文集（天主之城·論三位一體等） 第 5 章

[I] Having set out to speak concerning the City of God, I thought that answer must first be made to its enemies, who, pursuing earthly joys and gaping after fleeting things, blame the Christian religion—which alone is wholesome and true—for whatever sad thing they suffer in these matters, brought on rather by the mercy of God who admonishes than by the severity of God who punishes. And since among them there is also an unlearned crowd, which is stirred to a graver hatred of us as if by the authority of the learned—the ignorant supposing that the things which happened unusually in their own times were not wont to happen in other times gone by, while those who know this opinion to be false yet confirm it, that they may seem to have just grounds of complaint against us, by dissembling their own knowledge:

it was necessary to demonstrate, from the books which their own authors committed to memory for the knowing of the history of past times, that the matter stands far otherwise than they suppose; and at the same time to teach that the false gods, whom they either openly worshiped or secretly worship even now, are most unclean spirits and most malignant and most deceitful demons—so much so that they take delight in their own crimes, whether real or even fictitious, which they wished to be celebrated for them through their festivals, so that human weakness might not be able to be called back from perpetrating damnable deeds, while for imitating these an authority as it were divine is held forth.

These things we proved not from our own conjecture, but partly from recent memory, because we ourselves also saw such things offered to such deities, and partly from the writings of those who left these things recorded for posterity not as a reproach but rather as an honor to their gods—so much so that Varro, a man most learned among them and of the weightiest authority, when he made his books distributing human and divine matters, assigning some to human, some to divine affairs according to the dignity of each, placed the scenic games not even among human but among divine things; whereas surely, if there were only good and honorable men in the city, scenic games ought not to have existed even among human affairs.

This he certainly did not do on his own authority, but because, born and bred at Rome, he found those games among divine matters. And since at the end of the first book we briefly stated what things were to be said thereafter, and of these have spoken some in the two following books, we recognize that what remains must be rendered to the expectation of readers. [II] We had promised, then, that we would say certain things against those who refer the disasters of the Roman commonwealth to our religion, and that we would recount whatever and however great evils could occur to us, or seemed sufficient, which that city or the provinces belonging to its empire endured before their sacrifices had been prohibited;

all of which they would without doubt attribute to us, if our religion were already shining upon them, or thus prohibited them from those sacrilegious rites. These things in the second and third books we have, as I judge, sufficiently disposed of—in the second treating of the evils of morals, which alone or above all are to be reckoned as evils; in the third of those evils which fools alone shudder to endure, namely those of the body and of external things, which even good men for the most part suffer; but those evils by which the wicked themselves become wicked they hold not, I say, patiently, but gladly. And how few things I have said about that one city alone and its empire! nor from thence all things down to Caesar Augustus.

What if I had wished to recount and amplify those evils which men do not inflict upon one another—such as the devastations and overthrows of warring peoples—but which befall earthly affairs from the very elements of the world itself (which in one place Apuleius briefly touches upon in that little book he wrote On the World, saying that all earthly things have their changes, revolutions, and destructions; for by immoderate tremblings of the earth, to use his own words, he says that the ground has split apart and cities with their peoples have been swallowed up; that by sudden downpours whole regions have been washed away; that those lands too which had before been continents have been made islands by strange and foreign floods, and others by the withdrawal of the sea have been made passable by foot;

that cities have been overthrown by winds and storms; that fires have flashed out from the clouds, by which the regions of the East were consumed and perished, and in the tracts of the West certain gushing springs and inundations wrought the same destruction; that thus, when craters were once poured forth from the summits of Aetna, rivers of flame ran down the slopes by a divine conflagration in the manner of a torrent)—if I had wished to gather these and things of this kind, which history holds, from wherever I might, when should I have made an end? For these things happened in those times, before the name of Christ had suppressed any of those vain things of theirs that are ruinous to true salvation.

I had also promised that I would demonstrate what character of theirs, and for what cause, the true God—in whose power are all kingdoms—deigned to help toward the enlarging of their empire, and how those whom they think gods helped them not at all, but rather how greatly they harmed them by deceiving and beguiling; whence now I see that I must speak, and especially of the increases of the Roman empire. For concerning the noxious deceit of the demons, whom they worshiped as gods—how great a store of evils it brought into their morals—not a few things have already been said, chiefly in the second book.

Throughout all the three completed books, moreover, where it seemed opportune, we have commended how great a store of consolations God bestowed, even amid the evils of war, upon good and bad alike, through the name of Christ—to which the barbarians paid so much honor beyond the custom of wars—according as He makes His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and rains upon the just and the unjust. [III] Now, therefore, let us see of what sort is this thing—that they dare to attribute so great a breadth and duration of the Roman empire to those gods whom they contend they honorably worshiped even through the service of base games and through the ministry of base men.

And yet I should like first to inquire a little what reason, what prudence there is—when you cannot show the felicity of men who are ever engaged in the disasters of war and in civil or hostile bloodshed, yet human bloodshed, amid dark fear and cruel greed, so that a glassy gladness is procured, splendid in its fragility, for which it is feared, all the more horribly, lest it be suddenly shattered—to wish to glory in the breadth and greatness of empire. That this may be more easily judged, let us not evaporate, tossed about by empty windiness, nor blunt the edge of our attention with high-sounding names of things, when we hear of peoples, kingdoms, provinces;

but let us set before ourselves two men (for each single man, as in speech a single letter, is likewise a kind of element of a city and a kingdom, however vast in its occupation of lands); of these two men let us think of the one as poor, or rather of moderate means, the other as exceedingly rich; but the rich man anxious with fears, wasting away with sorrows, burning with greed, never secure, always restless, panting with perpetual contentions of enmities, augmenting indeed his patrimony to an immense degree by these miseries, but by those augmentations heaping up also the most bitter cares;

