so that all the more easily, namely, the whole people might recognize how greatly they ought to shun the things which God forbade in the heavenly writings, since even those things wounded Him when committed, which He had not yet forbidden by law. That same people also groaned that they had to endure toil, and on this account they were scourged with heavenly plagues—not because it is not permitted to one labouring to groan, but because the groaning was ungrateful, accusing God as it were as the author of immoderate toil. From this it is fitting to understand how much he ought to please God who enjoys the blessedness of pleasant things, since it is not permitted even to complain of those things which seem unpleasant. XI. Perhaps it is asked to what these things tend? To what, without doubt, but that nothing may be esteemed light by which God is wounded?
For we are speaking of the public games—mockeries, namely, of our hope, mockeries of our life. For while we sport in the theatres and circuses, we perish, according to that saying of Sacred Scripture: the fool works wickedness through laughter. And so we too, while we laugh amid base and shameful things, commit crimes—and indeed no small crimes, but by this very fact all the more deserving of punishment, because, while they seem in appearance small, in their outcome they are most deadly and pestilent. For since there are two greatest evils—namely, if a man either destroy himself or wound God—both of these are done in the public games: for through criminal basenesses the eternal salvation of the Christian people is there extinguished, and through sacrilegious superstitions the divine majesty is violated.
For there is no doubt that they wound God, inasmuch as they are consecrated to idols. For Minerva is worshipped and honoured in the gymnasia, Venus in the theatres, Neptune in the circuses, Mars in the arenas, Mercury in the wrestling-schools, and thus the cult of the superstitions is according to the character of their patrons. Whatever there is of filthiness is practised in the theatres, whatever of luxury in the wrestling-schools, whatever of excess in the circuses, whatever of frenzy in the amphitheatres. In one place is shamelessness, in another wantonness; in one intemperance, in another madness; everywhere a demon—nay, throughout the several places of the games all the monstrous throng of demons; for they preside over the seats dedicated to their own worship. And through this, in spectacles of this kind there is not only enticement nor only viciousness.
For to mingle a Christian man in this superstition is a kind of sacrilege, because he shares in the worship of those in whose festivals he takes delight. And though this is indeed always exceedingly grave, yet it is then more intolerable, when, beyond the customary practice of life, our adversities or our prosperities make it more criminal, because God is the more to be appeased in adversities and the less to be wounded in prosperities: for indeed He ought to be appeased when He is angry, He ought not to be wounded when He is favourable; for adversities come to us through the anger of God, prosperities through His grace. But we, on the contrary, do all things the opposite way. You ask, how so? Hear.
And first, if ever God, entreated by His own mercy (for we never live so as to deserve to entreat Him), but if ever, as I said, entreated by His very self, has given us peaceful days, abundant harvests, a tranquillity rich in all good things, and an abundance increasing beyond our prayer, we are so corrupted by such prosperity of favourable things, we are so vitiated by such perversity of insolent morals, that we utterly forget both God and ourselves.
And whereas the Apostle says that the whole fruit of the peace given by God consists in this, that we lead a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and chastity, we use the quiet given by God only to this end, that we may live in drunkenness, in luxury, in disgraceful deeds, in robberies, in every crime and wickedness. As though, truly, the benefit of peace given were a vacation for vileness, and we received the respites of tranquillity by God's gift for this, that we might sin more licentiously and more securely. And so we are unworthy of the heavenly gifts, we who make not good use of God's benefits and make that which is the material of good works to be only the material of vices: whence it comes that peace itself is against us, being so employed by us, and it profits us not to receive a thing by which we are made worse.
Who could believe this? We change the nature of things by our iniquities, and the good things which God made by the gift of His loving-kindness, these we ourselves make to be evil to us by our evil ways. XII. But perhaps, forsooth, we who are corrupted by prosperous things are corrected by adverse ones, and those whom long peace made intemperate, disturbance made moderate. Did the peoples of the cities, who had been shameless in prosperity, begin to be chaste in hardships? Did the drunkenness, which had grown in tranquillity and abundance, cease at least at the hostile devastation? Italy has been laid waste by so many disasters now: did the vices of the Italians therefore cease? The city of Rome was besieged and stormed: did the Romans therefore cease to be blasphemers and frenzied? Barbarian nations flooded the Gallic provinces:
did therefore, as far as ruined morals are concerned, the crimes of the Gauls cease to be what they had been? The peoples of the Vandals crossed over into the lands of Spain: the fortune of the Spaniards was indeed changed, but their viciousness was not changed. Finally, lest any part of the world should be immune from deadly evils, wars began to sail across the waves: which, having laid waste cities, closed the seas, and overthrown Sardinia and Sicily—that is, the fiscal granaries—and having cut off, as it were, the vital veins, took captive Africa itself, the very soul, so to speak, of the commonwealth. And what then? When the barbarian nations had entered that land, did the vices perhaps cease even out of fear? Or, just as even the most worthless of slaves are wont to be corrected for the present, did terror wring out at least modesty and discipline?
