Well do you remind me, dearest Donatus, for by the favorable harvest for
repose receives the annually recurring respite of the wearying year. The
place too benefits the time, and the delightful appearance of the gardens
harmonizes with the gentle breezes of a soothing autumn in delighting and
animating the senses. Here it is delightful to pass the day in
conversation and by diligent discussions to train the understanding of the
heart in the divine precepts. And that no profane critic may impede our
talk and no unrestrained clamor of a noisy household annoy us, let us seek
out this spot. The neighboring thickets furnish seclusion, where the
wandering slips of vines, with their pendent interlacing creep over the
burden-carrying reeds, and the leafy covering has made a vine-covered
portico. Well do we bring our ears to attention here, and as we look upon
the trees and the vines, we delight our eyes by the pleasing view, and
otherwise instruct the soul by what we hear and nourish it by what we see.
And yet now your only pleasure and your only concern is with conversation,
and, overlooking the enticements of the pleasures of sight, you have fixed
your eyes upon me with that countenance and with that attention by which
you are altogether a listener and with this affection with which you love
me.
Chapter 2
But of whatever nature or however much that is which comes into your heart
from us, (the poor mediocrity of my meager talent produces a very sparing
harvest, and does not grow heavy with stalks for a copious rich deposit),
nevertheless I shall approach my task as well as I can; for the
subject-matter of my talk is quite to my liking. In courts of justice, in
public assembly before the rostrum let an opulent eloquence be displayed
with unrestrained ambition, but when speech is concerned with the Lord
God, the pure sincerity of speech depends not on the force of eloquence
for the arguments in support of faith but on facts. Therefore, receive not
eloquent words, but forceful ones, not decked out with cultivated rhetoric
to entice a popular audience, but simple words of unvarnished truth for
the proclaiming of God's mercy. Receive what is felt before it is learned,
and what is gathered not after a long study with much delay, but what is
drawn in by a quickening act of divine grace.
Chapter 3
While I was lying in darkness and in the obscure night, and while,
ignorant of my real life, I was tossing about on the sea of a restless
world wavering and doubtful in my wandering steps, a stranger to the truth
and the light, I thought it indeed difficult and hard (to believe)
according to the character of mine at the time that divine mercy was
promised for my salvation, so that anyone might be born again and
quickened unto a new life by the laver of the saving water, he might put
off what he had been before, and, although the structure of the body
remained, he might change himself in soul and mind. 'How,' I said, 'is
such a conversion possible, that the innate which has grown hard in the
corruption of natural material or when acquired has become inveterate by
the affliction of old age should suddenly and swiftly be put aside? These
things, deep and profound, have been thoroughly rooted within us. When
does he learn thrift, who has become accustomed to lavish banquets and
extravagant feasts? And when does he who, conspicuous in costly raiment,
has shone in gold and purple, dispose himself to ordinary and simple
clothing? He who has been delighted by the fasces and public honors cannot
become a private and inglorious citizen. He who has been attended by
crowds of clients or has been honored by a crowded assemblage of an
officious throng thinks it a punishment to be alone. Of necessity, as in
the past, wine-bibbing ever entices with its tenacious allurements, pride
puffs up, anger inflames, covetousness disturbs, cruelty stimulates,
ambition delights, lust plunges into ruin.'
Chapter 4
This I often said to myself. For as I myself was held enlivened by the
very many errors of my previous life, of which I believe that I could not
divest myself, so I was disposed to give in to my clinging vices, and in
my despair of better things I indulged my sins as if now proper and
belonging to me. But afterwards, when the stain of my past life had been
washed away by the aid of the water of regeneration, a light from above
poured itself upon my chastened and pure heart; afterwards when I had
drunk of the Spirit from heaven a second birth restored me into a new man;
immediately in a marvelous manner doubtful matters clarified themselves,
the closed opened, the shadowy shone with light, what seemed impossible
was able to be accomplished, so that it was possible to acknowledge that
what formerly was born of the flesh and lived submissive to sins was
earthly, and what the Holy Spirit already was animating began to be of
God. Surely you know and recognize alike with myself what was taken from
us and what was contributed by the death of sins and by that life of
virtues. You yourself know; I do not proclaim it. Boasting to one's own
praise is odious, although that cannot be a matter of boasting but an
expression of gratitude, which is not ascribed to the virtue of man but is
proclaimed as of God's munificence, so that now not to sin begins to be of
faith, and what was done in sin before to be of human error. Our power is
of God, I say, all of it is of God. From Him we have life; from Him we
have prosperity; by the vigor received and conceived of Him, while still
in this world, we have foreknowledge of what is to be. But let fear be the
guardian of innocence, so that the Lord, who of His mercy has flowed into
our hearts with the silent approach of celestial tenderness, may be kept
in the guest-chamber of a heart that gives delight by its righteous
action, lest the security we have received beget carelessness, and the old
enemy creep upon us anew.
