Directory:Logic Museum/Augustine City of God Book II

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ON THE CITY OF GOD, BOOK II

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Index

Translated by Marcus Dods

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Of the Limits Which Must Be Put to the Necessity of Replying to an Adversary
• Chapter 2 Recapitulation of the Contents of the First Book
• Chapter 3 That We Need Only to Read History in Order to See What Calamities the Romans Suffered Before the Religion of Christ Began to Compete with the Worship of the Gods
• Chapter 4 That the Worshippers of the Gods Never Received from Them Any Healthy Moral Precepts, and that in Celebrating Their Worship All Sorts of Impurities Were Practiced
• Chapter 5 Of the Obscenities Practiced in Honor of the Mother of the Gods
• Chapter 6 That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life
• Chapter 7 That the Suggestions of Philosophers are Precluded from Having Any Moral Effect, Because They Have Not the Authority Which Belongs to Divine Instruction, and Because Man's Natural Bias to Evil Induces Him Rather to Follow the Examples of the Gods Than to Obey the Precepts of Men
• Chapter 8 That the Theatrical Exhibitions Publishing the Shameful Actions of the Gods, Propitiated Rather Than Offended Them
• Chapter 9 That the Poetical License Which the Greeks, in Obedience to Their Gods, Allowed, Was Restrained by the Ancient Romans
• Chapter 10 That the Devils, in Suffering Either False or True Crimes to Be Laid to Their Charge, Meant to Do Men a Mischief
• Chapter 11 That the Greeks Admitted Players to Offices of State, on the Ground that Men Who Pleased the Gods Should Not Be Contemptuously Treated by Their Fellows
• Chapter 12 That the Romans, by Refusing to the Poets the Same License in Respect of Men Which They Allowed Them in the Case of the Gods, Showed a More Delicate Sensitiveness Regarding Themselves than Regarding the Gods
• Chapter 13 That the Romans Should Have Understood that Gods Who Desired to Be Worshipped in Licentious Entertainments Were Unworthy of Divine Honor
• Chapter 14 That Plato, Who Excluded Poets from a Well-Ordered City, Was Better Than These Gods Who Desire to Be Honoured by Theatrical Plays
• Chapter 15 That It Was Vanity, Not Reason, Which Created Some of the Roman Gods
• Chapter 16 That If the Gods Had Really Possessed Any Regard for Righteousness, the Romans Should Have Received Good Laws from Them, Instead of Having to Borrow Them from Other Nations
• Chapter 17 Of the Rape of the Sabine Women, and Other Iniquities Perpetrated in Rome's Palmiest Days
• Chapter 18 What the History of Sallust Reveals Regarding the Life of the Romans, Either When Straitened by Anxiety or Relaxed in Security
• Chapter 19 Of the Corruption Which Had Grown Upon the Roman Republic Before Christ Abolished the Worship of the Gods
• Chapter 20 Of the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion
• Chapter 21 Cicero's Opinion of the Roman Republic
• Chapter 22 That the Roman Gods Never Took Any Steps to Prevent the Republic from Being Ruined by Immorality
• Chapter 23 That the Vicissitudes of This Life are Dependent Not on the Favor or Hostility of Demons, But on the Will of the True God
• Chapter 24 Of the Deeds of Sylla, in Which the Demons Boasted that He Had Their Help
• Chapter 25 How Powerfully the Evil Spirits Incite Men to Wicked Actions, by Giving Them the Quasi-Divine Authority of Their Example
• Chapter 26 That the Demons Gave in Secret Certain Obscure Instructions in Morals, While in Public Their Own Solemnities Inculcated All Wickedness
• Chapter 27 That the Obscenities of Those Plays Which the Romans Consecrated in Order to Propitiate Their Gods, Contributed Largely to the Overthrow of Public Order
• Chapter 28 That the Christian Religion is Health-Giving
• Chapter 29 An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism

Latin	Latin
BOOK II []	The City of God (Book II) Argument-In this book Augustin reviews those calamities which the Romans suffered before the time of Christ, and while the worship of the false gods was universally practised; and demonstrates that, far from being preserved from misfortune by the gods, the Romans have been by them overwhelmed with the only, or at least the greatest, of all calamities-the corruption of manners, and the vices of the soul.
BOOK II [I] Si rationi perspicuae veritatis infirmus humanae consuetudinis sensus non auderet obsistere, sed doctrinae salubri languorem suum tamquam medicinae subderet, donec divino adiutorio fide pietatis inpetrante sanaretur, non multo sermone opus esset ad conuincendum quemlibet uanae opinationis errorem his, qui recte sentiunt et sensa verbis sufficientibus explicant. Nunc vero quoniam ille est maior et taetrior insipientium morbus animorum, quo inrationabiles motus suos, etiam post rationem plene redditam, quanta homini ab homine debetur, sive nimia caecitate, qua nec aperta cernuntur, sive obstinatissima peruicacia, qua et ea quae cernuntur non feruntur, tamquam ipsam rationem veritatemque defendunt, fit necessitas copiosius dicendi plerumque res claras, velut eas non spectantibus intuendas, sed quodam modo tangendas palpantibus et coniventibus offeramus. Et tamen quis disceptandi finis erit et loquendi modus, si respondendum esse respondentibus semper existimemus? Nam qui vel non possunt intellegere quod dicitur, vel tam duri sunt adversitate mentis, ut, etiamsi intellexerint, non oboediant, respondent, ut scriptum est, et loquuntur iniquitatem atque infatigabiliter uani sunt. Quorum dicta contraria si totiens velimus refellere, quotiens obnixa fronte statuerint non cogitare quid dicant, dum quocumque modo nostris disputationibus contradicant, quam sit infinitum et aerumnosum et infructuosum vides. Quam ob rem nec te ipsum, &kt;mi> fili Marcelline, nec alios, quibus hic labor noster in Christi caritate utiliter ac liberaliter seruit, tales meorum scriptorum velim iudices, qui responsionem semper desiderent, cum his quae leguntur audierint aliquid contradici, ne fiant similes earum muliercularum, quas commemorat apostolus semper discentes et numquam ad veritatis scientiam pervenientes.	chapter 1. If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see. There therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more fully on those points which are already clear, that we may, as it were, present them not to the eye, but even to the touch, so that they may be felt even by those who close their eyes against them. And yet to what end shall we ever bring our discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we proceed on the principle that we must always reply to those who reply to us? For those who are either unable to understand our arguments, or are so hardened by the habit of contradiction, that though they understand they cannot yield to them, reply to us, and, as it is written, "speak hard things," and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to propose to confute their objections as often as they with brazen face chose to disregard our arguments, and so often as they could by any means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and fruitless, and painful a task we should be undertaking. And therefore I do not wish my writings to be judged even by you, my son Marcellinus, nor by any of those others at whose service this work of mine is freely and in all Christian charity put, if at least you intend always to require a reply to every exception which you hear taken to what you read in it; for so you would become like those silly women of whom the apostle says that they are "always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." 2 Timothy 3:7
BOOK II [II] Superiore itaque libro, cum de civitate Dei dicere instituissem, unde hoc universum opus illo adivuante in manus sumptum est, occurrit mihi resistendum esse primitus eis, qui haec bella, quibus mundus iste conteritur, maximeque Romanae urbis recentem a barbaris uastationem Christianae religioni tribuunt, qua prohibentur nefandis sacrificiis seruire daemonibus, cum potius hoc deberent tribuere Christo, quod propter eius nomen contra institutum moremque bellorum eis, quo confugerent, religiosa et amplissima loca barbari libera praebuerunt, atque in multis famulatum deditum Christo non solum verum, sed etiam timore confictum sic honoraverunt, ut, quod in eos belli iure fieri licuisset, inlicitum s.ibi esse iudicarent. Inde incidit quaestio, cur haec divina beneficia et ad impios ingratosque peruenerint, et cur illa itidem dura, quae hostiliter facta sunt, pios cum impiis pariter adflixerint? Quam quaestionem per multa diffusam (in omnibus enim cotidianis vel Dei muneribus vel hominum cladibus, quorum utraque bene ac male viventibus permixte atque indiscrete saepe accidunt, solet multos movere) ut pro suscepti operis necessitate dissoluerem, aliquantum inmoratus sum maxime ad consolandas sanctas feminas et pie castas, in quibus ab hoste aliquid perpetratum est, quod intulit verecundiae dolorem, etsi non abstulit pudicitiae firmitatem, ne paeniteat eas vitae, quas non est unde possit paenitere nequitiae. Deinde pauca dixi in eos, qui Christianos adversis illis rebus adfectos et praecipue pudorem humiliatarum feminarum quamuis castarum atque sanctarum proteruitate inpudentissima exagitant, cum sint nequissimi et inreuerentissimi, longe ab eis ipsis Romanis degeneres, quorum praeclara multa laudantur et litterarum memoria celebrantur, immo illorum gloriae uehementer adversi. Romam quippe partam ueterum auctamque laboribus foediorem stantem fecerant quam ruentem, quando quidem in ruina eius lapides et ligna, in istorum autem vita omnia non murorum, sed morum munimenta atque ornamenta ceciderunt, cum funestioribus eorum corda cupiditatibus quam ignibus tecta illius urbis arderent. Quibus dictis primum terminavi librum. Deinceps itaque dicere institui, quae mala civitas illa perpessa sit ab origine sua sive apud se ipsam sive in provinciis sibi iam subditis, quae omnia Christianae religioni tribuerent, si iam tunc euangelica doctrina adversus falsos et fallaces deos eorum testificatione liberrima personaret.	chapter 2. In the foregoing book, having begun to speak of the city of God, to which I have resolved, Heaven helping me, to consecrate the whole of this work, it was my first endeavor to reply to those who attribute the wars by which the world is being devastated, and especially the recent sack of Rome by the barbarians, to the religion of Christ, which prohibits the offering of abominable sacrifices to devils. I have shown that they ought rather to attribute it to Christ, that for His name's sake the barbarians, in contravention of all custom and law of war, threw open as sanctuaries the largest churches, and in many instances showed such reverence to Christ, that not only His genuine servants, but even those who in their terror feigned themselves to be so, were exempted from all those hardships which by the custom of war may lawfully be inflicted. Then out of this there arose the question, why wicked and ungrateful men were permitted to share in these benefits; and why, too, the hardships and calamities of war were inflicted on the godly as well as on the ungodly. And in giving a suitably full answer to this large question, I occupied some considerable space, partly that I might relieve the anxieties which disturb many when they observe that the blessings of God, and the common and daily human casualties, fall to the lot of bad men and good without distinction; but mainly that I might minister some consolation to those holy and chaste women who were outraged by the enemy, in such a way as to shock their modesty, though not to sully their purity, and that I might preserve them from being ashamed of life, though they have no guilt to be ashamed of. And then I briefly spoke against those who with a most shameless wantonness insult over those poor Christians who were subjected to those calamities, and especially over those broken-hearted and humiliated, though chaste and holy women; these fellows themselves being most depraved and unmanly profligates, quite degenerate from the genuine Romans, whose famous deeds are abundantly recorded in history, and everywhere celebrated, but who have found in their descendants the greatest enemies of their glory. In truth, Rome, which was founded and increased by the labors of these ancient heroes, was more shamefully ruined by their descendants, while its walls were still standing, than it is now by the razing of them. For in this ruin there fell stones and timbers; but in the ruin those profligates effected, there fell, not the mural, but the moral bulwarks and ornaments of the city, and their hearts burned with passions more destructive than the flames which consumed their houses. Thus I brought my first book to a close. And now I go on to speak of those calamities which that city itself, or its subject provinces, have suffered since its foundation; all of which they would equally have attributed to the Christian religion, if at that early period the doctrine of the gospel against their false and deceiving gods had been as largely and freely proclaimed as now.
BOOK II [III] Memento autem me ista commemorantem adhuc contra inperitos agere, ex quorum inperitia illud quoque ortum est uulgare proverbium: Pluuia defit, causa Christiani sunt. Narn qui eorum studiis liberalibus instituti amant historiam, facillime ista noverunt; sed ut nobis ineruditorum turbas infestissimas reddant, se nosse dissimulant atque hoc apud uulgus confirmare nituntur, clades, quibus per certa interualla locorum et temporum genus humanum oportet adfligi, causa accidere nominis Christiani, quod contra deos suos ingenti fama et praeclarissima celebritate per cuncta diffunditur. Recolant ergo nobiscum, antequam Christus venisset in carne, antequam eius nomen ea, cui frustra inuident, gloria populis innotesceret, quibus calamitatibus res Romanae multipliciter varieque contritae sint, et in his defendant, si possunt, deos suos, si propterea coluntur, ne ista mala patiantur cultores eorum; quorum si quid nunc passi fuerint, nobis inputanda esse contendunt. Cur enim ea, quae dicturus sum, permiserunt accidere cultoribus suis, antequam eos declaratum Christi nomen offenderet eorumque sacrificia prohiberet?	chapter 3. But remember that, in recounting these things, I have still to address myself to ignorant men; so ignorant, indeed, as to give birth to the common saying, "Drought and Christianity go hand in hand." There are indeed some among them who are thoroughly well-educated men, and have a taste for history, in which the things I speak of are open to their observation; but in order to irritate the uneducated masses against us, they feign ignorance of these events, and do what they can to make the vulgar believe that those disasters, which in certain places and at certain times uniformly befall mankind, are the result of Christianity, which is being everywhere diffused, and is possessed of a renown and brilliancy which quite eclipse their own gods. Let them then, along with us, call to mind with what various and repeated disasters the prosperity of Rome was blighted, before ever Christ had come in the flesh, and before His name had been blazoned among the nations with that glory which they vainly grudge. Let them, if they can, defend their gods in this article, since they maintain that they worship them in order to be preserved from these disasters, which they now impute to us if they suffer in the least degree. For why did these gods permit the disasters I am to speak of to fall on their worshippers before the preaching of Christ's name offended them, and put an end to their sacrifices?
BOOK II [IV] Primo ipsos mores ne pessimos haberent, quare dii eorum curare noluerunt? Deus enim verus eos, a quibus non colebatur, merito neglexit; dii autem illi, a quorum cultu se prohiberi homines ingratissimi conqueruntur, cultores suos ad bene vivendum quare nullis legibus adivuerunt? Vtique dignum erat, ut, quo modo isti illorum sacra, ita illi istorum facta curarent. Sed respondetur, quod voluntate propria quisque malus est. Quis hoc negaverit? Verum tamen pertinebat ad consultores deos vitae bonae praecepta non occultare populis cultoribus suis, sed clara praedicatione praebere, per uates etiam convenire atque arguere peccantes, palam minari poenas male agentibus, praemia recte viventibus polliceri. Quid umquam tale in deorum illorum templis prompta et eminenti voce concrepuit? Veniebamus etiam nos aliquando adulescentes ad spectacula ludibriaque sacrilegiorum, spectabamus arrepticios, audiebamus symphoniacos, ludis turpissimis, qui diis deabusque exhibebantur, oblectabamur, Caelesti virgini et Berecynthiae matri omnium, ante cuius lecticam die sollemni lauationis eius talia per publicum cantitabantur a nequissimis scaenicis, qualia, non dico matrem deorum, sed matrem qualiumcumque senatorum vel quorumlibet honestorum virorum, immo vero qualia nec matrem ipsorum scaenicorum deceret audire. Habet enim quiddam erga parentes humana verecundia, quod nec ipsa nequitia possit auferre. Illam proinde turpitudinem obscenorum dictorum atque factorum sca e nicos ipsos domi suae proludendi causa coram matribus suis agere puderet, quam per publicum agebant coram deum matre spectante atque audiente utriusque sexus frequentissima multitudine. Quae si inlecta curiositate adesse potuit circumfusa, saltem offensa castitate debuit abire confusa. Quae sunt sacrilegia, si illa sunt sacra? aut quae inquinatio, si illa lauatio? Et haec fercula appellabantur, quasi celebraretur conuivium, quo velut suis epulis inmunda daemonia pascerentur. Quis enim non sentiat cuius modi spiritus talibus obscenitatibus delectentur, nisi vel nesciens, utrum omnino sint ulli inmundi spiritus deorum nomine decipientes, vel talem agens vitam, in qua istos potius quam Deum verum et optet propitios et formidet iratos?	chapter 4. First of all, we would ask why their gods took no steps to improve the morals of their worshippers. That the true God should neglect those who did not seek His help, that was but justice; but why did those gods, from whose worship ungrateful men are now complaining that they are prohibited, issue no laws which might have guided their devotees to a virtuous life? Surely it was but just, that such care as men showed to the worship of the gods, the gods on their part should have to the conduct of men. But, it is replied, it is by his own will a man goes astray. Who denies it? But none the less was it incumbent on these gods, who were men's guardians, to publish in plain terms the laws of a good life, and not to conceal them from their worshippers. It was their part to send prophets to reach and convict such as broke these laws, and publicly to proclaim the punishments which await evil-doers, and the rewards which may be looked for by those that do well. Did ever the walls of any of their temples echo to any such warning voice? I myself, when I was a young man, used sometimes to go to the sacrilegious entertainments and spectacles; I saw the priests raving in religious excitement, and heard the choristers; I took pleasure in the shameful games which were celebrated in honor of gods and goddesses, of the virgin C_S lestis, and Berecynthia, the mother of all the gods. And on the holy day consecrated to her purification, there were sung before her couch productions so obscene and filthy for the ear-I do not say of the mother of the gods, but of the mother of any senator or honest man-nay, so impure, that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players themselves could have formed one of the audience. For natural reverence for parents is a bond which the most abandoned cannot ignore. And, accordingly, the lewd actions and filthy words with which these players honored the mother of the gods, in presence of a vast assemblage and audience of both sexes, they could not for very shame have rehearsed at home in presence of their own mothers. And the crowds that were gathered from all quarters by curiosity, offended modesty must, I should suppose, have scattered in the confusion of shame. If these are sacred rites, what is sacrilege? If this is purification, what is pollution? This festivity was called the Tables, as if a banquet were being given at which unclean devils might find suitable refreshment. For it is not difficult to see what kind of spirits they must be who are delighted with such obscenities, unless, indeed, a man be blinded by these evil spirits passing themselves off under the name of gods, and either disbelieves in their existence, or leads such a life as prompts him rather to propitiate and fear them than the true God.