Who could reckon this evil? The peoples of the barbarians rang round the walls of Cirta and Carthage with their arms, and the church of Carthage raged in the circuses and rioted in luxury in the theatres. Some outside were being slaughtered, others inside were fornicating: part of the populace was outside, captive of the enemy, part inside, captive of the vices. Whose lot was worse is uncertain. Those indeed were captives outwardly in the flesh, but these captives inwardly in the mind; and of two lethal evils it is lighter, as I judge, for a Christian to endure the captivity of the body than the captivity of the soul, according to that which the Saviour Himself teaches in the Gospel, that the death of souls is far graver than that of bodies.
Or do we perhaps believe that that people was not captive in soul, who was then merry amid the captivities of their own? Was he not captive in heart and sense who laughed amid the tortures of his own countrymen, who did not understand that he himself was being slaughtered in the throats of his own, who did not think that he himself was dying in the deaths of his own? There was a crash, so to speak, outside the walls and within the walls—of battles and of games; the voice of the dying and the voice of the revellers were confounded, and scarcely perhaps could one distinguish the wailing of the people that was falling in war, and the sound of the crowd that was shouting in the circus. And when all these things were happening, what else was such a people doing but that, while God perhaps did not yet wish to destroy it, it nevertheless demanded of itself that it should perish? XIII.
But why do I speak of things far off and, as it were, removed to another world, when I know that even in our native soil and in the Gallic calamities, almost all the more eminent men were made worse by their own calamities? For I myself saw men noble at home, exalted in dignity, though already despoiled and ravaged, less overthrown nevertheless in their fortunes than in their morals: for although they were already ravaged and stripped, something remained of their substance, but nothing of their discipline. So much more grievous were they as enemies against themselves than the outward enemies, that although they had already been overthrown by the barbarians, they were nevertheless more overthrown by themselves.
It is mournful to relate what we saw: honoured old men, decrepit Christians, with the destruction of the city already all but imminent, enslaved to gluttony and wantonness. What is to be accused here first? That they were honoured, or that they were old, or that they were Christians, or that they were in peril? For who could believe that this could be done, whether in security by old men, or in crisis by boys, or ever by Christians? They lay reclining at banquets, forgetful of honour, forgetful of age, forgetful of profession, forgetful of their own name—leaders of the city stuffed with food, dissolved with wine, rabid with shoutings, frenzied with revelry, nothing less than out of their senses—nay rather, because almost continually such, nothing more than after their own sense.
But though these things were so, there is far more that I am about to say: not even the destructions of cities put an end for them to this utter ruin. In short, the most opulent city of the Gauls was stormed four times. It is easy to say of which I speak. Surely the first captivity ought to have sufficed for amendment, so that a renewal of sins should not have renewed the destruction. But why more? What I say is incredible. The constant recurrence of calamities there was an increase of crimes. For just as that serpent-monster which, as the fables tell, multiplied by its slaying, so also in the most excellent city of the Gauls, by these very plagues by which they were being restrained, their crimes kept growing, so that you would think the punishment of the crimes themselves was as it were the mother of the vices. And why more?
