But if it were so, what profit would there be nevertheless, that one should desist from crime while many remain in their crimes? The conversion of one does not heal the crimes of the many, nor does it suffice to appease God that one man forsakes his sins, when the whole entirety of the human race offends Him—especially since he who is converted, in order that he may be able to escape eternal death, obtains indeed great fruits of his own conversion, if he escapes, but far less can it happen that he should avert from others the penalty of damnation; because this too is a crime of intolerable pride and monstrous guilt, if anyone believes himself to be so good that he thinks even the wicked can be saved through him. God, speaking of a certain land or of a sinful people, thus says:
'If there were these three men in the midst of it, Noah and Daniel and Job, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters: they only shall be saved.' I think no one will be so shameless as to dare to compare himself with such men as these; for although anyone may now strive to please God, this very thing is a kind of the greatest injustice, if he presumes himself to be righteous; and thereby is taken away all hope of that false opinion by which we might believe that the countless multitude of lost men could be defended from present evils by the intercession of a few good men.
For since none is equal to those whom we mentioned above, what hope can there be to any that strangers and countless and wicked men could be delivered by a very few good ones, when even those saints most intimate with God did not merit this from the Lord, that they should save even their own members in their sons? And rightly so. For although absolutely all sons seem to be members of their parents, yet they are not to be thought members of those from whom they have begun to differ in affection; because through the depravity of degenerating morals the benefits of nature perish in such persons. Whence it comes that even we, who are called Christians, lose the force of so great a name by the vice of our depravity.
For it profits nothing at all to have a holy name without morals, since a life discordant with one's profession annuls the honour of an illustrious title by the practice of unworthy deeds in the churches. Whence, since we see almost no part of all Christians, almost no corner of all the churches, not full of every offence and every stain of deadly sins, what is there in which we may flatter ourselves concerning the Christian name?—when indeed by this very thing we are the more guilty through the most sacred name, because we are at variance with the holy name; for we the more wound God under the title of religion, because, being set within religion, we sin.
Let us therefore depart from that prerogative of the Christian name of which we spoke above, whereby we think that, because we are more religious than all the nations, we ought also to be stronger. For since, as we said, this is the faith of the Christian man—faithfully to believe in Christ—and this is faithfully to believe in Christ—to keep the commandments of Christ, it follows without doubt that neither has he faith who is unfaithful, nor does he believe in Christ who tramples upon Christ's commandments; and thereby the whole matter is brought back to this, that whoever does not perform the work of a Christian man, seems not to be a Christian; for a name without its corresponding act and function is nothing.
For, as a certain writer says in his writings, what else is high office without the loftiness of merits than a title of honour without a man; or what is dignity in one unworthy than an ornament in mud? And so, that we too may use the same words, what else is a holy name without merit than an ornament in mud? Just as also through the divine letters the sacred word has testified, saying: 'A golden ring in a swine's snout, so is a fair and foolish woman.' And in us likewise the Christian name is as it were a golden ornament: which if we use unworthily, it comes to pass that we seem to be swine with an ornament. Finally, whoever wishes more fully to know that names are nothing without their realities, let him consider how innumerable peoples, when their merits ceased, lost even their names.
The twelve tribes of the Hebrews, when they had once been chosen by God, received two most sacred names: for they were called both the people of God and Israel. For thus we read: 'Hear, my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify to thee.' Therefore the Jews once had both, now neither. For neither can they be called the people of God who long ago forsook the worship of God, nor 'one seeing God' who denied the Son of God, as it is written: 'But Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood me.' Wherefore also elsewhere our God speaks of the people of the Jews to the prophet, saying: 'Call her name, Not-beloved.' And again to the Jews themselves: 'You are not my people, and I am not your God.'
But why He should say this of them, He Himself has clearly shown elsewhere; for thus He says: 'They have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.' And again He says: 'They have cast away the word of the Lord, and there is no wisdom in them.' Which indeed I fear could not so much have been said of them then as it can now be said of us, because we neither obey the Lord's words, and we who do not obey the words of the Lord assuredly have within us no wisdom at all. Unless perhaps we believe that we despise God wisely, and judge this very thing—that we scorn the commandments of Christ—to be the highest prudence. There is indeed a cause why we may be believed thus to think; for with such great consensus do we all pursue our sins, as though we sinned by a conspiracy of the highest counsel.