BOOK II [V] Nequaquam istos, qui flagitiosissimae consuetudinis vitiis oblectari magis quam obluctari student, sed illum ipsum Nasicam Scipionem, qui vir optimus a senatu electus est, cuius manibus eiusdem daemonis simulacrum susceptum est in Vrbemque peruectum, habere de hac re iudicem vellem. Diceret nobis, utrum matrem suam tam optime de re publica vellet mereri, ut ei divini honores decernerentur; sicut et Graecos et Romanos aliasque gentes constat quibusdam decrevisse mortalibus, quorum erga se beneficia magnipenderant, eosque inmortales factos atque in deorum numerum receptos esse crediderant. Profecto ille tantam felicitatem suae matri, si fieri posset, optaret. Porro si ab illo deinde quaereremus, utrum inter eius divinos honores vellet illa turpia celebrari: nonne se malle clamaret, ut sua mater sine ullo sensu mortua iaceret, quam ad hoc dea viveret, ut illa libenter audiret? Absit, ut senator populi Romani ea mente praeditus, qua theatrum aedificari in urbe fortium virorum prohibuit, sic vellet coli matrem suam, ut talibus dea sacris propitiaretur, qualibus matrona verbis offenderetur. Nec ullo modo crederet verecundiam laudabilis feminae ita in contrarium divinitate mutari, ut honoribus eam talibus aduocarent cultores sui, qualibus conuiciis in quempiam iaculatis, cum inter homines viveret, nisi aures clauderet seseque subtraheret, erubescerent pro illa et propinqui et maritus et liberi. Proinde talis mater deum, qualem habere matrem puderet quemlibet etiam pessimum virum, Romanas occupatura mentes quaesivit optimum virum, non quem monendo et adivuando faceret, sed quem fallendo deciperet, ei similis de qua scriptum est: Mulier aottem virorum pretiosas animas captat, ut ille magnae indolis animus hoc velut divino testimonio sublimatus et vere se optimum existimans veram pietatem religionemque non quaereret, sine qua omne quamuis laudabile ingenium superbia uanescit et decidit. Quo modo igitur nisi insidiose quaereret dea illa optimum virum, cum talia quaerat in suis sacris, qualia viri optimi abhorrent suis affiibere conuiviis?	chapter 5. In this matter I would prefer to have as my assessors in judgment, not those men who rather take pleasure in these infamous customs than take pains to put an end to them, but that same Scipio Nasica who was chosen by the senate as the citizen most worthy to receive in his hands the image of that demon Cybele, and convey it into the city. He would tell us whether he would be proud to see his own mother so highly esteemed by the state as to have divine honors adjudged to her; as the Greeks and Romans and other nations have decreed divine honors to men who had been of material service to them, and have believed that their mortal benefactors were thus made immortal, and enrolled among the gods. Surely he would desire that his mother should enjoy such felicity were it possible. But if we proceeded to ask him whether, among the honors paid to her, he would wish such shameful rites as these to be celebrated, would he not at once exclaim that he would rather his mother lay stone-dead, than survive as a goddess to lend her ear to these obscenities? Is it possible that he who was of so severe a morality, that he used his influence as a Roman senator to prevent the building of a theatre in that city dedicated to the manly virtues, would wish his mother to be propitiated as a goddess with words which would have brought the blush to her cheek when a Roman matron? Could he possibly believe that the modesty of an estimable woman would be so transformed by her promotion to divinity, that she would suffer herself to be invoked and celebrated in terms so gross and immodest, that if she had heard the like while alive upon earth, and had listened without stopping her ears and hurrying from the spot, her relatives, her husband, and her children would have blushed for her? Therefore, the mother of the gods being such a character as the most profligate man would be ashamed to have for his mother, and meaning to enthral the minds of the Romans, demanded for her service their best citizen, not to ripen him still more in virtue by her helpful counsel, but to entangle him by her deceit, like her of whom it is written, "The adulteress will hunt for the precious soul." Proverbs 6:26 Her intent was to puff up this high- souled man by an apparently divine testimony to his excellence, in order that he might rely upon his own eminence in virtue, and make no further efforts after true piety and religion, without which natural genius, however brilliant, vapors into pride and comes to nothing. For what but a guileful purpose could that goddess demand the best man seeing that in her own sacred festivals she requires such obscenities as the best men would be covered with shame to hear at their own tables?
BOOK II [VI] Hinc est quod de vita et moribus civitatum atque populorum a quibus colebantur illa numina non curarunt, ut tam horrendis eos et detestabilibus malis non in agro et vitibus, non in domo atque pecunia, non denique in ipso corpore, quod menti subditur, sed in ipsa mente, in ipso rectore carnis animo, eos impleri ac pessimos fieri sine ulla sua terribili prohibitione permitterent. Aut si prohibebant, hoc ostendatur potius, hoc probetur. Nec nobis nescio quos susurros paucissimorum auribus anhelatos et arcana velut religione traditos iactent, quibus vitae probitas castitasque discatur; sed demonstrentur vel commemorentur loca talibus aliquando conventiculis consecrata, non ubi ludi agerentur obscenis vocibus et motibus histrionum, nec ubi Fugalia celebrarentur effusa omni licentia turpitudinem (et vere Fugalia, sed pudoris et honestatis); sed ubi populi audirent quid dii praeciperent de cohibenda auaritia, ambitione frangenda, luxuria refrenanda, ubi discerent miseri, quod discendum Persius increpat dicens: Discite, o miseri, et causas cognoscite rerum, Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur, ordo Quis datus aut metae qua mollis flexus et unde, Quis modus argenti, quid fas optare, quid asper Vtile nummus habet, patriae carisque propinquis Quautum largiri deceat, quem te Deus esse Iussit et humana qua parte locatus es in re. Dicatur in quibus locis haec docentium deorum solebant praecepta recitari et a cultoribus eorum populis frequenter audiri, sicut nos ostendimus ad hoc ecclesias institutas, quaqua versum religio Christiana diffunditur.	chapter 6. This is the reason why those divinities quite neglected the lives and morals of the cities and nations who worshipped them, and threw no dreadful prohibition in their way to hinder them from becoming utterly corrupt, and to preserve them from those terrible and detestable evils which visit not harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the body which is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that rules the whole man. If there was any such prohibition, let it be produced, let it be proved. They will tell us that purity and probity were inculcated upon those who were initiated in the mysteries of religion, and that secret incitements to virtue were whispered in the ear of the йlite; but this is an idle boast. Let them show or name to us the places which were at any time consecrated to assemblages in which, instead of the obscene songs and licentious acting of players, instead of the celebration of those most filthy and shameless Fugalia (well called Fugalia, since they banish modesty and right feeling), the people were commanded in the name of the gods to restrain avarice, bridle impurity, and conquer ambition; where, in short, they might learn in that school which Persius vehemently lashes them to, when he says: "Be taught, you abandoned creatures, and ascertain the causes of things; what we are, and for what end we are born; what is the law of our success in life; and by what art we may turn the goal without making shipwreck; what limit we should put to our wealth, what we may lawfully desire, and what uses filthy lucre serves; how much we should bestow upon our country and our family; learn, in short, what God meant you to be, and what place He has ordered you to fill." Let them name to us the places where such instructions were wont to be communicated from the gods, and where the people who worshipped them were accustomed to resort to hear them, as we can point to our churches built for this purpose in every land where the Christian religion is received.
BOOK II [VII] An forte nobis philosophorum scholas disputationesque memorabunt? Primo haec non Romana, sed Graeca sunt; aut si propterea iam Romana, quia et Graecia facta est Romana provincia, non deorum praecepta sunt, sed hominum inventa, qui utcumque conati sunt ingeniis acutissimis praediti ratiocinando uestigare, quid in rerum natura latitaret, quid in moribus adpetendum esset atque fugiendum, quid in ipsis ratiocinandi regulis certa conexione traheretur, aut quid non esset consequens vel etiam repugnaret. Et quidam eorum quaedam magna, quantum divinitus adiuti sunt, invenerunt; quantum autem humanitus impediti sunt, erraverunt, maxime cum eorum superbiae iuste providentia divina resisteret, ut viam pietatis ab humilitate in superna surgentem etiam istorum comparatione monstraret; unde postea nobis erit in Dei veri Domini voluntate disquirendi ac disserendi locus. Verum tamen si philosophi aliquid invenerunt, quod agendae bonae vitae beataeque adipiscendae satis esse possit: quanto iustius talibus divini honores decernerentur! Quanto melius et honestius in Platonis templo libri eius legerentur, quam in templis daemonum Galli absciderentur, molles consecrarentur, insani secarentur, et quidquid aliud vel crudele vel turpe, vel turpiter crudele vel crudeliter turpe in sacris talium deorum celebrari solet! Quanto satius erat ad erudiendam iustitia ivuentutem publice recitari leges deorum quam laudari inaniter leges atque instituta maiorum! Omnes enim cultores talium deorum, mox ut eos libido perpulerit feruenti, ut ait Persius, tincta veneno, magis intuentur quid luppiter fecerit, quam quid docuerit Plato vel censuerit Cato. Hinc apud Terentium flagitiosus adulescens spectat tabulam quandam pictam in pariete, ubi inerat pictura haec, Iovem Quo pacto Danaae misisse aiunt quondam in gremium imbrem aureum, atque ab hac tanta auctoritate adhibet patrocinium turpitudini suae, cum in ea se iactat imitari deum. At quem deum! inquit; qui templa caeli summo sonitu concutit. Ego hcmuncio id non facerem? Ego vero illud feci ac libens.	chapter 7. But will they perhaps remind us of the schools of the philosophers, and their disputations? In the first place, these belong not to Rome, but to Greece; and even if we yield to them that they are now Roman, because Greece itself has become a Roman province, still the teachings of the philosophers are not the commandments of the gods, but the discoveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was consequent according to the rules of logic, and what was inconsequent and erroneous. And some of them, by God's help, made great discoveries; but when left to themselves they were betrayed by human infirmity, and fell into mistakes. And this was ordered by divine providence, that their pride might be restrained, and that by their example it might be pointed out that it is humility which has access to the highest regions. But of this we shall have more to say, if the Lord God of truth permit, in its own place. However, if the philosophers have made any discoveries which are sufficient to guide men to virtue and blessedness, would it not have been greater justice to vote divine honors to them? Were it not more accordant with every virtuous sentiment to read Plato's writings in a "Temple of Plato," than to be present in the temples of devils to witness the priests of Cybele mutilating themselves, the effeminate being consecrated, the raving fanatics cutting themselves, and whatever other cruel or shameful, or shamefully cruel or cruelly shameful, ceremony is enjoined by the ritual of such gods as these? Were it not a more suitable education, and more likely to prompt the youth to virtue, if they heard public recitals of the laws of the gods, instead of the vain laudation of the customs and laws of their ancestors? Certainly all the worshippers of the Roman gods, when once they are possessed by what Persius calls "the burning poison of lust," prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter rather than to hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young profligate in Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco representing the fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Danaл in the form of a golden shower, accepts this as authoritative precedent for his own licentiousness, and boasts that he is an imitator of God. "And what God?" he says. "He who with His thunder shakes the loftiest temples. And was I, a poor creature compared to Him, to make bones of it? No; I did it, and with all my heart."
BOOK II [VIII] At enim non traduntur ista sacris deorum, sed fabulis poetarum. Nolo dicere illa mystica quam ista theatrica esse turpiora; hoc dico, quod negantes conuincit historia, eosdem illos ludos, in quibus regnant figmenta poetarum, non per inperitum obsequium sacris deorum suorum intulisse Romanos, sed ipsos deos, ut sibi sollemniter ederentur et honori suo consecrarentur, acerbe imperando et quodam modo extorquendo fecisse; quod in primo libro brevi commemoratione perstrinxi.Nam ingravescente pestilentia ludi scaenici auctoritate pontificum Romae primitus instituti sunt. Quis igitur in agenda vita non ea sibi potius sectanda arbitreturЎЃ quae actitantur ludis auctoritate divina institutis, quam ea, quae scriptitantur legibus humano consilio promulgatis? Adulterum Iovem si poetae fallaciter prodiderunt, dii utique casti, quia tantum nefas per humanos ludos confictum est, non qui a neglectum, irasci ac vindicare debuerunt. Et haec sunt scaenicorum tolerabiliora ludorum, comoediae scilicet et tragoediae, hoc est fabulae poetarum agendae in spectaculis multa rerum turpitudine, sed nulla saltem, sicut alia multa, verborum obscenitate compositae; quas etiam inter studia, quae honesta ac liberalia vocantur, pueri legere et discere coguntur a senibus.	chapter 8. But, some one will interpose, these are the fables of poets, not the deliverances of the gods themselves. Well, I have no mind to arbitrate between the lewdness of theatrical entertainments and of mystic rites; only this I say, and history bears me out in making the assertion, that those same entertainments, in which the fictions of poets are the main attraction, were not introduced in the festivals of the gods by the ignorant devotion of the Romans, but that the gods themselves gave the most urgent commands to this effect, and indeed extorted from the Romans these solemnities and celebrations in their honor. I touched on this in the preceding book, and mentioned that dramatic entertainments were first inaugurated at Rome on occasion of a pestilence, and by authority of the pontiff. And what man is there who is not more likely to adopt, for the regulation of his own life, the examples that are represented in plays which have a divine sanction, rather than the precepts written and promulgated with no more than human authority? If the poets gave a false representation of Jove in describing him as adulterous, then it were to be expected that the chaste gods should in anger avenge so wicked a fiction, in place of encouraging the games which circulated it. Of these plays, the most inoffensive are comedies and tragedies, that is to say, the dramas which poets write for the stage, and which, though they often handle impure subjects, yet do so without the filthiness of language which characterizes many other performances; and it is these dramas which boys are obliged by their seniors to read and learn as a part of what is called a liberal and gentlemanly education.
BOOK II [IX] Quid autem hinc senserint Romani ueteres, Cicero testatur in libris, quos de re publica scripsit, ubi Scipio disputans ait: m Numquam comoediae, nisi consuetudo vitae patereturЎЃ probare sua theatris flagitia potuissent. "Et Graeci quidem antiquiores vitiosae suae opinionis quandam convenientiam servarunt, apud quos fuit etiam lege concessum, ut quod vellet comoedia, de quo vellet, nominatim diceret. Itaque, sicut in eisdem libris loquitur Africanus," quem illa non adtigit, vel potius quem non uexavit, cui pepercit? Esto, populares homines inprobos, in re publica seditiosos, Cleonem, Cleophontem, Hyperbolum laesit. Patiamur, inquit, etsi eius modi cives a censore melius est quam a poeta notari. Sed Periclen, cum iam suae civitati maxima auctoritate plurimos annos domi et belli praefuisset, violari versibus et eos agi in scaena non plus decuit, quam si Plautus, inquit, noster voluisset aut Naevius Publio et Gn. Scipioni aut Caecilius Marco Catoni maledicere. "Dein paulo post:" Nostrae, inquit, contra duodecim tabulae cum perpaucas res capite sanxissent, in his hanc quoque sanciendam putaverunt, si quis occentavisset sive carmen condidisset, quod infamiam faceret flagitiumue alteri. Praeclare. Iudiciis enim magistratuum, disceptationibus legitimis propositam vitam, non poetarum ingeniis habere debemus, nec probrum audire nisi ea lege, ut respondere liceat et iudicio defendere. "Haec ex Ciceronis quarto de re publica libro ad verbum excerpenda arbitratus sum, nonnullis propter faciliorem intellectum vel praetermissis vel paululum commutatis. Multum enim ad rem pertinet, quam molior explicare, si potero. Dicit deinde alia et sic concludit hunc locum, ut ostendat ueteribus displicuisse Romanis vel laudari quemquam in scaena vivum hominem vel vituperari. Sed, ut dixi, hoc Graeci quamquam inverecundius, tamen convenientius licere voluerunt, cum viderent diis suis accepta et grata esse opprobria non tantum hominum, verum et ipsorum deorum in scaenicis fabulis, sive a poetis essent illa conficta, sive flagitia eorum vera commemorarentur et agerentur in theatris atque ab eorum cultoribus utinam solo risu, ac non etiam imitatione d i gn a viderentur. Nimis enim superbum fuit famae parcere pnncipum civitatis et civium, ubi suae famae parci numina noluerunt.	chapter 9. The opinion of the ancient Romans on this matter is attested by Cicero in his work De Republica, in which Scipio, one of the interlocutors, says, "The lewdness of comedy could never have been suffered by audiences, unless the customs of society had previously sanctioned the same lewdness." And in the earlier days the Greeks preserved a certain reasonableness in their license, and made it a law, that whatever comedy wished to say of any one, it must say it of him by name. And so in the same work of Cicero's, Scipio says, "Whom has it not aspersed? Nay, whom has it not worried? Whom has it spared? Allow that it may assail demagogues and factions, men injurious to the commonwealth-a Cleon, a Cleophon, a Hyperbolus. That is tolerable, though it had been more seemly for the public censor to brand such men, than for a poet to lampoon them; but to blacken the fame of Pericles with scurrilous verse, after he had with the utmost dignity presided over their state alike in war and in peace, was as unworthy of a poet, as if our own Plautus or Nжvius were to bring Publius and Cneius Scipio on the comic stage, or as if Cжcilius were to caricature Cato." And then a little after he goes on: "Though our Twelve Tables attached the penalty of death only to a very few offences, yet among these few this was one: if any man should have sung a pasquinade, or have composed a satire calculated to bring infamy or disgrace on another person. Wisely decreed. For it is by the decisions of magistrates, and by a well-informed justice, that our lives ought to be judged, and not by the flighty fancies of poets; neither ought we to be exposed to hear calumnies, save where we have the liberty of replying, and defending ourselves before an adequate tribunal." This much I have judged it advisable to quote from the fourth book of Cicero's De Republica; and I have made the quotation word for word, with the exception of some words omitted, and some slightly transposed, for the sake of giving the sense more readily. And certainly the extract is pertinent to the matter I am endeavoring to explain. Cicero makes some further remarks, and concludes the passage by showing that the ancient Romans did not permit any living man to be either praised or blamed on the stage. But the Greeks, as I said, though not so moral, were more logical in allowing this license which the Romans forbade; for they saw that their gods approved and enjoyed the scurrilous language of low comedy when directed not only against men, but even against themselves; and this, whether the infamous actions imputed to them were the fictions of poets, or were their actual iniquities commemorated and acted in the theatres. And would that the spectators had judged them worthy only of laughter, and not of imitation! Manifestly it had been a stretch of pride to spare the good name of the leading men and the common citizens, when the very deities did not grudge that their own reputation should be blemished.
