Book I
Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.
Chapter I.-Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ's Sake Spared When They Stormed the City.
Chapter 2.-That It is Quite Contrary to the Usage of War, that the Victors Should Spare the Vanquished for the Sake of Their Gods.
Chapter 3.-That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted that They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend Troy.
Chapter 4.-Of the Asylum of Juno in Troy, Which Saved No One from the Greeks; And of the Churches of the Apostles, Which Protected from the Barbarians All Who Fled to Them.
Chapter 5.-Caesar's Statement Regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City.
Chapter 6.-That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.
Chapter 7.-That the Cruelties Which Occurred in the Sack of Rome Were in Accordance with the Custom of War, Whereas the Acts of Clemency Resulted from the Influence of Christ's Name.
Chapter 8.-Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men.
Chapter 9.-Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together.
Chapter 10.-That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods.
Chapter 11.-Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.
Chapter 12.-Of the Burial of the Dead: that the Denial of It to Christians Does Them No Injury.34
Chapter 13.-Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints.
Chapter 14.-Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.
Chapter 15.-Of Regulus, in Whom We Have an Example of the Voluntary Endurance of Captivity for the Sake of Religion; Which Yet Did Not Profit Him, Though He Was a Worshipper of the Gods.
Chapter 16.-Of the Violation of the Consecrated and Other Christian Virgins, to Which They Were Subjected in Captivity and to Which Their Own Will Gave No Consent; And Whether This Contaminated Their Souls.
Chapter 17.-Of Suicide Committed Through Fear of Punishment or Dishonor.
Chapter 18.-Of the Violence Which May Be Done to the Body by Another's Lust, While the Mind Remains Inviolate.
Chapter 19.-Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.
Chapter 20.-That Christians Have No Authority for Committing Suicide in Any Circumstances Whatever.
Chapter 21.-Of the Cases in Which We May Put Men to Death Without Incurring the Guilt of Murder.
Chapter 22.-That Suicide Can Never Be Prompted by Magnanimity.
Chapter 23.-What We are to Think of the Example of Cato, Who Slew Himself Because Unable to Endure Caesar's Victory.
Chapter 24.-That in that Virtue in Which Regulus Excels Cato, Christians are Pre-Eminently Distinguished.
Chapter 25.-That We Should Not Endeavor Bysin to Obviate Sin.
Chapter 26.-That in Certain Peculiar Cases the Examples of the Saints are Not to Be Followed.
Chapter 27.-Whether Voluntary Death Should Be Sought in Order to Avoid Sin.
Chapter 28.-By What Judgment of God the Enemy Was Permitted to Indulge His Lust on the Bodies of Continent Christians.
Chapter 29.-What the Servants of Christ Should Say in Reply to the Unbelievers Who Cast in Their Teeth that Christ Didnot Rescue Them from the Fury of Their Enemies.
Chapter 30.-That Those Who Complain of Christianity Really Desire to Live Without Restraint in Shameful Luxury.
Chapter 31.-By What Steps the Passion for Governing Increased Among the Romans.
Chapter 32.-Of the Establishment of Scenic Entertainments.
Chapter 33.-That the Overthrow of Rome Has Not Corrected the Vices of the Romans.
Chapter 34.-Of God's Clemency in Moderating the Ruin of the City.
Chapter 35.-Of the Sons of the Church Who are Hidden Among the Wicked, and of False Christians Within the Church.
Chapter 36.-What Subjects are to Be Handled in the Following Discourse.
Book I
------------
Argument-Augustin censures the pagans, who attributed
the calamities of the world, and especially the recent sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion, and its prohibition of the worship of the gods. He speaks of the blessings and ills of life, which then, as always, happened to good and bad men alike. Finally, he rebukes the shamelessness of those who cast up to the Christians that their women had been violated by the soldiers.
Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.
The glorious city of God1
is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest son Marcellinus,2
suggested, and which is due to you by my promise. I have undertaken its
defence against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of this
city,-a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it still lives
by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in
the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of
its eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until
"righteousness shall return unto judgment,"3
and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect
peace. A great work this, and an arduous; but God is my helper. For I am
aware what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the
virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but
by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this
shifting scene. For the King and Founder of this city of which we speak,
has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in
these words: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the
humble."4 But
this, which is God's prerogative, the inflated ambition of a proud
spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered among its
attributes, to
"Show pity to the humbled soul,
And crush the sons of pride."5
And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.
Chapter I.-Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ's Sake Spared When They Stormed the City.
For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom I have to
defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed, being reclaimed from their
ungodly error, have become sufficiently creditable citizens of this
city; but many are so inflamed with hatred against it, and are so
ungrateful to its Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that
they would now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice, had
they not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy's
steel, that life in which they now boast themselves.6
Are not those very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ? The
reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles bear witness
to this; for in the sack of the city they were open sanctuary for all
who fled to them, whether Christian or Pagan. To their very threshold
the blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit.
Thither did such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom they
had given quarter, lest any less mercifully disposed might fall upon
them. And, indeed, when even those murderers who everywhere else showed
themselves pitiless came to those spots where that was forbidden which
the license of war permitted in every other place, their furious rage
for slaughter was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners was
quenched. Thus escaped multitudes who now reproach the Christian
religion, and impute to Christ the ills that have befallen their city;
but the preservation of their own life-a boon which they owe to the
respect entertained for Christ by the barbarians-they attribute not to
our Christ, but to their own good luck. They ought rather, had they any
right perceptions, to attribute the severities and hardships inflicted
by their enemies, to that divine providence which is wont to reform the
depraved manners of men by chastisement, and which exercises with
similar afflictions the righteous and praise worthy,-either translating
them, when they have passed through the trial, to a better world, or
detaining them still on earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to
attribute it to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to
the custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and spared
them for Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually shown in
promiscuous places, or in those places specially dedicated to Christ's
name, and of which the very largest were selected as sanctuaries, that
full scope might thus be given to the expansive compassion which desired
that a large multitude might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to
give God thanks, and with sincere confession flee for refuge to His
name, that so they may escape the punishment of eternal fire-they who
with lying lips took upon them this name, that they might escape the
punishment of present destruction. For of those whom you see insolently
and shamelessly insulting the servants of Christ, there are numbers who
would not have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not
pretended that they themselves were Christ's servants. Yet now, in
ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being
punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under
which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying
the light of this brief life.
Chapter 2.-That It is Quite Contrary to the Usage of War, that the Victors Should Spare the Vanquished for the Sake of Their Gods.
There are histories of numberless wars, both before the building of Rome
and since its rise and the extension of its dominion; let these be read,
and let one instance be cited in which, when a city had been taken by
foreigners, the victors spared those who were found to have fled for
sanctuary to the temples of their gods;7
or one instance in which a barbarian general gave orders that none
should be put to the sword who had been found in this or that temple.