Chapter 5
But if you hold to the way of innocence, to the way of justice, with the
firmness of your step unbroken, if depending upon God with all your
strength and your whole heart you only be what you began to be, so much
power is given you in the way of freedom to act as there is an increase in
spiritual grace. For there is no measure or moderation in receiving of
God's munificence, as is the custom with earthly benefits. For the Spirit
flowing forth bountifully is shut in by no boundaries, and is checked
within the spaces of definite limits by no restraining barriers. It
spreads out continually; it overflows abundantly, provided only our hearts
are athirst and open for it. According as we bring to it a capacious
faith, to this extent do we draw from it overflowing grace. From this
source is the power given with modest chastity, with a sound mind, with a
pure voice to extinguish the virus of poisons within the marrow of the
grieving, to cleanse the stain of foolish souls by restoring health, to
bind peace to the hostile, rest to the violent, gentleness to the unruly,
by dire threats to force those unclean and vagrant spirits to confess, who
have forced their way within men to destroy them, to force them with heavy
blows to withdraw, to stretch them out struggling, wailing, groaning with
an increase of expanding punishment, to beat them with scourges, and to
roast them with fire. There the matter is carried on but is not seen; the
blows are hidden but the punishment is manifest. Thus since we have
already begun to be, the spirit which we have received possesses its own
freedom of action; since we have not yet changed our body and members, our
still carnal view is obscured by the cloud of this world. How great is
this domination of the mind, how great is its force, not only that it
itself is withdrawn from pernicious contacts of the world, so that as one
cleansed and pure it is seized by no stain of an attacking enemy, but that
it becomes greater and stronger in its might, so that it rules with
imperial right over every army of an attacking adversary.
Chapter 6
But in order that the characteristics of the divine munificence may shine
forth when the truth has been revealed, I shall give you light to
recognize it, by wiping away the cloud of evil I shall reveal the darkness
of a hidden world. For a little consider that you are being transported to
the loftiest peak of a high mountain, that from this you are viewing the
appearance of things that lie below you and with your eyes directed in
different directions you yourself free from earthly contacts gaze upon the
turmoils of the world. Presently you also will have pity on the world, and
taking account of yourself and with more gratitude to God you will rejoice
with greater joy that you have escaped from it. Observe the roads blocked
by robbers, the seas beset by pirates, wars spread everywhere with the
bloody horrors of camps. The world is soaked with mutual blood, and when
individuals commit homicide, it is a crime; it is called a virtue when it
is done in the name of the state. Impunity is acquired for crimes not by
reason of innocence but by the magnitude of the cruelty.
Chapter 7
Now if you turn your eyes and face toward the cities themselves, you will
find a multitude sadder than any solitude. A gladitorial combat is being
prepared that blood may delight the lust of cruel eyes. The body is filled
up with stronger foods, and the robust mass of flesh grows fat with
bulging muscles, so that fattened for punishment it may perish more
dearly. Man is killed for the pleasure of man, and to be able to kill is a
skill, is an employment, is an art. Crime is not only committed but is
taught. What can be called more inhuman, what more repulsive? It is a
training that one may be able to kill, and that he kills is a glory. What
is this, I ask you, of what nature is it, where those offer themselves to
wild beasts, whom no one has condemned, in the prime of life, of a rather
beautiful appearance, in costly garments? While still alive they adorn
themselves for a voluntary death, wretched they even glory in their wicked
deeds. They fight with beasts not because they are convincts but because
they are mad. Fathers look upon their own sons; a brother is in the arena
and his sister near by, and, although the more elaborate preparation of
the exhibition increases the price of the spectacle, oh shame! the mother
also pays this price that she may be present at her own sorrows. And at
such impious and terrible spectacles they do not realize that with their
eyes they are parricides.