BOOK II [X] Nam quod adfertur pro defensione, non illa vera in deos dici, sed falsa atque conficta, id ipsum est scelestius, si pietatem consulas religionis; si autem malitiam daemonum cogites, quid astutius ad decipiendum atque callidius? Cum enim probrum iacitur in principem patriae bonum atque utilem, nonne tanto est indignius, quanto a veritate remotius et a vita illius alienius? Quae igitur supplicia sufficiunt, cum deo fit ista tam nefaria, tam insignis iniuria? Sed maligni spiritus, quos isti deos putant, etiam flagitia, quae non admiserunt, de se dici volunt, dum tamen humanas mentes his opinionibus velut retibus induant et ad praedestinatum supplicium secum trahant, sive homines ista commiserint, quos deos haberi gaudent, qui humanis erroribus gaudent, pro quibus se etiam colendos mille nocendi fallendique artibus interponunt; sive etiam non ullorum hominum illa crimina vera sint, quae tamen de numinibus fingi libenter accipiunt fallacissimi spiritus, ut ad scelesta ac turpia perpetranda velut ab ipso caelo traduci in terras satis idonea videatur auctoritas. Cum igitur Graeci talium numinum seruos se esse sentirent, inter tot et tanta eorum theatrica opprobria parcendum sibi a poetis nullo modo putaverunt, vel diis suis etiam sic consimilari adpetentes, vel metuentes, ne honestiorem famam ipsi requirendo et eis se hoc modo praeferendo illos ad iracundiam prouocarent.	chapter 10. It is alleged, in excuse of this practice, that the stories told of the gods are not true, but false, and mere inventions, but this only makes matters worse, if we form our estimate by the morality our religion teaches; and if we consider the malice of the devils, what more wily and astute artifice could they practise upon men? When a slander is uttered against a leading statesman of upright and useful life, is it not reprehensible in proportion to its untruth and groundlessness? What punishment, then, shall be sufficient when the gods are the objects of so wicked and outrageous an injustice? But the devils, whom these men repute gods, are content that even iniquities they are guiltless of should be ascribed to them, so long as they may entangle men's minds in the meshes of these opinions, and draw them on along with themselves to their predestinated punishment: whether such things were actually committed by the men whom these devils, delighting in human infatuation, cause to be worshipped as gods, and in whose stead they, by a thousand malign and deceitful artifices, substitute themselves, and so receive worship; or whether, though they were really the crimes of men, these wicked spirits gladly allowed them to be attributed to higher beings, that there might seem to be conveyed from heaven itself a sufficient sanction for the perpetration of shameful wickedness. The Greeks, therefore, seeing the character of the gods they served, thought that the poets should certainly not refrain from showing up human vices on the stage, either because they desired to be like their gods in this, or because they were afraid that, if they required for themselves a more unblemished reputation than they asserted for the gods, they might provoke them to anger.
BOOK II [XI] Ad hanc convenientiam pertinet, quod etiam scaenicos actores earundem fabularum non paruo civitatis honore dignos existimarunt, si quidem, quod in eo quoque de re publica libro commemoratur, et Aeschines Atheniensis, vir eloquentissimus, cum adulescens tragoedias actitavisset, rem publicam capessivit et Aristodemum, tragicum item actorem, maximus de rebus pacis ac belli legatum ad Philippum Athenienses saepe miserunt. Non enim consentaneum putabatur, cum easdem artes eosdemque scaenicos ludos etiam diis suis acceptos viderent, illos, per quos agerentur, infamium loco ac numero deputare. Haec Graeci turpiter quidem, sed sane diis suis omnino congruenter, qui nec vitam civium lacerandam linguis poetarum et histrionum subtrahere ausi sunt, a quibus cernebant deorum vitam eisdem ipsis diis volentibus et libentibus carpi, et ipsos homines, per quos ista in theatris agebantur, quae numinibus quibus subditi erant grata esse cognoverant, non solum minime spernendos in civitate, verum etiam maxime honorandos putarunt. Quid enim causae reperire possent, cur sacerdotes honorarent, quia per eos victimas diis acceptabiles offerebant, et scaenicos probrosos haberent, per quos illam voluptatem sive honorem diis exhiberi petentibus et, nisi fieret, irascentibus eorum admonitione didicerant? cum praesertim Labeo, quem huiusce modi rerum peritissimum praedicant, numina bona a numinibus malis ista etiam cultus diversitate distinguat, ut malos deos propitiari caedibus et tristibus supplicationibus asserat, bonos autem obsequiis laetis atque iucundis, qualia sunt, ut ipse ait, ludi conuivia lectisternia. Quod totum quale sit, postea, si Deus ivuerit, diligentius disseremus. Nunc ad rem praesentem quod adtinet, sive omnibus omnia tamquam bonis permixte tribuantur (neque enim esse decet deos malos, cum potius isti, quia inmundi sunt spiritus, omnes sint mali), sive certa discretione, sicut Labeoni visum est, illis illa, istis ista distribuantur obsequia, competentissime Graeci utrosque honori ducunt, et sacerdotes, per quos victimae ministrantur, et scaenicos, per quos ludi exhibentur, ne vel omnibus diis suis, si et ludi omnibus grati sunt, vel, quod est indignius, his, quos bonos putant, si ludi ab eis solis amantur, facere conuincantur iniuriam.	chapter 11. It was a part of this same reasonableness of the Greeks which induced them to bestow upon the actors of these same plays no inconsiderable civic honors. In the above-mentioned book of the De Republica, it is mentioned that Aeschines, a very eloquent Athenian, who had been a tragic actor in his youth, became a statesman, and that the Athenians again and again sent another tragedian, Aristodemus, as their plenipotentiary to Philip. For they judged it unbecoming to condemn and treat as infamous persons those who were the chief actors in the scenic entertainments which they saw to be so pleasing to the gods. No doubt this was immoral of the Greeks, but there can be as little doubt they acted in conformity with the character of their gods; for how could they have presumed to protect the conduct of the citizens from being cut to pieces by the tongues of poets and players, who were allowed, and even enjoined by the gods, to tear their divine reputation to tatters? And how could they hold in contempt the men who acted in the theatres those dramas which, as they had ascertained, gave pleasure to the gods whom they worshipped? Nay, how could they but grant to them the highest civic honors? On what plea could they honor the priests who offered for them acceptable sacrifices to the gods, if they branded with infamy the actors who in behalf of the people gave to the gods that pleasure or honour which they demanded, and which, according to the account of the priests, they were angry at not receiving. Labeo, whose learning makes him an authority on such points, is of opinion that the distinction between good and evil deities should find expression in a difference of worship; that the evil should be propitiated by bloody sacrifices and doleful rites, but the good with a joyful and pleasant observance, as, e.g. (as he says himself), with plays, festivals, and banquets. All this we shall, with God's help, hereafter discuss. At present, and speaking to the subject on hand, whether all kinds of offerings are made indiscriminately to all the gods, as if all were good (and it is an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods; but these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods, but evil spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, a distinction is made between the offerings presented to the different gods the Greeks are equally justified in honoring alike the priests by whom the sacrifices are offered, and the players by whom the dramas are acted, that they may not be open to the charge of doing an injury to all their gods, if the plays are pleasing to all of them, or (which were still worse) to their good gods, if the plays are relished only by them.
BOOK II [XII] At Romani, sicut in illa de re publica disputatione Scipio gloriatur, probris et iniuriis poetarum subiectam vitam famamque habere noluerunt, capite etiam sancientes, tale carmen condere si quis auderet. Quod erga se quidem satis honeste constituerunt, sed erga deos suos superbe et inreligiose; quos cum scirent non solum patienter, verum etiam libenter poetarum probris maledictisque lacerari, se potius quam illos huiusce modi iniuriis indignos esse duxerunt seque ab eis etiam lege munierunt, illorum autem ista etiam sacris sollemnitatibus miscuerunt. Itane tandem, Scipio, laudas hanc poetis Romanis negatam esse licentiam, ut cuiquam opprobrium infligerent Romanorum, cum videas eos nulli deorum pepercisse uestrorum? Itane pluris tibi habenda visa est existimatio curiae uestrae quam Capitolii, immo Romae unius quam caeli totius, ut linguam maledicam in cives tuos exercere poetae etiam lege prohiberentur, et in deos tuos securi tanta conuicia nullo senatore nullo censore, nullo principe nullo pontifice prohibente iacularentur? Indignum videlicet fuit, ut Plautus aut Naevius Publio et Gn. Scipioni aut Caecilius M. Catoni malediceret, et dignum fuit, ut Terentius uester flagitio lovis optimi maximi adulescentium nequitiam concitaret?	chapter 12. The Romans, however, as Scipio boasts in that same discussion, declined having their conduct and good name subjected to the assaults and slanders of the poets, and went so far as to make it a capital crime if any one should dare to compose such verses. This was a very honorable course to pursue, so far as they themselves were concerned, but in respect of the gods it was proud and irreligious: for they knew that the gods not only tolerated, but relished, being lashed by the injurious expressions of the poets, and yet they themselves would not suffer this same handling; and what their ritual prescribed as acceptable to the gods, their law prohibited as injurious to themselves. How then, Scipio, do you praise the Romans for refusing this license to the poets, so that no citizen could be calumniated, while you know that the gods were not included under this protection? Do you count your senate-house worthy of so much higher a regard than the Capitol? Is the one city of Rome more valuable in your eyes than the whole heaven of gods, that you prohibit your poets from uttering any injurious words against a citizen, though they may with impunity cast what imputations they please upon the gods, without the interference of senator, censor, prince, or pontiff? It was, forsooth, intolerable that Plautus or Nжvus should attack Publius and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Cжcilius should lampoon Cato; but quite proper that your Terence should encourage youthful lust by the wicked example of supreme Jove.
BOOK II [XIII] Sed responderet mihi fortasse, si viveret: Quo modo nos ista inpunita esse nollemus, quae ipsi dii sacra esse voluerunt, cum ludos scaenicos, ubi talia celebrantur dictitantur actitantur, et Romanis moribus invexerunt et suis honoribus dicari exhiberique iusserunt? Cur non ergo hinc magis ipsi intellecti sunt non esse dii veri nec omnino digni, quibus divinos honores deferret illa res publica? Quos enim coli minime deceret minimeque oporteret, si ludos expeterent agendos conuiciis Romanorum, quo modo quaeso colendi putati sunt, quo modo non detestandi spiritus intellecti, qui cupiditate fallendi inter suos honores sua celebrari crimina poposcerunt? Itemque Romani, quamuis iam superstitione noxia premerentur, ut illos deos colerent, quos videbant sibi voluisse scaenicas turpitudines consecrari, suae tamen dignitatis memores ac pudoris actores talium fabularum nequaquam honoraverunt more Graecorum, sed, sicut apud Ciceronem idem Scipio loquitur," cum artem iudicram scaenamque totam in probro ducerent, genus id hominum non modo honore civium reliquorum carere, sed etiam tribu moveri notatione censoria voluerunt. "Praeclara sanc et Romanis laudibus adnumeranda prudentia; sed vellem se ipsa sequeretur, se imitaretur. Ecce enim recte, quisquis civium Romanorum esse scaenicus elegisset, non solum ei nullus ad honorem dabatur locus, verum etiam censoris nota tribum tenere propriam minime sinebatur. O animum civitatis laudis avidum germaneque Romanum! Sed respondeatur mihi: qua consentanea ratione homines scaenici ab omni honore repelluntur, et ludi scaenici deorum honoribus admiscentur? Illas theatricas artes diu virtus Romana non noverat, quae si ad oblectamentum voluptatis humanae quaererentur, vitio morum inreperent humanorum. Dii eas sibi exhiberi petierunt: quo modo ergo abicitur scaenicus, per quem colitur Deus? et theatricae illius turpitudinis qua fronte notatur actor, si adoratur exactor? In hac controversia Graeci Romanique concertent. Graeci putant recte se honorare homines scaenicos, quia colunt ludorum scaenicorum flagitatores deos; Romani vero hominibus scaenicis nec plebeiam tribum, quanto Ininus senatoriam curiam dehonestari sinunt. In hac disceptatione huiusce modi ratiocinatio summam quaestionis absolvit. Proponunt Graeci: Si dii tales colendi sunt, profecto etiam tales homines honorandi. Adsumunt Romani: Sed nullo modo tales homines honorandi sunt. Concludunt Christiani: Nullo modo igitur dii tales colendi sunt.	chapter 13. But Scipio, were he alive, would possibly reply: "How could we attach a penalty to that which the gods themselves have consecrated? For the theatrical entertainments in which such things are said, and acted, and performed, were introduced into Roman society by the gods, who ordered that they should be dedicated and exhibited in their honor." But was not this, then, the plainest proof that they were no true gods, nor in any respect worthy of receiving divine honours from the republic? Suppose they had required that in their honor the citizens of Rome should be held up to ridicule, every Roman would have resented the hateful proposal. How then, I would ask, can they be esteemed worthy of worship, when they propose that their own crimes be used as material for celebrating their praises? Does not this artifice expose them, and prove that they are detestable devils? Thus the Romans, though they were superstitious enough to serve as gods those who made no secret of their desire to be worshipped in licentious plays, yet had sufficient regard to their hereditary dignity and virtue, to prompt them to refuse to players any such rewards as the Greeks accorded them. On this point we have this testimony of Scipio, recorded in Cicero: "They [the Romans] considered comedy and all theatrical performances as disgraceful, and therefore not only debarred players from offices and honors open to ordinary citizens, but also decreed that their names should be branded by the censor, and erased from the roll of their tribe." An excellent decree, and another testimony to the sagacity of Rome; but I could wish their prudence had been more thorough-going and consistent. For when I hear that if any Roman citizen chose the stage as his profession, he not only closed to himself every laudable career, but even became an outcast from his own tribe, I cannot but exclaim: This is the true Roman spirit, this is worthy of a state jealous of its reputation. But then some one interrupts my rapture, by inquiring with what consistency players are debarred from all honors, while plays are counted among the honors due to the gods? For a long while the virtue of Rome was uncontaminated by theatrical exhibitions; and if they had been adopted for the sake of gratifying the taste of the citizens, they would have been introduced hand in hand with the relaxation of manners. But the fact is, that it was the gods who demanded that they should be exhibited to gratify them. With what justice, then, is the player excommunicated by whom God is worshipped? On what pretext can you at once adore him who exacts, and brand him who acts these plays? This, then, is the controversy in which the Greeks and Romans are engaged. The Greeks think they justly honor players, because they worship the gods who demand plays; the Romans, on the other hand, do not suffer an actor to disgrace by his name his own plebeian tribe, far less the senatorial order. And the whole of this discussion may be summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks give us the major premise: If such gods are to be worshipped, then certainly such men may be honored. The Romans add the minor: But such men must by no means be honoured. The Christians draw the conclusion: Therefore such gods must by no means be worshipped.
