for we shall destroy this place, because their outcry has grown loud before the Lord, who has sent us to destroy them. For a long time indeed had that most shameful people kindled the fire by which it perished, and therefore, its iniquities being fulfilled, it burned in the flames of its own crimes. So evilly did it deserve of God that it endured, already in this age, the Gehenna which shall be in the judgment to come. But none, says someone, are worthy of the fate of those men, because none are to be compared with them in impurity. Perhaps that may be true: yet what do we make of the fact that the Saviour Himself declared all those who despised His Gospel to be worse? Thus indeed to Capernaum He says:
if the mighty works had been done in Sodom which have been done in you, it would perhaps have remained until this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. If He says that the men of Sodom are less deserving of condemnation
than all who neglect the Gospels, then it is a most certain conclusion, whereby we too, who neglect the Gospels in very many things, ought to fear something worse — especially since we are willing to be content with evils now customary and, as it were, familiar. For to many, habitual guilty deeds do not suffice, lawsuits do not suffice, nor slanders, nor robberies; drunken bouts do not suffice, revellings do not suffice, falsehoods do not suffice, perjuries do not suffice, adulteries do not suffice, murders do not suffice; in short, all these things do not suffice — though of most inhuman atrocity, yet in themselves pertaining to injuries against men — unless the blasphemous hands of frenzied minds are laid even upon God.
For they have set, as it is written of the ungodly, they have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has passed over the earth, and they have said: how does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High? And that other saying: the God of Jacob shall not see, neither shall He understand. To such men indeed can most rightly be applied that word of the prophet: the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. For those who affirm that nothing is beheld by God come near to taking away even the substance of Him whose sight they deny, and to saying that He too does not exist at all, whom they say discerns nothing at all. And indeed, although no wicked deed at all can stand upon reason — for crimes cannot be joined to reason — yet there is none, I think, more irrational or more insane than this.
For what is so frenzied as that anyone, while he does not deny that God is the Creator of all things, should deny that He is their Governor, and while he confesses Him to be the Maker, should say that He neglects the things He has made? As though indeed His care in making all things had been to this end — that He should neglect what He had made. But I say that He so far has care for His creatures, that I prove He had it even before He created them: for the very fact plainly shows this. For He would have made nothing, unless He had had the care of making before He made — especially since even in the human race itself there is scarcely any man so dull that he should set about doing and accomplishing anything to this end, that he should not care for what he has accomplished. For he who tills a field tills it to this end, that he may preserve what is cultivated. And he who a vineyard
plants it to this end, that he may guard what is planted. And he who prepares the beginnings of flocks prepares them to this end, that he may bestow his care on multiplying the flocks. And he who builds a house or lays a foundation, though he does not yet have a dwelling ready, yet already embraces, in the hope of a future dwelling, the very things which he is still labouring to make. And why do I speak of man in this, when even the least kinds of animals do all things with an affection for things to come? Ants, storing up the various kinds of grain in their underground hiding-places, gather all things together and lay them up for this reason: that, out of affection for their own life, they love what they store away. Bees, when they lay the foundations of their combs, or when they gather the young born from the flowers — for what cause do they seek out thyme, save from zeal
and desire for honey, and pursue certain little flowers save from love of their future offspring? God, therefore, who has implanted this affection for their own work even in the least living creatures, has He alone deprived Himself of love for His own creatures? — especially since all love of good things in us has descended from His good love. For He is the fountain and origin of all things; and because in Him, as it is written, we both live and move and have our being, from Him assuredly we have received all that affection whereby we love our offspring; for the whole world and the whole human race is the pledge of its Creator. And therefore by this very affection, whereby He made us love our offspring, He willed us to understand how greatly He Himself loves His own offspring.
For just as, as we read, His invisible things are understood and beheld through the things that are made, so He willed His love toward us to be understood through that love which He gave us toward our own. And just as, as it is written, He willed all fatherhood in heaven and on earth to be named from Himself, so He willed a father's affection toward Himself to be acknowledged by us. And why do I say a father's? Nay rather, more than a father's. For this the voice of the Saviour proves, saying in the Gospel: for God so loved this world, that He gave His only Son for the life of the world. But the Apostle also says: God, he says, spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How has He not with Him also freely given us all things?
This, then, is what I said above, that God loves us more than a father his son. For it is an evident thing that God loves us above the affection of sons, He who for our sake spared not His own Son. And what more? I add more: and this a righteous Son, and this an only-begotten Son, and this a Son who is God — what more can be said? And this for us, that is, for the evil, for the wicked, for the most impious. Who could estimate this love of God toward us, save that the justice of God is so great that nothing unjust can befall it? For as far as human reason is concerned, any man would have done an unjust thing, had he caused a good son to be slain for the sake of most wicked slaves.
But surely this is the more inestimable mercy and the more marvellous power of God: that the greatness of His justice cannot be so understood by man that — as far as human weakness is concerned — the greatness of His justice does not almost seem to have the appearance of injustice. And therefore the Apostle, to indicate to us in some measure the immensity of the divine mercy, thus says: for why did Christ, while we were yet ungodly, die in due time for the ungodly? For scarcely for a righteous man does anyone die. Assuredly He has shown us in this one saying the mercy of God. For if scarcely anyone undergoes death for the highest righteousness, Christ has proved how much He conferred by dying for our iniquity.
But why the Lord did this, He straightway teaches in what follows, saying: but God commends His love toward us: for if, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, much more then, being now justified in His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him. By this very thing, then, He commends it, that He died for the ungodly; for of greater worth is a benefit that is bestowed on the unworthy. Therefore He says: God commends His love toward us. How does He commend it? Namely, because He bestows it on those who do not deserve it. For if He had bestowed it on the holy and the well-deserving, He would have seemed not to bestow what He had not owed, but to repay what He had owed. What, then, do we render for all these things, or rather, what ought we to render?
First, of course, that which the most blessed prophet testifies both that he owes and that he will render, saying: what shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He has rendered to me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. This, then, is the first recompense: that we render death for death, and that for Him who died for us we all die — although our death is of much less worth than His. Whence it comes about that, even if we undergo death, yet we do not discharge the debt. But nevertheless, because we can render nothing greater, we seem to render the whole, if we render the whole of what we can render. And so, as I said, this is the first requital. But the second is that, if we do not pay the debt by death, we may at least pay it by love.
For the Saviour Himself, as the Apostle says, by dying for us willed to commend His love to all, in order that by the example of His own love He might draw us to render the return of a like love for so great a love.
And just as they tell of those marvellous gems of nature which, when brought near to iron, suspend even the hardest steel, holding it as it were by a breathing attraction — so also He, that is, the highest and most glorious gem of the heavenly kingdoms, willed this: that while, descending from heaven, He should join Himself the more closely to us, hard though we are, He might draw us to His own affection as it were by the hands of His love; so that, acknowledging indeed His gifts and benefits, we might understand what it befitted us to do for so good a Lord, seeing that He had done such great things for wicked slaves; and that this might be fulfilled which the Apostle says: that we should be put to death for His love all the day long, and that neither tribulation nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor nakedness nor sword should be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Since, then, it is certain enough that these things are owed by us to the Lord, let us see what we render for all these things which we owe. What, namely, but all that which we spoke of above — whatever is unseemly, whatever is unworthy, whatever pertains to injury against God: wicked deeds, shameful morals, drunken revellings, bloody hands, foul lusts, raging cupidities, and whatever more the conscience can hold than speech can utter? For the things, says the Apostle, which are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of. Nor this alone; for this is old, and belongs as much to present times as to past.
That is the more grievous and more lamentable thing: that to our old sins we add new ones, and not only new, but certain pagan and monstrous ones, not before seen in the churches of God — casting forth, namely, profane voices against God and blaspheming with insults, calling God careless, God unheeding, God negligent, God not governing, and through this both unmerciful and unyielding, inhuman, harsh, hard. For he who is said to be unregarding and careless and negligent — what remains but that he be said to be harsh and hard and inhuman? O blind shamelessness! O sacrilegious rashness! For it does not suffice us that, entangled in innumerable sins, we are guilty before God in all things, unless we are also accusers of God.
And what hope, I ask, will there be for a man who, being himself to be judged, accuses the Judge Himself? If, then, they say, God regards human affairs, if He cares, if He loves, if He governs, why does He permit us to be weaker and more wretched than all the nations? Why does He suffer us to be conquered by the barbarians? Why to be subjected to the right of enemies? Most briefly, as I said before: He suffers us to endure these evils for this reason, that we deserve to suffer them. For let us look upon the baseness, the shameful deeds, the crimes of that Roman populace which we spoke of above, and we shall understand whether we can deserve protection, when we live in such impurity. And so, because on this argument very many say that human affairs are not regarded by God — namely that we are wretched and feeble — what do we deserve?
For if, living in such great vices and in such great wickedness, He were to suffer us to be the strongest, most flourishing, and most blessed, there might perhaps be some suspicion that God did not regard the crimes of the Romans, He who suffered men so naked and so lost to be blessed. But since He ordains that we, being so vicious and so wicked, should be lowest and most wretched, it is most evidently plain both that we are beheld by God and that we are judged, since we suffer what we deserve. But without doubt we do not think that we deserve it, and hence it is that we are the more guilty and criminal, because we do not acknowledge what we deserve. For the greatest accuser of guilty men is the arrogance that usurps innocence.
For among the many guilty of the same crimes, none is more criminal than he who does not think himself criminal. And so this alone we can add to our evils, that we should judge ourselves guiltless. But be it so, says someone, that we are sinners and evil; certainly — which cannot be denied — we are better than the barbarians, and by this very fact it is surely manifest that God does not regard human affairs, since, though we are better, we are subjected to worse men. Now whether we are better than the barbarians we shall presently see: certainly — which is not in doubt — we ought to be better. And by this very fact we are surely worse, if we are not better, we who ought to be better; for a fault is the more criminal where the station is the more honourable.
And the more honourable the person of the sinner, the greater also the odium of the sin. Theft is indeed an evil deed in every man, but without doubt it is more damnable if a senator steals something than if the lowest person does. Fornication is forbidden to all, but it is far more grievous if someone of the clergy fornicates than if one of the people does. So we too, who are called Christians and Catholics, if we do anything like the impurities of the barbarians, err more grievously; for we sin more atrociously under the profession of a holy name. Where the prerogative is higher, the fault is greater; for the very religion which we profess accuses our errors. More criminal is the unchastity of him who has promised chastity; more foully drunken is he who wears sobriety on his brow.
Nothing is more base than a philosopher who pursues obscene vices, because, besides that deformity which the vices have in themselves, he is the more marked in the name of wisdom. We too, therefore, have professed the Christian philosophy among all the human race, and through this it is necessary that we be believed and held worse than all the nations, because we live under the name of so great a profession, and, being placed within religion, we sin. But I know that to very many it seems intolerable, if we are said to be worse than the barbarians. And what do we make of the fact that this profits our cause nothing, if it seems intolerable to us? Nay, it rather aggravates our cause the more, if we are worse and believe ourselves to be better.
For he who thinks himself to be something, says the Apostle, when he is nothing, deceives himself; but let a man prove his own work. We ought, therefore, to trust our work, not our opinion; reason, not lust; truth, not will. Since, then, certain men think it not to be borne that we should be judged worse than the barbarians, or even not much better, let us see either how we are better, or than which barbarians. For there are two kinds among every people of all the barbarians, that is, either heretics or pagans. Than all these, therefore, as far as pertains to the divine law, I say that we are incomparably better; but as far as pertains to life and the acts of life, I grieve and lament that we are worse.
Although this very thing, as we have already said before, we do not say of the entire universality of the Roman people — for I except first all the religious, then some even among the seculars who are equal to the religious, or, if that is too much, at least some who are like the religious in the uprightness of honourable acts — but the rest either all or nearly all are more guilty than the barbarians. Now to be worse is to be more guilty. And so, because certain men judge it irrational and absurd that we should be judged either worse or not much better than the barbarians, let us see, as I said, either how or than which barbarians.
For I say that, except only those Romans whom I named a little before, the rest, either all or nearly all, are of greater guilt and of a more criminal life than the barbarians. Perhaps you who read these things are angry, and moreover condemn what you read. I do not shrink from your censure. Condemn me, if I lie; condemn me, if I shall not have proved it; condemn me, if I shall not have shown that the sacred Scriptures too have said what I assert. Therefore, we who judge ourselves much better than all the nations that are in the world — nor do I myself, who say that the Romans are worse in very many things, deny that they are better in certain things. For in life, as I said, and in sins we are worse, but in the Catholic law incomparably better.
But this must be considered: that the fact that the law is good is not of ourselves, whereas the fact that we live evilly is of ourselves. And it profits us nothing at all that the law is good, if our life and conduct is not good; for the good law is the gift of Christ, but a life that is not good is of our own crime. Nay, we are the more culpable, if we honour a good law and are evil worshippers of it. Or rather, we are not even worshippers, if we are evil, because an evil worshipper cannot be called a worshipper. For he does not worship who worships a holy thing unholily, and through this the very law which we worship is our accuser.
Setting aside, then, the privilege of the Law, which either helps us nothing at all or even condemns us with a just verdict, let us compare the life of the barbarians and our own, their pursuits, morals, and vices. The barbarians are unjust, and so are we; the barbarians are greedy, and so are we; the barbarians are faithless, and so are we; the barbarians are covetous, and so are we; the barbarians are unchaste, and so are we; in short, the barbarians are guilty of every wickedness and impurity, and so are we. But perhaps it may be answered: 'If, then, we are the barbarians' equals in viciousness, why are we not their equals also in strength?'
For since the wickedness is alike and the guilt the same, either we ought to be as strong as they are, or surely they ought to be as feeble as we are. But it is true, and hence it follows, that those who are the weaker are the more guilty. How do we prove this? Namely, because, as we said above, we have shown that God does all things by judgment. For if, as it is written, in every place the eyes of the Lord behold the good and the evil, and, according to the Apostle, the judgment of God is according to truth against all the wicked, we see that we, who do not cease to do evil, by the judgment of the just God suffer the penalties of our wickedness. But, you say, the barbarians also do these same evils, and yet they are not so wretched as we are.
This, then, is the difference: that even if the barbarians do the same things we do, we nevertheless sin with greater offense. For our vices and those of the barbarians may be equal, yet in these very vices our sins must necessarily be the graver. For since all the barbarians, as we have already said, are either pagans or heretics — to speak first of the pagans, since theirs is the earlier error — the race of the Saxons is savage, that of the Franks faithless, that of the Gepids inhuman, that of the Huns unchaste; in short, the life of all the barbarian nations is viciousness itself.
But do their vices carry the same guilt as ours? Is the unchastity of the Huns as criminal as ours? Is the treachery of the Franks as blameworthy as ours? Is the drunkenness of the Alaman as culpable as the drunkenness of a Christian, or the rapacity of the Alan as damnable as the rapacity of a Christian? If a Hun or a Gepid deceives, what wonder is it, since he is wholly ignorant of the guilt of falsehood? If a Frank commits perjury, what new thing does he do, who thinks perjury itself to be merely a manner of speech and no crime? And what wonder is it if the barbarians believe thus, who know neither Law nor God, when the greater part of those who bear the Roman name thinks so too — men who know that they sin?
For, not to speak of any other class of men, let us consider only the crowds of traders and of all the Syrians, who have occupied the greater part of nearly all the cities. Is the life of all these anything but a scheming of deceit and a threshing-out of lies? Do they not reckon that words are utterly wasted which bring no profit to those who speak them? So great among these men is their regard for God who forbids the oath, that they count every act of perjury a special gain. What wonder, then, that the barbarians deceive, who know nothing of the crime of falsehood? For they do nothing in contempt of the heavenly precepts, being ignorant of the Lord's command; for one who is ignorant of the Law does not do anything against the Law.
This guilt, therefore, is peculiarly ours, who read the divine Law and yet always violate what is written in the Law; who say that we know God, and yet trample upon His commands and precepts; and hence, since we despise Him whom we believe and boast that we worship, that very thing which seems to be the worship of God becomes an insult to Him. And, to say nothing of other sins, who at all among worldly men, save a few, does not always have the name of Christ upon his lips only that he may swear falsely by it? Whence there has become almost commonplace, among noble and ignoble alike, this oath: 'By Christ, I am doing this,' 'By Christ, I am doing that,' 'By Christ, I will say nothing else,' 'By Christ, I will do nothing else.'
And what more? The matter has come to this pass utterly, that, just as we said before concerning the pagan barbarians, the name of Christ no longer seems to be a sacred oath but a mere expression. For among very many the name is held so cheap that they never think less of doing something than when they swear by Christ that they will do it. And though it is written, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,' the reverence for Christ has sunk so low that among all the other vanities of the world scarcely anything now seems more empty than the name of Christ. Indeed, many swear by the name of Christ that they will do not only idle and old-wives' things, but even certain crimes. For this is the manner of speech among such people:
'By Christ, I am carrying that off,' 'By Christ, I am striking that man,' 'By Christ, I am killing that man.' The matter has fallen to this, that when they have sworn by the name of Christ, they think they will commit even crimes with religious sanction. Indeed, let me tell what happened to me myself. When, some little time ago, overcome by the entreaty of a certain poor man, I was pleading with a certain very powerful person, beseeching him not to take away from a wretched and needy man his property and substance, not to carry off the support and pittance upon which that man's poverty relied — then he, who with a raging thirst had gaped after that man's goods and had already, with the most burning hope and greed for plunder,
had devoured it, glaring and flashing his fierce eyes into my face — inasmuch as he supposed that whatever he had not himself taken from the other was being taken from himself — answered that this which I asked could by no means be done by him, as though indeed he were doing it by some sacred command or writing which he could in no wise pass over. And when I inquired the reason why this could not be done, he said a thing most violent and one which ought by no means to be contradicted: 'I have sworn,' he said, 'that this man's goods are to be taken away by me. See therefore whether I can or ought to fail to do what I have said, with the name of Christ interposed, that I would do.' Then I — for what more could I do, since a thing so just and holy was set before me? — having heard the reasoning of this most 'religious' crime, departed.
Here now I ask all who are of sound mind: who would ever have believed that the audacity of human greed would advance to such an outrage against God, that the very thing in which they do injury to Christ, they should say they are doing for the sake of Christ's name? O crime beyond reckoning and monstrous! What will wicked minds not attempt? They arm themselves for robbery by the name of God, they make God in a manner the author of their own crime, and though Christ is the forbidder and avenger of all evils, they say that the crime they commit they commit for Christ. And we complain of the hostile iniquity of our enemies and plead against pagan barbarism for its perjury! By how much lesser a sin did they perjure themselves by demons than we by God!
By how much lesser a crime is it to mock the name of Jupiter than that of Christ! There it is a dead man by whom the oath is sworn; here it is the living God who is forsworn: there no man at all, here the most high God: here, since the swearing is by the greatest sacrament, the guilt too must be greatest, and the perjury greatest: there, since there is scarcely any oath at all, it is agreed there is no perjury; for since it is not God by whom the oath is sworn, there is no perjury when one is forsworn. In fine, whoever wishes to know how true this is, let him hear the blessed Apostle Paul proclaiming these very things which we say. For thus he speaks: 'Now we know that whatsoever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law.' And again he says: 'Where there is no Law, neither is there transgression.'
By these two sentences he has plainly set forth the two parts of the human race: those placed outside the Law and those living within the Law. Who, then, are they that are now placed within the Law? Who indeed but Christians? Just as the Apostle himself was, who says of himself: 'I am not without the Law of God, but I am within the Law of Christ.' Who, then, are without the Law of Christ? Who but pagan men, who know not the Law of the Lord? And therefore he says of them: 'Where there is no Law, neither is there transgression.' By this one thing he certainly shows that only Christians, when they have sinned, are transgressors of the Law, whereas the pagans, who know not the Law, sin without transgression, since no one can be a transgressor of that which he knows not.
We, then, alone are transgressors of the divine Law, we who, as it is written, read the Law and do it not; and hence our knowledge is nothing other than guilt, we who know the Law only to this end, that we may sin with greater offense, because what we know by reading and in our heart, we trample down by lust and contempt. And therefore that apostolic word is most rightly spoken to every Christian: 'Thou who gloriest in the Law, by transgression of the Law dishonorest God; for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.' Of what crime, then, Christians are guilty may be understood from this one thing, that they bring the name of God into ill repute. And though it is written to us that we should do all things unto the glory of God, we on the contrary do all things unto the injury of God.