all in herself?

Virtue, indeed, is defined by the ancients as itself the art of living well

and rightly. Hence, because virtue is called in Greek #p¢™4, it has been

thought the Latins have derived from it the term art. But if Virtue cannot

come except to the clever, what need was there of the god Father Catius,

who should make men cautious, that is, acute, when Felicity could

confer this? Because, to be born clever belongs to felicity. Whence,

although goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by one not yet born,

in order that, being made his friend, she might bestow this on him, yet

she might confer this favour on parents who were her worshippers, that

clever children should be born to them. What need had women in

childbirth to invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity should be present, they

would have, not only a good delivery, but good children too? What need

was there to commend the children to the goddess Ops when they were

being born ; to the god Vaticanus in their birth-cry ; to the goddess

Cunina when lying cradled ; to the goddess Rumina when sucking ; to the

god Statilinus when standing ; to the goddess Adeona when coming ; to

Abeona when going away ; to the goddess Mens that they might have a

good mind ; to the god Volumnus, and the goddess Volumna, that they

might wish for good things ; to the nuptial gods, that they might make

good matches ; to the rural gods, and chiefly to the goddess Fructesca

herself, that they might receive the most abundant fruits ; to Mars and

Bellona, that they might carry on war well ; to the goddess Victoria, that

they might be victorious ; to the god Honor, that they might be

honoured ; to the goddess Pecunia, that they might have plenty money ;

to the god Aesculanus, and his son Argentinus, that they might have

brass and silver coin? For they set down Aesculanus as the father of

Argentinus for this reason, that brass coin began to be used before silver.

But I wonder Argentinus has not begotten Aurinus, since gold coin also

has followed. Could they have him for a god, they would prefer Aurinus

both to his father Argentinus and his grandfather Aesculanus, just as

they set Jove before Saturn. Therefore, what necessity was there on

account of these gifts, either of soul, or body, or outward estate, to

worship and invoke so great a crowd of gods, all of whom I have not

mentioned, nor have they themselves been able to provide for all human

benefits, minutely and singly methodized, minute and single gods, when

the one goddess Felicity was able, with the greatest ease, compendiously

to bestow the whole of them? nor should any other be sought after,

either for the bestowing of good things, or for the averting of evil. For

why should they invoke the goddess Fessonia for the weary ; for driving

away enemies, the goddess Pellonia ; for the sick, as a physician, either

Apollo or Aisculapius, or both together if there should be great danger?

Neither should the god Spiniensis be entreated that he might root out

the thorns from the fields ; nor the goddess Rubigo that the mildew might

not come—Felicitas alone being present and guarding, either no evils

would have arisen, or they would have been quite easily driven away.

Finally, since we treat of these two goddesses, Virtue and Felicity, if

felicity is the reward of virtue, she is not a goddess, but a gift of God.

But if she is a goddess, why may she not be said to confer virtue itself,

inasmuch as it is a great felicity to attain virtue?

22. Concerning the knowledge of the worship due to the gods, which Varro glories in having

himself conferred on the Romans

What is it, then, that Varro boasts he has bestowed as a very great

benefit on his fellow-citizens, because he not only recounts the gods who

ought to be worshipped by the Romans, but also tells what pertains to

each of them? “Just as it is of no advantage,” he says, “to know the

name and appearance of any man who is a physician, and not know that

he is a physician, so,” he says, “it is of no advantage to know well that

Aésculapius is a god, if you are not aware that he can bestow the gift of

health, and consequently do not know why you ought to supplicate

him.” He also affirms this by another comparison, saying, “No one is

able, not only to live well, but even to live at all, if he does not know

who is a smith, who a baker, who a weaver, from whom he can seek any

utensil, whom he may take for a helper, whom for a leader, whom for a

teacher ; ” asserting, “that in this way it can be doubtful to no one, that

thus the knowledge of the gods is useful, if one can know what force,

and faculty, or power any god may have in anything. For from this we

may be able,” he says, “to know what god we ought to call to, and

invoke for any cause ; lest we should do as too many are wont to do, and

desire water from Liber, and wine from Lymphs.” Very useful, forsooth!

Who would not give this man thanks if he could show true things, and if

he could teach that the one true God, from whom all good things are, is

to be worshipped by men?

23. Concerning Felicity, whom the Romans, who venerate many gods, for a long time did not

worship with divine honour, though she alone would have sufficed instead of all

But how does it happen, if their books and rituals are true, and

Felicity is a goddess, that she herself is not appointed as the only one to

be worshipped, since she could confer all things, and all at once make

men happy? For who wishes anything for any other reason than that he

may become happy? Why was it left to Lucullus to dedicate a temple to

so great a goddess at so late a date, and after so many Roman rulers?

Why did Romulus himself, ambitious as he was of founding a fortunate

city, not erect a temple to this goddess before all others? Why did he

supplicate the other gods for anything, since he would have lacked

nothing had she been with him? For even he himself would neither have

been first a king, then afterwards, as they think, a god, if this goddess

had not been propitious to him. Why, therefore, did he appoint as gods

for the Romans, Janus, Jove, Mars, Picus, Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules,

and others, if there were more of them? Why did Titus Tatius add

Saturn, Ops, Sun, Moon, Vulcan, Light, and whatever others he added,

among whom was even the goddess Cloacina, while Felicity was

neglected? Why did Numa appoint so many gods and so many goddesses

without this one? Was it perhaps because he could not see her among so

great a crowd? Certainly king Hostilius would not have introduced the

new gods Fear and Dread to be propitiated, if he could have known or

might have worshipped this goddess. For, in presence of Felicity, Fear

and Dread would have disappeared—I do not say propitiated, but put to

flight. Next, I ask, how is it that the Roman empire had already

immensely increased before any one worshipped Felicity? Was the

empire, therefore, more great than happy? For how could true felicity be

there, where there was not true piety? For piety is the genuine worship

of the true God, and not the worship of as many demons as there are

false gods. Yet even afterwards, when Felicity had already been taken

into the number of the gods, the great infelicity of the civil wars ensued.

Was Felicity perhaps justly indignant, both because she was invited so

late, and was invited not to honour, but rather to reproach, because

along with her were worshipped Priapus, and Cloacina, and Fear and

Dread, and Ague, and others which were not gods to be worshipped, but

the crimes of the worshippers? Last of all, if it seemed good to worship

so great a goddess along with a most unworthy crowd, why at least was

she not worshipped in a more honourable way than the rest? For is it not

intolerable that Felicity is placed neither among the gods Consentes,17

whom they allege to be admitted into the council of Jupiter, nor among

the gods whom they term Select? Some temple might be made for her

which might be pre-eminent, both in loftiness of site and dignity of style.

Why, indeed, not something better than is made for Jupiter himself? For

who gave the kingdom even to Jupiter but Felicity? I am supposing that

when he reigned he was happy. Felicity, however, is certainly more

valuable than a kingdom. For no one doubts that a man might easily be

found who may fear to be made a king ; but no one is found who is

unwilling to be happy. Therefore, if it is thought they can be consulted

by augury, or in any other way, the gods themselves should be consulted

about this thing, whether they may wish to give place to Felicity. If,

perchance, the place should already be occupied by the temples and

altars of others, where a greater and more lofty temple might be built to

Felicity, even Jupiter himself might give way, so that Felicity might

rather obtain the very pinnacle of the Capitoline hill. For there is not any

one who would resist Felicity, except, which is impossible, one who

might wish to be unhappy. Certainly, if he should be consulted, Jupiter

would in no case do what those three gods, Mars, Terminus, and

Juventas, did, who positively refused to give place to their superior and

king. For, as their books record, when king Tarquin wished to construct

the Capitol, and perceived that the place which seemed to him to be the

most worthy and suitable was preoccupied by other gods, not daring to

do anything contrary to their pleasure, and believing that they would

willingly give place to a god who was so great, and was their own

master, because there were many of them there when the Capitol was

founded, he inquired by augury whether they chose to give place to

Jupiter, and they were all willing to remove thence except those whom I

have named, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas ; and therefore the Capitol

was built in such a way that these three also might be within it, yet with

such obscure signs that even the most learned men could scarcely know

this. Surely, then, Jupiter himself would by no means despise Felicity as

he was himself despised by Terminus, Mars, and Juventas. But even they

themselves who had not given place to Jupiter, would certainly give

place to Felicity, who had made Jupiter king over them. Or if they

should not give place, they would act thus not out of contempt of her,

but because they chose rather to be obscure in the house of Felicity, than

to be eminent without her in their own places.