BOOK II [XIV] Deinde quaerimus, ipsi poetae talium fabularum compositores, qui duodecim tabularum lege prohibentur famam laedere civium, tam probrosa in deos conuicia iaculantes cur non ut scaenici habeantur inhonesti. Qua ratione rectum est, ut poeticorum figmentorum et ignominiosorum deorum infamentur actores, honorentur auctores? An forte Graeco Platoni potius palma danda est, qui cum ratione formaret, qualis esse civitas debeat, tamquam adversarios veritatis poetas censuit urbe pellendos? Iste vero et deorum iniurias indigne tulit et fucari corrumpique figmentis animos civium noluit. Confer nunc Platonis humanitatem a civibus decipiendis poetas urbe pellentem cum deorunI divinitate honori suo ludos scaenicos expetente. Ille, ne talia vel scriberentur, etsi non persuasit disputando, tamen suasit levitati lasciviaeque Graecorum; isti, ut talia etiam agerentur, iubendo extorserunt gravitati et modestiae Romanorum. Nec tantum haec agi voluerunt, sed sibi dicari, sibi sacrari, sibi sollemniter exhiberi. Cui tandem honestius divinos honores decerneret civitas? utrum Platoni haec turpia et nefanda prohibenti, an daemonibus hac hominum deceptione gaudentibus, quibus ille vera persuadere non potuit? Hunc Platonem Labeo inter semideos commemorandum putavit, sicut Herculem, sicut Romulum. Semideos autem heroibus anteponit; sed utrosque inter numina conlocat. Verum tamen istum, quem appellat semideum, non heroibus tantum, sed etiam diis ipsis praeferendum esse non dubito. Propinquant autem Romanorum leges disputationibus Platonis, quando ille cuncta poetica figmenta condemnat, isti autem poetis adimunt saltem in homines maledicendi licentiam; ille poetas ab urbis ipsius habitatione, isti saltem actores poeticarum fabularum removent a societate civitatis; et si contra deos ludorum scaenicorum expetitores aliquid auderent, forte undique removerent. Nequaquam igitur leges ad instituendos bonos aut corrigendos malos mores a diis suis possent accipere seu sperare Romani, quos legibus suis vincunt atque conuincunt. Illi enim honori suo deposcunt ludos scaenicos, isti ab honoribus omnibus repellunt homines scaenicos; illi celebrari sibi iubent figmentis poeticis opprobria deorum, isti ab opprobriis hominum deterrent inpudentiam poetarum. Semideus autem ille Plato et talium deorum libidini restitit, et ab indole Romanorum quid perficiendum esset ostendit, qui poeta s ipsos vel pro arbitrio mentientes vel hominibus miseris quasi deorum facta pessima imitanda proponentes omnino in civitate bene instituta vivere noluit. Nos quidem Platonem nec deum nec semideum perhibemus, nec ulli sancto angelo summi Dei nec veridico prophetae nec apostolo alicui nec cuilibet Christi martyri nec cuiquam Christiano homini comparamus; cuius nostrae sententiae ratio Deo prosperante suo loco explicabitur. Sed eum tamen, quando quidem ipsi volunt fuisse semideum, praeferendum esse censemus, si non Romulo et Herculi (quamuis istum nec fratrem occidisse, nec aliquod perpetrasse flagitium quisquam historicorum vel poetarum dixit aut finxit), certe vel Priapo vel alicui Cynocephalo, postremo vel Febri, quae Romani numina partim peregrina receperunt, paffim sua propria sacraverunt. Quo modo igitur tanta animi et morum mala bonis praeceptis et legibus vel inminentia prohiberent, vel insita extirpanda curarent dii tales, qui etiam seminanda et augenda flagitia curaverunt, talia vel sua vel quasi sua facta per theatricas celebritates populis innotescere cupientes, ut tamquam auctoritate divina sua sponte nequissima libido accenderetur humana, frustra hoc exclamante Cicerone, qui cum de poetis ageret: "Ad quos cum accessit, inquit, clamor et adprobatio populi quasi cuiusdam magni et sapientis magistri, quas illi obducunt tenebras, quos invehunt metus, quas inflammant cupiditates!"	chapter 14. We have still to inquire why the poets who write the plays, and who by the law of the twelve tables are prohibited from injuring the good name of the citizens, are reckoned more estimable than the actors, though they so shamefully asperse the character of the gods? Is it right that the actors of these poetical and God-dishonoring effusions be branded, while their authors are honored? Must we not here award the palm to a Greek, Plato, who, in framing his ideal republic, conceived that poets should be banished from the city as enemies of the state? He could not brook that the gods be brought into disrepute, nor that the minds of the citizens be depraved and besotted, by the fictions of the poets. Compare now human nature as you see it in Plato, expelling poets from the city that the citizens be uninjured, with the divine nature as you see it in these gods exacting plays in their own honor. Plato strove, though unsuccessfully, to persuade the light-minded and lascivious Greeks to abstain from so much as writing such plays; the gods used their authority to extort the acting of the same from the dignified and sober-minded Romans. And not content with having them acted, they had them dedicated to themselves, consecrated to themselves, solemnly celebrated in their own honor. To which, then, would it be more becoming in a state to decree divine honors,-to Plato, who prohibited these wicked and licentious plays, or to the demons who delighted in blinding men to the truth of what Plato unsuccessfully sought to inculcate?This philosopher, Plato, has been elevated by Labeo to the rank of a demigod, and set thus upon a level with such as Hercules and Romulus. Labeo ranks demigods higher than heroes, but both he counts among the deities. But I have no doubt that he thinks this man whom he reckons a demigod worthy of greater respect not only than the heroes, but also than the gods themselves. The laws of the Romans and the speculations of Plato have this resemblance, that the latter pronounce a wholesale condemnation of poetical fictions, while the former restrain the license of satire, at least so far as men are the objects of it. Plato will not suffer poets even to dwell in his city: the laws of Rome prohibit actors from being enrolled as citizens; and if they had not feared to offend the gods who had asked the services of the players, they would in all likelihood have banished them altogether. It is obvious, therefore, that the Romans could not receive, nor reasonably expect to receive, laws for the regulation of their conduct from their gods, since the laws they themselves enacted far surpassed and put to shame the morality of the gods. The gods demand stageplays in their own honor; the Romans exclude the players from all civic honors; the former commanded that they should be celebrated by the scenic representation of their own disgrace; the latter commanded that no poet should dare to blemish the reputation of any citizen. But that demigod Plato resisted the lust of such gods as these, and showed the Romans what their genius had left incomplete; for he absolutely excluded poets from his ideal state, whether they composed fictions with no regard to truth, or set the worst possible examples before wretched men under the guise of divine actions. We for our part, indeed, reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod; we would not even compare him to any of God's holy angels; nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man. The reason of this opinion of ours we will, God prospering us, render in its own place. Nevertheless, since they wish him to be considered a demigod, we think he certainly is more entitled to that rank, and is every way superior, if not to Hercules and Romulus (though no historian could ever narrate nor any poet sing of him that he had killed his brother, or committed any crime), yet certainly to Priapus, or a Cynocephalus, or the Fever,-divinities whom the Romans have partly received from foreigners, and partly consecrated by home-grown rites. How, then, could gods such as these be expected to promulgate good and wholesome laws, either for the prevention of moral and social evils, or for their eradication where they had already sprung up?-gods who used their influence even to sow and cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or falsely ascribed to them should be published to the people by means of theatrical exhibitions, and by thus gratuitously fanning the flame of human lust with the breath of a seemingly divine approbation. In vain does Cicero, speaking of poets, exclaim against this state of things in these words: "When the plaudits and acclamation of the people, who sit as infallible judges, are won by the poets, what darkness benights the mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it!"
BOOK II [XV] Quae autem illic eligendorum deorum etiam ipsorum falsorum ratio ac non potius adulatio est? quando istum Platonem, quem semideum volunt, tantis disputationibus laborantem, ne animi malis, quae praecipue cavenda sunt, mores corrumperentur humani, nulla sacra aedicula dignum putarunt, et Romulum suum diis multis praetulerunt, quamuis et ipsum semideum potius quam deum ueIut secretior eorum doctrina commendet. Nam etiam flaminem illi instituerunt, quod sacerdotii genus adeo in Romanis sacris testante apice excelluit, ut tres solos flamines haberent tribus numinibus institutos, Dialem lovi, Martialem Marti, Quirinalem Romulo. Nam beneuolentia civium velut receptus in caelum Quirinus est postea nominatus. Ac per hoc et Neptuno et Plutoni, fratribus lovis, et ipsi Saturno, patri eorum, isto Romulus honore praelatus est, ut pro magno sacerdotium, quod lovi tribuerant, hoc etiam huic tribuerent, et Marti tamquam patri eius forsitan propter ipsum.	chapter 15. But is it not manifest that vanity rather than reason regulated the choice of some of their false gods? This Plato, whom they reckon a demigod, and who used all his eloquence to preserve men from the most dangerous spiritual calamities, has yet not been counted worthy even of a little shrine; but Romulus, because they can call him their own, they have esteemed more highly than many gods, though their secret doctrine can allow him the rank only of a demigod. To him they allotted a flamen, that is to say, a priest of a class so highly esteemed in their religion (distinguished, too, by their conical mitres), that for only three of their gods were flamens appointed,-the Flamen Dialis for Jupiter, Martialis for Mars, and Quirinalis for Romulus (for when the ardor of his fellow-citizens had given Romulus a seat among the gods, they gave him this new name Quirinus). And thus by this honor Romulus has been preferred to Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter's brothers, and to Saturn himself, their father. They have assigned the same priesthood to serve him as to serve Jove; and in giving Mars (the reputed father of Romulus) the same honor, is this not rather for Romulus' sake than to honor Mars?
BOOK II [XVI] Si autem a diis suis Romani vivendi leges accipere potuissent, non aliquot annos post Romam conditam ab Atheniensibus mutuarentur leges Solonis, quas tamen non ut acceperunt <tenuerunt>, sed meliores et emendatiores facere conati sunt, quamuis Lycurgus Lacedaemoniis leges ex Apollinis auctoritate se instituisse confinxerit, quod prudenter Romani credere noluerunt, propterea non inde acceperunt. Numa Pompilius, qui Romulo successit in regnum, quasdam leges, quae quidem regendae civitati nequaquam sufficerent, condidisse fertur, qui eis multa etiam sacra constituit; non tamen perhibetur easdem leges a numinibus accepisse. Mala igitur animi, mala vitae, mala morum, quae ita magna sunt, ut his doctissimi eorum viri etiam stantibus urbibus res publicas perire confirment, dii eorum, ne suis cultoribus acciderent, minime curarunt; immo vero ut augerentur, sicut supra disputatum est, omni modo curarunt.	chapter 16. Moreover, if the Romans had been able to receive a rule of life from their gods, they would not have borrowed Solon's laws from the Athenians, as they did some years after Rome was founded; and yet they did not keep them as they received them, but endeavored to improve and amend them. Although Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized by Apollo to give laws to the Lacedemonians, the sensible Romans did not choose to believe this, and were not induced to borrow laws from Sparta. Numa Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus in the kingdom, is said to have framed some laws, which, however, were not sufficient for the regulation of civic affairs. Among these regulations were many pertaining to religious observances, and yet he is not reported to have received even these from the gods. With respect, then, to moral evils, evils of life and conduct,-evils which are so mighty, that, according to the wisest pagans, by them states are ruined while their cities stand uninjured,-their gods made not the smallest provision for preserving their worshippers from these evils, but, on the contrary, took special pains to increase them, as we have previously endeavored to prove.
BOOK II [XVII] An forte populo Romano propterea leges non sunt a numinibus constitutae, quia, sicut Sallustius ait," ius bonumque apud eos non legibus magis quam natura valebat w? Ex hoc iure ac bono credo raptas Sabinas. Quid enim iustius et melius quam filias alienas fraude spectaculi inductas non a parentibus accipi, sed vi, ut quisque poterat, auferri? Nam si inique facerent Sabini negare postulatas, quanto fuit iniquius rapere non datas! Iustius autem bellum cum ea gente geri potuit, quae filias suas ad matrimonium conregionalibus et confinalibus suis negasset petitas, quam cum ea, quae repetebat ablatas. Illud ergo potius fierit; ibi Mars filium suum pugnantem ivuaret, ut coniugiorum negatorum armis ulcisceretur iniuriam, et eo modo ad feminas, quas voluerat, perveniret. Aliquo enim fortasse iure belli iniuste negatas iuste victor auferret; nullo autem iure pacis non datas rapuit et iniustum bellum cum earum parentibus iuste suscensentibus gessit. Hoc sane utilius f e licius q ue successit, quod, etsi ad memoriam fraudis illius circensium spectaculum mansit, facinoris tamen in illa civitate et imperio non placuit exemplum, faciliusque Romani in hoc erraverunt, ut post illam iniquitatem deum sibi Romulum consecrarent, quam ut in feminis rapiendis factum eius imitandum lege ulla vel more permitterent. Ex hoc iure ac bono post expulsum cum liberis suis regem Tarquinium, cuius filius Lucretiam stupro violenter oppresserat, Iunius Brutus consul Lucium Tarquinium Collatinum, maritum eiusdem Lucretiae, collegam suum, bonum atque innocentem virum, propter nomen et propinquitatem Tarquiniorum coegit magistratu se abdicare nec vivere in civitate permisit. Quod scelus favente vel patiente populo fecit, a quo populo consulatum idem Collatinus sicut etiam ipse Brutus acceperat. Ex hoc iure ac bono Marcus Camillus, illius temporis vir egregius, qui Veientes, gravissimos hostes populi Romani, post decennale bellum, quo Romanus exercitus totiens male pugnando graviter adflictus est, iam ipsa Roma de salute dubitante atque trepidante facillime superavit eorumque urbem opulentissimam cepit, inuidia obtrectatorum virtutis suae et insolentia tribunorum plebis reus factus est tamque ingratam sensit quam liberaverat civitatem, ut de sua damnatione certissimus in exilium sponte discederet et decem milia aeris absens etiam damnaretur, mox iterum a Gallis vindex patriae futurus ingratae. Multa commemorare iam piget foeda et iniusta, quibus agitabatur illa civitas, cum potentes plebem sibi subdere conarentur plebsque illis subdi recusaret, et utriusque partis defensores magis studiis agerent amore vincendi, quam aequum et bonum quicquam cogitarent.	chapter 17. But possibly we are to find the reason for this neglect of the Romans by their gods, in the saying of Sallust, that "equity and virtue prevailed among the Romans not more by force of laws than of nature." I presume it is to this inborn equity and goodness of disposition we are to ascribe the rape of the Sabine women. What, indeed, could be more equitable and virtuous, than to carry off by force, as each man was fit, and without their parents' consent, girls who were strangers and guests, and who had been decoyed and entrapped by the pretence of a spectacle! If the Sabines were wrong to deny their daughters when the Romans asked for them, was it not a greater wrong in the Romans to carry them off after that denial? The Romans might more justly have waged war against the neighboring nation for having refused their daughters in marriage when they first sought them, than for having demanded them back when they had stolen them. War should have been proclaimed at first; it was then that Mars should have helped his warlike son, that he might by force of arms avenge the injury done him by the refusal of marriage, and might also thus win the women he desired. There might have been some appearance of "right of war" in a victor carrying off, in virtue of this right, the virgins who had been without any show of right denied him; whereas there was no "right of peace" entitling him to carry off those who were not given to him, and to wage an unjust war with their justly enraged parents. One happy circumstance was indeed connected with this act of violence, viz., that though it was commemorated by the games of the circus, yet even this did not constitute it a precedent in the city or realm of Rome. If one would find fault with the results of this act, it must rather be on the ground that the Romans made Romulus a god in spite of his perpetrating this iniquity; for one cannot reproach them with making this deed any kind of precedent for the rape of women.Again, I presume it was due to this natural equity and virtue, that after the expulsion of King Tarquin, whose son had violated Lucretia, Junius Brutus the consul forced Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, Lucretia's husband and his own colleague, a good and innocent man, to resign his office and go into banishment, on the one sole charge that he was of the name and blood of the Tarquins. This injustice was perpetrated with the approval, or at least connivance, of the people, who had themselves raised to the consular office both Collatinus and Brutus. Another instance of this equity and virtue is found in their treatment of Marcus Camillus. This eminent man, after he had rapidly conquered the Veians, at that time the most formidable of Rome's enemies, and who had maintained a ten years' war, in which the Roman army had suffered the usual calamities attendant on bad generalship, after he had restored security to Rome, which had begun to tremble for its safety, and after he had taken the wealthiest city of the enemy, had charges brought against him by the malice of those that envied his success, and by the insolence of the tribunes of the people; and seeing that the city bore him no gratitude for preserving it, and that he would certainly be condemned, he went into exile, and even in his absence was fined 10,000 asses. Shortly after, however, his ungrateful country had again to seek his protection from the Gauls. But I cannot now mention all the shameful and iniquitous acts with which Rome was agitated, when the aristocracy attempted to subject the people, and the people resented their encroachments, and the advocates of either party were actuated rather by the love of victory than by any equitable or virtuous consideration.
