BOOK FIFTH.[183]

Argument

AUGUSTINE FIRST DISCUSSES THE DOCTRINE OF FATE, FOR THE SAKE OF CONFUTING
THOSE WHO ARE DISPOSED TO REFER TO FATE THE POWER AND
INCREASE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, WHICH COULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO
FALSE GODS, AS HAS BEEN SHOWN IN THE PRECEDING BOOK. AFTER THAT,
HE PROVES THAT THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GOD’S PRESCIENCE
AND OUR FREE WILL. HE THEN SPEAKS OF THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT
ROMANS, AND SHOWS IN WHAT SENSE IT WAS DUE TO THE VIRTUE OF THE
ROMANS THEMSELVES, AND IN HOW FAR TO THE COUNSEL OF GOD, THAT HE
INCREASED THEIR DOMINION, THOUGH THEY DID NOT WORSHIP HIM.
FINALLY, HE EXPLAINS WHAT IS TO BE ACCOUNTED THE TRUE HAPPINESS
OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS.

PREFACE.

Since, then, it is established that the complete attainment
of all we desire is that which constitutes felicity, which
is no goddess, but a gift of God, and that therefore men
can worship no god save Him who is able to make them
happy,—and were Felicity herself a goddess, she would with
reason be the only object of worship,—since, I say, this is
established, let us now go on to consider why God, who is able
to give with all other things those good gifts which can be
possessed by men who are not good, and consequently not
happy, has seen fit to grant such extended and long-continued
dominion to the Roman empire; for that this was not effected
by that multitude of false gods which they worshipped, we
have both already adduced, and shall, as occasion offers, yet
adduce considerable proof.

1. That the cause of the Roman empire, and of all kingdoms, is neither fortuitous
nor consists in the position of the stars.[184]

The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is
neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or[Pg 178]
opinion of those who call those things fortuitous which either
have no causes, or such causes as do not proceed from some
intelligible order, and those things fatal which happen independently
of the will of God and man, by the necessity of a
certain order. In a word, human kingdoms are established by
divine providence. And if any one attributes their existence to
fate, because he calls the will or the power of God itself by the
name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language.
For why does he not say at first what he will say afterwards,
when some one shall put the question to him, What he means
by fate? For when men hear that word, according to the
ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it
the virtue of that particular position of the stars which may
exist at the time when any one is born or conceived, which
some separate altogether from the will of God, whilst others
affirm that this also is dependent on that will. But those who
are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars determine
what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess,
or what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all,
not only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who
wish to be the worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false
gods. For what does this opinion really amount to but this,
that no god whatever is to be worshipped or prayed to?
Against these, however, our present disputation is not intended
to be directed, but against those who, in defence of those whom
they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. They,
however, who make the position of the stars depend on the
divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man
shall have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if
they think that these same stars have that power conferred
upon them by the supreme power of God, in order that they
may determine these things according to their will, do a great
injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant senate,
and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that
wicked deeds are decreed to be done,—such deeds as that if any
terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned to
overthrow by the decree of the whole human race. What
judgment, then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men,
who is Lord both of the stars and of men, when to these deeds[Pg 179]
a celestial necessity is attributed? Or, if they do not say that
the stars, though they have indeed received a certain power from
God, who is supreme, determine those things according to their
own discretion, but simply that His commands are fulfilled by
them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such
necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even what
it seemed unworthy that we should think concerning the will
of the stars? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these
things than to effect them, so that that position of the stars is,
as it were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things,—for
this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning,—certainly
the mathematicians are not wont so to speak, saying,
for example, Mars in such or such a position signifies a homicide,
but makes a homicide. But, nevertheless, though we
grant that they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought
to accept as the proper form of speech that employed by the
philosophers in predicting those things which they think they
discover in the position of the stars, how comes it that they
have never been able to assign any cause why, in the life of
twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in
their professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to
human life, also in their very death, there is often so great a
difference, that, as far as these things are concerned, many
entire strangers are more like them than they are like each
other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of
time, but at conception generated by the same act of copulation,
and at the same moment?

2. On the difference in the health of twins.

Cicero says that the famous physician Hippocrates has left
in writing that he had suspected that a certain pair of brothers
were twins, from the fact that they both took ill at once, and
their disease advanced to its crisis and subsided in the same
time in each of them.[185] Posidonius the Stoic, who was much
given to astrology, used to explain the fact by supposing that
they had been born and conceived under the same constellation.
In this question the conjecture of the physician is by[Pg 180]
far more worthy to be accepted, and approaches much nearer
to credibility, since, according as the parents were affected in
body at the time of copulation, so might the first elements of
the fœtuses have been affected, so that all that was necessary
for their growth and development up till birth having been
supplied from the body of the same mother, they might be
born with like constitutions. Thereafter, nourished in the
same house, on the same kinds of food, where they would have
also the same kinds of air, the same locality, the same quality
of water,—which, according to the testimony of medical science,
have a very great influence, good or bad, on the condition of
bodily health,—and where they would also be accustomed to
the same kinds of exercise, they would have bodily constitutions
so similar that they would be similarly affected with sickness
at the same time and by the same causes. But, to wish
to adduce that particular position of the stars which existed
at the time when they were born or conceived as the cause of
their being simultaneously affected with sickness, manifests the
greatest arrogance, when so many beings of most diverse kinds,
in the most diverse conditions, and subject to the most diverse
events, may have been conceived and born at the same time,
and in the same district, lying under the same sky. But we
know that twins do not only act differently, and travel to very
different places, but that they also suffer from different kinds
of sickness; for which Hippocrates would give what is in my
opinion the simplest reason, namely, that, through diversity
of food and exercise, which arises not from the constitution of
the body, but from the inclination of the mind, they may have
come to be different from each other in respect of health.
Moreover, Posidonius, or any other asserter of the fatal influence
of the stars, will have enough to do to find anything
to say to this, if he be unwilling to impose upon the minds of
the uninstructed in things of which they are ignorant. But,
as to what they attempt to make out from that very small
interval of time elapsing between the births of twins, on account
of that point in the heavens where the mark of the
natal hour is placed, and which they call the “horoscope,” it
is either disproportionately small to the diversity which is
found in the dispositions, actions, habits, and fortunes of twins,[Pg 181]
or it is disproportionately great when compared with the estate
of twins, whether low or high, which is the same for both of
them, the cause for whose greatest difference they place, in
every case, in the hour on which one is born; and, for this
reason, if the one is born so immediately after the other that
there is no change in the horoscope, I demand an entire similarity
in all that respects them both, which can never be found
in the case of any twins. But if the slowness of the birth of
the second give time for a change in the horoscope, I demand
different parents, which twins can never have.

3. Concerning the arguments which Nigidius the mathematician drew from
the potter’s wheel, in the question about the birth of twins.

It is to no purpose, therefore, that that famous fiction about
the potter’s wheel is brought forward, which tells of the answer
which Nigidius is said to have given when he was perplexed
with this question, and on account of which he was called
Figulus.[186] For, having whirled round the potter’s wheel with
all his strength, he marked it with ink, striking it twice with
the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes seemed to fall on the
very same part of it. Then, when the rotation had ceased,
the marks which he had made were found upon the rim of the
wheel at no small distance apart. Thus, said he, considering
the great rapidity with which the celestial sphere revolves,
even though twins were born with as short an interval between
their births as there was between the strokes which I gave this
wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very great
distance in the celestial sphere. Hence, said he, come whatever
dissimilitudes may be remarked in the habits and fortunes
of twins. This argument is more fragile than the vessels
which are fashioned by the rotation of that wheel. For if
there is so much significance in the heavens which cannot be
comprehended by observation of the constellations, that, in the
case of twins, an inheritance may fall to the one and not to
the other, why, in the case of others who are not twins, do
they dare, having examined their constellations, to declare such
things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend,
and to attribute them to the precise moment of the birth of each
individual? Now, if such predictions in connection with the[Pg 182]
natal hours of others who are not twins are to be vindicated on
the ground that they are founded on the observation of more extended
spaces in the heavens, whilst those very small moments
of time which separated the births of twins, and correspond
to minute portions of celestial space, are to be connected with
trifling things about which the mathematicians are not wont
to be consulted,—for who would consult them as to when he is
to sit, when to walk abroad, when and on what he is to dine?—how
can we be justified in so speaking, when we can point
out such manifold diversity both in the habits, doings, and
destinies of twins?