but that man of moderate means, content with a small and modest household estate, most dear to his own, rejoicing in the sweetest peace with kinsmen, neighbors, and friends, religious in piety, kindly in mind, sound in body, frugal in life, chaste in morals, secure in conscience. I know not whether anyone would be so foolish as to dare to doubt which he would prefer. As, then, in these two men, so in two families, so in two peoples, so in two kingdoms, the rule of equity is followed; and when this is vigilantly applied, if our intention be corrected, we shall most easily see where vanity dwells and where felicity. Wherefore, if the true God be worshiped, and served with true rites and good morals, it is useful that the good should reign far and wide and long;

nor is this so useful to the good rulers themselves as to those over whom they reign. For, as far as concerns themselves, their piety and probity—which are great gifts of God—suffice them for true felicity, whereby both this life may be well spent and afterward eternal life be received. In this earth, therefore, the reign of the good is not so much bestowed upon them as upon human affairs; but the reign of the wicked harms more the rulers themselves, who lay waste their own souls by the greater license of crimes; while to those who, by serving them, are made subject, it does no harm save their own iniquity. For whatever of evils is inflicted by unjust masters upon the just, is not the penalty of crime but the testing of virtue. And so the good man, even if he serve, is free;

but the wicked man, even if he reign, is a slave—and not of one man, but, what is more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices. Concerning which vices the divine Scripture, when it treated of them, says: For by what a man is overcome, to that also is he consigned as a slave. [IV] Justice therefore being removed, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? For what are bands of robbers themselves but little kingdoms? The band itself is a company of men, ruled by the command of a prince, bound by the pact of fellowship, and the booty divided by the law of what has been agreed. If this evil grows to such a degree, by the accession of abandoned men, that it holds places, establishes seats, occupies cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes more openly the name of a kingdom—which is now conferred upon it in the open not by the removal of greed but by the addition of impunity.

For elegantly and truthfully did a certain captured pirate answer that great Alexander. For when the same king asked the man what it seemed to him he meant by keeping the sea hostile, he with free defiance replied: The same as you mean by keeping the whole world hostile; but because I do it with a little ship, I am called a robber; because you do it with a great fleet, you are called an emperor. [V] Accordingly I forbear to inquire what sort of men Romulus gathered together, since much provision was made for them, that, from that manner of life, when the fellowship of the city had been granted them, they should cease to think of the punishments due to them—fear of which had been driving them to greater crimes—so that thereafter they might be more peaceable in human affairs.

This I say, that the Roman empire itself, already great, with many nations subdued and terrible to the rest, felt bitterly, feared gravely, and with no small effort put down—so as to avoid a huge disaster—when very few gladiators, fleeing from a training-school in Campania, mustered a great army, had three leaders, and most widely and most cruelly laid Italy waste. Let them say what god helped these men, that from a small and contemptible band of robbers they should arrive at a kingdom to be feared even by the now so great forces and citadels of Rome. Or because they did not last long, shall they for that reason be denied to have been divinely helped? As if indeed the life of any man whatsoever were long-lasting.

On this reckoning, then, the gods help no one to reign, since each and every man quickly dies, nor is that to be reckoned a benefit which, in each single man—and thereby, taken one by one, in all men—vanishes in the manner of a vapor in a brief time. For what does it matter to those who worshiped the gods under Romulus and long ago died, that after their death the Roman empire grew so great, since they are pleading their own causes among the dead? whether good causes or bad has no bearing on the present question. But this is to be understood of all who, through that empire (although, with mortals departing and succeeding, it be extended over long spaces), in the few days of their own lives passed swiftly and hurriedly through it, bearing the burdens of their own deeds.

But if even the benefits of the very briefest time are to be attributed to the aid of the gods, then those gladiators were not a little helped: they broke the bonds of their servile condition, they fled, they escaped, they collected a great and most valiant army, obedient to the counsels and commands of their own leaders, greatly to be feared by the loftiness of Rome and insuperable to several Roman commanders; they took many things, obtained very many victories, enjoyed what pleasures they wished, did what lust suggested, and at last—until it was conquered, which was done with the greatest difficulty—lived in exaltation and reigning. But let us come to greater matters.

[VI] Justinus, who, following Trogus Pompeius—a Greek, or rather a foreign writer—wrote his history not only in Latin, as the other did, but also briefly, thus begins the work of his books: "In the beginning of the affairs of races and nations, the government lay with kings, whom to the height of this majesty not popular ambition but a moderation proven among good men advanced. Peoples were held by no laws; it was the custom to guard the boundaries of empire rather than to extend them; each man's kingdom was confined within his own fatherland. First of all, Ninus, king of the Assyrians, changed the ancient and, as it were, ancestral custom of the nations by a new lust for empire.

He first waged wars upon his neighbors, and subdued peoples as yet untrained to resist, as far as the borders of Libya." And a little later: "Ninus," he says, "consolidated the greatness of the dominion he had sought by continuous possession. Having therefore subdued those nearest, when with the accession of forces he passed on stronger to others, and each nearest victory was the instrument of the following one, he subjugated the peoples of the whole East." But with whatever faithfulness to facts either this writer or Trogus wrote (for other more trustworthy writings show that they lied about certain things), yet it is agreed even among other writers that the kingdom of the Assyrians was extended far and wide from king Ninus. And so long did it endure, that the Roman empire is not yet of its age.

For, as those write who have pursued chronological history, this kingdom endured one thousand two hundred and forty years from the first year in which Ninus began to reign, until it was transferred to the Medes. But to wage wars upon one's neighbors, and from thence to proceed against the rest, and to crush and subdue peoples who give no trouble, from the mere lust of dominion—what else is this to be named but a grand robbery? [VII] If, then, with no aid of the gods this kingdom was so great and so long-lasting, why is the Roman kingdom, ample in place and long-enduring in time, attributed to the Roman gods? For whatever the cause is in the one case, the same is in the other. But if they contend that the former too must be attributed to the aid of the gods, I ask, of which gods?