Thus the goddess Felicity being established in the largest and loftiest

place, the citizens should learn whence the furtherance of every good

desire should be sought. And so, by the persuasion of nature herself the

superfluous multitude of other gods being abandoned, Felicity alone

would be worshipped, prayer would be made to her alone, her temple

alone would be frequented by the citizens who wished to be happy,

which no one of them would not wish ; and thus felicity, who was sought

for from all the gods, would be sought for only from her own self. For

who wishes to receive from any god anything else than felicity, or what

he supposes to tend to felicity? Wherefore, if Felicity has it in her power

to be with what man she pleases (and she has it if she is a goddess),

what folly is it, after all, to seek from any other god her whom you can

obtain by request from her own self! Therefore they ought to honour this

goddess above other gods, even by dignity of place. For, as we read in

their own authors, the ancient Romans paid greater honours to I know

not what Summanus, to whom they attributed nocturnal thunderbolts,

than to Jupiter, to whom diurnal thunderbolts were held to pertain. But,

after a famous and conspicuous temple had been built to Jupiter, owing

to the dignity of the building, the multitude resorted to him in so great

numbers, that scarce one can be found who remembers even to have

read the name of Summanus, which now he cannot once hear named.

But if Felicity is not a goddess, because, as is true, it is a gift of God, that

god must be sought who has power to give it, and that hurtful multitude

of false gods must be abandoned which the vain multitude of foolish

men follows after, making gods to itself of the gifts of God, and

offending Himself whose gifts they are by the stubbornness of a proud

will. For he cannot be free from infelicity who worships Felicity as a

goddess, and forsakes God, the giver of felicity ; just as he cannot be free

from hunger who licks a painted loaf of bread, and does not buy it of the

man who has a real one.

24. The reasons by which the pagans attempt to defend their worshipping among the gods the

divine gifts themselves

We may, however, consider their reasons. Is it to be believed, say

they, that our forefathers were besotted even to such a degree as not to

know that these things are divine gifts, and not gods? But as they knew

that such things are granted to no one, except by some god freely

bestowing them, they called the gods whose names they did not find out

by the names of those things which they deemed to be given by them ;

sometimes slightly altering the name for that purpose, as, for example,

from war they have named Bellona, not bellum ; from cradles, Cunina, not

cune ; from standing corn, Segetia, not seges ; from apples, Pomona, not

pomum ; from oxen, Bubona, not bos. Sometimes, again, with no

alteration of the word, just as the things themselves are named, so that

the goddess who gives money is called Pecunia, and money is not

thought to be itself a goddess: so of Virtus, who gives virtue ; Honor, who

gives honour ; Concordia, who gives concord ; Victoria, who gives victory.

So, they say, when Felicitas is called a goddess, what is meant is not the

thing itself which is given, but that deity by whom felicity is given.

25. Concerning the one God only to be worshipped, who, although His name is unknown, is yet

deemed to be the giver of felicity

Having had that reason rendered to us, we shall perhaps much more

easily persuade, as we wish, those whose heart has not become too much

hardened. For if now human infirmity has perceived that felicity cannot

be given except by some god ; if this was perceived by those who

worshipped so many gods, at whose head they set Jupiter himself ; if, in

their ignorance of the name of Him by whom felicity was given, they

agreed to call Him by the name of that very thing which they believed

He gave ; —then it follows that they thought that felicity could not be

given even by Jupiter himself, whom they already worshipped, but

certainly by him whom they thought fit to worship under the name of

Felicity itself. I thoroughly affirm the statement that they believed

felicity to be given by a certain God whom they knew not: let Him

therefore be sought after, let Him be worshipped, and it is enough. Let

the train of innumerable demons be repudiated, and let this God suffice

every man whom his gift suffices. For him, I say, God the giver of felicity

will not be enough to worship, for whom felicity itself is not enough to

receive. But let him for whom it suffices (and man has nothing more he

ought to wish for) serve the one God, the giver of felicity. This God is

not he whom they call Jupiter. For if they acknowledged him to be the

giver of felicity, they would not seek, under the name of Felicity itself,

for another god or goddess by whom felicity might be given ; nor could

they tolerate that Jupiter himself should be worshipped with such

infamous attributes. For he is said to be the debaucher of the wives of

others ; he is the shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy.

26. Of the scenic plays, the celebration of which the gods have exacted from their worshippers

“But,” says Cicero, “Homer invented these things, and transferred

things human to the gods: I would rather transfer things divine to us.”18

The poet, by ascribing such crimes to the gods, has justly displeased the

grave man. Why, then, are the scenic plays, where these crimes are

habitually spoken of, acted, exhibited, in honour of the gods, reckoned

among things divine by the most learned men? Cicero should exclaim,

not against the inventions of the poets, but against the customs of the

ancients. Would not they have exclaimed in reply, What have we done?

The gods themselves have loudly demanded that these plays should be

exhibited in their honour, have fiercely exacted them, have menaced

destruction unless this was performed, have avenged its neglect with

great severity, and have manifested pleasure at the reparation of such

neglect. Among their virtuous and wonderful deeds the following is

related. It was announced in a dream to Titus Latinius, a Roman rustic,

that he should go to the senate and tell them to recommence the games

of Rome, because on the first day of their celebration a condemned

criminal had been led to punishment in sight of the people, an incident

so sad as to disturb the gods who were seeking amusement from the

games. And when the peasant who had received this intimation was

afraid on the following day to deliver it to the senate, it was renewed

next night in a severer form: he lost his son, because of his neglect. On

the third night he was warned that a yet graver punishment was

impending, if he should still refuse obedience. When even thus he did

not dare to obey, he fell into a virulent and horrible disease. But then, on

the advice of his friends, he gave information to the magistrates, and

was carried in a litter into the senate, and having, on declaring his

dream, immediately recovered strength, went away on his own feet

whole.19 The senate, amazed at so great a miracle, decreed that the

games should be renewed at fourfold cost. What sensible man does not

see that men, being put upon by malignant demons, from whose

domination nothing save the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord

sets free, have been compelled by force to exhibit to such gods as these,

plays which, if well advised, they should condemn as shameful? Certain

it is that in these plays the poetic crimes of the gods are celebrated, yet

they are plays which were re-established by decree of the senate, under

compulsion of the gods. In these plays the most shameless actors

celebrated Jupiter as the corrupter of chastity, and thus gave him

pleasure. If that was a fiction, he would have been moved to anger ; but

if he was delighted with the representation of his crimes, even although

fabulous, then, when he happened to be worshipped, who but the devil

could be served? Is it so that he could found, extend, and preserve the

Roman empire, who was more vile than any Roman man whatever, to

whom such things were displeasing? Could he give felicity who was so

infelicitously worshipped, and who, unless he should be thus

worshipped, was yet more infelicitously provoked to anger?

27. Concerning the three kinds of gods about which the pontiff Sceevola has discoursed

It is recorded that the very learned pontiff Scevola2° had

distinguished about three kinds of gods—one introduced by the poets,

another by the philosophers, another by the statesmen. The first kind he

declares to be trifling, because many unworthy things have been

invented by the poets concerning the gods ; the second does not suit

states, because it contains some things that are superfluous, and some,

too, which it would be prejudicial for the people to know. It is no great

matter about the superfiuous things, for it is a common saying of skilful

lawyers, “Superfluous things do no harm.”2! But what are those things

which do harm when brought before the multitude? “These,” he says,

“that Hercules, Aisculapius, Castor and Pollux, are not gods ; for it is

declared by learned men that these were but men, and yielded to the

common lot of mortals.” What else? “That states have not the true

images of the gods ; because the true God has neither sex, nor age, nor

definite corporeal members.” The pontiff is not willing that the people

should know these things ; for he does not think they are false. He thinks

it expedient, therefore, that states should be deceived in matters of

religion ; which Varro himself does not hesitate even to say in his books

about things divine. Excellent religion! to which the weak, who requires

to be delivered, may flee for succour ; and when he seeks for the truth by

which he may be delivered, it is believed to be expedient for him that he

be deceived. And, truly, in these same books, Sczvola is not silent as to

his reason for rejecting the poetic sort of gods—to wit, “because they so

disfigure the gods that they could not bear comparison even with good

men, when they make one to commit theft, another adultery ; or, again,

to say or do something else basely and foolishly ; as that three goddesses

contested (with each other) the prize of beauty, and the two vanquished

by Venus destroyed Troy ; that Jupiter turned himself into a bull or swan

that he might copulate with some one ; that a goddess married a man,

and Saturn devoured his children ; that, in fine, there is nothing that

could be imagined, either of the miraculous or vicious, which may not

be found there, and yet is far removed from the nature of the gods.” O

chief pontiff Sceevola, take away the plays if thou art able ; instruct the

people that they may not offer such honours to the immortal gods, in

which, if they like, they may admire the crimes of the gods, and, so far

as it is possible, may, if they please, imitate them. But if the people shall

have answered thee, You, O pontiff, have brought these things in among

us, then ask the gods themselves at whose instigation you have ordered

these things, that they may not order such things to be offered to them.