4. Concerning the twins Esau and Jacob, who were very unlike each other
both in their character and actions.

In the time of the ancient fathers, to speak concerning
illustrious persons, there were born two twin brothers, the
one so immediately after the other, that the first took hold of
the heel of the second. So great a difference existed in their
lives and manners, so great a dissimilarity in their actions, so
great a difference in their parents’ love for them respectively,
that the very contrast between them produced even a mutual
hostile antipathy. Do we mean, when we say that they were
so unlike each other, that when the one was walking the other
was sitting, when the one was sleeping the other was waking,—which
differences are such as are attributed to those minute
portions of space which cannot be appreciated by those who
note down the position of the stars which exists at the moment
of one’s birth, in order that the mathematicians may be consulted
concerning it? One of these twins was for a long time
a hired servant; the other never served. One of them was
beloved by his mother; the other was not so. One of them
lost that honour which was so much valued among their
people; the other obtained it. And what shall we say of
their wives, their children, and their possessions? How different
they were in respect to all these! If, therefore, such
things as these are connected with those minute intervals of
time which elapse between the births of twins, and are not to
be attributed to the constellations, wherefore are they predicted
in the case of others from the examination of their constellations?
And if, on the other hand, these things are said to be[Pg 183]
predicted, because they are connected, not with minute and
inappreciable moments, but with intervals of time which can be
observed and noted down, what purpose is that potter’s wheel
to serve in this matter, except it be to whirl round men who
have hearts of clay, in order that they may be prevented from
detecting the emptiness of the talk of the mathematicians?

5. In what manner the mathematicians are convicted of professing a vain science.

Do not those very persons whom the medical sagacity of
Hippocrates led him to suspect to be twins, because their
disease was observed by him to develope to its crisis and to
subside again in the same time in each of them,—do not these,
I say, serve as a sufficient refutation of those who wish to
attribute to the influence of the stars that which was owing
to a similarity of bodily constitution? For wherefore were
they both sick of the same disease, and at the same time, and
not the one after the other in the order of their birth? (for
certainly they could not both be born at the same time.) Or,
if the fact of their having been born at different times by no
means necessarily implies that they must be sick at different
times, why do they contend that the difference in the time of
their births was the cause of their difference in other things?
Why could they travel in foreign parts at different times,
marry at different times, beget children at different times, and
do many other things at different times, by reason of their
having been born at different times, and yet could not, for
the same reason, also be sick at different times? For if a
difference in the moment of birth changed the horoscope, and
occasioned dissimilarity in all other things, why has that
simultaneousness which belonged to their conception remained
in their attacks of sickness? Or, if the destinies of health
are involved in the time of conception, but those of other
things be said to be attached to the time of birth, they ought
not to predict anything concerning health from examination
of the constellations of birth, when the hour of conception is
not also given, that its constellations may be inspected. But
if they say that they predict attacks of sickness without examining
the horoscope of conception, because these are indicated
by the moments of birth, how could they inform either[Pg 184]
of these twins when he would be sick, from the horoscope of
his birth, when the other also, who had not the same horoscope
of birth, must of necessity fall sick at the same time? Again,
I ask, if the distance of time between the births of twins is
so great as to occasion a difference of their constellations on
account of the difference of their horoscopes, and therefore of
all the cardinal points to which so much influence is attributed,
that even from such change there comes a difference of destiny,
how is it possible that this should be so, since they cannot
have been conceived at different times? Or, if two conceived
at the same moment of time could have different destinies
with respect to their births, why may not also two born at
the same moment of time have different destinies for life and
for death? For if the one moment in which both were conceived
did not hinder that the one should be born before the
other, why, if two are born at the same moment, should anything
hinder them from dying at the same moment? If a
simultaneous conception allows of twins being differently
affected in the womb, why should not simultaneousness of
birth allow of any two individuals having different fortunes
in the world? and thus would all the fictions of this art, or
rather delusion, be swept away. What strange circumstance
is this, that two children conceived at the same time, nay, at
the same moment, under the same position of the stars, have
different fates which bring them to different hours of birth,
whilst two children, born of two different mothers, at the same
moment of time, under one and the same position of the stars,
cannot have different fates which shall conduct them by necessity
to diverse manners of life and of death? Are they at
conception as yet without destinies, because they can only
have them if they be born? What, therefore, do they mean
when they say that, if the hour of the conception be found,
many things can be predicted by these astrologers? from
which also arose that story which is reiterated by some, that
a certain sage chose an hour in which to lie with his wife, in
order to secure his begetting an illustrious son. From this
opinion also came that answer of Posidonius, the great astrologer
and also philosopher, concerning those twins who were
attacked with sickness at the same time, namely, “That this[Pg 185]
had happened to them because they were conceived at the
same time, and born at the same time.” For certainly he
added “conception,” lest it should be said to him that they
could not both be born at the same time, knowing that at any
rate they must both have been conceived at the same time;
wishing thus to show that he did not attribute the fact of
their being similarly and simultaneously affected with sickness
to the similarity of their bodily constitutions as its proximate
cause, but that he held that even in respect of the similarity
of their health, they were bound together by a sidereal connection.
If, therefore, the time of conception has so much to
do with the similarity of destinies, these same destinies ought
not to be changed by the circumstances of birth; or, if the
destinies of twins be said to be changed because they are
born at different times, why should we not rather understand
that they had been already changed in order that they might
be born at different times? Does not, then, the will of men
living in the world change the destinies of birth, when the
order of birth can change the destinies they had at conception?

6. Concerning twins of different sexes.

But even in the very conception of twins, which certainly
occurs at the same moment in the case of both, it often happens
that the one is conceived a male, and the other a female.
I know two of different sexes who are twins. Both of them
are alive, and in the flower of their age; and though they
resemble each other in body, as far as difference of sex will
permit, still they are very different in the whole scope and
purpose of their lives (consideration being had of those differences
which necessarily exist between the lives of males and
females),—the one holding the office of a count, and being
almost constantly away from home with the army in foreign
service, the other never leaving her country’s soil, or her
native district. Still more,—and this is more incredible, if the
destinies of the stars are to be believed in, though it is not
wonderful if we consider the wills of men, and the free gifts
of God,—he is married; she is a sacred virgin: he has begotten
a numerous offspring; she has never even married. But is
not the virtue of the horoscope very great? I think I have
said enough to show the absurdity of that. But, say those[Pg 186]
astrologers, whatever be the virtue of the horoscope in other
respects, it is certainly of significance with respect to birth.
But why not also with respect to conception, which takes
place undoubtedly with one act of copulation? And, indeed,
so great is the force of nature, that after a woman has once
conceived, she ceases to be liable to conception. Or were
they, perhaps, changed at birth, either he into a male, or she
into a female, because of the difference in their horoscopes?
But, whilst it is not altogether absurd to say that certain
sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in
bodies alone,—as, for instance, we see that the seasons of the
year come round by the approaching and receding of the sun,
and that certain kinds of things are increased in size or
diminished by the waxings and wanings of the moon, such
as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful tides of the ocean,—it
does not follow that the wills of men are to be made subject
to the position of the stars. The astrologers, however, when
they wish to bind our actions also to the constellations, only
set us on investigating whether, even in these bodies, the
changes may not be attributable to some other than a sidereal
cause. For what is there which more intimately concerns a
body than its sex? And yet, under the same position of the
stars, twins of different sexes may be conceived. Wherefore,
what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that
the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them
at the time of conception, could not cause that the one child
should not have been of a different sex from her brother, with
whom she had a common constellation, whilst the position of
the stars which existed at the hour of their birth could cause
that she should be separated from him by the great distance
between marriage and holy virginity?

7. Concerning the choosing of a day for marriage, or for planting, or sowing.

Now, will any one bring forward this, that in choosing
certain particular days for particular actions, men bring about
certain new destinies for their actions? That man, for instance,
according to this doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious
son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore, being a man
of learning, he chose an hour in which to lie with his wife.[Pg 187]
He made, therefore, a destiny which he did not have before,
and from that destiny of his own making something began to
be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of his natal
hour. Oh, singular stupidity! A day is chosen on which to
marry; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be
chosen, the marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn
out an unhappy one. What then becomes of what the stars
have already decreed at the hour of birth? Can a man be
said to change by an act of choice that which has already
been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has
determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by
another power? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under
heaven, are subject to the influence of the stars, why do they
choose some days as suitable for planting vines or trees, or for
sowing grain, other days as suitable for taming beasts on, or
for putting the males to the females, that the cows and mares
may be impregnated, and for such-like things? If it be said
that certain chosen days have an influence on these things,
because the constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies,
animate and inanimate, according to differences in moments
of time, let it be considered what innumerable multitudes of
beings are born or arise, or take their origin at the very same
instant of time, which come to ends so different, that they
may persuade any little boy that these observations about
days are ridiculous. For who is so mad as to dare affirm
that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes,
worms, have each separately their own moments of birth or
commencement? Nevertheless, men are wont, in order to
try the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the
constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose
birth they diligently observe at home with a view to this
discovery; and they prefer those mathematicians to all others,
who say from the inspection of the constellations that they
indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man. They also
dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a wool-bearing
beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one fit for
the plough, or for watching a house; for the astrologers are
also tried with respect to the fates of dogs, and their answers
concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration on the[Pg 188]
part of those who consult them. They so deceive men as to
make them think that during the birth of a man the births
of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes
to life at the same time that he is being born, under the same
region of the heavens. And if this be admitted with respect
to the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must ascend
from flies till it lead them up to camels and elephants. Nor
are they willing to attend to this, that when a day has been
chosen whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into the
ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up,
come to perfection, and ripen simultaneously; and yet, of all
the ears which are coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some
are destroyed by mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and
some are pulled by men. How can they say that all these
had their different constellations, which they see coming to so
different ends? Will they confess that it is folly to choose
days for such things, and to affirm that they do not come
within the sphere of the celestial decree, whilst they subject
men alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has
bestowed free wills? All these things being considered, we
have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give
very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the
occult inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose care
it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in
them, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal
influence of the stars, and not to their marking and inspecting
of horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality
has no existence.

