(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)

Transliteration of Greek words: All phonetical except: w = omega; h serves
three puposes: 1. = Eta; 2. = rough breathing, when appearing initially
before a vowel; 3. = in the aspirated letters theta = th, phi = ph, chi =
ch. Accents are given immediately after their corresponding vowels: acute =
' , grave = `, circumflex = ^. The character ' doubles as an apostrophe,
when necessary.


ST. AUGUSTIN

THE CITY OF GOD, BOOKS III-IV

[Translated by Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.]


BOOK III.

ARGUMENT: AS IN THE FOREGOING BOOK AUGUSTIN HAS PROVED REGARDING MORAL AND
SPIRITUAL CALAMITIES, SO IN THIS BOOK HE PROVES REGARDING EXTERNAL AND
BODILY DISASTERS, THAT SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY THE ROMANS HAVE
BEEN CONTINUALLY SUBJECT TO THEM; AND THAT EVEN WHEN THE FALSE GODS WERE
WORSHIPPED WITHOUT A RIVAL, BEFORE THE ADVENT OF CHRIST, THEY AFFORDED NO
RELIEF FROM SUCH CALAMITIES.

CHAP. 1. -- OF THE ILLS WHICH ALONE THE WICKED FEAR, AND WHICH THE WORLD
CONTINUALLY SUFFERED, EVEN WHEN THE GODS WERE WORSHIPPED.

   OF moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to be
deprecated, I think enough has already been said to show that the false
gods took no steps to prevent the people who worshipped them from being
overwhelmed by such calamities, but rather aggravated the ruin. I see I
must now speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by the heathen--
famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and the like
calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For evil men account
those things alone evil which do not make men evil; neither do they blush
to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good things they
praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if it
were man's greatest good to have everything good but himself. But not even
such evils as were alone dreaded by the heathen were warded off by their
gods, even when they were most unrestrictedly worshipped. For in various
times and places before the advent of our Redeemer, the human race was
crushed with numberless and sometimes incredible calamities; and at that
time what gods but those did the world worship, if you except the one
nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them, such individuals as the most
secret and most just judgment of God counted worthy of divine grace?(1) But
that I may not be prolix, I will be silent regarding the heavy calamities
that have been suffered by any other nations, and will speak only of what
happened to Rome and the Roman empire, by which I mean Rome properly so
called, and those lands which already, before the coming of Christ, had by
alliance or conquest become, as it were, members of the body of the state.

CHAP. 2.--WHETHER THE GODS, WHOM THE GREEKS AND ROMANS WORSHIPPED IN
COMMON, WERE JUSTIFIED IN PERMITTING THE DESTRUCTION Or ILIUM.

   First, then, why was Troy or Ilium, the cradle of the Roman people (for
I must not overlook nor disguise what I touched upon in the first book(2)),
conquered, taken and destroyed by the Greeks, though it esteemed and
worshipped the same gods as they? Priam, some answer, paid the penalty of
the perjury of his father Laomedon.(3) Then it is true that Laomedon hired
Apollo and Neptune as his workmen. For the story goes that he promised them
wages, and then broke his bargain. I wonder that famous diviner Apollo
toiled at so huge a work, and never suspected Laomedon was going to cheat
him of his pay. And Neptune too, his uncle, brother of Jupiter, king of the
sea, it really was not seemly that he should be ignorant of what was to
happen. For he is introduced by Homer(4) (who lived and wrote before the
building of Rome) as predicting something great of the posterity of Aeneas,
who in fact founded Rome. And as Homer says, Neptune also rescued Aeneas in
a cloud from the wrath of Achilles, though (according to Virgil (1))

  "All his will was to destroy
   His own creation, perjured Troy."

Gods, then, so great as Apollo and Neptune, in ignorance of the cheat that
was to defraud them of their wages, built the walls of Troy for nothing but
thanks and thankless people.(2) There may be some doubt whether it is not a
worse crime to believe such persons to be gods, than to cheat such gods.
Even Homer himself did not give full credence to the story for while he
represents Neptune, indeed, as hostile to the Trojans, he introduces Apollo
as their champion, though the story implies that both were offended by that
fraud. If, therefore, they believe their fables, let them blush to worship
such gods; if they discredit the fables, let no more be said of the "Trojan
perjury;" or let them explain how the gods hated Trojan, but loved Roman
perjury. For how did the conspiracy of Catiline, even in so large and
corrupt a city, find so abundant a supply of men whose hands and tongues
found them a living by perjury and civic broils? What else but perjury
corrupted the judgments pronounced by so many of the senators? What else
corrupted the people's votes and decisions of all causes tried before them?
For it seems that the ancient practice of taking oaths has been preserved
even in the midst of the greatest corruption, not for the sake of
restraining wickedness by religious fear, but to complete the tale of
crimes by adding that of perjury.

CHAP. 3.--THAT THE GODS COULD NOT BE OFFENDED BY THE ADULTERY OF PARIS,
THIS CRIME BEING SO COMMON AMONG THEMSELVES.

   There is no ground, then, for representing the gods (by whom, as they
say, that empire stood, though they are proved to have been conquered by
the Greeks) as being enraged at the Trojan perjury. Neither, as others
again plead in their defence, was it indignation at the adultery of Paris
that caused them to withdraw their protection from Troy. For their habit is
to be instigators and instructors in vice, not its avengers. "The city of
Rome," says Sallust, "was first built and inhabited, as I have heard, by
the Trojans, who, flying their country, under the conduct of Aeneas,
wandered about without making any settlement."(3) If, then, the gods were
of opinion that the adultery of Paris should be punished, it was chiefly
the Romans, or at least the Romans also, who should have suffered; for the
adultery was brought about by Aeneas' mother. But how could they hate in
Paris a crime which they made no objection to in their own sister Venus,
who (not to mention any other instance) committed adultery with Anchises,
and so became the mother of Aeneas? Is it because in the one case
Menelaus(4) was aggrieved, while in the other Vulcan(5) connived at the
crime? For the gods, I fancy, are so little jealous of their wives, that
they make no scruple of sharing them with men. But perhaps I may be
suspected of turning the myths into ridicule, and not handling so weighty a
subject with sufficient gravity. Well, then, let us say that Aeneas is not
the son of Venus. I am willing to admit it; but is Romulus any more the son
of Mars? For why not the one as well as the other? Or is it lawful for gods
to have intercourse with women, unlawful for men to have intercourse with
goddesses? A hard, or rather an incredible condition, that what was allowed
to Mars by the law of Venus, should not be allowed to Venus herself by her
own law. However, both cases have the authority of Rome; for Caesar in
modern times believed no less that he was descended from Venus,(6) than the
ancient Romulus believed himself the son of Mars.

CHAP. 4. -- OF VARRO'S OPINION, THAT IT IS USEFUL FOR MEN TO FEIGN
THEMSELVES THE OFFSPRING OF THE GODS.

   Some one will say, But do you believe all this? Not I indeed. For even
Varro, a very learned heathen, all but admits that these stories are false,
though he does not boldly and confidently say so. But he maintains it is
useful for states that brave men believe, though falsely, that they are
descended from the gods; for that thus the human spirit, cherishing the
belief of its divine descent, will both more boldly venture into great
enterprises, and will carry them out more energetically, and will therefore
by its very confidence secure more abundant success. You see how wide a
field is opened to falsehood by this opinion of Varro's, which I have
expressed as well as I could in my own words; and how comprehensible it is,
that many of the religions and sacred legends should be feigned in a
community in which it was judged profitable for the citizens that lies
should be told even about the gods themselves.

CHAP. 5.--THAT IT IS NOT CREDIBLE THAT THE GODS SHOULD HAVE PUNISHED THE
ADULTERY OF PARIS, SEEING THEY SHOWED NO INDIGNATION AT THE ADULTERY OF THE
MOTHER OF ROMULUS.

   But whether Venus could bear Aeneas to a human father Anchises, or Mars
beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor, we leave as unsettled questions.
For our own Scriptures suggest the very similar question, whether the
fallen angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which
the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enormously
large and strong men. At present, then, I will limit my discussion to this
dilemma: If that which their books relate about the mother of Aeneas and
the father of Romulus be true, how can the gods be displeased with men for
adulteries which, when committed by themselves, excite no displeasure? If
it is false, not even in this case can the gods be angry that men should
really commit adulteries, which, even when falsely attributed to the gods,
they delight in. Moreover, if the adultery of Mars be discredited, that
Venus also may be freed from the imputation, then the mother of Romulus is
left unshielded by the pretext of a divine seduction. For Sylvia was a
vestal priestess, and the gods ought to avenge this sacrilege on the Romans
with greater severity than Paris' adultery on the Trojans. For even the
Romans themselves in primitive times used to go so far as to bury alive any
vestal who was detected in adultery, while women unconsecrated, though they
were punished, were never punished with death for that crime; and thus they
more earnestly vindicated the purity of shrines they esteemed divine, than
of the human bed.

CHAP. 6.--THAT THE GODS EXACTED NO PENALTY FOR THE FRATRICIDAL ACT OF
ROMULUS.

   I add another instance: If the sins of men so greatly incensed those
divinities, that they abandoned Troy to fire and sword to punish the crime
of Paris, the murder of Romulus' brother ought to have incensed them more
against the Romans than the cajoling of a Greek husband moved them against
the Trojans: fratricide in a newly-born city should have provoked them more
than adultery in a city already flourishing. It makes no difference to the
question we now discuss, whether Romulus ordered his brother to be slain,
or slew him with his own hand; it is a crime which many shamelessly deny,
many through shame doubt, many in grief disguise. And we shall not pause to
examine and weigh the testimonies of historical writers on the subject. All
agree that the brother of Romulus was slain, not by enemies, not by
strangers. If it was Romulus who either commanded or perpetrated this
crime; Romulus was more truly the head of the Romans than Paris of the
Trojans; why then did he who carried off another man's wife bring down the
anger of the gods on the Trojans, while he who took his brother's life
obtained the guardianship of those same gods? If, on the other hand, that
crime was not wrought either by the hand or will of Romulus, then the whole
city is chargeable with it, because it did not see to its punishment, and
thus committed, not fratricide, but parricide, which is worse. For both
brothers were the founders of that city, of which the one was by villainy
prevented from being a ruler. So far as I see, then, no evil can be
ascribed to Troy which warranted the gods in abandoning it to destruction,
nor any good to Rome which accounts for the gods visiting it with
prosperity; unless the truth be, that they fled from Troy because they were
vanquished, and betook themselves to Rome to practise their characteristic
deceptions there. Nevertheless they kept a footing for themselves in Troy,
that they might deceive future inhabitants who re-peopled these lands:
while at Rome, by a rider exercise of their malignant arts, they exulted in
more abundant honors.

CHAP. 7.--OF THE DESTRUCTION OF ILIUM BY FIMBRIA, A LIEUTENANT OF MARIUS.

   And surely we may ask what wrong poor Ilium had done, that, in the
first heat of the civil wars of Rome, it should suffer at the hand of
Fimbria, the veriest villain among Marius' partisans, a more fierce and
cruel destruction than the Grecian sack.(1) For when the Greeks took it
many escaped, and many who did not escape were suffered to live, though in
captivity. But Fimbria from the first gave orders that not a life should be
spared, and burnt up together the city and all its inhabitants. Thus was
Ilium requited, not by the Greeks, whom she had provoked by wrong-doing;
but by the Romans, who had been built out of her ruins; while the gods,
adored alike of both sides, did simply nothing, or, to speak more
correctly, could do nothing. Is it then true, that at this time also, after
Troy had repaired the damage done by the Grecian fire, all the gods by
whose help the kingdom stood, "forsook each fane, each sacred shrine?"

   But if so, I ask the reason; for in my judgment, the conduct of the
gods was as much to be reprobated as that of the townsmen to be applauded.
For these closed their gates against Fimbria, that they might preserve the
city for Sylla, and were therefore burnt and consumed by the enraged
general. Now, up to this time, Sylla's cause was the more worthy of the
two; for till now he used arms to restore the republic, and as yet his good
intentions had met with no reverses. What better thing, then, could the
Trojans have done? What more honorable, what more faithful to Rome, or more
worthy of her relationship, than to preserve their city for the better part
of the Romans, and to shut their gates against a parricide of his country?
It is for the defenders of the gods to consider the ruin which this conduct
brought on Troy. The gods deserted an adulterous people, and abandoned Troy
to the fires of the Greeks, that out of her ashes a chaster Rome might
arise. But why did they a second time abandon this same town, allied now to
Rome, and not making war upon her noble daughter, but preserving a most
steadfast and pious fidelity to Rome's most justifiable faction? Why did
they give her up to be destroyed, not by the Greek heroes, but by the
basest of the Romans? Or, if the gods did not favor Sylla's cause, for
which the unhappy Trojans maintained their city, why did they themselves
predict and promise Sylla such successes? Must we call them flatterers of
the fortunate, rather than helpers of the wretched? Troy was not destroyed,
then, because the gods deserted it. For the demons, always watchful to
deceive, did what they could. For, when all the statues were overthrown and
burnt together with the town, Livy tells us that only the image of Minerva
is said to have been found standing uninjured amidst the ruins of her
temple; not that it might be said in their praise, "The gods who made this
realm divine," but that it might not be said in their defence, They are
"gone from each fane, each sacred shrine:" for that marvel was permitted to
them, not that they might be proved to be powerful, but that they might be
convicted of being present.

CHAP. 8.--WHETHER ROME OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN ENTRUSTED TO THE TROJAN GODS?

   Where, then, was the wisdom of entrusting Rome to the Trojan gods, who
had demonstrated their weakness in the loss of Troy? Will some one say
that, when Fimbria stormed Troy, the gods were already resident in Rome?
How, then, did the image of Minerva remain standing? Besides, if they were
at Rome when Fimbria destroyed Troy, perhaps they were at Troy when Rome
itself was taken and set on fire by the Gauls. But as they are very acute
in hearing, and very swift in their movements, they came quickly at the
cackling of the goose to defend at least the Capitol, though to defend the
rest of the city they were too long in being warned.

CHAP. 9.--WHETHER IT IS CREDIBLE THAT THE PEACE DURING THE REIGN OF NUMA
WAS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE GODS.

   It is also believed that it was by the help of the gods that the
successor of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, enjoyed peace during his entire
reign, and shut the gates of Janus, which are customarily kept open(1)
during war. And it is supposed he was thus requited for appointing many
religious observances among the Romans. Certainly that king would have
commanded our congratulations for so rare a leisure, had he been wise
enough to spend it on wholesome pursuits, and, subduing a pernicious
curiosity, had sought out the true God with true piety. But as it was, the
gods were not the authors of his leisure; but possibly they would have
deceived him less had they found him busier. For the more disengaged they
found him, the more they themselves  occupied his attention. Varro informs
us of all his efforts, and of the arts he employed to associate these gods
with himself and the city; and in its own place, if God will, I shall
discuss these matters. Meanwhile, as we are speaking of the benefits
conferred by the gods, I readily admit that peace is a great benefit; but
it is a benefit of the true God, which, like the sun, the rain, and other
supports of life, is frequently conferred on the ungrateful and wicked. But
if this great boon was conferred on Rome and Pompilius by their gods, why
did they never afterwards grant it to the Roman empire during even more
meritorious periods? Were the sacred rites more efficient at their first
institution than during their subsequent celebration? But they had no
existence in Numa's time, until he added them to the ritual; whereas
afterwards they had already been celebrated and preserved, that benefit
might arise from them. How, then, is it that those forty-three, or as
others prefer it, thirty-nine years of Numa's reign, were passed in
unbroken peace, and yet that afterwards, when the worship was established,
and the gods themselves, who were invoked by it, were the recognized
guardians and patrons of the city, we can with difficulty find during the
whole period, from the building of the city to the reign of Augustus, one
year--that, viz., which followed the close of the first Punic war--in
which, for a marvel, the Romans were able to shut the gates of war?(1)

CHAP.10.--WHETHER IT WAS DESIRABLE THAT

THE ROMAN EMPIRE SHOULD BE INCREASED BY SUCH A FURIOUS SUCCESSION OF WARS,
WHEN IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN QUIET AND SAFE BY FOLLOWING IN THE PEACEFUL WAYS OF
NUMA.

   Do they reply that the Roman empire could never have been so widely
extended, nor so glorious, save by constant and unintermitting wars? A fit
argument, truly! Why must a kingdom be distracted in order to be great? In
this little world of man's body, is it not better to have a moderate
stature, and health with it, than to attain the huge dimensions of a giant
by unnatural torments, and when you attain it to find no rest, but to be
pained the more in proportion to the size of your members? What evil would
have resulted, or rather what good would not have resulted, had those times
continued which Sallust sketched, when he says, "At first the kings (for
that was the first title of empire in the world) were divided in their
sentiments: part cultivated the mind, others the body: at that time the
life of men was led without coveteousness; every one was sufficiently
satisfied with his own!"(2) Was it requisite, then, for Rome's prosperity,
that the state of things which Virgil reprobates should succeed:

  "At length stole on a baser age
   And war's indomitable rage,
   And greedy lust of gain?"(3)

   But obviously the Romans have a plausible defence for undertaking and
carrying on such disastrous wars,--to wit, that the pressure of their
enemies forced them to resist, so that they were compelled to fight, not by
any greed of human applause, but by the necessity of protecting life and
liberty. Well, let that pass. Here is Sallust's account of the matter: "For
when their state, enriched with laws, institutions, territory, seemed
abundantly prosperous and sufficiently powerful, according to the ordinary
law of human nature, opulence gave birth to envy. Accordingly, the
neighboring kings and states took arms and assaulted them. A few allies
lent assistance; the rest, struck with fear, kept aloof from dangers. But
the Romans, watchful at home and in war, were active, made preparations,
encouraged one another, marched to meet their enemies,--protected by arms
their liberty, country, parents. Afterwards, when they had repelled the
dangers by their bravery, they carried help to their allies and friends,
and procured alliances more by conferring than by receiving favors."(4)
This was to build up Rome's greatness by honorable means. But, in Numa's
reign, I would know whether the long peace was maintained in spite of the
incursions of wicked neighbors, or if these incursions were discontinued
that the peace might be maintained? For if even then Rome was harassed by
wars, and yet did not meet force with force, the same means she then used
to quiet her enemies without conquering them in war, or terrifying them
with the onset of battle, she might have used always, and have reigned in
peace with the gates of Janus shut. And if this was not in her power, then
Rome enjoyed peace not at the will of her gods, but at the will of her
neighbors round about, and only so long as they cared to provoke her with
no war, unless perhaps these pitiful gods will dare to sell to one man as
their favor what lies not in their power to bestow, but in the will of
another man. These demons, indeed, in so far as they are permitted, can
terrify or incite the minds of wicked men by their own peculiar wickedness.
But if they always had this power, and if no action were taken against
their efforts by a more secret and higher power, they would be supreme to
give peace or the victories of war, which almost always fall out through
some human emotion, and frequently in opposition to the will of the gods,
as is proved not only by lying legends, which scarcely hint or signify any
grain of truth, but even by Roman history itself.

CHAP. 11.--OF THE STATUE OF APOLLO AT CUMAE, WHOSE TEARS ARE SUPPOSED TO
HAVE PORTENDED DISASTER TO THE GREEKS, WHOM THE GOD WAS UNABLE TO SUCCOR.

