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Title: The City of God, Volume I

Author: Saint of Hippo Augustine

Editor: Marcus Dods

Release date: April 8, 2014 [eBook #45304]
Most recently updated: September 17, 2026

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF
GOD, VOLUME I ***

THE WORKS

OF

AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,
BISHOP OF HIPPO.

A NEW TRANSLATION.

Edited by the

REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A.

VOL. I.

THE CITY OF GOD,

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

MDCCCLXXI.

PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB,

FOR

T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.

LONDON, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.

DUBLIN, JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO.

NEW YORK, C. SCRIBNER AND CO.

THE

CITY OF GOD.

Translated by the

REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A.

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

MDCCCLXXI.

Of the following Work, Books IV. XVII. and XVIII. have been translated by
the Rev. George Wilson, Glenluce; Books V. VI. VII. and VIII. by the Rev.
J. J. Smith.

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.

page

Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the
calamities of the world, and especially the sack of
Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its
prohibition of the worship of the gods, 1

BOOK II.

A review of the calamities suffered by the Romans
before the time of Christ, showing that their gods
had plunged them into corruption and vice, 48

BOOK III.

The external calamities of Rome, 91

BOOK IV.

That empire was given to Rome not by the gods, but by
the One True God, 135

BOOK V.

Of fate, freewill, and God's prescience, and of the
source of the virtues of the ancient Romans, 177

BOOK VI.

Of Varro's threefold division of theology, and of the
inability of the gods to contribute anything to the
happiness of the future life, 228

BOOK VII.

Of the "select gods" of the civil theology, and that
eternal life is not obtained by worshipping them, 258

BOOK VIII.

Some account of the Socratic and Platonic philosophy,
and a refutation of the doctrine of Apuleius that the
demons should be worshipped as mediators
between gods and men, 305

BOOK IX.

Of those who allege a distinction among demons, some
being good and others evil, 353

BOOK X.

Porphyry's doctrine of redemption, 382

BOOK XI.

Augustine passes to the second part of the work, in
which the origin, progress, and destinies of the
earthly and heavenly cities are discussed.—
Speculations regarding the creation of the world, 436

BOOK XII.

Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of
evil, 481

BOOK XIII.

That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, 521

EDITOR'S PREFACE.
"Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their
king,[1] the worshippers of false gods, or pagans, as we commonly call
them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion,
and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted
bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal for the house of
God, and prompted me to undertake the defence of the city of God against
the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my
hands for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many
other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention, and which I could not
defer. However, this great undertaking was at last completed in twenty-two
books. Of these, the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic
worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity, and that all these
overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition.
In the following five books I address myself to those who admit that such
calamities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend, the human
race, and that they constantly recur in forms more or less disastrous,
varying only in the scenes, occasions, and persons on whom they light, but,
while admitting this, maintain that the worship of the gods is advantageous
for the life to come. In these ten books, then, I refute these two opinions,
which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to the Christian religion.
"But that no one might have occasion to say, that though I had refuted the
tenets of other men, I had omitted to establish my own, I devote to this
object the second part of this work, which comprises twelve books,
although I have not scrupled, as occasion offered, either to advance my own
opinions in the first ten books, or to demolish the arguments of my
opponents in the last twelve. Of these twelve books, the first four contain an
account of the origin of these two cities—the city of God, and the city of
the world. The second four treat of their history or progress; the third and
last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, though all these twenty-two
books refer to both cities, yet I have named them after the better city, and
called them The City of God."

Such is the account given by Augustine himself[2] of the occasion and plan
of this his greatest work. But in addition to this explicit information, we
learn from the correspondence[3] of Augustine, that it was due to the
importunity of his friend Marcellinus that this defence of Christianity
extended beyond the limits of a few letters. Shortly before the fall of Rome,
Marcellinus had been sent to Africa by the Emperor Honorius to arrange a
settlement of the differences between the Donatists and the Catholics. This
brought him into contact not only with Augustine, but with Volusian, the
proconsul of Africa, and a man of rare intelligence and candour. Finding
that Volusian, though as yet a pagan, took an interest in the Christian
religion, Marcellinus set his heart on converting him to the true faith. The
details of the subsequent significant intercourse between the learned and
courtly bishop and the two imperial statesmen, are unfortunately almost
entirely lost to us; but the impression conveyed by the extant
correspondence is, that Marcellinus was the means of bringing his two
friends into communication with one another. The first overture was on
Augustine's part, in the shape of a simple and manly request that Volusian
would carefully peruse the Scriptures, accompanied by a frank offer to do
his best to solve any difficulties that might arise in such a course of inquiry.
Volusian accordingly enters into correspondence with Augustine; and in
order to illustrate the kind of difficulties experienced by men in his position,
he gives some graphic notes of a conversation in which he had recently
taken part at a gathering of some of his friends. The difficulty to which
most weight is attached in this letter, is the apparent impossibility of
believing in the Incarnation. But a letter which Marcellinus immediately
despatched to Augustine, urging him to reply to Volusian at large, brought
the intelligence that the difficulties and objections to Christianity were thus
limited merely out of a courteous regard to the preciousness of the bishop's
time, and the vast number of his engagements. This letter, in short, brought
out the important fact, that a removal of speculative doubts would not
suffice for the conversion of such men as Volusian, whose life was one with
the life of the empire. Their difficulties were rather political, historical, and
social. They could not see how the reception of the Christian rule of life
was compatible with the interests of Rome as the mistress of the world.[4]
And thus Augustine was led to take a more distinct and wider view of the
whole relation which Christianity bore to the old state of things,—moral,
political, philosophical, and religious,—and was gradually drawn on to

undertake the elaborate work now presented to the English reader, and
which may more appropriately than any other of his writings be called his
masterpiece[5] or life-work. It was begun the very year of Marcellinus'
death, a.d. 413, and was issued in detached portions from time to time, until
its completion in the year 426. It thus occupied the maturest years of
Augustine's life—from his fifty-ninth to his seventy-second year.[6]
From this brief sketch, it will be seen that though the accompanying work is
essentially an Apology, the Apologetic of Augustine can be no mere
rehabilitation of the somewhat threadbare, if not effete, arguments of Justin
and Tertullian.[7] In fact, as Augustine considered what was required of him,
—to expound the Christian faith, and justify it to enlightened men; to
distinguish it from, and show its superiority to, all those forms of truth,
philosophical or popular, which were then striving for the mastery, or at
least for standing-room; to set before the world's eye a vision of glory that
might win the regard even of men who were dazzled by the fascinating
splendour of a world-wide empire,—he recognised that a task was laid
before him to which even his powers might prove unequal,—a task
certainly which would afford ample scope for his learning, dialectic,
philosophical grasp and acumen, eloquence, and faculty of exposition.
But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests it at once with
grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven hundred years of steady and
triumphant progress, Rome had been taken and sacked. It is difficult for us
to appreciate, impossible to overestimate, the shock which was thus
communicated from centre to circumference of the whole known world. It
was generally believed, not only by the heathen, but also by many of the
most liberal-minded of the Christians, that the destruction of Rome would
be the prelude to the destruction of the world.[8] Even Jerome, who might
have been supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress of the
world by her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal his profound emotion
on hearing of her fall. "A terrible rumour," he says, "reaches me from the
West, telling of Rome besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and
property perishing together. My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I dictate;
for she is a captive, that city which enthralled the world."[9] Augustine is
never so theatrical as Jerome in the expression of his feeling, but he is
equally explicit in lamenting the fall of Rome as a great calamity; and while

he does not scruple to ascribe her recent disgrace to the profligate manners,
the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is not without hope that, by
a return to the simple, hardy, and honourable mode of life which
characterized the early Romans, she may still be restored to much of her
former prosperity.[10] But as Augustine contemplates the ruins of Rome's
greatness, and feels, in common with all the world at this crisis, the
instability of the strongest governments, the insufficiency of the most
authoritative statesmanship, there hovers over these ruins the splendid
vision of the city of God "coming down out of heaven, adorned as a bride
for her husband." The old social system is crumbling away on all sides, but
in its place he seems to see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that human
history and human destiny are not wholly identified with the history of any
earthly power—not though it be as cosmopolitan as the empire of Rome.[11]
He directs the attention of men to the fact that there is another kingdom on
earth,—a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He
teaches men to take profounder views of history, and shows them how from
the first the city of God, or community of God's people, has lived alongside
of the kingdoms of this world and their glory, and has been silently
increasing, "crescit occulto velut arbor ævo." He demonstrates that the
superior morality, the true doctrine, the heavenly origin of this city, ensure
its success; and over against this, he depicts the silly or contradictory
theorizings of the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the
people, and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the presence of so
manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome's downfall, there is room for
imputing it to the spread of Christianity. He traces the antagonism of these
two grand communities of rational creatures, back to their first divergence
in the fall of the angels, and down to the consummation of all things in the
last judgment and eternal destination of the good and evil. In other words,
the city of God is "the first real effort to produce a philosophy of history,"
[12]
to exhibit historical events in connection with their true causes, and in
their real sequence. This plan of the work is not only a great conception, but
it is accompanied with many practical advantages; the chief of which is,
that it admits, and even requires, a full treatment of those doctrines of our
faith that are more directly historical,—the doctrines of creation, the fall,
the incarnation, the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and
the doctrine of "the last things."[13]

The effect produced by this great work it is impossible to determine with
accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness which we should condemn as
presumption in any less competent authority, declares that its effect can
only have been very slight.[14] Probably its effect would be silent and slow;
telling first upon cultivated minds, and only indirectly upon the people.
Certainly its effect must have been weakened by the interrupted manner of
its publication. It is an easier task to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this
also patristic and literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that it is
very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of matters which are
introduced to illustrate and forward the argument, but censures the author
for discussing very useless questions, and for adducing reasons which could
satisfy no one who was not already convinced.[15] Huet also speaks of the
book as "un amas confus d'excellents materiaux; c'est de l'or en barre et en
lingots."[16] L'Abbé Flottes censures these opinions as unjust, and cites with
approbation the unqualified eulogy of Pressensé.[17] But probably the
popularity of the book is its best justification. This popularity may be
measured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467 and the end of
the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty editions were called for, that is
to say, a fresh edition every eighteen months.[18] And in the interesting
series of letters that passed between Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus, who
had engaged him to write a commentary on the City of God for his edition
of Augustine's works, we find Vives pleading for a separate edition of this
work, on the plea that, of all the writings of Augustine, it was almost the
only one read by patristic students, and might therefore naturally be
expected to have a much wider circulation.[19]
If it were asked to what this popularity is due, we should be disposed to
attribute it mainly to the great variety of ideas, opinions, and facts that are
here brought before the reader's mind. Its importance as a contribution to
the history of opinion cannot be overrated. We find in it not only indications
or explicit enouncement of the author's own views upon almost every
important topic which occupied his thoughts, but also a compendious
exhibition of the ideas which most powerfully influenced the life of that
age. It thus becomes, as Poujoulat says, "comme l'encyclopédie du
cinquième siècle." All that is valuable, together with much indeed that is not
so, in the religion and philosophy of the classical nations of antiquity, is
reviewed. And on some branches of these subjects it has, in the judgment of

one well qualified to judge, "preserved more than the whole surviving Latin
literature." It is true we are sometimes wearied by the too elaborate
refutation of opinions which to a modern mind seem self-evident
absurdities; but if these opinions were actually prevalent in the fifth century,
the historical inquirer will not quarrel with the form in which his
information is conveyed, nor will commit the absurdity of attributing to
Augustine the foolishness of these opinions, but rather the credit of
exploding them. That Augustine is a well-informed and impartial critic, is
evinced by the courteousness and candour which he uniformly displays to
his opponents, by the respect he won from the heathen themselves, and by
his own early life. The most rigorous criticism has found him at fault
regarding matters of fact only in some very rare instances, which can be
easily accounted for. His learning would not indeed stand comparison with
what is accounted such in our day: his life was too busy, and too devoted to
the poor and to the spiritually necessitous, to admit of any extraordinary
acquisition. He had access to no literature but the Latin; or at least he had
only sufficient Greek to enable him to refer to Greek authors on points of
importance, and not enough to enable him to read their writings with ease
and pleasure.[20] But he had a profound knowledge of his own time, and a
familiar acquaintance not only with the Latin poets, but with many other
authors, some of whose writings are now lost to us, save the fragments
preserved through his quotations.
But the interest attaching to the City of God is not merely historical. It is the
earnestness and ability with which he developes his own philosophical and
theological views which gradually fascinate the reader, and make him see
why the world has set this among the few greatest books of all time. The
fundamental lines of the Augustinian theology are here laid down in a
comprehensive and interesting form. Never was thought so abstract
expressed in language so popular. He handles metaphysical problems with
the unembarrassed ease of Plato, with all Cicero's accuracy and acuteness,
and more than Cicero's profundity. He is never more at home than when
exposing the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or demonstrating the harmony
of Christian doctrine and true philosophy. And though there are in the City
of God, as in all ancient books, things that seem to us childish and barren,
there are also the most surprising anticipations of modern speculation.
There is an earnest grappling with those problems which are continually re-

opened because they underlie man's relation to God and the spiritual world,
—the problems which are not peculiar to any one century. As we read these
animated discussions,

"The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky."