Did not Aeneas see
"Dying Priam at the shrine,
Staining the hearth he made divine?"8
Did not Diomede and Ulysses
"Drag with red hands. the sentry slain,
Her fateful image from your fane,
Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore
The virgin coronal she wore?"9
Neither is that true which follows, that
"Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,
And Greece grew weak."10
For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and sword; after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars. Neither did Troy perish because it lost Minerva. For what had Minerva herself first lost, that she should perish? Her guards perhaps? No doubt; just her guards. For as soon as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact, the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders?
Chapter 3.-That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted that They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend Troy.
And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were delighted to entrust their city! 0 too, too piteous mistake! And they are enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged at their own writers, they part with money to learn what they say; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of other honors. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace,
Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans, and stirring up Aeolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words,
"A race I hate now ploughs the sea,
Transporting Troy to Italy,
And home-gods conquered"12
...And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of Rome to these conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What, then, says Aeneas himself,-Aeneas who is so often designated "pious?" Does he not say,
"Lo! Panthus, 'scaped from death by flight,
Priest of Apollo on the height,
His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands?"13
Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call "conquered") were rather entrusted to Aeneas than he to them, when it is said to him,
"The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns?"14
If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were
conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under
the protection of a man, what a madness is it to suppose that Rome had
been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken
unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors
and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but
evil omens?15
Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen
into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that
they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long
as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish
assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished
defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost their
guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that
they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets,
therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the conquered
gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men,
what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully and
copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will
briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant to say
about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the
calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their own
wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared them in spite
of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and in
their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those
very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives
might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake
no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they
might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these
sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses
full of hate.
Chapter 4.-Of the Asylum of Juno in Troy, Which Saved No One from the Greeks; And of the Churches of the Apostles, Which Protected from the Barbarians All Who Fled to Them.
Troy itself, the mother of the Roman people, was not able, as I have said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places of their gods from the fire and sword of the Greeks, though the Greeks worshipped the same gods. Not only so, but
"Phoenix and Ulysses fell
In the void courts by Juno's cell
Were set the spoils to keep;
Snatched from the burning shrines away,
There Ilium's mighty treasure lay,
Rich altars, bowls of massy gold,
And captive raiment, rudely rolled
In one promiscuous heap;
While boys and matrons, wild with fear,
In long array were standing near."16
In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess was chosen,
not that from it none might be led out a captive, but that in it all the
captives might be immured. Compare now this "asylum"-the
asylum not of an ordinary god, not of one of the rank and file of gods,
but of Jove's own sister and wife, the queen of all the gods-with the
churches built in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the
spoils rescued from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods, not
that they might be restored to the vanquished, but divided among the
victors; while into these was carried back, with the most religious
observance anti respect, everything which belonged to them, even though
found elsewhere There liberty was lost; here preserved. There bondage
was strict; here strictly excluded Into that temple men were driven to
become the chattels of their enemies, now lording it over them; into
these churches men were led by their relenting foes, that they might be
at liberty. In fine, the gentle17
Greeks appropriated that temple of Juno to the purposes of their own
avarice and pride; while these churches of Christ were chosen even by
the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for humility and mercy. But
perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that victory of theirs spare the
temples of those gods whom they worshipped in common with the Trojans,
and did not dare to put to the sword or make captive the wretched and
vanquished Trojans who fled thither; and perhaps Virgil, in the manner
of poets, has depicted what never really happened? But there is no
question that he depicted the usual custom of an enemy when sacking a
city.
Even Caesar himself gives us positive testimony regarding this custom;
for, in his deliverance in the senate about the conspirators, he says
(as Sallust, a historian of distinguished veracity, writes18
) "that virgins and boys are violated, children torn from the
embrace of their parents, matrons subjected to whatever should be the
pleasure of the conquerors, temples and houses plundered, slaughter and
burning rife; in fine, all things filled with arms, corpses, blood, and
wailing." If he had not mentioned temples here, we might suppose
that enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of the gods. And
the Roman temples were in danger of these disasters, not from foreign
foes, but from Catiline and his associates, the most noble senators and
citizens of Rome. But these, it may be said, were abandoned men, and the
parricides of their fatherland.
Chapter 6.-That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.
Why, then, need our argument take note of the many nations who have
waged wars with one another, and have nowhere spared the conquered in
the temples of their gods? Let us look at the practice of the Romans
themselves let us, I say, recall and review the Romans, whose chief
praise it has been "to spare the vanquished and subdue the
proud," and that they preferred "rather to forgive than to
revenge an injury;"19
and among so many and I great cities which they have stormed, taken, and
overthrown for the extension of their dominion, let us be told what
temples they were accustomed to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in
them was free. Or have they really done this, and has the fact been
suppressed by the historians of these events? Is it to be believed, that
men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points they could praise,
would omit those which, in their own estimation, are the most signal
proofs of piety? Marcus Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took
Syracuse, a most splendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed
its coming ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it before he spill
its blood. He took steps also to preserve the chastity even of his
enemy. For before he gave orders for the storming of the city, he issued
an edict forbidding the violation of any free person. Yet the city was
sacked according to the custom of war; nor do we anywhere read, that
even by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that no one
should be injured who had fled to this or that temple. And this
certainly would by no means have been omitted, when neither his weeping
nor his edict preservative of chastity could be passed in silence.
Fabius, the conqueror of the city of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining
from making booty of the images. For when his secretary proposed the
question to him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which
had been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation under a joke.
For he asked of what sort they were; and when they reported to him that
there were not only many large images, but some of them armed,
"Oh," says he, "let us leave with the Tarentines their
angry gods." Seeing, then, that the writers of Roman history could
not pass in silence, neither the weeping of the one general nor the
laughing of the other, neither the chaste pity of the one nor the
facetious moderation of the other, on what occasion would it be omitted,
if, for the honor of any of their enemy's gods, they had shown this
particular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or captivity
was prohibited?
Chapter 7.-That the Cruelties Which Occurred in the Sack of Rome Were in Accordance with the Custom of War, Whereas the Acts of Clemency Resulted from the Influence of Christ's Name.
All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent
calamity-all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery-was the
result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage
barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest
churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with
the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain,
from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their
relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were led
into slavery by merciless foes. Whoever does not see that this is to be
attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is blind;
whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever hinders
any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent man to
impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody minds
were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so long
before said by His prophet, "I will visit their transgression with
the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my
loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them."20
Chapter 8.-Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men.
Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion extended even
to the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but because it was the mercy of Him
who daily "maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."21
For though some of these men, taking thought of this, repent of their
wickedness and reform, some, as the apostle says, "despising the
riches of His goodness and long-suffering, after their hardness and
impenitent heart, treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of
wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render
to every man according to his deeds:"22
nevertheless does the patience of God still invite the wicked to
repentance, even as the scourge of God educates the good to patience.
And so, too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that it may cherish
them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked to punish them. To the
divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for
the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and
for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented.
But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed
that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet
the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with
an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those
events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is
neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the
wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself
punished by its unhappiness.23
Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly
evince His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest
punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the
other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be
concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things
of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on some
of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good things were not
at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose
that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us
not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous. Wherefore, though good and bad men
suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men
themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in
the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers;
and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing.