   And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed in the
story of the Cuman Apollo, who is said to have wept for four days during
the war with the Achaeans and King Aristonicus. And when the augurs were
alarmed at the portent, and had determined to cast the statue into the sea,
the old men of Cumae interposed, and related that a similar prodigy had
occurred to the same image during the wars against Antiochus and against
Perseus, and that by a decree of the senate, gifts had been presented to
Apollo, because the event had proved favorable to the Romans. Then
soothsayers were summoned who were supposed to have greater professional
skill, and they pronounced that the weeping of Apollo's image was
propitious to the Romans, because Cumae was a Greek colony, and that Apollo
was bewailing (and thereby presaging) the grief and calamity that was about
to light upon his own land of Greece, from which he had been brought.
Shortly afterwards it was reported that King Aristonicus was defeated and
made prisoner,--a defeat certainly opposed to the will of Apollo; and this
he indicated by even shedding tears from his marble image. And this shows
us that, though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not
altogether devoid of truth, but describe the manners of the demons in a
sufficiently fit style. For in Virgil, Diana mourned for Camilla,(1) and
Hercules wept for Pallas doomed to die.(2) This is perhaps the reason why
Numa Pompilius, too, when, enjoying prolonged peace, but without knowing or
inquiring from whom he received it, he began in his leisure to consider to
what gods he should entrust the safe keeping and conduct of Rome, and not
dreaming that the true, almighty, and most high God cares for earthly
affairs, but recollecting only that the Trojan gods which Aeneas had
brought to Italy had been able to preserve neither the Trojan nor Lavinian
kingdom rounded by Aeneas himself, concluded that he must provide other
gods as guardians of fugitives and helpers of the weak, and add them to
those earlier divinities who had either come over to Rome with Romulus, or
when Alba was destroyed.

CHAP. 12.--THAT THE ROMANS ADDED A VAST NUMBER OF GODS TO THOSE INTRODUCED
BY NUMA, AND THAT THEIR NUMBERS HELPED THEM NOT AT ALL.

   But though Pompilius introduced so ample a ritual, yet did not Rome see
fit to be content with it. For as yet Jupiter himself had not his chief
temple,--it being King Tarquin who built the Capitol. And Aesculapius left
Epidaurus for Rome, that in this foremost city he might have a finer field
for the exercise of his great medical skill.(3) The mother of the gods,
too, came I know not whence from Pessinuns; it being unseemly that, while
her son presided on the Capitoline hill, she herself should lie hid in
obscurity. But if she is the mother of all the gods, she not only followed
some of her children to Rome, but left others to follow her. I wonder,
indeed, if she were the mother of Cynocephalus, who a long while afterwards
came from Egypt. Whether also the goddess Fever was her offspring, is a
matter for her grandson Aesculapius(4) to decide. But of whatever breed she
be, the foreign gods will not presume, I trust, to call a goddess base-born
who is a Roman citizen. Who can number the deities to whom the guardianship
of Rome was entrusted? Indigenous and imported, both of heaven, earth,
hell, seas, fountains, rivers; and, as Varro says, gods certain and
uncertain, male and female: for, as among animals, so among all kinds of
gods are there these distinctions. Rome, then, enjoying the protection of
such a cloud of deities, might surely have been preserved from some of
those great and horrible calamities, of which I can mention but a few. For
by the great smoke of her altars she summoned to her protection, as by a
beacon-fire, a host of gods, for whom she appointed and maintained temples,
altars, sacrifices, priests, and thus offended the true and most high God,
to whom alone all this ceremonial is lawfully due. And, indeed, she was
more prosperous when she had fewer gods; but the greater she became, the
more gods she thought she should have, as the larger ship needs to be
manned by a larger crew. I suppose she despaired of the smaller number,
under whose protection she had spent comparatively happy days, being able
to defend her greatness. For even under the kings (with the exception of
Numa Pompilius, of whom I have already spoken), how wicked a
contentiousness must have existed to occasion the death of Romulus'
brother!

CHAP. 13.--BY WHAT RIGHT OR AGREEMENT THE  ROMANS OBTAINED THEIR FIRST
WIVES.

   How is it that neither Juno, who with her husband Jupiter even then
cherished

   "Rome's sons, the nation of the gown,"(5)

nor Venus herself, could assist the children of the loved Aeneas to find
wives by some right and equitable means? For the lack of this entailed upon
the Romans the lamentable necessity of stealing their wives, and then
waging war with their fathers-in-law; so that the wretched women, before
they had recovered from the wrong done them by their husbands, were dowried
with the blood of their fathers. "But the Romans conquered their
neighbors." Yes; but with what wounds on both sides, and with what sad
slaughter of relatives and neighbors! The war of Caesar and Pompey was the
contest of only one father-in-law with one son-in-law; and before it began,
the daughter of Caesar, Pompey's wife, was already dead. But with how keen
and just an accent of grief does Lucan(1) exclaim: "I sing that worse than
civil war waged in the plains of Emathia, and in which the crime was
justified by the victory!"

   The Romans, then, conquered that they might, with hands stained in the
blood of their fathers-in-law, wrench the miserable girls from their
embrace,--girls who dared not weep for their slain parents, for fear of
offending their victorious husbands; and while yet the battle was raging,
stood with their prayers on their lips, and knew not for whom to utter
them. Such nuptials were certainly prepared for the Roman people not by
Venus, but Bellona; or possibly that infernal fury Alecto had more liberty
to injure them now that Juno was aiding them, than when the prayers of that
goddess had excited her against Aeneas. Andromache in captivity was happier
than these Roman brides. For though she was a slave, yet, after she had
become the wife of Pyrrhus, no more Trojans fell by his hand but the Romans
slew in battle the very fathers of the brides they fondled. Andromache, the
victor's captive, could only mourn, not fear, the death of her people. The
Sabine women, related to men still combatants, feared the death of their
fathers when their husbands went out to battle, and mourned their death as
they returned, while neither their grief nor their fear could be freely
expressed. For the victories of their husbands, involving the destruction
of fellow-townsmen, relatives, brothers, fathers, caused either pious agony
or cruel exultation. Moreover, as the fortune of war is capricious, some of
them lost their husbands by the sword of their parents, while others lost
husband and father together in mutual destruction. For the Romans by no
means escaped with impunity, but they were driven back within their walls,
and defended themselves behind closed gates; and when the gates were opened
by guile, and the enemy admitted into the town, the Forum itself was the
field of a hateful and fierce engagement of fathers-in-law and sons-in-law.
The ravishers were indeed quite defeated, and, flying on all sides to their
houses, sullied with new shame their original shameful and lamentable
triumph. It was at this juncture that Romulus, hoping no more from the
valor of his citizens, prayed Jupiter that they might stand their ground;
and from this occasion the god gained the name of Stator. But not even thus
would the mischief have been finished, had not the ravished women
themselves flashed out with dishevelled hair, and cast themselves before
their parents, and thus disarmed their just rage, not with the arms of
victory, but with the supplications of filial affection. Then Romulus, who
could not brook his own brother as a colleague, was compelled to accept
Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, as his partner on the throne. But how
long would he who misliked the fellowship of his own twin-brother endure a
stranger? So, Tatius being slain, Romulus remained sole king, that he might
be the greater god. See what rights of marriage these were that fomented
unnatural wars. These were the Roman leagues of kindred, relationship,
alliance, religion. This was the life of the city so abundantly protected
by the gods. You see how many severe things might be said on this theme;
but our purpose carries us past them, and requires our discourse for other
matters.

CHAP. 14.--OF THE WICKEDNESS OF THE WAR WAGED BY THE ROMANS AGAINST THE
ALBANS, AND OF THE VICTORIES WON BY THE LUST OF POWER.

   But what happened after Numa's reign, and under the other kings, when
the Albans were provoked into war, with sad results not to themselves
alone, but also to the Romans? The long peace of Numa had become tedious;
and with what endless slaughter and detriment of both states did the Roman
and Alban armies bring it to an end! For Alba, which had been rounded by
Ascanius, son of Aeneas, and which was more properly the mother of Rome
than Troy herself, was provoked to battle by Tullus Hostilius, king of
Rome, and in the conflict both inflicted and received such damage, that at
length both parties wearied of the struggle. It was then devised that the
war should be decided by the combat of three twin-brothers from each army:
from the Romans the three Horatii stood forward, from the Albans the three
Curiatii. Two of the Horatii were overcome and disposed of by the Curiatii;
but by the remaining Horatius the three Curiatii were slain. Thus Rome
remained victorious, but with such a sacrifice that only one survivor
returned to his home. Whose was the loss on both sides? Whose the grief,
but of the offspring of Aeneas, the descendants of Ascanius, the progeny of
Venus, the grandsons of Jupiter? For this, too, was a "worse than civil"
war, in which the belligerent states were mother and daughter. And to this
combat of the three twin-brothers there was added another atrocious and
horrible catastrophe. For as the two nations had formerly been friendly
(being related and neighbors), the sister of the Horatii had been betrothed
to one of the Curiatii; and she, when she saw her brother wearing the
spoils of her betrothed, burst into tears, and was slain by her own brother
in his anger. To me, this one girl seems to have been more humane than the
Whole Roman people. I cannot think her to blame for lamenting the man to
whom already she had plighted her troth, or, as perhaps she was doing, for
grieving that her brother should have slain him to whom he had promised his
sister. For why do we praise the grief of Aeneas (in Virgil(1)) over the
enemy cut down even by his own hand? Why did Marcellus shed tears over the
city of Syracuse, when he recollected, just before he destroyed, its
magnificence and meridian glory, and thought upon the common lot of all
things? I demand, in the name of humanity, that if men are praised for
tears shed over enemies conquered by themselves, a weak girl should not be
counted criminal for bewailing her lover slaughtered by the hand of her
brother. While, then, that maiden was weeping for the death of her
betrothed inflicted by her brother's hand, Rome was rejoicing that such
devastation had been wrought on her mother state, and that she had
purchased a victory with such an expenditure of the common blood of herself
and the Albans.

   Why allege to me the mere names and words of "glory" and "victory?"
Tear off the disguise of wild delusion, and look at the naked deeds: weigh
them naked, judge them naked. Let the charge be brought against Alba, as
Troy was charged with adultery. There is no such charge, none like it
found: the war was kindled only in order that there

  "Might sound in languid ears the cry
   Of Tullus and of victory."(2)

This vice of restless ambition was the sole motive to that social and
parricidal war,--a vice which Sallust brands in passing; for when he has
spoken with brief but hearty commendation of those primitive times in which
life was spent without covetousness, and every one was sufficiently
satisfied with what he had, he goes on: "But after Cyrus in Asia, and the
Lacedemonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue cities and nations,
and to account the lust of sovereignty a sufficient ground for war, and to
reckon that the greatest glory consisted in the greatest empire;"(3) and so
on, as I need not now quote. This lust of sovereignty disturbs and consumes
the human race with frightful ills. By this lust Rome was overcome when she
triumphed over Alba, and praising her own crime, called it glory. For, as
our Scriptures say, "the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and
blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth."(4) Away, then, with these
deceitful masks, these deluding whitewashes, that things may be truthfully
seen and scrutinized. Let no man tell me that this and the other was a
"great" man, because he fought and conquered so and so. Gladiators fight
and conquer, and this barbarism has its meed of praise; but I think it were
better to take the consequences of any sloth, than to seek the glory won by
such arms. And if two gladiators entered the arena to fight, one being
father, the other his son, who would endure such a spectacle? who would not
be revolted by it? How, then, could that be a glorious war which a
daughter-state waged against its mother? Or did it constitute a difference,
that the battlefield was not an arena, and that the wide plains were filled
with the carcasses not of two gladiators, but of many of the flower of two
nations; and that those contests were viewed not by the amphitheatre, but
by the whole world, and furnished a profane spectacle both to those alive
at the time, and to their posterity, so long as the fame of it is handed
down?

   Yet those gods, guardians of the Roman empire, and, as it were,
theatric spectators of such contests as these, were not satisfied until the
sister of the Horatii was added by her brother's sword as a third victim
from the Roman side, so that Rome herself, though she won the day, should
have as many deaths to mourn. Afterwards, as a fruit of the victory, Alba
was destroyed, though it was there the Trojan gods had formed a third
asylum after Ilium had been sacked by the Greeks, and after they had left
Lavinium, where Aeneas had founded a kingdom in a land of banishment. But
probably Alba was destroyed because from it too the gods had migrated, in
their usual fashion, as Virgil says:

  "Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,
   Are those who made this realm divine."(5)

Gone, indeed, and from now their third asylum, that Rome might seem all the
wiser m committing herself to them after they had deserted three other
cities. Alba, whose king Amulius had banished his brother, displeased them;
Rome, whose king Romulus had slain his brother, pleased them. But before
Alba was destroyed, its population, they say, was amalgamated with the
inhabitants of Rome so that the two cities were one. Well, admitting it was
so, yet the fact remains that the city of Ascanius, the third retreat of
the Trojan gods, was destroyed by the daughter-city. Besides, to effect
this pitiful conglomerate of the war's leavings, much blood was spilt on
both sides. And how shall I speak in detail of the same wars, so often
renewed in subsequent reigns, though they seemed to have been finished by
great victories; and of wars that time after time were brought to an end by
great slaughters, and which yet time after time were renewed by the
posterity of those who had made peace and struck treaties? Of this
calamitous history we have no small proof, in the fact that no subsequent
king closed the gates of war; and therefore with all their tutelar gods, no
one of them reigned in peace.

CHAP. 15.--WHAT MANNER OF LIFE AND DEATH THE ROMAN KINGS HAD.

   And what was the end of the kings themselves? Of Romulus, a flattering
legend tells us that he was assumed into heaven. But certain Roman
historians relate that he was torn in pieces by the senate for his
ferocity, and that a man, Julius Proculus, was suborned to give out that
Romulus had appeared to him, and through him commanded the Roman people to
worship him as a god; and that in this way the people, who were beginning
to resent the action of the senate, were quieted and pacified. For an
eclipse of the sun had also happened; and this was attributed to the divine
power of Romulus by the ignorant multitude, who did not know that it was
brought about by the fixed laws of the sun's course: though this grief of
the sun might rather have been considered proof that Romulus had been
slain, and that the crime was indicated by this deprivation of the sun's
light; as, in truth, was the case when the Lord was crucified through the
cruelty and impiety of the Jews. For it is sufficiently demonstrated that
this latter obscuration of the sun did not occur by the natural laws of the
heavenly bodies, because it was then the Jewish Passover, which is held
only at full moon, whereas natural eclipses of the sun happen only at the
last quarter of the moon. Cicero, too, shows plainly enough that the
apotheosis of Romulus was imaginary rather than real, when, even while he
is praising him in one of Scipio's remarks in the De Republica, he says:
"Such a reputation had he acquired, that when he suddenly disappeared
during an eclipse of the sun, he was supposed to have been assumed into the
number of the gods, which could be supposed of no mortal who had not the
highest reputation for virtue."(1) By these words, "he suddenly
disappeared," we are to understand that he was mysteriously made away with
by the violence either of the tempest or of a murderous assault. For their
other writers speak not only of an eclipse, but of a sudden storm also,
which certainly either afforded opportunity for the crime, or itself made
an end of Romulus. And of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king of Rome,
and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero in the same book says,
that "he was not supposed to have been deified by this death, possibly
because the Romans were unwilling W vulgarize the promotion they were
assured or persuaded of in the case of Romulus, lest they should bring it
into contempt by gratuitously assigning it to all and sundry." In one of
his invectives,(2) too, he says, in round terms, "The founder of this city,
Romulus, we have raised to immortality and divinity by kindly celebrating
his services;" implying that his deification was not real, but reputed, and
called so by courtesy on account of his virtues. In the dialogue
Hortensius. too, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the sun, he says
that they "produce the same darkness as covered the death of Romulus, which
happened during an eclipse of the sun." Here you see he does not at all
shrink from speaking of his "death," for Cicero was more of a reasoner than
an eulogist.

   The other kings of Rome, too, with the exception of Numa Pompilius and
Ancus Marcius, who died natural deaths, what horrible ends they had! Tullus
Hostilius, the conqueror and destroyer of Alba, was, as I said, himself and
all his house consumed by lightning. Priscus Tarquinius was slain by his
predecessor's sons. Servius Tullius was foully murdered by his son-in-law
Tarquinius Super-bus, who succeeded him on the throne. Nor did so flagrant
a parricide committed against Rome's best king drive from their altars and
shrines those gods who were said to have been moved by Paris' adultery to
treat poor Troy in this style, and abandon it to the fire and sword of the
Greeks. Nay, the very Tarquin who had murdered, was allowed to succeed his
father-in-law. And this infamous parricide, during the reign he had secured
by murder, was allowed to triumph in many victorious wars, and to build the
Capitol from their spoils; the gods meanwhile not departing, but abiding,
and abetting, and suffering their king Jupiter to preside and reign over
them in that very splendid Capitol, the work of a parricide. For he did not
build the Capitol in the days of his innocence, and then suffer banishment
for subsequent crimes; but to that reign during which he built the Capitol,
he won his way by unnatural crime. And when he was afterwards banished by
the Romans, and forbidden the city, it was not for his own but his son's
wickedness in the affair of Lucretia,--a crime perpetrated not only without
his cognizance, but in his absence. For at that time he was besieging
Ardea, and fighting Rome's battles; and we cannot say what he would have
done had he been aware of his son's crime. Notwithstanding, though his
opinion was neither inquired into nor ascertained, the people stripped him
of royalty; and when he returned to Rome with his army, it was admitted,
but he was excluded, abandoned by his troops, and the gates shut in his
face. And yet, after he had appealed to the neighboring states, and
tormented the Romans with calamitous but unsuccessful wars, and when he was
deserted by the ally on whom he most depended, despairing of regaining the
kingdom, he lived a retired and quiet life for fourteen years, as it is
reported, in Tusculum, a Roman town, where he grew old in his wife's
company, and at last terminated his days in a much more desirable fashion
than his father-in-law, who had perished by the hand of his son-in-law; his
own daughter abetting, if report be true. And this Tarquin the Romans
called, not the Cruel, nor the Infamous, but the Proud; their own pride
perhaps resenting his tyrannical airs. So little did they make of his
murdering their best king, his own father-in-law, that they elected him
their own king. I wonder if it was not even more criminal in them to reward
so bountifully so great a criminal. And yet there was no word of the gods
abandoning the altars; unless, perhaps, some one will say in defence of the
gods, that they remained at Rome for the purpose of punishing the Romans,
rather than of aiding and profiting them, seducing them by empty victories,
and wearing them out by severe wars. Such was the life of the Romans under
the kings during the much-praised epoch of the state which extends to the
expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus in the 243d year, during which all those
victories, which were bought with so much blood and such disasters, hardly
pushed Rome's dominion twenty miles from the city; a territory which would
by no means bear comparison with that of any petty Gaetulian state.

CHAP. 16.--OF THE FIRST ROMAN CONSULS THE ONE OF WHOM DROVE THE OTHER FROM
THE COUNTRY, AND SHORTLY AFTER PERISHED AT ROME BY THE HAND OF A WOUNDED
ENEMY, AND SO ENDED A CAREER OF UNNATURAL MURDERS.