8. Concerning those who call by the name of fate, not the position of the stars,
but the connection of causes which depends on the will of God.

But, as to those who call by the name of fate, not the disposition
of the stars as it may exist when any creature is
conceived, or born, or commences its existence, but the whole
connection and train of causes which makes everything become
what it does become, there is no need that I should labour
and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy, since
they attribute the so-called order and connection of causes to
the will and power of God most high, who is most rightly
and most truly believed to know all things before they come[Pg 189]
to pass, and to leave nothing unordained; from whom are all
powers, although the wills of all are not from Him. Now,
that it is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power
extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call
fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake
not, Annæus Seneca is the author:—

“Father supreme, Thou ruler of the lofty heavens,

Lead me where’er it is Thy pleasure; I will give

A prompt obedience, making no delay,

Lo! here I am. Promptly I come to do Thy sovereign will;

If Thy command shall thwart my inclination, I will still

Follow Thee groaning, and the work assigned,

With all the suffering of a mind repugnant,

Will perform, being evil; which, had I been good,

I should have undertaken and performed, though hard,

With virtuous cheerfulness.

The Fates do lead the man that follows willing;

But the man that is unwilling, him they drag.”[187]

Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that “fate” which
he had before called “the will of the Father supreme,” whom,
he says, he is ready to obey that he may be led, being willing,
not dragged, being unwilling, since “the Fates do lead the
man that follows willing, but the man that is unwilling, him
they drag.”

The following Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into
Latin, also favour this opinion:—

“Such are the minds of men, as is the light

Which Father Jove himself doth pour

Illustrious o’er the fruitful earth.”[188]

Not that Cicero wishes that a poetical sentiment should
have any weight in a question like this; for when he says
that the Stoics, when asserting the power of fate, were in the
habit of using these verses from Homer, he is not treating
concerning the opinion of that poet, but concerning that of
those philosophers, since by these verses, which they quote in
connection with the controversy which they hold about fate,
is most distinctly manifested what it is which they reckon
fate, since they call by the name of Jupiter him whom they
reckon the supreme god, from whom, they say, hangs the
whole chain of fates.

[Pg 190]

9. Concerning the foreknowledge of God and the free will of man, in opposition
to the definition of Cicero.

The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task
of refuting the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could
effect anything against them in argument unless he had first
demolished divination.[189] And this he attempts to accomplish
by denying that there is any knowledge of future things,
and maintains with all his might that there is no such knowledge
either in God or man, and that there is no prediction
of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God,
and attempts by vain arguments, and by opposing to himself
certain oracles very easy to be refuted, to overthrow all prophecy,
even such as is clearer than the light (though even
these oracles are not refuted by him).

But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his
argument is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy
and refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more tolerable
who assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who
deny the foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that
God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge
of future things, is the most manifest folly. This
Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the
doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, “The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God.”[190] That, however, he did
not do in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive
such an opinion would be; and, therefore in his book on the
nature of the gods,[191] he makes Cotta dispute concerning this
against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in
favour of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of
the Stoical position, rather than in favour of Cotta, who maintained
that no divinity exists. However, in his book on
divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the
doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he
seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of
fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that,
the knowledge of future things being once conceded, fate follows
as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied.

But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the[Pg 191]
philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may
confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His
will, supreme power, and prescience. Neither let us be afraid
lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by will,
because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that
we would do it. It was this which Cicero was afraid of, and
therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained
that all things do not come to pass by necessity, although
they contended that all things happen according to destiny.
What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future
things? Doubtless it was this,—that if all future things
have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which
they have been foreknown; and if they come to pass in this
order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God;
and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes,
for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient
cause. But if there is a certain order of causes according to
which everything happens which does happen, then by fate,
says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be
so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no
such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he,
the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are
laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations
had recourse to; and there is no justice whatever
in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments
for the wicked. And that consequences so disgraceful, and
absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not follow, Cicero
chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts
up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice between
two things, either that something is in our own power,
or that there is foreknowledge,—both of which cannot be true;
but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He
therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who consulted
very much and very skilfully for the good of humanity,
of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which
he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing
to make men free, he makes them sacrilegious. But the
religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains
both by the faith of piety. But how so? says Cicero; for the[Pg 192]
knowledge of future things being granted, there follows a chain
of consequences which ends in this, that there can be nothing
depending on our own free wills. And further, if there is
anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by
the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the conclusion
that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For we go
backwards through all the steps in the following order:—If
there is free will, all things do not happen according to
fate; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is
not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain
order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things foreknown
by God,—for things cannot come to pass except they
are preceded by efficient causes,—but, if there is no fixed and
certain order of causes foreknown by God, all things cannot
be said to happen according as He foreknew that they would
happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen
just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says
he, in God any foreknowledge of future events.

Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of
reason, we assert both that God knows all things before
they come to pass, and that we do by our free will whatsoever
we know and feel to be done by us only because
we will it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we
do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by
fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont
to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the
position of the stars at the time of each one’s conception
or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion.
But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency
is attributed to the will of God, we neither deny nor do we
designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may
understand fate to mean that which is spoken, deriving it from
fari, to speak; for we cannot deny that it is written in the
sacred Scriptures, “God hath spoken once; these two things
have I heard, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto
Thee, O God, belongeth mercy: for Thou wilt render unto
every man according to his works.”[192] Now the expression,
“Once hath He spoken,” is to be understood as meaning “immovably,[Pg 193]”
that is, unchangeably hath He spoken, inasmuch as
He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and all
things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate
in the sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it
not already come to be understood in another sense, into which
I am unwilling that the hearts of men should unconsciously
slide. But it does not follow that, though there is for God a
certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing
depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills
themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain
to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human
wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew
all the causes of things would certainly among those causes
not have been ignorant of our wills. For even that very concession
which Cicero himself makes is enough to refute him
in this argument. For what does it help him to say that
nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is
not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and
a voluntary cause? It is sufficient that he confesses that
whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say
that those causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere
name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we
attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of
spirits of some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by
no means separate them from the will of Him who is the author
and framer of all nature. But now as to voluntary causes.
They are referable either to God, or to angels, or to men, or to
animals of whatever description, if indeed those instinctive
movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in accordance
with their own nature, they seek or shun various things,
are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of
angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call
the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the
angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I
mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from
this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things
which come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as
belong to that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air
or wind is called spirit, but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not[Pg 194]
the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which quickens
all things, and is the creator of every body, and of every
created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His
supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all
created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling
all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For,
as He is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower
of all powers, not of all wills; for wicked wills are not from
Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to
bodies, they are more subject to wills: some to our wills, by
which I mean the wills of all living mortal creatures, but
more to the wills of men than of beasts. But all of them are
most of all subject to the will of God, to whom all wills also
are subject, since they have no power except what He has
bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which
makes but is not made, is God; but all other causes both
make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and especially
the rational. Material causes, therefore, which may rather
be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned
among efficient causes, because they can only do what the
wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of
causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate
that there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills,
when our wills themselves have a very important place in the
order of causes? Cicero, then, contends with those who call
this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself
by the name of fate; to which we have an abhorrence, especially
on account of the word, which men have become accustomed
to understand as meaning what is not true. But,
whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain,
and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his
opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that
God exists,—which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has
laboured to do, in his book De Natura Deorum,—or if he
confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of
future things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his
heart there is no God?” For one who is not prescient of all
future things is not God. Wherefore our wills also have just
so much power as God willed and foreknew that they should[Pg 195]
have; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it
within most certain limits; and whatever they are to do, they
are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is infallible
foreknew that they would have the power to do it,
and would do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the
name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that fate
belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who
has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will
is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual
application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call
Fate.