It came to such a multiplication of evils daily sprouting forth, that it was easier for that city to be without an inhabitant than for almost any of the inhabitants to be without crime. So then, thus it was in that city. What in another—not far off but near—of the same magnificence? Was there not there likewise both the ruin of fortunes and of morals alike? For besides the rest, when everything there had collapsed through two chief and general evils, avarice and drunkenness, it came at last to such a rabid greed for wine, that the leaders of the city itself would not rise even then from their banquets, when the enemy was already entering the city. So much so, indeed, that God—
willed, as I believe, evidently to make clear to them why they were perishing, since the very thing by which they had come to their utter perdition, that same thing they were doing, and in that they perished. I myself saw there things to be wept over: no difference, namely, between boys and old men. There was one buffoonery, one levity; all things together—luxury, drinking-bouts, ruinations; all men did everything alike, played, got drunk, committed adultery: old and honoured men were wanton at the banquets, already nearly feeble for living but most vigorous for wine, weak for walking but robust for drinking, tottering in their step but nimble for dancing. And why more? Through all those things which we have mentioned, they were rolled down into this, that there might be fulfilled in them that saying of Sacred Scripture:
wine and women make men apostatize from God. For while they drink, play, commit adultery, and rave, they began to deny Christ. And do we wonder, after all these things, if they suffered the ruin of their fortunes, they who so long before had collapsed in mind? Let no one therefore believe that that city perished only in its destruction: for where such things were done, they had already perished before they perished. XIV. I have spoken of the most illustrious cities. What of the remaining cities in the various parts of the Gauls? Did they not fall through the like vices of their inhabitants? For their crimes so possessed them all that they did not even fear their own danger: captivity was foreknown yet not dreaded. For fear had been taken away from the sinners, so that there could be no wariness.
And so, with the barbarians situated almost in the sight of all, there was no fear of men, no guarding of the cities. So great was the blindness of their minds, or rather so great the blindness of their sins, that although without doubt no one wished to perish, yet no one did that by which he might not perish. Carelessness and sloth, negligence and gluttony, drunkenness and drowsiness possessed them all, according to that which is written of such men: because the sleep of the Lord had fallen upon them. For sleep is poured out that ruin may follow. For when, as it is written, a sinner, his iniquities being filled up, deserves to perish, providence is taken from him, lest, being about to perish, he should escape. But so far on these things.
For I have, as I think, shown clearly enough what I set out to prove: that not even in the utmost crisis of affairs did the vices of the citizens ever cease, right up to the destructions of the cities. XV. But perhaps these things were so once, but are so no longer, or will at some time cease to be so. Forsooth, if any city or province today is either smitten by heavenly plagues or laid waste by hostile ravaging, it is humbled, converted, amended; and it is not the case that almost all the peoples of the Roman name perish rather than are corrected—not that they themselves perish rather than that the vices in them cease to be. In short, this can briefly be proved: the chief city of the Gauls was destroyed by three continuous overthrows, and although the whole city had been burned, the evils grew even after the destructions.
For those whom the enemy had not slain in the destruction, calamity overwhelmed after the destruction, since that which had escaped death in the destruction did not survive the calamity after the destruction. For some, wounds impressed too deep cut off with lingering deaths; others, scorched by the enemy's flames, punishment tormented even after the flames. Some perished by famine, others by nakedness; some wasting away, others stiffening with cold; and thus they collapsed into one issue of death through diverse kinds of dying. And why more? By the destruction of one city other cities also were afflicted. For there lay everywhere—which I myself saw and endured—the corpses of both sexes, naked and mangled, defiling the eyes of the city, torn by birds and dogs. A plague of the living was the funereal stench of the dead:
death was breathed forth from death, and thus even those who had not been present at the destructions of the aforesaid city bore the evils of another's destruction. And what, I say, after these things—what after all these things? Who could estimate this kind of madness? The few nobles who had survived the destruction demanded circus-games from the emperors, as though for the highest remedy of the destroyed city. I could wish that in this place there were given me an eloquence equal to the matter for setting forth the indignity of the affair, so that there might be as much of power in my complaint as there is of grief in the cause. For who could estimate what should be accused first in these things of which we have spoken: irreligion or folly, luxury or madness? For all of it, indeed, was in them.
For what is more irreligious than to ask something to the injury of God? Or what is more foolish than not to consider what you ask? Or what is of such abandoned luxury as to desire the affairs of luxury amid mourning? Or what is more mad than to be in evils and not to have the understanding of the evils? And yet, of all these, nothing is less to be blamed than the madness, because the will has no crime where one sins through frenzy. Wherefore these men of whom we speak are all the more to be accused, because sane they were raving. Circus-games therefore, O Treveri, you desire—and this when laid waste, when stormed, after slaughter, after bloodshed, after tortures, after captivity, after so many destructions of your overthrown city? What is more lamentable than this folly, what more sorrowful than this madness? I confess,
I believed you most wretched when you had suffered destruction, but I see you more wretched when you demand spectacles. For I thought that in the destructions you had lost only your fortune and substance; I did not know that you had lost also your sense and understanding. Theatres, then, you seek; the circus you demand from the emperors? For which state, I ask, for which people, for which city? For a city burned and ruined, for a populace captive and slain, which either has perished or mourns—of which, even if anything remains, all of it belongs to calamity; which is wholly either anxious with sorrow, or drained by tears, or prostrate with bereavement, in which you would scarcely know whose lot is worse and harder, that of the slain or of the living.