   To this epoch let us add also that of which Sallust says, that it was
ordered with justice and moderation, while the fear of Tarquin and of a war
with Etruria was impending. For so long as the Etrurians aided the efforts
of Tarquin to regain the throne, Rome was convulsed with distressing war.
And therefore he says that the state was ordered with justice and
moderation, through the pressure of fear, not through the influence of
equity. And in this very brief period, how calamitous a year was that in
which consuls were first created, when the kingly power was abolished! They
did not fulfill their term of office. For Junius Brutus deprived his
colleague Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, and banished him from the city; and
shortly after he himself fell in battle, at once slaying and slain, having
formerly put to death his own sons and his brothers-in-law, because he had
discovered that they were conspiring to restore Tarquin. It is this deed
that Virgil shudders to record, even while he seems to praise it; for when
he says:

   "And call his own rebellious seed
   For menaced liberty to bleed,"

he immediately exclaims,

  "Unhappy father! howsoe'er
   The deed be judged by after days;"

that is to say, let posterity judge the deed as they please, let them
praise and extol the father who slew his sons, he is unhappy. And then he
adds,as if to console so unhappy a man:

  "His country's love shall all o'erbear,
   And unextinguished thirst of praise."(1)

In the tragic end of Brutus, who slew his own sons, and though he slew his
enemy, Tarquin's son, yet could not survive him, but was survived by
Tarquin the elder, does not the innocence of his colleague Collatinus seem
to be vindicated, who, though a good citizen, suffered the same punishment
as Tarquin himself, when that tyrant was banished? For Brutus himself is
said to have been a relative(2) of Tarquin. But Collatinus had the
misfortune to bear not only the blood, but the name of Tarquin. To change
his name, then, not his country, would have been his fit penalty: to
abridge his name by this word, and be called simply L. Collatinus. But he
was not compelled to lose what he could lose without detriment, but was
stripped of the honor of the first consulship, and was banished from the
land he loved. Is this, then, the glory of Brutus--this injustice, alike
detestable and profitless to the republic? Was it to this he was driven by
"his country's love, and unextinguished thirst of praise?"

   When Tarquin the tyrant was expelled, L. Tarquinius Collatinus, the
husband of Lucretia, was created consul along with Brutus. How justly the
people acted, in looking more to the character than the name of a citizen!
How unjustly Brutus acted, in depriving of honor and country his colleague
in that new office, whom he might have deprived of his name, if it were so
offensive to him! Such were the ills, such the disasters, which fell out
when the government was "ordered with justice and moderation." Lucretius,
too, who succeeded Brutus, was carried off by disease before the end of
that same year. So P. Valerius, who succeeded Collatinus, and M. Horatius,
who filled the vacancy occasioned by the death of Lucretius, completed that
disastrous and funereal year, which had five consuls. Such was the year in
which the Roman republic inaugurated the new honor and office of the
consulship.

CHAP. 17.--OF THE DISASTERS WHICH VEXED THE ROMAN REPUBLIC AFTER THE
INAUGURATION OF THE CONSULSHIP, AND OF THE NON-INTERVENTION OF THE GODS OF
ROME.

   After this, when their fears were gradually diminished,--not because
the wars ceased, but because they were not so furious,--that period in
which things were "ordered with justice and moderation" drew to an end, and
there followed that state of matters which Sallust thus briefly sketches:
"Then began the patricians to oppress the people as slaves, to condemn them
to death or scourging, as the kings had done, to drive them from their
holdings, and to tyrannize over those who had no property to lose. The
people, overwhelmed by these oppressive measures, and most of all by usury,
and obliged to contribute both money and personal service to the constant
wars, at length took arms and seceded to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer,
and thus secured for themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was
only the second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and
strife."(1) But why should I spend time in writing such things, or make
others spend it in reading them? Let the terse summary of Sallust suffice
to intimate the misery of the republic through all that long period till
the second Punic war,--how it was distracted from without by unceasing
wars, and tom with civil broils and dissensions. So that those victories
they boast were not the substantial joys of the happy, but the empty
comforts of wretched men, and seductive incitements to turbulent men to
concoct disasters upon disasters. And let not the good and prudent Romans
be angry at our saying this; and indeed we need neither deprecate nor
denounce their anger, for we know they will harbor none. For we speak no
more severely than their own authors, and much less elaborately and
strikingly; yet they diligently read these authors, and compel their
children to learn them. But they who are angry, what would they do to me
were I to say what Sallust says? "Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last
civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were
dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the
good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad without
reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt);
but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens,
because they maintained the existing state of things." Now, if those
historians judged that an honorable freedom of speech required that they
should not be silent regarding the blemishes of their own state, which they
have in many places loudly applauded in their ignorance of that other and
true city in which citizenship is an everlasting dignity; what does it
become us to do, whose liberty ought to be so much greater, as our hope in
God is better and more assured, when they impute to our Christ the
calamities of this age, in order that men of the less instructed and weaker
sort may be alienated from that city in which alone eternal and blessed
life can be enjoyed? Nor do we utter against their gods anything more
horrible than their own authors do, whom they read and circulate. For,
indeed, all that we have said we have derived from them, and there is much
more to say of a worse kind which we are unable to say.

   Where, then, were those gods who are supposed to be justly worshipped
for the slender and delusive prosperity of this world, when the Romans, who
were seduced to their service by lying wiles, were harassed by such
calamities? Where were they when Valerius the consul was killed while
defending the Capitol, that had been fired by exiles and slaves? He was
himself better able to defend the temple of Jupiter, than that crowd of
divinities with their most high and mighty king, whose temple he came to
the rescue of were able to defend him. Where were they when the city, worn
out with unceasing seditions, was waiting in some kind of calm for the
return of the ambassadors who had been sent to Athens to borrow laws, and
was desolated by dreadful famine and pestilence? Where were they when the
people, again distressed with famine, created for the first time a prefect
of the market; and when Spurius Melius, who, as the famine increased,
distributed corn to the furnishing masses, was accused of aspiring to
royalty, and at the instance of this same prefect, and on the authority of
the superannuated dictator L. Quintius, was put to death by Quintus
Servilius, master of the horse,--an event which occasioned a serious and
dangerous riot? Where were they when that very severe pestilence visited
Rome, on account of which the people, after long and wearisome and useless
supplications of the helpless gods, conceived the idea of celebrating
Lectisternia, which had never been done before; that is to say, they set
couches in honor of the gods, which accounts for the name of this sacred
rite, or rather sacrilege?(1) Where were they when, during ten successive
years of reverses, the Roman army suffered frequent and great losses among
the Veians and would have been destroyed but for the succor of Furius
Camillus, who was afterwards banished by an ungrateful country? Where were
they when the Gauls took sacked, burned, and desolated Rome? Where were
they when that memorable pestilence wrought such destruction, in which
Furius Camillus too perished, who first defended the ungrateful republic
from the Veians, and afterwards saved it from the Gauls? Nay, during this
plague, they introduced a new pestilence of scenic entertainments, which
spread its more fatal contagion, not to the bodies, but the morals of the
Romans? Where were they when another frightful pestilence visited the city-
-I mean the poisonings imputed to an incredible number of noble Roman
matrons, whose characters were infected with a disease more fatal than any
plague? Or when both consuls at the head of the army were beset by the
Samnites in the Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty, 600
Roman knights being kept as hostages; while the troops, having laid down
their arms, and being stripped of everything, were made to pass under the
yoke with one garment each? Or when, in the midst of a serious pestilence,
lightning struck the Roman camp and killed many? Or when Rome was driven,
by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send to Epidaurus for
Aesculapius as a god of medicine; since the frequent adulteries of Jupiter
in his youth had not perhaps left this king of all who so long reigned in
the Capitol, any leisure for the study of medicine? Or when, at one time,
the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites, Tuscans, and Senonian Gauls conspired
against Rome, and first slew her ambassadors, then overthrew an army under
the praetor, putting to the sword 13,000 men, besides the commander and
seven tribunes? Or when the people, after the serious and long-continued
disturbances at Rome, at last plundered the city and withdrew to Janiculus;
a danger so grave, that Hortensius was created dictator,--an office which
they had recourse to only in extreme emergencies; and he, having brought
back the people, died while yet he retained his office,--an event without
precedent in the case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those gods
who had now Aesculapius among them?

   At that time, indeed, so many wars were everywhere engaged in, that
through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for military service the
proletarii, who received this name, because, being too poor to equip for
military service, they had leisure to beget offspring.(2) Pyrrhus, king of
Greece, and at that time of widespread renown, was invited by the
Tarentines to enlist himself against Rome. It was to him that Apollo, when
consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered with some
pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that whichever alternative happened, the
god himself should be counted divine. For he so worded the oracle(3) that
whether Pyrrhus was conquered by the Romans, or the Romans by Pyrrhus, the
soothsaying god would securely await the issue. And then what frightful
massacres of both armies ensued! Yet Pyrrhus remained conqueror, and would
have been able now to proclaim Apollo a true diviner, as he understood the
oracle, had not the Romans been the conquerors in the next engagement. And
while such disastrous wars were being waged, a terrible disease broke out
among the women. For the pregnant women died before delivery. And
Aesculapius, I fancy, excused himself in this matter on the ground that he
professed to be arch-physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, similarly
perished; so that it was believed that the whole race of animals was
destined to become extinct. Then what shall I say of that memorable winter
in which the weather was so incredibly severe, that in the Forum
frightfully deep snow lay for forty days together, and the Tiber was
frozen? Had such things happened in our time, what accusations we should
have heard from our enemies! And that other great pestilence, which raged
so long and carried off so many; what shall I say of it? Spite of all the
drugs of Aesculapius, it only grew worse in its second year, till at last
recourse was had to the Sibylline books,--a kind of oracle which, as Cicero
says in his De Divinatione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make
doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish. In this instance, the
cause of the plague was said to be that so many temples had been used as
private residences. And thus Aesculapius for the present escaped the charge
of either ignominious negligence or want of skill. But why were so many
allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference, unless because
supplication had long been addressed in vain to such a crowd of gods, and
so by degrees the sacred places were deserted of worshippers, and being
thus vacant, could without offence be put at least to some human uses? And
the temples, which were at that time laboriously recognized and restored
that the plague might be stayed, fell afterwards into disuse, and were
again devoted to the same human uses. Had they not thus lapsed into
obscurity, it could not have been pointed to as proof of Varro's great
erudition, that in his work on sacred places he cites so many that were
unknown. Meanwhile, the restoration of the temples procured no cure of the
plague, but only a fine excuse for the gods.

CHAP. 18.--THE DISASTERS SUFFERED BY THE ROMANS IN THE PUNIC WARS, WHICH
WERE NOT MITIGATED BY THE PROTECTION OF THE GODS.

   In the Punic wars, again, when victory hung so long in the balance
between the two kingdoms, when two powerful nations were straining every
nerve and using all their resources against one another, how many smaller
kingdoms were crushed, how many large and flourishing cities were
demolished, how many states were overwhelmed and ruined, how many districts
and lands far and near were desolated! How often were the victors on either
side vanquished! What multitudes of men, both of those actually in arms and
of others, were destroyed! What huge navies, too, were crippled in
engagements, or were sunk by every kind of marine disaster! Were we to
attempt to recount or mention these calamities, we should become writers of
history. At that period Rome was mightily perturbed, and resorted to vain
and ludicrous expedients. On the authority of the Sibylline books, the
secular games were re-appointed, which had been inaugurated a century
before, but had faded into oblivion in happier times. The games consecrated
to the infernal gods were also renewed by the pontiffs; for they, too, had
sunk into disuse in the better times. And no wonder; for when they were
renewed, the great abundance of dying men made all hell rejoice at its
riches, and give itself up to sport: for certainly the ferocious wars, and
disastrous quarrels, and bloody victories--now on one side, and now on the
other--though most calamitous to men, afforded great sport and a rich
banquet to the devils. But in the first Punic war there was no more
disastrous event than the Roman defeat in which Regulus was taken. We made
mention of him in the two former books as an incontestably great man, who
had before conquered and subdued the Carthaginians, and who would have put
an end to the first Punic war, had not an inordinate appetite for praise
and glory prompted him to impose on the worn-out Carthagians harder
conditions than they could bear. If the unlooked-for captivity and unseemly
bondage of this man, his fidelity to his oath, and his surpassingly cruel
death, do not bring a blush to the face of the gods, it is true that they
are brazen and bloodless.

   Nor were there wanting at that time very heavy disasters within the
city itself. For the Tiber was extraordinarily flooded, and destroyed
almost all the lower parts of the city; some buildings being carried away
by the violence of the torrent, while others were soaked to rottenness by
the water that stood round them even after the flood was gone. This
visitation was followed by a fire which was still more destructive, for it
consumed some of the loftier buildings round the Forum, and spared not even
its own proper temple, that of Vesta, in which virgins chosen for this
honor, or rather for this punishment, had been employed in conferring, as
it were, everlasting life on fire, by ceaselessly feeding it with fresh
fuel. But at the time we speak of, the fire in the temple was not content
with being kept alive: it raged. And when the virgins, scared by its
vehemence, were unable to save those fatal images which had already brought
destruction on three cities(1)  in which they had been received, Metellus
the priest, forgetful of his own safety, rushed in and rescued the sacred
things, though he was half roasted in doing so. For either the fire did not
recognize even him, or else the goddess of fire was there,--a goddess who
would not have fled from the fire supposing she had been there. But here
you see how a man could be of greater service to Vesta than she could be to
him. Now if these gods could not avert the fire from themselves, what help
against flames or flood could they bring to the state of which they were
the reputed guardians? Facts have shown that they were useless. These
objections of ours would be idle if our adversaries maintained that their
idols are consecrated rather as symbols of things eternal, than to secure
the blessings of time; and that thus, though the symbols, like all material
and visible things, might perish, no damage thereby resulted to the things
for the sake of which they had been consecrated, while, as for the images
themselves, they could be renewed again for the same purposes they had
formerly served. But with lamentable blindness, they suppose that, through
the intervention of perishable gods, the earthly well-being and temporal
prosperity of the state can be preserved from perishing. And so, when they
are reminded that even when the gods remained among them this well-being
and prosperity were blighted, they blush to change the opinion they are
unable to defend

CHAP. 19.--OF THE CALAMITY OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR, WHICH CONSUMED THE
STRENGTH OF BOTH PARTIES.

   As to the second Punic war, it were tedious to recount the disasters it
brought on both the nations engaged in so protracted and shifting a war,
that (by the acknowledgment even of those writers who have made it their
object not so much to narrate the wars as to eulogize the dominion of Rome)
the people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than
conquered. For, when Hannibal poured out of Spain over the Pyrenees, and
overran Gaul, and burst through the Alps, and during his whole course
gathered strength by plundering and subduing as he went, and inundated
Italy like a torrent, how bloody were the wars, and how continuous the
engagements, that were fought! How often were the Romans vanquished! How
many towns went over to the enemy, and how many were taken and subdued!
What fearful battles there were, and how often did the defeat of the Romans
shed lustre on the arms of Hannibal! And what shall I say of the
wonderfully crushing defeat at Cannae, where even Hannibal, cruel as he
was, was yet sated with the blood of his bitterest enemies, and gave orders
that they be spared? From this field of battle he sent to Carthage three
bushels of gold rings, signifying that so much of the rank of Rome had that
day fallen, that it was easier to give an idea of it by measure than by
numbers and that the frightful slaughter of the common rank and file whose
bodies lay undistinguished by the ring, and who were numerous in proportion
to their meanness, was rather to be conjectured than accurately reported.
In fact, such was the scarcity of soldiers after this, that the Romans
impressed their criminals on the promise of impunity, and their slaves by
the bribe of liberty, and out of these infamous classes did not so much
recruit as create an army. But these slaves, or, to give them all their
titles, these freed-men who were enlisted to do battle for the republic of
Rome, lacked arms. And so they took arms from the temples, as if the Romans
were saying to their gods: Lay down those arms you have held so long in
vain, if by chance our slaves may be able to use to purpose what you, our
gods, have been impotent to use. At that time, too, the public treasury was
too low to pay the soldiers, and private resources were used for public
purposes; and so generously did individuals contribute of their property,
that, saving the gold ring and bulla which each wore, the pitiful mark of
his rank, no senator, and much less any of the other orders and tribes,
reserved any gold for his own use. But if in our day they were reduced to
this poverty, who would be able to endure their reproaches, barely
endurable as they are now, when more money is spent on actors for the sake
of a superfluous gratification, than was then disbursed to the legions?

CHAP. 20.--OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SAGUNTINES, WHO RECEIVED NO HELP FROM
THE ROMAN GODS, THOUGH PERISHING ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR FIDELITY TO ROME.

   But among all the disasters of the second Punic war, there occurred
none more lamentable, or calculated to excite deeper complaint, than the
fate of the Saguntines. This city of Spain, eminently friendly to Rome, was
destroyed by its fidelity to the Roman people. For when Hannibal had broken
treaty with the Romans, he sought occasion for provoking them to war, and
accordingly made a fierce assault upon Saguntum. When this was reported at
Rome, ambassadors were sent to Hannibal, urging him to raise the siege; and
when this remonstrance was neglected, they proceeded to Carthage, lodged
complaint against the breaking of the treaty, and returned to Rome without
accomplishing their object. Meanwhile the siege went on; and in the eighth
or ninth month, this opulent but ill-fated city, dear as it was to its own
state and to Rome, was taken, and subjected to treatment which one cannot
read, much less narrate, without horror. And yet, because it bears directly
on the matter in hand, I will briefly touch upon it. First, then, famine
wasted the Saguntines, so that even human corpses were eaten by some: so at
least it is recorded. Subsequently, when thoroughly worn out, that they
might at least escape the ignominy of falling into the hands of Hannibal,
they publicly erected a huge funeral pile, and cast themselves into its
flames, while at the same time they slew their children and themselves with
the sword. Could these gods, these debauchees and gourmands, whose mouths
water for fat sacrifices, and whose lips utter lying divinations,--could
they not do anything in a case like this? Could they not interfere for the
preservation of a city closely allied to the Roman people, or prevent it
perishing for its fidelity to that alliance of which they themselves had
been the mediators? Saguntum, faithfully keeping the treaty it had entered
into before these gods, and to which it had firmly bound itself by an oath,
was besieged, taken, and destroyed by a perjured person. If afterwards,
when Hannibal was close to the walls of Rome, it was the gods who terrified
him with lightning and tempest, and drove him to a distance, why, I ask,
did they not thus interfere before? For I make bold to say, that this
demonstration with the tempest would have been more honorably made  in
defence of the allies of Rome--who were in danger on account of their
reluctance to break faith with the Romans, and had no resources of their
own--than in defence of the Romans themselves, who were fighting in their
own cause, and had abundant resources to oppose Hannibal. If, then, they
had been the guardians of Roman prosperity and glory, they would have
preserved that glory from the stain of this Saguntine disaster; and how
silly it is to believe that Rome was preserved from destruction at the
hands of Hannibal by the guardian care of those gods who were unable to
rescue the city of Saguntum from perishing through its fidelity to the
alliance of Rome. If the population of Saguntum had been Christian, and had
suffered as it did for the Christian faith (though, of course, Christians
would not have used fire and sword against their own persons), they would
have suffered with that hope which springs from faith in Christ--the hope
not of a brief temporal reward, but of unending and eternal bliss. What,
then, will the advocates and apologists of these gods say in their defence,
when charged with the blood of these Saguntines; for they are professedly
worshipped and invoked for this very purpose of securing prosperity in this
fleeting and transitory life? Can anything be said but what was alleged in
the case of Regulus' death? For though there is a difference between the
two cases, the one being an individual, the other a whole community, yet
the cause of destruction was in both cases the keeping of their plighted
troth. For it was this which made Regulus willing to return to his enemies,
and this which made the Saguntines unwilling to revolt to their enemies.
Does, then, the keeping of faith provoke the gods to anger? Or is it
possible that not only individuals, but even entire communities, perish
while the gods are propitious to them? Let our adversaries choose which
alternative they will. If, on the one hand, those gods are enraged at the
keeping of faith, let them enlist perjured persons as their worshippers.
If, on the other hand, men and states can suffer great and terrible
calamities, and at last perish while favored by the gods, then does their
worship not produce happiness as its fruit. Let those, therefore, who
suppose that they have fallen into distress because their religious worship
has been abolished, lay aside their anger; for it were quite possible that
did the gods not only remain with them, but regard them with favor, they
might yet be left to mourn an unhappy lot, or might, even like Regulus and
the Saguntines, be horribly tormented, and at last perish miserably.