For the other nations, which Ninus tamed and subdued, did not at that time worship other gods. Or if the Assyrians had their own proper gods, as more skilled craftsmen, so to speak, for constructing and preserving an empire, did those gods perhaps die when the Assyrians too lost their empire? or, their wage not being paid them, or a greater one promised elsewhere, did they prefer to cross over to the Medes, and from thence again to the Persians, at Cyrus's invitation and his promise of something more advantageous? Which nation, after the reign of Alexander of Macedon, great in its territories but very brief in time, still endures in a kingdom of its own even to this day, within no narrow bounds of the East.

If this is so, either the gods are faithless who desert their own and cross over to the enemy (which not even the man Camillus did, when, victor and stormer of a most hostile city, he perceived Rome—for which he had conquered—to be ungrateful to him, yet afterward, forgetting the injury and mindful of his fatherland, he freed her once more from the Gauls); or they are not so strong as it befits gods to be strong, who can be conquered by human counsels or forces; or, if, when they war among themselves, it is not gods that are conquered by men but gods by other gods who are strong—the gods proper to the several cities—then they too have among themselves enmities, which each undertakes on his own side's behalf. A city, therefore, ought not to worship its own gods more than others, by whom its own people might be aided.

Finally, in whatever manner this transit, or flight, or migration, or defection in battle of the gods may stand, the name of Christ had not yet been preached in those times and in those parts of the earth, when those kingdoms were lost and transferred through immense disasters of war. For if, after one thousand two hundred and more years, when the kingdom was taken from the Assyrians—if the Christian religion had there been preaching another, eternal kingdom, and forbidding the sacrilegious worship of false gods: what else would the vain men of that nation say, but that the kingdom, which had been preserved for so long, could have perished for no other cause than that its own religions had been deserted and that other one received?

In which voice of vanity, such as it might be, let these men behold their own mirror, and, if there is any shame in them, blush to complain of the like. Although the Roman empire has been afflicted rather than changed—which befell it also in other times before the name of Christ, and it was restored from that affliction, which even in these times is not to be despaired of. For who knows in this matter the will of God? [VIII] Next let us inquire, if it please, out of so great a throng of gods as the Romans worshiped, which god above all, or which gods, they believe to have enlarged and preserved that empire.

For in this so illustrious a work, and one so full of great dignity, they do not dare to assign any part to the goddess Cluacina, or to Volupia, who is named from pleasure, or to Lubentina, whose name is from lust, or to Vaticanus, who presides over the wailings of infants, or to Cunina, who administers their cradles. But when can all the names of gods and goddesses be recounted in one passage of this book—names which they could scarcely comprehend in their great volumes, distributing the proper offices of the deities to individual things? They did not think that the charge of the fields should be committed to any one god alone, but they set the goddess Rusina over the countryside, the god Jugatinus over the ridges of mountains; over the hills they set the goddess Collatina, over the valleys Vallonia.

Nor could they even find one such Segetia, to whom they might once for all commend the crops; but they wished the sown grains, so long as they were beneath the earth, to have as their appointed goddess Seia; but when they were now above the earth and were forming a standing crop, the goddess Segetia; but the grain once gathered and stored away, that it might be safely kept, they set over it the goddess Tutilina. To whom would that Segetia not seem to suffice, so long as the standing crop should come from its grassy beginnings all the way to the dry ears of corn? Yet it was not enough for men who love a multitude of gods, that the wretched soul should be prostituted to a throng of demons, having disdained the chaste embrace of the one true God.

They therefore set Proserpina over the sprouting grains, over the knots and joints of the stalks the god Nodutus, over the sheaths of the husks the goddess Volutina; when the husks open that the ear may come forth, the goddess Patelana; when the crops are level with new ears—because to make the old level they said hostire—the goddess Hostilina; over the flowering grains the goddess Flora, over those forming milk the god Lacturnus, over those ripening the goddess Matuta; when they are weeded, that is, taken from the earth, the goddess Runcina. Nor do I recount them all, because it wearies me, though it shames them not.

But these very few things I have said for this reason: that it might be understood that they can in no way dare to say that these deities established, enlarged, and preserved the Roman empire, which were each so assigned to their several offices that nothing universal was entrusted to any one of them. When, then, would Segetia have care of the empire, to whom it was not permitted to bear care at once both of the crops and of the trees? When would Cunina think about arms, whose charge was not permitted to go beyond the cradles of little ones? When would Nodutus give aid in war, who pertained not even to the sheath of the ear, but only to the knot of the joint? Each man sets one doorkeeper over his house, and, because he is a man, it wholly suffices; but these people set three gods: Forculus over the doors, Cardea over the hinge, Limentinus over the threshold.

Thus Forculus could not guard both the door-panel and the hinge and the threshold at once. [IX] Setting aside, then, this crowd of petty gods, or leaving it awhile, we ought to inquire into the office of the greater gods, by which Rome was made so great that she ruled for so long over so many nations. Doubtless, then, this is the work of Jupiter. For they hold him to be king of all the gods and goddesses: this his sceptre signifies, this the Capitol on its high hill. Concerning this god they cite, though spoken by a poet, a most fitting saying: 'All things are full of Jove.' Varro believes that he is worshipped even by those who worship one God alone without any image, but is called by another name. But if this is so, why has he been so ill-treated at Rome — as indeed among the other nations too — that an image was made for him?

This too so displeases Varro himself that, although he was hard pressed by the perverse custom of so great a city, he nonetheless in no way hesitated to say and write that those who set up images for the peoples both took away fear and added error. [X] Why also is Juno joined to him as wife, who is called 'sister and consort'? Because, they say, we understand Jupiter to be in the aether, Juno in the air, and these two elements are conjoined, the one higher, the other lower. He, then, is not the one of whom it was said 'All things are full of Jove,' if Juno too fills some part. Or does each fill both, and are both these spouses present in both these elements, and in each singly at once? Why then is the aether assigned to Jupiter, the air to Juno?

