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WHEN I consider and mentally review my remembrance of Octavius,
my excellent and most faithful companion, the sweetness and charm of
the man so clings to me, that I appear to myself in some sort as if I
were returning to past times, and not merely recalling in my
recollection things which have long since happened and gone by. Thus,
in the degree in which the actual contemplation of him is withdrawn
from my eyes, it is bound up in my heart and in my most intimate
feelings. And it was not without reason that that remarkable and holy
man, when he departed this life, left to me an unbounded regret for
him, especially since he himself also glowed with such a love for me at
all times, that, whether in matters of amusement or of business, he
agreed with me in similarity of will, in either liking or disliking the
same things.(1) You would think that one mind had been shared between
us two. Thus he alone was my confidant in my loves, my companion in my
mistakes; and when, after the gloom had been dispersed, I emerged from
the abyss of darkness into the light of wisdom and truth, he did not
cast off his associate, but—what is more glorious still—he
outstripped him. And thus, when my thoughts were traversing the entire
period of our intimacy and friendship, the direction of my mind fixed
itself chiefly on that discourse of his, wherein by very weighty
arguments he converted Caecilius, who was still cleaving to
superstitious vanities, to the true religion.(2)
For, for the sake of business and of visiting me, Octavius had
hastened to Rome, having left his home, his wife, his children, and
that which is most attractive in children, while yet their innOCent
years are attempting only half-uttered words,—a language all the
sweeter for the very imperfection of the faltering tongue. And at this
his arrival I cannot express in words with how great and with how
impatient a joy I exulted, since the unexpected presence of a man so
very dear to me greatly enhanced my gladness. Therefore, after one or
two days, when the frequent enjoyment of our continual association had
satisfied the craving of affection, and when we had ascertained by
mutual narrative all that we were ignorant of about one another by
reason of our separation, we agreed to go to that very pleasant city
Ostia, that my body might have a soothing and appropriate remedy for
drying its humours from the marine bathing, especially as the holidays
of the courts at the vintage-time had released me from my cares. For at
that time, after the summer days, the autumn season was tending to a
milder temperature. And thus, when in the early morning we were going
towards the sea along the shore (of the Tiber), that both the breathing
air might gently refresh our limbs, and that the yielding sand might
sink down under our easy footsteps with excessive pleasure; Caecilius,
observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth, as is the
custom of the superstitious common people, and pressed a kiss on it
with his lips.
Then Octavius said: "It is not the part of a good man, my brother
Marcus, so to desert a man who abides by your side at home and abroad,
in this blindness of vulgar ignorance, as that you should suffer him in
such broad daylight as this to give himself up to stones, however they
may be carved into images, anointed and crowned; since you know that
the disgrace of this his error redounds in no less degree to your
discredit than to his own." With this discourse of his we passed over
the distance between the city and the sea, and we were now walking on
the broad and open shore· There the gently rippling wave was smoothing
the outside sands as if it would level them for a promenade; and as the
sea is always restless, even when the winds are lulled, it came up on
the shore, although not with waves crested and foaming, yet with waves
crisped and cuffing. Just then we were excessively delighted at its
vagaries, as on the very threshold of the water we were wetting the
soles of our feet, and it now by turns approaching broke upon our feet,
and now the wave retiring and retracing its course, sucked itself back
into itself. And thus, slowly and quietly going along, we tracked the
coast of the gently bending shore, beguiling the way with stories.
These stories were related by Octavius, who was discoursing on
navigation. But when we had occupied a sufficiently reasonable time of
our walk with discourse, retracing the same way again, we trod the path
with reverted footsteps. And when we came to that place where the
little ships, drawn up on an oaken framework, were lying at rest
supported above the (risk of) ground-rot, we saw some boys eagerly
gesticulating as they played at throwing shells into the sea. This play
is: To choose a shell from the shore, rubbed and made smooth by the
tossing of the waves; to take hold of the shell in a horizontal
position with the fingers; to whiff it along sloping and as low down as
possible upon the waves, that when thrown it may either skim the back
of the wave, or may swim as it glides along with a smooth impulse, or
may spring up as it cleaves the top of the waves, and rise as if lifted
up with repeated springs. That boy claimed to be conqueror whose shell
both went out furthest, and leaped up most frequently.
And thus, while we were all engaged in the enjoyment of this
spectacle, Caecilius was paying no attention, nor laughing at the
contest; but silent, uneasy, standing apart, confessed by his
countenance that he was grieving for I knew not what. To whom I said:
"What is the matter? Wherefore do I not recognise, Caecilius, your
usual liveliness? and why do I seek vainly for that joyousness which is
characteristic of your · glances even in serious matters?" Then said
he: "For some time our friend Octavius' speech has bitterly vexed and
worried me, in which he, attacking you, reproached you with negligence,
that he might under cover of that charge more seriously condemn me for
ignorance. Therefore I shall proceed further: the matter is now wholly
and entirely between me and Octavius. If he is willing that I, a man of
that form of opinion, should argue with him, he will now at once
perceive that it is easier to hold an argument among his comrades, than
to engage in close conflict after the manner of the philosophers. Let
us be seated on those rocky barriers that are cast there for the
protection of the baths, and that run far out into the deep, that we
may be able both to rest after our journey, and to argue with more
attention," And at his word we sat down, so that, by covering me on
either side, they sheltered me in the midst of the three.(1) Nor was
this a matter of observance, or of rank, or of honour, because
friendship always either receives or makes equals; but that, as an
arbitrator, and being near to both, I might give my attention, and
being in the middle, I might separate the two. Then Caecilius began
thus: —
"Although to you, Marcus my brother, the subject on which
especially we are inquiring is not in doubt, inasmuch as, being
carefully informed in both kinds of life, you have rejected the one and
assented to the other, yet in file present case your mind must be so
fashioned that you may hold the balance of a most just judge, nor lean
with a disposition to one side (more than another), lest your decision
may seem not to arise so much from our arguments, as to be originated
from your own perceptions. Accordingly, if you sit in judgment on me,
as a person who is new, and as one ignorant of either side, there is no
difficulty in making plain that all things in human affairs are
doubtful, uncertain, and unsettled, and that all things are rather
probable than true. Wherefore it is the less(1) wonderful that some,
from the weariness of thoroughly investigating truth, should rashly
succumb to any sort of opinion rather than persevere in exploring it
with persistent diligence. And thus all men must be indignant, all men
must feel pain,(2) that certain persons—and these unskilled in
learning, strangers to literature, without knowledge even(3) of sordid
arts—should dare to determine on any certainty concerning the nature
at large, and the (divine) majesty, of which so many of the multitude
of sects in all ages (still doubt), and philosophy itself deliberates
still. Nor without reason; since the mediocrity of human intelligence
is so far from (the capacity of) divine investigation, that neither is
it given us to know, nor is it permitted to search, nor is it religious
to ravish,(4) the things that are supported in suspense in the heaven
above us, nor the things which are deeply submerged below the earth;
and we may rightly seem sufficiently happy and sufficiently prudent,
if, according to that ancient oracle of the sage, we should know
ourselves intimately. But even if we indulge in a senseless and useless
labour, and wander away beyond the limits proper to our humility, and
though, inclined towards the earth, we transcend with daring ambition
heaven itself, and the very stars, let us at least not entangle this
error with vain and fearful opinions. Let the seeds of all things have
been in the beginning condensed by a nature combining them in
itself—what God is the author here? Let the members of the whole world
be by fortuitous concurrences united digested, fashioned—what God is
the contriver? Although fire may have lit up the stars; although (the
lightness of) its own material may have suspended the heaven; although
its own material may have established the earth by its weight;(5) and
although the sea may have flowed in from moisture,(6) whence is this
religion? Whence this fear? What is this superstition? Man, and every
animal which is born, inspired with life, and nourished,(7) is as a
voluntary concretion of the elements, into which again man and every
animal is divided, resolved, and dissipated. So all things flow back
again into their source, and are turned again into themselves, without
any artificer, or judge, or creator. Thus the seeds of fires, being
gathered together, cause other suns, and again others, always to shine
forth. Thus the vapours of the earth, being exhaled, cause the mists
always to grow, which being condensed and collected, cause the clouds
to rise higher; and when they fall, cause the rains to flow, the winds
to blow, the hail to rattle down; or when the clouds clash together,
they cause the thunder to bellow, the lightnings to grow red, the
thunderbolts to gleam forth. Therefore they fall everywhere, they rush
on the mountains, they strike the trees; without any choice,(8) they
blast places sacred and profane; they smite mischievous men, and often,
too, religious men. Why should I speak of tempests, various and
uncertain, wherein the attack upon all things is tossed about without
any order or discrimination?—in shipwrecks, that the fates of good and
bad men are jumbled together, their deserts confounded?—in
conflagrations, that the destruction of innocent and guilty is
united?—and when with the plague-taint of the sky a region is stained,
that all perish without distinction?—and when the heat of war is
raging, that it is the better men who generally fall? In peace also,
not only is wickedness put on the same level with (the lot of) those
who are better, but it is also regarded in such esteem,(9) that, in the
case of many people, you know not whether their depravity is most to be
detested, or their felicity to be desired. But if the world were
governed by divine providence and by the authority of any deity,
Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved to reign, Rutilius and
Camillus would never have merited banishment, Socrates would never have
merited the poison. Behold the fruit-bearing trees, behold the harvest
already white, the vintage, already dropping, is destroyed by the rain,
is beaten down by the hail. Thus either an uncertain truth is hidden
from us, and kept back; or, which is rather to be believed, in these
various and wayward chances, fortune, unrestrained by laws, is ruling
over us.
"Since, then, either fortune is certain or nature is uncertain,
how much more reverential and better it is, as the high priests of
truth, to receive the teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the
religions handed down to you, to adore the gods whom you were first
trained by your parents to fear rather than to know(1) with
familiarity; not to assert an opinion concerning the deities, but to
believe your forefathers, who, while the age was still untrained in the
birth-times of the world itself, deserved to have gods either
propitious to them, or as their kings.(2) Thence, therefore, we see
through all empires, and provinces, and cities, that each people has
its national rites of worship, and adores its local gods: as the
Eleusinians worship Ceres; the Phrygians, Mater;(3) the Epidaurians,
Aesculapius; the Chaldaeans; Belus; the Syrians, Astarte; the Taurians,
Diana; the Gauls, Mercurius; the Romans, all divinities. Thus their
power and authority has occupied the circuit of the whole world: thus
it has propagated its empire beyond the paths of the sun, and the
bounds of the ocean itself; in that in their arms they practise a
religious valour; in that they fortify their city with the religions of
sacred rites, with chaste virgins, with many honours, and the names of
priests; in that, when besieged and taken, all but the Capitol alone,
they worship the gods which when angry any other people would have
despised;(4) and through the lines of the Gauls, marvelling at the
audacity of their superstition, they move unarmed with weapons, but
armed with the worship of their religion; while in the city of an
enemy, when taken while still in the fury of victory, they venerate the
conquered deities; while in all directions they seek for the gods of
the strangers, and make them their own; while they build altars even to
unknown divinities, and to the Manes. Thus, in that they acknowledge
the sacred institutions of all nations, they have also deserved their
dominion. Hence the perpetual course of their veneration has continued,
which is not weakened by the long lapse of time, but increased, because
antiquity has been accustomed to attribute to ceremonies and temples so
much of sanctity as it has ascribed of age.