CHAP. 21.--OF THE INGRATITUDE OF ROME TO SCIPIO, ITS DELIVERER, AND OF ITS
MANNERS DURING THE PERIOD WHICH SALLUST DESCRIBES AS THE BEST.

   Omitting many things, that I may not exceed the limits of the work I
have proposed to myself, I come to the epoch between the second and last
Punic wars, during which, according to Sallust, the Romans lived with the
greatest virtue and concord. Now, in this period of virtue and harmony, the
great Scipio, the liberator of Rome and Italy, who had with surprising
ability brought to a close the second Punic war--that horrible,
destructive, dangerous contest--who had defeated Hannibal and subdued
Carthage, and whose whole life is said to have been dedicated to the gods,
and cherished in their temples,--this Scipio, after such a triumph, was
obliged to yield to the accusations of his enemies, and to leave his
country, which his valor had saved and liberated, to spend the remainder of
his days in the town of Liternum, so indifferent to a recall from exile,
that he is said to have given orders that not even his remains should lie
in his ungrateful country. It was at that time also that the pro-consul Cn.
Manlius, after subduing the Galatians, introduced into Rome the luxury of
Asia, more destructive than all hostile armies. It was then that iron
bedsteads and expensive carpets were first used; then, too, that female
singers were admitted at banquets, and other licentious abominations were
introduced. But at present I meant to speak, not of the evils men
voluntarily practise, but of those they suffer in spite of themselves. So
that the case of Scipio, who succumbed to his enemies, and died in exile
from the country he had rescued, was mentioned by me as being pertinent to
the present discussion; for this was the reward he received from those
Roman gods whose temples he saved from Hannibal, and who are worshipped
only for the sake of securing temporal happiness. But since Sallust, as we
have seen, declares that the manners of Rome were never better than at that
time, I therefore judged it right to mention the Asiatic luxury then
introduced, that it might be seen that what he says is true, only when that
period is compared with the others during which the morals were certainly
worse, and the factions more violent. For at that time--I mean between the
second and third Punic war--that notorious Lex Voconia was passed, which
prohibited a man from making a woman, even an only daughter, his heir; than
which law I am at a loss to conceive what could be more unjust. It is true
that in the interval between these two Punic wars the misery of Rome was
somewhat less. Abroad, indeed, their forces were consumed by wars, yet also
consoled by victories; while at home there were not such disturbances as at
other times. But when the last Punic war had terminated in the utter
destruction of Rome's rival, which quickly succumbed to the other Scipio,
who thus earned for himself the, surname of Africanus, then the Roman
republic was overwhelmed with such a host of ills, which sprang from the
corrupt manners induced by prosperity and security, that the sudden
overthrow of Carthage is seen to have injured Rome more seriously than her
long-continued hostility. During the whole subsequent period down to the
time of Caesar Augustus, who seems to have entirely deprived the Romans of
liberty,--a liberty, indeed, which in their own judgment was no longer
glorious, but full of broils and dangers, and which now was quite enervated
and languishing,--and who submitted all things again to the will of a
monarch, and infused as it were a new life into the sickly old age of the
republic, and inaugurated a fresh regime;--during this whole period, I say,
many military disasters were sustained on a variety of occasions, all of
which I here pass by. There was specially the treaty of Numantia, blotted
as it was with extreme disgrace; for the sacred chickens, they say, flew
out of the coop, and thus augured disaster to Mancinus the consul; just as
if, during all these years in which that little city of Numantia had
withstood the besieging army of Rome, and had become a terror to the
republic, the other generals had all marched against it under unfavorable
auspices.

CHAP. 22.--OF THE EDICT OF MITHRIDATES, COMMANDING THAT ALL ROMANCITIZENS
FOUND IN ASIA SHOULD BE SLAIN.

   These things, I say, I pass in silence; but I can by no means be silent
regarding the order given by Mithridates, king of Asia, that on one day all
Roman citizens residing anywhere in Asia (where great numbers of them were
following their private business) should be put to death: and this order
was executed. How miserable a spectacle was then presented, when each man
was suddenly and treacherously murdered wherever he happened to be, in the
field or on the road, in the town, in his own home, or in the street, in
market or temple, in bed or at table! Think of the groans of the dying, the
tears of the spectators, and even of the executioners themselves. For how
cruel a necessity was it that compelled the hosts of these victims, not
only to see these abominable butcheries in their own houses, but even to
perpetrate them: to change their countenance suddenly from the bland
kindliness of friendship, and in the midst of peace set about the business
of war; and, shall I say, give and receive wounds, the slain being pierced
in body, the slayer in spirit! Had all these murdered persons, then,
despised auguries? Had they neither public nor household gods to consult
when they left their homes and set out on that fatal journey? If they had
not, our adversaries have no reason to complain of these Christian times in
this particular, since long ago the Romans despised auguries as idle. If,
on the other hand, they did consult omens, let them tell us what good they
got thereby, even when such things were not prohibited, but authorized, by
human, if not by divine law.

CHAP. 23.--OF THE INTERNAL DISASTERS WHICH VEXED THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, AND
FOLLOWED A PORTENTOUS MADNESS WHICH  SEIZED ALL THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

   But let us now mention, as succinctly as possible, those disasters
which were still more vexing, because nearer home; I mean those discords
which are erroneously called civil, since they destroy civil interests. The
seditions had now become urban wars, in which blood was freely shed, and in
which parties raged against one another, not with wrangling and verbal
contention, but with physical force and arms. What a sea of Roman blood was
shed, what desolations and devastations were occasioned in Italy by wars
social, wars servile wars civil! Before the Latins began the social war
against Rome, all the animals used in the service of man--dogs, horses,
asses, oxen, and all the rest that are subject to man--suddenly grew wild,
and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls and wandered
at large, and could not be closely approached either by strangers or their
own masters without danger. If this was a portent, how serious a calamity
must have been portended by a plague which, whether portent or no, was in
itself a serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the heathen would
have been more rabid against us than their animals were against them.

CHAP. 24.--OF THE CIVIL DISSENSION OCCASIONED BY THE SEDITION OF THE
GRACCHI.

   The civil wars originated in the seditions which the Gracchi excited
regarding the agrarian laws; for they were minded to divide among the
people the lands which were wrongfully possessed by the nobility. But to
reform an abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full of peril, or
rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what disasters accompanied
the death of the older Gracchus! what slaughter ensued when, shortly after,
the younger brother met the same fate! For noble and ignoble were
indiscriminately massacred; and this not by legal authority and procedure,
but by mobs and armed rioters. After the death of the younger Gracchus, the
consul Lucius Opimius, who had given battle to him within the city, and had
defeated and put to the sword both himself and his confederates, and had
massacred many of the citizens, instituted a judicial examination of
others, and is reported to have put to death as many as 3000 men. From this
it may be gathered how many fell in the riotous encounters, when the result
even of a judicial investigation was so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus
himself sold his head to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the
previous agreement. In this massacre, too, Marcus Fulvius, a man of
consular rank, with all his children, was put to death.

CHAP. 25.--OF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD, WHICH WAS ERECTED BY A DECREE OF THE
SENATE ON THE SCENE OF THESE SEDITIONS AND MASSACRES.

   A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by which the temple of
Concord was built on the spot where that disastrous rising had taken place,
and where so many citizens of every rank had fallen.(1) I suppose it was
that the monument of the Gracchi's punishment might strike the eye and
affect the memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to deride the
gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she been in the city,
would not have suffered herself to be torn by such dissensions? Or was it
that Concord was chargeable with that bloodshed because she had deserted
the minds of the citizens, and was therefore incarcerated in that temple?
For if they had any regard to consistency, why did they not rather erect on
that site a temple of Discord? Or is there a reason for Concord being a
goddess while Discord is none? Does the distinction of Labeo hold here, who
would have made the one a good, the other an evil deity?--a distinction
which seems to have been suggested to him by the mere fact of his observing
at Rome a temple to Fever as well as one to Health. But, on the same
ground, Discord as well as Concord ought to be deified. A hazardous venture
the Romans made in provoking so wicked a goddess, and in forgetting that
the destruction of Troy had been occasioned by her taking offence. For,
being indignant that she was not invited with the other gods [to the
nuptials of Peleus and Thetis], she created dissension among the three
goddesses by sending in the golden apple, which occasioned strife in
heaven, victory to Venus, the rape of Helen, and the destruction of Troy.
Wherefore, if she was perhaps offended that the Romans had not thought her
worthy of a temple among the other gods in their city, and therefore
disturbed the state with such tumults, to how much fiercer passion would
she be roused when she saw the temple of her adversary erected on the scene
of that massacre, or, in other words, on the scene of her own handiwork!
Those wise and learned men are enraged at our laughing at these follies;
and yet, being worshippers of good and bad divinities alike, they cannot
escape this dilemma about Concord and Discord: either they have neglected
the worship of these goddesses, and preferred Fever and War, to whom there
are shrines erected of great antiquity, or they have worshipped them, and
after all Concord has abandoned them, and Discord has tempestuously hurled
them into civil wars.

CHAP. 26.--OF THE VARIOUS KINDS OF WARS WHICH FOLLOWED THE BUILDING OF THE
TEMPLE OF CONCORD.

   But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord within the
view of the orators, as a memorial of the punishment and death of the
Gracchi, they were raising an effectual obstacle to sedition. How much
effect it had, is indicated by the still more deplorable wars that
followed. For after this the orators endeavored not to avoid the example of
the Gracchi, but to surpass their projects; as did Lucius Saturninus, a
tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius the praetor, and some time after
Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred seditions which first of all occasioned
bloodshed, and then the social wars by which Italy was grievously injured,
and reduced to a piteously desolate and wasted condition. Then followed the
servile war and the civil wars; and in them what battles were fought, and
what blood was shed, so that almost all the peoples of Italy, which formed
the main strength of the Roman empire, were conquered as if they were
barbarians! Then even historians themselves find it difficult to explain
how the servile war was begun by a very few, certainly less than seventy
gladiators, what numbers of fierce and cruel men attached themselves to
these, how many of the Roman generals this band defeated, and how it laid
waste many districts and cities. And that was not the only servile war: the
province of Macedonia, and subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also
depopulated by bands of slaves. And who can adequately describe either the
horrible atrocities which the pirates first committed, or the wars they
afterwards maintained against Rome?

CHAP. 27.--OF THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN MARIUS AND SYLLA.

   But when Marius, stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens, whom
the rage of party had sacrificed, was in his turn vanquished and driven
from the city, it had scarcely time to breathe freely, when, to use the
words of Cicero, "Cinna and Marius together returned and took possession of
it. Then, indeed, the foremost men in the state were put to death, its
lights quenched. Sylla afterwards avenged this cruel victory; but we need
not say with what loss of life, and with what ruin to the republic."(1) For
of this vengeance, which was more destructive than if the crimes which it
punished had been committed with impunity, Lucan says: "The cure was
excessive, and too closely resembled the disease. The guilty perished, but
when none but the guilty survived: and then private hatred and anger,
unbridled by law, were allowed free indulgence."(2) In that war between
Marius and Sylla, besides those who fell in the field of battle, the city,
too, was filled with corpses in its streets, squares, markets, theatres,
and temples; so that it is not easy to reckon whether the victors slew more
before or after victory, that they might be, or because they were, victors.
As soon as Marius triumphed, and returned from exile, besides the
butcheries everywhere perpetrated, the head of the consul Octavius was
exposed on the rostrum: Caesar and Fimbria were assassinated in their own
houses; the two Crassi, father and son, were murdered in one another's
sight; Bebius and Numitorius were disembowelled by being dragged with
hooks; Catulus escaped the hands of his enemies by drinking poison; Merula,
the flamen of Jupiter, cut his veins and made a libation of his own blood
to his god. Moreover, every one whose salutation Marius did not answer by
giving his hand, was at once cut down before his face.

CHAP. 28.--OF THE VICTORY OF SYLLA, THE AVENGER OF THE CRUELTIES OF MARIUS.

   Then followed the victory of Sylla, the so-called avenger of the
cruelties of Marius. But not only was his victory purchased with great
bloodshed; but when hostilities were finished, hostility survived, and the
subsequent peace was bloody as the war. To the former and still recent
massacres of the elder Marius, the younger Marius and Carbo, who belonged
to the same party, added greater atrocities. For when Sylla approached, and
they despaired not only of victory, but of life itself, they made a
promiscuous massacre of friends and foes. And, not satisfied with staining
every corner of Rome with blood, they besieged the senate, and led forth
the senators to death from the curia as from a prison. Mucius Scaevola the
pontiff was slain at the altar of Vesta, which he had clung to because no
spot in Rome was more sacred than her temple; and his blood well-nigh
extinguished the fire which was kept alive by the constant care of the
virgins. Then Sylla entered the city victorious, after having slaughtered
in the Villa Publica, not by combat, but by an order, 7000 men who had
surrendered, and were therefore unarmed; so fierce was the rage of peace
itself, even after the rage of war was extinct. Moreover, throughout the
whole city every partisan of Sylla slew whom he pleased, so that the number
of deaths went beyond computation, till it was suggested to Sylla that he
should allow some to survive, that the victors might not be destitute of
subjects. Then this furious and promiscuous licence to murder was checked,
and much relief was expressed at the publication of the proscription list,
containing though it did the death-warrant of two thousand men of the
highest ranks, the senatorial and equestrian. The large number was indeed
saddening, but it was consolatory that a limit was fixed; nor was the grief
at the numbers slain so great as the joy that the rest were secure. But
this very security, hard-hearted as it was, could not but bemoan the
exquisite torture applied to some of those who had been doomed to die. For
one was torn to pieces by the unarmed hands of the executioners; men
treating a living man more savagely than wild beasts are used to tear an
abandoned corpse. Another had his eyes dug out, and his limbs cut away bit
by bit, and was forced to live a long while, or rather to die a long while,
in such torture. Some celebrated cities were put up to auction, like farms;
and one was collectively condemned to slaughter, just as an individual
criminal would be condemned to death. These things were done in peace when
the war was over, not that victory might be more speedily obtained, but
that, after being obtained, it might not be thought lightly of. Peace Pied
with war in cruelty, and surpassed it: for while war overthrew armed hosts,
peace slew the defenceless. War gave liberty to him who was attacked, to
strike if he could; peace granted to the survivors not life, but an
unresisting death.

CHAP. 29.--A COMPARISON OF THE DISASTERS WHICH ROME EXPERIENCED DURING THE
GOTHIC AND GALLIC INVASIONS, WITH THOSE OCCASIONED BY THE AUTHORS OF THE
CIVIL WARS.

   What fury of foreign nations, what barbarian ferocity, can compare with
this victory of citizens over citizens? Which was more disastrous, more
hideous, more bitter to Rome: the recent Gothic and the old Gallic
invasion, or the cruelty displayed by Marius and Sylla and their partisans
against men who were members of the same body as themselves? The Gauls,
indeed, massacred all the senators they found in any part of the city
except the Capitol, which alone was defended; but they at least sold life
to those who were in the Capitol, though they might have starved them out
if they could not have stormed it. The Goths, again, spared so many
senators, that it is the more surprising that they killed any. But Sylla,
while Marius was still living, established himself as conqueror in the
Capitol, which the Gauls had not violated, and thence issued his death-
warrants; and when Marius had escaped by flight, though destined to return
more fierce and bloodthirsty than ever, Sylla issued from the Capitol even
decrees of the senate for the slaughter and confiscation of the property of
many citizens. Then, when Sylla left, what did the Marian faction hold
sacred or spare, when they gave no quarter even to Mucius, a citizen, a
senator, a pontiff, and though clasping in piteous embrace the very altar
in which, they say, reside the destinies of Rome? And that final
proscription list of Sylla's, not to mention countless other massacres,
despatched more senators than the Goths could even plunder.

CHAP. 30.--OF THE CONNECTION OF THE WARS WHICH WITH GREAT SEVERITY AND
FREQUENCY FOLLOWED ONE ANOTHER BEFORE THE ADVENT OF CHRIST.

   With what effrontery, then, with what assurance, with what impudence,
with what folly, or rather insanity, do they refuse to impute these
disasters to their own gods, and impute the present to our Christ! These
bloody civil wars, more distressing, by the avowal of their own historians,
than any foreign wars, and which were pronounced to be not merely
calamitous, but absolutely ruinous to the republic, began long before the
coming of Christ, and gave birth to one another; so that a concatenation of
unjustifiable causes led from the wars of Marius and Sylla to those of
Sertorius and Cataline, of whom the one was proscribed, the other brought
up by Sylla; from this to the war of Lepidus and Catulus, of whom the one
wished to rescind, the other to defend the acts of Sylla; from this to the
war of Pompey and Caesar, of whom Pompey had been a partisan of Sylla,
whose power he equalled or even surpassed, while Caesar condemned Pompey's
power because it was not his own, and yet exceeded it when Pompey was
defeated and slain. From him the chain of civil wars extended to the second
Caesar, afterwards called Augustus, and in whose reign Christ was born. For
even Augustus himself waged many civil wars; and in these wars many of the
foremost men perished, among them that skilful manipulator of the republic,
Cicero. Caius [Julius] Caesar, when he had conquered Pompey, though he used
his victory with clemency, and granted to men of the opposite faction both
life and honors, was suspected of aiming at royalty, and was assassinated
in the curia by a party of noble senators, who had conspired to defend the
liberty of the republic. His power was then coveted by Antony, a man of
very different character, polluted and debased by every kind of vice, who
was strenuously resisted by Cicero on the same plea of defending the
liberty of the republic. At this juncture that other Caesar, the adopted
son of Caius, and afterwards, as I said, known by the name of Augustus, had
made his d�but as a young man of remarkable genius. This youthful Caesar
was favored by Cicero, in order that his influence might counteract that of
Antony; for he hoped that Caesar would overthrow and blast the power of
Antony, and establish a free state,--so blind and unaware of the future was
he: for that very young man, whose advancement and influence he was
fostering, allowed Cicero to be killed as the seal of an alliance with
Antony, and subjected to his own rule the very liberty of the republic in
defence of which he had made so many orations.

CHAP. 31.--THAT IT IS EFFRONTERY TO IMPUTE THE PRESENT TROUBLES TO CHRIST
AND THE PROHIBITION OF POLYTHEISTIC WORSHIP SINCE EVEN WHEN THE GODS WERE
WORSHIPPED SUCH CALAMITIES BEFELL THE PEOPLE.