Finally, these two by themselves would suffice: why is the sea attributed to Neptune, the earth to Pluto? And, lest these too remain without consorts, Salacia is added to Neptune, Proserpina to Pluto. For just as Juno holds the lower part of the heaven, that is, the air (they say), so Salacia holds the lower part of the sea, and Proserpina the lower part of the earth. They seek how to patch up their fables, and they do not find it. For if these things were so, their ancient authorities would have set forth that there are three elements of the world rather than four, so that the several marriages of the gods might be divided among the several elements. But as it is, they have affirmed in every way that the aether is one thing, the air another. Yet water, whether upper or lower, is certainly water; suppose it is dissimilar:

is it so different as no longer to be water? And the lower earth — what else can it be but earth, however distinguished by any diversity? Next, behold, the corporeal world is now wholly complete in these four, or three, elements: where then will Minerva be? What will she hold? What will she fill? For she is set up together with these in the Capitol, though she is not the daughter of both. Or if they say that Minerva holds the upper part of the aether, and that on this occasion the poets feigned that she was born from Jupiter's head: why then is she not rather reckoned queen of the gods, since she would be higher than Jupiter? Or is it because it was unworthy to set a daughter before her father? Why was not that justice observed by Jupiter himself toward Saturn? Or is it because he was conquered? Did they then fight? Far be it, they say;

that is the chatter of fables. See then that the fables are not believed and better things are thought concerning the gods: why then was not given to the father of Jupiter, if not a loftier, at least an equal seat of honour? Because, they say, Saturn is length of time. Those, then, who worship Saturn, worship Time, and Jupiter, king of the gods, is insinuated to have been born of time. For what unworthy thing is said, when Jupiter and Juno are said to have been born of time, if he is heaven and she is earth, since heaven and earth were certainly made? For this too their learned and wise men have in their books. And it was not from poetic fictions, but from the books of the philosophers, that Virgil said:

'Then the almighty father, the aether, descended in fertilizing showers into the lap of his glad consort' — that is, into the lap of the ground or earth; for here too they want there to be certain distinctions, and in the earth itself they hold one thing to be Terra, another Tellus, another Tellumo, and they hold all these to be gods called by their own names, distinguished by their own offices, venerated with their own altars and rites. The same earth they also call the Mother of the gods, so that the poets now feign more tolerable things, if — according to these men's not poetic but sacred books — Juno is not only 'sister and consort' but also mother of Jupiter.

The same earth they hold to be Ceres, the same also to be Vesta, though more often they declare Vesta to be nothing but the fire pertaining to hearths, without which a city cannot exist; and therefore virgins are wont to serve her, because just as nothing is born from a virgin, so nothing is born from fire. And this whole vanity ought surely to have been abolished and extinguished by Him who was born of a Virgin. For who could endure that, though they attributed so much honour and, as it were, chastity to fire, they yet sometimes do not blush to call Vesta also Venus, so that the honoured virginity in her handmaids might vanish? For if Vesta is Venus, how did the virgins duly serve her by abstaining from the works of Venus? Or are there two Venuses, one a virgin, the other a married woman?

Or rather three: one of virgins, who is also Vesta; another of married women; another of harlots? To this last the Phoenicians used to give the gift from the prostitution of their daughters, before they joined them to husbands. Which of these is the matron of Vulcan? Certainly not the virgin, since she has a husband. But far be it that she should be the harlot, lest we seem to do injury to the son of Juno and the co-worker of Minerva. Therefore she is understood to belong to the married women: but we would not have them imitate her in what she did with Mars. Again, they say, you return to the fables. What sort of justice is this, to be angry with us because we say such things about their gods, and not to be angry with themselves, who most gladly watch in the theatres these crimes of their gods?

And — a thing that would be incredible were it not proved by the most abundant testimony — these very theatrical crimes of the gods were instituted in honour of those same gods. [XI] Let them therefore assert whatever they please by physical reasonings and disputations: now let Jupiter be the soul of this corporeal world, who fills and moves that whole mass constructed and compacted of four elements, or however many they please; now let him cede his parts to his sister and brothers; now let him be the aether, so as to embrace from above Juno the air spread out beneath; now let him together with the air be the whole heaven itself, and let him fertilize the earth as his consort — and at the same time his mother (for this is not shameful in divine matters) — with fruitful showers and seeds;

now again (that there be no need to run through them all) let him be the one God, of whom many think it was said by the most noble poet: 'For God pervades all lands and the tracts of the sea and the deep heaven' — let him himself be Jupiter in the aether, himself Juno in the air, himself Neptune in the sea, himself Salacia in the lower parts of the sea also, himself Pluto in the earth, Proserpina in the lower earth, Vesta in domestic hearths, Vulcan in the forge of smiths, in the heavenly bodies sun and moon and stars, Apollo among diviners, Mercury in trade, Janus as opener, Terminus as boundary-setter, Saturn in time, Mars and Bellona in wars, Liber in vineyards, Ceres in grain, Diana in forests, Minerva in talents;

and finally let him be even in that crowd of, as it were, plebeian gods; let him himself preside under the name of Liber over the seed of men, and under the name of Libera over that of women; let him be Diespater, who brings the birth forth to the day; let him be the goddess Mena, whom they set over the menses of women; himself Lucina, who is invoked by women in labour; let him bring aid to the newborn by receiving them in the lap of the earth, and be called Opis; let him open the mouth in the first cry and be called the god Vaticanus; let him lift the infant 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 but himself in those goddesses who chant the fates to the newborn and are called Carmentes; let him preside over chance events and be called Fortune;

let him in the goddess Rumina press milk into the mouth of the little one, because the ancients called the breast 'ruma'; in the goddess Potina let him minister drink, in the goddess Educa let him furnish food; from the terror of infants let him be named Paventia; from hope that comes, Venilia; from pleasure, Volupia; from action, Agenoria; from the goads by which a man is driven to excessive action, let him be named the goddess Stimula; let him be the goddess Strenia by making men vigorous, Numeria who teaches to count, Camena who teaches to sing; let him be also the god Consus by furnishing counsels, and the goddess Sentia by inspiring sentiments;