Chapter 8
Turn your gaze away from this to the no less objectionable contaminations
of a different kind of spectacle. In the theaters also you will behold
what will cause you both grief and shame. It is the tragic buskin to
relate in verse the crimes of former times. The ancient horror of
parricide and incest is unfolded in acting expressed in the model of the
truth, lest, as time goes by, what was once committed disappear. Every age
is reminded by what it hears that what has been done can be done again.
Transgressions never die from the passage of the ages; crime is never
erased by time; vice is never buried in oblivion. Then in the mimes by the
teaching of infamies one delights either to recall what he has done at
home or to hear what he can do. Adultery is learned as it is seen, and,
while evil with public authority panders to vices, the matron who
perchance had gone forth to the spectacle chaste returned from the
spectacle unchaste. Then further how great a collapse of morals, what a
stimulus to base deeds, what a nourishing of vices, to be polluted by the
gestures of actors, to behold the elaborate endurance of incestuous
abominations contrary to the convenant and law of our birth. Men
emasculate themselves; all the honor and vigor of their sex are enfeebled
by the disgrace of an enervated body, and he gives more pleasure there who
best breaks down the man into woman. He grows into praise from crime, and
he is judged the more skillful, the more degraded he is. Oh shame! Such a
one is looked upon, and freely so. What cannot one in such a state
suggest? He rouses the senses; he flatters the affections; he drives out
the stronger conscience of a good heart; nor is there lacking the
authority of a seductive vice, that ruin may creep upon men with less
notice. They depict Venus as unchaste, Mars as an adulterer, and that
famous Jupiter of theirs no more a chieftain in dominion than in vice,
burning with earthly love in the midst of his own thunderbolts, now
shining white in the plumage of a swan, now pouring down in a golden
shower, now plunging forth with ministering birds for the raping of young
boys. Ask now whether he who looks upon this can be healthy minded or
chaste. One imitates the gods whom he venerates. For these poor wretches
sins become even religious acts.
Chapter 9
Or, if you should be able, standing on that lofty watchtower, to direct
your eyes into secret places, to unfasten the locked doors of sleeping
chambers and to open these hidden recesses to the perception of sight, you
would behold that being carried on by the unchaste which a chaste
countenance could not behold; you would see what it is a crime even to
see; you would see what those demented with the fury of vices deny that
they have done and hasten to do. Men with frenzied lusts rush against men.
Things are done which cannot even give pleasure to those who do them. I
lie if he who is such does not accuse others of the same; the depraved
defames the depraved, and believes that he while conscious of his guilt
has escaped, as if consciousness were not sufficient condemnation. The
same persons are accusers in public and the defendants in secret, both
their own critics and the guilty. They condemn abroad what they commit at
home, which, after they have committed it, they accuse; a daring acting
directly with vice and an impudence in harmony with the shameless. Do not
marvel at such things as they speak. Whatever sin is committed with the
voice is less than that by the mouth.