For if they are bad, and therefore in no way to be believed concerning

the majority of the gods, the greater is the wrong done the gods about

whom they are feigned with impunity. But they do not hear thee, they

are demons, they teach wicked things, they rejoice in vile things ; not

only do they not count it a wrong if these things are feigned about them,

but it is a wrong they are quite unable to bear if they are not acted at

their stated festivals. But now, if thou wouldst call on Jupiter against

them, chiefly for that reason that more of his crimes are wont to be

acted in the scenic plays, is it not the case that, although you call him

god Jupiter, by whom this whole world is ruled and administered, it is

he to whom the greatest wrong is done by you, because you have

thought he ought to be worshipped along with them, and have styled

him their king?

28. Whether the worship of the gods has been of service to the Romans in obtaining and

extending the empire

Therefore such gods, who are propitiated by such honours, or rather

are impeached by them (for it is a greater crime to delight in having

such things said of them falsely, than even if they could be said truly),

could never by any means have been able to increase and preserve the

Roman empire. For if they could have done it, they would rather have

bestowed so grand a gift on the Greeks, who, in this kind of divine

things—that is, in scenic plays—have worshipped them more

honourably and worthily, although they have not exempted themselves

from those slanders of the poets, by whom they saw the gods torn in

pieces, giving them licence to ill-use any man they pleased, and have not

deemed the scenic players themselves to be base, but have held them

worthy even of distinguished honour. But just as the Romans were able

to have gold money, although they did not worship a god Aurinus, so

also they could have silver and brass coin, and yet worship neither

Argentinus nor his father Aésculanus ; and so of all the rest, which it

would be irksome for me to detail. It follows, therefore, both that they

could not by any means attain such dominion if the true God was

unwilling ; and that if these gods, false and many, were unknown or

contemned, and He alone was known and worshipped with sincere faith

and virtue, they would both have a better kingdom here, whatever might

be its extent, and whether they might have one here or not, would

afterwards receive an eternal kingdom.

29. Of the falsity of the augury by which the strength and stability of the Roman empire was

considered to be indicated

For what kind of augury is that which they have declared to be most

beautiful, and to which I referred a little ago, that Mars, and Terminus,

and Juventas would not give place even to Jove the king of the gods?

For thus, they say, it was signified that the nation dedicated to Mars—

that is, the Roman—should yield to none the place it once occupied ;

likewise, that on account of the god Terminus, no one would be able to

disturb the Roman frontiers ; and also, that the Roman youth, because of

the goddess Juventas, should yield to no one. Let them see, therefore,

how they can hold him to be the king of their gods, and the giver of

their own kingdom, if these auguries set him down for an adversary, to

whom it would have been honourable not to yield. However, if these

things are true, they need not be at all afraid. For they are not going to

confess that the gods who would not yield to Jove have yielded to

Christ. For, without altering the boundaries of the empire, Jesus Christ

has proved Himself able to drive them, not only from their temples, but

from the hearts of their worshippers. But, before Christ came in the

flesh, and, indeed, before these things which we have quoted from their

books could have been written, but yet after that auspice was made

under king Tarquin, the Roman army has been divers times scattered or

put to flight, and has shown the falseness of the auspice, which they

derived from the fact that the goddess Juventas had not given place to

Jove ; and the nation dedicated to Mars was trodden down in the city

itself by the invading and triumphant Gauls ; and the boundaries of the

empire, through the falling away of many cities to Hannibal, had been

hemmed into a narrow space. Thus the beauty of the auspices is made

void, and there has remained only the contumacy against Jove, not of

gods, but of demons. For it is one thing not to have yielded, and another

to have returned whither you have yielded. Besides, even afterwards, in

the oriental regions, the boundaries of the Roman empire were changed

by the will of Hadrian ; for he yielded up to the Persian empire those

three noble provinces, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Thus that

god Terminus, who according to these books was the guardian of the

Roman frontiers, and by that most beautiful auspice had not given place

to Jove, would seem to have been more afraid of Hadrian, a king of men,

than of the king of the gods. The aforesaid provinces having also been

taken back again, almost within our own recollection the frontier fell

back, when Julian, given up to the oracles of their gods, with

immoderate daring ordered the victualling ships to be set on fire. The

army being thus left destitute of provisions, and he himself also being

presently killed by the enemy, and the legions being hard pressed, while

dismayed by the loss of their commander, they were reduced to such

extremities that no one could have escaped, unless by articles of peace

the boundaries of the empire had then been established where they still

remain ; not, indeed, with so great a loss as was suffered by the

concession of Hadrian, but still at a considerable sacrifice. It was a vain

augury, then, that the god Terminus did not yield to Jove, since he

yielded to the will of Hadrian, and yielded also to the rashness of Julian,

and the necessity of Jovinian. The more intelligent and grave Romans

have seen these things, but have had little power against the custom of

the state, which was bound to observe the rites of the demons ; because

even they themselves, although they perceived that these things were

vain, yet thought that the religious worship which is due to God should

be paid to the nature of things which is established under the rule and

government of the one true God, “serving,” as saith the apostle, “the

creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore.”22 The help

of this true God was necessary to send holy and truly pious men, who

would die for the true religion that they might remove the false from

among the living.

30. What kind of things even their worshippers have owned they have thought about the gods of

the nations

Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for regulating

the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jackdaws.23 But it will be

said that an academic philosopher, who argues that all things are

uncertain, is unworthy to have any authority in these matters. In the

second book of his De Natura Deorum,24 he introduces Lucilius Balbus,

who, after showing that superstitions have their origin in physical and

philosophical truths, expresses his indignation at the setting up of

images and fabulous notions, speaking thus: “Do you not therefore see

that from true and useful physical discoveries the reason may be drawn

away to fabulous and imaginary gods? This gives birth to false opinions

and turbulent errors, and superstitions well-nigh old-wifeish. For both

the forms of the gods, and their ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are

made familiar to us ; their genealogies, too, their marriages, kinships, and

all things about them, are debased to the likeness of human weakness.

They are even introduced as having perturbed minds ; for we have

accounts of the lusts, cares, and angers of the gods. Nor, indeed, as the

fables go, have the gods been without their wars and battles. And that

not only when, as in Homer, some gods on either side have defended

two opposing armies, but they have even carried on wars on their own

account, as with the Titans or with the Giants. Such things it is quite

absurd either to say or to believe: they are utterly frivolous and

groundless.” Behold, now, what is confessed by those who defend the

gods of the nations. Afterwards he goes on to say that some things

belong to superstition, but others to religion, which he thinks good to

teach according to the Stoics. “For not only the philosophers,” he says,

“but also our forefathers, have made a distinction between superstition

and religion. For those,” he says, “who spent whole days in prayer, and

offered sacrifice, that their children might outlive them, are called

superstitious.”25 Who does not see that he is trying, while he fears the

public prejudice, to praise the religion of the ancients, and that he

wishes to disjoin it from superstition, but cannot find out how to do so?

For if those who prayed and sacrificed all day were called superstitious

by the ancients, were those also called so who instituted (what he

blames) the images of the gods of diverse age and distinct clothing, and

invented the genealogies of gods, their marriages, and kinships? When,

therefore, these things are found fault with as superstitious, he

implicates in that fault the ancients who instituted and worshipped such

images. Nay, he implicates himself, who, with whatever eloquence he

may strive to extricate himself and be free, was yet under the necessity

of venerating these images ; nor dared he so much as whisper in a

discourse to the people what in this disputation he plainly sounds forth.