let him be the goddess Juventas, who after the boyhood robe receives the beginnings of youthful age; let him be also Fortuna Barbata, who clothes the grown with a beard (whom they were unwilling to honour so as to make this deity, whatever it be, at least a male god, or to name him Barbatus from the beard, as Nodutus from the knots, or at least not Fortuna, but, because it has a beard, Fortunius); let him in the god Jugatinus join spouses, and when the girdle is loosed for the virgin wife, let him be invoked and be called the goddess Virginensis; let him be Mutunus or Tutunus, who among the Greeks is Priapus:

if there is no shame, let all these things which I have said, and whatsoever I have not said (for I did not judge that everything ought to be said), let all these gods and goddesses be the one Jupiter — whether they are, as some hold, all these things his parts, or his powers, as it seems to those to whom it is pleasing that he be the soul of the world, which opinion is, as it were, that of the great and very learned. If these things are so (what sort of thing this may be, I do not for the moment yet inquire), what would they lose if they worshipped one God by a wiser shortcut? For what of him would be despised, when he himself were worshipped? But if it was to be feared lest his parts, being passed over or neglected, should grow angry:

then it is not, as they hold, as though there were one living thing whose whole life this is, which contains all the gods as its own powers or members or parts; but each part has its own life separate from the rest, if the one can grow angry apart from the other, and one be appeased, another provoked. But if it is said that all together, that is, Jupiter himself as a whole, could have been offended, if his parts were not worshipped individually and severally, it is foolishly said. For not one of them would be passed over, when he himself, the one who possessed all, were worshipped.

For, to pass over other things which are innumerable, when they say that all the heavenly bodies are parts of Jupiter and that all live and have rational souls, and therefore beyond dispute are gods, they do not see how many they do not worship, for how many they build no temples, set up no altars — whereas they thought that for very few of the stars altars should be set up and sacrifice offered individually. If, then, those grow angry who are not worshipped individually, do they not fear to live with a few appeased while the whole heaven is angry?

But if they worship all the stars because they are in Jupiter whom they worship, by this shortcut they could supplicate all of them in that one (for thus no one would grow angry, since in that one no one would be despised), rather than that, certain ones being worshipped, a just cause of anger should be given to those, far more numerous, who had been passed over — especially since Priapus, distended with shameful nakedness, would be set before those shining from their heavenly seat. [XII] What?

Ought not this to move keen men, or even men of any sort (for excellence of talent is not needed for this), so that, laying aside the zeal of contention, they should attend to this: if the soul of the world is God, and to that soul the world is as a body, so that there is one living being consisting of soul and body, and this God is a certain bosom of nature containing all things within Himself, so that from His own soul, by which this whole mass is quickened, the lives and souls of all living things are taken according to each one's lot of birth — then nothing at all remains that is not a part of God. And if this is so, who does not see how great impiety and irreligion follow: that whatever anyone treads upon, he treads upon a part of God, and in killing every living thing a part of God is slaughtered?

I do not wish to say all the things that can occur to those who think about it, but they cannot be said without shame. [XIII] But if they contend that only rational animals, such as men, are parts of God, I do not indeed see, if the whole world is God, how they separate the beasts from His parts; but what need is there to struggle over it? Concerning the rational animal itself, that is, man, what more wretched thing can be believed than that a part of God is beaten, when a boy is beaten? And now, that parts of God should become wanton, unjust, impious, and altogether damnable — who could endure this, save one who is utterly mad? Finally, why is He angry with those by whom He is not worshipped, since He is not worshipped by His own parts?

It remains, then, for them to say that all the gods have their own lives, that each lives for himself, that none of them is a part of any other, but that all are to be worshipped who can be known and worshipped, since they are so many that all cannot be. Over whom, because Jupiter presides as king, I believe he is thought by them to have established or enlarged the Roman kingdom. For if he himself did not do this, what other god do they believe could have undertaken so great a work, since all are occupied with their own offices and works, nor does one intrude into another's? By the king of the gods, then, the kingdom of men could be propagated and increased. [XIV] Here first I ask, why is not the kingdom itself also some god? For why should it not be so, if Victory is a goddess?

Or what need is there of Jupiter himself in this matter, if Victory is favourable and propitious and always goes to those whom she wills to be victors? With this goddess favouring and propitious, even with Jupiter idle or doing something else, what nations would remain unsubdued? What kingdoms would not yield? Or does it perhaps displease good men to fight with most iniquitous wickedness, and to provoke by voluntary war their quiet neighbours who do no wrong, in order to enlarge the kingdom? Plainly, if they feel thus, I approve and praise it. [XV] Let them then see whether perhaps it does not pertain to good men to rejoice in the breadth of a kingdom.

For the iniquity of those against whom just wars were waged helped the kingdom to grow — a kingdom that would certainly have been small if the quiet and justice of neighbours had provoked no war by any wrong to be waged against them; and thus, human affairs being more happy, all kingdoms would be small, rejoicing in concordant neighbourhood, and there would be in the world very many kingdoms of nations, as there are in a city very many houses of citizens. Accordingly, to wage war and, by subduing nations, to enlarge a kingdom seems felicity to the wicked, necessity to the good. But because it would be worse that the injurious should rule over the more just, therefore not unfittingly is even this called felicity. Yet beyond doubt it is a greater felicity to have a good and concordant neighbour than to subjugate a bad one by fighting.

They are evil wishes, to desire to have one whom you hate or fear, so that there may be one whom you may conquer. If, then, by waging just, not impious nor iniquitous, wars, the Romans were able to acquire so great an empire, is another's iniquity to be worshipped by them as though some goddess? For we see that she cooperated greatly toward this breadth of empire, she who made men injurious, so that there should be those against whom just wars might be waged and the empire increased. And why should not Iniquity also be a goddess — at least of foreign nations — if Fear and Pallor and Fever deserved to be Roman gods?