10. Whether our wills are ruled by necessity.

Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread
of which the Stoics laboured to make such distinctions among
the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain
things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to
it. Among those things which they wished not to be subject
to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would
not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be
called our necessity which is not in our power, but even though
we be unwilling effects what it can effect,—as, for instance, the
necessity of death,—it is manifest that our wills by which we
live uprightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity;
for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should
certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing
itself,—for if we will, it is; if we will not, it is not,—for we
should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity
to be that according to which we say that it is necessary
that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and
such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of
that necessity taking away the freedom of our will. For we
do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under
necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should
live for ever, and foreknow all things; as neither is His power
diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error,—for
this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were
possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly
He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die
nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account[Pg 196]
of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering
what He wills not; for if that should befall Him, He would by
no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some
things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also,
when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will
by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond
doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity
which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and
do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would
not be done if we were unwilling. But when any one suffers
anything, being unwilling, by the will of another, even in that
case will retains its essential validity,—we do not mean the
will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it
into the power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but
not be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a
more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there
had existed will, and that not the will of the other party, but
the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish
what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man suffers contrary
to his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of men,
or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will
who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that
because God foreknew what would be in the power of our
wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our
wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing.
Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of
our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something, assuredly,
even though He did foreknow, there is something in the power
of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either,
retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of
the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He
is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace
both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The
former, that we may believe well; the latter, that we may live
well. For he lives ill who does not believe well concerning
God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our
freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are
or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are
enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations[Pg 197]
are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and
they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they
would be of. Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things
which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered
them; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good
deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore
sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it
cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins
when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible,
foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else
would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he
wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this
did God foreknow.

11. Concerning the universal providence of God in the laws of which all things
are comprehended.

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy
Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and
maker of every soul and of every body; by whose gift all are
happy who are happy through verity and not through vanity;
who made man a rational animal consisting of soul and body,
who, when he sinned, neither permitted him to go unpunished,
nor left him without mercy; who has given to the good and
to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in
common with trees, sensuous life in common with brutes,
intellectual life in common with angels alone; from whom
is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are
measure, number, weight; from whom is everything which
has an existence in nature, of whatever kind it be, and of
whatever value; from whom are the seeds of forms and the
forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms; who
gave also to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive
fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of
its parts; who also to the irrational soul has given memory,
sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these,
has given intelligence and will; who has not left, not to speak
of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails
of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather
of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree,
without an harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among[Pg 198]
all its parts;—that God can never be believed to have left
the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside
of the laws of His providence.

12. By what virtues the ancient Romans merited that the true God, although they
did not worship Him, should enlarge their empire.

Wherefore let us go on to consider what virtues of the
Romans they were which the true God, in whose power are
also the kingdoms of the earth, condescended to help in
order to raise the empire, and also for what reason He did so.
And, in order to discuss this question on clearer ground, we
have written the former books, to show that the power of
those gods, who, they thought, were to be worshipped with
such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter;
and also what we have already accomplished of the present
volume, to refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might
have been already persuaded that the Roman empire was not
extended and preserved by the worship of these gods, might
still be attributing its extension and preservation to some kind
of fate, rather than to the most powerful will of God most
high. The ancient and primitive Romans, therefore, though
their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with
the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods,
and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have nevertheless
this commendation bestowed on them by their historian,
that they were “greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous
of great glory, and content with a moderate fortune.”[193] Glory
they most ardently loved: for it they wished to live, for it
they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed
by the strength of their passion for that one thing. At length
their country itself, because it seemed inglorious to serve, but
glorious to rule and to command, they first earnestly desired
to be free, and then to be mistress. Hence it was that, not
enduring the domination of kings, they put the government
into the hands of two chiefs, holding office for a year, who
were called consuls, not kings or lords.[194] But royal pomp[Pg 199]
seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler (regentis),
or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for the
public good) (consulentis), but rather with the haughtiness of
a lord (dominantis). King Tarquin, therefore, having been
banished, and the consular government having been instituted,
it followed, as the same author already alluded to says in his
praises of the Romans, that “the state grew with amazing
rapidity after it had obtained liberty, so great a desire of
glory had taken possession of it.” That eagerness for praise
and desire of glory, then, was that which accomplished those
many wonderful things, laudable, doubtless, and glorious according
to human judgment. The same Sallust praises the
great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Cæsar,
saying that for a long time the republic had no one great in
virtue, but that within his memory there had been these two
men of eminent virtue, and very different pursuits. Now,
among the praises which he pronounces on Cæsar he put
this, that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new
war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue
might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer of men of
heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations
to war, and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge,
so that there might be occasion for the display of their
valour. This, forsooth, is what that desire of praise and
thirst for glory did. Wherefore, by the love of liberty in the
first place, afterwards also by that of domination and through
the desire of praise and glory, they achieved many great things;
and their most eminent poet testifies to their having been
prompted by all these motives:

“Porsenna there, with pride elate,

Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate;

With arms he hems the city in,

Æneas’ sons stand firm to win.”[195]

At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die
bravely or to live free; but when liberty was obtained, so
great a desire of glory took possession of them, that liberty
alone was not enough unless domination also should be sought,[Pg 200]
their great ambition being that which the same poet puts into
the mouth of Jupiter:

“Nay, Juno’s self, whose wild alarms

Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms,

Shall change for smiles her moody frown,

And vie with me in zeal to crown

Rome’s sons, the nation of the gown.

So stands my will. There comes a day,

While Rome’s great ages hold their way,

When old Assaracus’s sons

Shall quit them on the myrmidons,

O’er Phthia and Mycenæ reign,

And humble Argos to their chain.”[196]

Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future,
whilst, in reality, he was only himself passing in review in his
own mind things which were already done, and which were
beheld by him as present realities. But I have mentioned
them with the intention of showing that, next to liberty, the
Romans so highly esteemed domination, that it received a
place among those things on which they bestowed the greatest
praise. Hence also it is that that poet, preferring to the arts
of other nations those arts which peculiarly belong to the
Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and of
subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,

“Others, belike, with happier grace,

From bronze or stone shall call the face,

Plead doubtful causes, map the skies,

And tell when planets set or rise;

But Roman thou, do thou control

The nations far and wide;

Be this thy genius, to impose

The rule of peace on vanquished foes,

Show pity to the humbled soul,

And crush the sons of pride.”[197]

These arts they exercised with the more skill the less they
gave themselves up to pleasures, and to enervation of body
and mind in coveting and amassing riches, and through these
corrupting morals, by extorting them from the miserable
citizens and lavishing them on base stage-players. Hence
these men of base character, who abounded when Sallust
wrote and Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honours[Pg 201]
and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. Wherefore
the same says, “But at first it was rather ambition than
avarice that stirred the minds of men, which vice, however, is
nearer to virtue. For glory, honour, and power are desired
alike by the good man and by the ignoble; but the former,”
he says, “strives onward to them by the true way, whilst
the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them
by fraud and deceit.”[198] And what is meant by seeking the
attainment of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek
them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good
and the ignoble man alike desire these things, but the good
man strives to overtake them by the true way. The way is
virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of possession—namely,
to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even
by the temples of their gods; for they built in very close
proximity the temples of Virtue and Honour, worshipping
as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand what
they who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to
what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as
to the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honour,
and strove to possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a
higher kind is bestowed upon Cato, for he says of him,
“The less he sought glory, the more it followed him.”[199] We
say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with the desire
of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men thinking
well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is
content with no human judgment save that of one’s own conscience.
Whence the apostle says, “For this is our glory,
the testimony of our conscience.”[200] And in another place he
says, “But let every one prove his own work, and then he
shall have glory in himself, and not in another.”[201] That glory,
honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for themselves,
and to which the good sought to attain by good arts,
should not be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them.
For there is no true virtue except that which is directed
towards that end in which is the highest and ultimate good[Pg 202]
of man. Wherefore even the honours which Cato sought he
ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have conferred
them on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.

