and if these things had been felt and spoken when the Christian religion was being defamed and gaining strength, who among these men would not have judged that they ought to be laid to the charge of the Christians? Wherefore, why did their gods not take care that the commonwealth should not then perish and be lost—that commonwealth which Cicero, long before Christ had come in the flesh, so mournfully laments as already lost? Let its praisers see, even in respect of those ancient men and morals, what its character was: whether true justice flourished in it, or whether even then it was not alive in its morals but only painted in colours—which Cicero himself, unknowingly, expressed even while he preferred it. But we shall look into this elsewhere, if God shall so will.
For I shall strive in its proper place to show, according to the very definitions of Cicero—by which, through the mouth of Scipio, he briefly set down what a commonwealth is and what a people is (with many statements bearing witness, whether his own or those of the men whom he made to speak in the same debate)—that it never was a commonwealth, because true justice never existed in it. According to more probable definitions, however, it was in a certain way of its own a commonwealth, and it was better administered by the earlier Romans than by the later ones; but true justice exists only in that commonwealth whose founder and ruler is Christ—if indeed it be pleasing to call that too a commonwealth, since we cannot deny that it is the affair of a people.
But if this name, which elsewhere and in another sense is in common use, is perhaps too remote from the usage of our own speech, at all events in that city there is true justice, of which the holy Scripture says: Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. But as concerns the present question, however praiseworthy they may say that commonwealth to have been or to be, according to their own most learned authors it had long before the coming of Christ become most wicked and most disgraceful; nay rather, it was no commonwealth at all and had utterly perished through most abandoned morals.
In order, then, that it might not perish, its guardian gods ought above all to have given to their worshipping people precepts of life and morals—that people by which they were worshipped with so many temples, so many priests and kinds of sacrifices, with rites so manifold and various, with so many festal solemnities, with so many celebrations of games so great. But there the demons did nothing except their own business, not caring how those men lived—nay, taking care that they should live even in utter ruin—provided only that all those things were rendered to their honour by men subdued through fear.
Or if they did give such precepts, let it be produced, shown, and read—what laws of the gods, given to that city, the Gracchi despised, so as to throw everything into confusion by sedition; what laws Marius and Cinna and Carbo despised, so as to proceed even into civil wars undertaken on the most unjust grounds and waged cruelly and ended more cruelly still; what laws, finally, Sulla himself despised—whose life, morals, and deeds, as described by Sallust and other writers of history, who would not shudder at? Who would not confess that the commonwealth had then perished? Or will they perhaps dare, as they are wont, to bring forward against us, in defence of their gods, that Virgilian saying on account of such morals of the citizens: 'All the gods departed, forsaking their shrines and altars—the gods by whom this empire had stood'?
First, if it is so, they have no reason to complain of the Christian religion, as though, offended by it, their gods had deserted them; for their ancestors had long ago, by their own morals, driven so many petty gods, like flies, from the altars of the City. But yet, where was that throng of deities when, long before the ancient morals were corrupted, Rome was captured and burned by the Gauls? Were they perhaps present but asleep? For then, when the whole City had been reduced into the enemy's power, only the Capitoline hill remained, and even that would have been taken, had not the geese at least kept watch while the gods slept. Whence Rome had almost fallen into the superstition of the Egyptians who worship beasts and birds, when they celebrated solemnities in honour of a goose.
But of these external evils, evils rather of the body than of the mind, which befall either from enemies or from some other calamity, I do not yet for the present dispute: now I treat of the ruin of morals, by which—first gradually discoloured, then hurled headlong like a torrent—so great a downfall of the commonwealth was brought about, that (though roofs and walls remained intact) their great authors do not hesitate to say it was then lost. And rightly had all the gods departed, forsaking their shrines and altars, so that it might be lost, if the city had despised their precepts concerning a good life and justice. But now, I ask, what sort of gods were these, if they were unwilling to live with their worshipping people, whom, when they lived wickedly, they had not taught to live well?
Nay, why is it that they even appear to have been present to help fulfil their lusts, and are shown not to have presided over restraining them? For they aided Marius—a new man and of ignoble birth, a most bloody author and conductor of civil wars—so that he became consul seven times, and that he died in his seventh consulship as an old man, that he might not fall into the hands of Sulla, who would soon be victor. For if their gods did not help him to these ends, it is no small thing that they confess it can happen even without their gods being propitious that a man should attain that temporal happiness, so exceedingly great, which they overmuch love; and that men, such as Marius was, can be heaped up with and enjoy safety, strength, riches, honours, dignity, and length of days even when the gods are angry;
and that men, such as Regulus was, can, even when the gods are friendly, be tortured and die through captivity, slavery, want, wakeful nights, and pains. But if they grant that it is so, they confess in short that the gods profit nothing and are worshipped to no purpose. For if they insisted upon teaching the people rather the things contrary to the virtues of the soul and to uprightness of life, whose rewards are to be hoped for after death; if in these passing and temporal goods they neither harm those whom they hate nor profit those whom they love—why are they worshipped, why with such zeal are they sought to be worshipped? Why, in toilsome and gloomy times, is there murmuring, as though they had departed offended, and on their account is the Christian religion wounded with most unworthy revilings?