"Nor yet by chance (for I would venture in the meantime even to
take for granted the point in debate, and so to err on the safe side)
have our ancestors succeeded in their undertakings either by the
observance of auguries, or by consulting the entrails, or by the
institution of sacred rites, or by the dedication of temples. Consider
what is the record of books. You will at once discover that they have
inaugurated the rites of all kinds of religions, either that the divine
indulgence might be rewarded, or that the threatening anger might be
averted, or that the wrath already swelling and raging might be
appeased. Witness the Idaean mother,(5) who at her arrival both
approved the chastity of the matron, and delivered the city from the
fear of the enemy. Witness the statues of the equestrian brothers,(6)
consecrated even as they had showed themselves on the lake, who, with
horses breathless,(7) foaming, and smoking, announced the victory over
the Persian on the same day on which they had gained it. Witness the
renewal of the games of the offended Jupiter,(8) on account of the
dream of a man of the people. And an acknowledged witness is the
devotion of the Decii. Witness also Curtius, who filled up the opening
of the profound chasm either with the mass, or with the glory of his
knighthood. Moreover, more frequently than we wished have the auguries,
when despised, borne witness to the presence of the gods:, thus Allia
is an unlucky name; thus the battle of Claudius and Junius is not a
battle against the Carthaginians, but a fatal shipwreck. Thus, that
Thrasymenus might be both swollen and discoloured with the blood of the
Romans, Flaminius despised the auguries; and that we might again demand
our standards from the Parthians, Crassus both deserved and scoffed at
the imprecations of the terrible sisters. I omit the old stories, which
are many, and I pass by the songs of the poets about the births, and
the gifts, and the rewards of the gods. Moreover, I hasten over the
fates predicted by the oracles, lest antiquity should appear to you
excessively fabulous. Look at the temples and lanes of the gods by
which the Roman city is both protected and armed: they are more august
by the deities which are their inhabitants, who are present and
constantly dwelling in them, than opulent by the ensigns and gifts of
worship. Thence therefore the prophets, filled with the god, and
mingled with him, collect futurity beforehand, give caution for
dangers, medicine for diseases, hope for the afflicted, help to the
wretched, solace to calamities, alleviation to labours. Even in our
repose we see, we hear, we acknowledge the gods, whom in the day-time
we impiously deny, refuse, and abjure.
"Therefore, since the consent of all nations concerning the
existence of the immortal gods remains established, although their
nature or their origin remains uncertain, I suffer nobody swelling with
such boldness, and with I know not what irreligious wisdom, who would
strive to undermine or weaken this religion, so ancient, so useful, so
wholesome, even although he may he Theodorus of Cyrene, or one who is
before him Diagoras the Melian,(1) to whom antiquity applied the
surname of Atheist,—both of whom, by asseverating that there were no
gods, took away all the fear by which humanity is ruled, and all
veneration absolutely; yet never will they prevail in this discipline
of impiety, under the name and authority of their pretended philosophy.
When the men of Athens both expelled Protagoras of Abdera, and in
public assembly burnt his writings, because he disputed deliberately(2)
rather than profanely concerning the divinity, why is it not a thing to
be lamented, that men (for you will bear with my making use pretty
freely of the force of the plea that I have undertaken)—that men, I
say, of a reprobate, unlawful, and desperate faction, should rage
against the gods? who, having gathered together from the lowest dregs
the more unskilled, and women, credulous and, by the facility of their
sex, yielding, establish a herd of a profane conspiracy, which is
leagued together by nightly meetings, and solemn fasts and inhuman
meats—not by any sacred rite, but by that which requires expiation—a
people skulking and shunning the light, silent in public, but garrulous
in corners. They despise the temples as dead-houses, they reject the
gods, they laugh at sacred things; wretched, they pity, if they are
allowed, the priests; half naked themselves, they despise honours and
purple robes. Oh, wondrous folly and incredible audacity! they despise
present torments, although they i fear those which are uncertain and
future; and while they fear to die after death, they do not fear to die
for the present: so does a deceitful hope soothe their fear with the
solace of a revival.(3)
"And now, as wickeder things advance more fruitfully, and
abandoned manners creep on day by day, those abominable shrines of an
impious assembly are maturing themselves throughout the whole world.
Assuredly this confederacy ought to be rooted out and execrated. They
know one another by secret marks and insignia, and they love one
another almost before they know one another. Everywhere also there is
mingled among them a certain religion of lust, and they call one
another promiscuously brothers and sisters, that even a not unusual
debauchery may by the intervention of that sacred name become
incestuous: it is thus that their vain and senseless superstition
glories in crimes. Nor, concerning these things, would intelligent
report speak of things so great and various,(4) and requiring to be
prefaced by an apology, unless truth were at the bottom of it. I hear
that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures,
consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion,—a worthy and
appropriate religion for such manners. Some say that they worship the
virilia of their pontiff and priest,(5) and adore the nature, as it
were, of their common parent. I know not whether these things are
false; certainly suspicion is applicable to secret and nocturnal rites;
and he who explains their ceremonies by reference to a man punished by
extreme suffering for his wickedness, and to the deadly wood of the
cross, appropriates fitting altars for reprobate and wicked men, that
they may worship what they deserve. Now the story about the initiation
of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An
infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is
placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is
slain by the young pupil, who has been urged on as if to harmless blows
on the surface of the meal, with dark and secret wounds. Thirstily—O
horror!—they lick up its blood; eagerly they divide its limbs. By this
victim they are pledged together; with this consciousness of wickedness
they are covenanted to mutual silence.(1) Such sacred rites as these
are more foul than any sacrileges. And of their banqueting it is well
known all men speak of it everywhere; even the speech of our
Cirtensian(2) testifies to it. On a solemn day they assemble at the
feast, with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex
and of every age. There, after much feasting, when the fellowship has
grown warm, and the fervour of incestuous lust has grown hot with
drunkenness, a dog that has been tied to the chandelier is provoked, by
throwing a small piece of offal beyond the length of a line by which he
is bound, to rush and spring; and thus the conscious light being
overturned and extinguished in the shameless darkness, the connections
of abominable lust involve them in the uncertainty of fate. Although
not all in fact, yet in consciousness all are alike incestuous, since
by the desire of all of them everything is sought for which can happen
in the act of each individual.
"I purposely pass over many things, for those that I have
mentioned are already too many; and that all these, or the greater part
of them, are true, the obscurity of their vile religion declares. For
why do they endeavour with such pains to conceal and to cloak whatever
they worship, since honourable things always rejoice in publicity,
while crimes are kept secret? Why have they no altars, no temples, no
acknowledged images?(3) Why do they never speak openly, never
congregate freely, unless for the reason that what they adore and
conceal is either worthy of punishment, or something to be ashamed of?
Moreover, whence or who is he, or where is the one God, solitary,
desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even Roman
superstition, have known? The lonely and miserable nationality of the
Jews worshipped one God, and one peculiar to itself; but they
worshipped him openly, with temples, with altars, with victims, and
with ceremonies; and he has so little force or power, that he is
enslaved, with his own special nation, to the Roman deities. But the
Christians, moreover, what wonders, what monstrosities do they
feign!—that he who is their God, whom they can neither show nor
behold, inquires diligently into the character of all, the acts of all,
and, in fine, into their words and secret thoughts; that he runs about
everywhere, and is everywhere present: they make him out to be
troublesome, restless, even shamelessly inquisitive, since he is
present at everything that is done, wanders in and out in all places,
although, being occupied with the whole, he cannot give attention to
particulars, nor can he be sufficient for the whole while he is busied
with particulars. What! because they threaten conflagration to the
whole world, and to the universe itself, with all its stars, are they
meditating its destruction?—as if either the eternal order constituted
by the divine laws of nature would be disturbed, or the league of all
the elements would be broken up, and the heavenly structure dissolved,
and that fabric in which it is contained and bound together(4) would be
overthrown.(5)
"And, not content with this wild opinion, they add to it and
associate with it old women's fables:(6) they say that they will rise
again after death, and ashes, and dust; and with I know not what
confidence, they believe by turns in one another's lies: you would
think that they had already lived again. It is a double evil and a
twofold madness to denounce destruction to the heaven and the stars,
which we leave just as we find them, and to promise eternity to
ourselves, who are dead and extinct—who, as we are born, so also
perish! It is for this cause, doubtless, also that they execrate our
funeral piles, and condemn our burials by fire, as if every body, even
although it be withdrawn from the flames, were not, nevertheless,
resolved into the earth by lapse of years and ages, and as if it
mattered not whether wild beasts tore the body to pieces, or seas
consumed it, or the ground covered it, or the flames carried it away;
since for the carcases every mode of sepulture is a penalty if they
feel it; if they feel it not, in the very quickness of their
destruction there is relief. Deceived by this error, they promise to
themselves, as being good, a blessed and perpetual life after their
death; to others, as being unrighteous, eternal punishment. Many things
occur to me to say in addition, if the limits of my discourse did not
hasten me. I have already shown, and take no more pains to prove,(1)
that they themselves are unrighteous; although, even if I should allow
them to be righteous, yet your agreement also concurs with the opinions
of many, that guilt and innocence are attributed by fate. For whatever
we do, as some ascribe it to fate, so you refer it to God: thus it is
according to your sect to believe that men will, not of their own
accord, but as elected to will. Therefore you feign an iniquitous
judge, who punishes in men, not their will, but their destiny. Yet I
should be glad to be informed whether or no you rise again with
bodies;(2) and if so, with what bodies—whether with the same or with
renewed bodies? Without a body? Then, as far as I know, there will
neither be mind, nor soul, nor life. With the same body? But this has
already been previously destroyed. With another body? Then it is a new
man who is born, not the former one restored; and yet so long a time
has passed away, innumerable ages have flowed by, and what single
individual has returned from the dead either by the fate of
Protesilaus, with permission to sojourn even for a few hours, or that
we might believe it for an example? All such figments of an unhealthy
belief, and vain sources of comfort, with which deceiving poets have
trifled in the sweetness of their verse, have been disgracefully
remoulded by you, believing undoubtingly(3) on your God.
"Neither do you at least take experience from things present, how
the fruitless expectations of vain promise deceive you. Consider,
wretched creatures, (from your lot) while you are yet living, what is
threatening you after death.(4) Behold, a portion of you—and, as you
declare, the larger and better portion—are in want, are cold, are
labouring in hard work and hunger; and God suffers it, He feigns; He
either is not willing or not able to assist His people; and thus He is
either weak or inequitable. Thou, who dreamest over a posthumous
immortality, when thou art shaken by danger,(5) when thou art consumed
with fever, when thou art torn with pain, dost thou not then feel thy
real condition? Dost thou not then acknowledge thy frailty? Poor
wretch, art thou unwillingly convinced of thine infirmity, and wilt not
confess it? But I omit matters that are common to all alike. Lo, for
you there are threats, punishments, tortures, and crosses; and that no
longer as objects of adoration, but as tortures to be undergone; fires
also, which you both predict and fear. Where is that God who is able to
help you when you come to life again, since he cannot help you while
you are in this life? Do not the Romans, without any help from your
God, govern, reign, have the enjoyment of the whole world, and have
dominion over you? But you in the meantime, in suspense and anxiety,
are abstaining from respectable enjoyments. You do not visit
exhibitions; you have no concern in public displays; you reject the
public banquets, and abhor the sacred contests; the meats previously
tasted by, and the drinks made a libation of upon, the altars. Thus you
stand in dread of the gods whom you deny. You do not wreath your heads
with flowers; you do not grace your bodies with odours; you reserve
unguents for funeral rites; you even refuse garlands to your
sepulchres—pallid, trembling beings, worthy of the pity even of our
gods! Thus, wretched as you are, you neither rise again, nor do you
live in the meanwhile. Therefore, if you have any wisdom or modesty,
cease from prying into the regions of the sky, and the destinies and
secrets of the world: it is sufficient to look before your feet,
especially for untaught, uncultivated, boorish, rustic people: they who
have no capacity for understanding civil matters, are much more denied
the ability to discuss divine.