But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he
whose virtue was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue.
Wherefore, let us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to discover
what was the judgment he had formed concerning the
condition of the state both then and in former times. “I do
not think,” he says, “that it was by arms that our ancestors
made the republic great from being small. Had that been the
case, the republic of our day would have been by far more
flourishing than that of their times, for the number of our
allies and citizens is far greater; and, besides, we possess a
far greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did.
But it was other things than these that made them great, and
we have none of them: industry at home, just government
without, a mind free in deliberation, addicted neither to crime
nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and avarice,
poverty in the state, opulence among citizens; we laud riches,
we follow laziness; there is no difference made between the
good and the bad; all the rewards of virtue are got possession
of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every individual consults
only for his own good, when ye are the slaves of pleasure
at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no wonder
that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic.”[202]

He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably
thinks that such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was
applicable to all of them, or, at least, to very many of them.
It is not so; otherwise the things which Cato himself writes,
and which I have quoted in the second book of this work,
would not be true. In that passage he says, that even from
the very beginning of the state wrongs were committed by
the more powerful, which led to the separation of the people
from the fathers, besides which there were other internal dissensions;
and the only time at which there existed a just and
moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings,
and that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of
Tarquin, and were carrying on the grievous war which had[Pg 203]
been undertaken on his account against Etruria; but afterwards
the fathers oppressed the people as slaves, flogged them
as the kings had done, drove them from their land, and, to
the exclusion of all others, held the government in their own
hands alone. And to these discords, whilst the fathers were
wishing to rule, and the people were unwilling to serve, the
second Punic war put an end; for again great fear began to
press upon their disquieted minds, holding them back from
those distractions by another and greater anxiety, and bringing
them back to civil concord. But the great things which
were then achieved were accomplished through the administration
of a few men, who were good in their own way. And
by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which
first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated
them, it waxed greater and greater. And this the same historian
affirms, when he says that, reading and hearing of the
many illustrious achievements of the Roman people in peace
and in war, by land and by sea, he wished to understand what
it was by which these great things were specially sustained.
For he knew that very often the Romans had with a small
company contended with great legions of the enemy; and he
knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars
with opulent kings. And he says that, after having given
the matter much consideration, it seemed evident to him that
the pre-eminent virtue of a few citizens had achieved the
whole, and that that explained how poverty overcame wealth,
and small numbers great multitudes. But, he adds, after that
the state had been corrupted by luxury and indolence, again
the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear the vices
of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even the praises
of Cato are only applicable to a few; for only a few were
possessed of that virtue which leads men to pursue after
glory, honour, and power by the true way,—that is, by virtue
itself. This industry at home, of which Cato speaks, was the
consequence of a desire to enrich the public treasury, even
though the result should be poverty at home; and therefore,
when he speaks of the evil arising out of the corruption of
morals, he reverses the expression, and says, “Poverty in the
state, riches at home.”

[Pg 204]

13. Concerning the love of praise, which, though it is a vice, is reckoned a virtue,
because by it greater vice is restrained.

Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious
for a long time, it pleased God that there should also
arise a Western empire, which, though later in time, should
be more illustrious in extent and greatness. And, in order
that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed among
other nations, He purposely granted it to such men as, for the
sake of honour, and praise, and glory, consulted well for their
country, in whose glory they sought their own, and whose
safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own, suppressing
the desire of wealth and many other vices for this one vice,
namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest perception
who recognises that even the love of praise is a vice;
nor has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who
says,

“You’re bloated by ambition? take advice:

Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice.”[203]

And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with
the desire of repressing the passion for domination:

“Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast

A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join

To distant Gades Lybia, and thus

Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian.”[204]

Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the
power of the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety,
or by the love of intelligible beauty, but by desire of human
praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love of
such praise, are not indeed yet holy, but only less base.
Even Tully was not able to conceal this fact; for, in the
same books which he wrote, De Republica, when speaking
concerning the education of a chief of the state, who ought,
he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say that their
ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through
desire of glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they
even thought that it ought to be excited and kindled up, supposing
that that would be beneficial to the republic. But not
even in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate this[Pg 205]
poisonous opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than
day. For when he is speaking of those studies which are to
be pursued with a view to the true good, and not with the
vainglorious desire of human praise, he introduces the following
universal and general statement:

“Honour nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of
studies by glory; and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally
discredited.”[205]

14. Concerning the eradication of the love of human praise, because all the glory
of the righteous is in God.

It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire
than to yield to it, for the purer one is from this defilement,
the liker is he to God; and, though this vice be not
thoroughly eradicated from his heart,—for it does not cease to
tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress
in virtue,—at any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by
the love of righteousness, so that, if there be seen anywhere
“lying neglected things which are generally discredited,” if
they are good, if they are right, even the love of human
praise may blush and yield to the love of truth. For so
hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the love of glory be
greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the
Lord said, “How can ye believe, who look for glory from one
another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?”[206]
Also, concerning some who had believed on Him, but were
afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says, “They loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God;”[207] which did
not the holy apostles, who, when they proclaimed the name
of Christ in those places where it was not only discredited,
and therefore neglected,—according as Cicero says, “Those
things are always neglected which are generally discredited,”—but
was even held in the utmost detestation, holding to
what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also
the physician of minds, “If any one shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven,
and before the angels of God,”[208] amidst maledictions and
reproaches, and most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments,[Pg 206]
were not deterred from the preaching of human salvation
by the noise of human indignation. And when, as they
did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives, conquering,
as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the peace
of righteousness, great glory followed them in the church
of Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their
virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by
whose grace they were what they were, they sought to kindle,
also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose good
they consulted, to the love of Him, by whom they could be
made to be what they themselves were. For their Master had
taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human
glory, saying, “Take heed that ye do not your righteousness
before men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not
have a reward from your Father who is in heaven.”[209] But
again, lest, understanding this wrongly, they should, through
fear of pleasing men, be less useful through concealing their
goodness, showing for what end they ought to make it known,
He says, “Let your works shine before men, that they may
see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in
heaven.”[210] Not, observe, “that ye may be seen by them, that
is, in order that their eyes may be directed upon you,”—for
of yourselves ye are nothing,—but “that they may glorify
your Father who is in heaven,” by fixing their regards on
whom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs
followed, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and
the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety,
and also in the greatness of their number. But since those
Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as
the end of all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety,
and a kingdom, not in heaven, but in earth,—not in the sphere
of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession,
where the dead are succeeded by the dying,—what else but
glory should they love, by which they wished even after
death to live in the mouths of their admirers?

15. Concerning the temporal reward which God granted to the virtues of the
Romans.

Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not[Pg 207]
purpose to give eternal life with His holy angels in His own
celestial city, to the society of which that true piety which
does not render the service of religion, which the Greeks call
λατρεία, to any save the true God conducts, if He had also
withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent
empire, a reward would not have been rendered to their good
arts,—that is, their virtues,—by which they sought to attain
so great glory. For as to those who seem to do some good
that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says,
“Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward.”[211]
So also these despised their own private affairs for the sake
of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted
for the good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted
neither to what their laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust.
By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to
honours, power, and glory; they were honoured among almost
all nations; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many
nations; and at this day, both in literature and history, they
are glorious among almost all nations. There is no reason why
they should complain against the justice of the supreme and
true God,—”they have received their reward.”

16. Concerning the reward of the holy citizens of the celestial city, to whom the
example of the virtues of the Roman are useful.

But the reward of the saints is far different, who even
here endured reproaches for that city of God which is hateful
to the lovers of this world. That city is eternal. There
none are born, for none die. There is true and full felicity,—not
a goddess, but a gift of God. Thence we receive the
pledge of faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its
beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the evil, but
the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no
great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury
by suffering privations at home, for there is the common
treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the
sake of recompensing the citizens of Rome that her empire
and glory had been so signally extended, but also that the
citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here,
might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and[Pg 208]
see what a love they owe to the supernal country on account
of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much beloved
by its citizens on account of human glory.

17. To what profit the Romans carried on wars, and how much they contributed
to the well-being of those whom they conquered.

For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is
spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under
whose government a dying man lives, if they who govern do
not force him to impiety and iniquity? Did the Romans at
all harm those nations, on whom, when subjugated, they imposed
their laws, except in as far as that was accomplished
with great slaughter in war? Now, had it been done with
consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater
success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for
neither did the Romans themselves live exempt from those
laws which they imposed on others. Had this been done
without Mars and Bellona, so that there should have been no
place for victory, no one conquering where no one had fought,
would not the condition of the Romans and of the other
nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been
done at once which afterwards was done most humanely and
most acceptably, namely, the admission of all to the rights of
Roman citizens who belonged to the Roman empire, and if
that had been made the privilege of all which was formerly
the privilege of a few, with this one condition, that the
humbler class who had no lands of their own should live at
the public expense—an alimentary impost, which would have
been paid with a much better grace by them into the hands
of good administrators of the republic, of which they were
members, by their own hearty consent, than it would have
been paid with had it to be extorted from them as conquered
men? For I do not see what it makes for the safety, good
morals, and certainly not for the dignity, of men, that some
have conquered and others have been conquered, except that
it yields them that most insane pomp of human glory, in
which “they have received their reward,” who burned with
excessive desire of it, and carried on most eager wars. For
do not their lands pay tribute? Have they any privilege of
learning what the others are not privileged to learn? Are[Pg 209]
there not many senators in the other countries who do not
even know Rome by sight? Take away outward show,[212] and
what are all men after all but men? But even though the
perversity of the age should permit that all the better men
should be more highly honoured than others, neither thus
should human honour be held at a great price, for it is smoke
which has no weight. But let us avail ourselves even in
these things of the kindness of God. Let us consider how
great things they despised, how great things they endured,
what lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who
merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and
let this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as
that city in which it has been promised us to reign as far
surpasses this one as heaven is distant from the earth, as
eternal life surpasses temporal joy, solid glory empty praise,
or the society of angels the society of mortals, or the glory of
Him who made the sun and moon the light of the sun and
moon, the citizens of so great a country may not seem to
themselves to have done anything very great, if, in order to
obtain it, they have done some good works or endured some
evils, when those men for this terrestrial country already obtained,
did such great things, suffered such great things. And
especially are all these things to be considered, because the
remission of sins which collects citizens to the celestial country
has something in it to which a shadowy resemblance is found
in that asylum of Romulus, whither escape from the punishment
of all manner of crimes congregated that multitude with
which the state was to be founded.