For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under
the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as
the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same
pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good,
but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same
affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise.
So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind
of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a
horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.
What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous period, which would not profit every one who duly and faithfully considered the following circumstances? First of all, they must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enormity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abominable profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account. But not to mention this, where can we readily find a man who holds in fit and just estimation those persons on account of whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniquities and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions threatened? Where is the man who lives with them in the style in which it becomes us to live with them? For often we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chiding them, either because we shrink from the labor or are ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friendships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement, or injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous disposition desires to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from losing. So that, although the conduct of wicked men is distasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with them into that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons, yet, because they spare their damnable sins through fear, therefore, even though their own sins be slight and venial, they are justly scourged with the wicked in this world, though in eternity they quite escape punishment. Justly, when God afflicts them in common with the wicked, do they find this life bitter, through love of whose sweetness they declined to be bitter to these sinners.
If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those who are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable opportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened from endeavoring to lead a good and pious life, and may be driven from the faith; this man's omission seems to be occasioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration. But what is blame-worthy is, that they who themselves revolt from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought to reprehend and wean them from; and spare them because they fear to give offence, test they should injure their interests in those things which good men may innocently and legitimately use,-though they use them more greedily than becomes persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how they should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the husbands with their wives, the children with their parents, and parents with their children, and servants with their masters, and masters with their servants,-not only do these weaker brethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and temporal things on account of which they dare not offend men whose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them; but those also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment, do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission of they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they might by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect, their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed; not because they see that their preservation and good name are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say, their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of love.
Accordingly this seems to me to be one principal reason why the good are
chastised along with the wicked, when God is pleased to visit with temporal
punishments the profligate manners of a community. They are punished together,
not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because the good as
well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while
they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by
their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the
companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as
enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains
uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind. These selfish persons have
more cause to fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, "He
is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's
hand."24 For watchmen
or overseers of the people are appointed in churches, that they may unsparingly
rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of, who, though he be
not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of those with whom the relationships of
this life bring him into contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet
overlooks them, fearing to give offence, and lose such worldly blessings as may
legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly grasps. Then, lastly, there is
another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities-the reason
which Job's case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it
may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a
love, it cleaves to God.25
These are the considerations which one must keep in view, that he may
answer the question whether any evil happens to the faithful and godly
which cannot be turned to profit. Or shall we say that the question is
needless, and that the apostle is vaporing when he says, "We know
that all things work together for good to them that love God?"26
They lost all they had. Their faith? Their godliness? The possessions of the
hidden man of the heart, which in the sight of God are of great price?27
Did they lose these? For these are the wealth of Christians, to whom the wealthy
apostle said, "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought
nothing into this world, find it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having
food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall
into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all
evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and
pierced themselves through with many sorrows."28
They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Rome, if they owned
their possessions as they had been taught by the apostle, who himself was poor
without, but rich within,-that is to say, if they used the world as not using
it,-could say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome: "Naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass:
blessed be the name of the Lord."29
Like a good servant, Job counted the will of his Lord his great possession, by
obedience to which his soul was enriched; nor did it grieve him to lose, while
yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his death. But as to
those feebler spirits who, though they cannot be said to prefer earthly
possessions to Christ, do yet cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate
attachment, they have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much
they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their own making; in the
words of the apostle quoted above, "they have pierced themselves through
with many sorrows." For it was well that they who had so long despised
these verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience. For when the
apostle says, "They that will be rich fall into temptation," and so
on, what he blames in riches is not the possession of them, but the desire of
them. For elsewhere he says, "Charge them that are rich in this world, that
they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God,
who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich
in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store
for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay
hold on eternal life."30
They who were making such a use of their property have been consoled for light
losses by great gains, and have had more pleasure in those possessions which
they have securely laid past, by freely giving them away, than grief in those
which they entirely lost by an anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing
could perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to carry away from earth.
Our Lord's injunction runs, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also."31
And they who have listened to this injunction have proved in the time of
tribulation how well they were advised in not despising this most trustworthy
teacher, and most faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many
were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the enemy chanced not
to light upon, how much better founded was the joy of those who, by the counsel
of their God, had fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can
possibly reach! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola,32
who voluntarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though abundantly
rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola, and took him prisoner, used
silently to pray, as he afterwards told me, "O Lord, let me not be troubled
for gold and silver, for where all my treasure is Thou knowest." For all
his treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it by Him who had
also foretold that these calamities would happen in the world. Consequently
those persons who obeyed their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up
treasure, did not lose even their, earthly possessions in the invasion of the
barbarians; while those who are now repenting that they did not obey Him have
learnt the right use of earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have
prevented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.
But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they preserved it by telling a lie or lost it by telling the truth. For under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly the torture which taught them that they should set their affections on a possession they could not lose, was more useful than those possessions which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation; and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a better life,-I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured without receiving a heavenly reward.
Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.
Chapter 11.-Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.
But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and were put to
death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well, if this be hard to bear,
it is assuredly the common lot of all who are born into this life. Of
this at least I am certain, that no one has ever died who was not
destined to die some time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on
a par with the shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to
be, the one is not better, the other worse-the one greater, the other
less.33 And of
what consequence is it what kind of death puts an end to life, since he
who has died once is not forced to go through the same ordeal a second
time? And as in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were,
threatened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain which
of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better to suffer one
and die, than to live in fear of all? I am not unaware of the
poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose rather to live long in
fear of so many deaths, than to die once and so escape them all; but the
weak and cowardly shrinking of the flesh is one thing, and the
well-considered and reasonable persuasion of the soul quite another.
That death is not to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life;
for death becomes evil only by the retribution which follows it. They,
then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to inquire what death
they are to die, but into what place death will usher them. And since
Christians are well aware that the death of the godly pauper whose sores
the dogs licked was far better than of the wicked rich man who lay in
purple and fine linen, what harm could these terrific deaths do to the
dead who had lived well?
Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as then occurred,
the bodies could not even be buried. But godly confidence is not
appalled by so ill-omened a circumstance; for the faithful bear in mind
that assurance has been given that not a hair of their head shall
perish, and that, therefore, though they even be devoured by beasts,
their blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered. The Truth would
nowise have said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not
able to kill the soul,"35
if anything whatever that an enemy could do to the body of the slain
could be detrimental to the future life. Or will some one perhaps take
so absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the body are not
to be feared before death, and lest they kill the body, but after death,
lest they deprive it of burial? If this be so, then that is false which
Christ says, "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after
that have no more that they can do;"36
for it seems they can do great injury to the dead body. Far be it from
us to suppose that the Truth can be thus false. They who kill the body
are said "to do something," because the deathblow is felt, the
body still having sensation; but after that, they have no more that they
can do, for in the slain body there is no sensation. And so there are
indeed many bodies of Christians lying unburied; but no one has
separated them from heaven, nor froth that earth which is all filled
with the presence of Him who knows whence He will raise again what He
created. It is said, indeed, in the Psalm: "The dead bodies of Thy
servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the
flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood have they
shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury
them."37 But
this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those who did these
things, than the misery of those who suffered them. To the eyes of men
this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet "precious in the sight of
the Lord is the death of His saints."38
Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern the dead,
the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment of the tomb, and the
pomp of obsequies, are rather the solace of the living than the comfort
of the dead. If a costly burial does any good to a wicked man, a squalid
burial, or none at all, may harm the godly. His crowd of domestics
furnished the purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of
man; but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral which the
ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels, who did not carry
him out to a marble tomb, but bore him aloft to Abraham's bosom.