"However, if you have a desire to philosophize, let any one of
you who is sufficiently great, imitate, if he can, Socrates the prince
of wisdom. The answer of that man, whenever he was asked about
celestial matters, is well known: 'What is above us is nothing to us.'
Well, therefore, did he deserve from the oracle the testimony of
singular wisdom, which oracle he himself had a presentiment of, that he
had been preferred to all men for the reason, not that he had
discovered all things, but because he had learnt that he knew nothing.
And thus the confession of ignorance is the height of wisdom. From this
source flowed the safe doubting of Arcesilas, and long after of
Carneades, and of very many of the Academics,(1) in questions of the
highest moment, in which species of philosophy the unlearned can do
much with caution, and the learned can do gloriously. What! is not the
hesitation of Simonides the lyric poet to be admired and followed by
all? Which Simonides, when he was asked by Hiero the tyrant what, and
what like he thought the gods to be, asked first of all for a day to
deliberate; then postponed his reply for two days; and then, when
pressed, he added only another; and finally, when the tyrant inquired
into the causes of such a long delay, he replied that, the longer his
research continued, the obscurer the truth became to him.(2) In my
opinion also, things which are uncertain ought to be left as they are.
Nor, while so many and so great men are deliberating, should we rashly
and boldly give an opinion in another direction, lest either a childish
superstition should be introduced, or all religion should be
overthrown."
Thus far Caecilius; and smiling cheerfully (for the vehemence of
his prolonged discourse had relaxed the ardour of his indignation), be
added "And what does Octavius venture to reply to this, a man of the
race of Plautus,(3) who, while he was chief among the millers, was
still the lowest of philosophers?" "Restrain," said I, "your
self-approval against him; for it is not worthy of you to exult at the
harmony of your discourse, before the subject shall have been more
fully argued on both sides; especially since your reasoning is striving
after truth, not praise. And in however great a degree your discourse
has delighted me by its subtile variety, yet I am very deeply moved,
not concerning the present discussion, but concerning the entire kind
of disputation—that for the most part the condition of truth should be
changed according to the powers of discussion, and even the faculty of
perspicuous eloquence. This is very well known to occur by reason of
the facility of the hearers, who, being distracted by the allurement of
words from attention to things, assent without distinction to
everything that is said, and do not separate falsehood from truth;
unaware that even in that which is incredible them is often truth, and
in verisimilitude falsehood. Therefore the oftener they believe bold
assertions, the more frequently they are convinced by those who are
more clever, and thus are continually deceived by their temerity. They
transfer the blame of the judge to the complaint of uncertainty; so
that, everything being condemned, they would rather that all things
should be left in suspense, than that they should decide about matters
of doubt. Therefore we must take care that we do not in such sort
suffer from the hatred at once of all discourses, even as very many of
the more simple kind are led to execration and hatred of men in
general. For those who are carelessly credulous are deceived by those
whom they thought worthy; and by and by, by a kindred error, they begin
to suspect every one as wicked, and dread even those whom they might
have regarded as excellent. Now therefore we are anxious—because in
everything there may be argument on both sides; and on the one hand,
the truth is for the most part obscure; and on the other side there is
a marvellous subtlety, which sometimes by its abundance of words
imitates the confidence of acknowledged proof—as carefully as possible
to weigh each particular, that we may, while ready to applaud
acuteness, yet elect, approve, and adopt those things which are right."
"You are withdrawing," says Caecilius, "from the office of a
religious judge; for it is very unfair for you to weaken the force of
my pleading by the interpolation of a very important argument, since
Octavius has before him each thing that I have said, sound and
unimpaired, if he can refute it." "What you are reproving," said I,
"unless I am mistaken, I have brought forward for the common advantage,
so that by a scrupulous examination we might weigh our decision, not by
the pompous style of the eloquence, but by the solid character of the
matter itself. Nor must our attention, as you complain, be any longer
called away, but with absolute silence let us listen to the reply of
our friend Januarius,(4) who is now beckoning to us."
And thus Octavius began: "I will indeed speak as I shall be able
to the best of my powers, and you must endeavour with me to dilute the
very offensive strain of recriminations in the river(1) of veracious
words. Nor will I disguise in the outset, that the opinion of my friend
Natalis(2) has swayed to and fro in such an erratic, vague, and
slippery manner, that we are compelled to doubt whether your(3)
information was confused, or whether it wavered backwards and
forwards(4) by mere mistake. For he varied at one time from believing
the gods, at another time to being in a state of hesitation on the
subject; so that the direct purpose of my reply was established with
the greater uncertainty,(5) by reason of the uncertainty of his
proposition. But in my friend Natalis—I will not allow, I do not
believe in, any chicanery—far from his simplicity is crafty
trickery.(6) What then? As he who knows not the right way, when as it
happens one road is separated into many, because he knows not the way,
remains in anxiety, and dares neither make choice of particular roads,
nor try them all; so, if a man has no stedfast judgment of truth, even
as his unbelieving suspicion is scattered, so his doubting opinion is
unsettled. It is therefore no wonder if Caecilius in the same way is
cast about by the tide, and tossed hither and thither among things
contrary and repugnant to one another; but that this may no longer be
the case, I will convict and refute all that has been said, however
diverse, confirming and approving the truth alone; and for the future
he must neither doubt nor waver. And since my brother broke out in such
expressions as these, that he was grieved, that he was vexed, that he
was indignant, that he regretted that illiterate, poor, unskilled
people should dispute about heavenly things; let him know that all men
are begotten alike, with a capacity and ability of reasoning and
feeling, without preference of age, sex, or dignity. Nor do they obtain
wisdom by fortune, but have it implanted by nature; moreover, the very
philosophers themselves, or any others who have gone forth unto
celebrity as discoverers of arts, before they attained an illustrious
name by their mental skill, were esteemed plebeian, untaught,
half-naked. Thus it is, that rich men, attached to their means, have
been accustomed to gaze more upon their gold than upon heaven, while
our sort of people, though poor, have both discovered wisdom, and have
delivered their teaching to others; whence it appears that intelligence
is not given to wealth, nor is gotten by study, but is begotten with
the very formation of the mind. Therefore it is nothing to be angry or
to be grieved about, though any one should inquire, should think,
should utter his thoughts about divine things; since what is wanted is
not the authority of the arguer, but the truth of the argument itself:
and even the more unskilled the discourse, the more evident the
reasoning, since it is not coloured by the pomp of eloquence and grace;
but as it is, it is sustained by the rule of right.
"Neither do I refuse to admit what Caecilius earnestly
endeavoured to maintain among the chief matters, that man ought to know
himself, and to took around and see what he is, whence he is, why he
is; whether collected together from the elements, or harmoniously
formed of atoms, or rather made, formed, and animated by God. And it is
this very thing which we cannot seek out and investigate without
inquiry into the universe; since things are so coherent, so linked and
associated together, that unless you diligently examine into the nature
of divinity, you must be ignorant of that of humanity. Nor can you well
perform your social duty unless you know that community of the world
which is common to all, especially since in this respect we differ from
the wild beasts, that while they are prone and tending to the earth,
and are born to look upon nothing but their food, we, whose countenance
is erect, whose look is turned towards heaven, as is our converse and
reason, whereby we recognise, feel, and imitate God,(7) have neither
right nor reason to be ignorant of the celestial glory which forms
itself into our eyes and senses. For it is as bad as the grossest
sacrilege even, to seek on the ground for what you ought to find on
high. Wherefore the rather, they who deny that this furniture of the
whole world was perfected by the divine reason, and assert that it was
heaped together by certain fragments(1) casually adhering to each
other, seem to me not to have either mind or sense, or, in fact, even
sight itself. For what can possibly be so manifest, so confessed, and
so evident, when you lift your eyes up to heaven, and look into the
things which are below and around, than that there is some Deity of
most excellent intelligence, by whom all nature is inspired, is moved,
is nourished, is governed? Behold the heaven itself, how broadly it is
expanded, how rapidly it is whirled around, either as it is
distinguished in the night by its stars, or as it is lightened in the
day by the sun, and you will know at once how the marvellous and divine
balance of the Supreme Governor is engaged therein. Look also on the
year, how it is made by the circuit of the sun; and look on the month,
how the moon drives it around in her increase, her decline, and decay.
What shall I say of the recurring changes of darkness and light; how
there is thus provided for us an alternate restoration of labour and
rest? Truly a more prolix discourse concerning the stars must be left
to astronomers, whether as to how they govern the course of navigation,
or bring on(2) the season of ploughing or of reaping, each of which
things not only needed a Supreme Artist and a perfect intelligence, nor
only to create, to construct, and to arrange; but, moreover, they
cannot be felt, peceived and understood without the highest
intelligence and reason. What! when the order of the seasons and of the
harvests is distinguished by stedfast variety, does it not attest its
Author and Parent? As well the spring with its flowers, and the summer
with its harvests, and the grateful maturity of autumn, and the wintry
olive-gathering,(3) are needful; and this order would easily be
disturbed unless it were established by the highest intelligence. Now,
how great is the providence needed, lest there should be nothing but
winter to blast with its frost, or nothing but summer to scorch with
its heat, to interpose the moderate temperature of autumn and spring,
so that the unseen and harmless transitions of the year returning on
its footsteps may glide by! Look attentively at the sea; it is bound by
the law of its shore. Wherever there are trees, look how they are
animated from the bowels of the earth! Consider the ocean; it ebbs and
flows with alternate tides. Look at the fountains, how they gush in
perpetual streams! Gaze on the rivers; they always roll on in regular
courses. Why should I speak of the aptly ordered peaks of the
mountains, the slopes of the hills, the expanses of the plains?
Wherefore should I speak of the multiform protection provided by
animated creatures against one another?—some armed with horns, some
hedged with teeth, and shod with claws, and barbed with stings, or with
freedom obtained by swiftness of feet, or by the capacity of soaring
furnished by wings? The very beauty of our own figure especially
confesses God to be its artificer: our upright stature, our uplooking
countenance, our eyes placed at the top, as it were, for outlook; and
all the rest of our senses as if arranged in a citadel.
"It would be a long matter to go through particular instances.