BOOK II [XVIII] Itaque habebo modum et ipsum Sallustium testem potius adhibebo, qui cum in laude Romanorum dixisset, unde nobis iste sermo ortus est:" lus bonumque apud eos non legibus. magis quam natura valebat, "praedicans illud tempus, quo expulsis regibus incredibiliter civitas brevi aetatis spatio plurimum crevit, idem tamen in primo historiae suae libro atque ipso eius exordio fatetur etiam tunc, cum ad consules a regibus esset translata res publica, post paruum interuallum iniurias validiorum et ob eas discessionem plebis a patribus aliasque in Vrbe dissensiones fuisse. Nam cum optimis moribus et maxima concordia populum Romanum inter secundum et postremum bellum Carthaginiense commemorasset egisse causamque huius boni non amorem iustitiae, sed stante Carthagine metum pacis infidae fuisse dixisset nunde et Nasica ille ad reprimendam nequitiam servandosque istos mores optimos, ut metu vitia cohiberentur, Carthaginem nolebat euertiJ: continuo subiecit idem Sallustius et ait:" At discordia et auaritia atque ambitio et cetera secundis rebus oriri sueta mala post Carthaginis excidium maxime aucta sunt, w ut intellegeremus etiam anteka et/ oriri solere et augeri. Vnde subnectens cur hoc dixerit:" Nam iniuriae, inquit, validiorum et ob eas discessio pleb is a patribus aliaeque dissensiones domi fuere iam inde a principio, neque amplius quam regibus exactis, dum metus a Tarquinio et bellum grave cum Etruria positum est, aequo et modesto iure agitatum. "Vides quem ad modum etiam illo tempore brevi, ut regibus exactis, id est eiectis, aliquantum aequo et modesto iure ageretur, metum dixit fuisse causam, quoniam metuebatur bellum, quod rex Tarquinius regno atque Vrbe pulsus Etruscis sociatus contra Romanos gerebat. Adtende itaque quid deinde contexat: "Dein, inquit, seruili imperio patres plebem exercere, de vita atque tergo regio more consulere, agro pellere et ceteris expertibus soli in imperio agere. Quibus saevitiis et maxime faenore oppressa plebes cum assiduis bellis tributum et militiam simul toleraret, armata montem sacrum atque Aventinum insedit, tumque tribunos plebis et alia iura sibi paravit. Discordiarum et certaminis utrimque finis fuit secundum bellum Punicum. "Cernis ex quo tempore, id est paruo interuallo post reges exactos, quales Romani fuerint, de quibus ait: "Ius bonumque apud eos non legibus magis quam natura valebat." Porro si illa tempora talia reperiuntur, quibus pulcherrima atque optima fuisse praedicatur Romana res publica, quid iam de consequenti aetate dicendum aut cogitandum arbitramur, cum" paulatim mutata, ut eiusdem historici verbis utar, ex pulcherrima atque optima pessima ac flagitiosissima facta est, "post Carthaginis videlicet, ut commemoravit, excidium? Quae tempora ipse Sallustius quem ad modum breviter recolat et describat, in eius historia legi potest; quantis malis morum, quae secundis rebus exorta sunt, usque ad bella civilia demonstret esse peruentum." Ex quo tempore, ut ait, maiorum mores non paulatim ut antea, sed torrentis modo praecipitati, adeo ivuentus luxu a tque au a ritia corrupta, ut merito dicatur genitos esse, qui neque ipsi habere possent res familiares neque alios pati. "Dicit deinde plura Sallustius de Sullae vitiis ceteraque foeditate rei publicae, et alii scriptores in haec consentiunt, quamuis eloquio multum impari. Cernis tamen, ut opinor, et q visquis adverterit, facillime perspicit, conluuie morum pess i mor u "quo illa civitas prolapsa fuerit ante nostri superni regis adventum. Haec enim gesta sunt non solum antequam Christus in carne praesens docere coepisset, verum etiam antequam de virgine natus esset. Cum igitur tot et tanta mala temporum illorum vel tolerabiliora superius, vel post euersam Carthaginem intoleranda et horrenda diis suis inputare non audeant, opiniones humanis mentibus, unde talia vitia siluescerent, astutia maligna inserentibus: cur mala praesentia Christo inputant, qui doctrina saluberrima et falsos ac fallaces deos coli uetat et istas hominum noxias flagitioSasque cupiditates divina auctoritate detestans atque condemnans his malis tabescenti ac labenti mundo ubique familiam suam sensim subtrahit, qua condat aeternam et non plausu uanitatis, sed iudicio veritatis gloriosissimam civitatem?	chapter 18. I will therefore pause, and adduce the testimony of Sallust himself, whose words in praise of the Romans (that "equity and virtue prevailed among them not more by force of laws than of nature") have given occasion to this discussion. He was referring to that period immediately after the expulsion of the kings, in which the city became great in an incredibly short space of time. And yet this same writer acknowledges in the first book of his history, in the very exordium of his work, that even at that time, when a very brief interval had elapsed after the government had passed from kings to consuls, the more powerful men began to act unjustly, and occasioned the defection of the people from the patricians, and other disorders in the city. For after Sallust had stated that the Romans enjoyed greater harmony and a purer state of society between the second and third Punic wars than at any other time, and that the cause of this was not their love of good order, but their fear lest the peace they had with Carthage might be broken (this also, as we mentioned, Nasica contemplated when he opposed the destruction of Carthage, for he supposed that fear would tend to repress wickedness, and to preserve wholesome ways of living), he then goes on to say: "Yet, after the destruction of Carthage, discord, avarice, am bition, and the other vices which are commonly generated by prosperity, more than ever increased." If they "increased," and that "more than ever," then already they had appeared, and had been increasing. And so Sallust adds this reason for what he said. "For," he says, "the oppressive measures of the powerful, and the consequent secessions of the plebs from the patricians, and other civil dissensions, had existed from the first, and affairs were administered with equity and well-tempered justice for no longer a period than the short time after the expulsion of the kings, while the city was occupied with the serious Tuscan war and Tarquin's vengeance." You see how, even in that brief period after the expulsion of the kings, fear, he acknowledges, was the cause of the interval of equity and good order. They were afraid, in fact, of the war which Tarquin waged against them, after he had been driven from the throne and the city, and had allied himself with the Tuscans. But observe what he adds: "After that, the patricians treated the people as their slaves, ordering them to be scourged or beheaded just as the kings had done, driving them from their holdings, and harshly tyrannizing over those who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by these oppressive measures, and most of all by exorbitant usury, and obliged to contribute both money and personal service to the constant wars, at length took arms and seceded to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus obtained for themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and strife." You see what kind of men the Romans were, even so early as a few years after the expulsion of the kings; and it is of these men he says, that "equity and virtue prevailed among them not more by force of law than of nature."Now, if these were the days in which the Roman republic shows fairest and best, what are we to say or think of the succeeding age, when, to use the words of the same historian, "changing little by little from the fair and virtuous city it was, it became utterly wicked and dissolute?" This was, as he mentions, after the destruction of Carthage. Sallust's brief sum and sketch of this period may be read in his own history, in which he shows how the profligate manners which were propagated by prosperity resulted at last even in civil wars. He says: "And from this time the primitive manners, instead of undergoing an insensible alteration as hitherto they had done, were swept away as by a torrent: the young men were so depraved by luxury and avarice, that it may justly be said that no father had a son who could either preserve his own patrimony, or keep his hands off other men's." Sallust adds a number of particulars about the vices of Sylla, and the debased condition of the republic in general; and other writers make similar observations, though in much less striking language.However, I suppose you now see, or at least any one who gives his attention has the means of seeing, in what a sink of iniquity that city was plunged before the advent of our heavenly King. For these things happened not only before Christ had begun to teach, but before He was even born of the Virgin. If, then, they dare not impute to their gods the grievous evils of those former times, more tolerable before the destruction of Carthage, but intolerable and dreadful after it, although it was the gods who by their malign craft instilled into the minds of men the conceptions from which such dreadful vices branched out on all sides, why do they impute these present calamities to Christ, who teaches life-giving truth, and forbids us to worship false and deceitful gods, and who, abominating and condemning with His divine authority those wicked and hurtful lusts of men, gradually withdraws His own people from a world that is corrupted by these vices, and is falling into ruins, to make of them an eternal city, whose glory rests not on the acclamations of vanity, but on the judgment of truth?
BOOK II [XIX] Ecce Romana res publica nquod non ego primus dico, sed auctores eorum, unde haec mercede didicimus, tanto ante dixerunt ante Christi adventum/ "paulatim mutata ex pulcherrima atque optima pessima ac flagitiosissima facta est. w Ecce ante Christi adventum, post deletam Carthaginem m maiorum mores non paulatim, ut antea, sed torrentis modo praecipitati, adeo ivuentus luxu atque auaritia corrupta est. w Legant nobis contra Iuxum et auaritiam praecepta deorum suorum populo Romano data; cui utinam tantum casta et modesta reticerent, ac non etiam ab illo probrosa et ignominiosa deposcerent, quibus per falsam divinitatem perniciosam conciliarent auctoritatem. Legant nostra et per prophetas et per sanctum euangelium, et per apostolicos actus et per epistulas tam multa contra auaritiam atque luxuriam ubique populis ad hoc congregatis quam excellenter, quam divine non tamquam ex philosophorum concertationibus strepere, sed tamquam ex oraculis et Dei nubibus intonare. Et tamen luxu atque auaritia saevisque ac turpibus moribus ante adventum Christi rem publicam pessimam ac flagitiosissimam factam non inputant diis suis; adflictionem vero eius, quamcumque isto tempore superbia deliciaeque eorum perpessae fuerint, religioni increpitant Christianae. Cuius praecepta de iustis probisque moribus si simul audirent atque curarent reges terrae et omnes populi, principes et omnes iudices terrae, ivuenes et virgines, seniores cum iunioribus, aetas omnis capax et uterque sexus, et quos baptista lohannes adloquitur, exactores ipsi atque milites: et terras vitae praesentis ornaret sua felicitate res publica, et vitae aeternae culmen beatissime regnatura conscenderet. Sed quia iste audit, ille contemnit, pluresque vitiis male blandientibus quam utili virtutum asperitati sunt amiciores: tolerare Christi famuli iubentur, sive sint reges sive principes sive iudices, sive milites sive provinciales, sive divites sive pauperes, sive liberi sive serui, utriuslibet sexus, etiam pessimam, si ita necesse est, flagitiosissimamque rem publicam et in illa angelorum quadam sanctissima atque augustissima curia caelestique re publica, ubi Dei voluntas lex est, clarissimum sibi locum etiam ista tolerantia comparare.	chapter 19. Here, then, is this Roman republic, "which has changed little by little from the fair and virtuous city it was, and has become utterly wicked and dissolute." It is not I who am the first to say this, but their own authors, from whom we learned it for a fee, and who wrote it long before the coming of Christ. You see how, before the coming of Christ, and after the destruction of Carthage, "the primitive manners, instead of undergoing insensible alteration, as hitherto they had done, were swept away as by a torrent; and how depraved by luxury and avarice the youth were." Let them now, on their part, read to us any laws given by their gods to the Roman people, and directed against luxury and avarice. And would that they had only been silent on the subjects of chastity and modesty, and had not demanded from the people indecent and shameful practices, to which they lent a pernicious patronage by their so-called divinity. Let them read our commandments in the Prophets, Gospels, Acts of the Apostles or Epistles; let them peruse the large number of precepts against avarice and luxury which are everywhere read to the congregations that meet for this purpose, and which strike the ear, not with the uncertain sound of a philosophical discussion, but with the thunder of God's own oracle pealing from the clouds. And yet they do not impute to their gods the luxury and avarice, the cruel and dissolute manners, that had rendered the republic utterly wicked and corrupt, even before the coming of Christ; but whatever affliction their pride and effeminacy have exposed them to in these latter days, they furiously impute to our religion. If the kings of the earth and all their subjects, if all princes and judges of the earth, if young men and maidens, old and young, every age, and both sexes; if they whom the Baptist addressed, the publicans and the soldiers, were all together to hearken to and observe the precepts of the Christian religion regarding a just and virtuous life, then should the republic adorn the whole earth with its own felicity, and attain in life everlasting to the pinnacle of kingly glory. But because this man listens and that man scoffs, and most are enamored of the blandishments of vice rather than the wholesome severity of virtue, the people of Christ, whatever be their condition-whether they be kings, princes, judges, soldiers, or provincials, rich or poor, bond or free, male or female-are enjoined to endure this earthly republic, wicked and dissolute as it is, that so they may by this endurance win for themselves an eminent place in that most holy and august assembly of angels and republic of heaven, in which the will of God is the law.
BOOK II [XX] Verum tales cultores et dilectores deorum istorum, quorum etiam imitatores in sceleribus et flagitiis se esse laetantur, nullo modo curant pessimam ac flagitiosissimam unonJ esse rem publicam. "Tantum stet, inquiunt, tantum fioreat copiis referta, victoriis gloriosa, vel, quod est felicius, pace secura sit. Et quid ad nos? Immo id ad nos magis pertinet, si divitias quisque augeat semper, quae cotidianis effusionibus suppetant, per quas sibi etiam infirmiores subdat quisque potentior. Obsequantur divitibus pauperes causa saturitatis atque ut eorum patrociniis quieta inertia perfruantur, divites pauperibus ad clientelas et ad ministerium sui fastus abutantur. Populi plaudant non consultoribus utilitatum suarum, sed largitoribus voluptatum. Non dura iubeantur, non prohibeantur inpura. Reges non curent quam bonis, sed quam subditis regnent. Provinciae regibus non tamquam rectoribus morum, sed tamquam rerum dominatoribus et deliciarum suarum provisoribus seruiant, eosque non sinceriter honorent, sed knequiter ac/ seruiliter timeant. Quid alienae vineae potius quam quid suae vitae quisque noceat, legibus advertatur. Nullus ducatur ad iudicem, nisi qui alienae rei domui saluti vel cuiquam inuito fuerit inportunus aut noxius; ceterum de suis vel cum suis vel cum quibusque volentibus faciat quisqu e quod libet. Abundent publica scorta vel propter omnes, quibus frui placuerit, vel propter eos maxime, qui habere privata non possunt. Exstruantur amplissimae atque ornatissimae domus, opipara conuivia frequententur, ubi cuique libuerit et potuerit, diu noctuque ludatur bibatur, vomatur diffluatur. Saltationes undique concrepent, theatra inhonestae laetitiae vocibus atque omni genere sive crudelissimae sive turpissimae voluptatis exaestuent. Ille sit publicus inimicus, cui haec felicitas displicet; quisquis eam mutare vel auferre temptaverit, eum libera multitudo avertat ab auribus, euertat a sedibus, auferat a viventibus. Illi habeantur dii veri, qui hanc adipiscendam populis procuraverint adeptamque servaverint. Colantur ut voluerint, ludos exposcant quales voluerint, quos cum suis vel de suis possint habere cultoribus: tantum efficiant, ut tali felicitati nihil ab hoste, nihil a peste, nihil ab ulla clade timeatur. "Quis hanc rem publicam sanus, non dicam Romano imperio, sed domui Sardanapali comparaverit? qui quondam rex ita fuit voluptatibus deditus, ut in sepulcro suo scribi fecerit ea sola se habere mortuum, quae libido eius, etiam cum viveret, hauriendo consumpserat. Quem regem si isti haberent sibi in talibus indulgentem nec in eis cuiquam ulla seueritate adversantem, huic libentius quam Romani ueteres Romulo templum et flaminem consecrarent.	chapter 20. But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes. Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man's property, than of that done to one's own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbor, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit, dissipate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre; let a succession of the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy; and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it let him be silenced, banished, put an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind. What sane man would compare a republic such as this, I will not say to the Roman empire, but to the palace of Sardanapalus, the ancient king who was so abandoned to pleasures, that he caused it to be inscribed on his tomb, that now that he was dead, he possessed only those things which he had swallowed and consumed by his appetites while alive? If these men had such a king as this, who, while self-indulgent, should lay no severe restraint on them, they would more enthusiastically consecrate to him a temple and a flamen than the ancient Romans did to Romulus.