For so great are the miseries of the survivors that they have surpassed the unhappiness of the dead. Public games, then, O Treveri, do you seek? Where, I ask, are they to be held? Upon the pyre and ashes, upon the bones and blood of the slain? For what part of the city is free from all these evils? Where is no gore shed, where no bodies laid low, where no mangled limbs of those cut to pieces? Everywhere is the face of a captured city, everywhere the horror of captivity, everywhere the image of death. The remnants of a most unhappy people lie upon the tombs of their own dead, and you ask for circus-games; the city is black with fire, and you assume the countenance of festivity; all things mourn, and you are merry.
Moreover you even provoke God with the most disgraceful enticements and irritate the Godhead with the vilest superstitions. I do not wonder at all, I do not wonder that the evils which followed befell you; for because three destructions had not corrected you, by the fourth you deserved to perish. XVI. Now all these things have been set forth a little more copiously for this reason: that we might prove, namely, that all we have endured, we have borne not through God's improvidence and neglect, but through His justice, His judgement, His most equitable dispensation and most worthy requital; and that no portion whatever of the Roman world or the Roman name, however grievously smitten by heavenly plagues, was ever corrected. And therefore we by no means deserve to enjoy prosperity, because we are not corrected by adversity.
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Although even to us, unworthy though we are, good things are sometimes granted, because the good Lord, like a most indulgent father, though He sometimes suffers us to be humbled for our sins, yet does not long suffer us to be afflicted; and therefore He now chastises His own with harsh things for discipline, now cherishes them with tranquil things for indulgence. For just as the best and most skilled physicians apply unlike cures to unlike diseases and succour some by sweet medicines, others by bitter ones, and heal some by the burning of the cautery, others by the soothingness of poultices, apply to some the hard cutting of the iron, into others pour the gentle mildness of oil—and yet, though by cures most diverse, the same health is sought:
so also our God, if ever He restrains us with sterner plagues, heals us as it were with cauteries and cuttings; but when He cherishes us with prosperous things, He consoles us as with oil and poultices; for through the diverse resource of medicines He wills to lead us to a single health. For even the most worthless slaves, whom punishments have not corrected, blandishments are wont to correct, and those whom the lash has not made submissive to their masters, benefits make submissive. Infants too and almost all stubborn little ones, whom threats and the rod do not make obedient, sometimes universal remedies and coaxings draw to obedience.
Whence we ought to understand that we are both more worthless than the most worthless slaves and more foolish than foolish little ones, whom neither, as evil slaves, do torments correct, nor, as little infants, do blandishments convert. XVII. And indeed how no punishment has corrected any part of the Roman name we have already, as I think, sufficiently proved: it remains that we should demonstrate how neither gifts nor blandishments of God correct us. But what are the gifts and blandishments of God? What indeed but our peace and our quiet and the tranquillities of favourable things that serve our prayers and our wishes? Let us therefore say something even particular, since the matter demands it.
Therefore, whenever we are in fear, in straits, in dangers, when either cities are besieged by enemies, or provinces are laid waste by ravaging, or the members of the commonwealth are cut down by whatever adversities, and we implore with prayers the aid of the heavenly hand, if by some help of sacred compassion either cities are saved, or the ravaging ended, or the hostile armies routed and all fear removed by the gift of the Godhead, what do we do at once after all these things? We strive, I suppose, to compensate the Lord our God with worship, honour, reverence, for the benefits which we have received from Him; for this is consistent, and the very custom of human life holds this: that thanks be rendered to those who have lent us favours, and that those who bestow gifts receive a return of gifts.