18. How far Christians ought to be from boasting, if they have done anything
for the love of the eternal country, when the Romans did such great
things for human glory and a terrestrial city.

What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant,
if for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put
to death his son,—a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels
no one to make? But certainly it is more difficult to put to
death one’s sons, than to do what is required to be done for
the heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those[Pg 210]
things which were looked upon as things to be amassed and
laid up for one’s children, or to let them go, if there arise any
temptation which compels us to do so, for the sake of faith and
righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or
our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime,
or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not,
or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes
us happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus,
even the poet who celebrates his praises testifies that it was
the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for
he says,

“And call his own rebellious seed

For menaced liberty to bleed.

Unhappy father! howsoe’er

The deed be judged by after days.”[213]

But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness,
saying,

“His country’s love shall all o’erbear.”

There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire
of human praise, which compelled the Romans to admirable
deeds. If, therefore, for the liberty of dying men, and for
the desire of human praise which is sought after by mortals,
sons could be put to death by a father, what great thing is it,
if, for the true liberty which has made us free from the dominion
of sin, and death, and the devil,—not through the desire
of human praise, but through the earnest desire of freeing men,
not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince of
the demons,—we should, I do not say put to death our sons,
but reckon among our sons Christ’s poor ones? If, also,
another Roman chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son, not
because he fought against his country, but because, being
challenged by an enemy, he through youthful impetuosity
fought, though for his country, yet contrary to orders which
he his father had given as general; and this he did, notwithstanding
that his son was victorious, lest there should be more
evil in the example of authority despised, than good in the
glory of slaying an enemy;—if, I say, Torquatus acted thus,
wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of
a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are[Pg 211]
loved far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned
by those who envied him, notwithstanding that he
had thrown off from the necks of his countrymen the yoke of
their most bitter enemies, the Veientes, again delivered his
ungrateful country from the Gauls, because he had no other
in which he could have better opportunities for living a life
of glory;—if Camillus did thus, why should he be extolled as
having done some great thing, who, having, it may be, suffered
in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous
and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical
enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has
rather defended her, as far as he was able, from the most pernicious
perversity of heretics, since there is not another church,
I say not in which one can live a life of glory, but in which
eternal life can be obtained? If Mucius, in order that peace
might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the
Romans with a most grievous war, when he did not succeed
in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for him,
reached forth his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar,
saying that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for
his destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at
the thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay
recalled all his warlike purposes, and made peace;—if, I say,
Mucius did this, who shall speak of his meritorious claims to
the kingdom of heaven, if for it he may have given to the flames
not one hand, but even his whole body, and that not by his own
spontaneous act, but because he was persecuted by another?
If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all armed
into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods,
which had commanded that the Romans should throw into
that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could
only understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and
arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be
cast headlong into that destruction;—if he did this, shall we
say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal city
who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating
himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this
death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more especially
when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of[Pg 212]
his country, a more certain oracle, “Fear not them who kill
the body, but cannot kill the soul?”[214] If the Decii dedicated
themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of
words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood
the wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering
the Roman army;—if they did this, let not the holy martyrs
carry themselves proudly, as though they had done some meritorious
thing for a share in that country where are eternal life
and felicity, if even to the shedding of their blood, loving not
only the brethren for whom it was shed, but, according as had
been commanded them, even their enemies by whom it was
being shed, they have vied with one another in faith of love
and love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when engaged in
dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received
with such indifference the false intelligence which was brought
to him of the death of his son, with the intention of so agitating
him that he should go away, and thus the glory of dedicating
the temple should fall to his colleague;—if he received
that intelligence with such indifference that he even ordered
that his son should be cast out unburied, the love of glory
having overcome in his heart the grief of bereavement, how
shall any one affirm that he has done a great thing for the
preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly
city are delivered from divers errors, and gathered together
from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when
anxious about the burial of his father, “Follow me, and let
the dead bury their dead?”[215] Regulus, in order not to break
his oath, even with his most cruel enemies, returned to them
from Rome itself, because (as he is said to have replied to the
Romans when they wished to retain him) he could not have
the dignity of an honourable citizen at Rome after having been
a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put him to
death with the utmost tortures, because he had spoken against
them in the senate. If Regulus acted thus, what tortures are
not to be despised for the sake of good faith toward that
country to whose beatitude faith itself leads? Or what will
a man have rendered to the Lord for all He has bestowed upon
him, if, for the faithfulness he owes to Him, he shall have[Pg 213]
suffered such things as Regulus suffered at the hands of his
most ruthless enemies for the good faith which he owed to
them? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of his
voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during
the pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered
on the way which leads to the country where the true riches
are, even God Himself;—how, I say, shall he vaunt himself
for this, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who
died when he was holding the office of consul, was so poor
that his funeral expenses were paid with money collected by
the people?—or when he hears that Quintius Cincinnatus,
who, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating them
with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator,—an office more honourable even than that of consul,—and
that, after having won great glory by conquering the
enemy, he preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty?
Or how shall he boast of having done a great thing, who has
not been prevailed upon by the offer of any reward of this
world to renounce his connection with that heavenly and
eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could not be prevailed
on to forsake the Roman city by the great gifts offered
to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, who promised him the
fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his
poverty as a private individual? For if, when their republic,—that
is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country,
the common interest,—was most prosperous and wealthy, they
themselves were so poor in their own houses, that one of them,
who had already been twice a consul, was expelled from that
senate of poor men by the censor, because he was discovered
to possess ten pounds weight of silver-plate,—since, I say,
those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury was
enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians, who make
common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose,
even that (according to what is written in the Acts of the
Apostles) they may distribute to each one according to his
need, and that no one may say that anything is his own, but
that all things may be their common possession,[216]—ought they
not to understand that they should not vaunt themselves, because[Pg 214]
they do that to obtain the society of angels, when those
men did well-nigh the same thing to preserve the glory of the
Romans?

How could these, and whatever like things are found in the
Roman history, have become so widely known, and have been
proclaimed by so great a fame, had not the Roman empire,
extending far and wide, been raised to its greatness by magnificent
successes? Wherefore, through that empire, so extensive
and of so long continuance, so illustrious and glorious
also through the virtues of such great men, the reward which
they sought was rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition,
in order that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that
we have not held fast those virtues for the sake of the most
glorious city of God, which are, in whatever way, resembled
by those virtues which they held fast for the sake of the glory
of a terrestrial city, and that, too, if we shall feel conscious
that we have held them fast, we may not be lifted up with
pride, because, as the apostle says, “The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory
which shall be revealed in us.”[217] But so far as regards human
and temporal glory, the lives of these ancient Romans were
reckoned sufficiently worthy. Therefore, also, we see, in the
light of that truth which, veiled in the Old Testament, is revealed
in the New, namely, that it is not in view of terrestrial
and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants promiscuously
to good and evil, that God is to be worshipped, but in
view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society of the
heavenly city itself;—in the light of this truth we see that
the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory
of the Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on
earthly glory, and sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they
were, conquered those who, in their great depravity, slew and
rejected the giver of true glory, and of the eternal city.

19. Concerning the difference between true glory and the desire of domination.

There is assuredly a difference between the desire of human
glory and the desire of domination; for, though he who has[Pg 215]
an overweening delight in human glory will be also very prone
to aspire earnestly after domination, nevertheless they who
desire the true glory even of human praise strive not to displease
those who judge well of them. For there are many
good moral qualities, of which many are competent judges,
although they are not possessed by many; and by those good
moral qualities those men press on to glory, honour, and domination,
of whom Sallust says, “But they press on by the true
way.”