Chapter 10
But viewing the treacherous highways, the manifold battles scattered over
the whole earth, the exhibition either bloody or vile, the infamies of
lust offered for sale in brothels or enclosed within domestic walls, whose
daring is greater in proportion to the secrecy of the sin, the forum
perhaps may seem to you to be devoid of all this, that it is free of
harassing outrages and is unpolluted by contacts with evil. Turn your
sight in that direction. There you will find more things to abhor; from
these you will the more turn aside your eyes. Although the laws are
engraved on twelve tables, and the statutes are published on bronze set up
in public, there is sin in the midst of the laws themselves, there is
wickedness in the midst of the statutes, and innocence is not preserved
where it is defended. The madness of those who oppose each other rages,
and among the togas peace is disrupted and the forum roars madly with law
suits. There the spear and the sword and the executioner are close at
hand, the claw that tears, the rack that stretches, the fire that burns,
for the one body of man more tortures than it has limbs. Who in such cases
gives assistance? One's patron? But he is in collusion and deceives. The
judge? But he sells his sentence. He who sits to punish crimes commits
them, and in order that the defendant may perish in innocence, the judge
becomes guilty. Everywhere transgressions flourish, and in every direction
by the multiform nature of sinning the pernicious poison acts through
wicked minds. One counterfeits a will, another by a capital fraud gives
false testimony; on the one hand children are cheated of their
inheritance, on the other strangers are endowed with property; an enemy
makes a charge, a calumniator attacks, a witness defames. On both sides
the venal impudence of the hired voice proceeds to the falsification of
charges, while in the meantime the guilty perish not with the innocent.
There is no fear of the laws, of the inquisitor, no dread of the judge;
what can be bought is not feared. Now it is a crime for an innocent man
to be among the guilty; whoever does not imitate the evil gives offense.
The laws have come to terms with sins, and what is public begins to be
allowed. What shame of events can there be here, what integrity, when
those to condemn the wicked are absent, and only those to be condemned
meet with you.
Chapter 11
But perchance we may seem to select the worst examples, and to lead your
eyes through them with a view to disragement, whose sad and revolting
sight offends the faced gaze of the better conscience. Presently I shall
show you those examples which worldly opinion considers good. among those
also you will see things to be shunned. As for that you think to be honors,
what you consider the fasces, that affluence in riches, what power in camp,
the sight of people among the magistrates, power in the license of rulers,
all this is the hidden virus of enticing evils, and the happy appearance
of smiling wickedness, but the treacherous disception of hidden calamity.
It is like a certain kind of poison, when after sweetness has been spread
in its lethal juices and its flavor medicated with cunning to deceive what
is consumed seems an ordinary draught, but when the stuff has been
swallowed, the destruction which has been drained creeps over you. Surely
you see that man who, conspicuous by his rather brilliant cloak seems to
himself to be brilliant in purple. With what baseness he has brought this,
that he may be brilliant. What acts of contempt did he first endure on the
part of the haughty; what proud gates as a courtier did he besiege early
in the morning; how many insulting steps of arrogant men, pressed into the
throng of clients, first precede, so that afterwards attendants in solemn
array might precede him also with salutations, submissive not to the man
but to his power. For he has not merited to be cherished for his character
but for his fasces. Finally you may see the wretched exits of these men,
when the time-serving sycophant has departed, when the deserting follower
has defiled the bare side of him now a private citizen. Then the injuries
of a mutilated home strike the conscience; then the losses of a bankrupted
family-estate are known, which the favor of the mob was bought, and the
people's breath was sought with fleeting and empty entreaties. Surely
foolish and empty expense, to have wished to make ready by the pleasure of
a disappointing spectacle that which the people did not accept and the
magistrate lost.
Chapter 12
But those also whom you consider rich, as they add forest to forest, and
extend the infinite boundless country-side ever wider, excluding the poor
from its limits, and who possess the greatest heap of silver and gold, and
mighty sum of money either in sturdy ramparts or buried stores, these too
fearful in the midst of riches are distraught by the anxiety of vague
thought, lest the robber lay them waste, lest the murderer attack, lest
the hostile envy of some wealthier neighbor disturb him with malicious
law-suits. Neither food nor sleep is had in peace; he sighs at the
banquet, although he drinks from a jeweled cup, and when the excessively
soft couch hides his body enervated by feasting within its deep folds, he
lies awake in the midst of the down, and the wretch does not understand
that these gilded things are his torments, that he is held bound by gold,
and is possessed by riches rather than possesses them, and--oh detestable
blindness of minds, and profound darkness of insane cupidity--when he can
unburden himself and relieve himself of his load, he continues to brood
still more over his troublesome fortunes; he continues to cling stubbornly
to his punishing hoards. From these there is no largess for his
dependents, there is no sharing with the needy, and they call it their
money, which they guard with solicitous care locked up at home as if it
were another's, out of which they impart nothing to friends, nothing to
their children, and in short nothing to themselves; they possess it only
for this purpose, that another may not possess it, and--how great is the
diversity of names!--they call those things good of which they make no use
except for evil ends.