   Let those who have no gratitude to Christ for His great benefits, blame
their own gods for these heavy disasters. For certainly when these occurred
the altars of the gods were kept blazing, and there rose the mingled
fragrance of "Sabaean incense and fresh garlands;"(1) the priests were
clothed with honor, the shrines were maintained in splendor; sacrifices,
games, sacred ecstasies, were common in the temples; while the blood of the
citizens was being so freely shed, not only in remote places, but among the
very altars of the gods. Cicero did not choose to seek sanctuary in a
temple, because Mucius had sought it there in vain. But they who most
unpardonably calumniate this Christian era, are the very men who either
themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedicated to Christ, or
were led there by the barbarians that they might be safe. In short, not to
recapitulate the many instances I have cited, and not to add to their
number others which it were tedious to enumerate, this one thing I am
persuaded of, and this every impartial judgment will readily acknowledge,
that if the human race had received Christianity before the Punic wars, and
if the same desolating calamities which these wars brought upon Europe and
Africa had followed the introduction of Christianity, there is no one of
those who now accuse us who would not have attributed them to our religion.
How intolerable would their accusations have been, at least so far as the
Romans are concerned, if the Christian religion had been received and
diffused prior to the invasion of the Gauls, or to the ruinous floods and
fires which desolated Rome, or to those most calamitous of all events, the
civil wars! And those other disasters, which were of so strange a nature
that they were reckoned prodigies, had they happened since the Christian
era, to whom but to the Christians would they have imputed these as crimes?
I do not speak of those things which were rather surprising than hurtful,--
oxen speaking, unborn infants articulating some words in their mothers'
wombs, serpents flying, hens and women being changed into the other sex;
and other similar prodigies which, whether true or false, are recorded not
in their imaginative, but in their historical works, and which do not
injure, but only astonish men. But when it rained earth, when it rained
chalk, when it rained stones--not hailstones, but real stones--this
certainly was calculated to do serious damage. We have read in their books
that the fires of Etna, pouring down from the top of the mountain to the
neighboring shore, caused the sea to boil, so that rocks were burnt up, and
the pitch of ships began to run,--a phenomenon incredibly surprising, but
at the same time no less hurtful. By the same violent heat, they relate
that on another occasion Sicily was filled with cinders, so that the houses
of the city Catina were destroyed and buried under them,--a calamity which
moved the Romans to pity them, and remit their tribute for that year. One
may also read that Africa, which had by that time become a province of
Rome, was visited by a prodigious multitude of locusts, which, after
consuming the fruit and foliage of the trees, were driven into the sea in
one vast and measureless cloud; so that when they were drowned and cast
upon the shore the air was polluted, and so serious a pestilence produced
that in the kingdom of Masinissa alone they say there perished 800,000
persons, besides a much greater number in the neighboring districts. At
Utica they assure us that, of 30,000 soldiers then garrisoning it, there
survived only ten. Yet which of these disasters, suppose they happened now,
would not be attributed to the Christian religion by those who thus
thoughtlessly accuse us, and whom we are compelled to answer? And yet to
their own gods they attribute none of these things, though they worship
them for the sake of escaping lesser calamities of the same kind, and do
not reflect that they who formerly worshipped them were not preserved from
these serious disasters.

BOOK IV.(1)

ARGUMENT: IN THIS BOOK IT IS PROVED THAT THE EXTENT AND LONG DURATION OF
THE ROMAN EMPIRE IS TO BE ASCRIBED, NOT TO JOVE OR THE GODS OF THE HEATHEN,
TO WHOM INDIVIDUALLY SCARCE EVEN SINGLE THINGS AND THE VERY BASEST
FUNCTIONS WERE BELIEVED TO BE ENTRUSTED, BUT TO THE ONE TRUE GOD, THE
AUTHOR OF FELICITY, BY WHOSE POWER AND JUDGMENT EARTHLY KINGDOMS ARE
FOUNDED AND MAINTAINED.

CHAPTER 1.--OF THE THINGS WHICH HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN THE FIRST BOOK.

   HAVING begun to speak of the city of God, I have thought it necessary
first of all to reply to its enemies, who, eagerly pursuing earthly joys
and gaping after transitory things, throw the blame of all the sorrow they
suffer in them--rather through the compassion of God in admonishing than
His severity in punishing--on the Christian religion, which is the one
salutary and true religion. And since there is among them also an unlearned
rabble, they are stirred up as by the authority of the learned to hate us
more bitterly, thinking in their inexperience that things which have
happened unwontedly in their days were not wont to happen in other times
gone by; and whereas this opinion of theirs is confirmed even by those who
know that it is false, and yet dissemble their knowledge in order that they
may seem to have just cause for murmuring against us, it was necessary,
from books in which their authors recorded and published the history of
bygone times that it might be known, to demonstrate that it is far
otherwise than they think; and at the same time to teach that the false
gods, whom they openly worshipped, or still worship in secret, are most
unclean spirits, and most malignant and deceitful demons, even to such a
pitch that they take delight in crimes which, whether real or only
fictitious, are yet their own, which it has been their will to have
celebrated in honor of them at their own festivals; so that human infirmity
cannot be called back from the perpetration of damnable deeds, so long as
authority is furnished for imitating them that seems even divine. These
things we have proved, not from our own conjectures, but partly from recent
memory, because we ourselves have seen such things celebrated, and to such
deities, partly from the writings of those who have left these things on
record to posterity, not as if in reproach but as in honor of their own
gods. Thus Varro, a most learned man among them, and of the weightiest
authority, when he made separate books concerning things human and things
divine, distributing some among the human, others among the divine,
according to the special dignity of each, placed the scenic plays not at
all among things human, but among things divine; though, certainly, if only
there were good and honest men in the state, the scenic plays ought not to
be allowed even among things human. And this he did not on his own
authority, but because, being born and educated at Rome, he found them
among the divine things. Now as we briefly stated in the end of the first
book what we intended afterwards to discuss, and as we have disposed of a
part of this in the next two books, we see what our readers will expect us
now to take up.

CHAP. 2.--OF THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE CONTAINED IN BOOKS SECOND AND THIRD.

   We had promised, then, that we would say something against those who
attribute the calamities of the Roman republic to our religion, and that we
would recount the evils, as many and great as we could remember or might
deem sufficient, which that city, or the provinces belonging to its empire,
had suffered before their sacrifices were prohibited, all of which would
beyond doubt have been attributed to us, if our religion had either already
shone on them, or had thus prohibited their sacrilegious rites. These
things we have, as we think, fully disposed of in the second and third
books, treating in the second of evils in morals, which alone or chiefly
are to be accounted evils; and in the third, of those which only fools
dread to undergo--namely, those of the body or of outward things--which for
the most part the good also suffer. But those evils by which they
themselves become evil, they take, I do not say patiently, but with
pleasure. And how few evils have I related concerning that one city and its
empire! Not even all down to the time of Caesar Augustus. What if I had
chosen to recount and enlarge on those evils, not which men have inflicted
on each other; such as the devastations and destructions of war, but which
happen in earthly things, from the elements of the world itself. Of such
evils Apuleius speaks briefly in one passage of that book which he wrote,
De Mundo, saying that all earthly things are subject to change, overthrow,
and destruction.(1) For, to use his own words, by excessive earthquakes the
ground has burst asunder, and cities with their inhabitants have been clean
destroyed: by sudden rains whole regions have been washed away; those also
which formerly had been continents, have been insulated by strange and new-
come waves, and others, by the subsiding of the sea, have been made
passable by the foot of man: by winds and storms cities have been
overthrown; fires have flashed forth from the clouds, by which regions in
the East being burnt up have perished; and on the western coasts the like
destructions have been caused by the bursting forth of waters and floods.
So, formerly, from the lofty craters of Etna, rivers of fire kindled by God
have flowed like a torrent down the steeps. If I had wished to collect from
history wherever I could, these and similar instances, where should I have
finished what happened even in those times before the name of Christ had
put down those of their idols, so vain and hurtful to true salvation? I
promised that I should also point out which of their customs, and for what
cause, the true God, in whose power all kingdoms are, had deigned to favor
to the enlargement of their empire; and how those whom they think gods can
have profited them nothing, but much rather hurt them by deceiving and
beguiling them; so that it seems to me I must now speak of these things,
and chiefly of the increase of the Roman empire. For I have already said
not a little, especially in the second book, about the many evils
introduced into their manners by the hurtful deceits of the demons whom
they worshipped as gods. But throughout all the three books already
completed, where it appeared suitable, we have set forth how much succor
God, through the name of Christ, to whom the barbarians beyond the custom
of war paid so much honor, has bestowed on the good and bad, according as
it is written, "Who maketh His sun to rise on the good and the evil, and
giveth rain to the just and the unjust."(2)

CHAP. 3.--WHETHER THE GREAT EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE, WHICH HAS BEEN ACQUIRED
ONLY BY WARS, IS TO BE RECKONED AMONG THE GOOD THINGS EITHER OF THE WISE OR
THE HAPPY.

   Now, therefore, let us see how it is that they dare to ascribe the very
great extent and duration of the Roman empire to those gods whom they
contend that they worship honorably, even by the obsequies of vile games
and the ministry of vile men: although I should like first to inquire for a
little what reason, what prudence, there is in wishing to glory in the
greatness and extent of the empire, when you cannot point out the happiness
of men who are always rolling, with dark fear and cruel lust, in warlike
slaughters and in blood, which, whether shed in civil or foreign war, is
still human blood; so that their joy may be compared to glass in its
fragile splendor, of which one is horribly afraid lest it should be
suddenly broken in pieces. That this may be more easily discerned, let us
not come to nought by being carried away with empty boasting, or blunt the
edge of our attention by loud-sounding names of things, when we hear of
peoples, kingdoms, provinces. But let us suppose a case of two men; for
each individual man, like one letter in a language, is as it were the
element of a city or kingdom, however far-spreading in its occupation of
the earth. Of these two men let us suppose that one is poor, or rather of
middling circumstances; the other very rich. But the rich man is anxious
with fears, pining with discontent, burning with covetousness, never
secure, always uneasy, panting from the perpetual strife of his enemies,
adding to his patrimony indeed by these miseries to an immense degree, and
by these additions also heaping up most bitter cares. But that other man of
moderate wealth is contented with a small and compact estate, most dear to
his own family, enjoying the sweetest peace with his kindred neighbors and
friends, in piety religious, benignant in mind, healthy in body, in life
frugal, in manners chaste, in conscience secure. I know not whether any one
can be such a fool, that he dare hesitate which to prefer. As, therefore,
in the case of these two men, so in two families, in two nations, in two
kingdoms, this test of tranquility holds good; and if we apply it
vigilantly and without prejudice, we shall quite easily see where the mere
show of happiness dwells, and where real felicity. Wherefore if the true
God is worshipped, and if He is served with genuine rites and true virtue,
it is advantageous that good men should long reign both far and wide. Nor
is this advantageous so much to themselves, as to those over whom they
reign. For, so far as concerns themselves, their piety and probity, which
are great gifts of God, suffice to give them true felicity, enabling them
to live well the life that now is, and afterwards to receive that which is
eternal. In this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable,
not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad
men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own
souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them
in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all
the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime,
but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is
free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one
man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of
which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, "For of whom any man
is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave."(1)

CHAP. 4.--HOW LIKE KINGDOMS WITHOUT JUSTICE ARE TO ROBBERIES.

   Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?
For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is
made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit
together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law
agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to
such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of
cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a
kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the
removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was
an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate
who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by
keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What
thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty
ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art
styled emperor."(2)

CHAP. 5.--OF THE RUNAWAY GLADIATORS WHOSE POWER BECAME LIKE THAT OF ROYAL
DIGNITY.

   I shall not therefore stay to inquire what sort of men Romulus gathered
together, seeing he deliberated much about them,--how, being assumed out of
that life they led into the fellowship of his city, they might cease to
think of the punishment they deserved, the fear of which had driven them to
greater villainies; so that henceforth they might be made more peaceable
members of society. But this I say, that the Roman empire, which by
subduing many nations had already grown great and an object of universal
dread, was itself greatly alarmed, and only with much difficulty avoided a
disastrous overthrow, because a mere handful of gladiators in Campania,
escaping from the games, had recruited a great army, appointed three
generals, and most widely and cruelly devastated Italy. Let them say what
god aided these men, so that from a small and contemptible band of robbers
they attained to a kingdom, feared even by the Romans, who had such great
forces and fortresses. Or will they deny that they were divinely aided
because they did not last long?(3) As if, indeed, the life of any man
whatever lasted long. In that case, too, the gods aid no one to reign,
since all individuals quickly die; nor is sovereign power to be reckoned a
benefit, because in a little time in every man, and thus in all of them one
by one, it vanishes like a vapor. For what does it matter to those who
worshipped the gods under Romulus, and are long since dead, that after
their death the Roman empire has grown so great, while they plead their
causes before the powers beneath? Whether those causes are good or bad, it
matters not to the question before us. And this is to be understood of all
those who carry with them the heavy burden of their actions, having in the
few days of their life swiftly and hurriedly passed over the stage of the
imperial office, although the office itself has lasted through long spaces
of time, being filled by a constant succession of dying men. If, however,
even those benefits which last only for the shortest time are to be
ascribed to the aid of the gods, these gladiators were not a little aided,
who broke the bonds of their servile condition, fled, escaped, raised a
great and most powerful army, obedient to the will and orders of their
chiefs and much feared by the Roman majesty, and remaining unsubdued by
several Roman generals, seized many places, and, having won very many
victories, enjoyed whatever pleasures they wished, and did what their lust
suggested, and, until at last they were conquered, which was done with the
utmost difficulty, lived sublime and dominant. But let us come to greater
matters.

CHAP. 6.--CONCERNING THE COVETOUSNESS OF NINUS, WHO WAS THE FIRST WHO MADE
WAR ON HIS NEIGHBORS, THAT HE MIGHT RULE MORE WIDELY.

   Justinus, who wrote Greek or rather foreign history in Latin, and
briefly, like Trogus Pompeius whom he followed, begins his work thus: "In
the beginning of the affairs of peoples and nations the government was in
the hands of kings, who were raised to the height of this majesty not by
courting the people, but by the knowledge good men had of their moderation.
The people were held bound by no laws; the decisions of the princes were
instead of laws. It was the custom to guard rather than to extend the
boundaries of the empire; and kingdoms were kept within the bounds of each
ruler's native land. Ninus king of the Assyrians first of all, through new
lust of empire, changed the old and, as it were, ancestral custom of
nations. He first made war on his neighbors, and wholly subdued as far as
to the frontiers of Libya the nations as yet untrained to resist." And a
little after he says: "Ninus established by constant possession the
greatness of the authority he had gained. Having mastered his nearest
neighbors, he went on to others, strengthened by the accession of forces,
and by making each fresh victory the instrument of that which followed,
subdued the nations of the whole East." Now, with whatever fidelity to fact
either he or Trogus may in general have written--for that they sometimes
told lies is shown by other more trustworthy writers--yet it is agreed
among other authors, that the kingdom of the Assyrians was extended far and
wide by King Ninus. And it lasted so long, that the Roman empire has not
yet attained the same age; for, as those write who have treated of
chronological history, this kingdom endured for twelve hundred and forty
years from the first year in which Ninus began to reign, until it was
transferred to the Modes. But to make war on your neighbors, and thence to
proceed to others, and through mere lust of dominion to crush and subdue
people who do you no harm, what else is this to be called than great
robbery?

CHAP. 7.--WHETHER EARTHLY KINGDOMS IN THEIR RISE AND FALL HAVE BEEN EITHER
AIDED OR DESERTED BY THE HELP OF THE GODS.

   If this kingdom was so great and lasting without the aid of the gods,
why is the ample territory and long duration of the Roman empire to be
ascribed to the Roman gods? For whatever is the cause in it, the same is in
the other also. But if they contend that the prosperity of the other also
is to be attributed to the aid of the gods, I ask of which? For the other
nations whom Ninus overcame, did not then worship other gods. Or if the
Assyrians had gods of their own, who, so to speak, were more skillful
workmen in the construction and preservation of the empire, whether are
they dead, since they themselves have also lost the empire; or, having been
defrauded of their pay, or promised a greater, have they chosen rather to
go over to the Medes, and from them again to the Persians, because Cyrus
invited them, and promised them something still more advantageous? This
nation, indeed, since the time of the kingdom of Alexander the Macedonian,
which was as brief in duration as it was great in extent, has preserved its
own empire, and at this day occupies no small territories in the East. If
this is so, then either the gods are unfaithful, who desert their own and
go over to their enemies, which Camillus, who was but a man, did not do,
when, being victor and subduer of a most hostile state, although he had
felt that Rome, for whom he had done so much, was ungrateful, yet
afterwards, forgetting the injury and remembering his native land, he freed
her again from the Gauls; or they are not so strong as gods ought to be,
since they can be overcome by human skill or strength. Or if, when they
carry on war among themselves. the gods are not overcome by men, but some
gods who are peculiar to certain cities are perchance overcome by other
gods, it follows that they have quarrels among themselves which they
uphold, each for his own part. Therefore a city ought not to worship its
own gods, but rather others who aid their own worshippers. Finally,
whatever may have been the case as to this change of sides, or flight, or
migration, or failure in battle on the part of the gods, the name of Christ
had not yet been proclaimed in those parts of the earth when these kingdoms
were lost and transferred through great destructions in war. For if, after
more than twelve hundred years, when the kingdom was taken away from the
Assyrians, the Christian religion had there already preached another
eternal kingdom, and put a stop to the sacrilegious worship of false gods,
what else would the foolish men of that nation have said, but that the
kingdom which had been so long preserved, could be lost for no other cause
than the desertion of their own religions and the reception of
Christianity? In which foolish speech that might have been uttered, let
those we speak of observe their own likeness, and blush, if there is any
sense of shame in them, because they have uttered similar complaints;
although the Roman empire is afflicted rather than changed,--a thing which
has befallen it in other times also, before the name of Christ was heard,
and it has been restored after such affliction,--a thing which even in
these times is not to be despaired of. For who knows the will of God
concerning this matter?

CHAP. 8.--WHICH OF THE GODS CAN THE ROMANS SUPPOSE PRESIDED OVER THE
INCREASE AND PRESERVATION OF THEIR EMPIRE, WHEN THEY HAVE BELIEVED THAT
EVEN THE CARE OF SINGLE THINGS COULD SCARCELY BE COMMITTED TO SINGLE GODS?

   Next let us ask, if they please, out of so great a crowd of gods which
the Romans worship, whom in especial, or what gods they believe to have
extended and preserved that empire. Now, surely of this work, which is so
excellent and so very full of the highest dignity, they dare not ascribe
any part to the goddess Cloacina;(1) or to Volupia, who has her appellation
from voluptuousness; or to Libentina, who has her name from lust; or to
Vaticanus, who presides over the screaming of infants; or to Cunina, who
rules over their cradles. But how is it possible to recount in one part of
this book all the names of gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely
comprise in great volumes, distributing among these divinities their
peculiar offices about single things? They have not even thought that the
charge of their lands should be committed to any one god: but they have
entrusted their farms to Rusina; the ridges of the mountains to Jugatinus;
over the downs they have set the goddess Collatina; over the valleys,
Vallonia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so competent, that they
could commend to her care all their corn crops at once; but so long as
their seed-corn was still under the ground, they would have the goddess
Seia set over it; then, whenever it was above ground and formed straw, they
set over it the goddess Segetia; and when the grain was collected and
stored, they set over it the goddess Tutilina, that it might be kept safe.
Who would not have thought that goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of
the standing corn until it had passed from the first green blades to the
dry ears? Yet she was not enough for men, who loved a multitude of gods,
that the miserable soul, despising the chaste embrace of the one true God,
should be prostituted to a crowd of demons. Therefore they set Proserpina
over the germinating seeds; over the joints and knots of the stems, the god
Nodotus; over the sheaths enfolding the ears, the goddess Voluntina; when
the sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was ascribed to the
goddess Patelana; when the stems stood all equal with new ears, because the
ancients described this equalizing by the term hostire, it was ascribed to
the goddess Hostilina; when the grain was in flower, it was dedicated to
the goddess Flora; when full of milk, to the god Lacturnus; when maturing,
to the goddess Matuta; when the crop was runcated,--that is, removed from
the soil,--to the goddess Runcina. Nor do I yet recount them all, for I am
sick of all this, though it gives them no shame. Only, I have said these
very few things, in order that it may be understood they dare by no means
say that the Roman empire has been established, increased, and preserved by
their deities, who had all their own functions assigned to them in such a
way, that no general oversight was entrusted to any one of them. When,
therefore, could Segetia take care of the empire, who was not allowed to
take care of the corn and the trees? When could Cunina take thought about
war, whose oversight was not allowed to go beyond the cradles of the
babies? When could Nodotus give help in battle, who had nothing to do even
with the sheath of the ear, but only with the knots of the joints? Every
one sets a porter at the door of his house, and because he is a man, he is
quite sufficient; but these people have set three gods, Forculus to the
doors, Cardea to the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold.(1) Thus Forculus
could not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the threshold.