But if they do have in these matters the power of benefit or of harm, why were they present to the wicked Marius, and absent from the excellent Regulus? Or from this very fact are they understood to be most unjust and most wicked? And if for that reason they are thought the more to be feared and worshipped—let them not be thought so either; for Regulus is found to have worshipped them no less than Marius. Nor should the worst life on that account seem to be chosen, because the gods are thought to have favoured Marius more than Regulus.
For Metellus, most praised among the Romans, who had five sons of consular rank, was also happy in temporal affairs; and Catiline, most wicked, oppressed by want and overthrown in the war of his own crime, was unhappy; and by the truest and most certain happiness the good who worship God are pre-eminent, by whom alone it can be bestowed. That commonwealth, therefore, when it was perishing through evil morals, its gods did nothing to direct or correct its morals so that it might not perish; nay, they added to the depraving and corrupting of its morals, so that it should perish. Nor let them feign themselves good, as though, offended by the iniquity of the citizens, they had departed. Assuredly they were there; they are betrayed, they are convicted; they could neither succour by teaching nor lie hidden by keeping silent.
I pass over the fact that Marius, by the compassionate people of Minturnae, was commended to the goddess Marica in her grove, that she might prosper all things for him; and that, returning safe from the depth of despair, he led back into the City a cruel army as their cruel commander—where how bloody, how uncivil, and more savage than an enemy's, his victory was, let those read who wish, from those who have written of it.
But this, as I have said, I pass over; nor do I attribute the bloody good fortune of Marius to some Marica or other, but rather to the hidden providence of God, so as to shut the mouths of these men and to deliver from error those who consider these things prudently, not out of party zeal. For, even if the demons can do something in these matters, they can do only so much as by the secret decree of the Almighty they are permitted; lest we should set a high value on earthly happiness, which is often granted even to wicked men, as it was to Marius; nor again should we deem it evil, since we see that many even pious and good worshippers of the one true God have surpassed others in it, against the will of the demons; nor should we suppose that these most unclean spirits are to be propitiated or feared on account of these very earthly goods or evils; for, just as wicked men themselves upon earth, so also those spirits cannot do all that they wish, but only so far as it is allowed by the ordinance of Him whose judgments no one fully comprehends, whom no one justly reproves.
Sulla himself, certainly, whose times were such that the former times, of which he seemed to be the avenger, were longed for in comparison with them—when he first moved his camp toward the City against Marius, offered sacrifice, and Livy writes that the entrails were so favourable that Postumius the soothsayer wished to be kept under guard, ready to undergo capital punishment unless Sulla, with the gods aiding, should accomplish what he had in mind. Behold, the gods had not departed, forsaking their shrines and altars, since they foretold the outcome of events—and yet cared nothing for the correction of Sulla himself. They promised, by their presaging, great happiness, and did not break his evil lust by any threat.
Then, when he was waging the Mithridatic war in Asia, it was announced to him by Jupiter, through one Lucius Titius, that he would overcome Mithridates; and so it came to pass. And afterwards, when he was contriving to return to the City and to avenge his own and his friends' injuries with the blood of fellow-citizens, it was again announced to him by the same Jupiter, through a certain soldier of the sixth legion, that He had first foretold the victory over Mithridates, and now promised that He would give him power by which he might recover the commonwealth from his enemies, not without much bloodshed. Then Sulla, having inquired what form had appeared to the soldier, when the man had described it, recognised it as the same which he had earlier heard of from that other man who had brought the message about the Mithridatic victory from the same Jupiter.
What can here be answered—why the gods took care to announce, as it were, these prosperous things, and none of them took care to correct Sulla by warning him that he would do such great evils in those wicked civil years, evils such as would not merely defile but utterly destroy the commonwealth? Assuredly the demons are understood, as I have often said and as is known to us in the sacred writings, and as the facts themselves sufficiently indicate, to be pursuing their own business—that they may be held and worshipped as gods, that such things may be exhibited to them, by which those who exhibit them, associated with the demons, may have one most evil cause together with them in the judgment of God. Then, when Sulla had come to Tarentum and had sacrificed there, he saw upon the head of the calf's liver the likeness of a golden crown.