There is no member in man which is not calculated both for the sake of
necessity and of ornament; and what is more wonderful still, all have
the same form, but each has certain lineaments modified, and thus we
are each found to be unlike to one another, while we all appear to be
like in general. What is the reason of our being born? what means the
desire of begetting? Is it not given by God, and that the breasts
should become full of milk as the offspring grows to maturity, and that
the tender progeny should grow up by the nourishment afforded by the
abundance of the milky moisture? Neither does God have care alone for
the universe as a whole, but also for its parts. Britain is deficient
in sunshine, but it is refreshed by the warmth of the sea that flows
around it. The river Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt; the Euphrates
cultivates Mesopotamia; the river Indus makes up for the want of rains,
and is said both to sow and to water the East. Now if, on entering any
house, you should behold everything refined, well arranged, and
adorned, assuredly you would believe that a master presided over it,
and that he himself was much better than all those excellent things. So
in this house of the world, when you look upon the heaven and the
earth, its providence, its ordering, its law, believe that there is a
Lord and Parent of the universe far more glorious than the stars
themselves, and the parts of the whole world. Unless, perchance—since
there is no doubt as to the ex- 183
istence of providence—you think that it is a subject of inquiry, whether the celestial kingdom is governed by the power of one or by the rule of many; and this matter itself does not involve much trouble in opening out, to one who considers earthly empires, for which the examples certainly are taken from heaven. When at any time was there an alliance in royal authority which either began with good faith or ceased without bloodshed? I pass over the Persians who gathered the augury for their chieftainship from the neighing of horses;(1) and I do not quote that absolutely dead fable of the Theban brothers.(2) The story about the twins (Romulus and Remus), in respect of the dominion of shepherds, and of a cottage, is very well known. The wars of the son-in-law and the father-in-law(3) were scattered over the whole world; and the fortune(4) of so great an empire could not receive two rulers. Look at other matters. The bees have one king; the flocks one leader; among the herds there is one ruler. Canst thou believe that in heaven there is a division of the supreme power, and that the whole authority of that true and divine empire is sundered, when it is manifest that God, the Parent of all, has neither beginning nor end—that He who gives birth to all gives perpetuity to Himself—that He who was before the world, was Himself to Himself instead of the world? He orders everything, whatever it is, by a word; arranges it by His wisdom; perfects it by His power. He can neither be seen—He is brighter than light; nor can be grasped—He is purer than touch;(5) nor estimated; He is greater than all perceptions; infinite, immense, and how great is known to Himself alone. But our heart is too limited to understand Him, and therefore we are then worthily estimating Him when we say that He is beyond estimation. I will speak out in what manner I feel. He who thinks that he knows the magnitude of God, is diminishing it; he who desires not to lessen it, knows it not. Neither must you ask a name for God. God is His name. We have need of names when a multitude is to be separated into individuals by the special characteristics of names; to God, who is alone, the name God is the whole. If I were to call Him Father, you would judge Him to be earthly; if a King, you would suspect Him to be carnal; if a Lord, you will certainly understand Him to he mortal. Take away the additions of names, and you will behold His glory. What! is it not true that I have in this matter the consent of all men? I hear the common people, when they lift their hands to heaven, say nothing else but Oh God, and God is great, and God is true, and if God shall permit. Is this the natural discourse of the common people, or is it the prayer of a confessing Christian? And they who speak of Jupiter as the chief, are mistaken in the name indeed, but they are in agreement about the unity of the power.
"I hear the poets also announcing 'the One Father of gods and
men;' and that such is the mind of mortal men as the Parent of all has
appointed His day.(6) What says the Mantuan Maro? Is it not even more
plain, more apposite, more true? 'In the beginning,' says he, 'the
spirit within nourishes, and the mind infused stirs the heaven and the
earth,' and the other members 'of the world. Thence arises the race of
men and of cattle,'(7) and every other kind of animal. The same poet in
another place calls that mind and spirit God. For these are his
words:(8) 'For that God pervades all the lands, and the tracts of the
sea, and the profound heaven, from whom are men and cattle; from whom
are rain and fire.'(9) What else also is God announced to be by us, but
mind, and reason, and spirit? Let us review, if it is agreeable, the
teaching of philosophers. Although in varied kinds of discourse, yet in
these matters you will find them concur and agree in this one opinion.
I pass over those untrained and ancient ones who deserved to be called
wise men for their sayings. Let Thales the Milesian be the first of
all, for he first of all disputed about heavenly things. That same
Thales the Milesian said that water was the beginning of things, but
that God was that mind which from water formed all things. Ah! a higher
and nobler account of water and spirit than to have ever been
discovered by man. It was delivered to him by God. You see that the
opinion of this original philosopher absolutely agrees with ours.
Afterwards Anaximenes, and then Diogenes of Apollonia, decide that the
air, infinite and unmeasured, is God. The agreement of these also as to
the Divinity is like ours. But the description of Anaxagoras also is,
that God is said to be the motion of an infinite mind; and the God of
Pythagoras is the soul passing to and fro and intent, throughout the
universal nature of things, from whom also the life of all animals is
received. It is a known fact, that Xenophanes delivered that God was
all infinity with a mind; and Antisthenes, that there are many gods of
the people, but that one God of Nature was the chief of all; that
Xeuxippus(1) acknowledged as God a natural animal force whereby all
things are governed. What says Democritus? Although the first
discoverer of atoms, does not he especially speak of nature, which is
the basis of forms, and intelligence, as God? Strato also himself says
that God is nature. Moreover, Epicurus, the man who feigns either
otiose gods or none at all, still places above all, Nature. Aristotle
varies, but nevertheless assigns a unity of power: for at one time he
says that Mind, at another the World, is God; at another time he sets
God above the world.(2) Heraclides of Pontus also ascribes, although in
various ways, a divine mind to God. Theophrastus, and Zeno, and
Chrysippus, and Cleanthes are indeed themselves of many forms of
opinion but they are all brought back to the one fact of the unity of
providence. For Cleanthes discoursed of God as of a mind, now of a
soul, now of air, but for the most part of reason. Zeno, his master,
will have the law of nature and of God, and sometimes the air, and
sometimes reason, to be the beginning of all things. Moreover, by
interpreting Juno to be the air, Jupiter the heaven, Neptune the sea,
Vulcan to be fire, and in like manner by showing the other gods of the
common people to be elements, he forcibly denounces and overcomes the
public error. Chrysippus says almost the same. He believes that a
divine force, a rational nature, and sometimes the world, and a fatal
necessity, is God; and he follows the example of Zeno in his
physiological interpretation of the poems of Hesiod, of Homer, and of
Orpheus. Moreover, the teaching of Diogenes of Babylon is that of
expounding and arguing that the birth of Jupiter, and the origin of
Minerva, and this kind, are names for other things, not for gods. For
Xenophon the Socratic says that the form of the true God cannot be
seen, and therefore ought not to be inquired after. Aristo the Stoic(3)
says that He cannot at all be comprehended. And both of them were
sensible of the majesty of God, while they despaired of understanding
Him. Plato has a clearer discourse about God, both in the matters
themselves and in the names by which he expresses them; and his
discourse would be altogether heavenly, if it were not occasionally
fouled by a mixture of merely civil belief. Therefore in his Timoeus
Plato's God is by His very name the parent of the world, the artificer
of the soul, the fabricator of heavenly and earthly things, whom both
to discover he declares is difficult, on account of His excessive and
incredible power; and when you have discovered Him, impossible to speak
of in public. The same almost are the opinions also which are ours. For
we both know and speak of a God who is parent of all, and never speak
of Him in public unless we are interrogated.(4)
"I have set forth the opinions almost of all the philosophers
whose more illustrious glory it is to, have pointed out that there is
one God, although with many names; so that any one might think either
that Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers were then
already Christians. But if the world is governed by providence, and
directed by the will of one God, antiquity of unskilled people ought
not, however delighted and charmed with its own fables, to carry us
away into the mistake of a mutual agreement, when it is rebutted by the
opinions of its own philosophers, who are supported by the authority
both of reason and of antiquity. For our ancestors had such an easy
faith in falsehoods, that they rashly believed even other monstrosities
as marvellous wonders;(5) a manifold Scylla, a Chimaera of many forms,
and a Hydra rising again from its auspicious wounds, and Centaurs,
horses entwined with their riders; and whatever Report was allowed(6)
to feign, they were entirely willing to listen to. Why should I refer
to those old wives' fables, that men were changed from men into birds
and beasts, and from men into trees and flowers?—which things, if they
had happened at all, would happen again; and because they cannot happen
now, therefore never happened at all. In like manner with respect to
the gods too, our ancestors believed carelessly, credulously, with
untrained simplicity; While worshipping their kings religiously,
desiring to look upon them when dead in outward forms, anxious to
preserve their memories in statues,(1) those things became sacred which
had been taken up merely as consolations. Thereupon, and before the
world was opened up by commerce, and before the nations confounded
their rites and customs, each particular nation venerated its Founder,
or illustrious Leader, or modest Queen braver than her sex, or the
discoverer of any sort of faculty or art, as a citizen of worthy
memory; and thus a reward Was given to the deceased, and an example to
those who were to follow.
"Read the writings of the Stoics,(2) or the writings of wise men,
you will acknowledge these facts with me. On account of the merits of
their virtue or of some gift, Euhemerus asserts that they were esteemed
gods; and he enumerates their birthdays, their countries, their places
of sepulture, and throughout various provinces points out these
circumstances of the Dictaean Jupiter, and of the Delphic Apollo, and
of the Pharian Isis, and of the Eleusinian Ceres. Prodicus speaks of
men who were taken up among the gods, because they were helpful to the
uses of men in their wanderings, by the discovery of new kinds of
produce. Persaeus philosophizes also to the same result; and he adds
thereto, that the fruits discovered, and the discoverers of those same
fruits, were called by the same names; as the passage of the comic
writer runs, that Venus freezes without Bacchus and Ceres. Alexander
the Great, the celebrated Macedonian, wrote in a remarkable document(3)
addressed to his mother, that under fear of his power there had been
betrayed to him by the priest the secret of the gods having been men:
to her he makes Vulcan the original of all, and then the race of
Jupiter. And you behold the swallow and the cymbal of Isis,(4) and the
tomb of your Serapis or Osiris empty, with his limbs scattered about.