CHAP. 9.--WHETHER THE GREAT EXTENT AND LONG DURATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
SHOULD BE ASCRIBED TO JOVE, WHOM HIS WORSHIPPERS BELIEVE TO BE THE CHIEF
GOD.

   Therefore omitting, or passing by for a little, that crowd of petty
gods, we ought to inquire into the part performed by the great gods,
whereby Rome has been made so great as to reign so long over so many
nations. Doubtless, therefore, this is the work of love. For they will have
it that he is the king of all the gods and goddesses, as is shown by his
sceptre and by the Capitol on the lofty hill. Concerning that god they
publish a saying which, although that of a poet, is most apt, "All things
are full of Jove."(2) Varro believes that this god is worshipped, although
called by another name, even by those who worship one God alone without any
image. But if this is so, why has he been so badly used at Rome (and indeed
by other nations too), that an image of him should be made?--a thing which
was so displeasing to Varro himself, that although he was overborne by the
perverse custom of so great a city, he had not the least hesitation in both
saying and writing, that those who have appointed images for the people
have both taken away fear and added error.

CHAP. 10.--WHAT OPINIONS THOSE HAVE FOLLOWED WHO HAVE SET DIVERS GODS OVER
DIVERS PARTS OF THE WORLD.

   Why, also, is Juno united to him as his wife, who is called at once
"sister and yoke-fellow?"(3) Because, say they, we have Jove in the ether,
Juno in the air; and these two elements are united, the one being superior,
the other inferior. It is not he, then, of whom it is said, "All things are
full of Jove," if Juno also fills some part. Does each fill either, and are
both of this couple in both of these elements, and in each of them at the
same time? Why, then, is the ether given to Jove, the air to Juno? Besides,
these two should have been enough. Why is it that the sea is assigned to
Neptune, the earth to Pluto? And that these also might not be left without
mates, Salacia is joined to Neptune, Proserpine to Pluto. For they say
that, as Juno possesses the lower part of the heavens,--that is, the air,--
so Salacia possesses the lower part of the sea, and Proserpine the lower
part of the earth. They seek how they may patch up these fables, but they
find no way. For if these things were so, their ancient sages would have
maintained that there are three chief elements of the world, not four, in
order that each of the elements might have a pair of gods. Now, they have
positively affirmed that the ether is one thing, the air another. But
water, whether higher or lower, is surely water. Suppose it ever so unlike,
can it ever be so much so as no longer to be water? And the lower earth, by
whatever divinity it may be distinguished, what else can it be than earth?
Lo, then, since the whole physical world is complete in these four or three
elements, where shall Minerva be? What should she possess, what should she
fill? For she is placed in the Capitol along with these two, although she
is not the offspring of their marriage. Or if they say that she possesses
the higher part of the ether,--and on that account the poets have feigned
that she sprang from the head of Jove,--why then is she not rather reckoned
queen of the gods, because she is superior to Jove? Is it because it would
be improper to set the daughter before the father? Why, then, is not that
rule of justice observed concerning Jove himself toward Saturn? Is it
because he was conquered? Have they fought then? By no means, say they;
that is an old wife's fable. Lo, we are not to believe fables, and must
hold more worthy opinions concerning the gods! Why, then, do they not
assign to the father of Jove a seat, if not of higher, at least of equal
honor? Because Saturn, say they, is length of time.(4) Therefore they who
worship Saturn worship Time; and it is insinuated that Jupiter, the king of
the gods, was born of Time. For is anything unworthy said when Jupiter and
Juno are said to have been sprung from Time, if he is the heaven and she is
the earth, since both heaven and earth have been made, and are therefore
not eternal? For their learned and wise men have this also in their books.
Nor is that saying taken by Virgil out of poetic figments, but out of the
books of philosophers,

  "Then Ether, the Father Almighty, in copious showers descended
   Into his spouse's glad bosom, making it fertile,"(5)

--that is, into the bosom of Tellus, or the earth. Although here, also,
they will have it that there are some differences, and think that in the
earth herself Terra is one thing, Tellus another, and Tellumo another. And
they have all these as gods, called by their own names, distinguished by
their own offices, and venerated with their own altars and rites. This same
earth also they call the mother of the gods, so that even the fictions of
the poets are more tolerable, if, according, not to their poetical but
sacred books, Juno is not only the sister and wife, but also the mother of
Jove. The same earth they worship as Ceres, and also as Vests; while yet
they more frequently affirm that Vests is nothing else than fire,
pertaining to the hearths, without which the city cannot exist; and
therefore virgins are wont to serve her, because as nothing is born of a
virgin, so nothing is born of fire;--but all this nonsense ought to be
completely abolished and extinguished by Him who is born of a virgin. For
who can bear that, while they ascribe to the fire so much honor, and, as it
were, chastity, they do not blush sometimes even to call Vests Venus, so
that honored virginity may vanish in her hand-maidens? For if Vests is
Venus, how can virgins rightly serve her by abstaining from venery? Are
there two Venuses, the one a virgin, the other not a maid? Or rather, are
there three, one the goddess of virgins, who is also called Vesta, another
the goddess of wives, and another of harlots? To her also the Phenicians
offered a gift by prostituting their daughters before they united them to
husbands.(1) Which of these is the wife of Vulcan? Certainly not the
virgin, since she  has a husband. Far be it from us to say it is the
harlot, lest we should seem to wrong the son of Juno and fellow-worker of
Minerva. Therefore it is to be understood that she belongs to the married
people; but we would not wish them to imitate her in what she did with
Mars. "Again," say they, "you return to fables." What sort of justice is
that, to be angry with us because we say such things of their gods, and not
to be angry with themselves, who in their theatres most willingly behold
the crimes of their gods? And,--a thing incredible, if it were not
thoroughly well proved,--these very theatric representations of the crimes
of their gods have been instituted in honor of these same gods.

CHAP. 11.--CONCERNING THE MANY GODS WHOM THE PAGAN DOCTORS DEFEND AS BEING
ONE AND THE SAME JOVE.

   Let them therefore assert as many things as ever they please in
physical reasonings and disputations. One while let Jupiter be the soul of
this corporeal world, who fills and moves that whole mass, constructed and
compacted out of four, or as many elements as they please; another while,
let him yield to his sister and brothers their parts of it: now let him be
the ether, that from above he may embrace Juno, the air spread out beneath;
again, let him be the whole heaven along with the air, and impregnate with
fertilizing showers and seeds the earth, as his wife, and, at the same
time, his mother (for this is not vile in divine beings); and yet again
(that it may not be necessary to run through them all), let him, the one
god, of whom many think it has been said by a most noble poet,

  "For God pervadeth all things,
   All lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depth of the
heavens,"(2)--

let it be him who in the ether is Jupiter; in the air, Juno; in the sea,
Neptune; in the lower parts of the sea, Salacia; in the earth, Pluto; in
the lower part of the earth, Proserpine; on the domestic hearths, Vesta; in
the furnace of the workmen, Vulcan; among the stars, Sol and Luna, and the
Stars; in divination, Apollo; in merchandise, Mercury; in Janus, the
initiator; in Terminus, the terminator; Saturn, in time; Mars and Bellona,
in war; Liber, in vineyards; Ceres, in cornfields; Diana, in forests;
Minerva, in learning. Finally, let it be him who is in that crowd, as it
were, of plebeian gods: let him preside under the name of Liber over the
seed of men, and under that of Libera over that of women: let him be
Diespiter, who brings forth the birth to the light of day; let him be the
goddess Mena, whom they set over the menstruation of women; let him be
Lucina, who is invoked by women in childbirth; let him bring help to those
who are being born, by taking them up from the bosom of the earth, and let
him be called Opis: let him open the mouth in the crying babe, and be
called the god Vaticanus: let him lift it from the earth, and be called the
goddess Levana; let him watch over cradles, and be called the goddess
Cunina: let it be no other than he who is in those goddesses, who sing the
fates of the new born, and are called Carmentes: let him preside over
fortuitous events, and be called Fortuna: in the goddess Rumina, let him
milk out the breast to the little one, because the ancients termed the
breast ruma: in the goddess Potina, let him administer drink: in the
goddess Educa, let him supply food: from the terror of infants, let him be
styled Paventia: from the hope which comes, Venilia: from voluptuousness,
Volupia: from action, Agenor: from the stimulants by which man is spurred
on to much action, let him be named the goddess Stimula: let him be the
goddess Strenia, for making strenuous; Numeria, who teaches to number;
Camoena, who teaches to sing: let him be both the god Consus for granting
counsel, and the goddess Sentia for inspiring sentences: let him be the
goddess Juventas, who, after the robe of boyhood is laid aside, takes
charge of the beginning of the youthful age: let him be Fortuna Barbata,
who endues adults with a beard, whom they have not chosen to honor; so that
this divinity, whatever it may be, should at least be a male god, named
either Barbatus, from barba, like Nodotus, from nodus; or, certainly, not
Fortuna, but because he has beards, Fortunius: let him, in the god
Jugatinus, yoke couples in marriage; and when the girdle of the virgin wife
is loosed, let him be invoked as the goddess Virginiensis: let him be
Mutunus or Tuternus, who, among the Greeks, is called Priapus. If they are
not ashamed of it, let all these which I have named, and whatever others I
have not named (for I have not thought fit to name all), let all these gods
and goddesses be that one Jupiter, whether, as some will have it, all these
are parts of him, or are his powers, as those think who are pleased to
consider him the soul of the world, which is the opinion of most of their
doctors, and these the greatest. If these things are so (how evil they may
be I do not yet meanwhile inquire), what would they lose, if they, by a
more prudent abridgment, should worship one god? For what part of him could
be contemned if he himself should be worshipped? But if they are afraid
lest parts of him should be angry at being passed by or neglected, then it
is not the case, as they will have it, that this whole is as the life of
one living being, which contains all the gods together, as if they were its
virtues, or members, or parts; but each part has its own life separate from
the rest, if it is so that one can be angered, appeased, or stirred up more
than another. But if it is said that all together,--that is, the whole Jove
himself,--would be offended if his parts were not also worshipped singly
and minutely, it is foolishly spoken. Surely none of them could be passed
by if he who singly possesses them all should be worshipped. For, to omit
other things which are innumerable, when they say that all the stars are
parts of Jove, and are all alive, and have rational souls, and therefore
without controversy are gods, can they not see how many they do not
worship, to how many they do not build temples or set up altars, and to how
very few, in fact, of the stars they have thought of setting them up and
offering sacrifice? If,  therefore, those are displeased who are not
severally worshipped, do they not fear to live with only a few appeased,
while all heaven is displeased? But if they worship all the stars because
they are part of Jove whom they worship, by the same compendious method
they could supplicate them all in him alone. For in this way no one would
be displeased, since in him alone all would be supplicated. No one would be
contemned, instead of there being just cause of displeasure given to the
much greater number who are passed by in the worship offered to some;
especially when Priapus, stretched out in vile nakedness, is preferred to
those who shine from their supernal abode.

CHAP. 12.--CONCERNING THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO HAVE THOUGHT THAT GOD IS THE
SOUL OF THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD IS THE BODY OF GOD.

   Ought not men of intelligence, and indeed men of every kind, to be
stirred up to examine the nature of this opinion? For there is no need of
excellent capacity for this task, that putting away the desire of
contention, they may observe that if God is the soul of the world, and the
world is as a body to Him, who is the soul, He must be one living being
consisting of soul and body, and that this same God is a kind of womb of
nature containing all things in Himself, so that the lives and souls of all
living things are taken, according to the manner of each one's birth, out
of His soul which vivifies that whole mass, and therefore nothing at all
remains which is not a part of God. And if this is so, who cannot see what
impious and irreligious consequences follow, such as that whatever one may
trample, he must trample a part of God, and in slaying any living creature,
a part of God must be slaughtered? But I am unwilling to utter all that may
occur to those who think of it, Vet cannot be spoken without irreverence.

CHAP. 13.--CONCERNING THOSE WHO ASSERT THAT ONLY RATIONAL ANIMALS ARE PARTS
OF THE ONE GOD.

   But if they contend that only rational animals, such as men, are parts
of God, I do not really see how, if the whole world is God, they can
separate beasts from being parts of Him. But what need is there of striving
about that? Concerning the rational animal himself,--that is, man,--what
more unhappy belief can be entertained than that a part of God is whipped
when a boy is whipped? And who, unless he is quite mad, could bear the
thought that parts of God can become lascivious, iniquitous, impious, and
altogether damnable? In brief, why is God angry at those who do not worship
Him, since these offenders are parts of Himself? It remains, therefore,
that they must say that all the gods have their own lives; that each one
lives for himself, and none of them is a part of any one; but that all are
to be worshipped,--at least as many as can be known and worshipped; for
they are so many it is impossible that all can be so. And of all these, I
believe that Jupiter, because he presides as king, is thought by them to
have both established and extended the Roman empire. For if he has not done
it, what other god do they believe could have attempted so great a work,
when they must all be occupied with their own offices and works, nor can
one intrude on that of another? Could the kingdom of men then be propagated
and increased by the king of the gods?

CHAP. 14.--THE ENLARGEMENT OF KINGDOMS IS UNSUITABLY ASCRIBED TO JOVE; FOR
IF, AS THEY WILL HAVE IT, VICTORIA IS A GODDESS, SHE ALONE WOULD SUFFICE
FOR THIS BUSINESS.

   Here, first of all, I ask, why even the kingdom itself is not some god.
For why should not it also be so, if Victory is a goddess? Or what need is
there of Jove himself in this affair, if Victory favors and is propitious,
and always goes to those whom she wishes to be victorious? With this
goddess favorable and propitious, even if Jove was idle and did nothing,
what nations could remain unsubdued, what kingdom would not yield? But
perhaps it is displeasing to good men to fight with most wicked
unrighteousness, and provoke with voluntary war neighbors who are peaceable
and do no wrong, in order to enlarge a kingdom? If they feel thus, I
entirely approve and praise them.

CHAP. 15.--WHETHER IT IS SUITABLE FOR GOOD MEN TO WISH TO RULE MORE WIDELY.

   Let them ask, then, whether it is quite fitting for good men to rejoice
in extended empire. For the iniquity of those with whom just wars are
carried on favors the growth of a kingdom, which would certainly have been
small if the peace and justice of neighbors had not by any wrong provoked
the carrying on of war against them; and human affairs being thus more
happy, all kingdoms would have been small, rejoicing in neighborly concord;
and thus there would have been very many kingdoms of nations in the world,
as there are very many houses of citizens in a city. Therefore, to carry on
war and extend a kingdom over wholly subdued nations seems to bad men to be
felicity, to good men necessity. But because it would be worse that the
injurious should rule over those who are more righteous, therefore even
that is not unsuitably called felicity. But beyond doubt it is greater
felicity to have a good neighbor at peace, than to conquer a bad one by
making war. Your wishes are bad, when you desire that one whom you hate or
fear should be in such a condition that you can conquer him. If, therefore,
by carrying on wars that were just, not impious or unrighteous, the Romans
could have acquired so great an empire, ought they not to worship as a
goddess even the injustice of foreigners? For we see that this has
cooperated much in extending the empire, by making foreigners so unjust
that they became people with whom just wars might be carried on, and the
empire increased And why may not injustice, at least that of foreign
nations, also be a goddess, if Fear and Dread and Ague have deserved to be
Roman gods? By these two, therefore,--that is, by foreign injustice, and
the goddess Victoria, for injustice stirs up causes of wars, and Victoria
brings these same wars to a happy termination,--the empire has increased,
even although Jove has been idle. For what part could Jove have here, when
those things which might be thought to be his benefits are held to be gods,
called gods, worshipped as gods, and are themselves invoked for their own
parts? He also might have some part here, if he himself might be called
Empire, just as she is called Victory. Or if empire is the gift of Jove,
why may not victory also be held to be his gift? And it certainly would
have been held to be so, had he been recognized and worshipped, not as a
stone in the Capitol, but as the true King of kings and Lord of lords.

CHAP. 16.--WHAT WAS THE REASON WHY THE ROMANS, IN DETAILING SEPARATE GODS
FOR ALL THINGS AND ALL MOVEMENTS OF THE MIND, CHOSE TO HAVE THE TEMPLE OF
QUIET OUTSIDE THE GATES.

   But I wonder very much, that while they assigned to separate gods
single things, and (well nigh) all movements of the mind; that while they
invoked the goddess Agenoria, who should excite to action; the goddess
Stimula, who should stimulate to unusual action; the goddess Murcia, who
should not move men beyond measure, but make them, as Pomponius says,
murcid--that is, too slothful and inactive; the goddess Strenua, who should
make them strenuous; and that while they offered to all these gods and
goddesses solemn and public worship, they should yet have been unwilling to
give public acknowledgment to her whom they name Quies because she makes
men quiet, but built her temple outside the Colline gate. Whether was this
a symptom of an unquiet mind, or rather was it thus intimated that he who
should persevere in worshipping that crowd, not, to be sure, of gods, but
of demons, could not dwell with quiet; to which the true Physician calls,
saying, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find
rest unto your souls?"

CHAP. 17.--WHETHER, IF THE HIGHEST POWER BELONGS TO JOVE, VICTORIA ALSO
OUGHT TO BE WORSHIPPED.

   Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess Victoria, and
that she, as it were acting in obedience to the king of the gods, comes to
those to whom he may have despatched her, and takes up her quarters on
their side? This is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to their
own imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is the true
eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is no person, but His
angel, and causes whom He pleases to conquer; whose counsel may be hidden,
but cannot be unjust. For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also
a god, and joined to Victory either as husband, or brother, or son? Indeed,
they have imagined such things concerning the gods, that if the poets had
reigned the like, and they should have been discussed by us, they would
have replied that they were laughable figments of the poets not to be
attributed to true deities: And yet they themselves did not laugh when they
were, not reading in the poets, but worshipping in the temples such doating
follies. Therefore they should entreat Jove atone for all things, and
supplicate him only. For if Victory is a goddess, and is under him as her
king, wherever he might have sent her, she could not dare to resist and do
her own will rather than his.

CHAP. 18.--WITH WHAT REASON THEY WHO THINK FELICITY AND FORTUNE GODDESSES
HAVE DISTINGUISHED THEM.