It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be desired: there are
passages which can possess an interest only to the antiquarian; there are
others with nothing to redeem them but the glow of their eloquence; there
are many repetitions; there is an occasional use of arguments "plus
ingenieux que solides," as M. Saisset says. Augustine's great admirer,
Erasmus, does not scruple to call him a writer "obscuræ subtilitatis et parum
amœnæ prolixitatis;"[21] but "the toil of penetrating the apparent obscurities
will be rewarded by finding a real wealth of insight and enlightenment."
Some who have read the opening chapters of the City of God, may have
considered it would be a waste of time to proceed; but no one, we are
persuaded, ever regretted reading it all. The book has its faults; but it
effectually introduces us to the most influential of theologians, and the
greatest popular teacher; to a genius that cannot nod for many lines
together; to a reasoner whose dialectic is more formidable, more keen and
sifting, than that of Socrates or Aquinas; to a saint whose ardent and
genuine devotional feeling bursts up through the severest argumentation; to
a man whose kindliness and wit, universal sympathies and breadth of
intelligence, lend piquancy and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.
The propriety of publishing a translation of so choice a specimen of ancient
literature needs no defence. As Poujoulat very sensibly remarks, there are
not a great many men now-a-days who will read a work in Latin of twenty-

two books. Perhaps there are fewer still who ought to do so. With our busy
neighbours in France, this work has been a prime favourite for 400 years.
There may be said to be eight independent translations of it into the French
tongue, though some of these are in part merely revisions. One of these
translations has gone through as many as four editions. The most recent is
that which forms part of the Nisard series; but the best, so far as we have
seen, is that of the accomplished Professor of Philosophy in the College of
France, Emile Saisset. This translation is indeed all that can be desired: here
and there an omission occurs, and about one or two renderings a difference
of opinion may exist; but the exceeding felicity and spirit of the whole show
it to have been a labour of love, the fond homage of a disciple proud of his
master. The preface of M. Saisset is one of the most valuable contributions
ever made to the understanding of Augustine's philosophy.[22]
Of English translations there has been an unaccountable poverty. Only one
exists,[23] and this so exceptionally bad, so unlike the racy translations of
the seventeenth century in general, so inaccurate, and so frequently
unintelligible, that it is not impossible it may have done something towards
giving the English public a distaste for the book itself. That the present
translation also might be improved, we know; that many men were fitter for
the task, on the score of scholarship, we are very sensible; but that any one
would have executed it with intenser affection and veneration for the
author, we are not prepared to admit. A few notes have been added where it
appeared to be necessary. Some are original, some from the Benedictine
Augustine, and the rest from the elaborate commentary of Vives.[24]
The Editor.
Glasgow, 1871.

THE CITY OF GOD.

BOOK FIRST.
ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE CENSURES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE
CALAMITIES OF THE WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE
RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO THE CHRISTIAN
RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE
GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE,
WHICH THEN, AS ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD
MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES THE SHAMELESSNESS
OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT THEIR
WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE SOLDIERS.

PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING THIS
WORK.
The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest
son Marcellinus,[25] suggested, and which is due to you by my promise. I
have undertaken its defence against those who prefer their own gods to the
Founder of this city,—a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it
still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger
in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its
eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until
"righteousness shall return unto judgment,"[26] and it obtain, by virtue of its
excellence, final victory and perfect peace. A great work this, and an
arduous; but God is my helper. For I am aware what ability is requisite to
persuade the proud how great is the virtue of humility, which raises us, not
by a quite human arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly
dignities that totter on this shifting scene. For the King and Founder of this
city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of
the divine law in these words: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace
unto the humble."[27] But this, which is God's prerogative, the inflated

ambition of a proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be
numbered among its attributes, to

"Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."[28]

And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and as
occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though it be
mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.
1. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ, whom the barbarians for
Christ's sake spared when they stormed the city.
For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to defend
the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from their ungodly
error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens of this city; but many are
so inflamed with hatred against it, and are so ungrateful to its Redeemer for
His signal benefits, as to forget that they would now be unable to utter a
single word to its prejudice, had they not found in its sacred places, as they
fled from the enemy's steel, that life in which they now boast themselves.
Are not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The
reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear witness to
this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary for all who fled to
them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold the bloodthirsty
enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did such of
the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they had given quarter,
lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon them. And, indeed, when
even those murderers who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless
came to these spots where that was forbidden which the licence of war
permitted in every other place, their furious rage for slaughter was bridled,
and their eagerness to take prisoners was quenched. Thus escaped
multitudes who now reproach the Christian religion, and impute to Christ
the ills that have befallen their city; but the preservation of their own life—a
boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ by the barbarians
—they attribute not to our Christ, but to their own good luck. They ought
rather, had they any right perceptions, to attribute the severities and

hardships inflicted by their enemies, to that divine providence which is
wont to reform the depraved manners of men by chastisement, and which
exercises with similar afflictions the righteous and praiseworthy,—either
translating them, when they have passed through the trial, to a better world,
or detaining them still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to
attribute it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the custom
of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and spared them for
Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually shown in promiscuous
places, or in those places specially dedicated to Christ's name, and of which
the very largest were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be
given to the expansive compassion which desired that a large multitude
might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to give God thanks, and with
sincere confession flee for refuge to His name, that so they may escape the
punishment of eternal fire—they who with lying lips took upon them this
name, that they might escape the punishment of present destruction. For of
those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insulting the servants of
Christ, there are numbers who would not have escaped that destruction and
slaughter had they not pretended that they themselves were Christ's
servants. Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the
risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that
name under which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of
enjoying the light of this brief life.
2. That it is quite contrary to the usage of war, that the victors should spare
the vanquished for the sake of their gods.
There are histories of numberless wars, both before the building of Rome
and since its rise and the extension of its dominion: let these be read, and let
one instance be cited in which, when a city had been taken by foreigners,
the victors spared those who were found to have fled for sanctuary to the
temples of their gods;[29] or one instance in which a barbarian general gave
orders that none should be put to the sword who had been found in this or
that temple. Did not Æneas see

"Dying Priam at the shrine,
Staining the hearth he made divine?"[30]

Did not Diomede and Ulysses

"Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,
Her fateful image from your fane,
Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore
The virgin coronal she wore?"[31]

Neither is that true which follows, that

"Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,
And Greece grew weak."[32]

For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and sword; after
this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars. Neither did Troy perish
because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself first lost, that she
should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt; just her guards. For as soon
as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact, the men who
were preserved by the image, but the image by the men. How, then, was she
invoked to defend the city and the citizens, she who could not defend her
own defenders?

. That the Romans did not show their usual sagacity when they trusted that
they would be benefited by the gods who had been unable to defend
Troy.

And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were delighted
to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And they are enraged at us
when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged at
their own writers, they part with money to learn what they say; and, indeed,
the very teachers of these authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the
public purse, and of other honours. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in
order that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may
impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by them,
according to that saying of Horace,

"The fresh cask long keeps its first tang."[33]

Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans, and
stirring up Æolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words,

"A race I hate now ploughs the sea,
Transporting Troy to Italy,
And home-gods conquered. "[34]...

And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of Rome to these
conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno, who,
like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What, then, says
Æneas himself,—Æneas who is so often designated "pious?" Does he not
say,

"Lo! Panthus, 'scaped from death by flight,
Priest of Apollo on the height,
His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands?"[35]

Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call "conquered")
were rather entrusted to Æneas than he to them, when it is said to him,

"The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns?"[36]

If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were conquered,
and that when conquered they could not escape except under the protection
of a man, what madness is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely
entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had
lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and champions,
what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil omens?[37] Would it

not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen into so great
a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that they would have
perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For
who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is that
they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they
only perished because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the
only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods
condemned to perish? The poets, therefore, when they composed and sang
these things about the conquered gods, had no intention to invent
falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men, what the truth extorted from them.
This, however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another and
more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability,
explain what I meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously
impute to Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence
of their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared them
in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and
in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those
very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives
might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no
enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be
safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries,
than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.

. Of the asylum of Juno in Troy, which saved no one from the Greeks; and
of the churches of the apostles, which protected from the barbarians
all who fled to them.

Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, was not able, as I have said, to
protect its own citizens in the sacred places of their gods from the fire and
sword of the Greeks, though the Greeks worshipped the same gods. Not
only so, but

"Phœnix and Ulysses fell
In the void courts by Juno's cell
Were set the spoil to keep;
Snatched from the burning shrines away,
There Ilium's mighty treasure lay,
Rich altars, bowls of massy gold,
And captive raiment, rudely rolled
In one promiscuous heap;
While boys and matrons, wild with fear,
In long array were standing near."[38]

In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was chosen, not
that from it none might be led out a captive, but that in it all the captives
might be immured. Compare now this "asylum"—the asylum not of an
ordinary god, not of one of the rank and file of gods, but of Jove's own
sister and wife, the queen of all the gods—with the churches built in
memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils rescued from the
blazing temples and snatched from the gods, not that they might be restored
to the vanquished, but divided among the victors; while into these was
carried back, with the most religious observance and respect, everything
which belonged to them, even though found elsewhere. There liberty was
lost; here preserved. There bondage was strict; here strictly excluded. Into
that temple men were driven to become the chattels of their enemies, now
lording it over them; into these churches men were led by their relenting
foes, that they might be at liberty. In fine, the gentle[39] Greeks appropriated
that temple of Juno to the purposes of their own avarice and pride; while
these churches of Christ were chosen even by the savage barbarians as the
fit scenes for humility and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in
that victory of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they
worshipped in common with the Trojans, and did not dare to put to the
sword or make captive the wretched and vanquished Trojans who fled
thither; and perhaps Virgil, in the manner of poets, has depicted what never
really happened? But there is no question that he depicted the usual custom
of an enemy when sacking a city.

5. Cæsar's statement regarding the universal custom of an enemy when
sacking a city.
Even Cæsar himself gives us positive testimony regarding this custom; for,
in his deliverance in the senate about the conspirators, he says (as Sallust, a
historian of distinguished veracity, writes[40]) "that virgins and boys are
violated, children torn from the embrace of their parents, matrons subjected
to whatever should be the pleasure of the conquerors, temples and houses
plundered, slaughter and burning rife; in fine, all things filled with arms,
corpses, blood, and wailing." If he had not mentioned temples here, we
might suppose that enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of the
gods. And the Roman temples were in danger of these disasters, not from
foreign foes, but from Catiline and his associates, the most noble senators
and citizens of Rome. But these, it may be said, were abandoned men, and
the parricides of their fatherland.
6. That not even the Romans, when they took cities, spared the conquered in
their temples.
Why, then, need our argument take note of the many nations who have
waged wars with one another, and have nowhere spared the conquered in
the temples of their gods? Let us look at the practice of the Romans
themselves: let us, I say, recall and review the Romans, whose chief praise
it has been "to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud," and that they
preferred "rather to forgive than to revenge an injury;"[41] and among so
many and great cities which they have stormed, taken, and overthrown for
the extension of their dominion, let us be told what temples they were
accustomed to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or
have they really done this, and has the fact been suppressed by the
historians of these events? Is it to be believed, that men who sought out
with the greatest eagerness points they could praise, would omit those
which, in their own estimation, are the most signal proofs of piety? Marcus
Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most splendidly
adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its coming ruin, and to have shed
his own tears over it before he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve
the chastity even of his enemy. For before he gave orders for the storming
of the city, he issued an edict forbidding the violation of any free person.
Yet the city was sacked according to the custom of war; nor do we

anywhere read, that even by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were
given that no one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple. And
this certainly would by no means have been omitted, when neither his
weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity could be passed in silence.
Fabius, the conqueror of the city of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining from
making booty of the images. For when his secretary proposed the question
to him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which had been
taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation under a joke. For he asked
of what sort they were; and when they reported to him that there were not
only many large images, but some of them armed, "Oh," says he, "let us
leave with the Tarentines their angry gods." Seeing, then, that the writers of
Roman history could not pass in silence, neither the weeping of the one
general nor the laughing of the other, neither the chaste pity of the one nor
the facetious moderation of the other, on what occasion would it be omitted,
if, for the honour of any of their enemy's gods, they had shown this
particular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or captivity was
prohibited?

. That the cruelties which occurred in the sack of Rome were in
accordance with the custom of war, whereas the acts of clemency
resulted from the influence of Christ's name.

All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent calamity—
all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery—was the result of the
custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage barbarians showed
themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and
set apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom quarter
was given, and that in them none were slain, from them none forcibly
dragged; that into them many were led by their relenting enemies to be set
at liberty, and that from them none were led into slavery by merciless foes.
Whoever does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and
to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is
ungrateful; whoever hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from
any prudent man to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and
bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him
who so long before said by His prophet, "I will visit their transgression with

the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness
will I not utterly take from them."[42]
8. Of the advantages and disadvantages which often indiscriminately
accrue to good and wicked men.
Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended even to
the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy of Him who
daily "maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and on the unjust."[43] For though some of these men, taking
thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform, some, as the apostle
says, "despising the riches of His goodness and long-suffering, after their
hardness and impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will
render to every man according to his deeds:"[44] nevertheless does the
patience of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as the scourge of
God educates the good to patience. And so, too, does the mercy of God
embrace the good that it may cherish them, as the severity of God arrests
the wicked to punish them. To the divine providence it has seemed good to
prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the
unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the
good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its
ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not
too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy,
nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often
suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those
events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good
man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills;
but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels
himself punished by its unhappiness.[45] Yet often, even in the present
distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince His own
interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment,
nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other
hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be
concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good
things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on

some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good
things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought
them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service;
and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and
covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not
suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because
there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of
the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though
exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as
the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under
the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as
the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the
same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies
the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in
the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good
pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are
suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same
movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant
odour.
9. Of the reasons for administering correction to bad and good together.
What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period, which
would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered the following
circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider those very sins
which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for
although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly
men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults as
to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For every man,
however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh.
Though he do not fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned
viciousness, and abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either
rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account. But
not to mention this, where can we readily find a man who holds in fit and
just estimation those persons on account of whose revolting pride, luxury,
and avarice, and cursed iniquities and impiety, God now smites the earth as
His predictions threatened? Where is the man who lives with them in the
style in which it becomes us to live with them? For often we wickedly blind

ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them, sometimes
even of reprimanding and chiding them, either because we shrink from the
labour or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good
friendships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement, or injure
us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous disposition desires to
obtain, or our weakness shrinks from losing. So that, although the conduct
of wicked men is distasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with
them into that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons, yet,
because they spare their damnable sins through fear, therefore, even though
their own sins be slight and venial, they are justly scourged with the wicked
in this world, though in eternity they quite escape punishment. Justly, when
God afflicts them in common with the wicked, do they find this life bitter,
through love of whose sweetness they declined to be bitter to these sinners.
If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are doing
wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or because he fears
they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be
disheartened from endeavouring to lead a good and pious life, and may be
driven from the faith; this man's omission seems to be occasioned not by
covetousness, but by a charitable consideration. But what is blameworthy
is, that they who themselves revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live
in quite another fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they
ought to reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because they fear
to give offence, lest they should injure their interests in those things which
good men may innocently and legitimately use,—though they use them
more greedily than becomes persons who are strangers in this world, and
profess the hope of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren,
who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have them), and own
houses and establishments, whom the apostle addresses in the churches,
warning and instructing them how they should live, both the wives with
their husbands, and the husbands with their wives, the children with their
parents, and parents with their children, and servants with their masters, and
masters with their servants,—not only do these weaker brethren gladly
obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on account of
which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked life greatly
displeases them; but those also who live at a higher level, who are not
entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment,

do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and abstain from
finding fault with the wicked, because they fear their wiles and violence.
And although they do not fear them to such an extent as to be drawn to the
commission of like iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet
those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission of, they
often decline to find fault with, when possibly they might by finding fault
prevent their commission. They abstain from interference, because they fear
that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged
or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name
are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their
instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of
men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the
body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and
not of love.
Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good are
chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with temporal
punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are punished
together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because
the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this
present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being
admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal.
And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life
everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently.
For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to
a better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to fear than those to
whom it was said through the prophet, "He is taken away in his iniquity, but
his blood will I require at the watchman's hand."[46] For watchmen or
overseers of the people are appointed in churches, that they may
unsparingly rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of,
who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of those with
whom the relationships of this life bring him into contact, many things that
should be blamed, and yet overlooks them, fearing to give offence, and lose
such worldly blessings as may legitimately be desired, but which he too
eagerly grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are
afflicted with temporal calamities—the reason which Job's case
exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be

manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a
love, it cleaves to God.[47]
10. That the saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods.
These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may
answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly
which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is
needless, and that the apostle is vapouring when he says, "We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God?"[48]
They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions of the
hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great price?[49]
Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians, to whom the
wealthy apostle said, "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we
brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will
be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money
is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from
the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."[50]
They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they owned
their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who himself was
poor without, but rich within,—that is to say, if they used the world as not
using it,—could say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome:
"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither:
the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has
it come to pass: blessed be the name of the Lord."[51] Like a good servant,
Job counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to which
his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while yet living, those
goods which he must shortly leave at his death. But as to those feebler
spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly possessions to
Christ, do yet cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they
have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much they were
sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their own making; in the words
of the apostle quoted above, "they have pierced themselves through with
many sorrows." For it was well that they who had so long despised these

verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For when the
apostle says, "They that will be rich fall into temptation," and so on, what
he blames in riches is not the possession of them, but the desire of them.
For elsewhere he says, "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be
not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who
giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in
good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store
for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may
lay hold on eternal life."[52] They who were making such a use of their
property have been consoled for light losses by great gains, and have had
more pleasure in those possessions which they have securely laid past, by
freely giving them away, than grief in those which they entirely lost by an
anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could perish on earth
save what they would be ashamed to carry away from earth. Our Lord's
injunction runs, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also."[53] And they who have listened to
this injunction have proved in the time of tribulation how well they were
advised in not despising this most trustworthy teacher, and most faithful and
mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many were glad that their treasure
was stored in places which the enemy chanced not to light upon, how much
better founded was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had
fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can possibly reach!
Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola,[54] who voluntarily abandoned vast
wealth and became quite poor, though abundantly rich in holiness, when the
barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he
afterwards told me, "O Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver, for
where all my treasure is Thou knowest." For all his treasure was where he
had been taught to hide and store it by Him who had also foretold that these
calamities would happen in the world. Consequently those persons who
obeyed their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up treasure,
did not lose even their earthly possessions in the invasion of the barbarians;
while those who are now repenting that they did not obey Him have learnt
the right use of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have
prevented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.

But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that they
might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They could indeed
neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves good. If,
however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity,
then I say they were not good men. Rather they should have been reminded
that, if they suffered so severely for the sake of money, they should endure
all torment, if need be, for Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love
Him rather who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and
not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they
preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the truth. For under these
tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one preserved wealth save
by denying its existence. So that possibly the torture which taught them that
they should set their affections on a possession they could not lose, was
more useful than those possessions which, without any useful fruit at all,
disquieted and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded
that some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were not
believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving
for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation; and to such
it had to be made plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the
desire of wealth, deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were
destitute of any hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living in
hopes of a better life,—I know not indeed if any such person was tortured
on the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in confessing,
when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it
was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe him, yet no
confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured without receiving a heavenly
reward.
Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But this,
too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of it. For those
whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly
disease would have done; and those who were only hunger-bitten were
taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.
11. Of the end of this life, whether it is material that it be long delayed.
But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to death in
a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly

the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of this at least I am
certain, that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some time.
Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with the shortest. For of
two things which have alike ceased to be, the one is not better, the other
worse—the one greater, the other less.[55] And of what consequence is it
what kind of death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not
forced to go through the same ordeal a second time? And as in the daily
casualties of life every man is, as it were, threatened with numberless
deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which of them is his fate, I would ask
whether it is not better to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all? I am
not unaware of the poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose rather to
live long in fear of so many deaths, than to die once and so escape them all;
but the weak and cowardly shrinking of the flesh is one thing, and the well-
considered and reasonable persuasion of the soul quite another. That death
is not to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life; for death
becomes evil only by the retribution which follows it. They, then, who are
destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death they are to die, but
into what place death will usher them. And since Christians are well aware
that the death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked was far
better than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple and fine linen, what
harm could these terrific deaths do to the dead who had lived well?
12. Of the burial of the dead: that the denial of it to Christians does them no
injury.[56]
Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as then occurred, the
bodies could not even be buried. But godly confidence is not appalled by so
ill-omened a circumstance; for the faithful bear in mind that assurance has
been given that not a hair of their head shall perish, and that, therefore,
though they even be devoured by beasts, their blessed resurrection will not
hereby be hindered. The Truth would nowise have said, "Fear not them
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,"[57] if anything
whatever that an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be
detrimental to the future life. Or will some one perhaps take so absurd a
position as to contend that those who kill the body are not to be feared
before death, and lest they kill the body, but after death, lest they deprive it
of burial? If this be so, then that is false which Christ says, "Be not afraid of

them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do;"[58] for
it seems they can do great injury to the dead body. Far be it from us to
suppose that the Truth can be thus false. They who kill the body are said "to
do something," because the death-blow is felt, the body still having
sensation; but after that, they have no more that they can do, for in the slain
body there is no sensation. And so there are indeed many bodies of
Christians lying unburied; but no one has separated them from heaven, nor
from that earth which is all filled with the presence of Him who knows
whence He will raise again what He created. It is said, indeed, in the Psalm:
"The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls
of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their
blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none
to bury them."[59] But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those
who did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them. To the
eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet "precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of His saints."[60] Wherefore all these last offices
and ceremonies that concern the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and
the equipment of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace
of the living than the comfort of the dead. If a costly burial does any good
to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all, may harm the godly. His
crowd of domestics furnished the purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous
in the eye of man; but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous
funeral which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels, who
did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham's
bosom.
The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the city of God laugh at
all this. But even their own philosophers[61] have despised a careful burial;
and often whole armies have fought and fallen for their earthly country
without caring to inquire whether they would be left exposed on the field of
battle, or become the food of wild beasts. Of this noble disregard of
sepulture poetry has well said: "He who has no tomb has the sky for his
vault."[62] How much less ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of
Christians, to whom it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be
restored, and the body formed anew, all the members of it being gathered
not only from the earth, but from the most secret recesses of any other of
the elements in which the dead bodies of men have lain hid!

13. Reasons for burying the bodies of the saints.
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised
and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which
have been used by the Holy Ghost as His organs and instruments for all
good works. For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore, be
precious to his children, in proportion to the love they bore him, with how
much more reason ought we to care for the bodies of those we love, which
they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body is
not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature. And
therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously
rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated;[63]
and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons
about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to
some favourite place.[64] And Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is
commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead.[65] Our
Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day, applauds, and
commends to our applause, the good work of the religious woman who
poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial.[66]
And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to
take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly
cerements, and see to its burial.[67] These instances certainly do not prove
that corpses have any feeling; but they show that God's providence extends
even to the bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to
Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And we may also draw from
them this wholesome lesson, that if God does not forget even any kind
office which loving care pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He
reward the charity we exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed,
which the holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies,
they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here
speak at large, what we have already said being sufficient. But if the want
of those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food
and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude
and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls,
but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the
funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those
wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed!

Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of other towns the dead
bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices, this is neither
the fault of the living, for they could not render them; nor an infliction to
the dead, for they cannot feel the loss.
14. Of the captivity of the saints, and that divine consolation never failed
them therein.
But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This indeed
were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where they
could not find their God. But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords
great consolation. The three youths[68] were captives; Daniel was a captive;
so were other prophets: and God, the comforter, did not fail them. And in
like manner He has not failed His own people in the power of a nation
which, though barbarous, is yet human,—He who did not abandon the
prophet[69] in the belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to
ridicule rather than credited by those with whom we are debating; though
they believe what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna,
the famous lyrist,[70] when he was thrown overboard, was received on a
dolphin's back and carried to land. But that story of ours about the prophet
Jonah is far more incredible,—more incredible because more marvellous,
and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.

5. Of Regulus, in whom we have an example of the voluntary endurance of
captivity for the sake of religion; which yet did not profit him, though
he was a worshipper of the gods.

But among their own famous men they have a very noble example of the
voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience to a religious scruple. Marcus
Attilius Regulus, a Roman general, was a prisoner in the hands of the
Carthaginians. But they, being more anxious to exchange their prisoners
with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special envoy with
their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange, but bound him first with
an oath, that if he failed to accomplish their wish, he would return to
Carthage. He went, and persuaded the senate to the opposite course,
because he believed it was not for the advantage of the Roman republic to
make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus exerted his influence, the
Romans did not compel him to return to the enemy; but what he had sworn

he voluntarily performed. But the Carthaginians put him to death with
refined, elaborate, and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box,
in which he was compelled to stand, and in which finely sharpened nails
were fixed all round about him, so that he could not lean upon any part of it
without intense pain; and so they killed him by depriving him of sleep.[71]
With justice, indeed, do they applaud the virtue which rose superior to so
frightful a fate. However, the gods he swore by were those who are now
supposed to avenge the prohibition of their worship, by inflicting these
present calamities on the human race. But if these gods, who were
worshipped specially in this behalf, that they might confer happiness in this
life, either willed or permitted these punishments to be inflicted on one who
kept his oath to them, what more cruel punishment could they in their anger
have inflicted on a perjured person? But why may I not draw from my
reasoning a double inference? Regulus certainly had such reverence for the
gods, that for his oath's sake he would neither remain in his own land, nor
go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned to his bitterest enemies. If he
thought that this course would be advantageous with respect to this present
life, he was certainly much deceived, for it brought his life to a frightful
termination. By his own example, in fact, he taught that the gods do not
secure the temporal happiness of their worshippers; since he himself, who
was devoted to their worship, was both conquered in battle and taken
prisoner, and then, because he refused to act in violation of the oath he had
sworn by them, was tortured and put to death by a new, and hitherto
unheard of, and all too horrible kind of punishment. And on the supposition
that the worshippers of the gods are rewarded by felicity in the life to come,
why, then, do they calumniate the influence of Christianity? why do they
assert that this disaster has overtaken the city because it has ceased to
worship its gods, since, worship them as assiduously as it may, it may yet
be as unfortunate as Regulus was? Or will some one carry so wonderful a
blindness to the extent of wildly attempting, in the face of the evident truth,
to contend that though one man might be unfortunate, though a worshipper
of the gods, yet a whole city could not be so? That is to say, the power of
their gods is better adapted to preserve multitudes than individuals,—as if a
multitude were not composed of individuals.
But if they say that M. Regulus, even while a prisoner and enduring these
bodily torments, might yet enjoy the blessedness of a virtuous soul,[72] then

let them recognise that true virtue by which a city also may be blessed. For
the blessedness of a community and of an individual flow from the same
source; for a community is nothing else than a harmonious collection of
individuals. So that I am not concerned meantime to discuss what kind of
virtue Regulus possessed: enough, that by his very noble example they are
forced to own that the gods are to be worshipped not for the sake of bodily
comforts or external advantages; for he preferred to lose all such things
rather than offend the gods by whom he had sworn. But what can we make
of men who glory in having such a citizen, but dread having a city like him?
If they do not dread this, then let them acknowledge that some such
calamity as befell Regulus may also befall a community, though they be
worshipping their gods as diligently as he; and let them no longer throw the
blame of their misfortunes on Christianity. But as our present concern is
with those Christians who were taken prisoners, let those who take occasion
from this calamity to revile our most wholesome religion in a fashion not
less imprudent than impudent, consider this and hold their peace; for if it
was no reproach to their gods that a most punctilious worshipper of theirs
should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be deprived of his native
land without hope of finding another, and fall into the hands of his enemies,
and be put to death by a long-drawn and exquisite torture, much less ought
the Christian name to be charged with the captivity of those who believe in
its power, since they, in confident expectation of a heavenly country, know
that they are pilgrims even in their own homes.

6. Of the violation of the consecrated and other Christian virgins to which
they were subjected in captivity, and to which their own will gave no
consent; and whether this contaminated their souls.