Let us Christians, therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God—not to

heaven and earth, as that author argues, but to Him who has made

heaven and earth ; because these superstitions, which that Balbus, like a

babbler,2© scarcely reprehends, He, by the most deep lowliness of Christ,

by the preaching of the apostles, by the faith of the martyrs dying for the

truth and living with the truth, has overthrown, not only in the hearts of

the religious, but even in the temples of the superstitious, by their own

free service.

31. Concerning the opinions of Varro, who, while reprobating the popular belief, thought that their

worship should be confined to one god, though he was unable to discover the true God

What says Varro himself, whom we grieve to have found, although not

by his own judgment, placing the scenic plays among things divine?

When in many passages he is exhorting, like a religious man, to the

worship of the gods, does he not in doing so admit that he does not in

his own judgment believe those things which he relates that the Roman

state has instituted ; so that he does not hesitate to affirm that if he were

founding a new state, he could enumerate the gods and their names

better by the rule of nature? But being born into a nation already

ancient, he says that he finds himself bound to accept the traditional

names and surnames of the gods, and the histories connected with them,

and that his purpose in investigating and publishing these details is to

incline the people to worship the gods, and not to despise them. By

which words this most acute man sufficiently indicates that he does not

publish all things, because they would not only have been contemptible

to himself, but would have seemed despicable even to the rabble, unless

they had been passed over in silence. I should be thought to conjecture

these things, unless he himself, in another passage, had openly said, in

speaking of religious rites, that many things are true which it is not only

not useful for the common people to know, but that it is expedient that

the people should think otherwise, even though falsely, and therefore

the Greeks have shut up the religious ceremonies and mysteries in

silence, and within walls. In this he no doubt expresses the policy of the

so-called wise men by whom states and peoples are ruled. Yet by this

crafty device the malign demons are wonderfully delighted, who possess

alike the deceivers and the deceived, and from whose tyranny nothing

sets free save the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The same most acute and learned author also says, that those alone

seem to him to have perceived what God is, who have believed Him to

be the soul of the world, governing it by design and reason.27 And by

this, it appears, that although he did not attain to the truth—for the true

God is not a soul, but the maker and author of the soul—yet if he could

have been free to go against the prejudices of custom, he could have

confessed and counselled others that the one God ought to be

worshipped, who governs the world by design and reason ; so that on this

subject only this point would remain to be debated with him, that he

had called Him a soul, and not rather the creator of the soul. He says,

also, that the ancient Romans, for more than a hundred and seventy

years, worshipped the gods without an image.28 “And if this custom,” he

says, “could have remained till now, the gods would have been more

purely worshipped.” In favour of this opinion, he cites as a witness

among others the Jewish nation ; nor does he hesitate to conclude that

passage by saying of those who first consecrated images for the people,

that they have both taken away religious fear from their fellow-citizens,

and increased error, wisely thinking that the gods easily fall into

contempt when exhibited under the stolidity of images. But as he does

not say they have transmitted error, but that they have increased it, he

therefore wishes it to be understood that there was error already when

there were no images. Wherefore, when he says they alone have

perceived what God is who have believed Him to be the governing soul

of the world, and thinks that the rites of religion would have been more

purely observed without images, who fails to see how near he has come

to the truth? For if he had been able to do anything against so inveterate

an error, he would certainly have given it as his opinion both that the

one God should be worshipped, and that He should be worshipped

without an image ; and having so nearly discovered the truth, perhaps he

might easily have been put in mind of the mutability of the soul, and

might thus have perceived that the true God is that immutable nature

which made the soul itself. Since these things are so, whatever ridicule

such men have poured in their writings against the plurality of the gods,

they have done so rather as compelled by the secret will of God to

confess them, than as trying to persuade others. If, therefore, any

testimonies are adduced by us from these writings, they are adduced for

the confutation of those who are unwilling to consider from how great

and malignant a power of the demons the singular sacrifice of the

shedding of the most holy blood, and the gift of the imparted Spirit, can

set us free.

32. In what interest the princes of the nations wished false religions to continue among the

people subject to them

Varro says also, concerning the generations of the gods, that the

people have inclined to the poets rather than to the natural philosophers ;

and that therefore their forefathers—that is, the ancient Romans—

believed both in the sex and the generations of the gods, and settled

their marriages ; which certainly seems to have been done for no other

cause except that it was the business of such men as were prudent and

wise to deceive the people in matters of religion, and in that very thing

not only to worship, but also to imitate the demons, whose greatest lust

is to deceive. For just as the demons cannot possess any but those whom

they have deceived with guile, so also men in princely office, not indeed

being just, but like demons, have persuaded the people in the name of

religion to receive as true those things which they themselves knew to

be false ; in this way, as it were, binding them up more firmly in civil

society, so that they might in like manner possess them as subjects. But

who that was weak and unlearned could escape the deceits of both the

princes of the state and the demons?

33. That the times of all kings and kingdoms are ordained by the judgment and power of the true

God

Therefore that God, the author and giver of felicity, because He alone

is the true God, Himself gives earthly kingdoms both to good and bad.

Neither does He do this rashly, and, as it were, fortuitously—because He

is God, not fortune—but according to the order of things and times,

which is hidden from us, but thoroughly known to Himself ; which same

order of times, however, He does not serve as subject to it, but Himself

rules as lord and appoints as governor. Felicity He gives only to the

good. Whether a man be a subject or a king makes no difference: he may

equally either possess or not possess it. And it shall be full in that life

where kings and subjects exist no longer. And therefore earthly

kingdoms are given by Him both to the good and the bad ; lest His

worshippers, still under the conduct of a very weak mind, should covet

these gifts from Him as some great things. And this is the mystery of the

Old Testament, in which the New was hidden, that there even earthly

gifts are promised: those who were spiritual understanding even then,

although not yet openly declaring, both the eternity which was

symbolized by these earthly things, and in what gifts of God true felicity

could be found.

34. Concerning the kingdom of the Jews, which was founded by the one and true God, and

preserved by Him as long as they remained in the true religion

Therefore, that it might be known that these earthly good things, after

which those pant who cannot imagine better things, remain in the power

of the one God Himself, not of the many false gods whom the Romans

have formerly believed worthy of worship, He multiplied His people in

Egypt from being very few, and delivered them out of it by wonderful

signs. Nor did their women invoke Lucina when their offspring was

being incredibly multiplied ; and that nation having increased incredibly,

He Himself delivered, He Himself saved them from the hands of the

Egyptians, who persecuted them, and wished to kill all their infants.

Without the goddess Rumina they sucked ; without Cunina they were

cradled ; without Educa and Potina they took food and drink ; without all

those puerile gods they were educated ; without the nuptial gods they

were married ; without the worship of Priapus they had conjugal

intercourse ; without invocation of Neptune the divided sea opened up a

way for them to pass over, and overwhelmed with its returning waves

their enemies who pursued them. Neither did they consecrate any

goddess Mannia when they received manna from heaven ; nor, when the

smitten rock poured forth water to them when they thirsted, did they

worship Nymphs and Lymphs. Without the mad rites of Mars and

Bellona they carried on war ; and while, indeed, they did not conquer

without victory, yet they did not hold it to be a goddess, but the gift of

their God. Without Segetia they had harvests ; without Bubona, oxen ;

honey without Mellona ; apples without Pomona: and, in a word,

everything for which the Romans thought they must supplicate so great

a crowd of false gods, they received much more happily from the one

true God. And if they had not sinned against Him with impious curiosity,

which seduced them like magic arts, and drew them to strange gods and

idols, and at last led them to kill Christ, their kingdom would have

remained to them, and would have been, if not more spacious, yet more

happy, than that of Rome. And now that they are dispersed through

almost all lands and nations, it is through the providence of that one

true God ; that whereas the images, altars, groves, and temples of the

false gods are everywhere overthrown, and their sacrifices prohibited, it

may be shown from their books how this has been foretold by their

prophets so long before ; lest, perhaps, when they should be read in ours,

they might seem to be invented by us. But now, reserving what is to

follow for the following book, we must here set a bound to the prolixity

of this one.