Then consider the sacred rites themselves, and their very mysteries:
you will find mournful deaths, misfortunes, and funerals, and the
griefs and wailings of the miserable gods. Isis bewails, laments, and
seeks after her lost son, with her Cynocephalus and her bald priests;
and the wretched Isiacs beat their breasts, and imitate the grief of
the most unhappy mother. By and by, when the little boy is found, Isis
rejoices, and the priests exult, Cynocephalus the discoverer boasts,
and they do not cease year by year either to lose what they find, or to
find what they lose. Is it not ridiculous either to grieve for what you
worship, or to worship that over which you grieve? Yet these were
formerly Egyptian rites, and now are Roman ones. Ceres with her torches
lighted, and surrounded s with a serpent, with anxiety and solicitude
tracks the footsteps of Proserpine, stolen away in her wandering, and
corrupter. These are the Eleusinian mysteries. And what are the sacred
rites of Jupiter? His nurse is a she-goat, and as an infant he is taken
away from his greedy father, lest he should be devoured; and clanging
uproar(6) is dashed out of the cymbals of the Corybantes, lest the
father should hear the infant's wailing. Cybele of Dindymus—I am
ashamed to speak of it—who could not entice her adulterous lover, who
unhappily was pleasing to her, to lewdness, because she herself, as
being the mother of many gods, was ugly and old, mutilated him,
doubtless that she might make a god of the eunuch. On account of this
story, the Galli also worship her by the punishment of their
emasculated body. Now certainly these things are not sacred rites, but
tortures. What are the very forms and appearances (of the gods)? do
they not argue the contemptible and disgraceful characters of your
gods?(7) Vulcan is a lame god, and crippled; Apollo, smooth-faced after
so many ages; AEsculapius well bearded, notwithstanding that he is the
son of the ever youthful Apollo; Neptune with sea-green eyes; Minerva
with eyes bluish grey; Juno with ox-eyes; Mercury with winged feet; Pan
with hoofed feet; Saturn with feet in fetters; Janus, indeed, wears two
faces, as if that he might walk with looks turned back; Diana sometimes
is a huntress, with her robe girded up high; and as the Ephesian she
has many and fruitful breasts; and when exaggerated as Trivia, she is
horrible with three heads and with many hands. What is your Jupiter
himself? Now he is represented in a statue as beardless, now he is set
up as bearded; and when he is called Hammon, he has horns; and when
Capitolinus, then he wields the thunderbolts; and when Latiaris, he is
sprinkled with gore; and when Feretrius, he is not approached;(1) and
not to mention any further the multitude of Jupiters, the monstrous
appearances of Jupiter are as numerous as his names. Erigone was hanged
from a noose, that as a virgin she might be glowing(2) among the stars.
The Castors die by turns, that they may live. AEsculapius, that he may
rise into a god, is struck with a thunderbolt. Hercules, that he may
put off humanity, is burnt up by the fires of OEta.(3)
"These fables and errors we both learn from ignorant parents,
and, what is more serious still, we elaborate them in our very studies
and instructions, especially in the verses of the poets, who as much as
possible have prejudiced(4) the truths by their authority. And for this
reason Plato rightly expelled from the state which he had founded in
his discourse, the illustrious Homer whom he had praised and
crowned.(6) For it was he especially who in the Trojan was allowed your
gods, although he made jests of them, still to interfere in the affairs
and doings of men: he brought them together in contest; he wounded
Venus; he bound, wounded, and drove away Mars. He relates that Jupiter
was set free by Briareus, so as not to be bound fast by the rest of the
gods; and that he bewailed in showers of blood his son Sarpedon,
because he could not snatch him from death; and that, enticed by the
girdle of Venus, he lay more eagerly with his wife Juno than he was
accustomed to do with his adulterous loves. Elsewhere Hercules threw
out dung, and Apollo is feeding cattle for Admetus. Neptune, however,
builds walls for Laomedon, and the unfortunate builder did not receive
the wages for his work. Then Jupiter's thunderbolt is fabricated(7) on
the anvil with the arms of AEneas, although there were heaven, and
thunderbolts, and lightnings long before Jupiter was born in Crete; and
neither could the CyclOps imitate, nor Jupiter himself help fearing,
the flames of the real thunderbolt. Why should I speak of the detected
adultery of Mars and Venus, and of the violence of Jupiter against
Ganymede,—a deed consecrated, (as you say,) in heaven? And all these
things have been put forward with this view, that a certain authority
might be gained for the vices s of men. By these fictions, and such as
these, and by lies of a more attractive kind, the minds of boys are
corrupted; and with the same fables clinging to them, they grow up even
to the strength of mature age; and, poor wretches, they grow old in the
same beliefs, although the truth is plain, if they will only seek after
it. For all the writers of antiquity, both Greek and Roman, have set
forth that Saturn, the beginner of this race and multitude, was a man.
Nepos knows this, and Cassius in his history; and Thallus and Diodorus
speak the same thing. This Saturn then, driven from Crete, by the fear
of his raging son, had come to Italy, and, received by the hospitality
of Janus, taught those unskilled and rustic men many things,—as, being
something of a Greek, and polished,—to print letters for instance, to
coin money, to make instruments. Therefore he preferred that his
hiding-place, because he had been safely hidden (latent) there, should
be called Latium; and he gave a city, from his own name, the name of
Saturnia, and Janus, Janiculum, so that each of them left their names
to the memory of posterity. Therefore it was certainly a man that fled,
certainly a man who was concealed, and the father of a man, and sprung
from a man. He was declared, however, to be the son of earth or of
heaven, because among the Italians he was of unknown parents; as even
to this day we call those who appear unexpectedly, sent from heaven,
those who are ignoble and unknown, sons of the earth. His son Jupiter
reigned at Crete after his father was driven out. There he died, there
he had sons. To this day the cave of Jupiter is visited, and his
sepulchre is shown, and he is convicted of being human by those very
sacred rites of his.
"It is needless to go through each individual case, and to
develope the entire series of that race, since in its first parents
their mortality is proved, and must have flowed down into the rest by
the very law of their succession, unless perhaps you fancy that they
were gods after death; as by the perjury of Proculus, Romulus became a
god; and by the good-will of the Mauritanians, Juba is a god; and other
kings are divine who are consecrated, not in the faith of their
divinity, but in honour of the power that they exercised. Moreover,
this name is ascribed to those who are unwilling to bear it. They
desire to persevere in their human condition. They fear that they may
be made gods; although they are already old men, they do not wish it.
Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot
die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies.
But that is divine which has neither rising nor setting. For why, if
they were born, are they not born in the present day also?—unless,
perchance, Jupiter has already grown old, and child-bearing has failed
in Juno, and Minerva has grown grey before she has borne children. Or
has that process of generation ceased, for the reason that no assent is
any longer yielded to fables of this kind? Besides, if the gods could
create,(1) they could not perish: we should have more gods than all men
together; so that now, neither would the heaven contain them, nor the
air receive them, nor the earth bear them. Whence it is manifest, that
those were men whom we both read of as having been born, and know to
have died. Who therefore doubts that the common people pray to and
publicly worship the consecrated images of these men; in that the
belief and mind of the ignorant is deceived by the perfection of art,
is blinded by the glitter of gold, is dimmed with the shining of silver
and the whiteness of ivory? But if any one were to present to his mind
with what instruments and with what machinery every image is formed, he
would blush that he had feared matter, treated after his fancy by the
artificer to make a god.(2) For a god of wood, a portion perhaps of a
pile, or of an unlucky log, is hung up, is cut, is hewn, is planed; and
a god of brass or of silver, often from an impure vessel, as was done
by the Egyptian king,(3) is fused, is beaten with hammers and forged on
anvils; and the god of stone is cut, is sculptured, and is polished by
some abandoned man, nor feels the injury done to him in his nativity,
any more than afterwards it feels the worship flowing from your
veneration; unless perhaps the stone, or the wood, or the silver is not
yet a god. When, therefore, does the god begin his existence? Lo, it is
reeked, it is wrought, it is sculptured—it is not yet a god; lo, it is
soldered, it is built together—it is set up, and even yet it is not a
god; lo, it is adorned, it is consecrated, it is prayed to—then at
length it is a god, when man has chosen it to be so, and for the
purpose has dedicated it.
"How much more truly do dumb animals naturally judge concerning
your gods? Mice, swallows, kites, know that they have no feeling: they
gnaw them, they trample on them, they sit upon them; and unless you
drive them off, they build their nests in the very mouth of your god.
Spiders, indeed, weave their webs over his face, and suspend their
threads from his very head. You wipe, cleanse, scrape, and you protect
and fear those whom you make; while not one of you thinks that he ought
to know God before he worships Him; desiring without consideration to
obey their ancestors, choosing rather to become an addition to the
error of others, than to trust themselves; in that they know nothing of
what they fear. Thus avarice has been consecrated in gold and silver;
thus the form of empty statues has been established; thus has arisen
Roman superstition. And if you reconsider the rites of these gods, how
many things are laughable, and how many also pitiable! Naked people run
about in the raw winter; some walk bonneted, and carry around old
bucklers, or beat drums, or lead their gods a-begging through the
streets. Some fanes it is permitted to approach once a year, some it is
forbidden to visit at all. There is one place where a man may not go,
and there are some that are sacred from women: it is a crime needing
atonement for a slave even to be present at some ceremonies. Some
sacred places are crowned by a woman having one husband, some by a
woman with many; and she who can reckon up most adulteries is sought
after with most religious zeal. What! would not a man who makes
libations of his own blood, and supplicates (his god) by his own
wounds, be better if he were altogether profane, than religious in such
a way is this? And he whose shameful parts are cut off, how greatly
does he wrong God in seeking to propitiate Him in this manner! since,
if God wished for eunuchs, He could bring them as such into existence,
and would not make them so afterwards. Who does not perceive that
people of unsound mind, and of weak and degraded apprehension, are
foolish in these things, and that the very multitude of those who err
affords to each of them mutual patronage? Here the defence of the
general madness is the multitude of the mad people.
"Nevertheless, you will say that that very superstition itself
gave, increased, and established their empire for the Romans, since
they prevailed not so much by their valour as by their religion and
piety. Doubtless the illustrious and noble justice of the Romans had
its beginning from the very cradle of the growing empire. Did they not
in their origin, when gathered together and fortified by crime, grow by
the terror of their own fierceness? For the first people were assembled
together as to an asylum. Abandoned people, profligate, incestuous,
assassins, traitors, had flocked together; and in order that Romulus
himself, their commander and governor, might excel his people in guilt,
he committed fratricide.(1) These are the first auspices of the
religious state! By and by they carried off, violated, and ruined
foreign virgins, already betrothed, already destined for husbands, and
even some young women from their marriage vows—a thing
unexampled(2)—and then engaged in war with their parents, that is,
with their fathers-in-law, and shed the blood of their kindred. What
more irreligious, what more audacious, what could be safer than the
very confidence of crime? Now, to drive their neighbours from the land,
to overthrow the nearest cities, with their temples and altars, to
drive them into captivity, to grow up by the losses of others and by
their own crimes, is the course of training common to the rest of the
kings and the latest leaders with Romulus. Thus, whatever the Romans
hold, cultivate, possess, is the spoil of their audacity. All their
temples are built from the spoils of violence, that is, from the ruins
of cities, from the spoils of the gods, from the murders of priests.
This is to insult and scorn, to yield to conquered religions, to adore
them when captive, after having vanquished them. For to adore what you
have taken by force, is to consecrate sacrilege, not divinities. As
often, therefore, as the Romans triumphed, so often they were polluted;
and as many trophies as they gained from the nations, so many spoils
did they take from the gods. Therefore the Romans were not so great
because they were religious, but because they were sacrilegious with
impunity. For neither were they able in the wars themselves to have the
help of the gods against whom they took up arms; and they began to
worship those when they were triumphed over, whom they had previously
challenged. But what avail such gods as those on behalf of the Romans,
who had had no power on behalf of their own worshippers against the
Roman arms? For we know the indigenous gods of the Romans—Romulus,
Picus, Tiberinus, and Consus, and Pilumnus, and Picumnus. Tatius both
discovered and worshipped Cloacina; Hostilius, Fear and Pallor.