But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against Christianity, when
they aggravate the horror of captivity by adding that not only wives and
unmarried maidens, but even consecrated virgins, were violated. But truly,
with respect to this, it is not Christian faith, nor piety, nor even the virtue of
chastity, which is hemmed into any difficulty: the only difficulty is so to
treat the subject as to satisfy at once modesty and reason. And in discussing
it we shall not be so careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our
friends. Let this, therefore, in the first place, be laid down as an unassailable
position, that the virtue which makes the life good has its throne in the soul,

and thence rules the members of the body, which becomes holy in virtue of
the holiness of the will; and that while the will remains firm and unshaken,
nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the body, is any
fault of the person who suffers it, so long as he cannot escape it without sin.
But as not only pain may be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of
another, whenever anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades
even a thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,—
shame, lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual
pleasure, should be believed to have been committed also with some assent
of the will.
17. Of suicide committed through fear of punishment or dishonour.
And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed themselves to avoid
such disgrace, who that has any human feeling would refuse to forgive
them? And as for those who would not put an end to their lives, lest they
might seem to escape the crime of another by a sin of their own, he who
lays this to their charge as a great wickedness is himself not guiltless of the
fault of folly. For if it is not lawful to take the law into our own hands, and
slay even a guilty person, whose death no public sentence has warranted,
then certainly he who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier
of his own death, as he was more innocent of that offence for which he
doomed himself to die. Do we justly execrate the deed of Judas, and does
truth itself pronounce that by hanging himself he rather aggravated than
expiated the guilt of that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of
God's mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place
for a healing penitence? How much more ought he to abstain from laying
violent hands on himself who has done nothing worthy of such a
punishment! For Judas, when he killed himself, killed a wicked man; but he
passed from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with
his own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing
himself was another crime. Why, then, should a man who has done no ill do
ill to himself, and by killing himself kill the innocent to escape another's
guilty act, and perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that the sin of
another may not be perpetrated on him?
18. Of the violence which may be done to the body by another's lust, while
the mind remains inviolate.

But is there a fear that even another's lust may pollute the violated? It will
not pollute, if it be another's: if it pollute, it is not another's, but is shared
also by the polluted. But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its
companion virtue the fortitude which will rather endure all ills than consent
to evil; and since no one, however magnanimous and pure, has always the
disposal of his own body, but can control only the consent and refusal of his
will, what sane man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly
made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his purity? For if
purity can be thus destroyed, then assuredly purity is no virtue of the soul;
nor can it be numbered among those good things by which the life is made
good, but among the good things of the body, in the same category as
strength, beauty, sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all such good
things as may be diminished without at all diminishing the goodness and
rectitude of our life. But if purity be nothing better than these, why should
the body be perilled that it may be preserved? If, on the other hand, it
belongs to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it lost. Nay
more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists the uncleanness of
carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and therefore when this continence
remains unsubdued, even the sanctity of the body is preserved, because the
will to use it holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power
also.
For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the integrity of its members,
nor in their exemption from all touch; for they are exposed to various
accidents which do violence to and wound them, and the surgeons who
administer relief often perform operations that sicken the spectator. A
midwife, suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally, or through
unskilfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while endeavouring to
ascertain it: I suppose no one is so foolish as to believe that, by this
destruction of the integrity of one organ, the virgin has lost anything even of
her bodily sanctity. And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of
purpose which sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another's lust
makes no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is preserved intact by
one's own persistent continence. Suppose a virgin violates the oath she has
sworn to God, and goes to meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to
him, shall we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily sanctity,
when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity of soul which

sanctifies the body? Far be it from us to so misapply words. Let us rather
draw this conclusion, that while the sanctity of the soul remains even when
the body is violated, the sanctity of the body is not lost; and that, in like
manner, the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of the soul is
violated, though the body itself remain intact. And therefore a woman who
has been violated by the sin of another, and without any consent of her own,
has no cause to put herself to death; much less has she cause to commit
suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in that case she commits certain
homicide to prevent a crime which is uncertain as yet, and not her own.
19. Of Lucretia, who put an end to her life because of the outrage done her.
This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid. We maintain that
when a woman is violated while her soul admits no consent to the iniquity,
but remains inviolably chaste, the sin is not hers, but his who violates her.
But do they against whom we have to defend not only the souls, but the
sacred bodies too of these outraged Christian captives,—do they, perhaps,
dare to dispute our position? But all know how loudly they extol the purity
of Lucretia, that noble matron of ancient Rome. When King Tarquin's son
had violated her body, she made known the wickedness of this young
profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kinsman, men of
high rank and full of courage, and bound them by an oath to avenge it.
Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear the shame, she put an end to her life.
What shall we call her? An adulteress, or chaste? There is no question
which she was. Not more happily than truly did a declaimer say of this sad
occurrence: "Here was a marvel: there were two, and only one committed
adultery." Most forcibly and truly spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the
union of the two bodies the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the
other, and giving heed not to the contact of the bodily members, but to the
wide diversity of their souls, says: "There were two, but the adultery was
committed only by one."
But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime bears the heavier
punishment of the two? For the adulterer was only banished along with his
father; she suffered the extreme penalty. If that was not impurity by which
she was unwillingly ravished, then this is not justice by which she, being
chaste, is punished. To you I appeal, ye laws and judges of Rome. Even
after the perpetration of great enormities, you do not suffer the criminal to

be slain untried. If, then, one were to bring to your bar this case, and were
to prove to you that a woman not only untried, but chaste and innocent, had
been killed, would you not visit the murderer with punishment
proportionably severe? This crime was committed by Lucretia; that Lucretia
so celebrated and lauded slew the innocent, chaste, outraged Lucretia.
Pronounce sentence. But if you cannot, because there does not compear any
one whom you can punish, why do you extol with such unmeasured
laudation her who slew an innocent and chaste woman? Assuredly you will
find it impossible to defend her before the judges of the realms below, if
they be such as your poets are fond of representing them; for she is among
those

"Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,
And all for loathing of the day,
In madness threw their lives away."

And if she with the others wishes to return,

"Fate bars the way: around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,
And bind with ninefold chain."[73]

Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself conscious of guilt, not
of innocence? She herself alone knows her reason; but what if she was
betrayed by the pleasure of the act, and gave some consent to Sextus,
though so violently abusing her, and then was so affected with remorse, that
she thought death alone could expiate her sin? Even though this were the
case, she ought still to have held her hand from suicide, if she could with
her false gods have accomplished a fruitful repentance. However, if such
were the state of the case, and if it were false that there were two, but one
only committed adultery; if the truth were that both were involved in it, one
by open assault, the other by secret consent, then she did not kill an
innocent woman; and therefore her erudite defenders may maintain that she
is not among that class of the dwellers below "who guiltless sent themselves
to doom." But this case of Lucretia is in such a dilemma, that if you

extenuate the homicide, you confirm the adultery: if you acquit her of
adultery, you make the charge of homicide heavier; and there is no way out
of the dilemma, when one asks, If she was adulterous, why praise her? if
chaste, why slay her?
Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are unable to
comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore insult over our
outraged Christian women, it is enough that in the instance of this noble
Roman matron it was said in her praise, "There were two, but the adultery
was the crime of only one." For Lucretia was confidently believed to be
superior to the contamination of any consenting thought to the adultery.
And accordingly, since she killed herself for being subjected to an outrage
in which she had no guilty part, it is obvious that this act of hers was
prompted not by the love of purity, but by the overwhelming burden of her
shame. She was ashamed that so foul a crime had been perpetrated upon
her, though without her abetting; and this matron, with the Roman love of
glory in her veins, was seized with a proud dread that, if she continued to
live, it would be supposed she willingly did not resent the wrong that had
been done her. She could not exhibit to men her conscience, but she judged
that her self-inflicted punishment would testify her state of mind; and she
burned with shame at the thought that her patient endurance of the foul
affront that another had done her, should be construed into complicity with
him. Not such was the decision of the Christian women who suffered as she
did, and yet survive. They declined to avenge upon themselves the guilt of
others, and so add crimes of their own to those crimes in which they had no
share. For this they would have done had their shame driven them to
homicide, as the lust of their enemies had driven them to adultery. Within
their own souls, in the witness of their own conscience, they enjoy the glory
of chastity. In the sight of God, too, they are esteemed pure, and this
contents them; they ask no more: it suffices them to have opportunity of
doing good, and they decline to evade the distress of human suspicion, lest
they thereby deviate from the divine law.
20. That Christians have no authority for committing suicide in any
circumstances whatever.
It is not without significance, that in no passage of the holy canonical books
there can be found either divine precept or permission to take away our own

life, whether for the sake of entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of
shunning, or ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law, rightly
interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says, "Thou shalt not kill." This
is proved specially by the omission of the words "thy neighbour," which are
inserted when false witness is forbidden: "Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour." Nor yet should any one on this account suppose he
has not broken this commandment if he has borne false witness only against
himself. For the love of our neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves,
as it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." If, then, he who
makes false statements about himself is not less guilty of bearing false
witness than if he had made them to the injury of his neighbour; although in
the commandment prohibiting false witness only his neighbour is
mentioned, and persons taking no pains to understand it might suppose that
a man was allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt; how much greater
reason have we to understand that a man may not kill himself, since in the
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," there is no limitation added nor any
exception made in favour of any one, and least of all in favour of him on
whom the command is laid! And so some attempt to extend this command
even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life from any creature.
But if so, why not extend it also to the plants, and all that is rooted in and
nourished by the earth? For though this class of creatures have no sensation,
yet they also are said to live, and consequently they can die; and therefore,
if violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the apostle, when speaking
of the seeds of such things as these, says, "That which thou sowest is not
quickened except it die;" and in the Psalm it is said, "He killed their vines
with hail." Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this commandment,
"Thou shalt not kill," to pull a flower? Are we thus insanely to countenance
the foolish error of the Manichæans? Putting aside, then, these ravings, if,
when we say, Thou shalt not kill, we do not understand this of the plants,
since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals that fly, swim,
walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from us by their want of reason,
and are therefore by the just appointment of the Creator subjected to us to
kill or keep alive for our own uses; if so, then it remains that we understand
that commandment simply of man. The commandment is, "Thou shalt not
kill man;" therefore neither another nor yourself, for he who kills himself
still kills nothing else than man.

21. Of the cases in which we may put men to death without incurring the
guilt of murder.
However, there are some exceptions made by the divine authority to its own
law, that men may not be put to death. These exceptions are of two kinds,
being justified either by a general law, or by a special commission granted
for a time to some individual. And in this latter case, he to whom authority
is delegated, and who is but the sword in the hand of him who uses it, is not
himself responsible for the death he deals. And, accordingly, they who have
waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His
laws have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of
government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such
persons have by no means violated the commandment, "Thou shalt not
kill." Abraham indeed was not merely deemed guiltless of cruelty, but was
even applauded for his piety, because he was ready to slay his son in
obedience to God, not to his own passion. And it is reasonably enough
made a question, whether we are to esteem it to have been in compliance
with a command of God that Jephthah killed his daughter, because she met
him when he had vowed that he would sacrifice to God whatever first met
him as he returned victorious from battle. Samson, too, who drew down the
house on himself and his foes together, is justified only on this ground, that
the Spirit who wrought wonders by him had given him secret instructions to
do this. With the exception, then, of these two classes of cases, which are
justified either by a just law that applies generally, or by a special
intimation from God Himself, the fountain of all justice, whoever kills a
man, either himself or another, is implicated in the guilt of murder.
22. That suicide can never be prompted by magnanimity.
But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are perhaps to be
admired for their greatness of soul, though they cannot be applauded for the
soundness of their judgment. However, if you look at the matter more
closely, you will scarcely call it greatness of soul, which prompts a man to
kill himself rather than bear up against some hardships of fortune, or sins in
which he is not implicated. Is it not rather proof of a feeble mind, to be
unable to bear either the pains of bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of
the vulgar? And is not that to be pronounced the greater mind, which rather
faces than flees the ills of life, and which, in comparison of the light and

purity of conscience, holds in small esteem the judgment of men, and
specially of the vulgar, which is frequently involved in a mist of error? And,
therefore, if suicide is to be esteemed a magnanimous act, none can take
higher rank for magnanimity than that Cleombrotus, who (as the story
goes), when he had read Plato's book in which he treats of the immortality
of the soul, threw himself from a wall, and so passed from this life to that
which he believed to be better. For he was not hard pressed by calamity, nor
by any accusation, false or true, which he could not very well have lived
down: there was, in short, no motive but only magnanimity urging him to
seek death, and break away from the sweet detention of this life. And yet
that this was a magnanimous rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself,
whom he had read, would have told him; for he would certainly have been
forward to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not the same
bright intellect which saw that the soul was immortal, discerned also that to
seek immortality by suicide was to be prohibited rather than encouraged.
Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent an enemy doing so.
But we are not inquiring whether it has been done, but whether it ought to
have been done. Sound judgment is to be preferred even to examples, and
indeed examples harmonize with the voice of reason; but not all examples,
but those only which are distinguished by their piety, and are
proportionately worthy of imitation. For suicide we cannot cite the example
of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles; though our Lord Jesus Christ, when He
admonished them to flee from city to city if they were persecuted, might
very well have taken that occasion to advise them to lay violent hands on
themselves, and so escape their persecutors. But seeing He did not do this,
nor proposed this mode of departing this life, though He were addressing
His own friends for whom He had promised to prepare everlasting
mansions, it is obvious that such examples as are produced from the
"nations that forget God," give no warrant of imitation to the worshippers of
the one true God.
23. What we are to think of the example of Cato, who slew himself because
unable to endure Cæsar's victory.
Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said, our advocates of
suicide have some difficulty in finding any other prescriptive example,
unless it be that of Cato, who killed himself at Utica. His example is

appealed to, not because he was the only man who did so, but because he
was so esteemed as a learned and excellent man, that it could plausibly be
maintained that what he did was and is a good thing to do. But of this action
of his, what can I say but that his own friends, enlightened men as he,
prudently dissuaded him, and therefore judged his act to be that of a feeble
rather than a strong spirit, and dictated not by honourable feeling
forestalling shame, but by weakness shrinking from hardships? Indeed,
Cato condemns himself by the advice he gave to his dearly loved son. For if
it was a disgrace to live under Cæsar's rule, why did the father urge the son
to this disgrace, by encouraging him to trust absolutely to Cæsar's
generosity? Why did he not persuade him to die along with himself? If
Torquatus was applauded for putting his son to death, when contrary to
orders he had engaged, and engaged successfully, with the enemy, why did
conquered Cato spare his conquered son, though he did not spare himself?
Was it more disgraceful to be a victor contrary to orders, than to submit to a
victor contrary to the received ideas of honour? Cato, then, cannot have
deemed it to be shameful to live under Cæsar's rule, for had he done so, the
father's sword would have delivered his son from this disgrace. The truth is,
that his son, whom he both hoped and desired would be spared by Cæsar,
was not more loved by him than Cæsar was envied the glory of pardoning
him (as indeed Cæsar himself is reported to have said[74]); or if envy is too
strong a word, let us say he was ashamed that this glory should be his.
24. That in that virtue in which Regulus excels Cato, Christians are pre-
eminently distinguished.
Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the saintly Job, who
endured dreadful evils in his body rather than deliver himself from all
torment by self-inflicted death; or other saints, of whom it is recorded in our
authoritative and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and the
oppression of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their own
books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus Regulus. For Cato had
never conquered Cæsar; and when conquered by him, disdained to submit
himself to him, and that he might escape this submission put himself to
death. Regulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Carthaginians,
and in command of the army of Rome had won for the Roman republic a
victory which no citizen could bewail, and which the enemy himself was
constrained to admire; yet afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by