1 In Augustine’s letter to Evodius (169), which was written towards the end of the year 415, he

mentions that this fourth book and the following one were begun and finished during that same

year.

2 Comp. Bacon’s Essay on the Vicissitudes of Things.

3 Matt. v. 45.

4 Pet. ii. 19.

° Nonius Marcell. borrows this anecdote from Cicero, De Repub. iii.

6 It was extinguished by Crassus in its third year.

7 Cloacina, supposed by Lactantius (De falsa relig. i. 20), Cyprian (De Idol. vanit.), and Augustine

(infra, c. 23) to be the goddess of the “cloaca,” or sewage of Rome. Others, however, suppose it

to be equivalent to Cluacina, a title given to Venus, because the Romans after the end of the

Sabine war purified themselves (cluere) in the vicinity of her statue.

8 Forculum foribus, Cardeam cardini, Limentinum limini.

9 Virgil, Eclog. iii. 60.

10 Virgil, Æneid, i. 47.

11 Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 25.

12 Virgil, Georg. ii. 325, 326.

13 Eusebius, De Prap. Evang. i. 10.

14 Virgil, Georg. iv. 221, 222.

15The feminine Fortune.

16 Hab. ii. 4.

17 So called from the consent or harmony of the celestial movements of these gods.

18Tusc. Quest. i. 26.

19 Livy, ii. 36 ; Cicero, De Divin. 26.

20 Called by Cicero (De Oratore, i. 39) the most eloquent of lawyers, and the best skilled lawyer

among eloquent men.

21 Superflua non nocent.

22 Rom. i. 25.

23De Divin. ii. 37.

24 Cic. De Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. c. 28.

25 Superstition, from superstes. Against this etymology of Cicero, see Lact. Inst. Div. iv. 28.

26 Balbus, from balbutiens, stammering, babbling.

27 See Cicero, De Nat. Devr. i. 2.

28 Plutarch’s Numa, c. 8.

BOOK FIFTH:

ARGUMENT

AUGUSTINE FIRST DISCUSSES THE DOCTRINE OF FATE, FOR THE SAKE OF CONFUTING THOSE WHO ARE

DISPOSED TO REFER TO FATE THE POWER AND INCREASE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, WHICH COULD NOT BE

ATTRIBUTED TO FALSE GODS, AS HAS BEEN SHOWN IN THE PRECEDING BOOK. AFTER THAT, HE PROVES

THAT THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GOD’S PRESCIENCE AND OUR FREE WILL. HE THEN SPEAKS

OF THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS, AND SHOWS IN WHAT SENSE IT WAS DUE TO THE VIRTUE

OF THE ROMANS THEMSELVES, AND IN HOW FAR TO THE COUNSEL OF GOD, THAT HE INCREASED THEIR

DOMINION, THOUGH THEY DID NOT WORSHIP HIM. FINALLY, HE EXPLAINS WHAT IS TO BE ACCOUNTED

THE TRUE HAPPINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS.

PREFACE

ince, then, it is established that the complete attainment of all we

desire is that which constitutes felicity, which is no goddess, but a

gift of God, and that therefore men can worship no god save Him who is

able to make them happy—and were Felicity herself a goddess, she

would with reason be the only object of worship—since, I say, this is

established, let us now go on to consider why God, who is able to give

with all other things those good gifts which can be possessed by men

who are not good, and consequently not happy, has seen fit to grant

such extended and long-continued dominion to the Roman empire ; for

that this was not effected by that multitude of false gods which they

worshipped, we have both already adduced, and shall, as occasion offers,

yet adduce considerable proof.

1. That the cause of the Roman empire, and of all kingdoms, is neither fortuitous nor consists in

the position of the stars?

The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither

fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or opinion of those who

call those things fortuitous which either have no causes, or such causes as

do not proceed from some intelligible order, and those things fatal which

happen independently of the will of God and man, by the necessity of a

certain order. In a word, human kingdoms are established by divine

providence. And if any one attributes their existence to fate, because he

calls the will or the power of God itself by the name of fate, let him keep

his opinion, but correct his language. For why does he not say at first

what he will say afterwards, when some one shall put the question to

him, What he means by fate? For when men hear that word, according to

the ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it the virtue

of that particular position of the stars which may exist at the time when

any one is born or conceived, which some separate altogether from the

will of God, whilst others affirm that this also is dependent on that will.

But those who are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars

determine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess, or

what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all, not only by

those who hold the true religion, but by those who wish to be the

worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false gods. For what does this

opinion really amount to but this, that no god whatever is to be

worshipped or prayed to? Against these, however, our present

disputation is not intended to be directed, but against those who, in

defence of those whom they think to be gods, oppose the Christian

religion. They, however, who make the position of the stars depend on

the divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man shall

have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if they think that these

same stars have that power conferred upon them by the supreme power

of God, in order that they may determine these things according to their

will, do a great injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant

senate, and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that

wicked deeds are decreed to be done—such deeds as that if any

terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned to

overthrow by the decree of the whole human race. What judgment, then,

is left to God concerning the deeds of men, who is Lord both of the stars

and of men, when to these deeds a celestial necessity is attributed? Or, if

they do not say that the stars, though they have indeed received a

certain power from God, who is supreme, determine those things

according to their own discretion, but simply that His commands are

fulfilled by them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such

necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even what it seemed

unworthy that we should think concerning the will of the stars? But, if

the stars are said rather to signify these things than to effect them, so

that that position of the stars is, as it were, a kind of speech predicting,

not causing future things—for this has been the opinion of men of no

ordinary learning—certainly the mathematicians are not wont so to

speak, saying, for example, Mars in such or such a position signifies a

homicide, but makes a homicide. But, nevertheless, though we grant that

they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought to accept as the

proper form of speech that employed by the philosophers in predicting

those things which they think they discover in the position of the stars,

how comes it that they have never been able to assign any cause why, in

the life of twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in

their professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to human

life, also in their very death, there is often so great a difference, that, as

far as these things are concerned, many entire strangers are more like

them than they are like each other, though separated at birth by the

smallest interval of time, but at conception generated by the same act of

copulation, and at the same moment?

2. On the difference in the health of twins

Cicero says that the famous physician Hippocrates has left in writing

that he had suspected that a certain pair of brothers were twins, from

the fact that they both took ill at once, and their disease advanced to its

crisis and subsided in the same time in each of them.? Posidonius the

Stoic, who was much given to astrology, used to explain the fact by

supposing that they had been born and conceived under the same

constellation. In this question the conjecture of the physician is by far

more worthy to be accepted, and approaches much nearer to credibility,

since, according as the parents were affected in body at the time of

copulation, so might the first elements of the foetuses have been affected,

so that all that was necessary for their growth and development up till

birth having been supplied from the body of the same mother, they

might be born with like constitutions. Thereafter, nourished in the same

house, on the same kinds of food, where they would have also the same

kinds of air, the same locality, the same quality of water—which,

according to the testimony of medical science, have a very great

influence, good or bad, on the condition of bodily health—and where

they would also be accustomed to the same kinds of exercise, they would

have bodily constitutions so similar that they would be similarly affected

with sickness at the same time and by the same causes. But, to wish to

adduce that particular position of the stars which existed at the time

when they were born or conceived as the cause of their being

simultaneously affected with sickness, manifests the greatest arrogance,

when so many beings of most diverse kinds, in the most diverse

conditions, and subject to the most diverse events, may have been

conceived and born at the same time, and in the same district, lying

under the same sky. But we know that twins do not only act differently,

and travel to very different places, but that they also suffer from

different kinds of sickness ; for which Hippocrates would give what is in

my opinion the simplest reason, namely, that, through diversity of food

and exercise, which arises not from the constitution of the body, but

from the inclination of the mind, they may have come to be different

from each other in respect of health. Moreover, Posidonius, or any other

asserter of the fatal influence of the stars, will have enough to do to find

anything to say to this, if he be unwilling to impose upon the minds of

the uninstructed in things of which they are ignorant. But, as to what

they attempt to make out from that very small interval of time elapsing

between the births of twins, on account of that point in the heavens

where the mark of the natal hour is placed, and which they call the

“horoscope,” it is either disproportionately small to the diversity which

is found in the dispositions, actions, habits, and fortunes of twins, or it is

disproportionately great when compared with the estate of twins,

whether low or high, which is the same for both of them, the cause for

whose greatest difference they place, in every case, in the hour on which

one is born ; and, for this reason, if the one is born so immediately after

the other that there is no change in the horoscope, I demand an entire

similarity in all that respects them both, which can never be found in the

case of any twins. But if the slowness of the birth of the second give time

for a change in the horoscope, I demand different parents, which twins

can never have.