By these two, then — that is, by another's iniquity and by the goddess Victory — while iniquity stirs up the causes of wars, and this same Victory brings the wars to a happy end, the empire grew even while Jupiter kept holiday. For what parts would Jupiter have here, when those things which could be thought his benefits are held to be gods, are called gods, are worshipped as gods, and are themselves invoked for their own parts? He would have some part here too, however, if the Kingdom too were itself called by his name, just as that Victory is so called. Or if the kingdom is the gift of Jupiter, why should not victory too be held to be his gift? And this indeed would be held, if not a stone in the Capitol, but the true King of kings and Lord of lords were acknowledged and worshipped.

[XVI] But I wonder exceedingly that, though they assigned individual gods to individual things and to almost individual motions, calling the goddess Agenoria who would rouse to action, the goddess Stimula who would stimulate to action beyond measure, the goddess Murcia who would not move a man beyond measure and would make him, as Pomponius says, 'murcidus,' that is, too slothful and inactive, the goddess Strenia who would make him vigorous — for all these gods and goddesses they undertook to perform public rites; yet Quies, whom they called her who would make one quiet, though she had a temple outside the Colline gate, they were unwilling to receive publicly.

Was this a sign of an unquiet mind, or was it rather thus signified that he who should persevere in worshipping that crowd — not indeed of gods, but of demons — could not have quiet? To which the true Physician calls, saying: 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls.' [XVII] Or do they perhaps say that Jupiter sends the goddess Victory, and that she, obeying as it were the king of the gods, comes to those whom he has commanded and settles on their side? This is truly said, not of that Jupiter whom, according to their own opinion, they feign to be king of the gods, but of that true King of the ages, that He sends not Victory — which is no substance — but His angel, and makes whom He wills to conquer;

whose counsel can be hidden, but cannot be unjust. For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also a god, and joined to Victory as either husband or brother or son? Such things indeed these men have imagined about the gods, that, if the poets feigned them and they were assailed by us, these men would answer that they are the laughable fictions of poets, not to be attributed to true divinities; and yet they did not blush at themselves, when they read such ravings not in the poets but worshipped them in the temples. They should therefore ask Jupiter about all things, and supplicate him alone. For Victory, if she is a goddess and is under him as king, could not, wherever he had sent her, dare to resist him and rather do her own will. [XVIII] What of the fact that Felicity too is a goddess?

She received a temple, deserved an altar, fitting rites were duly rendered. She alone, therefore, should be worshipped. For where she was, what good would not be there? But what does it mean that Fortune too is thought to be a goddess and is worshipped? Is Felicity one thing, Fortune another? Because Fortune can also be bad; but Felicity, if it were bad, would not be Felicity. Certainly we ought to esteem all gods of either sex (if they even have a sex) to be none but good. This Plato says, this other philosophers say, this excellent rulers of the commonwealth and of peoples say. How, then, is the goddess Fortune sometimes good, sometimes bad? Or is it perhaps that when she is bad she is not a goddess, but is suddenly turned into a malignant demon? How many, then, are these goddesses?

Surely as many as there are fortunate men, that is, men of good fortune. For since there are also very many others at the same time, that is, at one time, of bad fortune, would she — if it were she herself — be at once both good and bad, one thing to these, another to those? Or is she who is the goddess always good? Then she herself is Felicity: why are different names applied? But this can be borne; for even one thing is wont to be called by two names. Why the different temples, different altars, different rites? There is a reason, they say, because that is Felicity which good men have by preceding merits; but Fortune, which is called good, befalls men both good and bad by chance, without any examination of merits, whence also she is named Fortune.

How, then, is she good, who comes without any judgment both to the good and to the bad? And to what end is she worshipped, who is so blind, rushing indiscriminately upon anyone at all, that she for the most part passes by her own worshippers and clings to those who despise her? Or if her worshippers profit anything, so that they are seen and loved by her, then she follows merits, she does not come by chance. Where is that definition of Fortune? Where is that she took even her name from chance events? For it profits nothing to worship her, if she is fortune. But if she distinguishes her worshippers so as to profit them, she is not fortune. Or does Jupiter send her too wherever he wills? Then let him alone be worshipped; for Fortune cannot resist him when he commands and sends her wherever he wills.

Or at least let the wicked worship her, who are unwilling to have the merits by which the goddess Felicity may be invited. [XIX] Yet so much indeed do they attribute to this, as it were, divinity whom they call Fortune, that they have committed to memory that her image — which was dedicated by matrons and called Fortuna Muliebris (Fortune of Women) — even spoke, and said not once but twice, that the matrons had duly dedicated her. Which indeed, if it be true, we ought not to wonder at. For it is not even so difficult for malignant demons to deceive, whose arts and craftiness these men ought rather to have marked from this: that that goddess spoke who befalls by chance, not she who comes by merits.

For Fortune was loquacious and Felicity mute — to what end, unless that men, having conciliated Fortune to themselves, should not care to live rightly, since she would make them fortunate without any good merits? And surely, if Fortune speaks, at least let her not speak as a woman, but rather as a man, lest the very women who dedicated the image be thought to have feigned so great a miracle by womanly loquacity. [XX] Virtue too they made a goddess; and if indeed she were a goddess, she was to be preferred to many. And now, because she is not a goddess but a gift of God, let her herself be obtained from Him by whom alone she can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods will vanish. But why has Faith too been believed to be a goddess, and has herself received a temple and altar?

Whoever prudently acknowledges her makes himself her dwelling-place. But whence do those men know what faith is, whose first and greatest office is that one should believe in the true God? But why did Virtue not suffice? Is not Faith also there? Since indeed they saw that virtue is to be distributed into four kinds — prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance — and since these several kinds too have their own kinds, faith is among the parts of justice and holds the greatest place among us, whoever we are that know what it is that 'the just lives by faith.'