them, he preferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond their
reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the Carthaginians, and
constant in his love of the Romans, he neither deprived the one of his
conquered body, nor the other of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love
of life that prevented him from killing himself. This was plainly enough
indicated by his unhesitatingly returning, on account of his promise and
oath, to the same enemies whom he had more grievously provoked by his
words in the senate than even by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt
of life, and preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies might
contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand, he could not more
distinctly have declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be. Among
all their famous and remarkable citizens, the Romans have no better man to
boast of than this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he remained
a very poor man after winning such victories; nor broken by adversity, for
he returned intrepidly to the most miserable end. But if the bravest and most
renowned heroes, who had but an earthly country to defend, and who,
though they had but false gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and
carefully kept their oath to them; if these men, who by the custom and right
of war put conquered enemies to the sword, yet shrank from putting an end
to their own lives even when conquered by their enemies; if, though they
had no fear at all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit
suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of the true God,
the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink from this act, if in God's
providence they have been for a season delivered into the hands of their
enemies to prove or to correct them! And, certainly, Christians subjected to
this humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High, who for
their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they forget that they are bound
by no laws of war, nor military orders, to put even a conquered enemy to
the sword; and if a man may not put to death the enemy who has sinned, or
may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to maintain that he may kill
himself because an enemy has sinned, or is going to sin, against him?
25. That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin.
But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the body is subjected to
the enemy's lust, the insidious pleasure of sense may entice the soul to
consent to the sin, and steps must be taken to prevent so disastrous a result.
And is not suicide the proper mode of preventing not only the enemy's sin,

but the sin of the Christian so allured? Now, in the first place, the soul
which is led by God and His wisdom, rather than by bodily concupiscence,
will certainly never consent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by
another's lust. And, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declares,
that suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness, who is such a fool as
to say, Let us sin now, that we may obviate a possible future sin; let us now
commit murder, lest we perhaps afterwards should commit adultery? If we
are so controlled by iniquity that innocence is out of the question, and we
can at best but make a choice of sins, is not a future and uncertain adultery
preferable to a present and certain murder? Is it not better to commit a
wickedness which penitence may heal, than a crime which leaves no place
for healing contrition? I say this for the sake of those men or women who
fear they may be enticed into consenting to their violator's lust, and think
they should lay violent hands on themselves, and so prevent, not another's
sin, but their own. But far be it from the mind of a Christian confiding in
God, and resting in the hope of His aid; far be it, I say, from such a mind to
yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh, howsoever presented.
And if that lustful disobedience, which still dwells in our mortal members,
follows its own law irrespective of our will, surely its motions in the body
of one who rebels against them are as blameless as its motions in the body
of one who sleeps.
26. That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the saints are not to be
followed.
But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women escaped those
who menaced them with outrage, by casting themselves into rivers which
they knew would drown them; and having died in this manner, they are
venerated in the church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I do not
presume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not have been
vouchsafed to the church some divine authority, proved by trustworthy
evidences, for so honouring their memory: it may be that it is so. It may be
they were not deceived by human judgment, but prompted by divine
wisdom, to their act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case with
Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates by plain evidence
that He has enjoined it, who will call obedience criminal? Who will accuse
so religious a submission? But then every man is not justified in sacrificing
his son to God, because Abraham was commendable in so doing. The

soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the authority under which he is
lawfully commissioned, is not accused of murder by any law of his state;
nay, if he has not slain him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state,
and of despising the law. But if he has been acting on his own authority, and
at his own impulse, he has in this case incurred the crime of shedding
human blood. And thus he is punished for doing without orders the very
thing he is punished for neglecting to do when he has been ordered. If the
commands of a general make so great a difference, shall the commands of
God make none? He, then, who knows it is unlawful to kill himself, may
nevertheless do so if he is ordered by Him whose commands we may not
neglect. Only let him be very sure that the divine command has been
signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets of conscience only
in so far as these are disclosed to us, and so far only do we judge: "No one
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him."[75] But
this we affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be right,
that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this is to escape
the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity; that no man ought to do
so on account of another man's sins, for this were to escape a guilt which
could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own; that no man
ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for he has all the more need
of this life that these sins may be healed by repentance; that no man should
put an end to this life to obtain that better life we look for after death, for
those who die by their own hand have no better life after death.
27. Whether voluntary death should be sought in order to avoid sin.
There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned before, and which
is thought a sound one,—namely, to prevent one's falling into sin either
through the blandishments of pleasure or the violence of pain. If this reason
were a good one, then we should be impelled to exhort men at once to
destroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the laver of
regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all sin. Then is the time
to escape all future sin, when all past sin is blotted out. And if this escape be
lawfully secured by suicide, why not then specially? Why does any baptized
person hold his hand from taking his own life? Why does any person who is
freed from the hazards of this life again expose himself to them, when he
has power so easily to rid himself of them all, and when it is written, "He
who loveth danger shall fall into it?"[76] Why does he love, or at least face,

so many serious dangers, by remaining in this life from which he may
legitimately depart? But is any one so blinded and twisted in his moral
nature, and so far astray from the truth, as to think that, though a man ought
to make away with himself for fear of being led into sin by the oppression
of one man, his master, he ought yet to live, and so expose himself to the
hourly temptations of this world, both to all those evils which the
oppression of one master involves, and to numberless other miseries in
which this life inevitably implicates us? What reason, then, is there for our
consuming time in those exhortations by which we seek to animate the
baptized, either to virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or matrimonial
fidelity, when we have so much more simple and compendious a method of
deliverance from sin, by persuading those who are fresh from baptism to
put an end to their lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well-
conditioned? If any one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I
say not he is foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he say to any man,
"Kill yourself, lest to your small sins you add a heinous sin, while you live
under an unchaste master, whose conduct is that of a barbarian?" How can
he say this, if he cannot without wickedness say, "Kill yourself, now that
you are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into similar or even
aggravated sins, while you live in a world which has such power to allure
by its unclean pleasures, to torment by its horrible cruelties, to overcome by
its errors and terrors?" It is wicked to say this; it is therefore wicked to kill
oneself. For if there could be any just cause of suicide, this were so. And
since not even this is so, there is none.
28. By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to indulge his lust on
the bodies of continent Christians.
Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful servants of Christ,
though your chastity was made the sport of your enemies. You have a grand
and true consolation, if you maintain a good conscience, and know that you
did not consent to the sins of those who were permitted to commit sinful
outrage upon you. And if you should ask why this permission was granted,
indeed it is a deep providence of the Creator and Governor of the world;
and "unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out."[77]
Nevertheless, faithfully interrogate your own souls, whether ye have not
been unduly puffed up by your integrity, and continence, and chastity; and
whether ye have not been so desirous of the human praise that is accorded

to these virtues, that ye have envied some who possessed them. I, for my
part, do not know your hearts, and therefore I make no accusation; I do not
even hear what your hearts answer when you question them. And yet, if
they answer that it is as I have supposed it might be, do not marvel that you
have lost that by which you can win men's praise, and retain that which
cannot be exhibited to men. If you did not consent to sin, it was because
God added His aid to His grace that it might not be lost, and because shame
before men succeeded to human glory that it might not be loved. But in
both respects even the fainthearted among you have a consolation, approved
by the one experience, chastened by the other; justified by the one,
corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts, when interrogated, reply
that they have never been proud of the virtue of virginity, widowhood, or
matrimonial chastity, but, condescending to those of low estate, rejoiced
with trembling in these gifts of God, and that they have never envied any
one the like excellences of sanctity and purity, but rose superior to human
applause, which is wont to be abundant in proportion to the rarity of the
virtue applauded, and rather desired that their own number be increased,
than that by the smallness of their numbers each of them should be
conspicuous;—even such faithful women, I say, must not complain that
permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to outrage them; nor must
they allow themselves to believe that God overlooked their character when
He permitted acts which no one with impunity commits. For some most
flagrant and wicked desires are allowed free play at present by the secret
judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final judgment.
Moreover, it is possible that those Christian women, who are unconscious
of any undue pride on account of their virtuous chastity, whereby they
sinlessly suffered the violence of their captors, had yet some lurking
infirmity which might have betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous
bearing, had they not been subjected to the humiliation that befell them in
the taking of the city. As, therefore, some men were removed by death, that
no wickedness might change their disposition, so these women were
outraged lest prosperity should corrupt their modesty. Neither those women,
then, who were already puffed up by the circumstance that they were still
virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed up had they not been
exposed to the violence of the enemy, lost their chastity, but rather gained
humility: the former were saved from pride already cherished, the latter
from pride that would shortly have grown upon them.

We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have conceived
that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as the body is inviolate,
and did not understand that the purity both of the body and the soul rests on
the stedfastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be
forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error they are probably
now delivered. For when they reflect how conscientiously they served God,
and when they settle again to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise
desert those who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid; and when they
consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is chastity, they are
shut up to the conclusion that He could never have permitted these disasters
to befall His saints, if by them that saintliness could be destroyed which He
Himself had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them.

9. What the servants of Christ should say in reply to the unbelievers who
cast in their teeth that Christ did not rescue them from the fury of their
enemies.

The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a
consolation of its own,—a consolation which cannot deceive, and which
has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth can
afford. They will not refuse the discipline of this temporal life, in which
they are schooled for life eternal; nor will they lament their experience of it,
for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who are not detained by
them, and its ills either prove or improve them. As for those who insult over
them in their trials, and when ills befall them say, "Where is thy God?"[78]
we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities
for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or maintain they
ought to be worshipped; for the family of Christ is furnished with its reply:
our God is everywhere present, wholly everywhere; not confined to any
place. He can be present unperceived, and be absent without moving; when
He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfections or correct
our imperfections; and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings
of time, He reserves for us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we
should deign to speak with you even about your own gods, much less about
our God, who is "to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations
are idols; but the Lord made the heavens."[79]

30. That those who complain of Christianity really desire to live without
restraint in shameful luxury.
If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once your pontiff,
and was unanimously chosen by the senate, when, in the panic created by
the Punic war, they sought for the best citizen to entertain the Phrygian
goddess, he would curb this shamelessness of yours, though you would
perhaps scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man. For why
in your calamities do you complain of Christianity, unless because you
desire to enjoy your luxurious licence unrestrained, and to lead an
abandoned and profligate life without the interruption of any uneasiness or
disaster? For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is
not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to
say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose
rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to
generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a
thousand-fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a
calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the
judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the
destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival; and opposed Cato, who advised its
destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived
that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was
not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when
Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great
cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the
prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed
by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful
causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such
bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those
Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the
hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater
cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with
other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than
among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful
few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.
31. By what steps the passion for governing increased among the Romans.

For at what stage would that passion rest when once it has lodged in a proud
spirit, until by a succession of advances it has reached even the throne? And
to obtain such advances nothing avails but unscrupulous ambition. But
unscrupulous ambition has nothing to work upon, save in a nation corrupted
by avarice and luxury. Moreover, a people becomes avaricious and
luxurious by prosperity; and it was this which that very prudent man Nasica
was endeavouring to avoid when he opposed the destruction of the greatest,
strongest, wealthiest city of Rome's enemy. He thought that thus fear would
act as a curb on lust, and that lust being curbed would not run riot in luxury,
and that luxury being prevented avarice would be at an end; and that these
vices being banished, virtue would flourish and increase, to the great profit
of the state; and liberty, the fit companion of virtue, would abide unfettered.
For similar reasons, and animated by the same considerate patriotism, that
same chief pontiff of yours—I still refer to him who was adjudged Rome's
best man without one dissentient voice—threw cold water on the proposal
of the senate to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in a very
weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious manners of
Greece to sap the Roman manliness, and persuaded them not to yield to the
enervating and emasculating influence of foreign licentiousness. So
authoritative and forcible were his words, that the senate was moved to
prohibit the use even of those benches which hitherto had been customarily
brought to the theatre for the temporary use of the citizens.[80] How eagerly
would such a man as this have banished from Rome the scenic exhibitions
themselves, had he dared to oppose the authority of those whom he
supposed to be gods! For he did not know that they were malicious devils;
or if he did, he supposed they should rather be propitiated than despised.
For there had not yet been revealed to the Gentiles the heavenly doctrine
which should purify their hearts by faith, and transform their natural
disposition by humble godliness, and turn them from the service of proud
devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or even above the heavens.
32. Of the establishment of scenic entertainments.
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.
Oh 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.

BOOK SECOND.
ARGUMENT.

N 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.
If 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,"[81] 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."[82]
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 broken-hearted 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.

. 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."[83] 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.[84] 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?

. 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
Cœlestis,[85] and Berecynthia,[86] 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,[87] 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.[88] 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."[89] 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[90] (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."[91] 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.

. 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.[92] 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[93] 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,"[94]
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
Danaë 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."[95]
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.[96]
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 Nævius were to bring Publius and Cneius Scipio on the
comic stage, or as if Cæcilius 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.

1. 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 Æschines, 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,[97] 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.[98] 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.

2. 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 Nævius should attack
Publius and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Cæcilius should lampoon Cato;
but quite proper that your Terence should encourage youthful lust by the
wicked example of supreme Jove.

3. 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;[99] 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,[100] 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:[101] 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, indeed, 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,[102] or the Fever,[103]—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!"[104]
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?

6. 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.
[105]
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,[106] 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."[107] 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.

8. 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,[108] 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, Lælius 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'œuvre 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."[109]

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 Minturnæ 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 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,[110] 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 Cœlestis 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?

7. 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[111] 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,[112] 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 Scævolas 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[113] 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."[114]

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.