3. Concerning the arguments which Nigidius the mathematician drew from the potter’s wheel, in

the question about the birth of twins

It is to no purpose, therefore, that that famous fiction about the

potter’s wheel is brought forward, which tells of the answer which

Nigidius is said to have given when he was perplexed with this question,

and on account of which he was called Figulus.4 For, having whirled

round the potter’s wheel with all his strength, he marked it with ink,

striking it twice with the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes seemed to

fall on the very same part of it. Then, when the rotation had ceased, the

marks which he had made were found upon the rim of the wheel at no

small distance apart. Thus, said he, considering the great rapidity with

which the celestial sphere revolves, even though twins were born with as

short an interval between their births as there was between the strokes

which I gave this wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very

great distance in the celestial sphere. Hence, said he, come whatever

dissimilitudes may be remarked in the habits and fortunes of twins. This

argument is more fragile than the vessels which are fashioned by the

rotation of that wheel. For if there is so much significance in the heavens

which cannot be comprehended by observation of the constellations,

that, in the case of twins, an inheritance may fall to the one and not to

the other, why, in the case of others who are not twins, do they dare,

having examined their constellations, to declare such things as pertain to

that secret which no one can comprehend, and to attribute them to the

precise moment of the birth of each individual? Now, if such predictions

in connection with the natal hours of others who are not twins are to be

vindicated on the ground that they are founded on the observation of

more extended spaces in the heavens, whilst those very small moments

of time which separated the births of twins, and correspond to minute

portions of celestial space, are to be connected with trifling things about

which the mathematicians are not wont to be consulted—for who would

consult them as to when he is to sit, when to walk abroad, when and on

what he is to dine?—how can we be justified in so speaking, when we

can point out such manifold diversity both in the habits, doings, and

destinies of twins?

4. Concerning the twins Esau and Jacob, who were very unlike each other both in their character

and actions

In the time of the ancient fathers, to speak concerning illustrious

persons, there were born two twin brothers, the one so immediately after

the other, that the first took hold of the heel of the second. So great a

difference existed in their lives and manners, so great a dissimilarity in

their actions, so great a difference in their parents’ love for them

respectively, that the very contrast between them produced even a

mutual hostile antipathy. Do we mean, when we say that they were so

unlike each other, that when the one was walking the other was sitting,

when the one was sleeping the other was waking—which differences are

such as are attributed to those minute portions of space which cannot be

appreciated by those who note down the position of the stars which

exists at the moment of one’s birth, in order that the mathematicians

may be consulted concerning it? One of these twins was for a long time a

hired servant ; the other never served. One of them was beloved by his

mother ; the other was not so. One of them lost that honour which was so

much valued among their people ; the other obtained it. And what shall

we say of their wives, their children, and their possessions? How

different they were in respect to all these! If, therefore, such things as

these are connected with those minute intervals of time which elapse

between the births of twins, and are not to be attributed to the

constellations, wherefore are they predicted in the case of others from

the examination of their constellations? And if, on the other hand, these

things are said to be predicted, because they are connected, not with

minute and inappreciable moments, but with intervals of time which can

be observed and noted down, what purpose is that potter’s wheel to

serve in this matter, except it be to whirl round men who have hearts of

clay, in order that they may be prevented from detecting the emptiness

of the talk of the mathematicians?

5. In what manner the mathematicians are convicted of professing a vain science

Do not those very persons whom the medical sagacity of Hippocrates

led him to suspect to be twins, because their disease was observed by

him to develope to its crisis and to subside again in the same time in

each of them—do not these, I say, serve as a sufficient refutation of

those who wish to attribute to the influence of the stars that which was

owing to a similarity of bodily constitution? For wherefore were they

both sick of the same disease, and at the same time, and not the one

after the other in the order of their birth? (for certainly they could not

both be born at the same time.) Or, if the fact of their having been born

at different times by no means necessarily implies that they must be sick

at different times, why do they contend that the difference in the time of

their births was the cause of their difference in other things? Why could

they travel in foreign parts at different times, marry at different times,

beget children at different times, and do many other things at different

times, by reason of their having been born at different times, and yet

could not, for the same reason, also be sick at different times? For if a

difference in the moment of birth changed the horoscope, and

occasioned dissimilarity in all other things, why has that

simultaneousness which belonged to their conception remained in their

attacks of sickness? Or, if the destinies of health are involved in the time

of conception, but those of other things be said to be attached to the

time of birth, they ought not to predict anything concerning health from

examination of the constellations of birth, when the hour of conception

is not also given, that its constellations may be inspected. But if they say

that they predict attacks of sickness without examining the horoscope of

conception, because these are indicated by the moments of birth, how

could they inform either of these twins when he would be sick, from the

horoscope of his birth, when the other also, who had not the same

horoscope of birth, must of necessity fall sick at the same time? Again, I

ask, if the distance of time between the births of twins is so great as to

occasion a difference of their constellations on account of the difference

of their horoscopes, and therefore of all the cardinal points to which so

much influence is attributed, that even from such change there comes a

difference of destiny, how is it possible that this should be so, since they

cannot have been conceived at different times? Or, if two conceived at

the same moment of time could have different destinies with respect to

their births, why may not also two born at the same moment of time

have different destinies for life and for death? For if the one moment in

which both were conceived did not hinder that the one should be born

before the other, why, if two are born at the same moment, should

anything hinder them from dying at the same moment? If a simultaneous

conception allows of twins being differently affected in the womb, why

should not simultaneousness of birth allow of any two individuals

having different fortunes in the world? and thus would all the fictions of

this art, or rather delusion, be swept away. What strange circumstance is

this, that two children conceived at the same time, nay, at the same

moment, under the same position of the stars, have different fates which

bring them to different hours of birth, whilst two children, born of two

different mothers, at the same moment of time, under one and the same

position of the stars, cannot have different fates which shall conduct

them by necessity to diverse manners of life and of death? Are they at

conception as yet without destinies, because they can only have them if

they be born? What, therefore, do they mean when they say that, if the

hour of the conception be found, many things can be predicted by these

astrologers? from which also arose that story which is reiterated by

some, that a certain sage chose an hour in which to lie with his wife, in

order to secure his begetting an illustrious son. From this opinion also

came that answer of Posidonius, the great astrologer and also

philosopher, concerning those twins who were attacked with sickness at

the same time, namely, “That this had happened to them because they

were conceived at the same time, and born at the same time.” For

certainly he added “conception,” lest it should be said to him that they

could not both be born at the same time, knowing that at any rate they

must both have been conceived at the same time ; wishing thus to show

that he did not attribute the fact of their being similarly and

simultaneously affected with sickness to the similarity of their bodily

constitutions as its proximate cause, but that he held that even in respect

of the similarity of their health, they were bound together by a sidereal

connection. If, therefore, the time of conception has so much to do with

the similarity of destinies, these same destinies ought not to be changed

by the circumstances of birth ; or, if the destinies of twins be said to be

changed because they are born at different times, why should we not

rather understand that they had been already changed in order that they

might be born at different times? Does not, then, the will of men living

in the world change the destinies of birth, when the order of birth can

change the destinies they had at conception?