But whosoever, without possessing that desire of glory
which makes one fear to displease those who judge his conduct,
desires domination and power, very often seeks to obtain
what he loves by most open crimes. Therefore he who desires
glory presses on to obtain it either by the true way, or certainly
by deceit and artifice, wishing to appear good when
he is not. Therefore to him who possesses virtues it is a
great virtue to despise glory; for contempt of it is seen by
God, but is not manifest to human judgment. For whatever
any one does before the eyes of men in order to show himself
to be a despiser of glory, if they suspect that he is doing it
in order to get greater praise,—that is, greater glory,—he has
no means of demonstrating to the perceptions of those who
suspect him that the case is really otherwise than they suspect
it to be. But he who despises the judgment of praisers,
despises also the rashness of suspectors. Their salvation, indeed,
he does not despise, if he is truly good; for so great is
the righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from
the Spirit of God, that he loves his very enemies, and so loves
them that he desires that his haters and detractors may be
turned to righteousness, and become his associates, and that not
in an earthly but in a heavenly country. But with respect
to his praisers, though he sets little value on their praise, he
does not set little value on their love; neither does he elude
their praise, lest he should forfeit their love. And, therefore,
he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him from
whom every one receives whatever in him is truly praiseworthy.
But he who is a despiser of glory, but is greedy of
domination, exceeds the beasts in the vices of cruelty and
luxuriousness. Such, indeed, were certain of the Romans,[Pg 216]
who, wanting the love of esteem, wanted not the thirst for
domination; and that there were many such, history testifies.
But it was Nero Cæsar who was the first to reach the summit,
and, as it were, the citadel, of this vice; for so great was his
luxuriousness, that one would have thought there was nothing
manly to be dreaded in him, and such his cruelty, that, had
not the contrary been known, no one would have thought
there was anything effeminate in his character. Nevertheless
power and domination are not given even to such men save
by the providence of the most high God, when He judges that
the state of human affairs is worthy of such lords. The divine
utterance is clear on this matter; for the Wisdom of God thus
speaks: “By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land.”[218]
But, that it may not be thought that by “tyrants” is meant,
not wicked and impious kings, but brave men, in accordance
with the ancient use of the word, as when Virgil says,

“For know that treaty may not stand

Where king greets king and joins not hand,”[219]

in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that
He “maketh the man who is an hypocrite to reign on account
of the perversity of the people.”[220] Wherefore, though I have,
according to my ability, shown for what reason God, who
alone is true and just, helped forward the Romans, who were
good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to
the acquirement of the glory of so great an empire, there may
be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause, known better to God
than to us, depending on the diversity of the merits of the
human race. Among all who are truly pious, it is at all
events agreed that no one without true piety—that is, true
worship of the true God—can have true virtue; and that it
is not true virtue which is the slave of human praise. Though,
nevertheless, they who are not citizens of the eternal city,
which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures, are
more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that
virtue than if they had not even that. But there could be
nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that, by the
mercy of God, they who are endowed with true piety of life,
if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have the[Pg 217]
power. But such men, however great virtues they may possess
in this life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has
bestowed it on them—willing, believing, seeking. And, at
the same time, they understand how far they are short of that
perfection of righteousness which exists in the society of those
holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves. But
however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which
without true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at
all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue
of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of
the true God.

20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily pleasure.

Philosophers,—who place the end of human good in virtue
itself, in order to put to shame certain other philosophers, who
indeed approve of the virtues, but measure them all with
reference to the end of bodily pleasure, and think that this
pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues on
account of pleasure,—are wont to paint a kind of word-picture,
in which Pleasure sits like a luxurious queen on a royal seat,
and all the virtues are subjected to her as slaves, watching her
nod, that they may do whatever she shall command. She
commands Prudence to be ever on the watch to discover
how Pleasure may rule, and be safe. Justice she orders to
grant what benefits she can, in order to secure those friendships
which are necessary for bodily pleasure; to do wrong
to no one, lest, on account of the breaking of the laws, Pleasure
be not able to live in security. Fortitude she orders to keep
her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in her mind, if any
affliction befall her body which does not occasion death, in
order that by remembrance of former delights she may mitigate
the poignancy of present pain. Temperance she commands
to take only a certain quantity even of the most
favourite food, lest, through immoderate use, anything prove
hurtful by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure,
which the Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health
of the body, be grievously offended. Thus the virtues, with
the whole dignity of their glory, will be the slaves of Pleasure,
as of some imperious and disreputable woman.

There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful[Pg 218]
and monstrous than this picture, and which the eyes of good
men can less endure. And they say the truth. But I do
not think that the picture would be sufficiently becoming,
even if it were made so that the virtues should be represented
as the slaves of human glory; for, though that glory
be not a luxurious woman, it is nevertheless puffed up, and
has much vanity in it. Wherefore it is unworthy of the
solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as
serving this glory, so that Prudence shall provide nothing,
Justice distribute nothing, Temperance moderate nothing,
except to the end that men may be pleased and vainglory
served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves from the
charge of such baseness, whilst they, by way of being despisers
of glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to themselves
wise, and please themselves. For their virtue,—if, indeed,
it is virtue at all,—is only in another way subjected to
human praise; for he who seeks to please himself seeks still
to please man. But he who, with true piety towards God,
whom he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more
on those things in which he displeases himself, than on those
things, if there are any such, which please himself, or rather,
not himself, but the truth, does not attribute that by which
he can now please the truth to anything but to the mercy of
Him whom he has feared to displease, giving thanks for what
in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of
that which is yet unhealed.

21. That the Roman dominion was granted by Him from whom is all power,
and by whose providence all things are ruled.

These things being so, we do not attribute the power of
giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God,
who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious
alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and
the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is
always just. For though we have said something about the
principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has
seemed good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much
for us, and far surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden
things of men’s hearts, and by a clear examination to determine
the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is[Pg 219]
the one true God, who never leaves the human race without
just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Romans when
He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to the
Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books
testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the
other evil,—to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of
whom I have already spoken as much as seemed necessary,
who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped none save
the true God. The same, therefore, who gave to the Persians
harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia,
who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did
not worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to
preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of
them over each several thing,—He, I say, gave the Persians
dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to
whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the
empire. And the same is true in respect of men as well
as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to
Caius Cæsar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to
Nero; He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors,
the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel
Domitian; and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over
them all, He who gave it to the Christian Constantine gave
it also to the apostate Julian, whose gifted mind was deceived
by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by the
love of power. And it was because he was addicted through
curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he burned
the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for
his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly
audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just consequence
of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned
in an enemy’s country, and in such a predicament that it
never could have escaped, save by altering the boundaries of
the Roman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Terminus
of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god
Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to
Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by
the one God according as He pleases; and if His motives are
hid, are they therefore unjust?

[Pg 220]

22. The durations and issues of war depend on the will of God.

Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him
as He may see meet, according to His righteous will, and
pleasure, and mercy, to afflict or to console the human race,
so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter
duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war
were terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war of
the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Roman generals
and the consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted
and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year, having
itself been, during its continuance, the end of much. The
Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, not distant but Italian
nations, after a long and most loyal servitude under the
Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty,
though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman
power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian
war the Romans were very often defeated, and two consuls
perished, besides other noble senators; nevertheless this calamity
was not protracted over a long space of time, for the
fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting
for the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest
disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and well-nigh
consumed the strength of the Romans; for in two battles
about seventy thousand Romans fell.[221] The first Punic war
was terminated after having been waged for three-and-twenty
years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And
that no one may think that in the early and much belauded
times of the Romans they were far braver and more able
to bring wars to a speedy termination, the Samnite war was
protracted for nearly fifty years; and in this war the Romans
were so beaten that they were even put under the yoke. But
because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but
seemed rather to have loved justice for the sake of glory,
they broke the peace and the treaty which had been concluded.
These things I mention, because many, ignorant of past things,
and some also dissimulating what they know, if in Christian
times they see any war protracted a little longer than they
expected, straightway make a fierce and insolent attack on[Pg 221]
our religion, exclaiming that, but for it, the deities would have
been supplicated still, according to ancient rites; and then, by
that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help of Mars and
Bellona, speedily brought to an end such great wars, this war
also would be speedily terminated. Let them, therefore, who
have read history recollect what long-continued wars, having
various issues and entailing woful slaughter, were waged by
the ancient Romans, in accordance with the general truth
that the earth, like the tempestuous deep, is subject to agitations
from tempests—tempests of such evils, in various
degrees,—and let them sometimes confess what they do not
like to own, and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy
themselves and deceive the ignorant.

23. Concerning the war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a worshipper
of demons, was conquered in one day, with all his mighty forces.

Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what
God has very recently, and within our own memory, wonderfully
and mercifully done, but as far as in them lies they
attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal oblivion. But
should we be silent about these things, we should be in like
manner ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths,
having taken up his position very near to the city, with a vast
and savage army, was already close upon the Romans, he was
in one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, whilst
not even one Roman was wounded, much less slain, far more
than a hundred thousand of his army were prostrated, and he
himself and his sons, having been captured, were forthwith
put to death, suffering the punishment they deserved. For
had so impious a man, with so great and so impious a host,
entered the city, whom would he have spared? what tombs
of the martyrs would he have respected? in his treatment
of what person would he have manifested the fear of God?
whose blood would he have refrained from shedding? whose
chastity would he have wished to preserve inviolate? But
how loud would they not have been in the praises of their
gods! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying that
Radagaisus had conquered, that he had been able to achieve
such great things, because he propitiated and won over the
gods by daily sacrifices,—a thing which the Christian religion[Pg 222]
did not allow the Romans to do! For when he was approaching
to those places where he was overwhelmed at the nod of
the Supreme Majesty, as his fame was everywhere increasing,
it was being told us at Carthage that the pagans were believing,
publishing, and boasting, that he, on account of the help
and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of the
sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to them,
would certainly not be conquered by those who were not
performing such sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not
even permit that they should be offered by any one. And
now these wretched men do not give thanks to God for His
great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the corruption
of men, which was worthy of far heavier chastisement
than the corruption of the barbarians, tempered His indignation
with such mildness as, in the first instance, to cause that
the king of the Goths should be conquered in a wonderful
manner, lest glory should accrue to demons, whom he was
known to be supplicating, and thus the minds of the weak
should be overthrown; and then, afterwards, to cause that,
when Rome was to be taken, it should be taken by those
barbarians who, contrary to any custom of all former wars,
protected, through reverence for the Christian religion, those
who fled for refuge to the sacred places, and who so opposed
the demons themselves, and the rites of impious sacrifices,
that they seemed to be carrying on a far more terrible war
with them than with men. Thus did the true Lord and Governor
of things both scourge the Romans mercifully, and, by the
marvellous defeat of the worshippers of demons, show that
those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of present
things; so that, by those who do not obstinately hold out,
but prudently consider the matter, true religion may not be
deserted on account of the urgencies of the present time, but
may be more clung to in most confident expectation of eternal
life.

24. What was the happiness of the Christian emperors, and how far it was
true happiness.

For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were
therefore happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a
peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire,[Pg 223]
or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were able both to
guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens
rising against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this
sorrowful life even certain worshippers of demons have merited
to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which
these belong; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God,
who would not have those who believe in Him desire such
things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy
if they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid the praises
of those who pay them sublime honours, and the obsequiousness
of those who salute them with an excessive humility,
but remember that they are men; if they make their power
the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest possible
extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship
God; if more than their own they love that kingdom in which
they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to
punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as
necessary to government and defence of the republic, and not
in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon,
not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that
the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate
with the lenity of mercy and the liberality of benevolence
for whatever severity they may be compelled to decree; if
their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather
than any nation whatever; and if they do all these things,
not through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of
eternal felicity, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who
is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition,
and prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy
in the present time by hope, and are destined to be so in the
enjoyment of the reality itself, when that which we wait for
shall have arrived.

25. Concerning the prosperity which God granted to the Christian emperor
Constantine.

For the good God, lest men, who believe that He is to be
worshipped with a view to eternal life, should think that no
one could attain to all this high estate, and to this terrestrial
dominion, unless he should be a worshipper of the demons,—supposing[Pg 224]
that these spirits have great power with respect to
such things,—for this reason He gave to the Emperor Constantine,
who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the
true God Himself, such fulness of earthly gifts as no one
would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the
honour of founding a city,[222] a companion to the Roman empire,
the daughter, as it were, of Rome itself, but without any
temple or image of the demons. He reigned for a long period
as sole emperor, and unaided held and defended the whole
Roman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he was
most victorious; in overthrowing tyrants he was most successful.
He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left
his sons to succeed him in the empire.[223] But again, lest any
emperor should become a Christian in order to merit the happiness
of Constantine, when every one should be a Christian
for the sake of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner
than Julian, and permitted that Gratian should be slain by
the sword of a tyrant. But in his case there was far more
mitigation of the calamity than in the case of the great
Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had
left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though
pious minds require not such consolations, was avenged by
Theodosius, whom he had associated with himself in the
empire, though he had a little brother of his own, being more
desirous of a faithful alliance than of extensive power.

26. On the faith and piety of Theodosius Augustus.

And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during
the lifetime of Gratian that fidelity which was due to him,
but also, after his death, he, like a true Christian, took his
little brother Valentinian under his protection, as joint emperor,
after he had been expelled by Maximus, the murderer
of his father. He guarded him with paternal affection, though
he might without any difficulty have got rid of him, being
entirely destitute of all resources, had he been animated with
the desire of extensive empire, and not with the ambition of
being a benefactor. It was therefore a far greater pleasure to
him, when he had adopted the boy, and preserved to him his[Pg 225]
imperial dignity, to console him by his very humanity and
kindness. Afterwards, when that success was rendering
Maximus terrible, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing
anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a
sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose
abode was in the desert of Egypt,—for he had learned that this
servant of God (whose fame was spreading abroad) was endowed
with the gift of prophecy,—and from him he received assurance
of victory. Immediately the slayer of the tyrant Maximus,
with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect, restored
the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which
he had been driven. Valentinianus being soon after slain by
secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident, Theodosius,
having again received a response from the prophet,
and placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant
Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that
emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer
than by the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle
reported to me that all the missiles they were throwing were
snatched from their hands by a vehement wind, which blew
from the direction of Theodosius’ army upon the enemy; nor
did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were
hurled against them, but also turned back upon their own
bodies the darts which they themselves were throwing. And
therefore the poet Claudian, although an alien from the name
of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, “O prince,
too much beloved by God, for thee Æolus pours armed tempests
from their caves; for thee the air fights, and the winds with
one accord obey thy bugles.”[224] But the victor, as he had
believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter, which
had been, as it were, consecrated by I know not what kind
of rites against him, and set up in the Alps. And the
thunderbolts of these statues, which were made of gold, he
mirthfully and graciously presented to his couriers, who (as
the joy of the occasion permitted) were jocularly saying that
they would be most happy to be struck by such thunderbolts.
The sons of his own enemies, whose fathers had been slain
not so much by his orders as by the vehemence of war, having[Pg 226]
fled for refuge to a church, though they were not yet Christians,
he was anxious, taking advantage of the occasion, to bring
over to Christianity, and treated them with Christian love.
Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides allowing
them to retain it, bestowed on them additional honours.
He did not permit private animosities to affect the treatment
of any man after the war. He was not like Cinna,
and Marius, and Sylla, and other such men, who wished
not to finish civil wars even when they were finished, but
rather grieved that they had arisen at all, than wished that
when they were finished they should harm any one. Amid
all these events, from the very commencement of his reign, he
did not cease to help the troubled church against the impious
by most just and merciful laws, which the heretical Valens,
favouring the Arians, had vehemently afflicted. Indeed, he
rejoiced more to be a member of this church than he did
to be a king upon the earth. The idols of the Gentiles he
everywhere ordered to be overthrown, understanding well that
not even terrestrial gifts are placed in the power of demons,
but in that of the true God. And what could be more admirable
than his religious humility, when, compelled by the
urgency of certain of his intimates, he avenged the grievous
crime of the Thessalonians, which at the prayer of the bishops
he had promised to pardon, and, being laid hold of by the
discipline of the church, did penance in such a way that the
sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated made the people who
were interceding for him weep more than the consciousness of
offence had made them fear it when enraged? These and
other similar good works, which it would be long to tell, he
carried with him from this world of time, where the greatest
human nobility and loftiness are but vapour. Of these works
the reward is eternal happiness, of which God is the giver,
though only to those who are sincerely pious. But all other
blessings and privileges of this life, as the world itself, light,
air, earth, water, fruits, and the soul of man himself, his body,
senses, mind, life, He lavishes on good and bad alike. And
among these blessings is also to be reckoned the possession of
an empire, whose extent He regulates according to the requirements
of His providential government at various times.
Whence, I see, we must now answer those who, being confuted[Pg 227]
and convicted by the most manifest proofs, by which it
is shown that for obtaining these terrestrial things, which are
all the foolish desire to have, that multitude of false gods is
of no use, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshipped
with a view to the interest, not of the present life, but of that
which is to come after death. For as to those who, for the
sake of the friendship of this world, are willing to worship
vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to their puerile
understandings, I think they have been sufficiently answered
in these five books; of which books, when I had published
the first three, and they had begun to come into the hands of
many, I heard that certain persons were preparing against
them an answer of some kind or other in writing. Then it
was told me that they had already written their answer, but
were waiting a time when they could publish it without
danger. Such persons I would advise not to desire what
cannot be of any advantage to them; for it is very easy for
a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when
he has only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more
loquacious than vanity? And though it be able, if it like, to
shout more loudly than the truth, it is not, for all that, more
powerful than the truth. But let men consider diligently all
the things that we have said, and if, perchance, judging without
party spirit, they shall clearly perceive that they are such
things as may rather be shaken than torn up by their most
impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and mimic levity,
let them restrain their absurdities, and let them choose rather
to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the foolish.
For if they are waiting an opportunity, not for liberty to speak
the truth, but for licence to revile, may not that befall them
which Tully says concerning some one, “Oh, wretched man!
who was at liberty to sin?”[225] Wherefore, whoever he be
who deems himself happy because of licence to revile, he
would be far happier if that were not allowed him at all; for
he might all the while, laying aside empty boast, be contradicting
those to whose views he is opposed by way of free
consultation with them, and be listening, as it becomes him,
honourably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by
those whom he consults by friendly disputation.

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[Pg 228]