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.
Of 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?[115] 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 book[116]),
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.[117] 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[118] (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
Virgil[119])

"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.[120] 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."[121] 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 Menelaus[122]
was aggrieved, while in the other Vulcan[123] 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 Æneas is not the son of Venus. I am
willing to I 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 Cæsar in modern times believed
no less that he was descended from Venus,[124] 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.

. 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.[125] 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[126] 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?[127]

0. 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!"[128] 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?"[129]

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."[130] 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 Cumæ, 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 Achæans 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 Cumæ 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 Cumæ 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,[131] and Hercules wept for
Pallas doomed to die.[132] 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 Æsculapius left Epidaurus
for Rome, that in this foremost city he might have a finer field for the
exercise of his great medical skill.[133] The mother of the gods, too, came I
know not whence from Pessinuns; 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 Æsculapius[134] 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,"[135]

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 Lucan[136] 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 Æneas. 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 exultation. 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 Æneas, 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 Virgil[137]) 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."[138]

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;"[139]
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."[140] 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."[141]

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."[142] 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,[143] 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 Gætulian
state.

6. 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."[144]

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[145] 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."[146] 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?[147] 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 plague? 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 Æsculapius 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 prætor, 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 Æsculapius 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.[148] 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,[149] 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 Æsculapius, 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
Æsculapius, 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 Æsculapius 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 re-appointed, 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 cities[150]
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 Cannæ, 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 Cæsar 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.[151] 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."[152] 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."[153] 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 Scævola 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 prescription 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.

9. 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.

1. 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
"Sabæan incense and fresh garlands;"[154] 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.

BOOK FOURTH.[155]
ARGUMENT.

N 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.
Having 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 Cæsar 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.[156] 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."[157]

. 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."
[158]

4. How like kingdoms without justice are to robberies.
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."[159]
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?[160] 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?

. 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;[161] 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.[162] 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."[163] 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?"[164] 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 Proserpine 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.[165]
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,"[166]

—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.[167] 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,

"For God pervadeth all things,
All lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depth of the heavens,"[168]—

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 Opis: 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; Camœna, 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?

4. 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.

6. 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.[169]
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.

0. 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."
[170]
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 men 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 ἀρετὴ, 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 Æsculapius, 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 Æsculapius 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?

3. 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,[171] 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 cunæ; 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."[172] 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.[173] 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 Scævola has
discoursed.

It is recorded that the very learned pontiff Scævola[174] 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
superfluous things, for it is a common saying of skilful lawyers,
"Superfluous things do no harm."[175] But what are those things which do
harm when brought before the multitude? "These," he says, "that Hercules,
Æsculapius, 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,
Scævola 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 Scævola, 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 Æsculanus; 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."[176] 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.[177] 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,[178] 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."[179] 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,[180] 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.

1. 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.[181] 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.[182] "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.

BOOK FIFTH.[183]
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.
Since, 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.[184]

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.[185] 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
fœtuses 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.[186] 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 wool-bearing 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 depends 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, Annæus 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."[187]

Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that "fate" which he had before
called "the will of the Father supreme," whom, he says, he 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."[188]

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.[189] 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."[190]
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,[191] 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."[192] 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 he 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 those gods, who, they
thought, were to be worshipped with such trifling and silly rites, had
nothing to do in this matter; and also what we have already accomplished of
the present volume, to refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might
have been already persuaded that the Roman empire was not extended and
preserved by the worship of these gods, might still be attributing its
extension and preservation to some kind of fate, rather than to the most
powerful will of God most high. The ancient and primitive Romans,
therefore, though their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with
the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods, and
sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have nevertheless this
commendation bestowed on them by their historian, that they were "greedy
of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous of great glory, and content with a
moderate fortune."[193] Glory they most ardently loved: for it they wished to
live, for it they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by
the strength of their passion for that one thing. At length their country itself,
because it seemed inglorious to serve, but glorious to rule and to command,
they first earnestly desired to be free, and then to be mistress. Hence it was
that, not enduring the domination of kings, they put the government into the
hands of two chiefs, holding office for a year, who were called consuls, not
kings or lords.[194] But royal pomp seemed inconsistent with the
administration of a ruler (regentis), or the benevolence of one who consults
(that is, for the public good) (consulentis), but rather with the haughtiness
of a lord (dominantis). King Tarquin, therefore, having been banished, and
the consular government having been instituted, it followed, as the same
author already alluded to says in his praises of the Romans, that "the state
grew with amazing rapidity after it had obtained liberty, so great a desire of
glory had taken possession of it." That eagerness for praise and desire of

glory, then, was that which accomplished those many wonderful things,
laudable, doubtless, and glorious according to human judgment. The same
Sallust praises the great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius
Cæsar, saying that for a long time the republic had no one great in virtue,
but that within his memory there had been these two men of eminent virtue,
and very different pursuits. Now, among the praises which he pronounces
on Cæsar he put this, that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new
war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue might shine
forth. Thus it was ever the prayer of men of heroic character that Bellona
would excite miserable nations to war, and lash them into agitation with her
bloody scourge, so that there might be occasion for the display of their
valour. This, forsooth, is what that desire of praise and thirst for glory did.
Wherefore, by the love of liberty in the first place, afterwards also by that
of domination and through the desire of praise and glory, they achieved
many great things; and their most eminent poet testifies to their having been
prompted by all these motives:

"Porsenna there, with pride elate,
Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate;
With arms he hems the city in,
Æneas' sons stand firm to win."[195]

At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die bravely or to live
free; but when liberty was obtained, so great a desire of glory took
possession of them, that liberty alone was not enough unless domination
also should be sought, their great ambition being that which the same poet
puts into the mouth of Jupiter:

"Nay, Juno's self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms,
Shall change for smiles her moody frown,
And vie with me in zeal to crown
Rome's sons, the nation of the gown.
So stands my will. There comes a day,
While Rome's great ages hold their way,
When old Assaracus's sons
Shall quit them on the myrmidons,
O'er Phthia and Mycenæ reign,
And humble Argos to their chain."[196]

Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future, whilst, in
reality, he was only himself passing in review in his own mind things which
were already done, and which were beheld by him as present realities. But I
have mentioned them with the intention of showing that, next to liberty, the
Romans so highly esteemed domination, that it received a place among
those things on which they bestowed the greatest praise. Hence also it is
that that poet, preferring to the arts of other nations those arts which
peculiarly belong to the Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and
commanding, and of subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,

"Others, belike, with happier grace,
From bronze or stone shall call the face,
Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,
And tell when planets set or rise;
But Roman thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide;
Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes,
Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."[197]

These arts they exercised with the more skill the less they gave themselves
up to pleasures, and to enervation of body and mind in coveting and
amassing riches, and through these corrupting morals, by extorting them
from the miserable citizens and lavishing them on base stage-players.
Hence these men of base character, who abounded when Sallust wrote and
Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honours and glory by these arts,
but by treachery and deceit. Wherefore the same says, "But at first it was
rather ambition than avarice that stirred the minds of men, which vice,
however, is nearer to virtue. For glory, honour, and power are desired alike
by the good man and by the ignoble; but the former," he says, "strives
onward to them by the true way, whilst the other, knowing nothing of the
good arts, seeks them by fraud and deceit."[198] And what is meant by
seeking the attainment of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek
them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good and the ignoble
man alike desire these things, but the good man strives to overtake them by
the true way. The way is virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of
possession—namely, to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even by the temples of
their gods; for they built in very close proximity the temples of Virtue and
Honour, worshipping as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand
what they who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to what they
ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as to the bad, they had no
virtue though they desired honour, and strove to possess it by fraud and
deceit. Praise of a higher kind is bestowed upon Cato, for he says of him,
"The less he sought glory, the more it followed him."[199] We say praise of a
higher kind; for the glory with the desire of which the Romans burned is the
judgment of men thinking well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which
is content with no human judgment save that of one's own conscience.
Whence the apostle says, "For this is our glory, the testimony of our
conscience."[200] And in another place he says, "But let every one prove his
own work, and then he shall have glory in himself, and not in another."[201]
That glory, honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for
themselves, and to which the good sought to attain by good arts, should not
be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them. For there is no true virtue
except that which is directed towards that end in which is the highest and
ultimate good of man. Wherefore even the honours which Cato sought he

ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have conferred them on him
unsolicited, on account of his virtues.
But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he whose virtue was by
far the nearest to the true idea of virtue. Wherefore, let us refer to the
opinion of Cato himself, to discover what was the judgment he had formed
concerning the condition of the state both then and in former times. "I do
not think," he says, "that it was by arms that our ancestors made the
republic great from being small. Had that been the case, the republic of our
day would have been by far more flourishing than that of their times, for the
number of our allies and citizens is far greater; and, besides, we possess a
far greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did. But it was
other things than these that made them great, and we have none of them:
industry at home, just government without, a mind free in deliberation,
addicted neither to crime nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and
avarice, poverty in the state, opulence among citizens; we laud riches, we
follow laziness; there is no difference made between the good and the bad;
all the rewards of virtue are got possession of by intrigue. And no wonder,
when every individual consults only for his own good, when ye are the
slaves of pleasure at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no
wonder that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic."[202]
He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably thinks that such
praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was applicable to all of them, or, at
least, to very many of them. It is not so; otherwise the things which Cato
himself writes, and which I have quoted in the second book of this work,
would not be true. In that passage he says, that even from the very
beginning of the state wrongs were committed by the more powerful, which
led to the separation of the people from the fathers, besides which there
were other internal dissensions; and the only time at which there existed a
just and moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings, and
that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of Tarquin, and were
carrying on the grievous war which had been undertaken on his account
against Etruria; but afterwards the fathers oppressed the people as slaves,
flogged them as the kings had done, drove them from their land, and, to the
exclusion of all others, held the government in their own hands alone. And
to these discords, whilst the fathers were wishing to rule, and the people
were unwilling to serve, the second Punic war put an end; for again great

fear began to press upon their disquieted minds, holding them back from
those distractions by another and greater anxiety, and bringing them back to
civil concord. But the great things which were then achieved were
accomplished through the administration of a few men, who were good in
their own way. And by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men,
which first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated them, it
waxed greater and greater. And this the same historian affirms, when he
says that, reading and hearing of the many illustrious achievements of the
Roman people in peace and in war, by land and by sea, he wished to
understand what it was by which these great things were specially
sustained. For he knew that very often the Romans had with a small
company contended with great legions of the enemy; and he knew also that
with small resources they had carried on wars with opulent kings. And he
says that, after having given the matter much consideration, it seemed
evident to him that the pre-eminent virtue of a few citizens had achieved the
whole, and that that explained how poverty overcame wealth, and small
numbers great multitudes. But, he adds, after that the state had been
corrupted by luxury and indolence, again the republic, by its own greatness,
was able to bear the vices of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even
the praises of Cato are only applicable to a few; for only a few were
possessed of that virtue which leads men to pursue after glory, honour, and
power by the true way,—that is, by virtue itself. This industry at home, of
which Cato speaks, was the consequence of a desire to enrich the public
treasury, even though the result should be poverty at home; and therefore,
when he speaks of the evil arising out of the corruption of morals, he
reverses the expression, and says, "Poverty in the state, riches at home."
13. Concerning the love of praise, which, though it is a vice, is reckoned a
virtue, because by it greater vice is restrained.
Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for a long
time, it pleased God that there should also arise a Western empire, which,
though later in time, should be more illustrious in extent and greatness.
And, in order that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed
among other nations, He purposely granted it to such men as, for the sake of
honour, and praise, and glory, consulted well for their country, in whose
glory they sought their own, and whose safety they did not hesitate to prefer
to their own, suppressing the desire of wealth and many other vices for this

one vice, namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest perception who
recognises that even the love of praise is a vice; nor has this escaped the
perception of the poet Horace, who says,

"You're bloated by ambition? take advice:
Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice."[203]

And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with the desire of
repressing the passion for domination:

"Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast
A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join
To distant Gades Lybia, and thus
Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian."[204]

Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the power of the Holy
Spirit obtained by the faith of piety, or by the love of intelligible beauty, but
by desire of human praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love
of such praise, are not indeed yet holy, but only less base. Even Tully was
not able to conceal this fact; for, in the same books which he wrote, De
Republica, when speaking concerning the education of a chief of the state,
who ought, he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say that their
ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through desire of glory.
So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they even thought that it ought to
be excited and kindled up, supposing that that would be beneficial to the
republic. But not even in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate
this poisonous opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than day. For
when he is speaking of those studies which are to be pursued with a view to
the true good, and not with the vainglorious desire of human praise, he
introduces the following universal and general statement:

"Honour nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of
studies by glory; and those pursuits are always neglected which are
generally discredited."[205]

14. Concerning the eradication of the love of human praise, because all the
glory of the righteous is in God.
It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire than to yield to it, for
the purer one is from this defilement, the liker is he to God; and, though this
vice be not thoroughly eradicated from his heart,—for it does not cease to
tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress in virtue,—at
any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by the love of righteousness, so
that, if there be seen anywhere "lying neglected things which are generally
discredited," if they are good, if they are right, even the love of human
praise may blush and yield to the love of truth. For so hostile is this vice to

pious faith, if the love of glory be greater in the heart than the fear or love
of God, that the Lord said, "How can ye believe, who look for glory from
one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?"[206] Also,
concerning some who had believed on Him, but were afraid to confess Him
openly, the evangelist says, "They loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God;"[207] which did not the holy apostles, who, when they
proclaimed the name of Christ in those places where it was not only
discredited, and therefore neglected,—according as Cicero says, "Those
things are always neglected which are generally discredited,"—but was
even held in the utmost detestation, holding to what they had heard from the
Good Master, who was also the physician of minds, "If any one shall deny
me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven,
and before the angels of God,"[208] amidst maledictions and reproaches, and
most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments, were not deterred from
the preaching of human salvation by the noise of human indignation. And
when, as they did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives,
conquering, as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the peace of
righteousness, great glory followed them in the church of Christ, they did
not rest in that as in the end of their virtue, but, referring that glory itself to
the glory of God, by whose grace they were what they were, they sought to
kindle, also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose good they
consulted, to the love of Him, by whom they could be made to be what they
themselves were. For their Master had taught them not to seek to be good
for the sake of human glory, saying, "Take heed that ye do not your
righteousness before men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not have
a reward from your Father who is in heaven."[209] But again, lest,
understanding this wrongly, they should, through fear of pleasing men, be
less useful through concealing their goodness, showing for what end they
ought to make it known, He says, "Let your works shine before men, that
they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."
[210]
Not, observe, "that ye may be seen by them, that is, in order that their
eyes may be directed upon you,"—for of yourselves ye are nothing,—but
"that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven," by fixing their regards
on whom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs followed,
who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and the Deciuses, both in
true virtue, because in true piety, and also in the greatness of their number.