Then that soothsayer Postumius answered that it signified a glorious victory, and bade that he alone should eat of those entrails. Afterwards, at a small interval, a slave of a certain Lucius Pontius cried out in prophecy: 'I come as a messenger from Bellona; the victory is thine, Sulla!' Then he added that the Capitol would be burned. When he had said this, going straight out of the camp, on the following day he returned more agitated, and cried out that the Capitol had been burned. And the Capitol had indeed been burned. This the demon could both easily foresee and most swiftly announce. But mark this well, which most pertains to our case: under what sort of gods those men desire to be, who blaspheme the Saviour that sets free the wills of the faithful from the dominion of the demons. The man cried out in prophecy:
'The victory is thine, Sulla!' And that it might be believed he cried this by a divine spirit, he announced also something both near at hand and soon to be fulfilled, from which he was far removed, through whom that spirit spoke; yet he did not cry: 'Spare thyself from crimes, Sulla!'—the crimes so horrible which the conqueror there committed, to whom the golden crown, the most illustrious sign of the victory itself, appeared in the calf's liver. If just gods, and not impious demons, were wont to give such signs, assuredly in those entrails they would rather have shown forth the wicked and grievously baneful evils to come, evils grievous to Sulla himself. For that victory profited his dignity not so much as it harmed his lust;
by which it came to pass that, gaping after immoderate things and lifted up and hurled headlong by prosperity, he himself perished more in his morals than he destroyed his enemies in their bodies. These truly sad and truly lamentable things those gods did not foretell to him by entrails, nor by auguries, nor by anyone's dream or prophecy. For they feared more that he should be corrected than that he should be conquered. Nay, they were busily occupied that the conqueror of his fellow-citizens, glorious in the eyes of men, should himself be conquered and made captive by his abominable vices, and thereby be subjected all the more bindingly to those very demons.
But from all this who does not understand, who does not see—except one who has chosen rather to imitate such gods than by divine grace to be separated from their fellowship—how greatly these malignant spirits strive to lend, as it were, a kind of divine authority to crimes by their own example? This is shown even by that fact: on a certain wide plain of Campania, where not long after the citizen ranks clashed in impious battle, the spirits themselves were first seen to fight among themselves. For there, first, huge crashes were heard, and soon many reported that they had seen two battle-lines fighting for several days. And when that fight ceased, they even found footprints, as it were, of men and horses, as many as could be impressed by such a conflict.
If, therefore, the deities truly fought among themselves, then human civil wars are excused; yet let it be considered what the malice or the misery of such gods is. But if they only feigned to fight, what else did they accomplish, except that the Romans, by waging civil war, might seem to admit no wickedness, as though following the example of the gods? For by now the civil wars had begun, and the execrable slaughter of several impious battles had gone before. Now it had already moved many, that a certain soldier, while stripping the spoils from one he had slain, recognised his brother upon uncovering the corpse, and, cursing the civil wars, slew himself there and joined himself to his brother's body.
In order, therefore, that men might by no means grow weary of so great an evil, but that the ardour for wicked arms might grow more and more, the noxious demons, whom those men, thinking them gods, judged ought to be worshipped and venerated, willed to appear to men fighting among themselves, lest civic affection should tremble to imitate such battles, but rather that human crime should be excused by a divine example. By this cunning the malignant spirits also ordered that scenic games—of which I have already said much—should be dedicated and consecrated to themselves, where such disgraceful deeds of the gods were celebrated in theatrical songs and by the acting of stories, so that whoever believed the gods had done these things, and whoever did not believe it but nevertheless saw that they most gladly had such things exhibited to them, might imitate them without concern.