6. Concerning twins of different sexes

But even in the very conception of twins, which certainly occurs at the

same moment in the case of both, it often happens that the one is

conceived a male, and the other a female. I know two of different sexes

who are twins. Both of them are alive, and in the flower of their age ; and

though they resemble each other in body, as far as difference of sex will

permit, still they are very different in the whole scope and purpose of

their lives (consideration being had of those differences which

necessarily exist between the lives of males and females)—the one

holding the office of a count, and being almost constantly away from

home with the army in foreign service, the other never leaving her

country’s soil, or her native district. Still more—and this is more

incredible, if the destinies of the stars are to be believed in, though it is

not wonderful if we consider the wills of men, and the free gifts of God

—he is married ; she is a sacred virgin: he has begotten a numerous

offspring ; she has never even married. But is not the virtue of the

horoscope very great? I think I have said enough to show the absurdity

of that. But, say those astrologers, whatever be the virtue of the

horoscope in other respects, it is certainly of significance with respect to

birth. But why not also with respect to conception, which takes place

undoubtedly with one act of copulation? And, indeed, so great is the

force of nature, that after a woman has once conceived, she ceases to be

liable to conception. Or were they, perhaps, changed at birth, either he

into a male, or she into a female, because of the difference in their

horoscopes? But, whilst it is not altogether absurd to say that certain

sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in bodies alone

—as, for instance, we see that the seasons of the year come round by the

approaching and receding of the sun, and that certain kinds of things are

increased in size or diminished by the waxings and wanings of the moon,

such as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful tides of the ocean—it

does not follow that the wills of men are to be made subject to the

position of the stars. The astrologers, however, when they wish to bind

our actions also to the constellations, only set us on investigating

whether, even in these bodies, the changes may not be attributable to

some other than a sidereal cause. For what is there which more

intimately concerns a body than its sex? And yet, under the same

position of the stars, twins of different sexes may be conceived.

Wherefore, what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that

the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them at the

time of conception, could not cause that the one child should not have

been of a different sex from her brother, with whom she had a common

constellation, whilst the position of the stars which existed at the hour of

their birth could cause that she should be separated from him by the

great distance between marriage and holy virginity?

7. Concerning the choosing of a day for marriage, or for planting, or sowing

Now, will any one bring forward this, that in choosing certain

particular days for particular actions, men bring about certain new

destinies for their actions? That man, for instance, according to this

doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious son, but rather a

contemptible one, and therefore, being a man of learning, he chose an

hour in which to lie with his wife. He made, therefore, a destiny which

he did not have before, and from that destiny of his own making

something began to be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of

his natal hour. Oh, singular stupidity! A day is chosen on which to

marry ; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be chosen, the

marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn out an unhappy one.

What then becomes of what the stars have already decreed at the hour of

birth? Can a man be said to change by an act of choice that which has

already been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has

determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by another

power? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under heaven, are subject

to the influence of the stars, why do they choose some days as suitable

for planting vines or trees, or for sowing grain, other days as suitable for

taming beasts on, or for putting the males to the females, that the cows

and mares may be impregnated, and for such-like things? If it be said

that certain chosen days have an influence on these things, because the

constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies, animate and inanimate,

according to differences in moments of time, let it be considered what

innumerable multitudes of beings are born or arise, or take their origin

at the very same instant of time, which come to ends so different, that

they may persuade any little boy that these observations about days are

ridiculous. For who is so mad as to dare affirm that all trees, all herbs,

all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes, worms, have each separately their own

moments of birth or commencement? Nevertheless, men are wont, in

order to try the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the

constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose birth they

diligently observe at home with a view to this discovery ; and they prefer

those mathematicians to all others, who say from the inspection of the

constellations that they indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man.

They also dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a woolbearing

beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one fit for the plough,

or for watching a house ; for the astrologers are also tried with respect to

the fates of dogs, and their answers concerning these are followed by

shouts of admiration on the part of those who consult them. They so

deceive men as to make them think that during the birth of a man the

births of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes to

life at the same time that he is being born, under the same region of the

heavens. And if this be admitted with respect to the fly, the reasoning

cannot stop there, but must ascend from flies till it lead them up to

camels and elephants. Nor are they willing to attend to this, that when a

day has been chosen whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into the

ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up, come to

perfection, and ripen simultaneously ; and yet, of all the ears which are

coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some are destroyed by mildew,

some are devoured by the birds, and some are pulled by men. How can

they say that all these had their different constellations, which they see

coming to so different ends? Will they confess that it is folly to choose

days for such things, and to affirm that they do not come within the

sphere of the celestial decree, whilst they subject men’ alone to the stars,

on whom alone in the world God has bestowed free wills? All these

things being considered, we have good reason to believe that, when the

astrologers give very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to

the occult inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose care it is to

insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in them, those false and

noxious opinions concerning the fatal influence of the stars, and not to

their marking and inspecting of horoscopes, according to some kind of

art which in reality has no existence.

8. Concerning those who call by the name of fate, not the position of the stars, but the

connection of causes which dcpends on the will of God

But, as to those who call by the name of fate, not the disposition of the

stars as it may exist when any creature is conceived, or born, or

commences its existence, but the whole connection and train of causes

which makes everything become what it does become, there is no need

that I should labour and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy,

since they attribute the so-called order and connection of causes to the

will and power of God most high, who is most rightly and most truly

believed to know all things before they come to pass, and to leave

nothing unordained ; from whom are all powers, although the wills of all

are not from Him. Now, that it is chiefly the will of God most high,

whose power extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call

fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake not,

Anneus Seneca is the author:—

“Father supreme, Thou ruler of the lofty heavens,

Lead me where’er it is Thy pleasure ; I will give

A prompt obedience, making no delay,

Lo! here I am. Promptly I come to do Thy sovereign will ;

If Thy command shall thwart my inclination, I will still

Follow Thee groaning, and the work assigned,

With all the suffering of a mind repugnant,

Will perform, being evil ; which, had I been good,

I should have undertaken and performed, though hard,

With virtuous cheerfulness.

The Fates do lead the man that follows willing ;

But the man that is unwilling, him they drag.” >

Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that “fate” which he had

before called “the will of the Father supreme,” whom, he says, is ready

to obey that he may be led, being willing, not dragged, being unwilling,

since “the Fates do lead the man that follows willing, but the man that is

unwilling, him they drag.”

The following Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into Latin, also

favour this opinion:—

“Such are the minds of men, as is the light

Which Father Jove himself doth pour

Illustrious o’er the fruitful earth.”©

Not that Cicero wishes that a poetical sentiment should have any weight

in a question like this ; for when he says that the Stoics, when asserting

the power of fate, were in the habit of using these verses from Homer, he

is not treating concerning the opinion of that poet, but concerning that

of those philosophers, since by these verses, which they quote in

connection with the controversy which they hold about fate, is most

distinctly manifested what it is which they reckon fate, since they call by

the name of Jupiter him whom they reckon the supreme god, from

whom, they say, hangs the whole chain of fates.

9. Concerning the foreknowledge of God and the free will of man, in opposition to the definition

of Cicero

The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task of refuting

the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could effect anything against

them in argument unless he had first demolished divination.” And this

he attempts to accomplish by denying that there is any knowledge of

future things, and maintains with all his might that there is no such

knowledge either in God or man, and that there is no prediction of

events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God, and attempts by

vain arguments, and by opposing to himself certain oracles very easy to

be refuted, to overthrow all prophecy, even such as is clearer than the

light (though even these oracles are not refuted by him).

But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his argument

is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy and refute

themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more tolerable who assert the fatal

influence of the stars than they who deny the foreknowledge of future

events. For, to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that

He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. This

Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the doctrine

embodied in the words of Scripture, “The fool hath said in his heart,

There is no God.”8 That, however, he did not do in his own person, for

he saw how odious and offensive such an opinion would be ; and,

therefore in his book on the nature of the gods,? he makes Cotta dispute

concerning this against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion

in favour of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of the

Stoical position, rather than in favour of Cotta, who maintained that no

divinity exists. However, in his book on divination, he in his own person

most openly opposes the doctrine of the prescience of future things. But

all this he seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of

fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that, the knowledge

of future things being once conceded, fate follows as so necessary a

consequence that it cannot be denied.

But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the

philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may confess the

most high and true God Himself, do confess His will, supreme power,

and prescience. Neither let us be afraid lest, after all, we do not do by

will that which we do by will, because He, whose foreknowledge is

infallible, foreknew that we would do it. It was this which Cicero was

afraid of, and therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also

maintained that all things do not come to pass by necessity, although

they contended that all things happen according to destiny. What is it,

then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things? Doubtless it

was this—that if all future things have been foreknown, they will

happen in the order in which they have been foreknown ; and if they

come to pass in this order, there is a certain order of things foreknown

by God ; and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes,

for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient cause.