Subsequently Fever was dedicated by I know not whom: such was the
superstition that nourished that city,—diseases and ill states of
health. Assuredly also Acca Laurentia, and Flora, infamous harlots,
must be reckoned among the diseases(3) and the gods of the Romans. Such
as these doubtless enlarged the dominion of the Romans, in opposition
to others who were worshipped by the nations: for against their own
people neither did the Thracian Mars, nor the Cretan Jupiter, nor Juno,
now of Argos, now of Samos, now of Carthage, nor Diana of Tauris, nor
the Idaean Mother, nor those Egyptian—not deities, but
monstrosities—assist them; unless perchance among the Romans the
chastity of virgins was greater, or the religion of the priests more
holy: though absolutely among very many of the virgins unchastity was
punished, in that they, doubtless without the knowledge of Vesta, had
intercourse too carelessly with men; and for the rest their impunity
arose not from the better protection of their chastity, but from the
better fortune of their immodesty. And where are adulteries better
arranged by the priests than among the very altars and shrines? where
are more panderings debated, or more acts of violence concerted?
Finally, burning lust is more frequently gratified in the little
chambers of the keepers of the temple, than in the brothels themselves.
And still, long before the Romans, by the ordering of God, the
Assyrians held dominion, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks also, and
the Egyptians, although they had not any Pontiffs, nor Arvales, nor
Salii, nor Vestals, nor Augurs, nor chickens shut up in a coop, by
whose feeding or abstinence the highest concerns of the state were to
be governed.
"And now I come to those Roman auspices and auguries which you
have collected with extreme pains, and have borne testimony that they
were both neglected with ill consequences, and observed with good
fortune. Certainly Clodius, and Flaminius, and Junius lost their armies
on this account, because they did not judge it well to wait for the
very solemn omen given by the greedy pecking of the chickens. But what
of Regulus? Did he not observe the auguries, and was taken captive?
Mancinus maintained his religious duty, and was sent under the yoke,
and was given up. Paulus also had greedy chickens at Cannae, yet he was
overthrown with the greater part of the republic.(1) Caius Caesar
despised the auguries and auspices that resisted his making his voyage
into Africa before the winter, and thus the more easily he both sailed
and conquered. But what and how much shall I go on to say about
oracles? After his death Amphiaraus answered as to things to come,
though he knew not (while living) that he should be betrayed by his
wife on account of a bracelet. The blind Tiresias saw the future,
although he did not see the present. Ennius invented the replies of the
Pythian Apollo concerning Pyrrhus, although Apollo had already ceased
to make verses; and that cautious and ambiguous oracle of his, failed
just at the time when men began to be at once more cultivated and less
credulous. And Demosthenes, because he knew that the answers were
feigned, complained that the Pythia philippized. But sometimes, it is
true, even auspices or oracles have touched the truth. Although among
many falsehoods chance might appear as if it imitated forethought; yet
I will approach the very source of error and perverseness, whence all
that obscurity has flowed, and both dig into it more deeply, and lay it
open more manifestly. There are some insincere and vagrant spirits
degraded from their heavenly vigour by earthly stains and lusts. Now
these spirits, after having lost the simplicity of their nature by
being weighed down and immersed in vices, for a solace of their
calamity, cease not, now that they are ruined themselves, to ruin
others; and being depraved themselves, to infuse into others the error
of their depravity and being themselves alienated from God, to separate
others from God by the introduction of degraded superstitions. The
poets know that those spirits are demons; the philosophers discourse of
them; Socrates knew it, who, at the nod and decision of a demon that
was at his side, either declined or undertook affairs. The Magi, also,
not only know that there are demons, but, moreover, whatever miracle
they affect to perform, do it by means of demons; by their aspirations
and communications they show their wondrous tricks, making either those
things appear which are not, or those things not to appear which are.
Of those magicians, the first both in eloquence and in deed,
Sosthenes,(2) not only describes the true God with fitting majesty, but
the angels that are the ministers and messengers of God, even the true
God. And he knew that it enhanced His veneration, that in awe of the
very nod and glance of their Lord they should tremble. The same man
also declared that demons were earthly, wandering, hostile to humanity.
What said Plato,(3) who believed that it was a hard thing to find out
God? Does not he also, without hesitation, tell of both angels and
demons? And in his Symposium also, does not he endeavour to explain the
nature of demons? For he will have it to be a substance between mortal
and immortal—that is, mediate between body and spirit, compounded by
mingling of earthly weight and heavenly lightness; whence also he warns
us of the desire of love,(4) and he says that it is moulded and glides
into the human breast, and stirs the senses, and moulds the affections,
and infuses the ardour of lust.
"These impure spirits, therefore—the demons—as is shown by the
Magi, by the philos- ophers, and by Plato, consecrated under statues
and images, lurk there, and by their afflatus attain the authority as
of a present deity; while in the meantime they are breathed into the
prophets, while they dwell in the shrines, while sometimes they animate
the fibres of the entrails, control the flights of birds, direct the
lots, are the cause of oracles involved in many falsehoods. For they
are both deceived, and they deceive; inasmuch as they are both ignorant
of the simple truth, and for their own ruin they confess not that which
they know. Thus they weigh men downwards from heaven, and call them
away from the true God to material things: they disturb the life,
render all men(1) unquiet; creeping also secretly into human bodies,
with subtlety, as being spirits, they feign diseases, alarm the minds,
wrench about the limbs; that they may constrain men to worship them,
being gorged with the fumes of altars or the sacrifices of cattle,
that, by remitting what they had bound, they may seem to have cured it.
These raging maniacs also, whom you see rush about in public, are
moreover themselves prophets without a temple; thus they rage, thus
they rave, thus they are whirled around. In them also there is a like
instigation of the demon, but there is a dissimilar occasion for their
madness. From the same causes also arise those things which were spoken
of a little time ago by you, that Jupiter demanded the restoration of
his games in a dream, that the Castors appeared with horses, and that a
Small ship was following the leading of the matron's girdle. A great
many, even some of your own people, know all those things that the
demons themselves confess concerning themselves, as often as they are
driven by us from bodies by the torments of our words and by the fires
of our prayers. Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever
demons you worship, overcome by pain, speak out what they are; and
assuredly they do not lie to their own discredit, especially when any
of you are standing by. Since they themselves are the witnesses that
they are demons, believe them when they confess the truth of
themselves; for when abjured by the only and true God, unwillingly the
wretched beings shudder in(2) their bodies, and either at once leap
forth, or vanish by degrees, as the faith of the sufferer assists or
the grace of the healer inspires. Thus they fly from Christians when
near at hand, whom at a distance they harassed by your means in their
assemblies. And thus, introduced into the minds of the ignorant, they
secretly sow there a hatred of us by means of fear. For it is natural
both to hate one whom you fear, and to injure one whom you have feared,
if you can. Thus they take possession of the minds and obstruct the
hearts, that men may begin to hate us before they know us; lest, if
known, they should either imitate us, or not be able to condemn us.
"BUT how unjust it is,(3) to form a judgment on things unknown
and unexamined, as you do! Believe us ourselves when penitent, for we
also were the same as you, and formerly, while yet blind and obtuse,
thought the same things as you; to wit, that the Christians worshipped
monsters, devoured infants, mingled in incestuous banquets. And we did
not perceive that such fables as these were always set afloat by those
(newsmongers), and were never either inquired into nor proved; and that
in so long a time no one had appeared to betray (their doings), to
obtain not only pardon for their crime, but also favour for its
discovery: moreover, that it was to this extent not evil, that a
Christian, when accused, neither blushed nor feared, and that he only
repented that he had not been one before. We, however, when we
undertook to defend and protect some sacrilegious and incestuous
persons, and even parricides, did not think that these (Christians)
were to be heard at all. Sometimes even, when we affected to pity them,
we were more cruelly violent against them, so as to torture them(4)
when they confessed, that they might deny, to wit, that they might not
perish; making use of a perverse inquisition against them, not to
elicit the truth, but to compel a falsehood. And if any one, by reason
of greater weakness, overcome with suffering, and conquered, should
deny that he was a Christian, we showed favour to him, as if by
forswearing that name he had at once atoned for all his deeds by that
simple denial. Do not you acknowledge that we felt and did the same as
you feel and do? when, if reason and not the instigation of a demon
were to judge, they should rather have been pressed not to disavow
themselves Christians, but to confess themselves guilty of incests, of
abominations, of sacred rites polluted, of infants immolated. For with
these and such as these stories, did those same demons fill up the ears
of the ignorant against us, to the horror of their execration. Nor yet
was it wonderful, since the common report of men,(1) which is, always
fed by the scattering of falsehoods, is wasted away when the truth is
brought to light. Thus this is the business of demons, for by them
false rumours are both sown and cherished. Thence arises what you say
that you hear, that an ass's head is esteemed among us a divine thing.
Who is such a fool as to worship this? Who is so much more foolish as
to believe that it is an object of worship? unless that you even
consecrate whole asses in your stables, together with your Epona,(2)
and religiously devours those same asses with Isis. Also you offer up
and worship the heads of oxen and of wethers, and you dedicate gods
mingled also of a goat and a man, and gods with the faces of dogs and
lions. Do you not adore and feed Apis the ox, with the Egyptians? And
you do not condemn their sacred rites instituted in honour of serpents,
and crocodiles, and other beasts, and birds, and fishes, of which if
any one were to kill one of these gods, he is even punished with death.
These same Egyptians, together with very many of you, are not more
afraid of Isis than they are of the pungency of onions, nor of Serapis
more than they tremble. at the basest noises produced by the foulness
of their bodies. He also who fables against us about our adoration of
the members of the priest, tries to confer upon us what belongs really
to himself. (Ista enim impudicitae eorum forsitan sacra sint, apud quos
sexus omnis membris omnibus prostat, apud quos iota impudicitia vocatur
urbanitas; qui scortorum licentiae invident, qui medios viros lambunt,
libidinoso ore inguinibus inhaerescunt, homines malae linguae etiam si
tacerent, quos prius taedescit impudicitiae suae quam pudescit.)
Abomination ! they suffer on themselves such evil deeds, as no age is
so effeminate as to be able to bear, and no slavery so cruel as to be
compelled to endure.
"These, and such as these infamous things, we are not at liberty even to hear; it is even disgraceful with any more words to defend ourselves from such charges. For you pretend that those things are done by chaste and modest persons, which we should not believe to be done at all, unless you proved that they were true concerning yourselves. For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross,(4) you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.(5) The Egyptians certainly choose out a man for themselves whom they may worship; him alone they propitiate; him they consult about all things; to him they slaughter victims; and he who to others is a god, to himself is certainly a man whether he will or no, for he does not deceive his own consciousness, if he deceives that of others. "Moreover, a false flattery disgracefully caresses princes and kings, not as great and chosen men, as is just, but as gods; whereas honour is more truly rendered to an illustrious man, and love is more pleasantly given to a very good man. Thus they invoke their deity, they supplicate their images, they implore their Genius, that is, their demon; and it is safer to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by that of a king. Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for.(6) You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross,(7) naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with handsoutstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it.