BOOK II [XXI] Sed si contemnitur qui Romanam rem publicam pessima" ac flagitiosissimam dixit, nec curant isti quanta morum pessimorum ac flagitiosorum labe ac dedecore impleatur, sed tantummodo ut consistat et maneat: audiant eam non, ut Sallustius narrat, pessimam ac flagitiosissimam factam, sed, sicut Cicero disputat, iam tunc prorsus perisse et nullam omnino remansisse rem publicam. Inducit enim Scipionem, eum ipsum qui Carthaginem extinxerat, de re publica disputantem, quand o pr a esentiebatur ea corruptione, quam describit Sallustius, iam iamque peritura. Eo quippe tempore disputatur, quo iam unus Gracchorum occisus fuit, a quo scribit seditiones graves coepisse Sallustius. Nam mortis eius fit in eisdem libris commemoratio. Cum autem Scipio in secundi libri fine dixisset, "ut in fidibus aut tibiis atque cantu ipso ac vocibus concentus est quidam tenendus ex distinctis sonis, quem inmutatum aut discrepantem aures eruditae ferre non possunt, isque concentus ex dissimillimarum vocum moderatione concors tamen efficitur et congruens: sic ex summis et infimis et mediis interiectis ordinibus, ut sonis, moderata ratione civitatem consensu dissimillimorum concinere, et quae harmonia a musicis dicitur in cantu, eam esse in civitate concordiam, artissimum atque optimum omni in re publica vinculum incolumitatis, eamque sine iustitia nullo pacto esse posse, "ac deinde cum aliquanto latius et uberius disseruisset, quantum prodesset iustitia civitati quantumque obesset, si afuisset, suscepit deinde Philus, unus eorum qui disputationi aderant, et poposcit, ut haec ipsa quaestio diligentius tractaretur ac de iustitia plura dicerentur, propter illud, quod iam uulgo ferebatur rem publicam regi sine iniuria non posse. Hanc proinde quaestionem discutiendam et enodandam esse adsensus est Scipio responditque nihil esse, quod adhuc de re publica dictum putaret, quo possent longius progredi, nisi esset confirmatum non modo falsum esse illud, sine iniuria non posse, sed hoc verissimum esse, sine summa iustitia rem publicam regi non posse. Cuius quaestionis explicatio cum in diem consequentem dilata esset, in tertio libro magna conflictione res acta est. Suscepit enim Philus ipse disputationem eorum, qui sentirent sine iniustitia geri non posse rem publicam, purgans praecipue, ne hoc ipse sentire crederetur, egitque sedulo pro iniustitia contra iustitiam, ut hanc esse utilem rei publicae, illam vero inutilem, veri similibus rationibus et exemplis velut conaretur ostendere. Tum Laelius rogantibus omnibus iustitiam defend ere a dgressus est adseruitque, quantum potuit, nihil tam inimicum quam iniustitiam civitati nec omnino nisi magna iustitia geri aut stare posse rem publicam. Qua quaestione, quantum satis visum est, pertractata Scipio ad intermissa reuertitur recolitque suam atque commendat breuem rei publicae definitionem, qua dixerat eam esse rem populi. Populum autem non omnem coetum multitudinis, sed coetum iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatum esse determinat. Docet deinde quanta sit in disputando definitionis utilitas, atque ex illis suis definitionibus colligit tunc esse rem publicam, id e st rem populi, cum bene ac iuste geritur sive ab uno rege sive a paucis optimatibus sive ab universo populo. Cum vero iniustus est rex, quem tyrannum more Graeco appellavit, aut iniusti optimates, quorum consensum dixit esse factionem, aut iniustus ipse populus, cui nomen usitatum non repperit, nisi ut etiam ipsum tyrannum vocaret: non iam vitiosam, sicut pridie fuerat disputatum, sed, sicut ratio ex illis definitionibus conexa docuisset, omnino nullam esse rem publicam, quoniam non esset res populi, cum tyrannus eam factiove capesseret, n ec ipse populus iam po p ul u s esset, si esset iniustus, quoniam non esset multitudo iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociata, sicut populus fuerat definitus. Quando ergo res publica Romana talis erat, qualem illam describit Sallustius, non iam pessima ac flagitiosissima, sicut ipse ait, sed omnino nulla erat secundum istam rationem, quam disputatio de re publica inter magnos eius tum principes habita patefecit. Sicut etiam ipse Tullius no n Sc i pi oni s nec cuiusquam alterius, sed suo sermone loquens in prJncipio quinti libri commemorato prius Enni poetae versu, quo dixerat: Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque. m Quem quidem ille versum, inquit, vel brevitate vel veritate tamquam e x o raculo quodam mihi esse effatus videtur. Nam neque viri, nisi ita morata civitas fuisset, neque mores, nisi hi viri praefuissent, aut fundare aut tam diu tenere potuissent tantam et tam uaste lateque imperantem rem publicam. Itaque ante nostram memoriam et mos ipse patrius praestantes viros adhibebat, et ueterem morem ac maiorum instituta retinebant excellentes viri. Nostra vero aetas cum rem publicam sicut picturam accepisset egregiam, sed euanescentem uetustate, non modo eam coloribus isdem quibus fuerat renouare neglexit, sed ne id quidem curavit, ut formam saltem eius et extrema tamquam liniamenta servaret. Quid enim manet ex antiquis moribus, quibus ille dixit rem stare Romanam, quos ita oblivione obsoletos videmus, ut non modo non colantur, sed iam ignorentur? Nam de viris quid dicam? Mores enim ipsi interierunt virorum penuria, cuius tanti mali non modo reddenda ratio nobis, sed etiam tamquam reis capitis quodam modo dicenda causa est. Nostris enim vitiis, non casu aliquo, rem publicam verbo retinemus, re ipsa vero iam pridem amisimus. w Haec Cicero fatebatur, longe quidem post mortem Africani, quem in suis libris fecit de re publica disputare, adhuc tamen ante adventum Christi; quae si diffamata et praeualescente religione Christiana sentirentur atque dicerentur, quis non istorum ea Christianis inputanda esse censeret? Quam ob rem cur non curarunt dii eorum, ne tunc periret atque amitteretur illa res publica, quam Cicero longe, antequam Christus in carne venisset, tam lugubriter deplorat amissam? Viderint laudatores eius etiam illis antiquis viris et moribus qualis fuerit, utrum in ea viguerit vera iustitia an forte nec tunc fuerit viva moribus, sed picta coloribus; quod et ipse Cicero nesciens, cum eam praeferret, expressit. Sed alias, si Dneus voluerit, hoc videbimus. Enitar enim suo loco, ut ostendam secundum definitiones ipsius Ciceronis, quibus quid sit res publica et quid sit populus loquente Scipione breviter posuit (adtestantibus etiam multis sive ipsius sive eorum quos loqui fecit in eadem disputatione sententiis), numquam illam fuisse rem publicam, quia numquam in ea fuerit vera iustitia. Secundum probabiliores autem definitiones pro suo modo quodam res publica fuit, et melius ab antiquioribus Romanis quam a posterioribus administrata est; vera autem iustitia non est nisi in ea re publica, cuius conditor rectorque Christus est, si et ipsam rem publicam placet dicere, quoniam eam rem populi esse negare non possumus. Si autem hoc nomen, quod alibi aliterque uulgatum est, ab usu nostrae locutionis est forte remotius, in ea certe civitate est vera iustitia, de qua scriptura sancta dicit: Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, civitas Dei.	chapter 21. But if our adversaries do not care how foully and disgracefully the Roman republic be stained by corrupt practices, so long only as it holds together and continues in being, and if they therefore pooh-pooh the testimony of Sallust to its "utterly wicked and profligate" condition, what will they make of Cicero's statement, that even in his time it had become entirely extinct, and that there remained extant no Roman republic at all? He introduces Scipio (the Scipio who had destroyed Carthage) discussing the republic, at a time when already there were presentiments of its speedy ruin by that corruption which Sallust describes. In fact, at the time when the discussion took place, one of the Gracchi, who, according to Sallust, was the first great instigator of seditions, had already been put to death. His death, indeed, is mentioned in the same book. Now Scipio, at the end of the second book, says: "As among the different sounds which proceed from lyres, flutes, and the human voice, there must be maintained a certain harmony which a cultivated ear cannot endure to hear disturbed or jarring, but which may be elicited in full and absolute concord by the modulation even of voices very unlike one another; so, where reason is allowed to modulate the diverse elements of the state, there is obtained a perfect concord from the upper, lower, and middle classes as from various sounds; and what musicians call harmony in singing, is concord in matters of state, which is the strictest bond and best security of any republic, and which by no ingenuity can be retained where justice has become extinct." Then, when he had expatiated somewhat more fully, and had more copiously illustrated the benefits of its presence and the ruinous effects of its absence upon a state, Pilus, one of the company present at the discussion, struck in and demanded that the question should be more thoroughly sifted, and that the subject of justice should be freely discussed for the sake of ascertaining what truth there was in the maxim which was then becoming daily more current, that "the republic cannot be governed without injustice." Scipio expressed his willingness to have this maxim discussed and sifted, and gave it as his opinion that it was baseless, and that no progress could be made in discussing the republic unless it was established, not only that this maxim, that "the republic cannot be governed without injustice," was false, but also that the truth is, that it cannot be governed without the most absolute justice. And the discussion of this question, being deferred till the next day, is carried on in the third book with great animation. For Pilus himself undertook to defend the position that the republic cannot be governed without injustice, at the same time being at special pains to clear himself of any real participation in that opinion. He advocated with great keenness the cause of injustice against justice, and endeavored by plausible reasons and examples to demonstrate that the former is beneficial, the latter useless, to the republic. Then, at the request of the company, Lжlius attempted to defend justice, and strained every nerve to prove that nothing is so hurtful to a state as injustice; and that without justice a republic can neither be governed, nor even continue to exist.When this question has been handled to the satisfaction of the company, Scipio reverts to the original thread of discourse, and repeats with commendation his own brief definition of a republic, that it is the weal of the people. "The people" he defines as being not every assemblage or mob, but an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by a community of interests. Then he shows the use of definition in debate; and from these definitions of his own he gathers that a republic, or "weal of the people," then exists only when it is well and justly governed, whether by a monarch, or an aristocracy, or by the whole people. But when the monarch is unjust, or, as the Greeks say, a tyrant; or the aristocrats are unjust, and form a faction; or the people themselves are unjust, and become, as Scipio for want of a better name calls them, themselves the tyrant, then the republic is not only blemished (as had been proved the day before), but by legitimate deduction from those definitions, it altogether ceases to be. For it could not be the people's weal when a tyrant factiously lorded it over the state; neither would the people be any longer a people if it were unjust, since it would no longer answer the definition of a people-"an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by a community of interests."When, therefore, the Roman republic was such as Sallust described it, it was not "utterly wicked and profligate," as he says, but had altogether ceased to exist, if we are to admit the reasoning of that debate maintained on the subject of the republic by its best representatives. Tully himself, too, speaking not in the person of Scipio or any one else, but uttering his own sentiments, uses the following language in the beginning of the fifth book, after quoting a line from the poet Ennius, in which he said, "Rome's severe morality and her citizens are her safeguard." "This verse," says Cicero, "seems to me to have all the sententious truthfulness of an oracle. For neither would the citizens have availed without the morality of the community, nor would the morality of the commons without outstanding men have availed either to establish or so long to maintain in vigor so grand a republic with so wide and just an empire. Accordingly, before our day, the hereditary usages formed our foremost men, and they on their part retained the usages and institutions of their fathers. But our age, receiving the republic as a chef-d'oeuvre of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not merely neglected to restore the colors of the original, but has not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general outline and most outstanding features. For what survives of that primitive morality which the poet called Rome's safeguard? It is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from practising it, one does not even know it. And of the citizens what shall I say? Morality has perished through poverty of great men; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and have long since lost the reality."This is the confession of Cicero, long indeed after the death of Africanus, whom he introduced as an interlocutor in his work De Republica, but still before the coming of Christ. Yet, if the disasters he bewails had been lamented after the Christian religion had been diffused, and had begun to prevail, is there a man of our adversaries who would not have thought that they were to be imputed to the Christians? Why, then, did their gods not take steps then to prevent the decay and extinction of that republic, over the loss of which Cicero, long before Christ had come in the flesh, sings so lugubrious a dirge? Its admirers have need to inquire whether, even in the days of primitive men and morals, true justice flourished in it; or was it not perhaps even then, to use the casual expression of Cicero, rather a colored painting than the living reality? But, if God will, we shall consider this elsewhere. For I mean in its own place to show that-according to the definitions in which Cicero himself, using Scipio as his mouthpiece, briefly propounded what a republic is, and what a people is, and according to many testimonies, both of his own lips and of those who took part in that same debate-Rome never was a republic, because true justice had never a place in it. But accepting the more feasible definitions of a republic, I grant there was a republic of a certain kind, and certainly much better administered by the more ancient Romans than by their modern representatives. But the fact is, true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic; and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people's weal. But if perchance this name, which has become familiar in other connections, be considered alien to our common parlance, we may at all events say that in this city is true justice; the city of which Holy Scripture says, "Glorious things are said of you, O city of God."
BOOK II [XXII] Sed quod pertinet ad praesentem quaestionem, quamlibet laudabilem dicant istam fuisse vel esse rem publicam, secundum eorum auctores doctissimos iam longe ante Christi adventum pessima ac f lagitio s issima facta erat; immo vero nulla erat atque omnino perierat perditissimis moribus. Vt ergo non periret, dii custodes eius populo cultori suo dare praecipue vitae ac morum praecepta debuerunt, a quo tot templis, tot sacerdotibus et sacrificiorum generibus, tam multiplicibus variisque sacris, tot festis sollemnitatibus, tot tantorumque ludorum celebritatibus colebantur; ubi nihil daemones nisi negotium suum egerunt, non curantes quem ad modum illi viverent, immo curantes ut etiam perdite viverent, dum tamen honori suo illa omnia metu subditi ministrarent. Aut si dederunt, proferatur ostendatur legatur, quas deorum leges illi civitati datas contempserint Gracchi, ut seditionibus cuncta turbarent, quas Marius et Cinna et Carbo, ut in bella etiam progrederentur civilia causis iniquissimis suscepta et crudeliter gesta crudeliusque finita, quas denique SmIa ipse, cuius vitam mores facta describente Sallustio aliisque scriptoribus historiae quis non exhorreat? quis illam rem publicam non tunc perisse fateatur? An forte propter huiusce modi civium mores ЎЃVergilianam illam sententiam, sicut solent, pro defensione deorum suorum opponere audebunt: Discessere omnes adytis arisque relictis Di, quibus imperium hoc steterat? Primum si ita est, non habent cur querantur de religione Christiana, quod hac offensi eos dii sui deseruerint, quoniam quidem maiores eorum iam pridem moribus suis ab Vrbis altaribus tam multos ac minutos deos tamquam muscas abegerunt. Sed tamen haec numinum turba ubi erat, cum longe antequam mores corrumperentur antiqui a Gallis Roma capta et incensa est? An praesentes forte dormiebant? Tunc enim tota Vrbe in hostium potestatem redacta solus collis Capitolinus remanserat, qui etiam ipse caperetur, nisi saltem anseres diis dormientibus vigilarent. Vnde paene in superstitionem Aegyptiorum bestias avesque colentium Roma deciderat, cum anseri sollemnia celebrabant. Verum de his adventiciis et corporis potius quam animi malis, quae vel ab hostibus vel alia clade accidunt, nondum interim disputo: nunc ago de labe morum, quibus primum paulatim decoloratis, deinde torrentis modo praecipitatis tanta quamuis integris tectis moenibusque facta est ruina rei publicae, ut magni auctores eorum eam tunc amissam non dubitent dicere. Recte autem abscesserant, ut amitteretur, omnes adytis arisque relictis di, si eorum de bona vita atque iustitia civitas praecepta contempserat. Nunc vero quales, quaeso, dii fuerunt, si noluerunt cum populo cultore suo vivere, quem male viventem non docuerant bene vivere?	chapter 22. But what is relevant to the present question is this, that however admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is, it is certain that by the testimony of their own most learned writers it had become, long before the coming of Christ, utterly wicked and dissolute, and indeed had no existence, but had been destroyed by profligacy. To prevent this, surely these guardian gods ought to have given precepts of morals and a rule of life to the people by whom they were worshipped in so many temples, with so great a variety of priests and sacrifices, with such numberless and diverse rites, so many festal solemnities, so many celebrations of magnificent games. But in all this the demons only looked after their own interest, and cared not at all how their worshippers lived, or rather were at pains to induce them to lead an abandoned life, so long as they paid these tributes to their honor, and regarded them with fear. If any one denies this, let him produce, let him point to, let him read the laws which the gods had given against sedition, and which the Gracchi transgressed when they threw everything into confusion; or those Marius, and Cinna, and Carbo broke when they involved their country in civil wars, most iniquitous and unjustifiable in their causes, cruelly conducted, and yet more cruelly terminated; or those which Sylla scorned, whose life, character, and deeds, as described by Sallust and other historians, are the abhorrence of all mankind. Who will deny that at that time the republic had become extinct?Possibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence of the gods, that they abandoned the city on account of the profligacy of the citizens, according to the lines of Virgil:"Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,Are those who made this realm divine."But, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the Christian religion, as if it were that which gave offence to the gods and caused them to abandon Rome, since the Roman immorality had long ago driven from the altars of the city a cloud of little gods, like as many flies. And yet where was this host of divinities, when, long before the corruption of the primitive morality, Rome was taken and burnt by the Gauls? Perhaps they were present, but asleep? For at that time the whole city fell into the hands of the enemy, with the single exception of the Capitoline hill; and this too would have been taken, had not-the watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods! And this gave occasion to the festival of the goose, in which Rome sank nearly to the superstition of the Egyptians, who worship beasts and birds. But of these adventitious evils which are inflicted by hostile armies or by some disaster, and which attach rather to the body than the soul, I am not meanwhile disputing. At present I speak of the decay of morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost its brilliant hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept away as by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous ruin, that though the houses and walls remained standing the leading writers do not scruple to say that the republic was destroyed. Now, the departure of the gods "from each fane, each sacred shrine," and their abandonment of the city to destruction, was an act of justice, if their laws inculcating justice and a moral life had been held in contempt by that city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who declined to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose corrupt life they had done nothing to reform?