The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the city of God laugh at all
this. But even their own philosophers39
have despised a careful burial; and often whole armies have fought and fallen
for their earthly country without caring to inquire whether they would be left
exposed on the field of battle, or become the food of wild beasts. Of this noble
disregard of sepulture poetry has well said: "He who has no tomb has the
sky for his vault."40
How much less ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians, to
whom it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be restored, and the body
formed anew, all the members of it being gathered not only from the earth, but
from the most secret recesses of any other of the elements in which the dead
bodies of men have lain hid!
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be
despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and
faithful, which have been used by the Holy Spirit as His organs and
instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father, or his
ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to
the love they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for
the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and
intimately than any clothing! For the body is not an extraneous ornament
or aid, but a part of man's very nature. And therefore to the righteous
of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres
provided for them, and obsequies celebrated;41
and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons
about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their
bodies to some favorite place.42
And Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is commended, and is said
to have pleased God by burying the dead.43
Our Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day,
applauds, and commends to our applause, the good work of the religious
woman who poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against
His burial.44 And
the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to take
down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly cerements,
and see to its burial.45
These instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling;
but they show that God's providence extends even to the bodies of the
dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing
faith in the resurrection. And we may also draw from them this wholesome
lesson, that if God does not forget even any kind office which loving
care pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity
we exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the holy
patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant to
be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here speak at
large, what we have already said being sufficient. But if the want of
those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food
and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the
fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from
their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the
absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to
the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in the hidden
abodes of the blessed! Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of
other towns the dead bodies of the Christians were deprived of these
last offices, this is neither the fault of the living, for they could
not render them; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the
loss.
Chapter 14.-Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.
But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This indeed
were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where
they could not find their God. But for this calamity also sacred
Scripture affords great consolation. The three youths46
were captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets: and God,
the comforter, did not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed
His own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is yet
human,-He who did not abandon the prophet47
in the belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridicule
rather than credited by those with whom we are debating; though they
believe what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna, the
famous lyrist,48
when he was thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin's back and
carried to land. But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is far
more incredible,-more incredible because more marvellous, and more
marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.
Chapter 15.-Of Regulus, in Whom We Have an Example of the Voluntary Endurance of Captivity for the Sake of Religion; Which Yet Did Not Profit Him, Though He Was a Worshipper of the Gods.
But among their own famous men they have a very noble example of the
voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience to a religious scruple.
Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman general, was a prisoner in the hands of
the Carthaginians. But they, being more anxious to exchange their
prisoners with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special
envoy with their own embassadors to negotiate this exchanges but bound
him first with an oath, that if he failed to accomplish their wish, he
would return to Carthage. He went and persuaded the senate to the
opposite course, because he believed it was not for the advantage of the
Roman republic to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus
exerted his influence, the Romans did not compel him to return to the
enemy; but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed. But the
Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elaborate, and horrible
tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box, in which he was compelled to
stand, and in which finely sharpened nails were fixed all round about
him, so that he could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain;
and so they killed him by depriving him of sleep.49
With justice, indeed, do they applaud the virtue which rose superior to
so frightful a fate. However, the gods he swore by were those who are
now supposed to avenge the prohibition of their worship, by inflicting
these present calamities on the human race. But if these gods, who were
worshipped specially in this behalf, that they might confer happiness in
this life, either willed or permitted these punishments to be inflicted
on one who kept his oath to them, what more cruel punishment could they
in their anger have inflicted on a perjured person? But why may I not
draw from my reasoning a double inference? Regulus certainly had such
reverence for the gods, that for his oath's sake he would neither remain
in his own land nor go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned to his
bitterest enemies. If he thought that this course would be advantageous
with respect to this present life, he was certainly much deceived, for
it brought his life to a frightful termination. By his own example, in
fact, he taught that the gods do not secure the temporal happiness of
their worshippers; since he himself, who was devoted to their worship,
as both conquered in battle and taken prisoner, and then, because he
refused to act in violation of the oath he had sworn by them, was
tortured and put to death by a new, and hitherto unheard of, and all too
horrible kind of punishment. And on the supposition that the worshippers
of the gods are rewarded by felicity in the life to come, why, then, do
they calumniate the influence of Christianity? why do they assert that
this disaster has overtaken the city because it has ceased to worship
its gods, since, worship them as assiduously as it may, it may yet be as
unfortunate as Regulus was? Or will some one carry so wonderful a
blindness to the extent of wildly attempting, in the face of the evident
truth, to contend I that though one man might be unfortunate, though a
worshipper of the gods, yet a whole city could not be so? That is to
say, the power of their gods is better adapted to preserve multitudes
than individuals,-as if a multitude were not composed of individuals.
But if they say that M. Regulus, even while a prisoner and enduring these
bodily torments, might yet enjoy the blessedness of a virtuous soul,50
then let them recognize that true virtue by which a city also may be blessed.
For the blessedness of a community and of an individual flow from the same
source; for a community is nothing else than a harmonious collection of
individuals. So that I am not concerned meantime to discuss what kind of virtue
Regulus possessed; enough, that by his very noble example they are forced to own
that the gods are to be worshipped not for the sake of bodily comforts or
external advantages; for he preferred to lose all such things rather than offend
the gods by whom he had sworn. But what can we make of men who glory in having
such a citizen, but dread having a city like him? If they do not dread this,
then let them acknowledge that some such calamity as befell Regulus may also
befall a community, though they be worshipping their gods as diligently as he;
and let them no longer throw the blame of their misfortunes on Christianity. But
as our present concern is with those Christians who were taken prisoners, let
those who take occasion from this calamity to revile our most wholesome religion
in a fashion not less imprudent than impudent, consider this and hold their
peace; for if it was no reproach to their gods that a most punctilious
worshipper of theirs should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be
deprived of his native land without hope of finding another, and fall into the
hands of his enemies, and be put to death by a long-drawn and exquisite torture,
much less ought the Christian name to be charged with the captivity of those who
believe in its power, since they, in confident expectation of a heavenly
country, know that they are pilgrims even in their own homes.
Chapter 16.-Of the Violation of the Consecrated and Other Christian Virgins, to Which They Were Subjected in Captivity and to Which Their Own Will Gave No Consent; And Whether This Contaminated Their Souls.