But I wonder at those admirers of the multitude of gods, that, if Faith is a goddess, why they did injury to so many other goddesses by passing them over, to whom they could similarly have dedicated temples and altars. Why did Temperance not deserve to be a goddess, though by her name not a few Roman leaders acquired no small glory? Why, finally, is Fortitude not a goddess, who was present to Mucius when he stretched forth his right hand into the flames; who was present to Curtius when he cast himself headlong for his fatherland into the yawning earth; who was present to Decius the father and Decius the son when they vowed themselves for the army? — if indeed true fortitude was in all these, of which we are not now treating. Why did Prudence, why did Wisdom, deserve no places among the divinities?

Is it because they are all worshipped in the general name of Virtue itself? Thus, then, one God could also be worshipped, whose parts the rest of the gods are thought to be. But in that one Virtue are both Faith and Chastity, which nonetheless merited altars outside, in their own temples. [XXI] Not truth but vanity makes these goddesses; for these are the gifts of the true God, they are not themselves goddesses. Yet still, where there is virtue and felicity, what else is sought? What is lacking to him for whom virtue and felicity do not suffice? For virtue embraces all things to be done, felicity all things to be desired.

If Jupiter was worshipped in order that he might give these things, because — if breadth and long duration of a kingdom is any good — it pertains to that same felicity: why was it not understood that these are gifts of God, not goddesses? But if they were thought to be goddesses, at least so great a crowd of other gods would not be sought. For, considering the offices of all the gods and goddesses, which they feigned as they pleased according to their own opinion, let them find, if they can, anything that could be furnished by any god to a man having virtue, having felicity. What learning would have to be sought either from Mercury or from Minerva, when virtue had all things with itself? For the very art of living well and rightly was defined by the ancients as virtue.

Whence they thought that the Latins derived the name of art (ars) from that which in Greek is called 'aretē,' that is, virtue. But if virtue could come only to the talented, what need was there of the god Catius the father, who would make men 'cati,' that is, shrewd, when felicity could confer this? For to be born talented is a matter of felicity; whence, even if the goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by one not yet born, so as to grant him this once conciliated, she could confer this upon his parents, her worshippers, so that talented sons might be born to them. What need was there for women in labour to invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity were present, they would not only bear well but bear good children?

What need was there to commend the newborn to the goddess Ops, the wailing to the god Vaticanus, those lying down to the goddess Cunina, those sucking to the goddess Rumina, those standing to the god Statilinus, those coming to the goddess Adeona, those going away to Abeona; to the goddess Mens, that they might have a good mind; to the god Volumnus and the goddess Volumna, that they might will good things; to the nuptial gods, that they might be well married; to the rural gods, that they might reap most abundant fruits, and especially to the goddess Fructesea herself; to Mars and Bellona, that they might war well; to the goddess Victory, that they might conquer; to the god Honos, that they might be honoured; to the goddess Pecunia, that they might be moneyed; to the god Aesculanus and his son Argentinus, that they might have bronze and silver money?

For they made Aesculanus the father of Argentinus for this reason, that bronze money first came into use, afterward silver. But I wonder that Argentinus did not beget Aurinus, since gold money too followed after. And if these men had such a god, then, just as they set Jupiter above Saturn, so they would set Aurinus above his father Argentinus and his grandfather Aesculanus.

What need, then, was there, on account of these goods whether of soul or of body or external, to worship and invoke so great a crowd of gods (whom I have neither all mentioned, nor could they themselves, having parcelled out all human goods minutely and severally, provide petty and individual gods for each), when by a great and easy shortcut the one goddess Felicity could confer all things, and no other need be sought either for obtaining goods or even for driving away evils? For why should the goddess Fessona be invoked on account of the weary, the goddess Pellonia on account of enemies to be driven away, on account of the sick a physician — either Apollo or Aesculapius or both together — when there was grave danger? Nor the god Spiniensis, that he might root out the thorns from the fields;

nor need the goddess Robigo be entreated not to draw near: with Felicity alone present and watching over us, either no evils would arise at all, or they would most easily be driven off. Finally, since we are treating of these two goddesses, Virtue and Felicity: if felicity is the reward of virtue, it is not a goddess but a gift of God; but if it is a goddess, why should it not be said to confer virtue itself also, seeing that even to attain virtue is a great felicity? [XXII] What is it, then, that Varro boasts of bestowing upon his fellow citizens as some vast benefit, in that he not only records the gods whom the Romans ought to worship, but also states what each one is concerned with? For, he says, it is of no use to know the name and appearance of some man who is a physician, and yet not to know that he is a physician:

so he says it is of no use to know that Aesculapius is a god, if you do not know that he gives aid to health, and thus are ignorant of why you ought to supplicate him. He affirms this by yet another comparison, saying that no one can not only live well, but live at all, if he is ignorant of who is a smith, who a baker, who a plasterer, from whom he may seek what utensil, whom he may take as a helper, whom as a guide, whom as a teacher; asserting that in this way it is doubtful to no one that the knowledge of the gods is thus useful, if it be known what power, faculty, and authority each god has over each thing.

"For from this," he says, "we shall be able to know which god we ought to summon and invoke for the sake of each thing, lest we do as mimes are wont to do, and beg water from Liber and wine from the Lymphae." A great utility indeed! Who would not give him thanks, if he pointed out the truth, and if he taught that the one true God, from whom all good things come, is to be worshipped by men? [XXIII] But (to come to the point) if their books and rites are true, and Felicity is a goddess, why was she not appointed as the one to be worshipped, since she could confer all things and make men happy by a short cut? For who desires anything for any other reason than that he may become happy? Why, in short, so late, after so many Roman leaders, did Lucullus set up a temple to this so great goddess?

Why did Romulus himself, desiring to found a happy city, not build a temple to her above all, nor supplicate the other gods for anything, since nothing would be lacking if she were present? For not even he himself would have become first a king, and afterwards, as they suppose, a god, if he had not had this goddess propitious. Why, then, did he set up for the Romans the gods Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Picus, Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules, and any others? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, the Sun, the Moon, Vulcan, Light, and whatever others he added, among whom even the goddess Cloacina, while Felicity was neglected? Why did Numa appoint so many gods and so many goddesses without her? Or could he perhaps not see her in so great a throng?