BOOK II [XXIII] Quid quod etiam videntur eorum adfuisse cupiditatibus implendis, et ostenduntur non praefuisse kreVfrenandis, qui enim Marium nouum hominem et ignobilem, cruentissimum auctorem bellorum civilium atque gestorem, ut septiens consul fieret adivuerunt atque ut in septimo suo consulatu moreretur, senex ne in manus Sullae futuri mox victoris inrueret. Si enim ad haec eum dii eorum non ivuerunt, non parum est quod fatentur etiam non propitiis diis suis posse accidere homini istam temporalem, quam nimis diligunt, tantam felicitatem et posse homines, sicut fuit Marius, salute viribus, opibus honoribus, dignitate longaevitate cumulari et perfrui diis iratis; posse etiam homines, sicut fuit Regulus, captivitate seruitute inopia, vigiliis doloribus excruciari et emori diis amicis. Quod si ita esse concedunt, compendio nihil eos prodesse et coli superfluo confitentur. Nam si virtutibus animi et probitati vitae, cuius praernia post mortem speranda sunt, magis contraria ut popuIus disceret institerunt; si nihil etianI in his transeuntibus et temporalibus bonis vel eis quos oderunt nocent, vel eis quos diligunt prosunt, ut quid coluntur, ut quid tanto studio colendi requiruntur? Cur laboriosis tristibusque temporibus, tamquam offensi abscesserint, murmuratur et propter eos Christiana religio conuiciis indignissimis laeditur? Si autem habent in his rebus vel beneficii vel maleficii potestatem, cur in eis adfuerunt pessimo viro Mario, et optimo Regulo defuerunt? An ex hoc ipsi intelleguntur iniustissimi et pessimi? Quod si propterea magis timendi et colendi putantur: neque hoc putentur; neque enim minus eos invenitur ReguIus coluisse q uam M arius. Nec ideo vita pessima eligenda videatur, quia magis Mario quam Regulo dii favisse existimantur. Metellus enim Romanorum laudatissimus, qui habuit quinque filios consulares, etiam rerum temporalium felix fuit, et Catilina pessimus oppressus inopia et in bello sui sceleris prostratus infelix, et verissima atque certissima felicitate praepollent boni Deum colentes, a quo solo conferri potest. Illa igitur res publica malis moribus cum periret, nihil dii eorum pro dirigendis vel pro corrigendis egerunt moribus, ne periret; immo deprauandis et corrumpendis addiderunt moribus, ut periret. Nec se bonos fingant, quod velut offensi civium iniquitate discesserint. Prorsus ibi erant; produntur, conuincuntur; nec subvenire praecipiendo nec latere tacendo potuerunt. Omitto quod Marius a miserantibus Minturnensibus Maricae deae in luco eius commendatus est, ut ei omnia prosperaret, et ex summa desperatione reuersus incolumis in Vrbem duxit crudelem crudelis exercitum; ubi quam cruenta, quam incivilis hostilique inmanior eius victoria fuerit, eos qui scripserunt legant qui volunt. Sed hoc, ut dixi, omitto, nec Maricae nescio cui tribuo Marii sanguineam felicitatem, sed occultae potius providentiae Dei ad istorum ora claudenda eosque ab errore liberandos, qui non studiis agunt, sed haec prudenter advertunt, quia, etsi aliquid in his rebus daemones possunt, tantum possunt, quantum secreto omnipotentis arbitrio permittuntur, ne magnipendamus terrenam felicitatem, quae sicut Mario malis etiam plerumque conceditur, nec eam rursus quasi malam arbitremur, cum ea multos etiam pios ac bonos unius veri Dei cultores inuitis daemonibus praepolluisse videamus, nec eosdem inmundissimos spiritus vel propter haec ipsa bona malave terrena propitiandos aut timendos existimemus, quia, sicut ipsi mali homines in terra, sic etiam illi non omnia quae volunt facere possunt, nisi quantum illius ordinatione sinitur, cuius plene iudicia nemo conprehendit, iuste nemo reprehendit.	chapter 23. But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the fulfilment of men's desires, instead of authoritatively bridling them? For Marius, a low-born and self-made man, who ruthlessly provoked and conducted civil wars, was so effectually aided by them, that he was seven times consul, and died full of years in his seventh consulship, escaping the hands of Sylla, who immediately afterwards came into power. Why, then, did they not also aid him, so as to restrain him from so many enormities? For if it is said that the gods had no hand in his success, this is no trivial admission that a man can attain the dearly coveted felicity of this life even though his own gods be not propitious; that men can be loaded with the gifts of fortune as Marius was, can enjoy health, power, wealth, honours, dignity, length of days, though the gods be hostile to him; and that, on the other hand, men can be tormented as Regulus was, with captivity, bondage, destitution, watchings, pain, and cruel death, though the gods be his friends. To concede this is to make a compendious confession that the gods are useless, and their worship superfluous. If the gods have taught the people rather what goes clean counter to the virtues of the soul, and that integrity of life which meets a reward after death; if even in respect of temporal and transitory blessings they neither hurt those whom they hate nor profit whom they love, why are they worshipped, why are they invoked with such eager homage? Why do men murmur in difficult and sad emergencies, as if the gods had retired in anger? and why, on their account, is the Christian religion injured by the most unworthy calumnies? If in temporal matters they have power either for good or for evil, why did they stand by Marius, the worst of Rome's citizens, and abandon Regulus, the best? Does this not prove themselves to be most unjust and wicked? And even if it be supposed that for this very reason they are the rather to be feared and worshipped, this is a mistake; for we do not read that Regulus worshipped them less assiduously than Marius. Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is to be chosen, on the ground that the gods are supposed to have favored Marius more than Regulus. For Metellus, the most highly esteemed of all the Romans, who had five sons in the consulship, was prosperous even in this life; and Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty and defeated in the war his own guilt had aroused, lived and perished miserably. Real and secure felicity is the peculiar possession of those who worship that God by whom alone it can be conferred.It is thus apparent, that when the republic was being destroyed by profligate manners, its gods did nothing to hinder its destruction by the direction or correction of its manners, but rather accelerated its destruction by increasing the demoralization and corruption that already existed. They need not pretend that their goodness was shocked by the iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger. For they were there, sure enough; they are detected, convicted: they were equally unable to break silence so as to guide others, and to keep silence so as to conceal themselves. I do not dwell on the fact that the inhabitants of Minturnж took pity on Marius, and commended him to the goddess Marica in her grove, that she might give him success in all things, and that from the abyss of despair in which he then lay he forthwith returned unhurt to Rome, and entered the city the ruthless leader of a ruthless army; and they who wish to know how bloody was his victory, how unlike a citizen, and how much more relentlessly than any foreign foe he acted, let them read the histories. But this, as I said, I do not dwell upon; nor do I attribute the bloody bliss of Marius to, I know not what Minturnian goddess [Marica], but rather to the secret providence of God, that the mouths of our adversaries might be shut, and that they who are not led by passion, but by prudent consideration of events, might be delivered from error. And even if the demons have any power in these matters, they have only that power which the secret decree of the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may not set too great store by earthly prosperity, seeing it is oftentimes vouchsafed even to wicked men like Marius; and that we may not, on the other hand, regard it as an evil, since we see that many good and pious worshippers of the one true God are, in spite of the demons pre-eminently successful; and, finally, that we may not suppose that these unclean spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the sake of earthly blessings or calamities: for as wicked men on earth cannot do all they would, so neither can these demons, but only in so far as they are permitted by the decree of Him whose judgments are fully comprehensible, justly reprehensible by none.
BOOK II [XXIV] Sulla certe ipse, cuius tempora talia fuerunt, ut superiora, quorum vindex esse videbatur, illorum comparatione quaererentur, cum primum ad Vrbem contra Marium castra movisset, adeo laeta exta immolanti fuisse scribit Livius, ut custodiri se Postumius haruspex voluerit capitis supplicium subiturus, nisi ea, quae in animo Sulla haberet, diis ivuantibus implevisset. Ecce non discesserant adytis atque aris relictis di, quando de rerum euentu praedicebant nihilque de ipsius Sullae correctione curabant. Promittebant praesagando felicitatem magnam nec malam cupiditatem minando frangebant. Deinde cum esset in Asia bellum Mithridaticum gerens, per Lucium Titium ei mandatum est a love, quod esset Mithridatem superaturus, et factum est. Ac postea molienti redire in Vrbem et suas amicorumque iniurias civili sanguine ulcisci, iterum mandatum est ab eodem love per militem quendam legionis sextae, prius se de Mithridate praenuntiasse victoriam, et tunc promittere daturum se potestatem, qua recuperaret ab inimicis rem publicam non sine multo sanguine. Tum percontatus Sulla, quae forma militi visa fuerit, cum ille indicasset, eam recordatus est, quam prius ab illo audierat, qui de Mithridatica victoria ab eodem mandata pertulerat. Quid hic responderi potest, quare dii curaverint ueIut felicia ista nuntiare, et nullus eorum curaverit Sullam monendo corrigere mala tanta facturum scelestis annis civilibus, qualia non foedarent, sed auferrent omnino rem pubficam? Nempe intelleguntur daemones, sicut saepe dixi notumque nobis est in litteris sacris resque ipsae satis indicant, negotium suum agere, ut pro diis habeantur et colantur, ut ea illis exhibeantur, quibus hi qui exhibent sociati unam pessimam causam cum eis habeant in iudicio Dei. Deinde cum venisset Tarentum Sulla atque ibi sacrificasset, vidit in capite vitulini iecoris similitudinem coronae aureae. Tunc Postumius haruspex ille respondit praeclaram significare victoriam iussitque ut extis illis solus uesceretur. Postea paruo interuallo seruus cuiusdam Luci Pontii uaticinando clamavit: "A Bellona nuntius venio, victoria tua est, Sulla. w Deinde adiecit arsurum esse Capitolium. Hoc cum dixisset, continuo egressus e castris postero ffie concitatior reuersus est et Capitolium arsisse clamavit. Arserat autem re vera Capitolium. Quod quidem daemoni et praevidere facile fuit et celerrime nuntiare. Illud sane intende, quod ad causam maxime pertinet, sub qualibus diis esse cupiant, qui blasphemant Saluatorem voluntates fidelium a dominatu daemonum liberantem. Clamavit homo uaticinando: "Victoria tua est, Sulla, "atque ut id divino spiritu clamare crederetur, nuntiavit etiam aliquid et prope futurum et mox factum, unde longe aberat per quem ille spiritus loquebatur; non tamen clamavit: m Ab sceleribu s parce, Sulla w, quae illic victor tam horrenda commisit, cui corona aurea ipsius victoriae inlustrissimum signum in vitulino iecore apparuit, qualia signa si dii iusti dare solerent ac non daemones impii, profecto illis extis nefaria potius atque ipsi Sullae graviter noxia mala futura monstrarent. Neque enim eius dignitati tantum profuit illa victoria, quantum nocuit cupiditati; qua factum est, ut inmoderatis inhians et secundis rebus elatus ac praecipitatus magis ipse periret in moribus, quam inimicos in corporibus perderet. Haec illi dii vere tristia vereque lugenda non extis, non auguriis, non cuiusquam somnio vel uaticinio praenuntiabant. Magis enim timebant ne corrigeretur quam ne vinceretur. Immo satis agebant, ut victor civium gloriosus victus atque captivus nefandis vitiis et r haec ipsis etiam daemonibus multo obstrictius subderetur.	chapter 24. It is certain that Sylla-whose rule was so cruel that, in comparison with it, the preceding state of things which he came to avenge was regretted-when first he advanced towards Rome to give battle to Marius, found the auspices so favourable when he sacrificed, that, according to Livy's account, the augur Postumius expressed his willingness to lose his head if Sylla did not, with the help of the gods, accomplish what he designed. The gods, you see, had not departed from "every fane and sacred shrine," since they were still predicting the issue of these affairs, and yet were taking no steps to correct Sylla himself. Their presages promised him great prosperity but no threatenings of theirs subdued his evil passions. And then, when he was in Asia conducting the war against Mithridates, a message from Jupiter was delivered to him by Lucius Titius, to the effect that he would conquer Mithridates; and so it came to pass. And afterwards, when he was meditating a return to Rome for the purpose of avenging in the blood of the citizens injuries done to himself and his friends, a second message from Jupiter was delivered to him by a soldier of the sixth legion, to the effect that it was he who had predicted the victory over Mithridates, and that now he promised to give him power to recover the republic from his enemies, though with great bloodshed. Sylla at once inquired of the soldier what form had appeared to him; and, on his reply, recognized that it was the same as Jupiter had formerly employed to convey to him the assurance regarding the victory over Mithridates. How, then, can the gods be justified in this matter for the care they took to predict these shadowy successes, and for their negligence in correcting Sylla, and restraining him from stirring up a civil war so lamentable and atrocious, that it not merely disfigured, but extinguished, the republic? The truth is, as I have often said, and as Scripture informs us, and as the facts themselves sufficiently indicate, the demons are found to look after their own ends only, that they may be regarded and worshipped as gods, and that men may be induced to offer to them a worship which associates them with their crimes, and involves them in one common wickedness and judgment of God.Afterwards, when Sylla had come to Tarentum, and had sacrificed there, he saw on the head of the victim's liver the likeness of a golden crown. Thereupon the same soothsayer Postumius interpreted this to signify a signal victory, and ordered that he only should eat of the entrails. A little afterwards, the slave of a certain Lucius Pontius cried out, "I am Bellona's messenger; the victory is yours, Sylla!" Then he added that the Capitol should be burned. As soon as he had uttered this prediction he left the camp, but returned the following day more excited than ever, and shouted, "The Capitol is fired!" And fired indeed it was. This it was easy for a demon both to foresee and quickly to announce. But observe, as relevant to our subject, what kind of gods they are under whom these men desire to live, who blaspheme the Saviour that delivers the wills of the faithful from the dominion of devils. The man cried out in prophetic rapture, "The victory is yours, Sylla!" And to certify that he spoke by a divine spirit, he predicted also an event which was shortly to happen, and which indeed did fall out, in a place from which he in whom this spirit was speaking was far distant. But he never cried, "Forbear your villanies, Sylla!"-the villanies which were committed at Rome by that victor to whom a golden crown on the calf's liver had been shown as the divine evidence of his victory. If such signs as this were customarily sent by just gods, and not by wicked demons, then certainly the entrails he consulted should rather have given Sylla intimation of the cruel disasters that were to befall the city and himself. For that victory was not so conducive to his exaltation to power, as it was fatal to his ambition; for by it he became so insatiable in his desires, and was rendered so arrogant and reckless by prosperity, that he may be said rather to have inflicted a moral destruction on himself than corporal destruction on his enemies. But these truely woeful and deplorable calamities the gods gave him no previous hint of, neither by entrails, augury, dream, nor prediction. For they feared his amendment more than his defeat. Yea, they took good care that this glorious conqueror of his own fellow-citizens should be conquered and led captive by his own infamous vices, and should thus be the more submissive slave of the demons themselves.
BOOK II [XXV] Illinc vero quis non intellegat, quis non videat, nisi qui tales deos imitari magis elegit quam divina gratia ab eorum societate separari, quantum moliantur maligni isti spiritus exemplo suo velut divinam auctoritatem praebere sceleribus? quod etiam in quadam Campaniae lata planitie, ubi non multo p ost civiles acies nefario proelio conflixerunt, ipsi inter se prius pugnare visi sunt. Namque ibi auditi sunt primum ingentes fragores, moxque multi se vidisse nuntiarunt per aliquot dies duas acies proeliari. Quae pugna ubi destitit, uestigia quoque velut hominum et equorum, quanta de illa conflictatione exprimi poterant, invenerunt. Si ergo veraciter inter se numina pugnaverunt, iam bella civilia excusantur humana; consideretur tamen quae sit talium deorum vel malitia vel miseria: si autem se pugnasse finxerunt, quid aliud egerunt, nisi ut sibi Romani bellando civiliter tamquam deorum exemplo nullum nefas admittere viderentur? Iam enim coeperant bella civilia, et aliquot nefandorum proeliorum strages execranda praecesserat. Iam multos moverat, quod miles quidam, dum occiso spolia detraheret, fratrem nudato cadavere agnovit ac detestatus bella civilia se ipsum ibi perimens fraterno corpori adiunxit. Vt ergo huius tanti mali minime taederet, sed armorum scelestorum magis magisque ardor incresceret, noxii daemones, quos illi deos putantes colendos et venerandos arbitrabantur, inter se pugnantes hominibus apparere voluerunt, ne imitari tales pugnas civica trepidaret affectio, sed potius humanum scelus divino excusaretur exemplo. Hac astutia maligni spiritus etiam ludos, unde multa iam dixi, scaenicos sibi dicari sacrarique iusserunt, ubi tanta deorum flagitia theatricis canticis atque fabularum actionibus celebrata et quisquis eos fecisse crederet et quisquis non crederet, sed tamen illos libentissime sibi talia exhiberi cerneret, securus imitaretur. Ne quis itaque existimaret in deos conuicia potius quam eis dignum aliquid scriptitasse, ubicumque illos inter se pugnasse poetae commemorarunt, ipsi ad decipiendos homines poetarum carmina firmaverunt, pugnas videlicet suas non solum per scaenicos in theatro, verum etiam per se ipsos in campo humanis oculis exhibentes. Haec dicere compulsi sumus, quoniam pessimis moribus civium Romanam rem publicam iam antea perditam fuisse nullamque remansisse ante adventum Christi Jesu domini nostri auctores eorum dicere et scribere minime dubitarunt. Quam perditionem diis suis non inputant, qui mala transitoria, quibus boni, seu vivant seu moriantur, perire non possunt, Christo nostro inputant: cum Christus noster tanta frequentet pro moribus optimis praecepta contra perditos mores; dii vero ipsorum nullis talibus praeceptis egerint aliquid cum suo cultore populo pro illa re publica, ne periret; immo eosdem mores velut suis exemplis auctoritate noxia corrumpendo egerunt potius, ut periret. Quam non ideo tunc perisse quisquam, ut arbitror, iam dicere audebit, quia "discessere omnes adytis arisque relictis di", velut amici virtutibus, cum vitiis hominum offenderentur; quia tot signis extorum auguriorum uaticiniorum, quibus se tamquam praescios futurorum adiutoresque proeliorum iactare et commendare gestiebant, conuincuntur fuisse praesentes; qui si vere abscessissent, mitius Romani in bella civilia suis cupiditatibus quam illorum instigationibus exarsissent.	chapter 25. Now, who does not hereby comprehend,-unless he has preferred to imitate such gods rather than by divine grace to withdraw himself from their fellowship,-who does not see how eagerly these evil spirits strive by their example to lend, as it were, divine authority to crime? Is not this proved by the fact that they were seen in a wide plain in Campania rehearsing among themselves the battle which shortly after took place there with great bloodshed between the armies of Rome? For at first there were heard loud crashing noises, and afterwards many reported that they had seen for some days together two armies engaged. And when this battle ceased, they found the ground all indented with just such footprints of men and horses as a great conflict would leave. If, then, the deities were veritably fighting with one another, the civil wars of men are sufficiently justified; yet, by the way, let it be observed that such pugnacious gods must be very wicked or very wretched. If, however, it was but a sham-fight, what did they intend by this, but that the civil wars of the Romans should seem no wickedness, but an imitation of the gods? For already the civil wars had begun; and before this, some lamentable battles and execrable massacres had occurred. Already many had been moved by the story of the soldier, who, on stripping the spoils of his slain foe, recognized in the stripped corpse his own brother, and, with deep curses on civil wars, slew himself there and then on his brother's body. To disguise the bitterness of such tragedies, and kindle increasing ardor in this monstrous warfare, these malign demons, who were reputed and worshipped as gods, fell upon this plan of revealing themselves in a state of civil war, that no compunction for fellow-citizens might cause the Romans to shrink from such battles, but that the human criminality might be justified by the divine example. By a like craft, too, did these evil spirits command that scenic entertainments, of which I have already spoken, should be instituted and dedicated to them. And in these entertainments the poetical compositions and actions of the drama ascribed such iniquities to the gods, that every one might safely imitate them, whether he believed the gods had actually done such things, or, not believing this, yet perceived that they most eagerly desired to be represented as having done them. And that no one might suppose, that in representing the gods as fighting with one another, the poets had slandered them, and imputed to them unworthy actions, the gods themselves, to complete the deception, confirmed the compositions of the poets by exhibiting their own battles to the eyes of men, not only through actions in the theatres, but in their own persons on the actual field.We have been forced to bring forward these facts, because their authors have not scrupled to say and to write that the Roman republic had already been ruined by the depraved moral habits of the citizens, and had ceased to exist before the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this ruin they do not impute to their own gods, though they impute to our Christ the evils of this life, which cannot ruin good men, be they alive or dead. And this they do, though our Christ has issued so many precepts inculcating virtue and restraining vice; while their own gods have done nothing whatever to preserve that republic that served them, and to restrain it from ruin by such precepts, but have rather hastened its destruction, by corrupting its morality through their pestilent example. No one, I fancy, will now be bold enough to say that the republic was then ruined because of the departure of the gods "from each fane, each sacred shrine," as if they were the friends of virtue, and were offended by the vices of men. No, there are too many presages from entrails, auguries, soothsayings, whereby they boastingly proclaimed themselves prescient of future events and controllers of the fortune of war,-all which prove them to have been present. And had they been indeed absent the Romans would never in these civil wars have been so far transported by their own passions as they were by the instigations of these gods.