But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against Christianity, when they aggravate the horror of captivity by adding that not only wives and unmarried maidens, but even consecrated virgins, were violated. But truly, with respect to this, it is not Christian faith, nor piety, nor even the virtue of chastity, which is hemmed into any difficulty; the only difficulty is so to treat the subject as to satisfy at once modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not be so careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends. Letthis, therefore, in the first place, be laid down as an unassailable position, that the virtue which makes the life good has its throne in the soul, and thence rules the members of the body, which becomes holy in virtue of the holiness of the will; and that while the will remains firm and unshaken, nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the body, is any fault of the person who suffers it, so long as he cannot escape it without sin. But as not only pain may be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,-shame, lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual pleasure, should be believed to have been committed also with some assent of the will.
And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed themselves to avoid such disgrace, who that has any human feeling would refuse to forgive them.? And as for those who would not put an end to their lives, lest they might seem to escape the crime of another by a sin of their own, he who lays this to their charge as a great wickedness is himself not guiltless of the fault of folly. For if it is not, lawful to take the law into our own hands, and slay even a guilty person, whose death no public sentence has warranted, then certainly he who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier of his own death, as he was more innocent of that offence for which he doomed himself to die. Do we justly execrate the deed of Judas, and does truth itself pronounce that by hanging himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God's mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place for a healing penitence? How much more ought he to abstain from laying violent hands on himself who has done nothing worthy of such a punishment! For Judas, when he killed himself, killed a wicked man; but he passed from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with his own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing himself was another crime. Why, then, should a man who has done no ill do ill to himself, and by killing himself kill the innocent to escape another's guilty act, and perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that the sin of another may not be perpetrated on him?
Chapter 18.-Of the Violence Which May Be Done to the Body by Another's Lust, While the Mind Remains Inviolate.
But is there a fear that even another's lust may pollute the violated? It will not pollute, if it be another's: if it pollute, it is not another's, but is shared also by the polluted. But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its companion virtue, the fortitude which will rather endure all ills than consent to evil; and since no one, however magnanimous and pure, has always the disposal of his own body, but can control only the consent and refusal of his will, what sane man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly made use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his purity? For if purity can be thus destroyed, then assuredly purity is no virtue of the soul; nor can it be numbered among those good things by which the life is made good, but among the good things of the body, in the same category as strength, beauty, sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all such good things as may be diminished without at all diminishing the goodness and rectitude of our life. But if purity be nothing better than these, why should the body be perilled that it may be preserved? If, on the other hand, it belongs to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it lost. Nay more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists the uncleanness of carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and therefore when this continence remains unsubdued, even the sanctity of the body is preserved, because the will to use it holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power also.
For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the integrity of its members, nor in their exemption from all touch; for they are exposed to various accidents which do violence to and wound them, and the surgeons who administer relief often perform operations that sicken the spectator. A midwife, suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally, or through unskillfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while endeavoring to ascertain it: I suppose no one is so foolish asto believe that, by this destruction of the integrity of one organ, the virgin has lost anything even of her bodily sanctity. And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of purpose which sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another's lust makes no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is preserved intact by one's own persistent continence. Suppose a virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity of soul which sanctifies the body? Far be it from us to so misapply words. Let us rather draw this conclusion, that while the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is violated, the sanctity of the body is not lost; and that, in like manner, the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of the soul is violated, though the body itself remains intact. And therefore a woman who has been violated by the sin of another, and without any consent of her own, has no cause to put herself to death; much less has she cause to commit suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in that case she commits certain homicide to prevent a crime which is uncertain as yet, and not her own.
Chapter 19.-Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.
This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid. We maintain that when a woman is violated while her soul admits no consent to the iniquity, but remains inviolably chaste, the sin is not hers, but his who violates her. But do they against whom we have to defend not only the souls, but the sacred bodies too of these outraged Christian captives,-do they, perhaps, dare to dispute our position? But all know how loudly they extol the purity of Lucretia, that noble matron of ancient Rome. When King Tarquin's son had violated her body, she made known the wickedness of this young profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kinsman, men of high rank and full of courage, and bound them by an oath to avenge it. Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear the shame, she put an end to her life. What shall we call her? An adulteress, or chaste? There is no question which she was. Not more happily than truly did a declaimer say of this sad occurrence: "Here was a marvel: there were two, and only one committed adultery." Most forcibly and truly spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the union of the two bodies the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the other, and giving heed not to the contact of the bodily members, but to the wide diversity of their souls, says: "There were two, but the adultery was committed only by one."
But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime bears the heavier punishment of the two? For the adulterer was only banished along with his father; she suffered the extreme penalty. If that was not impurity by which she was unwillingly ravished, then this is not justice by which she, being chaste, is punished. To you I appeal, ye laws and judges of Rome. Even after the perpetration of great enormities, you do not suffer the criminal to be slain untried. If, then, one were to bring to your bar this case, and were to prove to you that a woman not only untried, but chaste and innocent, had been killed, would you not visit the murderer with punishment proportionably severe? This crime was committed by Lucretia; that Lucretia so celebrated and landed slew the innocent, chaste, outraged Lucretia. Pronounce sentence. But if you cannot, because there does not appear any one whom you can punish, why do you extol with such unmeasured laudation her who slew an innocent and chaste woman? Assuredly you will find it impossible to defend her before the judges of the realms below, if they be such as your poets are fond of representing them; for she is among those.
"Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,
And all for loathing of the day,
In madness threw their lives away."
And if she with the others wishes to return,
'Fate bars the way: around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,
And bind with ninefold chain."51
Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself conscious of guilt, not of innocence? She herself alone knows her reason; but what if she was betrayed by the pleasure of the act, and gave some consent to Sextus, though so violently abusing her, and then was so affected with remorse, that she thought death alone could expiate her sin? Even though this were the case, she ought still to have held her hand from suicide, if she could with her false gods have accomplished a fruitful repentance. However, if such were the state of the case, and if it were false that there were two, but one only committed adultery; if the truth were that both were involved in it, one by open assault, the other by secret consent, then she did not kill an innocent woman; and therefore her erudite defenders may maintain that she is not among that class of the dwellers below "who guiltless sent themselves to doom." But this case of Lucretia is in such a dilemma, that if you extenuate the homicide, you confirm the adultery: if you acquit her of adultery, you make the charge of homicide heavier; and there is no way out of the dilemma, when one asks, If she was adulterous, why praise her? if chaste, why slay her?
Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are unable to comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore insult over our outraged Christian women, it is enough that in the instance of this noble Roman matron it was said in her praise, "There were two, but the adultery was the crime of only one." For Lucretia was confidently believed to be superior to the contamination of any consenting thought to the adultery. And accordingly, since she killed herself for being subjected to an outrage in which she had no guilty part, it is obvious that this act of hers was prompted not by the love of purity, but by the overwhelming burden of her shame. She was ashamed that so foul a crime had been perpetrated upon her, though without her abetting; and this matron, with the Roman love of glory in her veins, was seized with a proud dread that, if she continued to live, it would be supposed she willingly did not resent the wrong that had been done her. She could not exhibit to men her conscience but she judged that her self-inflicted punishment would testify her state of mind; and she burned with shame at the thought that her patient endurance of the foul affront that another had done her, should be construed into complicity with him. Not such was the decision of the Christian women who suffered as she did, and yet survive. They declined to avenge upon themselves the guilt of others, and so add crimes of their own to those crimes in which they had no share. For this they would have done had their shame driven them to homicide, as the lust of their enemies had driven them to adultery. Within their own souls, in the witness of their own conscience, they enjoy the glory of chastity. In the sight of God, too, they are esteemed pure, and this contents them; they ask no more: it suffices them to have opportunity of doing good, and they decline to evade the distress of human suspicion, lest they thereby deviate from the divine law.
It is not without significance, that in no passage of the holy canonical books there can be found either divine precept or permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake of entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning, or ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law, rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says, "Thou shalt not kill." This is proved especially by the omission of the words "thy neighbor," which are inserted when false witness is forbidden: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Nor yet should any one on this account suppose he has not broken this commandment if he has borne false witness only against himself. For the love of our neighbor is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is written, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If, then, he who makes false statements about himself is not less guilty of bearing false witness than if he had made them to the injury of his neighbor; although in the commandment prohibiting false witness only his neighbor is mentioned, and persons taking no pains to understand it might suppose that a man was allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt; how much greater reason have we to understand that a man may not kill himself, since in the commandment," Thou shalt not kill," there is no limitation added nor any exception made in favor of any one, and least of all in favor of him on whom the command is laid! And so some attempt to extend this command even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life from any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth? For though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they also are said to live, and consequently they can die; and therefore, if violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the apostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things as these, says, "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die;" and in the Psalm it is said, "He killed their vines with hail." Must we therefore reckon it a breaking of this commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," to pull a flower? Are we thus insanely to countenance the foolish error of the Manichaeans? Putting aside, then, these ravings, if, when we say, Thou shalt not kill, we do not understand this of the plants, since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from us by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep alive for our own uses; if so, then it remains that we understand that commandment simply of man. The commandment is, "Thou shall not kill man;" therefore neither another nor yourself, for he who kills himself still kills nothing else than man.
However, there are some exceptions made by the divine authority to its own law, that men may not be put to death. These exceptions are of two kinds, being justified either by a general law, or by a special commission granted for a time to some individual. And in this latter case, he to whom authority is delegated, and who is but the sword in the hand of him who uses it, is not himself responsible for the death he deals. And, accordingly, they who have waged war in obedience to the divine command, or in conformity with His laws, have represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked men; such persons have by no means violated the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Abraham indeed was not merely deemed guiltless of cruelty, but was even applauded for his piety, because he was ready to slay his son in obedience to God, not to his own passion. And it is reasonably enough made a question, whether we are to esteem it to have been in compliance with a command of God that Jephthah killed his daughter, because she met him when he had vowed that he would sacrifice to God whatever first met him as he returned victorious from battle. Samson, too, who drew down the house on himself and his foes together, is justified only on this ground, that the Spirit who wrought wonders by him had given him secret instructions to do this. With the exception, then, of these two classes of cases, which are justified either by a just law that applies generally, or by a special intimation from God Himself, the fountain of all justice, whoever kills a man, either himself or another, is implicated in the guilt of murder.
But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are perhaps to be admired for their greatness of soul, though they cannot be applauded for the soundness of their judgment. However, if you look at the matter more closely, you will scarcely call it greatness of soul, which prompts a man to kill himself rather than bear up against some hardships of fortune, or sins in which he is not implicated. Is it not rather proof of a feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains of bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of the vulgar? And is not that to be pronounced the greater mind, which rather faces than flees the ills of life, and which, in comparison of the light and purity of conscience, holds in small esteem the judgment of men, and specially of the vulgar, which is frequently involved in a mist of error? And, therefore, if suicide is to be esteemed a magnanimous act, none can take higher rank for magnanimity than that Cleombrotus, who (as the story goes), when he had read Plato's book in which he treats of the immortality of the soul, threw himself from a wall, and so passed from this life to that which he believed to be better. For he was not hard pressed by calamity, nor by any accusation, false or true, which he could not very well have lived down; there was, in short, no motive but only magnanimity urging him to seek death, and break away from the sweet detention of this life. And yet that this was a magnanimous rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself, whom he had read, would have told him; for he would certainly have been forward to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not the same bright intellect which saw that the soul was immortal, discerned also that to seek immortality by suicide was to be prohibited rather than encouraged.
Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent an enemy doing so. But we are not inquiring whether it has been done, but whether it ought to have been done. Sound judgment is to be preferred even to examples, and indeed examples harmonize with the voice of reason; but not all examples, but those only which are distinguished by their piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation. For suicide we cannot cite the example of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles; though our Lord Jesus Christ, when He admonished them to flee from city to city if they were persecuted, might very well have taken that occasion to advise them to lay violent hands on themselves, and so escape their persecutors. But seeing He did not do this, nor proposed this mode of departing this life, though He were addressing His own friends for whom He had promised to prepare everlasting mansions, it is obvious that such examples as are produced from the "nations that forget God," give no warrant of imitation to the worshippers of the one true God.
Chapter 23.-What We are to Think of the Example of Cato, Who Slew Himself Because Unable to Endure Caesar's Victory.
Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said, our advocates of
suicide have some difficulty in finding any other prescriptive example,
unless it be that of Cato, who killed himself at Utica. His example is
appealed to, not because he was the only man who did so, but because he
was so esteemed as a learned and excellent man, that it could plausibly
be maintained that what he did was and is a good thing to do. But of
this action of his, what can I say but that his own friends, enlightened
men as he, prudently dissuaded him, and therefore judged his act to be
that of a feeble rather than a strong spirit, and dictated not by
honorable feeling forestalling shame, but by weakness shrinking from
hardships? Indeed, Cato condemns himself by the advice he gave to his
dearly loved son. For if it was a disgrace to live under Caesar's rule,
why did the father urge the son to this disgrace, by encouraging him to
trust absolutely to Caesar's generosity? Why did he not persuade him to
die along with himself? If Torquatus was applauded for putting his son
to death, when contrary to orders he had engaged, and engaged
successfully, with the enemy, why did conquered Cato spare his conquered
son, though he did not spare himself? Was it more disgraceful to be a
victor contrary to orders, than to submit to a victor contrary to the
received ideas of honor? Cato, then, cannot have deemed it to be
shameful to live under Caesar's rule; for had he done so, the father's
sword would have delivered his son from this disgrace. The truth is,
that his son, whom he both hoped and desired would be spared by Caesar,
was not more loved by him than Caesar was envied the glory of pardoning
him (as indeed Caesar himself is reported to have said52
); or if envy is too strong a word, let us say he was ashamed
that this glory should be his.
Chapter 24.-That in that Virtue in Which Regulus Excels Cato, Christians are Pre-Eminently Distinguished.
Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the saintly Job, who endured dreadful evils in his body rather than deliver himself from all torment by self-inflicted death; or other saints, of whom it is recorded in our authoritative and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and the oppression of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus Regulus. For Cato had never conquered Caesar; and when conquered by him, disdained to submit himself to him, and that he might escape this submission put himself to death. Regulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Carthaginians, and in command of the army of Rome had won for the Roman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail, and which the enemy himself was constrained to admire; yet afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he preferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond their reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the Carthaginians, and constant in his love of the Romans, he neitherdeprived the one of his conquered body, nor the other of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love of life that prevented him from killing himself. This was plainly enough indicated by his unhesitatingly returning, on account of his promise and oath, to the same enemies whom he had more grievously provoked by his words in the senate than even by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt of life, and preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand, he could not more distinctly have declared how great a crime he judged suicide to be. Among all their famous and remarkable citizens, the Romans have no better man to boast of than this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he remained a very poor man after winning such victories; nor broken by adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most miserable end. But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, who had but an earthly country to defend, and who, though they had but false gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and carefully kept their oath to them; if these men, who by the custom and right of war put conquered enemies to the sword, yet shrank from putting an end to their own lives even when conquered by their enemies; if, though they had no fear at all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink from this act, if in God's providence they have been for a season delivered into the hands of their enemies to prove or to correct them! And certainly, Christians subjected to this humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High, who for their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they for get that they are bound by no laws of war, nor military orders, to put even a conquered enemy to the sword; and if a man may not put to death the enemy who has sinned, or may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to maintain that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is going to sin, against him?
But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the body is subjected to the enemy's lust, the insidious pleasure of sense may entice the soul to consent to the sin, and steps must be taken to prevent so disastrous a result. And is not suicide the proper mode of preventing not only the enemy's sin, but the sin of the Christian so allured? Now, in the first place, the soul which is led by God and His wisdom, rather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never consent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by another's lust. And, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declares, that suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness, who is such a fool as to say, Let us sin now, that we may obviate a possible future sin; let us now commit murder, lest we perhaps afterwards should commit adultery? If we are so controlled by iniquity that innocence is out of the question, and we can at best but make a choice of sins, is not a future and uncertain adultery preferable to a present and certain murder? Is it not better to commit a wickedness which penitence may heal, than a crime which leaves no place for healing contrition? I say this for the sake of those men or women who fear they may be enticed into consenting to their violator's lust, and think they should lay violent hands on themselves, and so prevent, not another's sin, but their own. But far be it from the mind of a Christian confiding in God, and resting in the hope of His aid; far be it, I say, from such a mind to yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh, howsoever presented. And if that lustful disobedience, which still dwells in our mortal members, follows its own law irrespective of our will, surely its motions in the body of one who rebels against them are as blameless as its motions in the body of one who sleeps.
But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women escaped those
who menaced them with outrage, by casting themselves into rivers which
they knew would drown them; and having died in this manner, they are
venerated in the church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I do not
presume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not have been
vouchsafed to the church some divine authority, proved by trustworthy
evidences, for so honoring their memory: it may be that it is so. It may
be they were not deceived by human judgment, but prompted by divine
wisdom, to their act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case
with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates by plain
evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call obedience criminal? Who
will accuse so religious a submission? But then every man is not
justified in sacrificing his son to God, because Abraham was commendable
in so doing. The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the
authority under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused of
murder by any law of his state; nay, if he has not slain him, it is then
he is accused of treason to the state, and of despising the law. But if
he has been acting on his own authority, and at his own impulse, he has
in this case incurred the crime of shedding human blood. And thus he is
punished for doing without orders the very thing he is punished for
neglecting to do when he has been ordered. If the commands of a general
make so great a difference, shall the commands of God make none? He,
then, who knows it is unlawful to kill himself, may nevertheless do so
if he is ordered by Him whose commands we may not neglect. Only let him
be very sure that the divine command has been signified. As for us, we
can become privy to the secrets of conscience only in so far as these
are disclosed to us, and so far only do we judge: "No one knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him."53
But this we affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be
right, that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death, for this
is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of eternity; that
no man ought to do so on account of another man's sins, for this were to
escape a guilt which could not pollute him, by incurring great guilt of
his own; that no man ought to do so on account of his own past sins, for
he has all the more need of this life that these sins may be healed by
repentance; that no man should put an end to this life to obtain that
better life we look for after death, for those who die by their own hand
have no better life after death.
There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned before, and which
is thought a sound one,-namely, to prevent one's falling into sin either
through the blandishments of pleasure or the violence of pain. If this
reason were a good one, then we should be impelled to exhort men at once
to destroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the laver of
regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all sin. Then is the
time to escape all future sin, when all past sin is blotted out. And if
this escape be lawfully secured by suicide, why not then specially? Why
does any baptized person hold his hand from taking his own life? Why
does any person who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose
himself to them, when he has power so easily to rid himself of them all,
and when it is written, "He who loveth danger shall fall into
it?"54 Why
does he love, or at least face, so many serious dangers, by remaining in
this life from which he may legitimately depart? But is any one so
blinded and twisted in his moral nature, and so far astray from the
truth, as to think that, though a man ought to make away with himself
for fear of being led into sin by the oppression of one man, his master,
he ought yet to live, and so expose himself to the hourly temptations of
this world, both to all those evils which the oppression of one master
involves, and to numberless other miseries in which this life inevitably
implicates us? What reason, then, is there for our consuming time in
those exhortations by which we seek to animate the baptized, either to
virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or matrimonial fidelity, when
we have so much more simple and compendious a method of deliverance from
sin, by persuading those who are fresh from baptism to put an end to
their lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well-conditioned? If any
one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I say not he is
foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he say to any man,
"Kill yourself, lest to your small sins you add a heinous sin,
while you live under an unchaste master, whose conduct is that of a
barbarian?" How can he say this, if he cannot without wickedness
say, "Kill yourself, now that you are washed from all your sins,
lest you fall again into similar or even aggravated sins, while you live
in a world which has such [power to allure by its unclean pleasures, to
torment by its horrible cruelties, to overcome by its errors and
terrors?" It is wicked to say this; it is therefore wicked to kill
oneself. For if there could be any just cause of suicide, this were so.
And since not even this is so, there is none.
Chapter 28.-By What Judgment of God the Enemy Was Permitted to Indulge His Lust on the Bodies of Continent Christians.
Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful servants of
Christ, though your chastity was made the sport of your enemies. You
have a grand and true consolation, if you maintain a good conscience,
and know that you did not consent to the sins of those who were
permitted to commit sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask why
this permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence of the
Creator and Governor of the world; and "unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out."55
Nevertheless, faithfully interrogate your own souls, whether ye have not
been unduly puffed up by your integrity, and continence, and chastity;
and whether ye have not been so desirous of the human praise that is
accorded to these virtues, that ye have envied some who possessed them.