But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything

happens which does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen

which do happen. But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own

power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will ; and if we grant

that, says he, the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are

laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had

recourse to ; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of

rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked. And that

consequences so disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity

may not follow, Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future

things, and shuts up the religious mind to this alternative, to make

choice between two things, either that something is in our own power,

or that there is foreknowledge—both of which cannot be true ; but if the

one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He therefore, like a truly

great and wise man, and one who consulted very much and very skilfully

for the good of humanity, of those two chose the freedom of the will, to

confirm which he denied the foreknowledge of future things ; and thus,

wishing to make men free, he makes them sacrilegious. But the religious

mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of

piety. But how so? says Cicero ; for the knowledge of future things being

granted, there follows a chain of consequences which ends in this, that

there can be nothing depending on our own free wills. And further, if

there is anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by the

same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the conclusion that there is no

foreknowledge of future things. For we go backwards through all the

steps in the following order:—If there is free will, all things do not

happen according to fate ; if all things do not happen according to fate,

there is not a certain order of causes ; and if there is not a certain order

of causes, neither is there a certain order of things foreknown by God—

for things cannot come to pass except they are preceded by efficient

causes—but, if there is no fixed and certain order of causes foreknown

by God, all things cannot be said to happen according as He foreknew

that they would happen. And further, if it is not true that all things

happen just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says he,

in God any foreknowledge of future events.

Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we assert

both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do

by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only

because we will it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we do not

say ; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate ; for we

demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont to be used by those who

speak of fate, meaning thereby the position of the stars at the time of

each one’s conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself

is a delusion. But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency is

attributed to the will of God, we neither deny nor do we designate it by

the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may understand fate to mean that

which is spoken, deriving it from fari, to speak ; for we cannot deny that

it is written in the sacred Scriptures, “God hath spoken once ; these two

things have I heard, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto Thee, O

God, belongeth mercy: for Thou wilt render unto every man according to

his works.”!9 Now the expression, “Once hath He spoken,” is to be

understood as meaning “immovably,” that is, unchangeably hath He

spoken, inasmuch as He knows unchangeably all things which shall be,

and all things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate in the

sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it not already come

to be understood in another sense, into which I am unwilling that the

hearts of men should unconsciously slide. But it does not follow that,

though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore

be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills

themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God,

and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes

of human actions ; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would

certainly among those causes not have been ignorant of our wills. For

even that very concession which Cicero himself makes is enough to

refute him in this argument. For what does it help him to say that

nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is not fatal,

there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and a voluntary cause? It

is sufficient that he confesses that whatever happens must be preceded

by a cause. For we say that those causes which are called fortuitous are

not a mere name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we

attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of spirits of

some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by no means separate

them from the will of Him who is the author and framer of all nature.

But now as to voluntary causes. They are referable either to God, or to

angels, or to men, or to animals of whatever description, if indeed those

instinctive movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in

accordance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things, are

to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of angels, I mean either

the wills of good angels, whom we call the angels of God, or of the

wicked angels, whom we call the angels of the devil, or demons. Also by

the wills of men I mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked.

And from this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things

which come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as belong to

that nature, which is the spirit of life. For the air or wind is called spirit,

but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not the spirit of life. The spirit of life,

therefore, which quickens all things, and is the creator of every body,

and of every created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His

supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all created

spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling all, granting power

to some, not granting it to others. For, as He is the creator of all natures,

so also is He the bestower of all powers, not of all wills ; for wicked wills

are not from Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to

bodies, they are more subject to wills ; some to our wills, by which I

mean the wills of all living mortal creatures, but more to the wills of

men than of beasts. But all of them are most of all subject to the will of

God, to whom all wills also are subject, since they have no power except

what He has bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which

makes but is not made, is God ; but all other causes both make and are

made. Such are all created spirits, and especially the rational. Material

causes, therefore, which may rather be said to be made than to make,

are not to be reckoned among efficient causes, because they can only do

what the wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of causes

which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate that there

should be nothing which is dependent on our wills, when our wills

themselves have a very important place in the order of causes? Cicero,

then, contends with those who call this order of causes fatal, or rather

designate this order itself by the name of fate ; to which we have an

abhorrence, especially on account of the word, which men have become

accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true. But, whereas he

denies that the order of all causes is most certain, and perfectly clear to

the prescience of God, we detest his opinion more than the Stoics do. For

he either denies that God exists—which, indeed, in an assumed

personage, he has laboured to do, in his book De Natura Deorum—or if

he confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of future

things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his heart there is no

God?” For one who is not prescient of all future things is not God.

Wherefore our wills also have just so much power as God willed and

foreknew that they should have ; and therefore whatever power they

have, they have it within most certain limits ; and whatever they are to

do, they are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is

infallible foreknew that they would have the power to do it, and would

do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the name of fate to anything

at all, I should rather say that fate belongs to the weaker of two parties,

will to the stronger, who has the other in his power, than that the

freedom of our will is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an

unusual application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call

Fate.

10. Whether our wills are ruled by necessity

Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread of which

the Stoics laboured to make such distinctions among the causes of things

as should enable them to rescue certain things from the dominion of

necessity, and to subject others to it. Among those things which they

wished not to be subject to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that

they would not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be called

our necessity which is not in our power, but even though we be unwilling

effects what it can effect—as, for instance, the necessity of death—it is

manifest that our wills by which we live uprightly or wickedly are not

under such a necessity ; for we do many things which, if we were not

willing, we should certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of

willing itself—for if we will, it is ; if we will not, it is not—for we should

not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity to be that

according to which we say that it is necessary that anything be of such

or such a nature, or be done in such and such a manner, I know not why

we should have any dread of that necessity taking away the freedom of

our will. For we do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God

under necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should live

for ever, and foreknow all things ; as neither is His power diminished

when we say that He cannot die or fall into error—for this is in such a

way impossible to Him, that if it were possible for Him, He would be of

less power. But assuredly He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can

neither die nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account of

His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering what He wills

not ; for if that should befall Him, He would by no means be omnipotent.

Wherefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is

omnipotent. So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will,

we will by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond

doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity which

destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and do themselves

whatever we do by willing, and which would not be done if we were

unwilling. But when any one suffers anything, being unwilling, by the

will of another, even in that case will retains its essential validity—we

do not mean the will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we

resolve it into the power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but not

be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a more powerful

will. Nor would this be the case unless there had existed will, and that

not the will of the other party, but the will of him who willed, but was

not able to accomplish what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man

suffers contrary to his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of

men, or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will who

gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that because God

foreknew what would be in the power of our wills, there is for that

reason nothing in the power of our wills. For he who foreknew this did

not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in

the power of our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something,

assuredly, even though He did foreknow, there is something in the

power of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either,

retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or,

retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future

things, which is impious. But we embrace both. We faithfully and

sincerely confess both. The former, that we may believe well ; the latter,

that we may live well. For he lives ill who does not believe well

concerning God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our

freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are or shall be

free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that

reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are had recourse to ;

for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as

He foreknew that they would be of. Prayers, also, are of avail to procure

those things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who

offered them ; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good

deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore sin

because God foreknew that be would sin. Nay, it cannot be doubted but

that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose

foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or

something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he

wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God

foreknow.

11. Concerning the universal providence of God in the laws of which all things are

comprehended

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy Spirit

(which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and maker of every

soul and of every body ; by whose gift all are happy who are happy

through verity and not through vanity ; who made man a rational animal

consisting of soul and body, who, when he sinned, neither permitted him

to go unpunished, nor left him without mercy ; who has given to the

good and to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in

common with trees, sensuous life in common with brutes, intellectual

life in common with angels alone ; from whom is every mode, every

species, every order ; from whom are measure, number, weight ; from

whom is everything which has an existence in nature, of whatever kind

it be, and of whatever value ; from whom are the seeds of forms and the

forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms ; who gave also to

flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive fecundity, disposition of

members, and the salutary concord of its parts ; who also to the irrational

soul has given memory, sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in

addition to these, has given intelligence and will ; who has not left, not to

speak of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails of

the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather of a bird, or

the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without an harmony,

and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts ; —that God can never

be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and

servitudes, outside of the laws of His providence.

12. By what virtues the ancient Romans merited that the true God, although they did not

worship Him, should enlarge their empire

Wherefore let us go on to consider what virtues of the Romans they

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