BOOK II [XXVI] Quae cum ita sint, cum palam aperteque turpitudines crudelitatibus mixtae, opprobria numinum et crimina, sive prodita sive conficta, ipsis exposcentibus et nisi fieret irascentibus etiam certis et statutis sollemnitatibus consecrata illis et dicata claruerint atque ad omnium oculos, ut imitanda proponerentur, spectanda processerint: quid est, quod idem ipsi daemones, qui se huiusce modi voluptatibus inmundos esse spiritus confitentur, qui suis flagitiis et facinoribus, sive indicatis sive simulatis, eorumque sibi celebratione petita ab inpudentibus, extorta a pudentibus auctores se vitae scelestae inmundaeque testantur, perhibentur tamen in adytis suis secretisque penetralibus dare quaedam bona praecepta de moribus quibusdam velut electis sacratis suis? Quod si ita est, hoc ipso callidior advertenda est et conuincenda malitia spirituum noxiorum. Tanta enim vis est probitatis et castitatis, ut omnis vel paene omnis eius laude moveatur humana natura, nec usque adeo sit turpitudine vitiosa, ut totum sensum honestatis amiserit. Proinde malignitas daemonum, nisi alicubi se, quem ad modum scriptum in nostris litteris novimus, transfjguret in angelos lucis, non implet negotium deceptionis. Foris itaque populis celeberrimo strepitu impietas impura circumsonat, et intus paucis castitas simulata vix sonat; praebentur propatula pudendis et secreta laudandis; decus latet et dedecus patet; quod malum geritur omnes conuocat spectatores, quod bonum dicitur vix aliquos invenit auditores, tamquam honesta erubescenda sint et inhonesta glorianda. Sed ubi hoc nisi in daemonum templis? ubi nisi in fallaciae diversoriis? Illud enim fit, ut honestiores, qui pauci sunt, capiantur; hoc autem, ne plures, qui sunt turpissimi, corrigantur. Vbi et quando sacrati Caelestis audiebant castitatis praecepta, nescimus; ante ipsum tamen deIubrum, ubi simulacrum illud locatum conspiciebamus, universi undique confluentes et ubi quisque poterat stantes ludos qui agebantur intentissime spectabamus, intuentes alternante conspectu hinc meretriciam pompam, illinc virginem deam; illam suppliciter adorari, ante illam turpia celebrari; non ibi pudibundos mimos, nullam verecundiorem scaenicam vidimus; cuncta obscenitatis implebantur officia. Sciebatur virginali numini quid placeret, et exhibebatur quod de templo domum matrona doJctior reportaret. Nonnullae pudentiores avertebant faciem aIu impuris motibus scaenicorum et artem flagitii furtiva intentione discebant. Hominibus namque verecundabantur, ne auderent impudicos gestus ore libero cernere; sed multo minus audebant sacra eius, quam venerabantur, casto corde damnare. Hoc tamen palam discendum praebebatur in templo, ad quod perpetrandum saltem secretum quaerebatur in domo, mirante nimium, si ullus ibi erat, pudore mortalium, quod humana flagitia non libere homines committerent, quae apud deos etiam religiose discerent iratos habituri, nisi etiam exhibere curarent. Quis enim alius spiritus occulto instinctu nequissimas agitans mentes et instat faciendis adulteriis et pascitur factis, nisi qui etiam sacris talibus oblectatur, constituens in templis simulacra daemonum, amans in ludis simulacra vitiorum, susurrans in occulto verba iustitiae ad decipiendos etiam paucos bonos, equentans in aperto inuitamenta nequitiae ad possidendos innumerabiles malos?	chapter 26. Seeing that this is so,-seeing that the filthy and cruel deeds, the disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether real or feigned, were at their own request published, and were consecrated, and dedicated in their honor as sacred and stated solemnities; seeing they vowed vengeance on those who refused to exhibit them to the eyes of all, that they might be proposed as deeds worthy of imitation, why is it that these same demons, who by taking pleasure in such obscenities, acknowledge themselves to be unclean spirits, and by delighting in their own villanies and iniquities, real or imaginary, and by requesting from the immodest, and extorting from the modest, the celebration of these licentious acts, proclaim themselves instigators to a criminal and lewd life;-why, I ask, are they represented as giving some good moral precepts to a few of their own elect, initiated in the secrecy of their shrines? If it be so, this very thing only serves further to demonstrate the malicious craft of these pestilent spirits. For so great is the influence of probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all men, are moved by the praise of these virtues; nor is any man so depraved by vice, but he has some feeling of honor left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light, 2 Corinthians 11:14 he could not compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamor; in private, a feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to a few: an open stage is provided for shameful things, but on the praiseworthy the curtain falls: grace hides disgrace flaunts: a wicked deed draws an overflowing house, a virtuous speech finds scarce a hearer, as though purity were to be blushed at, impurity boasted of. Where else can such confusion reign, but in devils' temples? Where, but in the haunts of deceit? For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous, who are few in number; the wicked examples are exhibited to encourage the vicious, who are countless.Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of C_S lestis received any good instructions, we know not. What we do know is, that before her shrine, in which her image is set, and amidst a vast crowd gathering from all quarters, and standing closely packed together, we were intensely interested spectators of the games which were going on, and saw, as we pleased to turn the eye, on this side a grand display of harlots, on the other the virgin goddess; we saw this virgin worshipped with prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no shame-faced mimes, no actress over-burdened with modesty; all that the obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were plainly shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the matron who witnessed the spectacle returned home from the temple a wiser woman. Some, indeed, of the more prudent women turned their faces from the immodest movements of the players, and learned the art of wickedness by a furtive regard. For they were restrained, by the modest demeanor due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest gestures; but much more were they restrained from condemning with chaste heart the sacred rites of her whom they adored. And yet this licentiousness-which, if practised in one's home, could only be done there in secret-was practised as a public lesson in the temple; and if any modesty remained in men, it was occupied in marvelling that wickedness which men could not unrestrainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of the gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the anger of the gods. What spirit can that be, which by a hidden inspiration stirs men's corruption, and goads them to adultery, and feeds on the full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of vices; that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy, to gain possession of the millions who are wicked?
BOOK II [XXVII] Vir gravis et philosophaster Tullius aedilis futurus clamat in auribus civitatis, inter cetera sui magistratus officia sibi Floram matrem ludorum celebritate placandam; qui ludi tanto deuotius, quanto turpius celebrari solent. Dicit alio loco iam consul in extremis periculis civitatis, et ludos per decem dies factos, neque rem ullam quae ad placandos deos pertineret praetermissam; quasi non satius erat tales deos inritare temperantia quam placare luxuria, et eos honestate etiam ad inimicitias prouocare quam tanta deformitate lenire. Neque enim gravius fuerant quamlibet crudelissima inmanitate nocituri homines, propter quos placabantur, quam nocebant ipsi, cum vitiositate foedissima placarentur. Quando quidem ut averteretur quod metuebatur ab hoste in corporibus, eo modo dii conciliabantur, quo virtus debellaretur in mentibus, qui non opponerentur defensores oppugnatoribus moenium, nisi prius fierent expugnatores morum bonorum. Hanc talium numinum placation em petulantissimam inpurissimam inpudentissimam nequissimam inmundissimam, cuius actores laudanda Romanae virtutis indoles honore privavit tribu movit, agnovit turpes fecit infames, hanc, inquam, pudendam veraeque religioni aversandam et detestandam talium numinum placationem, fabulas in deos inlecebrosa atque criminosas, haec ignominiosa deorum vel scelerate turpiterque facta vel sceleratius turpiusque conficta oculis et auribus publicis civitas tota discebat, haec commissa numinibus placere cernebat, et ideo non solum illis exhibenda, sed sibi quoque imitanda credebat, non illud nescio quid velut bonum et honestum, quod tam paucis et tam occulte dicebatur (si tamen dicebatur), ut magis ne innotesceret, quam ne non fieret, timeretur.	chapter 27. Cicero, a weighty man, and a philosopher in his way, when about to be made edile, wished the citizens to understand that, among the other duties of his magistracy, he must propitiate Flora by the celebration of games. And these games are reckoned devout in proportion to their lewdness. In another place, and when he was now consul, and the state in great peril, he says that games had been celebrated for ten days together, and that nothing had been omitted which could pacify the gods: as if it had not been more satisfactory to irritate the gods by temperance, than to pacify them by debauchery; and to provoke their hate by honest living, than soothe it by such unseemly grossness. For no matter how cruel was the ferocity of those men who were threatening the state, and on whose account the gods were being propitiated, it could not have been more hurtful than the alliance of gods who were won with the foulest vices. To avert the danger which threatened men's bodies, the gods were conciliated in a fashion that drove virtue from their spirits; and the gods did not enrol themselves as defenders of the battlements against the besiegers, until they had first stormed and sacked the morality of the citizens. This propitiation of such divinities,-a propitiation so wanton, so impure, so immodest, so wicked, so filthy, whose actors the innate and praiseworthy virtue of the Romans disabled from civic honors, erased from their tribe, recognized as polluted and made infamous;-this propitiation, I say, so foul, so detestable, and alien from every religious feeling, these fabulous and ensnaring accounts of the criminal actions of the gods, these scandalous actions which they either shamefully and wickedly committed, or more shamefully and wickedly feigned, all this the whole city learned in public both by the words and gestures of the actors. They saw that the gods delighted in the commission of these things, and therefore believed that they wished them not only to be exhibited to them, but to be imitated by themselves. But as for that good and honest instruction which they speak of, it was given in such secrecy, and to so few (if indeed given at all), that they seemed rather to fear it might be divulged, than that it might not be practised.
BOOK II [XXVIII] Ab istarum inmundissimarum potestatum tartareo iugo et societate poenali erui per Christi nomen homines et in lucem saluberrimae pietatis ab illa perniciosissimae impietatis nocte transferri queruntur et murmurant iniqui et ingrati et illo nefario spiritu altius obstrictiusque possessi, quia populi confluunt ad ecclesiam casta celebritate, honesta utriusque sexus discretione, ubi audiant quam bene hic ad tempus vivere debeant, ut post hanc vitam beate semperque vivere mereantur, ubi sancta scriptura iustitiaeque doctrina de superiore loco in conspectu omnium personante et qui faciunt audiant ad praemium, et qui non faciunt audiant ad iudicium. Quo etsi veniunt quidam talium praeceptorum inrisores, omnis eorum petulantia aut repentina mutatione deponitur, aut timore vel pudore comprimitur. Nihil enim eis turpe ac flagitiosum spectandum imitandumque proponitur, ubi veri Dei aut praecepta insinuantur aut miracula narrantur, aut dona laudantur aut beneficia p ostulantur.	chapter 28. They, then, are but abandoned and ungrateful wretches, in deep and fast bondage to that malign spirit, who complain and murmur that men are rescued by the name of Christ from the hellish thraldom of these unclean spirits, and from a participation in their punishment, and are brought out of the night of pestilential ungodliness into the light of most healthful piety. Only such men could murmur that the masses flock to the churches and their chaste acts of worship, where a seemly separation of the sexes is observed; where they learn how they may so spend this earthly life, as to merit a blessed eternity hereafter; where Holy Scripture and instruction in righteousness are proclaimed from a raised platform in presence of all, that both they who do the word may hear to their salvation, and they who do it not may hear to judgment. And though some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is either quenched by a sudden change, or is restrained through fear or shame. For no filthy and wicked action is there set forth to be gazed at or to be imitated; but either the precepts of the true God are recommended, His miracles narrated, His gifts praised, or His benefits implored.
BOOK II [XXIX] Haec potius concupisce, o indoles Romana laudabilis, o progenies Regulorum Scaeuolarum, Scipionum Fabriciorum; haec potius concupisce, haec ab illa turpissima uanitate et fallacissima daemonum malignitate discerne. Si quid in te laudabile naturaliter eminet, non nisi vera pietate purgatur atque perficitur, impietate autem disperditur et punitur. Nunc iam elige quid sequaris, ut non in te, sed in Deo vero sine ullo errore lauderis. Tunc enim tibi gloria popularis adfuit, sed occulto iudicio divinae providentiae vera religio quam eligeres defuit. Expergiscere, dies est, sicut experrecta es in quibusdam, de quorum virtute perfecta et pro fide vera etiam passionibus gloriamur, qui usquequaque adversus potestates inimicissimas confligentes easque fortiter moriendo vincentes m sanguine nobis hanc patriam peperere suo w. Ad quam patriam te inuitamus et exhortamur, ut eius adiciaris numero civium, cuius quodam modo asylum est vera remissio peccatorum. Non audias degeneres tuos Christo Christianisue detrahentes et accusantes velut tempora mala, cum quaerant tempora, quibus non sit quieta vita, sed potius secura nequitia. Haec tibi numquam nec pro terrena patria placuerunt. Nunc iam caelestem arripe, pro qua minimum laborabis, et in ea veraciter semperque regnabis. Illic enim tibi non Vestalis focus, non lapis Capitolinus, sed Deus unus et verus nec metas rerum nec tempora ponit, Imperium sine fine dabit. Noli deos falsos fallacesque requirere; abice potius atque contemne in veram emicans libertatem. Non sunt dii, maligni sunt spiritus, quibus aeterna tua felicitas poena est. Non tam luno Troianis, a quibus carnalem originem ducis, arces videtur inuidisse Romanas, quam isti daemones, quos adhuc deos putas, omni generi hominum sedes inuident sempiternas. Et tu ipsa non parua ex parte de talibus spiritibus iudicasti, quando ludis eos placasti, et per quos homines eosdem Iudos fecisti, infames esse voluisti. Patere asseri libertatem tuam adversus inmundos spiritus, qui tuis ceruicibus inposuerant sacrandam sibi et celebrandam ignominiam suam. Actores criminum divinorum removisti ab honoribus tuis: supplica Deo vero, ut a te removeat illos deos, qui delectantur criminibus suis, seu veris, quod ignominiosissimum est, seu falsis, quod malitiosissimum <est>. Bene, quod tua sponte histrionibus et scaenicis societatem civitatis patere noluisti; evigila plenius! Nullo modo his artibus placatur divina maiestas, quibus humana dignitas inquinatur. Quo igitur pacto deos, qui talibus delectantur obsequiis, haberi putas in numero sanctarum caelestium potestatum, cum homines, per quos eadem aguntur obsequia, non putasti habendos in numero qualiumcumque civium Romanorum? Incomparabiliter superna est civitas clarior, ubi victoria veritas, ubi dignitas saanctitas, ubi pax felicitas, ubi vita aeternitas. Multo minus habetin sua societate tales deos, si tu in tua tales homines habere erubuisti. Proinde si ad beatam pervenire desideras civitatem, devita daemonum societatem. Indigne ab honestis coluntur, qui per turpes placantur. Sic isti a tua pietate removeantur purgatione Christiana, quo modo illi a tua dignitate remoti sunt notatione censoria. De bonis autem carnalibus, quibus solis mali perfrui volunt, et de malis carnalibus, quae sola perpeti nolunt, quod neque in his habeant quam putantur habere isti daemones potestatem (quamquam si haberent, deberemus potius etiam ista contemnere, quam propter ista illos colere et eos colendo ad illa, quae nobis inuident, pervenire non posse), _ tamen nec in istis eos hoc valere, quod hi putant, qui propter haec eos coli oportere contendunt, deinceps videbimus, ut hic sit huius voluminis.	chapter 29. This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable Roman race,-the progeny of your Scжvolas and Scipios, of Regulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no error. For of popular glory you have had your share; but by the secret providence of God, the true religion was not offered to your choice. Awake, it is now day; as you have already awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and sufferings for the true faith we glory: for they, contending on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours with their blood; to which country we invite you, and exhort you to add yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city, which also has a sanctuary of its own in the true remission of sins. Do not listen to those degenerate sons of yours who slander Christ and Christians, and impute to them these disastrous times, though they desire times in which they may enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life. Such has never been Rome's ambition even in regard to her earthly country. Lay hold now on the celestial country, which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and for ever. For there shall you find no vestal fire, no Capitoline stone, but the one true God."No date, no goal will here ordain:But grant an endless, boundless reign."No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods; abjure them rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty. Gods they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal happiness will be a sore punishment. Juno, from whom you deduce your origin according to the flesh, did not so bitterly grudge Rome's citadels to the Trojans, as these devils whom yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of mankind. And you yourself hast in no wavering voice passed judgment on them, when you pacified them with games, and yet accounted as infamous the men by whom the plays were acted. Suffer us, then, to assert your freedom against the unclean spirits who had imposed on your neck the yoke of celebrating their own shame and filthiness. The actors of these divine crimes you have removed from offices of honor; supplicate the true God, that He may remove from you those gods who delight in their crimes,-a most disgraceful thing if the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious invention if the crimes are feigned. Well done, in that you have spontaneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors and players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man. How, then, can you believe that gods who take pleasure in such lewd plays, belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven, when the men by whom these plays are acted are by yourselves refused admission into the number of Roman citizens even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity. Much less does it admit into its society such gods, if you blush to admit such men into yours. Wherefore, if you would attain to the blessed city, shun the society of devils. They who are propitiated by deeds of shame, are unworthy of the worship of right-hearted men. Let these, then, be obliterated from your worship by the cleansing of the Christian religion, as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor's mark.But, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only blessings the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which alone they shrink from enduring, we will show in the following book that the demons have not the power they are supposed to have; and although they had it, we ought rather on that account to despise these blessings, than for the sake of them to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the attainment of these blessings they grudge us. But that they have not even this power which is ascribed to them by those who worship them for the sake of temporal advantages, this, I say, I will prove in the following book; so let us here close the present argument.