But since those Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as the
end of all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom, not
in heaven, but in earth,—not in the sphere of eternal life, but in the sphere
of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded by the dying,—
what else but glory should they love, by which they wished even after death
to live in the mouths of their admirers?
15. Concerning the temporal reward which God granted to the virtues of
the Romans.
Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not purpose to give
eternal life with His holy angels in His own celestial city, to the society of
which that true piety which does not render the service of religion, which
the Greeks call λατρεία, to any save the true God conducts, if He had also
withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent empire, a
reward would not have been rendered to their good arts,—that is, their
virtues,—by which they sought to attain so great glory. For as to those who
seem to do some good that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also
says, "Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward."[211] So also
these despised their own private affairs for the sake of the republic, and for
its treasury resisted avarice, consulted for the good of their country with a
spirit of freedom, addicted neither to what their laws pronounced to be
crime nor to lust. By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward
to honours, power, and glory; they were honoured among almost all
nations; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many nations; and at
this day, both in literature and history, they are glorious among almost all
nations. There is no reason why they should complain against the justice of
the supreme and true God,—"they have received their reward."
16. Concerning the reward of the holy citizens of the celestial city, to whom
the example of the virtues of the Roman are useful.
But the reward of the saints is far different, who even here endured
reproaches for that city of God which is hateful to the lovers of this world.
That city is eternal. There none are born, for none die. There is true and full
felicity,—not a goddess, but a gift of God. Thence we receive the pledge of
faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its beauty. There rises not the sun
on the good and the evil, but the Sun of Righteousness protects the good

alone. There no great industry shall be expended to enrich the public
treasury by suffering privations at home, for there is the common treasury
of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the sake of recompensing the
citizens of Rome that her empire and glory had been so signally extended,
but also that the citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here,
might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and see what a
love they owe to the supernal country on account of life eternal, if the
terrestrial country was so much beloved by its citizens on account of human
glory.
17. To what profit the Romans carried on wars, and how much they
contributed to the well-being of those whom they conquered.
For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent and ended in a
few days, what does it matter under whose government a dying man lives, if
they who govern do not force him to impiety and iniquity? Did the Romans
at all harm those nations, on whom, when subjugated, they imposed their
laws, except in as far as that was accomplished with great slaughter in war?
Now, had it been done with consent of the nations, it would have been done
with greater success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for
neither did the Romans themselves live exempt from those laws which they
imposed on others. Had this been done without Mars and Bellona, so that
there should have been no place for victory, no one conquering where no
one had fought, would not the condition of the Romans and of the other
nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been done at
once which afterwards was done most humanely and most acceptably,
namely, the admission of all to the rights of Roman citizens who belonged
to the Roman empire, and if that had been made the privilege of all which
was formerly the privilege of a few, with this one condition, that the
humbler class who had no lands of their own should live at the public
expense—an alimentary impost, which would have been paid with a much
better grace by them into the hands of good administrators of the republic,
of which they were members, by their own hearty consent, than it would
have been paid with had it to be extorted from them as conquered men? For
I do not see what it makes for the safety, good morals, and certainly not for
the dignity, of men, that some have conquered and others have been
conquered, except that it yields them that most insane pomp of human
glory, in which "they have received their reward," who burned with

excessive desire of it, and carried on most eager wars. For do not their lands
pay tribute? Have they any privilege of learning what the others are not
privileged to learn? Are there not many senators in the other countries who
do not even know Rome by sight? Take away outward show,[212] and what
are all men after all but men? But even though the perversity of the age
should permit that all the better men should be more highly honoured than
others, neither thus should human honour be held at a great price, for it is
smoke which has no weight. But let us avail ourselves even in these things
of the kindness of God. Let us consider how great things they despised, how
great things they endured, what lusts they subdued for the sake of human
glory, who merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and let
this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as that city in which it
has been promised us to reign as far surpasses this one as heaven is distant
from the earth, as eternal life surpasses temporal joy, solid glory empty
praise, or the society of angels the society of mortals, or the glory of Him
who made the sun and moon the light of the sun and moon, the citizens of
so great a country may not seem to themselves to have done anything very
great, if, in order to obtain it, they have done some good works or endured
some evils, when those men for this terrestrial country already obtained, did
such great things, suffered such great things. And especially are all these
things to be considered, because the remission of sins which collects
citizens to the celestial country has something in it to which a shadowy
resemblance is found in that asylum of Romulus, whither escape from the
punishment of all manner of crimes congregated that multitude with which
the state was to be founded.

8. How far Christians ought to be from boasting, if they have done
anything for the love of the eternal country, when the Romans did such
great things for human glory and a terrestrial city.

What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial city to despise
all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if for the sake of this
terrestrial city Brutus could even put to death his son,—a sacrifice which
the heavenly city compels no one to make? But certainly it is more difficult
to put to death one's sons, than to do what is required to be done for the
heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those things which were
looked upon as things to be amassed and laid up for one's children, or to let

them go, if there arise any temptation which compels us to do so, for the
sake of faith and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or
our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime, or be
possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not, or perhaps by whom
we would not. But it is God who makes us happy, who is the true riches of
minds. But of Brutus, even the poet who celebrates his praises testifies that
it was the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for he says,

"And call his own rebellious seed
For menaced liberty to bleed.
Unhappy father! howsoe'er
The deed be judged by after days."[213]

But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness, saying,

"His country's love shall all o'erbear."

There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire of human praise,
which compelled the Romans to admirable deeds. If, therefore, for the
liberty of dying men, and for the desire of human praise which is sought
after by mortals, sons could be put to death by a father, what great thing is
it, if, for the true liberty which has made us free from the dominion of sin,
and death, and the devil,—not through the desire of human praise, but
through the earnest desire of freeing men, not from King Tarquin, but from
demons and the prince of the demons,—we should, I do not say put to death
our sons, but reckon among our sons Christ's poor ones? If, also, another
Roman chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son, not because he fought
against his country, but because, being challenged by an enemy, he through
youthful impetuosity fought, though for his country, yet contrary to orders
which he his father had given as general; and this he did, notwithstanding
that his son was victorious, lest there should be more evil in the example of
authority despised, than good in the glory of slaying an enemy;—if, I say,
Torquatus acted thus, wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the
laws of a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are loved
far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned by those who

envied him, notwithstanding that he had thrown off from the necks of his
countrymen the yoke of their most bitter enemies, the Veientes, again
delivered his ungrateful country from the Gauls, because he had no other in
which he could have better opportunities for living a life of glory;—if
Camillus did thus, why should he be extolled as having done some great
thing, who, having, it may be, suffered in the church at the hands of carnal
enemies most grievous and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to
heretical enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has rather
defended her, as far as he was able, from the most pernicious perversity of
heretics, since there is not another church, I say not in which one can live a
life of glory, but in which eternal life can be obtained? If Mucius, in order
that peace might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the
Romans with a most grievous war, when he did not succeed in slaying
Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for him, reached forth his right hand
and laid it on a red-hot altar, saying that many such as he saw him to be had
conspired for his destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at
the thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay recalled all his
warlike purposes, and made peace;—if, I say, Mucius did this, who shall
speak of his meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven, if for it he may
have given to the flames not one hand, but even his whole body, and that
not by his own spontaneous act, but because he was persecuted by another?
If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all armed into a precipitous
gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods, which had commanded that the
Romans should throw into that gulf the best thing which they possessed,
and they could only understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and
arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong
into that destruction;—if he did this, shall we say that that man has done a
great thing for the eternal city who may have died by a like death, not,
however, precipitating himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having
suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more especially
when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of his country, a
more certain oracle, "Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill the
soul?"[214] If the Decii dedicated themselves to death, consecrating
themselves in a form of words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by
their blood the wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering the
Roman army;—if they did this, let not the holy martyrs carry themselves
proudly, as though they had done some meritorious thing for a share in that

country where are eternal life and felicity, if even to the shedding of their
blood, loving not only the brethren for whom it was shed, but, according as
had been commanded them, even their enemies by whom it was being shed,
they have vied with one another in faith of love and love of faith. If Marcus
Pulvillus, when engaged in dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and
Minerva, received with such indifference the false intelligence which was
brought to him of the death of his son, with the intention of so agitating him
that he should go away, and thus the glory of dedicating the temple should
fall to his colleague;—if he received that intelligence with such indifference
that he even ordered that his son should be cast out unburied, the love of
glory having overcome in his heart the grief of bereavement, how shall any
one affirm that he has done a great thing for the preaching of the gospel, by
which the citizens of the heavenly city are delivered from divers errors, and
gathered together from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when
anxious about the burial of his father, "Follow me, and let the dead bury
their dead?"[215] Regulus, in order not to break his oath, even with his most
cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself, because (as he is said to
have replied to the Romans when they wished to retain him) he could not
have the dignity of an honourable citizen at Rome after having been a slave
to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put him to death with the utmost
tortures, because he had spoken against them in the senate. If Regulus acted
thus, what tortures are not to be despised for the sake of good faith toward
that country to whose beatitude faith itself leads? Or what will a man have
rendered to the Lord for all He has bestowed upon him, if, for the
faithfulness he owes to Him, he shall have suffered such things as Regulus
suffered at the hands of his most ruthless enemies for the good faith which
he owed to them? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of his
voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during the pilgrimage
of this life he may walk the more disencumbered on the way which leads to
the country where the true riches are, even God Himself;—how, I say, shall
he vaunt himself for this, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who
died when he was holding the office of consul, was so poor that his funeral
expenses were paid with money collected by the people?—or when he hears
that Quintius Cincinnatus, who, possessing only four acres of land, and
cultivating them with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator,—an office more honourable even than that of consul,—and that,
after having won great glory by conquering the enemy, he preferred

notwithstanding to continue in his poverty? Or how shall he boast of having
done a great thing, who has not been prevailed upon by the offer of any
reward of this world to renounce his connection with that heavenly and
eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could not be prevailed on to
forsake the Roman city by the great gifts offered to him by Pyrrhus king of
the Epirots, who promised him the fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred
to abide there in his poverty as a private individual? For if, when their
republic,—that is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country, the
common interest,—was most prosperous and wealthy, they themselves were
so poor in their own houses, that one of them, who had already been twice a
consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by the censor, because he
was discovered to possess ten pounds weight of silver-plate,—since, I say,
those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury was enriched were so
poor, ought not all Christians, who make common property of their riches
with a far nobler purpose, even that (according to what is written in the Acts
of the Apostles) they may distribute to each one according to his need, and
that no one may say that anything is his own, but that all things may be their
common possession,[216]—ought they not to understand that they should not
vaunt themselves, because they do that to obtain the society of angels, when
those men did well-nigh the same thing to preserve the glory of the
Romans?
How could these, and whatever like things are found in the Roman history,
have become so widely known, and have been proclaimed by so great a
fame, had not the Roman empire, extending far and wide, been raised to its
greatness by magnificent successes? Wherefore, through that empire, so
extensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious and glorious also
through the virtues of such great men, the reward which they sought was
rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also examples are set before us,
containing necessary admonition, in order that we may be stung with shame
if we shall see that we have not held fast those virtues for the sake of the
most glorious city of God, which are, in whatever way, resembled by those
virtues which they held fast for the sake of the glory of a terrestrial city, and
that, too, if we shall feel conscious that we have held them fast, we may not
be lifted up with pride, because, as the apostle says, "The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be
revealed in us."[217] But so far as regards human and temporal glory, the

lives of these ancient Romans were reckoned sufficiently worthy. Therefore,
also, we see, in the light of that truth which, veiled in the Old Testament, is
revealed in the New, namely, that it is not in view of terrestrial and temporal
benefits, which divine providence grants promiscuously to good and evil,
that God is to be worshipped, but in view of eternal life, everlasting gifts,
and of the society of the heavenly city itself;—in the light of this truth we
see that the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory of the
Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on earthly glory, and
sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they were, conquered those who, in
their great depravity, slew and rejected the giver of true glory, and of the
eternal city.
19. Concerning the difference between true glory and the desire of
domination.
There is assuredly a difference between the desire of human glory and the
desire of domination; for, though he who has an overweening delight in
human glory will be also very prone to aspire earnestly after domination,
nevertheless they who desire the true glory even of human praise strive not
to displease those who judge well of them. For there are many good moral
qualities, of which many are competent judges, although they are not
possessed by many; and by those good moral qualities those men press on
to glory, honour, and domination, of whom Sallust says, "But they press on
by the true way."
But whosoever, without possessing that desire of glory which makes one
fear to displease those who judge his conduct, desires domination and
power, very often seeks to obtain what he loves by most open crimes.
Therefore he who desires glory presses on to obtain it either by the true
way, or certainly by deceit and artifice, wishing to appear good when he is
not. Therefore to him who possesses virtues it is a great virtue to despise
glory; for contempt of it is seen by God, but is not manifest to human
judgment. For whatever any one does before the eyes of men in order to
show himself to be a despiser of glory, if they suspect that he is doing it in
order to get greater praise,—that is, greater glory,—he has no means of
demonstrating to the perceptions of those who suspect him that the case is
really otherwise than they suspect it to be. But he who despises the
judgment of praisers, despises also the rashness of suspectors. Their

salvation, indeed, he does not despise, if he is truly good; for so great is the
righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from the Spirit of God,
that he loves his very enemies, and so loves them that he desires that his
haters and detractors may be turned to righteousness, and become his
associates, and that not in an earthly but in a heavenly country. But with
respect to his praisers, though he sets little value on their praise, he does not
set little value on their love; neither does he elude their praise, lest he
should forfeit their love. And, therefore, he strives earnestly to have their
praises directed to Him from whom every one receives whatever in him is
truly praiseworthy. But he who is a despiser of glory, but is greedy of
domination, exceeds the beasts in the vices of cruelty and luxuriousness.
Such, indeed, were certain of the Romans, who, wanting the love of esteem,
wanted not the thirst for domination; and that there were many such, history
testifies. But it was Nero Cæsar who was the first to reach the summit, and,
as it were, the citadel, of this vice; for so great was his luxuriousness, that
one would have thought there was nothing manly to be dreaded in him, and
such his cruelty, that, had not the contrary been known, no one would have
thought there was anything effeminate in his character. Nevertheless power
and domination are not given even to such men save by the providence of
the most high God, when He judges that the state of human affairs is worthy
of such lords. The divine utterance is clear on this matter; for the Wisdom
of God thus speaks: "By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land."[218]
But, that it may not be thought that by "tyrants" is meant, not wicked and
impious kings, but brave men, in accordance with the ancient use of the
word, as when Virgil says,