Since these things are so, what reason is there that we should deceive ourselves with a false opinion, supposing forsooth that, because we are called Christians, a good name can avail us amid the evils which we do—when the Holy Spirit says that not even faith can profit Christian men without good works? And surely it is far more to have faith than a name, since a name is a word of a man, but faith is a bond of the mind. And yet the Apostle testifies that this very fruit of faith is unfruitful without good works, saying: 'Faith without works is dead.' And again: 'For as the body without the spirit, so faith without good works is dead.'
He adds also certain harsher words to confound those who flatter themselves with the presumption of the Christian faith. But someone says: 'Thou hast faith and I have works: show me thy faith without works, and I will show thee my faith from my works.' By this indeed he indicates that good deeds are, as it were, the witnesses of Christian faith, because a Christian, unless he does good works, cannot at all prove his faith; and thereby, because he cannot prove that it exists, it is altogether to be regarded as though it did not exist. For that he would regard this as of no account, he immediately shows in what follows, saying to the Christian: 'Thou believest that there is one God: thou dost well; the devils also believe and tremble.'
Let us consider what the Apostle wished to say in this place, and let us not be angry at the divine testimonies but acquiesce in them, nor contradict but profit from them. 'Thou believest,' says the divine word to the Christian, 'that God is one. Thou dost well; the devils also believe and tremble.' Did the Apostle err, in comparing the faith of a Christian man to a devil's? Not at all: but wishing to show that which was said above, namely that without good works they ought to claim nothing for themselves through the arrogance of faith, he therefore says that God is believed even by the devils; that is, so that,
just as the devils, though they believe there is a God, yet persist in their perversity, so too certain men have, as it were, a demonic credulity, who, though they assert that they believe in God, yet do not cease from evil deeds. He adds, moreover, to the shame and condemnation of sinful men, that the devils not only believe the name of God but even fear and tremble. This is to say: Why dost thou flatter thyself, O man, whoever thou art, with a credulity which is nothing without the fear and obedience of God? The devils have something more. For thou hast but one thing only, they have two: thou hast credulity, thou hast not fear; they have both credulity alike and fear. Why then dost thou wonder if thou art beaten?
Why dost thou wonder if we are chastised, if we are handed over into the power of enemies, if we are weaker than all men? Whether our miseries, or our infirmities, or our overthrows, or our captivities and the penalties of grievous servitude—these are the testimonies of an evil servant and a good master. How of an evil servant? Because, namely, I suffer, at least in part, what I deserve. How of a good master? Because He shows what we deserve, even though He does not inflict what we deserve; for by a most clement and most kindly chastisement He prefers to correct us rather than to destroy us. For we indeed, as regards our crimes, are worthy of deadly punishments; but He, granting more to mercy than to severity, wishes to amend us by the moderation of a clement censure rather than to slay us by the stroke of just coercion.
That it is unpleasant to us to be beaten, I am quite certain. But why do we wonder if God scourges us when we sin, since we ourselves scourge our little servants when they sin? We are unjust judges: we, poor mortals, do not wish to be scourged by God, while we ourselves scourge men of our own condition. Yet neither do I wonder that we are so unfair in this matter: nature within us is base and servile. We wish to sin and do not wish to be beaten: the very same dispositions are in us that are in our little servants; we all wish to sin with impunity. In short, if I lie, I take all as my witnesses. I deny that there is anyone, however guilty of a great crime, who would acquiesce that he ought to be tortured.
Hence, then, it can be recognized how unjustly and most perversely we are most severe to others but most indulgent to ourselves, harsh to others but lenient to ourselves. For the same crime we punish others, we absolve ourselves: this is utterly intolerable insolence and presumption. We are unwilling to acknowledge in ourselves what we dare to usurp in judgment over others. What can be more unjust than we, or what more perverse? We reckon that very crime to be pardonable in ourselves which we punish most severely in others. And therefore not without cause does the Apostle cry out to us: 'Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou dost the same things which thou judgest.'
But 'we do not do the same,' says someone to the rich, 'we do not do the same things which slaves do: for of slaves some are thieves and runaways, some are perpetually slaves to their gullet and belly.' It is true that these are the vices of slaves: but more and greater are those of masters—though not of all. For certain ones are to be excepted, but very few: whom I therefore do not name, lest by naming them I should seem not so much to praise them as to expose the others by not naming them. And first, slaves, if they are thieves, are perhaps driven to steal by want: because, even if the customary wages are provided, these satisfy custom rather than sufficiency, and thus they fill the fixed allowance but do not satisfy hunger.
And thereby want itself makes the fault less culpable, because he is an excusable culprit of theft who seems to be driven to theft unwillingly. For even the ecclesiastical Scripture seems in a manner to half-excuse the offences of all wretched men, saying: 'It is not a great fault, when a man hath stolen; for he stealeth to fill his hungry soul.' He steals to satisfy his soul: and thereby those who are excused by the divine word are not to be too greatly accused by us. But what we say of the thefts of slaves, this also applies to their flight—nay, more rightly of flight, because to flight it is not only misery but even punishments that compel the slaves.
For they dread the stewards, they dread the ushers, they dread the overseers, so that among all these it comes to pass that the slaves belong less to anyone than to their own masters: by all they are beaten, by all they are worn down. What more can be said? Many of the slaves flee to their own masters, while they fear their fellow-slaves. Whence we ought to attribute their flight not so much to those who flee as to those who compel them to flee. These most unhappy men suffer violence: they long to serve, and are compelled to flee. They are wholly unwilling to depart from the service of their masters, and by the cruelty of their fellow-slaves are not permitted to serve. They are also said to be liars.
They are driven to lying nonetheless by the atrocity of present punishment, since, while they wish to escape torments, they lie. But what wonder is it, if a slave placed in fear wishes rather to lie than to be scourged? They are also accused of greed of gullet and belly. Nor is this new: he more desires satiety who has often endured hunger. But be it so; let him not endure hunger of bread, yet surely he endures hunger of delicacies, and therefore he is to be pardoned if he too eagerly seeks what is continually lacking to him. But thou, noble; thou, rich, who dost abound in all good things, who for this very reason oughtest the more to honour God with holy works, because thou dost enjoy His benefits without ceasing—let us see whether thou hast deeds I will not say holy, but even harmless.
And who, as I said above, of the rich, apart from a few, is not infected with all crimes? And in that I except a few, would that it were permitted to except more, or all: the innocence of many would be the salvation of all. Nor do I now speak of anyone except only of him who recognizes in himself that which I say to be there. For if the things I say are outside his conscience, all the things I say in no way pertain to his injury: but if he knows to be in himself the things I speak of, let him not suppose this to be said to him by my tongue, but by his own conscience. And first, to speak of the vices of slaves: if a slave is a runaway, thou too, rich and noble, art a runaway; for all flee their master who forsake the law of their master.
What then, rich man, dost thou blame in thy slave? Thou doest what he also does. He is a runaway from his master, and thou from thine: but thou art the more blameworthy than he, because he perhaps flees a bad master, and thou a good one. Thou also chargest thy slave with incontinence of belly. In him it is rare, through indigence; in thee it is daily, through abundance. Thou seest, then, that the apostolic sentence scourges thee most of all—nay, thee alone—because in that wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself; for thou doest the same things which thou judgest; nay, not the same, but far greater and worse. For in him thou punishest even an infrequent intemperance of belly, and thou art distended with constant surfeiting. Theft too, as thou thinkest, is a servile vice; and thou, rich man, commit theft, when thou presumest upon things forbidden by God.
For all indeed commit thefts who do unlawful things. But why do I speak so minutely and, as it were, allegorically of this, when by the most open misdeeds not only the thefts of the rich but their brigandage is proven? For how few there are who, being near a rich man, are not made poor, or being poor, are not made destitute? Since by the encroachments of the powerful, weak men lose either their property, or even themselves together with their families; so that not without cause has the sacred word testified of both classes of persons, saying: 'As the lion's prey is the wild ass in the desert, so are the poor the pastures of the rich.' Although not the poor only but almost the whole of the human race suffers this tyranny. For what else is the dignity of the exalted than the proscription of cities? Or—
what else is the prefecture of certain men, whom I pass over in silence, than plunder? For no depopulation of the poor wretches is greater than power; for to this end is office bought by a few, that it may be paid for by the devastation of all: than which what can be more unworthy, what more iniquitous? The wretched pay the prices of the dignities which they do not buy: they know nothing of the transaction, yet they know the payment; so that a few may be made illustrious, the world is overthrown: the honour of one is the destruction of the world. Finally, the Spains know this, to whom only the name has been left; Africa knows it, the provinces that once were; the Gauls know it, laid waste—but not by all, and therefore still drawing a faint breath in very few corners, because at times the integrity of a few has sustained those provinces which the rapine of many has emptied.
But I have wandered too far afield, driven on by grief. So, to return to what went before: what is there, then, in which even the nobles are not defiled by servile vices — unless perhaps for this reason, that the very sins which they punish in their slaves they themselves commit as though these were permitted them? In short, to those acts of usurpation which the aforesaid nobles perpetrate, a slave is not even allowed to aspire. Though I may be lying; for certain men who from slaves have become noble have done deeds equal or greater. Yet this can in no way be laid to the charge of slaves, that their servile condition passed off so happily for some. Murders, too, are rare among slaves, through dread and fear of death, but among the rich they are constant, through hope and confidence of impunity.
Unless perhaps we are unjust in reckoning as sins what the rich do, because they, when they kill their own slaves, think it their right and no crime. Nor this alone, but by the same privilege they abuse themselves even in practising the filth of unchastity. For how few of the rich are there who keep the sacred bonds of marriage, whom the frenzy of lust does not sweep headlong, whose house and household is not for him a brothel, and who does not follow the madness of his mind against whatever person the heat of shameless desire has drawn him? According indeed to that which the divine word says of such men: they have become as maddened horses after women. For what else does he prove to have been said of himself, who wishes to overrun by intercourse whatever he has coveted by sight?
For concerning concubines it might perhaps even seem unjust to say anything, since this, in comparison with the aforesaid shameful deeds, is as it were a kind of chastity: to be content with a few wives, and to hold the reins of lust within a fixed number of spouses. I said 'spouses,' because the matter has come to such shamelessness that many reckon their maidservants to be wives. And would that, just as they are thought to be as it were spouses, so those alone were kept as wives! That is the more foul and detestable thing, that certain men, having obtained honourable marriages, take to themselves again other wives of servile status.
thus disfiguring the honour of holy wedlock by the vileness of degenerate cohabitation, not blushing to become the husbands of their own maidservants, casting down the heights of noble marriages into the obscene beds of slave-women — men wholly worthy indeed of the very station of those in whose fellowship they think themselves worthy to share. I do not doubt that very many of these, who either are noble or wish to seem noble, will take it proudly and disdainfully that, in considering these matters of which we have spoken, we have said that certain slaves are less shameful than their masters.
But since I have declared this not of all, but of those who are such, no one at all ought to be angry who knows that he is by no means such a man, lest by this very fact — that he is angry — he should seem to be of their company. Nay rather, whoever among the nobles shrink from these evils ought to be angry at such men, because by their most sordid crimes they defame the name of nobility: for although those who are such burden the whole Christian people, yet they especially defile with their filth those of whose number they are said to be a part. We have said, therefore, that certain nobles are worse than slaves — we have said it indeed, and we have said it not without proof, unless we fail to substantiate what we have said. For behold, from this crime, even the greatest of them, nearly the whole number of slaves is free.
Does any slave keep a crowd of concubines? Is any defiled with the disgrace of many wives, and reckons, after the manner of dogs or swine, that he has as many spouses as he could subdue to his lust? But it can indeed be answered to this, that it is not permitted to slaves to do such things: for surely they would do them, if it were permitted. I grant it: but the things which I do not see done, I cannot regard as though done. For however wicked their minds may be, however evil their desires, no one is punished for a crime which he does not commit. That slaves are wicked and detestable is certain enough; but for that very reason the free-born and noble are the more to be execrated, if in a more honourable station they are worse.
Whence it comes about that we must arrive at this conclusion of the matter: not that slaves are to be absolved from the guilt of their wickedness, but that very many of the rich are the more to be condemned in comparison with slaves. For who could worthily describe that robbery and crime, whereby, while the Roman commonwealth — either already dead or certainly drawing its last breath in that part where it still seems to live — is strangled by the bonds of taxation as though by the hands of brigands, and so dies, there are nevertheless found very many of the rich whose taxes the poor bear, that is, there are found very many of the rich whose taxes slay the poor? And though we say that very many are found, I fear that we should more truly say all:
for so few are free from this evil — if indeed there are any — that in that class of which we have said 'many,' we could find almost all the rich. For behold, what else did those remedies granted long ago to certain cities accomplish, than that they should render all the rich exempt, and heap up the taxes of the wretched; that from the former the old dues should be taken away, and to the latter new ones added; that the abatement even of the smallest levies should enrich the former, while the addition of the greatest should crush the latter?
that the former should grow wealthy through the diminution of burdens which they bore lightly, while the latter should die through the multiplication of those which they could no longer bear; and so that remedy raised up some most unjustly, and slew others most unjustly, and was to some a most wicked reward, to others a most wicked poison? Whence we perceive that nothing can be more wicked than the rich, who destroy the poor by their very remedies, and nothing more unhappy than the poor, whom even those things which are given to all as a remedy kill. And now, of what sort is this — how holy! — that if any of the nobles has begun to be converted to God, he straightway loses the honour of his nobility? Or how great is the honour of Christ among a Christian people, where religion makes a man ignoble?
For straightway, as soon as any man has attempted to become better, he is trodden down by the contempt of the baser sort; and through this, all are in a manner compelled to be evil, lest they be held cheap. And therefore not without cause the Apostle cries out: the whole world lieth in wickedness. And it is true; for the whole is rightly said to be in wickedness, where the good can have no place. Since indeed the whole is so full of iniquities that either they are evil who exist, or those who are good are tormented by the persecution of the many. And so, as we have said, if any man of higher rank applies himself to religion, thereupon he ceases to be held in honour. For where anyone has changed his garment, he forthwith changes his dignity:
if he was exalted, he becomes despicable; if he was most splendid, he becomes most vile; if he was all honour, he becomes all injury. And certain worldly and faithless men wonder if they endure the offence or the wrath of God, seeing that in all the saints they are persecuting God; for all things are perverse and changed into their opposite. If any man is good, he is spurned as though evil; if he is evil, he is honoured as though good. It is no wonder, therefore, if we daily suffer worse things, we who daily become worse. For men daily commit new evils and do not abandon the old: fresh crimes arise, and the ancient are not renounced. Why, then, is there any room for complaint? However harsh and adverse the things we suffer, we suffer less than we deserve.
Why do we complain that God deals harshly with us? We deal far more harshly with God. For we exasperate Him by our impurities, and drag Him unwilling to punish us. And whereas it is of the very nature of the mind and majesty of God that He be moved by no passion of anger, yet so great is the provocation of our sins within us that through us He is compelled to be angry. We do violence, so to speak, to His mercy, and in a manner lay hands upon His compassion. And whereas it belongs to His kindness that He should wish continually to spare us, He is compelled by our evils to avenge the crimes which we commit.
And just as those men are wont to do who besiege the most strongly fortified cities, or who attempt to take and overthrow the mightiest citadels of cities — assailing them without doubt with every kind of weapon and engine — so do we, in order to storm the mercy of God, fight with every crime of monstrous sins as though with every kind of weapon; and we deem God injurious to us, when we ourselves are most injurious to God. For every fault of all Christians is an injury to the divinity. For when we do those things which we are forbidden by God to do, we trample upon the commands of Him who forbids, and through this we impiously accuse the divine severity amid our calamities: whereas we ought to accuse ourselves.
For when we commit the things by which we are tormented, we ourselves are the authors of our own torments. Why then do we complain of the bitterness of our punishments? Each one of us punishes himself. And therefore that word of the prophet is spoken to us: behold, all you kindle a fire and have furnished strength to the flame: walk in the light of your fire and of the flame which you have kindled. For the whole human race rushes headlong into eternal punishment in that very order which Scripture has recalled. For first it kindles the fire, then furnishes strength to the flames, and last of all enters the flame which it has prepared. When, then, does a man first kindle for himself the eternal fire? Namely, when he first begins to sin. And when does he furnish strength to the flames? When indeed he has heaped up sins upon sins.
But when does he enter the eternal fire? When he has completed by the excess of his growing offences that now irremediable sum of all evils, as our Saviour says to the leaders of the Jews: fill up the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you offspring of vipers. Not far from the fullness of their sins were those to whom the Lord Himself said that they should fill up their sins, doubtless for this reason: that, since they were now unworthy of salvation, they should fill up the number of their iniquities, whereby they might perish. Whence also, when the old Law had recorded that the sins of the Amorites were fulfilled, it reports that the angels spoke thus to holy Lot: bring out of this city all who belong to you;