Lest, therefore, anyone should suppose that the poets had written railings against the gods rather than something worthy of them, wherever the poets recorded that the gods had fought among themselves, the demons themselves confirmed the poets' songs, so as to deceive men, exhibiting their battles to human eyes not only through the players in the theatre, but even through themselves in the field. We have been compelled to say these things, since their own authors have by no means hesitated to say and write that the Roman commonwealth had already before been ruined through the wickedest morals of its citizens, and that no commonwealth had remained before the coming of Christ Jesus our Lord. This ruin they do not impute to their gods, they who impute to our Christ those transitory evils by which the good, whether they live or die, cannot perish:
whereas our Christ so abundantly urges precepts for the best morals against corrupt morals; but their gods did nothing by any such precepts with their worshipping people for the sake of that commonwealth, that it might not perish; nay rather, by corrupting those same morals as though by their own examples with a baneful authority, they wrought instead that it should perish. Which commonwealth no one, I think, will now dare to say perished at that time because 'all the gods departed, forsaking their shrines and altars', as friends of the virtues, being offended by the vices of men; for by so many signs of entrails, auguries, and prophecies—by which they eagerly boasted and commended themselves as foreknowers of the future and helpers in battles—they are convicted to have been present;
and if they had truly departed, the Romans would have burned into civil wars more mildly by their own lusts than by the instigations of these gods. Since these things are so—since the base deeds mingled with cruelties, the reproaches and crimes of the deities, whether disclosed or fabricated, at their own demand and with them being angry unless it were done, consecrated and dedicated to them even by fixed and appointed solemnities, have become manifest and have come forth to be gazed upon before the eyes of all, so that they might be set forth for imitation—
what is this, that these same demons—who by pleasures of this kind confess themselves to be unclean spirits; who by their own disgraceful deeds and crimes, whether disclosed or feigned, and by the celebration of them demanded from the shameless and extorted from the modest, testify themselves to be the authors of a wicked and unclean life—are nevertheless reported, in their inner shrines and secret recesses, to give certain good precepts concerning morals to certain, as it were, chosen and consecrated followers of theirs? If it be so, by this very thing the more crafty malice of these noxious spirits is to be observed and convicted.
For so great is the force of uprightness and chastity, that all, or almost all human nature, is moved by the praise of it, nor is it so far vicious with baseness as to have lost the whole sense of honour. Accordingly the malignity of the demons, unless somewhere—just as we know it written in our sacred writings—it transforms itself into an angel of light, does not accomplish the business of deception. Outside, therefore, impure impiety resounds all about the peoples with a most crowded din; and within, to a few, feigned chastity scarcely whispers. Open places are furnished for shameful things, and secret ones for things praiseworthy; honour lies hidden and dishonour lies open; the evil that is done calls together all spectators, the good that is spoken scarcely finds any hearers—as though honourable things were to be blushed at, and dishonourable ones to be gloried in.
But where does this happen, save in the temples of the demons? where, save in the lodging-places of deceit? For the one is done, that the more honourable, who are few, may be captured; the other, that the more, who are most base, may not be corrected. Where and when the consecrated of Caelestis heard the precepts of chastity, we know not; yet before that very shrine, where we beheld the image placed, all flocking together from every side and standing wherever each could, we most intently watched the games that were being performed, gazing with alternating look, here on the harlot-procession, there on the virgin goddess; her being adored with supplication, before her shameful things being celebrated. There we saw no bashful mimes, no more modest actress; all the offices of obscenity were being fulfilled.
It was known what pleased the virginal deity, and there was exhibited what the matron might carry home from the temple the more learned. Some, the more modest, turned away their faces from the impure movements of the players, and yet learned the art of shameful things by a furtive attention. For they were ashamed before men, that they should not dare to behold with a free countenance the immodest gestures; but much less did they dare to condemn with a chaste heart the sacred rites of her whom they venerated. Yet this was openly offered to be learned in the temple, which, at least, to be perpetrated, a secret place was sought in the home; too greatly wondering—if any shame of mortals was there at all—that men should not freely commit the human disgraces which they would even religiously learn in the presence of the gods, being about to have those gods angry, unless they also took care to exhibit them.
For what other spirit is it that by a hidden instinct stirs up the most wicked minds, and both urges on the committing of adulteries and is fed upon the deeds, save he who also takes delight in such rites—setting up in temples the images of demons, loving in the games the images of vices, whispering in secret words of justice to deceive even the few good, thronging in the open the enticements of wickedness to possess the innumerable wicked? A grave man and dabbler in philosophy, Tullius, when about to be aedile, cries out in the ears of the citizenry that among the other duties of his magistracy the Mother Flora must be appeased by him with a celebration of games—games which are wont to be celebrated the more devoutly, the more shamefully.
He says in another place, now as consul, in the extreme perils of the state, that games were held for ten days, and that no single thing which pertained to appeasing the gods was omitted; as though it were not better to provoke such gods by temperance than to appease them by luxury, and to challenge them even to enmities by honourable conduct than to soothe them by such great deformity. For those men, however cruel by the most savage barbarity they might be about to prove harmful, on whose account the gods were appeased, would not have harmed more grievously than the gods themselves harmed, when they were appeased by the foulest viciousness.
For in order that what was feared from the enemy in men's bodies might be averted, the gods were conciliated in such a way that virtue was vanquished in men's minds; nor would defenders be set against the assailants of the walls, unless first there arose stormers of good morals.
This appeasing of such deities, most wanton, most impure, most shameless, most wicked, most unclean—whose performers the praiseworthy character of Roman virtue deprived of honour, removed from the tribe, acknowledged and made them base and infamous—this, I say, shameful appeasing of such deities, to be shunned and detested by the true religion, these tales alluring and criminal against the gods, these ignominious deeds either wickedly and basely done by the gods or still more wickedly and basely fabricated, the whole city learned before the public eyes and ears; and it perceived that these deeds committed pleased the deities, and therefore believed that they were not only to be exhibited to them, but also to be imitated by itself—not that I-know-not-what, as it were good and honourable, which was spoken so to a few and so secretly (if indeed it was spoken at all), that it was feared rather lest it should become known, than lest it should not be done.
That men are rescued through the name of Christ from the Tartarean yoke and penal fellowship of these most unclean powers, and are transferred into the light of most wholesome piety from that night of most pernicious impiety—at this the wicked and ungrateful complain and murmur, they who are more deeply and more bindingly possessed by that abominable spirit, because the peoples flock together to the Church with chaste assembly, with honourable separation of either sex, where they may hear how well they ought to live here for a time, that after this life they may deserve to live blessedly and for ever, where the holy Scripture and the doctrine of justice, sounding forth from a higher place in the sight of all, is heard both by those who do it, unto reward, and by those who do it not, unto judgment.
Even if certain mockers of such precepts come thither, all their wantonness is either laid aside by a sudden change, or repressed by fear or shame. For nothing base and disgraceful is set forth there to be gazed at and imitated, where the precepts of the true God are either instilled, or miracles narrated, or gifts praised, or benefits sought. These things rather desire, O praiseworthy Roman character, O offspring of the Reguli, the Scaevolae, the Scipios, the Fabricii; these things rather desire; these things distinguish from that most base vanity and most deceitful malignity of the demons. If anything praiseworthy naturally stands out in thee, it is purged and perfected only by true piety, but by impiety it is ruined and punished.
Now, then, choose what thou wilt follow, that thou mayest be praised not in thyself, but in the true God without any error. For in former times popular glory was present to thee, but by the hidden judgment of divine providence the true religion, which thou mightest choose, was wanting. Awake, it is day, as thou hast awakened in certain ones, of whose perfected virtue and true faith we glory even by their passions—who, everywhere contending against the most hostile powers and bravely conquering them by dying, purchased for us this fatherland with their blood. To which fatherland we invite and exhort thee, that thou mayest be added to the number of its citizens, whose sanctuary, in a certain manner, is the true remission of sins.
Do not listen to thy degenerate ones who detract from Christ and the Christians, and accuse the times as evil, when they seek times in which not a quiet life, but rather a secure wickedness, may be had. These things never pleased thee even for the sake of an earthly fatherland. Now, then, seize the heavenly one, for which thou shalt labour very little, and in it thou shalt truly and for ever reign. For there no Vestal hearth, no Capitoline stone, but the one and true God sets thee neither bounds of things nor times: He shall give empire without end. Seek not the false and deceitful gods; rather cast them away and despise them, breaking forth into true liberty. They are not gods; they are malignant spirits, to whom thy eternal happiness is a punishment.
Juno does not seem to have so envied the Roman citadels to the Trojans, from whom thou drawest thy carnal origin, as these demons, whom thou still thinkest gods, envy to the whole race of men their everlasting seats. And thou thyself hast in no small part judged concerning such spirits, when thou didst appease them with games, and yet didst will that those men, through whom thou madest those same games, should be infamous. Suffer thy liberty to be asserted against the unclean spirits, who had laid upon thy neck their own ignominy, to be hallowed and celebrated in their honour. Thou hast removed the performers of the divine crimes from thy honours: supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those gods who delight in their own crimes—whether true, which is most ignominious, or false, which is most malicious.
Well done, that of thine own accord thou didst not will the fellowship of the city to lie open to actors and stage-players; awake more fully! By no means is the divine majesty appeased by those arts by which human dignity is defiled. By what compact, therefore, dost thou think those gods, who delight in such observances, are to be reckoned in the number of the holy heavenly powers, when the men through whom those same observances are performed thou didst not think ought to be reckoned in the number of Roman citizens of any sort whatever? Incomparably more glorious is the city on high, where victory is truth, where dignity is holiness, where peace is happiness, where life is eternity. Much less does it have in its fellowship such gods, if thou hast blushed to have such men in thine.