XXX.—ARGUMENT: THE STORY ABOUT CHRISTIANS DRINKING THE BLOOD OF
AN INFANT THAT THEY HAVE MURDERED, IS a BAREFACED CALUMNY'. BUT THE
GENTILES, BOTH CRUELLY EXPOSE THEIR CHILDREN NEWLY BORN, AND BE FORE
THEY ARE BORN DESTROY THEM BY A CRUEL ABORTION. CHRISTIANS ARE NEITHER
ALLOWED TO SEE NOR TO HEAR OF MANSLAUGHTER.
"And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Think you that it can be possible for so tender, so little a body tO receive those fatal wounds; for any one to shed, pour forth, and drain that new blood of a youngling, and of a man scarcley come into existence? No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; at another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations,(1) extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come don from the teaching of your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children, but devoured them. With reason were infants sacrificed to him by parents in some parts of Africa, caresses and kisses repressing their crying, that a weeping victim might not be sacrificed. Moreover, among the Tauri of Pontus, and to the Egyptian Busiris, it was a sacred rite to immolate their guests, and for the Galli to slaughter to Mercury human, or rather inhuman, sacrifices. The Roman sacrificers buried living a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman; and to this day, Jupiter Latiaris is worshipped by them with murder; and, what is worthy of the son of Saturn, he is gorged with the blood of an evil and criminal man. I believe that he himself taught Catiline to conspire under a compact of blood, and Bellona to steep her sacred rites with a draught of human gore, and taught men to heal epilepsy with the blood of a man, that is, with a worse disease. They also are not unlike to him who devour the wild beasts from the arena, besmeared and stained with blood, or fattened with the limbs or the entrails of men. To us it is not lawful either to see or to hear of homicide; and so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.
"And of the incestuous banqueting, the plotting of demons has falsely devised an enormous fable against us, to stain the glory of our modesty, by the loathing excited by an outrageous infamy, that before inquiring into the truth it might turn men away from us by the terror of an abominable charge. It was thus your own Fronto(2) acted in this respect: he did not produce testimony, as one who alleged a charge, but he scattered reproaches as a rhetorician. For these things have rather originated from your own nations. Among the Persians, a promiscuous association between sons and mothers is allowed. Marriages with sisters are legitimate among the Egyptians and in Athens. Your records and your tragedies, which you both read and hear with pleasure, glory in incests: thus also you worship incestuous gods, who have intercourse with mothers, with daughters, with sisters. With reason, therefore, is incest frequently detected among you, and is continually permitted. Miserable men, you may even, without knowing it, rush into what is unlawful: since you scatter your lusts promiscuously, since you everywhere beget children, since you frequently expose even those who are born at home to the mercy of others, it is inevitable that you must come back to your own children, and stray to your own offspring. Thus you continue the story of incest, even although you have no consciousness of your crime. But we maintain our modesty not in appearance, but in our heart we gladly abide by the bond of a single marriage; in the desire of procreating, we know either one wife, or none at all. We practise sharing in banquets, which are not only modest, but also sober: for we do not indulge in entertainments nor prolong our feasts with wine; but we temper our joyousness with gravity, with chaste discourse, and with body even more chaste (divers of us unviolated) enjoy rather than make a boast of a perpetual virginity of a body. So far, in fact, are they from indulging in incestuous desire, that with some even the (idea of a) modest intercourse of the sexes causes a blush. Neither do we at once stand on the level of the lowest of the people, if we refuse your honours and purple robes; and we are not fastidious, if we all have a discernment of one good, but are assembled together with the same quietness with which we live as individuals; and we are not garrulous in corners, although you either blush or are afraid to hear us in public. And that day by day the number of us is increased, is not a ground for a charge of error, but is a testimony which claims praise; for, in a fair mode of life, our actual number both continues and abides undiminished, and strangers increase it. Thus, in short, we do not distinguish our people by some small bodily mark, as you suppose, but easily enough by the sign of innocency and modesty. Thus we love one another, to your regret, with a mutual love, because we do not know how to hate. Thus we call one another, to your envy, brethren: as being men born of one God and Parent, and companions in faith, and as fellow-heirs in hope. You, however, do not recognise one another, and you are cruel in your mutual hatreds; nor do you acknowledge one another as brethren, unless indeed for the purpose of fratricide.
"But do you think that we conceal what we worship, if we have not temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when this whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him? And when I, a man, dwell far and wide, shall I shut up the might of so great majesty within one little building? Were it not better that He should be dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost heart? Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, such as He has produced for my use, that I should throw back to Him His own gift? It is ungrateful when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a sincere judgment.(1) Therefore he who cultivates innocence supplicates God; he who cultivates justice makes offerings to God; he who abstains from fraudulent practices propitiates God; he who snatches man from danger slaughters the most acceptable victim. These are our sacrifices, these are our rites of God's worship; thus, among us, he who is most just is he who is most religious. But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Verily for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him; for in His works, and in all the movements of the world, we behold His power ever present when He thunders, lightens, darts His bolts, or when He makes all bright again. Nor should you wonder if you do not see God. By the wind and by the blasts of the storm all things are driven on and shaken, are agitated, and yet neither wind nor tempest comes under our eyesight. Thus we cannot look upon the sun, which is the cause of seeing to all creatures: the pupil of the eye is with drawn from his rays, the gaze of the beholder is dimmed; and if you look too long, all power of sight is extinguished. What! can you sustain the Architect of the sun Himself, the very source of light, when you turn yourself away from His lightnings, and hide yourself from His thunderbolts? Do you wish to see God with your carnal eyes, when you are neither able to behold nor to grasp your own soul itself, by which you are enlivened and speak? But, moreover, it is said that God is ignorant of man's doings; and being established in heaven, He can neither survey all nor know individuals. Thou errest, O man, and art deceived; for from where is God afar off, when all things heavenly and earthly, and which are beyond this province of the universe, are known to God, are full of God? Everywhere He is not only very near to us, but He is infused into us. Therefore once more look upon the sun: it is fixed fast in the heaven, yet it is diffused over all lands equally; present everywhere, it is associated and mingled with all things; its brightness is never violated. How much more God, who has made all things, and looks upon all things, from whom there can be nothing secret, is present in the darkness, is present in our thoughts, as if in the deep darkness. Not only do we act in Him, but also, I had almost said, we live with Him,
"Neither let us flatter ourselves concerning our multitude. We
seem many to ourselves, but to God we are very few. We distinguish
peoples and nations; to God this whole world is one family. Kings only
know all the matters of their kingdom by the ministrations of their
servants: God has no need of information. We not only live in His eyes,
but also in His bosom. But it is objected that it availed the Jews
nothing that they themselves worshipped the one God with altars and
temples, with the greatest superstition. You are guilty of ignorance if
you are recalling later events while you are forgetful or unconscious
of former ones. For they themselves also, as long as they worshipped
our God—and He is the same God of all—with chastity, innocency, and
religion, as long as they obeyed His wholesome precepts, from a few
became innumerable, from poor became rich, from being servants became
kings ; a few overwhelmed many; unarmed men overwhelmed armed ones as
they fled from them, following them up by God's command, and with the
elements striving on their behalf. Carefully read over their Scrip-
tures, or if you are better pleased with the Roman writings,(1)
inquire concerning the Jews in the books (to say nothing of ancient
documents) of Flavius Josephus(2) or Antoninus Julianus, and you shall
know that by their wickedness they deserved this fortune, and that
nothing happened which had not before been predicted to them, if they
should persevere in their obstinacy. Therefore you will understand that
they forsook before they were forsaken, and that they were not, as you
impiously say, taken captive with their God, but they were given up by
God as deserters from His discipline.
"Further, in respect of the burning up of the world, it is a vulgar error not to believe either that fire will fall upon it in an unforeseen way, or that the world will be destroyed by it.(3) For who of wise men doubts, who is ignorant, that all things which have had a beginning perish, all things which are made come to an end? The heaven also, with all things which are contained in heaven, will cease even as it began. The nourishment of the seas by the sweet waters of the springs shall pass away into the power of fire.(4) The Stoics have a constant belief that, the moisture being dried up, all this world will take fire; and the Epicureans have the very same opinion concerning the conflagration of the elements and the destruction of the world. Plato speaks, saying that parts of the world are now inundated, and are now burnt up by alternate changes; and although he says that the world itself is constructed perpetual and indissoluble, yet he adds that to God Himself, the only artificer,(5) it is both dissoluble and mortal. Thus it is no wonder if that mass be destroyed by Him by whom it was reared. You observe that philosophers dispute of the same things that we are saying, not that we are following up their tracks, but that they, from the divine announcements of the prophets, imitated the shadow of the corrupted truth. Thus also the most illustrious of the wise men, Pythagoras first, and Plato chiefly, have delivered the doctrine of resurrection with a corrupt and divided faith; for they will have it, that the bodies being dissolved, the souls alone both abide for ever, and very often pass into other new bodies. To these things they add also this, by way of misrepresenting the truth, that the souls of men return into cattle, birds, and beasts. Assuredly such an opinion as that is not worthy of a philosopher's inquiry, but of the ribaldry of a buffoon.(6) But for our argument it is sufficient, that even in this your wise men do in some measure harmonize with us. But who is so foolish or so brutish as to dare to deny that man, as he could first of all be formed by God, so can again be re-formed; that he is nothing after death, and that he was nothing before he began to exist; and as from nothing it was possible for him to be born, so from nothing it may be possible for him to be restored? Moreover, it is more difficult to begin that which is not, than to repeat that which has been. Do you think that, if anything is withdrawn from our feeble eyes, it perishes to God? Every body, whether it is dried up into dust, or is dissolved into moisture, or is compressed into ashes, or is attenuated into smoke, is withdrawn from us, but it is reserved for God in the custody of the elements. Nor, as you believe, do we fear any loss from sepulture,(7) but we adopt the ancient and better custom of burying in the earth. See, therefore, how for our consolation all nature suggests a future resurrection. The sun sinks down and arises, the stars pass away and return, the flowers die and revive again, after their win-try decay the shrubs resume their leaves, seeds do not flourish again. unless they are rotted:(8) thus the body in the sepulchre is like the trees which in winter hide their verdure with a deceptive dryness. Why are you in haste for it to revive and return, while the winter is still raw? We must wait also for the spring-time of the body. And I am not ignorant that many, in the consciousness of what they deserve, rather desire than believe that they shall be nothing after death; for they would prefer to be altogether extinguished, rather than to be restored for the purpose of punishment. And their error also is enhanced, both by the liberty granted them in this life, and by God's very great patience, whose judgment, the more tardy it is, is so much the more just.
"And yet men are admonished in the books and poems of the most learned poets of that fiery river, and of the heat flowing in manifold turns from the Stygian marsh,—things which, prepared for eternal torments, and known to them by the information of demons and from the oracles of their prophets, they have delivered to us. And therefore among them also even king Jupiter himself swears religiously by the parching banks and the black abyss; for, with foreknowledge of the punishment destined to him, with his worshippers, he shudders. Nor is there either measure termination to these torments. There the intelligent fire(1) burns the limbs and restores them, feeds on them and nourishes them. As the fires of the thunderbolts strike upon the bodies, and do not consume them; as the fires of Mount AEtna and of Mount Vesuvius, and of burning where, glow, but are not wasted; so that penal fire is not fed by the waste of those who burn, but is nourished by the unexhausted eating away of their bodies. But that they who know not God are deservedly tormented as impious, as unrighteous persons, no one except a profane man hesitates to believe, since it is not less wicked to be ignorant of, than to offend the Parent of all, and the Lord of all. And although ignorance of God is sufficient for punishment, even as knowledge of Him is of avail for pardon, yet if we Christians be compared with you, although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you. For you forbid, and yet commit, adulteries; we are born(2) men only for our own wives: you punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is to sin: you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; are even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist: finally, from your numbers the prison boils over; but there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion, or a deserter.
