PREFACE. Our first preface points out the way to the wanderer, and a good regard, when the end of the age has come, of becoming eternal, which ignorant hearts disbelieve. I likewise wandered for a long time, pursuing the shrines together with my parents, themselves ignorant; at last reading drew me away from there, from reading the law. I call the Lord to witness: I grieve for the throng of my fellow-citizens, who in ignorance go on perishing, seeking empty gods; for this cause, having been well taught, I instruct the ignorant in the truth. 1. THE INDIGNATION OF GOD. In the law the Lord of heaven, earth and sea commanded: Do not, he said, worship empty gods made by your hands of wood or gold, lest my indignation destroy you for these things.
The race before Moses, untaught, lingering without law and not knowing God, used to pray to dead kings, and to their images they made empty idols. When the Jews had been brought over from the land of Egypt, the Lord afterward imposed the law and commanded these things: that they should serve the Almighty himself alone, and not those others. Of the resurrection too one is taught in it, and of the blessed hope of living again in the age to come, if the empty idols be forsaken and not worshiped. 2. THE WORSHIP OF DEMONS. When God Almighty had adorned the nature of the world, he willed that this earth be visited by angels; but those, sent down, scorned its lawful order; so great was the beauty of women that it bent them. So that, defiled, they cannot return to heaven, being rebels they from that time uttered words against God.
Thereupon the Most High sent down his sentence upon them; from whose seed the Giants are said to have been born. By these were proven crafts upon the earth, and they taught how to dye wools and whatever is wrought, and those mortals set up the dead as images. But the Almighty, because they were of a wicked seed, did not decree that they be received back as departed from death. Whence now wandering they overturn many bodies; chiefly those whom today you worship and pray to as gods. 3. SATURN. And aged Saturn—if a god, when does a god grow old? Or if he was a god, why did he devour his children? Driven by terrors—but because he was not a god—he took the entrails of his children in monstrous frenzy. He was a king on earth, born on Mount Olympus, nor was he divine; thus did they say he was a god.
He came, helpless of mind, and swallowed a stone instead of his son: thus the god escaped, who is now called Jupiter. 4. JUPITER. This Jupiter, born on the island of Crete from Saturn, when he was grown, deprived his father of the kingdom. Thereupon he deceived the wives and sisters of nobles. Moreover that smith Pyracmon had made the scepters for him. In the beginning God made heaven, earth and sea; but this terrible one, born in middle time, came forth from a cave as a youth, secretly nursed. Consider the complaints: God is another, not that Jove. 5. CONCERNING THE THUNDERBOLT OF JOVE HIMSELF, HEAR! You say, O fools: Jove thunders, he himself hurls lightning. Even if childish years felt so, why do men of years say it? You were infants: surely you will not always be? To be busied with the immature, the practice of infancy does not grasp; the childish game has passed:
so let your hearts too withdraw; surely your counsels are owed to your character. As a fool, then, you believe that Jove thunders, born here on earth and nourished with goat's milk; therefore, if his father Saturn had devoured him, in those times, with him dead, who used to send the rain? Above all, is it to be believed that a god is born of a mortal father? Saturn grew old on earth and failed among them. No one prophesied beforehand that he would be born. Or, if he himself thunders, the law would have been laid down by him. The histories deceive, since he himself was a made being. But he reigned in Crete and failed there. The Almighty became to you the lover of Semele. Scarcely would he himself love likewise now, if that one were living. Impure ones you pray to and say are heavenly, born of a mortal seed from those Giants.
You hear and read that he was born on earth: how then did the corrupter well deserve to ascend to heaven? You say also that the Cyclopes made the thunderbolt for him. So an immortal had weapons from mortals! One guilty of so many crimes, a parricide of his own kin as well, by your authority you have raised on high. 6. CONCERNING THE SEPTIZONIUM AND THE STARS. By the circle of the zone your ignorance deceives you, in that perhaps you suppose Jove must be entreated. Saturn is said to be there, but a star, not he; he flees, expelled by Jove. Or shall Jove be believed to be in a star? Did he also handle the heavenly bodies of the pole and the sun's sower? He who made war on the Trojans loved a mortal bird. Or among the very stars shall Mars, who was caught with Venus herself, lord it as a god—an adulterous youth, in jealousy of a husband?
O too foolish, you who think that adulterers, born from the stars, rule, or govern the whole nature of the world! Themselves set among wounds and living under fate, obscene, frenzied, warriors, impious of life, and they made as many mortal sons: every one terrible, O fools, mighty in the seven-zoned heaven! If you worship the stars, worship also the twelve signs! Both the ram, the bull, the twins, and the grim lion, and then those that go among the fishes—you too will approve them. A law without law, your refuge, what it wishes shall prevail. It wishes to be wanton, it seeks to live without bridle. What you yourselves wish shall be, and you pray to both gods and goddesses. So I too worshiped, while I wandered, those whom now I blame. 7. CONCERNING THE SUN AND THE MOON. Concerning the Sun and the Moon, though they are present to us, you err;
as I did before, you think they must be entreated. They are indeed among the stars, but they do not run of their own accord; the Almighty, when first he founded all things, placed them there together with the stars on the fourth of the days. The ancient error... and indeed in the law he commanded that none should worship them. So many gods you pray to, who promise nothing of life, whose law is not on earth, nor are they themselves foretold. But a few empty priests seduce you, who say that the divinities profit one who is to die in some way. Come to the book of the law and learn the truth. 8. MERCURY. Let your Mercury be painted with his winged sandal and helmet and on his sole, feathered, and bare for the rest. I see a wondrous thing, a god flying with a little purse: run, you poor wretches, with the lap in which he flies, that he may pour out his little bag:
from then on be ready. Look at the painting: when from on high he shall toss you coins, then dance secure. Vain man, are you not mad, to worship gods painted on a board? If you do not know how to live rightly, go dwell with the beasts. 9. NEPTUNE. You make Neptune a god, born from Saturn, and he wields a trident, that he may be able to spear the fishes. He seems to be a god—prepare a fish-platter for him! Did he not himself, with Apollo, build up the walls for the Trojans? Whence was that poor mason made a god? Did he not beget the Cyclops, a monster? Was he not himself an adulterer too? He could not live by his own means, since he carried on the work of building. So he, once begotten, begot, who was long ago already dead. 10. APOLLO THE FALSE FORTUNE-TELLER. You make Apollo a lyre-player and a diviner.
First born of adultery on the island of Delos, afterward, when wages were offered, he followed building work; for King Laomedon of the Trojans he raised up the walls and hired himself out—he whom, deceived, you suppose to be a god. Love for Cassandra burned in his very bones; the maiden craftily mocked him, and the diviner is deceived; by the office of sacred boughs he was able to know her, the two-hearted one, for, rejected, the diviner departed thence. The maiden terrified him by the appearance which he ought to have had. She rather first should have loved the god. And so he began to love wanton Daphne. And yet he pursues her, while he wishes to violate the girl: the fool loves in vain, nor could he overtake her in the race. Or, if he was a god, he would have met her through the air: she came first beneath the roofs and the diviner was left behind.
The race of men deceives you, for these were wicked. From his first beginnings too he is reported to have pastured the flocks. While, in their set games, he was throwing the discus on high, he could not hold the one that slipped, and laid low his friend: that was the last day of his comrade Hyacinthus. If he was divine, he would have foreseen his friend's death. 11. FATHER LIBER, BACCHUS. You yourselves say that Father Liber was certainly twice begotten. Born in India of Jove and Proserpina, at first warring against the Titans with abundant bloodshed, he indeed expired like one of the mortals. Again, restored by his own breath in a second womb. This Semele perceives, again another paramour of Jove, from whose cut-open womb, with the mother nearly dead in childbirth, he is taken up and given to Nysus to be reared as a foster-child.
From this, twice-born, that one is called Dionysius, whose false religion is cultivated in vain. They too play the bacchant, such as they themselves now appear, or the lice-pickers of Minerva and of every conjurer. They conspire in evil, they make a prelude with feigned frenzy, that they may deceive the rest, who are about to say a divine power is present. To this one openly rude men, living like swine, transformed by the wine which he first pressed out, in their sport gave him honor. 12. THE UNCONQUERED. If the Unconquered, born from a rock, is held to be a god, then now I am silent; you, give the precedence concerning these things! The rock conquered the god—the creator of the rock must be sought. Moreover you still depict him to be a thief, when, if he were a god, he certainly did not live by theft.
He was certainly earthly and of a monstrous nature, and he was always turning others' oxen about in caves, just like that Cacus, son of Vulcan. 13. SILVANUS. Whence has Silvanus again appeared to be a god? Does he perhaps please you for this reason, because his pipe sings well? When, then, a household-god? For surely it was not wood. You bought a saleable lord, when you yourself are his master. Look, the wood fails! what is owed to him? Are you not ashamed, fool, to worship such little boards? Seek the one God, who says that one lives after death! Withdraw from those who have become victims of violent death.
14. HERCULES. Because Hercules crushed the monster of the Aventine mount, who was wont to steal the herds of Evander, the rustic mind of men, untaught also, when they wished to give thanks for the praise—in memory of the absent Thunderer—made for themselves altars to be rejoiced at. From that it spread, so that he is worshiped according to ancient custom. But this is not a god, although he was strong in arms. 15. CONCERNING THE GODS AND GODDESSES. You say there are gods who are manifestly bloody, and you say to ascribe to us the fates of nativity? Tell now, then, to whom sacred rites are first to be offered: between the two of them, untimely death wanders the ways. If the fates of nativity bestow, why do you pray to a god? You are deceived, vain one, who seek to pray to the Manes, and who call those whom they fabricate to be your lords.
Or you pray also to certain females, I know not what goddesses, Bellona and Nemesis, the goddesses Furina, Caelestis, the Virgin, and Venus, before whom your wives weaken themselves. There are besides other demons far from the shrines, which are not even counted yet and are carried on the neck, so that they cannot give an account of their own pestilence even to themselves. They ought rather to be carried out to the ends of the earth. 16. CONCERNING THEIR IMAGES. A few wicked, empty soothsayers delude you, while they seek to extricate their own life. They suborn for others out of themselves a falsehood under mysteries. Hence, pretending to be struck by some divine power, they chant majesty and weary themselves under a disguise.
You have often seen the Bellona-priests, with what crashing they enter into their wild excesses, while they seek to feign frenzies, or when they strike their backs with the sparing two-edged axe, while with their own teaching they discern that they heal by blood. Notice, when no divine powers compel them, that they themselves first compose themselves with sound mind; but they seek such devices in order to gather alms. From this see that all things are feigned. They overshadow the suppliant people, lest, about to perish, they should believe. The matter once proceeded in vain out of antiquity, that to the prophesier the things betrayed should be believed as false; but their majesty has spoken nothing. 17. CONCERNING AMMUDATES AND THE GREAT GOD. We have already said many things about the abominable superstition, and yet we pursue it, lest we be said to have passed anything over.
Ammudates, whom his worshipers used to worship after their fashion, was great to them, while there was gold in the temple. They used to lower their heads beneath the deity as though present. It came to the utmost, that Caesar carried off the gold: the deity fails, or flees, or passes into the fire. The author of this wickedness is established, who used to fashion the very thing. He seduced so many great men by falsely prophesying, and now he who used to be a diviner has fallen silent. For he used to burst forth with a voice as if of changed mind, as though the god of wood were speaking to him in his ear. Tell now yourselves, whether the deities are not false. From that prodigy, because he lost it, that prophet has forgotten to prophesy, who before was wont. These monsters are feigned for the god by wine-guzzlers, whose damnable audacity fashions deities.
For they were carried about, and another such image as well: now even he himself is silent, nor does anyone prophesy concerning him. O too foolish—but you wish to destroy your very selves. 18. TO THE VAIN WORSHIPERS OF NEMESIS. Is it not an ignominy for a prudent man to be seduced and to worship such a thing, or to call Diana wood? In the morning you trust in one man, drunken, raw, about to perish, who by craft falsely speaks what seems to him; he plays the very god, he demands entrails for himself. One detestable man defiles all the citizens, and has attached to himself like ones in a formed guild, with whom he fabricates a tale, to adorn the god. He himself does not know how to divine for himself, yet dares it for the rest. He raises him on his shoulders when he pleases, and sets him down when he pleases; he turns himself, whirling about with the forked wood, as if you should think him inspired by the deity of the wood.
You do not worship gods, whom these men falsely prophesy: you worship the priests themselves, fearing in vain. But if you are strong in heart, flee now the shrines of death. 19. THE TITANS. You say the Titans are your tutelary spirits; thus you invoke the Mute Goddesses, the Silent Ones, beneath your rooftop, so many Lares in little shrines, images made of titanium! For you worship, fools, men dead by an evil death, not reading their law; for they themselves do not speak. And do you dare to call gods things cast of bronze? You would rather melt them down into little vessels for yourselves. 20. TO THE MOUNTAIN-WORSHIPERS. You say the Mountains are gods, that they may have dominion in the field, you who are darkened by evil, swearing with an alien mind. For if your spirit were pure and your mind remained serene, you yourself ought to argue concerning them.
You are out of your mind, O man, if you think that these can save you, or rule, or diminish you, except in that you run down to the shrine. Seek rather the righteousness of the law than those things; it brings the help of salvation and says it is made eternal. For whatever you pursue in vain, you rejoice for a time; in a brief while you are glad, and afterward you wail in the depths: withdraw yourself from those, if you wish to rise again in Christ. 21. THE DULLNESS OF THE AGE. Alas, I grieve, citizens, that you are thus made dull by the world! One man runs out to the lots, another watches the birds, another wicked one inspects the shed blood of bleating beasts, and a cruel one desires to hear good responses—so many leaders and kings, where are they who consulted about life? Or what did it profit one to have known his own portents? Learn, I pray, the good, citizens; beware of images:
Seek you all, then, the law of the Almighty. So it pleased the Lord of lords in the heights, for our testing, that demons should wander in the world. ...To become heavenly are those who forsake their altars. Hence I do not care to argue this in a little book: the law teaches in the midst; I pray you, take counsel for yourselves! You have entered upon two ways: learn well the right one. 22. CONCERNING THOSE READY EVERYWHERE. While you serve the belly, you say you are innocent, and as it were make yourself ready everywhere, common to all. Woe to you, foolish man, you yourself look round for death, you seek to live without law after the barbarian fashion: with your own word you fix the axe in your own leg. You who feign to be simple, live simply with such a one. You believe you are living, while you crave to fill your belly.
You sit meanly in your house, crooked one, ready for feasts, and you shrink from the precepts of the supper. Or because you disbelieve that God judges the dead, do you perhaps make yourself the ruler of heaven in his place? You look to the belly, as though you were provident for it. You now appear profane, now holy. You come forth as a suppliant under the gaze of God, tyrant! You shall feel it in the fates, you who now empty the law. 23. TO THOSE LIVING BETWEEN THE TWO. Thinking to be free by living doubtfully between the two, stripped of the law, decrepit with luxury, you go ahead. So many wanton things, vain one, you look upon; why do you seek iniquities? And whatever things you have done, see that they remain from there for the dead one! Fool, you were not, and lo, you appear! Whence you have come forth you do not know, nor whence you are nourished.
You flee the most high God, who is kind to your life, and your Ruler, who would rather you should live; you turn your face about and give your back to God, you plunge yourself into darkness, while you think you tarry in the light. Why do you so often run to the synagogue, two-faced one? You go out from there, and again you seek the shrines; you wish to live between the two, but thence you will perish. Moreover you say: 'Who is there who has come back from death, that we should believe him, that there punishments are exacted?' These things are not so as you suppose them to be, malignant one! For it profits that one after death who lived rightly, but you, however, soon die, you are led into a malignant place; while those who believe in Christ are in a kindly place, and to whom that pleasantness clings, it caresses them.
But as for you, doubting ones living without the body, punishment raises you up to the face of the torturer, to cry out too late. 24. WHO MEDITATES? THEY WILL NOT BELIEVE. How long, foolish man, will you refuse to know Christ? You avoid the rich field and cast your seed on the barren. You seek to stay in the forest, where the robber lingers. Enter now at last, so often invited, into the hall: the harvest is ripe, the time is likewise ready; lo, now reap, if you do not afterward repent of it. Now, if you have nothing, gather; the vintage comes; the time for life is at hand for the believer in the time of death. The first law of God is the foundation of the latter law, and it designated you, that you might believe in the second law; nor any less did it designate those very ones and those wise from it themselves. Be now astonished and made ready in mouth to believe in Christ, for the Old Testament proclaims concerning him.
Now it is needful to believe only this: that the one who died in him can rise again and live for all time. Therefore, if anyone of you disbelieves that these things are to come, since the guilty one shall be conquered in the second death, I will sing in few words in this little book the things to come, for it can be known where the hope of life is to be placed. Yet I exhort you to believe in Christ as soon as possible. 25. TO THOSE WHO STRUGGLE AGAINST THE LAW OF CHRIST THE LIVING GOD. You spurn, unhappy one, the good of the heavenly discipline, and you rush into death, while you wish to wander without bridle. The luxuries and brief joys of the world destroy you, whence in hell you shall be tortured for all time. The joys are empty by which you are foolishly delighted. They do not restore you, who were once a man, when dead. Cannot thirty years now make you taught?
If, in your ignorance, you erred at first, look back on your gray hairs. Do you think now that you enjoy life here as a glad man? Injuries, lawsuits are there, and losses daily, wars or unspeakable things, frauds, thefts with bloodshed; the body is vexed with sores and groans, there is weeping, whether plague invades you or you are held by a long sickness, or you are bereft of children, or you bewail a lost little wife; the whole is destroyed, the heights of dignity fall down; you are scorched with poverty, doubly indeed if you grow faint: and do you call it life, where you tarry in a glassy life? Look now at last that this time is unprofitable; but in the future there is for you a hope of living without deceit. The little ones snatched away surely wished to live, but young men deprived of life perhaps to grow old, because that rich delicacy was preparing itself to be enjoyed;
and yet, unwilling, we leave all things to the world. I too was of a perverse race, lingering with twisted mind, and I supposed that the life of this age was present before us, and likewise judged death to be at hand as you do, that, when once the spirit had departed, the dead one had perished. But these things are not so; for the Maker and Author of the world sought out from the brother the brother who was slain: Wicked one, say, he said, where is your brother? He denied it. For the blood of your brother has cried out to me on high. You are tormented, I see, where you thought you would feel nothing, but that one shall live and hold the places on the right hand, he enjoys delights which you have lost, you abominable one! And when you have renewed the age, he too, having gone before, shall now be immortal; for you shall wail beneath the lower world.
God shall surely live, who made the dead to live, that he may render fitting rewards to the harmless and good, but to the raging and impious the savage nether-world. Begin to feel the judgments of God, you who are seduced! 26. FOOL, YOU DO NOT WHOLLY DIE TO GOD. Fool, you do not wholly perish, nor, being dead, do you escape your deeds, although you suppose you will feel nothing when dead. You are conquered, senseless one: God the founder of the world lives, whose statutes proclaim that they hold good for the dead. But you, while headlong you seek to live without God, judge the extinguished one to be in the fates, or believe it fated. God the Eternal has not so arranged it as you suppose, that the dead should be forgetful of their former deed. Now he has made for us the inexperienced receptacles of death, but after our ashes we shall behold those things. Rescue yourself, fool, who think you will not exist after the grave.
You have made your Ruler and your Lord to be able to do nothing. But death is not into emptiness, if you reconsider in your heart. You should know it is to be wished for, for too late you will feel him. You were the ruler of the flesh, the flesh certainly did not rule you; taken away from it, it is buried, that of your own. Rightly is mortal man separated from the flesh. Therefore mortal eyes will not be able to match it, so our abyss holds of the secrets of God. Give now therefore honor to God, while you, frail one, are dying, and believe that Christ renders you living out of the dead. You owe to render praises to the Almighty in the church. 27. THE JUST RISE UP. Justice and goodness, peace and true patience make one live after fate and be sought after concerning his deed: but a crafty mind, harmful, perfidious, depraved, raises itself on its own part and lingers with a savage mind.
Impious one, now listen, you who wish to profit from your evil deeds: Look at the earthly judges, who now torment the cruel with bodily punishments; either by the sword are torments prepared for their deserts, or to weep in a long imprisonment. And do you in the end hope to mock the heavenly God, the Ruler of the sky, through whom all things were made? You rage, you go mad, you disparage even now the name of God? Whence you shall not escape, for He will set the penalty after death. Now I would have you be wary, lest you come into the heat of fire. Hand yourself over now to Christ, that good deeds may follow you. (28. TO THE UNBELIEVING WICKED RICH MAN) You put it off, rich man, gazing too much upon all your goods, to which you still seek insatiably to add more. 'After all this,' you say, 'once dead, I do not hope to live.'
Ungrateful one to the most high God, who thus judge God to be such — He who brought you forth while you knew it not, and then nourished you; He Himself governs your meadows, He Himself your vineyards, He Himself your flocks of cattle and whatever you possess — yet to these things you have given no heed. Or do you perchance rule all things? He who made this heaven and earth and the salt seas has decreed to render us our very selves in a golden age; and now, if you believe, one lives in the secret things of God. Learn of God, fool, who wills you to be present immortal, that you may render Him thanks in the contest, everlasting. His own Law teaches it, but because you seek to wander, you disbelieve all things, and thence you shall go into Tartarus: soon you give up your soul, you are led where you will be sorry to be. But there a spiritual, eternal penalty is paid;
They are realms of sorrow forever, nor will you long endure in that place, then too late crying out there to Almighty God. (29. RICH MEN, BE HUMBLE) Learn, you who must die, to show kindness to all. In the midst of the people, why do you make yourself out to be a different sort? You go where you know not, and ignorant you depart from thence; impiously you behave, since you are thirsty with your very body. You, above your riches, lift yourself up too high into the heights, and you lead festive lives and do not regard the poor of your own accord, who are now subject to you, nor do you feed your own kindred. Alas, wretched ones! let men of modest means flee far away from you. 'The poor man has lived and is snuffed out,' you cry in your drunkenness. Soon you are driven by the Furies, since you perish yourself, a Charybdis. Undisciplined like cattle are you rich men: you give laws to others, but for yourselves you spare yourselves.
Put off, rich men, the men perverted by such great evils against God; let Him at any rate come to your aid, you who have now perhaps done your work. Be common with the least, while you have time; as the elm loves the vine, so do you love the little ones. Observe now the terrible Law against the wicked, but kindly and benign to the good; be barren of evil, be subject in prosperity; lift up hearts free of fraud, you rich, and take up hearts of peace. Expiate your evil with good deeds done before the Most High. (30. TO JUDGES WHO PLEASE THEMSELVES) Look upon the sayings of Solomon, all you judges, how with one word of his he disparages you all: 'Gifts and bribes corrupt all judges!' Thence it follows, 'You ever love too much the giver,' since, when a case is sought, the unjust cause carries off the victory.
'Innocent here am I, nor do I, a little one, accuse you; let Solomon take away the blasphemy, who cries out openly. But for you God is the belly and the rewards your laws.' This Paul the apostle suggests, not I, a flea. If place or time favours, or a person comes forth, be your own judge. Why are you now exalted thereby? You blaspheme, untaught one: by whose bounty you live, in such great frailty you never look back upon Him. Through rank and gain, greedy of fortune, you presume; there is no law for you at all, nor in your prosperity are you worthy ones. Though you dine on gold with the ever-piping crowd, if you have not adored the crucified Lord, you have perished. Both place and time and person are granted to you, now if nevertheless you believe; but if not, you shall fear on its account.
Temper yourself to Christ and bow your neck to Him: to this man honour remains and full assurance of things. When time now flatters you, be the more wary, not foreseeing the last things of your fate, which await you of necessity. Without Christ you could never be a partaker that you have even lived. (31. TO THOSE WHO PLEASE THEMSELVES) If place or time favours, or a person comes forth, be your own judge. Why are you now exalted thereby? You blaspheme, untaught one: by whose bounty you live, in such great frailty you never look back upon Him. Through rank and gain, greedy of fortune, you presume; there is no law for you at all, nor in your prosperity are you worthy ones. Though you dine on gold with the ever-piping crowd, if you have not adored the crucified Lord, you have perished. Both place and time and person are granted to you, now if nevertheless you believe;
but if not, you shall fear on its account. Temper yourself to Christ and bow your neck to Him: to this man honour remains and full assurance of things. When time now flatters you, be the more wary, not foreseeing the last things of your fate, which await you of necessity. Without Christ you could never be a partaker that you have even lived. (32. TO THE GENTILES) Race without a shepherd, fierce, now cease to wander. I too, who admonish you, was once the very same, ignorant and erring. Now therefore take up the likeness of your Lord, lift up your wild hearts and grow gentle apart: enter the stalls, you of the woods, come to the mangers, you bulls, safe from robbers, abiding beneath the King's roof. In the forest are wolves, therefore flee back beneath the cave. You wage war, you rave, and do not look to where you dwell.