I, for my part, do not know your hearts, and therefore I make no
accusation; I do not even hear what your hearts answer when you question
them. And yet, if they answer that it is as I have supposed it might be,
do not marvel that you have lost that by which you can win men's praise,
and retain that which cannot be exhibited to men. If you did not consent
to sin, it was because God added His aid to His grace that it might not
be lost, and because shame before men succeeded to human glory that it
might not be loved. But in both respects even the faint-hearted among
you have a consolation, approved by the one experience, chastened by the
other; justified by the one, corrected by the other. As to those whose
hearts, when interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the
virtue of virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but,
condescending to those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling in these
gifts of God, and that they have never envied any one the like
excellences of sanctity and purity, but rose superior to human applause,
which is wont to be abundant in proportion to the rarity of the virtue
applauded, and rather desired that their own number be increased, than
that by the smallness of their numbers each of them should be
conspicuous;-even such faithful women, I say, must not complain that
permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to outrage them; nor
must they allow themselves to believe that God overlooked their
character when He permitted acts which no one with impunity commits. For
some most flagrant and wicked desires are allowed free play at present
by the secret judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final
judgment. Moreover, it is possible that those Christian women, who are
unconscious of any undue pride on account of their virtuous chastity,
whereby they sinlessly suffered the violence of their captors, had yet
some lurking infirmity which might have betrayed them into a proud and
contemptuous bearing, had they not been subjected to the humiliation
that befell them in the taking of the city. As, therefore, some men were
removed by death, that no wickedness might change their disposition, so
these women were outraged lest prosperity should corrupt their modesty.
Neither those women then, who were already puffed up by the circumstance
that they were still virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed up
had they not been exposed to the violence of the enemy, lost their
chastity, but rather gained humility; the former were saved from pride
already cherished, the latter from pride that would shortly have grown
upon them.
We must further notice that some of those sufferers may have conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides so long as the body is inviolate, and did not understand that the purity both of the body and the soul rests on the steadfastness of the will strengthened by God's grace, and cannot be forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error they are probably now delivered. For when they reflect how conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid and when they consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that He could never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them.
Chapter 29.-What the Servants of Christ Should Say in Reply to the Unbelievers Who Cast in Their Teeth that Christ Didnot Rescue Them from the Fury of Their Enemies.
The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a
consolation of its own,-a consolation which cannot deceive, and which
has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth
can afford. They will not refuse the discipline of this temporal life,
in which they are schooled for life eternal; nor will they lament their
experience of it, for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who
are not detained by them, and its ills either prove or improve them. As
for those who insult over them in their trials, and when ills befall
them say, "Where is thy God?"56
we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very
calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or
maintain they ought to be worshipped; for the family of Christ is
furnished with its reply: our God is everywhere present, wholly
everywhere; not confined to any place. He can be present unperceived,
and be absent without moving; when He exposes us to adversities, it is
either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in
return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves
for us an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should deign to
speak with you even about your own gods, much less about our God, who is
"to be feared above all gods? For all the gods of the nations are
idols; but the Lord made the heavens."57
Chapter 30.-That Those Who Complain of Christianity Really Desire to Live Without Restraint in Shameful Luxury.
If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once your pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate, when, in the panic created by the Punic war, they sought for the best citizen to entertain the Phrygian goddess, he would curb this shamelessness of yours, though you would perhaps scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man. For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity, unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious license unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster? For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken; the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Korean republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.
For at what stage would that passion rest when once it has lodged in a
proud spirit, until by a succession of advances it has reached even the
throne. And to obtain such advances nothing avails but unscrupulous
ambition. But unscrupulous ambition has nothing to work upon, save in a
nation corrupted by avarice and luxury. Moreover, a people becomes
avaricious and luxurious by prosperity; and it was this which that very
prudent man Nasica was endeavouring to avoid when he opposed the
destruction of the greatest, strongest, wealthiest city of Rome's enemy.
He thought that thus fear would act as a curb on lust, and that lust
being curbed would not run riot in luxury, and that luxury being
prevented avarice would be at an end; and that these vices being
banished, virtue would flourish and increase the great profit of the
state; and liberty, the fit companion of virtue, would abide unfettered.
For similar reasons, and animated by the same considerate patriotism,
that same chief pontiff of yours-I still refer to him who was adjudged
Rome's best man without one dissentient voice-threw cold water on the
proposal of the senate to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and
in a very weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious
manners of Greece to sap the Roman manliness, and persuaded them not to
yield to the enervating and emasculating influence of foreign
licentiousness. So authoritative and forcible were his words, that the
senate was moved to prohibit the use even of those benches which
hitherto had been customarily brought to the theatre for the temporary
use of the citizens.58
How eagerly would such a man as this have banished from Rome the scenic
exhibitions themselves, had he dared to oppose the authority of those
whom he supposed to be gods! For he did not know that they were
malicious devils; or if he did, he supposed they should rather be
propitiated than despised. For there had not yet been revealed to the
Gentiles the heavenly doctrine which should purify their hearts by
faith, and transform their natural disposition by humble godliness, and
turn them from the service of proud devils to seek the things that are
in heaven, or even above the heavens.
Know then, ye who are ignorant of this, and ye who feign ignorance be reminded, while you murmur against Him who has freed you from such rulers, that the scenic games, exhibitions of shameless folly and license, were established at Rome, not by men's vicious cravings, but by the appointment of your gods. Much more pardonably might you have rendered divine honors to Scipio than to such gods as these. The gods were not so moral as their pontiff. But give me now your attention, if your mind, inebriated by its deep potations of error, can take in any sober truth. The gods enjoined that games be exhibited in their honor to stay a physical pestilence; their pontiff prohibited the theatre from being constructed, to prevent a moral pestilence. If, then, there remains in you sufficient mental enlightenment to prefer the soul to the body, choose whom you will worship. Besides, though the pestilence was stayed, this was not because the voluptuous madness of stage-plays had taken possession of a warlike people hitherto accustomed only to the games of the circus; but these astute and wicked spirits, foreseeing that in due course the pestilence would shortly cease, took occasion to infect, not the bodies, but the morals of their worshippers, with a far more serious disease. And in this pestilence these gods find great enjoyment, because it benighted the minds of men with so gross a darkness and dishonored them with so foul a deformity, that even quite recently (will posterity be able to credit it?) some of those who fled from the sack of Rome and found refuge in Carthage, were so infected with this disease, that day after day they seemed to contend with one another who should most madly run after the actors in the theatres.
Oh infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness, which possesses you? How is it that while, as we hear, even the eastern nations are bewailing your ruin, and while powerful states in the most remote parts of the earth are mourning your fall as a public calamity, ye yourselves should be crowding to the theatres, should be pouring into them and filling them; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than ever before? This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of virtue and honor that Scipio sought to preserve you from when he prohibited the construction of theatres; this was his reason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear, seeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and destroy you. He did not consider that republic flourishing whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the seductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you than the precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries you do, you will not permit to be imputed to you: but the injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Deprayed by good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your own vicious luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed by an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxurious manners; but so abandoned are you, that not even when crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You have missed the profit of your calamity; you have been made most wretched, and have remained most profligate.
|