"For know that treaty may not stand
Where king greets king and joins not hand,"[219]

in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that He "maketh the
man who is an hypocrite to reign on account of the perversity of the
people."[220] Wherefore, though I have, according to my ability, shown for
what reason God, who alone is true and just, helped forward the Romans,
who were good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to the
acquirement of the glory of so great an empire, there may be, nevertheless,
a more hidden cause, known better to God than to us, depending on the

diversity of the merits of the human race. Among all who are truly pious, it
is at all events agreed that no one without true piety—that is, true worship
of the true God—can have true virtue; and that it is not true virtue which is
the slave of human praise. Though, nevertheless, they who are not citizens
of the eternal city, which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures,
are more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that virtue than if
they had not even that. But there could be nothing more fortunate for
human affairs than that, by the mercy of God, they who are endowed with
true piety of life, if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have
the power. But such men, however great virtues they may possess in this
life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has bestowed it on them
—willing, believing, seeking. And, at the same time, they understand how
far they are short of that perfection of righteousness which exists in the
society of those holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves.
But however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which without
true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at all to be compared even to
the feeble beginnings of the virtue of the saints, whose hope is placed in the
grace and mercy of the true God.
20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily
pleasure.
Philosophers,—who place the end of human good in virtue itself, in order to
put to shame certain other philosophers, who indeed approve of the virtues,
but measure them all with reference to the end of bodily pleasure, and think
that this pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues on account
of pleasure,—are wont to paint a kind of word-picture, in which Pleasure
sits like a luxurious queen on a royal seat, and all the virtues are subjected
to her as slaves, watching her nod, that they may do whatever she shall
command. She commands Prudence to be ever on the watch to discover
how Pleasure may rule, and be safe. Justice she orders to grant what
benefits she can, in order to secure those friendships which are necessary
for bodily pleasure; to do wrong to no one, lest, on account of the breaking
of the laws, Pleasure be not able to live in security. Fortitude she orders to
keep her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in her mind, if any affliction
befall her body which does not occasion death, in order that by
remembrance of former delights she may mitigate the poignancy of present
pain. Temperance she commands to take only a certain quantity even of the

most favourite food, lest, through immoderate use, anything prove hurtful
by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure, which the
Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health of the body, be grievously
offended. Thus the virtues, with the whole dignity of their glory, will be the
slaves of Pleasure, as of some imperious and disreputable woman.
There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful and monstrous
than this picture, and which the eyes of good men can less endure. And they
say the truth. But I do not think that the picture would be sufficiently
becoming, even if it were made so that the virtues should be represented as
the slaves of human glory; for, though that glory be not a luxurious woman,
it is nevertheless puffed up, and has much vanity in it. Wherefore it is
unworthy of the solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as
serving this glory, so that Prudence shall provide nothing, Justice distribute
nothing, Temperance moderate nothing, except to the end that men may be
pleased and vainglory served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves
from the charge of such baseness, whilst they, by way of being despisers of
glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to themselves wise, and
please themselves. For their virtue,—if, indeed, it is virtue at all,—is only in
another way subjected to human praise; for he who seeks to please himself
seeks still to please man. But he who, with true piety towards God, whom
he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more on those things in
which he displeases himself, than on those things, if there are any such,
which please himself, or rather, not himself, but the truth, does not attribute
that by which he can now please the truth to anything but to the mercy of
Him whom he has feared to displease, giving thanks for what in him is
healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of that which is yet
unhealed.
21. That the Roman dominion was granted by Him from whom is all power,
and by whose providence all things are ruled.
These things being so, we do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms
and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness in the
kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both
to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is
always just. For though we have said something about the principles which
guide His administration, in so far as it has seemed good to Him to explain

it, nevertheless it is too much for us, and far surpasses our strength, to
discuss the hidden things of men's hearts, and by a clear examination to
determine the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is the one
true God, who never leaves the human race without just judgment and help,
gave a kingdom to the Romans when He would, and as great as He would,
as He did also to the Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their
own books testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the
other evil,—to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of whom I have
already spoken as much as seemed necessary, who, as long as they were a
kingdom, worshipped none save the true God. The same, therefore, who
gave to the Persians harvests, though they did not worship the goddess
Segetia, who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did not
worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to preside, each one
over some particular thing, or even many of them over each several thing,
—He, I say, gave the Persians dominion, though they worshipped none of
those gods to whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the
empire. And the same is true in respect of men as well as nations. He who
gave power to Marius gave it also to Caius Cæsar; He who gave it to
Augustus gave it also to Nero; He also who gave it to the most benignant
emperors, the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel Domitian;
and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over them all, He who gave it to
the Christian Constantine gave it also to the apostate Julian, whose gifted
mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by
the love of power. And it was because he was addicted through curiosity to
vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he burned the ships which were
laden with the provisions necessary for his army, and therefore, engaging
with hot zeal in rashly audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just
consequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an
enemy's country, and in such a predicament that it never could have
escaped, save by altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation
of that omen of the god Terminus of which I spoke in the preceding book;
for the god Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to
Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by the one God
according as He pleases; and if His motives are hid, are they therefore
unjust?
22. The durations and issues of war depend on the will of God.

Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him as He may see meet,
according to His righteous will, and pleasure, and mercy, to afflict or to
console the human race, so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of
shorter duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war were
terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war of the fugitive gladiators,
though in it many Roman generals and the consuls were defeated, and Italy
was terribly wasted and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year,
having itself been, during its continuance, the end of much. The Picentes,
the Marsi, and the Peligni, not distant but Italian nations, after a long and
most loyal servitude under the Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads
into liberty, though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman
power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian war the Romans
were very often defeated, and two consuls perished, besides other noble
senators; nevertheless this calamity was not protracted over a long space of
time, for the fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting for
the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest disasters and
calamities to the republic, wore out and well-nigh consumed the strength of
the Romans; for in two battles about seventy thousand Romans fell.[221] The
first Punic war was terminated after having been waged for three-and-
twenty years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And that no
one may think that in the early and much belauded times of the Romans
they were far braver and more able to bring wars to a speedy termination,
the Samnite war was protracted for nearly fifty years; and in this war the
Romans were so beaten that they were even put under the yoke. But
because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but seemed rather to
have loved justice for the sake of glory, they broke the peace and the treaty
which had been concluded. These things I mention, because many, ignorant
of past things, and some also dissimulating what they know, if in Christian
times they see any war protracted a little longer than they expected,
straightway make a fierce and insolent attack on our religion, exclaiming
that, but for it, the deities would have been supplicated still, according to
ancient rites; and then, by that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help
of Mars and Bellona, speedily brought to an end such great wars, this war
also would be speedily terminated. Let them, therefore, who have read
history recollect what long-continued wars, having various issues and
entailing woful slaughter, were waged by the ancient Romans, in
accordance with the general truth that the earth, like the tempestuous deep,

is subject to agitations from tempests—tempests of such evils, in various
degrees,—and let them sometimes confess what they do not like to own,
and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy themselves and deceive
the ignorant.
23. Concerning the war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a
worshipper of demons, was conquered in one day, with all his mighty
forces.
Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what God has very
recently, and within our own memory, wonderfully and mercifully done, but
as far as in them lies they attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal
oblivion. But should we be silent about these things, we should be in like
manner ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths, having taken up
his position very near to the city, with a vast and savage army, was already
close upon the Romans, he was in one day so speedily and so thoroughly
beaten, that, whilst not even one Roman was wounded, much less slain, far
more than a hundred thousand of his army were prostrated, and he himself
and his sons, having been captured, were forthwith put to death, suffering
the punishment they deserved. For had so impious a man, with so great and
so impious a host, entered the city, whom would he have spared? what
tombs of the martyrs would he have respected? in his treatment of what
person would he have manifested the fear of God? whose blood would he
have refrained from shedding? whose chastity would he have wished to
preserve inviolate? But how loud would they not have been in the praises of
their gods! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying that
Radagaisus had conquered, that he had been able to achieve such great
things, because he propitiated and won over the gods by daily sacrifices,—a
thing which the Christian religion did not allow the Romans to do! For
when he was approaching to those places where he was overwhelmed at the
nod of the Supreme Majesty, as his fame was everywhere increasing, it was
being told us at Carthage that the pagans were believing, publishing, and
boasting, that he, on account of the help and protection of the gods friendly
to him, because of the sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to
them, would certainly not be conquered by those who were not performing
such sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not even permit that they should
be offered by any one. And now these wretched men do not give thanks to
God for His great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the corruption

of men, which was worthy of far heavier chastisement than the corruption
of the barbarians, tempered His indignation with such mildness as, in the
first instance, to cause that the king of the Goths should be conquered in a
wonderful manner, lest glory should accrue to demons, whom he was
known to be supplicating, and thus the minds of the weak should be
overthrown; and then, afterwards, to cause that, when Rome was to be
taken, it should be taken by those barbarians who, contrary to any custom of
all former wars, protected, through reverence for the Christian religion,
those who fled for refuge to the sacred places, and who so opposed the
demons themselves, and the rites of impious sacrifices, that they seemed to
be carrying on a far more terrible war with them than with men. Thus did
the true Lord and Governor of things both scourge the Romans mercifully,
and, by the marvellous defeat of the worshippers of demons, show that
those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of present things; so
that, by those who do not obstinately hold out, but prudently consider the
matter, true religion may not be deserted on account of the urgencies of the
present time, but may be more clung to in most confident expectation of
eternal life.
24. What was the happiness of the Christian emperors, and how far it was
true happiness.
For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore happy
because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death, left their sons to
succeed them in the empire, or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were
able both to guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens
rising against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life
even certain worshippers of demons have merited to receive, who do not
belong to the kingdom of God to which these belong; and this is to be
traced to the mercy of God, who would not have those who believe in Him
desire such things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy if
they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid the praises of those who pay
them sublime honours, and the obsequiousness of those who salute them
with an excessive humility, but remember that they are men; if they make
their power the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest
possible extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship God; if more
than their own they love that kingdom in which they are not afraid to have
partners; if they are slow to punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that

punishment as necessary to government and defence of the republic, and
not in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon, not that
iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that the transgressor may
amend his ways; if they compensate with the lenity of mercy and the
liberality of benevolence for whatever severity they may be compelled to
decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather than any
nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through ardent desire of
empty glory, but through love of eternal felicity, not neglecting to offer to
the true God, who is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility,
contrition, and prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the
present time by hope, and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the
reality itself, when that which we wait for shall have arrived.
25. Concerning the prosperity which God granted to the Christian emperor
Constantine.
For the good God, lest men, who believe that He is to be worshipped with a
view to eternal life, should think that no one could attain to all this high
estate, and to this terrestrial dominion, unless he should be a worshipper of
the demons,—supposing that these spirits have great power with respect to
such things,—for this reason He gave to the Emperor Constantine, who was
not a worshipper of demons, but of the true God Himself, such fulness of
earthly gifts as no one would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the
honour of founding a city,[222] a companion to the Roman empire, the
daughter, as it were, of Rome itself, but without any temple or image of the
demons. He reigned for a long period as sole emperor, and unaided held and
defended the whole Roman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he
was most victorious; in overthrowing tyrants he was most successful. He
died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left his sons to succeed him
in the empire.[223] But again, lest any emperor should become a Christian in
order to merit the happiness of Constantine, when every one should be a
Christian for the sake of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner than
Julian, and permitted that Gratian should be slain by the sword of a tyrant.
But in his case there was far more mitigation of the calamity than in the
case of the great Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom he
had left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though pious minds
require not such consolations, was avenged by Theodosius, whom he had

associated with himself in the empire, though he had a little brother of his
own, being more desirous of a faithful alliance than of extensive power.
26. On the faith and piety of Theodosius Augustus.
And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during the lifetime of
Gratian that fidelity which was due to him, but also, after his death, he, like
a true Christian, took his little brother Valentinian under his protection, as
joint emperor, after he had been expelled by Maximus, the murderer of his
father. He guarded him with paternal affection, though he might without
any difficulty have got rid of him, being entirely destitute of all resources,
had he been animated with the desire of extensive empire, and not with the
ambition of being a benefactor. It was therefore a far greater pleasure to
him, when he had adopted the boy, and preserved to him his imperial
dignity, to console him by his very humanity and kindness. Afterwards,
when that success was rendering Maximus terrible, Theodosius, in the midst
of his perplexing anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions
of a sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose abode was
in the desert of Egypt,—for he had learned that this servant of God (whose
fame was spreading abroad) was endowed with the gift of prophecy,—and
from him he received assurance of victory. Immediately the slayer of the
tyrant Maximus, with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect,
restored the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which he had
been driven. Valentinianus being soon after slain by secret assassination, or
by some other plot or accident, Theodosius, having again received a
response from the prophet, and placing entire confidence in it, marched
against the tyrant Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed
that emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer than by
the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle reported to me that all the
missiles they were throwing were snatched from their hands by a vehement
wind, which blew from the direction of Theodosius' army upon the enemy;
nor did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were hurled
against them, but also turned back upon their own bodies the darts which
they themselves were throwing. And therefore the poet Claudian, although
an alien from the name of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, "O
prince, too much beloved by God, for thee Æolus pours armed tempests
from their caves; for thee the air fights, and the winds with one accord obey
thy bugles."[224] But the victor, as he had believed and predicted, overthrew