"Neither let any one either take comfort from, or apologize for
what happens from fate. Let what happens be of the disposition of
fortune, yet the mind is free; and therefore man's doing, not his
dignity, is judged. For what else is fate than what God has spoken(3)
of each one of us? who, since He can foresee our constitution,
determines also the fates for us, according to the deserts and the
qualities of individuals. Thus in our case it is not the star under
which we are born that is punished, but the particular nature of our
disposition is blamed. And about fate enough is said; or if, in
consideration of the time, we have spoken too little, we shall argue
the matter at another time more abundantly(4) and more fully. But that
many of us are called poor, this is not our disgrace, but our glory;
for as our mind is relaxed by luxury, so it is strengthened by
frugality. And yet who can be poor if he does not want, if he does not
crave for the possessions of others, if he is rich towards God ? He
rather is poor, who, although he has much, desires more. Yet I will
speak(5) according as I feel. No one can be so poor as he is born.
Birds live without any patrimony, and day by day the cattle are fed;
and yet these creatures are born for us—all of which things, if we do
not lust after, we possess. Therefore, as he who treads a road is the
happier the lighter he walks, so happier is he in this journey of life
who lifts himself along in poverty, and does not breathe heavily under
the burden of riches. And yet even if we thought wealth useful to us,
we should ask it of God. Assuredly He might be able to indulge us in
some measure, whose is the whole; but we would rather despise riches
than possess them:(6) we desire rather innocency, we rather entreat for
patience, we prefer being good to being prodigal; and that we feel and
suffer the human mischiefs of the body is not punishment —it is
warfare. For fortitude is strengthened by infirmities, and calamity is
very often the discipline of virtue; in addition, strength both of mind
and of body grows torpid without the exercise of labour. Therefore all
your mighty men whom you announce as an example have flourished
illustriously by their afflictions. And thus God is neither unable to
aid us, nor does He despise us, since He is both the ruler of all men
and the lover of His own people. But in adversity He looks into and
searches out each one; He weighs the disposition of every indi- vidual
in dangers, even to death at last; He investigates the will of man,
certain that to Him nothing can perish. Therefore, as gold by the
fires, so are we declared by critical moments.
"How beautiful is the spectacle to God when a Christian does battle
with pain; when he is drawn up against threats, and punishments, and
tortures; when, mocking(1) the noise of death, he treads under foot the
horror of the executioner; when he raises up his liberty against kings
and princes, and yields to God alone, whose he is; when, triumphant and
victorious, he tramples upon the very man who has pronounced sentence
against him! For he has conquered who has obtained that for which he
contends. What soldier would not provoke peril with greater boldness
under the eyes of his general? For no one receives a reward before his
trial, and yet the general does not give what he has not: he cannot
preserve life, but he can make the warfare glorious. But God's solidier
is neither forsaken in suffering, nor is brought to an end by death.
Thus the Christian may seem to be miserable; he cannot be really found
to be so. You yourselves extol unfortunate men to the skies; Mucius
Scaevola, for instance, who, when he had failed in his attempt against
the king, would have perished among the enemies unless he had
sacrificed his right hand. And how many of our people have borne that
not their right hand only, but their whole body, should be
burned—burned up without any cries of pain, especially when they had
it in their power to be sent away! Do I compare men with Mucius or
Aquilius, or with Regulus? Yet boys and young women among us treat with
contempt crosses and tortures, wild beasts, and all the bugbears of
punishments, with the inspired(2) patience of suffering. And do you not
perceive, O wretched men, that there is nobody who either is willing
without reason to undergo punishment, or is able without God to bear
tortures? Unless, perhaps, the fact has deceived you, that those who
know not God abound in riches, flourish in honours, and excel in power.
Miserable men! in this respect they are lifted up the higher, that they
may fall down lower. For these are fattened as victims for punishment,
as sacrifices they are crowned for the slaughter. Thus in this respect
some are lifted up to empires and dominations, that the unrestrained
exercise of power might make a market of their spirit to the unbridled
licence that is Characteristic of a ruined soul.(3) For, apart from the
knowledge of God, what solid
happiness can there be, since death must come? Like a dream,
happiness slips away before it is grasped. Are you a king? Yet you fear
as much as you are feared; and however you may be surrounded with
abundant followers, yet you are alone in the presence of danger. Are
you rich? But fortune is ill trusted; and with a large travelling
equipage the brief journey of life is not furnished, but burdened. Do
you boast of the fasces and the magisterial robes? It is a vain mistake
of man, and an empty worship of dignity, to glitter in purple and to be
sordid in hind. Are you elevated by nobility of birth? do you praise
your parents? Yet we are all born with one lot; it is only by virtue
that we are distinguished. We therefore, who are estimated by our
character and our modesty, reasonably abstain from evil pleasures, and
from your pomps and exhibitions, the origin of which in connection with
sacred things we know, and condemn their mischievous enticements. For
in the chariot games who does not shudder at the madness of the people
brawling among themselves? or at the teaching of murder in the
gladiatorial games? In the scenic games also the madness is not less,
but the debauchery is more prolonged: for now a mimic either expounds
or shows forth adulteries; now nerveless player, while he feigns lust,
suggests it; the same actor disgraces your gods by attributing to them
adulteries, sighs, hatreds; the same provokes your tears with pretended
sufferings, with vain gestures and expressions. Thus you demand murder,
in fact, while you weep at it in fiction.
"But that we despise the leavings of sacrifices, and the cups out
of which libations have been poured, is not a confession of fear, but
an assertion of our true liberty. For although nothing which comes into
existence as an inviolable gift of God is corrupted by any agency, yet
we abstain, lest any should think either that we are submitting to
demons, to whom libation has been made, or that we are ashamed of our
religion. But who is he who doubts of our indulging ourselves in spring
flowers, when we gather both the rose of spring and the lily, and
whatever else is of agreeable colour and odour among the flowers? For
these we both use scattered loose and free, and we twine our necks with
them in garlands. Pardon us, forsooth, that we do not crown our heads;
we are accustomed to receive the scent of a sweet flower in our
nostrils, not to inhale it with the back of our head or with our hair.
Nor do we crown the dead. And in this respect I the more wonder at you,
in the way in which you apply to a lifeless person, or to one who does
not feel, a torch; or a garland(1) to one who does not smell it, when
either as blessed he does not want, or, being miserable, he has no
pleasure in, flowers. Still we adorn our obsequies with the same
tranquillity with which we live; and we do not bind to us a withering
garland, but we wear one living with eternal flowers from God, since
we, being both ate and secure in the liberality of our God, are
animated to the hope of future felicity by the confidence of His
present majesty. Thus we both rise again in blessedness, and are
already living in contemplation of the future. Then let Socrates the
Athenian buffoon see to it, confessing that he knew nothing, although
boastful in the testimony of a most deceitful demon; let Arcesilaus
also, and Carneades, and Pyrrho, and all the multitude of the Academic
philosophers, deliberate; let Simonides also for ever put off the
decision of his opinion. We despise the bent brows of the philosophers,
whom we know to be corrupters, and adulterers, and tyrants, and ever
eloquent against their own vices. We who(2) bear wisdom not in our
dress, but in our mind we do not speak meat things, but we live them
we boast that we have attained what they have sought for with the
utmost eagerness, and have not been able to find. Why are we
ungrateful? why do we grudge if the truth of divinity has ripened in
the age of our time? Let us enjoy our benefits, and let us in rectitude
moderate our judgments; let superstition be restrained; let impiety be
expiated; let true religion be preserved.
When Octavius had brought his speech to a close, for some time we were struck into silence, and held our countenances fixed in attention and as for me, I was lost in the greatness of my admiration, that he had so adorned those things which it is easier to feel than to say, both by arguments and by examples, and by authorities derived from reading; and that he had repelled the malevolent objectors with the very weapons of the philosophers with which they are armed, and had moreover shown the truth not only as easy, but also as agreeable.
While, therefore, I was silently turning over these things in my
own 'mind, Caecilius broke forth: "I congratulate as well my Octavius
as myself, as much as possible on that tranquillity in which we live,
and I do not wait for the decision. Even thus we have conquered: not
unjustly do I assume to myself the victory. For even as he is my
conqueror, so I am triumphant over error. Therefore, in what belongs to
the substance of the question, I both confess concerning providence,
and I yield to God;(3) and I agree concerning the sincerity of the way
of life which is now mine. Yet even still some things remain in my
mind, not as resisting the truth, but as necessary to a perfect
training(4) of which on the morrow, as the sun is already sloping to
his setting, we shall inquire at length in a more fitting and ready
manner."
"But for myself," said I, "I rejoice more fully on behalf of all of
us; because also Octa-
198
vius has conquered for me, in that the very great invidiousness of judging is taken away from me. Nor can I acknowledge by my praises the merit of his words: the testimony both of man, and of one man only, is weak. He has an illustrious reward from God, inspired by whom he has pleaded, and aided by whom he has gained the victory." After these things we departed, glad and cheerful: Caecilius, to rejoice that he had believed; Octavius, that he had succeeded; and I, that the one had believed, and the other had conquered.
ELUCIDATIONS.
I.
(Editions, p. 171.)
For an interesting account of the bibliographical history of
this work, see Dupin. It passed for the Eight Book of Arnobius until
A.D. 1560, and was first printed in its true-character at Heidelberg in
that year, with a learned preface Balduinus, who restored it to its
true author.
II.
(The neighing of horses, note 1, p. 183.)
It strikes me as singular that the Edinburgh edition, which
gives a note to each of the instances that follow, should have left me
to supply this reference to the case of Darius Hystaspes. The story is
told, as will be remembered by all who have ever read it, by Herodotus,
and is certainly one of the most extraordinary in history, when one
reflects that a horse elected a great monarch, and one whose life not a
little affected the fortunes of mankind. A knavish groom was indeed the
engineer of this election, as often, in such events, the secret springs
of history are hidden; but, if the story is not wholly a fable, the
coincidence of thunder in the heavens is most noteworthy. It seemed to
signify the overruling of Providence, and the power of God to turn the
folly, not less than the wrath, of men, to God's praise. See Herod.,
book iii. cap. lxxxvi.
III.
(From nothing, p. 194.)
From this chapter, if not from others, it had been rashly
affirmed that our author imagined that the soul perishes with the body,
and is to be renewed out of nothing. The argument is wholly ad hominem,
and asserts nothing from the author's own point of view, as I
understand it. He gives what is "sufficient for his argument," and
professes nothing more. He was not a clergyman, nor is his work a
sermon to the faithful. He defies any one to deny, that, if God could
form man out of nothing, He can make him anew out of nothing. The
residue of the argument is a brilliant assertion of the imperishability
of matter, in terms which might satisfy modern science; and the
implication is, that the soul no more perishes to the sight of God than
does the body vaporized and reserved in the custody of the elements.
203