Chapter 13
Or do you think that even those are safe, that those at least are secure
with firm stability midst chaplets of honor and great wealth, whom as they
are resplendent with the splendor of a royal court a guard of vigilant
arms surrounds? They have greater fear than others. He is forced to fear
just he is feared. Sublimity exacts punishments in like measure of the
more powerful, although hedged in by a band of satellites he guards his
side surrounded and protected by numerous retinue. Just as he does not
allow his subjects to be secure, so it is necessary that he also not be
secure. Their own power terrifies the very ones whom it advises be the
source of terror. It smiles that it may rage; it cajoles that it may
deceive; it raises up, that it may cast down. With a certain usury of
mischief the fuller the sum total of dignity and honor, the greater is the
interest in punishments which is exacted.
Chapter 14
Therefore, there is one peaceful and trustworthy tranquillity, one solid
and firm security, if one withdraws from the whirlpools of a disturbing
world and takes anchor in the harbor of the port of salvation. He raises
his eyes from earth to heaven, and now admitted to the gift of God and being
next to God in mind, whatever to others seems sublime and great in human
affairs, he boasts to lie beneath his consciousness. Nothing can he now
seek from the world, desire from the world, who is greater than the world.
How stable, how unshaken is that protection, how heavenly is that
safeguard with its perennial blessings to be released from the snares of
the entangling world, to be purged of the dregs of earth for the light of
immortality. He would see what a crafty destruction on the part of an
attacking enemy formerly proceeded against us. We are compelled to
cherish more what we are to be, when it is permitted us to know and to
condemn what we were. Nor for this is there need of a price either in the
way of bribery or labor, that man's highest dignity or power may be
achieved with elaborate effort. It is both a free and easy gift from God.
As the sun radiates of its own accord, the ray gives light, the spring
waters, the shower moistens, so the heavenly Spirit infuses itself. When
the soul gazing upon heaven recognizes its Author, higher than the sun and
more sublime than all this earthly power, it begins to be that which it
believes itself to be.
Chapter 15
Do you, whom already the heavenly warfare has designated for the spiritual
camp, only keep uncorrupted and chastened in religious virtues. See that
you observe either constant prayer or reading. Speak now with God; let God
now speak with you. Let Him instruct in His precepts; let Him dispose you
in them. Whom He shall make rich, no one will make poor. There can be no
want, when once the celestial food has filled the breast. Now ceilings
enriched with gold and houses decorated with slabs of precious marble will
seem of no account when you realize that you are to be cherished more,
that you rather are to be adorned, that this house is of more importance
for you, where God dwells in a temple, in which the Holy Spirit begins to
live. Let us embellish this house with the colors of innocence; let us
illuminate it with the light of justice. This house will never fall into
ruin by the decay of age, nor will it be disfigured by the tarnishing of
the color and gold of its walls. Whatever has been falsely beautified is
destined to perish, and what possesses no reality of possession offers no
stable confidence to those who possess it. This abides in a beauty
perpetually vivid, in complete honor, in everlasting splendor. It can
neither be destroyed nor blotted out. It can only be fashioned for the
better, when the body returns.
Chapter 16
These things, dearest Donatus, in the meantime are in brief. For although
what is profitably heard delights the patience easy by reason of its
goodness, the mind strong in the Lord, a sound faith, and nothing is so
pleasing to your ears as what is pleasing to the Lord, yet we ought to
temper our speech, being at once close and likely to speak to each other
frequently, and since now is the quiet of a holiday and a time of leisure,
whatever is left of the day as the sun slopes toward evening, let us spend
this time in gladness, and let not even the hour of repast be void of
heavenly grace. Let a temperate repast resound with psalms, and as you
have a retentive memory and a musical voice, approach this task as is your
custom. You sustain your dearest friends the more, if we listen to
something spiritual, if the sweetness of religion delights our ears.