   What shall we say, besides, of the idea that Felicity also is a
goddess? She has received a temple; she has merited an altar; suitable
rites of worship are paid to her. She alone, then, should be worshipped.
For where she is present, what good thing can be absent? But what does a
man wish, that he thinks Fortune also a goddess and worships her? Is
felicity one thing, fortune another? Fortune, indeed, may be bad as well as
good; but felicity, if it could be bad, would not be felicity. Certainly we
ought to think all the gods of either sex (if they also have sex) are only
good. This says Plato; this say other philosophers; this say all estimable
rulers of the republic and the nations. How is it, then, that the goddess
Fortune is sometimes good, sometimes bad? Is it perhaps the case that when
she is bad she is not a goddess, but is suddenly changed into a malignant
demon? How many Fortunes are there then? Just as many as there are men who
are fortunate, that is, of good fortune. But since there must also be very
many others who at the very same time are men of bad fortune, could she,
being one and the same Fortune, be at the same time both bad and good--the
one to these, the other to those? She who is the goddess,  is she always
good? Then she herself is felicity. Why, then, are two names given her? Yet
this is tolerable; for it is customary that one thing should be called by
two names. But why different temples, different altars, different rituals?
There is a reason, say they, because Felicity is she whom the good have by
previous merit; but fortune, which is termed good without any trial of
merit, befalls both good and bad men fortuitously, whence also she is named
Fortune. How, therefore, is she good, who without any discernment comes-
both to the good and to the bad? Why is she worshipped, who is thus blind,
running at random on any one whatever, so that for the most part she passes
by her worshippers, and cleaves to those who despise her? Or if her
worshippers profit somewhat, so that they are seen by her and loved, then
she follows merit, and does not come fortuitously. What, then, becomes Of
that definition of fortune? What becomes of the opinion that she has
received her very name from fortuitous events? For it profits one nothing
to worship her if she is truly fortune. But if she distinguishes her
worshippers, so that she may benefit them, she is not fortune. Or does,
Jupiter send her too, whither he pleases? Then let him alone be worshipped;
because Fortune is not able to resist him when he commands her, and sends
her where he pleases. Or, at least, let the bad worship her, who do not
choose to have merit by which the goddess Felicity might be invited.

CHAP. 19.--CONCERNING FORTUNA MULIEBRIS.(1)

   To this supposed deity, whom they call Fortuna, they ascribe so much,
indeed, that they have a tradition that the image of her, which was
dedicated by the Roman matrons, and called Fortuna Muliebris, has spoken,
and has said, once and again, that the matrons pleased her by their homage;
which, indeed, if it is true, ought not to excite our wonder. For it is not
so difficult for malignant demons to deceive, and they ought the rather to
advert to their wits and wiles, because it is that goddess who comes by
haphazard who has spoken, and not she who comes to reward merit. For
Fortuna was loquacious, and Felicitas mute; and for what other reason but
that men might not care to live rightly, having made Fortuna their friend,
who could make them fortunate without any good desert? And truly, if
Fortuna speaks, she should at least speak, not with a womanly, but with a
manly voice; lest they themselves who have dedicated the image should think
so great a miracle has been wrought by feminine loquacity.

CHAP. 20 --CONCERNING VIRTUE AND FAITH, WHICH THE PAGANS HAVE HONORED WITH
TEMPLES AND SACRED RITES, PASSING BY OTHER GOOD QUALITIES, WHICH OUGHT
LIKEWISE TO HAVE BEEN WORSHIPPED, IF DEITY WAS RIGHTLY ATTRIBUTED TO THESE.

   They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it could be a
goddess, had been preferable to many. And now, because it is not a goddess,
but a gift of God, let it be obtained by prayer from Him, by whom alone it
can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods vanishes. But why is Faith
believed to be a goddess, and why does she herself receive temple and
altar? For whoever prudently acknowledges her makes his own self an abode
for her. But how do they know what faith is, of which it is the prime and
greatest function that the true God may be believed in? But why had not
virtue sufficed? Does it not include faith also? Forasmuch as they have
thought proper to distribute virtue into four divisions--prudence, justice,
fortitude, and temperance--and as each of these divisions has its own
virtues, faith is among the parts of justice, and has the chief place with
as many of us as know what that saying means, "The just shall live by
faith."(1) But if Faith is a goddess, I wonder why these keen lovers of a
multitude of gods have wronged so many other goddesses, by passing them by,
when they could have dedicated temples and altars to them likewise. Why has
temperance not deserved to be a goddess, when some Roman princes have
obtained no small glory on account of her? Why, in fine, is fortitude not a
goddess, who aided Mucius when he thrust his right hand into the flames;
who aided Curtius, when for the sake of his country he threw himself
headlong into the yawning earth; who aided Decius the sire, and Decius the
son, when they devoted themselves for the army?--though we might question
whether these men had true fortitude, if this concerned our present
discussion. Why have prudence and wisdom merited no place among the gods?
Is it because they are all worshipped under the general name of Virtue
itself? Then they could thus worship the true God also, of whom all the
other gods are thought to be parts. But in that one name of virtue is
comprehended both faith and chastity, which yet have obtained separate
altars in temples of their own.

CHAP. 21.--THAT ALTHOUGH NOT UNDERSTANDING THEM TO BE THE GIFTS OF GOD,
THEY OUGHT AT LEAST TO HAVE BEEN CONTENT WITH VIRTUE AND FELICITY.

   These, not verity but vanity has made goddesses. For these are gifts of
the true God, not themselves goddesses. However, where virtue and felicity
are, what else is sought for? What can suffice the man whom virtue and
felicity do not suffice? For surely virtue comprehends all things we need
do, felicity all things we need wish for. If Jupiter, then, was worshipped
in order that he might give these two things,--because, if extent and
duration of empire is something good, it pertains to this same felicity,--
why is it not understood that they are not goddesses, but the gifts of God?
But if they are judged to be goddesses, then at least that other great
crowd of gods should not be sought after. For, having considered all the
offices which their fancy has distributed among the various gods and
goddesses, let them find out, if they can, anything which could be bestowed
by any god whatever on a man possessing virtue, possessing felicity. What
instruction could be sought either from Mercury or Minerva, when Virtue
already possessed all in herself? Virtue, indeed, is defined by the
ancients as itself the art of living well and rightly. Hence, because
virtue is called in Greek hareth, it has been thought the Latins have
derived from it the term art. But if Virtue cannot come except to the
clever, what need was there of the god Father Catius, who should make men
cautious, that is, acute, when Felicity could confer this? Because, to be
born clever belongs to felicity. Whence, although goddess Felicity could
not be worshipped by one not yet born, in order that, being made his
friend, she might bestow this on him, yet she might confer this favor on
parents who were her worshippers, that clever children should be born to
them. What need had women in childbirth to invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity
should be present, they would have, not only a good delivery, but good
children too? What need was there to commend the children to the goddess
Ops when they were being born; to the god Vaticanus in their birth-cry; to
the goddess Cunina when lying cradled; to the goddess Rimina when sucking;
to the god Statilinus when standing; to the goddess Adeona when coming; to
Abeona when going away; to the goddess Mens that they might have a good
mind; to the god Volumnus, and the goddess Volumna, that they might wish
for good things; to the nuptial gods, that they might make good matches; to
the rural gods, and chiefly to the goddess Fructesca herself, that they
might receive the most abundant fruits; to Mars and Bellona, that they
might carry on war well; to the goddess Victoria, that they might be
victorious; to the god Honor, that they might be honored; to the goddess
Pecunia, that they might have plenty money; to the god Aesculanus, and his
son Argentinus, that they might have brass and silver coin? For they set
down Aesculanus as the father of Argentinus for this reason, that brass
coin began to be used before silver. But I wonder Argentinus has not
begotten Aurinus, since gold coin also has followed. Could they have him
for a god, they would prefer Aurinus both to his father Argentinus and his
grandfather Aesculanus, just as they set Jove before Saturn. Therefore,
what necessity was there on account of these gifts, either of soul, or
body, or outward estate, to worship and invoke so great a crowd of gods,
all of whom I have not mentioned, nor have they themselves been able to
provide for all human benefits, minutely and singly methodized, minute and
single gods, when the one goddess Felicity was able, with the greatest
ease, compendiously to bestow the whole of them? nor should any other be
sought after, either for the bestowing of good things, or for the averting
of evil. For why should they invoke the goddess Fessonia for the weary; for
driving away enemies, the goddess Pellonia; for the sick, as a physician,
either Apollo or Aesculapius, or both together if there should be great
danger? Neither should the god Spiniensis be entreated that he might root
out the thorns from the fields; nor the goddess Rubigo that the mildew
might not come,--Felicitas alone being present and guarding, either no
evils would have arisen, or they would have been quite easily driven away.
Finally, since we treat of these two goddesses, Virtue and Felicity, if
felicity is the reward of virtue, she is not a goddess, but a gift of God.
But if she is a goddess, why may she not be said to confer virtue itself,
inasmuch as it is a great felicity to attain virtue?

CHAP. 22.--CONCERNING THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORSHIP DUE TO THE GODS, WHICH
VARRO GLORIES IN HAVING HIMSELF CONFERRED ON THE ROMANS.

   What is it, then, that Varro boasts he has bestowed as a very great
benefit on his fellow-citizens, because he not only recounts the gods who
ought to be worshipped by the Romans, but also tells what pertains to each
of them? "Just as it is of no advantage," he says, "to know the name and
appearance of any man who is a physician, and not know that he is a
physician, so," he says, "it is of no advantage to know well that
Aesculapius is a god, if you are not aware that he can bestow the gift of
health, and consequently do not know why you ought to supplicate him." He
also affirms this by another comparison, saying, "No one is able, not only
to live well, but even to live at all, if he does not know who is a smith,
who a baker, who a weaver, from whom he can seek any utensil, whom he may
take for a helper, whom for a leader, whom for a teacher;" asserting, "that
in this way it can be doubtful to no one, that thus the knowledge of the
gods is useful, if one can know what force, and faculty, or power any god
may have in an thingFor from this we may be able," he says, "to know what
god we ought to call to, and invoke for any cause; lest we should do as too
many are wont to do, and desire water from Liber, and wine from Lymphs."
Very useful, forsooth! Who would not give this man thanks if he could show
true things, and if he could teach that the one true God, from whom all
good things are, is to be worshipped by men?

CHAP. 23.--CONCERNING FELICITY, WHOM THE ROMANS, WHO VENERATE MANY GODS,
FOR A LONG TIME DID NOT WORSHIP WITH DIVINE HONOR, THOUGH SHE ALONE WOULD
HAVE SUFFICED INSTEAD OF ALL.

   But how does it happen, if their books and rituals are true, and
Felicity is a goddess, that she herself is not appointed as the only one to
be worshipped, since she could confer all things, and all at once make men
happy? For who wishes anything for any other reason than that he may become
happy? Why was it left to Lucullus to dedicate a temple to so great a
goddess at so late a date, and after so many Roman rulers? Why did Romulus
himself, ambitious as he was of rounding a fortunate city, not erect a
temple to this goddess before all others? Why did he supplicate the other
gods for anything, since he would have lacked nothing had she been with
him? For even he himself would neither have been first a king, then
afterwards, as they think, a god, if this goddess had not been propitious
to him. Why, therefore, did he appoint as gods for the Romans, Janus, Jove,
Mars, Picus, Faunus, Tibernus, Hercules, and others, if there were more of
them? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, Sun, Moon, Vulcan, Light, and
whatever others he added, among whom was even the goddess Cloacina, while
Felicity was neglected? Why did Numa appoint so many gods and so many
goddesses without this one? Was it perhaps because he could not see her
among so great a crowd? Certainly king Hostilius would not have introduced
the new gods Fear and Dread to be propitiated, if he could have known or
might have worshipped this goddess. For, in presence of Felicity, Fear and
Dread would have disappeared,--I do not say propitiated, but put to flight.
Next, I ask, how is it that the Roman empire had already immensely
increased before any one worshipped Felicity? Was the empire, therefore,
more great than happy? For how could true felicity be there, where there
was not true piety? For piety is the genuine worship of the true God, and
not the worship of as many demons as there are false gods. Yet even
afterwards, when Felicity had already been taken into the number of the
gods, the great infelicity of the civil wars ensued. Was Felicity perhaps
justly indignant, both because she was invited so late, and was invited not
to honor, but rather to reproach, because along with her were worshipped
Priapus, and Cloacina, and Fear and Dread, and Ague, and others which were
not gods to be worshipped, but the crimes of the worshippers? Last of all,
if it seemed good to worship so great a goddess along with a most unworthy
crowd, why at least was she not worshipped in a more honorable way than the
rest? For is it not intolerable that Felicity is placed neither among the
gods Consentes,(1) whom they allege to be admitted into  the council of
Jupiter, nor among the gods whom they term Select? Some temple might be
made for her which might be pre-eminent, both in loftiness of site and
dignity of style.  Why, indeed, not something better than is made for
Jupiter himself? For who gave the kingdom even to Jupiter but Felicity? I
am supposing that when he reigned he was happy. Felicity, however, is
certainly more valuable than a kingdom. For no one doubts that a man might
easily be found who may fear to be made a king; but no one is found who is
unwilling to be happy. Therefore, if it is thought they can be consulted by
augury, or in any other way, the gods themselves should be consulted about
this thing, whether they may wish to give place to Felicity. If, perchance,
the place should already be occupied by the temples and altars of others,
where a greater and more lofty temple might be built to Felicity, even
Jupiter himself might give way, so that Felicity might rather obtain the
very pinnacle of the Capitoline hill. For there is not any one who would
resist Felicity, except, which is impossible, one who might wish to be
unhappy. Certainly, if he should be consulted, Jupiter would in no case do
what those three gods, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas, did, who positively
refused to give place to their superior and king. For, as their books
record, when king Tarquin wished to construct the Capitol, and perceived
that the place which seemed to him to be the most worthy and suitable was
preoccupied by other gods, not daring to do anything contrary to their
pleasure, and believing that they would willingly give place to a god who
was so great, and was their own master, because there were many of them
there when the Capitol was founded, he inquired by augury whether they
chose to give place to Jupiter, and they were all willing to remove thence
except those whom I have named, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas; and therefore
the Capitol was built in such a way that these three also might be within
it, yet with such obscure signs that even the most learned men could
scarcely know this. Surely, then, Jupiter himself would by no means despise
Felicity, as he was himself despised by Terminus, Mars, and Juventas. But
even they themselves who had not given place to Jupiter, would certainly
give place to Felicity, who had made Jupiter king over them. Or if they
should not give place, they would act thus not out of contempt of her, but
because they chose rather to be obscure in the house of Felicity, than to
be eminent without her in their own places.

   Thus the goddess Felicity being established in the largest and loftiest
place, the citizens should learn whence the furtherance of every good
desire should be sought. And so, by the persuasion of nature herself, the
superfluous multitude of other gods being abandoned, Felicity alone would
be worshipped, prayer would be made to her alone, her temple alone would be
frequented by the citizens who wished to be happy, which no one of them
would not wish; and thus felicity, who was sought for from all the gods,
would be sought for only from her own self. For who wishes to receive from
any god anything else than felicity, or what he supposes to tend to
felicity? Wherefore, if Felicity has it in her power to be with what man
she pleases (and she has it if she is a goddess), what folly is it, after
all, to seek from any other god her whom you can obtain by request from her
own self! Therefore they ought to honor this goddess above other gods, even
by dignity of place. For, as we read in their own authors, the ancient
Romans paid greater honors to I know not what Summanus, to whom they
attributed nocturnal thunderbolts, than to Jupiter, to whom diurnal
thunderbolts were held to pertain. But, after a famous and conspicuous
temple had been built to Jupiter, owing to the dignity of the building, the
multitude resorted to him in so great numbers, that scarce one can be found
who remembers even to have read the name of Summanus, which now he cannot
once hear named. But if Felicity is not a goddess, because, as is true, it
is a gift of God, that god must be sought who has power to give it, and
that hurtful multitude of false gods must be abandoned which the vain
multitude of foolish men follows after, making gods to itself of the gifts
of God, and offending Himself whose gifts they are by the stubbornness of a
proud will. For he cannot be free from infelicity who worships Felicity as
a goddess, and forsakes God, the giver of felicity; just as he cannot be
free from hunger who licks a painted loaf of bread, and does not buy it of
the man who has a real one.

CHAP. 24.--THE REASONS BY WHICH THE PAGANS ATTEMPT TO DEFEND THEIR
WORSHIPPING AMONG THE GODS THE DIVINE GIFTS THEMSELVES.

   We may, however, consider their reasons. Is it to be believed, say
they, that our forefathers were besotted even to such a degree as not to
know that these things are divine gifts, and not gods? But as they knew
that such things are granted to no one, except by some god freely bestowing
them, they called the gods whose names they did not find out by the names
of those things which they deemed to be given by them; sometimes slightly
altering the name for that purpose, as, for example, from war they have
named Bellona, not bellum; from cradles, Cunina, not cunoe; from standing
corn, Segetia, not seges; from apples, Pomona, not pomum; from oxen,
Bubona, not bos. Sometimes, again, with no alteration of the word, just as
the things themselves are named, so that the goddess who gives money is
called Pecunia, and money is not thought to be itself a goddess: so of
Virtus, who gives virtue; Honor, who gives honor; Concordia, who gives
concord; Victoria, who gives victory. So, they say, when Felicitas is
called a goddess, what is meant is not the thing itself which is given, but
that deity by whom felicity is given.

CHAP. 25.--CONCERNING THE ONE GOD ONLY TO BE WORSHIPPED, WHO, ALTHOUGH HIS
NAME IS UNKNOWN, IS YET DEEMED TO BE THE GIVER OF FELICITY.

   Having had that reason rendered to us, we shall perhaps much more
easily persuade, as we wish, those whose heart has not become too much
hardened. For if now human infirmity has perceived that felicity cannot be
given except by some god; if this was perceived by those who worshipped so
many gods, at whose head they set Jupiter himself; if, in their ignorance
of the name of Him by whom felicity was given, they agreed to call Him by
the name of that very thing which they believed He gave;--then it follows
that they thought that felicity could not be given even by Jupiter himself,
whom they already worshipped, but certainly by him whom they thought fit to
worship under the name of Felicity itself. I thoroughly affirm the
statement that they believed felicity to be given by a certain God whom
they knew not: let Him therefore be sought after, let Him be worshipped,
and it is enough. Let the train of innumerable demons be repudiated, and
let this God suffice every man whom his gift suffices. For him, I say, God
the giver of felicity will not be enough to worship, for whom felicity
itself is not enough to receive. But let him for whom it suffices (and man
has nothing more he ought to wish for) serve the one God, the giver of
felicity. This God is not he whom they call Jupiter. For if they
acknowledged him to be the giver of felicity, they would not seek, under
the name of Felicity itself, for another god or goddess by whom felicity
might be given; nor could they tolerate that Jupiter himself should be
worshipped with such infamous attributes. For he is said to be the
debaucher of the wives of others; he is the shameless lover and ravisher of
a beautiful boy.

CHAP. 26.--OF THE SCENIC PLAYS, THE CELEBRATION OF WHICH THE GODS HAVE
EXACTED FROM THEIR WORSHIPPERS.

   "But," says Cicero, "Homer invented these things, and transferred
things human to the gods: I would rather transfer things divine to us."(1)
The poet, by ascribing such crimes to the gods, has justly displeased the
grave man. Why, then, are the scenic plays, where these crimes are
habitually spoken of, acted, exhibited, in honor of the gods, reckoned
among things divine by the most learned men? Cicero should exclaim, not
against the inventions of the poets, but against the customs of the
ancients. Would not they have exclaimed in reply, What have we done? The
gods themselves have loudly demanded that these plays should be exhibited
in their honor, have fiercely exacted them, have menaced destruction unless
this was performed, have avenged its neglect with great severity, and have
manifested pleasure at the reparation of such neglect. Among their virtuous
and wonderful deeds the following is related. It was announced in a dream
to Titus Latinius, a Roman rustic, that he should go to the senate and tell
them to recommence the games of Rome, because on the first day of their
celebration a condemned criminal had been led to punishment in sight of the
people, an incident so sad as to disturb the gods who were seeking
amusement from the games. And when the peasant who had received this
intimation was afraid on the following day to deliver it to the senate, it
was renewed next night in a severer form: he lost his son, because of his
neglect. On the third night he was warned that a yet graver punishment was
impending, if he should still refuse obedience. When even thus he did not
dare to obey, he fell into a virulent and horrible disease. But then, on
the advice of his friends, he gave information to the magistrates, and was
carried in a litter into the senate, and having, on declaring his dream,
immediately recovered strength, went away on his own feet whole.(2) The
senate, amazed at so great a miracle, decreed that the games should be
renewed at fourfold cost. What sensible man does not see that men, being
put upon by malignant demons, from whose domination nothing save the grace
of God through Jesus Christ our Lord sets free, have been compelled by
force to exhibit to such gods as these, plays which, if well advised, they
should condemn as shameful? Certain it is that in these plays the poetic
crimes of the gods are celebrated, yet they are plays which were re-
established by decree of the senate, under compulsion of the gods. In these
plays the most shameless actors celebrated Jupiter as the corrupter of
chastity, and thus gave him pleasure. If that was a fiction, he would have
been moved to anger; but if he was delighted with the representation of his
crimes, even although fabulous, then, when he happened to be worshipped,
who but the devil could be served? Is it so that he could found, extend,
and preserve the Roman empire, who was more vile than any Roman man
whatever, to whom such things were displeasing? Could he give felicity who
was so infelicitously worshipped, and who, unless he should be thus
worshipped, was yet more infelicitously provoked to anger?