Certainly King Hostilius would not have introduced the new gods Fear and Pallor to be propitiated, if he had known or worshipped this goddess. For with Felicity present, all fear and pallor would have withdrawn — not propitiated, but driven off in flight. Furthermore, what is the meaning of this: that the Roman empire was already growing far and wide, and yet no one as yet worshipped Felicity? Or was the empire for that reason greater rather than happier? For how could there be true felicity where there was not true piety? For piety is the true worship of the true God, not the worship of so many false gods as there are demons. But even afterwards, when Felicity had already been received into the number of the gods, a great unhappiness of civil wars followed.

Or was Felicity perhaps justly indignant, because she was invited both so late, and not to honor but rather to insult, in that she was worshipped together with Priapus and Cloacina and Fear and Pallor and Fever and the rest, which are not the divinities of those who should be worshipped, but the crimes of those who worship? At last, if it seemed right that so great a goddess should be worshipped along with a most unworthy rabble, why was she not at least worshipped more illustriously than the others? For who could endure this — that Felicity was placed neither among the Consentes gods, whom they say are admitted to Jupiter's council, nor among those they call the Select? Some temple should have been made for her, which would surpass the rest both in the loftiness of its site and the dignity of its structure. Why indeed not something better than for Jupiter himself? For who gave even Jupiter his kingdom, if not Felicity?

— that is, if while he reigned he was happy. And felicity is preferable to a kingdom. For no one doubts that a man can easily be found who would fear to be made a king; but no one is found who would be unwilling to be happy. The gods themselves, therefore, if it is thought that they can be consulted through auguries or by any means whatever, should be consulted on this matter, whether they would be willing to yield place to Felicity, if perchance the place were already occupied by the shrines or altars of others, where a larger and loftier temple might be built for Felicity; even Jupiter himself would yield, so that Felicity might rather occupy the very summit of the Capitoline hill. For no one would resist Felicity, unless — which cannot be — one who wished to be unhappy.

By no means at all, if he were consulted, would Jupiter do what three gods — Mars, Terminus, and Juventas — did to him, who by no means were willing to yield place to their greater one and their king. For, as their own writings record, when King Tarquin wished to build the Capitol, and perceived that the place which seemed to him more worthy and fitting had been pre-occupied by other gods, not daring to do anything against their will, and believing that they would yield of their own accord to so great a divinity and their prince, since there were many gods there where the Capitol was established, he inquired by augury whether they were willing to concede the place to Jupiter; and all of them from thence were willing to yield, except those whom I have mentioned, Mars, Terminus, Juventas;

and therefore the Capitol was so constructed that these three also were inside, with signs so obscure that even the most learned men scarcely knew it. By no means, then, would Jupiter himself despise Felicity, as he was despised by Terminus, Mars, and Juventas. But even those very gods who had not yielded to Jupiter would assuredly yield to Felicity, who had made Jupiter king over them. Or if they did not yield, they would do so not out of contempt for her, but because they would rather be obscure in the house of Felicity than be eminent in their own places without her.

Thus, with the goddess Felicity established in the amplest and loftiest place, the citizens would learn whence must be sought the help for every good wish; and so, at nature's own prompting, the superfluous multitude of other gods being abandoned, Felicity alone would be worshipped, to her alone supplication would be made, her temple alone would be frequented by citizens who wished to be happy — of whom there would be none who did not wish it — and thus she herself would be sought from herself, who was being sought from all. For who would wish to receive anything from any god except felicity, or what he thinks pertains to felicity? Accordingly, if felicity has in its power with what man it dwells (and it has, if it is a goddess), what folly, pray, is it to seek her from some god, when you could obtain her from herself?

This goddess, therefore, they ought to have honored above the other gods even by the dignity of her place. For, as is read in their own writings, the ancient Romans worshipped some Summanus, to whom they attributed nocturnal thunderbolts, more than Jupiter, to whom the daytime thunderbolts belonged. But after a distinguished and lofty temple was built for Jupiter, on account of the dignity of the shrine the multitude so flocked to him that scarcely anyone is found who remembers that he has at least read the name of Summanus, which now he cannot even hear. But if felicity is not a goddess, since — what is true — it is a gift of God:

let that God be sought who is able to give it, and let the harmful multitude of false gods be abandoned, which the vain multitude of foolish men pursues, making for themselves gods out of God's gifts, and offending by the obstinacy of a proud will Him whose gifts these are. For thus one cannot be free from unhappiness who worships felicity as though a goddess and forsakes God the giver of felicity, just as one cannot be free from hunger who licks a painted loaf and does not ask it from the man who has the real one. [XXIV] But it is worth considering their reasonings. Are we, they ask, to believe that our ancestors were so unwise as not to know that these things were divine gifts, not gods?

But since they knew that such things are granted to no one except by the bounty of some god, when they could not find the names of the gods, they called the gods by the names of those things which they perceived to be given by them, inflecting some words therefrom: as from bellum (war) they named Bellona, not Bellum; as from cunae (cradles) Cunina, not Cuna; as from segetes (crops) Segetia, not Seges; as from poma (fruits) Pomona, not Pomum; as from boves (oxen) Bubona, not Bos: or else, with no inflection of the word, just as the things themselves are named, as Pecunia was called a goddess who gives money (pecunia), yet money itself was by no means thought to be the goddess; so Virtue, who gives virtue; Honor, who gives honor; Concord, who gives concord; Victory, who gives victory.

Thus, they say, when Felicity is called a goddess, it is not that felicity itself which is given that is meant, but that divine power by which felicity is given. [XXV] This explanation being rendered to us, we shall perhaps much more easily persuade of what we wish those whose heart has not grown too hard. For if human weakness has already perceived that felicity cannot be given except by some god, and men perceived this who worshipped so many gods, among whom was even their own king Jupiter: