And so, in the very laws and in the very just ordaining of things, the greatest crime of injustice is committed, when lesser folk are compelled to observe as sacred those very things which the great continually trample underfoot as though they were nothing. Chapter 22. I have wandered a little from the course of discourse I had begun, driven by the indignity of the matter: now let us return to what went before. We said, indeed, that the cities of Africa were full of monstrous impurities, and above all that city which was their queen and, as it were, their mistress, but that the Vandals were defiled by none of these things. Not such, therefore, were those barbarians of whom we speak, who arose to correct the stain of our disgraces.
For they took away from every place in Africa the filth of effeminate men; they shuddered too at the contagions of harlots, and they not only shuddered at them or removed them for a time, but caused them utterly to be no more. O gracious Lord! O good Saviour! how much do the pursuits of discipline accomplish through Thee, whereby the vices of nature can be changed, even as by these men they were indeed transformed. But how transformed? For it matters not only to speak of the effects of things, but also of the causes that produce them. It is hard, indeed, for unchastity to be removed by word or command unless it be taken away, and it is hard for chastity to be exacted by word unless it be enforced.
This they, knowing well, so removed unchastity that they preserved the unchaste women, not slaying those unhappy creatures, lest they should stain their care for morals with cruelty and, while desiring to take away sins, should themselves sin in the cutting away of sins. But so did they correct the erring that their deed was a remedy and not a punishment. For they ordered and compelled all the harlots and prostitutes to pass over to the marriage bed. They turned them into wedlock, fulfilling indeed the saying and command of the Apostle, that every woman should have her own husband and every man his own wife;
so that, since incontinence could not be restrained without this permission of carnal use, the heat of the body might receive a lawful use, in such a way that incontinence should incur no sin. In this it was provided not only that women who could not be without men should have husbands, but also that those who knew not how to guard themselves should be kept safe by domestic guardians; and, with the marital governance clinging to them continually, even if the habit of their former impurity should entice them to some shameful deed, yet the conjugal watch might restrain them from that wickedness.
They added this also for the repressing of lust: severe sanctions of chastity, coercing unchastity with the sword of decrees, so that the affection of wedlock might preserve the purity of both sexes at home, and the fear of the laws in public; and thus by a twofold safeguard chastity might rest secure, since within there was that which was loved and without that which was feared. But those laws of theirs are in no way like the laws which so remove one part of wickedness that they admit another part of obscenity, or like those Roman decrees which indeed removed fornicators from other men's wives, but admitted them everywhere to all unmarried women, forbidding adulteries while building brothels.
They feared, forsooth, lest men should be too chaste and pure, if they wholly forbade them all impurity. But not so those of whom we speak, who so restrained prostitution as adultery, who wish women to be women to no men save their own husbands, and men to be males to no women save their own wives, who do not allow obscene lusts to stray beyond the lawful bed, directing their laws to the rule of the divine law, so that they should believe nothing in this matter to be lawful to themselves which God willed not to be lawful. And therefore they did not think it should be permitted by themselves to any man, save what had been permitted to all by the Divinity. Chapter 23. I know that to some the things we say seem intolerable:
but we must act by the reason of things, not by the caprice of our wishes. Let whoever he be that is indignant at my saying these things tell me: was not Socrates always esteemed the wisest of all men, and that too on the testimony of the Delphic demon, who was, as it were, the prince of philosophers even as of demons? Let us see, then, what laws Socrates ordained concerning chastity, and what laws those men of whom we speak ordained. 'Let no one,' says Socrates, 'have a wife of his own, for marriages ought to be common to all;'
for thus, says he, there will be greater concord among cities, if all men mingle with all women without distinction, and all women, forsooth, submit themselves to all men without difference, and if all men become the husbands of all women, all women the wives of all men. Have we ever known any frenzied or demon-possessed man, raving with the varied taint of madness, to have spoken any such thing? You say, O greatest of philosophers, that by this reasoning all men are the husbands of all women, and all women the wives of all men, and all little children the sons of all. But I say, by this reasoning, that no man is the husband of any woman, no woman the wife of any male, no offspring the son of any parent;
for where all things are promiscuous and confused, there is no one who can claim anything as his own. Nor did it suffice this most wise philosopher, as some say, to teach this, unless he himself did it; for he handed over his own wife to another man—just as did the Roman Cato too, that is, another Socrates of Italy. Behold, these are the examples of both Roman and Attic wisdom: they made all husbands utterly, so far as in them lay, panders of their own wives. But Socrates nonetheless prevailed, who both composed books on this matter and committed these shameful things to memory. He has all the more whereof to boast in his precepts: so far as pertains to his doctrine, he made a brothel of the world. He is said to have been unjustly condemned by the judges. And it is true;
for the human race would more rightly have condemned him for preaching such things as these—as without doubt it did condemn him. For since in this matter all repudiated his doctrine, all condemned him, not only by the authority of their judgment, but—what is far greater—by the choice of their own life, and rightly so. For let there be compared with the things which he established, those things which these men established, whom God commanded to rule over Africa. He established that no one at all should have his own wife, these that no one at all should have one not his own; he that every woman should lie beneath any and all men, these that no woman should know any man but her own husband; he a mingled and confused begetting, these a pure and orderly one; he wished all households to prostitute themselves, these none;
he tried to build brothels in all dwellings, these removed them even from the cities; he wished all virgins to be prostituted, these made even harlots chaste. And would that this had been the error of Socrates alone, and not that of very many Romans and of almost all: who, though they by no means follow the life of Socrates in other respects, in this matter nevertheless follow Socratic institutions, since very many men have, each of them, many wives, and countless women have, each of them, many men. In short, are not all the cities full of dens of vice and reeking of brothels? And what I have said of all, is certainly true of the noblest and most exalted;
to such a degree is this the dignity and even the prerogative of honors in great cities, that by however much they surpass the rest in magnitude, by so much do they excel in impurity. And what hope, I ask, can there be for the Roman state, when the barbarians are more chaste and pure than the Romans? It is too little that we say this: what hope, I ask, can there be for us, before God, either of life or of pardon, when we behold chastity among the barbarians and are not even so chaste ourselves? Let us blush, I beseech you, and be confounded. Now among the Goths none are unchaste save the Romans, now among the Vandals not even the Romans:
so much has the zeal for chastity, so much has the severity of discipline availed among them, that not only are they themselves chaste, but—to say a new thing, an incredible thing, a thing almost even unheard of—they have made even the Romans more chaste. If human infirmity allowed it, I would long to cry out beyond my strength, so as to resound throughout the whole world: 'Be ashamed, ye Roman peoples everywhere, be ashamed of your life. Scarcely any cities are free from dens of vice, none at all from impurities, save only those in which the barbarians have begun to dwell.' And do we wonder that we wretches, who are so impure, are conquered by our enemy in strength, when we are surpassed in honor? Do we wonder that they possess our goods, who execrate our evils?
It is not the natural strength of their bodies that makes them conquer, nor the infirmity of nature that makes us conquered. Let no one persuade himself otherwise, let no one think otherwise: the vices of our own morals alone have conquered us. Book I. I think, nay, I am certain, that to very many the prolixity of this style of mine will be tedious, chiefly because it chastises the vices of our own morals. For all utterly wish to be praised: to none is reproof welcome. Indeed—what is much worse—however wicked, however lost a man be, he prefers to be lauded falsely rather than justly reproved, and to be deceived by the mockeries of false praises rather than to be saved by a most wholesome admonition. And since these things are so, what is to be done? Must one serve the will of wicked men?
Or if they wish even frivolous praises to be bestowed upon them, does it become us to bestow frivolous and ridiculous things? Especially since, by faithful men, not even those ought to be mocked who wish themselves to be laughed at, just as not even those ought to be praised falsely who desire to be adorned with the title even of false praise: because we must consider not so much what each of them desires to hear, as what it becomes us to say, above all since the prophet says: 'Woe to them that call sweet bitter, or bitter sweet.' And on this account the truth must be held to in every way, so that what a thing is in reality, this it may also be in words—that those things which have sweetness in them be called sweet, and those which have bitterness, bitter;
especially now, in a sacred matter, where by very many our iniquities are charged to God, and, lest they themselves seem liable to accusation, they presume to accuse God. For when they blaspheme Him as careless and negligent, and as governing human affairs either not according to judgment or not governing them at all, what else do they accuse God of but sloth and abuse and iniquity? O blindness of human folly! O frenzy of insane rashness! You call God, then, O man, careless and negligent! If you wounded any freeborn man with such an insult, you would be guilty of insolent injuries; certainly, if you wounded some more illustrious and exalted person, you would even undergo the censure of public law.
For it is against wards, or above all against prodigals, that these reproaches are hurled; this is the special reviling of lost young men, that they are called abusers and careless and negligent of their own affairs. O sacrilegious voices! O profane insolences! We say, then, that God is that which even among men we call none save the most utterly lost. Yet not these things alone are said: the mark of iniquity too, as I have said before, is fastened upon Him. For if we do not deserve what we suffer, and are unworthy to endure our present miseries, then we surely call God unjust, who bids us endure undeserved evils. 'But,' you say, 'He does not so much command as permit.' Let us grant that this is so. But how far, I ask, is the one who permits from the one who commands?
For he who knows that we endure these things and is able to prevent us from enduring them, proves without doubt that whatever He suffers to be, ought to be endured. Whence we see that this permission is a matter of His judgment, and that what we suffer is a supernal sentence. For since all things are of sacred dominion and God's nod governs all, whatever of evils and of punishments we daily endure is the censure of the divine hand: which censure we ourselves indeed cause to burn hot and continually stir up by our sins. We kindle the fire of heavenly wrath and rouse the conflagrations by which we burn: so that rightly, as often as we endure these evils, that prophetic word too may be spoken to us: 'Go into the flame of the fire which you have kindled.'
And on this account, according to the sacred sentence, each sinner himself prepares for himself that which he suffers. There is therefore nothing which we can impute to God concerning our calamities: we ourselves are the authors of our own calamities. For God is gracious and merciful, and, as it is written, wills no one to perish or to be harmed. We therefore do all things against ourselves: there is thus nothing, nothing more cruel to us than ourselves: we, I say, we torment ourselves even when God is unwilling. But I seem, forsooth, to speak against myself, who, when I said above that we are punished by God for our sins, now say that we are punished by ourselves. Both are true: for by God indeed we are punished, but we ourselves cause it that we be punished.
And since we ourselves cause that we be punished, who can doubt that we punish ourselves by our own crimes? For whoever gives cause whereby he is punished, punishes himself, according to that saying: 'Every one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins.' Therefore if perverse men are bound by the cords of their own sins, without doubt every sinner binds himself when he sins. Book II. But since we have already said much concerning the impurity of the Africans, let us now say at least a few things concerning their blasphemies; for there the paganism of very many was continually openly professed. For they had within their ancestral walls an intestine crime—I mean that Caelestis, the demoness of the Africans—to whom, as I think, the ancient pagans gave the title of so beautiful an appellation for this reason, that, whereas
in it there was no divine power (numen), it might at least have a name (nomen); and because it had no virtue derived from power, it might at least have dignity from its appellation. Who, then, was not initiated into that idol? Who was not perhaps devoted to it from his very stock and birth? Nor do I speak of men who were pagans in life as also in profession and name, and who, as they were profane in error, so were profane in name. For paganism is more tolerable and less wicked in men of its own profession: that is more pernicious and more criminal, that many of those who had dedicated their profession to Christ served idols in their minds. For who of those who were called Christians did not worship that Caelestis either after Christ, or—what is far worse—before Christ?
Who, full of the reek of demoniac sacrifices, did not enter the threshold of the divine house, and, with the stench of the demons themselves upon him, ascend to the altar of Christ, so that it was not so much a monstrous crime not to come to the temple of the Lord as to come thus? For a Christian who does not come to church is guilty of negligence, but one who comes thus, of sacrilege. For it is a matter of lesser guilt if honor be not paid to God, than if injury be inflicted upon Him. And on this account whoever did these things did not give honor to God but derogated from it. For they even, in a manner, offered the very salutation of the Church to the idol, since the officiousness of the second place accrues to the honor of him to whom the chief things are given.
Behold what was the faith, what the religion, what the Christianity of the Africans, and above all of the noblest of them! They were called Christians to the reproach of Christ. Though the Apostle proclaims: 'You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons,' it was not enough for them to drink the cup of demons together with the cup of God, unless they even preferred the former; nor did it suffice them to compare the table of demons with the table of the Lord, unless, after the worship of infamous superstitions, coming to the temples of God, they inhaled the filthiest reek onto the most holy altars of Christ, at the very leading of that diabolic spirit. Book III. 'But,' you say, 'not all did these things, but the most powerful and most exalted.'
Let us grant that this is so. But since the richest and most powerful households make up the throng of the city, you see that through the sacrilegious superstition of a few powerful men the whole city was defiled. And it is doubtful to no one that all the households of masters are either like their masters or worse—though this is more usual, that they are worse—and on this account, since even good masters have slaves who are especially wicked, it is easy to understand what all the households there were like, when the very wickedness of the masters made even servile minds, already of themselves evil, worse. Be it, then, that those things we have spoken of pertained to the most powerful and most noble. Are those things lighter which were common to noble and ignoble alike?
I mean, forsooth, the hatreds and execrations of all the saints: for it is a kind of sacrilege to hate the worshippers of God. For just as, if anyone strike our slaves, he strikes us in the injury done to our slaves, and if another's son be beaten by anyone, the father's love is tormented in the punishment of the son, so also when a servant of God is injured by anyone, the divine majesty is violated, the Lord Himself saying this very thing to His apostles: 'He that receiveth you receiveth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me.'
The most kind and most gracious Lord, forsooth, makes both honor and reproach common to Himself with His servants, lest anyone, when he injured a servant of God, should think that only a man was being injured by him, since without doubt God's own injury was mingled with the injuries of the Lord's servants, God Himself testifying to this with a most indulgent affection in this manner: 'For he that toucheth you toucheth, as it were, the apple of My eye.' To express the tenderness of His love He named the tenderest part of the human body, that we might most clearly understand that God is wounded by so slight a reproach to His saints as the sight of a man is hurt by the touch of a slight blow. And so the Africans persecuted and hated the servants of God, and in these, God Himself. Chapter 4.
But perhaps it is asked by what means the hatred may be proved: by those, forsooth, by which the hatred of the Jews too against Christ is proved, when they said to Him: 'Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil,' when they mocked Him, when they cursed Him, when they spat in His face and gnashed their teeth over His head. Whence also in the Psalms the Saviour Himself, who endured it, says: 'All they that saw Me despised Me; they spake with their lips and shook the head.' And elsewhere: 'They tempted Me,' He says, 'and mocked Me with mockery, they gnashed upon Me with their teeth.'
So therefore also in the monks, that is, the saints of God, the hatred of the Africans is proved, since they mocked, that is, since they cursed, since they persecuted, since they detested, since they did to them almost everything which the impiety of the Jews had before done to our Saviour, before it came to the very shedding of the divine blood. 'But these,' you say, 'did not kill the saints, as we read the Jews did.' Whether they killed them I know not, I do not affirm; yet it is a great defense if this alone was lacking in them out of the pagan persecution—that which the persecution itself has as its last stage. Let us suppose, then, that the saints were not killed there: but what shall we do with the fact that those are not far from killers who hate with the intent of killing—especially since the Lord Himself says:
'He that hateth his brother without cause is a murderer.' Although it was not without cause that they persecuted the servants of God. For who could say that it was without cause, seeing they were men differing from themselves in all pursuits of life and morals, in whom they saw nothing of their own, since all was of God? For the greatest cause of discords is diversity of wills, because it either altogether cannot be, or scarcely can be, that anyone should love in another that very thing from which he himself dissents.
And so they hated them, as I have said, not without cause, in whom they discerned all things as rivals and enemies to themselves; for those lived continually in wickedness, these in innocence; those in lust, these in chastity; those in dens of vice, these in monasteries; those almost continually with the devil, these without ceasing with Christ.
It was therefore not without cause that, within the cities of Africa and above all within the walls of Carthage, that people, as unhappy as it was faithless, could scarcely behold without abuse and execration a man clad in a cloak, pale, and shorn to the very skin with the flowing locks of his hair cut off; and if ever some servant of God came to that city from the monasteries of the Egyptians, or from the holy places of Jerusalem, or from the venerable retreats of the sacred desert, on some duty of the divine work, as soon as he appeared to the people he met with insults, sacrileges, and curses. And not only this, but he was lashed, as it were with ox-hide whips, by the most wicked guffaws of profligate men and the detesting hisses of those who laughed at him:
truly so, that if anyone ignorant of the matter should see it done, he would think not that some man was being made sport of, but that a new and unheard-of monster was being driven off and cast out. Chapter 5. Behold the faith of the Africans, and especially of the Carthaginians: it was once safer for the apostles to enter pagan cities. And at first those fierce and barbarous assemblies of sacrilegious men detested their coming and their aspect less. The chosen vessel of election, the apostle Paul, speaking of the worship and majesty of the one God, the most superstitious people of the Athenians nevertheless heard patiently; but the Lycaonians marveled to such a degree that, when they perceived divine powers to be in the apostles, they did not think them to be men.
But within Carthage it was scarcely permitted for the servants of God to appear in the streets and squares without reproach and execration. Some think this was not a persecution, because they were not also killed. Robbers indeed are wont to use this proverb, that to those from whom they do not take life they say they have given it. But in that city these were the benefits not so much of men as of the laws; for even the decrees of the Twelve Tables forbade any uncondemned man to be put to death. From which it is recognized that the prerogative of the Lord's religion there was great, where the servants of God were permitted to escape only for this reason: that they were defended by pagan law, lest they be butchered by the hands of Christians.
And do we wonder if now those men endure the barbarians, when we see that the saints endured the barbarians in them? The Lord therefore is just, and His judgment is just; for, as it is written, what men have sown, this also they reap: so that truly the Lord may seem to have spoken concerning the wickedness of that nation: 'Render to her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do ye unto her, for she is risen up against the Lord.' Let us therefore by no means wonder or be indignant that they now endure some evils from men: far greater are those which they themselves formerly did against God, if the things they suffer and the things they did be weighed according to the diversity of persons.