CHAP. 27. -- CONCERNING THE THREE KINDS OF GODS ABOUT WHICH THE PONTIFF
SCAEVOLA HAS DISCOURSED.

   It is recorded that the very learned pontiff Scaevola(3) had
distinguished about three kinds of gods--one introduced by the poets,
another by the philosophers, another by the statesmen. The first kind he
declares to be trifling, because many unworthy things have been invented by
the poets concerning the gods; the second does not suit states, because it
contains some things that are superfluous, and some, too, which it would be
prejudicial for the people to know. It is no great matter about the
superfluous things, for it is a common saying of skillful lawyers,
"Superfluous things do no harm."(4) But what are those things which do harm
when brought before the multitude? "These," he says, "that Hercules,
Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, are not gods; for it is declared by learned
men that these were but men, and yielded to the common lot of mortals."
What else? "That states have not the true images of the gods; because the
true God has neither sex, nor age, nor definite corporeal members." The
pontiff is not willing that the people should know these things; for he
does not think they are false. He thinks it expedient, therefore, that
states should be deceived in matters of religion; which Varro himself does
not even hesitate to say in his books about things divine. Excellent
religion! to which the weak, who requires to be delivered, may flee for
succor; and when he seeks for the truth by which he may be delivered, it is
believed to be expedient for him that he be deceived. And, truly, in these
same books, Scaevola is not silent as to his reason for rejecting the
poetic sort of gods,--to wit, "because they so disfigure the gods that they
could not bear comparison even with good men, when they make one to commit
theft, another adultery; or, again, to say or do something else basely and
foolishly; as that three goddesses contested (with each other) the prize of
beauty, and the two vanquished by Venus destroyed Troy; that Jupiter turned
himself into a bull or swan that he might copulate with some one; that a
goddess married a man, and Saturn devoured his children; that, in fine,
there is nothing that could be imagined, either of the miraculous or
vicious, which may not be found there, and yet is far removed from the
nature of the gods." O chief pontiff Scaevola, take away the plays if thou
art able; instruct the people that they may not offer such honors to the
immortal gods, in which, if they like, they may admire the crimes of the
gods, and, so far as it is possible, may, if they please, imitate them. But
if the people shall have answered thee, You, O pontiff, have brought these
things in among us, then ask the gods themselves at whose instigation you
have ordered these things, that they may not order such things to be
offered to them. For if they are bad, and therefore in no way to be
believed concerning the majority of the gods, the greater is the wrong done
the gods about whom they are feigned with impunity. But they do not hear
thee, they are demons, they teach wicked things, they rejoice in vile
things; not only do they not count it a wrong if these things are feigned
about them, but it is a wrong they are quite unable to bear if they are not
acted at their stated festivals. But now, if thou wouldst call on Jupiter
against them, chiefly for that reason that more of his crimes are wont to
be acted in the scenic plays, is it not the case that, although you call
him god Jupiter, by whom this whole world is ruled and administered, it is
he to whom the greatest wrong is done by you, because you have thought he
ought to be worshipped along with them, and have styled him their king?

CHAP. 28.--WHETHER THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS HAS BEEN OF SERVICE TO THE
ROMANS IN OBTAINING AND EXTENDING THE EMPIRE.

   Therefore such gods, who are propitiated by such honors, or rather are
impeached by them (for it is a greater crime to delight in having such
things said of them falsely, than even if they could be said truly), could
never by any means have been able to increase and preserve the Roman
empire. For if they could have done it, they would rather have bestowed so
grand a gift on the Greeks, who, in this kind of divine things,--that is,
in scenic plays,--have worshipped them more honorably and worthily,
although they have not exempted themselves from those slanders of the
poets, by whom they saw the gods torn in pieces, giving them licence to
ill-use any man they pleased, and have not deemed the scenic players
themselves to be base, but have held them worthy even of distinguished
honor. But just as the Romans were able to have gold money, although they
did not worship a god Aurinus, so also they could have silver and brass
coin, and yet worship neither Argentinus nor his father Aesculanus; and so
of all the rest, which it would be irksome for me to detail. It follows,
therefore, both that they could not by any means attain such dominion if
the true God was unwilling; and that if these gods, false and many, were
unknown or contemned, and He alone was known and worshipped with sincere
faith and virtue, they would both have a better kingdom here, whatever
might be its extent, and whether they might have one here or not, would
afterwards receive an eternal kingdom.

CHAP. 29.--OF THE FALSITY OF THE AUGURY BY WHICH THE STRENGTH AND STABILITY
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE WAS CONSIDERED TO BE INDICATED.

   For what kind of augury is that which they have declared to be most
beautiful, and to which I referred a little ago, that Mars, and Terminus,
and Juventas would not give place even to Jove, the king of the gods? For
thus, they say, it was signified that the nation dedicated to Mars,--that
is, the Roman,--should yield to none the place it once occupied; likewise,
that on account of the god Terminus, no one would be able to disturb the
Roman frontiers; and also, that the Roman youth, because of the goddess
Juventas, should yield to no one. Let them see, therefore, how they can
hold him to be the king of their god's, and the giver of their own kingdom,
if these auguries set him down for an adversary, to whom it would have been
honorable not to yield. However, if these things are true, they need not be
at all afraid. For they are not going to confess that the gods who would
not yield to Jove have yielded to Christ. For, without altering the
boundaries of the empire, Jesus Christ has proved Himself able to drive
them, not only from their temples, but from the hears of their worshippers.
But, before Christ came in the flesh, and, indeed, before these things
which we have quoted from their books could have been written, but yet
after that auspice was made under king Tarquin, the Roman army has been
divers times scattered or put to flight, and has shown the falseness of the
auspice, which they derived from the fact that the goddess Juventas had not
given place to Jove; and the nation dedicated to Mars was trodden down in
the city itself by the invading and triumphant Gauls; and the boundaries of
the empire, through the falling away of many cities to Hannibal, had been
hemmed into a narrow space. Thus the beauty of the auspices is made void,
and there has remained only the contumacy against Jove, not of gods, but of
demons. For it is one thing not to have yielded, and another to have
returned whither you have yielded. Besides, even afterwards, in the
oriental regions, the boundaries of the Roman empire were changed by the
will of Hadrian; for he yielded up to the Persian empire those three noble
provinces, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Thus that god Terminus, who
according to these books was the guardian of the Roman frontiers, and by
that most beautiful auspice had not given place to Jove, would seem to have
been more afraid of Hadrian, a king of men, than of the king of the gods.
The aforesaid provinces having also been taken back again, almost within
our own recollection the frontier fell back, when Julian, given up to the
oracles of their gods, with immoderate daring ordered the victualling ships
to be set on fire. The army being thus left destitute of provisions, and he
himself also being presently killed by the enemy, and the legions being
hard pressed, while dismayed by the loss of their commander, they were
reduced to such extremities that no one could have escaped, unless by
articles of peace the boundaries of the empire had then been established
where they still remain; not, indeed, with so great a loss as was suffered
by the concession of Hadrian, but still at a considerable sacrifice. It was
a vain augury, then, that the god Terminus did not yield to Jove, since he
yielded to the will of Hadrian, and yielded also to the rashness of Julian,
and the necessity of Jovinian. The more intelligent and grave Romans have
seen these things, but have had little power against the custom of the
state, which was bound to observe the rites of the demons; because even
they themselves, although they perceived that these things were vain, yet
thought that the religious worship which is due to God should be paid to
the nature of things which is established under the rule and government of
the one true God, "serving," as saith the apostle, "the creature more than
the Creator, who is blessed for evermore."(1) The help of this true God was
necessary to send holy and truly pious men, who would die for the true
religion that they might remove the false from among the living.

CHAP. 30.--WHAT KIND OF THINGS EVEN THEIR WORSHIPPERS HAVE OWNED THEY HAVE
THOUGHT ABOUT THE GODS OF THE NATIONS.

   Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for regulating
the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jackdaws.(2) But it will be
said that an academic philosopher, who argues that all things are
uncertain, is unworthy to have any authority in these matters. In the
second book of his De Natura Deorum,(3) he introduces Lucilius Balbus, who,
after showing that superstitions have their origin in physical and
philosophical truths, expresses his indignation at the setting up of images
and fabulous notions, speaking thus: "Do you not therefore see that from
true and useful physical discoveries the reason may be drawn away to
fabulous and imaginary gods? This gives birth to false opinions and
turbulent errors, and superstitions well-nigh old-wifeish. For both the
forms of the gods, and their ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are made
familiar to us; their genealogies, too, their marriages, kinships, and all
things about them, are debased to the likeness of human weakness. They are
even introduced as having perturbed minds; for we have accounts of the
lusts, cares, and angers of the gods. Nor, indeed, as the rabies go, have
the gods been without their wars and battles. And that not only when, as in
Homer, some gods on either side have defended two opposing armies, but they
have even carried on wars on their own account, as with the Titans or with
the Giants. Such things it is quite absurd either to say or to believe:
they are utterly frivolous and groundless." Behold, now, what is confessed
by those who defend the gods of the nations. Afterwards he goes on to say
that some things belong to superstition, but others to religion, which he
thinks good to teach according to the Stoics. "For not only the
philosophers," he says, "but also our forefathers, have made a distinction
between superstition and religion. For those," he says, "who spent whole
days in prayer, and offered sacrifice, that their children might outlive
them, are called superstitious."(4) Who does not see that he is trying,
While he fears the public prejudice, to praise the religion of the
ancients, and that he wishes to disjoin it from superstition, but cannot
find Out how to do so? For if those who prayed and sacrificed all day were
called superstitious by the ancients, were those also called so who
instituted (what he blames) the images of the gods of diverse age and
distinct clothing, and invented the genealogies of gods, their marriages,
and kinships? When, therefore, these things are found fault with as
superstitious, he implicates in that fault the ancients who instituted and
worshipped such images. Nay, he implicates himself, who, with whatever
eloquence he may strive to extricate himself and be free, was yet under the
necessity of venerating these images; nor dared he so much as whisper in a
discourse to the people What in this disputation he plainly sounds forth.
Let us Christians, therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God--not to
heaven and earth, as that author argues, but to Him who has made heaven and
earth; because these superstitions, which that Balbus, like a babbler,(1)
scarcely reprehends, He, by the most deep lowliness of Christ, by the
preaching of the apostles, by the faith of the martyrs dying for the truth
and living with the truth, has overthrown, not only in the hearts of the
religious, but even in the temples of the superstitious, by their own free
service.

CHAP. 31.--CONCERNING THE OPINIONS OF VARRO, WHO, WHILE REPROBATING THE
POPULAR BELIEF, THOUGHT THAT THEIR WORSHIP SHOULD BE CONFINED TO ONE GOD,
THOUGH HE WAS UNABLE TO DISCOVER THE TRUE GOD.

   What says Varro himself, whom we grieve to have found, although not by
his own judgment, placing the scenic plays among things, divine? When in
many passages he is exhorting, like a religious man, to the worship of the
gods, does he not in doing so admit that he does not in his own judgment
believe those things which he relates that the Roman state has instituted;
so that he does not hesitate to affirm that if he were founding a new
state; he could enumerate the gods and their names better by the rule of
nature? But being born into a nation already ancient, he says that he finds
himself bound to accept the traditional names and surnames of the gods, and
the histories connected with them, and that his purpose in investigating
and publishing these details is to incline the people to worship the gods,
and not to despise them. By which, words this most acute man sufficiently
indicates that he does not publish all things, because they would not only
have been contemptible to himself, but would have seemed despicable even to
the rabble, unless they had been passed over in silence. I should be
thought to conjecture these things, unless he himself, in another passage,
had openly said, in speaking of religious rites, that many things are true
which it is not only not useful for the common people to know, but that it
is expedient that the people should think otherwise, even though falsely,
and therefore the Greeks have shut up the religious ceremonies and
mysteries in silence, and within walls. In this he no doubt expresses the
policy of the so-called wise men by whom states and peoples are ruled. Yet
by this crafty device the malign demons are wonderfully delighted, who
possess alike the deceivers and the deceived, and from whose tyranny
nothing sets free save the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

   The same most acute and learned author also says, that those alone seem
to him to  have perceived what God is, who have believed Him to be the soul
of the world, governing it by design and reason.(2) And by this, it
appears, that although he did not attain to the truth,--for the true God is
not a soul, but the maker and author of the soul,--yet if he could have
been free to go against the prejudices of custom, he could have confessed
and counselled others that the one God ought to be worshipped, who governs
the world by design and reason; so that on this subject only this point
would remain to be debated with him, that he had called Him a soul, and not
rather the creator of the soul. He says, also, that the ancient Romans, for
more than a hundred and seventy years, worshipped the gods without an
image? "And if this custom," he says, "could have remained till now, the
gods would have been more purely worshipped." In favor of this opinion, he
cites as a witness among others the Jewish nation; nor does he hesitate to
conclude that passage by saying of those who first consecrated images for
the people, that they have both taken away religious fear from their
fellow-citizens, and increased error, wisely thinking that the gods easily
fall into contempt when exhibited under the stolidity of images. But as he
does not say they have transmitted error, but that they have increased it,
he therefore wishes it to be understood that there was error already when
there were no images. Wherefore, when he says they alone have perceived
what God is who have believed Him to be the governing soul of the world,
and thinks that the rites of religion would have been more purely observed
without images, who fails to see how near he has come to the truth? For if
he had been able to do anything against so inveterate, an error, he would
certainly have given it as his opinion both that the one God should be
worshipped, and that He should be worshipped without an image; and having
so nearly discovered the truth, perhaps he might easily have been put in
mind of the mutability of the soul, and might thus have perceived that the
true God is that immutable nature which made the soul itself. Since these
things are so, whatever ridicule such men have poured in their writings
against the plurality of the gods, they have done so rather as compelled by
the secret will of God to confess them, than as trying to persuade others.
If, therefore, any testimonies are adduced by us from these writings, they
are adduced for the confutation of those who are unwilling to consider from
how great and malignant a power of the demons the singular sacrifice of the
shedding of the most holy blood, and the gift of the imparted Spirit, can
set us free.

CHAP. 32.--IN WHAT INTEREST THE PRINCES OF THE NATIONS WISHED FALSE
RELIGIONS TO CONTINUE AMONG THE PEOPLE SUBJECT TO THEM.

   Varro says also, concerning the generations of the gods, that the
people have inclined to the poets rather than to the natural philosophers;
and that therefore their forefathers,--that is, the ancient Romans,--
believed both in the sex and the generations of the gods, and settled their
marriages; which certainly seems to have been done for no other cause
except that it was the business of such men as were prudent and wise to
deceive the people in matters of religion, and in that very thing not only
to worship, but also to imitate the demons, whose greatest lust is to
deceive. For just as the demons cannot possess any but those whom they have
deceived with guile, so also men in princely office, not indeed being just,
but like demons, have persuaded the people in the name of religion to
receive as true those things which they themselves knew to be false; in
this way, as it were, binding them up more firmly in civil society, so that
they might in like manner possess them as subjects. But who that was weak
and unlearned could escape the deceits of both the princes of the state and
the demons?

CHAP. 33.--THAT THE TIMES OF ALL KINGS AND KINGDOMS ARE ORDAINED BY THE
JUDGMENT AND POWER OF THE TRUE GOD.

   Therefore that God, the author and giver of felicity, because He alone
is the true God, Himself gives earthly kingdoms both to good and bad.
Neither does He do this rashly, and, as it were, fortuitously,--because He
is God not fortune,--but according to the order, of things and times, which
is hidden from us, but thoroughly known to Himself; which same order of
times, however, He does not serve as subject to it, but Himself rules as
lord and  appoints as governor. Felicity He gives only to the good. Whether
a man be a subject or a king makes no difference; he may equally either
possess or not possess it. And it shall be full in that life where kings
and subjects exist no longer. And therefore earthly kingdoms are given by
Him both to the good and the bad; lest His worshippers, still under the
conduct of a very weak mind, should covet these gifts from Him as some
great things. And this is the mystery of the Old Testament, in which the
New was hidden, that there even earthly gifts are promised: those who were
spiritual understanding even then, although not yet openly declaring, both
the eternity which was symbolized by these earthly things, and in what
gifts of God true felicity could be found.

CHAP. 34.--CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF THE JEWS, WHICH WAS FOUNDED BY THE ONE
AND TRUE GOD, AND PRESERVED BY HIM AS LONG AS THEY REMAINED IN THE TRUE
RELIGION.

   Therefore, that it might be known that these earthly good things, after
which those pant who cannot imagine better things, remain in the power of
the one God Himself, not of the many false gods whom the Romans have
formerly believed worthy of worship, He multiplied His people in Egypt from
being very few, and delivered them out of it by wonderful signs. Nor did
their women invoke Lucina when their offspring was being incredibly
multiplied; and that nation having increased incredibly, He Himself
delivered, He Himself saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, who
persecuted them, and wished to kill all their infants. Without the goddess
Rumina they sucked; without Cunina they were cradled, without Educa and
Potina they took food and drink: without all those puerile gods they were
educated; without the nuptial gods they were married; without the worship
of Priapus they had conjugal intercourse; without invocation of Neptune the
divided sea opened up a way for them to pass over, and overwhelmed with its
returning waves their enemies who pursued them. Neither did they consecrate
any goddess Mannia when they received manna from heaven; nor, when the
smitten rock poured forth water to them when they thirsted, did they
worship Nymphs and Lymphs. Without the mad rites of Mars and Bellona they
carried on war; and while, indeed, they did not conquer without victory,
yet they did not hold it to be a goddess, but the gift of their God.
Without Segetia they had harvests; without Bubona, oxen; honey without
Mellona; apples without Pomona: and, in a word, everything for which the
Romans thought they must supplicate so great a crowd of false gods, they
received much more happily from the one true God. And if they had not
sinned against Him with impious curiosity, which seduced them like magic
arts, and drew them to strange gods and idols, and at last led them to kill
Christ, their kingdom would have remained. to them, and would have been, if
not more spacious, yet more happy, than that of Rome. And now that they are
dispersed through almost all lands and nations, it is through the
providence of that one true God; that whereas the images, altars, groves,
and temples of the false gods are everywhere overthrown, and their
sacrifices prohibited, it may be shown from their books how this has been
foretold by their prophets so long before; lest, perhaps, when they should
be read in ours, they might seem to be invented by us. But now, reserving
what is to follow for the following book, we must here set a bound to the
prolixity of this one.


Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/II, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.

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