So then perhaps we do this, acting toward our God at least with human requitals: when we receive good things from Him, we return good things. To the houses of the Lord, forsooth, we run at once; we prostrate our bodies on the ground; with joys mingled with weeping we make supplication; we adorn the sacred thresholds with offerings, we fill the altars with gifts; and because we ourselves are festive by His gift, we clothe His temples too with the countenance of our festivity—or at least, what is no less dear to His heart, we renounce the former vices of our life:
we renounce them, we proclaim good works and offer the sacrifices of a new conversion in place of new joys; in short, we proclaim holy war against all uncleannesses, we flee the madnesses of the circuses, we execrate the foulnesses of the theatrical games, we vow to the Lord a new life, and to obtain His protection forever we sacrifice our very selves to God. XVIII. Since therefore these things which we have said ought to be done for the recent benefits of God, let us see what is done: at once men run to the games, they fly to the madnesses; in the theatres the people is diffused, in the circuses the whole populace riots. He grants us good things for this end, that we may be good; we, on the contrary, as often as we receive good things, heap up our evils:
He calls us by His benefits to uprightness, we rush into wickedness; He provokes us by His benefits to compunction, we rush into dissolution; He calls to chastity, we rush into impurity. Nobly, forsooth, do we respond to His sacred gifts; nobly do we either acknowledge or honour His gifts, we who repay Him with as many injuries as we receive benefits from Him. Either this is perhaps no injury to God, or it can be no more unworthy an one. Is there need of much and great argument? But because, by the inveterate stain of all evils within us, we can now no longer be otherwise than vicious, save by not being at all, what hope, I ask, of good fruit is there in us? Those who err by ignorance are corrected when their error is recognized;
those who are strangers to religion, when they have changed their sect, begin to change their discipline; lastly, as I said, those who are vitiated either by too great abundance or by security cease to be abandoned when they have ceased to be secure. But we neither slip by ignorance, nor are strangers to religion, nor are corrupted by prosperity of affairs and security: for all things indeed are the opposite. We know religion—by ignorance we are not excused; we do not have the peace and riches of former times—all things that once were are either taken away or altered: only the vices alone have grown. Nothing is left to us of the former peace and prosperity save only the crimes, which have made prosperity to be no more. For where now are the ancient wealth and dignities of the Romans?
The Romans, once most mighty, are now without strength. The Romans of old were feared; we ourselves are afraid. The barbarian peoples used to pay tribute to them; we ourselves are tributaries to the barbarians. Our enemies sell us the mere use of the daylight, and our whole safety, indeed, has become a matter of trade. O our wretchedness! To what have we come! And for this we give thanks to the barbarians, from whom we purchase our very selves for a price. What can be more abject or more miserable for us than this? And do we still believe that we live on after such things, we whose life is held together in this fashion! Beyond all this we even make ourselves ridiculous: the gold we pay out we call gifts. We say that a thing is a bounty which is in truth a price, and indeed the price of a most harsh and most miserable condition.
For all captives, once they have been ransomed, come to enjoy their liberty; but we are ransomed continually and are never free. The barbarians deal with us after the manner of masters who let out to hire, for a rent to be paid, those slaves whose service they do not need. In the same way we are never free from this payment which we render; for indeed we pay these dues without ceasing precisely in order that we may go on paying them without end. Since in the conclusion of this little book, which is now finished, I have said certain things about the weakness and misery of the Romans, we may perhaps seem to have said things contrary to the matter with which we are now engaged. For I know that it can be objected here:
that at this point it may be urged, and that from this above all it is proved, that God does not regard human affairs—because whereas the Romans of old, being pagan, both conquered and reigned, now, being Christian, they are both conquered and enslaved. Now to refute this objection those things might indeed have sufficed which were said a little while ago concerning almost all the pagan nations: namely, that those sin more grievously who knowingly neglect the law of God than those who fail to keep it in ignorance.
Yet nevertheless, if God grant it, when we come to that part of our task where something is to be said about the ancient Romans, we shall plainly prove, by God's own gift, that the Lord's favour toward them then was as just as His just severity toward us now; and that it was as fitting that God then raised the Romans up by His aid, as it is now fitting that we are punished. And would that the punishment itself did us good! This is far heavier and more grievous: that after the blow there is no amendment. The Lord wills to heal us by His chastisements, but the remedies do not follow upon the care. What evil is this? Beasts of burden and cattle
are healed by cutting; and when the rotted entrails of mules, asses and swine have been seared with cauteries, they acknowledge the benefit of the healing burn, and at once, wherever the corruption of the diseased bodies has been burned away or cauterized, living flesh takes the place of the dead. But we are both burned and cut, and yet we are healed neither by the incision of the knife nor by the searing of the cautery; nay rather—which is the more grievous—by the very treatment we grow worse. And therefore not without cause does that befall us which is wont to befall the cattle and beasts of burden that bear incurable diseases. For in all parts of the world, because we are not corrected by the healing remedies, we are brought to our end by death and slaughter. For behold—not to repeat what I have already said long before—of what sort is this very thing which a little before